THE British trade union movement is at a crossroads. We face a cost of living crisis that has deep roots in more than 40 years of neoliberal economic reform and the systematic weaknesses in the national economy that have developed as a result.

The decline of Britain’s manufacturing base, the stripping out of skilled, well-paid jobs, and the decimation and privatisation of public services and utilities has left our economy vulnerable to short-term fluctuations, which can have a long-term impact on working people’s incomes.

This has been realised most recently in a crisis which has seen the value of pay plummet. The governor of the Bank of England, earning £575,000 a year, has called on workers to exercise pay restraint as the cost of daily necessities goes up by a staggering amount. Food inflation in the 12 months to March 2023 was running at 19.2 per cent with items like cucumbers up by 52 per cent. In this context, pay restraint is the last thing our economy, or working people, need.