In some ways, it’s a great time to be a trade unionist in Britain. The anti-worker prime minister has just resigned. A wave of strikes, unprecedented in recent times, is continuing across the country with an unusual degree of public support. The free-market model that since the 80s has made working life so harsh for so many Britons is now widely discredited – not least by its association with Liz Truss. It’s possible that an economy will emerge instead where unions are valued rather than dismissed or hated.
At this week’s TUC conference in Brighton, even before Truss resigned, the general secretary, Frances O’Grady, was able to say in her speech, without it sounding like wishful thinking, “We are winning.” Along a sunny seafront and in expectant meeting rooms, new union celebrities such as the RMT’s Mick Lynch and Unite’s Sharon Graham carried themselves with a a confidence that felt almost startling after all the cautious, downbeat union leaders of recent history. Graham boasted to the Morning Star that this year Unite had won 81% of its disputes.
