Tag: TUC

TUC calls for Barclays to come clean on Burma

Responding to the news that Barclays Bank has agreed to pay fines for breaching US sanctions against Burma, TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: “It's a disgrace that Barclays has been violating US sanctions and doing business in Burma. Foreign financial services are helping Burmese generals to loot the country's natural wealth and to fund a military accused of committing horrendous crimes against humanity.

Social mobility challenge needs ‘fundamental moves to reduce inequality’

Responding to the Deputy Prime Minister's speech on social mobility today (Wednesday) TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: “There is something deeply strange about a government announcing its commitment to social mobility in a week when thousands of school leavers with good exam results will find that they cannot get a university place because of the same government's spending cuts.

Chancellor has ‘different definition of fairness to the rest of us’, says TUC

Responding to the Chancellor's speech to City analysts in London today (Tuesday), TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: “The Chancellor has a different definition of fairness to the rest of us. “His spending cuts are hitting the most vulnerable, his one big tax rise was VAT – the unfairest tax of all – and his economic policies are bearing down on the young, trapped between unemployment and an education sector with not enough places.

The social mobility challenge for Milburn’s in-tray

A new report on social mobility published by the TUC today (Tuesday) reveals Alan Milburn has much to do in his new role as social mobility tsar for the coalition Government. Social Mobility – the TUC's most recent in a series of bi-monthly economic reports – finds that in Britain 50 per cent of a child's future earning potential is determined at birth, compared to less than 20 per cent in Canada, Australia, Denmark, Norway and Finland. The UK has the worst record on this front of any of the countries the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has data for, also lagging behind the US, Italy, France and Germany.