CLYDEBANK could lead the way in changing society in the aftermath of the pandemic, says the new head of Scotland’s trades union movement.

Mary Senior has been elected president of the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) after decades of work with Unison, GMB and most recently the University and College Union (UCU) in Scotland.

The Clydebank resident said: “Clydebank has suffered tremendously from deindustrialisation. It needs real investment. It needs to think about people, not profit, and clean economic growth.

“For trade unions, we are all too aware that we don’t want to go back to ‘normal’.

“Local government has really been decimated for more than a decade. We saw at the start of the pandemic how important key workers were. We had an appreciation for what mattered and what was important.

“I think this is the prime opportunity because things are so different and so many are working so differently.”

Ms Senior said the poverty in communities in West Dunbartonshire and other areas was making the pain of the pandemic even worse, in health impacts and the economic fallout.

“There’s not one simple answer,” she said. “We need a real industrial strategy in Scotland and the UK as well so people who make things are willing to locate in Clydebank.

“We need to look at how companies are run and owned and give workers more say in companies so they have more of a stake in making organisations successful.

“We need stronger employment rights; we need the Real Living Wage.

“If you pay people properly, they can buy stuff so you have a circular economy.”

STUC General Secretary Roz Foyer said: “Mary’s long commitment to trade unionism, to wider social justice and to equality is well-known throughout our movement.”