Skip to main content
A significant step in moving our fair work mission forward in Wales
The Social Partnership Bill represents a real opportunity, says SHAVANAH TAJ
COMPARING NOTES: Labour Party leader Keir Starmer (centre) and First Minister of Wales Mark Drakeford (left) during a walkabout in Llangollen as part of Welsh Labour’s Senedd election campaign last Thursday

PROGRESS on the Welsh government’s fair work agenda has been stop-start in the two years since the independent Fair Work Commission published its ambitious set of recommendations. 

For the most part, the hurdles and delays have been linked to external events — a general election, Brexit, Covid — but nevertheless as a trade union movement we’ve been impatient to see the Welsh Labour administration in Cardiff go further and faster with the powers that it has at its disposal to tackle poor employment practices, inequality, and to strengthen worker power. 

This desire for change is driven in Wales by the same trends seen elsewhere in the UK and beyond: a decade of stagnant wages and the sharp growth of insecure and precarious work.  

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
CRUNCH TIME: (Left to right) Wales Green Party Leader Anthony Slaughter, Reform UK’s Dan Thomas, Welsh Labour Leader and First Minister Eluned Morgan and Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth
Features / 7 May 2026
7 May 2026

The election offers a critical chance to shape the future of pay, care and community provision in Wales, says Unison’s JESS TURNER

NATIONALISATION CALL UNHEEDED: Assorted notables at the location of the new Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) on Monday July 14 2025 - Tata Steel gets £500 million while the local population a loss of 2,800 job
Wales / 28 February 2026
28 February 2026

LUKE FLETCHER outlines Plaid Cymru bold plans for wide-ranging policy consultations with trade unions in Wales

Junior doctors on the picket line outside St Thomas' Hospital, London, during their continuing dispute over pay. Picture date: Thursday June 27, 2024
Workers' Rights / 18 July 2025
18 July 2025

It is only trade union power at work that will materially improve the lot of working people as a class but without sector-wide collective bargaining and a right to take sympathetic strike action, we are hamstrung in the fight to tilt back the balance of power, argues ADRIAN WEIR

Striking school support workers taking part in a demonstration outside First Minister John Swinney's constituency office in Blairgowrie, October 24, 2024
Features / 17 June 2025
17 June 2025

KEVAN NELSON reveals how, through its Organising to Win strategy, which has launched targeted campaigns like Pay Fair for Patient Care, Britain’s largest union bucked the trend of national decline by growing by 70,000 members in two years