Local government: The age of bankruptcy
The notion that local government could go bankrupt is a novel one, but one we’re going to have to get used to.
Local government
Local government
Services: Dunbarton strike
Pickets were out in force in East Dunbartonshire at the end of June after Unison members went on strike over cuts to terms and conditions including reductions to holidays.
Who should run the bins in Brum?
8 October 2017
Bin workers in Birmingham have been in dispute about job losses for over three months. The strike restarted in August after the council went back on a settlement. Action is suspended for now, but the dispute is not over yet. The people of Birmingham should defend their high quality collection service.
Dustcart strike vote in Birmingham
Birmingham’s refuse workers have voted for strike action over council plans to axe 122 jobs.
Millwall land grab exposed
23 February 2017
A multimillion-pound scheme to develop land around Millwall Football Club in south London is unravelling thanks to the concerted efforts of the club, its supporters, a fanzine and a locally based newspaper journalist.
Glasgow privatisation plans in turmoil
12 February 2017
Successful strikes by IT workers at Glasgow City Council have halted the attempt to privatise £400 million worth of services.
Unison: no movement on pay claim
Unison’s go-it-alone stance on local government pay has hit the buffers. Its additional pay claim for 2017-18 is not supported by other unions. Employers have refused the claim. New thinking is needed by workers to make progress.
Local government: divisions over pay
As the 2016-17 pay claim looms. Unison, GMB and Unite cannot agree what the claim should be – so Unison has decided to go solo.
Local government pay in disarray
Pay strategies in local government are now in disarray. Unison, the largest union in local government, has come to a standstill as the members reject the union’s direction of travel.
Pay again - local government
9 March 2016
The Trade Union Bill will soon to become an Act. This may even save local government trade unions from another fiasco over the so-called fight for pay in this year’s pay round.
Unions mull local government pay offer
21 January 2016
Unison, Unite and GMB are now consulting their members over the Local Government Association’s two-year pay offer of 1 per cent a year. Once again, rhetoric is outpacing reality.
Fresh attack on local government pensions
13 January 2016
The Centre for Policy Studies, regarded by the late Margaret Thatcher as her favourite think tank, has produced the blueprint for the next government attack on the Local Government Pension Scheme.
Local government pay talks under way
The 2016 local government pay negotiations are under way. Unite, GMB and Unison gird their loins for a battle, but the claim is weighted towards the “Living Wage”.
Council procurement policies under attack
12 October 2015
In yet another attack on civil liberties, the government has announced plans to to change the law so that councils may only disinvest, boycott or adopt sanctions if the action is in line with government policy.
Union rights restored
In the week leading up to the general election the London Borough of Wandsworth restored deduction of trade union subscriptions from payroll and returned to the Local Government national agreement they had torn up nearly 35 years ago.
Mayor removed after blistering court judgement
4 May 2015
The directly elected mayor of East London borough Tower Hamlets, Lutfur Rahman, was summarily removed from office when an election court found him guilty of corrupt practices at the end of April.
The DevoManc debacle
There’s been very little support for splitting up England whenever it has been put to the vote. Two years ago the people of Manchester voted not to have an elected mayor. They could not see why they needed yet another politician.
No pot of gold for South Yorkshire
3 April 2015
Judges have upheld a reallocation by the Department of Business Innovation and Skills of £50 million EU structural growth funds from South Yorkshire to Scotland and Wales.
Middlesbrough looks to outsource its public services
30 March 2015
Labour-controlled Middlesbrough is set to follow in the footsteps of Tory-controlled councils in outsourcing nearly all of its public services.
Northampton goes for 'big bang' privatisation
7 March 2015
Conservative-run Northamptonshire County Council is planning to outsource all its services in one go, reducing its workforce from 4,000 to a rump of 150 staff who will simply commission services.
Pay: take up the fight
Health workers will have to decide whether to meekly acquiesce in a continuous reduction of earnings or find a way to do what generations of workers before them have done: fight to improve pay.
Pay: Fiasco in local government
The local government workers’ pay “dispute” is in now in period of consultation, set to end on 12 November – and the latest stage of an increasingly bad farce.
We need a national plan, not division
The Scottish referendum stimulated local authorities in England to look to their own version of fragmentation…
1921: The ‘Poplarism’ struggle
The aim of the Poor Laws was always to punish the poor. By the start of the 20th century that policy was beginning to erode. But it took working class resistance to finish them off.