Ballot papers have been arriving through the letterboxes of members of UNISON, the UK’s largest trade union. Elections are taking place for members of the Union’s National Executive Council. Two years ago, the Left, organised around ‘Time for Real Change’ won a majority on the NEC for the first time with 40 out of the total 68 seats. It is important that the left retains its grip. Below we reproduce the TfRC statement and their slate. We urge UNISON members to vote for the Time for Real Change candidates.
Time for Real Change
Everywhere you look in the public and community sector UNISON members are in the frontline. Our members have shouldered the burden of more than a decade of austerity and the impact of the pandemic. Whether on the covid wards, in the care homes or supporting elderly and vulnerable people in the community UNISON members have been at the forefront of the struggle to save lives and care for people.
Public services are under enormous pressure, Years of budget cuts mean services have been stripped to the bone, but the work doesn’t go away. It gets harder and more difficult every year. Many Councils face the real threat of bankruptcy, Hospital Trusts face the threat of privatisation and cuts in services. Government have sought to impose pay freezes with insulting pay offers across the board and even 0% “offers” in Higher Education and the Police and Justice Sector. Inflation is a growing threat to all workers while hikes in energy prices and uncertainty simply make the situation worse. Every sector represented by our union faces threats and uncertainty.
Racism, anti-disablism, sexism, LGBT+ attacks. Inequality, backed up with bullying and harassment, are rife in the public sector. Too often Black and migrant workers are scapegoated. There must be a bigger voice for Equality.
It is evident that this is a crucial period for our members and we believe that it requires an appropriate response from our union. UNISON cannot afford to pay lip service to the fight against low pay if inflation is pushing 7, 8 or 10%. We can’t simply rely on servicing our members individually to solve the problems that we will face in the future. Privatisation and outsourcing pushes workers and the services they deliver into the private sector. In services which are so labour intensive, privatisation means cheap labour and bad working conditions. Our Community members need UNISON to fight for union recognition, rather than just representation at disciplinaries and sickness monitoring meetings. Across every Sector, each Service Group within UNISON faces its own challenges and needs to establish its priorities. But the common feature is that our members need the union to change. We need to become an Organising union which fights at every level to defend and advance our members interests at work and in the communities they serve. It is indeed Time for Real Change.
