General Secretary of Trade Union Congress, UK - Frances O’Grady

Not since Margaret Thatcher vowed to break the power of organised labour has Britain's trade union movement faced a bigger threat. The new government wants to make it harder to take industrial action. Hardtalk speaks to Frances O'Grady, whose organisation - the TUC - is the collective voice of the unions. Across Europe, in most countries, the number of workers joining unions is in decline. For many of those most in need of support in the work place - have the unions become irrelevant?

(Photo: Frances O'Grady, the General Secretary of the TUC, delivers a speech at the Policy Network Conference 2014. Credit: Oli Scarff/Getty Images)