Justice for Shahzad and Shama On 4th November 2014, a Christian couple Shahzad Masih (26 yrs) and Shama Bibi (24 yrs) were beaten, tortured and burned alive in the fiery furnace of a brick kiln -while those baying for their blood screamed praises to Allah. The incident occurred after Muslim accusers led by Muslim landowner Yousaf Gujjar alleged Shama had burnt the Koran. He then sent men to three mosques in neighbouring towns, while he tried to coerce money out of the couple who he had locked in a room on his land. Eventually in response to local Mosques preaching hatred over their loud speakers, a mob of over 300 Muslims gathered outside the locked room. They climbed the roof of the building and entered through the straw roof. They then beat the couple with sharp and hard implements, stripped them naked while they goaded them and finally burnt then alive in the kiln - when they could no longer stand due to their fractured bones. Until Pakistan reforms their ways more Christians and other minorities will meet a similar fate. This is not acceptable in the 21st Century or any other century. Petition by Wilson Chowdhry of the British Pakistani Christian Association Read more here: http://www.britishpakistanichristians.co.uk/blog/christian-couple-burnt-alive-in-brick-kiln-after-alleged-blasphemy The BPCA have initiated a benevolent fund for the family of Shahzad and Shama, if you would like to contribute, please follow this link: http://www.britishpakistanichristians.co.uk/blog/protest-in-kasur-on-9th-november If you are in the UK please join our protest outside 10 Downing Street, from 11am on Saturday 22nd November 2014. http://www.britishpakistanichristians.co.uk/blog/evangelical-christians-call-on-westminster-to-take-action-against-pakistan-for-summary-execution-of-

In June 2001- The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that two MAXIMUS employees filed discrimination complaints against the company. The employees stated that MAXIMUS is so lacking in diversity that the companies minority employees referred to it as "White Castle". July 2007- MAXIMUS settled a lawsuit brought against it by the United States government for involvement in falsifying Medicaid claims for $30.5 million. September 2011- MAXIMUS INC. was sued by U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) for disability discrimination for failure to promote a female employee because it regarded her as disabled. MAXIMUS settled the lawsuit in August 2012. Is this really the right company to take over from ATOS to assess ill and disabled people for their ability to work.

Three weeks in to a four-week programme of detailed, and so far productive, negotiations intended to resolve the four-month HMRC jobs and staffing campaign was ended by the employer on 29 October. HMRC decided to walk away from negotiations. We feel their determination to marginalise PCS clearly trumps their willingness to settle this dispute for the good of the job holders. We need to be involved in negotiations to achieve best deal for our members.

We didn't cause the financial crisis, the bankers did and our politicians decided to bail them out without asking us for our opinion on it first. They should therefore make some sacrifice too. The current basic MP salary is £67,000 and a cabinet minister earns around £135,000. This is between 3 and 6 times the average salary of the population and coupled with their generous expenses package, this makes them very comfortable indeed; the rest of us are suffering with low pay increases and rising living costs. Share the pain with us, as you are elected representatives of us; or are you all just in for yourselves and what you can get out of it?

The GMB is concerned that despite more than two years of economic growth, working people across the country are still suffering the longest real wage squeeze in over a century. Recently official earnings growth reached its lowest level since records began. GMB is also concerned given the biggest proportion of low-paid, part time workers in Dunnes is women. Official figures shows that earning less than the Living Wage is the norm for women in many parts of the country. With women accounting for almost three-quarters of the country’s six-million part-time workforce, the lack of skilled, decently –paid part-time jobs affects women’s pay and their career prospects far more than it does men. The idea behind the Living Wage is that a person is paid enough to live decently and to adequately provide for their family. Please sign the petition and pass on to others to sign, keep following the facebook page for an update on are attempts to gain recognition for Dunnes workers, in the coming weeks GMB will be launching a Public campaign outside all Dunnes stores for members of the Public to sign all above petition. If you would like some petition sheets sent out to you please contact me on 07808101359. Remember our strength is in our numbers if you have not already join please do so by joining online at www.gmb.org.uk.

We all need the NHS these people work for little money and gratitude , but without them where would we be !! Please support my campaign . Every day these people help us and our loved ones , what do MPs do ???

Would you think twice about going on a Thomsons cruise ship holiday if you knew the facts about it`s labour force? Non-EU citizens employed as housekeepers work long hours, without a single day off, over a seven month cruise season. A housekeeper's pay equates to about £2 an hour for back breaking hard work with as many as seventeen cabins and their passengers to look after. Living below decks in cramped, hot conditions, which are in stark contrast to the luxuries enjoyed by passengers above . Thomsons reported a "record" profit last year of £471 million. Thomsons need to improve standards and pay for its non-EU crew. Thomsons can boast its "record " profits but fail miserably in their duty to their non EU-staff .

The vast majority of people are appalled by the massive gap between the very richest and the very poorest in society; a gap that over the past two or three decades has been ever widening. Most people are particularly dismayed at the growing need for those in work to need the crutch of benefits to bring their income up to a living wage. An effective way of combating this is to outlaw excess at the top and to obligate fairer wages at the bottom. A relative earnings limit which puts a statutory maximum multiplier on the earnings of the highest paid employee v the lowest, should go some way to curbing this inequality. For example, if that maximum multiplier were x50 (which itself is massive), then if a CEO wished to be paid earnings (including bonuses) of £1,000,000 per year, then the lowest paid employee must earn the equivalent of £20,000 full-time salary. This petition doesn't in itself suggest what that maximum multiplier should be but simply that there should be some degree of relativity. We also appreciate that the policy and any legislation needs to be drafted with considerable care, to ensure that all earnings are included (including bonuses, pensions and share options) and to ensure that lowest wages aren't disguised by outsourcing the lowest paid jobs to other bodies. However fear of loopholes and abuse should not stop the brightest politicians and economists from devising a workable and legally binding way of promoting fairness through a relative earnings limit. We do not see such a limit applied to personal investors in and entrepreneurs and creators of new ventures - only to employees within organisations.

It is important because everyone who works with vulnerable adults and children should have a DBS check and be vetted. Why should there be rules for us and rules for them. Surely if I as a teacher have to have a DBS check paid for and a certificate in my hand before I set foot in the building I am working in then so should they. If you have been to the job centre recently you will notice that it now looks and feels more like a drop in centre. It is full of despairing people , hopeless lives trying to get out from under. I feel it is paramount that the staff not only have DBS checks complete prior to working there but they also need extra training and to have regular skills up dates too. The job centre is a difficult environment to cope with for the best of us these days but particularly for the vulnerable in society more so. And ironically most of the vulnerable people in society are unemployed and they are on the verge of becoming homeless and suicidal as a consequence of these punitive and unreasonable cuts. This is why the staff need to be properly equipped and show a professional duty of care.

Lets get nurses and other hardworking grassroots NHS staff the pay rise they deserve. MPs have had a 10% pay rise in the last year, cost of living is said to have gone up by 13% in the past year or so, yet nurses have been refused a 1% pay rise. Some hardworking nurses are having to visit food banks to get by, is this right ?

Many problems in social care in and around private sector centre around the failures of organisations to recruit and train staff appropriately. The dementia strategy is only one element of ensuring care is appropriate in both hospital and community settings, and that patients are treated with respect and the dignity they deserve. Not withstanding the fact that most of these services are purchased on behalf of either NHS scotland and local authorities and the majority of staff working in the care industry are often: (1) women (2) have unpaid caring commitments such as children or elderly relatives themselves (c) in poverty despite being in work (4) part time. Surely the large city councils in Scotland despite the squeeze on the public purse and NHS when commissioning should ensure that as part of the arms length approach to nursing and social care that staff are paid a living wage. This industry has large recruitment issues such as high turnover, and if companies paid the living wage it perhaps would go some way to address this and ensure adequate staffing with the appropriate knowledge and skills are employed. Most companies in the private sector do not recognise that the staff that are employed on basic salary despite giving up weekends and working unsocial hours with the only recognition of this fact being on 8 public holidays a year where staff are paid an unsocial hrs bonus and also a high number are on zero contracts.

It matters because the current government uses this to alter the true unemployment figures, the fact that it causes massive upheaval financial and health related does not seem to matter. Stop! Demonising the poor and vulnerable with your media propaganda, we all know who the real villains in this country are, I have yet to see a program about Hedge Fund trading in the capital. I am a unemployed teacher who was sanctioned at Christmas for 4 weeks (which is standard practice now) I won my case and they did not even turn up to the court so i could challenge their decision. I have been in the local paper about my story and on the local radio, (The News Guardian) they may be the government but that does not give them the right to destroy people’s lives to win votes.