UNIONS must make the voice of austerity-hit workers heard “louder and stronger than ever,” Usdaw president Jane Jones urged today, as she opened the organisation’s 76th annual delegate meeting.
Despite widespread “despair at the injustice of it all,” Ms Jones issued a rally cry for the retail union’s 356,000 members to fight ahead of a probable general election next year.
Speaking in Blackpool’s Empress Ballroom, Ms Jones accused Tory ministers of “failing time and time again to take the urgent action needed to support low-paid workers and protect our high streets” amid soaring inflation.
Roger McKenzie talks to general secretary of Unison CHRISTINA McANEA about the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on members, the local government funding emergency and the threat of Reform UK
Working-class women lead the fight for fair work and equitable pay and against sexual harassment, the rise of the far right and years of failed austerity policies, writes ROZ FOYER
We cannot refuse to abolish the unjustifiable two-child benefit cap that pushes children into poverty while finding billions of pounds for defence spending — the membership and the public expect better from Labour, writes JON TRICKETT MP


