Union leaders will this week go to war with Sir Keir Starmer on wages, winter fuel payments and workers’ rights.
As the first TUC conference under a Labour government for 15 years opens in Brighton, the prime minister faces a massive list of demands.
Ahead of the conference, the TUC is claiming workers were “cheated” out of £2bn of holiday pay last year under the Conservatives.
“The Conservative government sat back and let bad employers cheat their staff out of their basic workplace rights,” said general secretary Paul Nowak.
“Tory ministers were more concerned about stopping people getting what they were due by introducing anti-union measures, than funding enforcement bodies properly.”
The unions’ latest demands come after inflation-busting pay deals for train drivers and doctors which senior Tories claim were payback time for bankrolling the Labour Party.
Sir Keir is due to address the conference on Tuesday and Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, will speak at the traditional TUC general council dinner on Monday evening.
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On holiday pay, the TUC claims more than a million workers – one in 25 – did not get any of the 28 days paid holiday or equivalent they were entitled to last year, adding up to £2bn in lost holiday pay at an average £1,800 per employee.
Low-paid workers were said to be most at risk and the jobs with the highest numbers of staff losing out were waiters and waitresses (59,000), care workers and home carers (55,000), and kitchen and catering assistants (50,000).
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The TUC also claims millions of workers are missing out on other employment rights due to a lack of enforcement and that 365,000 workers – more than one in five – are underpaid the minimum wage.
Unions are launching a five-point plan for stronger enforcement of employment rights, including fines, more inspectors and inspections, extending licensing and a crackdown on exploitation of migrant workers.
Despite the bumper pay deals for train drivers and doctors to end their strikes, Mr Nowak is also demanding “pay restoration” for public sector workers, a big increase in capital gains tax and a wealth tax.
Image: TUC general secretary Paul Nowak in 2023. Pic: PA
Ahead of a Commons vote on Tuesday, a motion in Brighton proposed by the giant Unite union, the shopworkers’ union USDAW and the public sector union PCS is expected to be backed by the conference.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said this weekend: “Why are Labour picking the pockets on the winter fuel payments instead of making those with the broadest shoulders actually pay.”
And in today’s Sunday People newspaper she calls on the chancellor to tax the rich to fund winter fuel payments, with a wealth tax to pay for a benefit U-turn.
Unions will also demand reassurances that Ms Rayner’s promised workers’ rights legislation, due next month, will not be slimmed down in response to pressure from employers.
Sir Keir has committed himself to introducing the legislation within 100 days of taking office and unions have already warned the government there will be outrage if that timetable slips.
It is “shameful” that black boys growing up in London are “far more likely” to die than white boys, Metropolitan Police chief Sir Mark Rowley has told Sky News.
Sir Mark, who came out of retirement to become head of the UK’s largest police force in 2022, said: “We can’t pretend otherwise that we’ve got a history between policing and black communities where policing has got a lot wrong.
“And we get a lot more right today, but we do still make mistakes. That’s not in doubt. I’m being as relentless in that as it can be.”
He said the “vast majority” of the force are “good people”.
However, he added: “But that legacy, combined with the tragedy that some of this crime falls most heavily in black communities, that creates a real problem because the legacy creates concern.”
Sir Mark, who also leads the UK’s counter-terrorism policing, said it is “not right” that black boys growing up in London “are far more likely to be dead by the time they’re 18” than white boys.
“That’s, I think, shameful for the city,” he admitted.
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Baroness Casey was commissioned in 2021 to look into the Met Police after serving police officer Wayne Couzens abducted, raped and murdered Sarah Everard.
She pinned the primary blame for the Met’s culture on its past leadership and found that stop and search and the use of force against black people was excessive.
At the time, Sir Mark, who had been commissioner for six months when the report was published, said he would not use the labels of institutionally racist, institutionally misogynistic and institutionally homophobic, which Casey insisted the Met deserved.
However, London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who helped hire Sir Mark – and could fire him – made it clear the commissioner agreed with Baroness Casey’s verdict.
After the report was released, Sir Mark said “institutional” was political language so he was not going to use it, but he accepted “we have racists, misogynists…systematic failings, management failings, cultural failings”.
A few months after the report, Sir Mark launched a two-year £366m plan to overhaul the Met, including increased emphasis on neighbourhood policing to rebuild public trust and plans to recruit 500 more community support officers and an extra 565 people to work with teams investigating domestic violence, sexual offences and child sexual abuse and exploitation.
Watch the full interview on Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips from 8.30am on Sunday.
Labour’s largest union donor, Unite, has voted to suspend Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner over her role in the Birmingham bin strike row.
Members of the trade union, one of the UK’s largest, also “overwhelmingly” voted to “re-examine its relationship” with Labour over the issue.
They said Ms Rayner, who is also housing, communities and local government secretary, Birmingham Council’s leader, John Cotton, and other Labour councillors had been suspended for “bringing the union into disrepute”.
There was confusion over Ms Rayner’s membership of Unite, with her office having said she was no longer a member and resigned months ago and therefore could not be suspended.
But Unite said she was registered as a member. Parliament’s latest register of interests had her down as a member in May.
The union said an emergency motion was put to members at its policy conference in Brighton on Friday.
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Unite is one of the Labour Party’s largest union donors, donating £414,610 in the first quarter of 2025 – the highest amount in that period by a union, company or individual.
The union condemned Birmingham’s Labour council and the government for “attacking the bin workers”.
Mountains of rubbish have been piling up in the city since January after workers first went on strike over changes to their pay, with all-out strike action starting in March. An agreement has still not been made.
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Ms Rayner and the councillors had their membership suspended for “effectively firing and rehiring the workers, who are striking over pay cuts of up to £8,000”, the union added.
‘Missing in action’
General secretary Sharon Graham told Sky News on Saturday morning: “Angela Rayner, who has the power to solve this dispute, has been missing in action, has not been involved, is refusing to come to the table.”
She had earlier said: “Unite is crystal clear, it will call out bad employers regardless of the colour of their rosette.
“Angela Rayner has had every opportunity to intervene and resolve this dispute but has instead backed a rogue council that has peddled lies and smeared its workers fighting huge pay cuts.
“The disgraceful actions of the government and a so-called Labour council, is essentially fire and rehire and makes a joke of the Employment Relations Act promises.
“People up and down the country are asking whose side is the Labour government on and coming up with the answer not workers.”
Image: Piles of rubbish built up around Birmingham because of the strike over pay
Sir Keir Starmer’s spokesman said the government’s “priority is and always has been the residents of Birmingham”.
He said the decision by Unite workers to go on strike had “caused disruption” to the city.
“We’ve worked to clean up streets and remain in close contact with the council […] as we support its recovery,” he added.
A total of 800 Unite delegates voted on the motion.
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