London Underground workers, members of Unite, the country’s largest union, have voted strongly in favour of strike action in a dispute over the introduction of all-night Tube services from September….Read more…
Hot and bothered?
You know what it can be like at work – one person feels boiling hot, another is wearing their hat and scarf – the temperature is never exactly right. But in this current heatwave with the…Read more…
Carry on nursing
More than half of nurses think they know little about what revalidation is and less than half of them think it will actually improve care. In a survey carried out by Unite’s community nurses…Read more…
Boss purrs as workers scratch for wage rise
Reports that Dairy Crest’s chief executive will skim off a £1.2m bonus in a proposed takeover deal, while the workers are being offered a miserly pay rise was branded as ‘rank hypocrisy’ by Unite…Read more…
Hatfield mine to close: Imported coal will fuel the Northern Powerhouse
Employee-owned Hatfield Colliery, Yorkshire, has ceased production of coal 12 months earlier than planned. BIS Minister Anna Soubry reportedly refused a last minute request by local MP Ed Miliband and the mine’s chair, John Grogan, to provide a £12m loan to the mine to stay open for a further year….Read more…
Same old story: households having to run down savings and calling a halt to deleveraging
For 2015Q1 GDP growth is now estimated at 0.4% (revised up from 0.3%). Growth was last lower than this in 2012 (Q4 when it was -0.4%), at the height of worries about the double dip, and with the Chancellor poised to reign in his austerity policies. Whi…Read more…
What if I’m not a participant?
On the day the independent living fund ends, Unite Community member Robert Punton tells us how it changed his life – and how it’s demise will affect him. He writes: It is often…Read more…
Stopping the Snooper’s Charter
This evening (June 29), Unite and the Labour Campaign for Human Rights will be holding a Parliamentary event (see below) to explain why we’re opposed to the Investigatory Powers Bill. As we do…Read more…
Government needs to give up the backseat driving
Mark Wright is the assistant director of AMiE (leadership and management). Politicians and practitioners ideally work together to take education on a shared journey so it doesn’t bode well that the…Read more…
Child benefit under attack
In the past five years Child Benefit has been frozen, capped and taken away from better off families. Eroding Child Benefit, a new TUC report out today reveals that a couple with two children are already £5.95 a week worse off as a result and by the time of the next election that loss…Read more…
NEST sings a sweeter song than Osborne’s Destination Anywhere
With the honourable exception of The Marvelettes, those embarking on a journey typically have an end point in mind. Yet, Destination Anywhere has been the soundtrack to the recent pension liberalisation changes. The publication by NEST, the state-backed pension provider, of a blueprint for…Read more…
Government delivers triple blow to green economy… in just one week
The new government has been in office for just 6 weeks and in the last 7 days has already set alarm bells ringing on the UK’s energy policy. The Conservatives have followed through on their promise to withdraw state subsidies for on-shore wind farms, though a year early – and whilst Energy…Read more…
Pride of Unite
As the summer kicks off, Pride events will be hosted throughout the nation, with Unite playing a decisive part as it continues in its critical work in supporting the LGBT community – both in and out…Read more…
You shall go to the ball!
Although school balls and discos have long been part of the UK’s cultural landscape, since the noughties, the much more extravagant US-style prom has captured the nation’s imagination. “More…Read more…
Challenging the Establishment
May’s general election result was a shock, not just to those in our movement but to pollsters, political commentators and even to the Tory beneficiaries now sitting smugly in their grand offices of…Read more…
Pensions: one of the last legal hurdles for same-sex couples
Peter Armstrong-Luckhurst met his husband Kristofer in 1990. They entered a civil partnership in 2009 and converted to marriage on 19 December 2014. He worked as a doctor and contributed to the NHS pension scheme from 1978 until 1994. He also bought another four years worth of ‘pension…Read more…
Shock Goodyear factory shutdown
Unite warned that the closure of the Goodyear factory in Wolverhampton, with the loss of up to 400 jobs, would devastate the local economy and was being taken because British workers are easier and…Read more…
Green Investment Bank sell-off
The government’s announcement to sell off a large chunk of the Green Investment Bank (GIB) to the private sector is ‘a slap in the face’ for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) seeking much…Read more…
Into the Tory abyss
It took the Tory-led coalition which took office in 2010 only three years to push another 500,000 children into absolute poverty, according to new figures released today. And it took them only four…Read more…
Frank Field steps in where ministers fear to go on pension changes
It is welcome that this morning the Financial Times is reporting (behind a paywall) that the Work and Pensions Committee, under its new chairman Frank Field, is to scrutinise so-called pensions freedom reform. The policy, which means savers in defined contribution pensions no longer have to buy an…Read more…