Christmas sales were a moment of reprieve as high streets play whac-a-mole February 2, 2023 Even the biggest retailers were severely dented by the pandemic, strikes, inflation and rising energy costs. It might be a game of whac-a-mole, but the high street is ready for another year, writes Richard Curry.
Explainer: Among rail and school strikes, how supportive is the public? February 1, 2023 Today is both the first day of a new month and the first day of a new string of cumulative strikes that will go on for much of February. Rail workers, teachers, airport and university staff and the civil service are on the picket line today. It’s been months since industrial action started its resurrection [...]
Network Rail makes new offer to RMT in bid to avert more strikes: Pay increase stays but hours reduced February 1, 2023 Network Rail has tweaked the offer it made last month to the union RMT in a bid to avert more strike action. Chief negotiator Tim Shoveller sent yesterday an email to staff, saying the new offer “added some fresh proposals.” These include cutting down the hours of maintenance staff from 40 to 35 per week, [...]
Rail strikes: End is now ‘further away’ than when walkouts started, Aslef says February 1, 2023 A resolution to the dispute between train drivers and operators is “further away than when we started,” according to rail union Aslef. Around 12,500 Aslef members at 15 companies are on strike today as part of a ongoing dispute over pay and jobs, joining hundreds of thousands of workers in what is considered the biggest [...]
The Notebook: Neil Bennett on strikes, why public markets matter and the Lehman Trilogy February 1, 2023 When my old friend James Ashton (former City Editor of the – ahem – Evening Standard) told me a few weeks ago that he had become CEO of the Quoted Companies Alliance, I felt like sending him my St Jude pendant, for the patron saint of lost causes. For the quoted company sector has been [...]
Strikes happening TODAY: Hundreds of thousands of school and rail workers walk out as students and commuters left stranded February 1, 2023 Hundreds of thousands of workers – including school teachers – are going on strike for what will be the biggest day of industrial action in more than a decade. Teachers in England and Wales, who are members of the National Education Union (NEU), will embark on their first day of strikes on Wednesday, which threaten to disrupt more [...]
Rail strikes: TSSA considers revised pay offer from train companies January 31, 2023 Rail union TSSA has announced it has received two new offers from train operators in a bid to avert further industrial action. TSSA bosses said they will consider the deal – which is now extended to management as well as platform and station staff and is worth nine per cent over two years – and [...]
Walkout Wednesday: The London bus and train services affected by this week’s strikes January 31, 2023 Hundreds of thousands of workers will go on strike in separate disputes over pay, jobs and conditions in what will be the biggest day of industrial action in more than a decade. Teachers, university lecturers, train drivers, civil servants, bus drivers and security guards in seven trade unions will stop work on the same day. [...]
Hospitality braces for £100m in lost sales ahead of biggest day of strikes in over a decade January 30, 2023 Retail and hospitality figures have described strike action set to take place on Wednesday as “damaging” to the sector and “entirely avoidable”. Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UKHospitality told City A.M. she estimates union strikes this week will set the sector back a further £100m in lost sales, with “much of that impact being felt [...]
Explainer: Another problem with HS2 January 27, 2023 Britain is a country of many things, but right now, its railway is known for all the wrong reasons. On top of the strikes that make it impossible to plan a trip anywhere in the country – or to know whether you’ll manage to catch your flight from Stansted – the HS2 is back on [...]