The number of workers who took strike action last year dipped to their lowest level in recorded history, figures published yesterday (August 2) have shown. In 2015, only 81,000 people downed…Read more…
Has the Post Office ‘failed’?
The Post Office’s decision to close its final salary pension scheme is the latest episode causing concern over its financial state. It will mean reduced retirement incomes for the scheme’s 3,500…Read more…
Mind the ever widening gap
After spending decades of their working lives earning less than men, women also now face a yawning and growing income gap in retirement, a new study has shown. Women retiring this year expect…Read more…
Now you see it, now you don’t
Shop fitters in Newcastle are locked in a dispute over a pay offer that has been branded as ‘bizarre’ by Unite. The offer from the company sees workers given a 25 pence an hour increase and their…Read more…
FIFA must stop foul play in Qatar.
FIFA bought a manual on how to end human rights in its world cups, and so far it’s refusing to follow the instructions. But now fans have a chance to make FIFA play by the rules. When FIFA commissioned a UN human rights expert to advise them how to clean up world football’s act, there…
The…Read more…
Holiday pay win
A five-year legal battle to get haulier Eddie Stobart Ltd (ESL) to pay the correct rate of holiday pay has resulted in a pay-out of £364,000 for more than 430 drivers. Unite, which represented…Read more…
‘Genuine’ talks call
Bus drivers in Weymouth and Bridport would embrace the arbitration process to solve the long-running ‘poverty pay’ dispute with ‘open arms’ – but only if the conciliation talks are genuine. …Read more…
The cost of poverty
Poverty costs the UK £78bn a year in public spending and lost tax, new research into the effects of deprivation on Britain’s finances has found. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) ‘Counting…Read more…
Wake-up call
The latest manufacturing figures released yesterday (August 1) have shown that the uncertainty unleashed by a Brexit vote is no passing phase. The closely-watched Markit/CIPS UK…Read more…
Lowest-ever strike figures: So why did we need the Trade Union Act again?
0.0029%. That’s the proportion of working days lost to strikes in the UK last year. 81,000. That’s the number of people who went on strike in 2015. It’s actually the lowest-ever…Read more…
How is the Brexit vote affecting workers?
The simple answer, of course, is that it is too early to tell. The electorate’s decision on 23 June was just a decision, not the actual act of leaving the EU. Since then, we’ve had a substantial fall in the value of sterling which will make imported goods and components more expensive…Read more…
Show Qatar World Cup hosts death & exploitation are unnecessary
On 21 August, West Ham United will play their first Premiership home game at the former London 2012 Olympic Stadium – their new venue – against Bournemouth. We’ll be there with…Read more…
‘No business sense’
Prudential employees, based in Reading, are being balloted for strike action over plans to outsource about 75 jobs dealing with annuities to India. Staff, members of Unite, will start voting…Read more…
Bottling it up
Cider’s future at the historic Shepton Mallet mill in Somerset is not yet completely over – as Brothers Drinks, which bought the mill’s bottling line earlier this year, is gearing up to start…Read more…
Another attempt to pick the state pension lock
Former Pensions Ministers don’t retire quietly from public life it appears. Baroness Altmann, the latest to depart Caxton House, has since criticised the difficulty of long-term policy making in government . And, over the weekend, called for the ending of the triple lock that governs state pension…Read more…
Why EU citizens in Britain shouldn’t be used as negotiating pawns
The TUC is only one of many groups in Britain calling for citizens of other EU countries currently living and working in the UK to be given the right to remain when we leave the European Union. Others who support the position include the CBI, IOD, orga…Read more…
Tanzania and Uganda stand up against unfair EU-East Africa Economic Partnership Agreement
There was hopeful news for trade unions in East Africa last week as Tanzania and Uganda refused to sign the Economic Partnership Agreement between the EU and East African Community countries —…Read more…
Hinkley delay slammed
The Tory government announced a further delay on the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station last night (July 28) just hours after French company EDF gave the project the green light. The…Read more…
Standing firm
Wood Group oil workers, around 400 members of Unite and the RMT, staged a solid strike on Tuesday (July 26) in what was the first North Sea strike in three decades. The 24-hour stoppage was in…Read more…
Bottom of the pile
British wages fell by 10.4 percent between 2007 and 2015 new TUC analysis has found, lower than anywhere else in Europe except Greece. UK workers suffered the biggest drop in real wages…Read more…