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…
In extraordinary times
Ahead of a crucial executive meeting of Scottish Labour this Saturday morning (May 16), Unite has said that the party’s best chance of a recovery requires Jim Murphy doing the ‘decent thing’ and…Read more…
Work with us call
Britain’s major supermarkets, which are suffering tough trading conditions, are being urged to work with the trade unions to secure the jobs, and terms and conditions of their respective workforces….Read more…
TUC Migration Messaging Project Showcase April 2015
The TUC held an event in April at Congress House to showcase the work that took place during the TUC Migration Messaging project. Campaign group members from the project’s three pilot areas: Corby,…Read more…
US Senate blocks TTIP bill
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a mammoth EU-US trade deal, suffered a blow on Tuesday (May 12) , when the US Senate blocked a bill that would enable it and other similar…Read more…
Living Wage win for Saria cleaners
Unite wants all workers to be paid at least the Living Wage, which is the minimum income a worker needs to ensure their basic needs are met. Unite reps at many workplaces are increasingly…Read more…
Economic miracle or economic mire?
It now seems there have been more miracles attributed to the Tories than to Jesus Christ himself. So many economic miracles the Tory press don’t know who to raise to political sainthood. They…Read more…
TTIP – after US Senate blow, European Parliament is next up
The shock decision by the US Senate on Tuesday not to deliver ‘Trade Promotion Authority’ to the President for negotiating a trans-Pacific trade deal dealt a serious blow to the EU-US Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) that is currently being negotiated. It now seems…Read more…
Bank of England shows jobs gains are concentrated in lower-paid work
ONS released today another upbeat set of employment numbers, as well as an underlying nominal earnings figure above 2 per cent for the first time in approaching four years (see my colleague Richard Exell’s post). But in the meantime the Bank of England issued a sobering analysis of the nature of…Read more…
Strike for a ‘fitting pay rise’
A strike comprising 11 one day stoppages commenced at Antrim carpets in Belfast today (May 13) over what workers have dubbed ‘poverty pay’. Workers laid down tools at 1pm today for six hours in…Read more…
Conservative strike plans are an aggressive assault on our rights and our democracy
That one of the first priorities of the new government has been to push ahead with punitive new plans for strike ballots is not just a blow for union members, but a blow for UK democracy.
The post Conservative strike plans are an aggressive assault on…Read more…
Labour can’t survive without the unions
Back to the future seems to be the pre-cooked consensus response to Labour’s dramatic defeat last week. To hear many party grandees tell it, all we have to do is party like it’s 1997 again. I…Read more…