POVERTY and inequality scar the face of Scotland. These festering sores are set to spread despite the looming eviction of the poisonous Tory government.

The lives of 1.1 million Scots already officially declared to be living in poverty are stunted, shortened, their dreams turned to dust, their talents squandered; chained to poverty, insecurity and exploitation. A further 280,000 are teetering on the edge, just £40 a week above bare survival level.

Families eke out an existence below the breadline; parents miss out on meals to feed their kids; many shelve their pride and turn to food banks for survival. Some 240,000 children across Scotland – including 34% of youngsters in Glasgow – are in poverty, with Govanhill suffering the highest levels in Britain.

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There are more foodbanks than McDonald’s restaurants, in a country that boasts fabulous arable land, is surrounded by fish in the sea, and is a net exporter of food that earns plaudits and prizes from foodies around the world. Cold harsh facts point to the explanations for this appalling deprivation in the sixth-richest economy on Earth, under 21st-century capitalism.

The Tories’ two-child benefits cap – which Keir Starmer’s Labour repeatedly say they will keep – steals food from the mouths of 80,000 kids in Scotland, with newborns adding to the toll of deprivation annually.

The state pension is the worst in Europe; 16% less than the European average, as a percentage of wages.

Food inflation is stratospheric, as the giant supermarkets pile up mountains of profit, with Tesco declaring £2.8 billion last year.

The cost of food, transport, housing, heating, clothing, and other essentials are all going through the roof; official inflation figures may have declined, but show me a single example where the actual prices have fallen!

The one thing that has not gone up is wages – and there’s the kernel of the cause and solution to poverty.

Back in the Dark Ages of Thatcherism, we were advised by Tory minister Norman Tebbit to “get on your bike” and find a job. Work was the route out of poverty, we were told. But here’s the stark, shattering fact: an absolute majority – 52% – of all those in poverty today have jobs, working to remain poor! Poverty pay is the prime cause of deprivation.

Wages as a share of national wealth are at a record low. It took the biggest strike wave since 1989 to win some concessions from capitalist bosses and capitalist governments in 2022/3, but hardly any strikes won pay increases that matched inflation. Profits boom while pay plummets. Public sector austerity means wage cuts for workers and tax cuts for the millionaires. What’s the solution? And is Labour offering it?

For 25 years, the Scottish Socialist Party has fought for a legally enforced, guaranteed national minimum wage based on a simple, modest formula: two-thirds median male earnings, rising with inflation or wages, whichever is the greater.

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Male median – the middle wage of all male workers, which half of them earn more than – is hardly asking the Earth. Two-thirds that rate is even more modest as a demand. Yet it would be a revolutionary improvement for millions of workers – especially women workers, who still suffer the gender pay gap.

In today’s money, that’s a £15-an-hour minimum wage. A far cry from the pathetic £11.44 workers are blessed with on their 21st birthday under current legislation. And the SSP have always insisted this £15 be the guaranteed minimum for all aged 16 upwards, with abolition of the age wage discrimination baked into the numerous lower youth minimum rates of Tory and Labour Britain.

Despite this £15 minimum being the agreed policy of the entire trade union movement, Starmer’s Labour point blank refuse to promise it. They trot out vacuous, non-specific terms like “make work pay” and “a genuine living wage”. What does that mean? It consciously excludes the £15-an-hour demanded by all unions affiliated to Labour. The fact Labour has received £15.5million in donations from the rich in just six months – outstripping the Tories’ £9.9m – says it all. David Sainsbury, who keeps his retail workers on rations, has given Labour £7.5m – £2.5m of it last month.

Capitalists are investing in Labour as a safe ally, a government that will guarantee their profit margins by refusing to enforce “a genuine living wage” of £15 an hour as the legal minimum.

Furthermore, hourly wages are no escape from poverty if you can’t get guaranteed hours of work!

Zero-hours contracts are increasingly prevalent – imprisoning 1.1 million workers in this ultimate uncertainty and poverty. One in 10 workers aged 16-24 are on them – especially in retail, hospitality, care and logistics.

They are not stop-gap ways to earn while studying or waiting for a better job; 66% of workers on them have been with the same company for over a year, 46% for over two years, a horrifying 12% for over 10 years!

Will they be scrapped by a Labour government? Absolutely not!

In 2018, at USDAW conference, I pioneered and won unanimous support for outright abolition of all zero-hours contracts, to be replaced by a legally guaranteed minimum 16-hour contract for every worker who wants one. No exemptions for employers. The only opt-out clause would be in the hands of a worker who wanted less hours, and could negotiate that with their union rep present. We won support for this policy at the 2019 STUC congress.

Not a word of this from Labour. They employ the weasel words of banning “exploitative zero-hours contracts”; only get rid of some – when in fact they are all exploitative!

The SSP’s struggle for a £15 minimum wage and guaranteed 16-hour week will require the collective power of organised workers to confront a Labour government that upholds profit against pay.

Richie Venton is the national trade union organiser of the Scottish Socialist Party