On Monday, the ONS released the latest instalment of their data on household debt inequalities between July 2012 and June 2014. The data indicates that the absolute and relative burden still falls disproportionately heavily on the lowest paid. For instance: “Twice as many individuals living in households in the lowest total wealth quintile were in…
I have been feeling a little conflicted about the new “national living wage” introduced today. On the one hand, it would clearly be churlish to do anything except welcome an increase in the national minimum wage to £7.20, as it will benefit about 1.5 million workers. We have quite rightly campaigned for a bigger increase in the national minimum…
Tata Steel’s plans to sell its UK assets have plunged our steel industry into uncertainty. It’s not just the 4,000 steelworkers in Port Talbot who risk losing their jobs but also thousands more workers in Tata’s businesses elsewhere in the UK, and people working in Tata’s supply chains – which think tank IPPR reckon could…
In 2014 the UK was home to 2,926 €-millionaire bankers, according to new report published by the European Banking Authority. This is more than ten times as many as Germany, who come in second with 242. Moreover the UK figure is up 40% on last year, when there were 2,086 €-millionaire bankers. Note that some of…
The hapless performance of Education Minister Nicky Morgan on BBC’s Newsnight when confronted with evidence of the distributional impact of her government’s tax and benefit cuts made for cringeworthy TV. Morgan seemed genuinely shocked at the disproportionate losses inflicted on lower earners that was so starkly demonstrated by the Institute of Fiscal Studies chart. And so she should…
Today the EHRC published its long awaited report and recommendations on pregnancy discrimination. This follows on from last year’s interim report which found that 54,000 women per year are forced out of their jobs due to pregnancy discrimination. The final report leads with the astounding headline that 77%, the equivalent of 390,000 women, experience negative…
Just last week, the Chancellor proudly announced in the Budget that the government was winning on the gender pay gap. He said (pretty much cutting and pasting from previous speeches): “Inequality is down; and the gender pay gap has never been smaller.” But today we are told by the Women and Equalities Select Committee, led…
I grew up in Oxford and I was living there the last time we had a referendum, back in 1975. Only then, of course it was called the EEC, the European Economic Community. My dad worked at the Cowley car works and was a shop steward there. He was anti the EEC because he didn’t…
The Chancellor, George Osborne delivered the 2016 budget yesterday, here is a quick round up of reactions from our TUC bloggers: Public Service cuts £3.5bn worth of cuts to public services by 2020. The spending cuts will be identified through an ‘efficiency review’. Cuts and increased pressures on departmental budgets presents a great challenge to…
Yesterday I spoke at the United Nations Conference on Development (UNCTAD) meeting ‘Taking stock of international investment agreement reform’ which looked at the options for reform to investment protections such as ISDS that are currently used in international investment agreements (which include TTIP and the EU-Canada agreement known as CETA). To coincide with this meeting, UNCTAD…
Members of the House of Lords voted to defeat the government three times inside three hours tonight during the report stage debate for the trade union bill. The votes concerned substantial amendments to the bill over electronic balloting for strike votes (introduced by crossbench Peer Lord Kerslake), central government-imposed caps on facility time for union…
