Larry Lamb has a lot to answer for. As editor of the Sun, he branded the period of strikes and disputes in 1978 -79 the ‘winter of discontent’ and gave newspaper subs an easy headline to describe every dispute thereafter.

Just change the season, add a question mark, and hey presto, an instant headline. Are we heading for a new summer/winter/spring of discontent? Margaret Thatcher gave him a knighthood in 1980 for services to fair and balanced reporting of industrial disputes (not really) and in 1983 Neil Kinnock described him as one of the ‘bootlicking knights of Fleet Street’ in his famous ‘I warn you’ speech on the eve of the election.

The TUC this week struggled not to give the newspapers an easy run of union-bashing headlines. Bob Crow falls into the trap every time – he routinely provides the union movement’s enemies with ammunition, from unpopular strikes, to childish walk-outs. You have to wonder whether he’s a double agent. Even the sensible and respected Brendan Barber found himself praising Militant’s campaign against the poll tax as an example of how the TUC should be conducting its affairs in coming months.

Thirteen years of Labour government have left the unions in a strong position, despite all their ritual denunciation of Labour ministers every autumn since 1997. They’ve had nearly £80 million of taxpayers’ money to pay for organisers and educators. (Imagine if we’d had state funding of political parties to the same degree). The growth in the public sector had meant a growth in public sector union members. Unite and Unison have a million members each. Over half of the public sector workforce is unionised, compared to fewer than one in five of the private sector. The unions’ potential to disrupt the economy is not the same as in 1978, or 1984, but their capacity to disrupt public services is huge.

With such power comes responsibility, of course. The unions’ reaction to the government’s programme of deficit reduction will have to be considered, and rooted in an alternative which doesn’t involve bankers swinging from lampposts. The TUC needs its own alternative plan, which recognises the scale of the challenge, but which puts the front-line first. The kind of public support that Brendan Barber correctly identifies as being necessary will not come if the unions look like they are being unrealistic. The public believes, rightly or wrongly, that there is a mountain of waste in public spending. They think public sector workers have a cushy time of it, with better pay, longer breaks, more holidays and generous pensions. It’s not a wholly fair picture, but it runs deep in the popular imagination.

There’s a challenge for the Labour party too. When the unions founded the party, along with the tiny socialist societies, they overwhelmingly represented workers in the private sector. They reflected the pre-welfare state Victorian and Edwardian economy. There were many small craft unions, such as chain, rope, sail and cigar makers, alongside the miners, weavers, iron-forgers and railwaymen. There were no super-unions. Labour’s federal structure was based on unions which represented a distinct trade or sector. Today, that picture no longer exists. When Joe Irvin takes over as the new political secretary of my union Unite in a few weeks, he will wield enormous influence over the party’s finances, selection of candidates, policy, and, depending on who wins, the party leader. The party’s founders created a devolved, federal power structure for the Labour party. We’ve created one with power in a decreasing number of hands. For progressives, especially those who strongly support the party-union link, this issue of the balance of power between the party’s leader, general secretary, deputy leader, affiliates and members needs looking at afresh.

Are we heading for a new winter of discontent? No we’re not. But we are entering a few years when the role and function of trade unions, inside the Labour party, and in society, will be scrutinised like never before. Tory ministers hope that the unions behave badly, and drag Labour down with them. Our job is to confound their expectation.