• The Scottish Trades Union Congress has its 125th conference this week with a strong negotiating hand but weakness in membership and legal powers, highlighted by the sackings at P&O Ferries.

• The failure of pay increases to keep pace with prices, and in a tight labour market, means new dynamics to industrial relations and the prospect of more conflict with employers.

• Much of the economy is not covered by union negotiations, particularly affecting young people with informal contracts - just one of the issues that unions want to press home with the Scottish government.

If you're a truck driver or financier, you probably have more spending power than you did last year. If you're not, then you probably don't.

The first group seized the opportunity of the shortage of drivers to demand higher pay, and rises came in around 12%.

In the finance sector, it's been a good year for trading activity and profits, so with bonuses, pay is up 9.8%.

For others, the average pay increase in the past year, without bonuses, is 4%. In the public sector, it's only 1.9%.

Price inflation, meanwhile, has reached 7%, and it's rising. Domestic energy bills will see it spike this month, but it won't fall in a hurry.

Few people in the workforce have ever seen a squeeze on their spending power like this. Inflation in the 1970s led to a spiral of wage demands, in which unions with the most clout were able to drive up pay, thus fuelling price increases to a peak of 25%.

It became the dominant theme of...

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