Time for a shift in policy on trial work
TODAY is the second day of the SNP’s conference in Glasgow, and our Westminster leader Ian Blackford will address the conference hall this morning.
There’s lots to talk about – from the work SNP MPs are undertaking in Parliament to the new group of Scottish Tories, who have failed to make their presence known – apart from blindly rubber-stamping damaging policies that make families and young people poorer. Incidentally, Labour MPs also have a habit of abstaining on austerity and welfare cuts.
It is SNP MPs who are driving forward the case for the progressive alternative. Fairer alternatives like the Bill being brought forward by Glasgow South’s Stewart McDonald to end the scandal of exploitative unpaid trial shifts when people are looking for work.
It tackles a scandal that disproportionately affects young people just starting out, and those looking to get back into work from unemployment or having had a child. And when you are desperate for a job and trying to get off benefits – if you get them at all – then any trial shift seems better than no trial shift, but no one should be deprived of a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. If you do the job you should be paid for it.
So here’s the challenge that will be put to Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn – we can make a real difference in the lives of those looking for work.
We can make life fairer for our young people, and we can end the rip-off practice of businesses who take prospective employees for granted. So they must join the SNP – and back this Bill – and let’s end an injustice.