The National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) says

This year’s NSSN conference takes place exactly one year since Starmer formed his Labour government. Yet we still face job cuts, there is no respite from the public sector funding crisis, and privatisation is being ramped up in our NHS. Workers fighting back still face Tory limits on the right to strike.

This will be a conference that brings together trade union fighters from strikes and workplaces across the country, to discuss both how we can build the fight in each of our unions, and how we can campaign for coordination.

Building solidarity with the heroic striking Birmingham bin workers is a key task for the trade union movement, including linking up council workers nationally. Those workers are defending jobs and fighting massive pay cuts from a Labour council that is using every means at its disposal to attack the strike – backed by Starmer’s Labour government.

We will also discuss the essential role of the union movement in cutting across the racist division of the populist and far right, that only strengthens the bosses. Make the super-rich pay, not the workers!

Why young workers are going to NSSN conference

‘The unions need a more bold, fighting, unified stance against austerity’

Jay Coward, Equity member

The pandemic gave working-class people the chance to realise just what ‘normal’ was disrupted and what ‘normal’ we were being shoved back into. It was followed by a strike wave the likes of which we haven’t seen for decades. Overseas we witness a Palestinian genocide, American police brutality and more, that our government lends its support to.

Labour has taken power over the Tories and nothing has changed, the Greens and Reform exist offering no concrete way forward for the working class, and we have decades of Tory austerity to reverse.

From all this an answer has been made clear. The unions need to mount a real fightback. And that needs to include discussing a new political option that comes from the working class. The Socialist Party has long advocated for a new mass workers’ party led by trade unions, for the trade unions to take a more bold, fighting, unified stance against austerity. Not just fighting it in fragments but winning against it in entirety.

And what better chance is there to build that, than a conference of working-class fighters? That is why I most definitely will be in attendance at this year’s NSSN conference.

‘First-hand experience of brutal system – we need a united response’

Rees Melville, Trainee teacher

As a trainee teacher, I’m experiencing first-hand how brutal the education system has become, not just for students, but for staff at every level. I’m working full-time on placement, unpaid, surviving on a student loan, while being pushed to perform the duties of a fully qualified teacher. Many trainees are isolated in Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs) with poor conditions and little support. Mentors are overworked, and curriculum training is threadbare. This crisis is no accident; it’s the result of years of cuts and privatisation. I’ll be attending this year’s NSSN conference to draw on the experience of union reps across all sectors, to better understand how we can link the fight for workers’ rights with the broader political struggle for real representation. In a period where public services are under attack, Starmer’s Labour offers no serious alternative. He has walked back on promises to repeal anti-union laws and scrap zero-hour contracts, while backing academisation in education. That’s why the NSSN conference is vital, in fighting to coordinate action, build solidarity with strikes, and plan a united response to the next wave of attacks on the working class.