Eve Miller, Delegate to Unison conference, personal capacity
Socialist Party members in public sector union Unison, including several young members, participated in the National Delegate Conference from 17-20 June, posing our political programme in times of bluffs, lies and let-downs to the working class since the Labour Party’s election to government a year ago.
The right might have re-won control of the National Executive Council (NEC) this time, but conference showed this is not an indication that members are happy with Keir Starmer’s Labour, which it is clear from conference that the Unison leadership defends. The split between those who are prepared to stand up to the Labour government and those who support it was clear from the start.
The conference kicked off with the sour realisation that emergency motions on defending trans rights had been ruled off the agenda by the right-wing Standing Orders Committee, due to the threat of ‘legal jeopardy’. A number of delegates challenged this; however, the right won the vote to accept the agenda.
Support for new workers’ party
During the first day of the conference, Socialist Party members made a big impact in the debate on a motion on the far right, outlining that the reason for Reform UK’s gains in local elections, and the risk of an increase in support for far-right ideas, is the political vacuum opened up by the Labour Party continuing austerity. Delegates called for Unison to implement the “Jobs and homes – not racism” campaign agreed at the Trades Union Congress in 2018; and to use the money currently given to cutting Labour candidates for a new trade union-backed workers’ party. This was met with great enthusiasm from the conference floor – showing a clear mood against Starmer’s Labour from the outset.
On the evening of the first day, the Time for Real Change (TFRC) group, which until the recent elections was the biggest group on Unison’s NEC, held a rally. April Ashley, a Socialist Party member re-elected to the NEC, asked to address the rally. While explaining that we would support the TFRC candidate in the upcoming general secretary election, she put our programme to the 300 in the room, for a fighting strategy against cuts including the need for a new party. Their answer to us was that they had “not thought of” a new mass workers’ party, claiming they adopted a different approach of ‘Unison members first, Labour Party second’.
Julia Mwaluke
The speakers included two members of the previous presidential team that were recently removed from their positions by the right-wing bureaucracy. The room was filled with anger at how left activists have been treated, and this culminated in a protest outside the conference on Wednesday morning to reinstate the most recently removed NEC member, former vice-president Julia Mwaluke. Julia re-won her NEC seat, beating her opponent by 5,000 votes, but disgracefully has been barred due to one wage slip which, as a zero-hour agency care worker, they say took her over the low-pay threshold for her seat. She has been given no right of appeal!
Excuses for Starmer
On Wednesday, the conference heard a speech from general secretary Christina McAnea, where she was forced by pressure of members to admit to the conference that Labour was wrong on the two-child benefit cap, the winter fuel allowance and disability benefit cuts – but continued to try and placate delegates, saying that Labour’s U-turn on the winter fuel allowance was “not a sign of weakness, but a sign of maturing”. But actually it’s a sign they’re under pressure – we should be fighting to increase that pressure!
McAnea continues to make excuses for Starmer, but as the evidence of Labour’s crimes against the working class racks up, an increasing number of activists are questioning this.
Our members made our position very clear on a number of debates: condemning Labour for not repealing the Trade Union Act 2016 from day one, on top of other anti-trade union laws; calling for full renationalisation of essential industries, democratic ownership and planning, in discussions on insourcing and a public services ‘bailout’; supporting Palestinians and Israeli workers’ solidarity movements and mobilisation against war; and outlining that the only answer to climate change caused by profiteer giants is a socialist society. In all debates, the call for a new workers’ party was clearly raised, with the conference responding eagerly.
Socialist Party fringe
Our fringe meeting was attended by around 50 activists, where the main speaker was Socialist Party general secretary Hannah Sell, who set out the industrial and political programme needed to take on Starmer and the bosses. We also heard from Socialist Party member Ellie Waple – a trans woman subject to right-wing press victimisation for standing for a women’s seat for the NEC. Broxtowe councillor Greg Marshall spoke; Greg left Labour due to Starmer’s policies and with others formed the new Broxtowe Alliance, which now leads the borough council and has passed a no-cuts budget.
Kye Gbangbola also addressed our fringe meeting about the Truth About Zane campaign, developed after the tragic loss of his seven-year-old son in 2014 due to hydrogen cyanide poisoning and the cover-up by authorities. Kye and his wife Nicole were presented with honorary lifetime membership of Unison. Socialist Party members in Surrey over many years helped win this union support.
Liverpool example
Anger mounted on the final day of conference in the debate on public services, living standards and the economy since Labour’s election. Six Socialist Party members spoke, raising the need for mass cross-union industrial action against Labour’s cuts to public services and disability benefits, outlining that the money is clearly there in society when war expenditure is increasing.
We raised the 50,000-strong mobilisation of workers in support of the socialist council led by supporters of Militant, now the Socialist Party, 40 years previously in Liverpool, where the conference was held, as a perfect example of industrial pressure to raise funding for services.
This year’s conference had a huge change in mood. Workers’ anger makes it ever harder for the leadership to push back with the excuse of waiting for Labour to improve. The newly elected NEC will come under big pressure from members as Labour’s cuts and privatisation deepen. Delegates purchased over 200 copies of the Socialist over the course of the week.
Right wing forces through NEC changes
Straight after Unison conference the newly elected NEC met to choose the presidential team for the next year. It elected a completely new team, despite protests over the decision of the right-wing union machine to allow the loser in the election for the NEC reserved seat for Black members to take the place of Julia Mwaluke, the previous vice-president, who won the seat.
TFRC submitted a candidate for president, Lyn Marie O’Hara, and vice-president, Andrea Egan. They supported April Ashley, Socialist Party member, for the other vice-president seat.
Hypocritically, Members Together, the right-wing slate, submitted a candidate to stand for all the seats, despite having objected furiously when the TFRC did this after it won a majority in 2021. The right’s presidential candidate, Catherine McKenna, won by 37 to 27. This will now allow the right wing to fix the membership of all the standing committees with an inbuilt majority, to win the crucial chair and vice chair positions.
However, the balance of forces on the NEC is not yet settled. The newly elected ‘Organised Left’ grouping from the North West backed the Members Together slate. James Robinson, who the Socialist Party had supported in the NEC election, voted for April Ashley, but abstained in the vice-president election and wrongly voted for the Members Together candidate for president.
To a degree, this new grouping can exercise a balance of power on the NEC. Julia Mwaluke is appealing the decision about her seat, and there will be a by-election for another NEC seat following a tie in the election. These means decision-making on the NEC and its standing committees could be very tight. The Organised Left grouping will come under enormous pressure from a vicious right wing to do their bidding. But the pressure from the members could force them to break with that approach, either individually or as a group. Socialist Party members will continue to put maximum pressure on the NEC to adopt fighting socialist policies for our union to reflect the real interests of Unison
