tight hand

Demands for better pay from teachers and National Health Service workers are colliding with the government’s tight hand on the public purses.

Cuba’s government has long struggled to build sufficient new housing or maintain existing structures, and tried to keep a tight hand on private efforts, believing — often correctly — that building materials had been pilfered from state stocks.

It is a family operation, largely controlled by the Walton family, which keeps a tight hand on management.

Businesses emerged from the 2007-09 recession lean and are showing little urgency to ramp up hiring, relying on their existing workers to meet production and keeping a tight hand on costs such as wages.

Life means waking up every morning with the tight hand of anxiety opening and closing on my esophagus.