TODAY 150 trade unionists will gather at Blackpool Winter Gardens to decide on North West TUC priorities for the coming year at our annual regional conference.

As ever with conferences, there are a range of motions — 21 in total — from affiliates on subjects that include pay and the economy through to mental health at work and international motions on Palestine and Iraq. The diversity of our movement will be reflected in the delegates, debates and decisions.

It’s easy to be cliched about these things but the importance of this conference cannot be underestimated. In February we marked Fair Pay Fortnight, when we revealed that workers in the region are over £2,400 a year worse off since 2010, making our case pretty clear for why the north-west needs a pay rise.

Forty days from now we go to polling stations in what is the most important election in a generation, with the hope that where voters place their cross on the ballot paper will see the policies we want enacted.

Last year we set out many of our arguments for these policies. We have, as a collective, campaigned in workplaces and communities during Fair Pay Fortnight and Decent Jobs Week.

There was breakfast with Labour MP and shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna and a group of north-west workers telling him their real life stories, and afternoon tea with Mark Carney highlighting the difference between Kensington and Chelsea and Kensington, Liverpool, when it comes to economic recovery. 

In between there has been a lot more — supporting the work of Hope Not Hate and Unite Against Fascism in their campaign to successfully rid the region of Nick Griffin as MEP, co-ordinating and supporting industrial action with affiliates, providing digital access for some of the most disadvantaged communities in Liverpool, campaigning for the renationalisation of our railways and highlighting the devastating impact of austerity on our communities, including an in-depth case study on cuts to adult and children’s social care in Blackpool. I could go on.

Our conference this weekend will re-affirm our commitment to many of these issues. There is a motion on the economy that sets out opposition to the ideology of George Osborne and this government.

There are motions on pay, which include ending the public-sector pay freeze and increasing the minimum wage and the spread of the living wage, alongside enforcement of the minimum wage for seafarers.

Others focus on cuts to emergency services and our opposition to education privatisation. Whatever the political make-up of the next government, more needs to be done to convince decision-makers of our arguments.

Underpinning all of this will be the messages of solidarity and the need for strong trade unions. For the first time in a number of years, we have an international section to our conference. A warm “welcome home” message sent to the Miami 5 will be followed by a motion on Solidarity with Palestine and another on Iraq to mark the 10th anniversary of the martyrdom of Hadi Saleh, an international officer of the Iraqi trade union movement and send support to that movement, GFITU, in their campaign to reform labour laws.

Conference will also hear from Abdullah Muhsin, international officer at NASUWT, who is an Iraqi national and will talk to delegates about the situation for trade unions in his home country.

Here in the north-west, trade union membership is strong, membership density is amongst the highest in Britain and collective bargaining coverage here is above the national average.

But continual attacks on public-sector jobs and the constant shift of our employment base to one that is ever more insecure and unstable has impacted on the strength of our unions. Rather than rolling over to die, this has to be a challenge we all accept — to rebuild strong unions, to increase recruitment and build on our organising work, to reach workers who have never felt the benefits, allowing more to feel the strength and security of strong unions and collective bargaining. Our conference will set out its commitment to this today.

So just a matter of weeks away from the general election, the North West TUC will set out clear and inspiring messages about the cost of living, the need for secure and stable employment, a future for our young people, decent public services, a welfare system that supports those in need, an end to the gender pay gap and a political and economic system to support all of this. A regional conference with an agenda that will give voice to the near one million workers our unions in the north-west represent.

• Lynn Collins is North West TUC regional secretary.