All the union news that's fit to blog...
http://gu.com/p/49259
Oh dearie me “senior Labour figures” are worried that “modernisers” may be squeezed out of the premature election for Labour’s next Leader (in which we can enjoy hasty and unconvincing explanations for electoral failure).
The rea…Read more…
Colleagues,
Just a short piece to report on a truly amazing day on Saturday accompanying the students of the MA ILTUS at Ruskin who have worked tremendously hard to gain a day off to attend the annual Levellers’ Day event in nearby Burford.
I had com…Read more…
Is it a travesty of an important Victorian industrial dispute, to portray it as a musical? Particularly a musical rooted in the music hall tradition? Playwright Fatima Uygun doesn’t think so. She is…Read more…
About six months ago I blogged about a PRI report on policy, and the limited mentions of labour issues compared to governance and environmental issues. My belief was and is that the RI community pays significantly less attention to labour issues than o…Read more…
Collage is from the Regional AGM on Saturday for delegates from branches with Community Service Group members (Housing Associations and the Voluntary sector).
The meeting started on a somber note, as we stood up to pay our respects to Colin Joseph, wh…Read more…
The highest profile of the particular attacks on trade unions and our members in this year’s Conservative manifesto are the new, further restrictions upon the circumstances in which trade unions are protected from civil liability for losses caused by industrial action.Since we are likely to have to…Read more…
On General election day May 7, London UNISON organiser, Karen Westwood, was representing Labour outside a polling station in Ilford North, when an elderly man bought photocopies of an election leaflet, featuring his Grandfather and gave her a copy. Kar…Read more…
AT the end of April a group of trade unionists and safety campaigners went to the Qatar embassy in London, to hold a protest and deliver a letter about the lives and conditions of migrant workers in…Read more…
I would suggest that a good test of whether or not to listen to proposal for how the trade union movement should respond to the unforeseen catastrophe of the General Election result is how similar those proposals are to the views held by the proposer b…Read more…
As a Co-op shopper and Party member this is great news. I was out canvassing in Tower Hamlets yesterday afternoon for John Biggs as Labour mayor.
When I got a text from one of the “Keep It Co-op” organisers that the Co-operative Group had just voted t…Read more…
Picture collage from the Annual General Meeting of Newham Council (and 50th anniversary of the London Borough of Newham) at Stratford Town Hall.
The meeting started with music and song from local primary school pupils. At the meeting I was re-elected …Read more…
LONDONERS and South-East commuters must be very well-informed. We get regional news and features on TV, and free newspapers cluttering the tube. We even have a new regional commercial TV channel. We…Read more…
On Thursday I went for a flying visit to Edgbaston, Birmingham to take part in a panel on the second day of Workplace Pensions conference.
The theme of the panel was “View from the coalfield – This session will explore the role of unions on trustee bo…Read more…
As the Tories form a government at Westminster what are the issues likely to face Scotland and trade unions in particular? There are many, but the key issues are likely to be public spending,…Read more…
A quick plug for the excellent report by the High Pay Centre on performance-related pay, No Routine Riches. This is the outcome of a year-long project looking at performance pay, and how it can be reformed.
If you read the report you’ll get a sense of…Read more…
I have previously referred to Ed the Moribund and I was openly critical of his circus act hustings at the last leadership contest surrounded by labour students – an earlier pre-cursor to Milifandom…Read more…
Great music (mostly). Read more…
These are some brief initial observations on the outcome of the General Election. Understanding exactly what happened in the General Election will take some time. It makes no sense to draw hasty conclusions on what is a complicated outcome in which a number of different trends appear to have…Read more…
In the aftermath of the general election, trade unions have a unique role in leading the fight back against the Tory offensive, writes John Stevenson of UNISON Scotland:
‘The…Read more…
FORCED MARCH. Armenians being deported under armed guard, 1915. People were punished if they tried to help the victims.
RELATIONS between the Turkish government and Germany could be…Read more…