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A left-wing challenger to lead the UK’s largest trade union is pledging to ramp up industrial action and overhaul its relationship with Labour if she wins.
Andrea Egan, a socialist social worker from Bolton, is challenging the re-standing General Secretary of Unison for the leadership, and is convinced she will win.
Andrea Egan is standing for Unison General Secretary after 37 years working in the public sector. She joined the union movement just as the ‘closed shop’ guaranteeing high trade union membership was being dismantled by Margaret Thatcher’s Government.
But Unison still has significant power and potential, representing hundreds of thousands of care workers, NHS staff, local Government employees and more.
Former care worker and registered children’s social worker Egan believes the 1.3 million strong union is punching well below its weight – both in the workplace and in Government. Unison is affiliated to the Labour Party and is currently a key institutional ally of Keir Starmer. Egan wants to transform that relationship.
She wants her organisation to be far more “activist” focused, and her call for a radical revamp of the union has seen her pick up 207 branch nominations around the UK – effectively neck and neck with incumbent Christina McAnea.
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Socialist groups believe the election is a chance to “defeat Starmer’s most important union backer” and secure a senior ally to the likes of the RMT’s Eddy Dempsey, the PCS union’s Fran Heathcote or Bakers’ Union leader Sarah Woolley.
Speaking to Byline Times, Egan is incredibly confident, claiming she’s “going to win” the election.
The race is an unprecedented straight choice between her and incumbent McAnea, seen as a ‘moderate’ in union circles.
Egan claims McAnea “hasn’t delivered for the members” after five years as General Secretary, and is “too worried about upsetting the Labour Party”. McAnea, however, this weekend condemned “own goals” by Labour since coming to power last July, and called for a “reset”.
The UK’s largest union has around £200 million income a year but is “not exerting the power” it should, Egan claims.
In short, it means Egan wants to ramp up industrial action in the majority-female, public-sector workforce.
The approach strongly echoes Sharon Graham’s approach at the Unite union, which has distanced itself from Labour and instead pumped millions into strike pay and escalating workplace disputes.
Egan led the first-ever Unison branch strike alongside teacher unions against schools’ conversions to academies under the last Labour Government, in 2008.
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But she has accused the union Unison of being – until recently – only focused on recruitment for revenue – growing the membership numbers but not the “power” of Unison.
In 2022, the then-left led NEC majority, backed by Egan, implemented an “Organising to Win”, to shift from a union “servicing” members to one which is more focused on industrial organising.
The union subsequently increased strike pay from £25 from day four of industrial action, to £50 from day one.
Egan, currently the secretary of Unison’s Bolton Local Government Branch, also claims discrimination in the workplace has reached a “crisis point” for black members – but that the union’s current legal support is “too risk-averse” on bringing forward race discrimination cases. She has pledged to “stamp out” racism in the face of black members feeling the union is not putting “money and power behind them”.
She has raised the prospect of bringing forward far more equal pay claims for the union’s female members, too – something which is likely to strike fear in the heart of council leaders as in cash-strapped Birmingham. Egan tells Byline Times equal pay is a “massive issue” but that branch secretaries have to “fight to get it on the table”.
That fight in Birmingham has strained relationships between the Labour-led council and unions.
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So what would Unison’s relationship with Labour look like under Egan?
The left-wing candidate was a member of Labour – until being expelled in 2022 for reposting two Facebook posts from Socialist Appeal, a banned group. She says she had no connection to the Marxist group and wasn’t a member, and has spent nearly four years appealing the decision. But she claimed Labour is now “not interested in social justice”.
Unison is, she believes, “too close to Labour” and the link needs formally reviewing. Only a fifth or so of the union’s 1.3m backers have opted in to be Labour affiliated members.
Egan says that if she wins, she will review the Labour affiliation, with a membership consultation. It is not clear, however, if she would herself push to break the link, though the signs are there: she has claimed Keir Starmer has “purged” those on the left “that wanted to stand up for working people”.
The union recently endorsed Starmer-ally Bridget Phillipson to be deputy leader of the Labour party – only for members to opt for the more left-alligned Lucy Powell instead.
And Egan has vowed that the union would not fund Labour MPs who “don’t defend Unison policies” such as opposing welfare cuts, or those who voted to scrap the winter fuel allowance.
The union gives millions of pounds a year to the Labour Party. But Egan asks: “For what?”
Starmer allies would respond that Labour is pushing through the biggest overhaul of workers’ rights in a generation through the Employment Rights Bill.
While Egan has “respect” for MPs Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn’s new ‘Your Party’ initiative, she says she is watching developments – including the ongoing chaos at the leadership level of the organisation – meaning it is “too early” to throw any weight behind it.
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Unison, like all unions in Britain, currently faces tough questions over how to confront the anti-union Reform UK, while also reversing the collapse in membership over the past 30 years, mostly starkly in the private sector. Though by no means the majority, some union members are throwing their weight behind Nigel Farage’s party.
Egan acknowledges Unison has members who voted for Reform, but claims people turn to “racist narratives” because “services are impoverished” – while claiming Labour are “doing nothing or very little to rebuild our society”.
She has pledged that, if elected, she would take the salary of a senior social worker – around £50,000 – versus the current £180,000 package (which includes pension and other benefits) – and would only accept the pay rises that social workers get as part of the National Joint Council for Local Government Services, the sector’s negotiating body. The rest, she says, she would donate to welfare and strike funds.
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Right now, she claims, the current leadership pay package means they are “disconnected” from ordinary members’ struggles.
Two years ago, Unison’s conference passed a motion to demand a £15 per hour minimum wage (up from £12.21 now for those over 21). But the union has not appeared to put its full lobbying might behind the call.
How are her demands going down with members? Egan claims members are coming out for her “in hundreds and thousands” – reflecting a “groundswell of dissatisfaction within the movement”.
The hurdles for her are significant, however. Unison’s current National Executive Committee has backed the incumbent Christina McAnea in this race, and Egan argues she has faced “very personal” attacks from McAnea’s camp on social media over her salary pledge and her stance on the Labour relationship. Egan’s team are understood to have made complaints to the returning officer, which would only be settled after the election.
Turnout in General Secretary elections is often around 10%, but the clear-cut race could see that increase this time. “There’s growing excitement that we can change things,” the left-wing candidate tells Byline Times..
The ballot opened on 28 October and runs until 25 November, with results announced on 17 December.
Christina McAnea was contacted for comment. Byline Times plans to interview her.
Got a story? Get in touch in confidence on josiah@bylinetimes.com
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