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A left-wing challenger to lead the UK's largest trade union is pledging to ramp up industrial action and overhaul its relationship with Labour if she wins.

Andrea Egan, a socialist social worker from Bolton, is challenging the re-standing General Secretary of Unison for the leadership, and is convinced she will win.

Andrea Egan is standing for Unison General Secretary after 37 years working in the public sector. She joined the union movement just as the 'closed shop' guaranteeing high trade union membership was being dismantled by Margaret Thatcher's Government.

But Unison still has significant power and potential, representing hundreds of thousands of care workers, NHS staff, local Government employees and more.

Former care worker and registered children's social worker Egan believes the 1.3 million strong union is punching well below its weight - both in the workplace and in Government. Unison is affiliated to the Labour Party and is currently a key institutional ally of Keir Starmer. Egan wants to transform that relationship.

She wants her organisation to be far more "activist" focused, and her call for a radical revamp of the union has seen her pick up 207 branch nominations around the UK - effectively neck and neck with incumbent Christina McAnea.

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Socialist groups believe the election is a chance to "defeat Starmer's most important union backer" and secure a senior ally to the likes of the RMT's Eddy Dempsey, the PCS union's Fran Heathcote or Bakers' Union leader Sarah Woolley.

Speaking to Byline Times, Egan is incredibly confident, claiming she's "going to win" the election.

The race is an unprecedented straight choice between her and incumbent McAnea, seen as a 'moderate' in union circles.

Egan claims McAnea "hasn't delivered for the members" after five years as General Secretary, and is "too worried about upsetting the Labour Party". McAnea, however, this weekend condemned "own goals" by Labour since coming to power last July, and called for a "reset".

The UK's largest union has around £200 million income a year but is "not exerting the power" it should, Egan claims.

In short, it means Egan wants to ramp up industrial action in the majority-female, public-sector workforce.

The approach strongly echoes Sharon Graham's approach at the Unite union, which has distanced itself from Labour and instead pumped millions into strike pay and escalating workplace disputes.

Egan led the first-ever Unison branch strike alongside teacher unions against schools' conversions to academies under the last Labour Government, in 2008.

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But she has accused the union Unison of being - until recently - only focused on recruitment for revenue - growing the membership numbers but not the "power" of Unison.

In 2022, the then-left led NEC majority, backed by Egan, implemented an "Organising to Win", to shift from a union "servicing" members to one which is more focused on industrial organising.

The union subsequently increased strike pay from £25 from day four of industrial action, to £50 from day one.

Egan, currently the secretary of Unison's Bolton Local Government Branch, also claims discrimination in the workplace has reached a "crisis point" for black members - but that the union's current legal support is "too risk-averse" on bringing forward race discrimination cases. She has pledged to "stamp out" racism in...