Today the government has published its equality analysis of the Trade Union Bill. For busy readers who may not have time to read to the end of my blog, let alone the government’s 31 page document, I can reveal that the government’s analysis of its proposals to weaken workers’ rights is that there is zero…
Former Business Secretary Vince Cable has today branded the government’s Trade Union Bill as “vindictive” and a threat to “civil liberties”. Speaking to the BBC Vince Cable warned that the Trade Union Bill would worsen industrial relations and make disputes harder to resolve: “I think it’s ideologically driven and I think its potentially vindictive and…
(I missed this data release on Monday, but today the FT remind us of the results with a chart on their front page.) In 2013 the UK has 2,086 high-earning bankers (defined as earning more than one million euros a year, £850,000), according to a new report published by the European Bankers Association. The next country…
There was a lot of press at the weekend on the general theme that ‘money buys happiness’, prompted by the ONS well-being analysis issued on Friday. But thinking more about the results that were covered briefly here on Friday, these headlines might draw the wrong conclusion. There is a very strong association between unhappiness (rather, lower…
Today saw the first release of findings by the Centre for Responsible Credit (CfRC) from the joint TUC and Unison commissioned ‘Britain in the Red’ project. The project is looking at available aggregate and household survey data to track the extent of household over-indebtedness: assessing the economic impacts of consumer credit borrowing and student loan…
Today the EEF (Engineering Employers’ Federation) affirmed the weakness of the UK manufacturing sector, halving their forecast for manufacturing growth in 2015 to 0.7 per cent. The chart below of ONS figures shows manufacturing proceeding since the 1990s in a series of fits and starts. Over the past decade, the very brutal collapse in the…
The ONS report ‘Relationship between Wealth, Income and Personal Well-being, July 2011 to June 2012’ may not be hugely surprising , but vividly shows the how dependent personal well-being is on a decent standard of living. For the ONS, well being has four aspects, ‘life satisfaction’, ‘sense of worth’, ‘happiness’ and ‘anxiety’. The following charts…
Ahead of next week’s Sports Direct company AGM, the company’s Chair Keith Hellawell is coming under increasing pressure from unions and minority shareholders
Yesterday, as market volatility continued, GDP figures were issued showing Canada now in ‘technical’ recession. It was a close call, with quarterly growth in 2015 Q2 at -0.1 per cent, following a fall of -0.2 in Q1. But few seem in doubt that conditions in this G8 economy are a worry. The chart shows the…
The Financial Times reported last night that David Cameron had dropped plans to demand widespread exemptions from European Union workplace rights. The TUC has been warning that those demands were on his agenda for months (often pooh-poohed by ‘experts’), and we have been arguing that such a strategy would make it less likely working people…
Over 100 organisations have appealed to the Prime Minister over the Chancellor’s plans to cut support for the solar power industry. The government, strangely shy about the employment impact of hazarding a £33bn industry. All DECC will admit to in its consultation paper is: “There is likely to be a negative impact on existing jobs…
