“The care and treatment I have received from the NHS and the support I have received from Unite has both been amazing, ” says 21 year-old Callum Stanland, a Unite member from Grimsby who began work…Read more…
Saving Our Safety Net Fact of the Week: more and more workers need help with their rent
It’s getting harder and harder for low-paid workers and their families to find the money for the rent. Official figures published today show that rents charged by private landlords rose 2.1 per cent; wages on the other hand had risen just 1.7 per cent in the most recent figures. And wages have been…Read more…
Envy of the globe
Polls have consistently shown, both months ago and now, with the election only two weeks away, that the NHS is the issue of highest concern to voters. And there’s a reason why the…Read more…
Evidence shows legal aid reforms led to huge rise in self-representation and increased costs to the taxpayer
“The available evidence indicates that the proportion of litigants appearing before the civil and family courts without legal representation…has increased since the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO) took many civil and private law children and family…Read more…
£132 a month wage disgrace
“Keir Hardie was my kind of socialist” says Sandra Osborne and not only because of what she describes as the “outward and progressive” views of one of the towering figures in the early history of the…Read more…
Building a growing economy
At the last election, Labour lost Ipswich to the Tories by 2,079 votes. Then Labour held less than half the borough council seats and only four out of 13 Suffolk county council seats. But…Read more…
On present form, there’s another 7 years of cuts to come (unless sanity prevails)
Public sector net borrowing figures today showed borrowing of £87.3 billion in the financial year 2014-15. Undoubtedly the Treasury will be making hay of it being marginally lower than the OBR Budget 2015 forecast of £90.2 billion. But the big picture remains the scale of the shortfall against the…Read more…
Hounded over the edge
The word is ‘cruelty’. That’s the only way to describe how people on benefits are treated, says Unite Community activist Colin Hampton. The current benefits regime seems to operate like a…Read more…
Save migrants’ lives in the Med
The TUC has joined the international chorus calling for the European Union to restore the funding needed for initiatives like ‘Mare Nostrum’ to protect the lives of refugees and migrants attempting the dangerous Mediterranean crossing. Ahead of the emergency leaders’ summit today,…Read more…
Somali government tries to take over trade union movement
We’ve reported before on some of the terrorist outrages that make trade unionism in Somalia more difficult than we could possibly imagine. Despite those next-to-impossible obstacles, the…Read more…
mortgage approvals down 16 per cent on last year.
The Council of Mortgage Lenders have released figures for February 2015. Its bad news for would-be home-owners as the number of mortgages approved continues to decline (see CML chart below). The latest figure of 40,600 approvals is 1 per cent lower than January but a whopping 16 per cent lower…Read more…
Ideology over treatment
The Tory recipe to improve cancer services has resulted in lost momentum and their health reforms have created confusion and fragmentation. Waiting times for treatment hit the lowest point…Read more…
Scandal of epic dimensions
If you read the statistic that Britain is the sixth richest country in the world, you’d assume that it’s a nation virtually free of certain social and economic ills, such as poverty and disease,…Read more…
1,084,604: Britain’s shameful new foodbank statistic mapped
Foodbanks were used to feed people more than one million times in the 2014-2015 financial year. This is the highest ever figure since records began. It’s an increase of 19% on the previous year. It’s a shocking figure, made all the more so when you realise that 400,000 of those…Read more…
8m voices sign up to be heard
Millions of missing voters have made their mark by registering to vote. It’s a triumph for democracy and a triumph for Unite’s No Vote No Voice campaign. Back in July Unite launched the No…Read more…
“Whatever its make-up, the new government must reconsider the request by UK Coal for State Aid.”
“Whatever its make-up, the new government must reconsider the request by UK Coal for State Aid.” The NUM and its remaining 2,000 members are obviously aggrieved by the unfairness of the situation that the government has refused to invest in a future for the Deep Coal Mining Industry, even though…Read more…
How Ukip would run NHS
Health spokespersons from four parties – Labour, Conservative, Lib-Dem and Ukip – took to the stage yesterday (April 21) to debate the future of the NHS at the British Medical Association. As…Read more…
Fox’s Biscuits strike called off
The strike at Fox’s Biscuits in Batley, west Yorkshire by engineering workers on Tuesday and Thursday has been suspended for a vote on a new pay offer to take place, Unite announced yesterday (April…Read more…
An increasingly macroeconomic perspective on wages: The Resolution Foundation on the earnings crisis
Review of Securing a pay rise: the path back to shared wage growth, Edited by Gavin Kelly and Conor D’Arcy, The Resolution Foundation This collection of essays is a very valuable overview of progressive opinion on the earnings crisis, a must read for those engaged in any aspects of the debate. Some…Read more…
Killed by the air they breathed
Unite general secretary Len McCluskey has called for a full public inquiry into the safety of air breathed aboard airliners following the death of a cabin crew member and a pilot. Unite member…Read more…