The European pensions regulator has stepped back from an attempt to standardise pension funding rules across the European Union. The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) has concluded, rather unsurprisingly, that the diversity of European pension schemes means that…Read more…
Asserting “Paid holidays will be safe after Brexit” fails “project reality” test
Yesterday we published figures showing that UK workers had gained 1.5 billion days more paid leave through our adoption of the EU minimum standard. Today I’ve been looking at some of the rather flimsy assertions made around our paid holiday rights by those who are keen to leave the European…Read more…
1.5 billion extra days paid holiday thanks to EU rights
UK workers have gained 96 million days paid holiday thanks to EU holiday rights (the Working Time Directive), totalling 1.5 million extra days paid leave since 1998. To look at it another way, 7.4 million UK employees, just over 1 in 4, have gained an average of 13 extra days paid holiday from our…Read more…
Vocational education is letting young women down
Vocational education is confused, and does not guarantee routes into good quality employment “The current system for young people who do not follow an academic route is complex and incoherent, with confusing incentives for young people and employers. Careers advice and education are being delivered…Read more…
IMF & World Bank should change course on growth & austerity
The global trade union movement is pressing the ‘international financial institutions’ (IFIs) to switch track, abandoning support for austerity, and replacing it with a global recovery strategy consisting of public investment stimulus and coordinated wage increase; investments in…Read more…
Employment is at record levels – so what’s the problem?
The employment rate at 74.1 per cent is at record levels, and the unemployment rate at 5.1 per cent has returned to pre-recession levels. These are strong employment figures, yet while the numbers are healthy there are still concerns about the quality …Read more…
HS2-TUC partnership: A major opportunity for workers, industry and passengers alike
No one person, organisation or body is more critical to the success of HS2 than the workforce that will build it. And that’s why everyone involved in HS2 has a responsibility to that workforce and must be committed to upholding the highest standards in every aspect of employment.
The post HS2-TUC…Read more…
The public need to understand how the productivity fallacy supports spending cuts
It is difficult for the public to appreciate how fundamental a specific interpretation of ‘productivity’ is to supporting the government’s fiscal policy. It is even more difficult to comprehend that this interpretation is primarily a policy-based or ideological judgement, based on the thinnest…Read more…
10 reasons why we really should be worried about Brexit’s impact on workers’ rights
The TUC has been fighting attempts to scrap the workers’ rights we have won from the European Union for nearly a year. First we had to fight off the Prime Minister’s plan to use his renegotiation strategy to reduce worker protections; secure a further UK opt out from them; or…Read more…
Economists who just can’t give up & learn to love workers’ rights
We are gradually winning the argument that workers’ rights (known in the academic literature as Employment Protection Legislation, or EPL) are not only good for the workers concerned, but also beneficial – or at the very least not harmful – to the economy as a whole. See this OECD…Read more…
Forty years of progress on workplace rights at risk for workers if Britain Brexits
The TUC has published today a legal opinion from prominent legal expert Michael Ford QC – Employment Silk of 2015 – which warns of years of chaos as a post-Brexit government re-regulates British employment law. The advice he has given the TUC lists the workplace rights which are most…Read more…
ONS data confirms rents in London are a high-rise nightmare
The latest monthly ONS economic review includes a focus on housing tenure. There are a number of takeaways from this latest release but the prospects for those in rented accommodation appear gloomy, and Londoners, especially younger Londoners are beari…Read more…
Poll shows workers’ voices aren’t being heard in #EUreferendum debate
The new polling released by the Fabian Society at the weekend has some hard messages for both Remain and Leave campaigners in the EU referendum debate. There’s one over-riding message however, that echoes what the TUC (and a few others) have been saying: The campaigns aren’t currently addressing…Read more…
Debt remains a bigger burden for the lowest paid
On Monday, the ONS released the latest instalment of their data on household debt inequalities between July 2012 and June 2014. The data indicates that the absolute and relative burden still falls disproportionately heavily on the lowest paid. For instance: “Twice as many individuals living in…Read more…
NMW increase welcome – but not to be confused with a living wage
I have been feeling a little conflicted about the new “national living wage” introduced today. On the one hand, it would clearly be churlish to do anything except welcome an increase in the national minimum wage to £7.20, as it will benefit about 1.5 million workers. We have quite…Read more…
Tata steel crisis needs real action – not confusion and mixed messages
Tata Steel’s plans to sell its UK assets have plunged our steel industry into uncertainty. It’s not just the 4,000 steelworkers in Port Talbot who risk losing their jobs but also thousands more workers in Tata’s businesses elsewhere in the UK, and people working in Tata’s supply chains – which…Read more…
UK home to three quarters of all the €-millionaire bankers in Europe
In 2014 the UK was home to 2,926 €-millionaire bankers, according to new report published by the European Banking Authority. This is more than ten times as many as Germany, who come in second with 242. Moreover the UK figure is up 40% on last year, when there were 2,086 €-millionaire bankers. Note…Read more…
Another graph for Nicky Morgan: Public service cuts make budget inequality even worse
The hapless performance of Education Minister Nicky Morgan on BBC’s Newsnight when confronted with evidence of the distributional impact of her government’s tax and benefit cuts made for cringeworthy TV. Morgan seemed genuinely shocked at the disproportionate losses inflicted on lower…Read more…
390,000 women a year are discriminated against in pregnancy yet only 1% take tribunal claim
Today the EHRC published its long awaited report and recommendations on pregnancy discrimination. This follows on from last year’s interim report which found that 54,000 women per year are forced out of their jobs due to pregnancy discrimination. The final report leads with the astounding headline…Read more…
Select committee holds government to account over gender pay gap
Just last week, the Chancellor proudly announced in the Budget that the government was winning on the gender pay gap. He said (pretty much cutting and pasting from previous speeches): “Inequality is down; and the gender pay gap has never been smaller.” But today we are told by the Women and…Read more…