Still standing & inhabited for 900 years.

Got earthquakes?

This morning, Rishi Sunak said it was "utterly wrong" to blame him for failing to fix crumbling concrete in England's schools
Earlier, a former senior civil servant said the government halved the budget for school repairs in England in 2021
Jonathan Slater said the government agreed to fund work on 100 schools a year to fix concrete and other problems
But after a review by then-Chancellor Sunak, the budget was cut to 50 schools a year.

The fact of the matter is that the Tories were aware of the issues with RAAC since 1994.

The Labour leader states that the matter is descending into a farce.
Does he not realise that 3 years later they entered government, spent the next 13 years there & DID nothing about it.

First warnings on RAAC were noted earlier than that, What is RAAC concrete and why is it a safety risk?

When were these risks first identified?

The differences to traditional concrete - and the risks of RAAC use - were outlined as far back as 1961, around the time when Britain first began to use the material.
The Institution for Structural Engineers said in a report, seen by the BBC's Newsnight, that RAAC was so different to traditional concrete that "it is perhaps unfortunate that the term concrete has been retained for these aerated products".
The report found that short-term exposure to moisture reduced strength by about 13%, while long-term exposure to "polluted air" reduced it by 40%.
The potential safety issues of ageing RAAC were first reported in the 1980s and 1990s, when roof collapses led to buildings being demolished.

Well it looks like the little leprechaun's greedy push for profits (and personal bonuses) while destroying our national airline's reputation for reliability and safety now might not make it to his retirement date.

Will Alan Joyce survive his final weeks at Qantas before he quits, or will the board eject him without a parachute?

Belated it may be but Alan Joyce's fall from grace is something to behold.

For 15 years, he has courted power and cultivated influence, becoming one of the highest-paid executives in the land, all as Qantas operations have suffered and its reputation has been trashed.

Suddenly, the never-ending spin that often ran counter to reality and truth has unravelled, leaving the diminutive corporate pugilist alone and increasingly isolated.

Rather than a fond farewell, Joyce is facing an ignominious end, possibly looking at being forced to hit the ejector button without a parachute before his scheduled November departure.

It is a course of action the board needs to consider. For as events in recent years at National Australia Bank, Westpac and Rio Tinto have shown, directors slow to act end up being shown the door themselves.

Qantas, under Joyce, is now fighting court action on three fronts: from his workforce, his customers and a federal government agency. The only group backing him are investors, who have been on the receiving end of a vast flood of cash, courtesy of ultra-high airfares and taxpayer funds.

But even they are growing nervous.......

He really does deserve to be cut short and the other, yet undisclosed, Aussie company that was going to hire him doesn't.

[edit] Breaking News Just In.

Joyce to stand down as Qantas chief executive tomorrow after tumultuous week.

More to come.

Will the greedy little leprechaun get his golden handshake or he'll have to pay for all his errors of his ways out of it?

Will Alan Joyce receive his full exit bonus from Qantas or will the board make a change? Here's what we know.

After all he's scammed into his pockets already he certainly isn't worth a $24m handshake and can all the problems that he's caused be corrected?

New Qantas boss Vanessa Hudson revealed to staff her plan to fix the airline’s reputation – with Alan Joyce leaving some big messes in his wake.

The greedy little leprechaun's pot of gold might not be so safe, in fact it (and his shares) may just slip through his fingers, as more step up demanding answers to questions.

Qantas investors question Alan Joyce’s early exit and $24m golden handshake.

I don't think the railroads would like this going into effect.
Competition!
New federal rule may help boost competition for railroad shipments at companies with few options

Companies that have plants and facilities served by only one railroad may soon be able to get a bid from another railroad if their current service is bad enough under a new rule that was proposed Thursday to help boost competition.

The U.S. Surface Transportation Board announced the long-awaited rule that has been under consideration in some form at least since 2010. It aims to provide some relief to so called “captive shippers” that only have a connection to one of the six giant freight railroads that deliver the vast majority of goods across North America.

But will that improve safety or just make things worse than what they are now?

More greed over safety?

Federal railroad inspectors find alarming number of defects on Union Pacific this summer.

Federal inspectors said they found an alarming number of defects in the locomotives and railcars Union Pacific was using at the world's largest railyard in western Nebraska this summer, and the railroad was reluctant to fix the problems.

Federal Railroad Administrator Amit Bose wrote a letter to UP's top three executives Friday expressing his concern that the defects represent a “significant risk to rail safety " on the Union Pacific railroad.

Bose said the 19.93% defect rate on rail cars and the 72.69% rate for locomotives that inspectors found in July and August are both twice the national average. But the letter didn't detail what kind of defects inspectors found in the Bailey Yard in North Platte, and there are a myriad of federal rules.

“The compliance of the rolling stock (freight cars and locomotives) on the UP network is poor, and UP was unwilling or unable to take steps to improve the condition of their equipment,” Bose said in his letter.

Bose questioned whether the recent layoffs of 94 locomotive craft employees and 44 carmen across the Omaha, Nebraska-based railroad that is one of the nation's largest left UP without enough people to complete the necessary repairs.....

Now that the little leprechaun's gone I hope that things like this happening disappear.

Shocking footage has captured a Qantas plane missing three of the four bolts that help to hold its engine together.

Stuff like this never happened before Joyce took the helm and gutted the company.

Shareholders certainly won't be happy.

‘Broke the law’: Qantas, Coalition lashed after High Court rules in favour of sacked workers.

A unanimous ruling to reject Qantas’s appeal in the High Court has been welcomed by the Albanese government.

The airline on Wednesday lost its battle to overturn a Federal Court ruling that it illegally sacked almost 1700 workers and outsourced their jobs during the pandemic.

“The outsourcing decision was ‘adverse action’ within the meaning of the Fair Work Act 2009 because it altered the position of the affected employees of Qantas and (its subsidiary) Qantas Ground Services to their prejudice,” the majority judgment by the High Court read.

It puts an end to this chapter of the two-year fight between the Transport Workers Union and the 1683 Qantas ground staff who were stood down in November 2020.....

The cost of that has yet to be determined.

What could possibly go wrong with this?...

UK fails to ban 36 harmful pesticides outlawed for use in EU
wrote:

Campaigners say Britain becoming ‘toxic poster child of Europe’ and accuse ministers of breaking Brexit promise on standards...

What deadly profits are those?...

To the deadly cost of which others??...


Stay safe folks?
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

How many other examples of this?...


‘Outrageous’: MEPs condemn pesticide companies for withholding toxicity data
wrote:

The pesticide companies Bayer and Syngenta have been excoriated in a European parliament hearing after failing to disclose studies on the brain toxicity of their products.

European regulators said the companies had breached legal obligations and behaved unethically. MEPs questioning executives from the companies said their actions had been “outrageous” and represented a “scandal”. The companies rejected the accusations and said they had provided all relevant studies...

... “If a company decides by themselves which studies to disclose and which ones to withhold, it is obvious that the decisions by the [regulatory] authorities become unreliable.”...

... The power to impose penalties on companies for breaching regulatory requirements lies with individual member states ... However, no country is known to have ever imposed such a penalty...

... "Companies are allowed to make money at the expense of public health protection.”...

... Bayer, told the hearing: “Bayer has always acted responsibly and transparently to provide the required data for a complete safety assessment of our substances. We have to submit all relevant data and this is what we did.”

... Syngenta, said: “We did not submit [the toxicity studies] at the time to EU regulators because they were not mandatory...

Really? All 'just' a game of business??

All without consequence?...


Stay safe folks??...
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Really? All 'just' a game of business??

All without consequence?...

It is called a corporation and it is a Sovereign.

It looks like more heads of the QANTAS board are on the block as the fallout continues.

Qantas shareholders demand chairman Richard Goyder's resignation as investors place rest of board on notice.

Qantas shareholders have demanded chairman Richard Goyder's resignation and placed the rest of the airline's board on notice as concerns grow among furious investors over the mounting cost of legal battles and reputational damage......

The shareholders' meeting on November 3 will be interesting.

Those responsible should then hurry up. News of outrageous or questionable conditions at Qantas has not yet made it to Europe. For me, Qantas is still this Australian gem with this very long, immaculate history.

Hmm...
Just a case of 6 of 1, half a dozen of the other?

The corporate greed saga continues on.

The Qantas flame-out is a symptom of something much more serious.

And QANTAS is just a sign of the times in the big corporate world of ripping off customers, employees, taxpayers and fueling inflation worldwide.

At least the Qantas flame-out is keeping everyone else off the front page.

Well that's the media for you.
As for the report itself, depressing reading "normally".
However, I grew up through the mid 50's, 60's, 70's .
Ripping off customers weren't the norm, but what was, is the fact that employees were often kept down "in their place".

For me the laugh of the century was one of our Tory ministers in power extolling us all to maintain & add to our pensions pot as for many, there would not be any pot available.

I had to really laugh at that.
Many actually did, however several names spring to mind that destroys that minister where it hurts.
Robert Maxwell, "Sir & Lady" Phillip Green & Dominic Chappell.
Pretty sure that many other posters can provide some more "notorious" names.

He finally realises that his position isn't tenable.

Qantas chair Richard Goyder heads for the exit, provides opportunity for customer reset.

In the end, an early exit for Richard Goyder was inevitable.

The man who was Alan Joyce’s enabler-in-chief, who had overseen the piling up of crises, and watched on as the airline’s reputation sunk to rock bottom had no choice but to head for the hills.

The news came in the form of a company statement to the ASX on Wednesday morning which revealed the embattled Qantas chair, who has held the role since late 2018, would stand down in the next 12 months and before the airline’s 2024 AGM.

For weeks, Goyder has determinedly held on, resisting calls from customers, shareholders, unions and even the airline’s pilots to stand aside.....