The simmering row over Argos’ plans to transfer 96 drivers in Leicestershire to controversial haulier Eddie Stobart Ltd (ESL) has now escalated to a strike ballot of more than 400 workers at the…Read more…
Nudging in the right direction: Behavioural economics to improve workplace safety
On various occasions I have criticised the Government’s reliance on “nudge theory”. The biggest use of it in the workplace health area was the Responsibility Deal which the Government quietly closed…Read more…
Maths of the impossible
The government’s convoluted maths outlining NHS spending is beginning to unravel, as fresh revelations show the health service achieved only £1bn of its £22bn in planned efficiency savings scheduled…Read more…
Brexit bonfire of regulations would be a bonanza for worst kind of financial speculators
It’s amazing how short memories are. The way some people talk, the financial crisis happened under Queen Victoria not Elizabeth. Yet it is less than ten years since the actions of a group of irresponsible, under-regulated bankers brought the world economy to its knees. We all know that we could not…Read more…
Hollande forces change to France’s labour laws
On Tuesday, May 10, despite protests that have lasted for weeks outside the French National Assembly and on the Paris streets, France’s socialist president François Hollande forced through a bill…Read more…
Remain or Leave – trade deals still pose major threats to workers
12 May 2016
By Adrian Weir, Assistant Chief of Staff, Unite the Union
The cat is out of the bag – the publication last week of the LSE report on the Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS)…Read more…
“Disciplinary or grievance hearing? It’s dangerous to go Solo…”
This is a great poster. Not sure where I found it now.
One of the worse things that I have to do as a trade union rep is to refuse representation to work colleagues who join the union too late. You cannot join knowing you have a problem and then…Read more…
Cock-up not conspiracy!
Your blogger has it on the highest authority that cock-up rather than conspiracy accounts for the unfortunate coincidence which has seen the UNISON Online Conference System (OCS) unable to accept Emergency Motions to Local Government Conference just at…Read more…
Senior official accepts responsibility!
http://www.itv.com/news/london/2016-05-09/chief-executive-of-barnet-resigns-after-election-day-blunder/
Anything which pleases my friends and comrades in Barnet UNISON pleases me.
So I was very pleased to see that, following the unprecedented election …Read more…
#TTIPleaks show the UK government is actively choosing not to protect NHS and public services
Some have been using the Greenpeace leaks of negotiating texts from the EU-US trade deal known as TTIP to claim Britain should leave the EU to escape damaging trade rules being imposed on us by shady Brussels negotiators. But disturbingly, what they actually show (adding to evidence we had from…Read more…
No justice, no peace
One chapter closed in the Royal Courts of Justice today (May 11) but another opened as the long fight for blacklisted workers continues. Although the case was settled – Unite helped secure…Read more…
Primary assessment is broken. So what do we want instead?
I think we can say that assessment in primary schools is broken. Many words have been written (including by ATL) about what’s gone wrong this year. The question remains, what do we want instead? I…Read more…
Boris battle bus makes dubious NHS claims, says UNISON
Commenting on the launch of the Vote Leave battle bus today (Wednesday), UNISON general secretary Dave Prentis said: “No one should be fooled for one minute by the dubious claims branded along the…Read more…
UK industry in recession for third time in eight years
BBC UK industry fell back into recession as it shrank for the second quarter in a row, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). It is the third time UK industry has been in recession in…Read more…
Squeezing out every last hour?
Leaving the EU would put around a million workers at risk of excessive working hours, new research from the TUC has shown. The TUC analysis found that since the EU introduced the Working Time…Read more…
Higher education pay offer rejected
UNISON calls on employers to begin dispute resolution procedure after offering a ‘pittance’ to staff
The article Higher education pay offer rejected first appeared on the UNISON site.Read more…
Unaccountable providers, service chaos, workforce pushed to the limit: Probation after the ‘reforms’
A new report by the National Audit Office (NAO) has found that the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) does not know how well the companies responsible for running probation services are performing, due to “limitations around data quality and availability.” The findings follow the government’s controversial…Read more…
What ‘Lord Waitrose’ could do at the European trade ministers’ meeting on Friday
In the midst of the harshest crisis experienced by the UK steel industry in over a decade, last week brought some comforting news about securing the future of the sector. Potentially this week could see further good news if the UK government chooses to…Read more…
The EU’s increased importance to UK exports over the past year
While much reporting focuses as normal on a widening of the trade deficit, the export figures have for the past year shown some shift in the relative importance of the EU. Volume figures show an increase in EU exports of 2.6% on the quarter and 6.0% on…Read more…
Government needs to change the law around council pension powers, says UNISON
The government has failed to listen to more than 70,000 signatories to a UNISON-backed parliamentary petition calling for it to be written into UK law that it is up to council pension funds to decide…Read more…