The Trades Union Congress general secretary urged the Labour government on Monday to show "whose side it is on," calling for immediate policy moves to improve living standards for working-class communities after a recent cabinet reshuffle.
Paul Nowak, speaking at the TUC's annual congress in Brighton, said Labour's promise of change since the last election "doesn't feel like a lived reality" and argued ministers must make "the right political choices" to convince voters they are on their side. He called for the two-child benefit cap to be lifted and said the measure should be paid for by new taxes on wealth.
The intervention was echoed by other union leaders, who issued both political warnings and practical demands. Sharon Graham, general secretary of Unite, said delegates had voted in the summer to re-examine the union's relationship with Labour and told the BBC that members would be given the opportunity at a future conference to vote on whether to disaffiliate. She said the link is worth about £1.3 million a year to Labour and predicted that Reform UK would be the chief beneficiary if Labour failed to improve living standards.
"Instinctively, workers don't feel that Labour is on their side," Graham said. "We will be giving our members the opportunity to vote on whether to remain part of Labour when the time comes. If that vote was today, I think they'd vote to disaffiliate. There's no doubt about that in my mind."
Christina McAnea, leader of the UK's largest union, warned ministers against diluting the Employment Rights Bill, which is due to become law in a few weeks. The bill would introduce a major overhaul of workers' rights, including enhanced protection against unfair dismissal and a ban on "exploitative" zero-hours contracts. McAnea said she feared the government might not be committed to implementing the legislation in full following the resignation of the deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, and the ensuing reshuffle.
Labour has defended its record, saying it is delivering the biggest uplift in workers' rights in a generation and that wages are now rising faster than prices. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said the next phase of government will focus on "delivery, delivery, delivery" of its promises.
Union leaders set out an explicit timetable for change. Graham warned Labour had "about a year to get this right," saying failure to take "quite radical" action would lead to voters moving away from the party. Nowak framed his demands in terms of practical policy choices that would tangibly affect working-class communities.
The warnings come at a politically sensitive moment for Labour. The party carried strong union support into office, and trade unions have long provided organisational and financial backing. Any move by a major union to disaffiliate would carry both symbolic and material consequences, reducing a traditional source of funding and grassroots mobilisation for the party.
The Employment Rights Bill has been a focal point of union attention. It has been presented by ministers as part of a wider programme to strengthen workplace protections and address insecure work. Union leaders say watering down the bill would undermine those goals and risk deepening the sense among members and voters that Labour has drifted from its commitments.
Labour ministers have so far reiterated their commitment to improving pay and workers' rights, but the interventions from the TUC, Unite and other unions underscore the pressure on the government to translate electoral promises into policies that unions and their members can see and feel.
As unions press for policy changes and clearer signals of priority from ministers, party strategists will be weighing the political risks of reshaping legislation against the consequences of alienating a core constituency. The coming months are likely to test how the government balances commitments to legislative delivery with the immediate demands of organised labour.