THIS year’s TUC finds a trade union movement renewed, confident and most importantly, unafraid to flex its industrial muscle. 

The cost-of-living crisis has escalated, with rapidly rising inflation, runaway energy prices and continued suppression of wages. 

As a result, unions have started to ballot their members over pay, jobs and working conditions. And in many cases have either won disputes or begun to take industrial action. 

Our union has been a leading force in this resurgence of activity and has embarked on the first national rail strike in RMT’s history. 

Over 40,000 members have taken part in several days of strike action since May, on 14 rail operators and Network Rail, in a bid a to win a negotiated settlement on job security, a decent pay rise and protecting hard-won working conditions. 

Another 10,000 members have taken part in repeated stoppages on London Underground in a separate dispute over jobs and pensions.  

On the first day of our national dispute, 53,000 workers took part in co-ordinated action, bringing the railways and Tube to an effective standstill. 
 
Now despite some of the outlandish reports you read in the mainstream media, all these disputes are wholly defensive from our union’s point of view.

Under normal circumstances, we have negotiated successfully with all the rail employers since the beginning of privatisation in 1993. 

Yet after over 30 months of discussions, with Network Rail and the train operators, we have not been able to find a settlement. 

Network Rail offered us a below par deal with several strings attached which will mean workers not only suffering a real-terms pay cut but also being the subject to the kind of fire and rehire practices that we saw with P&O in spring. 

The 14 train operating companies on the other hand have offered RMT members nothing. 

Previous transport secretary Grant Shapps relentlessly interfered with negotiations, shackling both Network Rail and the rail operators from coming to a deal with RMT. 

The new Transport Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan has opposed ticket office closures in her local constituency, so we will have to wait and see if this marks a change in direction. 

Regardless, RMT is determined to win this dispute and get a square deal for its members. 

As part of that general fightback on wages, jobs and conditions, the TUC will debate motions on co-ordinated strike action and calls to strengthen employment rights following the P&O scandal.
 
It is important that these issues are debated and become TUC policy. But more important is implementation and the trade union movement must move to a position of actively co-ordinating strike action and campaigning in working-class communities to bring to bear the largest possible united force to pressure the politicians. 

We have no choice but to show our teeth because as Prime Minister Liz Truss has shown, she is committed to making effective industrial action illegal. 

The government already has form with a recent law being introduced which allows agency workers to be used to break strikes. 

Not only is this morally wrong but dangerous, particularly on the railway where you have highly skilled and safety-critical staff who cannot be easily replaced.
 
This does not matter to the Tories, who want to build on this start through a combination of minimum service agreements on the railways, increasing ballot thresholds and putting higher penalties for damages where industrial action is deemed to be unlawful. 

Instead of working with unions to find a way to deal with challenges that face the country, the Tories intend to quell trade union resistance through draconian measures. 

RMT will not be intimidated or cajoled into doing anything less than what we do best, representing and winning for our members across the transport and maritime industry. 

My political hero James Connolly made an apt observation at the beginning of the last century: “History, in general, treats the working class as the manipulator of politics treats the working man — that is to say, with contempt when he remained passive, and with derision, hatred and misrepresentation whenever he dares evince a desire to throw off the yoke of political or social servitude.”
 
Well, the trade union movement is back and ready to fight to end the increasing servitude that workers find themselves in during this cost-of-living crisis.