Why TTIP is bad for workers

#NoTTIP The recent War on Want Manchester conference - ‘TTIP: Building the Fightback’ - included a presentation by Jeronim Capaldo of TUFTS University in the USA. Capaldo’s study, ‘The Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership: European Disintegration, Unemployment and Instability’, provides conclusive evidence that contrary to official assessments, TTIP's intensification of market competition and deregulation will have negative effects on European workers including falling levels of employment, lower incomes and a reduced labour share of national wealth. A summary of the study can be read here:
http://ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/wp/14-03CapaldoTTIP.pdf

The Iron Heel of Ineos - another multinational adds to misery

It has been hard to miss the coverage of Grangemouth petro-chemical works in the past few days. From a parochial local matter, the affair has been escalated into the national headlines as an example of union intransigence costing workers jobs. The origins of the dispute lie with union perception and reaction to the victimisation of a member, an affair going back to the Labour Party and the Falkirk candidate selection conflict.
    Ineos alone chose to up the ante, threatening closure unless the entire workforce agreed to drastic cuts in terms and conditions (including the closure of the final salary pension scheme), a no strike agreement and as a last resort attempting to cut the union out by going directly to the workforce. This can best be described as blackmail, at worst as extortion.

If you see Sid tell him...

#cpc13 Or so went the Tory slogan on privatisation of British Gas. But I am referring to an old friend of mine called Sid. A Sid who like thousands of others in the public sector is paid to clean the streets, to clear graffiti. The street cleansing teams up and down the UK are fed up with the way in which their jobs are likened to ‘punishment jobs’. Community service for crimes? Make them clear graffiti. Too lazy to get a real job? Make them clean the streets. But Osborne’s demeaning approach is far more sinister than just an attack on the unemployed. It is an attack on the very concept that the public sector has a role to play in working for a better environment.

Being Osborne-lite won’t work for Labour

Despite the slowest UK economic recovery for more than a century and overwhelming evidence of the failure of austerity policies, the Tory lie machine has dominated the political narrative, writes David Blanchflower in the New Statesman. He calls for bolder economic policies from Labour - ‘being Osborne-lite won’t work. So many people are hurting and need some hope. Coming up with credible plans to raise real wages, create jobs and reduce youth unemployment looks like the way forward’
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/09/osborne-won-battle-austerity-now-labour-must-look-future

Troika’s junta style policies asset stripping & crippling Greek economy

The IMF-EU troika is accelerating Greece's €20bn privatisation programme by forcing the government to cede state owned assets to a Luxembourg-based holding company that would take care of their sale to private buyers:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/29/us-eurozone-greece-privatisation-idUSBRE97S0EJ20130829
   ETUC economist Ronald Janssen analyses a study which finds the troika's scenario of economic recovery in Greece to be over-optimistic and predicts that unemployment could reach close to 35 per cent in 2016 under the current trajectory:
http://www.social-europe.eu/2013/08/greece-can-it-get-even-worse/

The greying of the UK workforce

By 2020 a third of workers in the UK will be aged over 50 and a new TUC report highlights significant changes in the age profile of the workforce. As reported in yesterday’s Observer, the number of working Britons over 65 has tripled in 15 years with 258,000 women and 338,000 men still working past the state retirement age, compared with 93,000 and 112,000 respectively in 1998. In the same period youth unemployment increased by a corresponding amount and now stands at 973,000. The retirement age in the UK is currently 65 for men and 60 for women. By 2020, it will be raised to 66 for both men and women, and again to 67 by 2028:
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/aug/24/over-65s-work

Job insecurity in public sector at all time high

A recent study has confirmed that not only are workers in Britain more insecure at work than at any time in the past 20 years but, for the first time ever, public sector workers are more fearful about losing their jobs than those in the private sector. The 2012 Skills and Employment Survey (which is carried out every six years) is the first since the 2007/8 banking crisis and the consequential onslaught of austerity on public services, the welfare state and workers' rights:
http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/socsi/ses2012/[hidden]resources/4.%20Fear%20at%20Work%20Minireport.pdf

Young workers hardest hit by austerity

The economic and financial crisis since 2008 has hit young workers particularly hard. Almost 1m under 25's were unemployed in the UK at the end of last year and across the EU youth joblessness is double the general rate of unemployment.

The scandal of youth unemployment in Britain

The UK has experienced the fastest rise in youth unemployment of any country in the G8 since the start of the recession and now has the third worst levels in the 34 country OECD. A new Work Foundation report 'International Lessons: Youth unemployment in the global context' looks at youth unemployment internationally, placing a spotlight on Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands and Australia - all of which have maintained consistently low levels of youth unemployment despite the economic crisis: http://www.theworkfoundation.com/DownloadPublication/Report/329_International%20Lessons.pdf

The Coalition Mid Term Review - Bad, Mad And Dangerous

Be warned that reading the fifty two page Coalition mid-term review is bad for the health, leaving a nasty taste in the mouth as well as the feeling of bile rising in the gullet. Smug, complacent and self congratulatory, it reeks of the politics of a blinkered ruling class, whose idea of how the majority of people live is created exclusively from repeated showings of Jeremy Kyle and exposure to Daily Mail headlines. Jokes about Ronseal aside, the performance on view was usual over-confident public school boy banter.
  Fundamentally the script has not changed.The emphasis remains the deficit, dear boy, the deficit. Long term unemployment, failing construction, manufacturing and services sectors matter not.

Disabled People facing an Austerity Double Whammy

Across Europe austerity driven attacks on the welfare state are hitting disabled people particularly hard and 'reversing any gains made by disabled people in rights, access to employment and accessibility' writes Steve McGiffen:
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/127454

Lies, damned lies and Osborne’s statement

To deflect outrage from the OBR’s horrendous forecast that 1.1m public sector jobs will be lost by 2018, in his Autumn Statement Chancellor George Osborne repeated the Prime Minister’s claim from September that ‘1.2m new jobs have been created’ in the private sector since the Coalition Government was elected – a claim which doesn’t stand up to examination with the true figure being 874,000: http://fullfact.org/factchecks/million_private_sector_jobs_PMQs_David_Cameron-28124

The anatomy of public sector employment & what happens when it’s gone?

A new and highly informative study by the Work Foundation dissects the structure of public sector employment in 2012. Interestingly, FE and sixth form colleges have been moved out of public sector classification giving the false impression of 200,000 jobs being created in the private sector. Universities and Housing Associations sit outside of the public sector and instead are defined as Non-Profit Institutions. The report looks at the historical experience of cutting public sector employment (during the Thatcher and Major Tory Governments) and doubts whether the UK labour market can absorb the unprecedented cuts in the public sector workforce planned by the Con Dems over the next decade – inevitably leading to higher levels of unemployment and under-employment:
http://www.theworkfoundation.com/DownloadPublication/Report/323_Public%20employment%20final.pdf

Austerity is Blighting Developing Countries

A new UNICEF book “A Recovery for All: Rethinking Socioeconomic Policies for Children and Poor Households” is a timely reminder the global economic crisis has had a devastating impact well beyond Europe. 'High food and commodity prices, unemployment and austerity measures have aggravated persistent inequalities and contributed to a substantial rise in hunger and social tensions. Now, more than ever, investments for the world’s poor are needed to recover lost ground in pursuit of development objectives:
http://www.southcentre.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1848%3Aausterity-policies-also-hitting-developing-countries-12-october-2012&catid=150%3Asouthviews&Itemid=358&lang=en
The full report is available at:
http://www.unicef.org/socialpolicy/index_62107.html

Con Dems set to attack support for the under-employed

The TUC calculates that 3.3 million workers are under-employed in the UK (a figure which has increased by 42% since the 2008 economic crash). Under-employed describes those workers who are doing part-time jobs because full-time ones are not available or who want more hours in their current jobs. The Guardian reports today that 1.2 million people will be affected by loss of state benefits next year when the Universal Credit benefit payment is introduced unless they find an additional job or secure higher wages in their existing job!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/oct/04/million-working-adults-benefits-cuts
http://www.tuc.org.uk/economy/tuc-21363-f0.cfm

A Wasted Generation - over 20% of young people out of education and out of work

A new TUC analysis shows the grim economic realities facing young people in the UK today.

More than one in five (22%) of 16-24 year olds are currently unemployed, of which almost 500,000 have been jobless for more than six months: http://www.tuc.org.uk/economy/tuc-21323-f0.cfm  

Shaggy comes to the job centre

If you remember the song 'It wasn't me' by Shaggy sing it to yourself as the background music to this fly-on-the-wall twitter account of the shambolic privatised so called help for jobseekers. A4E? 5E? or simply it can’t be! In the world of contracted out services no one it seems takes responsibility – other than of course shifting the blame onto immigrants. You really couldn’t make it up.
http://storify.com/yeebles/ted-harsh-s-job-centre-course
Anna Rose

The rapidly changing world of work

A new study by the McKinsey Global Institute confirms the remarkable expansion taking place in the global workforce. In 2010 the number of workers worldwide was 2.9bn compared to 1.7bn in 1980. By 2030 the total will have risen to 3.5bn with China and India being the main centres of economic development. Pressures on workers' living standards in advanced (western) economies will continue to intensify - between 1980 and 2010 workers' share of overall income fell by 7% - a result of rising corporate profits and declining wages - leading to growing income and wealth inequality:
http://www.economist.com/node/21556974

Workfare - it don't work and it ain't fair

The TUC has rejected this week’s Government proposals to extend the mandatory work activity scheme - which will force people without jobs to work for free - as ‘punishing people without jobs’
www.parliament.uk/documents/
commons-vote-office/June_2012/12-06-12/13.DWP-Mandatory-Work-Activity.pdf  A useful TUC Charter on work experience can be accessed here:
http://www.tuc.org.uk/economy/tuc-21054-f0.cfm

Five more years of rising unemployment

In most parts of austerity-riven UK, unemployment will continue to rise over the next five years. Job losses will be most acute in areas with high levels of public sector employment such as the North East, Scotland and Wales. The Centre for Economics and Business Research forecasts that the jobless rate could hit 10.7% by 2016: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17979559