I think it is important that we do not rush to conclusions over the catastrophic fire at Grenfell Tower that has killed so many people in West London. The priority must be supporting residents who…
Grenfell exposes the true face of deregulation
I think it is important that we do not rush to conclusions over the catastrophic fire at Grenfell Tower that has killed so many people in West London. The priority must be supporting residents who…
Britain Still Needs A Pay Rise
Over the past week, the TUC has been out across the country with one simple message – Britain Still Needs A Pay Rise. We’ve been driving around constituencies and stopping in town centres to…
Iranian workers still fighting for justice
My colleague Mehdi Kouhestani, who now works for the Canadian trade union movement, has provided this update on a three day long strike in Iran which demonstrates the struggles trade unionists in…
Iranian workers still fighting for justice
My colleague Mehdi Kouhestani, who now works for the Canadian trade union movement, has provided this update on a three day long strike in Iran which demonstrates the struggles trade unionists in…
Love Equality – the fight for same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland
It was whilst working at Royal Mail at the central Tomb Street sorting office in Belfast in 2002 that I first truly fathomed the transformational power of the trade union movement. A 20-year-old…
This election is a chance for a new deal for working people: Let’s not waste it
It seems that every election, the parties tell us it’s the most important election for a generation. But this one genuinely could be. Whoever ends up forming the next government, at the top of their…
Organising music’s precarious workforce: What gigging workers can teach gig workers
The Musicians’ Union has 30,000 members the majority of whom are self-employed and have portfolio careers: gigging, teaching, working in freelance orchestras, session musicians or composers and…
Is this Tory mental health proposal going to help?
The Conservative Party election manifesto includes a commitment to amend health and safety regulations, and many readers will be surprised and delighted to learn that, on this occasion, they are not…
Workers need legal protection, not voluntary standards
An international standard for health and safety may sound like a good idea to a lot of people, but the current proposals for one would be bad news for many workers. The International Standards…
Asbestos review shows shocking complacency
The HSE has published a review of the way that the 2012 Control of Asbestos Regulations have been implemented. There was a requirement on the HSE to do this within the first five years of the…
HSE needs to ground its research in the workplace
Unions have long been critical of the failure of the HSE to regulate and enforce on occupational health risks. For instance we have asked for specific regulations on stress, lower exposure limits on…
Personal Protective Equipment: the right fit for women?
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is there to protect workers from potential hazards to their health and safety; it must be used properly. However, the experiences of hundreds of women tells us…
Workers Memorial Day – Remembering the dead and fighting for the living
Every year more people are killed at work than in wars. Most don’t die in tragic “accidents”. They die because an employer decided their safety or health just wasn’t that…
Insecure work is like standing for election every week. We need a new deal for working people
MPs aren’t the only ones feeling insecure in their jobs right now. If nothing changes, by the 2022 election hundreds of thousands more Brits could be stuck in insecure work, being treated like…
Rana Plaza: Unions can save lives as well as livelihoods
As we approach the 4th anniversary of terrible tragedy at Rana Plaza in Bangladesh, it’s important to hold on to the sense of shock we all had when we heard that over a thousand workers, full aware…
Making health and safety an issue for everyone
Men are almost twice as likely to suffer a serious injury at work as women, and for decades health and safety practice has reflected what has been seen traditionally as a problem most affecting men….
Four years after Rana Plaza, union action prevents a repeat
On 24 April 2013, the Rana Plaza factory complex collapsed, killing over 1100 mostly women workers. Bangladeshi and global unions persuaded multinational enterprises to join the Bangladesh Fire and…
Brazilian unions protest for Lula and for justice
Last year’s legislative coup against the democratically-elected President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, was denounced by trade unionists in the country who predicted that the corrupt replacement…
1 in 3 experience racism at work after Brexit vote
When the topic of Brexit’s effects so far comes up in conversation, it’s hard to not talk about the rise in racist attacks since the EU referendum vote. Racism never went away of course, but the last…