THIS year, for the first time, every trade unionist can join us at Congress. 

This is our annual chance to set the priorities for the whole movement — and we were determined that it would go ahead. 

So consider yourselves invited. You can join from your home or workplace both mornings. 

The agenda is packed. Facing the deepest recession of our lifetimes, we have lots to debate and discuss.

Top of the agenda is keeping everyone safe at work. Never forget the workers in the NHS and social care forced to work with inadequate PPE at the start of the crisis. 

The pandemic exposed the folly of 10 years of cuts to the Health and Safety Executive, meaning that bad employers can play fast and loose with workers’ safety. 

We saw in Leicester and at food processing plants around the country how the virus takes advantage of poor working conditions. 

As we head into the winter, the risk of a second spike only increases — and alongside it, the renewed spectre of mass unemployment. 

As always, the trade union movement stands for full employment — and for government action to secure people’s jobs and livelihoods. 

Ending furlough abruptly in October sets up a cliff-edge — and could push hundreds of thousands out of work. 

As always, it’s the working class that will pay the price of mass unemployment. And it’s working people that got us through this pandemic. 

As a trade union movement, we will pay tribute to the key workers that kept on going out to work in vital roles while everyone else locked down at home. 

And we will demand the pay rise they have earned — decent settlements in the public sector, a ban on zero-hours contracts and false self-employment in this autumn’s Employment Bill, and the real Living Wage for everyone. 

Ged Nichols hopes readers will sign up to ‘Virtual Congress’ online

Some were hit harder than others. This trade union movement stands for women’s equality — and demands support for the childcare sector to stop women being pushed out of the labour market. 

We oppose the government’s inaction that is leading to disabled and shielding workers being forced to return to workplaces before they feel safe, and unfairly targeted for redundancy. 

In a special debate, we will proclaim our solidarity with Black Lives Matter — recommitting the trade union movement to anti-racism and an active campaign for justice for black workers, here in Britain and worldwide. 

And we will as always stand with trade unionists fighting oppression worldwide — in Palestine, Turkey, Colombia, Belarus and elsewhere.  
 
The big debates will be on the mornings of September 14 and 15. We’ll hear from front-line workers and union leaders from across the movement, and we’ll have keynote speeches from the leader of the opposition, Keir Starmer, and the TUC’s general secretary, Frances O’Grady.

In the afternoons, we will have a full fringe programme of debates, discussions and seminars, run by organisations from across the labour movement. 

I am proud to be TUC president this year, and I am proud that, despite everything, Congress is going ahead, and is open to every trade union member.

Every autumn, Congress is our moment to demand change for working people. Join us. Sign up to attend now at tuc.org.uk/news/sign-latest-tuc-congress-2020-updates. 

Ged Nichols is general secretary of Accord and president of the TUC.