Thursday newspaper round-up: Rail strike, Thames Water, Tesla, mortgages

(Sharecast News) - More than 40,000 railway workers are to be balloted in a dispute over jobs and pay that a union says could result in Britain's biggest rail strike in modern history. The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) said staff would be asked to vote on strike action over Network Rail's plans to cut at least 2,500 maintenance jobs as part of a £2bn reduction in spending on the network. - Guardian Thames Water dumped untreated effluent for more than 68,000 hours into the river systems around Oxford last year, campaigners have revealed, arguing that the sum of money the company plans to spend to improve the situation is woefully inadequate. The company discharged raw sewage into the River Thames and its tributaries including the River Windrush, Thame, Evenlode and Ock 5,028 times in 2021, according to data analysed by the Oxford Rivers Improvement Campaign (ORIC). - Guardian

Tesla revealed a massive jump in sales and profits on Wednesday night, smashing Wall Street's expectations despite supply chain problems. The company, headed by billionaire Elon Musk, said its revenues had leapt from $10.4bn (£8bn) to $18.8bn in the first quarter. Analysts had expected $17.8bn. - Telegraph

The Bank of England is poised to unlock cheaper mortgages for millions of households after pledging to use its post-Brexit freedoms to introduce a "more British style of rule-making". Threadneedle Street is seeking to axe overly expensive and onerous rules that make it hard for small banks to offer cheap home loans, following a legal overhaul that gives the institution more power to set its own agenda. - Telegraph

Shareholders have staged a revolt at SThree in a row over directors' pay. More than 45 per cent of investors who voted cast their ballots against the 2021 remuneration report at the science and engineering recruiter's annual meeting yesterday. Twenty-two per cent of shareholders also rejected the reappointment of PWC as auditor, while 18 per cent voted against the re-election of James Bilefield, 52, the chairman and a serial technology investor, as a director. - The Times