In 1785 Robert Burns wrote “the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry”, and this has been evident in my own plans to provide updates on our UNISON branch at York St John from month to month.

The creation of our ‘UNISON at York St John’ teams channel has very much become our go to place for keeping our members up to date on everything from upcoming event, training and development opportunities, updates on campaigns and everything in between. Anyone else coming here however for a flavour of what our branch has been up to in recent months, will no doubt be left with a sense that there’s nothing really going on.

So I thought now was a good time to provide some details on how our branch has been working hard for our members since my last update…..a year ago

In the past 12 months our branch committee has continued to grow to more than 10 officers and reps. We’ve been especially pleased to have filled important branch roles such as communications officer, education officer as well as now having a welfare officer and equalities coordinator. In further exciting developments, we’re hopeful that within the next few weeks we will have a new Branch Chair in place, as well as young members officer. From a branch running with essentially a skeleton committee of 2 people at the start of 2022, we now feel better placed than ever to ensure members from all corners of York St John are represented effectively.

But we don’t plan to stop there. over the course of the next 6 months we’re hopeful that the number of trained stewards in Branch, providing direct support and representation to our members will have grown from 1, to 3 or 4. Beyond this our network of workplace contacts also continues to grow, with dedicated UNISON contacts now found in multiple departments and directorates across the University.

If you work at York St John, there is no better time to join our union than now.

If you’re already a member, there has never been a better time to encourage your colleagues and co-worker to sign up.

As always I am always more than happy to arrange time to speak to anyone who would like to find out more about our branch, whether you’re already a member or not. just drop me an email

Thanks for taking the time to read, I’ll try not to leave another 12 months before I share another update!

Best wishes

Billy Jones

Branch Secretary