Category Archives: Business

Australian retailers urge government to broaden employers’ power to cut workers’ hours

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The National Retail Association wants all businesses to have greater flexibility, not just those receiving jobkeeper

Australia’s retailers are calling on the Morrison government to broaden the power of employers to cut workers’ hours and change duties, as Labor signalled it will oppose the move to extend flexibility linked to the jobkeeper wage subsidy.

The National Retail Association chief executive, Dominique Lamb, told Guardian Australia the government should consider granting all businesses the flexibility to vary work hours – not just the firms in receipt of the jobkeeper wage subsidy.

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Smartwatch maker Garmin hit by outages after ransomware attack

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US company forced to shut down call centres, website and some other online services

Garmin has been forced to shut down its call centres, website and some other online services after a ransomware attack encrypted the smartwatch maker’s internal network and some production systems.

The US company shut down services including the official Garmin website and all customer services, including phone lines, online chat and email.

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Australia’s Coon cheese to change name in effort to help ‘eliminate racism’

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Company has previously resisted calls to change branding, saying it was named after American cheesemaker Edward William Coon

The Australian cheese brand Coon will change its name to help “eliminate racism” following a campaign stating the product name was offensive to Indigenous Australians.

Friday’s announcement by Saputo, the dairy company that owns Coon, “to retire the Coon brand name”, comes after a decades-long effort to rename the cheese, including an unsuccessful 1999 complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission from Indigenous activist Dr Stephen Hagan.

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Morgan Stanley: ex-employees seek contract release to allege racial discrimination

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Former workers have ‘important’ stories to tell and ‘feel a heightened sense of obligation to come forward’, lawyer says

At least six former employees are asking Morgan Stanley to release them from confidentiality agreements so they can tell their stories of alleged racial discrimination at the investment bank.

Related: Mike Pompeo attacks WHO in private meeting during UK visit

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UK will ‘bear the consequences’ for Hong Kong decision, China warns

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Ambassador to London calls extradition treaty suspension ‘blatant’ interference in Chinese affairs and a contravention of international law

China’s ambassador has accused the UK government of blatantly interfering in China’s internal affairs by suspending extradition with Hong Kong, and led a cavalcade of Beijing voices warning of consequences.

On Monday the UK foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, announced his government would follow moves by Australia, Canada, and the US, and formally suspend its extradition agreement with Hong Kong in response to Beijing’s unilateral imposition of national security laws.

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Coalition to overhaul jobkeeper and jobseeker Covid-19 subsidies by cutting support rates

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Reductions to the coronavirus supplements will start from 28 September and include tighter eligibility requirements

The Morrison government will reduce the level of income support paid out under the jobkeeper and jobseeker payments from 28 September, and create two payment tiers for the wage subsidy to ensure the rate aligns more closely with people’s pre-Covid income, rather than giving part-timers and casuals a pay rise.

The overhaul will be unveiled by Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg on Tuesday ahead of an economic statement the government will deliver on Thursday. As well as lowering the rate of both the jobkeeper wage subsidy and the $550 coronavirus supplement in jobseeker after September, the government will tighten the eligibility requirements for both payments – including retesting businesses in October.

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Revealed: NHS denied PPE at height of Covid-19 as supplier prioritised China

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Disclosures call into question UK’s reliance on ‘just in time’ logistics during pandemic

The NHS was deprived of large amounts of protective gear at the height of the coronavirus outbreak after a French company contracted to supply millions of masks allegedly prioritised more lucrative deals with deep-pocketed clients including a Chinese state-owned energy company.

A joint investigation by the Guardian and the French news website Mediapart has uncovered evidence suggesting the mask manufacturer Valmy failed to fulfil the terms of a £1.2m contract with the NHS to supply about 7m masks in the event of a pandemic.

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Africa can become a renewable energy superpower – if climate deniers are kept at bay

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Nigel Lawson’s thinktank is pushing dirty energy on the continent with the greatest capacity for creating clean fuel

The power of climate science denial in the UK, thankfully, has been in retreat over the past decade. Nigel Lawson’s Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) may still boast a prime Westminster address, but its influence has waned. In fact, its decline aptly mirrors the fortunes of the coal industry, including US titans such as Peabody Energy, which saw its share price plunge 99% between 2008 and 2016 before filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy.

With countries rightly phasing coal out of their energy mix, the GWPF has turned its sights on Africa to peddle its misinformation about the merits of burning fossil fuels. It has published a new report, derisively titled Heart of Darkness: Why Electricity for Africa is a Security Issue, and launched a glossy website for “energy justice”, which uses the language of climate justice campaigners to try to undermine renewable energy.

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BA begins to carry out its ‘fire and rehire’ threat to jobs

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As airline moves to cut 12,000 jobs, senior crew told they will get 80% of current basic pay

British Airways has started carrying out its threat to fire and rehire thousands of workers – days after unions joined talks with a plan to save jobs.

Long-serving cabin crew were served notice this week to either accept an enhanced redundancy package within three weeks, or risk losing it by reapplying for a similar job at much lower pay.

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Silicon Valley has deep pockets for African startups – if you’re not African

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American venture capital and private equity is dominating Africa, but it’s mostly funding other white foreign founders as black entrepreneurs struggle to raise financing

“Sorry for asking, but do you understand that the money belongs to the company and is not your personal fund?”

When Jesse Ghansah saw this question in an email from a prominent white investor in San Francisco while fundraising for his first startup four years ago, he refused the deal.

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Clive Palmer charged with fraud and corporate misconduct offences

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Mining magnate allegedly diverted funds to the benefit of his Palmer United party in the weeks before the 2013 election

Mining magnate Clive Palmer has been charged with fraud and corporate misconduct offences that carry lengthy prison sentences over the alleged diversion of at least $10m to the benefit of his Palmer United party in the weeks before the 2013 election.

Palmer denied the allegations, telling Guardian Australia the charges were “nonsense” and rehashed matters over which a court had already ruled in his favour.

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Battery firm chooses Welsh site for Britain’s first gigafactory

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Startup firm Britishvolt, serving energy storage and electric cars, plans 30GWh battery plant at Bro Tathan

A startup company with plans to build Britain’s first gigafactory to make batteries for electric cars has chosen a site in south Wales for the plant after discussions with the Welsh government.

Britishvolt, which in May launched an ambitious effort to create a £1.2bn factory, has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Welsh government ahead of signing a lease for a former Royal Air Force base at Bro Tathan business park, south Wales.

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Ethical labels not fit for purpose, report warns consumers

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Schemes including Fairtrade and FSC may serve to mask human rights abuses and allow government inaction, study claims

Many of the world’s leading certification standards are not only failing to improve the ethical conduct of large corporations but are serving to entrench abusive business practices, a damning new report argues.

The study of 40 global voluntary initiatives, including emblematic on-pack labelling schemes such as the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and Fairtrade International, identifies multiple failures in what it refers to as a “grand experiment” in corporate accountability.

“These kinds of initiatives are not effective tools for holding corporations accountable for abuses or for protecting rights holders against human rights violations,” says Amelia Evans, executive director at MSI Integrity, the US-based human rights group behind the research.

Related: Rainforest Alliance certifying unethical pineapple farms, activists claim

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Australian car buyers launch class action against Westpac over alleged secret dealer commissions

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Hundreds of thousands of buyers allegedly paid as much as three times the normal bank interest rate when arranging finance through a car dealer

Law firm Maurice Blackburn has launched a class action lawsuit against Westpac on behalf of hundreds of thousands of car buyers who were sold vehicle loans under a deal that allegedly allowed dealers to secretly pocket vast commission payments.

Dealers were able to maximise commissions Westpac and its subsidiary, St George, paid them for selling the loans by charging some customers as much as three times the bank’s going interest rate, it is claimed.

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Governments put ‘green recovery’ on the backburner

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G20 countries aim their pandemic bailout spending at fossil fuel industries, leaving Paris climate change targets in doubt

Governments are spending vastly more in support of fossil fuels than on low-carbon energy in rescue packages triggered by the coronavirus crisis, new data has shown, despite rhetoric from many countries in support of a “green recovery”.

Data from the Energy Policy Tracker, a new research effort by several civil society groups, shows that at least $151bn (£120bn) of bailout cash has been spent or earmarked so far to support fossil fuels by the G20 group of large economies. Only about a fifth of this spending is conditional on environmental requirements such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions or cleaning up pollution.

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Virgin Atlantic agrees £1.2bn rescue deal amid coronavirus slump

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Investors pump in funds, loans and deferrals alongside Branson’s £200m injection

Virgin Atlantic has announced a £1.2bn rescue deal to allow Sir Richard Branson’s grounded passenger airline to survive another 18 months and aim to return to profit in 2022, after four months without scheduled flights.

The privately funded recapitalisation package, a combination of cash injections, loans, and deferrals, was finally confirmed on Tuesday after weeks of talks with potential investors, after Virgin’s attempts to garner state support were rebuffed.

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Huawei to be stripped of role in UK’s 5G network by 2027, Dowden confirms

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U-turn puts Boris Johnson on collision course with Tory rebels on timing of ban

Huawei is to be stripped out of Britain’s 5G phone networks by 2027, a date that puts Boris Johnson on collision course with a group of Conservative rebels who want the Chinese company eliminated quicker and more comprehensively.

Oliver Dowden, the UK culture secretary, also announced that no new Huawei 5G kit can be bought after 31 December this year – but disappointed the rebels by saying that older 2G, 3G and 4G kit can remain until it is no longer needed.

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Bono campaign group accuses UK of wasting international aid budget

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Campaign group One, founded by U2 frontman, is calling for a reorganisation of aid spending

A development campaign group founded by Bono has accused the UK government of wasting a large chunk of its international aid budget and called for spending on overseas assistance to be cut by £1.6bn.

In a report that echoes criticisms by some Conservative MPs, the U2 singer’s One campaign said there was too much spending on projects that failed to reduce poverty.

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Super-rich call for higher taxes on wealthy to pay for Covid-19 recovery

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Exclusive: Group of 83 wealthy individuals demands ‘immediate, substantial and permanent’ higher taxes ‘on people like us’

A group of 83 of the world’s richest people have called on governments to permanently increase taxes on them and other members of the wealthy elite to help pay for the economic recovery from the Covid-19 crisis.

The super-rich members, including Ben and Jerry’s ice cream co-founder Jerry Greenfield and Disney heir Abigail Disney, called on “our governments to raise taxes on people like us. Immediately. Substantially. Permanently”.

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Priti Patel to unveil details of post-Brexit immigration plans

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Home secretary will announce the biggest overhaul of the UK system in decades

The home secretary is to unveil further detail on the future of immigration in the UK on Monday in an attempt to prepare businesses and organisations for the biggest overhaul of the system in decades.

The Home Office has previously revealed the core principles behind the forthcoming points-based system, which is meant to be introduced when the transition period from leaving the European Union ends on 1 January. Under the system, UK borders will be closed to so-called non-skilled workers and applicants will be have to show a greater understanding of English.

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