May Day ... and Scotland's own jaggy tweed revolution?

On the morning of May Day 2012 the media is a tad self-absorbed with the sleaze oozing across the doorstep at 10 Downing Street, and much of it having backed up in the sewers which were the channels of communication between government ministers such as the lambada connoisseur Jeremy Hunt and Rupert Murdoch.
In Scotland, we are in that part of the socialist cycle [and I have been here before] where trade unions don't 'do' May Day on May Day and instead package it around a week-end [if you are lucky] of some loose-knit cultural gig.  It is almost as if we are ashamed of the concept of organised labour and celebrating that core function of protecting people from ruthless employers.
Equality has always been part of my understanding of what trade unions were, are and must be about.  Trade unions have been, for some decades in the latter part of the 20th century, part of the bulwark against the exploitation of the weak, the marginalised, and those whose difference made them easy targets for ruthless employers.  Trade unions helped [and sometimes had to be pushed themselves] force government action on equal pay, on tackling racism, on challenging disablism, and on LGB&T equality.
Today, May Day 2012, the Scottish Parliament's Equal Opportunities Committee [EOC] will consider a proposal from Nicola Sturgeon on adopting new specific equalities duties to underpin what public bodies must do to show compliance with the general equality duty they have.  Nicola tried to get the EOC to adopt a set she put forward last year.  A small group of us [most of whom share a trade union hinterland] persuaded the EOC that they were not fit for Scotland's equality communities and they rejected the draft duties Nicola had submitted then.
I will attend the EOC meeting this afternoon, partly to check that all goes well and that there are no last-minute hitches.  But also to see if there is any sense of this being recognised by those present and by the Minister as a day from which we can - if we are minded - seize the opportunity to lay and build a legacy on equalities in Scotland.  
Can we expect Nicola to reach beyond the important but uninspiring words on the order paper and instead trigger a chain reaction across the public sector in Scotland to start Scotland's own jaggy tweed revolution in ways which will deliver real measurable changes in the lived experience of people who encounter discrimination on a daily basis?
I'll let you know when I get back.