To find out more about #NoVoteNoVoice, Unite’s coalition campaign with the Mirror and other campaign groups, visit our website here.
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Songs of power
I left home aged 18 to go to polytechnic in London and never moved back to live at home with my parents yet every general election time my mum would always call me and remind me to vote and rightly castigate me if I ever tried to say it’s not worth it. I grew […]
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Public Contracts Regulations: Government getting it badly wrong on public procurement
With around £230bn spent by the government on goods and services and with outsourcing increasing across the public sector, getting the commissioning and procurement framework right is of vital importance in shaping the future of our public services. So it is concerning to see the way the government…Read more…
Today’s pensions committee report and the need for speed
The wide-ranging report being published today by the Work and Pensions Commission provides both a pretty comprehensive to-do list for the next Pensions Minister and an important warning that urgency is required on many of these tasks. Among its proposa…Read more…
Struggling to survive
The so-called “record numbers” in which women are in work obscures an inconvenient truth – that women are hurting now more than ever. A new TUC report published today (March 9) has found that women have been overwhelmingly funnelled into part-time, low-paid jobs over the past year, with less than half of women’s net […]
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Overseas development funding pledge: Law at last!
We’ve just heard the good news that the private member’s bill on the UK contribution to Official Development Assistance (ODA) has successfully navigated both Houses of Parliament and is awaiting Royal Assent to become law. The TUC takes this opportunity to thank all affiliates, their members,…Read more…
No to austerity
Northern Ireland, where public sector spending represents almost three-quarters of the region’s GDP, faces the worst cuts in 80 years. The 2015-2016 budget, which follows four straight years of austerity, entails slashing £1.3bn in funding in the next four years – a budget which public sector workers have unequivocally rejected. Unite members working […]
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‘Sorry, I’m not political’
Crossing the border to Wales late on Friday night with an air of excitement for what we all knew was going to be a big day, the bus crew were laying out voter registration forms, with pens on clipboards, so we’d be ready bright and early the next day. Reflecting now, we’re glad […]
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End this courting of the powerful
David Cameron won the leadership of his party telling activists to “let sunshine win the day”. Into the 2010 General Election he went, promising to clean up a political system discredited by MPs’ expenses. Here was the man to bring about transparency in the lobbying industry and even end “crony capitalism”, to heal Britain’s sickly politics. […]
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Retail sales are strong because of intensified deflation, not subsiding deflation
Another ‘good deflation’ story in the FT today: ‘fears of damaging deflationary spiral subside’. Strong retail sales growth is regarded at odds with ‘pessimists’ predictions’ of ‘falling prices and weak demand tainting the world economy’. But an alternative interpretation of the same figures is…Read more…
The ‘un-statued’ women
Female figures from history are virtually invisible. Think of the statues in London alone — where are the women? Not in Trafalgar Square, nor in Parliament Square. In fact, of the 640 listed statues in Britain, only 15 per cent are of women. In London it’s a measly 7 per cent. One such “un-statued” […]
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A rising tide may lift all boats, but DWP disability release fails to show decreasing disadvantage
Late last month, the DWP put out a glowing headline: 400 more disabled people in work every day. It is not entirely unwelcome news. It does mean that there has been net growth of more than 141,000 disabled people in some form of employment over the past year. It also means that the DWP is…Read more…
International Women’s Day: A time for action, not just celebration
International Women’s Day is not just a warm up act for Mother’s Day: a day for celebrating our mothers, daughters, and sisters. It has clear radical and union roots.Read more…
Women – we got the power
In water cooler moments up and down the land everyone agrees that the fast approaching general election will be ‘the closest ever’. All political parties are now scrambling to maximise their vote on May 7. But on what will the result hinge? Might it be the expected meltdown of the Lib Dems, the […]
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Politics in our lives, not just in Parliament
Funny, isn’t it, how politics is so influential in our day to day lives. Everything from the amount we can expect as a minimum wage to whether we go to war, the decisions made in Parliament…Read more…
Taken for granted
Unite’s members working for Parcelforce overwhelmingly rejected a pay offer that management went ahead with, prompting the union today (March 6) to warn the courier company that it risks inciting industrial action. The bosses of Parcelforce, a subsidiary of the Royal Mail, implemented a paltry 2.8 per cent pay rise backdated to July 2014, […]
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Where the Martyrs worshipped
The story of the Tolpuddle Martyrs – six farm workers imprisoned and transported to Australia for their attempt to prevent falls in their wages by forming a “friendly society” in 1834 – is the story of trade unionism’s birth in this country. The six men who ignited a movement are remembered in books and […]
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Nuclear build delays?
The construction of Britain’s first nuclear power plant in a generation may see delays as it faces continued legal challenges from European critics, including the Austrian government and a co-operative of energy suppliers in Germany. The construction of the Hinkley Point C plant – which will be a boon for the local and wider […]
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Southampton calling
Unite, along with the Mirror, Hope not hate, and Operation Black Vote have embarked on a bus tour across the UK to encourage some of the 7m people who are eligible to vote but are not registered to sign up and get on the register for the election on May 7. Below is short […]
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Should there be a NEST for your nest-egg?
It says much for the resilience of the sort of consensual approach facilitated by the Pensions Commission of a decade ago that even before the government’s rash and irresponsible pensions freedom reforms have been implemented, opinion is coalescing around the best ways to ameliorate their likely…Read more…