Posted by Hari on Thursday, July 21, 2016 with No comments | Labels: Roundup
Firms back Theresa
May's attack on runaway executive pay
Business leaders have given a resounding endorsement of
Theresa May’s proposals to shake up corporate governance and put pressure on
runaway levels of executive pay. In a new poll by FTI Consulting, seen exclusively
by City A.M., 81 per cent of senior figures from small, medium and large
companies backed a tougher government stance on how the UK’s largest companies
are run. Theresa May pledged last week to put big businesses under the
microscope as prime minister, announcing her intention to introduce completely
binding shareholder votes on executive pay and force companies to publish their
pay ratios — the difference between the salary of the average worker and the
top earner. In further departure from previous Conservative policy, she also
signalled support for employee representation on boards and stricter controls
over foreign takeovers of UK firms. CITY AM
Millennials to become
first generation to earn less than their predecessors
The Resolution Foundation found that under-35s earned £8,000
less in their twenties than Generation X workers. The thinktank defines
Generation X as those born between 1966 and 1980 and millennials as those born
between 1980 and 2000. If wages for millennials follow the same path as
Generation X, average career earnings will be about £825,000. That would make
them the first generation to earn less than their predecessors over the course
of their working lives. Its research found that some of the pay squeeze was due
to under-35s entering the job market as the recession hit, but it also
concluded that generational pay progress had ground to a halt even before the
financial crisis struck in 2007/8. Torsten Bell, director of the Resolution
Foundation, said: "We've taken it for granted that each generation will do
much better than the last - earning more and enjoying a higher standard of
living. But that approach risks looking complacent given the realities of
recent years and prospects for the future." The research comes as Prime
Minister Theresa May warned last week of a growing divide between a "more
prosperous older generation and a struggling younger generation". The think-tank
also found that millennials will have spent £44,000 more on rent by the time
they reach 30 compared to the baby boomers, and £25,000 more than Generation X. BBC NEWS
PM urged to launch
inquiry into low pay of "self-employed" Hermes couriers
Frank Field MP, chairman of the powerful House of Commons
work and pensions select committee, said the government should review HM
Revenue and Customs (HMRC) criteria that allow companies to contract work to
self-employed individuals rather than hire them as employees. Referring to
Theresa May’s first speech as prime minister, in which she said she would
legislate for “families who are just managing” and people who “have a job but …
don’t always have job security”, Field said: “This is a really good chance for
[May] to start this new approach. This [issue with self-employment] is
undermining government policy which is to raise wages at the bottom.” The
Guardian obtained information about the earnings, hours and expenses of
couriers for Hermes, which delivers parcels for retailers including John Lewis,
that indicated some were earning below the national living wage of £7.20 per
hour for people aged 25 and over. However, because the couriers are
self-employed and not covered by the national living wage, the arrangement is
legal. The general secretary of the TUC, Frances O’Grady, has also called for
reform. “This isn’t just one company,” she said. “The rise of bogus
self-employment is hitting people’s incomes and job security across the country.”
Field’s call came as the Citizens Advice Bureau revealed a marked increase in
the number of people coming forward with concerns about self employment and
employment status. One case involved a childminder who worked set hours, five
days a week but was hired on a self-employed basis and told she needed to start
saving up for her own holiday pay and sick pay. Another case involved a pub
employee whose landlord had told him his work was finished unless he switched
to self-employment. The man was worried he would no longer receive holiday and
sick pay or a steady wage and working pattern. The UK’s self-employed workforce
has grown by 800,000 to 4.7 million since 2008, according to official figures. As
many as two-thirds of self-employed workers in the transport sector, which
includes couriers, delivery drivers and Uber taxi drivers, now earn below the
national living wage. GUARDIAN
Uber faces legal
challenge from drivers demanding basic rights including holiday pay, sick pay
and minimum wage
Two test cases, brought by drivers James Farrar and Yaseen
Aslam at Central London Employment Tribunal and supported by the GMB union,
argue they should be entitled to holiday pay and receive at least the national
minimum wage. Uber claims it is a technology company rather than a taxi firm,
and allows people to be their own boss and work flexibly. In his statement Mr Farrar
said Uber claimed it had paid him £13.77 an hour on average for the hours he
has logged in the app. But he said his earnings for August last year after
expenses came to just £5.03 an hour - below what was then the national minimum
wage of £6.70 for those over 21. David Reade QC, representing Uber, argued
drivers have a choice about their work, there is nothing to force them to work
exclusively for Uber, and they are free to work with other private hire
operators. But Mr Farrar said Uber controls him 'very, very carefully', logging
him out of its system if he ignores two bookings - which Mr Reade said only happens
if a driver dismisses three consecutive jobs - and puts him in a 'penalty box'
for 10 minutes, also sending him warnings if he does not take jobs, all of
which he said would make doing extra work for another company unrealistic. Mr
Farrar also explained he had to be 'very, very careful' about deciding whether
to take jobs: he had been physically assaulted twice, racially abused once and
verbally attacked many times while working as an Uber driver. But he said that
even if drivers cancel jobs over safety fears they are penalised. He told the
tribunal: 'Sometimes you have to choose between your own safety, your own life
sometimes, and doing this job.’ DAILY MAIL
First-time buyers
half as likely to be single as 20 years ago
Figures from the latest English Housing Survey show that in
2014-15 just 14% of first-time buyer households were made up of single people,
compared with 29% in 1994-95. The change comes despite growth in people living
alone, which the Office for National Statistics said accounted for 29% of UK
households in 2015. Over the same 20-year period, the share of the market that
comprised couples rose from 63% to 80%, and the proportion of couples with
children increased from 20% to 31%. The remaining 6% of buyers were loan
parents or those buying in larger groups. The majority of first-time buyers were
aged between 25 and 34, but the average age increased from 30 to 33, and the
proportion of new buyers aged between 35 and 44 almost doubled – from 11% to
20%. The increase in average ages may also mean that people are more likely to
be in a couple before they buy. The survey shows that the number of first-time
buyers dropped from 564,000 in 1994-95 to 300,000 in 2014-15 despite an
increase in the number of households in the same period. First-time buyers were
especially hit by the credit crunch in 2008, with banks and building societies
withdrawing mortgages for those with small deposits, but they have come back
into the market since the government’s help-to-buy scheme was launched in 2013.
The housing charity Shelter said: “More and more people on ordinary incomes
have no choice but to face a lifetime of expensive, unstable private renting,
unless they’re lucky enough to have help from friends and family.” GUARDIAN
Rail minister Claire
Perry quits after admitting she feels 'ashamed' about chaotic train delays
Claire Perry quit the Government today just two days after
admitting she felt 'ashamed' to be in charge of Britain's railways because of
the chaotic delays hitting London commuters. She resigned from her post at the
Department of Transport before new Prime Minister Theresa May had time to sack
her. Mrs Perry, MP for Devizes, has been the public face of anger over delays
at crisis-hit Southern Railway. She has repeatedly refused demands to strip
Govia Thameslink Railway of owning Southern Railway despite services being hit
by high levels of staff illness, crew availability, walkouts by the rail union
RMT and bitter disputes over guards' responsibilities. Commuters have reported
losing their jobs and missing out on seeing their kids, as a result of the
chaos - which saw the embattled operator cancel at least 341 services every day.
They staged a protest earlier this week after Ms Perry appeared to reject their
calls to renationalise the line. The beleaguered rail operator introduced its
emergency timetable yesterday – axing 341 services a day to avoid ad hoc
cancellations – as it struggles to cope with a union dispute and a series of
'sickie strikes'. DAILY MAIL
U.S. charges two British
HSBC executives over $3.5 billion forex scam
Mark Johnson, HSBC's global head of foreign exchange cash
trading in London, and Stuart Scott, its ex-head of cash trading for Europe,
the Middle East and Africa, were charged in a criminal complaint filed in
federal court in Brooklyn. Both men were charged with wire fraud conspiracy, in
a case that a person familiar with the matter said was the first against
individuals to flow out of a U.S. Justice Department probe of foreign-exchange
rigging at global banks. Prosecutors said Johnson, 50, and Scott, 43, misused
information provided by a client who had hired HSBC to convert $3.5 billion to
British pounds in connection with a planned sale of one of the unnamed
company's subsidiaries. The two British citizens then used their insider
knowledge to engage in a process called front-running in which they made trades
ahead of the December 2011 transaction, resulting in a spike in the price of
the currency that was detrimental to HSBC's client, prosecutors said. "Ohhh,
f---ing Christmas," Johnson told Scott in a recorded call the day the
transaction went through, the complaint said. In total, HSBC earned $3 million
from trades its FX traders placed and earned $5 million executing the
transaction, the complaint said. "The defendants allegedly betrayed their
client's confidence, and corruptly manipulated the foreign exchange market to
benefit themselves and their bank," Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell
said in a statement. The case was, according to a source, related to a
years-long Justice Department probe that has led to four banks last year
pleading guilty to conspiring to manipulate currency prices. The charges came a
day after the Federal Reserve Board said it was banning Matthew Gardiner, a
former FX trader at Barclays and at UBS, from participating in the banking
industry for manipulating pricing benchmarks. HSBC was not among the four banks
that pleaded guilty, but in 2014 agreed to pay $618 million to resolve related
probes by U.S. and British regulators. The Justice Department has continued to
investigate, and HSBC has set aside $1.2 billion to cover various forex-related
probes, according to a regulatory filing. REUTERS
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