NEWS

British Trade Unions must find a way to marry the need for climate action with the need for a worker led approach to the economic and industrial changes implied. Are we on the road to doing this, and if so how? In order to encourage this debate at the grass roots, Blackburn and District Trades…

June’s Trades Council meeting considered ‘Modernising Support for Independent Living: the Health and Disability Green Paper’, which is essentially a consultation on Personal Independence Payments (PIP) criteria and assessments. The plans, if implemented, would potentially affect who qualifies for eligible for PIP and the type of help they might receive. The Green Paper was published…

Speaking at the Blackburn with Darwen Community Network Conference in May 2023, Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB Chief Executive Kevin Lavery used the example of A&E services to argue that the distribution and configuration of activities across the ICB footprint was not what they would be if NHS managers had a blank slate and could…

Getting improvements in work practice where there is no direct Trade Union “effect” is a slow and difficult process

This year’s Annual General Meeting of Blackburn and District Trades Union Council showed that the structural problems which threatened the organisation’s survival in 2022 are far from resolved.

The postal regulator, OFCOM, has developed a reputation for being hand in glove with the direction of travel set in motion by the privatisation of Royal Mail. Long-term pressure from shareholders wanting to make more for their investments has produced the problems outlined in the recent Panorama programme “Royal Mail: Where’s My Post?”: BBC One…

On Thursday 18th April the Trades Council is hosting a meeting in Blackburn Library on the topic of “Decent Work – what can we do locally to promote it?“. It is scheduled to begin at 3pm and finish at 5pm, and the speakers will be: Dr Adrian Wright – Associate Dean of the School of…

Blackburn and District Trades Union Council has responded to the Lancashire “devolution” proposals by raising several issues around economic development and public engagement. The Trades Council’s approach to the linked issues of devolution, regional economic development, the legacy of de-industrialisation, “left-behind” communities, and regaining economic growth, is that: A) British governments consistently underestimate the scale…

January’s Trades Council meeting agreed a response to be submitted in response to the Government’s “consultation” on “Hiring agency staff to cover industrial action”. We are by no means convinced that those in power give anything but the most cursory attention to what they receive during these exercises, but they do at least provoke us…

Ahead of this year’s Autumn Statement, Mel Stride, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, unveiled a new initiative called the ‘Back to Work’ plan. The aim of the package is to focus on the over 1 million people who are either long-term unemployed or have long-term health conditions or disabilities and who depend…