Professional Business Network

About 150 000 South African coal workers seeking 14% wage increases plan to walk off the job from Sunday in a strike that could dent exports and hurt power supplies in Africa’s largest economy.

Hundreds of thousands of union workers have downed tools in recent weeks, or are threatening to do so, seeking raises double or triple the 5% inflation rate in the mid-year bargaining session known locally as “strike season”.

Lesiba Seshoka, spokesperson for the powerful National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), said employers have offered between 7% to 8.5%. Read Full Post…

Following on from the natural disasters that struck Queensland earlier this year, over 50 percent of businesses now plan to review their OHS and risk management policies.

According to a ComOps survey, 78 percent of organisations discovered gaps in their OHS policies after the disasters, making risk management strategy a greater priority

Results revealed that 78 per cent of organisations found gaps in their OHS policies following the disasters and as a result, risk management strategy is now a greater priority overall.

The survey also highlighted a number of the barriers OHS and risk managers face, with 32 percent indicating a legally compliant OHS strategy is not a high enough priority in their organisation and 29 percent saying they can’t afford the investment at the current time.

In addition, when it comes to deploying effective OHS strategies within businesses, 35 percent of managers say that they’re frustrated by the behaviour of their workforce colleagues in assisting with policy and procedure compliance, while 14 percent don’t believe they’re given adequate time to dedicate to the overall issue of safety.

“The survey suggests that the Queensland floods have been a wake-up call for a comprehensive review of OHS strategies, all the way from design and formulation through to incident reporting, risk mitigation and management,” ComOps Safety, Rick and Claims Manager Moshe Woods said.

“At the same time, the data would suggest that while the will is there to dedicate more resources to OHS, managers are still hindered by slack budget allocation and the perception that other business requirements have a greater priority.”

Moshe said he’s reassured by the finding that over one third of organisations are planning to deploy an OHS and risk management system, with 25 percent planning to do so within the next 12 months.

“This OHS policy overhaul should place Queensland in a better position at times of natural disaster in the future,” he added.

If you weren’t one of the lucky three readers who won tickets to see Jack Daly deliver his winning sales strategies in Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne, we’ve got some good news.

Our business education partner, The Growth Faculty, is offering Dynamic Business readers $100 off the standard ticket rate.

All you need to do is use the promo code ‘DYNAMIC’ when registering to receive discounted tickets for Daly’s Winning Sales Strategies seminar.

For those who’d like to register for the seminar, please visit

Why would you want to see Jack Daly? Because he has a wealth of experience and knowledge behind him! He’s built six businesses from scratch into national sized firms, two of which sold on Wall Street, to First Boston and Salomon Brothers. Now, he helps

Read Full Post…

Eurozone leaders today agreed to a sweeping deal that will grant Greece a massive new bailout and radically reshape the currency unions rescue fund, allowing it to act pre-emptively when crises build up. The deal resolves a political deadlock between Europes top economic authorities over how to save Greece that had investors worried the debt crisis would spin out of control. The eurozone countries and the IMF will give Greece a second bailout worth $155 billion, on top of a similar bailout last year.

Banks and other private investors will contribute some $71 billion to the rescue package until 2014 by either rolling over Greek bonds that they hold, swapping them for new ones with lower interest rates, or selling the bonds back to Greece at a low price. Initial reaction from markets and analysts to the deal was cautiously positive.

Read Full Post…

About one in four US adults provided unpaid care for a sick or disabled family member at home in 2009, and AARP estimates the dollar value to be $450 billion, the AP reports. These 42.1 million people provided an average of 18.4 hours of care per week, up 9% from the previous study in 2007. Instead of seeing themselves as “caregivers,” they “describe what they do in terms of their relationship with the other person: as a husband, wife, partner, daughter, daughter-in-law, son, grandson, niece, or close friend, for example,” said the study.

The study found the average caregiver to be a 49-year-old woman who still works a full-time job and cares for her mother about five years. “

Read Full Post…

Its audacity was brazen and apparently fearless. Among its high-profile victims were Sony, the CIA, the FBI, the US Senate and even the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency.

Exposing frailties in government and corporate networks, the group leaked hundreds of thousands of hacked passwords, and in the process garnered more than a quarter of a million followers on Twitter. But after just 50 days, on 25 June, LulzSec suddenly said it was disbanding.

Just hours before this announcement, the Guardian had published leaked internet chat logs revealing the inner workings of the group, which appeared to consist of six to eight members. The logs showed that authorities were often hot on their heels, and that after an attack on an FBI-affiliated website two hackers had quit LulzSec as they were “not up for the heat”.

As media attention mounted, Ryan Cleary, an Essex-based 19-year-old suspected of affiliation to LulzSec, was arrested in a joint UK-US “e-crime” investigation. Read Full Post…

Fuel industry workers who are members of Solidarity have suspended their strike and will return to work, the union said on Wednesday afternoon.

“Solidarity members of PetroSA will go back to work today and members of the trade union at Sasol Secunda will resume their duties tomorrow [Thursday],” said deputy general secretary Dirk Hermann.

He said several issues that remained unresolved would have to be dealt with at a later date.

“A point is reached in a dispute where a balance must be found between the needs of the employees, the employers, the public and South Africa.”

He said it was in the best interests of all parties to end the strike and continue negotiations.

Hermann said the union hoped another negotiation session would be held before the weekend.

Solidarity joined the strike on Monday in the hope of adding “a sense of urgency” to wage negotiations in the fuel sector.

Last Monday, 70 000 members of the Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood, and Allied Workers’ Union (Ceppwawu), the Allied Workers Union, and the General Industries Workers Union of South Africa downed tools.

They were demanding a minimum salary of R6 000 a month and a 40-hour working week.

On Monday employers met with the unions, making an offer of a 10% increase for workers at the lowest level, raising their minimum wage from R4 000 to R4 400. Oth Read Full Post…