AS we gather this weekend for the 2015 Women Chainmakers’ Festival, we must pay tribute to the incredible women of Cradley Heath in the Midlands.

Their victory in 1910 was a major milestone in trade union history and paved the way for the national minimum wage we all have the right to today. 

Known as the Amazons of the Chainyard, their strike for fair pay was led by women of all ages, as young women started this work at around 13 and they worked into their eighties and beyond. 

A minimum pay rate had been agreed for the trade — meaning up to a 150 per cent pay rise for some workers — but many employers were seeking to undercut those who paid it by refusing to enforce it from day one. 

That’s when the strike was called, received international support, and the “hell-hole” conditions were widely condemned — a timely reminder that nothing is ever handed to us on a plate. 

Like the announcement in the Budget that there is to be an over-25s supplement to the national minimum wage. The level set is not the level of the living wage, it will not fully compensate for the loss in tax credits and it will create further inequality in pay for younger workers — but it is still a welcome rise, which would never have been introduced without the struggles and campaigns of trade unionists at work and on the march. 

Stealing the TUC slogan “Britain needs a pay rise,” a latter-day conversion to supporting the national minimum wage and even a living wage, does not rewrite history — Tory votes opposed its introduction by Labour in 1998, and opposed decent rises, and it would never have been introduced at all without the actions of workers like the women chainmakers of Cradley Heath.

And today, it is women hotel workers who have been leading the way in the struggle for decent pay and conditions in the hospitality and hotels sector which Unite has described as “hopelessly addicted to low pay.” Long hours and demanding physical work combined with low and unlawful pay rates, bullying and harassment were exposed on World Tourism Day at a meeting I was proud to be part of, where a panel of nine women not only spoke of the exploitation they faced, but also the organising and action that is changing things. 

For the first time in a decades-long campaign, there is stronger organisation and progress with some employers on ending the worst pay and employment conditions and stopping anti-union practices. 

This is a major achievement, and is being won, as with the women chainmakers, through a combination of workers’ courage in speaking out, union and community organising and campaigns, protests, demonstrations and strikes and powerful media stories exposing what is really going on.

Today, too, women migrant domestic workers, members of Unite and Justice for Domestic Workers are leading the struggle with the charity Kalayaan and others to end their modern-day slavery. When the Con-Dem coalition reintroduced bonded labour through replacing Labour’s overseas domestic workers visa with a visa tying the worker to their employer, it showed its true colours. 

Pandering to racist anti-immigrant rhetoric by targeting those most vulnerable to exploitation, effectively removing their right to escape abuse and enforce their legal rights, was an act of betrayal. 

At the end of the last parliament, there was a widely supported amendment to the Modern Slavery Bill to right this wrong and the campaign goes on as long as the injustice continues. 

As with the women chainmakers of Cradley Heath, we know that the visa was only achieved because we got together in the union, jointly with others, and we struggled for it.

The women of Cradley Heath have messages for all workers in all sectors where companies are competing to win contracts, not through quality, professionalism and skill, but through low pay, poor pensions and cutting health and safety and training standards. 

The road transport logistics sector is blighted by this downward pressure, particularly driven by the retailers. That is why the petroleum driver passport won by Unite tanker drivers and supported across the industry is so important — ending undercutting on basic standards for workers and protecting community safety too. 

If we are to learn the lessons of the past, rather than be forced to relive them, Unite calls for all in the supply chain to play their part in driving conditions up and driving out exploitation and undercutting.

The message of the women chainmakers to workers of today, men and women, is clear — get organised, join a union, and you can win fairness and justice, hold exploitative employers to account and you can end the race to the bottom for workers.

• Diana Holland is Unite assistant general secretary.