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Issue 13
Supporting our members and reps
Unite education gets bigger and better
Education can be a passport for the future. Unite has long provided the biggest adult education programme in the UK, and it’s about to get much bigger.
This Thursday, 16 July, our MC2 online education programme launches = More Choices, More Careers, More Confidence. For just £4 a month every Unite member can have access to the new platform.
Find out more and register for a FREE 30-day trial here
Fighting for jobs
Save UK jobs
Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, said last week of his new jobs retention bonus scheme that “without question, there will be deadweight”. In response, your union has launched a #SaveUKJobs campaign.
Workers are not deadweight. They are the breadwinners, supporting their families and spending wages in their communities.
Please join the fight for decent jobs and a better future. Find out more and sign up here
Unite analysis of the chancellor’s summer statement
Our general secretary Len McCluskey described the measures announced by the chancellor as having “failed the enormous test” before him to protect the jobs and incomes of working people.
The jobs retention bonus – a one-off payment of £1,000 to UK employers for every furloughed employee who remains continuously employed through to the end of January 2021 – will “barely touch the sides of what needs to be done to support strategic industries”, while the chancellor’s refusal to extend a modified furlough scheme would mean a tsunami of summer job losses.
Unite is determined to win a better deal for members, to protect jobs and skills now and for future generations.
Read Len’s response in full
Unite hails deal to prevent Ryanair job losses
Unite has secured an agreement with Ryanair to protect the jobs of cabin crew. In contrast to so many aviation sector employers, the airline has taken a constructive approach and worked with Unite since it announced the cutting of 3,000 jobs across Europe to ensure job losses and the closure of bases did not happen in the UK.
The deal involves temporary tiered pay cuts that will start to be restored in 2023, or earlier if pre-Covid levels of business return.
Read more about the deal here
We Need Our Steel
Unite has teamed up with sister unions GMB and Community to launch a joint campaign for the future of the UK steel industry.
Through the ‘Britain, We Need Our Steel’ campaign, we are calling for the infrastructure and investment programme – Build, Build, Build – announced by the prime minister to aid the country’s economic recovery to use steel produced in Britain to support the industry and jobs.
Watch a film about the campaign here
Winning wages
Unite wins at Moxy
A big Unite win for our members at Moxy hotels, one of the many brands of Marriott, who will now benefit from the job retention scheme and receive thousands of pounds in backdated wages.
Management had initially refused to furlough their workers but sustained pressure from Unite and the Swedish hotel union HRF and other Nordic unions forced the company to do the right thing.
Keeping you safe
Unite stay safe merchandise
We’ve launched a range of Unite-branded products designed to help you stay safe at work and in your communities. These include face coverings, hand sanitisers, hygiene hook keyrings, floor stickers and a self-sanitising anti-bac pen.
We expect the items to be really popular so there may be delays in production and dispatch, but please bear with us. Note also that we place a priority on UK and Ireland made products, produced by unionised workers.
More details here
Unite campaigns
Universal Discredit
Tomorrow, Wednesday 15 July, is the Unite Community online day of action, calling for a fairer social security system for all.
At a time when when jobs are being destroyed across the country, the use of benefit sanctions is unnecessary and particularly cruel. We’re calling for the government to stop benefit sanctions, end the five-week wait for payment and that the temporary £20 additional weekly payment be made permanent.
Find out more and get involved here
Summer of Solidarity
Tolpuddle festival goes online
Tolpuddle is where trade unionists come together to honour our movement’s founders and heroes and the lives, struggles and victories of rural workers. As with so many summer events, the three-day festival goes online this weekend. You can join it here
Len McCluskey has recorded a short film celebrating our #SummerOfSolidarity and thanking all our key workers who have kept us safe and our communities working during the pandemic.
Durham celebrations
The Durham Miners’ Gala also refused to be silenced by the pandemic. You can watch some of last weekend’s online Big Meeting here
And Len McCluskey recorded his own tribute to the Gala and the working people and communities it celebrates.
Len also wrote about the Gala and our fight for decent pay rises for key workers and NHS staff in last Saturday’s Morning Star.
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Unite in West Lothian Council 