In April 2015 CPI inflation was minus -0.1 per cent, after two months of zero per cent inflation. ONS have constructed historic data which suggest the last time CPI inflation fell was in March 1960, 55 years ago. The Chancellor first stressed the beneficial cost of living effects that some…Read more…
Let them eat cake
Tax cuts for business, public spending cuts…but we want lots of investment on items which will make us money. The Institute of ‘fat cat’ Directors gives their ‘want our cake and eat…Read more…
Not what we voted for
It started on May 9 in London, less than 48 hours after the election. Hundreds marched in an impromptu protest outside Downing Street, voicing their frustration with a government they did not vote…Read more…
Why we need to save FIFA from a Qatar 2022 disaster
FIFA President Sepp Blatter spent a weekend earlier this year with the Emir of Qatar at the Al Bahr palace in Doha. It wasn’t his first visit to the Emir’s Palace.Read more…
Tories’ high rise of housing woe
Only a week after the Tories have begun their latest five-year reign of power, new, record-breaking figures released last Thursday (May 14) from the first few months of 2015 have shown the massive…Read more…
Mental Health – more honesty please
Last week was mental health awareness week and it is absolutely right that we need to take the time to think deeply about mental health and what we can do to better support people who are struggling,…Read more…
And so it begins…
And another thing… Our weekly blog by ATL general secretary Mary Bousted. And so it begins – Nicky Morgan’s bonkers announcement that the leaders of ‘failing or coasting’ schools will have…Read more…
Britain now most unequal EU country, says official report
The UK is now the most unequal country in Europe, in terms of wages and income distribution, according to a new report by the Dublin Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, which is the EU’s official think tank on life at work*. Not only that, but the rise in…Read more…
Temporary migration in Australia: a cautionary tale
Australia is known as a settler nation (although the Australian unions are careful to acknowledge their debt to the people who cared for the land before Europeans arrived.) But more recently, what started as a way to plug short-term recruitment and ski…Read more…
There is policy and reality. Why can’t we bring the two together?
Dual professionalism was meant to leap the chasm of teacher practitioner and industry expert. However, it did not spell out what ‘industry expert’ means or even attempt to develop what such a…Read more…
Just one simple step
When Cathy Cobbold goes to an airport people begin doing funny things. Although Cathy, who is profoundly deaf, shrugs her experiences off with a laugh, she has been working with Unite members…Read more…
Mental health and the working life #MHAW15
Being a young teacher has it challenges, four in 10 ‘quit’ within a year. But what happens when you are feeling so low and helpless that you contemplate ending it all?Read more…
What’s happening to pay?
Bringing back to real pay growth is a necessary condition for achieving sustained and balanced economic growth that gives people at work both a fair reward and the spending power necessary to keep business growing. CPI inflation is currently at zero, which at least gives some employees a temporary…Read more…
Blame game does not help Labour
Surveying the general election’s political rubble the airwaves are already thick with Labour grandees sharing out the blame. Blame Ed’s lack of appeal on the doorstep, blame the unions who put…Read more…
Len McCluskey on BBC Newsnight
Last night (May 14) Unite general secretary Len McCluskey was interviewed on BBC Newsnight. Questions included his views on Labour’s general election result , the Labour Party leader…Read more…
Only a minority of voters are feeling an economic recovery, and only a minority support continued cuts in government spending
Lord Ashcroft’s poll of 12,000 voters the day after the election gives some indications on the role of the economy in peoples’ decisions. Responses to question 9 support the view that in spite of recent positive economic news, the majority of the population are not feeling the recovery. Only 25 per…Read more…
Beware the “shy homophobe”: Pledge to support LGBT people everywhere on IDAHOBIT 2015
Beware the “shy homo/bi/transphobe” in thousands of workplaces, where colleagues reject the allegation that they’re prejudiced but continue to treat us through prejudiced stereotypes and routine…Read more…
Where is the UK Parliament on the EU-US trade agreement?
This soon after a General Election, the short answer is that we don’t know. The Conservative majority, narrow though it is, suggests that the new House of Commons is more likely to support EU trade deals like the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the US and the…Read more…
Wealth inequality is even more extreme than income inequality
Sometimes it can be hard to get a handle on just how important wealth is and the difference it makes to have a lot or a little. As union activists, we work for higher pay and those of us whose main political concern is poverty know that the lived reality of poverty is an inadequate…
The post…Read more…
Mark Carney agrees: poor productivity not migrants fuel low pay
This morning the Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney argued that migration was not to blame for low wages and living standards. Interviewed on the Today programme, he said that low productivity and lack of investment by employers, not migrant workers were to blame for the lack of wage…Read more…