Waiters, the UK’s worst paid workers, will call on Pizza Express to stop pocketing an estimated £am that should go to poorly paid staff, at a protest in central London tomorrow (May 21). The…Read more…
Down below zero
Deflation, slow growth, pay in the doldrums, household debt on the rise, productivity stagnant. Can we survive more austerity? So prices in general have gone from not rising at all – zero…Read more…
The deflation debate and austerity – how policymakers may be severely misjudging capacity
There is a sense in the discussion surrounding the latest inflation figures that those who are less-than-sanguine about the threat of deflation are somehow ignorant or even reckless. Here’s Robert Peston yesterday: However many of those who define themselves as “serious economists”…Read more…
‘Totally unacceptable’
Unite is set to ballot its 6,000 members at Tata Steel UK for industrial action over its proposal to close the British Steel pension scheme (BSPS). Unite’s ballot for strike action and…Read more…
Lawyers consider further action against unjust legal aid cuts
Lawyers fear that further cuts to criminal legal aid under the new Conservative government will lead to a dramatic decline in the quality of legal representation as well as to miscarriages of justice. The Guardian reported last week that the Criminal B…Read more…
First among un-equals
Rising income inequality, in which a handful of people earn millions and the rest struggle just to get by, is often seen as a problem of developing countries – a symptom of a corrupt elite and the…Read more…
Brothers from the past, inspiration for today
If you were to imagine the typical Cotswold town, you might well come up with Burford. The steeply sloped High Street is lined by creamy yellow stone houses and shops. It’s a quiet town –…Read more…
Payday lenders circle afresh
As household debt is set to hit record levels, Wonga targets the market by slashing interest rates to 1,500 per cent a year and lend to those who can re-pay loans. Loans are big business, with…Read more…
Ending global fossil fuel subsidies would cut carbon emissions by a fifth
Using new evidence of the damage to the environment and to human health, the IMF reports that the fossil fuel industries received $4.2 trillion in subsidies in 2011, the latest available figure. The subsidy represents 5.8% of global GDP – more than double the amount from previous reports….Read more…
Tories put your rights in peril
The Tories want to abolish the Human Rights Act and replace it with a watered down Bill of Rights. Their first try was attacked by former Tory attorney general Dominic Grieve who said it was…Read more…
Unite will not choose next Labour leader
Labour’s election loss was not one defeat but several. Votes that should have been Labour’s went to the Tories , UKIP , the SNP and the Greens. Not to mention the millions of natural Labour…Read more…
Negative CPI inflation and falling core inflation, the Chancellor is right to “remain vigilant to deflationary risks”
In April 2015 CPI inflation was minus -0.1 per cent, after two months of zero per cent inflation. ONS have constructed historic data which suggest the last time CPI inflation fell was in March 1960, 55 years ago. The Chancellor first stressed the beneficial cost of living effects that some…Read more…
Let them eat cake
Tax cuts for business, public spending cuts…but we want lots of investment on items which will make us money. The Institute of ‘fat cat’ Directors gives their ‘want our cake and eat…Read more…
Not what we voted for
It started on May 9 in London, less than 48 hours after the election. Hundreds marched in an impromptu protest outside Downing Street, voicing their frustration with a government they did not vote…Read more…
Why we need to save FIFA from a Qatar 2022 disaster
FIFA President Sepp Blatter spent a weekend earlier this year with the Emir of Qatar at the Al Bahr palace in Doha. It wasn’t his first visit to the Emir’s Palace.Read more…
Tories’ high rise of housing woe
Only a week after the Tories have begun their latest five-year reign of power, new, record-breaking figures released last Thursday (May 14) from the first few months of 2015 have shown the massive…Read more…
Mental Health – more honesty please
Last week was mental health awareness week and it is absolutely right that we need to take the time to think deeply about mental health and what we can do to better support people who are struggling,…Read more…
And so it begins…
And another thing… Our weekly blog by ATL general secretary Mary Bousted. And so it begins – Nicky Morgan’s bonkers announcement that the leaders of ‘failing or coasting’ schools will have…Read more…
Britain now most unequal EU country, says official report
The UK is now the most unequal country in Europe, in terms of wages and income distribution, according to a new report by the Dublin Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, which is the EU’s official think tank on life at work*. Not only that, but the rise in…Read more…
Temporary migration in Australia: a cautionary tale
Australia is known as a settler nation (although the Australian unions are careful to acknowledge their debt to the people who cared for the land before Europeans arrived.) But more recently, what started as a way to plug short-term recruitment and ski…Read more…