Fair work needs real rights
Work should provide dignity, security and a real voice – not insecurity, surveillance and one-sided power.
Yet too many workers in Scotland face precarious hours, weakened rights and workplaces where decisions are made about them, not with them. This is especially true for women, migrant workers and those in undervalued sectors such as care, childcare, hospitality and the gig economy, where insecurity and low pay are structural features rather than exceptions.
While employment law remains largely reserved, Scotland is not powerless. Through public spending, procurement, economic development and industrial strategy, we can set higher standards, reward fair employers and exclude exploitative practices and unsafe employers from our economy. We can also press relentlessly for the devolution of employment law so that fair work is not optional or symbolic, but enforceable.
The Scottish Greens will set out a clear direction for the future of work: ending insecure work, strengthening unions, and embedding democracy at work – from the shop floor to the boardroom. Shifting to a low-carbon economy must put workers first, guaranteeing job security, retraining and mental wellbeing for those affected by industrial change. And we must recognise that care work and platform-based work are real work, deserving of rights, voice and respect.
Fair work is not ‘nice to have’. It is essential to reducing inequality, closing gender pay gaps, building community wealth and an economy that works for all of us.
- Make Fair Work First conditions mandatory for public procurement, grants and economic development funding, ensuring that no company in receipt of public money uses exploitative practices like fire-and-rehire and zero-hours contracts.
- Strengthen and expand Fair Work First criteria, including ensuring that trade unions – not substitute staff forums – are recognised as the legitimate voice of workers, and banning the use of unpaid trial shifts.
- Update licensing laws and grant additional powers to councils to protect food delivery gig workers through licensing conditions on the restaurants and food outlets.
- Deliver targeted support for seasonal workers, particularly in agriculture, hospitality and tourism, to expand unionisation and deliver better pay, guaranteed hours, working conditions and suitable accommodation.
- Support sectoral collective bargaining, starting with care, childcare and hospitality, to raise pay and conditions in undervalued, feminised work.
- Mandate worker and union representation on the boards of companies receiving significant public funding.
- Set a government objective to increase trade union membership across the Scottish workforce.
- Continue the rollout of four-day week pilots in the public sector, and support greater take up of four-day week in the private sector.
- Expand employee and co-operative ownership support to help workers take over viable businesses and protect jobs.
- Guarantee worker-led green transition plans, with retraining, income protection and wellbeing support for those affected by industrial change.
- Seek full devolution of employment law, and work with UK allies to repeal anti-union legislation and strengthen the right to organise.
- Roll out trained and accredited Roving Safety Representatives in Scotland to provide an effective health and safety voice in non-unionised workplaces.
- Ensure workers have the correct support, facilities and equipment to work safely, including supporting the implementation of the Fire Brigade Union’s DECON campaign to tackle the carcinogenic nature of firefighting.
- Establish a national occupational health body for Scotland and provide ongoing and secure funding for the Scottish Hazards Centre, to develop advice and support services for non-unionised workers and bereaved families.
- Reform culpable homicide laws to ensure homicides against workers are treated in the same way as involuntary killings in our communities.
