The trade union, Unite, has elected its first female general secretary. Sharon Graham replaces Len McClusky, who had been general secretary at Unite since 2011. Unite is the UK's second largest union with more than 1.2 million members, around 290 000 of whom are women. There are 100 000 Unite members in the health and care service, across a wide range of specialisms, and it embraces the Community Practitioners' and Health Visitors Association (CPHVA) and Mental Health Nurses Association (MHNA).
Graham has said she intends to prioritise the workplace in her new role, she wants to move away from a focus on internal politics in the Labour party. Unite members have voted for change and a trade union should deliver what it says on the tin—a persistent fight for jobs, pay and conditions. This return to union values, ramping up resources required to defend jobs, may result in more industrial activism, which some suggest is long overdue in the health and social care sectors. Unite may well exercise its strike muscle as well as its collective bargaining abilities to discourage employers who appear to use bullying tactics. The union seems keen to emphasise that it has a bite as well as a bark.
One of her manifesto promises is to make sure that equality is on the bargaining table and that it runs through everything that Unite does. There will be no more lip service, Graham says, it is time now for practical, accountable action and the development of a workers' declaration.
A focus on workplace issues is needed now more than ever, regardless of which union represents the nurse. The insidious introduction by employers of new norms of insecure work and low pay, the unacceptable expansion of uncertain and questionable contracts will not be tolerated. This is Unite's mantra, something that will resonate with many nurses up and down the country. Nurses are concerned with their ability to feed their families, to be treated at work with respect and have their voices heard. They want a union that recognises these concerns, taking action when needed.
The focus now is on the industrial struggle as opposed to the political one, something organisations such the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) should perhaps have concentrated more on. There may be lessons here for the RCN, which remans in poor health after months of destabilisation at the top table. It has failed to keep up with a workplace that has become fragmented with little space for the individual. What is needed now are trade unions that are democratic, strong and bold in their actions. There has been too much backbiting and trivia at the expense of the workers' collective powers and the improvement in their pay and their conditions of work. Restructuring of union democracy from the bottom up for new cohorts of workers is essential. Handing over power to the membership and adopting courageous strategies that will enable and encourage the work of anti-racism, inclusion, solidarity, rights for the disabled and activism must feature clearly as key to the work of any union.
The balance of power between employers and workers influences their pay and conditions. Nurses have borne the brunt of poor pay and conditions because there has been a lack of bargaining power by the trade unions that purport to represent them. This situation is perverse considering the role that nurses have played in keeping the country safe in the throes of a pandemic. Trade unions have the potential to change the lives of their individual members as well as the structure of our society as a whole. There appears to be a willingness in Unite to mobilise the power of workers at grass roots level in order to secure better terms and conditions. It could be that new ways of empowering workers collectively may be on the horizon. Whether the manifesto commitments that have been made by Graham come to fruition remains to be seen but for many nurses the talk espoused by Unite may resonate clearly. There are rumblings that for far too long there has been far too much hot air that amounts to nothing.