BRITAIN'S trade unions need to "fight like never before" and co-ordinate action to hit back at attacks from the new Conservative Government, a union chief has insisted.
Mark Serwotka, who heads the Public and Commercial Services union(PCS), also claimed unions now faced a bigger threat from power in Whitehall than in the 1980s when the landmark miner's strike took place.
Next week in the Queen's Speech, David Cameron's administration will propose new anti-strike laws, which would mean that industrial action would be banned unless 40 per cent of people voted in favour of it.
Mr Serwotka told his union's annual conference in Brighton: "We don't have to accept defeat as an inevitable state of affairs for the next five years.
"We not only need united, co-ordinated action but we need common demands and common negotiations and industrial action strategies.
"We need to be prepared to fight like never before. If we do that, we can look forward to the future with confidence. If we look inward, we will regret it for generations to come."
He said that the threat from the Conservative Government was on a greater scale today than when Margaret Thatcher was in power because planned new industrial laws built "on that attack in the 1980s".
The union chief said Labour lost the General Election because it had failed to offer a credible alternative to austerity.
"In Scotland, the Westminster parties were blown away. Whatever anyone thinks of the SNP, what was clearly rejected was a consensus that backed austerity, Trident renewal and more of the same."
The PCS leader told delegates that the UK political system was failing to reflect people's views and called for a campaign for proportional representation.
"More and more people in the Labour movement are coming to the conclusion that we need PR to have a fair electoral system but also so we can genuinely see anti-austerity politics take a foothold in the UK," he added.
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