TUC president Steve Gillan feels Andy Burnham has been “a breath of fresh air” as Prime Minister — but “time will tell” if he marks a real shift in Labour policy.

“He listens to the mood of the country. An example — changes to the early release scheme for prisoners. He and Justice Secretary Alex Norris concluded the exemptions didn’t go far enough to protect women and children from serious, sexual offences.

“It was PC Harper’s case that caught the public’s attention but it went further than that, it was about rapists potentially being released early and paedophiles as well. I’m glad they made the changes and I told the Prime Minister that directly — but I also said the criminal justice system is in a total mess because of the financial vandalism of the previous 14 years.”

The entire criminal justice system — “prisons, policing, probation, courts” — has been crippled by “vicious cuts that affected everybody in the name of austerity.” At the same time, every home secretary since Michael Howard in the 1990s has echoed his unthinking “prison works” mantra, competing to look tougher than their predecessors.

The prison population has exploded from 40,000 in the ’90s to 87,000 today. “Are there too many people in jail? Absolutely. Some people should have been diverted away from jail in the first place, such as civil prisoners. There are 17,000 remand prisoners. Are all of them a danger to the public? Probably not, but they’ve never been assessed.”

Worse, the huge expansion in prisoner numbers took place without investment in either the infrastructure or the workforce. The Tories closed 23 prisons between 2010 and 2024, and there are fewer prison officers today than in the 1990s despite the number of prisoners more than doubling.

The privatisation of works departments within the prison service has resulted in over £2 billion in outstanding repair works. Private prisons cost the public more — even the tendering process costs millions, and some private providers have sued the government when their bids are unsuccessful.

This is all part of the mess that Burnham has both inherited and recognised, in his denunciation of the “wrong turn” Britain took in the 1980s and his pledge to undo the damage of over four decades of Thatcherism.

That damage is reflected socially too. Gillan is clear there are too many people in prison, but every active trade unionist is alert to symptoms of an angry, alienated society visible in the rising abuse and assaults of essential workers reported by retail, transport, healthcare and other unions.

“There can be no excuse for a violent crime against any worker. We need to get to grips with it. But I think it can be traced back to a whole variety of issues arising from the breakdown of society since Thatcher, who didn’t believe in communities.”

That’s reflected in the loss of community spaces, from youth clubs to working men’s clubs and pubs, and in the profit-maximising logic that cuts staff and services to the bone. Gillan points to the loss of platform staff, guards and conductors on public transport as an example. “You always used to have someone keeping an eye on things, and I think people felt safer, especially women and children.”

But reversing Thatcherism is a huge project, requiring a determined confrontation with vested interests not evident in Burnham’s prospectus so far. The government is tied into private prison contracts lasting 20 years in some cases: will it tackle that? Or PFI in the NHS? Where is the biggest-ever wave of insourcing promised by Labour in opposition?

“We can have the best dialogue in the world with ministers and if they stick with austerity it won’t be good enough. Labour are trying to be all things to all people, including big business, and I don’t think you can do that.

“They’ve got to set their stall out and say, we’re going to invest here and here, we’re going to put money in people’s pockets here.

“I don’t think it’s that difficult. Britain is the sixth richest nation in the world. It keeps saying ‘there’s no money, there’s no money’ but when there’s a war they can soon find the money for that. It doesn’t wash.”

And undoing Thatcher’s work would also involve reversal of the anti-trade union laws introduced since the 1980s.

Gillan welcomes the Employment Rights Act 2025 — but the POA has a motion calling for a second employment rights Bill coming before TUC. The 2025 Act does commit to removing some of the anti-trade union laws introduced since 2015, but doesn’t touch the restrictions imposed in the Thatcher years, such as the ban on solidarity action.

“I see the Employment Rights Act as a foundation, not a completion. Some things [in the original New Deal for Workers] have been chopped, on other issues the can’s been kicked down the road.

“In the Labour manifesto it talks about giving people more rights at work, but prison officers seem to be exempt from that. The British government is in breach of the European Social Charter and International Labour Organisation treaties for refusing to rescind Section 127 of the Criminal Justice & Public Order Act 1994 banning prison officers from striking. In Scotland the government restored the right to strike in 2015 and the sky didn’t collapse.”

Besides prison officers’ rights, Gillan sees restoration of the right to secondary action — highlighted in the POA motion — as key to rebuilding unions’ industrial strength and solidarity across workplaces, themselves key to the huge political challenge facing organised labour — the rise of the far right.

He is scathing about the “cowards” in masks blocking traffic in Dover and trying to stop refugees from being landed in Portsmouth, and says blame for incubating these toxic attitudes goes much wider than Reform UK.

“I think all political parties have got to look at the language they use at times. I think Parliament itself can sometimes be a cesspit.

“Then you’ve got these influencers online making money out of content that promotes suspicion of immigrants. The far right, and not just in this country, are very well organised on social media, and that’s promoted as we know by very wealthy people to deflect attention away from real issues and get working people fighting other working people.”

“Reform are no friends of migrants but then they are no friends of working-class people in general. They don’t care if people are living in squalor. They want to repeal all the workers’ rights we have just won in last year’s Act.

“To the government, I say don’t fall into the trap of trying to out-Reform Reform. Do the basics: deliver decent affordable housing, invest in communities, facilities. Give people hope. You don’t have hope if you’re on a zero-hours contract.

“Give people an alternative and they won’t obsess about foreigners. But the trade unions themselves have got to step up. We represent people irrespective of colour, race or religion. When we win for workers, it’s harder to divide them.

“We are getting better at confronting racism, getting into communities, challenging misinformation. We can’t leave it to other groups, though I’m not knocking Stand Up to Racism or the Together Alliance — we need to tackle the far right ourselves.”

The super-wealthy sponsors of the far right include Elon Musk, a close ally of the Donald Trump administration, and Gillan points out that the United States is playing a dangerous role now in British and international politics.

The POA has a motion calling for the British government to oppose the extraterritorial application of US sanctions that sees British firms penalised for trading with Cuba, and for it to deliver humanitarian assistance to the island given the crippling US siege. It also calls on the TUC to promote support for the Cuba Solidarity Campaign among affiliates.

And — returning to the new Labour administration — he is pleased at the ban on trade with Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land.

“Anyone fair-minded would welcome the statement by Ed Miliband this week. It is beyond time Britain took a stance on it.”

Promising beginnings, but as with Burnham’s rhetoric on undoing Thatcherism, it’s not yet clear how far things will really change. Key to that will be the unity and militancy of the trade unions themselves.

“The theme of Congress this year is, ‘Unity works.’ There are differences between unions, there will be robust debates and I look forward to chairing them.

“But co-operation will be key — to delivering insourcing, to strengthening workers’ rights, to defeating the far right. I hope the TUC Congress is a platform for that unity.”