The UN has adopted union calls for a Just Transition in a new 20-page negotiating text released today for the climate conference scheduled for Paris in December. Unions will be pleased that the UN’s Draft Agreement commits nations to holding global temperature increases to below 2 °C (or possibly…Read more…
Hunt’s ‘disgraceful insult’
Multi-millionaire health secretary Jeremy Hunt has ‘kicked millions of working people, struggling to get by in the teeth’ with controversial remarks that axing working tax credits is ‘an important…Read more…
From anger to devastation
The immediate future of 3,000 workers at the SSI steelmaking plant in Redcar is up in the air after owners SSI UK went into liquidation last Friday (October 2). The move followed an…Read more…
Don’t tell George
Chancellor George Osborne spoke today (October 5) at the Tory Party Conference, just hours after it was announced that the government will continue with its sell-off of its remaining 12 per cent…Read more…
Hammer of working people
George Osborne continues to be ‘the snake oil salesman’ of British politics, presiding over a phoney recovery, giving the rich an inheritance tax gift, yet bringing harsh cuts to millions of workers…Read more…
Downward track
One of the sharpest recessions ever has filled the labour market with low-paid insecure employment even in normally high-skilled, high paid areas of employment, a new report has found. The huge…Read more…
Tracking The Labour Market Recovery
Developing better economic and employment policies for the future depends critically on distinguishing between changes that are temporary and cyclical and those which are long term and structural. In a recent report for the TUC, Tracking the Labour Mar…Read more…
Come clean on wage rates
A public meeting to discuss the next steps in the six-month dispute to ensure an independent audit of wage rates is carried out at the £200m energy-from-waste plant being built at the Wilton complex…Read more…
Unite drives forward lifelong learning
Unite and logistics company Wincanton signed a learning agreement today (October 2) that sees the opening of a Learning Centre for staff at Lea Green, St Helens in Merseyside. This is…Read more…
Boat builders’ future at risk
A call for high-level talks has been called for over the future of Northamptonshire luxury boat builders, Fairline Boats, which has just laid-off a third of its workforce for up to five weeks. …Read more…
Keep Redcar coke ovens alight
Unite urged ministers to intervene and keep the coke ovens at the Redcar steelworks warm so that production could be resumed in the future and warned that its support package for SSI steelworkers was…Read more…
Safety first
Millions of workers are well aware of the potentially devastating impact of the government’s ideologically-driven trade union Bill which is currently going through Parliament. Their…Read more…
Len says wear red
Unite general secretary Len McCluskey is asking members and staff to wear red on Friday, October 23, in support of Show Racism the Red Card. Show Racism the Red Card (SRtRC) is the UK’s…Read more…
Justice for Colombia
Unite delegate Jim Kelly spoke on the last day of the Labour Party Conference this week (September 30) in support of Colombian trade unionists whose struggle goes beyond anything we could even begin…Read more…
Every childhood is worth fighting for
By John Cameron, NSPCC Head of Helplines Everyday our ChildLine volunteers are contacted by children desperate for someone to talk to about the growing pressures in their lives. Sadly they often feel…Read more…
Andy Burnham’s call for local funding & workers rights to tackle migration concerns
This week Shadow Home Secretary Andy Burnham delivered a speech at the Labour Party conference which called for action on the cause of anxieties communities have about EU migration linked with local services and undercutting, rather than scapegoating migrant for social problems. This is a welcome…Read more…
End pay discrimination
Unite secretary for Ireland Jimmy Kelly expressed his union’s dismay at the miserly increase in the UK National Minimum Wage which comes into effect today (October 1). “An increase of 20 pence…Read more…
Pay rise – no rise
More than a million workers earning the National Minimum Wage today (October 1) received a pay rise of 20p, with the adult rate going up to £6.70 an hour. Business secretary Sajid Javid said…Read more…
LGB statistics confirm social change?
The Office for National Statistics has published the Integrated Household Survey with the findings for 2014 for sexual identity and (bizarrely), smoking. The headline figure suggested that there had been little change in the overall number of people id…Read more…
Jobs blow for printers
Telephone book printers RR Donnelley is set to close at the end of the year with a “devastating” loss of about 200 jobs. Unite is due to have talks with the management at the Flaxby plant in…Read more…