Despite some progress, women still take the lion’s share of domestic and family responsibilities. Over 40% of women, compared to just 12% of men, work part-time. This is part of the reason that progress on closing the gender pay gap has been so painfully slow. There are far too few opportunities to…Read more…
Ernest Bevin and three lessons for ‘Rethinking Economics’
(This post is the fuller version of remarks I made at the launch of Econocracy: The Perils of Leaving Economics to the Experts, by Joe Earle, Cahal Moran and Zach Ward-Perkins of ‘Rethinking Economics, London School of Economics, 21ST November 2016.) Parallels have rightly been drawn between the…Read more…
Workers on boards would become part of a new, and better, normal
The Prime Minister used her speech to the CBI this morning to appear to dilute her previous commitment to put workers on company boards. If this is the case, it represents a huge missed opportunity to put in place a different model for British business…Read more…
The vindictive policy that punishes children for having more than one brother or sister
Last year, in his summer Budget, George Osborne announced a couple of measures designed to penalise large low-income families. One was the reduction in the Benefit Cap, from £26,000 to £23,000 in London, £20,000 elsewhere. The limit mainly applies to people who need to claim Housing Benefit for…Read more…
Brexit means Brexit. Workers on boards means workers on boards
We’re looking forward to the Prime Ministers speech this morning to the CBI, and any detail on the pledge she made in her conference speech to build ‘a country that works for everyone’. Theresa May’s signature policy to date has been her plan to include workers on company boards. In her pitch to…Read more…
Public sector cuts are stalling progress on closing the gender pay gap
Now at 9.4%, the gender pay gap has barely budged in recent years. Since 2011 the full-time gap has fallen by just 0.2 percentage points a year. At this rate it will take over 40 years to achieve pay parity between men and women. This means a young wom…Read more…
For trade unions, Trans Day of Remembrance reminds us we must organise for trans equality
A trans person is killed globally every 1.4 days and black trans women are most heavily represented in these figures. Trans Remembrance Day is a time to remember the lives lost through hate and violence. In the workplace, three in five (60%) of trans workers have experienced some form of…Read more…
Working people’s rights after Brexit: campaigning for continued compliance
This morning I was pleased to be asked to address a European policy forum in Yorksire & the Humber by the local Labour MEPs Linda MacAvan and Richard Corbett. Shadow Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union Keir Starmer spoke for Labour. Here are some of the remarks I made about…Read more…
Globalisers’ response to popular concern on trade agreements? Shut down debate
When the Walloons finally agreed to accept the passage of the Canada-EU so-called trade agreement, or CETA, one of the concessions they secured was that the legality of the investor protection element of the deal (known as ICS) would be tested in the E…Read more…
Europe’s gender employment rate gaps: why the UK should be worried
In this post I take a broader approach to an issue I looked at in my blog on Wednesday: employment rate gaps. One aspect of women’s economic dependency has been less involvement in the labour market, so the employment rate gap is a handy indicator. To work it out, you simply subtract women’s…Read more…
Flexible working and better transport can beat the commuting blues
Average commutes are getting longer and travelling to work is getting dearer. Throw in the darker nights and bad weather and it’s no wonder that November intensifies the commuter blues. But it doesn’t have to be this way. In order to mark Commute Smart Week, which is organised by the campaign group…Read more…
Self-employment – who are the new army of workers?
The rise in self – employment is well documented, the surge is extraordinary as self-employment is a relatively small part of the UK jobs market. More striking is that whilst women account for just under a third of all the self- employed, they have made up over half (53 per cent) of the increase…Read more…
The Fourth Industrial Revolution: a breakthrough that must be ‘humanised’
The fourth industrial revolution, otherwise known as digital manufacturing, is upon us. The concept of digital manufacturing has been around for about five years. Perhaps the easiest way to describe it is this: in the 1980s, when I first came into cont…Read more…
Women in work: has the progress come to an end?
Welcome to the first in a series of five blogposts on gender and the labour market. I’m going to kick us off by putting today’s labour market statistics in their historical context. Then I’ll worry a bit about whether progress on employment gaps between men and women is coming to an end….Read more…
What would an #AutumnStatement for everyone look like?
The Prime Minister says she wants ‘an economy that works for everyone’. The Autumn Statement – or mini budget – on the 23rd of November, will be the first test of her commitment, and that of the Chancellor, to put that into practice. Here’s the actions we believe would show she’s serious about that…Read more…
UK languishing near bottom of OECD rankings for investment in vital infrastructure
New TUC analysis shows the UK ranking towards the bottom of OECD countries across a number of categories of investment vital for economic development. The analysis has been issued to support our submission to the Treasury on the Autumn Statement which is published today (see Kate’ Bell’s blog…Read more…
CPI shows retailers resisting exchange rate pressures – for now
Inflation figures today show that, so far, retailers are absorbing the costs of the fall in sterling. CPI inflation came in below expectations to fall back to 0.9% from 1.0% in September (the Bank of England expected a rise to 1.1%). While the rise in inflation is still significant (it’s 2.0% on…Read more…
Sexism in football: The beautiful game’s ugly secret?
From the school playground to the Premier League stand, for millions of people football is more than a sport – it is a way of life. But it’s a beautiful game with an ugly underbelly when it comes to women working within the sport, who are too often subjected to discrimination, harassment and abuse….Read more…
Child Poverty is on the Rise and Concentrated in the Places the Government’s Policies Will Hurt Most
Today the End Child Poverty coalition published their annual Child Poverty Map of the UK which local authorities and parliamentary constituencies across the UK and shows the proportion of children living in poverty in each. (Full disclosure: the TUC is…Read more…
The return of the squeeze?
This is the latest in our regular round-up of the state of the economy. Last month my colleague Silkie Cragg discussed the contradictory nature of data regarding the state of the economy as we entered Quarter 4 of 2016. This month the picture seems to …Read more…