by Lamiat Sabin

TRADE union leaders have thrown down the gauntlet on key battlegrounds for workers following the general election.

In barnstorming speeches during Monday night’s mass general election rally they urged people to vote Labour to reverse the devastating damage done by the Con-Dem coalition.

Others waded into the debate yesterday with bakers’ union BFAWU leader Ronnie Draper telling the Star that the Tory-led government is the “most heinous” the country has ever had and it is time that they were kicked out of Downing Street.But he added: “We do not need another shade of blue” when it comes to a new government and that the country should revert to traditional Labour values.

He said zero-hour contracts and low pay are the two most reported complaints by BFAWU members.

And Unison general secretary Dave Prentis told the Star the government had “failed” health workers.

“This industrial unrest, fear and anger among NHS workers, increased waiting times for patients and more profits for private healthcare firms is the real Tory legacy,” he said.

The Unions Together rally heard from the general secretaries of general unions GMB and Unite, transport union TSSA and the TUC.

GMB leader Paul Kenny said: “The people who go out to work every day and pay tax through PAYE. The tax-dodgers see us as mugs. Non-doms? I wish their dads had used condoms.”

Amid rapturous applause, he continued to to say that non-doms’ contributions could build three million homes per year and would help mend the “utterly inconceivable” housing crisis.

Unite’s Len McCluskey said the Tories “will attack everything we hold dear,” including turning “unlawful picketing” from a civil to a criminal offence and dubbing union members “the enemy within.”He said: “How dare these faceless wonders who have never had a job in their lives attack decent working people?

“We need to reject foodbank, zero-hours, loan-shark, rip-off Britain because that is what the Tories stand for and we need something different,” Mr McCluskey concluded before receiving a standing ovation.More than 700,000 people are employed on exploitative zero-hours contracts, according to the Office of National Statistics (ONS), almost all since Mr Cameron took office in 2010.

And 94-year-old Labour activist Jack Elliott took to the stage “in a fighting mood.”He warned that Labour must win otherwise “we’ll go back to the ’30s and I don’t intend to live that again.”

Housing campaigner Tom Copley criticised Mayor of London Boris Johnson for failing to regulate the private rental sector and for driving up the prices of homes for first-time buyers.

TSSA general secretary Manuel Cortes drew attention to the Sunday Times’ Rich List, which showed that 1,000 fat cats had increased their wealth by £250 billion off the back of the 2008 financial crisis which was used as an excuse to drive down public sending.

TUC’s Frances O’Grady called for more public spending to boost the economy and cut the deficit.She said: “Let’s start talking about the freedom of tr ade unions standing up for working people to bring justice. This is the toughest fight we have faced in our lifetimes.”