THE government’s programme of cuts, privatisation and attacks on jobs and workers’ rights throws down “a massive challenge to the entire trade union movement,” RMT leader Mick Cash warned yesterday.

Mr Cash rang the alarm bell as the union gathered for its annual conference in Newcastle.

RMT is already embroiled in a litany of battles with employers including London Underground, Northern Rail, TransPennine Express, CalMac ferries in Scotland, the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, Southern Railways and First Great Western.

“The entire labour movement will need to stand united in the face of massive threats to services, jobs and union rights from the newly elected Tory government,” he said.

“This trade union will play its full part in uniting the battles that lie ahead as we challenge the poisonous, Thatcherite tribute act treading the political boards under the leadership of David Cameron and George Osborne.

“The big anti-austerity protests this weekend are just the start.”

And, predicting the decimation of public services over next year, Mr Cash warned that the new wave of anti-union laws was “designed to shackle and criminalise those in the front line of the resistance — the trade union movement.”

But what had been “cooked up on the playing fields of Eton” would be “resisted and defeated on our streets and on our picket lines,” he thundered.