Lamont: Salmond puts interests of big business bosses ahead of workers

"I get angry about the notion that we can have a fairer, more progressive Scotland simply by changing the constitution," she said.

"Whether decisions are made by Scots, English or our European friends, that does not make them more likely to be the right ones."

Ms Lamont focused on SNP policies made in Edinburgh, suggesting they are more geared to people like Jim Ratcliffe, chairman of Grangemouth refinery owner Ineos, and airline chief Willie Walsh.

"After all it was a Holyrood government which handed £1.2 million of our money to a debt collection agency to expand its operations, and that's not my idea of a fairer Scotland," she said.

"It was a Holyrood government which has pledged to cut taxes for big business and millionaires while stripping £1 billion out of anti-poverty projects. That's not my idea of a fairer Scotland.

"That might be Jim Ratcliffe or Willie Walsh's idea of a better Scotland, based on low wages and tax cuts, but it is not my idea of a fairer Scotland.

"But that's the prospective that's being offered now and for the future by a government in Holyrood.

"Alex Salmond is proof that just because Scots make decisions, they are not necessarily more fair or just."

Action can be taken now to support workers, she insisted. Labour is already trying to expand the living wage policy, improve fatal accident inquiries, build on equality legislation and tribunals, she said.

Ms Lamont also appealed to unions not to split along referendum lines and risk losing site of common aims to improve social justice.

She made repeated references to "honourable" views on independence but appealed for people to stick with the UK to improve conditions for ordinary working families.

"I recognise there are those in the trade union movement who are attracted to the idea of stopping the Tories at the border," she said.

"I understand it and I respect it.

"I know there are many others who believe that working in co-operation and partnership with our neighbours, building a fairer society, that the trade union has progressive voices from Liverpool, Newcastle, Manchester, Cardiff, Belfast, Portsmouth, right across the United Kingdom.

"I respect both points of view but we cannot allow this position on the referendum to divide our movement or distract from our common purpose of creating a more just Scotland.

"Creating splits within the trade union movement has been the aim of successive Tory governments like Margaret Thatcher in the 80s."

Both sides of the referendum campaign were clearly represented at the congress in the Caird Hall, with Yes Scotland and Better Together setting up stalls.

Mr Salmond, in his address on Tuesday, said independence will give Scotland the power to make its own choices.

To a round of applause, he said: "It's true of employment, foreign affairs, the economy, welfare reform, the bedroom tax, and it's true of the removal of weapons of mass destruction from Scottish soil."

STUC delegates touched on key referendum issues in a question-and-answer session with Ms Lamont.

Asked for her position on the Trident nuclear missile system, she said: "We're still in the position that we accept it should be replaced."

She added: "There are two separate things here - there's an issue about Trident and there's an issue about we make the world a safer and more peaceful place. It's certainly the case that Scottish Labour wants to do all it can to reduce the use of existence of nuclear weapons in our world."

The questioner responded: "So the Scottish Labour Party don't think that scrapping Trident would make a contribution to the world being a safer place?"

Ms Lamont replied: "The point I'm making is that is something that has to be done in negotiation and conversation with the international community."

The Scottish Government has made the removal of Trident from Scotland a key plank of its White Paper on independence.

Ms Lamont was also pressed to make a commitment that a Scottish Labour government would rule out compulsory redundancies.

She told delegates: "Of course we would prefer not to have compulsory redundancies, we want to invest in public services, we want to protect the workforce.

"I don't know what the state of the books will be if I ever get to Bute House, if I ever have the privilege of being in that position.

"I am very anxious about the way in which the lack of transparency in the Scottish Government's budget currently.

"Our basic principles would be to protect the public sector, protect people's jobs and make sure that happens.

"Certainly it would be the case that it would be tougher if there was a Tory government in Westminster but we believe that through the devolution proposals round taxation, round welfare, round employment opportunities we'd be creating, that we can actually ensure people's rights will be protected in the workplace."

STUC general secretary Grahame Smith said Ms Lamont gave a strong and confident performance, and he welcomed pledges for workers.

"However, it was notable that her answers to referendum questions on reserved Westminster policy such as Trident, employment rights public spending cuts and Labour's support for the Coalition's Benefit Cap, appeared insufficient to convince our delegates that the current policies of the UK Labour Party will be sufficient to achieve our social justice ambitions for Scotland should there be a No vote in the referendum," he said.

"Johann's expressed preference for a separate Scottish currency under independence was interesting. While a separate currency may offer considerable economic freedom longer term it would inevitably mean a period of austerity at least as severe as that currently being pursued by the Coalition."

Christina McKelvie, who convenes the SNP parliamentary trade union group, said: "As much as Johann Lamont tries to deny it, the simple truth is that successive Westminster governments have failed to tackle inequality. The UK is now the fourth most unequal country in the developed world - and under Labour the gap between rich and poor only grew wider.

"Reports today that UK Government welfare reforms have resulted in a 400% increase in food bank use are a stark reminder that Westminster does not deserve another chance. To really tackle inequality and build a fairer Scotland we need the full powers of an independent Scotland."

She highlighted plans in the White Paper for independence for a "fair work commission" to promote a more equal society, and proposals for the minimum wage to rise at least in line with inflation.

Ms Lamont had also offered her view on the future currency for an independent Scotland.

She opposes the SNP's plan for a formal currency union with the rest of the UK, suggesting that true independence would need a new currency.

"If I ever got to a place where I thought Scotland should be independent, I can't for the life of me think why I would want to go into a currency union where a foreign country, a foreign chancellor, then determined my monetary policy, my interest rates, my public spending, which would be the price that would be paid to be part of the currency union - we know that from the eurozone," she told the STUC.

"If I were an advocate of independence, and I believed that we could achieve social justice better within Scotland than across the United Kingdom, I would resist a currency union where economic policy would be determined in a treasury run in a place where there is no Scottish representation - it doesn't make any sense for Scotland, never mind the rest of the United Kingdom.

"I am troubled that in some of this debate - and I'm sure people who themselves are in favour of independence are troubled by this - almost what we've got to is a place where there is an assessment of what people like about the United Kingdom, and we can keep all of that, and there's an assessment of what we don't like, and we can lose that.

"A lot of the argument around independence is predicated on the idea that the rest of the UK has denied us the opportunity to achieve our potential. At worst, have done us done and denied us our rights.

"If that is the case, why, the day after independence has been won in a referendum, would those self-same people put themselves in a place where they would want to co-operate with us?"

She added: "Fundamentally for me, if I want to be in an independent country, I really think I'd like to have control of the fundamental levers you need to address economic change in Scotland."