UNIONS have been proud champions of Welsh devolution for 50 years and expect the new, enlarged Senedd to deliver for Welsh workers, Shavanah Taj told the Wales TUC Congress today.

Ms Taj stressed Wales had been held back by successive British governments which had presided over the longest period of pay stagnation for over a century, with pay now just £12 a week higher than in 2008, a failing by successive Tory prime ministers who “have no idea what it is like to work for a living,” she charged.

The Wales TUC general secretary, addressing the conference in its 50th year, said she was proud of the progress made in that time, including making the movement more representative of the whole people of Wales. 

But “we have so much more to do, not least to bolster our movement built on class and solidarity,” she said.

“We’ve got to keep organising and growing. We need a stronger movement for future generations, because more than a quarter of children are continuing to grow up in poverty.”