Unite Welcome High Court Decision

September 30th, 2009 LONDON - Rob MacGregor, Unite national officer, said: "This agreement is a smoke screen designed to deflect criticism away from those who brought our banking system to its knees. The industry remains over populated with the greedy, arrogant and corrupt.

September 8th, 2009 LONDON - Diageo's announcement today (Wednesday 9th September) to reject proposals by the Scottish Government that would safeguard jobs has outraged Unite, the UK's biggest union. Unite is also furious that Diageo has made the announcement before the conclusion of the 90-day consultation period.

July 27th, 2009 LONDON - Although the appeal by SRM Global and other former shareholders in the Northern Rock case was today rejected by the Court of Appeal, the litigation continues and may ultimately go to Europe. The shareholders were appealing against the Divisional Court's decision to refuse a judicial review of the fairness of the Government's scheme to compensate former shareholders.

June 11th, 2009 NIEUWEGEIN, The Netherlands - In the appeal procedure the court in Rotterdam has confirmed the fine of 7,9 million euros for Ballast Nedam as imposed by the NMA (Netherlands Competition Authority). Subject of the appeal procedure was the amount of the fine for summary offences of the competition laws in the period 1998-2000.

May 13th, 2009 LONDON - Unite the Union, Britain's biggest union, has today (14 May 2009) succeeded in securing a landmark judgment from the Court of Appeal against Rolls Royce in one of the first cases on age discrimination to be considered by the higher courts. The Court of Appeal handed down its landmark judgment upholding Unite's resistance to an appeal by Rolls Royce against the decision of the High Court which declared that the use of length of service as one of a number of redundancy selection criteria was not age discrimination.

April 7th, 2009 LONDON - Unite, one of the former sponsors of the Rise anti-racism festival, has today (Wednesday), slammed London Mayor Boris Johnson for his short-sighted and hasty decision to cancel the event on the basis of what he deemed to be a lack of 'major sponsorship'. Unite regional secretary, Steve Hart, said: "Unite was never approached by the London Mayor, or by any of his staff in the run-up to this decision.

April 1st, 2009 LONDON - Derek Simpson, Unite joint general secretary, said: "The announcement by Aviva to cut 1,100 staff will cause alarm across the insurance industry. Today we see a scenario where a company that is continuing to deliver positive results is slashing the staff that have enabled them to weather the current financial storm.

March 24th, 2009 LONDON - Derek Simpson, Unite Joint General Secretary, said: "To slash 2,900 jobs demonstrates the insincerity of the claim by HSBC to be 'the world's local bank'. This decision will ravage a number of local communities as sites are closed and other work is sent abroad.

March 24th, 2009 LONDON - Unite has accused HSBC of "creative accountancy" with jobs as HSBC concedes that the true number of job cuts is in fact 2,900 as the union has rightly claimed, and not 1,200 as HSBC had originally claimed. Derek Simpson, Unite Joint General Secretary, said: "As if it was not bad enough for staff of HSBC to hear from the media that their jobs are at risk, we now have a situation where the company is failing to come clean with the true extent of these cuts.

March 11th, 2009 LONDON - Unite, the UK's largest union, reacted angrily today (Thursday) to the growing threat to jobs at United Biscuits' Liverpool site posed by a restructuring programme which could see 125 jobs offshored to India. The move has shocked workers because it is in stark contrast to the record company profits announced last year which saw workers receive bonuses and star awards for their achievements.

February 4th, 2009 KARACHI - Batsman Mohammad Yousuf Thursday spoke up for the rebel Indian Cricket League (ICL) players whom the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) continues to shun despite a court order lifting a ban on them, hoping the people would help them get their due. 'We have always received enormous support from the public and now I hope that the people will come out and protest to help us get our rights,' said Yousuf, who joined the ICL last November.

March 5th, 2009 NEW DELHI - President Pratibha Patil Wednesday appointed five chief justices of high courts across the country. 'The president is pleased to appoint Justice Chandramauli Kumar Prasad of the Patna High Court as the chief justice of the Allahabad High Court with effect from the date he assumes charge of his office,' said a statement by the ministry of law and justice here.

July 25th, 2009 SURAT - Families, which were victimised during the communal riots of 2002 in Gujarat, have expressed their happiness at the Gujarat High Court's green signal to the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to interrogate state Chief Minister Narenda Modi for his role in the riots. Zakia Jaffrey, whose husband Ehsan Jaffrey, ex-Congress MP was killed during the Gulburg society riots along with 39 others, hailed the decision.

May 5th, 2009 KUALA LUMPUR - Former Malaysian Indian Congress vice-president M. Muthupalaniappan, who was elected a delegate to the party general assembly in September, has offered to revitalise and unite the MIC in Negri Sembilan.

May 15th, 2009 KUALA LUMPUR - Temples in Malaysia should be used to unite the Malay Indian community, the Tamil Nesan quoted Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) secretary-general Dr. S. Subramaniam, as saying.

September 17th, 2009 Union returning to AFL-CIOPITTSBURGH — One of the unions that left the AFL-CIO in a bitter dispute that split the labor movement four years ago is coming back to the labor federation. The union of hotel, restaurant and clothing workers known as UNITE HERE is bringing its 265,000 members back a day after Richard Trumka became the newest AFL-CIO president.

June 29th, 2009 White House: Court ruling shows nominee not biasedWASHINGTON — Spinning a Supreme Court decision in its favor, the White House said Monday that the justices' reversal of a ruling that high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor endorsed as an appeals court judge proves that she follows judicial precedent. The high court ruled that white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., were unfairly denied promotions because of their race.

April 8th, 2009 BHOPAL - The Samajwadi Party has sought Congress' support for its candidate against Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Sushma Swaraj, who is contesting the Lok Sabha election from the Vidisha constituency in Madhya Pradesh. The nomination from the constituency of Congress candidate Rajkumar Patel was cancelled due to a technical reason.

May 10th, 2009 LAHORE - The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is in no mood to keep mum over the International Cricket Council's decision (ICC) of shifting 2011 World Cup matches from Pakistan, as it has now challenged the decision in the court of law. "We have served a legal notice on the ICC for this discriminatory decision.

February 5th, 2009 LONDON - Car giant Ford said Thursday it would cut up to 850 jobs at British plants by May and review this year's pay deal because of the 'serious economic situation.' The announcement brought an angry response from trade unions who said industrial action would be an 'option' if the plans went ahead. The US company, which employs 12,900 people in Britain, said that 'unprecedented circumstances' were behind the decision to review this year's agreed pay rise of a 5.2 percent.