Blackburn and District Trades Union Council
Blackburn and District Trades Union Council
Most Trade Unionists would agree that one of the big issues facing us in Britain today is the decline in Trade Union membership since the 1970s. One of the reasons we have partnered with the Ella Barker School of Organising to run an online session on Tuesday 3rd May: Strategy, Power and Union Resurgence (actionnetwork.org)…
On 17th March the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) announced that it intended to make large-scale office closures all over the country. Amongst the offices affected is Cardwell Place in Blackburn. April’s Trades Council meeting agreed to support the PCS campaign against these closures and to write to Blackburn’s MP, Kate Hollern, on the…
Any organisation, like our Trades Council, which must depend entirely on volunteers, fears one threat above all others – that there will be no-one available to take on the roles necessary for it to function effectively. At this year’s Annual General Meeting, which took place last week, we found ourselves within a whisker of this…
Current legislation on British Pensions means that the State Pension age will rise to 67 in 2028 and to 68 by 2046. It also provides for regular Reviews. The first of these took place in 2017, and it said that the Second Review should consider bringing forward the date for the State Pension age to…
Workers’ Memorial Day, held on 28 April every year, brings together workers and their representatives from all over the world to “remember the dead and fight for the living”. In 2022 the theme is: “Make safe and healthy work a fundamental right”. Join us in Blackburn at 11.30am on Thursday 28th April as we return…
January’s Trades Council meeting considered the issue of the Lancashire Local Skills Improvement Plan (LSIP), which stems from a government white paper ‘Skills for Jobs’. Delegates received a report which gave details of the project but raised doubts on the extent to which it relied on employers to predict the skills required in the future. …
Delegates at November’s online Trades Council meeting discussed the announcement that Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council intended to participate in the “Platinum Jubilee Civic Honour Competition” and seek a grant of “city status” It was noted that this status is purely “honorific”, and that it entailed no actual change in features such as political structure…
Trades Council meetings continue to be held online, with delegates preferring to take a cautious approach and agreeing to review the situation in January. Maybe we have got too used to not having to gulp down our tea and head off into a cold and rain-swept night! But we also do get sobering insights from…
Our February Trades Council meeting finalised our “response” to the consultation being conducted by Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council on its “Local Plan”. The Local Plan will, when adopted: > Provide the strategy for the use of land and buildings up to 2037;> Set out where future homes, employment areas and services such as shops…
May’s Trades Council was preoccupied with the breaking news that Blackburn College was expected to announce yet another round of redundancies, and that this time the damage would include the closure of the Trade Union/ Health and Safety Education Centre. The College subsequently confirmed this: 29 members of staff were declared to be at risk…