TRADE unionists at the Scottish TUC Congress vowed yesterday to mobilise workers and communities to fight massive cuts in local government.

Fife delegate Tam Kirby warned that services in Scotland had already been “cut to the bone,” with 40,000 jobs lost and at least another 8,000 more to go.

The “time for talk is over” as both the SNP and Scottish Labour are “standing on an anti-austerity platform and people vote for them on that basis,” he said. It was “time to put rhetoric into action.”

He condemned the recent use of public cash for tax breaks to oil companies worth £1.5 billion and asked: “Why is it we’re prepared to nationalise privateers’ debt when we are cutting the throat of every public service in the country?”

And he declared: “The Tories are in turmoil and can be defeated.”

Dundee TUC delegate Stuart Fairweather asked his fellow delegates to “build a movement that takes back our local government and stands with communities,” saying that pressure needed to be brought upon councillors to make a choice between cuts or change.

A motion calls for days of action involving trade unions, communities and anti-austerity groups such as the People’s Assembly and a Scotland-wide conference of local government unions and trades councils.

It would also mandate the setting up of a taskforce to defend jobs, a policy of replacement of the council tax, support for an amnesty on repayment of high-interest pre-devolution debt and a protocol committing the Scottish government and councils to reject austerity.