Today is National Women in Engineering Day, but for many women it will be another day of coping with ill-fitting and uncomfortable PPE. A new online survey run by Prospect tapped into a deep vein of frustration. Only 29% of the more than 3,000 respondents reported that the PPE they wear is designed…Read more…
Slim chance
New Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures show that bungling Chancellor George Osborne has overshot borrowing targets for 2015/2016 by £2.7bn and is on course to miss them again this year….Read more…
Momentous decision
As voters head to polling stations today (June 23), in what’s set to be the most important decision in a generation — whether to remain in the European Union or leave — leaders of…Read more…
The Leave campaign’s 4 biggest euro-fibs
Leaders of the Leave campaigns have turned being economical with the truth into an art-form over the course of the EU referendum. To paraphrase legendary foreign correspondent Louis Heren, whenever…Read more…
Airport strike on the horizon
Unite, Scotland’s biggest union, today (June 22) said it would ballot about 480 workers at Glasgow and Aberdeen airports for strike action, after 98 per cent of workers rejected proposed changes to…Read more…
Construction deal secured
Following protracted negotiations, the construction unions (UCATT, Unite and GMB) have secured an improved two-year pay deal for workers covered by the Construction Industry Joint Council (CIJC)…Read more…
Trade unions and manufacturing employers join together to warn of Brexit threat to jobs
It’s the final day of campaigning for the EU referendum and the focus must be on the economic realities of tomorrow’s decision. Today I’ve published a joint statement with Terry Scuoler, the CEO of EFF the manufacturers’ organisation. In it, we say: “Leaving would be a terrible gamble,…Read more…
Living Wage win
Unite has won staff working in schools in Hackney the London Living Wage following a yearlong campaign. Catering and cleaning staff employed through OCS, a subcontractor, have been promised a wage…Read more…
There’s no point in marking for the sake of it
Simon Rigby is an ATL rep at Fred Longworth High School in Greater Manchester. I’ve got members of staff marking from the moment they get up on a Sunday until when they go to bed. These members have…Read more…
Freedom of movement changed my life
In UNITElive’s third and final instalment of our series talking to members about what the EU has meant to them, Unite’s Myles Derbyshire explains how freedom of movement helped him find…Read more…
Keep the business together
Unite has responded with concern to the emerging news that Tata steel is looking to break up its remaining UK operations as it continues to seek a buyer for its businesses. According to…Read more…
Project hope
There is no need for a spoiler alert – Unite is fighting all the way for a remain vote and for Britain and British workers to build their future in unity with workers in the rest of Europe….Read more…
Yet another trade unionist speaks out for Remain
Today, a long-time member of one of the TUC’s affiliated unions spoke out in favour of a Remain vote in Thursday’s referendum. The union is the Professional Footballers’ Association…Read more…
‘Broken promises’
Weymouth bus bosses have been accused of ‘broken promises and bad faith’ as a further four days of strike action from (June 27) were announced to follow on from this week’s strike in the ‘poor…Read more…
‘Absolutely disgraceful’
Protests were held outside the French embassy in London over the weekend, after a 250 vehicle aid convoy on its way to Calais was refused entry into France. The convoy, organised by a number…Read more…
Less a ‘miserable failure’?: some facts about recent EU growth
This morning I woke to a Brexit mantra that the EU economy is a “miserable failure”, with “low growth”. (*) On the latest GDP quarter-on-quarter growth figures, in 2016Q1 the EU moved marginally ahead of other economies regarded as important in this type of comparison. GDP:…Read more…
Will young people swing the vote of the European Referendum?
The debate around mobilising young voters in the EU Referendum was the topic of the live studio debate organised by visual think tank COVi in partnership with Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) last…Read more…
Diseases don’t respect borders
In UNITElive’s second instalment of our series in which we ask members what being in the EU has meant to them, we talk to Beverley, a biomedical scientist. The EU referendum debate has…Read more…
The profession that cried wolf: ‘expert opinion’, the referendum and the IMF
A dominant theme in the referendum campaign is the unwillingness of the public to listen to expert advice. The economics editor (Chris Giles) of the Financial Times despairs: “Economists have never been more united in supporting a vote to remain, yet the profession increasingly appears incapable of…Read more…
Save Chorley A&E
Unite members are leading the battle to reopen the Chorley District Hospital A&E. The A&E was closed on April 18, when Lancashire Teaching Hospitals Trust, which runs Chorley and…Read more…