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Solidarity with Syriza
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Len McCluskey suspends union action against Austerity and fighting for the Alternative to ‘get Labour elected’
Some of the biggest Trades Unions have suspended programmes of action since the ‘March for the Alternative’ and ‘Britain needing a pay rise’. In particular the call by Len…Read more…
Protecting our Pensions from Tory Con Trick
UNISON Housing Association delegate, Mitsy Harman, speaking at the regional AGM last week on our motion “Protect our Pensions” (see link here for text). This is an early draft of her speech.
“Council, from April 6 this year, this Conservative led gov…Read more…
180 jobs at risk as car components firm plans Poland move, warns Unite
A consultation over plans by the West Midlands based Car Parts Industries UK to axe 180 jobs and relocate the work to Poland was branded a ‘sham’ by Britain’s largest union Unite last Wednesday. The…Read more…
London Bus Strike – Unite the Union:
TfL accused of being ‘wildly optimistic’ following solid support for London bus strike There was solid support across London for a 24 hour strike on Thursday 5 February, as up to 20,000 bus workers…Read more…
Pension funds giving up on hedge funds is just the start
One of the more inexplicable aspects of pension fund behaviour in recent years has been their tolerance for high fees, particularly in relation to alternatives. To state the obvious, high fees – especially where the manager takes a slice of your return…Read more…
US Oil Strikes Latest: Stoppages Spread To BP
The United Steelworkers (USW) who represent thousands of striking oil refinery workers have said that workers at BP Refineries will be hit by strikes today (Sunday) in the next wave of industrial…Read more…
It gets worse: Osborne’s ‘recovery’ is twice as slow as the slowest recovery on record
Looking at GDP per head, the UK economy grew by 5 per cent between 2009 and 2014. Previously, the slowest recovery on a per head basis was from 1886 to 1901, when the economy grew by 10 per cent: twice as fast. The average recovery speed over five years for previous major recessions is 13.7…Read more…
Churchill and the Commemoration of the End of the Second World War
Yalta Summit, Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin On January 30 commemorative events were organised throughout the country to mark the 50th anniversary of the death of Winston Churchill, who is most…Read more…
What kind of Growth?
Capitalist growth usually means growth in consumer products but it also contains production of the means of production such as factories and machinery. Parasitical growth these days is usually in the…Read more…
Newham Councillors on route to 7 Rifles
This picture is from this morning, just before the 8 of us went off to join our local British Army Reservists – G Company, 7 Rifles in Salisbury Plain.
We got back this evening after a great day with G Company. I will write up a full post tomorrow but…Read more…
UNISON Scotland Communications Awards results
The judges this year were Danny Phillips, Communications Officer, Jane
Carolan NEC and John Stevenson, Chair of the committee. They found the awards enormously difficult to judge.
So difficult that the judges couldn’t agree and for some categories we had to
go to that thing we don’t tend to do much in Scotland – A vote!
This was because the difference between the entries was so close withRead more…
Our Communities, Our Public Services – The Rights of All Must Be Defended!
Public sector strike, Newcastle, July 2014 On Saturday, February 7, a demonstration organised by the Public Services Alliance (PSA) is taking place in Gateshead from West Street to a rally at the…Read more…
Does it matter which union is the ‘largest’?
Inter union rivalry has been a negative characteristic of British trade unionism for more than a century. The highly unionised teaching profession is strongly contested by 3 TUC affiliated unions and…Read more…
A Prayer for the Loners by Keith Armstrong
The dejected men,
the lone voices,
slip away
in this seaside rain.
Their words shudder to a standstill
in dismal corners.
Frightened to shout,
they cower
behind quivering faces.
No one…Read more…
UNISON London LGBT “Equality at Work” Labour Link event at House of Commons
This great picture is from last weeks London UNISON LGBT “Equality at Work” mobilisation event at Portcullis House. I chaired the meeting on behalf of London Labour Link. Margret Hodge MP and Stephen Twigg MP were the guest speakers and reminded us tha…Read more…
MG Rover workers still owed a payout years after this sorry saga
MG Rover workers leaving Longbridge in 2005 after learning of the collapse of the carmaker The Phoenix Four should still do the right thing. By directing the proceeds of the Deloitte fine to former…Read more…
Whatever Happened To Collective Bargaining?
Osborne’s pre-crash economy: riding high on booming property
Approaching half of the growth in the UK economy in 2014 was driven by industries related to the booming property market and the outsourcing of public services (in green); with manufacturing accounting for only eight per cent of growth, this is hardly the ‘march of the makers’; on the other hand,…Read more…