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In 2006 Norway legislated to require that women should fill at least 40% of Board places in companies traded on the Oslo bourse. This study compares Norwegian and other Scandinavian companies and finds “that firms affected by the quota undertook fewer workforce reductions than comparison firms, increasing relative labor costs and employment levels and reducing short-term profits.”
ToUChstoneblog's Archive — Page 3
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Michael Krauss summarises some research that sheds light on why inequality persists in America and which seems to be very likely true for Britain too: 1. People don’t realise the scale of inequality; 2. Social classes are less distinct; 3. There’s an assumption the rich will behave well (have a look below for an indication of why that may not be a good idea…)
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A series of studies by a team of American researchers has found that upper class individuals are more likely to lie and cheat and agree with unethical work behaviour.
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A new monthly report from the CCCS debt counselling service finds “households are spending 24% of their discretionary income – £199 per month – on interest payments.”
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By Tony Burke, Assistant General Secretary, Unite the Union, and Tim Page, Senior Policy Officer, TUC.“Over the last eighteen months or so the Coalition Government has been really straining every sinew to seek to rebalance the British economy and put manufacturing at its heart.” So said Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, at yesterday’s Manufacturing Summit in Bristol. That’s stretching it a bit. But there has been a change in attitude in Government in recent months and that change could not have come too soon.
Elsewhere in his speech yesterday, Nick Clegg was right to question the values we’ve been teaching our children for so long. As he said, we’ve overvalued services and undervalued manufacturing; we’ve put more stress on, in his words, “making bets behind a computer screen in the Square Mile rather than inventing and building and exporting things”. The Deputy Prime Minister was also right to say that we’ve stressed university degrees at the expense of vocational qualifications. And our favourite thing that he said yesterday, “We’ve bought in to the myth that our industrial decline is somehow inevitable and unstoppable and that the new world will always trump the old world in manufacturing.” To misquote a once popular phrase, ‘We agree with Nick!’
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USDAW, which represents 410,000 workers in retail and distribution, is in talks with a number of major companies "to examine their continuing participation in the Government’s Work Programme."
Like the TUC, USDAW supports schemes that provide reasl help for unemployed people but it is becoming clearer that the Work Programme is more about exploitation.
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It may come as no great surprise that since the financial crisis of 2008 many of us have experienced a wage squeeze, while the cost of living has gone the other way. However, as our own Duncan Weldon points out in a special programme he’s produced for Radio 4′s Analysis, wages for most people in the UK began stagnating years before the crisis.
We tend to think of the early 2000s as a time of relative wealth: house prices were rising, credit flowed easily, the government introduced a generous tax credit scheme and people generally felt better off. But these masked the reality of what was going on.
Listen now
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The social partners in the chemicals induustry in Germany have negotiated a groundbreaking agreement that aims to deal with long-term workforce planning issues as the existing workforce ages. Under the agreement, 2.5% of the pay bill will be invested in a fund to deal with age-related staffing problems. The fund will then be used to pay for age-related policies such as carers' leave.
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"The Independent" reports that companies and charities are pulling out of unpaid work experience schemes.
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The “Inequalities” blog is becoming a must-read for anyone interested in social security policy. This post by Robert de Vries looks at the perception of people on benefits.
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Jonathan Portes is a breath of fresh air: the Moody’s downgrade “proves nothing and signifies less.”
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