The budget lacked the ambition and action to equip the nation for the challenges of Brexit, Unite said today (Wednesday March 8). Responding to Chancellor Philip Hammond’s budget, Unite…Read more…
#Budget2017: Pensions freedom liberates cash straight into the Treasury
Paperwork released with the Budget has revealed what an astonishing short-term money spinner so-called “pensions freedom” has been for the Treasury – and hinted at what a disaster it might prove for our ability to provide for old age. Originally announced in Budget 2014, pensions…Read more…
We won’t be silenced
On October 31 2016 Amber Rudd, home secretary, made an announcement that sent shockwaves through the mining community – there was to be no enquiry into the violent policing at the Battle of Orgreave….Read more…
Culture change call
As people in the UK and the world over celebrate International Women’s Day today (March 8), Unite, the country’s largest construction union, will launch its Women in Construction Network on the first…Read more…
Wake up to what women need
As the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, gets ready to deliver his Budget today, he would do well to remember the 47 per cent. That’s the proportion of women in the UK workforce. With this year’s…Read more…
New institutions needed to address concerns about migration
The Government has decided that ‘taking back control’ of the UK’s borders is more important than anything else, more important in particular than working people’s jobs and living standards. Even if immigration numbers don’t actually come down as a result, the…Read more…
Unite urges members to sound the alarm if jobs threatened by #Brexit
Unite has launched a new website to make sure its members are kept informed about what’s happening about Brexit, an online resource dedicated to bringing the news, views, facts and analysis on…Read more…
International Women’s Day: 50-50 by 2030
Today (8 March) is International Women’s Day (#IWD2017) and the UN’s chosen theme for this year focusses on ‘Women in the Changing World of Work: Planet 50-50 by 2030’. This theme chimes well with the values of the TUC and our sister trade unions around the world who will be joining the global…Read more…
Positive about the future
When 20-year-old Liam McBerney catches up with his old school friends the talk inevitably turns to the future. What becomes apparent, says Liam, is that today’s uncertain and changeable economy is a…Read more…
Unite boosting pay
Unite, the foremost experts on negotiating pay in London and the East of England, have launched a blueprint for boosting workers’ pay amid rising inflation and slow pay growth in 2017. Unite…Read more…
‘Shocking’ failings
Unite has instructed its lawyers to investigate and look into legal actions against Bromley council and individual Bromley councillors for failings in their statutory duties to protect the people of…Read more…
Interpreters’ ‘race to the bottom’
Justice secretary Liz Truss has been urged to review how vital interpreter contracts are awarded and how they operate, following reports that Pearl Linguistics has gone into liquidation. Unite…Read more…
The crisis that can’t be contained
The omens ahead of tomorrow’s Budget are not good. Last week the business select committee warned that the much-heralded industrial strategy was welcome in intent but absent of strategy….Read more…
‘Incredible support’
Bus workers striking against low pay, poor industrial relations and anti-union actions by their employer, Oxford Bus Company, were joined on Monday (March 6) on the picket line by Unite general…Read more…
‘The forgotten cousin’
Local authorities are ‘the forgotten cousins’ of public expenditure, as the financial crisis facing social care gathers pace, Unite has said. Unite, which has 80,000 members in local…Read more…
And the fight goes on…
It’s been more than a century since International Women’s Day was first proposed, but the pressing need for a day for women to voice their demands in their struggle for equality has hardly…Read more…
‘Sixty billion pound’ man
Chancellor Philip Hammond will set aside £60bn in preparation for a Brexit crisis in tomorrow’s Budget, but will not spend any extra cash to alleviate the meltdown of the UK’s health services. …Read more…
‘This union fears no one’
Crowding into Unite’s Holborn office conference room for the migrant workers’ conference on February 22, I was struck by the energy and positive vibes just beaming off every single soul in there –…Read more…
Four tests of whether the Budget delivers for working people
As she started her campaign to be Prime Minister, Theresa May promised to put the power of government in the service of working people. So far, there’s little sign that the Chancellor has got the message, with his pre-budget interviews focusing on ‘fiscal discipline’ at the same time as pressing…Read more…
No deal could be the worst deal possible, warn MPs
The Prime Minister has argued that, when it comes to Britain’s relationship with the EU after Brexit, no deal would be better than a bad deal (I’m worried that some Conservative MPs actually think no deal would be better than a good deal, too!) It is frequently argued that holding out…Read more…