Organising to Win for years to come

After one of the most fundamental debates at this year’s annual conference, UNISON delegates agreed to further fund and develop its hugely successful Organising to Win strategy. 

This means not just continued full funding, but improvement and expansion of the strategy’s ambitions, not least ensuring that all members – from every sector and self-organised group – feel empowered to take action.

The conference’s motion number 1 noted that 2025 marked a historic fourth consecutive year of membership growth for UNISON, alongside sustained increases in member participation and workplace activism.

Organising to Win priority campaigns in adult social care, schools, and NHS Earnings Max successfully aligned local organising and bargaining strategies, delivering tangible wins for members and projecting UNISON as a confident, growing, and powerful union. 

The branch support and organising fund played a central role in providing additional resource with accountability, reporting, and evaluation, to drive continuous improvements in UNISON’s organising approach. 

Proposing the motion, Michelle England of the national executive council (pictured above) listed just some of the Organising to Win successes:

• £300 million in back pay won for healthcare assistants
• The Dorset NHS campaign not only stopped its own proposed subco, but reversed government policy to start new subcos across the UK
• An end to the NHS two-tier workforce In North and South Tees, gaining Agenda for Change rates for all outsourced staff
• Prevented job cuts at Cornwall NHS and Nottingham University 
• Disputes that won improved pay in Livv Housing, Lift and Cathedral Schools, and the National Coal Mining Museum 
• Social care workers in Scotland winning sectoral bargaining for fair pay and conditions
• The real living wage won at several care providers in Cymru
• Record member growth in Northern Ireland, through disputes in education and health.

“What a year it's been,” she said. “Organising to Win campaigns are delivering concrete wins for workers across the union. And conference, I think the real highlight of this year, right across the UK, is that migrant health and care workers, the most exploited key workers in the UK, have joined together in their thousands to build a powerful campaign to demand the government rethink the visa rules. And conference, I believe it's a campaign we're gonna win.”

Building the union to be stronger

Michelle noted that the union has 95,000 more members today than when Organising to Win was launched four years ago. “That's a huge achievement, but we know that the growth isn't an end in itself. We're building the union to be stronger. Stronger so we can win, and stronger so we can change lives.

“And that's the difference between a transactional union and a transformational one. A transactional approach deals with problems one case at a time. A transformational union builds collective strength, so we can prevent problems from arising and support members to win better working lives.”

But, she said, there was more to do. “Much of our organising success is still concentrated in pockets of specialist projects and campaigns, and we know we need to move beyond that. 

“We know that a strong union is built from strong branches. So, while we look ahead to the organising opportunities that our member engagement portal and the new Employment Rights Act will bring us, we also want to roll out a clearer Organising to Win vision for our branches. So that we can build density, rebuild strong activist space and deliver collective wins on the issues that matter most to members in your branches.”

An historic opportunity

A speaker from Northern region said: “This motion is about momentum, and UNISON has it. Four years of continuous membership growth shows that when we organise with purpose, workers join, participate, and win. Our campaigns have delivered real improvement for members, and shown UNISON is a confident growing union.”

She said that the branch support and organising fund had been “vital”, giving branches the resources and accountability needed to build sustainable organising cultures. 

 “We now have an historic opportunity to expand bargaining coverage across huge areas of public service provision,” she said. “To seize that opportunity, we must continue fully resourcing Organising to Win.”

Broadening the power base

Crucially, the motion seeks to support self-organised groups, young members, private contractor members and the migrant workers network “to develop clear pathways into branch participation and workplace activism.” It also calls for LGBT+ organising to be embedded within the Organising to Win strategy, supporting LGBT+ members into activism, including those with intersecting protected characteristics.

Ellen Best of the LGBT+ conference told delegates: “Conference, we can't build a winning union by leaving people behind. The union that looks like its membership is a stronger union. A union that organises in every community is a stronger union. And a union that tackles oppression, as part of industrial organising, is a stronger union. And that's how we build density, that's how we build confidence, and that's how we build our power.”

A migrant member from London said: “Migrant workers have enormous potential to strengthen our movement. We bring experience, we bring resilience. But participation does not happen automatically. If we want migrant workers to become branch officers, organisers, and future leaders of our union, we must actively create pathways for them to do so.” 

‘We’re in this struggle together’

Lydia Freeman of the University of Brighton branch introduced an amendment that underpinned UNISON’s move away from being a service union to a campaigning one. And she challenged delegates to hold to that course. 

“I joined because my team at the time, the city campus caretakers, said, ‘We're a team. We're in it together. We're on the picket line together, and we're in this struggle together. I joined, because I believe, as the biggest union in the UK, that we can be a powerful driver for change.”

In passing the motion and its amendments, conference called on the national executive council to continue the fully resourced implementation of the Organising to Win strategy, including: 

• Full implementation of UNISON’s 2026 organising and recruitment plan, including ‘One UNISON’ organising campaigns in schools, adult social care and NHS Earnings Max.
• Encouraging sustained engagement with the organising framework and branch action plan process.
• Supporting Learning and Organising Services (LAOS) and UNISON regions to improve access to Employment Rights Act training. 
• Supporting self organised groups, the migrant workers network, young members and private contractor members to develop clear pathways into branch participation and workplace activism.
• Continuing the rollout of UNISON organising skills, methodologies, and disputes training and guidance for activists and active members. 

Delegates further called on the NEC to to evolve and expand the Organising to Win strategy – by applying recent organising lessons to a structured programme of branch development, and by developing ambitious organising plans that seize the “transformative potential” of the Employment Rights Act.