AS trade unions in the north-west come together for the regional TUC conference, it’s an opportunity for us to look at what we’ve achieved in the past year and set our course for the challenges ahead.

When conference met back in Liverpool in 2022, the P&O dispute was in its infancy. The cost-of-living crisis was biting, but our response was still developing. It would have been difficult to imagine what would follow as we debated what needed to be done.

Across the region, our trade unions haven’t just shouted loudly about the issues facing members and workers. They’ve acted. Consistently, collectively and resolutely. The outcome has been wins that deserve celebrating and ones on which we can build an ever-stronger movement.

Having stood on many picket lines over the last 12 months, I’ve been proud of our union members but also encouraged by their strength of solidarity and the overwhelming public support those on strike have received.

We could fill today’s paper if we listed every striking story. Many of them you will have read about on these pages. But I want to pick out some that have shown the determination of members to win and that inspire us to keep up the fight to change the world of work for good.

In Blackpool, we met Joanne and her colleagues at OCS. Unison members, all fed up at being treated differently than their NHS counterparts working in the same workplaces. 

They took action, many for the first time. After 26 days of action, they won parity with their colleagues. It was heartening to see the journey they came on individually and collectively. They showed how in outsourced companies we can win.

Greater Manchester has been the scene of many wins for our trade unions. GMB members at Polyflor in Bury fought long and hard for a pay rise of 9 per cent. 

Having been told not to turn up for work as strikes loomed, the workers stood strong. It felt like — and literally was on the first day of action with a march to the factory — an uphill struggle at times. But workers prevailed. 

Long and hard is how disputes in Liverpool were won in several union campaigns. Unite members at Liverpool Docks took industrial action for many weeks, receiving overwhelming support at their picket line village in Seaforth. It paid off with pay rises of over 14 per cent.

The same continuous action at Jacobs won GMB members there an improved pay offer of 6.5 per cent from the meagre 2 per cent originally offered.

Workers for Hinduja Global Solutions were angry at an initial offer that amounted to 3.5 per cent, particularly when one of the owners was listed as Britain’s richest man. 

Being part of a union, PCS, paid off literally, as standing together and striking they won a pay rise of over 10 per cent after six weeks of action.

Right across the region, we’ve seen RMT members striking for and winning better offers and protecting jobs in Network Rail. 

We’ve seen NHS workers from porters to paramedics pack out picket lines in many towns and cities. Posties, teachers, university staff and civil servants have marched and mobilised to make clear their feelings. Each of the actions taken by our unions has inspired and given confidence to others to do the same.

We will need that inspiration and confidence in the next 12 months. Conference today will help set our agenda. Yet it is obvious what some of the issues are and the motions we will debate speak to these.

The government is coming for our rights. Having seen its impact, they want to remove our right to strike. We can’t and won’t accept the attack on our fundamental rights. 

It isn’t just the trade unionists they’re coming for. The verbal attacks on migrants have fuelled physical attacks on some of the most vulnerable. Changing the law — and breaking it — cannot be allowed. The “othering” of LGBT+ people, particularly those who are transgender, for political “gain” must be opposed.

We can’t stand quietly or idly by on these issues. Doing so only enables and encourages those who wish to divide us further. 

What we have seen in Knowsley and elsewhere ought to be a wake-up call for us and a reminder: we have to be working in our communities and workplaces, educating, listening to concerns and uniting people behind our trade union values of fairness, equality and decency.

In workplaces, our work continues. There are still national disputes that we will continue to support, union campaigns to turn into wins and workers to be organised. 

Austerity remains in our public services and we need to watch for further cuts on the back of unfunded commitments. 

As the government chases economic growth, inflation hasn’t abated and workers are still worse off. Pay, jobs, decent terms and conditions will remain a staple of our work.

If we’re to win on all of this, we have to be a growing and diverse trade union movement. One that is rooted in all the workplaces across the towns and cities of the north-west, that represents the diversity of our region. 

That isn’t easy, but if we can’t build on moments in time like we have now, when can we make the big changes we need?

Twelve months ago, the P&O dispute was a reminder for us all of the contempt that bad bosses have for workers and the law. In the time since, trade unions have shown they can and will stand up to them and in many cases, stop them. The power of workers acting collectively cannot be underestimated.

We should take confidence from that and build on it in the year ahead. Let’s face the challenges to come head-on and set our ambitions high — to win for workers across the north-west and Britain.