Labour

Mainz Biomed Provides Year-End Corporate Review 2023

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, January 9, 2024

Throughout 2023, Mainz Biomed executed its differentiated commercial plan of partnering with third-party laboratories for test kit processing versus the traditional methodology of operating a single facility.

Key Points: 
  • Throughout 2023, Mainz Biomed executed its differentiated commercial plan of partnering with third-party laboratories for test kit processing versus the traditional methodology of operating a single facility.
  • During the year, Mainz Biomed launched commercial operations in Spain, Portugal, Romania, Poland, the United Kingdom, and Israel.
  • Mainz Biomed provides education for both the employee and physician regarding the ColoAlert® results and CRC, as well as recommendations for next steps.
  • During the year, Mainz Biomed continued to enhance its team with an emphasis on commercial additions given ColoAlert®’s rapid expansion in international markets.

Introducing the Schwab Trading Activity Index™

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, January 11, 2024

Schwab today introduced the Schwab Trading Activity Index (STAX), offering timely insights into retail trading behavior from one of the industry’s largest retail investor client bases.

Key Points: 
  • Schwab today introduced the Schwab Trading Activity Index (STAX), offering timely insights into retail trading behavior from one of the industry’s largest retail investor client bases.
  • “The introduction of STAX is a reflection of Schwab’s leadership position in the industry and our deep understanding of trading behavior and sentiment.
  • “The holidays tend to be an optimistic time of year for many, and this year was no exception among Schwab’s clients,” said Joe Mazzola, Director of Trading and Education at Charles Schwab.
  • Popular names bought by Schwab clients during the period included:

Small Businesses Wrap-Up 2023 with Minimal Hiring Gains

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, January 9, 2024

The CBIZ SBEI tracks payroll and hiring trends for over 3,100 companies that have 300 or fewer employees, providing broad insight into small business trends.

Key Points: 
  • The CBIZ SBEI tracks payroll and hiring trends for over 3,100 companies that have 300 or fewer employees, providing broad insight into small business trends.
  • Small businesses accounted for an increase of 74,000 of those jobs on a seasonally adjusted, month-over-month basis.
  • Geographical hiring: The West (1.31%) reported the largest hiring increase, followed by the Central (0.91%), Northeast (0.42%), and Southeast (0.12%) regions.
  • Despite growth, the modest hiring in December could point to some weaknesses as small businesses look ahead to the typically slower months after the holidays.

Greenberg Traurig Advises Orangewood Partners in Strategic Investment in SERVPRO® West Coast DRT

Retrieved on: 
Friday, January 12, 2024

NEW YORK, Jan. 12, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Global law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP advised Orangewood Partners, a New York-based private investment firm, in its strategic investment in SERVPRO West Coast DRT (WCDRT), a leading SERVPRO franchisee and provider of residential and commercial property cleaning, restoration, and reconstruction services.

Key Points: 
  • Global law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP advised Orangewood Partners, a New York-based private investment firm, in its strategic investment in SERVPRO West Coast DRT (WCDRT), a leading SERVPRO franchisee and provider of residential and commercial property cleaning, restoration, and reconstruction services.
  • NEW YORK, Jan. 12, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Global law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP advised Orangewood Partners, a New York-based private investment firm, in its strategic investment in SERVPRO West Coast DRT (WCDRT), a leading SERVPRO franchisee and provider of residential and commercial property cleaning, restoration, and reconstruction services.
  • In partnering with Orangewood, WCDRT announced its plans to use the new capital to accelerate growth across business lines and geographic areas.
  • Founded in 2015, Orangewood Partners is a New-York-based private investment firm with a long-term approach.

Here's why you should (almost) never use a pie chart for your data

Retrieved on: 
Sunday, January 7, 2024

Our phones monitor our time and internet usage and online surveys discern our opinions and likes.

Key Points: 
  • Our phones monitor our time and internet usage and online surveys discern our opinions and likes.
  • To help the average person understand big data and numbers, we often use visual summaries, such as pie charts.
  • But while non-numerate folk will avoid numbers, most numerate folk will avoid pie charts.

What is a pie chart?

  • An example pie chart below shows Australia’s two-party preferred vote before the last election, with Labor on 55% and the the Coalition on 45%.
  • The two near semi-circles show the relatively tight race – this is a useful example of a pie chart.

What’s wrong with pie charts?


Once we have more than two categories, pie charts can easily misrepresent percentages and become hard to read. The three charts below are a good example – it is very hard to work out which of the five areas is the largest. The pie chart’s circularity means the areas lack a common reference point.
Pie charts also do badly when there are lots of categories. For example, this chart from a study on data sources used for COVID data visualisation shows hundreds of categories in one pie.
The tiny slices, lack of clear labelling and the kaleidoscope of colours make interpretation difficult for anyone. It’s even harder for a colour blind person. For example, this is a simulation of what the above chart would look like to a person with deuteranomaly or reduced sensitivity to green light. This is the most common type of colour blindness, affecting roughly 4.6% of the population.
It can get even worse if we take pie charts and make them three-dimensional. This can lead to egregious misrepresentations of data. Below, the yellow, red and green areas are all the same size (one-third), but appear to be different based on the angle and which slice is placed at the bottom of the pie.

So why are pie charts everywhere?

  • Despite the well known problems with pie charts, they are everywhere.
  • While statisticians have criticised them for decades, it’s hard to argue with this logic: “if pie charts are so bad, why are there so many of them?” Possibly they are popular because they are popular, which is a circular argument that suits a pie chart.

What’s a good alternative to pie charts?


There’s a simple fix that can effectively summarise big data in a small space and still allow creative colour schemes. It’s the humble bar chart. Remember the brain-aching pie chart example above with the five categories? Here’s the same example using bars – we can now instantly see which category is the largest.

  • Linear bars are easier on the eye than the non-linear segments of a pie chart.
  • But beware the temptation to make a humble bar chart look more interesting by adding a 3D effect.

Is it ever okay to use a pie chart?

  • Pie charts can be okay when there are just a few categories and the percentages are dissimilar, for example with one large and one small category.
  • Overall, it is best to use pie charts sparingly, especially when there is a more “digestible” alternative – the bar chart.


Adrian Barnett is a member of the Statistical Society of Australia. Victor Oguoma is a member of the Statistical Society of Australia.

Should we believe Rishi Sunak's hint that the election will be in October? What the evidence tells us

Retrieved on: 
Friday, January 5, 2024

After weeks of speculation, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said he is “working on the assumption” that a general election will take place in the second half of this year.

Key Points: 
  • After weeks of speculation, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said he is “working on the assumption” that a general election will take place in the second half of this year.
  • That’s just a few months before the latest possible date of January 28 2025.
  • The choice of an autumn election does make sense for Sunak and the Conservatives.

Why ‘autumn’ means ‘October’

  • If an election is held in the autumn, October would seem the most likely month if history is anything to go by.
  • Historically, turnout in October elections has been similar to turnout in spring elections – and turnout is a major factor for the Conservatives.
  • Age is now the most significant predictor of voting behaviour in UK general elections and age is linked to turnout.
  • The 18-24 group is most likely to vote Labour but least likely to vote overall so an October vote is again a sound move.

A clash with the US election

  • An October election would mean the UK vote would take place just weeks ahead of the US election on November 5.
  • The prospect of two of the world’s leading democracies going to the polls within weeks of each other is an exciting one for election enthusiasts.

Don’t rule out a spring election yet

  • Following the repeal of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, the choice of election date lies in the hands of the prime minister.
  • It would therefore be unwise to rule out a spring election, even after Sunak’s heavy hint.
  • Sunak’s words do leave the door open for a spring election, as “working assumptions” can easily be changed.


Gemma Loomes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors Names Three New Partners: Jason Snyder and Will Brewer IV in New York, and Noah Peters in Dallas

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, January 3, 2024

NEW YORK, Jan. 3, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors announces that three attorneys have been promoted to its partnership – Jason Snyder and Will Brewer IV in New York, and Noah Peters in Dallas.

Key Points: 
  • NEW YORK, Jan. 3, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors announces that three attorneys have been promoted to its partnership – Jason Snyder and Will Brewer IV in New York, and Noah Peters in Dallas.
  • Brewer III, founding partner of Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors.
  • At Brewer, Snyder is particularly active in the hospitality practice group – representing owners, developers, and management companies in some of the industry's most high-profile matters.
  • Based in the Dallas office, Peters brings extensive expertise in appellate advocacy, focusing on Labor & Employment and Civil Rights law.

Storm clouds ahead: scandals that have rocked Australian politics

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, January 3, 2024

Australians could be forgiven for feeling weary of political scandals.

Key Points: 
  • Australians could be forgiven for feeling weary of political scandals.
  • For reporters and pundits, scandals generate excitement and drama, something more novel than the tedium of day-to-day political processes.

Flying high

  • Consequently, the public and press have been quick to anger when politicians are caught misusing or abusing their taxpayer-funded travel entitlements.
  • But his new Senate leader, John Gorton, took a different approach, tabling all the hidden documents in the Senate.
  • Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who had originally appointed his “political mother” Bishop to the role, found his position weakened too.

Mining for misdemeanours

  • In the colonial era, wealthy landholders and squatters sought to influence parliamentarians with monetary bribes.
  • In 1869, a Victorian parliamentary select committee found that pastoralists and investors, led by the highly influential squatter and speculator Hugh Glass, had engaged in “corrupt practices”.
  • Glass and his peers had kept a fund of money for bribing MPs during debates about land reform.
  • In 1930, federal treasurer and former Queensland premier Ted Theodore was forced to resign, pending an inquiry into his financial affairs.

Pork-barrelling

  • Is pork-barrelling – the art of directing public funds and grants to marginal electorates – a form of corruption?
  • Much of it goes unpunished, but occasionally an egregious case arouses the public ire.
  • Read more:
    View from The Hill: Bridget McKenzie falls – but for the lesser of her political sins

Grey areas

  • But sometimes, sex scandals are newsworthy for their own sake, public administration aside.
  • In 1975, Deputy Prime Minister Jim Cairns and one of his staff, Junie Morosi, found themselves at the centre of a media scandal.
  • As his recent biographer Sean Scalmer put it, the inquiry was “a hammer blow” to this “would-be gentleman”.
  • Read more:
    Welcome to the new (old) moralism: how the media's coverage of the Joyce affair harks back to the 1950s

Why scandals matter

  • Scandals matter because they illuminate the tensions that shape our political processes.
  • A core pillar of responsible government is that ministers are accountable to parliament.
  • There have been many innovations in Australian politics in the hope of minimising corruption and avoiding scandal.


Joshua Black is affiliated with the Australian Historical Association, and the Whitlam Institute at WSU.

Cleveland-Cliffs Appoints Ron Bloom to its Board of Directors

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, January 3, 2024

Cleveland-Cliffs (NYSE: CLF) announced today that it has appointed renowned private equity executive, labor and political advisor Ron Bloom to its Board of Directors, effective immediately.

Key Points: 
  • Cleveland-Cliffs (NYSE: CLF) announced today that it has appointed renowned private equity executive, labor and political advisor Ron Bloom to its Board of Directors, effective immediately.
  • With the addition of Mr. Bloom, the Cleveland-Cliffs’ Board of Directors is now comprised of eleven members, of which ten are independent directors.
  • Lourenco Goncalves, Cliffs' Chairman, President, and CEO said: “We are honored to welcome Ron Bloom to our Board of Directors.
  • Mr. Bloom holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard Business School and a bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University.

How Israel failed to learn from the Northern Ireland peace process

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, January 3, 2024

The Good Friday agreement which brought peace to Northern Ireland a quarter of a century ago, provided a clear guide.

Key Points: 
  • The Good Friday agreement which brought peace to Northern Ireland a quarter of a century ago, provided a clear guide.
  • They have to do what the negotiating teams, of which I was a part, did in Northern Ireland.
  • The problem is Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his ally, the United States of America, who have failed to apply the lessons of Northern Ireland to Middle East peacemaking.

How ‘peace polls’ work

  • The objective was to determine the precise points of common ground, where they existed, or effective compromise where it was needed for peacemaking.
  • So I always made a point of hand delivering the reports to Mitchell and the parties the day before they were published.
  • Through public opinion polls the people gained a seat at the negotiating table, and through a referendum the deal was made.

When it all went wrong

  • I had been in touch with Mitchell and met him in his office at the State Department.
  • At that time I had also been running peace polls in Sri Lanka with support from the Norwegians.
  • So I did not get the funding and Mitchell eventually resigned his post without achieving peace in May 2011.
  • But I had made all necessary preparations and contacts with all the parties to the conflict to make it work.
  • My pollster Mina Zemach was a good friend of Peres and had been his pollster when he led the Labour party.
  • Like Sinn Féin they had a legitimate grievance and said they would be happy to cooperate with the peace polls.

Misplaced optimism

  • In my optimism at the time, I thought perhaps that Clinton – if she became president – would send her husband to the Middle East as her special envoy.
  • Bill Clinton had got very close to making an agreement some years earlier with the “Clinton parameters”, but he ran out of time.
  • And then Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election to Donald Trump – and so we are where we are.
  • It is just as likely that my optimism was misplaced and that Clinton and possibly Joe Biden – who has always been a very strong supporter of Israel – did not want to oppose Netanyahu for domestic political reasons.


Colin John Irwin receives funding from: Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in South East Europe, Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, OneVoice, Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (now FCDO), Economic and Social Research Council (UK ESRC), United Nations, InterPeace, Health and Welfare Canada, Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), British Academy, Norwegian Peoples Aid, The Day After, No Peace Without Justice, US Department of State, Local Administrations Council Unit (Syria), Asia Foundation, Department for International Development (UK DFID), OpenAI, Atlantic Philanthropies, Universities: Dalhousie, Manitoba, Syracuse, Pennsylvania, Queens Belfast, Liverpool. Also member of the World Association of Public Opinion Research (WAPOR) which promotes freedom to publish public opinion polls and sets international professional standards.