Salford City UNISON - letter to Christina McAnea

Today, members of Salford City UNISON's Branch Committee sent the attached letter to Christina McAnea, UNISON General Secretary, as a result of the decision to suspend our Branch Secretary Steve North and the impact the way that decision was imposed has had on our UNISON branch.

Letter to UNISON General Secretary Christina McAnea

6th May 2025

Dear Christina,

In Defence of Our Rights as Salford City UNISON Members to Decide our Branch Secretary

We are writing to you as members of Salford City UNISON.

On 28/04/25, we became aware of social media posts from members of UNISON’s NEC stating that our Branch Secretary Steve North had been suspended from all UNISON positions.

Steve then confirmed to us that this was the case, that he had been told less than an hour earlier and that it would apply with immediate effect.

Steve has informed us that all the allegations against him that resulted in this sanction were made in 2023 and relate to his role of Chair of UNISON’s NEC Staffing Committee. He told us that he has been dealing with these allegations since then and that during all that time he has had no restrictions placed on him and that he has been sworn to secrecy. He also informed us that he is challenging this outcome.

Given that these allegations – even if true – relate to something unrelated to his conduct as our Branch Secretary, we cannot understand why he has been removed from his roles of Branch Secretary and UNISON steward within our branch with immediate effect. This sanction punishes us all for something Steve is accused of doing in a role that has nothing to do with our branch. Furthermore, the fact that he has had no restrictions placed on him all this time, before being hit with a sanction this serious during the first week of NEC elections and in a year you are up for re-election, quite frankly stinks to high heaven.

Steve has been our Branch Secretary for 14 years and he has not been contested in that role for over ten years. He is liked and respected by all of us. Members hold him in the highest regard and the relationships he has established with our employers help ensure that our voices are heard. We are a proudly organising branch and don’t believe that any one person is above the collective, but by virtue of his role and his experience, Steve is involved in serious matters at a level that the rest of us are not. He is Salford's Trade Union Joint Secretary, which means he is our main link with the other recognised trade unions (who have sent their support to Steve) and is often required to lead meetings with employers and politicians, sometimes acting as the only trade union voice in meetings concerning sensitive matters.

Steve doesn’t just lead a team of stewards and officers; he also manages two members of staff who are employed by our branch. Steve’s removal from his role with no notice has caused considerable anxiety for them and for the other senior branch officers who are now having to consider how they manage their own workloads, while picking up vital work that Steve is undertaking to support UNISON’s aims and objectives and providing support for the rest of us.

Those who have made this decision must have known that it wouldn’t just be Steve who would suffer from it. Yet, Steve has been bound by confidentiality and threatened with disciplinary action if he shares anything and nobody else in the union has felt us worthy of any preparation or explanation. It is absolutely appalling and worse than the treatment we would expect from the worst employer.

Our branch has achieved massive successes under Steve’s leadership. We have ensured that no council staff have suffered compulsory redundancies and have actually improved terms and conditions during over a decade of austerity. We have fought for and successfully defended public services, including five Sure Start nurseries, for which we received regional and national acclaim. We have helped care workers, employed in the most precarious of circumstances to organise to win pay rises and union recognition agreements, including through the pandemic where we secured agreements that no care worker would lose money if they could not work for COVID-related reasons. We recently became the first branch to secure council support for UNISON’s Migrant Care Worker Charter and we won a regional award for it. The list of achievements go on and through all of them Steve has remained a diligent and humble Branch Secretary, always insisting that the credit went to other people, rather than himself.

Steve is loved by members and stewards, respected by employers and political leaders and valued by the people of our city for the work he has done to protect and enhance the services we all rely upon.

And your process allowed him to be taken away from us with no warning.

It would be understandable in these circumstances for us to walk away. To join a union that might respect us and our elected branch leaders and cost UNISON the thousands of pounds we pay in subs every month. Perhaps you and some of your colleagues might actually like it if we did.

But we’re not going to do that. We’re going to stay and fight. We’re going to work harder than ever to change the union into the one we deserve. A union that treats its members and activists with respect and one that doesn’t punish activists who insist that members’ voices are more important than how we’re perceived by Sir Keir Starmer…and yes, we did see the ridiculously weak official UNISON response to the Supreme Court Judgement and ECHR Guidance that attacks our Trans comrades!

This isn’t a begging letter. This isn’t a letter that says “Please give us back our Branch Secretary.” Such a letter would look like you have power over us and that we need your help. No. In Salford City UNISON, we see it the other way round. You work for us and you owe us the right to decide who we want our Branch Secretary to be. Steve remains a member of our union and as a member of our union, we should be able to elect him steward and Branch Secretary, like we could any other member of our branch. That is our democratic right as UNISON members.

So we aren’t asking for Steve’s suspension as our Branch Secretary and Steward to be lifted. We’re demanding it and we assure that if you don’t listen and act on our demands, we’ll shout it from the rooftops and we’ll work harder than ever to enforce the changes we deserve. Because that’s what we do here in Salford.

Lift the sanction. Reinstate Steve’s right to be our elected representative and apologise for the way you’ve treated us.

Signatories from Salford City UNISON Branch Committee:

Sam Barry, Education Officer, Lifelong Learning Co-ordinator and Place Convenor

Lisa Millar, Assistant Branch Secretary and International Officer

Diane Ogg, Assistant Branch Secretary and Lead for Schools

Simon Fox, Branch Treasurer

Ameen Hadi, Equalities Officer

Kerry Wade, Women’s Officer and Adult Services Convenor

Dot Tomkinson, Disabled Members Officer

Ryan Callaghan, LGBT+ Officer

Shannon Aspey, Young Members Officer

Robert Whyte, Health and Safety Officer

Denise Bond, Communications Officer

Paula Lawless, Welfare Officer

Darrell Warner, Membership Officer

Sam Everton, Environmental Officer

Lisa Townsend, Assistant Branch Treasurer

Gemma Milburn, Steward and Children’s Services Convenor

Christophine Obigwe, Steward

Eley Beeke, Steward

Josephine Lanahan, Steward

Victoria Key, Steward

Nicola Fletcher, Steward

Richard Holland, Steward

Leanne Green, Steward

Tracey Daniels, Steward

Andrew Connaughton, Steward

James Kidd, Steward

Nathan Godfrey, Steward

Sarah Ross, Steward

Luke Burgess, Steward

Cheryl Jones, Steward

Colette Chadwick, Steward

Jemima Issifu, Steward

Vicki Overton, Steward

Graham Robinson, Steward

Kay Rogers, Steward

Jack Turner, Steward

Kelly Ries, Steward

Caroline Hughes, Steward

Mark Raynerd, Steward

Alison Campbell, Steward

Sarah Hicks, Steward

Carla McLoughlin, Steward

Anneka Williamson, Steward

Jim Leech, Steward

Alan Fry, Steward

Judy Shorrocks, Steward