More than 250,000 UK workers are paid less than the legal minimum wage – let’s put this right. At a conservative estimate, minimum wage underpayment affects 250,000 people, but we fear that the true figure could be higher. For instance, we have heard that the forthcoming official…Read more…
Tackling precarious work & addressing migration concerns
Last week I spoke at a conference organised by the TUC and Exeter University on ‘Confronting change: Globalization, Migration and Precarious Labour in the Age of Brexit.’ This is a summary of my speech. As conditions have become more insecure for workers since 2006 – a recent TUC report showed 1 in…Read more…
Hammond reveals a stark choice: single market or deregulated tax-haven
While Prime Minister May was engaged in a second weekend of mixed messages about whether she will advocate a hard or soft Brexit, her Chancellor was telling German newspaper Welt am Sonntag that if we don’t get to keep full access to the single market, Britain will indeed be likely to become…Read more…
Working people will judge the PM’s Brexit strategy on whether it protects jobs and rights
After hearing for months that Brexit means Brexit, we may be about to hear what it actually means. As Theresa May gives her big speech to diplomats at Lancaster House on Tuesday, on how she intends to negotiate our exit from the EU, working people will be watching to see if her strategy will do…Read more…
MPs right to call for a Brexit that protects working people
The first report of the Brexit Select Committee, published this morning, is right to call on the government to set out its plans for Brexit, including membership of the single market and the Customs Union, among other things. The TUC believes that thes…Read more…
Globalisation isn’t a ‘given’
Thanks to Geoff Tily, who co-authored this blog. The impact of globalisation on working people’s wages, jobs and prospects emerged as one of the key themes of 2016, following the seismic political developments in both Europe and the US. 2017 sees no sign of the debate going away. The policymaking…Read more…
Globalisation’s strength is through domestic demand – that’s why it’s in crisis
The current debate on globalization is characterised by the idea that trade is becoming more and more important to prosperity. A very standard illustration shows trade growth as a share of GDP progressively increasing over the last 50 years – see Annex. (NB this post is background to…Read more…
We are more equal (because we are all worse off)
Normally figures (here) showing the income distribution had narrowed to the lowest point for thirty years – since 1986, the height of Thatcherism – would be reason for celebration. But these are not normal times. The country may be less unequal, but everybody is poorer. Thatcherites used to boast…Read more…
Inequality is falling, but that doesn’t mean we can stop worrying
I was struck by the coincidence of two news items yesterday. On the one hand, the World Economic Forum highlighted rising income inequality as one of four “global risks in 2017” because it threatens social cohesion and democratic societies’ ability to take action on other problems. On the other,…Read more…
We won’t be misled on the #SouthernStrike
Further strike action on Southern Rail take place this week, and the disruption this will cause for passengers is regrettable. But we won’t be misled by the industry on why the strikes are taking place. The extension of driver only operations by Southern Rail is at the heart of the dispute between…Read more…
Why liberal approaches to migration won’t work
While he was a member of the coalition government, Vince Cable was one of the main proponents of a liberal immigration policy, in particular arguing for greater openness to Indian migration as a necessary and even beneficial component of an EU-India tr…Read more…
Household debt is higher than in 2008, is history repeating?
The latest TUC figures on household debt show that consumer credit is still filling the gap left by anaemic wage growth. Data from the Bank of England shows that total consumer credit (that is excluding both mortgages and student loans) grew by 10.8% in November 2016 compared with a year before….Read more…
Public sector employment under Labour, the Coalition and the current government
As we get used to writing “2017” on our letters, one of the fundamentals of UK politics hasn’t changed since (at least) 2010: Labour isn’t trusted on the economy. This seems to be as stubborn a public perception as belief in Conservative economic incompetence was for 15 years after the 1992 “Black…Read more…
Three key messages from Sir Ivan Rogers’ resignation
The headlines yesterday and today focus on “muddled thinking” as the key phrase to stand out from the leaked resignation e-mail of the civil service’s top man in Brussels, Sir Ivan Rogers. But in fact, that’s only the third most important part of the story around the shock…Read more…
Why unions are key to fighting inequality between generations
Young people are on the sharp end of many worrying labour market trends. Workers in their 20s have taken the biggest hit to wages since the financial crisis. They are most likely to be working on zero-hours contract or in agency or casual work. And they are much less likely to own a home compared…Read more…
When a big lie fails, hard Brexiteers tell a bigger one
It’s hard to work out what’s most ludicrous about this morning’s ‘news’ that Michael Gove and others claim that leaving the EU Customs Union would benefit Britain by £450 million a week and create 400,000 new jobs. My favourite is the claim that once we leave the EU we…Read more…
People and pensions: TUC conference puts focus on members
The coming year has the potential to see yet another overhaul of pensions saving. Virtually every aspect of the pensions system will come under scrutiny in the coming 12 months But through it all, it is vital that the focus is kept on the overriding po…Read more…
What Migration Watch aren’t telling you about what leaving the single market would mean
Migration Watch, the anti-immigration organisation, published a report yesterday calling for the UK to leave the single market to reduce net EU immigration. Like so much of what is said about migration, the incomplete nature of the argument is deliberately misleading. In particular, Migration Watch…Read more…
Why are slaves being arrested while traffickers are just fined?
The Government has this morning released details of a month-old crackdown on alleged illegal working in nail bars, part of the year old Operation Magnify. The actual operation took place at the end of last month, and resulted in 97 people being held, a…Read more…
The #Brexit mask begins to slip: they’re still after our rights
We welcomed the Prime Minister’s pledge at Conservative Party Conference (repeated by Ministers) that workers would keep their current rights – and gain new rights – after Brexit. It’s not enough, but it’s a start (we want it guaranteed, not just pledged, and we want…Read more…