#NoTTIP The recent War on Want Manchester conference – ‘TTIP: Building the Fightback’ – included a presentation by Jeronim Capaldo of TUFTS University in the USA. Capaldo’s study, ‘The Trans-Atlantic…Read more…
Striking for a fair deal
As UNITElive reported today, most of us expect our pay to stay the same this year or rise ever-so-slightly. Drivers who transport disabled children to school for Hackney council, however, face something else entirely – an astounding 50 per cent slash in their wages as the local authority embarks on vicious cost-cutting measures. […]
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Food safety at risk
Most of us eat a meal without ever even really thinking about whether or not the food is safe – we simply assume it is. And most of the time, this is true. But the reason most of the food we consume is indeed safe is thanks to the thousands of men and women […]
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Privatised cancer care – what could it mean for the NHS?
A leaked document exposed today by openDemocracy shows the potential impact that privatisation could have on cancer care services in Staffordshire. Four CCGs have combined to put a massive contract, worth £700m over ten years, out to tender. What makes this particularly concerning is the use of a…Read more…
What impact does outsourcing have on public services?
It has been a mantra of successive governments that the public do not care who provides their public services, only what works in practice. But surveys and opinion polls are pretty consistent in demonstrating public unease and scepticism about the role…Read more…
Voluntary services face bleak future as ‘servants of the Government’
The involvement of global corporations in the privatisation of public services is firmly on the nation’s agenda. But less well known is the way in which charities and voluntary groups have been seduced or cajoled by New Labour and Coalition governments into helping the outsourcing along. And, in…Read more…
Outsourcing fails service users and workers
The outsourcing of public services provision to private providers has a detrimental impact on the workforce and a knock-on effect on the quality of care, says a new TUC report published today. The…Read more…
The East Coast Mainline: Why was the government so quiet about one of its great successes?
Organisations generally want to celebrate their successes. A bit of boasting burnishes an organisation’s public image, as well as boosting the reputations of its staff, management, and promoters. Some organisations even celebrate their failures. The Royal Bank of Scotland, majority owned by the UK…Read more…
Public water contract – ultimate in market madness
Paying a privatised English water company to provide Scottish public water to Scotland’s public services has to be the ultimate in market madness.
An article in yesterday’s Sunday Times reports that…Read more…
Vultures circling over Police Staff
Metropolitan Police proposals to transfer 500 ‘business services’ staff in human resources, payroll and procurement to a new company Shared Services Connected Ltd, (75% owned by French multinational…Read more…
Mutually incompatible
At the end of November the Government announced that nine English NHS Trusts had been selected for the Mutuals in Health: Pathfinder programme – described in a UNISON briefing as ‘part of the…Read more…
Heritage and Security
SO OFTEN THE BACKDROP for protests, like last September’s march for the NHS, the National Gallery, one of Britain’s biggest tourist attractions, is the centre of a struggle for jobs and a living…Read more…
Iraqi unions build protest on jobs, wages and union rights
2015 began with a fresh new wave of industrial action across Iraq (apart from Iraqi Kurdistan) organised by the national trade union centre, the GFITU. The action centred on several demands,…Read more…
Police Chief disregards compelling evidence
Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, writes in today’s Guardian and calls for ‘radical structural reform’ to deal with the impact of Government funding cuts. His solution…Read more…
New evidence private firms are taking over more and more of our NHS
The British Medical Journal today published new evidence to show how privatisation of NHS services is continuing to intensify under this government. Using Freedom of Information requests to Clinical Commissioning Groups, they found that of 3,494 contra…Read more…
Why Scotland and the UK should oppose TTIP
Politicians can be so fixated by the benefits of free trade that they are missing the real dangers of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
TTIP is a series of trade negotiations…Read more…
Half measures will not stop TTIP from destroying the NHS
Today the Commons will debate Labour MP Clive Efford’s worthy bill to save the NHS from irreversible privatisation, which will aim to reverse the Health & Social Care Act 2012 and seek to exempt…Read more…
The tide must continue to turn against the likes of Serco | Mark Serwotka
Let’s see Britain taking public services back from Serco and G4S – so they can be run properly
Serco is a company in trouble. Under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office over the electronic…Read more…
Postal workers’ strike: Royal Mail should expect a battle royal | Gregor Gall
The CWU may have lost the battle on privatisation, but industrial action will send a powerful message on pay and conditions
It’s been a case of third time unlucky for the postal workers’ union (CWU)….Read more…