Unions are increasingly working with the environmental movement. We represent – or stand in solidarity with – many of those most likely to be badly hit by climate change. Union campaigns for health and safety in the workplace have always had much in common with wider campaigns against pollution. Many environmentalists have a similar commitment to social justice and internationalism that inform the best kinds of trade unionism – the victims of environmental degradation are usually the people for whom unions speak. Unions know that we need big changes in the way the economy work – and have helped put the concept of just transition on the international agenda.

But there are problems too. Read more »

   Filed under: Earnings, Economics, Energy, Environment | 26 Comments »

I would really have liked to be positive about the CBI’s Budget Submission, given the gravity of the economic situation in which we find ourselves. Here we are, probably two months before a General Election, holding our collective breath and hoping the next growth figures will show the economy still recovering, rather than back in recession. It would have been great if we could agree on the major challenges facing us. Sadly, that is not to be.

The CBI’s prescription is wrong because its objectives are wrong. Running through its submission seems to be a belief that only the economy matters. The needs of society are not worth a mention. What’s more, the most important things about the economy are those that the markets think are important. Read more »

   Filed under: Economics, Financial crisis, Politics | No Comments »

Today’s Financial Times reports on the TUC’s call for  a new strategic investment fund, with a budget of £5bn, to invest in key industrial sectors. This is one of a number of recommendations set out in our new policy paper, ‘Developing UK industrial policy: lessons from France’.

Five years ago, many would have rejected the idea that we could learn much from across the Channel. But after an economic downturn in which the French have suffered markedly less than the UK, the TUC felt it was prudent to understand why this was the case, and to see if there were lessons to be learned . Read more »

   Filed under: Economics, Financial crisis, Globalisation, Manufacturing | No Comments »

The news this morning that the Conservatives have rejected Lord Adonis’ offer of an early look at the High Speed Rail White Paper should worry supporters of high speed rail. Read more »

   Filed under: Economics, Environment, Politics, Transport | 3 Comments »

It seems George Osborne was a bit hasty to claim that: “we now have a consensus of economic opinion aligned with the Conservatives saying that dealing with the deficit is essential to create jobs and sustain the recovery”.  His comment followed the widely publicised publication of a letter from twenty economists in The Sunday Times.  The Financial Times has two letters today signed by over sixty economists attacking the Sunday Times letter.  The letters urge politicians to put the restoration of growth before the cutting of the deficit.  Whatever one’s view on the deficit, it is clearly wrong in the light of this to claim that there is anything like a consensus amongst economists backing the idea of early action on the deficit.

   Filed under: Economics, Public spending | 1 Comment »

There’s a very, very old joke about a man in a hot air balloon who runs out of fuel and suddenly has to ditch in the middle of a farm.  Unhurt, he brushes himself off and calls out to a passing rambler asking if he can enlighten him as to his whereabouts.  The rambler thinks for a few seconds and then replies, “you are situated on arable land characterised by cereal growth and  livestock husbandry which is itself located in the  countryside close to the south coast of England”.

Rolling his eyes, the balloonist asks if the man might not by any chance be an economist.  “I am”, says the rambler, “how on earth did you know?”.  “Simple”, replies the man, “what you have just told me is completely accurate and totally, bloody useless”. Read more »

   Filed under: Economics, Financial crisis, Monetary policy, Public services, Public spending | 5 Comments »

One of the Opposition’s key job creation policies is a National Insurance ‘holiday’ for new businesses; they claim that it would create tens of thousands of jobs. But we’ve been here before, last time there was a Conservative government, and it only managed to create just over 2,000 jobs.

At last year’s Conservative conference George Osborne announced that any new business started in the first two years of a Conservative Government would not have to pay employer’s National Insurance Contributions on the first ten employees it hired during its first year. Predicting that it would create 60,000 jobs over two years, he boasted, “This is just another example of the Conservatives being the party of jobs at a time when Labour are the party of mass unemployment.”

Read more »

   Filed under: Economics, Recession | No Comments »

There is a very interesting piece in today’s FT about how labour markets have reacted to the recession. The neo-liberal orthodoxy of recent years has always been that easy hire and fire allows for the most efficient allocation of labour and therefore benefits the wider economy – a price worth paying for the insecurity suffered by individual employees. In a recession companies that found it easier to get rid of staff would survive and then prosper again as they could also easily take people on in the recovery phase knowing they could easily sack them again.

Some of us have never bought this idea, and it has not been the experience of this recession. As the FT says: Read more »

   Filed under: Economics, Financial crisis, Labour market | 6 Comments »

The rather brilliant theorist of economic history, Carlota Perez, argues that after very large financial crashes, economies change their mode of operation.  Systems that have been run by and in the interests of financial speculation become far more focused on the ‘real economy’.  Profits and wealth are generated less by playing around with money and more by the search for productivity and innovation in other sectors. Read more »

   Filed under: Economics, Financial crisis, Politics, Transactions tax, Welfare | 1 Comment »

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 biggest issue is that this is going to be largely funded by debt. This will mean that Kraft will have to extract significant value out of the business to pay interest and the loan capital. It is a perfectly reasonable public policy objective to discourage highly-leveraged bids of this type.

What makes this worse – as Nick Clegg very effectively pointed out at yesterday’s Prime Ministers’ Questions – is that some of the loan finance is coming from the  publically-owned RBS. It is indeed strange that RBS is funding something that the government has opposed. Read more »

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