Janet Williamson

Vince Cable has today launched a Discussion Paper on executive pay, which includes a question on employee representation on remuneration committees. Not quite a firm proposal, but the first time I am aware of that the possibility of worker representation on remuneration committees has been put forward in an official Government document.

The TUC has been campaigning for worker representation on remuneration committees for over 15 years. There have been times in the past when we have been derided for putting forward a proposal that appeared to go so strongly against the grain of the status quo. It shows that ideas that are far outside the mainstream political discussion can inch slowly inwards and gain real traction over time.

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Nigel Stanley

According to the FT (£) John Hutton has said:

Trade unions are suffering from a “fundamental misunderstanding” in arguing that public sector pensions are affordable without reform …

Lord Hutton said the figures “assume we have successfully implemented the reforms” that he recommended. “The fundamental mistake the trades unions are making is that the chart assumes that the reforms have taken place,” he told the Financial Times. “They are the post reform costs. But people are still choosing the facts that most suit them from the report and then torturing the data until it confesses. That chart does not show that public sector pensions are sustainable as they stand. If they were, I would not have made 27 recommendations for fundamental change”.

But this cannot be right, as I will explain.

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Owen Tudor

There’s been an outbreak of good advice as EU finance ministers meet in Wroclaw, Poland this weekend. First George Osborne tells Eurozone leaders to show leadership by accelerating fiscal co-ordination to control budget deficits (as long as the UK can still stand on the sidelines). Then US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner tells finance ministers to scrap plans for a financial transactions tax (maybe we should listen? After all, everything’s going so well in the US!)

We do indeed need global leadership to deal with the global and Euro crisis: a crisis mostly of jobs and growth. But leadership means working together, not handing out advice in a ‘do as I say, not as I do’ fashion.

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Philip Pearson

The Coalition’s Programme for Government promised “the green industries that are so essential for our future.” But progress has stalled, 80,000 more  have join the dole queues, leaving the field wide open to cynics who say you can have green, or growth, but not both. But what about neither? To fill the policy void, the EEF’s stimulating online discussion, Green and Growth, points to four factors inhibiting a green economy: strategic misdirection, an over-focus on process emissions, political uncertainty and a sometimes muddled policy mix.

The employers’ body says government indecision is creating manufacturing uncertainty. Examples abound – it cut support for large scale solar energy earlier this year, after barely a year’s activity. Jobs and investment were lost as a result. Now, lobbyists, including the TUC, are hoping to persuade the committee of MPs meeting on 15 September to reconsider this move.

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Nigel Stanley

I have a new post on Huffington Post UK today on some of the background to yesterday’s Congress debates on public sector pensions: The government is attacking union members’ pensions

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Scarlet Harris

Leaked government documents this week exposed the coalition’s fear that they are losing the support of women voters. They’re right to be concerned. Gavin Kelly’s excellent analysis in the New Statesman shows that government policy is indeed alienating women voters, particularly working class women.

So far, so good. Acknowledging that government policies may not be going down well with women is a good starting point. Where the author of the leaked memo starts to go wrong though is when possible remedies are suggested.

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Scarlet Harris

If today’s labour market statistics are anything to go by, the answer is the dole queue.

The number of unemployed women and women claiming Job Seeker’s Allowance continues to rise to the highest levels in decades. The long predicted impact of public sector job cuts on women’s employment, is now plain to see.

The number of women made redundant increased 72.3% on the previous quarter. A statistic so shocking I did a double take and had to call a colleague to check I hadn’t misread it. 

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Richard Exell

Today’s labour market statistics are terrible. I counted 20 new records for falling employment and rising unemployment – I’ve blogged about it over at Left Foot Forward.

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Anjum Klair

Employment Blackspots Update 

We have been reporting on employment black spots in Britain over the last few months, where we have found strong evidence of persistent poor local job prospects.  The unemployment data released today shows that Inverclyde is now the hardest place in Britain to find a job, where there are over thirty five dole claimants chasing every vacancy. Inverclyde has appeared  frequently in the top 10 blackspots, and back in May 2011 Invercylde had been the hardest place to find a job when almost thirty two dole claimants were chasing every vacancy.   

Area	Claimants	Vacancies	Ratio
Inverclyde	3,057	87	35.1
North Ayrshire	5,933	256	23.2
West Dunbartonshire	3,840	166	23.1
Hackney	11,081	487	22.8
Waltham Forest	9,782	490	20.0
Merthyr Tydfil	2,257	115	19.6
Lewisham	10,624	561	18.9
Haringey	10,813	606	17.8
Blaenau Gwent	3,140	183	17.2
Kingston upon Hull, City of	14,314	843	17.0

Download our analysis for every area 

 Source- nomisweb.co.uk

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Nicola Smith

On the morning that the UK saw unemployment rise by 80,000 Nick Clegg has given a speech on growth. He started by claiming that the Government’s strategy was about more than tax cuts and de-regulation, stating that:

Our critics say that all this government is capable of is cuts. That, beyond lowering a few business taxes, reducing a bit of red tape there is little else we are willing or able to do. That is absolutely wrong.

So it seems fair to question whether the speech did in fact indicate that his Government was prepared to take any further significant action.

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