Author: bdtuc

The coincidence of the 75th “birthday” of the NHS with acute public awareness of ways in which our health system is currently under stress has pushed the issue of healthcare up the political agenda and prompted a wide range of reflection on what the future holds. Millions are on waiting lists or long-term sick. In…

June’s Trades Council meeting decided that we should write to our three local MPs on Tuesday 20th June to express our support for the “Save Our Schools” Lobby of the House of Commons. Here is the text of the letter sent: “We are writing to record our support for the Lobby of Parliament that has…

Workers’ Memorial Day this year coincided with the release of a report from PROSPECT, the Union for Health and Safety Inspectors, which revealed that:                • funding for the Health and Safety Executive in 2021-22 was 43% down on 2009-10 in real terms on a comparative basis;                • The level of cancelled mandatory investigations…

The April Annual General Meeting of Blackburn and District Trades Union Council was addressed by a guest speaker, Professor Ralph Darlington, who has just published a new book “Labour Revolt in Britain 1910-14”. His book may seem to have come out at a very apposite time, given that its appearance corresponds with a contemporary upsurge…

“It is like having a law on burglary that simply decrees burglars should not make a mess”

The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has noted that “UK workers are currently enduring the longest pay squeeze in more than 200 years – with average pay still worth £85 a month less than in 2008. And in the public sector average pay is down by £204 a month in real terms compared to 2008″. We…

The British Government, through H.M.Treasury, asserted to the public sector pay review bodies in December 2021 that satisfying public sector pay claims in 2022 would be “inflationary”, and it has stuck to that position ever since. The argument it put forward, however, was not that such settlements would be inflationary in themselves.  The proposition, instead,…

January’s Trades Council meeting was held shortly after the Trades Union Congress announced a day of national protest on Wednesday 1st February to “Protect the Right to Strike!”:  TUC to hold national ‘protect the right to strike’ day on February 1 | TUC The Government is presenting a “Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill” to Parliament…

2022 ended with several reputable organisations producing Reports emphasising the scale of the “cost of living” pressures facing British workers, which are the root of the current “strike wave”. The International Labour Organisation claimed, in its “Global Wage Report 2022–23”, that “for the first time this century, global real wage growth has become negative while…

“Belonging: The Truth Behind the Headlines” – in Blackburn Library Tickets, Wed 14 Sep 2022 at 18:30 | Eventbrite A free community screening. Doors open 6.30pm. Film at 7.00pm. “The Parliament which granted the franchise to a large proportion of the British working class in 1867 did so with a singular lack of enthusiasm.  In…