Unite will be protesting outside bookmaker William Hill’s shops in London, Birkenhead, Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Birmingham, Gloucester and Southampton on Friday (October 7), as part…Read more…
All Aboard Making worker representation on company boards a reality
Speaking today at the Conservative Party Conference, the Prime Minister repeated her commitment to introduce worker representation on company boards. The TUC has just published a new report All Aboard that sets out proposals for making this a reality, …Read more…
Still time to talk plea
About 150 workers at a chemical factory in East Lancashire will take industrial action in a dispute over imposed changes to their terms and conditions. The Unite members including manual…Read more…
Workers’ rights and Brexit: holding the PM to her pledges
Last Friday, I reiterated our key demand of the Government over Brexit: workers must not pay the price for the decision to leave. TUC opinion polling after the referendum showed that whatever people voted for on 23 June, it wasn’t to lose precious rights at work. The TUC and unions – as…Read more…
Why more carrot and less stick can help us to ‘Power Ahead’
The TUC recently published a new policy document, ‘Powering Ahead: How UK industry can match Europe’s environmental leaders’. This document sets out a path to a sustainable industrial strategy, in which ‘sustainable’ describes the economic, social and environmental challenges facing companies,…Read more…
‘Under the banner of community’
As night falls over Whitechapel the young men in black shirts spill into the narrow streets looking for a fight. Members of Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists, they prowl around, seeking out…Read more…
#SouthernBackOnTrack – Safety spun in numbers
Southern Rail – having seemed to have learnt nothing from their disastrous social media campaign yesterday with #southernbackontrack – have come back for more of a metaphorical kicking….Read more…
Housing crisis solved at #CPC16?
Perhaps not quite yet, I fear. Sajid Javid, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government announced a new scheme to support house-building at the Conservative Party Conference yesterday, saying that: “We want to ensure everyone has a safe and secure place to live and that means we’ve got…Read more…
‘In it together’
Unite took to the streets of Birmingham yesterday (October 2) alongside thousands of others from all walks of life to send a clear message to the government that the British people have had enough of…Read more…
Dispute settled
The pay dispute at Menzies Distribution, which had threatened deliveries to newsagents across the UK, has been settled after workers voted to accept an improved offer, Unite said on Friday (September…Read more…
Double blow for Bromley council
Bromley council has been dealt a double blow to its plans to sell-off the borough’s treasured libraries. Bexley council has informed Bromley council that it will no longer be looking to…Read more…
A home is a human right
Families evicted by private landlords are becoming homeless in record numbers because they can’t afford a place to live, shocking new government figures show. Nearly a third of the 15,170…Read more…
Celebrating decent jobs
So much focus has been on bad jobs and bad employers recently like Sports Direct, with their shameful warehouse working conditions and zero hours contracts that rob people of any quality family life….Read more…
Andy Hall’s conviction in Thailand a blow to free speech & workers’ rights
On Monday 20 September, British-born migrant and labour rights activist Andy Hall was found guilty on charges of criminal defamation by a court in Bangkok, Thailand, and sentenced to a three year…Read more…
Cambodian unions still not satisfied with minimum wage increase
Cambodian unions have reacted with anger to the Government’s decision to fix next year’s minimum wage for garment workers at $153 a month, way below the $171 pcm that unions had demanded,…Read more…
As Portugal tries to take back control of Metro Lisbon, Mexican privateers turn to #ISDS
One of the main complaints unions make about the investment protection elements of trade deals known as Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) is that it would be used against governments trying to bring privatised services back into public ownership. “Oh no it won’t!” cry…Read more…
Is the decline of manufacturing really ‘natural evolution’?
According to conventional wisdom, industrial trends follow a natural evolution from agriculture to manufacturing and finally to services. Fascinating long-run data from the ONS (based on employment information from census records since the mid-C19) sug…Read more…
easyJet: Staff breast feeding victory
Expectant mothers and mothers of young children have never had it worse in the workplace – a wide-ranging Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) study published earlier this year found that the…Read more…
No way to treat workers
Irish drinks giant C&C has been accused of behaving with ‘cavalier contempt’ towards its Shepton Mallet Cider Mill workforce, as confusion swirls about the employment prospects of the remaining…Read more…
Decent pay rise call
Chancellor Philip Hammond should use the autumn statement to signal a massive cash injection into the crisis-hit NHS, allowing the independent Pay Review Body to help restore the pay of a…Read more…