At the STUC annual conference Unite will move motion 58, Trade Union Rights and Austerity, which calls on the STUC to intensify its work with the People’s Assembly and ramp up the fight against austerity and anti-union laws.

It’s a timely clarion call. On Tuesday April 7 Ipsos Mori published a revealing poll which ranked Scottish voters’ top priorities in the forthcoming election.

The top three were an increase in the minimum wage, a guaranteed a rise in old-age pensions and an increase public services spending.

There was also significant support to be found for a freeze in energy prices, introducing a mansion tax and increasing the top rate of tax to 50 per cent.

No-one should be surprised by these findings and I suspect the poll results would be replicated across the majority of communities in Britain.

For nearly five years we have been fed a line which I believe will go down as one of history’s biggest cons: “We are all in it together.”

David Cameron’s glib rhetoric tries to distort the grim reality of what’s happening in towns and communities across Scotland:

• 100,000 workers trapped on zero-hours contracts.
• 400,000 workers paid less than the living wage.
• 500,000 people, including 100,000 children, living in poverty.

The statistics are shameful and, as the polling suggests, people have had enough of it.

They don’t want political red herrings that leave them bearing the brunt of the top 1 per cent’s shameless and ongoing profligacy, while tax dodging continues unabated and the interests of the City remain unchallenged.

People don’t want their employment and human rights supressed, to be caught in the low-pay trap or the precariousness of exploitative zero-hours contracts.

They don’t want to be demonised by politicians or the media for the hardships they may be facing on a day-to-day basis — a symptom of the economic mess they didn’t create.

They want a society that is fair, where everybody contributes but those that can afford to contribute more do so.

They want work to pay, greater financial security in retirement and decent reliable public services.

They want the vested interests of corporate power tackled to redistribute wealth and opportunity.

These are basic human values and aspirations.

For over three years now the People’s Assembly has been campaigning and organising around an anti-austerity agenda that would more than fulfil the political priorities laid out by the Scottish electorate in the Ipsos Mori poll.

Our trade unions, including my own union Unite, have been at the forefront of this broad national campaign that is increasingly influencing the progressive political response to austerity across Scotland and the rest of Britain.

The objectives are simple: economic and employment fairness, tax justice, protected public services, decent and affordable homes, social justice and a sustainable future.

This isn’t the dreamer’s disease. It is achievable and within our collective grasp. The policies of the People’s Assembly have increasing resonance among a general public which is waking up to the injustices of the last five years.

What we now require is a further push from Scottish trades unionists to embed this social justice agenda in the political mainstream and keep it there for the next generation.

This week in Ayr, Unite will tell delegates that austerity is not inevitable. The time of the People’s Charter has come, but that the responsibility to deliver rests on each and every one of us as agents for progressive economic, employment and social change.

Can we place the People’s Assembly firmly into the political mainstream? Yes we can.

• Pat Rafferty is Unite Scottish secretary.