LABOUR needs to “be brave and shift to socialist policies,” says Christina McAnea, the general secretary of Britain’s biggest union, Unison.

In a wide-ranging interview about the challenges facing the more than 1.3 million public service members of Unison, McAnea says people had “high expectations” of the Labour Party after it came into power last year after 14 years of Tory government.

Instead “there have been so many own-goals and there appears to be no proper direction.

“It’s understandable that so many people feel left behind,” she adds.

Unison is still a growing union, having achieved a net growth of more than 40,000 new members last year, with the numbers for 2025 heading in the same positive direction.

McAnea says worries about the soaring cost of living are helping to fuel this growth in new members.

“The biggest challenge facing the union is the lack of funding for public services and this translates into the lack of funding for pay for public service workers.

“The cost-of-living crisis is without doubt the number one issue for our members.

“Housing costs continue to rise, along with fuel, energy and food prices, they are all hitting our members hard.

“Many of our members are low-paid workers. They spend more of their income on those areas and therefore they really feel the impact.”

There are some particular pinch points on public service pay.

“The government has just said that the most they can afford next year through the NHS Pay Review Body [PRB] is 2.5 per cent.

She adds: “Unless we can negotiate that up, I suspect that would be a major driver for our members wanting to take strike action.”

McAnea adds: “We have been trying to get rid of the PRB for a few years now and actually get back into proper negotiations as they have in Scotland where they have won higher pay increases.

“We need the same system for the rest of Britain where we can state our case directly to the employer. They can tell what their restrictions are but we can also make the case about why it’s important to invest in the workforce.”

There have already been strikes in other parts of the NHS “and this might be a sign of things to come,” she says.

“One of the big issues is still achieving the 50 per cent thresholds to enable strike action. We have a twin-track approach to this. We try and do everything we can to hit the magic 50 per cent but the other one of course is a political campaign with the government to get the thresholds repealed.

“We are keeping up the pressure on the government to do that. But having said that a strike is only effective if it has an impact and to do that you need a substantial amount of people to back it.

“If you are trying to take a strike with a relatively low number of people backing it the chances of you having a big impact are pretty low.”

Unison’s Pay Fair for Patient Care campaign targets particular groups in the NHS and makes the case over how they have been underpaid and undervalued for years. We have had to take strike action to achieve pay rises in a number of places.

“We have won more than £200 million in back pay for some of the lowest-paid in the NHS.”

One NHS dispute of 37 mainly women phlebotomists in Gloucester, who are on the lowest band of pay in the NHS, has been running continually for well over 200 days — the longest in NHS history.

“I have pushed this dispute with the Secretary of State and others in government. Not because I expect the government to intervene in a local dispute but I want to know why they are allowing this strike to go on for so long. It’s damaging to patients and to the service.”

Unison is planning a huge rally in Gloucester next Monday November 17 in support of the strikers including leading national figures such as TUC general secretary Paul Nowak to show their support.

McAnea tells me of the huge funding crisis in local government. She said: “We have had eight councils who have declared themselves, in effect, bankrupt and around another 56 have asked for help from the government because they just can’t balance the books.

“Last year the government did give them the biggest settlement they have had in years — up 6.8 per cent — but because the funding gap in local government is over £4 billion that extra money was just a drop in the ocean.

“There needs to be a wholescale rethink on local government funding.

“I think we have to look again at council tax. We need to shift the burden of tax to those that can most afford it — so people with the most expensive houses — that could be one way of addressing the issues. The other is there needs to be a rethink about how debt repayment is managed.

“Large chunks of local government finance relate to debt repayment. I have already talked with the government about whether some of this debt can be written off or restructuring the debt so they can raise money at a lower rate than they currently do.”

She adds: There also needs to be an honest conversation with the public, making it clear that you can’t have first-class services on a low-tax model.

“We need to tax those that can most afford it. We have estimated that if the government brought in a 1 per cent tax increase on everyone who has assets of more than £5 million it would raise £10 billion.

“It’s a tiny per cent of the population. Are they genuinely saying that this group couldn’t afford a further 1 per cent?”

But, McAnea insists, the answer to the problems facing people is not the far-right Reform UK, which now leads 10 councils across England.

“I understand how people feel left behind but Reform UK is not the friend of working people,” she says.

The government can send a clearer message that they are on the side of working people by sticking to their guns on employment rights.

“Good employers have nothing to fear.

“The government needs to improve workers’ rights — such as sick pay from day one.”

It is not just about making it easier for workers to take strike action if they chose to — it was, she says, “improving both individual and collective rights,” across the piece.

This includes improving the situation facing groups of workers such as care and migrant workers.

The union is planning a huge lobby of Parliament in December to stand up for the rights of this group of workers — an area that has seen the biggest growth in membership in the union in recent times.

So far more than 500 care workers, many being migrants, have already signed up for the lobby.

“My job is to do what I can to give voice to the silent and often ignored voices of public service workers and to keep Unison growing in strength.”