‘I’m excited and humbled’

Andrea, congratulations on becoming our new general secretary. Tell us about what has brought you to this point. 

Andrea: Thank you. I’m a proud working-class woman, proud to have grown up, lived, and worked in Bolton all my life. My mum – who can still be relied upon for the best advice in town – raised my brother and I at our grandparents’ and then in social housing. My upbringing gifted me a deep understanding of and appreciation for working class community, and that’s been threaded through my life.   

I’ve been an ordinary UNISON member since the union was founded. I did a course at Bolton Community College and by 19 was working in a care home. After a couple of years, I started working in children’s residential care. They were huge houses, the kind of units I worked in.  We looked after wonderful kids, many of whom had the most awful experiences you could imagine, so the work was challenging and rewarding in equal measure.

It wasn’t long before I became a rep — a role I’ve never really left throughout my time in the union, from when I became a registered social worker to being elected secretary of our UNISON Bolton branch. That whole time, organising to stand up for our interests, improve our lot, and defend our services has been at the core of everything I’ve done.  

What are you looking forward to most about being general secretary?

We should have industrial and political power to match our size, our resources, and the brilliance of our members and activists. I’m excited and humbled, as the first lay member to ever lead the union, to work tirelessly towards that goal. With ordinary members in the driving seat, UNISON can be truly great. That’s the inspiring collective project every single one of us needs to get behind.  

Why did you want to be general secretary? 

UNISON members work at society’s sharp end. Day in, day out. Yet we have countless members struggling to make ends meet. I have colleagues in Bolton who spend all day working to support the most vulnerable children in our town, only to have to turn to our UNISON branch for help with food vouchers to put food on table for their own kids. That’s absolutely harrowing, yet it’s become normalised.  

I ran to be general secretary because I felt a duty to those people – friends, colleagues, members – our people. I felt a duty to do what I’ve always done as a workers’ representative: to organise tirelessly to improve the lot of UNISON members and the whole working class. Except now, as general secretary, I can strive to put the entire union and its resources in service of that mission.  

What will your priorities be in your first 100 days?  

I am committed to radically changing the way our union operates, promoting organising and collective strength. While all the work we do in the union is important, it is that strength in numbers, as public sector workers, that genuinely gives us the power to change our lives.  

That means making sure that our Organising to Win agenda, which has already started putting money in the pockets of members, is fully resourced and embedded in our regions, and taking steps to ensure we are strike-ready.  

I’ll be convening our self-organised groups and listening to them to hear about how we can put our members who are Black, disabled, women, LGBT+, young and retired at the front and centre of our efforts.

I’ll make sure we are challenging this Labour government on the issues that matter most to our members, such as public service funding, social care, the cost of living crisis and the remaining anti-trade union legislation. I will be talking to UNISON-backed MPs, making clear my expectation that the positions they take in Westminster fully reflect our democratically agreed policies, and my position that only politicians who stand up for us will have our support.

You were critical of the Labour government during your election campaign. What do you think your working relationship with them will be like now you are leader of the UK’s largest union? 

Anyone putting the interests of UNISON members first would be not only critical of this Labour government, but furious with them for repeatedly failing us. My election was a decisive mandate to call quits on the union propping up politicians who act against our interests, undermine our values, and make our lives worse. I have promised that, on my watch, our relationship with Labour will put UNISON members first, not the Labour party.  

I’ll be frank about it: Keir Starmer has not acted much like a friend to our members, yet somehow UNISON has been a steadfast supporter of him. How can that possibly be right?  

UNISON cannot support politicians who fail to back our members and uphold the core values of our movement. All we want is for Labour to govern in the interests of, and actually improve the lives of, the people it was set up to represent. It’s advantageous for Labour to act in the interests of UNISON members and the overwhelming majority.  

Day-to-day as general secretary, I will have an open, honest and constructive working relationship with Labour as the leader of an affiliated union, and with the Prime Minister and his cabinet as the ultimate employers of so many of our members. I have years of experience of negotiating successfully with politicians and officials of all stripes, and political disagreements will never pose a barrier to me winning a better deal for UNISON members. At the same time, we need to have a proper conversation about political strategy in the union, because clearly whatever it is we have been doing in recent years has not worked.  

What do you think the biggest challenges facing workers over the next five years are? 

UNISON activists face the harsh realities of under-funding, outsourcing, bad employers, and discrimination every day. The fundamental question is this: how do we change our situation? History shows us that it is only through our collective power as workers that we can improve our lot – including by being ready to withdraw our labour when necessary.  

That’s the agenda I will be working towards. But everyone in UNISON, be it members, staff or lay representatives on committees, has a responsibility to pull together, because I cannot do this alone. We are going to need everyone – members, branch reps, grassroots activists, and our staff – all pulling together. Then we can transform our union, and with it the lives of public sector workers across this country.  

What are our key strengths?  

Our key strength is our members, who keep Britain going through the services they deliver, and our amazing activists, who play a fundamental but under-recognised role in keeping the union going and winning at the branch level. And, of course, we have very talented and committed staff members who I am looking forward to working with.  

Our greatest strength comes from being the largest union in the country. We have enviable revenues and resources at our disposal if we choose to use them.  

What will you bring to the role of general secretary, and what are the main changes members will notice?  

I’m the first lay member to ever be general secretary of UNISON. I live and work in a working-class community. There’s been a disconnect between the way the union has been operated – especially at the top – and the lived experiences of members. 

I’m one of them, at the top of the union. I’m their voice. I have a deep, lived understanding of their daily realities, of the challenges they face at work and in getting by. I know what it’s like to struggle to make ends meet, to be on the frontline of cuts, to deal with bad bosses. That’s what I’ll be bringing, that’s what’s different: that real understanding of members, grounded in deep experience, which is translated into an ironclad commitment to defending the interests of members in everything I do.

UNISON is made up of heroic workers who love their jobs and love the services they provide. My focus will be on bettering their lives and improving our public services at the same time.

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