UNISON is at the centre of the struggle for equality, says regional secretary Kerry Baigent
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Staff, students and members of the public will come together to help save the Southend campus of the University of Essex this weekend, UNISON says today. They will march and rally through the city on Sunday (8 March) urging the university to keep higher education in Southend. People will gather at 1pm at the top […]
Teaching assistants at two special education needs (SEN) schools in Essex have suspended planned strikes after receiving a new offer from employer Lift, says UNISON today. Workers at Columbus School & College in Chelmsford and Pioneer School in Basildon had been due to walk out on Monday (2 March) as they pushed for an allowance […]
Operating theatre staff at Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust could be thousands of pounds out of pocket each year after their overtime pay was scrapped this week, says UNISON today. Under nationally agreed guidance, employees have been paid time and a half for working beyond their contracted 37.5 hours a week. But the Bedfordshire trust […]
Cleaners, IT staff and customer service workers will join a lunchtime rally against sweeping job losses at the University of Essex in Colchester on Thursday, says UNISON. The rally, jointly organised by UNISON and the University and College Union (UCU), will call on bosses to stop plans to axe 400 jobs and close the university’s […]
One hundred striking Essex school support staff will take their call for fair pay to academy chain Lift’s head office in London today, says UNISON. Classroom assistants and other frontline support staff from special education needs (SEN) schools Pioneer in Basildon and Columbus in Chelmsford will hold a lunchtime rally outside Lift HQ in White […]
New UNISON general secretary Andrea Egan will speak at a rally in Southend later this week calling on the University of Essex to scrap plans to cut 400 jobs, says UNISON today. Andrea will also urge the university to abandon proposals to shut down its Southend campus when she speaks on Thursday (5 February). UNISON […]
UNISON Eastern has unveiled two special activist awards for 2026 as it opens nominations for the One Weekend gongs. Nominations are invited for the social care active member of the year, open to anyone in UNISON Eastern who’s taken the pledge to be an active member in social care, and green activist of the year. […]
Essex Police plans to slash 110 support staff jobs, budget documents show. Chief Constable Ben-Julian Harrington said government funding wasn’t enough to meet costs. “No-one would deny the enormous financial pressures facing the force, but it’s also impossible to deny that cuts on this scale will affect policing across Essex. “Support staff are the backbone […]
School staff supporting pupils with special educational needs (SEN) in Essex have announced a series of strikes over a lack of recognition and pay, UNISON says today. Teaching assistants, pastoral support workers and other support staff at three schools run by the Lift Schools multi-academy trust will walk out next Wednesday (28 January), and seven […]
Cambridge City Council signed up to a landmark charter on tackling racism today, reaffirming its commitment to equality in the workforce. The motion to sign up to UNISON’s Anti-Racism Charter was passed at Council on Thursday 9 October 2025, during Black History Month. UNISON’s Anti-Racism Charter commits employers to a raft of policies designed to […]
Kerry Baigent is taking over as regional secretary of UNISON in the east of England, the union announces today. She is swapping roles with Tim Roberts, who moves to become regional secretary in the union’s South West region. Kerry joined UNISON in 2014, working in Devon. But before that she was based in the east […]
School staff supporting students with special educational needs (SEN) in Essex have voted overwhelmingly to strike over the lack of recognition and pay for their roles, UNISON says today. Teaching assistants, pastoral support workers and other support staff at three schools run by the Lift Schools multi-academy trust – Columbus School & College in Chelmsford, […]
Hundreds of job losses at the University of Essex will wreck students’ experiences and pile misery on staff, says UNISON today. The vice chancellor, Professor Frances Bowen, told staff today the Southend campus will shut and around 400 full-time posts will go from across the institution. That amounts to around a fifth of the current […]
Suffolk County Council must urgently fix a problem that means experienced staff could be paid as much as £6,000 less than new starters, says UNISON today. The glitch means some new joiners will end up earning more than their managers, says the union. The county’s libraries were brought back in house earlier this year as […]