SEPTEMBER is here and London is drifting back to work after the summer break. 

At TUC head office in Great Russell Street, though, general secretary Frances O’Grady is already in the thick of it as she prepares for the congress’s 2014 conference. 

It’s still the school holidays, however, so my seven-year-old is perched on the sofa next to O’Grady, quietly drawing pictures of her throwing rocks at David Cameron. 

I should point out that, in real life, O’Grady would almost certainly never throw rocks at the PM — but she accepts the artwork with generous enthusiasm all the same. 

She’s had a holiday, but nothing on the scale of the aforementioned gent’s seemingly endless Cornwall staycation. 

On that subject, O’Grady offers a firm commitment to the people of Britain. 

“I can promise here and now, you’ll never get me climbing into a wetsuit.”

I suspect that, put to a vote, a consensus might find photos of O’Grady a less challenging view than recent ones of our glorious leader — but we have to move on to even more important policy issues and save the campaign for a TUC/PM surf-off for Twitter. 

The relationship between the TUC and grass-roots membership has traditionally been volatile. 

Members can see the general secretary as an out-of-touch bureaucrat with little understanding of their lives and hardships, while the right portray him — before O’Grady, it was always him — as a rabid revolutionary, hell-bent on wrecking the economy and all that is great in Britain. 

O’Grady, appointed in 2013, has rather spoilt the age-old rituals — her obvious sincerity has won sometimes grudging respect from both sides. 

In conversation, her belief in the importance of the power and agency of working people is palpable. She views the TUC as a facilitator of, rather than a necessary brake on, working-class struggles. 

Talking about this year’s TUC conference, she’s genuinely enthused by the sense of political purpose reflected in the motions union members have voted on to its agenda. 

Successful motions will form TUC policy and instruct O’Grady and her executive for the next year. 

They can run strongly counter to current policy and, as such, aren’t always a source of unmitigated joy to union leaders. 

By contrast, O’Grady seems delighted by her members’ intent. 

“Looking at the agenda you can see the sense of seriousness that’s out there. Working people are saying: ‘We’re not going away, we’re not giving up. We’re not going to quieten down about fair pay, on the public-sector wage campaign. We’re here to stay.’

“They’re telling the government, all your austerity measures have not crushed us. 

“In fact, I see an increased appetite for fighting back and a different mood in the country as a whole.”

O’Grady doesn’t mince words on the damage done by austerity policies. 

“Low pay is outrageous! The government keeps talking about economic recovery. Even we (at the TUC) were honestly expecting to see some recovery reflected in pay. We’re shocked and angry that it’s not being fed through. All ordinary workers are worried. They’re emptying savings accounts, borrowing, getting into debt.”

While the Chancellor tells us that a higher minimum wage is simply not possible, O’Grady is having none of it. The TUC has crunched the numbers thoroughly and is adamant that a higher minimum wage is entirely affordable. 

“They absolutely could pay more. The work we’ve done proves it — we’ve annihilated the affordability argument. 

“There could be higher minimum wages in industries like contract cleaning, food manufacture and care, tomorrow, and there should be. It would help small businesses who can’t recruit and retain staff. It’s about fair pay, not greed. No-one should apologise for wanting a fair wage.”

It’s O’Grady’s job to canvas a wide range of views, from cleaners to reforming Tories to the Bank of England. 

When she meets one-to-one with the — presumably not be-wetsuited — PM, she does her utmost to present a spectrum of views — and she points out that TUC members by no means sing from one hymn sheet in any case. 

A number are Conservative voters, and the TUC’s role is to represent members regardless of how they vote. 

However, she is noticing a new and considerable unease from even the right on the current situation. 

“I meet with Bright Blue (reforming Conservatives) and some of them think it’s not too clever to make working people the enemy. But the Conservative Party’s changing. If you look at the last new intake, the largest single occupational group was banking and finance. So they’ve not had the kind of jobs where they’ve experienced collective bargaining. 

“You’ll find a lot of business leaders who actually do understand the importance of it, but not if you’ve never seen it in action.” 

O’Grady believes an ever-more elitist tropism is at the root of ongoing attacks on working people and unions, which stem from that very lack of understanding and life experience. 

“It’s so peculiar, this insistence on demonising the unions. And seeing where it’s coming from you have to wonder, is it because they see it as us getting ‘above our station’? I think they’re very out of touch, even with ordinary Conservatives, let alone the country as a whole. 

“People just don’t worry about union power any more. They don’t believe we’re over-mighty. 

“What they worry about is privatisation and outsourcing that wastes billions and people making a killing decimating precious public services. They’re angry — the government’s not going to get an easy ride for failing the majority.” 

O’Grady has won some surprising ideological battles lately, including what she is too modest to acknowledge as a complete slam dunk in a Today programme debate. 

She was on the show with Alec Shelbrooke of the union-bashing Trade Union Reform Campaign (TURC), a group of Tory MPs that includes die-hard Thatcher fan Liam Fox, to debate proposed union ballot reforms. 

O’Grady pointed out the double standard inherent in the plan to ban strikes where ballot turnout was less than 50 per cent, telling Shelbrooke it was nothing less than a move to “ban strikes through the back door by imposing thresholds that not a single MP has met.”

Calling it “the introduction of one rule for MPs and another for working people,” she suggested that if the TURC’s true concern was democracy, it would have agreed to the introduction of electronic online balloting. 

To O’Grady’s considerable surprise, Shelbrooke conceded completely, saying: “I’m actually not in favour of making sure it’s 50 per cent of members who turn out in a ballot for strike action … it’s difficult to justify when you don’t have that for Westminster elections.” 

O’Grady says this shows you should always be aware that the most seemingly intransigent opponents may be divided among themselves and that the debate is always worth having. 

However, she is under no illusions about what will happen if Labour doesn’t win the next election.

“With another term, (the government) have made it clear they will attack workers’ rights — human rights — even more.”

I ask her why she thinks the coalition persists with these attacks in the face of such across-the-board opposition?

“Because this government defends those who have. They don’t want to change their economic model because, bluntly, why should they, when it works so well for a minority? So we see these incredible attacks on trade unions, who are the last line of defence and the counterweight to excess and unfairness. 

“If they really cared about ‘hard-working families,’ as they claim, they’d acknowledge that, actually, unions represent them.” 

With ballot thresholds, the right to picket and an attack on facilities all on the governmental to-do list, I ask O’Grady if the TUC is ready for this worst-case electoral scenario. 

I put it to her that the movement’s lack of preparedness for the swingeing attacks by successive anti-consensus Thatcher and Thatcherite governments cost it dearly — could this happen again?

“No, because it’s different this time. We are ready for any eventuality. I can assure you that we have detailed plans for every contingency and that the executive and general council are prepared. We know this next election will be a really dirty campaign. We know we face a potentially huge battle. 

“The late ’70s onwards represented a seismic shift, but this time the old model has failed and people know it. 

“They’re not impressed by the response to the last crash and can see another one could happen. Even the Bank of England warns about this. 

“So yes, there’s a real possibility of the seventh person on a picket line being actually criminalised, but most people don’t want that. 

“They know striking is never done lightly and pillorying people who have been left with no other option offends the sense of fair play of all political persuasions.”

O’Grady also firmly rejects the idea that the situation for working people is hopeless and that protests don’t achieve anything.

“Look at the people fighting out there — look at the wonderful Ritzy Cinema workers (fighting for a living wage). 

“Against all the odds membership is growing, even a modest increase in the private sector. Organisers and reps deserve real credit. There’s a sense of achievement.”

For the first time, union membership is majority female, with women making up 55 per cent of the total. But that isn’t always reflected higher up the ladder. Is this a priority for her? 

“We address it through education, through leadership courses and initiatives, but I think it’s crucial that every woman knows she can, and should, act herself, too. 

“The ‘brothers’ support each other as a gender — they tap each other on the shoulder, they quietly help each other out. So should women — we don’t have to fight each other. If you’re a woman chairing a meeting, are you making sure you do everything you can to encourage the women in the room to speak and making sure you catch their eyes and convey support? We need sisterhood.”

At this point I go off on a little tangential rant about sexism and misogyny and the tendency to attack any woman who speaks about anything, which social media has encouraged. 

O’Grady won’t be lured into pessimism, but reiterates that we all need to take responsibility for curbing this kind of bullying. 

She mentions travelling home from a meeting on a train when a random chap started flinging aggressive sexual comments at a woman passenger in her carriage. 

“You know when you sort of get a red mist? I told him it was offensive to me and to all the women who were having to listen to it, not just to her. It didn’t go down well and I agonised about it afterwards — could I have done more? But ultimately I decided it’s about at least doing something.” 

The importance of standing up to be counted is exactly why O’Grady is working for a mass turnout for the TUC’s planned Britain Needs a Pay Rise demonstration on October 18.

“This will be a huge show of strength on the part of working people, in terms of both numbers and resolve. 

“We will show the government that they won’t go unchallenged, that there will be huge collateral damage if they persist in these polices. 

“Trade unionists are used to fighting and standing together in a way they aren’t. We know that loyalty, fellowship, solidarity are not just words — they are wisdom.”

Louise Raw is the author of Striking a Light: The Bryant & May Matchwomen and their Place in History (Continuum Bloomsbury).