Vote for progressive parties to keep Reform UK out of government, says Wales’ leading union

Martin Shipton

Top officials from the largest trade union in Wales have stopped short of advising their members to vote Labour in next week’s Senedd election and said instead that their priority is to stop Reform UK getting into government.

Unison has around 100,000 members in Wales, working in sectors like local government and the health service, including care workers. Its recently elected General Secretary Andrea Egan was in Cardiff to open the union’s refurbished head office.

We asked Ms Egan what she thought of the realignment of the left in Wales, with many former Labour voters saying they were going to vote for Plaid Cymru or the Green Party.

She responded: “My union is affiliated to the Labour Party, whose roots are in the trade union movement. But right now my members are feeling pretty let down with the Labour government in Westminster.

“They haven’t delivered for working people. They’ve not delivered for Welsh working people. And when you create spaces, other politicians will take up those spaces. It’s as simple as that, isn’t it? I’m from the north west of England and I understand why there’s been a rise in popularity for the Greens: they’re offering progressive socialist policies.

“What disappoints me is that it is Labour that should be delivering those policies. That’s what they’ve been elected on a mandate for – on a ticket of providing social infrastructure for impoverished communities. But they’re not delivering on the promise. We are looking to politicians. So my message to any politician is, you’ve got to deliver for working class people.”

Politically homeless

Ms Egan said that many people, including some of her own members, felt politically homeless, and some were tempted to vote for Reform: “I think we’ve got to look at why that is,” she said. “It’s because they feel absolutely let down by the political system and they only have to look around at the daily living standards. The wages that they’re receiving are not delivering the same when they go to the shops. They go to the shops, they do the weekly shopping and they’re not able to put the same things into the basket as they were able to five years ago.

“What I see is that people are desperate. People want a better standard of living. And what we all need to see are politicians who can deliver that. I recently got elected as General Secretary and spent a lot of my time in the campaign holding Labour’s feet to the fire. I’m a working class woman from Bolton, so I absolutely feel when the economy is not working, and absolutely understand our members. We looked to Labour to deliver for us, and quite frankly, they failed.”

Jess Turner is Unison Cymru’s Secretary, managing a team of full-time officials across Wales. Recently the union produced a policy document suggesting that tens of thousands of jobs could be at risk if Reform entered government.

‘Dangers’

Asked about next week’s election and how important it was for working people in Wales, Ms Turner said: “The message that we’ve been delivering is about the dangers of the election next week potentially. We’ve been asking public service workers in particular to think about the parties that have the best policies for public services – making sure that you vote for the services that you want to see and not for parties that are going to slash them. So our focus has been very much on trying to prevent dangerous parties like Reform getting a foothold in the Senedd, and getting workers to kind of look out and think: ‘Well, which parties have got the best policies that are going to protect me, protect my family and protect my job.’ Our encouragement has been to vote progressively and not fall for rhetoric.”

Asked whether the union was advising people to vote Labour, Ms Turner said: “We are a Labour-affiliated union, and part of what we do is support the Labour Party. But that is just one part. That’s about people who pay into that [political] section of the party.

“We represent all of our members and their views. Our political strategy in this election – because it is an election like no other, not like anything I’ve seen in my lifetime, particularly in the microcosm of Wales, where people generally aren’t that interested – has been on getting people to vote progressively. And to try and keep out parties who are going to be a danger to workers and public services.”

‘Disenchanted’

Asked why some of her members might be tempted to vote for Reform, she said: “What we see is people generally becoming disenchanted with politics. I think sometimes there’s a sense of maybe taking for granted some of the things that we have in Wales that are assured to us. I know public service workers who are our members who have grown up with free prescriptions and perhaps just think that’s the norm.

“But we can’t shy away from the fact there is a lot of poverty in Wales. People will be feeling disillusioned with that. And very often when services have been cut, they are cut in the worst places. We’ve said in unison for the last 20 or so years that when you cut a library or a community centre up in the valleys or in a rural community, people are going to feel the effects of that. The after effect is that voters on the ground feel disenfranchised, not connected with politics and perhaps looking out for something different.

“We’ve got a job to do as trade unions to try and mend this gap. And we have to keep challenging every government of any colour to do better for the Welsh public and for public service workers as well.”

Ms Turner said the social partnership agenda launched by Mark Drakeford as First Minister, under which, for example, companies winning public sector contracts in Wales are expected to treat their employees fairly, was now enshrined in law. But it was something that would be in danger if Reform UK won power in Wales, in the same way as progressive legislation like the Employment Rights Act and the Equality Act would be in danger of being repealed should Reform come to power at Westminster.

“Repealing such laws would be very bad for Wales and very bad for workers,” said Ms Turner. “People need to understand what is at stake and not be fooled into voting for Reform.”