UNISON members will be joining other trade unionists across the country this weekend, taking to the streets to campaign for Labour’s ‘new deal for working people’.
The new deal is a comprehensive plan to improve the lives of working people by strengthening individual and collective rights – benefitting public service workers across the UK.
It is the culmination of years of joint work between the party and its affiliated trade unions, like UNISON. It flows from motions passed and priorities raised through the unions’ democratic structures, over decades of Tory government attacks on rights at work.
Saturday and Sunday, 3 and 4 February, will see campaign events up and down the country, as the labour movement unites to promote the plan.
UNISON general secretary Christina McAnea, who will be campaigning herself at the weekend, said today: “The new deal is a priority for our union, because it has the capacity to transform the world of work for UNISON members and is a chance to reset the balance of power to benefit workers.
“Labour’s new deal will ban zero hours contracts, end fire and rehire, strengthen sick pay and make sure travel time is paid. It will make sure rights at work are enforced on day one of a person’s employment, and give unions the right to properly organise across the economy.
“It contains the crucial commitment to a fair pay agreement in social care – the first of its kind – a massive and radical expansion of collective bargaining, which lays the foundation stone of a world class national care service.
“And it will see the return of the school support staff negotiating body, so all staff in schools are properly valued when their terms and conditions are negotiated.
“These are only some of the commitments that UNISON pushed for in the new deal – but to make them a reality, we have to fight for them.”
UNISON Labour Link has partnered with the Labour Party and other unions to organise campaigning sessions in key seats, over the weekend.
Ms McAnea will be campaigning in what will be one of the key battleground seats in the upcoming general election, Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy, in Scotland. She will be alongside Wilma Brown, a senior UNISON lay activist, and Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner, who is leading the party’s work on the new deal.
Members can join any of the events below:
Eastern Region
Welwyn Hatfield
Watford
Peterborough
East Midlands
Wellingborough
London
Uxbridge
Sunday – meeting at West Drayton Station at 2.30pm
Cities of London and Westminster
Saturday – meeting at 2pm at Marylebone Gardens, W1U 5JE
North West
Blackpool South
South East
Southampton Itchen
West Midlands
Birmingham Northfield
Saturday morning – Labour Unions Big Campaign Day
Worcester
Yorkshire and the Humber
Wakefield
