REBUILDING trade unions in communities is key to defeating the far right, a packed Morning Star-Institute of Employment Rights (IER) fringe meeting heard today.

RMT leader Eddie Dempsey said a “conscious effort to remove the industries that formed the basis of the trade union movement” from the Thatcher government onwards had “left people with insecurity. Working lives are chaotic. There’s no stable work, no stable housing.”

Only restoring sectoral collective bargaining rights, enabling unions to raise wages across whole sectors, and the right to take solidarity action would stop unions’ continued decline, he argued.