UNIONS must take a new blueprint for Scottish employment rights into workplaces to engage with stewards and members, a packed Scottish TUC fringe meeting heard yesterday.

Union leaders including Unite Scotland political officer Jackson Cullinane and Unison’s Peter Hunter gathered to launch the Charter for Employment Rights for Scotland, a new consultation document produced by the Institute of Employment Rights.

Charter co-author Chris McCorkindale, a law lecturer at the University of Strathclyde, said Scotland’s devolved institutions should change their approach to tackling issues where powers are reserved to Westminster.

“What we want to do is embolden the Scottish government … not to fear those legal limits,” he said.

“We have seen in the past that these are battles that can be fought and won.”

He praised the charter, but added that  it was crucial to build power in the workplace.

He argued that “rights can be strong weapons against the powerful but they don’t give you power themselves.”

RMT president Michelle Rodgers said “my fear is we might be pushed into watering it down.”