(Pictured: NUJ strikers picket BBC studios in dispute over compulsory redundancies, July 2011)

During a lightning round of talks over two days in October 2010, the government and the Coporation’s director-general, Mark Thompson agreed a programme of savings worth £700m a year.

Unions believe the budget cuts would benefit the BBC’s rival broadcasters, including BSkyB.

Following revelations of Jeremy Hunt’s discussions with James Murdoch during the Leveson phone hacking inquiry, the NUJ says the BBC’s new boss – who is due to be appointed in the autumn – must be allowed to re-open talks on the frozen licence fee.

General secretary Michelle Stanistreet said: “The Murdochs have been shown to have had exceptional access to Mr Hunt’s office in furthering their commercial interests.

“The new Director General must be allowed to rip up the deal and start again.

“Today, the cuts have been laid bare; more than 2,000 jobs will go.

“The cuts will bring about irretrievable damage to news coverage, music, drama and the arts. They will severely reduce the BBC’s ability to fulfill its public service obligations.

“We are also very concerned that the Asian Network is to have its staff cut by half and be forced to move to London. The Asian network has been vital in nurturing talent within the Asian community.

“Why should the BBC be making cuts to its vital news service to fund £150 million a year for broadband roll out and a further £25m investment in a new local TV service that nobody wants?

“Licence payers are now also expected to fund the World Service, Welsh service S4C and BBC Monitoring. When times are tough, the money should be used to protect creative content and quality news journalism.”

Applications closed earlier this month for the job of Mark Thompson’s replacement as director-general of the BBC.

It is widely thought that only internal BBC executives are among the candidates – and the NUJ has hit back at threats of political interference in the decision about his successor.

Said Michelle Stanistreet: ”The NUJ would also like to take issue with Boris Johnson, London mayor, who said about the new DG’s post, ‘We need a Tory, and no mucking around’.

“No, we need a BBC free from political interference and no mucking around.”

The Culture Secretary is due to give evidence to the Leveson Inquiry at the end of the month.

International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia is held on 17 May each year. The TUC is urging union members and the general public to use the day to remember LGBT people who have been killed around the world simply because of their sexuality.

Homosexuality is still illegal in at least 80 countries around the world and in seven countries women, men and children are punished for their sexuality with death sentences.

The TUC is supporting LGBT communities around the world in its work in 2012, and helping unions internationally to develop their understanding and support for LGBT rights. A delegation of French union members is visiting the TUC headquarters at Congress House in London next week to learn from the good practice developed by UK unions.

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: ‘Unions have campaigned for equal rights for LGBT people in the UK with a great deal of success, but around the world the situation is very different.

‘In many countries LGBT people face harassment, intimidation, violence, ostracism, hate crimes – and even death – just because of their sexuality.

‘International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia is a chance for unions to highlight the suffering of LGBT people all around the world, and demand that the way they are treated is improved – both at work and in the wider community.’

The union says the recruitment of the latest wave of staff – in addition to 300 employed earlier this year – is an outright admission that London Underground limited (LUL) got their station staffing cuts programme wrong, and that if they had listened to the union in the first place they could have saved themselves a huge amount of disruption and embarrassment.

General secretary Bob Crow said: “Tube bosses were warned repeatedly that their job cuts programme would come back to haunt them and so it has proved.

“The axing of station staff has been a massive blunder that has left stations unstaffed, created safety problems and led to disruption from the moment it was introduced.

“Instead of listening to the union warnings tube bosses, under the leadership of Boris Johnson, ploughed on regardless and have now been forced into this massive U-turn.

“RMT remains deeply concerned that the legacy of this whole botched staffing cuts process will be a shortage of trained, safety-critical staff to cope with the massive pressure that will be thrown at the system throughout the Olympics period.

“Tube bosses owe Londoners an apology for this wholly avoidable fiasco and a cast-iron assurance that there will be no repeat of this kind of staffing blunder in the future.”

Related articles:

1. RMT demands investigation into Tube safety political “cover-up”
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3. RMT members ballot for strike action at Tube Lines

Parliamentary Under Secretary for Justice Jonathan Djanogly went on to say the government was not going to do anything about it.

UCATT general secretary Steve Murphy said: “The government has washed its hands of pleural plaques victims. On the one hand they admit that it is unfair that all sufferers won’t receive compensation and in the next breath they reveal they intend to do nothing about it.

“Plaques victims have suffered irreparable scarring to their lungs due to prolonged exposure to asbestos. Employers knew the risks workers faced but didn’t care. The fact that pleural plaques sufferers in England and Wales are still denied compensation while those in Scotland and Northern Ireland can claim, has created a postcode lottery for asbestos victims.”

Jonathan Djanogly made his comment after Jarrow MP Stephen Hepburn asked whether the government would restore compensation to pleural plaques victims following the decision by the Scottish Parliament and Northern Ireland Assembly to restore compensation.

He replied: “The government understands it could be seen as unfair for compensation to be available in one part of the UK but not in another.”

Compensation payments for pleural plaques victims were barred as a result of a case taken by the insurance industry to the Law Lords in 2007. Since that decision, firstly the Scottish Parliament which passed the Damages Act and more recently the Northern Ireland Assembly, have passed legislation to restore compensation for victims in their countries.

Steve Murphy said: “Asbestos victims are predominantly ordinary workers. This out- of-touch elitist government has no conception of the pain and suffering that they and their families experience.”

Blacklist hero Dave Smith (pictured above, right) last night gave his support to Carillion strikers in Swindon, telling them: “Don’t give up. Our battle for justice is exactly the same as yours.”

He was speaking at a public meeting in the town, attended by domestic workers who yesterday took their 19^th day of strike action against bullying, intimidation and corruption by the company.

He said: “It doesn’t matter if you’re black or white. It doesn’t matter if you work in the health service or in the construction industry. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a porter or a building worker. The fight for trade union rights is the fight for human rights. We’ve got to carry on because our fight is just.”

Former engineer Dave Smith took Carillion – the company that is running the PFI contract at Swindon’s Great Western Hospital – to an employment tribunal after he discovered his name was on an unlawfully-held blacklist, believed to hold the details of more than 3,000 trade union activists.

He lost the tribunal because he was not employed directly by Carillion, but via an employment agency. He is planning to appeal against the decision.

He told the meeting: “When I was working at Carillion I was a UCATT safety rep. I lost my job because I raised concerns about asbestos and the state of the toilets on the building site.

“My union safety rep credentials were photocopied and sent to a centralised blacklist which was used to stop me getting jobs in the future.

“I think Carillion have a pathological dislike of trade unions. In the contruction industry, repeatedly, they sacked any of the union stewards and safety reps, now with PFI they’re bringing the same practices into the health service. They’re an absolute disgrace.”

Earlier in the day, more than 100 GMB members went on strike after Carillion announced a further two-month delay in the publication of a second investigation into corruption by managers.

The company last week admitted staff were required to “give gifts” to managers to secure holiday time.

One of the strikers, Marcal Crasto, told UnionNews: “We are a bit impatient now because Carillion told us they would take two months to sort it out. We are looking for nothing else than respect at work and for all this bribing and corruption to stop.”

As strikers stood on the picket lines, the GMB’s mobile office parked nearby, allowing four of the union’s solicitors to document their members’ employment tribunal claims.

GMB regional officer Carole Vallelly said the strike was “absolutely solid”, warning Carillion “it is definitely not over. It’s hardly begun, in fact.”

The proposals came in evidence to the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB), which is expected to make formal recommendations on teachers’ pay reforms later this year.

Michael Gove described the current system for teachers’ pay as ‘rigid, complex and difficult to navigate’.

He said: “It does not support schools to recruit and retain the high quality teachers or leaders they need to address specific shortages and benefit their pupils.”

However, critics have dismissed his evidence as not only ‘woeful’ and ‘a month late’, but say their own research into teachers’ pay ‘demolishes’ the Coalition’s case for regional or local pay.

Christine Blower, general secretary of the NUT, said: “Michael Gove’s latest proposals on pay fly in the face of evidence.

“Yesterday’s OECD report showed that performance pay in schools does not raise standards.  Last week’s Sutton Trust survey showed exactly the opposite of what both the Sutton Trust and the Education Secretary claim.

“Teachers are already suffering from pay freezes, job losses and increases in pension contributions – they now face pay cuts due to a policy based on ideology not evidence.

“Like so many of Michael Gove’s ideas, these proposals will demotivate teachers, damage team working in schools and worsen recruitment and retention problems – the very opposite of what is needed”.

The threat of ‘zonal pay’ for teachers and other public sector workers follows a claim from the Chancellor, George Osborne, in his November 2011 statement that public sector pay was outstripping that of private sector workers and was damaging local recruitment.

Independent analysts have described that as a misleading oversimplification.

They say previous experiments with regional pay – including those attempted in the NHS during John Major’s Conservative government in the early 1990s, to a more recent scheme, favoured by the Chancellor, at the Ministry of Justice – have either shown no obvious savings for the government, proved too complicated to administer, or collapsed under legal challenges of pay discrimination.

(Pictured: DfE graphic)

In its own submission to the STRB, the NASUWT warned that the Department for Education has adopted policies which run the risk of ‘recreating the recruitment and retention crisis which paralysed the education service in the late 1990s.’

Chris Keates, NASUWT general secretary, said: “The new research, drawing on evidence of best practice from both the public and private sectors, demolishes the Coalition Government’s case for local and regional pay.

“The research shows that the leading public and private sector organisations have national pay frameworks.

“The Secretary of State was a month late making his submission to the Review Body, presumably because of his desperate attempts to find any compelling evidence of the need for change.”

The union commissioned research from the analysts, Incomes Data Services, which found ‘a significant constant’ was that those who have advocated local pay arrangements have shown little knowledge of how actual private sector pay arrangements work.

It said industrial sector and industry skills are far more important than geography in determining pay levels.

Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: “We fully support Michael Gove’s desire to attract the highest performing graduates into teaching and retain the best teachers.

“We also agree that good teachers help raise standards, but constant bashing and undermining of teachers and schools by the Secretary of State and his side-kick at Ofsted is not the way to achieve this.

“Pupils in the most deprived schools would have less chance of getting the best teachers if their schools’ pay had to reflect the local economic conditions.

“ATL members, both teachers and heads, have told us they fear a regional pay system would discriminate against younger and older staff, those teaching younger children, and those not teaching English, maths or a science subject.”

Government claims on the need to introduce regional pay have been undermined by the evidence of previous attempts to vary salaries in different parts of the country.

The Institute of Directors conducted a survey in November 2011 and it asked members if ‘national public sector pay scales make it difficult for SMEs in some parts of the UK to attract skilled staff because they can’t compete with the public sector on wage levels.’

In response, 57% said never and only 7% said frequently.

The Chancellor, George Osborne, has encouraged other government departments to follow the example of a zonal pay system at the Justice Ministry.

However, Incomes Data Services found the scheme encountered problems when it tried to differentiate between zones as close as Liverpool and Manchester.

It also found that several previous attempts to devolve pay often foundered because local managers did not have the skills or other resources to determine local pay rates accurately.

Related articles:

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2. Teaching unions tell Gove he could do better over arts
3. Teaching unions strike out at Gove

It comes as ballot papers are being sent out to more than 20,000 Unite bus drivers and other workers, in the 6-month dispute over Olympics bonuses.

Bus workers are the only London transport workers not receiving an award for the projected massive increase in workload during the 2012 Games.

A total 2,955 London residents and visitors were interviewed by MASS 1 on London buses and at major rail stations.

Half the respondents were interviewed in and around Stratford and the Olympic Park.

The survey found that 88% thought London bus workers should get an Olympic payment in line with other transport workers in the capital.

Also, backing up the union’s argument that bus drivers will be on the ‘frontline’ during the Olympics, 84% of those surveyed believed that bus workers have the most contact with passengers.

Unite’s regional secretary for London, Peter Kavanagh said: “Londoners, commuters and tourists overwhelmingly believe bus workers deserve an award for keeping London moving during the Games.

“With 72 days left until the Games begin and a strike ballot underway, it’s astonishing that bus operators are still doing zero to resolve this dispute and [transport agency] TfL is refusing to get involved.

“Passengers should direct their anger at TfL and the bus companies.

“Their behaviour is a massive dereliction of duty to London.

“If bus workers take strike action up to and during the Olympic Games the bus companies and TfL will be to blame.”

Following months of protracted negotiations with transport unions, workers at Network Rail will get an Olympic Games £500, Docklands Light Railway staff will get £900, plus guaranteed overtime at enhanced rates and Virgin Rail has agreed a £500 Olympic payment.

A separate offer of at least £600 has been accepted by workers at TfL’s London Overground.

Unite members at London Underground will receive £850.

It means the percentage of people out of work is down marginally, to 8.2%.

However, the latest official figures show an increase in employment over the last three months was largely accounted for by a rise in part-time work and people moving from staff jobs to become self-employed.

The numbers of part-time workers, self-employed people and those working part-time because they cannot find full-time work all now stand at their highest rates since comparable records began in 1992.

According to the Office for National Statistics, the total number of people working part-time but would like a full-time job is now at a high of 18%.

Analysts say the trend is accompanied by a collapse in real wages.

The ONS says total pay (including bonuses) rose by 0.6% on a year earlier. This is the lowest growth rate since March-May 2009 and is down 0.5% the three months to February 2012.

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said:“Today’s figures are mixed, with the welcome fall in unemployment driven entirely by part-time jobs.

 “However the collapse in wages is terrible news for people in work and threatens our chances of economic recovery.

 “The number of under-employed people, who are taking part-time and temporary jobs for a lack of permanent full-time work, has hit two million for the first time ever.

 “The falling number of full-time jobs and six per cent fall in real wages over the last two years means that people are having to make huge salary sacrifices and put their careers on hold just to stay in work.

 “People’s incomes and job security today are barely any better than they were at the height of the financial crash.

“Unless governments act together and stop our austerity misery spiral, the UK’s economic depression will continue for far longer than feared.”

The ONS says youth unemployment across the UK has fallen by 17,000 to 1.02million.

Total employment was 29.23m, which is up 105,000 on last month.

the jobless rate in the north-east of England remain the highest in the UK, at 11.5%.

Unemployment rose in the region 6,000 to 148,000 between January and March.

The GMB says today’s figures show the Coalition’s ‘gamble’ with the economy has failed.

Paul Kenny, GMB general secretary said, “Instead of borrowing to support the economy and to continue the recovery, the government has had to borrow to fund the recession.

“We have spent the last two years going backwards and this is why the electorate have voted down this failed policy.”

Related articles:

1. UK “total unemployment” rate more than 6 million – says TUC
2. Jobless figures – down overall but youth unemployment still above 1m
3. ANALYSIS: Unemployment stats – so much for rebalancing, Mr Osborne

The unions say the proposals will make holiday arrangements more difficult and more expensive.

GMB regional officer Chris Needham said: “This lobby is to oppose the imposition of the five term school year by the City Council. This has been called by GMB, the teaching unions, school governors, some parents and other unions.

“There is no educational benefit for this change. Nottingham City is the only education authority in England to put forward these proposals.

“If introduced the shorter summer holiday will make holiday arrangements more difficult and more expensive. It will damage the tourist industry in the UK.

“Cllr Collins had said that he would meet a delegation about this situation but then changed his mind arbitrarily and refused. Nottingham parents and school staff must demand that he listens.”

* The lobby starts at 5pm outside Nottingham City Council, Loxley House, Station Street, Nottingham NG2 3NG.

Thirty-six jobs, out of a total of 63 posts in support services on the Masters courses, are at risk and those who do survive the cull face pay cuts and increased workloads. The UCU warned that slashing jobs, whilst increasing student fees, was the quickest way to seriously damage the institution’s reputation.

From the next academic year (September 2012) students will face minimum fees of £20,000 for the Business School’s one-year Masters course (which represents a 100% increase from just two years ago in some cases).

The union called on the University of Warwick to withdraw the plans and to enter into proper consultation on the future of the school and work with it to avoid compulsory redundancies. UCU added that removing vital support staff at the same time as increasing fees was simply not acceptable.

UCU regional official Martin Machon said: “Plans to axe 36 posts whilst charging students more for courses are crude and seem to be little more than profiteering. It is simply not acceptable to expect fewer staff to deliver the same kind of service and, unless these plans are reversed, Warwick is on a fast track to damaging its reputation.

“UCU calls on the university to withdraw the proposals and enter into meaningful negotiations to avoid compulsory redundancies.”