Late last month, the DWP put out a glowing headline: 400 more disabled people in work every day. It is not entirely unwelcome news. It does mean that there has been net growth of more than 141,000 disabled people in some form of employment over the past year. It also means that the DWP is…Read more…
International Women’s Day: A time for action, not just celebration
International Women’s Day is not just a warm up act for Mother’s Day: a day for celebrating our mothers, daughters, and sisters. It has clear radical and union roots.Read more…
Women – we got the power
In water cooler moments up and down the land everyone agrees that the fast approaching general election will be ‘the closest ever’. All political parties are now scrambling to maximise their vote on May 7. But on what will the result hinge? Might it be the expected meltdown of the Lib Dems, the […]
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Politics in our lives, not just in Parliament
Funny, isn’t it, how politics is so influential in our day to day lives. Everything from the amount we can expect as a minimum wage to whether we go to war, the decisions made in Parliament…Read more…
Taken for granted
Unite’s members working for Parcelforce overwhelmingly rejected a pay offer that management went ahead with, prompting the union today (March 6) to warn the courier company that it risks inciting industrial action. The bosses of Parcelforce, a subsidiary of the Royal Mail, implemented a paltry 2.8 per cent pay rise backdated to July 2014, […]
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Where the Martyrs worshipped
The story of the Tolpuddle Martyrs – six farm workers imprisoned and transported to Australia for their attempt to prevent falls in their wages by forming a “friendly society” in 1834 – is the story of trade unionism’s birth in this country. The six men who ignited a movement are remembered in books and […]
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Nuclear build delays?
The construction of Britain’s first nuclear power plant in a generation may see delays as it faces continued legal challenges from European critics, including the Austrian government and a co-operative of energy suppliers in Germany. The construction of the Hinkley Point C plant – which will be a boon for the local and wider […]
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Southampton calling
Unite, along with the Mirror, Hope not hate, and Operation Black Vote have embarked on a bus tour across the UK to encourage some of the 7m people who are eligible to vote but are not registered to sign up and get on the register for the election on May 7. Below is short […]
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Should there be a NEST for your nest-egg?
It says much for the resilience of the sort of consensual approach facilitated by the Pensions Commission of a decade ago that even before the government’s rash and irresponsible pensions freedom reforms have been implemented, opinion is coalescing around the best ways to ameliorate their likely…Read more…
Saving Our Safety Net Fact of the Week: front line Jobcentre workers aren’t responsible for benefit sanctions
Could this be the month when the general public start to worry about benefit sanctions? The Methodist church reported that approximately one hundred thousand children were sanctioned in 2013/14. This followed earlier work revealing that more than 100 p…Read more…
EU’s Paris Protocol – time to bring citizens to the table
EU Environment Ministers meet on 6 March to discuss and probably sign off the EU’s contribution to the Paris climate change talks, December 2015. The next day marks the national Time to Act on Climate Change march in London. The EU Commission’s proposal, The Paris Protocol: a blueprint for tackling…Read more…
End casino capitalism call
As taxpayer-owned Royal Bank of Scotland announces further job cuts, all while continuing to give its top brass millions in bonuses, the story reads much the same for another UK bank. On Tuesday (March 3), Antony Jenkins, chief executive of Barclays bank, graciously accepted a bonus that takes his total pay to £5.5m, up […]
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Further Education budget: slashed by 24%
The Skills Funding Agency (SFA) recently announced the 2015/16 funding settlement for adult skills in England. While funding for apprenticeships was largely protected, the adult further education (FE) budget is to be cut by 24%. This is an act of wilful vandalism against the principle of lifelong…Read more…
The time is now when it comes to housing
At a time of house price inflation, falling home ownership, more people privately renting and increased private rents, the recent English Housing Survey showed the proportion of people renting social housing remained steady at 17 per cent in 2013/14[1]. However, the number of people on local…Read more…
Voluntary services face bleak future as ‘servants of the Government’
The involvement of global corporations in the privatisation of public services is firmly on the nation’s agenda. But less well known is the way in which charities and voluntary groups have been seduced or cajoled by New Labour and Coalition governments into helping the outsourcing along. And, in…Read more…
Major job losses on the horizon
As UNITElive reported last week, the taxpayer-owned bank RBS announced that a major restructuring program was on the horizon but failed to give any details. But two unnamed sources familiar with the matter revealed to the Financial Times March 3 that up to four out of five jobs in the bank’s investment division might […]
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SELF-EMPLOYED – GOVERNMENT MOVES, BUT NOT ENOUGH.
Yesterday the Deregulation Bill completed its passage through the Lords. According to the Government, this Bill will ensure a “reduction of burdens resulting from legislation for businesses or other…Read more…
Vote boosters!
The searing cold sun shone on the big red vote boosting bus today as we rolled onto Sussex University campus, Brighton. We weren’t sure what to expect from the student body at Sussex, as their university has become a hotbed of protest and mass occupation during the past few years. This is how our […]
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Public ownership of rail is not only necessary; it is the only realistic option
A recent article in BBC News Magazine asks the question Would it be realistic to renationalise the railways? Using as a premise the recent passing of the East Coast main line from public to private hands, the article provides an interesting insight int…Read more…
Productivity: no puzzle about it
TUC work issued today contests widely-held views that weak growth in productivity is down to failures of skills and/or other defects with the structure of the economy. Our research shows instead that the government’s austerity policies should take most of the blame for the productivity…Read more…