#GE2015 David Cameron’s cocksure comment in last night’s BBC interview that the Tories are ‘only 23 seats short of a majority’ should make every trade unionist reflect on what’s at stake in next…Read more…
Half a work manifesto is better than none
On Monday Labour launches its 2015 General Election manifesto but the ‘work manifesto’ A Better Plan for Britain’s Workplaces published on 1st April, provides an early insight into the party’s…Read more…
ISDS – a corporate power grab
#NoTTIP One of the most pernicious measures in the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) which empowers corporations to go to…Read more…
Why TTIP is bad for workers
#NoTTIP The recent War on Want Manchester conference – ‘TTIP: Building the Fightback’ – included a presentation by Jeronim Capaldo of TUFTS University in the USA. Capaldo’s study, ‘The Trans-Atlantic…Read more…
Why Workers Won’t Unite: That is the question
In her review of two US books on the decline of unions in the States, Kim Philips Fein of NYU takes us through a hop, skip and a jump of US Union history and then dives into a complex seeming summary…Read more…
Will conference words of unity translate to reality?
Calls for unity from both platform and floor were welcome after a sometimes bitter special local government conference in London on Tuesday – and unity is essential if anything positive is to come…Read more…
Public services – more austerity carnage ahead
#Budget2015 The cuts to public services projected in yesterday’s Budget speech by Tory Chancellor George Osborne are unprecedented and a timely TUC analysis confirms that ‘departmental spending is…Read more…
Prof Prem Sikka on ‘How to Defeat Austerity?’ Video now online
‘There was absolutely no need for anything to do with austerity. It is really a political project which has been carried out in the UK for the last 30 or 40 years. It has eroded the purchasing power…Read more…
Northern Ireland says NO to Austerity
#M13 Over 50,000 public service workers, including UNISON members, across Northern Ireland took 24 hour all out strike action against austerity cuts yesterday. Education, health, transport and…Read more…
Joined up public services – how do we unscramble marketisation?
Progressive, people centred reforms of public services by an incoming Labour Government will require more than good intentions writes Eunice Goes on the LSE blog. Decades of funding cuts,…Read more…
Rising inequality caused by weaker unions
A new study by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has tracked three decades of income (1980 to 2010) and found that as unionisation declined, the wealth of the richest 10% in advanced countries…Read more…
Outsourcing fails service users and workers
The outsourcing of public services provision to private providers has a detrimental impact on the workforce and a knock-on effect on the quality of care, says a new TUC report published today. The…Read more…
NHS Devolution – another Trojan Horse?
Greater Manchester is to take control of the region’s Health and Social Care spending. Yesterday George Osborne announced that from 2016 Greater Manchester’s combined authorities will take…Read more…
The Soldier and the Snow by Miguel Hernandez
December has frozen its double-edged breath
and blows it down from the icy heavens,
like a dry fire coming apart in threads,
like a huge ruin that topples on…Read more…
Poison chalice or golden opportunity? What will a devolved NHS be?
The announcement of devolved NHS funding to Greater Manchester authorities is surprising on many fronts not least because the shadow Labour health secretary lives in the patch, Labour council leaders…Read more…
Austerity job losses – bad for all but worse for some
In order to divert attention from the public sector jobs carnage caused by its austerity policies, the Conservative Party claims that ‘there are now two million more private sector jobs than there…Read more…
Punching above our weight
UNISON was the UK’s top political donor in the fourth quarter of 2014! Electoral Commission data published last week confirms that a total of £1,384,289 was donated to the Labour Party from our…Read more…
Defend the right to strike – under threat at home and abroad
Today a global day of action in defence of the right to strike is being called to highlight the serious attacks on fundamental union rights. The Institute of Employment Rights reports that the…Read more…
Election 2015 – What’s at stake?
CLASS, the labour movement think tank, has published the first in a series of general election guides. Election 2015: What’s at stake for work, pay and unions?
This timely…Read more…
Night Workers by Helen Dunmore
All you who are awake in the dark of the night,
all you companions of the one lit window
in the knuckled-down row of sleeping houses,
all you who think nothing of the midnight hour
but by…Read more…