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 76^th 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.