YOU would think that given the improvements that trade union activists are making year in year out that we would be running out of things to debate and vote on at conferences such as the one we are holding this week in Southport.

But no such thing. With more than 100 motions, covering a multiplicity of subjects gracing our agenda, it demonstrates that there is no room for complacency.

Whether it is hostile governments or unscrupulous employers, workers find themselves being forced to defend protective legislation and longestablished negotiated terms and conditions across many workplaces.

Within the food industry, since the inception of the government’s joke living wage, we have seen a number of employers jumping on the passing bandwagon to cut premium payments to compensate for the uplift in hourly rates benevolently given by George Osborne.

Over the past month, our members at Pennine Foods in Sheffield and RF Brookes in Newport have held a series of 48-hour walkouts, which have demonstrated that there is an appetite among working people to fight back.

Our members, supported by many members of other trade unions, members of the community and friends and family, have remained solid in action and solid in resolve.

We will continue to support them and would hope that other trade unionists will help ensure that they are not starved back to work or forced into submission.

The movement needs victories when faced with such unparalleled attacks, and champions to drive our great movement forward.

The Samworth Brothers Group is another company which believes its workers are being paid too much, so the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU) is assisting the thousands of workers to fight back.

Samworth Brothers, a major donor to the Tory Party, is dragging its feet so far as discussing recognition is concerned, and its answer has been to sack one of our lead activists, Kumaran Bose, from its Kettleby Foods plant in Leicester.

This manufacturer of products such as Ginsters pasties cannot be allowed to get away with such an unprecedented attack and will face a response to the highest possible level.

We need to appeal to as many individuals in the movement as possible to write to Paul.Davey@BradgateBakery.co.uk to register your disgust at this treatment of a trade union activist whose only crime was to object to the company driving workers’ wages to poverty levels.

It is about time that the profit-makers got a little more of the profits when the profit-takers divide the pie.

The BFAWU members are not unique in these attacks on workers’ premium payments. Tesco, B&Q and many other top retailers are also making cuts, so there is dialogue to be had between unions on how we can co-ordinate action to best defend our members.

Without doubt, these attacks will continue while we have a government and a Prime Minister who makes Thatcher’s shower look like a kindergarten outing.

A government that brings in a socalled living wage and then does not legislate to protect workers from cuts has only one desire, and that is to depress wages even further.

We were told by David Cameron during the election campaign that the Tories were the real workers’ party, but what we have seen is continued austerity, greater dependence on foodbanks, cuts to welfare benefits and anti-worker legislation.

People say it could be worse, we could have Trump with all his prejudices. But would it be worse? The Tories ran a racist campaign against Sadiq Khan in London, allowed Jeremy Hunt to propose junior doctors’ contracts that are discriminatory to women, cuts to disability benefits and don’t forget the Trade Union Act.

If I get told once more that we won victories for the movement between the Trade Union Bill being tabled and it becoming an Act, I will scream. We won some concessions and that is all.

Not having the Bill in the first place would have looked like a victory. Seeing the repeal of Thatcher’s anti-trade union legislation would look like a victory.

Allowing trade unions like the Prison Officers Association the right to strike would have been a victory. And stopping companies from plundering the terms and conditions of already impoverished workers would have been a victory.

It is exactly one year since this union became the first to ensure Jeremy Corbyn was nominated as leader of the Labour Party, because we believed working people needed a leader who spoke their language and understood their needs.

After 12 short months, despite the backstabbing from some of Jeremy’s own MPs, we are pleased that his drive for a fairer deal is undiminished and his commitment to the less fortunate in our society is as strong as ever.

Working people need a change of government at the soonest possible opportunity, but above all they need strong, committed trade unions if they are ever to share in the vast wealth available in this country. Solidarity.

• Ronnie Draper is general secretary of the BFAWU.