News

Unions sound alarm over plans for employment law (317 words)

Unions have warned that the government is building “a bonfire” for employment legislation as part of its drive to reduce red tape. ...

Challenge mounted on pensions (316 words)

Last month, several unions launched a High Court challenge against the government over its decision to adopt the lower CPI inflation index for calculating ...

Redundancy Watch (238 words)

In the public sector, recent large announcements of job losses include: Lancashire County Council which is cutting 6,000 jobs; Leeds City Council (3,000); Norfolk ...

More flexibility for working parents may be on the way (336 words)

Working parents could be given much greater flexibility to share childcare in their baby’s first year under government proposals to introduce a more flexible ...

Careers service faces meltdown (229 words)

Government fumbling of the transition to a new all-age National Careers Service has left local offices of the Connexions youth advisory and careers service ...

BA deal (111 words)

Unite cabin crew members are expected to give strong backing to their union’s recommendation to accept the latest offer put to them by airline ...

Jobs blackspots (127 words)

The Scottish industrial heartlands of West Dunbartonshire and East Ayrshire have overtaken inner London boroughs to become Britain’s worst employment blackspots, according to a ...

Unemployment falls once more (220 words)

Unemployment fell for the second quarter in a row. It fell by 36,000 to 2.46 million in the first quarter of the year, official ...

Inflation pushed down (62 words)

Cheaper motoring costs pushed inflation as measured by the Retail Prices Index (RPI) down to 5.2% last month against 5.3% in March. Cheaper food ...

Key economic indicators

Key Economic Indicators (185 words)

Inflation +5.2%, Average earnings +1.7% ...

Union news

Declining trend resumes as union membership wanes (472 words)

The proportion of employees who are trade union members — “union density” — resumed its declining trend between 2009 and 2010 after remaining at ...

TUC condemns Iraqi government’s withdrawal of recognition rights (185 words)

The TUC has called on Iraqi prime minister Al-Maliki to repeal the sudden withdrawal of union recognition rights from the General Federation of Iraqi ...

Unions in schools (101 words)

A set of resources about trade unions, designed for teachers to use in secondary schools and colleges, has been developed by the TUC and ...

Clive Webster (54 words)

Clive Webster, deputy general secretary of the Accord union for HBOS workers in the Lloyds Banking Group, died last month following an illness. ...

Cyber attack (71 words)

The website of the PCS civil service union was disrupted for a time last month after being hit by a cyber attack. ...

European news

Italian union confederations argue over success of strike (256 words)

Italy’s three main union confederations have reached very different conclusions on the success of the general strike, which was organised by just one of ...

Greek general strike (72 words)

Greek unions also organised a general strike last month, calling their members out on 11 May. The second general strike this year, it paralysed ...

Price of Portugese bailout becomes clearer (327 words)

Portuguese public sector workers face a two-year pay freeze, job cuts and reductions in their health benefits as part of the price Portugal is ...

Giant merger brought a step closer (220 words)

Three union industry federations covering different areas of manufacturing in Europe are taking steps to merge their activity and become a single organisation. ...

Features

Youth services take a drubbing (2431 words)

For young people, the last 12 months have been a bruising introduction to life under the coalition government. ...

Waving goodbye to welfare? (2137 words)

Work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith has hailed his Welfare Reform Bill, currently making its way through Parliament, as “the biggest shake up ...

More trouble in store for retail? (1570 words)

With living standards and the real disposable incomes of most families falling for the first time in decades, it’s no surprise consumers are spending ...

Cuts will force poorest to learn the hard way (1548 words)

As cuts to the adult further education (FE) and skills budget begin to bite, they are undermining the coalition’s stated aim of promoting social ...

Law Matters

Questions over temp’s conduct and status (461 words)

The question of whether an organisation can be held to account for the discriminatory behaviour of agency workers has yet to be decided. ...

Tribunal claims plummet (216 words)

The number of tribunal claims lodged in the October to December quarter of 2010 has fallen dramatically, the latest official statistics reveal. ...

Claimant’s delay is costly (259 words)

The coalition government’s Resolving Workplace Disputes consultation set out its intention to make it easier and more common for tribunals to make costs orders ...

Law Queries

Dress codes (269 words)

A. Firstly, you should refer to your member’s contract and the organisation’s dress code policy. The terms of the contract and policy may be ...

EU worker registration (213 words)

A. One of the key legal principles on which the EU is founded relates to the free movement of workers. Despite this, workers from ...

Industrial action (254 words)

A. Currently there is no turnout requirement for a ballot on industrial action. That is to say that, provided that the normal balloting and ...

Law Back-up

Employers must adjust for workers’ disabilities (905 words)

The first case concerned a disabled individual who was penalised for having a poor attendance record. ...

Health & Safety Matters

Bodgers’ free-for-all for social housing (368 words)

In what could be a health and safety nightmare, the coalition government is proposing to save cash by getting social housing tenants in England ...

Oil rig firm pays bonuses (181 words)

Transocean, the offshore drilling firm, responsible for running Deepwater Horizon — the oil rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico last year — ...

Uni on mat over lack of protection (244 words)

Even where there is no evidence that a situation poses a risk to a worker, an employer is still obliged to provide Personal Protective ...

Health & Safety Back-up

Jobcentre staff call time over monitoring (857 words)

Strike action by Jobcentre Plus call centre staff, members of the PCS civil service union, has highlighted the importance of unions not losing sight ...

Equality news

Racism rife and deep-rooted across UK (376 words)

An investigation into racism in the UK and other EU countries shows that racism remains a deep-rooted problem in a broad range of areas, ...

Gender discrimination is widespread at work (222 words)

Half of all Britons believe they have experienced discrimination at work, according to new research. A survey of 1,973 employees found that more than ...

Disabled talent award (129 words)

The Home Office has been singled out in recognition of its recruitment and retention of disabled talent. It is the first organisation to be ...

Education divide (116 words)

White schoolchildren in Britain’s poorest areas perform less well than fellow pupils of black, Pakistani or Bangladeshi origin, according to analysis of more than ...

Workplace Back-up

Earnings gap growing to Victorian levels (927 words)

More for less, the recently published High Pay Commission (HPC) report, investigates the burgeoning pockets of top pay earners. It shows that the average ...

Reviews

Malcolm X: a life of reinvention (288 words)

Manning Marable, Allen Lane, 608 pages, hardback, £30 ...

33 revolutions per minute (217 words)

A history of protest songs ...

E-views

e-views (326 words)

China is undergoing a period of rapid industrialisation and growth — having recently become the second largest economy in the world — and this ...