Pay and prices

RPI at zero (296 words)

The Retail Prices Index (RPI) for the year to February 2009 was unchanged — the index figure was the same as a year earlier: ...

Labour Research Department three-monthly pay figures (72 words)

Percentage increases on lowest basic rates (by agreements covered). ...

Full-time weekly average earnings (16 words)

All workers£576.00All male£633.00All female£487.00Managers£855.30Professionals£771.20Associate professional£595.30Admin & secretarial£398.90Skilled/craft£483.80Services£341.90Sales£316.40Operatives£447.60Other manual£347.30 ...

Average earnings indices (including bonuses) (61 words)

* 2000=100. ** Average of earnings increases for latest three months compared to a year earlier. (r) revised. (p) provisional. Source: National Statistics. ...

Other pay analysts (21 words)

Industrial Relations Services (median, three months to end February 2009)2.6%Incomes Data Services (median, three months to end January 2009)3.5% ...

Inflation forecasts (18 words)

Fourth quarter 2009 ...

Prices (14 words)

Bargaining news

RBS and HBOS pay deals get go ahead (345 words)

THE former Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS, now part of Lloyds Banking Group), and Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) have both now implemented ...

Equal pay to cost Scottish councils £350m (300 words)

Unions have told the Scottish Parliament that more than £300 million is owed to women through equal pay claims against Scottish local authorities, and ...

Acas rules on local government pay (204 words)

Arbitration service Acas has awarded local government workers an additional 0.3% on top of the 2.45% already offered by the LGA employers’ body for ...

Pilots’ job-saving deal with Thomson Airways (338 words)

Local negotiators for pilots’ union Balpa have secured a landmark deal with Thomson Airways to protect the jobs of around 100 pilots by an ...

TSSA Forth Ports pay (156 words)

Managers, administrative staff and operating supervisors at Forth Ports will receive 3% in the second stage of a three-year agreement. This follows a 4.5% ...

Blacklisting hotline (200 words)

A hotline to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has now been set up for workers, who suspect they may have been blacklisted for their ...

Coca Cola distribution (50 words)

Coca Cola distribution in Wakefield has agreed a two-stage 24-month deal giving an increase of 3.5% on salaries from 1 March 2009, with Unite ...

BT pay negotiations still in progress (317 words)

Despite media announcements that BT was enforcing a pay freeze for its staff, communications unions CWU and Connect insist that pay talks are still ...

Unemployment passes 2m as redundancies soar (245 words)

The total number of people out of a job rose by 165,000 in the three months to January to 2.03 million, according to the ...

Pay freezes on Payline (110 words)

LRD’s Payline database has logged 19 pay freezes since 1 January, some 26% of the new pay deals recorded on the database this year. ...

Holiday rights boost (126 words)

Statutory holiday entitlement increases for all staff classed as employees or workers from 1 April 2009. The amount of paid holiday workers should receive ...

Glasgow living wage (140 words)

UNITE general union welcomed the decision by Glasgow city council to pay local authority workers a minimum of £7 an hour to tackle low ...

Equality news

EHRC calls for radical reform to achieve equal pay (473 words)

Equalities watchdog the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has launched a campaign to overhaul equal pay legislation and introduce a new approach to ...

Mandatory retirement must be justified by government (226 words)

Age Concern is taking its fight against the national default retirement age of 65 back to the High Court in the final stage of ...

Older women workers (230 words)

Job quality and sustainability, including skill development, security and work-life balance must improve to keep older women at work, a study by the European ...

Recruitment and organisation news

Journalists win re-recognition at Messenger Newspapers (288 words)

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) has won back union recognition at Messenger Newspapers in Cheshire – 26 years after a bitter dispute with ...

Organising in the recession workshops (128 words)

The TUC has reported a “fantastic” response to its union reps and stewards briefings on Coping with the economic downturn. ...

Learning and training news

Adult training places lost (329 words)

Changes in government policy have resulted in 1.4 million adult education places disappearing across the UK. ...

Women leading in learning (105 words)

To mark International Women’s Day this month, the TUC has published Women leading in learning, a book of case studies highlighting the central role ...

European news

Swedish metalworkers take pay cuts to save jobs (375 words)

The Swedish metalworkers’ union, IF Metall, has reached an agreement with employers that allows them to cut employees’ hours but guarantees that pay reductions ...

No deal in Spain’s national pay framework (375 words)

For the first time since 2002 the major union confederations and employers’ associations in Spain have failed to reach a national agreement making a ...

Variations in German deals across sectors (268 words)

Recent German negotiated settlements show big differences in the way the crisis is affecting pay deals, though threats of strikes have also had an ...

Law - Discrimination

Discrimination law – the basic legal rules (314 words)

It is unlawful to discriminate on the grounds of sex, race, disability, gender reassignment, religion or belief, sexual orientation or age. For the purposes ...

Discrimination law - the key developments (532 words)

f The presumption that service-related pay is justifiable under the Equal Pay Act 1970 can be rebutted only if the claimant proves there are ...

Equal pay (266 words)

Case 1: The facts ...

Racial harassment (363 words)

Case 2: The facts ...

Inappropriate promotion of belief (271 words)

Case 3: The facts ...

The concept of impairment (300 words)

Case 4: The facts ...

Disability discrimination (427 words)

Case 5: The facts ...

Time limits and adjustments (441 words)

Case 6: The facts ...

Exemption from duty to make adjustments (314 words)

Case 7: The facts ...

Harassment for someone else’s religion (198 words)

Case 8: The facts ...

Sexual orientation (238 words)

Case 9: The facts ...

Retirement age (218 words)

Case 10: The facts ...

Race Discrimination (216 words)

Case 11: The facts ...

Religious discrimination (239 words)

Case 12: The facts ...

Health & safety news

Which doctors for occupational health? (334 words)

The TUC has issued guidance on medical referrals after reps reported confusion among employers about the roles of different medical practitioners. ...

Royal Mail faces prosecution over Heathrow death (221 words)

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has announced it will be prosecuting Royal Mail over the death of a driver in the yard at ...

Assaults rife in Jobcentres (99 words)

More than one assault takes place in Jobcentres every day, official figures have revealed. ...

Asbestos cancer victims (97 words)

Two fifths (40%) of patients and their carers affected by the asbestos related lung cancer, mesothelioma say that they have not been offered vital ...

Too ill to work (122 words)

One in four of the workforce went to work despite thinking they were too ill to do so in January, according to a YouGov ...

RMT safety rep reinstated (75 words)

The threat of a strike ballot has forced Northern Rail to reinstate a victimised safety rep and to pay workers off sick after an ...

Health & safety - HSE Monitor

Bosses blame unions for their own code failure (308 words)

Bosses have blamed unions for the failure of their own voluntary code to hold directors to account. The Institute of Directors (IoD) made the ...

RSI still blights workplaces (166 words)

Health and Safety Executive (HSE) figures showed that 213,000 people in work had a musculoskeletal upper limb or neck disorder (repetitive strain injury or ...

Fit for what? (137 words)

Unions are sceptical about a new government scheme to get workers off sick back to work. Last month the Department for Work and Pensions ...

Slips and trips campaign (79 words)

The HSE launched the second phase of its Shattered Lives campaign last month, aimed at reducing slips and trips at work. A total of ...

Union slams rail safety failures (168 words)

RMT rail union has condemned the “woefully inadequate” progress towards protecting workers from runaway trailers, five years after the Tebay incident that killed four ...

New gas arrangements (125 words)

The CWU communications union has issued guidance to its members as new gas safety arrangements come into force. ...

Features

Time to talk about agency workers (2257 words)

The recession has taken a large bite out of the level of agency worker employment. But these often hidden job losses only serve to ...

Car crash? (3094 words)

Earlier this month, thousands of car workers in Jaguar Land Rover’s (JLR) plants in the Midlands and Merseyside voted for a new pay and ...