Delegates to STUC Congress are now well accustomed to our annual gathering taking place during one election period or another. However, there was little expectation that we would be convening at the start of a general election campaign.

Entrenching power is the name of the Tories’ game. With the country still divided — not just over Brexit but what kind of Brexit.

Theresa May has seized the opportunity to pursue a one issue election at a time that she perceives Labour to be weak.

In truth, even if the Tories emerge victorious from May’s election, there will be no greater clarity on whether hard Brexit has the support of the British people.

Equally, another landslide SNP victory may not presage a surge in support for Scottish independence or for the holding of a second independence referendum in the timescale advocated by Nicola Sturgeon.

The truth is that the major economic issues we face — continued austerity, a squeeze on wages, insecure and precarious work and attacks on public services — are the real issues for people and provide the backdrop to the vote in June.

Of course the impact of Tory-style Brexit provides a major focus for STUC Congress with more motions submitted on this subject than any other. Affiliates are genuinely worried about the impact on the health service and on education.

The largest volume of motions received focus on the fuelling of anti-migrant sentiment post-Brexit and the election of Trump; our duty to organise to defeat the far right and deep concerns about the rights of migrant workers and how political pressure and trade union organising can be employed to protect them.

However, the other key focuses of Congress are on the issues that the Tories would like to ignore.

The public-sector pay cap is now in its seventh year and unless broken is set to continue to at least the end of the decade. If pay had risen since 2010-11 in line with RPI inflation public service workers would be nearly 20 per cent better off than they are now. And while no-one doubts that the chief architects of this policy are the Tories, pressure will continue to increase on Scottish and local government to find ways to reverse the downward spiral.

The decrease in public-sector pay reflects the wider crisis in public service funding with major concerns about staffing levels in the NHS. Few doubt that local government has been hit hardest with tens of thousands of jobs being lost and some services at breaking point.

A motion proposed by the GMB union and supported by Unite and a range of trades union councils calls on the STUC general council to initiate and lead a campaign in defence of local government workers, restoration of local democracy and fair funding, for a better way for local public services.

If agreed by Congress it seems likely that this will form a major part of the STUC’s political and campaigning strategy over the next few years.

Such a strategy will be most effective if it is driven by an industrial and organising strategy which has fair work at its centre.

The general council, Unison, PCS and others have submitted motions with recommendations designed to ensure the Scottish government’s commitment to fair work becomes a reality. Central to this will be action to increase collective and sectorial bargaining coverage and to ensure that government procurement is used to its maximum to deliver on fair work.

There is a widespread recognition that the fair work framework provides a key organising tool through which workers can increase their power. Congress will be asked to support a motion which significantly increases the general council’s support for union organising and calls for a conference to coordinate its response to the Trade Union Act.

Unions have achieved some success recently in biting back against precarious employment through campaigns targeting employers such as Sports Direct and in the recent legal case against Uber.

Unsurprisingly therefore there is a clear focus, particularly from unions active in the private sector, on new action to tackle vulnerable employment and the need to regulate the gig economy.

Given these clear and pressing priorities for workers, it is unlikely that any of the politicians to address Congress will be particularly well received if their focus is entirely on Brexit or indeed the potential for a Scottish independence referendum.

The issues that Theresa May is trying to evade are the ones the Scottish trade union movement is determined to debate and organise on.

• Dave Moxham is STUC deputy general secretary.