The way in which young workers (or want-to-be workers) is discussed in the media and public debate is something which frequently grates on me, and I can’t be the only young person who feels like this. The article “jobs for the boys and girls” in this week’s Economist was no…Read more…
TUC Budget Statement: Fiscal consolidation has failed. Make it stop.
In their June 2010 Budget the coalition expected the economy over 2010-2015 to grow in cash terms by 29%; instead it grew by only 20%. This amounts to a cash shortfall of £140bn (on the basis of today’s NA definitions, as on the chart). £140bn is a big number that reflects a double hit,…Read more…
A social pillar to shore up Europe’s cracking foundations
Last week the European Commission suddenly woke up to the needs of working people. After years of almost no initiatives in the social and employment fields, reinforcing the perception of the EU as just a business club, we got something to deal with the pay of workers temporarily sent to work in…Read more…
What’s changed about attitudes to free trade?
I’ve already blogged once about the Wilton Park conference I attended recently on the subject of the Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership (TTIP) in terms of the impact of investor…Read more…
USA & right-wingers: looking for regime change in Venezuela?
Last week, Venezuela’s right-wing opposition launched a new campaign to remove President Nicolas Maduro from power, including by calling for his immediate resignation. The last campaign to oust the…Read more…
‘No pay, no way’
A consultative ballot of Unite members working for Hertel, the global industrial services company, on the Conoco Philips oil refinery site on Teesside is on the cards after the company’s zero…Read more…
Justice result
The benefits of being a union member may not be immediately obvious, but for many, it’s nothing short of life-changing. For one Unite member an accident in work meant that he would no longer…Read more…
Stormont jobs plea
Unite and other unions are calling for ministerial intervention at Stormont after Belfast engineering giant Harland and Wolff announced sixty job losses. The company is blaming the move –…Read more…
Actions, not words plea
Unite steelworkers in Wales took their fight to save steel at the Welsh Conservative spring conference today (March 11). Dozens descended to demonstrate against the UK government’s continued…Read more…
The unequal impact of the mental health crisis
Mental health problems will affect one person in four: a statistic repeatedly quoted these days. There are other numbers. People disabled by mental ill health have only a 20% employment rate in contrast to an overall disability employment rate of just …Read more…
A ‘fishy’ business?
The UK’s leading supplier of chilled fish has been accused of paying for the new ‘national living wage’ by slashing overtime rates. Unite believes Grimsby-based firm – Icelandic…Read more…
For fairness and progress
Unite has described Sadiq Khan’s manifesto setting out his London Mayoral bid as a “programme of fairness” which will be welcomed by millions in the capital. Labour’s candidate has put…Read more…
A million new jobs for disabled people on the road to full employment?
The Chancellor of the Exchequer wants the UK to achieve full employment by creating more than two million new jobs by 2020. The Resolution Foundation, in its welcome new report, “The road to full employment: what the journey looks like and how to make progress”, sets out how to achieve this by…Read more…
A boss’s ‘flexible friend’?
The number of people whose main job is on a zero hours contract may well soar to 1m by the end of the year if current trends continue, according to the latest figures released on Wednesday (March 9)….Read more…
Will area reviews fix the skills gap?
Janet Clark is an education policy adviser at ATL The government recently published the latest guidance for the Review of Post-16 Education and Training (known as the area reviews). At 60 pages…Read more…
Women workers & the EU referendum
Frances O’Grady addressed the TUC Women’s Conference in London on Wednesday 9 March. Here is an edited version of the section of her speech that focused on the EU referendum, and the…Read more…
“Guten tag, pet!” Reforming the Posted Workers Directive
On Tuesday (8 March) the European Commission announced a long-waited revision of the twenty year-old Posted Workers Directive, which regulates the entitlements of workers sent by their employer to another EU country on a short-term project. Think of the characters in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet – they…Read more…
Train operating companies must be laughing all the way to the bank
A recent report by the Office for Road and Rail Regulation (ORR, 2014-15) shows that our privatised railways are still heavily dependent on taxpayers subsidies, while private train companies continue to pay out millions in shareholder dividends. In 2014-15, the government contributed £3.5bn to the…Read more…
Starved of funds
Unite Scotland has responded with scorn and concern to the latest finance figures which show there’s been close to £1.5 bn worth of cuts to local government since 2011. According to official…Read more…
Don’t kill affordable homes
Unite will join housing campaigners this Sunday (March 13) in opposing the government’s Housing and Planning Bill which, if passed, will annihilate affordable housing in the UK. Demonstrators…Read more…