Dave Prentis brought a packed National Indoor Arena to its feet this afternoon as he praised workers from across the public services for taking action to protect their pensions.
And on what he described as an historic day, he reiterated the call to make the bankers pay for the financial crisis that they caused – not those people providing vital public services.
Mr Prentis told a packed meeting that what they had done today would make a big difference – that “this is the day we turned the tide”, and he urged them to “take heart, take courage”.
And TUC general secretary Brendan Barber condemned the situation where “those who caused the deficit are getting off”, adding that the government had “scrapped the bankers’ tax and replaced it with a teachers’ tax, a nurses’ tax, a dinnerladies’ tax and a lollipop ladies’ tax”.
“If you need extra money,” he said, “what about a Robin Hood tax?”