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And quite right too
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New blog from Shane Enright at Amnesty International UK, exploring trade union human rights issues and activism around the world.
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Matthew Taylor discovers a fundamental problem with academies.
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Philip Pearson
A campaign by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) for the UN to take on board trade union issues in the new climate change treaty is beginning, at last, to deliver results. A new UN report from its Poznan conference (December 2008) cites many of the core trade unions calls for the new climate change treaty, due to be concluded in Copenhagen in December 2009.
The UN report brings together submissions from Governments, NGOs, business and research bodes, and the ITUC, for the building blocks for a new global treaty. It acknowledges not only the trade union movement’s support for deep cuts in CO2 by developed nations (25 to 40% by 2020), but also our calls for the treaty to provide for a “just transition” – with stakeholder consultation, investment in skills and training, green jobs programmes and support for joint union-management green workplace projects. Nice to see green workplaces in a UN document!
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Nicola Smith
Our Women and Recession report has been widely reported. But unfortunately much of the reporting has been wrong. According to many sources we believe that women will face more job losses than men. This is absolutely not what our analysis shows. The point in publishing the report was to challenge the myth that women are not affected by recession, and to point out that with more women in work than ever before, more families dependent on women’s incomes and unemployment rising for everyone, more women will feel the effects of recession more than previously (although of course recessions have always affected women in work). We also wanted to take the chance to discuss what these effects would be, and show how women’s lower wages and greater childcare responsibilities would mean that their experiences of unemployment could be different to men’s.
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Chris Dillow makes some interesting points.
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We were not happy about this when it happened, and it's good for Richard Murphy to remind us.
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Paul Sellers
If you read “business attacks ruling on holidays” in the FT today, or the Sun’s lurid “fury over sick pay ruling” you might be excused for thinking that this week’s ruling from the European Court of Justice was all about the EU bashing British business. Luckily, much of the business reaction is either spin or bunkum.
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Adam Lent
The billionaire investor, Jim Rogers, has been in the news today telling anyone who’ll listen that they should sell sterling. Leaving that aside, if you wanted an indication of how out of touch market fundamentalism has become, you could do no worse than listen to the interview Rogers gave to Radio 4′s PM programme today. This brilliant investor’s solution to the current crisis is to let all the banks go to the wall. But fear not, he reassures us, things will be rough for a couple of years but then private capital will rush in and we’ll all be tickety-boo. Essentially, leave it to the market to flush out the bad debt and start from scratch again.
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Nicola Smith
Today we have published Women and Recession, a report considering the impacts that this downturn will have for women in formal employment. While we are not arguing that women will be affected more than men we highlight that women will be hit more by this downturn than previous recessions, and that unemployed women face particular challenges.
There are three main reasons for this trend: there are more women in work than ever before; so far this recession is hitting sectors across the economy – including those where women are concentrated; and more families are reliant upon women’s income than in previous downturns (although women’s wages have always been vital to family budgets).
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Oxfam's Duncan Green tries to draw predictions for Obama's outlook on foreign policy, international development and globalisation from his book "Dreams from my Father".
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Nigel Stanley
“Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control – that a nation cannot prosper long when it favours only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on the ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart – not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good. ”
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Nigel Stanley
The TUC welcomed yesterday’s government moves to repair the banking system. It all adds up to a substantial set of proposals that should make at least some difference, even though it’s probable that further action will be required. Indeed some unlikely suspects are now calling for full nationalisation.
But the politics of this are far from straightforward. The financial collapse last year was good for the government’s poll standing. Gordon Brown got his mojo back as he was able to put his experience as Chancellor to work putting together his subsequently much copied banking rescue package. Active government was clearly what was needed, and that comes from the left of centre. The Conservatives lost momentum as Labour was once again setting the agenda, and while the Lib Dems saw Vince Cable elevated to a national wise elder, this did not deliver much in the way of poll support.
