Tuesday newspaper round-up: Amazon, Lycamobile, Revolut

Thousands of workers at Amazon are threatening to strike at the company after giving the company a deadline of 15 December to agree to begin negotiating a first contract with the union representing employees. The strike threats, which started in New York, have now spread to Chicago and Atlanta. They come during Amazon’s peak holiday season and after the company experienced record sales during its 2024 Black Friday and Cyber Monday events. – Guardian

Almost 90% of the UK workforce at the telecoms company Lycamobile have been told they could lose their jobs, the Guardian has learned, in an announcement that leaves more than 300 staff fearing for their roles shortly before Christmas. The company, owned by the multimillionaire Tory donor and British-Sri Lankan businessman Allirajah Subaskaran, sells pay-as-you-go sim cards popular with low-paid workers wanting to make cheap phone calls to family overseas, as well as in the UK. - Guardian

Rachel Reeves may be forced to announce emergency tax rises in the spring if the economy continues to deteriorate, analysts have warned. Economists warned that a “quirk” in Ms Reeves’s new tax and spending rules meant she might be required to announce measures to balance the books in March. – Telegraph

Bill-payers face levies of up to £520 to pay for controversial carbon capture schemes under Ed Miliband’s plan for clean power. A string of projects backed by the Government are expected to cost £21.7bn over the next 25 years, including schemes that will store the emissions of new gas-fired power plants and some factories. – Telegraph

Eight years ago, hundreds of small investors took a long-odds bet on what was then a little-known financial technology company called Revolut — and now they have been turned into near millionaires after the rules were changed to allow them to crystallise some of their profits. Investors using the Crowdcube platform are due to have made 404 times their original investment when they sell a portion of their Revolut shares in the next few days. – The Times