Owen Tudor
TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber, speaking on a panel discussion at the ETUC’s conference, has argued that unions need to ‘fight the crisis’ but also seize the opportunity to ‘win the recovery’.
Comparing the current crisis to the 1980s, he argued against complacency in the face of the recession (especially highlighting the need to protect vulnerable workers such as young people), against beggar-my-neighbour policies and for a rebalancing of the global economy.
Owen Tudor
The European Trade Union Confederation is holding its ‘mid-term’ conference in Paris today and tomorrow. The slogan is “Fight the crisis, put people first”. But a key question is: what can we say about the crisis that hasn’t already been said? Former EU President Jacques Delors, the midwife to the single market and social Europe, had some ideas.
Nicola Smith
This week has seen a (little reported) campaigning success, as the Ministry of Justice announced new measures to improve the enforcement of employment tribunal awards. Although it sounds technical, this measure has potential to lead to real improvement for workers, who will now have a greater chance of actually recieving compenation they are awarded. The announcement followed the publication of research which found that (among a large sample of respondents who had won employment tribunals and had waited for the 42 day period that employers are permitted to take to pay) 39 per cent had not received the award they were entitled to, and only 53 per cent had been paid in full. This is an injustice that Citizens Advice have been highlighting for years, and that the Commission on Vulnerable Employment (CoVE) also identified. The fact that the MoJ have recognised the scale of the problem, and taken steps to enable claimants to recieve their awards, is a real success.
Tim Page
It’s good to see that Martin Wolf continues to be provocative, even as the nation eases itself into a long weekend (‘Why Britain has to curb finance’, Financial Times, p. 11). Indeed, he raises so many important issues, it’s difficult to know where to start.
He is right to point out that the UK has, in his words, “a strong comparative advantage in the world’s most irresponsible industry”. He is also right to remind us that light touch regulation led the way to a race to the bottom (as trade unions argued it surely would).
We then come to the crux of the matter.
Owen Tudor
One of the less well-reported causes of the global recession is low wages for workers in countries like the US, Germany and China. But it is one side of the coin, alongside the regulatory failures in the finance sector. David Dollar, the wonderfully named Director of the World Bank’s China mission, is reported in the Independent as saying that:
“If an economy is producing primarily for export, it tends to pay its workers as little as possible. To generate the holy grail of sustained domestic demand, you have to pay your workers enough to buy the products they are producing.”
As Tim Page has written in this blog, a similar issue afflicts the German economy. Although wages in Germany are obviously far higher than in China, they were kept down to promote exports despite productivity growth that should have been shared more equally.
Owen Tudor
I’m at the quadrennial Congress of the CISL, the second largest trade union confederation in Italy. But it could be a different world. I’ve just heard a Minister from a right-wing government endorsing the public sector and an employers’ representative backing social dialogue!
Adam Lent
I am sure that within twenty years or so we will get dozens of academic treatises called something like: “The intersection of politics, class and inequality in the House of Commons Expenses Scandal of 2009: a post-Weberian critical non-realist approach”. However, few would be able to convey how clearly this crisis is tied up with issues of class and good old-fashioned British elitism than the marvellous interview given to BBC radio’s The World at One by Anthony Steen MP today. He’s the Tory who has quit after The Telegraph claimed he spent thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money on his country pile. Go listen. It’s hilarious and enlightening. To give him credit, it is also strangely refreshing to hear an MP who is so totally unrepentant after days of shotgun apologies.
(This edition of The World at One will only be on-line for one week. If you don’t want to listen to the whole programme, the item begins 18 minutes and 10 seconds in.)
