For 45 years, ever since Margaret Thatcher was first elected, Britons have had to get used to the idea that trade unions and workers’ rights are weakening. Changes in the economy and technology, in the mindset of employers and employees, and above all in government policy have left unions and workers in a weaker position here than in most wealthy democracies. The consequences of this relentless removal of power from the majority can be seen in this country’s precarious working culture and often low wages – a status quo around which rightwing politicians, thinktanks, journalists and business interests have erected great walls of justifying arguments and rhetoric.
So the notion that this seemingly permanent shift might be reversed, through Keir Starmer’s ambitiously named “new deal for working people”, can at first be quite hard to absorb. At the TUC congress in Brighton this week, the first prime minister to address the gathering for 15 years promised “the biggest levelling up of workers’ rights in a generation”, to enthusiastic applause. Yet there were also large empty spaces in the main hall, and in the foyers where unions had exhibition stalls, which made the labour movement’s diminished state impossible to ignore.
