Sacha Ismail says UK trade unions are showing stronger solidarity with Ukraine
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, more and more UK trade unions have adopted Ukraine solidarity policies. This year, too, has seen a further shift in this direction.
In 2023, after a series of unions took pro-Ukraine positions, the TUC Congress voted overwhelmingly for a solidarity motion. In 2024, the big developments were in post-16 education union UCU and giant public sector union UNISON. Following campaigning by members, UCU Congress effectively overturned the Stop the War Coalition-type position it had adopted in 2023, backed Ukrainian resistance and affiliated to the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign (USC); and UNISON’s National Delegate Conference, finally discussing Ukraine for the first time, easily passed a solidarity motion and affiliated.
2025 union conferences
This year, attempts to shift unions away from a pro-Ukraine stance have thankfully come to nothing, while there has been one big gain for solidarity:
• The gain was in the half-million-strong school workers’ union NEU. After three years of being blocked from voting on solidarity motions by undemocratic means and being limited to voting down Stop the War motions, its conference delegates finally got the chance to vote for a pro-Ukraine stance, thanks to the campaigning efforts of the NEU Ukraine Solidarity Network. In the end, it wasn’t close: the recorded vote against one of the two STW-type wrecking amendments was 63-37%, while the final vote for the unamended motion was bigger.
• Civil service union PCS was the first union to affiliate to USC after the full-scale invasion, overwhelmingly voting to back Ukraine in 2022 and 2023, and the union has organised extensive practical solidarity. This year, a motion to overturn this position, dismissing Ukraine’s struggle as a Western proxy war and committing PCS to campaign for an end to military aid, was submitted to its Annual Delegate Conference.
In the end, with industrial debates, a blow-up about trans rights and Palestine dominating the agenda, Ukraine was not reached. In the run up to and at the conference, the momentum seemed very much on our side. In any case, PCS’s pro-Ukraine position stands – though with unsympathetic elements in the union’s leadership, a fight to keep it activated may be necessary.
• Nothing on the agenda of UCU Congress to actually overturn the position won last year. There were, however, two motions entitled “Welfare not warfare”: the first actually about militarisation in the UK, and not mentioning Ukraine, but the second using Keir Starmer’s posturing about UK peacekeeping troops to nod against a pro-Ukraine position. USC and UCU Members for Ukraine argued to oppose the second motion. Delegates voted to pass the first while remitting the second to their national executive.
NEU and UCU displayed a similar trend in that delegates voted strongly in opposition to Western militarism but rejected Stop the War’s attempts to link this to opposing the Ukrainian struggle.
• Just after the full-scale invasion, the national executive of the firefighters’ union (FBU) passed an STW-esque position, and FBU was one of only two unions to oppose the 2023 TUC Congress motion. However, its conference has never discussed Ukraine. This year, there was a resolution for the first time, including opposition to Russia’s war and support for Ukrainian self-determination, practical solidarity with Ukrainian firefighters and affiliation to USC. Unfortunately, it was withdrawn, but its submission was a step forward.
• A Ukraine solidarity motion was also submitted to the National Union of Journalists Delegate Meeting, but not reached.
Organising for solidarity
As Chartist went to press, more union conferences were coming up, those of the big three UNISON, Unite and GMB. The biennial policy conference of general union Unite (7-11 July) has a motion to activate the links and practical solidarity with Ukrainian workers and unions agreed last time around, in 2023, but not actioned.
Just before UK union conference season began, the Central Executive Council of general union GMB also agreed to affiliate to USC, making it the sixth national UK union to do so – with UNISON, PCS, ASLEF, UCU and NUM.
What happened in FBU was instructive: while the withdrawal of the resolution was disappointing, it is significant that it was submitted as a result of growing solidarity work in the union, built around USC’s financial appeals for Ukrainian firefighters and rescue workers, and one FBU region, West Midlands, recently affiliated to the campaign. In other unions too, the recent period has increased connections and practical solidarity for Ukraine’s labour movement. We are in a good position to build further in the months ahead.
In a number of instances, most strikingly in the NEU, Stop the War supporters have gone out of their way to avoid or even prevent union conferences discussing Ukraine. In addition, STW and its supporters have generally failed to report union decisions which have gone against them. At UCU Congress, it emerged that its UCU supporters have been claiming that they won at the 2024 Congress when in fact they lost!
In contrast Ukraine Solidarity Campaign has pushed for the widest discussion and democratic decision-making, on principle and in the knowledge that it generally benefits our side of the debate. We have worked to accurately publicise union discussions and decisions throughout the labour movement and beyond.