"Those who’ve done well for themselves can afford to pay a bit more"
Paul Nowak has always been an organiser.
As a child, living with his family in Bebington on the Wirral, he used to arrange games and events for the kids in his street.
“I used to organise mini Olympic games on the street with medal ceremonies and everything,” he recalls while standing in that same Wirral street.
Paul adds: “One time we borrowed dogs from local residents and held a big dog show in our garage. My uncle was a welder and made us medals. I remember being gutted when the guy we asked to judge the show didn’t pick my dog for any of the medals - but it was a fair process!”
Childhood was a happy time for the new general secretary of the TUC, now 51, but it had its challenges.
Paul’s dad was a welder and often had to go away for work. The family had spent time living in Scotland when Paul was very young as his dad worked constructing oil rigs in the North Sea. When they returned to Merseyside the work could dry up in an instant.
“He was working at the Cammell Laird shipyard, but it was feast or famine and sometimes the work would just stop,” explains Paul. “He ended up having to go to places like Nigeria and Abu Dhabi to get work and could be away for a long time.”
The theme of insecure work was one that would follow Paul into his own adult life. Having finished a degree in urban studies at Liverpool John Moores university, his first full-time job after a stint as a night porter and working in supermarkets found him at a call centre in Liverpool, via an employment agency.
Having already been a union rep in his part-time previous job at Asda, Paul set about getting active in the Communication Workers Union and organising the branch – leading to an influx of new union members.
This didn’t go unnoticed by the call centre bosses, who one day called 22-year-old Paul and 80 others into the office to tell them their time at the company was finished. Just like that.
“They just said we don’t need you on the contract anymore,” explains Paul, adding:
I have got no doubt at all that was a direct response to the fact that we had unionised. It was union- busting, pure and simple. They did not like the fact that we had got organised.
Paul with his mum, dad and brother at Christmas Paul’s maternal grandfather, Chin Tsang, and his grandmother Betty His paternal grandfather, Jozef Nowak, served in the Polish air force
“What lessons can you draw from something like that?” he continues. “Do you just accept it and say ‘I won’t do that again’ or do you get spurred on and more determined to make sure this sort of thing doesn’t happen again?”
After a year in the academy, Frances appointed Paul into a policy and campaigns role in the North West. His quick rise through the organisation continued as he then became regional secretary of the TUC in the North East.
Paul recalls those whirlwind years fondly: “I went from working on a temporary contract on a bus information line in Cheshire to being a regional secretary for the TUC and meeting with cabinet members a couple of years later. My world had changed very quickly.” He adds:
And that progress, of course, would continue to the very top. Having deputised to general secretary Frances O’Grady since 2016, last year Paul took over from his retiring boss as one of the most senior union leaders in the country – representing 5.3 million workers from 48 different trade unions.
“It’s a huge honour to follow Frances in the role,” says Paul. “She has been a huge inspiration to me. She’s the person who saw something in me and pushed me forward.”
While Paul’s work in the TUC has taken him all over the country, he has always come back to his Merseyside roots and he is thrilled to be hosting Congress in Liverpool for the first time as general secretary.
It is Liverpool where Paul’s grandparents built their lives. Both his grandfathers came to the city during the second world war. One was in the Polish air force and the other was a merchant sailor from Hong Kong. Both married Liverpool Irish women and settled down in the city.
“Immigration runs in my family,” explains Paul. “My family has made a huge contribution to this country, as have many of those who have come here to build their lives.”
“These days I think immigration is so often seen through the prism of people being a problem or a burden but we have to challenge that narrative and as unions we must support those workers regardless of where they come from in the world.”
Unfortunately we see more and more people in this kind of insecure work today and more employers gaming the system like that. It’s all about transferring risk onto the employees and we cannot allow them to do that.
Despite his early experiences as a union member, young Paul never imagined that his career would take him directly into working for a union. It was Frances O’Grady – who would become his long-time mentor and friend – who gave him that first break via the TUC organising academy, which was aiming to bring through a new, young group of union organisers.
Paul says it will be a proud moment when his family take their seats at the Liverpool congress to hear him speak as general secretary. He says his mother and father inspired his passion to work hard and gave him his outlook on life.
“Mum and dad both left school at 15 and worked incredibly hard to get on,” he explains, “but they never believed that you get on by putting other people down and they passed that on to us.”
This Congress comes during a hugely difficult time for working people as they battle the cost of living crisis, wage stagnation and a government desperate to weaken the influence of unions within workplaces and society.
But Paul says there is room for optimism in the shape of Labour’s new deal for working people, which pledges that an incoming Labour government would ban zero-hours contracts, outlaw fire and rehire, repeal the government’s anti-union legislation and bring in day one employment rights, amongst other measures.
“That’s an incredibly important package of measures,” says Paul, adding: “It is a radical programme that Labour have said they will deliver in the first 100 days of a government and if they do it will go a long way towards giving people confidence that a Labour government will shift the balance of power back towards working people.”
And he says he will continue to push whatever government is in place towards a better deal for working people, adding: “Whether it is investing in our public services or a national conversation about making sure those with the broadest shoulders pay their fair share in tax – I’m really ambitious for the working people of this country.”
The last point on tax is one that Paul is looking to raise more widely. He adds: “If we’re going to rebuild our public services and invest in good, unionised jobs in a green economy, then we’re going to have to pay for it. I don’t want supermarket workers and teachers to be paying more in tax, but I think there are those who’ve done very well for themselves who can afford to pay a bit more.”
A visit to Paul’s homeland would not be complete without a trip to his spiritual home – Goodison Park. Wherever he has gone for work, he has always returned to see his beloved Blues in action through the good times and the bad, with the latter sadly figuring more heavily in recent times.
“I often say I’m not a football fan, I’m an Evertonian – I think there is a joke in there somewhere,” says Paul. “Football is about family to me. Me, my dad and my brother having a few pints in town and then jumping in a cab up to Goodison. It’s a part of my identity – although I didn’t ever think that the 1995 FA Cup would be the last trophy I saw us lift.”
“I remember when I gave my season ticket up,” he adds with a wry smile. “The club contacted me to ask if they had done anything to upset me – I said how long have you got?”
It will be his union family rather than his football family that Paul will address during this year’s congress in Liverpool, which comes at a pivotal moment for workers and the movement in general. So will he be nervous?
“I think I will be nervous and proud in equal measure,” he explains, adding: “My family will be there and that will be amazing. These are the people that shaped me and made me who I am, so my achievements are their achievements.
Everything in a union is a collective achievement after all.”
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