AS SOCIALISTS and trade unionists, we recognise that we are entering a new period of endemic political and economic instability.

For the last 40 years the neoliberal experiment and globalisation rested on the capitalist class taking many of the important gains made by previous generations of working-class people.

A deliberate and highly organised strategy was deployed by big business and their backers to weaken and divide the labour and trade union movement and this has been highly successful.

A rise in outsourcing and the so-called “gig economy” developed, leaving workers more insecure and poorer than ever.

Social wages, the NHS, free education, social housing and public services have all been stripped back while working-class people were sold the lie that “private is good and public is bad.”

Migrants, the youth, disabled people, the sickest and the poorest, have all borne the brunt of the savage assault on the rights of working-class people that continues to this day, as the richest in society still amass more wealth than they have ever had before.

Capitalist greed is slowly but surely transforming the planet into a poisoned and barren wasteland for successive generations.

Of course the labour and trade union movement has to respond to the cost-of-living crisis, but there are other issues affecting workers, including climate change, which threaten life on Earth.

The callous sacking of the P&O ferry workers is just a small taste of what is to come for the working class, so unions must build our forces, build solidarity and organise workers properly.

Inactive and lifeless union structures won’t cut it in the new period.

We need to invigorate our movement, welcome in the best and the brightest, openly discuss class politics and arm them with the knowledge and skills they need to become committed and knowledgeable workers’ leaders.

It is not an accident that the most oppressed workers are leading the way when it comes to taking strike action.

These workers, the lowest-paid on the bins, in the hospitals, on the buses and in other areas, have been stripped of absolutely everything and cannot even rely on getting paid on time, getting holidays or sick pay.

They are even denied basic dignify at work like changing and facilities, areas to have breaks or eat food.

It is becoming increasingly common to see workers in their seventies struggling to do heavy physical work because they have no choice — they have been denied the right to retire through decades of assaults on the terms and conditions of working people.

This is where all workers are headed if we don’t start widescale mass organising in trade unions and communities and start making serious demands around wages, terms and conditions, social wages and social security.

We must make demands that genuinely reverse the cycle of working-class people slipping into poverty and destitution.

And we have to be clear, it can’t just be a slogan, real unity means co-ordinated campaigns and action across the trade unions and communities.

While isolated battles can result in victories, they more commonly end in defeat.

It is not just the employers who are attacking us, the attack comes from government and it needs to be taken on too.

As every week goes by the number of serious struggles to make work better are increasing, so there has never been a better time to link up, reinvigorate our structures and learn from each other.

Workers are showing that together they are stronger, together they can win, so on International Workers’ Memorial Day let that inspire all of us as we go forward in the defence of our class.

Helen O’Connor is GMB Southern regional organiser.