As the Northern Ireland power-sharing government faces a £600m black hole in its budget, the Treasury has offered to plug the gap with a loan in exchange for cuts to welfare and the public sector….Read more…
Two simple messages for David Cameron on Europe
Today I’m meeting Martin Schulz, the President of the European Parliament. Tomorrow, he’s meeting David Cameron to talk about Britain’s future in the EU. I’m asking Martin to make two clear points to David Cameron: 1. Cutting workers’ rights won’t win…Read more…
Egypt: one of the terrible ten worst countries for workers’ rights
Egypt can be a tough place for workers with its cases of police brutality, mass arrests, abductions and attempted assassinations. In June last year, 500 workers of a national steel company protested…Read more…
Kicking the trade agreements can down the road
Trade deals are stalled due to popular pressure In both the European Parliament and Congress. What’s going on? When the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations were launched in 2013, veteran Tory politician Ken Clarke MP was at his most avuncular when he said that…Read more…
Triumph in solidarity
Following a two-day strike in April, Unite bus drivers in Bradford prepared for further strike action against their employer First Group last week over jobs losses and attacks to terms and…Read more…
Great British sell-off
Axing £12bn from the welfare bill was a prime Tory election pledge – one that’s proving so impossible that even senior officials within the party’s ranks itself are now pressuring chancellor George…Read more…
Wages growth mirage
Wages are expected to grow at the fastest rate since before the crash, many newspapers reported earlier this week. It’s good news on the surface, but read further down their columns and the reason…Read more…
CPI inflation: no surprises, not out of woods.
When the inflation numbers are moving from positive to negative territory it is difficult to avoid excitement about ultimately small changes, driven to some extent by erratic and exceptional factors. Today Britain moved out of deflation, alternatively …Read more…
High levels of underemployment still remain
Our recent analysis shows that underemployment (people who have fewer hours of work than they want) remains nearly a million higher than before the recession. The findings come ahead of new unemployment data to be published this week, which are expecte…Read more…
Colombia: one of the terrible ten worst countries for workers’ rights
Colombia is the world’s capital for murders of unionists. Despite fitful progress in the ongoing peace process between the government and the FARC guerrillas, Colombia’s trade unionists are…Read more…
‘These figures don’t add up’
The average London house price has broken above £600,000 for the first time in history, according to new data from online property website Rightmove. This is a rise of 5.8 per cent on…Read more…
Survivor pensions: the legacy of inequality continues
For pensioner couples, the death of a partner can lead to financial worry as well as grief for the one left behind. For this reason, many defined benefit pension schemes continue to pay a proportion of the pension to the survivor. But thanks to a littl…Read more…
Fundamental human right attacked
As the Government has confirmed plans to curve the right to strike, UNITElive spoke with Unite’s director of legal services Howard Beckett in an exclusive interview. Government…Read more…
China: one of the terrible ten worst countries for workers’ rights (2)
At the ILO conference earlier this month, the International Trade Union Confederation launched its 2015 Global Rights Index, detailing the ten worst countries for workers’ rights abuses in the…Read more…
Why we’d find it difficult repeating Better Together for Europe
We’re being asked quite a lot if the trade union movement would join a broad-based campaign to stay in the European Union, working with employers, political parties and others. The example of…Read more…
Is a bottom-up approach to professionalism the answer for the FE sector?
By Ann Hodgson, UCL Institute of Education. I was invited to chair a session on the Policy Contexts of Professionalism, as part of the in the Developing Collaborative Expertise in the Further…Read more…
Belarus: one of the terrible ten worst countries for workers’ rights (1)
At the ILO conference earlier this month, the International Trade Union Confederation launched its 2015 Global Rights Index, detailing the ten worst countries for workers’ rights abuses in the…Read more…
#TTIP with the US comes second: #CETA with Canada comes first
Trade deals haven’t been so high profile since the 1999 ‘battle for Seattle’, when the World Trade Organisation was met with a wave of anti-globalisation protests. In the US, first the Senate then the House of Representatives have seen pitched battles over ‘Fast Track’…Read more…
Ten countries not to go to, if you’re a trade unionist
Although holiday season is almost upon us, this isn’t really the TUC Holiday Show. Over the last fortnight, trade unionists, employers and governments from all over the world have been in…Read more…
Congress deals blow to trade deals as US wakes up to worker concerns
Just a couple of years ago, US unions attacking trade deals because they cost jobs and lowered wages were accused of bogus economics, protectionism and worse (they still are in some circles.) Now their views are expressed even by centrist Democrats and…Read more…