News

Few signs of recovery in post-recession bargaining (387 words)

There is little sign of a general post-recession recovery in pay bargaining, despite a recent upturn in settlements and the pay deals of 5% ...

BBC faces looming strike threat (291 words)

General secretary of the journalists’ NUJ union Jeremy Dear has predicted a “winter of growing discontent” over pensions, cuts and jobs at the BBC. ...

Redundancy watch (256 words)

In the public sector, Birmingham City Council sent redundancy notices to all 26,000 staff and Somerset County Council announced 1,500 job losses; Transport for ...

Unions decry savage cuts and job losses in spending review (575 words)

Unions condemned the effects of the massive spending cuts set out last month in chancellor George Osborne’s Comprehensive Spending Review. ...

London firefighters strike (251 words)

London’s 5,600 firefighters took strike action on 23 October, responding to moves by the London Fire Brigade (LFB) which has formally begun the legal ...

Women’s unemployment rises (203 words)

Unemployment in the UK fell by 20,000 to 2.45 million in the three months to August under the Labour Force Survey count. This saw ...

Inflation rate dips once more (60 words)

Inflation dipped for the fifth consecutive month. Under the Retail Prices Index (RPI), inflation was 4.6% in September, against 4.7% in August. Consumer Prices ...

Key economic indicators

Key economic indicators (183 words)

% annual rise in average weekly earnings1% rise in LRD pay deals2Whole economyManu-facturingServicesPrivate sectorPublic sector3Aug 2009(r)0.71.40.6-0.42.62.0September (r)1.01.81.20.02.91.8October (r)0.31.50.6-0.62.81.5November (r)1.01.81.10.12.61.5December (r)0.53.40.80.22.21.5Jan 2010 (r)0.43.8-0.3-0.82.91.8February (r)5.55.35.55.82.52.0March (r)6.89.56.47.33.12.0April ...

Union news

Poll reveals employees’ mixed feelings over merits of unions (387 words)

Two in three union members (66%) rate their union’s performance in protecting against unfair treatment as “good” or “excellent”, according to a survey of ...

Union Modernisation Fund torched in quangos bonfire (252 words)

The Union Modernisation Fund (UMF) has fallen victim to the government’s spending review and is to be abolished on the grounds that more money ...

London mayor sounds off over strikes (122 words)

Tory London mayor Boris Johnson has jumped on the bandwagon of calls for more draconian strike laws. He has proposed that a strike should ...

Unite election under way (82 words)

The election is under way for the general secretary of the country’s largest union, the 1.5 million-member general union Unite. Ballot papers are out, ...

European news

Portuguese unions call for general strike over cuts (382 words)

Portugal has become the latest country to try to resolve its economic problems by imposing pay cuts on its public servants. Both main union ...

Millions mobilised by huge demonstrations in France (237 words)

Despite massive demonstrations, blockades of oil refineries and large-scale stoppages, the French government has managed to force through its plan to increase the retirement ...

Czech strike threat (171 words)

CMKOS, the main Czech union confederation, has announced that it will maintain its threat of strike action over the government’s plans to tackle the ...

New moves in Spain (79 words)

In an attempt at getting the government to withdraw legal changes making dismissals easier (see Labour Research, July 2010, page 8), Spain’s’ two main ...

Features

‘Pay more for less pension’ (1961 words)

In opposition and then in government, both the Tories and the Lib Dems made belligerent noises about “gold-plated” public sector pensions. ...

Women and kids bear brunt of cuts (2244 words)

No one disputes the need to reduce the UK’s budget deficit, predicted to be around £114 billion for the tax year 2010-11. However, even ...

Immigration: will the cap fit? (1681 words)

To grumbling from employers, trade unions, senior elements within the coalition government and the Tory party itself, the Conservatives’ much-trumpeted objective to reduce migration ...

A healthy approach to an ageing workforce? (1596 words)

With an ageing workforce and planned changes to both the default retirement age and the state pension age, older workers are being “encouraged” to ...

Law Matters

Equality Act extends discrimination cover (383 words)

Last month, in the single biggest change in discrimination law, the main provisions of the Equality Act 2010 came into force. ...

Employment law changes (209 words)

A number of legal changes came into force last month along with the Equality Act . ...

Substitute clause was not a sham (280 words)

Organisations that want to avoid acknowledging that an individual is an employee often use contracts designed to make the individual appear to be self-employed. ...

Law Queries

Disciplinaries (259 words)

A. In order for a disciplinary process to be fair, your member must be given adequate warning of the meeting, what it’s about and ...

Unpaid leave (234 words)

A. The 1996 Parental Leave Directive only guarantees leave for each pregnancy and not for the number of children born. So under European law ...

Equal pay (284 words)

A. Your member is being discriminated against. In particular, he is suffering harassment on the grounds of religion as defined under sections 10 and ...

Law Back-up

How workers can combat attacks on contracts (872 words)

A particularly worrying new trend is for employers to give notice to employees that their contracts are coming to an end, and to then ...

Health & Safety Matters

Asbestos victims angry over court ruling (382 words)

A devastating blow to victims of mesothelioma and their families has been delivered by the Court of Appeal in the latest development in the ...

Safety gets low priority (173 words)

There are low levels of interest in worker involvement in health and safety in non-unionised workplaces in Scotland, a survey has found. ...

Toilet cuts on rail route — a ‘disgrace’ (141 words)

A rail franchise has been branded a “disgrace” by the RMT transport union, after it discovered that refurbished trains on Southern’s Portsmouth to Brighton ...

Better health at work (95 words)

General union Unite, the Northern TUC and the Caterpillar construction equipment company are celebrating a health and safety collaboration through the Better health at ...

Health & Safety Back-up

Job loss worry piles pressure on workers (826 words)

The threat of widespread job cuts and the constant pressure to do “more with less” is leading to reports of an escalating stress epidemic ...

Equality news

UK is poorly prepared for ageing workforce (328 words)

Very few organisations have prepared sufficiently to cope with an ageing workforce, despite the impending abolition of the Default Retirement Age (DRA) of 65 ...

Older apprentices double in number over four years (292 words)

The number of workers aged 50 and over starting apprenticeships has doubled, according to the latest figures obtained by The Age and Employment Network ...

Disability Clearkit (134 words)

A government initiative aimed at tackling employers concerns about recruiting disabled people now has more than 200 employers signed up to its online service. ...

Equality at the top (111 words)

The government is conducting a review into the obstacles that prevent more women from reaching senior positions in business. The recommendations of the review, ...

Workplace Back-up

Solving issues at work with independent help (863 words)

In 2009-2010, the Acas employment conciliation service was as busy as ever, receiving hundreds of requests for assistance in collective conciliation. It was able ...

News from LRD

News from LRD (58 words)

The LRD is very sad to record the passing of Eddie Dare (1919-2010) who served as a volunteer at the LRD from the late ...

Reviews

Delusions of gender (269 words)

The real science behind sex differences ...

The red in the rainbow (228 words)

Sexuality, socialism and LGBT liberation ...

E-views

e-views (367 words)

For many of us, technology has changed our lives considerably over the last few years, most noticeably through the use of the internet. But ...