At least 744,000 jobs in the UK come with zero hours contracts, a 20% rise in the last year alone, according to new figures from the Office for National Statistics. The TUC estimates there are…Read more…
No to funding cuts
Unite has condemned the Northern Ireland Executive over the implementation of its budget which has forced brutal cuts on the Higher Education sector, resulting in almost 200 job losses at the…Read more…
Backing Corbyn – put on your tin hats
Every day seems to bring a new media-generated hoo-ha about what Jeremy Corbyn may or may not have said. As Owen Jones warns, we’d better get used to it. The vast armoury of the Tory press is trained…Read more…
Part-time poverty
Earning below the living wage is the norm for part-time women workers in more than 130 parliamentary constituencies, according to new research carried out by the TUC to mark Part-time Equal Pay Day….Read more…
Cameron’s EU workplace rights strategy pleasing no one
The Financial Times reported last night that David Cameron had dropped plans to demand widespread exemptions from European Union workplace rights. The TUC has been warning that those demands were on his agenda for months (often pooh-poohed by ‘experts’), and we have been arguing that…Read more…
Chancellor discarding £33bn solar power industry?
Over 100 organisations have appealed to the Prime Minister over the Chancellor’s plans to cut support for the solar power industry. The government, strangely shy about the employment impact of hazarding a £33bn industry. All DECC will admit to in its consultation paper is: “There is likely…Read more…
Osborne Voodoonomics
The Chinese stock market bubble has burst and China has had its own “Black Monday” (on 23 August). Its economic growth is slowing down and the after effects of the turmoil in its stock market and…Read more…
Better than zero flashmob protest
On Friday (August 28) a group of young activists gathered outside trendy bars and restaurants on Glasgow’s Ashton Lane to protest at a multi-million pound chain paying staff below the living wage. …Read more…
Tory wage plans need leap of faith
Plans by the government to penalise businesses which fail to pay the national minimum way and the living wage have drawn a sceptical response from Unite. Britain’s largest union has warned it…Read more…
No to tipping cap
Unite has firmly rejected government proposals to cap the amount in tips restaurants can deduct from waiting staff. The union — which has led a campaign for tipping fairness…Read more…
US fast food workers get a legal boost
A ruling this week in the USA by the US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has given a boost to unions, and the ‘alt.unions’ who are trying to build union organisation in the US fast food…Read more…
What an expert government body says about the Trade Union Bill
The government’s Trade Union Bill has taken a bit of a pounding lately. First there were the trade unions themselves, who are uniformly opposed to the bill. Then there was a joint letter from…Read more…
At risk: your BBC
It’s the time in the decade when the BBC’s Charter, granted by Parliament, comes up for review. The BBC’s enemies in government and the commercial media combine to throw at it everything…Read more…
You can’t burn down our rainbow!
As soon as I stepped on the train I saw big bright dresses, suitcases full of make-up and a whole carriage full of singing drag queens, from this point on I knew Brighton Pride was going to be the…Read more…
Trans issues: on our agenda
The new Women and Equalities Select Committee – a cross-party group of Members of Parliament – decided that its first action would be to hold an inquiry into the position of transgender people in the UK. The initial consultation period has just closed and the TUC made a submission (which you can…Read more…
Not even one per cent?
Just a month after Cameron’s post-election U-turn on a 10 per cent pay rise for MPs, Tories say public sector workers may not get their 1 per cent pay rise after all. Public sector workers…Read more…
Keep Goodyear in UK fight
The Goodyear Dunlop plant in Wolverhampton is productive, profitable and held up by the company as an example of how to do things right. So why do they want to close it and move production to…Read more…
Meter staff in pay loss protest
EDF Energy staff in London, southern and western England will be taking part in a 24-hour stoppage next Wednesday (September 2) following a breakdown in talks over proposals which could see some…Read more…
Fit to die?
The department for work and pensions’ (DWP) Work Capability Assessments aren’t fit for purpose and should be scrapped in their current form, Unite urged today as shock figures revealed over 4,000…Read more…
Intervene before it’s too late
Unite called for government action to help Britain’s steel industry as Tata Steel announced it would be mothballing its Llanwern steel mill with the loss of 250 jobs. Today’s (August 26) job…Read more…