Jobs boost calls

THE Home Counties now employ more manufacturing workers than traditional heavy industry areas such as Birmingham, new research revealed.

A study by the GMB union showed that Hampshire has 91,000 people employed in manufacturing, Essex, 89,000 and Birmingham, 56,000.

The union used the figures to call on the Government to do more to boost jobs in the sector.

National officer Keith Hazelwood said: "Manufacturing jobs are vital to Britain's economy. We must draw on public procurement to boost manufacturing jobs."

PFI cash waste

THE country's biggest union stepped up its demand for the Government to stop using private finance schemes to build schools and hospitals after publishing new research, showing that taxpayers money was being wasted.

Unison said its study "nailed the claim" that extra costs of the private finance initiative were offset by increased efficiency.

The union said studies used by the Treasury on the cost of PFI programmes were "fatally flawed" and so were not credible.

Tankers strike

OIL tanker drivers at Kingsbury, in the West Midlands, are to join colleagues at depots across Britain in staging a five-day strike in a bitter dispute over pensions.

The Transport & General Workers' Union said 74 drivers at oil giant BP will walk out from Friday, hitting deliveries of petrol.