THE wave of strike action since the pandemic must be built on with a confident working class that demands being paid for their value in society, the Morning Star Labour Conference fringe meeting heard today.

MP for Cynon Valley Beth Winter made a call of unity as she urged shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves to commit to pay restoration to levels of at least 2010.

“For me, it is about achieving the socialism that we very much deserve and desperately need,” she said.

Fellow socialist MP for Streatham Bell Ribeiro-Addy urged Labour MPs to join picket lines across the country.

She said: “We have to remind the Labour Party is the party of unions: a Labour MP’s place is on the picket line. It should be an expectation of people.”

Unions were the conscience of the Labour Party  — and “if we do not remain rooted in trade unions, I feel we could lose our way,” she said.

Leeds East MP Richard Burgon railed against the “tightest squeeze in wages in 200 years” while the richest in society enjoyed a boom time. He called for a wealth tax of 1.5 per cent on assets over £10 million, citing polls showing the policy has cross-party support.

Mr Burgon also backed equalising capital gains tax to income tax and a windfall on banking profits.

Aslef general secretary Mick Whelan said: “Unions are standing together like they haven’t in a long time. When we are together, we are strong.”

Jess Barnard, outgoing leader of Young Labour and NEC member, highlighted how thousands of people are taking action for the first time, bringing a whole new generation into the movement.

And FBU general secretary Matt Wrack hit out at the government’s attacks on industrial action rights, saying unions have to say “enough is enough” and organise against anti-strike laws.

Ben Chacko, editor of the Morning Star, said it was not the Labour Party but people-led groups such as the People’s Assembly who opposed austerity in 2010 and led to the Jeremy Corbyn leadership of the party, but there was now more potential to build a mass movement thanks to the militancy of the trade unions over the past two years.

Noting the Tories’ attempts to curtail striking and protest rights are linked to protest movements such as Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion, he said: “There's a lot of common ground to turn the strike wave into a mass street movement.”