UK 'facing casual labour upsurge'

Prime Minister Gordon Brown must act before employers turn most workers into "casual labour", the leaders of the UK's biggest union have warned.

Unite general secretaries Derek Simpson and Tony Woodley said increased use of temporary employment agencies were pushing down wages and eroding rights. Mr Simpson called the situation "one of the biggest scandals you can imagine". Unite will argue for tougher laws to protect agency workers at the TUC conference, which starts on Monday.

According to TUC research, temporary staff are on different rates of pay to those with permanent jobs in half of all workplaces. It also says that, in 25% of workplaces, temporary workers are not entitled to contractual sick pay and, in 14%, do not receive any holiday pay.

Read More:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6979020.stm from the BBC News Website

Comment:

It's time that Agency workers were treated fairly and with respect, instead of being treated as " a cheap and second class employees." I agree wholeheartedly with Unite's stand and campaign, and speaking from personal experience. I know the frustration and disappointment of this type of employment can bring, and I decided that some time ago, that I would no longer be treated this way, and am now studying for an HND Computing (Information Systems) course

Venturing into unreported China

China has pledged more freedoms for reporters ahead of next year's Olympics, but when the BBC's Dan Griffiths travelled to the countryside to investigate reports of unrest he was detained and questioned.

China wants to keep reports of rural unrest under wraps

The village of Shengyou is a three hour drive south of Beijing, deep in the countryside surrounded by fields of maize.

A traditional landscape found across this vast nation - but everything is not as it seems.
My taxi driver tells me that the police have set up checkpoints round the village. He refuses to go any further - so I go the rest of the way on foot. I walk down a narrow lane with broad poplar trees on either side. A small tractor chugs by, the driver stares at me - foreigners are rarely seen around here.

Round a bend in the road, I see two white vans. Several policemen are standing beside them. They look as out of place in rural China as I do. The questions come thick and fast. What am I doing? Where have I come from? Who is my contact in the village?

Over the course of the next few hours they will ask me this last question again and again. From nowhere a black car pulls up and I am ushered inside.

Read More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6983247.stm from the BBC News Website.

Comment:

Although China is an economic powerhouse of the World Economy, it's still not a democracy, and although in theory a Communist Country, there is a great deal of underhand and dishonest dealings both in Public and Private life, and as we see in this story from the BBC News Website, a great deal of unrest is occuring in China, due to amongest other things greed.

According to the World Governance Indicators report, Chinese citizens have very little freedom, out of a scale of 100%, they have a freedom indicator of 4.8%, compared to other countries freedom indicators for example Cuba at 7.2%, Russia at 24%, Canada at 94.2% and Denmark at 100%.

The Writing is on the Wall

Daft burglar writes name on wall

The two youths vandalised a children's campsiteAn 18-year-old burglar who vandalised a children's campsite building was caught because he wrote his name on a wall at the scene, a court has heard. Peter Addison, of Heaton Mersey, Stockport, and his friend Mark Ridgeway of Poynton, Cheshire, smashed crockery and let off fire extinguishers.

Addison received a conditional discharge. Ridgeway, 18, must carry out 60 hours' unpaid work.
Both pleaded guilty to burglary at Macclesfield Magistrates' Court.

Addison was ordered to pay £725 compensation and £20 costs. Ridgeway has to pay £20 costs.

Read more from the BBC News website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/6981558.stm