All the union news that's fit to blog...
Tuesday 13 January 2015
UNISON Scotland, the public services union with many members working in Criminal Justice services has urged the Scottish Government to scrap their plans to build a new Women’s prison.
The union has written to Justice Secretary Michael Matheson saying that a tendering exercise for the construction of a new jail near Greenock should be halted.
The plans go against expertRead more…
Human-Centred Political Economy The book, The Production and Reproduction of Value and Its Realization by K.C. Adams will be published soon. It elaborates human-centred economic theory as an…Read more…
http://www.mikemarqusee.com/?p=1663
I am gutted, today, to learn of the death of a great socialist, Mike Marqusee. I met Mike many years ago when he was editor of Labour Briefing and though his decision to leave the Labour Party took him along different political paths, the inspiring example which…Read more…
Unite members who have been on strike at the famous jacket and clothing manufacturer J. Barbour & Sons in Gateshead will be returning to work after accepting a significantly improved offer…Read more…
A look back on the Wapping Dispute with Greg Neale and Nicholas Jones on 20th January. The great dispute at News International newspapers in 1986-87 was one of the most dramatic industrial affairs of…Read more…
Next Brighton and Sussex Branch Meeting at the Craft Beer Co upstairs
Thursday 15 January, from 8pm
22-23 Upper North Street, Brighton, East Sussex, BN1…Read more…
At 0.5%, CPI inflation in December fell below the consensus forecast (0.7%) and way below the Bank of England’s November Inflation Report forecast for 1.0%. This is approaching deflationary territory, and I set out my own views yesterday. Understandably the government is desperately trying to…Read more…
A tear-jerking tract William Sieghart’s report on the sad state of England’s public libraries dismays TONY SIMPSON THE REVIEW of England’s public libraries produced by William Sieghart, released as…Read more…
Amazon.co.uk is looking to double its operations in the UK and is reportedly eyeing 12 new sites for their huge distribution centres. The next planned is Sevington, a tiny village just outside…Read more…
How much more coal, oil and gas including shale gas can we continue to burn and still have a 50:50 chance of keeping the rise in global average temperatures below 2 degrees C? The Coalition’s Infrastructure Bill would make it legally binding on government to “Maximise the economic…Read more…
Dr Mary Bousted is general secretary of ATL and AMiE. Michael Barber recently opined that teachers are ‘semi-professional’. He argued that the profession remains heavily unionised (obviously a bad…Read more…
The time has come for the Tories to finally begin sorting out the underlying issues in the NHS, which include the major dispute over payRead more…
Workers must retain the right to strike On the same day the government pledged to curb public-sector unions’ right to strike by introducing a 40% minimum vote threshold (Report, 10 January), it also…Read more…
Before last years conflict, TUC Aid had supported a project in Gaza at the Beit Lahia Plant Nursery. The idea behind the initiative was to grow fresh food both to enhance the diet of people in…Read more…
http://www.unitetheunion.org/news/passengers-back-londons-bus-drivers-on-eve-of-london-wide-bus-strike/As a worker in Lambeth I am often – literally – the man on the Clapham omnibus (whose views are an established benchmark of reasonableness!)
However….Read more…
By Nick Triggle Health correspondent, BBC News Twenty-five different cancer treatments will no longer be funded by the NHS in England, health chiefs have announced. NHS England announced the step…Read more…
Luigi Zingales has been involved in some interesting work on fraud. In this paper he and co-authors look at who detects and exposes fraud, and they find some perhaps surprising results. Employees are the whistle-blowers most often (and, as such, the su…Read more…
UNISON, Scotland’s public service union tells MSPs that Scotland’s public services are living through a lost decade as a consequence of austerity economics and we can do more to protect public services.
Tomorrow (Tuesday 13 January 2015) the Scottish Parliament will debate protecting public services. UNISON Scotland’s briefing to MSP’s draws from our recent report ‘Austerity EconomicsRead more…
Long live the lunch break – its under pressure and its worth defending. Work would be a more stressful and boring place without it and less productive too. Yet a new study* commissioned by a well-known cheese manufacturer published today suggested that UK workers skipping their lunch break…Read more…