Share Sounds presented by Sarah Lowther related to Work

Tis the season to be jolly, and one form of festive relaxation is to imbibe with some fine wine. But will your glass be filled with something made in Britain? Lucy Winward from the award-winning New Hall Vineyard in Purleigh, joined Share Radio Breakfast to talk English wine.

There is widespread concern after British Airways and the Post Office joined Southern Rail in striking over the Christmas period. According to the latest figures by the Office for National Statistics, 281,000 days were lost to strike action up until the end of October 2016, which is over 100,000 more days than the same time last year. Share Radio’s Matt Cox investigated this new era of strike action with industrial action expert Professor Chris Rowley, Visiting Fellow at Kellogg College, University of Oxford, and Professor Emeritus at Cass Business School.

Italy's largest bank, UniCredit, has announced plans to cut 14,000 jobs by 2019. It may also say it will raise €13 billion euros in the country's biggest share issue, to clean up its balance sheet and boost longer-term profitability. The move comes at a troubled time for Italian banks and the economy, with the country's third-largest bank, Monte dei Paschi di Siena, at risk of failure. Bruce Packard is a Senior Analyst at bank rating and advisory organisation, Lafferty Group, and he joined Share Radio Breakfast to discuss.

The UK is building 15% fewer homes than it was in the five years before the downturn in 2008, according to a new report by Carter Jonas that has laid bare the disjointed residential construction industry. For more on this, Lee Layton, a Research Analyst at Carter Jonas, joined Share Radio Breakfast to offer an insight into the research.

Barclays has agreed to sell its French retail banking operations to European private equity firm, AnaCap Financial Partners. This follows the UK bank’s decision to sell its credit arms in Spain and Portugal. The bank says it's going to focus on its core markets in the UK and US. So is this the Barclays equivalent of Brexit? Share Radio’s Matt Cox spoke to Jeremy Cook, Chief Economist from World First, to find out more about the decision and what it will mean.

British telecoms regulator Ofcom is preparing to go to the European Commission to try to force BT to legally separate its networks division Openreach. It comes after months of talks failed to deliver a voluntary agreement. Dave Millett is the Founder and Managing Director of telecoms broker Equinox, and he joined Share Radio Breakfast to discuss the latest developments.

Gooch & Housego is involved in photonics technology. Its expertise extends from research through the development of prototypes to volume manufacturing, and enables innovation and effective manufacturing in the aerospace & defence, industrial, life sciences and scientific research sectors. On the day of the company’s latest interim results, its CEO Mark Webster joined Share Radio.

Eckoh plc is an AIM-listed global provider of secure payment products and customer contact solutions. And on the day of the company’s unaudited interim results for the six months to September 2016, CEO Nik Philpot joined Share Radio to discuss the figures.

Paul Fineman, CEO of IG Design Group, joined Share Radio Breakfast on the day his company released its half year results. IG Design Group innovates, manufactures and sources core products for celebrations, stationery and creative play. In 2016, over 80 million crackers, 750 million stickers, and nearly 850 million metres of giftwrap were sold. So have the company had a party so far this year?

There are calls for Ofgem to look at how to better protect energy consumers from their supplier going out of business. It comes as 160,000 energy customers face uncertainty, after GB Energy Supply was forced to shut down. USwitch is calling on the regulator to look at how suppliers can cope with fluctuating wholesale energy prices more effectively. James Brydges spoke to Claire Osborne, an energy expert from USwitch, about the increase in wholesale prices.