The TUC released a comprehensive report today revealing just how little progress for disabled people in the workforce was achieved under the 2010-15 government. The headline employment and unemployment rate figures paint a picture of essential stagnati…Read more…
Worst paid job in UK
Waiting tables is, according to the latest figures, the worst paid job in the UK. The vast majority of waiters are on the minimum wage, barely eking out a living from profit-flush companies,…Read more…
Promising little, delivering less: Qatar fails its migrant workers
It’s a resounding defeat for the workers. In five areas there has been limited progress. In four areas there’s been … nothing at all. After all the promises.
The post Promising little, delivering less: Qatar fails its migrant workers appeared first on ToUChstone blog.Read more…
The TUC’s 2015 election post-mortem poll
When the TUC commissioned a poll to go straight into the field the day after the election, we had no idea what the result would be. Now it has a painful relevance to Labour’s post mortem, and emerging leadership debate. As the TUC is making the poll’s findings public – and it is available…Read more…
‘Pinchers Express’
On National Waiters’ Day (May 21) Unite hospitality members held a protest outside Pizza Express’ flagship restaurant in Charing Cross Road, Leicester Square. Six years ago…Read more…
Ireland and marriage: stepping out of the darkness
Tomorrow, Friday 21st of May, Ireland will have a referendum on whether two people of the same gender can marry. It’s the first country in the world to do so, and a long journey from 1995, when it was forced by Europe to decriminalise “male homosexual acts”. Why a referendum?…Read more…
NI Water workers wage win
A dispute among NI Water workers, which began over the Christmas season, has come to an end after members officially accepted an increased pay offer on Wednesday (May 20), which was just recently…Read more…
Hammer blow for workers
The proposed closure of the coal-fired power station at Ferrybridge in West Yorkshire is ‘a hammer blow for the workforce’, Unite said today (Wednesday 20 May). Unite said that that there were 172…Read more…
Will VISA statement prove costly for Sepp Blatter’s FIFA?
The World Cup’s major sponsors will be paying huge amounts to be associated with the tournament, and the unfolding human rights scandal has the potential to be sponsorship kryptonite.
The post Will VISA statement prove costly for Sepp Blatter’s FIFA? appeared first on ToUChstone blog.Read more…
Reclaim the day
Waiters, the UK’s worst paid workers, will call on Pizza Express to stop pocketing an estimated £am that should go to poorly paid staff, at a protest in central London tomorrow (May 21). The…Read more…
Down below zero
Deflation, slow growth, pay in the doldrums, household debt on the rise, productivity stagnant. Can we survive more austerity? So prices in general have gone from not rising at all – zero…Read more…
The deflation debate and austerity – how policymakers may be severely misjudging capacity
There is a sense in the discussion surrounding the latest inflation figures that those who are less-than-sanguine about the threat of deflation are somehow ignorant or even reckless. Here’s Robert Peston yesterday: However many of those who define themselves as “serious economists”…Read more…
‘Totally unacceptable’
Unite is set to ballot its 6,000 members at Tata Steel UK for industrial action over its proposal to close the British Steel pension scheme (BSPS). Unite’s ballot for strike action and…Read more…
Lawyers consider further action against unjust legal aid cuts
Lawyers fear that further cuts to criminal legal aid under the new Conservative government will lead to a dramatic decline in the quality of legal representation as well as to miscarriages of justice. The Guardian reported last week that the Criminal B…Read more…
First among un-equals
Rising income inequality, in which a handful of people earn millions and the rest struggle just to get by, is often seen as a problem of developing countries – a symptom of a corrupt elite and the…Read more…
Brothers from the past, inspiration for today
If you were to imagine the typical Cotswold town, you might well come up with Burford. The steeply sloped High Street is lined by creamy yellow stone houses and shops. It’s a quiet town –…Read more…
Payday lenders circle afresh
As household debt is set to hit record levels, Wonga targets the market by slashing interest rates to 1,500 per cent a year and lend to those who can re-pay loans. Loans are big business, with…Read more…
Ending global fossil fuel subsidies would cut carbon emissions by a fifth
Using new evidence of the damage to the environment and to human health, the IMF reports that the fossil fuel industries received $4.2 trillion in subsidies in 2011, the latest available figure. The subsidy represents 5.8% of global GDP – more than double the amount from previous reports….Read more…
Tories put your rights in peril
The Tories want to abolish the Human Rights Act and replace it with a watered down Bill of Rights. Their first try was attacked by former Tory attorney general Dominic Grieve who said it was…Read more…
Unite will not choose next Labour leader
Labour’s election loss was not one defeat but several. Votes that should have been Labour’s went to the Tories , UKIP , the SNP and the Greens. Not to mention the millions of natural Labour…Read more…