News

Rail review re-ignites nationalisation call (322 words)

Rail unions gave a mixed response to last month's announcement of a government review of the railways, insisting that there should be a much ...

London weighting dispute back (202 words)

The local government dispute over London Weighting flared up again last month after the capital's council leaders walked out of pay talks aimed at ...

Long strike ends, another stepped up (186 words)

The strike at Friction Dynamex finally ended last month after two years nine months. ...

Academics vote on strikes (86 words)

University lecturers could take strike action over pay in February or March if this month's industrial action ballot results in a "yes" vote. ...

Civil servants set to strike over imposed pay deals (231 words)

Civil servants in the Department for Work and Pensions and the Prison Service were set to strike for two days over pay as Labour ...

Nissan faces first UK strike (80 words)

Car firm Nissan faces the first ever strike at its factory in Sunderland after management tried to move the purchasing department away from the ...

Manufacturing crisis deepens (372 words)

Another round of job cut announcements in manufacturing last month indicated that this year would follow 2003 as another bad year for the sector. ...

Italy faces national transport strikes (215 words)

Italy has been hit by a series of unofficial transport strikes, which have brought chaos to several Italian cities and undermined the position of ...

Features

Steel and clothing unions set to merge (235 words)

The 45,000 members of the ISTC steel and community union and the KFAT garment union will be voting on merger of their two unions ...

RMT to hold special debate (205 words)

The RMT rail union is to hold a special general meeting in Glasgow on 6 February to discuss its growing rift with the Labour ...

TUC to help heal ASLEF-GMB rift (118 words)

Members of the GMB general union working at rail union ASLEF have suspended their threat of industrial action which was sparked by a letter ...

T&G "irregularities" (97 words)

Three senior officials of the T&G general union, including Scottish regional secretary Andy Baird, have been suspended as part of an investigation into vote-rigging ...

Organising in India (65 words)

A campaign to unionise staff employed in India by Britain's high street banks is being planned by finance union Unifi and the UNI global ...

Union specialists (56 words)

A Libraries and Information Professionals Group has been launched by specialists union Prospect. ...

Representation plans slated (208 words)

French unions have slammed proposed new structures for employee representation in small and medium-sized companies. ...

Action planned across Europe (159 words)

The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) is planning for a European day of action in April to push for more social rights in the ...

German interest in a minimum wage grows (295 words)

Debate about whether Germany should introduce a national minimum wage has been renewed by the leader of the country's largest union, Verdi, which represents ...

Unions warn of offshoring flood (2234 words)

Hundreds of thousands of call-centre and back-office jobs are at risk through the drive to outsource operations to south east Asia. But unions are ...

Children's workforce in shake-up (1238 words)

The government's radical shake-up of social care for children involves big changes for the staff involved. Unions and professionals are giving a very cautious ...

Top Tories win on moonlighting (1548 words)

No wonder Michael Howard has made over half of his MPs shadow ministers. Many of them will have to spend part of their time ...

RSI still needs to be tackled (1390 words)

This month sees the first "RSI Awareness Week" which seeks to remind employers and workers how to prevent this debilitating condition. It still ranks ...

Sick pay (231 words)

Our employers want to tighten up on sickness absence and have announced that they will only pay sick pay where the worker produces a ...

Working time (160 words)

Who do we go to if we want to make a complaint about working time? We believe that our employer is not complying with ...

Sexual harassment (301 words)

There is a lot of sexually explicit language in our workplace which is tolerated by our company because normally there have been no complaints. ...

Royal Mail bullies (89 words)

Royal Mail chair Allan Leighton has admitted that "there's more bullying and harassment in Royal Mail than in any other company in the country". ...

Age discrimination is rife in UK workplaces (263 words)

British workers have only a tiny five-year window - between the ages of 35 and 40 - in which they are unlikely to suffer ...

Women still in minority at the top (221 words)

Women remain "massively" under-represented in top positions at work and in society, says a recent report from the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC). ...

Scotland slow on race action (234 words)

While a third of Scotland's public bodies are taking "focused action" to deliver on their new legal duty to promote race equality, just under ...

Law Matters

Mixed rulings for part-timer pensions (452 words)

Part-time workers fighting for their pension scheme rights have scored both success and failure in a recent batch of Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) rulings. ...

Dress codes (183 words)

Obliging men to wear ties is not automatically a breach of sex discrimination law. ...

Law timetable (72 words)

The government is to announce its timetable for the implementation of employment legislation in 2004. ...

Pay rates can't be compared (152 words)

Workers in the civil service will not be able to use the law to get the same pay rates as those of colleagues of ...

Law Back-up

Rights to redundancy consultation clarified (750 words)

The number of redundancy cases going to employment tribunals indicate that many employers are failing to honour their clear obligations under the law. Back-up ...

Health & Safety Matters

EU makes the case for cutting working time (295 words)

A European Union (EU) review of the working time directive has emphasised the health and safety case for limiting working hours in Britain. ...

Corporate killing law must apply to Crown bodies (260 words)

Crown bodies should be included in any corporate killing law to comply with human rights law, according to leading human rights lawyers at the ...

Preventing sick building syndrome (91 words)

Sick building syndrome, which causes misery for millions of office workers can be easily prevented, according to scientists. ...

Passive smoking (61 words)

The greater your exposure to passive smoking at work, the higher your risk of lung cancer, a major study published in the International Journal ...

Health & Safety Back-up

Avoiding the pitfalls in risk assessments (775 words)

Risk assessment is at the heart of health and safety law. Back-up summarises the requirements and looks at new research on the potential pitfalls ...

Workplace Back-up

Ensuring bosses pay Working Tax Credit (872 words)

Eligible employees should receive their Working Tax Credit in their wage packets. The TUC has published guidance to ensure staff get what they are ...

Reviews

A New Labour nightmare (118 words)

Andrew Murray, Verso, 212 pages, hardback, £13.00 ...

Tressell (171 words)

Dave Harker, Zed Books, paperback, 282 pages, £12.99 ...

A single spark (130 words)

Cho Young-rae, Asia Monitor Resource Centre, 336 pages, paperback, £15.00 ...

E-views

E-views (341 words)

Just a few years ago, if unions wanted something broadcast on the radio they had to either pay for advertising on existing commercial stations ...