A Unite workplace rep – blacklisted by his employer, Interserve Industrial Services because of his union activities while working at a power station at Runcorn, Cheshire – has won his…Read more…
Hope is back on the agenda
Let us finish the job. “These,” Unite general secretary Len McCluskey said, “are the scariest words in the English language.” These words are also the Tories’ favourite mantra – a…Read more…
New evidence nails the “no NHS privatisation” lie
The government habitually dismiss accusations of NHS privatisation. However a new analysis of NHS contracts produced by the NHS Support Federation shows how they will have to confront reality. Ministers say that very little NHS money goes to private co…Read more…
Fighting ‘culture of fear’
Last night (April 27) hundreds of thousands of viewers watched Channel 4’s Dispatches programme, The secrets of Sports Direct, which exposed a zero hours contract workforce in constant fear of losing…Read more…
Tory win could see HSBC leave UK
Not even the sound and fury of a general election campaign could obscure the magnitude of worry in recent days over HSBC’s future in this country. The banking giant has indicated it is giving…Read more…
The slowest ever recovery slows down again
Quarterly GDP growth is estimated at only 0.3% in 2015 Q1, half the rate of 0.6% seen in both Q3 and Q4 of 2014, and only a third of the 0.9% growth seen a year ago in 2014 Q1. The median view of commentators was for 0.5%, and 0.3% coincided with the most pessimistic of those…
The post The…Read more…
Working UK-style 2015
Some of the stories coming out of billionaire Mike Ashley’s Sports Direct warehouse are barely credible. But the stories remain undocumented because many of the staff – most of them from…Read more…
Incalculable human cost
On Workers Memorial Day we remember the dead and fight for the living. With only days to go for the most important general election in a generation today’s (April 28) Workers Memorial Day has…Read more…
We will remember them
A Unite member who won an International Women’s Day award from Manchester City Council for campaigning for safer workplaces wants her fellow union members to participate in today’s…Read more…
Will working families lose most again if the Conservatives cut £12bn from welfare?
The Institute for Fiscal Studies is set to release analysis tomorrow looking at the £12bn of welfare cuts that the Conservatives are proposing. We know already who the favourite targets were for George Osborne, the Conservative Chancellor, and Iain Duncan Smith, the Conservative Work and Pensions…Read more…
Zero-hours contracts just the tip of the iceberg for low-paid and insecure jobs
While zero hour contracts have dominated the media headlines recently, short hour contracts, along with other forms of insecure work are also making the lives of many workers difficult. Our recent analysis shows that in addition to the 700,000 workers …Read more…
Save our bus services
First West Yorkshire bus workers at the First Bradford bus depot are taking part in a two-day strike (April 27 and 28) in a protest over services. Click here to see a short clip from earlier today….Read more…
£2 an hour priests win pay justice
Sikh priests who were paid only £2 an hour and were victimised when they complained have won a stunning victory at an industrial tribunal, last week. The Guru Arjan Dev Gurdwara temple in…Read more…
Inequality rules
Welcome to Britain – the most unequal country in Europe and nearly the most unequal in the developed world. Figures released recently have shown that while the vast majority of people in the…Read more…
Pension governance committees stacked with industry insiders
When caught doing something you shouldn’t and given another chance, it is usually wise to reform your ways. However, it appears that large sections of the pensions industry are intent on ignoring this basic piece of common sense. Rules requiring independent governance committees to be established…Read more…
Stating the obvious, or the importance of aims and values
Anne Heavey is an Education Policy Adviser at ATL. The Curriculum is more than simply facts and figures arranged into subjects; as Dylan William has stated “The National Curriculum is the intended…Read more…
Ambulance workers in pay strike
A 24-hour stoppage on May 6 has been confirmed by Unite’s ambulance service members in Northern Ireland – the only health area in the UK where workers have not received an offer of a pay rise….Read more…
Rana Plaza anniversary: Two years is too long to wait for union rights and compensation
Today marks the second anniversary of the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh, the worst industrial disaster in the country’s history that killed almost 1200 workers, most of them women…Read more…
Sell off must be stopped
GP surgeries run by the private sector underperform compared to NHS-run surgeries on nearly all counts, a new study released today (April 24) has found. It’s only the latest in a growing mountain of…Read more…
The election of stark choice
The choice in this election is stark. While all the parties are involved in a bidding war there are nevertheless major differences not least on values. Lynton Crosby, George Osborne,…Read more…