The US release of the firm’s new 3D version of its DS console has been delayed until March
Nintendo has reported a half-year loss after being hit by falling sales and the high value of the yen, which lowers its overseas earnings.
The Japanese computer games firm posted a net loss of 2bn yen ($24.7m; £15.6m) for the six months to 30 September.
This compares with a net profit of 69.5bn yen for the same period in 2009.
Nintendo’s sales for the first half of its financial year were down 34% to 363.16bn yen, partly due to lower demand for its Wii console.
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The company did not release a net profit figure for its second quarter to 30 September, however its operating profit more than halved to 30.9bn yen.
Nintendo is forecasting that its annual profit will drop to the lowest level in six years, as sales of the Wii console decline for the second year in succession.
The firm has also been forced to delay the launch of the new 3D version of its DS hand-held console in the US until March, meaning it will miss out on key Christmas sales.
Nintendo’s weak results were in line with market expectations, as it had already warned at the end of last month that profits would be lower.
The release of its latest figures came after the close of Thursday trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Nintendo shares had closed down 0.7%.
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Director Danny Boyle is “happy to be the runt of the litter” as he becomes the latest BFI fellow at the London Film Festival.
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Rhondda Cynon Taf council says it wants to protect jobs and services
A union claims about 10,000 council workers face losing their jobs unless they accept worse pay and conditions under new contracts.
The GMB accused Labour-run Rhondda Cynon Taff (RCT) council of threatening staff with a “lock-out”.
It said the contract changes included pay, sick pay, and car allowances.
RCT, which voiced disappointment at the union reaction, said it was reviewing staff contracts because of cuts, and hoped to avoid compulsory redundancies.
“This sort of gunboat diplomacy has no place in industrial relations particularly when dealing with a Labour-controlled authority”
Gareth Morgan GMB union
The GMB union walked out of talks with the authority over the proposals and has advised members not to sign anything.
They want the lock-out – job loss unless workers sign the new contracts – to be lifted before talks can continue.
Rhondda Cynon Taf has the second highest population in Wales, and GMB officer Gareth Morgan called the actions of the authority “totally unacceptable”.
“It’s like holding a loaded pistol to people’s heads to force them to accept detrimental change or be out of a job with no compensation,” he said.
“GMB is well aware of the financial deficit facing the authority and are willing to consult meaningfully on ways of reducing the budgetary deficit of £20m each year for the next three years.
“This sort of gunboat diplomacy has no place in industrial relations particularly when dealing with a Labour controlled authority which is extremely disappointing to say the least.”
An RCT spokesperson said the review of staff contracts was due to public sector cuts.
“The council is disappointed to receive such a reaction from GMB at such an early and sensitive stage in proceedings”
Spokesperson Rhondda Cynon Taf council
The UK government last week announced spending cuts which will affect the amount of money given to local authorities from central government funds.
An RCT spokesperson said: “As a result of pending cuts to public sector funding, the council is likely to face a funding shortfall of around £60m over the next three years.
“It is envisaged that by reviewing the terms and conditions of employees the council will be able to avoid the need for compulsory redundancies and, in turn, protect hundreds of local jobs within the council.
“We hope we can continue to work with the GMB and the other trade unions during this difficult time to ensure we protect local jobs and important public services.
“The council is disappointed to receive such a reaction from GMB at such an early and sensitive stage in proceedings.
“We hope we can continue to work with the GMB and the other trade unions during this difficult time to ensure we protect local jobs and important public services.”
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Catching sight of world’s rarest and most endangered big cat
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Government helicopters were able to survey the damage on Wednesday
Aerial images from the tsunami-hit Mentawai Islands in Indonesia have revealed the extent of destruction, as officials raised the death toll to 311.
Flattened villages are plainly visible on the images, taken from government helicopters circling the islands.
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Rescuers, who have finally reached the area, say 13 villages were washed away by the 3m (10ft) wave, and 11 more settlements have not yet been reached.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is due to visit the region later.
He cut short a trip to Vietnam to oversee the rescue effort.
A 7.7-magnitude earthquake triggered the tsunami in western Sumatra two days ago.
The first cargo plane loaded with tents, medicine, food and clothes landed on the islands on Wednesday, but rescue teams believe they have yet to reach the worst-affected areas.
Local disaster official Ade Edward said 411 people were still missing.
Bad weather has delayed the rescue effort, with boats carrying aid struggling to make the trip from Padang on Sumatra in choppy seas.
Indonesia’s 32 hours of disaster25 Oct, 0600 local time: Highest alert issued for Mt Merapi eruption; villagers advised to leave.25 Oct, 2142: 7.7 magnitude quake near Mentawai Islands; tsunami watch issued.26 Oct, 1300: First reports of people missing after tsunami26 Oct, 1402: Mt Merapi erupts.
In pictures: Indonesian tsunamiThe first images emerging from the islands, taken on mobile phones, showed bodies being collected from empty clearings where homes and buildings once stood.
District chief Edison Salelo Baja said corpses were strewn along beaches and roads.
Locals were given no indication of the coming wave because an early-warning system put in place after the devastating 2004 tsunami has stopped working.
Fauzi, the head of Indonesia’s Meteorology and Geophysic Agency, told the Associated Press that the system began to malfunction last year, and was completely inoperative by last month.
Amateur video and aerial footage show the tsunami-hit Mentawai islands
“We do not have the expertise to monitor the buoys to function as intended,” he said.
However, even a functioning warning system may have been too late for people in the Mentawai Islands.
The vast Indonesian archipelago sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, one of the world’s most active areas for earthquakes and volcanoes.
More than 1,000 people were killed by an earthquake off Sumatra in September 2009.
In December 2004, a 9.1-magnitude quake off the coast of Aceh triggered a tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed a quarter of a million people in 13 countries including Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand.
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House and Senate candidates have shattered previous fundraising records and are set to surpass $2bn (£1.3bn) in spending for US mid-term elections campaigns.
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President Barack Obama hopes to reach The Daily Show’s young, liberal viewers, analysts say
Barack Obama is to appear with Jon Stewart on his satirical Daily Show, a first for a sitting president.
The appearance comes six days before mid-term elections that could see the Democrats lose their grip on Congress.
After weeks on the campaign trail, Mr Obama has spent the past two days in the White House, speaking by phone to activists and giving radio interviews.
Campaigning on discontent with the economy, polls suggest Republicans are poised to take control of the House.
Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart takes aim nightly at politicians of both parties, but presenter Jon Stewart leans to the left and much of the show’s content targets apparent hypocrisy and bigotry among Republicans.
The show’s audience also tends to be young, and the president may be hoping to build enthusiasm among his base ahead of the vote, analysts say.
“You’ve got a constituency of younger voters that watch that show, and it’s a good place to go and reach them,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters on Tuesday.
“The president hasn’t been shy about going to the places where people are getting their information and trying to make his case.”
The president has been on the show four times previously – during the 2008 presidential campaign and during his earlier tenure in the US Senate.
Also this weekend, Stewart and another Comedy Central presenter, Stephen Colbert, are to hold a rally on the US National Mall in Washington, expected to attract legions of young liberal voters.
Wrestling victory
Meanwhile, campaigning continued at a furious pitch across the country.
In Colorado, Democratic Senator Michael Bennett, who is fighting hard to win election to the seat to which he was appointed in 2008, latched on to a video in which his Republican opponent said he did not believe in the official separation of church and state.
“While we have a Constitution that is very strong in the sense that we are not going to have a religion that’s sanctioned by the government, it doesn’t mean that we need to have a separation between government and religion,” Colorado Republican Senate candidate Ken Buck told a party gathering in a video from 2009 that has just surfaced.
Mr Bennett’s campaign hoped to use it to portray the Republican as an extreme conservative.
Connecticut Republican Senate candidate Linda McMahon, a political novice who grew wealthy as a top executive at a professional wrestling league, won a minor victory.
A federal judge in the state ruled that her supporters may wear professional wrestling paraphernalia to the polls on Tuesday without violating rules prohibiting electioneering at voting stations.
And in California, Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina was released from hospital, a day after she was admitted for treatment of an infection associated with recent breast cancer surgery.
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David Cameron phones several of his European counterparts on the eve of an EU summit, urging them to reject a big rise in its budget.
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Linguists at the British Library say pronunciation is a matter of fashion
The British Library is asking the public to help it track how pronunciation is shifting in Britain.
Volunteers are being asked to record a chapter from a Mr Man book to see how certain words and accents are changing.
The library wants as many people as possible to record the opening paragraphs of children’s book Mr Tickle to track differences in vowel sounds.
It says youngsters are now more likely to say “haitch” than “aitch” when pronouncing the letter H.
When saying the word “mischievous”, they prefer to pronounce it “mischeevy-us” rather than “mischivus”, curators add. Youg people are also more likely to have different way of saying words such as garage, schedule, migraine and harass.
The library is preparing to launch an exhibition called Evolving English: One Language, Many Voices.
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BBC arts correspondent David Sillito says its linguists have drawn no conclusions on which pronunciations are right or wrong.
They say it is simply a matter of fashion, adding that in Victorian Britain the common pronunciations for hospital and herb, were ‘ospital and ‘erb.
The library says the exhibition will be the first to explore the English language “in all its national and international diversity”.
It says iconic books and manuscripts set alongside everyday texts will show “the social, cultural and historical strands from which the language has been woven”.
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Keith Richards’ autobiography catalogues an eye-watering drug intake
The Rolling Stone’s autobiography reveals a lifetime of substance abuse. Why on earth hasn’t it killed him?
His name is synonymous with rock ‘n’ roll excess, his memoirs detail a lifetime spent ingesting a Herculean quantity of illegal drugs and he only gave up cocaine, aged 62, after he split his head open falling from a tree while foraging for coconuts.
At 66, Keith Richards’ continued survival is a source of widespread bafflement.
According to addiction expert Dr Robert Lafever, director of the Promis recovery centre in Richards’ native Kent, there is only one possible explanation for his longevity: “He must have the constitution of an ox.”
But Richards’ own memoirs suggest he may have been more careful with his intake than his Bacchanalian public persona implies.
The autobiography, Life, is candid about the scope of his notorious drug-taking during his lengthy career as the Rolling Stones’ lead guitarist and co-songwriter.
“I used to walk down Oxford Street with a slab of hash as big as a skateboard,” drawls a typical passage.
Richards describes hurtling around swinging London fuelled by speedballs, a cocktail of cocaine and heroin he refers to with his customary louche archness as “the breakfast of champions”.
He claims that during the notorious Redlands raid of 1967, he allowed the police into his home in Sussex because he was under the apprehension, as a result of copious quantities of LSD, that the officers were dwarves “wearing dark blue, with shiny bits and helmets”.
The AnswerRichards himself says he was more careful than his image suggestsBut his constitution appears to have been particularly strongThe deaths of so many around him suggest that most people simply cannot cope with such a high intake
And although he gave up heroin in 1978 after being busted five times, he did not finally stop taking cocaine until 2006 after the coconut tree incident required him to undergo brain surgery.
Yet along the way he also managed to have the wherewithal to produce some of the greatest and most memorable rock albums of all time, inspiring generations as both a guitarist and a songwriter.
In his book, he acknowledges that his wealth allowed him to ingest a higher quality of substances than the typical drug user.
But he adds: “I was very meticulous about how much I took. I’d never put more in to get a little higher.
Keith Richards may have emerged from the 1960s intact, but Brian Jones (left) did not
“It’s the greed involved that never really affected me. People think once they’ve got this high, if they take some more they’re going to get a little higher. There’s no such thing. Especially with cocaine.
“Maybe that’s a measure of control and maybe I’m rare in that respect. When I was taking dope, I was fully convinced that my body is my temple.”
The latter statement is one that few people would readily associate with Keith Richards, but then biographers of the the guitarist have always noted his tendency to shield his true inner self from public gaze by playing up to his outrageous image.
While the “Keef” of Redlands and other hellraising tales might be the one regularly represented in the media, less well-discussed is Keith Richards the antique book collector – a man who, in unguarded moments, has spoken fondly of his childhood love of public libraries, and who attempted to catalogue the thousands of volumes in his home according to the Dewey Decimal system.
Nonetheless, the sheer volume of harmful substances ingested by Richards over the years suggests his survival can hardly be explained by restraint, Dr Lefever notes.
WHO, WHAT, WHY?
A regular part of the BBC News Magazine, Who, What, Why? aims to answer some of the questions behind the headlines
“Whether it’s genetic or because he’s built up a tolerance, he does seem to have an unusually resilient constitution,” he adds.
But Dr Lefever warns: “It’s not something you can take for granted. For every Keith Richards, there are many, many more who die.”
Indeed, the writer and music journalist David Quantick points to the tragic examples of acolytes who could not keep up – such as Gram Parsons and fellow Stone Brian Jones – as evidence that Richards is simply made of sterner stuff than most ordinary mortals.
“It’s almost as though others die so that Keith Richards may live,” Quantick observes.
“Still, it’s not as though any children are going to think he’s a good example. Just look at him: He’s got a face like a prune’s wallet.”
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David Cameron says housing benefit reforms are “fair”
MPs are to discuss controversial planned reforms to housing benefit amid calls from some Lib Dems and Tories for aspects of the changes to be rethought.
Concerns over the proposed £400 a week cap on housing support are set to be raised during a parliamentary debate on the government’s Spending Review.
Labour has said the cap is unfair and may force families out of their homes.
David Cameron has insisted he will stick with all the changes, describing them as “difficult but right”.
HOUSING BENEFIT CAP£250 for a one-bedroom property£290 for a two-bedroom property£340 for a three-bedroom property£400 for a four-bedroom property
Housing benefit: Who loses out?He made a robust defence of the proposals, due to come into effect next April, at prime minister’s questions on Wednesday, saying the housing benefit bill had got “completely out of control” under Labour.
Mr Cameron has said it is simply wrong to carry on paying out more than £20,000 a year in housing benefit to a single family as taxpayers’ money was being used to enable people to live in homes working people “couldn’t even dream of”.
His comments came amid suggestions that ministers were prepared to reconsider facets of the plan which have caused most unease, such as the 10% proposed cut in payouts when people have been on jobseeker’s allowance for more than a year.
Several London-based MPs have expressed concern about the impact of this on the poorest people in the city, Deputy Lib Dem leader Simon Hughes calling the measure “harsh and draconian”.
London Mayor Boris Johnson has said the government needs to “mitigate the impact” of the cap to take into account high rental levels in the capital and the fact that people need to stay in an area because of work and their children’s schooling.
The Department of Communities and Local Government is to grant £10m from its homelessness budget to local councils’ funds to ease the consequences of the change, in addition to £60m already allocated for a similar purpose.
According to government figures, 21,000 people will be affected by new caps on the amount families can claim for five, four, three, two and one-bedroomed properties across the UK including 17,000 in London, the majority of whom are out of work.
But 775,000 claimants could be affected by changes to the way local housing benefit levels are calculated, which could see claimants lose an average of £9 a week.
Labour has warned that thousands of people will be forced out of their homes as a result of the changes. Leader Ed Miliband said it showed how “out of touch” the government is with people’s lives.
The opposition will seek to keep up the pressure on the government on Thursday when shadow work and pensions secretary Douglas Alexander meets representatives of housing associations and charities to discuss the issue.
The BBC’s deputy political editor James Landale said that while there was opposition to the plans, it was largely unfocused at this stage.
While ministers were happy to be seen to be clamping down on excessive benefits payouts, he said they were aware of the political impact that any significant demographic upheaval may have, particularly in London.
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Pancreatic cancer can be difficult to spot
Pancreatic cancer may lurk in the body for many years before patients fall ill, US scientists say
Research hints at earlier opportunities to spot and treat the disease, which is fatal in 95% of cases.
Genetic analysis of tumours by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Johns Hopkins University suggested the first mutations may happen 20 years before they become lethal.
UK survival rates for the disease have not improved in the past 40 years.
The disease is often aggressive and unresponsive to treatment by the time it is diagnosed.
The study, published by the Nature journal, found that tumours appear to be slow growing.
They looked at tissue samples, both from the “primary” tumours in the pancreas, and from other parts of the body to which the cancer had spread, called “metastatic” tumours.
The DNA in every gene of these tumours was sequenced, looking for signs of mutations – points at which the genetic code has changed.
On average each metastatic tumour had 61 cancer-related mutations. Two-thirds of these had been present in the original pancreatic tumour.
“It means that there is a window of opportunity for early detection of pancreatic cancer”
Dr Bert Vogelstein Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Because such genetic mutations occur at a relatively steady rate, this accumulation of mutations offers an insight into just how long the cancer had been developing and growing at each stage.
Using this “molecular clock”, the researchers estimated that on average, it took 11.7 years for a single gene mutation in a pancreas cell to become a “mature” pancreatic tumour.
From this point, an average of another 6.8 years elapsed before cells from the pancreatic tumour formed a tumour in another organ.
However, once this stage had been reached, less than three years passed before the patient died.
So, from start to finish, the development of the disease took more than 20 years on average.
Researcher Dr Bert Vogelstein said that there had been two theories about why pancreatic tumours were so lethal – either that they were highly aggressive from the start, or that they were so advanced at the time of diagnosis, that little could be done.
He said: “We were surprised and pleased to discover that this second theory is correct, at least for a major fraction of tumours.
“It means that there is a window of opportunity for early detection of pancreatic cancer.”
Dr Elizabeth Rapley, from the UK’s Institute of Cancer Research, said that the findings also helped explain just why the disease was so hard to treat once it had spread around the body.
She said: “It showed that the genetic code changed as it spreads to other organs. This could mean that developing effective treatments for patients with advanced disease will be challenging.”
The Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund welcomed the findings, but said that research was underfunded in the UK.
Chief executive Maggie Blanks said: “Survival rates have not improved in the past 40 years and whilst the disease is the UK’s fifth biggest cause of cancer death, it receives less than 2% of overall research funding.
“I’m particularly pleased that the study underlines the need for early diagnosis as there is nothing currently available.”
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Many English regions are desperate for new private sector investment
Senior ministers are to set out their vision for promoting economic growth across England and assisting areas set to be worst hit by spending cuts.
Business Secretary Vince Cable will outline details of local enterprise partnerships chosen to replace existing regional development agencies by 2012.
And deputy prime minister Nick Clegg will spell out how the coalition’s new £1.4bn regional growth fund will work.
Labour say the plan is flawed and will not camouflage the impact of the cuts.
The government announced in May that the eight regional development agencies (RDAs) established by John Prescott in 1999 would be abolished and replaced by joint local authority and business partnerships.
Unveiling a white paper on regional growth in Parliament, Mr Cable will reveal which of the 56 bidding groups have been successful.
The BBC understands about 23 are expected to be given the go-ahead.
Ministers say the new bodies – which will spearhead regeneration projects, seek to attract inward invest and promote skills development – will cost less to run and be more accountable to local residents than their predecessors.
But critics say that, unlike RDAs, they will not receive any central government funding and councils – which are facing a 7% cut in their annual grants – will be hard-pressed to deliver an equivalent level of service.
Asked about the subject on Wednesday, Prime Minister David Cameron said the LEP proposals received so far were “extremely encouraging” but it was important that the assets owned and operated by the RDAs were properly managed during the changeover.
“The transition from the regional development agencies to the local enterprise partnerships has to be handled carefully,” he told MPs.
“I think they [LEPs] will lead to more…local control rather than distant regions that people don’t identify with.”
The eight RDAs outside London have a combined budget of £1.1bn this year after their funding was cut by £270m.
Although many of their functions are expected to transfer to the new organisations, some could taken on by government departments and up to 2,700 jobs are at risk as a result of the shake-up.
The new LEPs are among organisations which will be encouraged to bid for funding from the regional growth fund, the coalition’s flagship initiative to support jobs and business in some of the most deprived areas.
During a visit to Manchester, Mr Clegg – accompanied by former Conservative deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine – will give details about how firms and individuals will be able to bid for money and what conditions will be attached.
Mr Clegg has said the money – to be spread out between 2010 and 2013 – will help boost diversification of business in those areas of England with higher than average levels of public sector employment – such as the North East, and parts of the North West and the Midlands.
An estimated 490,000 public sector jobs are expected to go as a result of cuts announced by Chancellor George Osborne last week and recent BBC research suggested Middlesbrough, Mansfield and Stoke-on-Trent are among the towns most vulnerable to economic shocks.
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Personal budgets were launched three years ago
Many councils are struggling with moves to give individual people their own budgets to spend on social care, a watchdog claims.
The Audit Commission warns some need to make significant efforts to meet targets agreed for England last year.
In particular, people with mental health problems could miss out, it claims.
The Department of Health welcomed the report, urging councils to speed up reform.
“Personal budgets” are designed to give people who use social care, and their carers, more choice and control over how their services are provided.
The money to pay for them can be provided directly to the user in cash, or held and used on their behalf by a council or private care firm.
The policy, launched in 2007, was backed by the coalition government in May this year.
However, the Audit Commission, an independent body which looks at the effectiveness of public bodies in England, says that while some local authorities are on course to meet a target by offering 30% of eligible people their own budget by April 2011, most are not.
“Some have achieved dramatic things but the progress in others raises questions”
Richard Humphrey King’s Fund
Only six of the 152 councils are currently meeting it, the watchdog adds.
What is more, a survey earlier this year showed only 6% of total spending on adult social care had so far been allocated to personal budgets.
The latest report, compiled using national statistics and in-depth analysis of 12 councils, suggests that local authorities face various challenges when introducing personal budgets to the thousands of local people who need them.
Not only do they have to decide exactly how much money to give each “budget-holder”, but they have to change their financial systems to cope with the new system, and provide information to people on how to use it, while making sure that there is a local “market” in social care where the budgets can be spent.
Andy McKeon, managing director of health at the Audit Commission, said: “Introducing this radical change in the funding of social care is a challenging, and ongoing process.
“The rationale behind personal budgets is not saving money, but empowering service users. Personal budgets mean personal choice.”
Richard Humphrey, from the King’s Fund think-tank, said that the response of some councils had been “disappointing”.
“Some have achieved dramatic things but the progress in others raises questions – in one council, 60% of eligible people have a budget, while in another, it’s just 13%.
“Councils have all signed up to this – now they need strong leadership to get on with the job.”
One of the problems highlighted by the watchdog is social care for people with mental health issues.
Providing personal budgets would mean disentangling money not just from local authority funds, but from NHS funds as well.
Many authorities questioned did not provide budgets for these people – with some saying there was a “financial risk” in giving individuals with mental health problems control of their own funding.
Simon Lawton Smith, from the Mental Health Foundation, said that it was not a “good omen” for the future.
However, a spokesman for the Local Government Association, which represents councils, said that the report was “somewhat outdated”, with significant progress made since its figures were gathered.
Local authorities remained committed to personal budgets, and a fresh agreement between all the bodies involved in social care would be announced at a conference next week.
A Department of Health spokesman said that the report echoed its own messages to councils.
He said: “This should help those councils that still need to get to grips with their financial systems to pick up the pace of reform.”
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German railway workers have been on strike to demand wage equality
Germans watch the scenes of militancy from France with amazement. It is true that German railway workers have been on strike this week but it is a very rare event.
And it is very focused on pay. Germans usually strike when long-running negotiations reach deadlock. The issue is specific and monetary.
Contrast this with the tumult in France, which is over a broad issue with political ramifications.
But a look at the figures reveals interesting comparisons.
It is clear that the French are much more militant than their neighbours to the east, and also those across the Channel to the west.
They certainly put on a spectacular – occasionally violent – show when they take to the streets but are they more active when it comes to bread and butter issues?
“Yes and no” is the true but, no doubt, unsatisfactory answer.
They do not join unions like their comrades in neighbouring countries. According to the Federation of European Employers, about 30% of workers are in unions in Italy and Britain with slightly fewer in Germany – but still far more than in France – at only 9%.
But they do manage to go on strike more.
In the last five years, France has consistently lost more than 100 days of work a year through strikes for every 1,000 employees.
For Germany, it is a fraction of that, at just under four days for 1,000 workers, on the last figures available.
Britain – 19 days lost for 1,000 workers in 2009 – comes above Germany but still nowhere near France.
It should be said, though, that France has some catching up to do.
The truly militant country in the Western world is Canada – nice, reasonable Canada.
According to the UN’s International Labour Organization, Canada often far exceeds France in working days lost through strikes.
This was particularly true before the great crash.
In 2005, for example, Canada lost 303 days for every 1,000 workers compared with 151 in France (Germany: 0.5, UK: six).
Last year, Canada lost a total of 2.2 million working days through strikes. France, with nearly double the population, lost 1.4 million.
So why is Canada the true militant nation when it comes to strikes?
It is partly because some bits of the Canadian economy such as mining have boomed.
The sizzling growth has bumped up wages and made workers in weaker industries like car-making try to keep up.
As Canadian industrial relations expert Stuart Jamieson put it: “A by-product of Canada’s rapid but unstable pattern of economic growth, and one particularly provocative of industrial conflict, has been the problem of wage disparities.”
In other words, mining unions exert muscle to get a slice of the profits. Non-mining unions in manufacturing exert muscle to try to get what the miners have. But it is money, not broad politics, which drives the militancy.
In France, in contrast, many of the days lost are through grand general strikes, with no immediate gain in wages.
Some do involve public sector workers with pay at the centre but many, too, are over broader issues, like the current plans for the higher pension age.
It is very hard to compare countries exactly when you try to discover reasons for militancy.
In Britain, for example, the law bans all but direct strikes against the striker’s own employer and over very specific issues.
A general strike leaves the unions open to legal challenges and attacks on their funds via the courts.
Germany clearly has a very different industrial relations set-up because the war broke old ways of thinking and doing.
Strikers blocked French fuel depots
The consequences of the economic collapse of the 1930s are so seared into the national psyche that confrontational industrial relations seem to be a last resort.
Negotiations are done through works councils, with the strike then used sparingly to break a deadlock and force a deal.
And often not needed at all. The German machine manufacturer Bosch has just brought forward a pay rise for 85,000 workers.
“In difficult times we benefited from the strong loyalty of our staff, which was not a given,” the company said.
But in less benign, consensual industrial environments, there are a few further questions: When might strikers become rioters? When does an industrial dispute turn into a social protest? Is what is happening in France a strike, or is it a protest which turns to riot on occasion? It matters because the causes might be different.
There are a few further questions: When might strikers become rioters? When does an industrial dispute turn into a social protest? Is what is happening in France a strike or is it a protest which turns to riot on occasion? This matters because the causes might be different.
In a strike, pay is often the great driver. In riots down the ages, it is a sense of injustice, justified or not, which prompts the explosion.
Labour historians note that in some of the 19th-Century riots in Britain, wheat would be destroyed rather than stolen for use.
In the riots in Trafalgar Square in 1990, the source was a tax, the poll tax, which hit the poor proportionally harder than the rich – the tax was the same no matter what the wealth of the bearer.
Riots are often gestures against perceived injustice. Strikes are often industrial action in furtherance of more money – lose money now to get more money soon.
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