News
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A Win for Higher Education & The Left – Our new Gen Sec
đ Unison’s new general secretary is socialist social worker Andrea Egan Andrea’s win is a win for us; our branch committee is confident this marks a huge step forward in our fight as a Higher Education UNISON branch. She’s keen for UNISON’s different sectors to not have to fight over the union’s resources, and most
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Message from Your Environmental Officer – Year of Green Activity đ±
2026 is UNISON’s Year of Green Activity – Our Environmental Officer Lucie ROse has more: Good tidings comrades! What with all the business around securing a strike over our pitiful pay offer (huzzah!), I havenât had much chance to focus on that which really gets my fires burning (from sustainable sources, obviously), Green issues! 2026 is Unisonâs âYear of
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Dispatches from Brighton
đŁ UNISON young members’ Conference 2025 In November, our International officer Eleni headed to Brighton for UNISON’s National Young Members’ Conference. Here’s how she got on: I attended the YM Conference in Brighton as first-time delegate. It was my first UNISON conference, and it gave me a real insight into how the unionâs democratic processes
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Dispatches from York
đŁ UNISON HE & FE Conference 2025 In November, committee members Alex K (co-branch sec), the other Alex (co-comms officer), Elle (branch chair), Mia (co-comms officer), and Verity (womenâs officer) travelled to York for UNISON’s Higher Education (HE) and Further Education (FE) seminar. There were two days of workshops, collaboration and talks, including a lot of discussion about the current pay ballot. đ workshops Our delegation made sure to cover the
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We did it! â
The results are in! Over 60% of us returned our pay ballot, and of those that did, 92.6% voted YES for strike action relating to this year’s pay offer. â đ€ What does this mean? Because we hit the 50% turnout threshold, and because more than 50% of returned ballots were “yes” votes, our branch
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We’re backing Andrea Egan for general secretary
â UNISONâs general secretary for the next five years will be decided by its members. The ballot will run from 28 Oct-25 Nov. This vote will be via post, which will include the candidate manifestos. At our most recent branch committee meeting, we voted unanimously to back Andrea Egan for General Secretary as she: đ
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September 2025 Newsletter: Upcoming strike ballot, Branch social, General Secretary nomination, and more
Dear comrades, We hope youâre having a great welcome week (and if youâre feeling overworked and underpaid, nowâs the time to get energized to fight for a better pay rise â join our pay action group, more info below!) Take a well-deserved break and catch up on our latest news, including strike ballot updates,
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Dispatches from Croyde Bay – July 2025
In July Alex (Co comms officer) and Eleni (International officer) attended UNISON’s branch officer training weekend at Croyde Bay in North Devon. Alex writes: I really enjoyed the communications officer training, and it was great to meet other comms officers from across the region and across different sectors. I spent a lot of the weekend
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August 2025 newsletter
Dear comrades, We hope youâre having a lush summer and keeping well đ Weâve been busy supporting restructures, meeting with our chief financial and peopleâs officers, and mobilizing for the recent pay ballot â now weâre back with a bumper newsletter. Read on for key updates, info about possible upcoming strike action, and most importantly,
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University of Bristol UNISON members vote overwhelmingly to reject pay offerÂ
UNISON members at the University of Bristol have voted overwhelmingly to reject the 1.4% salary increase offered by the universityâs senior management. 95% of branch members who participated in the consultation ballot voted to reject the offer. In May the Universities & Colleges Employers Association (UCEA), which negotiates nationally on behalf of the University of