Richard Exell
I have made a video blog looking at this month’s employment figures. The headlines were good (employment going up and unemployment down) but I think things are about to get worse and I explain why in two minutes!
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Richard Exell
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Philip Pearson
The ETUC is calling for discussions with the EU’s Commissioner for Climate Action, Connie Hedegaard, on how the workplace and social dialogue can play a part in European energy efficiency policy. It’s a timely intervention. A new EU study shows unions in Germany, France, Belgium, Romania and the UK leading highly diverse initiatives with employers and other agencies. It says the TUC’s Green Workplaces projects are “positively perceived, with many companies and employers taking part.” Governments should “provide incentives to social partners for by making clear the benefits that can flow to both sides.”
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Hugh Robertson
The Government is to press ahead with the reforms to civil claims, including personal injury claims, which were proposed last year by Lord Justice Jackson. These proposals, contained in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, will seriously damage access to justice for many working people.
While attention has focused on those sections of the bill dealing with Legal Aid and sentencing, other parts could also prove to be disastrous for those people seeking compensation because of an injury at work caused by the employers’ negligence.
Union members will be among the millions who are deprived of the ability to claim compensation, or who will lose damages. As many as 25% of injury claims will not be brought. Those that proceed might lose up to 25% of damages for the success fee and further substantial reductions for required legal expense insurance.
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Touchstone Extra: Fairness and Prosperity
The UK is a far more unequal society now than it was 30 years ago, and three-quarters of the public agree that the gap between rich and poor in the UK is too high. But if policymakers were to enact policies to reduce inequality, would this jeopardise the UK’s economic performance?
Today’s new Touchstone Extras pamphlet, written by Howard Reed, reviews the latest evidence on the relationship between inequality and economic performance across countries and finds no support for the idea that there is a ‘trade-off’ between inequality and prosperity. Indeed, there is strong evidence that countries with higher inequality have worse performance on a range of health and social outcomes.
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Thanks to Kate Green MP, Richard Wilkinson (The Spirit Level) and Howard Reed (author of the new pamphlet “Fairness and Prosperity”, for their contributions at our online seminar this morning, discussing the links between a more equal society and greater economic effectiveness. And of course thanks to everyone who took part online or in person, and emailed or tweeted questions for the panel.
We’re editing the footage now and hope to have an archive of the event up soon for those that missed it, or want to watch again.
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Philip Pearson
As the Energy Secretary, Chris Huhne, was presenting his Energy White Paper to the UK Parliament, with its vision of a decarbonised energy supply by 2030, a wholly different, destructive energy scenario has been unfolding across the Atlantic.
In an American continent with no carbon tax or climate legislation, a new economy is being built on the extraction of “extreme energy”. This threatens to overwhelm the UK’s own contribution to combating climate change, and is calling into question any hope of a meaningful UN climate change deal in Durban this December.
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Richard Exell
We have just published this month’s Labour Market Report, covering the latest Labour Market data. Again the headline figures for employment and unemployment are good, but these are more worrying items too. Claimant Count unemployment is rising but job vacancies are at a very low level. Labour market results for women have been worse than those for men for a year now and the number of women receiving Jobseeker’s Allowance is the highest since 1996.
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Howard Reed
The UK is a very unequal country, and this extreme inequality is the result of major changes in the income distribution over the last thirty-five years, in particular large increases in inequality under the Thatcher government in the 1980s At the same time, according to recent data from the British Social Attitudes survey, three-quarters of people in the UK believe that the gap between rich and poor in the UK is too high.
But would a more equal distribution of income reduce the level of efficiency in the economy and hence make us worse off overall? Conventional economists have often argued that it would, because of the effects of progressive taxation on reducing the rewards for work and entrepreneurship, and reduced returns to investments.
Next week the TUC publishes a new Touchstone Extra report, Fairness and Prosperity, which addresses precisely this question; I’ll be launching the report at an online seminar on Monday together with Richard Wilkinson of Spirit Level fame (you can register here). In the report, I ask whether a more equal distribution of income would joepardise the UK’s economic prospects. Or rather, is more equality just what we need to improve our prosperity and well-being?
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Monday 18 July 2011, 10.00 – 12.00.
Join us on Touchstone blog on Monday for an online seminar on the international evidence linking equality in society with economic efficiency. We’ll be talking with Richard Wilkinson, internationally famous co-author of The Spirit Level, Kate Green MP, and Howard Reed, author of the new Touchstone report into the issue, ‘Fairness and Prosperity’, which is launched on Monday.
We’ll be live-streaming the event, with the opportunity to add your comments and questions on-line via Twitter or email. You can take part on line by visiting us here on the blog from 10.00 on 18 July.
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Sampson Low
The Housing Benefit service may not be the most fashionable public service but we in UNISON know they are the unsung heroes of benefit administration. Delivering the most complex of benefits in record time based on claimants bring in a variety original documents in to inspect.
The Universal Credit, bringing together six different benefits as part of the current Welfare Bill, promises welcome simplicity but at the price of losing local housing expertise and face to face contact.
