Earlier this week, Unison voted for Andrea Egan to be their new head. As we reported, Keir Starmer’s Labour Party expelled Egan as a member in 2022, suggesting there would be no love lost between her and the prime minister. Now, Egan has made her feelings on the Labour right explicitly clear in a new opinion piece:
Make no mistake.
The election of @Andrea4GS as Union GS is a turning point for the Lab Party & politics in this country.
She’s calling time on Reform, Thatcherism & those that support its bastardised form, 40 years on.
A rallying cry to get behind. https://t.co/ogql5dzBTL pic.twitter.com/VEaadL0JHu
— Clive Lewis MP (@labourlewis) December 19, 2025
“Never again will we prop up politicians hostile to unions”. Looking at you, Labour Party.
Egan began her career as a “low-paid children’s residential care worker supporting vulnerable children”. In her piece, she notes she will be “the first ordinary member” to lead Unison. Speaking to that, she wrote:
But some at the top of our movement have contributed to its decline, too, by creating cultures where workers, ordinary members, are consistently disregarded by their own organisations. Defending our class interests, the core work of unions, has been an afterthought, at best. Careers and cosy Westminster clubs have come first.
For her part, Egan seems to have genuinely put her money where her mouth is:
Instead of taking the £181,000 salary package the current General Secretary receives, I will take the wage of a social worker.
I will make sure the rest of the money goes to the Industrial Action Fund and There For You.
My pay will go up when yours goes up! pic.twitter.com/trWFN0oU3p
— Andrea Egan for UNISON General Secretary (@Andrea4GS) November 18, 2025
Her piece contains a very clear warning to the Labour right (and the right in general):
Industrially, I am putting all the employers we bargain with – from Reform UK-run local councils to Wes Streeting’s Department of Health and Social Care – on notice: Unison will be fighting without hesitation to win for members. Our size and resources are without parallel among trade unions in this country. From this point on, those great assets will be geared towards transforming the lives of public-sector workers.
That begins with building on and properly scaling up the “organising to win” strategy introduced in 2021, after a motion by ordinary members at Unison’s conference. This was a member initiative, from the grassroots. Now I will work for it to be fully supported and resourced at the centre.
She also said:
So it should be clear that putting members first doesn’t mean relegating or turning away from politics. That would be an abdication of responsibility. But it does mean bringing Unison’s support for the destructive right wing of the Labour party to an end.
Paul Holden’s The Fraud covers how the right wing of the Labour Party fought to ensure the party’s loss to the Tories in 2019.
Streets ahead of Streeting and the Labour Party
In her piece, Egan called out one politician specifically:
We will call time on our union’s inexcusable habit of propping up politicians who act against our interests, undermine our fundamental values and make our lives worse. Like colleagues across the movement, I have, in recent weeks, been appalled by Streeting’s attacks on resident doctors and their union. It is simply unacceptable for a Labour politician to describe striking workers as “morally reprehensible”.
I will, of course, engage open-mindedly with the health secretary as I would with any other employer or government minister. But given the likelihood of a Labour leadership election in 2026, it’s important for me to be clear: swapping Starmer out for Streeting or anyone else from the right wing of the party would be no solution to the gigantic challenges facing the country. What’s needed is a radical change in approach based on the labour movement’s core values.
As reported by James Wright on 15 December:
Despite pay rises since Labour came to power, resident doctors are demanding full pay restoration so their pay is the same as it was in 2008, when taking inflation into account. There are further issues with the recruitment process for doctors, with many unable to get jobs.
The UK is low on doctors per 1,000 people, at 3.2. Some of the highest levels of per capita doctors are in Austria at 5.48 and Germany at 4.53.
Yet in 2026 the number of specialty applicants is projected to increase to over 40,000. And the government is only offering an additional 4,000 places, bringing the number up to around 14,000, and no pay restoration.
International liberation
Egan also made it clear she will use her position to support wider efforts for equality:
Politically, with ordinary Unison members giving a clear mandate for change, our union will defend the interests of the working class as a whole without apology and without exception. I am in no doubt – that requires being unbowed in our support for the Palestinian people’s freedom struggle, and proud of our internationalism and opposition to war. I am also clear that Unison on my watch will not sit idly by while this Labour government allows imprisoned Palestine Solidarity Campaign activists to starve while protesting for their basic rights. Keir Starmer must act now.
Andrew Feinstein, a former ANC official under Nelson Mandela, has argued that the hero of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa would be ‘outraged’ with our leaders. The blatant disregard and disrespect for the plight and courage of the hunger strikers in our prisons exposes the hypocrisy of Starmer and David Lammy who have bother referred to Mandela as a ‘political hero’, as Feinstein wrote to them:
I would like to draw to your attention to the fact that Mandela also played a significant role in hunger strikes during his imprisonment, particularly at Robben Island. He and other political prisoners used hunger strikes as a form of protest against their conditions, unlawful detention and to demand their release. Soon after his release in 1990, his intervention was crucial in peaceably ending a hunger strike by over 300 prisoners. These hunger strikes were crucial tools in the struggle against apartheid.
We were once again at Woolwich Crown Court for the weekly support action for the Filton 24 as their trial progresses – and Yara from Palestinian Youth Movement gave us perhaps the best explanation of why people are on hunger strike we have heard yet. All respect to her
pic.twitter.com/49MvYMvCYc
— Canary (@TheCanaryUK) December 19, 2025
Ordinary members
Egan finished her piece by saying:
My victory is no individual matter. It is a collective triumph for ordinary Unison members who have voted to take charge of their own union at long last. Public sector workers keep this country running. We are disrespected, overworked and underpaid. That must change. It will change.
With her decision to take the same wage as an ordinary carer, we’re inclined to believe she’s serious.
Featured image via Andrea Egan
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