Unions will enter the federal election campaign this weekend with a series of advertisements focused on worker rights and coalition public sector job cuts.
"Unions will be campaigning in force this federal election," ACTU president Ged Kearney told the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday.
The ACTU last year imposed a levy on around two million union members to fund a national campaign, involving advertising and grassroots activities.
Ms Kearney said the union's election advertisements would "make real exactly what is at stake in this election".
"There is no doubt that Tony Abbott, like John Howard before him, is not interested in a cooperative and constructive approach to building the future," Ms Kearney said.
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The ACTU campaign covers four elements:
* better conditions for casual and labour hire workers including portable entitlements
* an enforceable right to care-related time off work
* investment in training and skills
* stronger public services.
Ms Kearney said all workers should have basic entitlements, including paid leave, overtime, penalty rates, long-service leave, notice of termination and redundancy pay.
She said it was an "article of faith" for Opposition Leader Tony Abbott to scrap penalty rates and there were other hidden dangers in the coalition's workplace policy.
"(The policy) is a couple of scribbles on a page like one of those old Mr Squiggle drawings, with the details to be filled in later," she said.
"This is deliberate. Mr Abbott wants to avoid workplace relations as an issue until he has the election out of the way."
The union leader said members would not cop either Labor or the coalition cutting the public service.
"Let me make it clear to all political parties - that we will fight to prevent unnecessary cuts to services," she said.
The coalition's plan to cut company tax was misplaced and what was needed is a crackdown on multinationals shifting profits offshore, she said.
"The call by business to lower company tax and raise the GST are typical of business wanting to cost shift onto those who can least afford it," Ms Kearney said.
The ACTU is urging the incoming government to review the vocational education and training system, including the role of TAFE, apprenticeships and funding arrangements.
Ms Kearney said the existing system was a hotch-potch of training organisations seeking to "milk" government subsidies.
Ms Kearney wants the coalition to immediately release the terms of reference for its proposed Productivity Commission inquiry into the Fair Work Act.
She said such an inquiry was not needed as labour productivity was not a problem in Australia.
If there was to be an inquiry, it should deal with the whole economy not just the workplace system, she said.
"The premise that productivity is in crisis is not true," she said.
Ms Kearney later told reporters the ACTU's television campaign would focus on the "dangers to workplace laws outlined by the coalition".
The grassroots campaign would involve around 10,000 volunteer activists and 30 organisers going into workplaces and using social media to get out the message.
