Two bits of news caught my eye today. The first was new figures showing the number of workers on zero hour contacts has hit an all time high – with over 900,000 people now working on contracts which leave them wondering how much they will be earning from day to day, week to week. This…
Its hot and smoggy here in Beijing Beijing, where G20 Labour and Employment Ministers have been meeting this week, but that’s not the main source of my frustration. Instead, I’m having a hard time getting my head around what Guy Ryder, head of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), described in today’s L20 trade union meeting as the…
I’m in Beijing, China for the annual G20 Labour & Employment Ministers meeting (LEMM). Priti Patel has already got on her plane and gone looking for work in Theresa May’s new Cabinet, but trade union leaders from across the world – known as the L20 – are still working hard to persuade other G20 governments to put decent…
There was a major climbdown from the government in last night’s parliamentary debate on the Investigatory Powers Bill, in response to an opposition amendment. The minister conceded changes that will protect unions from police warrants to seize phone records or emails. The Bill, which more people now know as the ‘Snooper’s Charter’, has been an…
Today the BBC are reporting that over 600 local bank branches have been closed in the last 12 months. It’s a tragedy both for staff who have lost jobs and for the communities that need the service they provided. It also poses a crucial question for unions about how we get the kind of banking system…
Politics is a funny business isn’t it? David Cameron has presided over the longest squeeze on living standards since Victoria was on the Throne. And yet there he was on Tuesday getting up at the British Chambers of Commerce, less than 90 days away from a general election, and saying with an entirely straight face…
The Fabian Society’s new report Pride of Place calls for nothing less than “a revolution in the culture of environmental campaigning with a much greater focus on rebuilding democratic capacity”. Much of this equally applies to the place of work, as their ideas for rebuilding green community activism resonate strongly with our commitment to greening…
The last 48 hours has seen two Financial Times (£) articles on wildly different subjects, but with one theme in common. ‘City of London lures Chinese speakers to handle surge of work’ describes how Mandarin has become the fourth most commonly quoted language on CV applications for those seeking work in the Square Mile. ‘Official…
Last week Alice blogged about the impact of the announcements in the autumn statement on public sector workers. Of course most of the headlines were grabbed by the Chancellor’s announcement that he would impose two years of 1% pay-caps on public sector workers at the end of the current two year pay freeze (three years if you…
Two articles in today’s newspapers show notions of ‘localism’ are being undermined by central government spending cuts. The FT leads on an Audit Commission report ‘Tough Times’, which reveals that most councils have had to ‘reduce the quality and quantity of services’ they provide in the face of a real terms funding cut of £3.5billion over the…