Is any semblance of an industrial strategy about to go the same way as Lord Heseltine’s report No Stone Unturned (his report on creating a re-balanced economy) and George Osborne’s now disguarded…Read more…
We’re not in this together
Staff at Lloyd’s banking group (LBG) have been rewarded for their loyalty and struggling to bring the bank back into profit with an announcement of 700 job cuts. The news, which comes a week after…Read more…
Solidarity with Greek workers
On Monday evening, I addressed a rally in Trafalgar Square in solidarity with the people of Greece. Here’s what I said. I am proud to be here tonight to bring you best wishes on behalf of the…Read more…
Government: don’t let austerity get in the way of climate targets
Like an ominous poetic prelude to the UK’s hottest day of the year, yesterday the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) released its annual Progress Report on preparing for climate change and cutting the UK’s carbon emissions. If the 35°c heat felt in London today makes the ministers in the Department…Read more…
‘Enough is enough’
Angry workers at windscreen makers Pilkington in Birmingham are striking in a dispute over pay inequality with co-workers at another site five miles away. More than 130 workers at the King’s Norton…Read more…
Heathrow expansion green light would boost jobs by 70,000
Unite has urged the government to hurry over implementing the recommendations of the Airports Commission for Heathrow expansion or risk losing out to rival airports across the globe. Their report…Read more…
Porters triumph at last
A deal ending the NHS Tayside porters dispute in Scotland was hailed as ‘justice’ by their union Unite today (June 30), after members involved in the four month long dispute voted to accept an…Read more…
Congratulations to Heathrow – now become a Living Wage employer
This morning, the TUC has welcomed the recommendation from the Airports Commission calling for additional runway capacity at Heathrow. We have long been on record as supporting airport expansion. As the voice of Britain at work, the TUC seeks the creat…Read more…
Why are the self-employed included in employment statistics, but excluded from earnings figures?
There are many ways to raise an average. For example here are two ways to raise Average Earnings: Have more people on high pay Have fewer people on low pay And here are two ways of having fewer people on lower pay: Pay the low paid more Just ignore them The Average Weekly Earnings (AWE)…
The…Read more…
Down in the Tube station at midnight?
London Underground workers, members of Unite, the country’s largest union, have voted strongly in favour of strike action in a dispute over the introduction of all-night Tube services from September….Read more…
Hot and bothered?
You know what it can be like at work – one person feels boiling hot, another is wearing their hat and scarf – the temperature is never exactly right. But in this current heatwave with the…Read more…
Carry on nursing
More than half of nurses think they know little about what revalidation is and less than half of them think it will actually improve care. In a survey carried out by Unite’s community nurses…Read more…
Boss purrs as workers scratch for wage rise
Reports that Dairy Crest’s chief executive will skim off a £1.2m bonus in a proposed takeover deal, while the workers are being offered a miserly pay rise was branded as ‘rank hypocrisy’ by Unite…Read more…
Hatfield mine to close: Imported coal will fuel the Northern Powerhouse
Employee-owned Hatfield Colliery, Yorkshire, has ceased production of coal 12 months earlier than planned. BIS Minister Anna Soubry reportedly refused a last minute request by local MP Ed Miliband and the mine’s chair, John Grogan, to provide a £12m loan to the mine to stay open for a further year….Read more…
Same old story: households having to run down savings and calling a halt to deleveraging
For 2015Q1 GDP growth is now estimated at 0.4% (revised up from 0.3%). Growth was last lower than this in 2012 (Q4 when it was -0.4%), at the height of worries about the double dip, and with the Chancellor poised to reign in his austerity policies. Whi…Read more…
What if I’m not a participant?
On the day the independent living fund ends, Unite Community member Robert Punton tells us how it changed his life – and how it’s demise will affect him. He writes: It is often…Read more…
Stopping the Snooper’s Charter
This evening (June 29), Unite and the Labour Campaign for Human Rights will be holding a Parliamentary event (see below) to explain why we’re opposed to the Investigatory Powers Bill. As we do…Read more…
Government needs to give up the backseat driving
Mark Wright is the assistant director of AMiE (leadership and management). Politicians and practitioners ideally work together to take education on a shared journey so it doesn’t bode well that the…Read more…
Child benefit under attack
In the past five years Child Benefit has been frozen, capped and taken away from better off families. Eroding Child Benefit, a new TUC report out today reveals that a couple with two children are already £5.95 a week worse off as a result and by the time of the next election that loss…Read more…
NEST sings a sweeter song than Osborne’s Destination Anywhere
With the honourable exception of The Marvelettes, those embarking on a journey typically have an end point in mind. Yet, Destination Anywhere has been the soundtrack to the recent pension liberalisation changes. The publication by NEST, the state-backed pension provider, of a blueprint for…Read more…