Unite has called for urgent talks with the new owners of a boat firm to discuss implications for its members who work there. Fairline Boats, a luxury boat builder in Northampton has been taken…Read more…
Northern poorhouse
Last summer, chancellor George Osborne pledged that his government would create a “higher wage, lower tax, lower welfare” country; that the vaunted ‘Northern Powerhouse’ would, over the next few…Read more…
Tory mission impossible
Owning your own home is for many people their biggest aspiration. So why is the Tory party, who claim to be the party of aspiration, making it impossible for most people to ever realise this dream?…Read more…
Building a world-class bus system for Britain
Buses are a life-line for millions, providing access to employment, education and training, public services and leisure activities. But instead of a world-class bus service, bus deregulation has delivered higher fares and worsening services resulting in a drop in usage. The government’s austerity…Read more…
Why we need the Working Time Directive strengthened
Construction worker David Brown has won his case against his former employer after he was forced to work unacceptable hours. According to a report in Planning and Business Control Today: “Brown said he had raised concerns with his bosses on several different occasions, yet nothing was done to…Read more…
Online voting: Safe as Houses of Parliament?
All the way back in January of 2015, the Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy reported their findings. Top of the list was that the 2020 general election should provide a mechanism for people to vote online. Campaign group Webroots Democracy have been following the progress of the Commission’s…Read more…
Wake-up call
Crane operators at the UK’s largest mobile crane hire firm, Ainscough, have delivered a wake-up call to management, after voting overwhelmingly for strike action in a pay dispute. Unite is…Read more…
Gardening on the curriculum
By Anne Heavey, Education Policy Adviser at ATL. On Friday afternoon I had the pleasure of visiting Grassmoor Primary School in Chesterfield and I wanted to share some of what I saw. Grassmoor have a…Read more…
Closer to justice
A High Court judge on Friday (January 22) ordered 30 construction firms including Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd and Balfour Beatty to disclose all emails and correspondence relating to blacklisting after…Read more…
The ties that bind
Rupert Murdoch’s plan to set up a new non-union printing works in Wapping was well over a year in the making. It involved Farrers, the Queen’s solicitors and strike busting advice from…Read more…
Insurers take another pot-shot at the victims.
The insurers seem to be going after our compensation again. The last government gave them a huge bonus by making it far harder to take claims and recover all your costs by introducing legislation…Read more…
Is the EU-Canada trade deal hitting the rocks?
The election of a charismatic young Liberal Prime Minister – Justin Trudeau – is just one development that has cast doubt on the future of the Canada-EU trade deal negotiated under his Conservative predecessor Stephen Harper. Although firmly committed to signing the Trans-Pacific…Read more…
International agreements coming back into fashion?
In the same week that the UK government ratified the ILO Forced Labour Protocol after pressure from the TUC and CBI, the Transport Minister has signalled that he will ratify the Hong Kong Convention…Read more…
‘Affront to democracy’
The Tory trade union Bill will not only tie unions up in red tape, threaten fines and open them up to detailed investigations. It’ll cost £7m a year for the first five years according to the…Read more…
Uniting to save jobs
Unite today announced (Friday January 22) it is joining forces with European counterparts in a bid to save former Alstom workers from redundancy – in the wake of the recent General Electric (GE)…Read more…
‘National scandal’
As it couldn’t get any worse for beleaguered steelworkers, today’s (January 22) Mirror front page reports that the government could be considering building new Royal Navy warships with cheap imported…Read more…
Act of sheer brutality
Thirty years ago this Sunday (January 24) Rupert Murdoch made his move to Wapping – sacking 5,500 print workers employed on his newspapers overnight. It was an act of sheer brutality…Read more…
Early UK ratification of ILO Forced Labour Protocol is a major step forward
This lunchtime, I’m taking part with other trade unionists, CBI representatives and ILO Director General Guy Ryder at the ratification of the International Labour Organisation’s 2014 Forced Labour Protocol, a major step forward in the eradication of modern slavery, trafficking and other…Read more…
Flying another kite – has George Osborne solved his pension tax conundrum?
The sky above Number 11 Downing Street must be a mass of tangled string and paper. In the summer, the Chancellor flew a kite about changing taxation on pensions to resemble that of ISA accounts. Instead of up-front tax relief, savers would pay tax on t…Read more…
4 Ds that matter more than #Davos: Debt, Demand, Deflation and Denial
This week has seen global financial markets continuing to collapse. The UK FTSE entered so-called ‘bear market’ territory (falling at one point by over 20% from peak). Official figures showed the UK CPI was zero in 2015, the lowest annual figure since the great depression. In the policy arena,…Read more…