Pay packets worth up to 9% less than four years ago
Following last year's revelation that 97% of the 200,000 new jobs in the UK were part time, official figures show that full-time workers in 277 of 322 occupational groups have suffered a drop in living standards since April 2007.
Trade union GMB has analysed official data from the Office for National Statistics Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (Nov 2011) to reveal that the real value of average gross earnings for full-time workers in all occupational groups fell by 5.9% between April 2007 and November 2011. GMB say that this is due to the ‘bankers recession’ and stalled recovery.
%age fall in real value of earnings April 2007 to November 2011
Paul Kenny, GMB General Secretary, said: "These figures show that the Government’s strategy for an economic recovery is in tatters as living standards in the UK drop by 5.9%.
"Two thirds of the economy is consumer-driven and Osborne must be the only person who does not get it. Squeezing wages, pay freezes and cutting jobs will not restart the economy. Using the IMF measures, his cuts will reduce real private consumption by 4% and GDP by 3.4% over the next few years.
"When the ‘same old Tories’ were returned to power they brought with them the same old philosophy that 'if it’s not, hurting it’s not working.'"
There are 11 occupations where the fall has been more than 25%, 10 occupations where the fall has been between 20% and 25%, and 16 occupations where the fall has been between 15% and 20%.
In the analysis, GMB compares annual average gross earnings data for April 2007 (before the recession began) with the annual average gross earnings for the same occupation for April 2011, plus an uprating for wage increases to September 2011. The changes are measured against inflation over the same four-year period to calculate the real change in the value of these earnings.
Between April 2007 and November 2011, inflation was 16.1%, half of which (7.65%) has been since April 2010.
Affect or effect
If you search for the words affect and effect on the web, you’ll find, generally speaking, that the advice to help you differentiate between the two words is to remember that the one beginning with ‘a’ is a verb that means to make a difference to and the one beginning with an ‘e’ is a noun that means the change that results. My teachers told me much the same thing.
So, I might say that this knowledge has affected my ability to distinguish between the two words so I don’t suffer the embarrassing effects of a mistake.
But, the word effect can also be a verb. The Oxford Dictionaries online gives the meaning as ‘to cause (something) to happen’ or ‘to bring about’. So, for example, I might say I have effected a new plan for 2012.
See the usage note here for more.
'The Precariat’: A discussion with Guy Standing
An opportunity to hear Professor Guy Standing discuss his book The Precariat
The seminar will present the “Precariat” – an emerging class, comprising the rapidly growing number of people facing lives of insecurity, moving in and out of jobs that give little meaning to their lives.
“Every progressive movement has been built on the anger, needs and aspirations of the emerging major class. Today that is the precariat. The protests spreading across the world are manifestations of the precariat taking shape.” Guy Standing, The Guardian, June 1 2011
Guy Standing’s policy response to the precariat includes a Basic Income – the core of the proposal is that every legal resident of a country or community, children as well as adults, should be provided with a modest monthly income. There is growing interest in the trade union movement in a Basic Income and the discussants’ responses to Guy Standing will concentrate on this issue.
Guy Standing is a world-renowned expert on work and human security. Currently Professor of Economic Security at the University of Bath, he was previously Director of the Socio-Economic Security Programme of the International Labour Organisation, where he worked for 30 years.
Prof Ruth Lister is the Honorary President of the Child Poverty Action Group, Emeritus Professor of Social Policy at Loughborough University and a Labour member of the House of Lords. She has an outstanding reputation as an academic and as a campaigner against poverty.
Karen Jennings is UNISON’s Assistant General Secretary for negotiations, bargaining and equalities. She was previously UNISON’s senior national negotiator for health.
Free event with lunch. Room 1, 5th floor, Congress House, Great Russell Street, WC1B 3LS London, 17 January 2012 from 12pm to 2:30pm
Request more information by emailing Emma Hendy or register your interest here
We've all shared those water cooler moments of irritation at our managers' lack of judgement, compassion or competence, when we've let vent to whispered whinges that we hope our colleagues won't pass on and will eventually forget.
But how many of us have considered the implications of doing it online - a sniping email or a heat-of-the-moment Facebook rant?
A new report by GMB reveals that so-called 'social intelligence monitoring' of a negative 'digital footprint' can have devastating consequences if employers take advantage of a new generation of surveillance software that tracks online social activity. Updated from a 2005 GMB publication, From Workplace Watch To Social Spy: Surveillance In (And By) The Workplace by Professor Michael Blakemore reveals that deeper integration and power of surveillance technologies ensures that surveillance power is staying ahead of the rapid growth in the volume of information generated by increased computing power and software sophistication.
This runs counter to what some said in 2005, when they believed that the sheer volume of information and its distributed nature across many data sources and domains meant that 'information overload' was a protection against the information being used coherently.
Paul Campbell, GMB Organiser, said: "There has been a rapid blurring of the boundaries between private and public information. Individuals are leaving a massive digital footprint that can be used against them which will remain in cyberspace forever.
"Employers and employees need to develop protocols for dealing with this vast quantity of information. GMB in this report is giving advice to members as to what to do and not do so that they don't become a victim of this new 'Social Spy' technology."
GMB's summary of dos and don'ts show how not to leave a trail of incriminating evidence that could be harvested by an employer using these new surveillance technologies.
GMB’s dos and don’ts of social networking
Do:
- Think carefully before posting anything online.
- Have a clear understanding of what comments about your work will be tolerated by your employer.
- Take time to understand the privacy policies and controls for any social networking or blogging site that you use.
- Use access controls to limit who can see your information – and don’t forget who you have granted most detailed access!
- Use a separate email address to register with networking and blogging sites – preferably one that does not include your name.
- Check your privacy settings often. Think about who you allow as friends, and remember who they are.
- Consider that some people may not be who they say they are.
- Report users who violate the terms of use for the sites you are on.
- Be aware of your employer’s policy on the use of electronic communications. You might not be allowed to use sites like Facebook in work hours.
- Clearly state in your bio that all views are your own personal opinions and not those of your employer.
Don’t
- Publish your email address, telephone number or home address.
- Choose an email address that reveals private information about you.
- Make public other identifying information, such as your date of birth.
Janet Daley has conflated technological advance and economic growth, which I’m fairly certain she spends most of her other life extolling, and must have lived in a very different 1960s and 70s to me.
Single mothers were mostly reviled, not used as cuddly childminders you kept in the attic; my black neighbours and Irish family were faced daily with outright bigotry; homosexuality was only partially decriminalised in ‘67; my mother didn’t go out to work because we didn’t own a washing machine or a vacuum cleaner and most of her time was spent doing housework; my father decided what went on TV because he was the ‘head of the house’; when we didn’t have a car, we walked or used public transport so I saw my grandmother rarely because she lived an expensive train journey away in...Cheshire.
Nowadays, people like me can have a (15-year-old) car to get to work in, can study independently because we own computers, keep in touch with friends and family and stay up to date with current affairs, and even drop a thought or two of our own in, because we have smartphones.
That’s what the elite – the political leaders, the rich, the chattering classes – are threatened by: the erosion of their influence by the democratisation of knowledge and autonomy: ‘chavs’ like me have the same access to what they’ve had for a long time; people have fought for and won equality, as a political right, with the few who could afford it back in the golden era when we were all under their ‘superior’ thumb. The hypocrisy of the meritocrat is that they are always more meritorious than the rest of us.
On the other hand, we have 2.5m people out of work, nearly 1m or 25% of our young people; we’re seeing pay freezes and pension cuts; the financial sector gambles with our money and takes tax handouts when it goes wrong; politicians think they’re above the law; corporations are fleecing us and trying to make profit out of our public services.
So it’s not about social breakdown, or celebrity culture, or individual ‘acquisitiveness’. It’s a social revolution: people just aren’t engaged in the existing political and economic infrastructures and they’re beginning to do something about it.
Paul Mason says it much better than I can: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15326636.
And here are the four charts that explain what the protesters are angry about... http://read.bi/4Charts.
