Christina McAnea

Christina McAnea is UNISON’s National Secretary for its members working in education and children’s services.  UNISON is the largest union in the UK for these categories of staff with over 300,000 members working in schools, colleges and universities, children’s centres and local authority and not for profit children’s services. UNISON’s members cover a wide spectrum of occupations e.g. managers, professional staff, librarians, technicians, early years professionals, student support and counselling, IT and other specialist jobs, administrative, catering and cleaning – in fact anyone who isn’t a teacher or lecturer. Christina has worked for the trade union movement for over 25 years. She has been a national negotiator for about 18 years.  At present she is a member of the national Social Partnership for Schools, which brings together the lead employers, trades unions and the Government and deals with all issues affecting the school workforce. She has been one of the lead negotiators involved in setting up the new Shadow Schools Staff Negotiating Body which is establishing national grades for over half a million professional and support staff in schools in England. She was also a member of the Children’s Workforce Expert panel and sits on various government advisory groups and working parties dealing with education and children’s issues.

She has had a long involvement in industrial relations primarily in the local government, and HE sectors including negotiating the HE Framework Agreement. As a trade union negotiator she has experience of a wide range of equalities issues including equal pay and discrimination in the workplace. She is currently a member of the boards of Lifelong Learning UK and the Higher Education Equality Challenge Unit. Previous experience includes being a Director of the Local Government Information Unit, CACHE and the Maternity Alliance and membership of the Commission for Black Staff in Further Education.