A PACKED Scottish TUC fringe hosted yesterday by the Trade Union Co-ordinating Group discussed how to fight austerity beyond the general election.

The lunchtime meeting chaired by Prison Officers Association general secretary Steve Gillan affirmed the unions' hostility to a Conservative victory next month but emphasised that "we don't want to see a Labour government enacting Tory policies."

FBU general secretary Matt Wrack slammed a pro-austerity consensus he said encompassed Labour, the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru as well as the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition.

Fire Brigade job losses in Scotland were as bad as in some parts of England, he said - giving the lie to SNP claims to oppose spending cuts.

"We need to get back to basics - and by that I mean returning to why we formed unions in the first place," he said.

"Because society is divided into classes - the working class and the boss class."

PCS president Janice Godrich pointed to the moral vacuum at the top of British society, noting that the exposure of former foreign secretaries Jack Straw and Malcolm Rifkind in cash-for-influence scandals showed our political elite were nothing more than "corrupt, grubby little spivs."

Ms Godrich attacked the "revolving door which sees ministers head to the boardrooms of companies who benefit from the privatisations they pushed through in office" and "a parliament stuffed full of millionaires" which had presided over soaring homelessness and plummeting household incomes.

Relying on political parties to pass laws in the interests of the working class had failed, she argued, saying instead the movement should "focus on the power of trade unions."

BFAWU general secretary Ronnie Draper said he was proud to head a union at the forefront of the campaign to see fast food workers win a £10 an hour wage.

"You don't see someone my age working in McDonalds," he said. "Why not? Because they'd have to pay me £6.50 an hour. Why do that when you can get in a 16-year-old and pay them £3.70?"

£10 an hour would take five million people out of poverty. It would save billions in benefits. It would increase the tax take for the Treasury."

But Mr Draper said unions had to fight for change and too often passed admirable resolutions at congresses and failed to follow them up.

NUJ Scotland's Paul Holleran spoke of the impact of devastating job cuts at newspapers across the country."Local papers have no staff to report on council meetings.

This destroys their ability to hold the powerful to account," he said.Mr Holleran denounced a "democratic deficit" at the BBC, noting that "in 2014, Scotland saw a number of media-worthy events - the Commonwealth Games, the anniversary of Bannockburn, the independence referendum.

"Yet BBC Scotland forced through 17 per cent cuts in newsrooms that year."