People “don’t feel like having a job gives them access to a better life” – interview with USDAW general secretary Joanne Thomas

USDAW is one of the UK’s largest trade unions, representing more than 350,000 members in sectors such as retail and logistics. Its general secretary is Joanne Thomas, elected in 2025 as the first woman to lead the union.

At this year’s TUC Congress in Brighton, LFF spoke to Thomas about her perspective on the Labour government under Andy Burnham, the key campaigns her union is currently working on, and how the trade union movement can help resist the far-right.

“I think Andy Burnham is very engaging as prime minister”, Thomas told LFF, adding that he has been “very well received broadly from the public [and], I think, from trade unions.”.

This engagement, Thomas said, was a continuation of the relationship between Burnham and the trade union movement that existed prior to him becoming prime minister. She told LFF: ” There was lots of engagement running up before Andy was prime minister as well. So we had an opportunity to feed in what we think the government should be doing and how they can deliver for workers in particular.

“And since Andy has been prime minster, some of those conversations have continued – specifically with what that looks like and what we’re saying is to do with making sure that the Employment Rights Act is fully implemented, not watered down [and] actually is meaningful and people see that is something that really helps them in the world of work.”

She continued by saying that “we want an economy that works for workers”, and that this would mean that “people feel better off”, and that “work is paying and gives them a better deal in life”.

For Thomas and her members, changes to how workers’ contracts operate is crucial to this.

“One of the big items that will really help millions of workers is having a contract that reflects the hours that they actually work, because that ultimately does put more money in their pocket, but it also allows them to have that financial security, because it’s coupled with contractual security”, Thomas said.

She added: “At the minute, you know you’ve got people that might be on a low hour contract that regularly is flexed up, but that means they can’t do things like plan that month of what their actual net wage is going to be. Some of them might want to get a second job but they can’t because they need to be fully flexible for their primary employer. And these are the types of things that we hear about every day that doesn’t allow people to plan for the future.”

Thomas argued that this has bigger ramifications for people too. She told LFF: “You want to get a mortgage, you want to get a rental agreement – you have to evidence what contract you [have]. So these are things that might not necessarily be headline-grabbing. A lot of people talk about what the living wage is versus what is the real living wage, but I think we need to talk about these other items that really do help people.”

While Thomas has been supportive of Burnham’s premiership, that support isn’t unconditional. She wants to see him deliver significant changes in the economy in order to improve the lives of her members.

“We want to make sure that the government is looking at redistribution of wealth”, Thomas told LFF, going on to add that this would involve “making sure there’s fairer taxation systems” and that a “wealth tax should be looked at”.

She said that this was because “we speak to our members on a daily basis who tell us that quite often they don’t feel like having a job gives them access to a better life as it once did”, before suggesting that while “it’s important to keep the market stable”, the government should look at revising the fiscal rules.

Most pointedly, Thomas told LFF: “At the end of the day, Andy has come in on a banner of change. I think gone are the days of tweaking around the edges.”

Outside of the big asks on the economy, USDAW is also regularly campaigning for legislative change to benefit its members. Chief among these is the union’s campaign for the introduction of a specific offence for assault on retail home delivery drivers.

This follows USDAW’s previous campaign to get a standalone criminal offence for assaulting retail workers,. That campaign was successful, and since 2026 such an offence has been on the statute book.

Why is extending this to home delivery workers important? “Nobody should have to go to work feeling fearful, full of anxiety”, Thomas told LFF, adding: “Unfortunately we have many retail workers that suffer abuse and sometimes violence within the workplace.”

She went on to say that the campaign reflects how trends in shopping have changed, with more and more purchases being made online for home delivery, and that this means that the law needs extending to cover the people making those deliveries.

Thomas told LFF: “You still have flashpoints when delivery drivers are delivering things – like age verification if somebody bought a knife or things like that, so they will get that at the doorstep where they can get blamed for having to enforce the law.

“I’m glad that Labour’s going to deliver it being a specific offence for retail workers, but I think it’s part of a menu of things we need to do.”

Alongside campaigns that relate to the very specific issues that affect its members, like many trade unions USDAW is actively campaigning against the rise of the far-right.

Thomas sees this as an important priority for the labour movement. She told LFF: “What we need to do is combat the misinformation that the far-right spread, because I think they thrive on misinformation, division hatred – causing all this mayhem which literally turns into riots.”

Specifically, she argued that Reform UK flourishes under misinformation, and that the party is a threat to workers’ rights. She said: “One of the biggest pieces of misinformation that I think we hear is that Reform’s on the side of workers. And if you look at the stats and the actual facts, they had an opportunity to show that they were on the side of workers when the Employment Rights Act was going through parliament and they voted against it time and time again.”

She went on to add: “So if you were somebody that is wanting to see really big changes like I said before with the contractual hours, sick pay on day one, all of the extra paternity leave and things like that that matter to people, why would Reform keep voting against it?”

Later, Thomas warned that Reform would repeal the workers’ rights act and “repeal legislation that

Elsewhere, Thomas said that Reform would repeal the Employment Rights Act, “repeal legislation that keeps women and girls safe”, and if Reform were to enter government they wouldn’t “deliver for anybody outside of billionaires and millionaires and big business”, branding the party’s attempts to portray itself as ‘anti-establishment’ a “joke”.

Our interview ended with a stark warning. She told LFF: “The threat is serious though. We shouldn’t ignore it [and] I think we have a huge responsibility to do everything we can to stop them getting power.”

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward