All the union news that's fit to blog...
Enforcement of the NMW for sleep-ins temporarily suspended in social care Last month the government announced it was waiving historic financial penalties and temporarily suspending enforcement of the National Minimum Wage (NMW) for workers required to ‘sleep-in’ on their employer’s premises…
The ONS release on the number of zero-hours contracts yesterday showed that there has a been a fall of 20,000 over the year. This is the first fall we have seen in the data series. However, at 2%, this is a drop in the ocean. There are still around 900,000 of these controversial contracts. Numbers…
Where you are born should have no say on how your life pans out. But the reality of today’s Britain is different. Regional inequalities persist from birth to childhood, to working life and beyond. The North / South divide is not a myth… Your life is likely to be shorter if you’re from the…
More older workers retiring today benefit from decent workplace pensions than ever before according to figures published by the Office for National Statistics. But changes to pension provision mean these gains are in danger of being reversed, and there…
PCS has launched a campaign to halt the Conservative government’s latest attempt to privatise sensitive work in our justice system. On 1 August, civil servants employed as civilian enforcement officers (CEOs) were told that the work they do enforcing financial fines for the criminal courts, will…
Worries about excessive bank lending to households are (understandably) never far from the headlines, but there is too little concern about the very low levels of lending to firms. The point of departure is a speech by Alex Brazier of the Bank of Engla…
Raising the state pension age for women is hitting the poorest hardest – and is having an impact on some men too. Two pieces of research published this week show the dangers of restricting access to the state pension to attempt to force people to work longer. The first was from the Institute for…
Protecting workers’ rights in trade deals is essential to ensure trade is fair. If trade deals don’t contain effective protections for workers’ rights, they just make it easier for companies to locate themselves in countries where wages are lower and workers are less able to resist…
With the economy showing increased signs of weakness, it is welcome that that the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted today to keep interest rates on hold. More surprising perhaps has been the recent positioning of MPC members that has fostered specu…
The Immigration Act 2016 brought about significant changes to the remit and powers of the Gangmasters Labour Abuse Authority. It also created the position of director of labour market enforcement. Sir David Metcalf has been appointed to this post. It is the director who is responsible for…
Workers have suffered from a lost decade of wage growth. While the jobs recovery has been strong, the wage recovery has been agonisingly slow. Wages in 2016 were still 4% lower in real terms than they were a decade before, and they are falling again. Britain’s dreadful performance on…
The Home Secretary’s announcement yesterday on post-Brexit immigration plans was barely out the door before the government’s all-encompassing confusion over Brexit enveloped it. Amber Rudd’s junior minister, Brandon Lewis, contradicted her spin if not her substance, almost…
In our evidence to the Taylor Review, the TUC and trade unions argued that strengthening workers’ rights to voice in the workplace is key to addressing insecurity and exploitation at work. So was the Taylor Review listening? “The Review believes that for work to be fair and decent, workers must…
The Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that the government’s sky-high tribunal fees are unlawful, accepting UNISON’s argument that the fees are restricting working people’s access to justice. What’s more, the government will have to refund any fees paid since 2013 — at a…
Following UNISON’s legal challenge, the Supreme Court has, today, ruled that employment tribunal fees are unlawful because they price workers out of accessing justice and discriminate against women. This means that from today, employment tribunal fees will no longer apply and that all previous fees…
The Taylor Review wants those on zero hours contracts to have a legal right to request a contract that guarantees hours that better reflect the actual hours they work. A right to request fixed hours, however, is no right at all. It’s more of a vague hope. To see why, we just need to…
Everyone, it seems, is now committed to ending forced labour and child labour. Governments, international institutions, NGOs and businesses have come under enormous pressure to do something — and to be seen to be doing something. A good example of this is a resolution on forced labour passed…
England’s maternity services are desperately short of midwives. In October 2015, health secretary Jeremy Hunt told the House of Commons that ‘we need more midwives’. But since then, the number has increased by less than 0.7%. Across England, we have a shortage of around 3,500. Of the…
“Nothing in economics is more potent than a simple idea whose time has come”, Gavyn Davies, October 21st 2012 The week before last, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) published a new assessment of ‘fiscal risks’ to the UK. Reporting on threats to the public finances, they warned against new…
The Taylor Review includes a section on “fairer enforcement”, which concludes with the statement: “The two-tier enforcement framework in the UK works”. No it doesn’t. Two things immediately spring to mind that show this statement isn’t true: Employment tribunal fees price people out of justice….