Unions have enlisted a lethal weapon to rally the troops as they thrash out a plan to shoot down the Turnbull government.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions will hold its biggest and most important gathering in Brisbane this week, with more than 800 delegates expected to attend the triennial event.
Film star and activist Danny Glover will address the conference on Monday evening, alongside the union movement's spearhead, ACTU secretary Sally McManus.
The Lethal Weapon actor has a history of campaigning for industrial rights in the United States.
A move to axe pre-strike ballots is expected to be among the draft policies debated at the congress, along with stronger protections for unfair dismissal claims.
Unions will also ramp up their push for industry-wide bargaining and protected industrial action.
Workplace Minister Craig Laundy said the ACTU's aims were becoming clear.
He said industry-wide bargaining, removing secret ballots before strike action and expanding unfair dismissal laws to tie up small and family businesses would destroy jobs.
"This would cripple the economy and take Australia backwards to a level of confrontation and chaos not seen since the 1970s - when the rate of industrial action was more than 40 times higher than today," Mr Laundy said.
Long-serving Textiles Clothing and Footwear Union boss Michele O'Neil is frontrunner to replace Ged Kearney as ACTU president on Tuesday.
The TCFUA was part of the high-profile merger between the militant Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union and the Maritime Union of Australia, forming a so-called super-union.
Ms Kearney entered parliament earlier in the year after scoring an upset by-election victory for Labor over the Greens in the inner-Melbourne seat of Batman.
She is one of the first speakers at the congress on Tuesday, followed by Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.
Federal Labor leader and former AWU supremo Bill Shorten will address the conference at a dinner Tuesday evening.
In the midst of its biggest campaign since the successful Your Rights At Work Campaign a decade ago, unions are trying to build momentum for an overhaul of Australia's industrial relations framework.
The new ACTU president will close the congress on Wednesday evening.
