Philip Pearson

Fred Pearce blogs in The Guardian that anyone supporting R&D for carbon capture and storage are part of a growing “faith brigade”, deluded into believing CCS is an imminent fix – including President Obama!

Sorry, Fred, but among those going to Capitol Hill next week to air their views on coal-fired power stations will be US trade unionists no less concerned about climate change than the next person, but with a different and equally valid perspective on the need for clean energy and clean production processes.

Our own support for the urgent development of carbon capture technology is nothing to do with green wash, and everything to do with the need to find out now if large scale CO2 capture technology works and is environmentally feasible.

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Pamphlet #5: Unlocking Green Enterprise

The green economy will be one of the biggest global growth sectors in the 21st century. The UK economy needs to play a major part if it is to emerge from the current economic crisis. However, the UK’s environmental sector trails countries like Germany and Denmark.

This study draws on international comparisons and interviews with leading experts to understand how the UK can replicate this success. For the first time, a straightforward policy programme is presented to unlock green enterprise in the UK.

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Owen Tudor

The IPPR report on migration and labour markets (trailed in the FT and the Guardian today) shows that the effect of migration on wages, if it exists at all, has been very small (0.3% for every 1% increase in the proportion of migrants in the labour market – ie from 9% to 10% of the labour force). And, although this may not be clear from the reports, it doesn’t mean migration has actually reduced wages - it means that they have been growing marginally less fast than they otherwise would (wages have – certainly until the recession – been growing consistently in real terms for years).

Since migration leads to growth, and it’s growth that drives wage increases (and exploitation and vulnerability keep wages down), the overall effect of migration is still likely to be positive at a macro-economic level, and of course indispensable if you want care for the elderly, a restaurant trade, a health service and fresh locally-grown vegetables.

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Brendan Barber

I want to set out some thoughts about how we got here, where we are, and how we get out of the mess we’re in. First, the causes of the crisis. Many profound things have been said about the details of the global credit crunch, toxic debts and so on.

In simple terms, the crisis was caused by a dysfunctional business model. For thirty years, we’ve been told that: state intervention was not just useless, but actively harmful; regulations were not just ineffective but downright destructive; and equality was not just a pipedream but actually caused economic decline.

And underpinning it all, in trade negotiations and in courts, in countries all over the world, trade unionism was seen as either ‘the enemy within’ or out of date. Greed was, officially, good. And growth was positive no matter what it did to people’s jobs, people’s societies or people’s environment. Eventually, this fundamentally unsustainable system broke down. So, where are we now?

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Owen Tudor

You’ve just got to read Flexibility gives way to rigidity’s virtues by Paul de Grauwe in Monday’s Financial Times. The professor of economics at the University of Leuven spells out why countries with tougher workers’ rights will fare better in the recession than those without, especially if combined with generous safety nets for the unemployed (and minimum wages too). Flexibility may allow more low wage, low skill jobs to be created in booms, but those jobs are easily disposed of in a recession, as so many workers in the UK and the USA have found. As unions have been arguing for years, making it easier to hire and fire generally simply makes it easier to fire workers in Britain when the going gets tough.

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Owen Tudor

Over the weekend, the Home Secretary announced further restrictions on migrant labour. In reality they were not as tough as they were spun. Some of them were just entirely sensible measures such as requiring that jobs be advertised locally first (which already applies in most cases anyway), and using indications of skill shortages to trigger training initiatives. But the restrictions on highly skilled migrant visas and the tone of the announcement were part of a tightening of migration policy. Isn’t that the sort of protectionism that Ministers criticise unions for?

And it would be too simplistic to suggest that the following measures were reprisals, but at the same time, the Australians announced plans to cut the number of skilled migrant visas that allow UK workers to emigrate, and the Czech Republic announced plans to pay unemployed migrant workers to return to their countries of origin.

There couldn’t be a clearer indication that protectionism breeds more protectionism.

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• The scope of forced labour in the UK: improving the evidence base | Joseph Rowntree Foundation
  JRF launch a new research programme on forced labour in the UK
  (tags: forcedlabour)

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Owen Tudor

Many people have ‘got it’ by now, but our series still has some life in it, as today’s FT shows. Jamie Whyte says the PM is wrong to ban bankers’ big bonuses, because it wasn’t the bonus system that caused the crisis, it was the fact that the whole world banking system failed to price properly the risks being taken with other people’s money. The bankers should continue to get their bonuses, because all they are guilty of is incompetence. That’s alright then.

Jamie is cited at the foot of his column as the author of a book subtitled “a guide to clear thinking”. So he should understand why people who can’t even do the jobs they’re paid for shouldn’t get bonuses.

Footnote: Alright, he’s not exactly banning them, but the alliteration was too perfect to resist.

P.S. check out the Irish Congress of Trade Unions’ latest online video. And I write as a cat-lover. Good luck with Saturday’s demo!

UPDATE: 100,000 people turned out in Dublin for the demonstration this afternoon. Follow their example and March for Jobs, Justice and Climate in London on Saturday 28 March

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Nicola Smith

I thought that I’d provide a bit of an update on what new figures and analysis show us about how women are faring during the recession.

Since our first report we have had two new sets of unemployment figures. It remains true that unemployment rates are increasing for both women and men. From January – March 2008 to October – December 2008 the the male working age unemployment rate increased from 5.6 per cent to 7.1 per cent (1.5 percentage points), while the female rate has risen from 5 per cent to 5.8 per cent (0.8 percentage points).

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Nicola Smith

Already the downturn has led to employers calling for employment rights to be slashed – most recently with the Institute of Directors claiming that fair treatment at work is costing the UK £1billion a year, with new rights to flexible working adding £61 million to their total. But of course this is ridiculous. The business benefits of flexible working – and significant cost savings that it can provide – are well documented, by both unions and employers alike. Reduced absence, improved productivity and engagement, enhanced reputation and greater staff retention go together with the improved work-life balance, quality of life and job satisfaction that flexible working offers to employees.

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