Surge in disputes under Fair Work. Sigma Pharmaceuticals has locked out workers Matt Quaife and Lem plus about 130 others at its Melbourne plant in what is shaping up as a landmark struggle over night shift penalty rates. Matt and Lem say they are happy to endure the disruption to social life involved in working nights but want to be paid accordingly. Photo: Jesse Marlow Pip Freebairn, Mark Skulley and Patrick Durkin The number of working days lost to industrial disputes almost doubled in 2011, the most since 2004.
There were fewer strikes, but they became more prolonged over issues beyond simply pay and conditions. Former BHP Billiton chairman Don Argus told The Australian Financial Review that he saw no sign of the trend abating. “That sort of data does not help with the productivity that is required to keep Australia competitive, it is as simple as that,” Mr Argus said. The data fuelled the employer push for changes to Labor’s Fair Work Act, including narrowing the range of matters that can be bargained over. Harvard Business Review: Happy versus crappy. GRETCHEN SPREITZER and CHRISTINE PORATH If employee happiness isn’t a priority in your organisation, it should be.
Happy employees produce more than unhappy ones. They routinely show up at work, they’re less likely to quit, they go above and beyond the call of duty and they attract people who are just as committed. Moreover, they’re in it for the long haul. So what does it mean to be happy in your job? Across industries and job types, we found that people who fit our description of thriving demonstrated 16 per cent better overall performance (as reported by their managers) and 125 per cent less burn-out (self-reported) than their peers.
We’ve identified two components of thriving. The two qualities work in concert; one without the other is unlikely to be sustainable and may even damage performance. However, the combination of vitality and learning leads to employees who deliver results and find ways to grow. Some employees thrive no matter the context. The costs of incivility are great. Carr driven to accept Gillard’s offer. Prime Minister Julia Gillard announces that former NSW premier Bob Carr will join her government as a senator for NSW and Foreign Minister at a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra on Friday March 2. Photo: Andrew Meares Pamela Williams Editor at large NSW faction leader senator Mark Arbib announces his resignation from the federal ministry and from Parliament on February 27.
Photo: Andrew Meares Defence Minister Stephen Smith, who actively sought a return to the foreign affairs portfolio he relinquished when Kevin Rudd took up the position after being removed as prime minister. Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan. Soon after 10pm on Thursday last week, a spectral figure moved through the lobby of the Hotel Realm in Canberra. He carried a travel suit-pack which he lifted high to carefully conceal his face as he stepped – incognito – towards the elevator. Moreover, his return to politics after a hiatus of many years was a triumphal blast from the bastion of the NSW ALP Right machine. How to win friends and bury hatchets. Lifting the spirits . . . Bob Carr’s move to Canberra has been a big fillip for the NSW Right Photo: Lee Besford Laura Tingle ‘Bob for leader!”
An inappropriately enthusiastic member of the NSW Right shouted from the front row on Tuesday night as the faction gathered at Trades Hall in Sydney to go through the motions of endorsing former NSW premier Bob Carr for the Senate spot vacated by Mark Arbib. Our enthusiast was quickly put in his place, hushed up, and generally told to keep his enthusiasms to himself on this night of triumph for the faction. After all, in a sign that even within the faction people were building bridges after the bitterness of the federal leadership brawl, Carr’s nomination was moved by Rudd-backer Chris Bowen and seconded by Gillard supporter David Bradbury. Carr’s move to Canberra, after all last week’s unfortunate confusion, has in itself been a big fillip for the NSW Right, which hasn’t had too many wins since that unfortunate incident at the state election.
Coles Twitter campaign goes down, down gurgler. Didn't see it coming ... Coles later admitted the tweet was a mistake. A social media experiment has backfired for Coles, exposing the supermarket to a flood of negative comments on Twitter. The supermarket is the latest company to have a social media marketing exercise go terribly wrong, following blunders from Qantas and Coca-Cola. The official Coles account last night urged followers to complete the sentence "in my house it's a crime not to buy..... " But the PR exercise quickly fizzled as Twitter users inundated the supermarket's account with negative comments.
Advertisement User @Pollytics wrote, "Food from markets while Coles exploits mental illness via pokies. " Other users raised concerns about the supermarket not giving farmers a fair price for their produce. @TaraMacca wrote, "In my house, its a crime not to buy LOCALLY- and I don't mean from a @coles supermarket. " "In my house it's a crime not to buy...BREAD AND MILK AT PRICES THAT ALLOW PRIMARY PRODUCERS TO SURVIVE," said @downesy. Kony-lessons from a social media sensation | Supratim Adhikari. Social Media Immediacy: Good, Bad, Ugly plus a little Derp … There is no doubting that one of the potent differentiators of Social Media as a communication channel is its immediacy. This immediacy results in many different reactions; commonly including informed considered soliloquy, logical passionate adult debates, farce, tragedy, cynical recidivism and ruthless emotional lambasting.
Nothing has encapsulated this more than the Kony2012 meme of the past couple of days. The fact a shed-load of folks have, in a short period of time, awoken to the ongoing harsh reality of the military use of children in (what I will term) Middle Africa is a step forward. Social media can achieve in hours or days what has previously taken years; and in some cases can disseminate particular information to folks who would previously have never come across it.
However, this immediacy comes with a number of risks and pitfalls which increasingly radiate outside the divergent social media reality into the real world. Coles Twitter backfires with support for farmers - National Rural News - Agribusiness and General - Finance. Lehman Brothers emerges from bankruptcy. One-time financial powerhouse Lehman Brothers has emerged from bankruptcy and is now a liquidating company whose main business in the coming years will be paying back its creditors and investors. Lehman, whose September 2008 collapse is often regarded as the height of the financial crisis, will start distributing what it expects to be a total of about $US65 billion to creditors on April 17, it said in a statement overnight. That first group of payments to creditors, many of whom lost money in its collapse 3-1/2 years ago, will be at least $US10 billion, Lehman has said previously. The move is a legal milestone, but does not indicate the immediate end of Lehman Brothers.
The company will continue to operate, in the same midtown Manhattan headquarters it was in before bankruptcy, albeit on fewer floors, as it sells off its remaining assets before finally closing up shop. Advertisement Now, however, the company has freedom to operate more like any other company outside of bankruptcy, he said. Deepwater Oil Drilling Returns to Gulf and Grows as Blast Fades. Guardian open journalism: Three Little Pigs advert - video | Media. The quantified self: Counting every moment. CBA hailed for social media initiative. 2012 News Release Schedule for the National Economic Accounts. Preview: China GDP – Key to AUD/USD. A key to watch to begin the week will be the release of GDP data from China. This would be especially important for risk sentiment in the commodity space and the commodity currencies that are closely linked to China's growth and trade - namely the Australian and New Zealand dollars.
The expectation is that growth will cool in China to an 8.7% annualized pace in the fourth quarter from a 9.1% pace in the third quarter, continuing a trend of deceleration in China's GDP. There has been much made about the possibility of a hard landing in China if it's housing market, which many consider a bubble, falters. At the same time, the shadow banking system is becoming an increasing worry and the loans given out to local governments in the 2008 period are starting to show a high percentage of delinquencies, which creates the possibility of Chinese authorities needing to bailout its banking system. 3 Scenarios for the 4Q Chinese GDP Release: 1. 2. 3.
AUD/USD - Chinese Growth Key to Direction for Aussie. Greece in last ditch scramble to avoid default. CBA gets daring in hot market. Bank funding costs shrink to three-month low. Australia's largest banks are taking advantage of an easing in Europe's sovereign debt crisis that helped drive yield premiums on the nation's financial bonds to the lowest in more than three months.
Westpac sold $2 billion of five-year notes on March 6, paying 20 basis points less than a similar-maturity offering by National Australia Bank last month, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Australian banks have boosted unsecured debt sales to $US20.5 billion this year, up 23 per cent from the same period of 2011, the data show. Borrowing costs are falling as European leaders make progress toward solving the region's fiscal crisis and after higher-than-expected relative yields on covered bonds roiled the market for unsecured financial debt.
The extra yield investors demand to own Australian dollar bank bonds instead of government securities declined 41 basis points this year to 267 basis points on March 5, the lowest since November, Bank of America Merrill Lynch indexes show. Bloomberg. At ING capital is king, beating liquidity and profits. Swan slams coal threat. Marcus Priest Mining companies are investigating legal options to hit green groups with claims for millions of dollars over plans to use litigation to delay coalmines and infrastructure projects. Treasurer Wayne Swan yesterday condemned the campaign as disturbing, “completely irrational” and deeply irresponsible – only days after himself attacking coalmining magnates and other mining billionaires as “poisonous” vested interests. Prime Minister Julia Gillard joined Labor MPs, mining unions and business in decrying the self-proclaimed “anti-coal movement”.
But Greens leader Bob Brown declared his willingness to contribute to the Greenpeace-led campaign. “I see that Clive Palmer is undertaking three legal actions at the moment, so I think he’d be a backer of the Green [groups] taking action in the courts,” Senator Brown said. The leaking of the anti-coal document came before a visit by the World Heritage Committee to see if the Great Barrier Reef was at risk. Revealed: Coal under green attack. Matthew Stevens, Gemma Daley and Marcus Priest Disturbed ... Resources Minister Martin Ferguson says “elaborate strategies to destroy Australian industries and jobs” are a concern. Photo: Simon Alekna Greenpeace is spearheading a campaign by green groups to raise up to $6 million to disrupt and delay new coalmines and infrastructure in a bid to make some unviable.
The campaign, outlined in a document obtained by The Australian Financial Review, reveals a key part of the strategy to prevent a “global climate change tipping point” created by Australian coal is to tie up project approval processes in litigation and to create investor uncertainty. “By disrupting and delaying key projects, we are likely to make at least some of them unviable,” says the document, entitled Stopping the Australian Coal Export Boom. This means lodging legal challenges to five new coal port expansions, two major rail lines and up to a dozen of the key mines. “We are seeing that future being built now. Federal minister says anti-coal activists are 'living in fantasy land' TRADE Minister Craig Emerson has warned an immediate switch to renewable energy would result in a global depression and has branded a group of anti-coal activists as "delusional". Responding to reports today of a $6 million call to arms by a group of environmental activists to disrupt and delay coal projects and infrastructure, Dr Emerson said it was a “fantasy” to suggest the industry could simply be abandoned.
“They are deluding themselves if they think the world is just going to flick the switch to renewable energy,” Dr Emerson told ABC News 24. “We would have a global depression if we just said `that's it, we're out of coal, we are just going to move to renewable energy' just because they believe that is good for the world. “It would mean mass starvation and they ought to wake up to that instead of living in a fantasy land and organising these sorts of campaigns.” “Plans to disrupt and stop new coal projects threatens one of the key pillars of the economy,” Mr Hooke said.
Business outraged by anti-coal campaign. Westpac sends more tech jobs offshore. Paul Smith Westpac Banking Corporation has defended its decision to cut 119 permanent technology jobs as a necessary efficiency, after the Finance Sector Union hit out at the bank’s decision calling it a “completely unjustified” example of a “race to the bottom mentality”. The bank has told workers in a series of meetings in recent days that their jobs would go as a result of a review announced last November, which is informing a new “best sourcing” strategy.
The bulk of the jobs are based in the Sydney CBD and Kogarah in the city’s south, with smaller numbers going from Queensland, South Australia and Victoria. The best sourcing strategy is a decision to give greater responsibility for technology delivery to a selection of external, largely Indian suppliers. Westpac said a further seven roles in its collections team would also go but that efforts were being made to redeploy affected staff. IAG to cut 600 jobs at CGU.