SCOTTISH TUC general secretary Grahame Smith challenged Scottish parties yesterday to commit to restoring trade union freedoms, ending zero-hours contracts and raising the minimum wage.

Mr Smith was launching a workers’ manifesto for the general election in May.

“Scotland will be a major battleground in determining the outcome of the election,” he said.

“The STUC views with alarm the possibility of the return of a Tory government committed to further austerity and attacks on living standards and quality of work.”

“We welcome the commitments of both Labour and the SNP to support measures to protect workers from zero-hours contracts, to increase the minimum wage, pay and promote the living wage, and act definitively against such practices as blacklisting.

The 11-point STUC plan includes an immediate increase of the minimum wage to £8 per hour, use of public sector procurement to mandate the payment of the living wage and an increase in maternity and paternity pay.

The STUC also wants an end to zero-hours and short-hours contracts and the introduction of universal free childcare.

Crucially, the manifesto also calls for full employment protections for all workers, the restoration of collective­bargaining rights and the creation of a ministry of labour with a duty to encourage sectoral collective bargaining to return to industry-wide determination of pay and other working conditions.

“As our manifesto makes clear, economic inequality in Scotland cannot be effectively challenged without a wider commitment to allowing trade unions the freedom to organise and to bargain collectively,” Mr Smith said.