THE Scottish workforce has become increasingly at risk from a zero hours and fire and rehire culture which has been enabled by the Covid pandemic, the country’s trade unions have warned.

And as we prepare for life after lockdown, trade unionists have appealed to the UK Government to ensure workers’ rights will be protected in the new working landscape.

Dave Moxham, deputy general secretary of the STUC, said: “For every employer who is genuinely responding to business uncertainty you can guarantee that there is one out there who just fancies the idea of what they would describe as a more flexible relationship for their workforce.

“Unfortunately that comes with deep insecurity for the workers themselves. We have seen some evidence in the ONS (Office of National Statistics) employment figures that zero hours contracts are on the increase.

“So there is the very real danger that rather than returning to the albeit not altogether great position that we were in before, in terms of people securing employment, that the situation could be even worse.

“We know from fairly bitter experience that in times of higher unemployment and labour market challenge that a minority, but a significant minority, will seek to downgrade terms and conditions. It’s a well-understood phenomenon.

“The fear is that some of the better employers look across to some of the less good employers and decide that for competitive reasons they need to go with the same model.

“So we need the UK Government to make clear that such tactics as fire and rehire and unwanted zero hours contracts are banned.”

Moxham believes that the Scottish Government can show the way on securing workers’ rights.

He added: “The Scottish Government doesn’t have the big lever that it needs, and that we think it should have, over employment law, but it can, through what we describe as conditionality through grant and business support, elicit something to steer people away from this course of action.”

For many workers still worried for their jobs Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s expected extension of the furlough scheme in Wednesday’s spring Budget should come as something of a respite.

And the trade unions are urging the Tories to be ambitious in their timescale.

Moxham said: “We are very keen that an extension to furlough is announced and we would like to see that extension go through until the end of the year.

“That doesn’t mean businesses need to close but it’s just that it eases the way for businesses to reopen at the right time.

“You suspect that there will be some extension to furlough with the speculation that it will be some time until the end of June but we would like to see a longer furlough.

“Furlough is only necessary for businesses that are unable to effectively reopen and start trading again because of coronavirus. Most businesses will reopen when they can. And that would provide a far smoother position.

“What we don’t want to do is suddenly fall off an unemployment cliff edge with unemployment in Scotland suddenly going from what it is just now at 4 or 5% to 10%.

“And if you add together the people on furlough and the people who are not on furlough that’s around 14% of Scottish workers just now and so the worst possible situation would be for them all to fall off and not be employed.

“That would give a headline figure of 14%. Now we don’t think that will happen but it will demonstrate the kind of threats that we will have if we don’t continue with an effective furlough scheme.”