Vulture funds are a particularly ‘unpleasant and unacceptable face of capitalism’, as Ted Heath might have said. And they’re based on abusing your generosity. An attempt to crack down on these sordid little operations passed its second reading in the Commons on Friday with all party support, but the Conservative front-bench have denied it the easy ride that would see [...]

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As the Vancouver Winter Olympics come to an end, attention turns to the next Olympics – London 2012. And trade unionists around the world are turning their attention to the workers’ rights implications. The Maquiladora Solidarity Network worked closely with the Canadian Labour Congress to ensure that the workers who made the clothes associated with [...]

Filed under: Globalisation, International development, Multinationals, Trade | 2 Comments »

I suppose the BBC thought it was being clever by offering up what it probably sees as limited sacrifices in an attempt to appease Rupert Murdoch and then giving the story as an exclusive to the Murdoch owned Times.
It hasn’t worked. The Times was contemptuous in its response calling the BBC “big, bloated and cunning”.

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Richard Crisp will be speaking at Solutions for a fairer labour market, a TUC seminar on challenging labour market inequalities as we build the economy post-recession. 12 March 12-2pm in central London. More details and online registration.
Government claims that ‘paid work is the route to independence, health and well-being for most people’. But research we [...]

Filed under: Labour market, Quality of work | 3 Comments »

It’s Work Your Proper Hours Day today – in fact it’s nearly over for many of those who will be taking the TUC’s recommendation and making a point of eschewing unpaid overtime for at least one day in the year.
This year we’ve seen an increase in the number of people working what we’ve dubbed ‘extreme [...]

Filed under: Work-life balance | 3 Comments »

It’s Work Your Proper Hours Day today. We work it out from ONS’ ASHE and LFS surveys as the day when the average person who works unpaid overtime stops working for free and starts earning for themselves.
One of the features of the recession has been people moving to shorter hours or taking part-time work in [...]

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There’s a lot of good stuff in the Guardian’s “Citizen Ethics” series, including an important article by Julian Glover (“Liberty is equality’s intractable opposite.”) The article is a good example of a certain strand of liberal criticism of the current government, and it’s worth going into why it’s wrong.

Filed under: Equality, Politics | No Comments »

The Financial Times carries an editorial today about South African President Jacob Zuma’s visit to the UK next week. The FT says Zuma’s proposal that EU sanctions on the thugs who still share power in Zimbabwe is insufficient. On the contrary, it would be a dangerous mistake, and shows Zuma heading down the same route [...]

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The Robin Hood Tax campaign is not picky about who introduces a financial transactions tax first. A domestic tax could be brought in by next month’s Budget. The G20 Finance Ministers could agree a global tax at their next meeting in April. Or the European Union could act first.
This week, that last option became a [...]

Filed under: Europe, Transactions tax | 1 Comment »

Dean Baker, co-director of the Centre for Economic Policy Research, the influential left-of-centre thinktank, has written in the Forbes magazine (motto: “the capitalist tool”) about the need for a financial transactions tax. In particular, he suggests a 0.25% tax on share transactions – half of the UK level, which could raise $100 billion a year (0.125% [...]

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