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The story of Craig Robertson doing three unpaid trial shifts at B&M only to have his job cancelled hours before he started is sadly not unique.

Exploitation – especially of young workers – in the name of even greater corporate profits is one of the scandals of our time.

(According to the Financial Times B&M reported a pre-tax profit of £182.9million in the year to March 25, up 18.4 per cent compared to 2015-16.)

On Monday, I was contacted by Craig’s aunt, who was feeling frustrated and powerless to do anything about his situation.

Since then, I have been inundated with people telling me about the same practices at workplaces across the retail, food and hospitality sector.

If employers like B&M can take advantage of a young man with Asperger syndrome, showing no regard for how difficult it is to find a job, then I doubt if they are treating their permanent staff with much respect either.

They are just the latest in a very long line of employers to be caught out exploiting young workers. Some of the biggest and most profitable household names are at it.

These employers need to be called out and, working with the Better than Zero campaign and UNITE the Union, that is exactly what we have been doing at the Livingston Centre, one of Scotland’s biggest retail outlets.

Livingston has been named the fast food capital of Scotland, with hundreds of school pupils and students working there.

Many of these young people, like Craig, are subject to unpaid trial shifts, struggle to get by on around £4 per hour, have no guaranteed hours, are sent home at short notice if their workplace is going through a quiet spell, are denied breaks, are sacked if they go off sick and have their rota changed with little notice.

High-profile companies including McDonalds, Sports Direct, The Vue cinema chain and Aldi have been accused of using some of these tactics.

During Living Wage Week, I wrote to every major employer at The Livingston Centre asking them if they pay their staff the living wage.

Only Asda and Marks & Spencer replied. Both said they do but neither would commit to becoming an accredited “living wage employer.”

Only 1000 of the 330,000 businesses in Scotland are accredited – we must do much better than that.

We need the UK Government to take action with measures including:

A real living wage of at least £8.75 an hour

Equal pay for young workers – there should be no pay difference if you are 26 or 17 when doing the same job

An end to unpaid trial shifts

A minimum number of hours guaranteed

Consultation on all rota changes

100 per cent of tips to go to the staff who work hard for them

The Scottish Government must use public procurement to ensure that all contractors winning taxpayer-funded contracts pay the living wage.

Government grants to employers and new businesses should have much stricter conditions attached.

And councils and planning bodies should use their powers to incentivise businesses that respect and promote workers’ rights.

But of course the key to all this is active trades unions. They exist to protect workers and improve their rights at work.

At BiFab, it was members of the GMB and UNITE, supported by their union, who saved those jobs. I hope they inspire a new

generation of young workers.

The Record’s campaign to end trial shifts, alongside Stewart McDonald MP’s private members’ Bill, are all part of a growing feeling in Scotland and beyond that the balance of power has tipped too far in favour of employers.

We are fighting back.