NEWS

A&E chock-a-block. “Overspend” of £26m. Threat to “shuttle bus” This week we have been presented with a couple of “crisis” issues facing the East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, and Blackburn A&E. The situation at A&E in Blackburn received regional and local press attention, with reports of patients having to wait up to 15 hours. In…

This week is “Living Wage Week“, an annual opportunity to promote the work of the Living Wage Foundation and to encourage employers to seek Foundation accreditation: Accredit | Living Wage Foundation. The government announced recently that it is increasing the “National” Living Wage rates from £11.44 to £12.21 an hour for 21 year olds and…

A Report on our meeting: “Trade Unions and the climate crisis: green jobs and just transitions” The Trades Council organised this meeting in order to give local Trade Unionists an opportunity to consider issues arising out of global warming – whether this relate to national strategy or to the impact on activities that currently pay…

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…