WORKERS’ rights and blacklisting must be central to the SNP agenda following its election victory on an anti-austerity platform, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon told trade unionists on Saturday.

She was addressing the inaugural conference in Stirling of the SNP trade union group, which has grown to 16,000 members since the independence referendum and now outnumbers the entire Scottish Labour membership.

Members discussed strategy for pushing civil liberties, human rights and employment legislation to the front of the political agenda, along with the blacklisting of union members.

Executive member Chris McCusker said the group was “dedicated to fighting poverty, campaigning for social justice and improving working conditions for Scotland’s employees.”

The group’s former secretary Chris Stephens was elected MP for Glasgow South West in the general election and in his maiden speech in Parliament pledged to continue the work on blacklisting of his Labour predecessor Ian Davidson.

Acting secretary Kirsteen Fraser told the conference: “The SNP was elected in Scotland because it opposed Tory-imposed austerity and struck a chord with people not only in Scotland but across the UK.”

At a Unison rally in Glasgow earlier this week, a prominent SNP member came under fire for failing to challenge the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre’s victimisation of union rep Robert O’Donnell.

Although the centre is majority owned by Glasgow’s Labour-run council, SNP opposition leader Graeme Hendry sits on its board and has indicated an unwillingness to get involved in the dispute.