Tony Woodley: Thousands face fuel poverty without Labour's help

Our people and our country are damaged by the economic crisis caused by the rich and the City speculators. It is our duty to press for policies and changes which protect the most vulnerable in society – that's our mission. However, every time trade unions put their heads above the parapet the media talks about a "winter of discontent".

That rhetoric is rubbish – we are now facing a winter of fear for ordinary families. Fear of the cold. Fear of the fuel bill. Fear for their jobs and their homes.

This can't be addressed by "lagging the loft", as some crackpots around the Prime Minister have suggested. Without help with fuel bills now, we'll be lagging the coffins of the elderly if we have a cold winter.

The greedy oil companies have made tens of billions and in the next four years they will make an extra £15bn out of the British public. With that money they could gold plate every house in the country, never mind lag the loft. And don't tell me they need the money for investment – more than half of Esso's profits, for example, are going straight to shareholders.

The utilities are putting up their bills by 20 to 40 per cent this year – a 500 per cent increase on 2003. John Hutton, the CBI's representative in government, says it would be "a disincentive to business if we had a windfall tax". A disincentive – to monopolies who have a licence to print money? If this wasn't so serious, it would be laughable.

The truth is this: every 10 per cent fuel rise will see up to 400,000 more people slip into fuel poverty. And we in the TUC should make it clear: if any trade unionist refuses to disconnect fuel or power to a pensioner or a family in poverty, they will have our full support.

The problem isn't just big business behaving like this. What can you expect from a pig but a grunt? The sad thing is that time and again our government rolls over in front of this vested interest. Like it did on capital gains tax and on taxing the super-rich non-doms.

People don't worry about their winter fuel bills when they're on a yacht in the Mediterranean.

I have a message for the Prime Minister: "Gordon, you've written a book about courage. Take the words out of the page, sweep away the Blairite die-hards, put people's interests before vested interests and bring in a windfall tax". Allowing business in an unregulated market to please themselves must be over. The Government must intervene.

A windfall tax for a start. If they don't co-operate, we should legislate and regulate to cap price increases on utilities. And if they still don't get the message, the Government should consider taking these essential industries – water, gas, electricity – back into public ownership. If it's good enough for banks, then its good enough for utilities.

Tony Woodley is the joint general secretary of Unite. He was speaking at the TUC conference