Pictured are Unite steel members outside Parliament today (October 28) on their way to lobby their MPs on the plant closures and job losses. Stayed tuned to UNITElive for more updates. …Read more…
Episode 12: ‘I’m sure something wrong has happened’
Sounds familiar? If you work in the hospitality industry you can join www.unitetheunion.org – if you earn less than the Living Wage (£9.15ph in London, £7.85 outside) for just £2.10 per week….Read more…
European Commission says still no action on worker health
This year the European Trade Union Institute published a paper on work-related cancers in the EU. It showed that 102,500 deaths take place each year because of exposure to carcinogens in the…Read more…
European Commission 2016 plan: lots for us to do, but a sting in the tail for Cameron
The European Commission publishes an annual plan (less pageant than a UK government’s Queen’s speech, and less focused on legislation) and the 2016 plan came out this week. Apart from the over-dramatic title (‘No time for business as usual’) there is some good, some bad, and…Read more…
Using agency workers to break strikes will threaten safety
I have already written about the effect that the Trade Union Bill will have on health and safety by restricting the right to strike and limiting the amount of time off that trade union health and…Read more…
Using agency workers to break strikes will threaten safety
I have already written about the effect that the Trade Union Bill will have on health and safety by restricting the right to strike and limiting the amount of time off that trade union health and…Read more…
Opposing the Trade Union Bill in Parliament – guest blog Ian Murray MP
Ian Murray MP, Labour Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, along with Stephen Doughty MP, outline the Labour Group’s opposition to the Trade Union Bill in the UK Parliament, and the…Read more…
Secure our industry and futures
Steelworkers will descend on Parliament tomorrow (October 28) to lobby their MPs to save our steel industry. The workers from steel communities in Teesside, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, the West…Read more…
Not just a steel crisis
The government is significantly under-estimating a potentially devastating fall out in the West Midlands from the steel crisis, according to the West Midlands Economic Forum. It warns that the…Read more…
A principled stand
The government was forced to back down on tax credit cuts last night (October 27), after the House of Lords’ historic vote in favour of two motions that will halt the cuts until there is a plan to…Read more…
‘Where were the black kids then?’
To celebrate Black History Month this week on UNITElive, every day we meet a Unite member who tells us of their own experiences. Today we meet Tracey Liburd Tracey Liburd will never forget…Read more…
Weak Paris treaty will mean “job losses and development crisis”
Trade union demands for the principles of a just transition and decent work have made it into the last draft of the Paris climate change treaty before the final round of talks begin in earnest on 30 November. But there’s still a huge gap between national pledges to cut their carbon emissions and…Read more…
Economy growing at around half the pace of last year
At 0.5%, today’s preliminary estimate of GDP quarterly growth in 2015 Q3 was a little weaker than expected (0.6%), down from 0.7% in Q2, and continued the run of below-par growth throughout 2015. Comparing with the same quarter of last year, growth was 2.3%. Looking at the measure of GDP excluding…Read more…
Ending union check-off arrangements would be disruptive, centralist, and make absolutely no sense
Just as it seemed the Trade Union Bill couldn’t get any worse, the government confirmed last week that it is pushing ahead with its last minute amendment to the bill – bringing in new plans to scrap check-off arrangements across the public sector. Check-off is the system through which…Read more…
Ex-Federal Reserve boss rejects the Chancellor’s approach to spending cuts and surplus legislation
Yesterday was a bad day for George Osborne. After the Newsnight coverage of the defeat in the House of Lords, Evan Davies introduced (here at 20:25 mins) the previous Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke (in the UK to promote his memoirs). Ex-bosses of central banks can speak more freely…Read more…
Today’s tax credit debate – what is the independent assessment going to reveal?
Today the House of Lords debated regulations to cut tax credits, scheduled to be introduced next April. They voted to delay this introduction until an independent assessment of their likely impact has been carried out. In this post I want to look at wh…Read more…
No justification
Unite has challenged the justification for 3M’s announcement of thirty-four job losses, after it informed the workforce compulsory redundancies are likely at its Bangor (Northern Ireland) site….Read more…
Save NHS from trade deal
David Cameron has so far refused to sign up to a historic pledge to protect the NHS from the EU/US trade deal that could spell the irreversible sale of our NHS. Politicians across England,…Read more…
A ‘good time to lose your job’
As the UK steel industry teeters on the brink of collapse – devastating entire communities after more than 5,000 jobs have been shed in the last month alone – former deputy prime minister Lord…Read more…
No one is fooled, Chancellor
Cuts to tax credits – which will amount to a £4.4bn raid on the country’s poorest working families – are in the spotlight again today (October 26), as peers are set to vote on motions that may stop…Read more…