All the union news that's fit to blog...
The current system of rail franchising leaves much to be desired. Passenger satisfaction is very uneven, and the system is not well aligned with the needs of the economy. Today, Campaign for Better Transport (CfBT) published a report on the state of Rail Franchising in the UK. Since 1998 range of…
Yesterday saw the last minute publication of the government response to the inquiry into teacher recruitment and retention undertaken by the House of Commons education select committee earlier this year. The committee’s original report, published in February, highlighted a number of key issues,…
New research we’ve published today, commissioned from the National Institute for Economic and Social Research, shows that insecure work isn’t inevitable. The rise and rise of insecure work in the UK is sometimes treated as a natural consequence of technological and social change. The development of…
The campaigns against TTIP and CETA – EU trade deals with the US and Canada – have raised public awareness of the dangers of the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) system. ISDS is a corporate court system contained in trade deals which allows international companies to sue governments for…
I work for the Low Incomes Tax Reform Group, a group of tax and welfare rights specialists with expertise in the tax and related welfare issues of the low-paid. Often, people contact us describing their problems with tax, National Insurance, tax credit…
You wait for years for the needs of working people to become the focus of political attention and then suddenly everybody’s interested. The onset of the General Election campaign has coincided with the beginning of Brexit negotiations and the long overdue dawning of understanding at the…
This week the think tank OpenEurope published a report with recommendations for Britain’s future trade after it leaves the EU. It suggests that Britain may be able to make up much of its shortfall in trade resulting from leaving the EU by strengthening its trade, particularly in services, with…
The economy grew by 0.3% in the first quarter of 2017, down on 0.7% in the final quarter of 2017. More than 80% of the first quarter growth was driven by business services and finance. As the chart shows, the increased contribution here (in light grey)…
New analysis by the TUC shows that if current trends continue, 290,000 more people could be trapped in insecure work by 2022. The figures show that by the start of 2022, 3.5 million people could be in insecure work such as zero-hours contracts, tempora…
The Bus Services Bill is due to complete its passage through parliament this week, because of the election it will be agreed through wash up. It was initially due to enter Ping Pong on April 26 following its third reading in the Commons. The snap election called last week means that the bill has…
Retail sales have seen their worst decline since 2010. But rising consumer credit figures suggest we’re not at the end of the consumer spending boom just yet. Retail sales volumes declined by -1.4% in the first quarter of 2017, the worse quarterly decline since the first quarter of 2010 (itself…
The rubber has hardly hit the road on the June General Election. But important elections are also happening closer to home. Local and metro mayoral elections are happening on 4 May, and there are some big opportunities for parts of the country to make …
The Financial Times has a story today (behind the paywall) suggesting that the government’s new visa system for EU migrants will have to be enforced not by the Home Office or the Borders Agency but by employers, landlords and universities, because of cuts to the civil service. That would,…
In three weeks’ time, six regions across the UK will be electing their new Metro Mayors. Devolution has the potential to radically empower local communities. But several quarters have voiced the same message that on its current track devolution will only serve to further entrench power in the hands…
The government’s Local Government Finance Bill 2016-17 is set to make some radical changes to the way local government will be financed through local business rates (BRs) within England. At present, local government can retain 50% of business rates (BRs), which are essentially a tax on…
8 March 2017, Philip Hammond’s Budget Speech: And most importantly, Mr Deputy Speaker, despite higher-than-target inflation, real wages continue to rise in every year of the forecast. [my emphasis] 12 April 2017, only five weeks later, statistics from ONS Labour Market statistics release…
“I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people”, FDR accepting his nomination as presidential candidate, 2 July 1932 credit: Ron Cogswell Preamble Every two years an international Trades Union Confederation delegation from across the world meets with officials…
Yesterday I attended a lecture by the economist Andrew Dilnot, hosted by the Resolution Foundation. The lecture was called “A lasting solution to the social care crisis”; it was effectively a relaunch of the proposals of the Dilnot Review. The Dilnot Review published its proposals in June of 2011,…
This post is brief background to a longer piece that views Roosevelt’s economics through his impact on Washington D.C. The economic statistics show his initiatives brought the US great depression to a decisive end; they also stabilised the deterioration in the public sector finances. Yet the…
The UK’s gender pay gap stands at 18.1% and at the current rate this gap will not close for at least another 40 years. This means that the average woman has to wait nearly a fifth of a year (66 days) before she starts to get paid, compared to the average man. Today the…