Sustainable Switch: British junior doctors join strikes over pay
11/04/2023 14:18
Sharon Kimathi
Energy and ESG Editor, Reuters Digital
Hello!
Labor unions in Britain and Japan are calling for wage rises
as high inflation continues to squeeze salaries. And check out
today’s ESG Spotlight on Spain’s efforts to revamp its electric
vehicle production.
Junior doctors in Britain began a four-day strike over pay
on Tuesday that is likely to cause unprecedented disruption to
the state-funded National Health Service (NHS), prompting the
government to warn of a risk to patient safety.
Tens of thousands of the junior doctors — qualified
physicians who make up nearly half of the medical workforce —
are striking for pay rises better aligned with inflation, in a
walkout that follows a three-day doctors' strike last month.
The strike is the latest to involve NHS staff, following
walkouts by nurses, paramedics and others demanding rises that
better reflect annual inflation running at more than 10%.
Britain’s consumer price inflation ran at 10.4% in February, the
most recent official data shows.
The doctors have joined hundreds of thousands of other
public sector workers who have gone on strike in Britain
recently, including railway staff, teachers and civil servants.
Meanwhile, members of the National Association of
Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) union in England
are to be balloted on industrial action after becoming the
latest teachers' group to reject a government pay offer, the
union said.
It said in a statement that 87% of members voted against
acceptance of the pay deal. A separate consultative survey
showed 77% said they were willing to vote for strike action to
achieve a fair pay award. The government has offered teachers in
England a one-off payment this year of 1,000 pounds ($1,241.30)
and an average pay rise of 4.5% in the next financial year.
British consumers have been under pressure for more than
a year due to high inflation which has outstripped pay growth
for almost all workers. Last month government forecasters
estimated households were in the midst of the biggest two-year
squeeze in living standards since comparable records started in
the 1950s.
But it’s not just workers in Britain feeling the inflation
squeeze on salaries as the head of Japan's largest trade union
confederation on Tuesday called for further wage rises beyond
next year, arguing that this year's wage hikes were inadequate
if they prove a one-off.
The trade unions will demand further wage hikes next
year and the year after next to sustain wage growth, Rengo
President Tomoko Yoshino told reporters. "We don't believe that
one-off wage hikes for this current season would be adequate,"
she said. "Wages must go up, up and up to break the status quo."
Japanese labor unions have typically attached greater
importance to job security rather than aggressive wage hikes
following a series of financial crises since the late 1990s,
which has been a drag on wage growth, Yoshino said.
Japan's major companies wrapped up their annual labor talks with
average wage hikes of 3.8% for this fiscal year, the largest
rise in about three decades, Rengo's preliminary data showed.
Talking Points
* More than 500 people were evacuated from their homes in
South
Korea's eastern coastal city of Gangneung as strong winds fanned
a wildfire, officials said, but fears of a further spread eased
as rain helped firefighters battle the blaze.
* A unit of Toronto-based miner Brazil Potash is working to
keep a
$2.5 billion potash project on schedule, as legal challenges are
mounting to its plans for extracting the fertilizer ingredient
from beneath the Amazon rainforest.
* An Australian opposition lawmaker quit the shadow cabinet
in
disagreement with his Liberal party's decision to campaign
against a proposal to constitutionally recognise the country's
Aboriginal and Torres Island people.
* An Indiana high school did not break the law by allegedly
forcing a music teacher to quit after he refused on religious
grounds to use transgender students' preferred names, a U.S.
appeals court ruled.
* Breakingviews: Helping India, the world’s most
populous
nation, grow in a green way is one of the best things that could
happen for its people and the planet. While there are many
obstacles to a deal between the G7 and India, the prize is great
enough for both sides to overcome them, says Reuters
Commentator-at-Large, Hugo Dixon.
* In Conversation
Olivier d’Assier, head of applied research at German
financial intelligence company Qontigo, shares his thoughts on
inflation and recession concerns in the market:
“Investors’ aversion to inflation and its uptight cousin, a
hawkish monetary policy, stems from the belief that neither
affliction is consequence-free.
“The most anticipated recession in history is now also the most
postponed in history and seems to be always six months away.
Macro data isn’t helping clarify things either, inflation has
not been falling as fast as predicted, but nor has the economy.
“Each data release seems to be designed to give investors just
enough information to rule some things out, but not enough to
rule out all the things they are worried about.
“For the bears, good news is bad news that simply delays the
inevitable recession they foresee coming. Economists call this
‘reaching the point of diminishing marginal utility,’ which
stands for the moment when more of what used to make investors
happy no longer does.
“For the bulls, afflicted as they are with a fondness for the
bright side, good news is just a sign that the economy is
achieving a soft landing.
“As of now, investors feel each thesis is equally viable,
although looking back a few weeks from now, they may discover
that this equality stemmed only from the fact that both were
written using the same font type. Hint: they are mutually
exclusive, unless you want to call a mild recession a soft
landing.”
* ESG Lens
The Black unemployment rate hit a record low in March, a
milestone for a U.S. labor market that most policymakers and
economists expect to begin cooling in the face of higher
interest rates, jeopardizing those historic gains.
The 0.7 percentage point decline in the African American
unemployment rate was the largest since November 2021 and was
led by Black women, for whom joblessness dropped to a record low
4.2%. The rate for Black men ticked up to 5.2% from February's
record-low-matching 5.1%.
* ESG Spotlight
Today’s ESG Spotlight focuses on a revamped Spanish government
scheme aimed at encouraging electric vehicle (EV) production in
the country. Keeping with Spain, Swiss multinational commodity
company Glencore partners with a waste management firm to
provide lithium-ion battery recycling services in the country.
Madrid
will launch a new, more flexible
version of the PERTE scheme around July, worth 2 billion
euros ($2.2 billion) after last year's initial funding round
flopped, with only 27% of an earmarked 2.9 billion euros
allocated.
Jose Maria Lopez, who is now in charge of the program, said he
was confident the scheme's remaining 2 billion euros will be
disbursed across twin tenders, for EV and battery production, to
be launched around July. The revamped PERTE will include a
specific line of financing for battery manufacturing. "The
sector is looking favorably on the redesign," said PERTE
commissioner Lopez.
Glencore
said it would partner
with waste management services provider FCC Ámbito and
Spanish energy firm Iberdrola to provide lithium-ion battery
recycling services at scale in Spain and Portugal.
The companies intend to establish a facility to offer recycling
and second-life solutions for lithium-ion batteries, both from
gigafactory production scrap and end-of-life batteries, Glencore
said in a statement.
* Quote of the Day
"The economic storm is not over, and interest rates will
likely have to increase further given existing inflation
pressure. In our view, as higher exposures encounter shrinking
risk appetite, momentum for rising prices, higher retentions and
tighter insurance terms and conditions will likely continue."
Jérôme Jean Haegeli, group chief economist at insurance firm
Swiss Re
* Looking Ahead
* April. 12, Kenya Central Bank Governor Patrick Ngugi
Njoroge
speaks to Reuters on the sidelines of the International Monetary
Fund and World Bank spring meetings as the African nation faces
record inflation and protests over the cost of living crisis.
* April. 12 - 15, New York, United States: Reverend Al
Sharpton
will hold the National Action Network Annual Convention in New
York City to galvanize the civil rights and social justice
movement.
* April. 12, United States: Read a Reuters article on how
the U.S.
manufacturing boom fueled by a combination of hefty government
incentives, a transition to new transportation and energy
technologies, has led to a real estate problem.
* April. 12, Oslo, Norway: An employee of the Norwegian
wealth
fund sues her employer for illegal termination of employment,
harassment and gender and pay discrimination.
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A historic racial disparity continues to narrow https://tmsnrt.rs/3zBSrHb
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