Unions are the largest voluntary sector organisations in Britain today, with well over six million members in the unions that affiliate to us at the TUC, and 200,000 workplace activists. In workplaces up and down the country, unions are working hard to ensure that people get a voice at work. Much of this never makes [...]

Filed under: Inequality, Recession | No 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 [...]

Filed under: Work-life balance | No Comments »

Here’s a post I had earlier today on Comment is Free: 
Perhaps it is because Cadbury is such an iconic British brand with a long and proud history as a good employer. Or perhaps it is because Kraft promised Cadbury employees that it would reprieve Keynsham’s Somerdale factory, only to cynically change its mind once their [...]

Filed under: Investment | 1 Comment »

Barclays have paid out £2.7 billion in bonuses, after making pre-tax profits of £11.6 billion in 2009. These super-profits show that banks win in both good times and bad.
Paying huge bonuses when people are still losing their jobs and business cannot get the loans they need because of a crash made in the finance sector [...]

Filed under: Financial crisis, Transactions tax | No Comments »

The Department for Work and Pensions launched an important new consultation today, on setting up an Employers Liability Insurance Bureau. Creating a system like this will be of real benefit for people who develop diseases as a result of being exposed to asbestos or other dangerous substances.
Currently, because of the length of time between exposure to [...]

Filed under: Safety | No Comments »

The final report of the National Equalities Panel (NEP), “An Anatomy of Economic Inequality in the UK” is out today – you can download the full thing or exec summary from the Government Equalities Office website. It’s an exceptional piece of work, describing in graphic detail just how unfair and unequal our society has become [...]

Filed under: Equality, Inequality | 9 Comments »

There are a number of issues at stake with the takeover of Cadbury’s by Kraft. Inevitably free market fundamentalists have accused doubters of being protectionists and little Britishers but the case against this takeover goes much wider than a defence of the iconic nature of the Creme Egg. But unions are right to fight back.
The [...]

Filed under: Economics, Manufacturing, Multinationals | 3 Comments »

The sharp increase in physical assaults against workers highlighted in the British Crime Survey for the last year is hugely concerning, coming after a huge fall in such incidents over the course of the last decade. Whilst levels of assaults are still far lower than ten years ago (Much of which thanks to joint work [...]

Filed under: Safety | 1 Comment »

We’re glad to see the Court of Appeal today uphold an Employment Appeal Tribunal ruling that a council registrar could not refuse to conduct same-sex civil partnerships for religious reasons.
Lillian Ladele had taken the case to the court after controversial rulings at the original Employment Tribunal and first appeal.

Filed under: Equality | Comments Off

This is a post I made yesterday on Comment is Free:
The pre-budget report was an uneasy compromise between a radical post-crash new direction in economic policy and a cautious orthodoxy that avoided frightening the horses. You can glimpse an exciting new approach, but just as appetites are whetted, it retreats.
The chancellor, Alistair Darling, deserves praise [...]

Filed under: Politics, Pre-Budget Report, Public spending, Recession, Tax | 1 Comment »