TUC NORTHERN is delighted to welcome our affiliate unions from across north-east England and Cumbria for the first time since the pandemic began.

Our 2022 regional conference has a packed agenda, a full conference hall and over 25 unions, trades councils and supporting organisations in attendance. It is promising to be a lively day.

It is such a timely conference too. We all now know from the Spring Statement that, once again, working people are going to bear the brunt of rising global prices and the impact on local pricing will increase every household bill as a consequence.

The government’s abject failure to ensure the Budget provides anything of substance to hold corporate wealth to account is nothing short of a travesty in the face of hardship at levels we have not seen in decades.

Having already borne the brunt of austerity and the hardship of the pandemic, 800 workers took the impact of the shocking and aggressive sackings from P&O Ferries last week.

The company made no meaningful apology and simply said they would do it again.

Its parent company is a global logistics giant with operations penetrating every corner of the world. Its behaviour doesn’t just affect us here, it affects workers everywhere.

Corporate greed has been allowed to flourish during the pandemic, with companies making decisions to protect their interests over and above working people.

We have companies like Switzer here in our region, whose parent company has reported billions in profits while it refuses pay rises to its workforce.

The never-ending pay squeeze, the longest since the Napoleonic wars, is set to continue.

Real pay growth fell by 1.5 per cent over the year — that’s the steepest decline in eight years. This decline, coupled with the eye-watering increases in household bills, is leaving workers desperate. Everything is going up except pay.

Our unions have a number of motions to debate which address how we intend to campaign to achieve pay rises here in the north-east and Cumbria while joining forces across Britain.

In short — Britain needs a pay rise, a topic Frances O’Grady will be addressing at our conference.

On top of poor wages, thousands of workers across the region face job insecurity.

The north-east is regularly highlighted as a hot spot for bogus self-employment, zero-hours contracts and multiple employments to make ends meet. All of this is leaving thousands of working families trapped in in-work poverty.

These families aren’t in poverty because of uncontrollable forces or factors — they are in poverty because of the policy decisions made by this government, repeated yet again this week in the Budget announcement.

Poverty can be eradicated, but only if leaders are committed to doing so. Our leaders struggle to even say the word.

And we are still waiting for meaningful action on levelling up. There is a very serious debate to be had here in this region.

We are having a short debate in the conference with the North of Tyne Combined Authority Mayor Jamie Driscoll, the only elected mayor who is prepared to stand with unions and address our concerns.

It will be the first of many held with elected politicians where the merits and challenges of devolution and achieving decent work will be addressed.

Right now there isn’t a light at the end of the poverty tunnel. There is no suggestion that the government is interested in repairing the damage caused by years of cuts and underinvestment in the north-east, let alone supporting the region to recover from the pandemic or protect us from the prevailing cost of living crisis.

We are going to be agreeing actions and campaigns to address how everyone can benefit from decent work and plan to raise workers’ voices in campaigns and elections around the region to fight for not only decent work, but also a future that leads us into a high-wage economy where local communities and the businesses that operate there can flourish.

And there is no better place to see this come to life than at our regional annual conference.

With a rich diversity of backgrounds and opinions, we all have one thing in common — a desire to make our workplaces and communities better and fairer for everyone.

Delegates will discuss the urgent need for adequate funding for public services and the importance of public transport investment across the region. We will discuss the power of education and the potential to address levelling up and future environmental challenges through it.

We will discuss the importance and socio-economic impact of the arts and creative industries to the wider society. We will discuss protecting retail workers from abuse and the importance of fair and decent work for all. We will agree actions for a major programme of pay restoration.

Over the next 12 months these discussions will be turned into action and we will see another year of the trade union movement fighting, day in and day out, for dignity, equality and justice for all working people.