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The leader of Britain’s largest trade union says she can understand why voters are turning away from Labour – because the cost of living has either “stagnated or it’s got worse” since the party came to power.
Christina McAnea, who is running again to be leader of Unison, representing 1.3 million largely public-sector workers, told Byline Times: “People are really disappointed about what’s happened since Labour came in, because there was a high expectation that they would come in and somehow life would get better. But if you look at what’s happening to the cost of living, it’s pretty much stagnated, or it’s got worse.”
She noted that housing, energy and food costs have “not stopped going up.”
“People aren’t feeling that anything that the Government has done has made their life better. You can understand why they’ll turn to alternative parties that can make easy promises without actually having to deliver,” McAnea said. “Until Labour can turn [the cost of living] around, they’ll continue to look for an alternative.”
However, voters would come up against the “reality that Reform doesn’t have any answers.”
“They get away with murder in the media…They don’t seem to get much scrutiny or challenge. They’re allowed to say whatever they like, and nobody challenges them. [They claim] ‘we’re going to save hundreds of thousands of pounds in local government in these 10 councils.’ No, you’re not. It’s a total lie. You haven’t saved anything,” the union leader said.
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McAnea is widely seen as being close to Keir Starmer, and her support for the Government has spurred an insurgent campaign against her by opponent Andrea Egan, a Bolton-based social worker.
But McAnea hit back at those claims in an interview with this outlet, saying: “I could go into meetings with Government ministers and come out and put out a press release saying, “This is shocking. We’re not getting what we want,” and it would please Andrea’s faction, and it would probably get me a headline and get me in the news. Would it help the members? Probably not.”
She said she was making headway with ministers, pushing hard for progressive changes, including in the Budget on November 26th.
“We’ve been pushing very hard for things like a 10% tax on the profits the banks make. We’re pushing to see that they bring in a tax on people who have assets of more than £5 million…
“I’m not underestimating the difficulties facing [the Government]. Quite frankly, I’d hate to be Rachel Reeves at this point in time, but I would love to see them being a bit brave and bold.”
Asked about rumours of a leadership challenge against Keir Starmer, she added: “Nobody’s contacted me who wants to stand against Keir Starmer…If it’s happening, I am not aware of it. I’m sure there’s lots of machinations going on behind the scenes, but…nobody’s coming to us about it.”
The fundamental point for her, however, is this: “Divided parties don’t win elections.”
The Scottish trade unionist also expressed frustration with the Government not communicating some of the popular policies they are pushing through – such as the Employment Rights Bill, which is set to transform workers’ rights in the UK and reverse a raft of anti-union laws.
“I think they need to perhaps have a proper communication strategy with it…It is a huge improvement on workers’ rights.”
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Defending Her Record
McAnea is adamant she’s served Unison well as General Secretary of Unison for the past four years, pointing to a net growth of 70,000 members in that time, larger than most unions.
“It’s quite significant. You’ve got to bear in mind that to get that 70,000 we probably had to recruit about half a million people because of the turnover,” she said.
“If you look at what I promised last time around, I promised to grow the union, which I’ve done. I promised to deliver more strike action, which I’ve done. I promised to set up a Unison College, which we’ve done, and it’s trained around 60,000 new activists and members. I’ve put money into regions and branches.”
And she rejected claims her rival is the socialist candidate in the race: “Andrea [Egan] is not far left…I’m probably much further left than Andrea, I would imagine.”
However, Egan has the backing of groups like the Socialist Party, the Socialist Workers Party and Alliance for Workers’ Liberty – alongside the likes of left-wing MPs Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and Richard Burgon.
McAnea claimed her opponent’s main policies will not improve members’ lives: “Her two big things are she’s going to review Labour affiliation – great, that will really matter to the members – and she’s going to have some event bringing together a conference with our self-organised groups.
“We have 14 conferences a year, six of them are for self-organised groups. Another conference is not going to make that much difference to improving pay and conditions of the members.”
McAnea said she was proud of her work as General Secretary: “In the past couple of years, we’ve won over £200 million in back pay for our lowest-paid members in the NHS.
“In some of our sectors, we’ve seen huge wins, and people have had huge amounts of money put in their pockets, and they’ve got an increase in pay going forward, which also means an increase in the pension going forward.
“It’s that level and attention to detail that you need to be able to do as general secretary…It’s easy to just say, “Let’s have a general strike” or something like that, when you know that you can’t deliver it.”
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Labour Strife
McAnea believes Unison “got more than any other union” in terms of their asks of the Labour party in the 2024 General Election manifesto: “We got a commitment to a Fair Pay Agreement in adult social care, and we’ve got a commitment to the School Support Staff Negotiating Body.
“These are potentially two collective agreements. They will affect and impact 400,000 of our members [out of 1.3 million]…Most of them [are] low-paid women. This has got the potential to be huge if we get it right.”
She argues Unison has played a major role in encouraging the Government to think again to compensation for the ‘WASPI women’ who say they were not given enough notice of an increase in the pension age, as well as Labour having to row back on cuts to disability benefits and the Winter Fuel Allowance.
McAnea gives short shrift to the idea of a ‘review’ of Unison’s link with the Labour party, as proposed by opponent Egan: “She wouldn’t have the power to change the Labour relationship with Labour. No general secretary can, and neither can the NEC. The executive body can’t change it either, because it’s in our rule book that it’s only the Labour Link [body] that can do it, or our conference can pass a resolution on it.”
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Rise of Reform
One political subject is high up her priority list – the rise of Nigel Farage’s party. She notes that many Unison members now back Reform.
“Support for Reform is on the rise in the public as in our union. We know that from surveys that we’ve done…“You don’t take over a council like Durham…where there’s a heavy reliance on public services [without many]…public sector workers voting Reform.
“Every union is struggling with that at the moment.”
How is the union responding? “[We’re saying] Reform is not the answer. They vote against employment rights. They want an insurance-based NHS.”
Unison is monitoring the 12 councils now controlled by Reform UK in England, and working with anti-racism group Hope Not Hate.
But Unison is having to fight on multiple fronts, with the right-leaning Blue Labour caucus in Government appearing to be on the rise.
For McAnea, responding to that means asking: “What are the wins we can get? I still think there’s a huge task ahead of us for that, and you need somebody who’s got actual experience of negotiating and of delivering, and can prove that they’ve actually had wins for members to do this.”
The Unison General Secretary ballot opened on 28 October and runs until 25 November, with results announced on 17 December.
Got a story? Get in touch in confidence on josiah@bylinetimes.com
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