Nigel Stanley

Stumbling and Mumbling has an entertaining filleting of Guido’s most recent attack on the Chancellor.

Just occasionally the TUC has got some stats wrong, but hardly any one ever notices. Indeed I did a quick bit of mental arithmetic the other day and underestimated some job loss figures. This one was spotted by a journalist, but that’s rare.

Whether this is because we are right most of the time (at least when we do sums) and people take our word for it – or whether they simply lack the numeracy is an open question.

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Nicola Smith

Today’s papers were full of reports about new welfare policies to stop the evil unemployed from stealing our taxes. But although nationwide lie detector tests and ‘one strike and you’re out‘ sanctions have been heavily trailed, I have yet to find reference to them in any Ministerial comments (please let me know if you have). The policy references that we do have are from the Gregg review (heavily spun as a scrouger crackdown) and the Welfare Reform Green Paper – which has attracted heavy criticism. The TUC does not oppose benefit sanctions for those knowingly defrauding the system. But all of the evidence shows that it is only a tiny minority who are engaged in this behaviour – and that neither of the Government’s two leaked but not yet confirmed proposals would actually work.

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Philip Pearson

Christmas came early for the ITUC trade union delegation in Poznan for the UN climate treaty conference. ITUC coordinator Anabella Rosemberg reports that the ITUC’s status within the treaty has been formally recognised, as a full Observer body to the UN process.

This gives full access to meetings, rights to speak, better facilities. But second and best of all, the UN included all the ITUC’s key strategic proposals in a key discussion document for Poznan here – including just transition and green workplaces.

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Nicola Smith

The Government will not be withdrawing or postponing proposals to introduce new flexible working rights for parents from April 2009. This is good news. Government have listened to the evidence, which shows that flexible working is good for employees and for business, during recession or periods of growth, and for small as well as large organisations.  The Federation of Small Businesses are simply wrong.

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Nicola Smith

The Government’s attack on unemployed people continued today, with the publication of proposals which still seem likely to introduce work for benefits schemes for those who have been out of work for two years or more. This is depite the Gregg Review concluding yesterday that workfare doesn’t work.

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Adam Lent

In response to the TUC’s call today for the minimum wage to rise from its current level of £5.73 to £6.10 per hour, the CBI issued a press release stating:

We need to be very careful in the current climate to ensure that well-meaning calls for substantial rises in the minimum wage do not lead to increases in unemployment.

I guess its progress of a sort that the CBI describes us as “well-meaning” – that’s a lot nicer than some of the things we’ve been called in the past.  And I’m used now to being patronised by those business associations that know so much more than anyone else about what’s good for the UK economy (lots of financial deregulation, for example).  But, as we explained to the Low Pay Commission (LPC) in our evidence session today, our call is not some misguided attempt to raise wages at the expense of employment. 

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