Nick Clegg

Royal Mail offers £300 to postal workers to cross picket lines

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http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/15/royal-mail-cross-picket-lines-strike

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The Royal Mail is offering a £300 bonus to any of its 150,000 staff who cross the picket line in any forthcoming nationwide postal strikes.

Moya Greene, its chief executive, wrote to all employees before Wednesday’s strike ballot result to offer the sum if they continue working while colleagues are out on strike.

… <about shares being ridiculously undervalued >

Greene’s last-ditch attempt to avert the first nationwide strike in four years came as the Communication Workers Union (CWU) said it was confident workers would back industrial action when it announces the results of a strike ballot on Wednesday afternoon.

Postal workers described her offer as an “act of desperation and discrimination” and a “scab bonus”. Paul Firmage, one of the 371 of Royal Mail’s 150,000 staff to rejected free shares in the privatisation, said the £300 bonus was “yet another bribe”.

“They are offering people money to be a scab. It is a scab bonus,” he said.”

The CWU said: “It’s an act of desperation and discrimination. We believe it’s irrelevant and will make no difference to the strike ballot.”

In a consultative ballot this year 96% of postal workers were opposed to the privatisation, which they said will erode their pay and conditions.

If staff have voted in favour of industrial action, the first strike could take place on 23 October and would likely be followed by a series of rolling strikes in the runup to Christmas.

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Huw Lewis: Breaking link between poverty and academic achievement is priority

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-24540930

The education priority of the Welsh government should shift towards tackling the link between poverty and poor academic achievement, the education minister has said.

Huw Lewis said the effects of poverty were apparent before children had even started school.

The comments came in his first major speech since taking the post in June.

“From tonight, cutting the link between deprivation and attainment becomes our top priority,” he said.

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Related: Michael Gove adviser says genetics are more important than teaching

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Boots owner Alliance ‘uses havens to save £1.1bn in corporation tax’

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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/boots-owner-alliance-uses-havens-to-save-11bn-in-corporation-tax-8880052.html

Image from http://www.waronwant.org

Alliance Boots, the owner of Boots the chemist, has avoided £1.1bn in taxes by routing its cash through a series of subsidiaries in well-known tax havens including Luxembourg, Cayman Islands and Gibraltar, according to a new report.

The campaign groups War on Want and Change to Win and the Unite union have calculated that the company saved the money by loading the UK business with debts from its £12.2bn private purchase in 2007 and legally claiming tax relief against the interest.

The campaigners claim that 40 per cent of Boots’ sales come from NHS-funded services such as prescription drugs and flu jabs – and called on the Government not to hand contracts to companies that do not pay their fair share in tax. The pharmacy giant rejected the report’s findings and said it is one of the most transparent private companies in the world. Only 25 per cent of sales came from prescriptions and similar business, it added.

Last year, Alliance Boots’ sales hit £22.4bn with underlying profits reaching £805m. However, the company paid just £114m in tax, including £64m in the UK, up £31m on the previous year. In the UK, under the Boots brand where it has 2,000 stores, sales were £6.55bn.

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27/11/13 Having received a takedown notice from the Independent newspaper for a different posting, I have reviewed this article which links to an article at the Independent’s website in order to attempt to ensure conformance with copyright laws.

I consider this posting to comply with copyright laws since
a. Only a small portion of the original article has been quoted satisfying the fair use criteria, and / or
b. This posting satisfies the requirements of a derivative work.

Please be assured that this blog is a non-commercial blog (weblog) which does not feature advertising and has not ever produced any income.

dizzy

 

Continue ReadingBoots owner Alliance ‘uses havens to save £1.1bn in corporation tax’

Benefit tourism claims: European Commission urges UK to provide evidence

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24522653

The UK government has consistently declined to provide evidence to support its claims about “benefit tourism”, the European Commission has said.

Jonathan Todd, a spokesman for Employment Commissioner László Andor, told the BBC that the Commission had been asking for about three years.

He “sincerely hoped” that ministers would set the record straight, he said.

But No 10 said there was “widespread and understandable concern” over people coming to the UK to access benefits.

The Commission’s intervention follows its publication of a report claiming that jobless EU migrants make up less than 5% of those claiming social benefits in most of the EU member states studied.

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Bedroom tax: ministers ‘overstated likely savings by a third’

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http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/oct/14/bedroom-tax-ministers-likely-savings

Analysis suggesting savings could be £160m less than official projections of £480m dismissed as ‘vested interests’ by employment minister

The government faced fresh calls to overhaul the unpopular bedroom tax on Monday, after new research into the first five months of the scheme suggested ministers may have significantly overestimated the savings it is likely to generate.

The analysis – which ran real data collected by four housing associations since April through a model used in 2012 by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to assess the likely impact of the policy – found that savings were likely to be £160m less than the official projections of £480m for the first year.

But employment minister Esther McVey dismissed the findings, which she claimed reflected the housing associations’ “vested interests”.

Despite heavy criticism – the Labour party has vowed to repeal the bedroom tax and opinion polls suggest it is unpopular – ministers have persistently argued that it was essential to push ahead with the policy, officially known as the spare room subsidy, to bring the UK’s soaring housing benefit bill under control.

But Monday’s report, written by Professor Rebecca Tunstall at the University of York’s centre for housing policy, says flaws in the DWP model means that it is likely to have overstated the likely savings by a third.

Tunstall said: “The savings estimated by DWP assume that of the 660,000 households affected, none of them will move to a smaller home, but we know from our own research that over a fifth want to downsize to avoid the penalty.

“Tenants are already on the move, and with nearly half of those who have chosen to stay already in rent arrears, we can only see that figure going in one direction.”

In particular, the DWP appears to have underestimated the number of tenants who move from social housing into private rented housing in order to avoid the bedroom tax penalty. Rents in the private sector can often be double those in social housing, therefore generating higher housing benefit payments.

The DWP estimated that between 10% and 30% of social housing tenants would move into the private sector. But the research suggests that figure is likely to be nearer 41%.

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Continue ReadingBedroom tax: ministers ‘overstated likely savings by a third’