It has the seventh lowest life expectancy, the fifth lowest GDP per head and the third lowest level of purchasing power in the world. But it also has the ninth highest level of consumer price inflation and the ninth highest prevalence of HIV/Aids.
The rate of inflation fell last month. Gordon Brown’s preferred Consumer Price Index (CPI) rates fell to 1.9 percent in July from 2.4 percent in June.
Local government employers have agreed to reopen talks with unions over this year’s disputed local government pay offer in England, Northern Ireland and Wales.
The government’s recent "improvement" to the pay offer to health workers in England is being greeted with widespread derision and dismay – particularly in Unison, the largest union in the NHS.
Royal mail management are still refusing to release the company’s full financial accounts – which would reveal the extent of the bonuses paid to company bosses.
Around 100,000 workers in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) have just received a below inflation pay offer. The PCS civil service workers’ union group executive in the DWP has rejected the offer and members are balloting over it until 10 September.
Hospital closures put lives at risk Thousands of patients could die as a result of the closure and downgrading of local hospitals, new research has revealed.
Health workers in Manchester have delivered a stinging rebuke to their management by voting by almost 90 percent to take strike action to defend suspended nurse and Unison union activist Karen Reissmann.
Bus workers from across London are set to stage a series of protests at key London transport and local government offices on Thursday of this week.
London Underground workers at the failed Metronet consortium have voted overwhelmingly to strike in defence of their terms and conditions.
Almost 8,000 council workers in the Unison union in Edinburgh are set to strike on Thursday of this week in a clash with the Liberal/SNP coalition council over proposed budget cuts and the threat of compulsory redundancies.
Some £30 billion was wiped off the value of employee pension schemes during last week’s turmoil in the world’s financial markets – putting workers’ pensions further at risk.
