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Faisal Islam

Jan 18 • 6 tweets • 2 min read

NEW …

At Davos I asked head of ILO, UN workers rights agency routinely cited by Government in support of its anti-strike legislation, if it supported the moves…

A: “not aware of any bilateral discussions”.. “v worried workers having to accept situations” under job loss threat

ILO DG Gilbert Hungbou told me at #WEF23 it did not want to interfere in national discussions, but said unions could file a complaint against the Government on adherence to its international workers rights convention, and it was already in conversations about that

… And then fairly extraordinarily… President Biden’s Labour Secretary (former union leader Marty Walsh) sat next to ILO DG suggested I ask him same q…
Q: does America support minimum service agreements?
A: “No…. I will not support anything that would take away from workers”.

Secretary Walsh clarified he hadn’t seen the legislation in question, that it was about the principle, but seemed to suggest the ILO board might look at it… but I have never before had a Cabinet minister of the US President invite a question in this way in Davos or anywhere…

Now while ILO convention is not legally enforceable, any contravention could be problematic given the constant citing of its support… but also ILO standards are hard-wired into post Brexit trade deal with EU.

Anyway - full story is here: bbc.com/news/64313013

The US answer is intriguing - the Government points to many states prohibiting public sector workers from striking, and indeed President Biden last month imposing a settlement, negotiated by Walsh on freight rail unions, effectively on a minority of holdout unions who rejected it

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More from @faisalislam

Faisal Islam

@faisalislam

Jan 17

First foreign speech from top Chinese official since the momentous Congress last year, VP Liu Hei coming to #wef23 with what appears conciliatory message direct from Xi…

“Have to abandon the Cold War mentality… an equitable international economic order must be protected”…

Hei says:
“will work with international community on debt sustainability of emerging economies, & stick to international commitments on climate change (carbon peak before 2030 and neutrality by 2060)
must promote “positive sum games” and “work together to promote world peace”

On Covid situation, Hei:
“We are shifting our focus from dynamic zero covid” to managing Covid as a class B infectious disease - “a signal of reopening”.

“China has passed infection peak…, this years spring festival will see 5bn trips
Life has been restored to normal in China”

Read 4 tweets

Faisal Islam

@faisalislam

Jan 17

Morning from WEF:

The green trade row dividing the Davos elite

- European CEOs tell me Biden’s green subsidies are tempting them to move production
- European leaders v concerned, will respond
- US not clear on response
- questions for UK strategy here bbc.co.uk/news/business-…

British Volt collapse obv of deep concern locally where promise had been thousands of good jobs in a key growth area…

bigger point is this though - UK really needs to have started building 4 of these battery plants to sustain current size of car industry… market is unconvinced

The “Global Britain” strategy was never about the car industry really -but if better pro-innovation regulation, and looking beyond Europe would have worked here, Tesla would have opened up here, were massively wooed, but Musk chose Berlin instead, (& publicly cited Brexit factor)

Read 5 tweets

Faisal Islam

@faisalislam

Jan 4

PM Rishi Sunak addresses country in New Year speech from Olympic Park in Stratford…

Says wants to provide “relief and peace of mind” for the months to come…

Says he wants “reasonable dialogue with unions” will soon update on “next steps”

PM makes “five promises” including:

- halving inflation this year - though this is already forecast (actually a bit more) by the Bank of England and OBR by year end.

“Growing the economy” and “falling debt” too but they do not have the calendar year timeframe attached..

The fourth promise is that NHS waiting lists will fall (they are currently at a record high of 7.2 million)

And fifth promise is to “pass new laws” to stop small boats - though tellingly not a target on numbers

Read 10 tweets

Faisal Islam

@faisalislam

Dec 28, 2022

Quite the 2022 for Tesla…

Worth $1.24 trillion on Jan 3rd, at $400 share price
Now $0.344 trn today, at $109… down 73%.

a loss of $900bn in value, or over 20 times Musk’s valuation of Twitter, or 54m Bitcoin (current value), or 12 trillion doge.

Musk below engaged with concerned investors, explaining that rising interest rates were leading to a repricing of stocks… which didnt explain Tesla’s specific underperformance…

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1605304935876280323?s=20&t=0qv1_nMBOZnD0Q4Wu-E9RA

During the pandemic Tesla did much better than many of the leading car manufacturers during the chip shortage, for example, by using a software solution and rewriting code for different chips… part of the reason its share price accelerated so much last year…

Read 7 tweets

Faisal Islam

@faisalislam

Dec 12, 2022

NEW

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt tells me economy is “likely to get worse before it gets better” and “I dont know whether inflation has peaked or not”.

On strikes he says “we completely understand why people are angry” about pay packets but he doesn’t want to “lock in” high inflation

Chancellor when asked if the pay review body is really independent when the Treasury sets an overall remit says “we do have to recognise that there is a genuine dilemma” and that “people are finding it very difficult”

Do you accept that for a public sector worker facing 10% rates of inflation - it's not militant to ask merely for pay to match the current extraordinary rates of inflation?

Hunt: “Well, I accept it's a totally sincerely held position.“

Read 4 tweets