THE 2010 Tory-Lib Dem coalition launched a vicious attack on public services and the workforce employed to deliver them. Over the next 14 years, Unison members have faced privatisation, job losses, short staffing, fire and rehire, and severe pay erosion across core public services — all compounded by the cost-of-living crisis and the further statutory restrictions on the right to strike.
 
But Unison has emerged from this tough period with a growing membership and a vibrant new organising agenda. Our new Organising to Win strategy was launched in June 2023 following an internal review led by the general secretary of organising methodology and practice. A new strategy to meet the changing demands on the union and provide a clear vision for a stronger union.

In the first year of implementation, members have been taking action and winning. Unison membership has grown by an unprecedented 41,000 over 12 months along with big increases in participation and activism.
 
The strategy has four cornerstones: the alignment of organising and bargaining to deliver wins; increased participation to build an active, engaged membership to ensure majority union density; Co-ordinated unionwide organising priorities for the best use of resources and maximum impact in target areas; and systematic monitoring and evaluation for continuous improvement.
 
The vanguard campaign has been Pay Fair for Patient Care — local organising campaigns to win rebanding and backpay for NHS healthcare assistants (HCAs) who are paid for personal care but increasingly perform clinical care duties.
 
To date, campaigns have been won in 41 NHS Trusts, securing over £40 million in annual pay rises and over £100m in back pay for 27,000 HCAs.

Every campaign has generated significant growth in membership and activism. Hundreds of HCAs, predominantly women, are getting involved for the first time, leading successful campaigns in their workplace, with many progressing into formal activist roles.
 
Key to the success has been a credible plan to win. Unions are good at agitation. There is plenty for workers to be angry about. But we are not always good at providing the hope that gives members the confidence to participate, resulting in a failure to achieve the level of collective participation needed to build the power to win.

This further undermines member confidence in their union and emboldens those employers whose interests are served by weak and passive union organisation.
 
A credible plan to win starts with identifying the decision-maker: who has the power to say yes, how do we make them, and what is the role of union members in building the power necessary to affect that change?

Bargaining starts within the recognised machinery — but a credible plan prepares for the potential failure to reach an agreement at that stage. The plan must escalate incrementally, building member confidence and commitment while applying increasing pressure on the decision-maker.

To win, the plan must have the ability to eventually create a crisis for the decision-maker which exceeds the cost of settling the dispute. The intention is always to reach an agreed settlement before that becomes necessary, but it’s this potential power that gives members confidence in the plan and brings employers to the negotiating table.

Before the launch, the plan is adapted and improved through hundreds of one-to-one discussions until members have absolute confidence it can win. Members then nominate trusted colleagues to represent them on the campaign organising committee and representative bargaining team, developing sustainable leadership to drive campaigns forward, and ensuring accountability to the membership at every step.
 
To date, every Pay Fair for Patient Care industrial action ballot has smashed the thresholds, and every campaign launched has won or is headed that way.

Some campaigns have required extensive strike action for success. In Wirral, 61 days of action were taken, but many campaigns have been won with far less, and increasingly, as awareness of the campaign spreads through social media and digital tools, many NHS employers are ready to bargain constructively at a far earlier stage.
 
The wins have significance far beyond their immediate workplaces. Winning is contagious and the wider “narrative resource” of a union that wins builds members confidence to participate not only in this occupational group but in other workplaces and sectors.
 
As strategic organising skills and experience develop, the Unison plan to win has been adopted by organisers and activists across the union, building credible local campaigns in local government, multiacademy school trusts, social care providers, and outsourced NHS contracts and we’ll win these too — all the time, continuing to monitor, evaluate and share best practice training, tools and techniques across the union based on what works.
 
The Labour government’s commitments to public service provision and the extension of trade union and collective employment rights provide huge new opportunities for Unison members.

We have some way to go before we reach our full organising potential, but changes made over the past year mean we have never been better placed to push that agenda, building membership, participation and activism through strategic campaigns to win transformational change.
 
Kevan Nelson is an assistant general secretary of Unison.