Over-stretched paramedics are taking tens of thousands of days off a year because of stress, as NHS ambulance services struggle to cope with rising numbers of emergency calls. The number of…Read more…
‘Biggest threat’ to UK auto boom
Brexit is the “biggest threat in a generation” to the UK’s booming car industry, auto manufacturers have warned. Car makers said yesterday that the £72bn-a-year industry, which exports more…Read more…
Sub-standard apprenticeships threat
Unite is warning the introduction of the new apprenticeship levy could be taken off course and lead to a sharp rise in sub-standard apprenticeships. Unite issued their warning after an…Read more…
‘Extraordinary vote in favour’
BMW workers making engines and the iconic Mini and Rolls-Royce motorcars have overwhelmingly backed industrial action over plans to close their final salary pension scheme the country’s largest union…Read more…
NHS agency staff back down
The back down by NHS bosses on an edict that would have restricted agency staff working in the NHS has been welcomed by Unite today (March 31). The union, which has 100,000 members in the…Read more…
The NHS’ lost £billion?
Much was made by the government about the £2bn uplift it had given the NHS in for 2015/2016 for frontline services. But where did all that money go? Nearly £1bn – almost half – went into the…Read more…
A life without limits
They call autism the hidden disability and for some it is even hidden from themselves. Unite workplace rep Ceri Wright, from Wales, was one of those people. The 36-year-old began to suspect…Read more…
Nowhere slowly: failures on private debt follow failures on public debt
Today’s figures confirmed what we already knew: that economic growth in 2016 was entirely reliant on the consumer. We also know that workers are in the middle of an unprecedented decline in real wages (at least since Victorian times). So the inevitable result is lower saving and increased growth in…Read more…
Unite says no to nurse cuts
Standing in support of families with babies and young children, the local York community joined Unite members in a demonstration yesterday (March 30) against proposals by the city council to axe…Read more…
‘Still the aliens’
For those on the spectrum, every day is a guessing day – and with it the terrifying thought that something needing logic will happen. It is at this point, when the day begins to fall in on itself and…Read more…
BMW: Unite Munich protest
BMW workers took their fight to protect their pensions all the way to the car maker’s headquarters in Munich on Wednesday (March 29) days before their ballot for industrial action closes today…Read more…
International Transgender Day of Visibility
March 31st is the annual International Transgender Day of Visibility. In recent years, even a casual observer may feel that transgender people are already very visible, and query the need for it to…Read more…
‘Worst experience of my life’
Unite Community members took to the streets outside job centres across Britain in droves today (March 30) as part of Unite Community’s third annual national demo against benefits sanctions. …Read more…
‘Keep Brexit vow to protect workers’
Unite is calling for an amendment to be tabled to the Great Repeal bill when it is brought before parliament. The amendment would stipulate a 66 per cent threshold must be met to make any changes to…Read more…
What sort of Britain?
When Pret a Manger opened its first sandwich shop in 1986, I doubt many of us would have expected well-known high street chains to end up trying to pay their staff in leftovers. But that’s…Read more…
UNISON Supreme Court case shows how tribunal fees price low paid workers out of justice
This week UNISON challenged the government’s employment tribunal fee policy in the Supreme Court. We’ll have to wait a while for the verdict, but when it comes it could have a huge effect on workers’ abilities to enforce their employment rights. Since July 2013, employment tribunals have…Read more…
#Article50: the union response is all about good jobs & rights at work
So much has already been written about the triggering of Article 50, firing the starting gun on two years of negotiations about leaving the European Union. And it was only yesterday. For trade unions, it still seems strange that a Conservative Prime Mi…Read more…
All for just a fiver
NHS staff will see yet another year of falling income as the Pay Review Body (PRB) recommended yesterday (March 28) that health workers get only a 1 per cent pay rise next year – well below projected…Read more…
No to sanctions
Unite members will come together across Britain tomorrow (March 29) in a national day of action to stop benefits sanctions, with demonstrations in cities and towns up and down the country at over 80…Read more…
‘No hard Brexit’ plea
Trade union leaders and the Labour party called on Theresa May to ensure that Brexit does not hurt ordinary people, as she triggered the two-year negotiations to leave the EU today. A letter…Read more…