Owen Tudor

A rights-less future faces Hungarian workers under a new draft labour law, according to LIGA, one of six union confederations in the country. They showed the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) General Council meeting in October a campaign video showing Hungarian workers’ nightmares: nightmares that could come true if the law is not stopped.

Hungarian workers have already suffered a sustained attack from the right-wing Fidesz Government which is slashing rights, reducing wages and undermining unions without reason. Like the UK government, some politicians in Europe believe in austerity and the small state regardless of IMF or ECB demands.

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Owen Tudor

The 2011 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) concluded today with a final communique that contains many warm words on climate change, trade, women and youth, but which, on the key issue for discussion at this event – human rights – there is only limited progress, and no mention of a particular human rights scar on the Commonwealth record: equality for LGBT communities. And the warm words on all the other issues may be just that: the major change that women may get out of CHOGM was the agreement behind the scenes to make it more likely that women will succeed to the throne!

The Eminent Persons Group report – disgracefully still a secret – was filleted by CHOGM, which reported drily that only 30 of its recommendations had been accepted outright, 12 might be adopted subject to cost, 43 would be parked for further consideration at the Commonwealth Foreign Ministers’ meeting next September, and 11 were deemed “inappropriate for adoption”. But there’s no indication of which these recommendations were! 

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Owen Tudor

The G20 leaders’ summit takes place in Cannes, South France this week, and unions will be playing a major role, meeting many of the world leaders in Cannes, as well as G20 chair President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris on Wednesday, as well as leaders of global institutions like the ILO, IMF and so on. Altogether, these meetings make up the L20 (the Labour 20) – a new development for this year.

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Yemisi Ilesanmi

Following failed attempts in 2006 and 2008, Nigerian lawmakers have resurrected a widely condemned anti-homosexuality bill, due to be heard in the Nigerian Parliament on 31 October. They are desperate to find a scapegoat to rally public support behind them, and the LGBT community provides an easy target. When will they stop discussing who is sleeping with whom and start making laws that would actually move this underdeveloped but oil-rich nation forward?

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Nicola Smith

In response to the news that 80,000 people have applied for 18,000 temporary Christmas jobs at Royal Mail Chris Grayling MP (Minister for Employment) has helpfully told unemployed people that:

Now is a great time to apply for one of the tens of thousands of Christmas jobs which are being advertised. Temporary work gives you an idea of the kind of career you might want, looks good on your CV and also gives you something to talk about in job interviews. It can even lead to more permanent employment.

These comments appear to indicate that Chris Grayling thinks many unemployed people might hesistate to apply for jobs, or are not aware that being in work looks good on their CV. But he needn’t have worried – miraculously 80,000 people had already taken action before he dispensed his advice. It’s therefore unfortunate that 62,000 of them (77%) will find they are unsuccessful.

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• Commission on Living Standards
  And whilst we're at it, the Resolution Foundation's new commission has a website that deserves a big audience. Clever use of interactive charts very clearly presents the hugely unequal growth in living standards seen in the UK since the '70s, and lets you see where your own household fits in the picture.
• Painful separation
  Workers are gaining less of the proceeds from economic growth right across the OECD, claims the Resolution Foundation's latest report. Painful Separation examines the relationship between economic growth and wages for middle earners over the last 30 years.

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Richard Exell

If today’s GfK NOP Consumer Confidence Barometer measured air pressure we’d be getting ready for a hurricane. The overall measure has slipped from -30 to -32, down 13 points from October 2010′s -19. All the different elements are negative, all are down on last year and none are up on last month:

We’re getting so used to this sort of measure, I wasn’t going to mention it, but then

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Richard Exell

I see that Felicity Burch has a post on the Engineering Employers’ Federation blog, calling on the government to reduce regulation to boost business. Normally I have quite a lot of respect for the EEF, so I suppose I should just commiserate with her on the bad luck in writing this on the day when there’s new evidence about how low this is on most employers’ agendas.

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Tim Page

Well done Gloria de Piero, Labour’s Shadow Home Office Minister, for praising Gordon Brown’s leadership during the financial crisis on last night’s Question Time (21 mins in on BBC i-Player). Given that Gordon is about as popular as a toothache, I half expected the audience to boo or laugh, but the fact that this comment was applauded showed the sense of justice among the audience.

Without naming names, Barack Obama does much the same thing in today’s FT. Obama writes:

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Owen Tudor

I have to admit that British Foreign Secretary William Hague made an excellent speech to the Commonwealth People’s Forum on Thursday night, and has been pushing a progressive line on human rights all week, as have Australian hosts Julia Gillard (PM) and Kevin Rudd (Foreign Sec). Civil society organisations here in Perth, WA – like the strong Commonwealth Trade Union Group delegation – have backed them in calling for a Commonwealth Charter of Values, and an independent Commonwealth Commissioner for human rights, rule of law and democracy. These are key recommendations from the report of the Eminent Persons Group set up by the last Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Trinidad and Tobago in 2009, which was submitted to Foreign Ministers and Heads of Government this week.

But it looks likely that over the weekend the proposals will be watered down, with the Indian and South African governments reported as leading the opposition. Why would the Head of Government with possibly the most human rights-friendly constitution in the G20, Jacob Zuma, be opposed to these eminently reasonable demands? In a master stroke of irony, it is because the debate has been kept behind closed doors in a cosy government club, rather than involving the people who would be the main beneficiaries?

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