Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy has pledged to end low pay in Scotland as he announced a commission to address the problem.
Mr Murphy said the commission would report later this year on how the party's vision of eradicating low wages could be achieved.
It will by led by MSPs Jackie Baillie and Neil Findlay and include representatives from Poverty Alliance Scotland, RBS, the Federation of Small Businesses, shop workers' union Usdaw and Barnardo's.
The announcement was made in advance of a Labour summit in Glasgow this week on the living wage, which will bring together trade unions, business leaders and anti-poverty groups and inform the commission's work.
Mr Murphy said: "I'm making it my mission to abolish low pay in Scotland.
"Too many Scots families are just a rainy day away from real financial trouble. More than one in four Scots get paid less than the living wage. This isn't right, and we need to fix it fast.
"Scotland can only succeed when working people succeed. We need to come together to make this happen.
"The days of people going out to work all the hours they can and still not being able to make ends meet must come to an end. So we will make sure that any firms getting public sector contracts are living wage employers."
Mr Murphy said that under his leadership, a Scottish Labour Government would set up a work commission to focus on getting people into jobs and increasing skills and wages.
He said: "The SNP Government promised to set up an event to discuss low pay, it was in their Programme for Government, but they've done nothing.
"Scottish Labour believe there's been enough delay, the time for action is now."
Eddie Follan, Barnardo's public affairs officer, said he was pleased to take part in the commission.
He said: "At Barnardo's we see every day the impact of poverty on vulnerable children and families, tackling in work poverty has a vital role to play in protecting those families.
"As the former co-ordinator of the living wage campaign in Scotland, I've seen the issue of a living wage for all go up the political agenda, that is welcomed, but we now need to take the next steps to make sure this becomes reality."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article