Members of Unite will be joining campaigners and concerned families on Sunday (May 14) for a picnic protest over Medway council’s plans to close 19 Sure Start centres and axe up to 50 staff across…Read more…
Harry’s first podcast
Friend of Unite, Second World War veteran, bestselling author and anti-austerity campaigner Harry Leslie Smith has at 94 years of age decided to try his hand at his very own podcast. In his first…Read more…
A ‘real living wage’
Labour will increase the minimum wage to £10 if the party wins the 2020 general election, Jeremy Corbyn said today (April 11). The Labour leader promised “a real living wage” of “at least” £10…Read more…
No child should go hungry
Austerity harms every one of us but it is poorer children who bear the greatest brunt of the government’s funding cuts to public services – the UN published a damning report last year condemning…Read more…
‘Dangerous and disturbing’
Domestic abuse victims are being failed by the system, as new figures show the number of charges has dropped significantly even as the number of cases reported has risen – with critics saying that…Read more…
Paying more for worse services
This is a letter to the Swindon Advertiser Paying more for worse services I’ve just received my council tax notice with a 10.9% increase for 2017/18. As Mr Renard finally admitted in his column residents are paying more for less. These very high increases are the result of the flagrantly…Read more…
Did #Budget2017 deliver for public services?
This blog takes a look at what this Budget delivered for social care, health and education. In our pre-Budget blog we looked at what the Budget needed to deliver for public services, creaking after almost a decade of austerity. Social Care Few could de…Read more…
The ‘failure Budget’
Chancellor Philip Hammond brushed Brexit under the carpet as he laid out the last Spring Budget today, delivering paltry policies that will do nothing to alleviate austerity, low wages or job…Read more…
An ‘extraordinary Budget’
The budget lacked the ambition and action to equip the nation for the challenges of Brexit, Unite said today (Wednesday March 8). Responding to Chancellor Philip Hammond’s budget, Unite…Read more…
Sanctioned to sleeping rough
The government’s despised benefit sanctions regime has pushed people into sleeping rough, a scathing report by MPs has concluded. The cruel measures that punish claimants for missing or being…Read more…
Savings gulf
Low income families had just £95 of savings and investments to fall back on this winter, a shocking new report by insurance firm Aviva shows. The report laid bare the growing gulf between rich…Read more…
‘Pouring salt on the wound’
Iain Duncan Smith is earning nearly £1,250 an hour making speeches on the back of his former post as Tory benefit slasher-in-chief. The former Work and Pensions Secretary – who…Read more…
Crisis of inequality
The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has told the world’s elite that they need to consider a fairer redistribution of wealth to a stave off the crisis of inequality facing working…Read more…
Anti-austerity’s frontline fighters
Volunteer benefits adviser John Kelly has got used to seeing people on the breadline in distress because their welfare has been stopped or sanctioned, but that doesn’t make it any easier in the heart…Read more…
Public pay the price of job cuts
Without a backbone of administrative and clerical workers to help take the strain, our vital local services will collapse
The article Public pay the price of job cuts first appeared on the UNISON…Read more…
Cold and hungry this Christmas
Nearly half of hard up families who use food banks are at risk of going cold this Christmas, a charity warned yesterday (December 21). The Trussell Trust, the UK’s largest foodbank network,…Read more…
Cold comfort
Worried about heating costs this winter? Looks like it will be worse for pensioners in Northern Ireland – the UK’s only region where older persons are unable to access the £140 discount towards home…Read more…
Women pay for austerity
While almost every group outside those on the top end of the income distribution have suffered immeasurably under nearly a decade of austerity, it is women who are footing the largest bill. …Read more…
Christmas pain
Families up and down the country will be desperately struggling at the worst time of the year as thousands will feel the full force of the government’s new benefit cap which many in Manchester were…Read more…
When work doesn’t pay
More than 7m people from working families are living in poverty with high rents and insecure tenancies often to blame, a damning new study has found. The report, carried out by the New Policy…Read more…