The meeting of the EDF board of directors on Thursday (July 28) to make the crunch decision on the financial go-ahead for the Hinkley Point nuclear power station has been welcomed by Unite. …Read more…
We will not be silenced
Unite general secretary Len McCluskey will be in Bromley this Saturday (July 23) to join the march against the cuts and privatisation to local services in the borough. McCluskey will warn the…Read more…
No excuse
University bosses should not use speculation about future EU research spending in the UK to avoid giving higher education (HE) staff a decent pay rise, Unite said today (July 22). Unite, which…Read more…
‘Not all budding entrepreneurs’
Nearly 90 percent of jobs created in the past three months have been in self-employed roles, prompting warnings over the spread of low-paid insecure work throughout Britain. In the most recent…Read more…
New government must ‘reverse the trend’ of NHS privatisation
UNISON urges ministers to think again after the consultancy behind series of failed privatisations is shut down
The article New government must ‘reverse the trend’ of NHS privatisation…Read more…
Proportional Representation – It’s Time!
I’ve not always been a fan of PR. I grew up in a tribal area where PR was portrayed as inevitably preventing Labour from winning back power. The strongest advocates of PR also seemed to peddle especially self-interested models that benefitted them more than anyone else and didn’t usually even seem…Read more…
Day 1: A whiff of fascism in Cleveland
I arrived in Philadelphia last night, just in time to catch Donald Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. Though I have to confess that after the first four hours of…Read more…
Time to debate LGPS changes as petition hits 100,000 signatures, says UNISON
Government proposals to force the 89 local government pension funds to invest in infrastructure projects have prompted over 100,000 people to sign a petition calling for a debate in Parliament, says…Read more…
Feet to the fire
The ‘Victorian’ employment practices of Sports Direct were condemned by a damning business select committee report published today (July 22), thanks to evidence given by Unite. The committee…Read more…
UNISON Northern Ireland wins battle over salary payments
Union calls off strike ballot, for now, after health minister halts damaging move to monthly payments for health workers
The article UNISON Northern Ireland wins battle over salary payments first…Read more…
Powering Ahead – a Strategy for Sustainable Industry
Today, the TUC publishes ‘Powering Ahead: How UK industry can match Europe’s environmental leaders’. This report, based on new research from Germany and Denmark, considers both how to rebuild the UK’s industrial sector and how to align the needs of industry with the quest for a cleaner, greener…Read more…
Cameron’s premiership saw least housebuilding since 1923
“David Cameron had the worst housebuilding record of any Prime Minister since 1923. An average of 123,560 houses were built in England and Wales during each year of his premiership, according to data released by the independent House of Commons library…Read more…
Meanwhile in the real world…
The HMRC investigation into Sports Direct exposes the nature of the “jobs” created in recent years almost as well as the legal action being take against Uber by drivers seeking to show that they are not self-employed.
As a public sector trade union act…Read more…
Oil strike support
Hundreds of North Sea oil workers have received a boost ahead of industrial action next week with Norwegian energy unions pledging their “100 per cent support”. The Norwegian…Read more…
Government to press on with decision to land student nurses with debts of more than £50,000
Responding to the announcement today (Thursday) that the government is to plough ahead with scrapping nursing bursaries and replacing them with loans and fees, UNISON head of health Christina McAnea…Read more…
The new poor
Falling levels of home ownership and a reliance on state benefits mean that middle income families now have more in common with poor households than wealthy ones, with working families becoming the…Read more…
UNISON calls for end to NHS privatisation after consultancy failures
UNISON has today (Thursday) welcomed the decision by NHS England to shut the Strategic Projects Team (SPT) consultancy. The union has called on the government to learn from mistakes made by the…Read more…
Municipal energy – time for radical action
Despite the best efforts of successive governments to create an energy market, it remains notoriously uncompetitive. In Europe, municipal energy is commonplace and growing – we should do the same in…Read more…
‘Reap what you sow’
An HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) investigation into infamous employer Sports Direct for not paying its 3000 warehouse staff the national minimum wage is understood to have been widened to include the…Read more…
Government borrow more in first quarter of financial year (£26bn) than it originally expected to borrow in the year as a whole (£24bn)
Public sector net borrowing for the first quarter of the current financial year (2016-17) was £26.6bn, down from £27.9bn over the same period of 2016/17. On twitter the ONS are celebrating the lowest figure for the month of June since 2007. But this is hardly the point: the point of substance is…Read more…