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      ‘The model is listening’: union’s win at Amazon hatched in a small apartment

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      ‘The model is listening’: union’s win at Amazon hatched in a small apartment A suburban two-bedroom apartment was the HQ from which Amazon’s multimillion-dollar anti-union effort was defeatedThe living room of the small two-bedroom apartment in Staten Island – sometimes called New York City’s “forgotten borough” – is overflowing with office supplies, mail, red union stickers, and flyers with information about unions.It seems almost unbelievable that amid this chaos, and armed with just $120,000 that they raised on GoFundMe, its occupants, Amazon workers Brett Daniels and Connor Spence, helped successfully unionize workers at the nearby gargantuan 855,000-square-foot Amazon warehouse – the first of the company’s warehouses in the US to vote for a union.‘The revolution is here’: Chris Smalls’ union win sparks a movement at other Amazon warehousesRead more“This is a monstrous win for the working class,” said Daniels. “The Amazon Labor Union showed what seemed impossible is possible.”The apartment in a two-floor suburban house was the headquarters from which Amazon workers pulled off one of the biggest wins for US unions in decades. Beating Amazon’s multimillion-dollar efforts to stop them organizing involved tireless organizing, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook and a lot of free homemade food. But most of all, said 29-year-old Julian Mitchell-Israel, an Amazon worker and one of the original organizers with the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), they listened.“It’s not that we’ve established a new model of organizing here,” said Mitchell-Israel. “The model is listening and highlighting people’s stories, and when we build a platform, using it to lift up their stories, because that’s what’s been compelling for the workers, that’s what’s gotten people to vote yes.”Amazon Labor Union defied the odds without any affiliation to national labor unions and precious little support from the political class which has seen other efforts to organize at Amazon rebuffed.The surprise victory has been hailed as historic in the US media, and its organizers have been bombarded with interview requests from around the world. Elected officials and prominent figures have issued public declarations of support, including Joe Biden and several members of Congress, all attention that had been lacking leading up to the vote as most media outlets and elected officials, including ostensible supporters of labor unionizing efforts, ignored the ALU’s efforts.The union has also received inquiries from Amazon workers at warehouses and delivery stations around the US and internationally, requesting assistance and asserting interest in organizing unions at their own work sites. There are meetings scheduled with New York elected officials in Albany and with Sean O’Brien, president of the powerful Teamsters union, who has also pledged to unionize Amazon.For Mitchell-Israel the noise is distracting attention from how ALU achieved its victory. “There’s just so much talk about this union in a way that, I think, abstracts it and makes it into a phenomenon that it’s not. It’s just people and stories and love and necessity, and that’s what it comes down to,” he said. “You go and you listen and rather than telling them they should vote yes, telling them here’s how you organize, you just ask them the right questions, and people will come up with their own answers to it. People have different answers, and because they’re the workers, they’re the ones being affected, it’s going to be the right answer.”With more than 1 million employees in the US, Amazon is the country’s second largest private employer. The company has faced public scrutiny for years over workers reporting abhorrent working conditions, high injury rates, and immense productivity pressures, which have contributed to annual turnover rates of about 150%.On Staten Island the Covid-19 pandemic brought the clash between Amazon and its workers to a head. ALU founder Chris Smalls, then as assistant manager at Amazon, helped lead a walkout in March 2020 over lack of Covid-19 protections and was fired shortly after. Leaked memos showed Amazon executives denigrating Smalls as “not smart or articulate” in a meeting with the Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, and suggesting it would be a win for them if they made him “the face of the entire union/organizing movement”.“Welp there you go!” Smalls tweeted last week.@amazon wanted to make me the face of the whole unionizing efforts against them…. welp there you go! @JeffBezos @DavidZapolsky CONGRATULATIONS 🎉 @amazonlabor We worked had fun and made History ‼️✊🏾 #ALU # ALUfortheWin welcome the 1st union in America for Amazon 🔥🔥🔥🔥— Christian Smalls (@Shut_downAmazon) April 1, 2022
      “The workers that I organize with are like my family now,” Smalls told the Guardian. “To bring this victory to them is the best feeling in the world next to my kids’ birth.”Smalls’s story proved a powerful one on Staten Island. “When I do talk to workers, I tell them I was fired wrongfully because I tried to protect workers’ health and safety, and that can happen to you,” Smalls said after helping to form the group. “You can complain or submit a grievance, and they could just terminate you or target you to be terminated, or retaliate against you. And there’s no protection, so the only way we’re going to be protected is by forming that union.”The ALU’s fight is far from over. Organizers are currently bracing for the upcoming union election at the LDJ5 sorting center in Staten Island, which begins on 25 April, and cementing resources, such as finding office space, ahead of the fight to negotiate a first union contract with Amazon, which continues to vehemently oppose unions.The tech company may have lost this battle but it continues the fight. “We’re disappointed with the outcome of the election in Staten Island because we believe having a direct relationship with the company is best for our employees,” said Amazon in response to the union win. “We’re evaluating our options, including filing objections based on the inappropriate and undue influence by the NLRB that we and others (including the National Retail Federation and US Chamber of Commerce) witnessed in this election.”Shortly after the union victory, internal documents leaked to the Intercept revealed a planned internal messaging app for employees would block the use of words or phrases such as “union”, “pay raises”, “living wage” or “representation”.Amazon has a record of firing workers involved in organizing activities and automatically terminating workers for minor infractions, including Jason Anthony, a picker at JFK8 on Staten Island and a labor organizer and founding member of ALU.In the summer of 2020, Anthony was automatically fired from Amazon when his unpaid time off went in the red. He had run out of his prescription medications and transportation to the warehouse was limited due to Covid-19 restrictions and staffing issues with public transit.Anthony had to wait over a year to be able to get rehired, but currently has a case being investigated with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission about Amazon’s alleged lack of accommodations for workers with mental disabilities. He is currently on short-term disability leave from a back injury sustained at Amazon during peak season in December 2021.He has known Chris Smalls from long before Smalls emerged as a celebrity in the US labor movement. “Chris was the best person you could work with. He cared about his employees from a human perspective, not just as a manager,” said Anthony, “When he got fired in 2020, I went to the building to support him and when I got fired several months later, I called him and asked him for his support, so since then, we developed a brotherhood that will never ever be broken. We could argue, have internal disagreements here and there, but at the end of the day we always come together.”Now the ALU will begin its negotiations with Amazon with the aim of improving working conditions, pay, breaks and their lives as workers. The union plans on building out these efforts in the US and abroad at Amazon.New York is a union town and replicating the Staten Island victory may prove difficult across the US. Another effort to organize in Alabama hangs in the balance with Amazon currently ahead in the votes. But Anthony is convinced change is coming. “This victory is only the beginning of a global revolution,” he said.TopicsAmazonThe ObserverUS unionsUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      in US Politics

      Tax the rich: these one percenters want people like them to pay higher taxes

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      Tax the rich: these one percenters want people like them to pay higher taxesMembers of the Patriotic Millionaires say the income gap in the US has become a disaster – and it’s time to ‘take that money back’ The sound system played Pink Floyd’s Money as the Patriotic Millionaires assembled in the boutique Eaton hotel in Washington DC last week. After compulsory Covid tests there was a lot of well-heeled hugging and laughter among a crowd that looked like extras from Succession as they sat down at tables stacked with M&Ms stamped with “tax the rich”.This was the first time since the pandemic that the Patriotic Millionaires had assembled together in person. The group, founded in 2010, is made up of high net worth individuals who believe – counterintuitively these days – that the really rich should pay more taxes. And after a dozen often frustrating years some of them now believe change is coming.In the White House, Joe Biden has proposed new taxes on households worth more than $100m. The war in Ukraine has shown that the international community can, and will, crack down on oligarchs. Some of the workers who made fortunes for Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Starbucks’s Howard Schultz have successfully formed unions despite the millions both companies spent fighting them off.“No one was talking about taxing the rich when we started,” said Morris Pearl, chair of the Patriotic Millionaires and a former managing director at BlackRock, the largest money manager in the world.Even the conversation seemed ridiculous under Donald Trump, Pearl added. “We have seen a huge change. You have a president talking about taxing the rich, people are talking about wealth taxes – those weren’t even fringe ideas 10 years ago. I’m not saying it’s going to happen and pass into law but there are conversations at the highest levels.”Part of the reason why those conversations are happening is that the situation has got so bad. Speaker after speaker at the one-day conference highlighted how the very, very rich have hijacked the political system around the world, run down wages and exacerbated income inequality, ramming home the title of the conference: Oligarchs vs All of Us: The Fight for Power & Money.Another member, Gary Stevenson, a British trader turned inequality economist, believes things are only going to get worse. Billionaires made fortunes from soaring stock markets, property prices and other assets during the pandemic. Government handouts have largely helped the rich, he argues. “If nothing is done this is going to be a massive disaster,” he said. “However bad you think things are, I guarantee they will get much, much worse.”When the pandemic struck there was talk of it being a great leveler – we were all in this together. In fact, Covid-19 exacerbated economic and racial inequalities. US billionaires received a $1.1tn windfall as their wealth soared to record levels. The billionaire class boomed in Asia and reached record levels in the UK. But as we emerge from the shadow of Covid-19, hoi poloi find themselves struggling with soaring inflation and rising cost of basics such as rent, utilities and food.For Stevenson this enormous explosion of wealth is “end of civilization stuff”. “There is one thing and one thing only that we can do,” he said. “We have got to take that money back.”But are rich – and overwhelmingly white – people the right people to push that message? Abigail Disney thinks so. Disney, the granddaughter of Roy Disney, co-founder of the Walt Disney Company, sees her family as a synechdoche for what has happened to the rest of America.The Disneys were already super-rich by the time Disney, 62, was born but their wealth grew enormously just as the gap between rich and poor has grown. “Money changed my family,” she said, and not for the better. Now, she says, those rich people live in another world and are unable to see what the consequences of rising inequality will be. Hearing that from one of their own breaks that barrier, she believes.“The only people billionaires will listen to are other billionaires and multimillionaires. You need at least the two commas. And if they won’t listen, there are their children and their wives, and they will listen,” she said.While her money opens the doors of power, Disney finds her message also discombobulates ordinary Americans. She is regularly assailed on Twitter for daring to suggest rich people should pay more taxes. The problem is that people have been convinced that “every single person in this country is a billionaire waiting to happen”, in an orchestrated campaign she believes was engineered to protect the wealth of the 1%.The last four decades have seen a massive redistribution of wealth. Only problem is it went to those who were already wealthy. https://t.co/anTolPYv5g— Abigail Disney (@abigaildisney) April 5, 2022
      Hearing one of the 1% suggest that maybe that dream is a nightmare makes people crazy, she said. “The pushback I get is: ‘You never worked a day in your life! You don’t know anything!’ Well, you are right, you are making my point for me! I should not have this power and influence. Just keep making my point for me,” she said.“For me to be speaking out against my own supposed self-interest has a wow factor that catches the attention. I don’t want to ever stop doing that. We need to model what it looks like to not defend your own self-interest all the time. When you are fine and other people are not, you put aside your own self-interest and stick up for somebody else.”The chance of Biden’s tax cuts making it through Congress are slim. US politicians rely too heavily on the wealthy and some Democrats as well as Republicans will balk at taxing them more. But Disney argues that the debate has changed. After the pandemic, US oligarchs aren’t the heroes they once were and, notably, Republicans have so far steered clear of an all-out attack on Biden’s proposal.“Four years ago if you’d said ‘billionaires tax’ then they would have said you can’t bash billionaires, you’re encouraging class warfare. I haven’t heard a whiff of that,” said Disney. “Let’s not kid ourselves, the other side has tested that and found it isn’t working. That class war rhetoric isn’t working any more. And that’s good news. Because if we don’t ruffle some feathers now, we are going to have a class war. A real one.”TopicsUS income inequalityIncome inequalityUS politicsInequalityUS taxationfeaturesReuse this content More

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      in UK Politics

      Glitch in post-Brexit customs system adds to major Channel lorry chaos on Kent roads

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      Problems with a key post-Brexit IT system for customs checks are contributing to Easter traffic chaos in Kent as thousands of lorries are parked up awaiting Channel crossings.A 23-mile coastbound stretch of the M20 was closed from junction eight (Maidstone) to junction 11 (Westenhanger) heading for the Port of Dover or Eurotunnel as part of Operation Brock, causing chaos on surrounding local roads.The A20 Roundhill Tunnel is closed under the Dover TAP scheme to prevent HGVs jumping the queue.Some delays to Channel crossings are being driven by the suspension of P&O Ferries sailings after the operator sacked nearly 800 seafarers without notice last month, with rival DFDS warning it no longer has capacity to take stranded P&O customers.However, the Road Haulage Association said HMRC is “continuing to have issues” with its new post-Brexit GVMS system for customs declarations, without which lorries cannot move goods between Britain and the EU.Without the system, drivers lack scannable barcodes needed for the rapid check of lorries at ports including Dover.A temporary workaround could be in place until Monday, the RHA said.An HMRC spokesperson said: “We have put in place contingency processes to ensure businesses can keep goods and freight moving while we return to full service.”A message on the HMRC site says: “We are undertaking robust investigations into our systems to address the underlying issues behind this outage. We will provide a further update by midday, Monday 11 April. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.”Operation Brock involves using a moveable barrier to create a contraflow system enabling lorries to queue and other traffic to keep moving in both directions.However, the system has been overwhelmed, with Kent hit by long queues every day since 1 April when poor weather also disrupted crossings.The Port of Dover said in a statement it handled 30,000 departing passengers last weekend, which was a three-fold increase on the total during the corresponding weekend in 2021.It added it is “expecting another busy weekend” as it urged customers not to arrive before their booked sailing.Trevor Bartlett, leader of Dover District Council, said the port will be “under severe pressure throughout the busy Easter getaway” as he warned residents to prepare for “some disruption again this weekend”.He said he has “made it clear” to Kent Police, Kent County Council and the Kent Resilience Forum – a partnership of local organisations and agencies – that “we will not tolerate another weekend of gridlock in Dover”.The Conservative councillor went on: “For too long, local residents and businesses have had to endure disruption and, quite frankly, deserve better.“We share your concerns about the impact of gridlock on local businesses and access to vital health and social care for our most vulnerable residents.“Many are rightly worried about how the emergency services would be able to respond to a major incident when all routes into the town are effectively cut off.”Ashford MP Damian Green called for changes to be made to Operation Brock.He told KentOnline: “What we need is to make Brock work. We have established that up until now it does work, even in times of stress, because the motorway is kept open.“Once you close the motorway it makes it impossible, so the Kent Resilience Forum needs to look at what changes need to happen so Brock can cope with what is a very unusual situation, where more than half of the freight-carrying capacity at Dover has disappeared in one time.”P&O Ferries announced on Wednesday that it is preparing to resume cross-Channel sailings.A spokesman said: “P&O is looking forward to welcoming back vital services and we expect to have two of our vessels ready to sail on the Dover-Calais route by next week, subject to regulatory sign-off, namely both the Pride of Kent and Spirit of Britain between Dover-Calais.” More

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      Teamsters president vows to pressure Amazon after New York votes for union

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      Teamsters president vows to pressure Amazon after New York votes for unionSean O’Brien says it’s vital to organize Amazon, asserting that the e-commerce company has ‘total disrespect’ for its workers The Teamsters’ new president has pledged his powerful union will step up the pressure on Amazon and mount its own efforts to unionize the company after workers in New York voted to form the company’s first US union.In an interview with the Guardian Sean O’Brien said it was vital to organize Amazon, asserting that the e-commerce company has “total disrespect” for its workers and was putting downward pressure on standards for unionized warehouse workers and truck drivers across the US.“You have an employer like Jeff Bezos taking a joyride into space, and he bangs on his workers to be able to fund his trip,” said O’Brien, who was inaugurated as Teamsters president on 22 March. He asserted that Amazon workers would benefit greatly from joining the Teamsters, saying that Amazon’s drivers and warehouse workers are treated and paid considerably worse than their unionized counterparts at other companies.“They’re awful, they’re disrespectful the way they treat their employees,” O’Brien said of Amazon.On Friday, a final vote count showed that Amazon workers in Staten Island voted to unionize, 2,654 for a union, 2,131 against. Another vote to organize workers in Alabama hangs in the balance. Amazon beat off the union drive by 118 votes but the final tally is awaiting a review of 416 challenged ballots.O’Brien said he applauds any organization that seeks to take on Amazon: “I commend anybody who tries to take on a schoolyard bully like Amazon.”The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union is seeking to unionize an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, while a new, independent union, the Amazon Labor Union, was behind the organizing at two Amazon facilities on Staten Island.O’Brien said that no union is better positioned than the Teamsters to organize Amazon because his 1.3-million-member union has decades of experience in unionizing and winning good contracts for warehouse workers and truck drivers. “This is the only union that has the proven track record of organizing workers in these industries,” O’Brien said.He said the Teamsters needed to organize Amazon as an obligation to “our members” and “our largest employers”, most notably United Parcel Service and DHL. Concerned that Amazon’s lower pay is undercutting Teamster employers and Teamster contracts, O’Brien said he didn’t want Amazon to threaten the livelihood of Teamsters or “diminish the standards established by collective bargaining agreements”.“We have to organize Amazon,” he said. “We have to have a plan in place. We have to execute that plan and not be scared to change that plan if it doesn’t work at times. Even a world champion team doesn’t win all the time. Hopefully we will have a favorable win-to-loss ratio.”Before winning a five-year term as Teamsters’ president, O’Brien headed a large Teamsters local in the Boston area for 15 years. He succeeded James P Hoffa, who stepped down after 23 years as Teamsters president.“We the Teamsters have the best resources out there, not just financially” to unionize Amazon, O’Brien said. “We have the ability to utilize our members who work in the industry, who know the benefits of working under a collective bargaining agreement and having dignity and respect in the workplace.“We have a lot of work to do,” he continued. “We have a plan to focus on the big metro cities,” where he said the likelihood of winning unionization elections would be greatest. He said that the Teamsters would mount “non-traditional campaigns” that include up lining politicians’ support and extensive community support behind unionization. He stressed the importance of worker-to-worker organizing: “We need to utilize our best organizers: our worker members who work in these industries.”Amazon officials say their company’s pay levels are competitive – $18 for a full-time entry-level worker in Staten Island and nearly $16 in Alabama. The company notes that its benefits, including health coverage, begin for full-time workers the day they join the company.Amazon officials have repeatedly said they are committed to maintaining an environment where its employees can thrive and feel appreciated and respected.News of the Staten Island victory comes as union activity is experiencing a resurgence in the US. Joe Biden has positioned himself as the most pro-union president in generations.“The Biden administration has done a great job for unions right out of the gate,” O’Brien said. “An administration that’s not afraid to endorse unions is great.” He praised, in particular, a 2021 law that Biden backed that helped secure the pensions of millions of union members and retirees, including many Teamsters whose pension plans were seriously underfunded.O’Brien said the Teamsters and other unions need to do a far better job explaining to Americans how unions lift workers and the nation as a whole. He said many Americans view the Teamsters favorably despite the movie The Irishman about scandals inside the Teamsters a half-century ago. “During the worst pandemic we’ll ever face people saw that we delivered packages, did trash pick-ups, did food and grocery deliveries,” O’Brien said. “We’ve proven our worth providing goods and services to keep this country moving.”He talked at length about the importance of holding politicians accountable, especially when they fail to back workers and unions. “I can’t remember people’s birthdays. But I can remember the last person that screwed me. That’s how we’re going to deal with those politicians who vote against us. We’ll run people against you. We’ll campaign against you.”TopicsAmazonUS unionsBiden administrationUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      ‘I know how much it hurts’: Biden to release US oil in bid to lower gas prices – as it happened

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      Key events

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      ‘Incontrovertible evidence that this [war] has been a strategic disaster for Russia’ – White House

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      Biden confirms draw on oil reserves to lower gas prices

      Joe Biden says his plan to release 1m barrels daily from the US strategic oil reserves will: “Ease the pain families are feeling right now, end this era of dependence and uncertainty and lay a new and new foundation for true and lasting American energy independence.”
      The president is speaking live at the White House to announce the move, which he said would last up to six months and which will represent the largest ever draw ever on the country’s emergency supplies.
      “I know how much it hurts,” he said of rising gas prices that have followed the decision by the Russian president Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine.
      “Putin’s price hike is hitting Americans at the pump.” More

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      Biden targets America’s wealthiest with proposed minimum tax on billionaires

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      Biden targets America’s wealthiest with proposed minimum tax on billionairesTax on households over $100m aims to ensure wealthiest Americans no longer pay lower rate than teachers and firefighters Joe Biden proposed a new tax on America’s richest households when he unveiled his latest budget on Monday.The Biden administration wants to impose a 20% minimum tax on households worth more than $100m. The proposal would raise more than $360bn over the next decade and “would make sure that the wealthiest Americans no longer pay a tax rate lower than teachers and firefighters”, according to a factsheet released by the White House.‘I make no apologies’: Biden stands by ‘Putin cannot remain in power’ remarkRead moreThe plan – called the “billionaire minimum income tax” – is the administration’s most aggressive move to date to tax the very wealthiest Americans.The tax is part of Biden’s $5.8tn budget proposal for 2023, which also sets aside billions for the police and military as well as investments in affordable housing, plans to tackle the US’s supply chain issues and gun violence.“Budgets are statements of values, and the budget I am releasing today sends a clear message that we value fiscal responsibility, safety and security at home and around the world, and the investments needed to continue our equitable growth and build a better America,” Biden said in a statement.Billionaire wealth grew significantly during the coronavirus pandemic, helped by soaring share prices and a tax regime that charges investors less on their gains than those taxed on their income.“In 2021 alone, America’s more than 700 billionaires saw their wealth increase by $1tn, yet in a typical year, billionaires like these would pay just 8% of their total realized and unrealized income in taxes. A firefighter or teacher can pay double that tax rate,” the White House factsheet notes.Under the plan households worth more than $100m would have to give detailed accounts to the Internal Revenue Service of how their assets had fared over the year. Those who pay less than 20% on those gains would then be subject to an additional tax that would take their rate up to 20%.The Biden administration calculates that the tax would affect only the top 0.01% of American households, those worth over $100m, and that more than half the revenue would come from households worth more than $1bn.The budget also looks set to tackle another issue that some economists have argued contributes to widening income inequality: share buybacks.In recent years cash-rich companies including Apple, Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft, have used their funds to buy back huge quantities of their own shares, boosting their share price. Last year companies in the S&P 500 bought back a record $882bn of their own shares and Goldman Sachs estimates that figure will rise to $1tn this year.Critics say that the purchases divert money from hiring new staff, raising wages and research and development.Research by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) shows that there is “clear evidence that a substantial number of corporate executives today use buybacks as a chance to cash out”.The Biden proposal would stop executives from selling their shares for three years after a buyback is announced.Biden attempted to impose a 1% tax on share buybacks last year but the proposal failed in Congress. Both Biden’s billionaire tax and the share buyback proposal will also face tough opposition in Congress.TopicsUS taxationBiden administrationUS politicsUS economyJoe BidenUS domestic policynewsReuse this content More

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      in UK Politics

      Rishi Sunak has a cost-of-living mountain to climb

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      Energy bills can seem like a domestic problem: a bill falling on the household doormat.In fact, energy costs flood every artery of an economy, so when they rise sharply, it is a shock that goes right to the heart.Higher oil and natural gas prices are not the only pressure that is driving prices to grow at the fastest pace in thirty years, but they form a significant economic handbrake, the full force of which is only just starting to be felt.The latest inflation figures show that gas prices have risen close to a third in the year to February, electricity prices have risen by around a fifth. That’s not just a problem that faces consumers.For every household bill that drives up, there is a business using heating, a plastic toy that is ultimately derived from oil, clothing that uses fibres from plastics. Input costs for firms have hit a 14-year high, according to the Office for National Statistics.A fossil-fuel hungry world economy was already proving hard to get back on track after the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, supply chains are facing significant on-going pressures from higher infection rates in China and beyond.Then Russia invaded Ukraine.This has driven up grain, food production, oil and natural gas costs in particular. The UK’s largest trading partner, the European Union is especially exposed as it scrambles to buy energy from other sources, driving up the cost of non-Russian fuels.As an import heavy economy, there’s not much the Bank of England can do when the cost of goods and raw materials rise overseas. Its interest rate helps curb domestic inflation, but when the UK is importing the effects of the EU’s energy dependency that’s not a problem the central bank can fix. And while Britain takes less Russian gas than continental counterparts, it takes considerable amounts of oil-products, like diesel, forcing up the cost of a tank of fuel. In short, Russia’s invasion is a matter of a shock-upon-shock for the global economy, and the UK.When he takes to his feet in the House of Commons at lunchtime today, Rishi Sunak will still be a chancellor in crisis mode. It’s just that from his, and some other economists’ perspective, there is more than the immediate cost-of-living crisis to consider.Present interventions on energy bills will only take some of the edge off the impact on households in April, and will become a drop in the ocean come October.Still, Mr Sunak faces the slow-moving fiscal avalanche of an ageing UK population and slow GDP growth by historical standards, on top of this wave of higher energy costs when the price cap leaps again this autumn.Some economists believe that the energy price shock is so great for businesses and households that Mr Sunak should act now, to avoid a recession before Christmas. Others speculate that he is performing a political juggling act: hiking taxes by an eye-watering 10 per cent via National Insurance contributions now, in order to trim taxes later, ahead of the next general election in 2024.He may, in fact, do little to help households now, in order to be seen to do something more drastic this coming winter. Tax cuts might have to be swapped by some language around fiscal prudence.For all the talk of windfalls – and some of the rhetoric around the impact of inflation on public finances has been overblown – the squeeze on households and the public purse has only just begun. The public finances are in a position that means the chancellor can afford to help more now, economists from Left and Right largely agree on that. However, he may be worried about the political expectations that sets when the cost-of-living crisis deepens in the months ahead. More

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      Chicken will cost more because of Ukraine crisis, says minister warning of 8% food inflation

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      The price of chicken will soon spike at the supermarket because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, environment secretary George Eustice has warned.The minister also warned that Britons face food prices rises of up to 8 per cent this summer, as the chancellor Rishi Sunak comes under pressure to help families struggling with the mounting cost of living crisis.Mr Eustice warned that the impact of global price rises in wheat – with Ukraine a major exporter around the world – would impact on living costs in the UK.In a speech to the Food and Drink Federation, the minister said the rising costs of feed used by poultry farmers would have a particularly strong impact of the price of chicken at the supermarket.“Speaking roughly, there are three or four very large poultry producers in this country,” the environment secretary said.He added: “They have a situation where feed costs account for around half of their input costs, and they’re seeing a cost pressure of around 20 – 30 per cent. At some point, that’s got to feed through the system.”Mr Eustice said officials had estimated that food and drink inflation could reach 6 per cent over the summer, but price rises could increase by as much as 8 per cent.Experts have warned that the invasion of Ukraine could see the bulk of the country’s grain exports wiped out this year, leading to big price rises and adding to the financial pressure on British households.Known as “Europe’s breadbasket”, the country was expected to account for 12 per cent of global wheat exports and nearly a fifth of global maize production this year, according to ING Bank and the US Department of Agriculture figures.Last week Ronald Kers – chief executive of the 2 Sisters Food Group, one of the country’s biggest food producers – warned that food prices in the UK could soar 15 per cent by the middle of the year.He warned of particularly acute spike in chicken production costs, set to be made worse by the Ukraine crisis. “This conflict brings a major threat to food security in the UK and there is no doubt the outcome of this is that consumers will suffer as a result,” he said.“The input costs of producing chicken – with feed being the biggest component – have rocketed. Prices from the farm gate have already risen by almost 50 per cent in a year,” Mr Kers added.Mr Eustice also revealed on Tuesday that the government’s food resilience forum set up to deal with the Covid and Brexit crises was now meeting once a week.It comes as opposition parties, business groups and consumer experts all called on Mr Sunak to step in with support with energy costs as he prepares for Wednesday’s spring statement.Money Saving Expert founder Martin has told MPs that families are facing a “fiscal punch in the face” on 1 April with the imminent rise in the price of energy.Mr Lewis stressed that the chancellor current package of measures aimed at taking the sting fuel bills, including a £200 rebate to be repaid, were “clearly not enough”.Meanwhile, several business groups, representing both big and small firms, told MPs the government is listening to their concerns – but there has been very little action so far.“We argue that, given the scale of the cost increases that businesses are facing, that it would be right for the chancellor to step in and provide something analogous to that support that was provided to households,” said Paul Wilson, policy director at the Federation of Small Businesses.Mr Sunak is reportedly preparing to cut fuel duty by up to 5p per litre. However, a 5p-per-litre cut in fuel duty would fail to reverse even half of the increase in prices inflicted on motorists over the past fortnight, according to new figures. More