JESS TURNER is Unison Cymru Wales’s new regional secretary and has taken over from Dominic MacAskill, who is still a member of the Morning Star’s management committee.

The union in Wales remains in safe hands as Turner is steeped in the labour and trade union movement and has a clear sense of class consciousness.

She was raised in and around Swansea and her parents met at a trade union conference.

“Politics and trade union and political discussion was around the family growing up, although I didn’t really have a really attuned idea of what that meant at the time.

“My mum got involved in trade unions because the management wanted them to do night shifts, for no extra money. So she agreed to be the one who knocked on a manager’s door and said that’s unacceptable.

“She was a working mum and we went on marches with her. We went to union conferences and I’ve been in lots of trade union creches growing up.”

[[{"fid":"57765","view_mode":"inlineleft","fields":{"format":"inlineleft","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Jess Turner on the march as a child"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"inlineleft","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Jess Turner on the march as a child"}},"link_text":null,"attributes":{"alt":"Jess Turner on the march as a child","height":"442","width":"660","class":"media-element file-inlineleft","data-delta":"1"}}]]Turner explains that she grew up during the ’80s and remembers being taken on marches to support the miners’ strike.

“We have lots of family pictures of us together on marches, which seemed to be our weekend pursuit.”

Indeed, Turner has shared with the Star a photo of her as a child with her mum on a march in Swansea supporting the miners.

Although Turner did not meet her partner at a union conference he also works for Unison. Family gatherings are like a union conference as her brother, sister-in-law, dad and stepmum are all Unison members.

“I associated trade unionism as a really positive thing and it was only when I hit secondary school that I realised not everyone felt like that,” she said.

Turner went to Swansea University at the Singleton campus, studying politics and sociology before getting a part-time job in Merthyr trying to get adults back into education to give them a second chance. 

“I really got an acute sense of how poverty, particularly in relation to the south Wales valleys, just affects everything about how your life is gonna go from there.

“It fuelled that feeling of injustice really and just working with incredibly brilliant people who just were set up in a society that hasn’t given them a chance.”

I ask Turner what made her take the leap from union education to becoming a full-time official.

She tells me that she had a choice to make between going into adult education and training or working with the union in Cardiff.

“I suppose that’s where the upbringing comes back, that I was gonna go down the union route and seeing the brilliant stuff that Unison does, I just decided to plump for the union.”

Turner’s first taste of delivering on mass pay claims was for largely low-paid women “who had been undervalued, essentially compared to their male counterparts.”

I ask if male union reps were resistant to this and Turner is clear that it was part of the change you go through as an organisation.

“Part of our role as organisers is getting reps and in this context, male reps, to see the bigger picture and understand how this happened and what it’s about.”

Turner explains that there was no lightbulb moment but it was about “creating the conditions where those women reps were coming into branch meetings and sharing their experiences and stories and getting a sense of solidarity between men and women on the issue.

“So it’s not about any kind of clever arguments. I can make the point, but actually, it’s about what we do in our structures to make sure that women have a voice.”

We speak about how Turner is going to do the job and whether she would do it differently from her predecessors?

“I don’t think it’s so much about doing it differently. For me, it’s about taking all of those experiences that I’ve had through my years before Unison and also the different roles that I’ve had within the union over the last 17 years.

“The most important thing for me is to use the union as a vehicle to empower our members and get them to see that the union is at their side and is part of the solution to the problems that they’re facing at the moment. 

“Things like the cost-of-living crisis and the uncertainty workers feel with announcements around the Welsh government budget and potential cuts.”

Turner also says she wants to capitalise on the social partnership Bill and set out a really clear direction of travel on policies, like the national care service for Wales. 

I ask if a national care service should be a Welsh Labour manifesto commitment at the next Senedd election.

“Unison absolutely wants to see that as a manifesto commitment. We don’t expect it to happen overnight. But we do want these steps in place and we do want an agreed direction of travel.”

We discuss how union membership in the public sector had gone below 50 per cent and the urgency in recruiting and retaining members and Turner has a clear vision of what the union should be doing.

“We’re always looking to grow our membership and to get people to identify with joining a trade union. 

“I have talked about my upbringing and the fact that I always understood trade unions. So Unison is going to support Wales TUC initiatives to get the message about trade unions into schools. 

“We need to get younger people interested in trade unionism and that means ensuring that we are responding to and reflecting concerns of younger people who we need to join the trade union movement to keep it vibrant and thriving.”