PLAY FAIR & PAY FAIR
NICOLA Sturgeon will today pledge to use the “financial power” of government to force firms to treat their workers better.
The First Minister will bolster her left-wing credentials by unveiling a “Fair Work First” approach to government grants and contracts designed to boost the number of Scots paid the real Living Wage.
The proposals would see strict conditions attached to employee pay and conditions for any firm wanting to bid for public contracts or receive government support.
It follows a high-profile bid by the Scottish Government to force multinationals such as Amazon to improve their pay structures.
Last month’s programme for government included a pledge to cut grant payments unless the companies pay the Living Wage Foundation’s recommended amount of £8.75 an hour.
The Scottish Government have already made the real Living Wage part of their procurement process, extended it to adult social care workers, and are soon to roll it out for early years workers.
Sturgeon will pledge to roll out the scheme further at the SNP conference in Glasgow today.
She is expected to tell delegates: “I can announce today that, working with unions, business and the public sector, we will extend that approach.
“We will adopt a new default position – Fair Work First.
“By the end of this parliament, we will extend fair work criteria to as many funding streams and business support grants as we can. And, we will extend the range of Scottish Government and public
than despair. So it is up to us – now more than ever – to offer optimism and hope.
“Just think how much more hope will be possible when we take Scotland’s future into Scotland’s hands and become an independent country.
“An independent Scotland, just as Scotland is now, will be a beacon for progressive values – equality, opportunity, diversity and fairness.
“Those values feel more important today than ever before in my lifetime.”
Sturgeon yesterday rubbished former SNP deputy leader Jim Sillars’ claim that the party’s support for a second Brexit referendum is “very foolish”.
Sillars said it would set a precedent that would be used by unionists to demand a rerun of any future vote in support of independence.
But Sturgeon said the “detailed proposition” put to the public in the 2014 independence referendum stood in stark contrast to the lack of detail available at the time of the 2016 Brexit vote.
She told the Good Morning Scotland programme: “People knew what they were voting for.
“They knew the shape of the deal that the Scottish Government would then have negotiated if the vote had been for independence.
“The contrast between that and the 2016 Brexit vote could not be starker. There was the lie on the side of the bus and nothing more.
“There was no detail then, there is no detail now and it looks increasingly likely that when the UK leaves the EU at the end of March, there will still be no detail about the future relationship.
“That makes the two situations, in my view, very different.”