It was cheers all round for Unite general secretary Len McCluskey when he announced at Saturday’s (July 11) 150,000 strong Durham Miners’ Gala that, “Unite has signed up 50,000 of our members to take…Read more…
Cameron playing with fire on workers’ rights
The TUC has been criticised for crying wolf over the Prime Minister’s plans to use the EU renegotiation phase of the referendum strategy to attack workers’ rights. But today’s media stories suggest we are spot on the money on both working time and temporary agency workers. The…Read more…
Clock is ticking for Ofsted on FoI requests
On June 30, ATL submitted a Freedom of Information (FoI) request regarding the failure of 1,200 inspectors to pass Ofsted’s rigorous new assessment process: Dear Madam/Sir Freedom of…Read more…
Honour pay deal call
The delivery of cash to the UK’s 4,500 post offices could be hit, if a group of Post Office managers take industrial action over the management’s refusal to make an agreed one-off payment of between…Read more…
“In our unity there is strength”
Osborne’s onslaught on tax credits will disproportionately impact Northern Ireland, Unite has warned. If adopted in Northern Ireland, plans to scrap student maintenance grants would exclude a…Read more…
We are not the enemy within
Ministers should stop regarding trade unions as ‘the enemy within’ when it comes to partnership working to jump-start the UK’s dismal productivity record, Unite said today (July 10). …Read more…
Contradictory tangle
George Osborne’s emergency summer Budget was released with much fanfare on Wednesday (July 8), with the announcement of a compulsory “Living Wage” being hailed as the chancellor’s “master stroke”….Read more…
Migrant workers expose wins plaudits
The Unite communications department took home two awards at the TUC trade union communications awards on Tuesday night (July 7), including winner of the Best Feature category and a Highly Commended…Read more…
Pay offer ends action
Strike action at pharmaceuticals and healthcare supplier United Drugs/Sangers was suspended yesterday (July 9) after management offered the workforce a backdated pay improvement. Unite…Read more…
Construction failure reflects neglect and recklessness under the coalition
Latest ONS figures show construction falling by -1.3 per cent into May; this follows a Q1 growth figure that was the slowest for two years. The chart below shows the longer view. Construction output caved-in in the early years of the coalition; from ar…Read more…
George Osborne: British Conservative or German-style Christian Democrat?
My former TUC colleague Duncan Weldon, who is now the Newsnight economics correspondent, has written an interesting post for his BBC web page today under the headline ‘Osborne’s “Christian Democrat Budget”? Duncan knows that I’ve long taken an interest in the German economic model and, accordingly,…Read more…
Common priorities for Europe in Britain & Ireland
Yesterday I had the honour of addressing the Congress of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), and a large part of my speech focused on the challenges facing the European Union. Including, of…Read more…
Grimsby seafood factory safe
Unite welcomed today’s (July 9) decision by Young’s Seaford to focus production at its Grimsby sites in a move that secures 500 jobs and the future of the threatened Marsden Road factory in the town….Read more…
Budget pay freeze woe
There’s no doubt public sector workers form the backbone of society and keep the essential services we often take for granted ticking over. Despite the value they deliver to every single…Read more…
Solid support
There was solid support for the London Underground stoppage today (July 9) among members of Unite, who were on strike in a dispute over the introduction of all-night Tube services from September….Read more…
The Budget of deception and despair
It is an austerity budget full of deception – thousands taken from the poorest, tens of thousands given to the richest, more tax cuts for businesses and a savage battering of the young. The…Read more…
Solidarity in action
In 1973, John Keenan, Robert Somerville and Bob Fulton, three Unite members took a stand against a coup on the other side of the world. They refused to help Pinochet bomb the people of Chile. …Read more…
Budget aftershock: Osborne’s £3.9 billion tax on green power
The Chancellor’s £3.9 billion tax on renewable energy generators “is a punitive measure for the clean energy sector…another example of this Government’s unfair, illogical and obsessive attacks on renewables.” Renewable electricity will no longer be exempt from the Climate Change Levy…Read more…
Budget: Insult to NHS staff
Today George Osborne announced that I and my NHS colleagues will face another four years of restricted pay. It is an absolute insult to the passionate healthcare staff who work in the NHS….Read more…
Banks back to ‘dark ages’?
Following yesterday’s Budget (July 8), Unite warned George Osborne that his plan to scrap the bank levy shows the Tory government are ditching their responsibility to bring order to the…Read more…