Trade union activists from all walks of life and from all over Cornwall have come together for the first time in a generation to pledge to fight for better jobs and defend public services for all Cornish people.

Thirty trade union activists from nine different TUC unions, meeting in Truro, have re-established a Cornwall Trade Union Council.

Firefighters, social workers, factory workers, teachers, Royal Mail workers, railway workers, national and local government workers, naval air station workers, as well as full time union officers and unemployed workers, are among those who have begun to plan campaigns to give Cornish people, especially the low paid and those suffering public service cuts, a better deal in the Brexit era.

John Dean, Truro postman, Communication Workers Union activist and president of the new Cornwall TUC, said: "Many activists from Cornish trade union branches will have been waiting a long time for this. Now is the time for us to become much better organised. This Government is proving by its actions to be uncaring of Cornish people, irrespective of the fiasco they are making of Brexit.

"Whether it is the continued and increasingly blatant privatisation of our education, NHS and other public services, the erosion of worker’s rights such as legal aid and employment tribunals, and, to add insult to injury, the apparent Conservative desire to keep Cornish wages and salaries among the lowest in the UK, Cornwall Trade Union Council will co-ordinate the our peoples' determined fight for justice, fairness and decency.”

The next meeting of Cornwall Trades Union Council will be at the Railway Tavern, Station Hill, Truro, at 6pm on Monday, April 24, and is open to all trade union activists who work and/or live in Cornwall.