In his 2011 Budget speech, George Osborne said he wanted “a Britain carried aloft by the march of the makers.” However, the fact is that manufacturing’s proportion of GDP has flatlined at 10.1% of GDP for the past six years. Our evidence shows that manufacturing’s heartland is in…Read more…
Half a job George
“Mr Speaker, I have failed”, Chancellor George Osborne will tell the Commons on budget day. “Because I have failed we need five more years of austerity and massive cuts across public services.” That’s what Osborne would say if he was telling the unvarnished truth. Instead of having seen off the austerity measures brought on […]
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Union link not for sale
Asseem Allam, millionaire owner of Hull City AFC, wants to completely sever the link between Labour and the organisations that founded the party—trade unions. As the Sunday Times reported on March 15, Allam said he would offer a future one-off donation to Labour if it weakened its trade union ties, and pledged an […]
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STANDARDS – PRIVATISATION OF REGULATION BY THE BACK DOOR?
How do you think people would react if the Government passed a law that said that our traffic laws would be decided by motoring organisations like the AA or RAC, or if the European Commission…Read more…
Jobs, Fair Pay, Investment. Three things we need from Budget 2015
We recently set out our detailed, 35-page pre-budget statement. It sets out what we think working people in Britain need from this budget. At the core of it, there are three things we’re looking for. I’ve explained them briefly in the video below.
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Double-life of Tory MP
For years he said he never had a second job while an MP. For how long did Shapps carry on his double life as Tory MP and online marketer Michael Green? Tory Party chairman Grant Shapps, alias Michael Green, faced calls to resign after failing to record his second job as an online marketer […]
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Privatised cancer care – what could it mean for the NHS?
A leaked document exposed today by openDemocracy shows the potential impact that privatisation could have on cancer care services in Staffordshire. Four CCGs have combined to put a massive contract, worth £700m over ten years, out to tender. What makes this particularly concerning is the use of a…Read more…
NHS privatisation: no more doubts
In the face of mounting evidence to the contrary, the coalition government still insists that the NHS is not set for higher and higher doses of privatisation. But revelations over the last week have once and for all lain to rest any remaining doubts. In what’s being called the biggest NHS leak in history, […]
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Pay workers fairly plea
News that no high street chains are prepared to pay living wage seen has been condemned by Unite as “a bleak day for hard working Britain”. Millions will now “earn their own poverty” on our High Streets, as not a single major high street chain is prepared to commit to paying staff even the living […]
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‘A masterpiece of solidarity’
Attempts by the management of the Dulwich Picture Gallery to water down the visitor experience by axing 19 of the 36 gallery assistants have been brushed away. Unite said that attempts to get rid of the knowledgeable assistants at the world’s first purpose-built public art gallery and replacing them with apprentices on training […]
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Before it’s too late
Veteran anti-austerity campaigner and author Harry Leslie Smith speaks exclusively to UNITElive, following his address to a packed crowd at the University of Manchester NoVoteNoVoice event last week (March 11). It was the summer of 1945 and Harry Leslie Smith, then only 22, cast his first ballot in a general election. The Second World […]
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Unprecedented mobilisation
Workers across Northern Ireland engaged in a one-day strike to say ‘enough is enough – hands off our public services’. The strike on Friday (March 13) called in response to the Stormont ‘austerity budget’, saw an unprecedented mobilisation of public sector workers across a wide range of workplaces. “From our soundings over the […]
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The first round of austerity failed. A second round would be insanity
Today the TUC issues its Budget statement, accompanied by a report: ‘The price of austerity’. We know the government’s story: austerity was necessary to repair the profligacy of the Labour years and the unprecedented deficit in the wake of the financial crisis. But in spite of savage cuts to jobs,…Read more…
Does politics speak to the young?
As UNITElive has reported before, young people are among the groups least likely to vote. Many young people say they feel that politics simply doesn’t speak to them. But a new Ipsos Mori poll suggests that social media may be the key to engaging young voters, who are becoming increasingly reliant on platforms such […]
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Pushed to the wire
Unite’s public sector workers in Northern Ireland have had enough, writes Unite Ireland region secretary, Jimmy Kelly Unite is joining forces with other unions to take mass strike action today (March 13) in defence of Northern Irish public services. Workers across the health, education, public transport, housing and wider public sector will be taking part in […]
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Five ways the government is failing NHS patients
In its damning report last month, the King’s Fund health think tank criticised the government’s reforms as “damaging and distracting” for introducing even more markets to the NHS, for making it too complex to govern properly and lacking effective leadership. The man behind these NHS reforms, former…Read more…
Final stop reached in search for missing voters
Alarming numbers across the north east have dropped off the electoral roll which has prompted the #NoVoteNoVoice campaign to head to Newcastle on the final day of its whistlestop trip around England and Wales. Just 53 days from the 2015 general election the roadshow will hold a ‘mini carnival’ between 10am and 5pm with […]
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Typhoo staff climb on board vote sign-up bus
As the #NoVoteNoVoice bus pulled up outside the Wirral factory this week, workers left the tea-making production line to climb on board and ensure they’ll have their say in May’s General Election. They need to. We all do. There is a wave of apathy verging on resentment towards the political classes right now. Scandals […]
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Sharp fall in construction output as house-building slumps
Construction output fell -2.6% between December 2014 and January 2015, the fourth monthly decline in the past six months. The main factor behind the decline in January was a sharp fall in house-building of -5.1% on the month. There has been only one la…Read more…
More than a Budget needed for our Foundation Industries
If the Coalition’s last Budget has anything to offer the real economy, immediate relief for energy intensive industries from the cost of renewables on their energy bills has to be a top priority. This charge alone, not paid by EU competitors who support their industries, adds £8 to a tonne of…Read more…