UK

Andrea Egan for UNISON General Secretary!

JULY 31, 2025

The election campaign for the General Secretary of UNISON has now begun. Andrea Egan, who was President of UNISON from 2022 until 2023, has registered her candidacy to be the first ever lay member General Secretary of UNISON. 

If elected, Andrea has pledged to take the wage of a social worker and channel the rest of the £181,000 General Secretary salary into funding welfare and industrial action funds for UNISON members.

She is committed to ending UNISON’s current subservience to Keir Starmer’s Labour Party by opposing attacks on the living standards of UNISON members, opposing donations made to Labour MPs who fail to oppose welfare cuts, and launching a comprehensive review of the union’s relationship with the Labour Party. 

Andrea Egan says: “I’m standing to be General Secretary to give power to ordinary members, implement the decisions you’ve voted for, and start winning the real improvements to pay and conditions all our members deserve. I will end our subservience to the Labour Party by launching a comprehensive review of our union’s relationship.”

Andrea started her working life as a low-paid children’s residential care worker, supporting vulnerable children, going on to become an unqualified social worker before qualifying 15 years ago. She first became a steward 30 years ago and has since been successfully elected as assistant secretary, joint secretary and now the secretary of Bolton Local Government Branch.

“It’s because of the support of strong women who mentored me that I have been able to play a leading role in our union,” she says. “I am deeply committed to repaying that solidarity by developing the confidence of activists, especially those from marginalised backgrounds.”

As President, she supported the implementation of UNISON’s first Race Discrimination Panel, gave support to the launch of trans ally training and championed UNISON’s disabled workers passport. She led on the Organising to Win programme which has done so much to support members to win substantial improvements to pay and conditions.

Website: andrea4gs.org.uk/   Facebook: facebook.com/Andrea4GS/ 

X: x.com/Andrea4GS  Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/andrea4gs.bsky.social 

Instagram: instagram.com/andrea4gs

Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattcornock/13487649954 Licence: Attribution 2.0 Generic CC BY 2.0 Deed