In the last days of the coalition Government the Modern Slavery Bill became law. As I reported in my blog, at the time, the Government was consulting on the reporting requirements for businesses in relation to the Transparency in Supply Chain clause. T…Read more…
A Kafkaesque nightmare
Unite community member Paul Rooney, a former social care worker who gave up his job to care for his severely disabled teenaged daughter, looked through his post one day to find a council tax bill for…Read more…
Enter the new kid on the block – a “sustainable free market”
I dont know if we have a climate sceptic Chancellor. But global surface temperature are now passing more than 1 °C of global warming, relative to the second half of the 19th century. Is this the right time for the Treasury to cast out the UK’s ten key green energy policies for an untried,…Read more…
Burnout Britain Mapped: employees missing out on paid holidays by nation and region
New figures indicate that 1,669,000 employees are missing out on their minimum legal entitlement to paid holidays. That’s an average of 6.4% of workers not taking up their legal rights. But this problem isn’t uniform across the UK, nor across all sectors, as you can see below. Missed…Read more…
No to shift rota changes
Unite members under the Offshore Contractors Association (OCA) agreement today (July 29) rejected proposals over changes to shift rotas and terms and conditions following a consultative ballot,…Read more…
Rural workers will suffer
A renewed call for better pay and conditions, as well as better health and safety standards for farmworkers was made this month by Unite executive council member Ivan Monckton, who represents…Read more…
Put pensions plans on hold call
Changes to the Nestlé pension scheme that could mean that 7,600 workers losing thousands of pounds in retirement income should be put ‘on hold’ until a proper valuation of the scheme in December….Read more…
When life beyond work ceases to exist
The number of people on zero-hours contracts, in which workers are not guaranteed any hours of work, is notoriously difficult to calculate. While the scale of the zero-hours epidemic is not…Read more…
‘Bleeding’ us dry
‘Vampire’ Sajid Javid comes from the working class so why is he bleeding us of all our rights? Sajid Javid is the son of a bus driver who sits at the Cabinet table, the proud embodiment of the…Read more…
Fossils are go! as Labour hopefuls miss Osborne’s energy omnishambles
Business Green argues today that the government is pushing through without an effective response from Labour’s leadership hopefuls a new energy policy with renewables shoved to the margins. But across the Pond, Hillary Clinton’s pledge to install half a billion solar panels and generate enough…Read more…
All the fun of the Fest
Catch all the highlights from Saturday’s (July 26) Southampton Left Fest below
The post All the fun of the Fest appeared first on UNITElive.org.Read more…
Just the tip of the iceberg?
‘Blacklisting’ in the construction industry must be investigated by the public inquiry into undercover policing in England and Wales, Unite said today (Tuesday, July 28). Unite said that there…Read more…
“Want work” levels and women’s labour market participation
Women Want Work is a new TUC briefing that argues that the official unemployment figures under-state the jobs shortage; in particular they minimise the number of women who aren’t in employment but ideally would like a paid job. This is because of the way unemployment is defined for the…Read more…
Left fest forward!
Saturday in Southampton (July 26) was a day of music, comedy, free food and, yes, politics. Hundreds of people from Hampshire and beyond poured into a packed church hall to enjoy the port…Read more…
Do schools really fail to prepare pupils for the world of work?
Anne Heavey is an Education Policy Adviser at ATL. Every week we see headlines decrying the crisis of skills teaching in our schools, the gist: our schools fail to prepare our children for the world…Read more…
A 1215-style fight for our rights
“Depressingly ideological and completely unnecessary” – one view the view of the Trade Union Bill rushed out by the Tory government. It wasn’t me who said that, nor any of my union colleagues…Read more…
Revival in GDP quarterly growth figure disguises increased imbalances
GDP quarterly growth was back up to 0.7% in 2015 Q2 from 0.4% in Q1, and was in-line with market expectations. The main reasons for the revival in growth were a surge in energy extraction and use and a rebound in service activity. Acting in the opposite direction was the first fall in manufacturing…Read more…
Too old to be paid more
Following chancellor George Osborne announcing a so-called statutory “National Living Wage”, it has now been revealed that apprentices who are 25 and over may lose out on his promised wage hike…Read more…
Minority report
Two reports out today (Monday July 27) both point to the budget and austerity cuts to public services having a greater impact on black and ethnic minorities and women. Up to four million…Read more…
Andy Haldane: Shareholder primacy is bad for economic growth
Andy Haldane, the Bank of England’s Chief Economist, has said that the UK’s shareholder model of corporate governance is holding back business investment and hurting economic growth. In a fascinating interview on Newsnight with Duncan Weldon (formerly TUC Senior Economist), he said that firms…Read more…