TUC Congress 2026: Read General Secretary Paul Nowak’s address in full

Two months ago, I met Dorian, Said, Mohammed and their colleagues at Chase Farm – an NHS hospital.

Outsourced workers delivering vital public services.

And I’ve stood alongside countless workers like them in so many other unions.

Feeding patients. Protecting the public. Cleaning our trains.

And everywhere, everywhere the same raw deal.

Bounced from one private company to another.

Insecure contracts. No proper sick pay. Bare minimum pensions. A lack of basic respect on the job.

So today, I want to start by paying tribute to Dorian, Said, and Mohammed, and to every other outsourced worker in this country.

Our movement will not tolerate hundreds of thousands of vital workers being treated as second class citizens.

We will not accept a two-tier workforce.

And we won’t stand by while the chief executives and shareholders of the outsourcing giants rake it in at the expense of workers, service users and taxpayers.

It is time to end the outsourcing rip-off.

Time for real public services not private profit.

And time for the government to deliver what they promised  – the biggest ever wave of public sector insourcing.

And Congress, it can be done.

In June, thanks to the efforts of PCS, the then Chancellor announced plans to insource 2,000 Whitehall staff.

After years, and in some cases, decades of insecure employment FINALLY…

A civil service job.

A decent pension.

The right to take time off to look after your kids.

That’s the difference a union makes,

Sticking together and winning together, because unity works.

Just look what we have achieved in the past year:

The Employment Rights act – the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation.

Eight million workers getting sick pay from day one.

Anti-union legislation repealed.

The two-child benefit cap – scrapped.

British steel – nationalised.

Railways, back in public ownership.


Jobs in chemicals and ceramics secured.


Pay rises, back-pay, and equal pay compensation won.

Durham Pride; defunded by Reform – saved by unions.


And union membership up.

Not by a few thousand. Or 10,000. But by 192,000.

The biggest increase since records began.

So let’s say it loud and proud.  We are a movement fighting for workers. Organising for workers. And winning for workers.

Unity works because when people, their communities and their unions come together we change this country for the better.

And that change is desperately needed.

I will never talk this country down

-A place I’m proud of, where I grew up and raised my kids.

But if we’re being honest, we know that for too long, and for too many, Britain has felt broken.

Pay packets stretched thin.

High streets boarded up

Young people priced out of housing.


Public services under constant strain.

And all too often, politicians whose only answer is to stir up division, fear and hatred.

To blame someone else.

To look for convenient scapegoats.

So, my starting point is simply this.

We are better than that.

Working people are better than that.

And Britain is better than that.

The new Prime Minister has already started to give breathing space to families and businesses.

But to deliver the circuit breaker he has promised the British public, Andy Burnham is going to have to be prepared to face down vested interests.

The vested interests for whom the status quo is working just fine.

When interest rates shot up, the Tories slashed taxes for the banks.

And now Britain’s big four banks are making over £1 billion a week, while the City had its best year for bonuses since the crash.

So, you’ll excuse me if I don’t get out the world’s smallest violin for the likes of Jamie Dimon, of JP Morgan, who claim banks can’t afford to pay their fair share of tax.

Jamie, I say this with all due respect, working people bailed out the banks in 2008 – now it’s time to return the favour.

Prime Minister, you’ve said you want to go further to cut people’s energy bills. This is how to pay for it – tax the banks.

Yes, we want a growing economy.

But we want it to benefit everybody, not just the uber rich.

The number of billionaires in this country has doubled since 2010, and the FTSE 100 has hit record highs.

But in the real world, our world, one in four people are skipping meals to make ends meet.

What’s the point of GDP going up, share prices going up, and dividends going up if wages aren’t going up too?

So, Prime Minister, be clear:

If union busting tech billionaires can blast their pop star mates into space, then they can pay more tax.

If water companies can’t provide basic services because they’ve paid out huge dividends for decades, then bring them back into public ownership.

And Prime Minister, make good on another promise.

Because if dodgy bosses undercut decent employers by using casualised labour, then be clear: your government will end zero-hours contracts once and for all.

It’s time to give everyone the right to a guaranteed hours contract.

Now of course vested interests, their political puppets on the right, and the fake patriots, will warn about the perils of guaranteed hours.

Or raising the minimum wage.

Or giving workers sick pay.

Or tightening the law on fire and rehire.

I simply say this to the Prime Minister:

Ignore every single one of them.

They don’t care about British workers.

They don’t care about public services.

They only care about themselves and their bottom line.

Want proof?

Why else would Amazon, in one year alone, spend over $26 Million on union-busting consultants?

I’ll tell you why. Because they’re terrified of workers coming together to demand a fair deal.

So we are going to use that Employment Rights Act to access and organise thousands of new workplaces.

If you’re exploiting workers, if you’re treating your staff like disposable labour, then we’re putting you on notice.

Jeff Bezos – we are coming for you and every other bad boss.

I just want to take a moment to talk about self-proclaimed ‘workers’ champion’ Nigel Farage.

Who better to take on the establishment than a privately educated, ex-banker, multi- millionaire?

Who better to rattle the cages of Westminster complacency, than the 30-year career politician leading a party of Tory has-beens?

And who better to clean up politics than the man who sips champagne and eats oysters while taking dodgy donations from foreign funders?

So let’s be clear: Reform do not, never have and never will represent the interests of working people.

Tell me, why is it that two crypto billionaires have donated £72 million to Reform in just 2 days

The evidence is clear: Reform UK is a party for sale. Nigel Farage is a politician for sale. And given half the chance, they’d sell our country down the river.

Make no mistake, this is a crisis for our democracy.

We cannot allow our political system to be captured by corporate interests.

And Congress, let no one tell you there is any similarity – any similarity – between care workers chipping in a few quid a year through their union and a party bought and paid for by billionaires.

So, we need a proper conversation about how we clean up our politics that doesn’t push workers to the margins, but does stop the super rich corrupting our politics.

And here’s a starting point: Don’t live in Britain? Don’t pay your taxes in Britain? Then don’t meddle in British politics.

Christopher Harborne and the other dodgy overseas donors should be told clearly – no representation without taxation!

Want to donate to a political party? Then show us where the money is coming from. No hiding behind Bitcoin, Tether, or any other cryptocurrency. It’s time to ban crypto donations once and for all.

And want to campaign in our elections? Then no more disinformation, and no more foreign funding for political ads.

Elon Musk, keep your grubby hands out of British politics.

In June, I was in Minneapolis with the AFL-CIO and US trade unionists.

That city knows the dangers of right-wing populism.

Donald Trump sending ICE thugs onto the streets.

Mums and dads separated from their kids and deported.

And two people – Renee Goode, a mother and activist, and Alex Pretti, a nurse and trade unionist – gunned down by agents of the state in cold blood.

Is that seriously the kind of country we want to be?

Congress, – there is a direct political thread, a nasty politics, that links Nigel Farage, Rupert Lowe, and Tommy Robinson, with Donald Trump, MAGA and the US white supremacist movement.

It starts with demonising migrants.

It flies flags, not as an expression of national pride, but to intimidate.

It fans the literal flames that set fire to hostels and libraries.

And it ends up with proto-fascist mobs roaming our streets in balaclavas, targeting brave volunteers in lifeboats.

That is not the sort of Britain that decent, fair-minded people want to live in.

So I’ll say it again. We are better than that. Working people are better than that. And Britain is better than that.

A Britain at ease with itself is a Britain that can help stand up for workers here and around the globe.

Against Putin’s ongoing war of aggression in Ukraine.

Against the devastating blockade of Cuba, and threats against Greenland.

Against genocide in Gaza and the illegal occupation of the West Bank.

And on that, let me just say how proud I was to see our Prime Minister, Andy Burnham,

Ed Miliband, and the whole government do the right thing and call out the illegal occupation of the West Bank.

Name the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.

And end the trade in illegal settlement goods.

That’s a Labour government standing for international law and a system of world trade that says labour rights and human rights matter.

And that should be reflected in the way we do business here in the UK.

Our economic and national security relies on us not being agnostic about where we make stuff.

That doesn’t mean splendid isolation. It means taking the Prime Minister at his word and working with him to reindustrialise Britain.

I grew up in Merseyside in the 1980s, and I saw for myself the devastating impact of the Tories’ factory closures.

So we have a choice.

Continue down the road of 40 years of neoliberalism that has failed working people.

Or invest in our workers.

Invest in our industry.

Invest in our relationship with Europe.

So, let’s send a clear message from this Congress.

To workers in oil and gas.

To workers in nuclear and renewables.

In steel.

In ceramics.

In automotive.

Aerospace, defence and chemicals.

While Nigel Farage cheers on his mate in the White House whose tariffs are destroying jobs in the UK.

We will stand with you to Save British Industry.

Saving British industry, and securing a future for workers in oil and gas, in steel, in automotive, goes hand in hand with tackling climate change.

We are at the end of the hottest summer on record, a summer that scorched our landscape.

Now the flat earthers in Reform and the Tory Party might pretend it has nothing to do with climate change.

And Richard Tice might say we should just ‘enjoy the heat.

But I dare him – dare him – to say that to the firefighters battling wildfires.

To railway workers and passengers injured when tracks buckle in the heat.

To nurses fainting in hospitals.

To bus drivers trying not to pass out behind the wheel.

So let me say it clearly.

Climate change is real and we need to act.

That means bold climate action, underpinned by good, unionised jobs And it means keeping our workplaces safe

It is time for a maximum legal working temperature.

Congress, the way we can win change is by organising together.

Because if there’s one thing we’ve learned throughout our history, then it’s this:

Unity works.

One hundred years ago, this Congress met in Bournemouth, in the aftermath of the great general strike of 1926.

Four months earlier, two million workers had answered the call to support mineworkers brutalised and impoverished by the pit owners.

It was a singular moment of solidarity.

A moment when men and women across this country, many of whom had never set foot in a coalfield, took the decision to stand with their fellow workers.

Not for personal gain.

Not because of ideology.

But because they believed in the basic adage that an injury to one, is an injury to all.

Now that strike ended in defeat, but it was an incredible demonstration of working-class unity.

And it paved the way for a bold Labour government that established the NHS, the welfare state, and built hundreds of thousands of council homes, alongside half a century of rising union membership.

A hundred years on, we are still here and we are still fighting for working people every day.

So, to everyone in this room.

And to every union member and rep out there in workplaces.

Keep doing what you do to win for workers every day.

To politicians and employers.

Work with us to make Britain a country where growth is felt by everybody, in every region and nation,

in every postcode.

And to those who aren’t yet a union member, if your employer is giving you a rotten deal, if you’re being treated unfairly,

if your pay packet doesn’t reflect the hard work you put in…

…it doesn’t have to be that way.

Come together, with your colleagues, fight for a better deal… and JOIN A UNION.

Together,

Workplace by workplace

Campaign by campaign

Community by community

We’ll build a better, fairer Britain.

Solidarity everyone.

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