TUC Congress 2024: Union leaders demand ‘different choices’ from Labour government

Union leaders have called on Labour to make “different choices” and adopt more progressive policies to avoid a repeat of Tory austerity.

Leaders of Unite, RMT and Equity took to the stage at the TUC Congress in Brighton to call for a more radical approach for the economy from the Labour government, while criticising the government’s decision to cut the winter fuel allowance for millions of pensioners.

Delegates backed a motion which called for the TUC to campaign for the government to scrap its “restrictive and arbitrary fiscal rules”, reform taxation with a wealth tax on the richest one percent and equalise capital gains tax in line with income tax. 

‘The economic path [Labour] is on is simply wrong’

Sharon Graham, general secretary of Unite, said that while she welcomed the election of a Labour government, more radical measures are needed to “fix our broken nation”.

She said: “Leadership is about choices and different choices now need to be made.

“Labour will get one shot because we know the gateway to the far-right is waiting in the wings. Workers and communities are on their knees and they cannot pay the price again for crisis after crisis that they did not create.”

While Graham said that Labour had signalled some good things, “the economic path that they are on is simply wrong”.

She said: “How can the Labour government, a Labour government, remove the winter fuel payment from pensioners, whilst the top 50 richest families are worth £500bn? How can Labour leave those people untaxed while pensioners have their pockets picked? We need a wealth tax now.”

READ MORE: LabourList poll suggests party supporters divided over winter fuel cuts

Graham said that a one percent increase in tax for the top one percent of earners would raise £25bn – “the so-called black hole gone”.

“What is wrong with that being the choice? There is money in our society. We do not need to pit pensioners against workers. We can and must make different choices,” she said.

Graham was also critical of the government’s fiscal rules and said: “There is no gold badge for reducing our debt over one Parliament.”

READ MORE: Unions demand ‘urgent action’ from government to deliver New Deal for Working People

‘We can’t stick to Tory economic rules’

Mick Lynch, general secretary of the RMT, called for Labour to announce significant real-terms increases in public spending to support public services.

“We cannot balance the books by cutting off the heating from our pensioners,” he said.

“Britain’s economy needs investment – our infrastructure and communities too. We’ve had a continuous austerity regime and now we need a labour recovery and the creation of a fair economy that works for our people.

“Labour has to find a better, fairer way to fix our economy, our NHS, our infrastructure and our communities. We cannot rely on the current fiscal strategy.

“We can’t stick to the Tory economic rules, because that means the Tories still rule the economy.”

READ MORE: Paul Nowak – Farage a ‘Putin apologist fraud’

‘Irrational to think same economic choices will produce different outcome’

Paul Fleming, general secretary of Equity, also welcomed the election of the Labour government but said: “It is irrational to think that the same economic choices of the last 14 years, the same economic structures of the last 14 years, will produce a different outcome from that which we have now.”

On the New Deal for Working People, he said: “We must not be told the bosses’ narrative that this is what will cost and limit growth – in fact, it is what will deliver it.”

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The motion called on the TUC to campaign for a “radical, progressive and credible economic strategy… as soon as possible” to influence the government’s budget on October 30.

The criticism of cuts to the winter fuel allowance come a day before a potential rebellion from Labour MPs over the issue in the Commons tomorrow.

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