In 1834 six agricultural labourers were sentenced to seven years’ penal transportation to Australia. Their crime? Forming a trades union to defend their living standards.  

Although trades unions or “friendly societies” were technically legal following the passing of the Combinations of Workmen Act 1825, their activity was strictly monitored.  

A local landowner and magistrate James Frampton, having sought advice from the government, invoked an obscure law — the Unlawful Oaths Act 1797 — which prevented the swearing of secret oaths and had the men arrested.  

They were pardoned after two years following mass protests and returned to England.  Every year, we commemorate the Tolpuddle Martyrs, not only as an example of being able to freely join trades unions but also having the right to challenge unjust laws.  

The trade union movement has made significant advances both in reducing the working day and improving health and safety.  

Let’s not forget it was working people coming back from the horrors of war in 1945 vowing never to go back to Victorian-style conditions which ultimately led to the election of the Attlee Labour government. This led to a radical social democratic transformation in healthcare, education and housing in Britain.  

Nothing ever stays the same and history never repeats itself exactly. However, in these unprecedented times of a global corona pandemic, trade unions have undergone a resurgence with more people joining and they are once again part of the national conversation.  

My own union PCS has won significant concessions across the Civil Service in terms of safety and securing home working arrangements during lockdown.  

Most of our members have not been furloughed and have been continuing to help jobseekers and social security claimants access the benefits they need. Now with offices possibly opening soon, the union is demanding fitted screens, PPE, hand sanitisers and proper risk assessments to be carried out in conjunction with our representatives.  

Our HMRC members have also been performing wonders, not only collecting tax but administering the furlough scheme for businesses, despite huge cuts and the threat of office closures prior to the pandemic. 

PCS members in Parliament are working hard to keep our democracy functioning and border force staff have had to fight tooth and nail to get PPE, with reports of some managers saying wearing a mask “gives the wrong impression to the travelling public.” 

Our union has always had the view no-one should be made to go back to the workplace until it is safe to return.  

On top of the health dangers associated with Covid, the government will soon begin to withdraw support for paying wages and we are already starting to see the consequences of Covid on the economy.  

One of the major casualties has been the culture sector with 200 staff at the Tate being put at risk of redundancy. 

Seeing no choice but to take a stand, our members will be balloting for industrial action to protect their livelihoods and ultimately preserve important cultural locations which are an integral part of the social fabric.

As we have seen with the mass support for the Black Lives Matter movement across the world, there is hunger for change, and we can take further inspiration from the example of  the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) in Oakland in America organising 29 shutdowns in solidarity with the anti-racist protesters. 

I have always believed that you need strong unions in alliance with others to achieve social change. Trades unions are democratic bodies, run by people who produce the wealth and service to any country.  

Looking toward a grim economic horizon, we must build union density in our workplaces and be ready to exercise our industrial strength where workers think it is right to do so.  

But it is also important that unions build a political consciousness too, one that shows working people that the current economic system is unsustainable. It is only by building a socialist society that our ultimate goal as working people will be achieved. 

In the words of George Loveless one of the Tolpuddle leaders:  
“We come, our country's rights to save, 
And speak a tyrant faction's doom: 
We raise the watch-word liberty; 
We will, we will, we will be free!”