Sally Griffiths, Conference delegate, personal capacity
Women’s conference this year presented numerous issues, including AI, women’s health, soaring child-care costs, sexual harassment and safety – but the thread running through all of them was the lack of funding, cuts to public services and the attacks on women through the Labour government’s ongoing austerity.
These are women working in public services who, along with many other workers, kept the country running in lockdown. One motion said, in capital letters: “WE HAVE NO MORE TO GIVE”.
The conference was addressed on day one by the newly elected Unison general secretary, Andrea Egan. Her message about the need to fight was generally welcomed, in contrast to the approach of Starmer-supporting Christina McAnea who was ousted in the election.
Elephant in the room
But the elephant in the room, both in Andrea’s speech and in the motion debates, was that there was no mention of the union’s relationship with the Labour Party, or the need for the working class to have a political party that represents our interests and delivers a society that provides for working-class people’s wants and needs.
The reception for Lucy Powell MP was less enthusiastic. Lucy was recently elected deputy leader of the Labour Party, supported by some in the trade unions on the basis that she was a ‘left’ (under McAnea, Unison had supported Starmer-ally Bridget Phillipson). But the mood of delegates was that her words were not believed and were seen as platitudes. Workers delivering public services know what is really happening. One delegate referred to “Labour’s mute voice”; a later speaker said that when Labour aren’t mute they are using language that attacks our migrant worker comrades.
A motion on the negative impact of the far right on women raised the issue, but not the solution. Women shared their experiences, including fear and actual physical attack. But the desperation that workers and families are feeling, that drives some of them to vote for Reform, is real: their lives are substandard due to relentless austerity, price hikes and wages not keeping up, not even close. The capitalists and their servants, like Reform, are saying: ‘Look at those immigrants’. The trade union movement needs to say: ‘We will fight for jobs, homes and services for all’. But it also needs to be made clear that this will be delivered through our own political alternative.
The imposition of the 3.3% pay rise for NHS workers was announced by Labour health secretary Wes Streeting on day two of conference. It may not have made it to the conference floor, but it was hotly discussed among delegates, who recognised that it will not touch the soaring cost of living. Streeting’s imposed rise is in effect a pay cut and will do nothing to restore public sector pay.
What was clear is that while women in Unison are ready to organise and fight inequality and exploitation, that isn’t being challenged or changed by the Labour government. We need our new general secretary to lead a serious fightback, and that has to include taking steps towards our own political voice too.
- A meeting in August 2025 of ‘Unison members for a new party’ launched a petition to campaign among members for a review of the political funds
- Sign the petition ‘Labour’s not our party! Let Unison members decide our political choices’ at change.org
