Rights at work

  • Hugh Robertson Hugh Robertson

    Safety prosecutions in perspective.

    Animal abuse prosecutions vs safety violation prosecutions

    It is often said that the British care more about their dogs than their fellow humans and here are some statistics that seem to bear that out.

    The RSPCA have just published their prosecutions statistics. Last year they secured 4,168 convictions against 1,552 people, with a conviction rate of 98%. This is a great achievement from a body that employs less than 1,700 people, and good luck to them.

    Let’s compare this with the statistics for people who kill and injure workers. Across Great Britain, 680 cases were prosecuted for health and safety breaches in 2011/12. These cases led to 630 convictions, with a conviction rate of 93%. This is for cases brought by both the HSE and by Local Authorities. The HSE, which managed to secure 506 of these convictions, employs around twice the number of staff as the RSPCA.

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    Posted on April 30th, 2013 by Hugh Robertson filed under: Rights at work

  • Hugh Robertson Hugh Robertson

    Lucy Meadows – a tragedy that must not happen again.

    This week a teacher apparently killed herself. Her name was Lucy Meadows and she had been the victim of a campaign of harassment and intimidation. However this was not by her employers, or by fellow workers, but by the media.

    While unions have a proud record of protecting members from harassment and bullying at work perhaps we forget that many of our members face harassment by people outside their work, even though it is work related. Examples are social workers and medical staff scapegoated by the tabloids after child protection cases or care workers criticised because of the failings of their employer.

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    Posted on March 23rd, 2013 by Hugh Robertson filed under: Health and Safety, Rights at work

  • Frances O'Grady Frances O'Grady

    A shameful attack on rural workers, their families and their communities

    tractor at work near rural village

    Shame has never been the landed gentry’s strong point. They were out in force in the House of Lords this week to vote in favour of abolishing the Agricultural Wages Board that sets minimum conditions for over 150,000 rural labourers. The economy may be tanking and the cost of living rocketing but the answer to every question the government sets itself seems to be slashing workers’ rights and pay.

    The Agricultural Wages Board is Britain’s last remaining wages council, providing pay protection for agricultural workers, including those living in tied housing. Abolition risks sucking millions out of local rural economies at a time when the village post office and local businesses  need workers’ spending power to survive.

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    Posted on March 8th, 2013 by Frances O'Grady filed under: Rights at work

  • Tony Burke Tony Burke

    Working time: the week’s battleground

    Row of people with clocks over their faces

    Even though David Cameron had to cancel his controversial speech on how he intends to lead the UK sleepwalking to the EU exit door, the Tory ‘Fresh Start Group’ nailed its colours to the mast by naming two important pieces of employment protection it wants to scrap – the Working Time Regulations and the Temporary Agency Workers legislation. The Fresh Start Group consists of around 100 MPs, many of them among the 2010 Tory intake (plus, surprisingly, Labour’s Gisela Stuart and Frank Field).

    At the same time Professor Francis Green, of the Institute of Education in London, released the latest European Union Labour Force Survey from 2011, showing that in the UK we are working longer hours than elsewhere in the EU. The survey was widely reported in the media, but interpreted in subtly different ways (here’s the TUC’s analysis).

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    Posted on January 18th, 2013 by Tony Burke filed under: Rights at work

  • Paul Nowak Paul Nowak

    Would you like germs with that? Starbucks & workers’ rights

    Starbucks sign

    © Copyright Ross, licensed under Creative Commons

    Not content using a range of legal tax loopholes to avoid paying corporation tax in the UK, it has been revealed that coffee megachain Starbucks are to cut paid lunch breaks, sick leave and maternity benefits for their 7,000 coffee-shop workers in the UK.

    MPs found it hard to believe that over the past 13 years they have paid just £8.6 million on sales of £3.1 billion and in 14 of the 15 years it has operated in the UK, Starbucks has claimed an operating loss.  All this while the company enjoyed a 31% market share by turnover and had briefed shareholders the UK business was making 15% profits. The GMB has been working with UK Uncut to keep this scandal in the public eye.

    Now they have sunk to new lows by telling staff that they are no longer to be paid for their half hour break every day, they will no longer receive sick pay for the first day off sick.  

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    Posted on December 4th, 2012 by Paul Nowak filed under: Rights at work

  • Guest marcher Guest marcher

    #oct20: I’m marching for a rethink of priorities

    My name is Dan Carrier, I am a NUJ rep and I’m marching on October the 20th because I believe that we as a society need to fundamentally re-think our principles and priorities.

     

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    Posted on October 16th, 2012 by Guest marcher filed under: Rights at work, Union campaigns, Union organising, Union reps

  • Peter Bakvis Peter Bakvis

    The IMF supports workers’ rights – but only in theory…

    Peter Bakvis is the Washington DC officer of Global Unions. Here he reports on the IMF’s approach – in theory good, but in practice poor – to union rights and labour standards.

    Last month the IMF posted a six-page “Factsheet: The IMF’s Advice on Labor Market Issues”, which tries to present a rationale for the Fund’s extensive involvement in labour market reforms in many countries. The factsheet explains that in response to the sharp rise in unemployment at the beginning of the 2008-2009 crisis, “the IMF supported policies to boost demand — and thus employment — through fiscal stimulus and easing of policy interest rates”.

    However “in the longer run”, the Fund has decided it must take on “a broader set of policies and institutions [that] influences the functioning of labor markets…. Often, changes in these policies and institutions are needed to boost growth and job creation…. It may, for instance, be necessary to lower labor costs [so as] to restore competitiveness”.

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    Posted on October 10th, 2012 by Peter Bakvis filed under: Global solidarity, Rights at work