The received wisdom is that most people who vote in union elections vote early, but it is also true that the great majority of UNISON members will not yet have voted in this General Secretary election. There is still time for people to get their votes in and we'd really like that.

There is also still time to distribute more UNISON United Left election leaflets and to get the maximum number of votes for UNISON United candidate Jon Rogers.

The more votes Jon gets, the greater the statement people make about their unhappiness with UNISON's present direction and its relationship with New Labour. People in power have come to rely on low voter turnouts. They take those low turnouts as evidence that everybody's happy.

The more votes that are cast in the election generally, the more influence union members will have. Look at the way John Prescott responded to the 82% Yes vote in the January consultation on public sector pensions. He went into talks with UNISON right away.

If there's a good voter turnout in the General Secretary election, union leaders will have to accept that a growing number of members are watching them. Union leaders will have to start behaving a little better as a result.

The TUC Day of Action last Friday, and the strong support for the pensions strike ballot in local government in January, showed the potential that our unions - and UNISON in particular - have when it comes to effectively defending members' interests. It really can be done and it must be done.

That said, UNISON's foolish delay in issuing the strike ballot in local government, and the bureaucratic failures to build united strike action within UNISON over pensions, illustrate all too clearly why we need to renew the leadership of our union.

We need leaders who are actually out here on the shop floor, directly representing members in branches, and who know how tired members are of hearing New Labour's anti-public-service, pro-privatisation line. Union members know there is enough money for decent wages and pensions - it's just not distributed equally.

They know that MPs have a generous pensions package. They know that this government has spent billions waging war in Iraq. They know that millions have been put into failed PFI projects. They know there's enough money to pay their own managers nice little salaries.

Everybody knows these things. One of the most encouraging aspects of last week's TUC Pensions Day of Action was the support we got from members of the public who stopped to talk and to outline their own disappointment in New Labour in considerable detail.

They're also sick of hearing that there isn't enough money for a decent social security programme in the UK. They know that there is enough money - there just isn't the political will to prioritise in favour of the people who need support.

The more people who vote, the more evidence there will be that people have the will to force union leaders, and the government, to reprioritise spending in favour of decent social programmes.

UNISON activists certainly have plenty of work on at the moment, but it is worth one last push to get members to return their ballot papers in the General Secretary election, and to record a vote for United Left candidate Jon Rogers. The current leadership won't be able to ignore a good result. They'll probably try for a bit, but we won't let them.