The ‘What Budget?’ campaign

31 December, 2020Campaigns, Featured, Home page featured, News

Northumberland County Council Tory leadership recently launched a consultation on a new budget. They say they are looking to make ‘around £8m in savings’, and that they’re having to make the cuts ‘because of COVID’. Is that the extent of the cuts they want to make? No. Read on. And anyway: didn’t government ministers say … Read More

For every £1 spent on union-led training the economy gets nearly £13 back, new report reveals

2 December, 2020Campaigns, Featured, Home page featured, News, Trade Unions, Work, Economy & Environment

Issue date: 24 Nov 2020 TUC calls on government to urgently rethink proposal to axe Union Learning Fund  Scrapping the scheme will undermine the government’s “levelling up” agenda, warns new report  The funding should be reinstated at the Spending Review, says TUC  The TUC has today (Tuesday) called on the government to urgently rethink its decision to axe the Union Learning Fund (ULF).  … Read More

TUC report: more young workers lost their jobs summer 2020 than in all of 2019

21 November, 2020Featured, Home page featured, News, Trade Unions, Youth

Issue date 20 Nov 2020 Young people have been the hardest hit by Covid-19 economic crisis, TUC analysis shows  Number of 16 to 24-year-olds in work lower than at any point during 2008 financial crisis  Union body calls for government to invest in creating good new jobs to prevent a generation from being scarred by mass unemployment  More young workers were made redundant during summer 2020 than in all of 2019, according to new TUC … Read More

Labour Coast and Country – and the Tories’ ‘rule of six’

19 September, 2020ARCHIVE, Featured, News

At an online ‘Labour Coast and Country‘ online conference (5 September 2020), Labour List correspondent, Sienna Rodgers reported that Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Luke Pollard had said that: “There is no path to power that doesn’t see us winning seats in rural, semi-rural and coastal communities” But, following the government’s … Read More

New deal? Or the same old deal with different spin?

15 July, 2020ARCHIVE, Featured, Home page featured

A fortnight ago, Boris Johnson compared  himself to US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.   FDR’s New Deal turned round the economic collapse of the Great Depression.   He created the first ever US state pensions and unemployment insurance.   He promoted collective bargaining, improving wages and working conditions.   The Public Works Administration built dams, … Read More

Bywell Labour Party Branch – the Falcon Centre

26 May, 2020ARCHIVE, Branches, Bywell, Featured

The Falcon Centre in Wylam, owned by Northumberland County Council is a repurposed school house, built circa 1930, that is currently used as a library and a museum.  It also runs playgroups and Yoga classes, but it is significantly underused. Over the past two years a number of interested parties have been coming together to … Read More

TUC – JOIN A UNION HERE – find the union that’s for you

19 May, 2020ARCHIVE, Featured, News

The latest figures on employment and pay, published today by the ONS, which include new experimental data on the number of paid employees shows a sharp decrease of 450,000 between March and April 2020, and a sharp fall in pay. Commenting on the report, TUC General Secretary, Frances O’Grady says: “These figures are alarming – … Read More