The embarrassment of Britain's second-largest city municipal was taken to court by 5,000 women and declared bankrupt
In 1776, with Qianlong's rule in western Sichuan, the city of Birmingham, England, thousands of kilometers away, implemented the world's earliest factory system, that is, in this year, Birmingham ushered in the earliest steam locomotive in history, making Birmingham the largest manufacturing base in Europe, and also marking the country's entry into an industrial revolution.
Subsequently, Birmingham built the world's first long-distance railway, a modern postal system, artificial plastics, vacuum magnetoelectric tubes (a key component for radar and microwave equipment), jet engines and a series of world-class inventions, all of which came from Birmingham.
However, just like the former "Kingdom of the Immortal Sun", Birmingham is gradually entering its twilight years, and even a lawsuit caused it to collapse completely.
In 2010, 174 Birmingham city workers sued**, including 170 women, most of whom worked in medical, cleaning, sanitation and kitchen jobs, for "gender-based discrimination".
Originally, this matter did not attract the attention of the Birmingham authorities, but the British trade union organized more than 5,000 British women to sue Birmingham, Coventry, Dundee and other more than 20 places to the British High Court, both in terms of the number of lawsuits and the amount of compensation, ranked first in Birmingham, as of the beginning of 2022, the amount of compensation in Birmingham reached 1.1 billion euros, and the remaining 7.5 billion euros of debt has not been paid.
According to **, more than 20 cities in the United Kingdom will have to pay compensation ranging from at least 30 billion to 40 billion euros, not including penalties.
Birmingham's GDP fell from more than £300 billion to £33 billion, and with a lot of debt, they were forced to cut some unnecessary spending and cancel the "voluntary departure" of their staff, but even so, they failed to keep their jobs and became the first city in the history of the UK to go bankrupt.
How much of a city's impact does a company's collapse have?
First of all, public welfare, such as health, according to the latest statistics, Birmingham has a total of 1,800 sanitation workers, 600 sanitation workers, resulting in the urban garbage stations are stuffed with garbage bags, some people complained to the British ** no one came to collect for two weeks, and they had to drive their own cars to the nearby waste ** station.
The second is public transport, where around 500-600 bus drivers and staff have been laid off, dealing a severe blow to Birmingham's public transport, with some routes reduced from 20 pairs to 2 pairs, and 60 traffic police officers reportedly dismissed as a result of this "voluntary resignation".
The third is the paralysis of the healthcare system, in which more than 80 percent of female health workers in lawsuit-ridden medical institutions say they will not be able to start work until their contracts expire, so 180 areas have been affected, and more than 20 small and medium-sized medical workers have been affected, resulting in many patients having to drive themselves to London to receive them**.
Before the closure, more than 300 women were unemployed, and after bankruptcy, more than 1,200 people lost their jobs, which caused the paralysis of the city management institutions and brought great difficulties to the construction of the city and the work of residents.
Fifth, and the most direct consequence, that is, the city of Birmingham** will face the fate of "tax increase and salary cut", the United Kingdom has made it clear that they will not help Birmingham, so Birmingham has to raise taxes, such as parking fees, fuel surcharges, excise taxes, electricity, electricity bills, etc., and cut 95% of staff salaries.
The two metropolises of Great Britain will be forced to go out of business with such a small amount of money?
In fact, the UK is not as beautiful as the outside world sees, since Brexit, the British economy has been in the midst of "internal and external troubles", first the stagnation between China and Europe, overly optimistic British companies after Brexit, not only have to face additional tax burdens, but also face competition from European substitutes, and then face the shortage of funds caused by the Russian-Ukrainian war, shortage of funds and other problems, the most serious period, British restaurants no longer even ** baked pizza, they only sell semi-finished products, let the guests do it themselves.
On the other hand, due to the European background, Birmingham's industrial structure has changed from traditional heavy industry to service-oriented, and the current manufacturing industry accounts for only 8%, and most of them are small companies, such as the jewellery industry, so Birmingham's unemployment rate is the highest in the UK, only 49% of women are employed, while the national unemployment rate has remained around 10%.
Even so, Birmingham is only the second largest city in the UK, which shows how bad the UK's economy is at the moment. Most interestingly, Birmingham was also the first choice of some "abandoners", who were often reported to be in the UK against the British.