200 trade union reps and activists attended the Trade Unionists for a New Party (TU4NP) update meeting, held online on 8 June. You can watch the video on YouTube.

The discussion heard contributions from trade union executive members and activists from ten trade unions. It included Birmingham bin strike convenor Matt Reid, executive members from Unite, Unison, NEU and UCU, as well as PCS Deputy President Dave Semple.

A year ago, the first meeting of TU4NP brought together around 1,000 activists and was followed shortly after by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana announcing their intention to form ‘Your Party’ – to which 800,000 responded. In the year since, TU4NP has convened groups of activists in the unions to plan how best to campaign within the structures of their individual unions, for steps towards a new party of the working class, led by the trade unions.

Update from the union conferences
As preparation for the meeting, TUSC published a report on its website. The report documents the debates at the union conferences held up to the end of May, with extracts from the motions and statements tabled. In addition, there is an update on the situation in Unite, which, although it does not have a conference this year, has seen a significant shift in the composition of its executive council following elections concluded on 27 April. There is a report too from the Trades Councils conference, which took place on 30-31 May.

There are also important conferences coming up in June, which will be covered in future updates – in the GMB, the BFAWU bakers’ union, Unison, the RMT and, in October, NAPO.

You can read the report in full online at tusc.org.uk: ‘Trade Unionists for a New Party campaign progress report: a union-by-union round up’

If you would like to support the work of TUSC, use one of the links below.
Get involved: tusc.org.uk/join
Make a donation: bit.ly/TUSC-Donate

Finally, please share this update with trade unionists and your networks.

In solidarity,

Dave Nellist