TUC names ex-call centre worker Paul Nowak next general secretary

theguardian.com:

The Trades Union Congress has named Paul Nowak, a former call centre worker from Merseyside, as its next general secretary.

Nowak will become general secretary designate at the TUC conference in Brighton in September, taking over from Frances O’Grady when she retires at the end of the year after 10 years at the helm.

A union member from the age of 17 when he worked part-time at Asda, Nowak said it was an “honour” to be chosen to lead the movement amid the cost of living crisis.

He was the sole candidate nominated by trade unions to lead the umbrella group, which supports the activities of 48 separate member unions representing 5.5 million workers across the country.

Nowak, 50, had been the TUC’s deputy general secretary since 2016. He worked in the coronavirus pandemic leading union efforts to push the government to publish strong safe-working guidance, helping to negotiate improvements to ensure millions of people had a safe environment to work in.

O’Grady, the TUC’s first female secretary general, had played a central role in the creation of the furlough scheme, working closely with Rishi Sunak while he was chancellor to protect jobs during the pandemic.

Nowak’s appointment comes amid growing industrial unrest across Britain, with the prospect of renewed strike action on the railways and a summer of public sector pay disputes across the economy.

Before Boris Johnson’s resignation as prime minister on Thursday, the government had warned against workers taking bigger pay rises, saying it would risk a 1970s-style “wage-price spiral” that would force the Bank of England to raise interest rates further to curb persistently higher rates of inflation.

However, workers are currently suffering the biggest real-terms hit to average pay