All the union news that's fit to blog...
Ahead of Commonwealth Day tomorrow, Commonwealth trade ministers were in London last week, hosted by the UK international trade minister and leading Leave supporter Liam Fox. The media claimed that several Commonwealth countries were ‘first in the queue’ to do a trade deal with the UK…
The Government’s much-touted negotiating threat that ‘no deal would be better than a bad deal’ risks doing huge damage to the UK economy, our jobs, rights at work and living standards. Last week the all-party Commons Select Committee on International Trade made clear that…
What is insecure work and has it increased? This blog examines precarious or insecure work, how it manifests itself in the workplace and whether insecure work practices have increased. Insecure work includes: agency work or seasonal, casual, temporary …
On Tuesday I spoke at a conference held at the OECD in Paris on the costs and benefits of investment protection agreements like Investor-State Dispute Settlement. In the morning conference participants had heard something important – the experts gathered by the OECD had, in all their…
This blog takes a look at what this Budget delivered for social care, health and education. In our pre-Budget blog we looked at what the Budget needed to deliver for public services, creaking after almost a decade of austerity. Social Care Few could de…
As with much of the Budget, the package of skills measures contained few surprises as the various announcements had been trailed extensively beforehand. Nevertheless, there is much to welcome in the Budget on technical education and skills, in particul…
Increases in taxation of self-employment may raise more money for the exchequer but will do little to clamp down on bad employers who force staff into bogus self-employment to lower their tax bill Today’s standout Budget measure was the increase in the tax paid by the self-employed, with the rate…
Yesterday we set the Chancellor four tests for whether his Budget would deliver for working people. Today we have no good news to report. This wasn’t a budget for living standards, it didn’t give the British economy the investment it needs to see us through the uncertainty of Brexit, and public…
Paperwork released with the Budget has revealed what an astonishing short-term money spinner so-called “pensions freedom” has been for the Treasury – and hinted at what a disaster it might prove for our ability to provide for old age. Originally announced in Budget 2014, pensions…
The Government has decided that ‘taking back control’ of the UK’s borders is more important than anything else, more important in particular than working people’s jobs and living standards. Even if immigration numbers don’t actually come down as a result, the…
Today (8 March) is International Women’s Day (#IWD2017) and the UN’s chosen theme for this year focusses on ‘Women in the Changing World of Work: Planet 50-50 by 2030’. This theme chimes well with the values of the TUC and our sister trade unions around the world who will be joining the global…
As she started her campaign to be Prime Minister, Theresa May promised to put the power of government in the service of working people. So far, there’s little sign that the Chancellor has got the message, with his pre-budget interviews focusing on ‘fiscal discipline’ at the same time as pressing…
The Prime Minister has argued that, when it comes to Britain’s relationship with the EU after Brexit, no deal would be better than a bad deal (I’m worried that some Conservative MPs actually think no deal would be better than a good deal, too!) It is frequently argued that holding out…
We’ve welcomed the Prime Minister’s promise to protect and enhance the rights of working people that the EU has underpinned over the last forty years, but we’ve stressed the need for a cast-iron mechanism to guarantee those rights aren’t watered down, and ensure the rights…
On Sunday morning, the House of Commons Select Committee on Exiting the European Union (the ‘Brexit Committee’ chaired by Hilary Benn MP) released a report urging the government to unilaterally grant the right to remain to EU citizens living and working in the UK. The cross-party group…
Two bits of news caught my eye today. The first was new figures showing the number of workers on zero hour contacts has hit an all time high – with over 900,000 people now working on contracts which leave them wondering how much they will be earning from day to day, week to week. This…
The…
This week the government published the findings of the McGregor-Smith review. The aim of the review is to report on the barriers BME people face when in work. This report is seen as an opportunity for the government to finally take action and tackle th…
Spring is in the air, the blossom is on the trees, and we’re nearly a fifth of the way through 2017. So you might be surprised to learn that the average woman still hasn’t been paid for her work this year. Yes, you read that right. New analysis we’re publishing today shows that the average…
The announcement this week by Justine Greening that the teaching of sex and relationships education will soon be statutory in all schools across the UK is truly welcome, so I apologise if my first response was “About time.” This is something we have been campaigning for over decades and it is great…
On a day when official statistics revealed another welcome hike in the number of people saving in pensions, the government has just made it harder for savers when they reach retirement. Now, 68 per cent of employees are in a workplace pension scheme. T…