Sometimes the financial services industry resembles those feckless miscreants with a car boot full of swag who are the mainstay of the sorts of fly-on-the-wall police programmes that fill the further reaches of the Freeview spectrum. We knew there were…Read more…
Brendan McCarthy – a union man with a big heart
Brendan McCarthy former Joint Regional Convenor for UNISON Northern Ireland and Branch Secretary of the NUPE North & West Belfast Health Branch and the UNISON Royal Hospitals Branch died last…Read more…
Zero hours and the changing face of employment
A new TUC report to mark Decent Jobs Week (15-21 December) reveals that, far from limited to low paid, low skilled jobs, ‘zero hours contracts’ and other insecure forms of employment are on the rise…Read more…
Spreading positive messages on migration on International Migrants Day
Thursday 18 December is International Migrants Day, so it is appropriate that I inform you of the latest TUC project on migration. The TUC’s Migration Messaging Campaign began earlier this year to…Read more…
Cake – The banker, the tabloid reader & an immigrant
This is so, so true. There are a number of versions of this anecdote and this is one of best I have seen.
Hat tip Cleveland Watkiss via Facebook “The System In A Nut-shell.#2014”. Read more…
Scottish Labour’s Clause 4 moment – socialism and patriotism
Well that’s the Scottish leadership election over. There was at least a real debate about ideas and strategy and Neil Findlay’s campaign ensured that we didn’t get the coronation the system usually…Read more…
Salience and priorities in responsible investment
I’ve written a couple of bits recently to point up what I think is a bit of a lop-sided approach in the responsible investment world. Specifically, in the UK at least (thought I expect elsewhere too), there is a lot more emphasis on environmental and g…Read more…
Barnet UNISON Christmas story courtesy of Santa “contract Claus
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#DecentJobsWeek: 12 changes that will make a difference – for the 12 days of Christmas
Decent hours On the first day in a new job, all workers should be given a written statement setting out their terms and conditions, including their expected hours of work. Employers must give workers adequate notice of when they will be required to wor…Read more…
What does the National Pay award mean for me?
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To read the payments to be paid please click on the link hereRead more…
Guilty of being pregnant, and telling truth at job interview
WHEN we were young it was considered a feature unique to faraway totalitarian regimes, and unimaginable in Britain, that the state should dictate to couples whether they could have children, or…Read more…
Mind the gap – has George Osborne got a plan for funding the NHS?
One of the big ticket items coming out of the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement was additional funding for the NHS. £2bn extra for 2015/16 and a new £300m a year fund for kick-starting GP innovation, derived from fines imposed on the banks’ shady foreign exchange dealings. There was plenty of…Read more…
UK Statistics Authority validates TUC concerns over sloppy figures at HM Treasury
This week, Sir Andrew Dilnot, chair of the UK Statistics Authority, issued a written response to TUC’s concerns about poor data practices at HM Treasury. This was a reply to the formal complaint lodged by TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady last October. We are pleased with the seriousness with…Read more…
Decent jobs week
Millions of us are trapped in low-paid, insecure jobs and failing to benefit from the so-called economic recoveryRead more…
Zero-hours shop workers need some Christmas cheer too
With Christmas bargains on offer and the January sales around the corner, this is the busiest time of the year on the high street. It’s also the time when those working in shops are under enormous pressure to keep the shelves stacked and to share the Christmas cheer. But how often do we spare…Read more…
You heard it here first: Labour-Conservative pact after 2015 election
I predict that a Labour-Conservative pact will be the outcome of the May election.They agree on a raft of key issues which would rule out coalitions with smaller parties:
keeping the unionstaying in…Read more…
Migration: putting tackling exploitation first
Labour leader Ed Miliband announced today that he wants to address a concern that unions have been raising about migration: its use by unscrupulous employers (and, indeed, any employer who thinks they can get away with it) to cut their labour costs by undermining previous terms and conditions. The…Read more…
Tom Petty – I Won’t Back Down
Today I was driving solo back to London from a difficult but I think constructive hearing in Cambridge and I heard this record for the first time in years on “Absolute Radio 1980s”. Turn volume up to maximum and sing-a-long time. This is a fantastic so…Read more…
Time to pick ourselves up
The advent of, well, advent doesn’t spell a reduced workload in local government – on the contrary, next year’s budget proposals are emerging in local authorities up and down the country and – particularly in the deprived areas which this Government targets for the greatest reductions – things look…Read more…
The Benefit Cap: is it worthwhile?
The Department for Work and Pensions has just published their evaluation of the impact of the Benefit Cap in its first year. The Cap is a limit to the maximum amount of working age benefits a family can receive – for families with children, £500 a month. How has the policy fared? The…Read more…