The Acas annual report for 2007-08 shows a massive increase in the number of cases received for conciliation, with the number of equal pay complaints received outstripping the traditionally most popular complaint, unfair dismissal, by more than 15,000.

Trade unions will be counting the cost after a Court of Appeal decision that the GMB committed indirect sex discrimination in failing to pursue Middlesbrough Borough Council in connection with a long-running equal pay dispute.

The Central Arbitration Committee has seen a steady stream of applications for trade union recognition according to its latest annual report (external website).

In the year ending 31 March 2008, it received 64 applications for trade union recognition, unchanged on the number received the previous year. The majority of applications came from the manufacturing, transport and communication sectors. Just over half (53%) of these were for bargaining groups of less than 200 employees.

If you enjoyed watching the Home Secretary's ordeal at the Police Federation conference, then you might want to watch the rest of the event live on the Federation's website.

They are also promising to post archive footage so you can watch those Jacqui Smith moments over and over again, should you so choose.

Trade unions can have an important role to play in the employer-employee relationship, but how do you go about setting up an effective working arrangement?

Union Island is the latest innovation in the virtual world Second Life. This trade union project provides a virtual island community for trade unionists and activists, which will let activisits from around the world meet and work together.

The launch of the island is being marked with a virtual May Day - a day of training and networking, including a dance party with a live DJ from Second Life's club 'Fracture'.

Themed surgeries are also planned - in Union Island's virtual bar - where trade unionists can swap practical tips from around the world over a pint of virtual beer.

Speaking as a trade unionist myself, I have to say I am most disappointed about the prospect of virtual beer . . .

The “soft” side of people management is more important than the rational, “hard” stuff and that’s official, coming from the lips of Professor Beverly Alimo-Metcalfe, who spoke at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) conference this week about her latest research into engaging leadership.

To sum up her findings (to be published later in the year) she confirms what many of us already believe – that treating people in the workplace like human beings and allowing them to contribute meaningfully to the organisation can achieve wonders. One example of this is Pentax [subscription required], where the company directors transformed the profitability of the company by establishing a culture of real engagement.

Our recent survey (subscription required) looking at line managers’ role in people management shows that employee engagement is a growing part of a line manager’s function.

But, as our survey also shows, one in five HR practitioners responding felt that this was a role that line managers struggle to perform well.

I attended a seminar recently, given by international employee opinion survey ORC (external link), exploring this very topic. Kate Pritchard, ORC director of employee research, discussed practical steps organisations can take to keep engagement levels high among employees. This should help employees to remain committed to the organisation, and be prepared to “go that extra mile” – as outlined by ORC's model of engagement: ‘Say, stay, and strive’.

One thing was clear from the seminar: achieving and sustaining an engaged workforce requires effort, and conducting an employee opinion survey can be no more than a starting point.

Union members at the conciliation service ACAS have voted by two to one for a programme of rolling one-hour strikes in a dispute over pay, reports the BBC. This poses the intriguing question of who is best placed to intervene and help the two sides resolve their differences. Sounds like a job for . . . ACAS?

Well, we just about made the 1 million mark for strike days in 2007. Yesterday's ONS figures (subscription required) show there were in fact 1,034,000 days lost to industrial action last year thanks to a surprisingly high December figure of 68,000.

Still no sign of the end of the world, though.

Photo: Tube strikes on the way – Metro by Annie Mole

Employers across Europe are missing out on potential talent because line managers fail to engage poorer performing employees, according to a survey by Watson Wyatt.

The research, which covers 175 companies and 5,500 employees, finds that managers are far too preoccupied with top performers and fail to communicate effectively with those that show less promise. As a result, those that need to have their skills or motivation boosted are left high and dry.

It would appear that the hard times are over for Acas. The conciliation service learned today that it will be getting an extra £37 million from the government as part of the shake-up of the statutory disputes resolution process.

It is a nice welcome present for incoming Acas chair Ed Sweeney, who took over from his long-serving predecessor Rita Donaghy recently after what had been a difficult time for Acas funding.

Wouldn't you just love to work in Channel Four's HR department and have a boss like Luke Johnson? It must put a spring in your step every day as you head in to the office.

Well, publication of the number of days lost to strikes in November 2007 (subscription required) came and went this week and the world did not end. We are, officially, still 24,000 days short of the 1 million mark for 2007.

Not that that is going to deter Alan Duncan, the Tories' chief spokesman on business, enterprise and regulatory affairs, who says the figures show that the unions "have Brown over a barrel".

Which group of employees are the most engaged, committed and motivated in your organisation? Who has the greatest sense of affiliation with the employer, the highest career satisfaction and the most trust in management?

Step forward, the sales team . . .

It looks very much as though, when the final figures are in, the number of days lost to strikes in 2007 may have exceeded one million. If so, this will be the first time since 1996 – which you may recall as the last year before the election of a Labour government.

The latest official figures (subscription required) show that there were 948,000 strike days in the ten months to the end of October 2007, with around one-third of that number taking place in October itself. November's figures are due out on 16 January.

With grumbling in the police ranks over this year's pay deal now threatening to spill over into a demand for the right to strike, it is worth recalling that the police have been on strike before – most notably in 1918 and 1919.

It appears that UK managers are sticking to the stiff upper lip approach, when it comes to appraisals.

A survey by Investors in People has found that nearly half of employees (44%) who receive appraisals suspect that their bosses are not telling them the truth about their performance.

"There are eight million stories in the city, and this is one of them" goes the voiceover as the camera pans across a New York skyline. The face of Harvey Keitel fills the screen. But without a script, Keitel is speechless.

So too are Sean Penn, Kate Beckinsale, Martin Sheen, Susan Sarandon, Minnie Driver (pictured here), Julia Louis-Dreyfuss and – thankfully – the cast of Ugly Betty.

They are among the Hollywood A listers who have signed up to a project in support of the Writers Guild of America, which is currently locked in a bitter industrial dispute over payment for DVD and digital rights.

Members of the largest local government union will not be striking over pay this year, following a very narrow vote in favour of industrial action on a 24.4% turn-out.