- Conference
- 2026 National Higher Education Conference
- Date
- 2 October 2025
- Decision
- Carried
This conference notes that Students’ Unions are significant employers within the higher education sector, employing staff across a wide range of roles including advice, representation, events, and commercial services.
Despite their proximity to activism and organising many Students’ Union workplaces experience high levels of staff turnover, casualisation, and under-unionisation. These staff are often eligible for UNISON membership but remain underrepresented within our union structures.
This conference further notes the formation of UNISON’s Students’ Union Staff Network in 2025, which provides a vital platform for these workers to connect, share experiences, and organise collectively. The establishment of this network marks an important step in recognising the unique challenges faced by Students’ Union staff and in building a stronger, more inclusive union.
This conference believes that engaging and organising Students’ Union staff is essential to strengthening UNISON’s presence across the higher education sector. By developing activists among Students’ Union staff, branches can build sustainable capacity and ensure that this diverse and often overlooked group of workers is properly represented.
Higher Education branches are well positioned to support this work, given their existing relationships with institutions and their understanding of sector-specific challenges.
This conference therefore instructs the National Higher Education Service Group Executive to:
1)Undertake an annual mapping exercise of union recognition and membership density amongst UK students’ unions, associations and guilds;
2)Develop guidance and resources to support Higher Education branches in engaging and organising Students’ Union staff;
3)Encourage branches to build relationships with Students’ Union staff and management with a view to increasing union membership, activism and union recognition;
4)Facilitate training and development opportunities specifically aimed at empowering Students’ Union staff to become active within UNISON;
5)Work with the Students’ Union Staff Network to support its growth and sustainability, including through promotion, resourcing, and integration with wider organising strategies.