Tim Page

It is a sign of the pressure being felt at the heart of the eurozone that France and Germany, the main drivers of the European project, have had such a public spat in the last 24 hours. Yet the subject of that spat is a subject that has exercised many an economist as the economic downturn has progressed.

To recap, France has argued that years of moderate wage rises in Germany has raised the competitiveness of the latter country at the expense of its neighbours. Christine Lagarde, the French finance minister, has told the Financial Times that Germany should raise domestic consumption, helping weaker eurozone nations to boost exports and shore up their finances. Germany has responded by arguing that its success is based on strong companies and has suggested that other countries would be better off building their own industrial sectors in the German fashion than crying foul about German success.

Who is right? Well, both.

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Brendan Barber

Unions are the largest voluntary sector organisations in Britain today, with well over six million members in the unions that affiliate to us at the TUC, and 200,000 workplace activists. In workplaces up and down the country, unions are working hard to ensure that people get a voice at work. Much of this never makes headlines or gets the credit it deserves, but the bread and butter work of unions – representing members in disciplinary and grievance cases, negotiating with employers, helping members access new skills and training opportunities, ensuring workplaces are fair and free from discrimination – makes an immeasurable difference to the lives of working people and their families.

Our new ToUChstone pamphlet “The Road to Recovery: How effective unions can help rebuild the economy” highlights some of these benefits to workers, but also identifies the broader economic and social benefits that effective unions bring to Britain’s workplaces. These benefits include better long-term employment relations, reduced staff turnover and a positive impact on the effects of workplace change and innovation.

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Owen Tudor

The ‘Fighting for a Financial Transactions Tax‘ conference in Brussels is now tackling the operational detail of an FTT. All the speakers (see list at the end) are emphasising that FTTs are technically feasible – and more than that, vital.

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Nicola Smith

The UK is currently moving out of the deepest recession since WWII. Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their jobs, and many remain at risk of long-term worklessness. However, unemployment is not the only challenge facing post-recession Britain, as work itself is not always a route out of poverty: increasing proportions of working households have an income of below 60% of median income (the Government’s preferred measure of poverty).

There are multiple reasons for persistent in-work poverty, including low pay, low in-work benefits for families without children, poor progression opportunities for many in low-paid jobs, a lack of access to services such as good quality childcare and the ongoing gender pay gap. But there is seldom any discussion about the ways in which poor rights at work can consign people to poverty.

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Owen Tudor

European Green leader Philippe Lamberts MEP has spoken today about why Greens across Europe support the Robin Hood Tax. Joining the Europeans for Financial Reform conference on ‘Fighting for a Financial Transactions Tax (FTT) – how and why?‘ he stressed that the crisis wasn’t over, and that Europe’s people needed an FTT, not forgetting the north-south benefits of an FTT. He said an FTT was needed to make the economy work for people rather than the other way round.

Meanwhile International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) General Secretary Guy Ryder said that Governments around the world were asking “where the hell are we going to get the money from?” $700 billion a year was needed around the OECD to meet the costs of the recession, of climate change and of global poverty. The case for an FTT wasn’t just theoretical it was vital.

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Owen Tudor

In a transatlantic video-press conference this afternoon, AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka and European Socialists’ leader Poul Nyrup Rasmussen have emphasised the global demand for financial transactions taxes (FTTs). Trumka and Rasmussen put the call for FTTs in the context of wide-ranging financial reform.

But Trumka stressed the need for money to create jobs. FTTs would also raise over $100 billion in the US and would hardly touch small investors. He said that the US needs to find the money for – among other things – a major programme to create jobs. Without a financial speculation tax, a Robin Hood Tax or whatever, that programme couldn’t be delivered. “This is the first time that such a broad coalition has come together to seek financial reform in the interests of ordinary people.”

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Owen Tudor

There’s been a week of activity on the Robin Hood Tax with a European flavour, and more to come next week. First, the European Parliament passed a resolution on implementing financial transactions taxes (FTTs). Second, the German and British trade union movements called on their country’s leaders to back a Europe-wide FTT at the European Summit later this month. And third, next week will see a major European conference on FTTs in Brussels.

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Richard Exell

You can tell the paleolithic right is feeling frisky when the old nonsense about lone parents starts up again. You know, the rants we used to get from Michael Portillo and others about feckless teenage girls getting themselves pregnant (amazing how they manage it by themselves, but there you go).

Of course, its all the fault of our ludicrously generous benefit system. And who wouldn’t get pregnant when there’s Income Support on offer?

There’s a prime example in today’s Metro that manages to draw the wrong conclusions from an opinion poll the Metro itself commissioned.

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Nigel Stanley

The National Audit Office today releases a report on the costs of public sector pensions. I write this before I can see whether it has provoked the usual barrage of hostile stories about the alleged gold-plating of public pensions, but if you actually read it, it tells a rather different story.

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• BBC iPlayer – Jobless
  Not the programme about unemployed famous people – this is an extremely poignant documentary about the harsh realities of unemployment for family life.
• Anti-Slavery Home Alone End Domestic Slavery
  A new anti-slavery campaign to end domestic slavery and create an ILO convention to protect domestic workers worldwide.
• Jeffrey Sachs backs the Robin Hood tax
  A short video of Jeffrey Sachs from his appearance at the RSA

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