THERE are more than 18,000 young people in the Liverpool city region claiming jobseeker's allowance.

Union members will be meeting Coalition MPs over the next few weeks to urge them to say 'No' to postcode pay.

Delegations of union members will be lobbying both Tory and Lib Dem MPs over the Government's plans to introduce 'regionalised' pay bargaining.

We believe pay by postcode is divisive, inefficient and economically damaging.

Divisive, because it will increase the gap between the rich south east and the rest of the country.

Inefficient, because it will introduce another layer of bureaucracy and box-ticking to administer new pay systems for millions of public servants.

And economically damaging, because it will reduce the pay of public sector workers here in the North West.

With today's growth figures of just 0.2 per cent, its clear that we are now staring over the cliff into recession.

The Government needs to pull back immediately.

FIVE days after the biggest mobilisation of union members in Britain for a generation, a new campaign group was launched.

The self-styled Trade Union Reform Campaign attracted headlines in the Daily Telegraph and elsewhere for an attack on "facility time".

KEEP your ears peeled on Wednesday, November 30th.

For at precisely 1pm on that day, union members all over the North West will be telling the Coalition Government exactly what they think of their planned pension changes.

IT was peaceful, united and a resounding success - the TUC's march and rally for the alternative brought 35,000 people to the Conservative Government's doorstep in Manchester.
The numbers far exceeded our expectations - and they came from all over the North West and from all over the country.

AS Liverpool returns to normal after the Labour Party conference, attention switches this weekend to Manchester where the Tory faithful gather for their annual get-together.
As the economy flatlines, will the Tories heed the mounting calls for policies to bring jobs and growth? Will David Cameron bring forward infrastructure plans for road and rail to get our economy moving again? Will the Tories back a European-wide Robin Hood tax on financial transactions?

FIVE thousand people lost their jobs in the North West last month, according to the latest official unemployment figures.
More than a quarter of a million people - 282,000 - are now out of work in our region.

CANDLES will be lit next week as the government's controversial Health and Social Care Bill receives its third reading in the House of Commons.

A nationwide vigil for the NHS is being organised on September 6th and 7th after the head of Britain's doctors described the government's Bill - already the largest and most complex in NHS history - as "high risk", "rushed-through" and "ill-thought-out".