Perhaps the earliest event in the Welsh history of organised labour came in my home town, during the 1831 Merthyr Rising.

It is said that it was here that, for the first time, a red flag was flown.

In what would sadly be the first of a series of similar events in Wales, a call for better wages and lower prices was met with violence, persecution and the hanging of Dic Penderyn.

Like many features of this part of our past — and present — trade unionism was not originally a Welsh idea.

But, like the Industrial Revolution, we took it on and contributed to it significantly, shaped it and made it our own.

The triumph of industrial Wales is that it began as an economic entity, through its exploitation of natural resources and the associated growth of heavy industries, but grew into something much stronger — community.

At the heart of the trade union movement is just this concept.

The fight for improved wages, against closure and the other actions we associate with them, are symptoms of the central struggle for the preservation and advancement of entire communities.

In that regard, trade unionism’s central mission has not changed in two centuries.

While people in Merthyr in 1831 were asking for bread, and people on the Fairyland estate in Neath today battle the bedroom tax, the enemy remains the same.

It is not only rapacious capitalism or uncaring government. It is against life getting worse.

We can start combat that by identifying the ways that the opponents of this distinguished tradition of organised labour have devised to beat it.

We may think here of Thatcher’s anti-union laws, but this war has been conducted in far more subtle ways, including a relentless, 30-year media campaign that has us price our public services rather than value them.

This has culminated in the logic demonstrated in a letter I received from Mike Penning when he was shipping minister.

In refusing to consider keeping open Swansea’s coastguard station, he argued that the city was already “well served” by the public sector because the DVLA was based there.

It’s a little bit like arguing you can close the local hospital because the school down the road has a full complement of teachers.

But most dismayingly, it betrays a fundamental and complete misreading of what public services are there to do.

How do trade unions push against a climate that allows a minister responsible for public services to think in this way, confident that public opinion is with him?

We should acknowledge the ongoing strength of trade unions. Here in Wales there are at least four times as many union members as there are members of all political parties combined.

What is less encouraging is that only a fraction of the 610,000 Welsh trade union members are mobilised.

There are good reasons for this — trade unions are creaking under the weight of casework.

I’ve spoken with trade union members I work with, and these are some of their ideas:

Combat the malaise. Trade unionism in Wales needs to be about more than just managing decline.

We need the ambition to raise the profile of trade unionism, to have it regarded as a norm here in Wales — particularly in sectors which lack a traditional base, such as contact centres, retail and care work, for example.

Send the right signals. A mature democracy can support those who chose to fight. Those representatives who have in the past refused to cross the picket should also more fully join in the fight.

Support for and celebration of trade unionism should be embedded in all aspects of Welsh government competencies and business. There are things being done in this area, but the question must remain whether this is enough.

The example here is construction blacklisting. I’m glad the Welsh government issued guidance over the summer — but was it as good as what was provided in Scotland?

Those members convince me that going back to the old ways of mass action also provides the best way of resolving the disconnect between “constitutional” and “grass-roots” campaigning.

We need Welsh councillors and assembly members (AMs) to resist any urge towards managerial consensus, and to stand besides those who are suffering the impact of austerity.

We can help by supporting concepts such as “trade union towns” — pooling local, activist strength.

Joint organising among branch activists from different unions must play a part.

If the burden of campaigning is shared by a body made up of directly elected, representative affiliates from different unions, members can be involved as a matter of course.

As community representatives, AMs are well placed to create links between both trade union activists themselves and with local campaigns.
This worked particularly well with the campaign against bedroom tax in Neath.

By putting together the two, local people were able to benefit from the campaigning expertise found in unions while trade unionists have in turn found themselves an activist base.

In many walks of life we can work together to help each other in a group situation, and trade unionism is exactly this. It’s not just a prescriptive thing, where you have to pay your dues and attend meetings.

Solidarity is instinctive, and trade unions working together and in communities can provide the answer to the problems we face.

Bethan Jenkins is Plaid Cymru AM for South Wales West. She will be putting forward this argument in a short debate in the National Assembly today.