Latest news with #SteveThomas
Daily Mail
11-07-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
The National Trust to axe 550 jobs after Rachel Reeves' tax raid budget added £10million to charity's annual wage bill
The National Trust is set to axe around 550 jobs after Rachel Reeves 's tax raid budget added £10 million to the charity's wage bill. The conservation charity said rising costs were outstripping growth in visitors and donations. It has told staff it needed to reduce the pay bill as well as finding savings worth £26 million, The Sun reported. The plans are expected to create a reduction in jobs of around 6 per cent across the charity's workforce of around 9,500 people. At least 550 full-time workers could face job loses and the charity has begun a 45-day consultation with its staff. The national insurance hike in Chancellor Rachel Reeves's autumn budget has been blamed for adding £10 million to the wage bull. Many other businesses have already been forced to pass on the higher costs to customers or through job cuts. The National Trust said in a statement: 'Although demand and support for our work are growing with yearly increases in visitors and donations, increasing costs are outstripping this growth. 'We know how difficult this is for our people and are incredibly grateful for their skill and professionalism. 'We are working hard, with the union Prospect, to make the transition as painless as possible. 'This follows months of other cost-saving measures. We always want to avoid job losses.' Steve Thomas, deputy general secretary of trade union Prospect, said the proposed cuts will bring 'huge uncertainty and worry for staff'. He said the cuts risked the charity losing institutional knowledge and skills which are vital to the natural heritage of the sites. He said the union will be working to try to minimise the impact on workers and the trust. The National Trust was founded more than 125 years ago, and looks after more than 300 historic properties in England, Wales and Northern Ireland alongside protected areas across the UK's coastline. In its most recent annual report, published in September last year, it revealed that total visitor numbers rose to around 25 million for the 2023/24 financial year, up 5 per cent compared with the previous year. It also revealed that there was a 12 per cent increase in non-members visiting the sites, paying on the day for individual trips. The National Trust is not the only firm facing difficulties from the National Insurance hikes. Rising costs means that one pub in a day in the UK could close, putting more than 5,000 jobs at risk, The British Beer and Pub association warned on Thursday. New Look also warned nearly 100 stores could close ahead of National Insurance hikes which came into place in April.
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Staff at National Trust sites across Suffolk at risk as 'redundancy looms'
The National Trust has announced it is holding a redundancy consultation which could impact staff at its 10 sites across Suffolk. The trust is beginning a 45-day consultation period with its staff nationally with 600 jobs at risk. It is hoping to save £26 million. Its proposals will lead to an estimated 6% reduction in jobs, and with the trust employing more than 11,000 people, that means around 700 people could be affected. The trust has ten sites across Suffolk. (Image: Lucy Taylor) List of National Trust sites across Suffolk: Flatford Mill Pin Mill Melford Hall Lavenham Guildhall Ickworth Estate Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds Kyson Hill Sutton Hoo Orford Ness National Nature Reserve Dunwich Heath and Beach Steve Thomas, deputy general secretary of Prospect Union, said: "At a time when Prospect members at the National Trust are hard at work welcoming the public to Britain's historic venues over the busy summer months, this news will cause huge uncertainty and worry for staff. 'We understand the cost pressures the trust is facing but management decisions, as well as external factors, have contributed to the financial situation and once again it is our members who will have to pay the price. 'Our members are custodians of the country's cultural, historic and natural heritage - cuts of this scale risk losing institutional knowledge and skills which are vital to that mission. 'Prospect will be working with NT to try to minimise the negative impact of these cuts on both workers and on the operation of the trust.' A spokesperson for the National Trust said: "Pay is the biggest part of our costs, and the recent employer's National Insurance increase and National Living Wage rise added more than £10m to our annual wage bill." As the consultation is only just beginning the trust is not able to share what the impact may be on specific regions or properties.
ABC News
06-07-2025
- Business
- ABC News
Fears for WA's energy grid as Griffin Coal slides almost $1 billion further into debt
A key foreign-owned WA coal mine has fallen almost a billion dollars further into debt, even as the government prepares to pour more money into the insolvent company. Griffin Coal has been propped up by WA taxpayers since 2022 when the company was placed into receivership, amid fears its collapse could place the Perth and South-West electricity system at risk of blackouts and jeopardise hundreds of local jobs. The company's biggest customer is Bluewaters Power — a coal-fired generator with capacity to supply about seven per cent of the grid's needs. After initially providing $40 million in support, the following year Premier Roger Cook announced a $220 million lifeline would be extended to Griffin Coal, describing it as payments "we just need to make". This year's state budget contains provision for up to another $49 million for the company, taking the total bill to $308 million. "We just want the parties to sort themselves out so that they can get on and mine coal at a commercial rate, and that people can produce power at a commercial rate," Premier Roger Cook told budget estimates on Thursday. "Quite frankly, the fact that the parties haven't been able to come to an agreement is a disgrace." Shadow energy minister Steve Thomas didn't take to that argument kindly. "How dare the premier attack the two companies that have been left to pick up the pieces of years of government mismanagement," he said. "The government's so-called solution to the problem is a joke because the price that Griffin Coal needs to become viable is the same price that bankrupts Bluewaters Power. "If there was a commercial solution available, the government has had a decade to deliver it and save that $300 million." Bluewaters' future is so uncertain as a result of those tensions that when the independent Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) published its 10-year outlook last week, it assumed Bluewaters would be unavailable from mid-2027. It said that was due to the risk of Griffin being unable to supply coal once its government support ends. AEMO said while energy capacity would be "largely balanced" until mid-2027, "there is a need for further investment" beyond that point, in part because of the issues at Bluewaters. The depth of Griffin's difficulty was further highlighted in answer to questions asked by Dr Thomas, which show the company's debts have now reached $2.4 billion — some $800 million higher than a liquidator reported in 2022. Most of that debt — some $1.9 billion — is owed to ICICI Bank, India's biggest private bank. Other secured creditors are the Export Import Bank of India ($146 million), the Bank of Baroda ($144 million) and India Overseas Bank ($115 million). "That [money] should have refinanced and put new administration into Griffin Coal so that it could continue to supply Bluewaters, at least for the next 5-10 years. "That would have been a better investment because it would have left the state with a viable asset at the end, rather than simply throwing a quarter of a billion dollars down a black hole that ultimately still results in the failure of the companies and the power system." A spokesperson for Griffin said: 'The receivers and managers are actively engaging with customers, government, unions and other stakeholders on a commercial solution for Griffin Coal beyond 30 June 2026.' Independent corporate analyst Peter Strachan agreed that, in hindsight, it could have been better for the state government to have purchased Griffin when it was sold to its current owners. "From the state's point of view it was a fraught deal because these are critical assets, critical to the state of Western Australia," he said. With that option well and truly in the past though, Mr Strachan said pouring in money to keep it running was one of few options. "The state's got no option but to do that, or they could close it down and just import coal," he said — something the government did in late 2022. With coal on its way out of the energy grid as the rise of renewables continues, Mr Strachan said time was of the essence. Dr Thomas's questions also revealed $13.5 million of the government's money had been paid directly to those secured creditors under a 'business continuation agreement'. "The government's focus is on ensuring the continued operation of the mine to 30 June 2026," Mr Cook said in answer to those questions. "The government entered into a business continuation agreement with the secured creditors and the receivers and managers to ensure the continued support of the secured creditors for this period. "The [agreement] provides performance-based payments to the secured creditors, linked to the continued operation of the mine." Mr Cook said those payments to secured creditors could reach $31.5 million by mid-2026. He told estimates the current support regime would not continue beyond mid-2026. "If the parties related reach a commercial decision in relation to the way that the Griffin mine and the Bluewaters power station function, well then we'll consider any proposals from that point," Mr Cook said. "But we've made it quite clear that we will not be funding the arrangements beyond the June 30, 2026."
The Guardian
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
From ‘convict stain' to badge of honour: Tasmania's early criminals inspire celebrated musical
In 1802 Martha Hayes was transported from England to what was then called Van Diemen's Land, accompanying her convict mother. The teenager was the first white female to set foot in the new colony and, having become pregnant on the voyage, she gave birth to the first white child – a baby girl – on the island we now call Lutruwita/Tasmania. While that child had a convict grandmother, her father was Lt John Bowen, a colonial administrator who led the first white settlement, at Risdon Cove. Martha's story is symbolic of so many Tasmanian family trees post-colonisation: part-convict, part-free settler or colonial master. It's one of 17 brought to life in the musical theatre show Vandemonian Lags, co-written by the musician Mick Thomas of Weddings, Parties, Anything fame and his film-maker brother Steve. Premiering to sellouts and standing ovations at the first Dark Mofo in 2013, the show is back from hiatus for a small run of Victorian performances with a cast including Jeff Lang, Tim Rogers, Brian Nankervis, Darren Hanlon and Claire Anne Taylor. Vandemonian Lags had its genesis in the Founders and Survivors project: a multi-university research collaboration drawing from Tasmania's unusually large and detailed trove of more than 70,000 convict records, which was added to the Unesco memory of the world international register in 2007. One of the creative outcomes was a website presenting 17 convict stories in an accessible, interactive format. Vandemonian Lags ('lag' being the contemporaneous slang for convict) takes these stories and gives them a theatrical life, with live songs – composed and performed by the talented cast of musicians – storytelling, and a combination of film and still imagery. Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning It's a joyous, emotional and humanising reclamation of stories that were hidden for so long, often due to shame. 'One of the very early songs I wrote is Two Grandfathers,' Mick Thomas says. 'This kid's got a grandfather who's a pillar of the community, he's very visible. And that grandfather's got a chauffeur who the kid doesn't really think much about. 'The kid only finds out much later in his life that the chauffeur was his other grandfather – but he was a convict. So even though they made allowances for him and got him a job and stuff like that, he was not talked about.' The Thomas brothers have convict ancestry in their own family, which has roots in Victoria (where they grew up) as well as Tasmania. 'The family folklore was very much focused on northern Tasmania,' explains Mick, 'but it was pretty much on a great-grandfather who was a banker; it was definitely not convict-oriented.' There was far less attention given to the other side of the family – the one with the strong convict link. The historian Prof Hamish Maxwell-Stewart, an expert on convict life whose research informed much of Vandemonian Lags, says shame about convict ancestry was particularly persistent in the island state, where marriage between classes was more common and upwardly mobile convicts sought to hide their ignominious past. Steve Thomas says denial was still common when he moved to the state in 1979. 'There was still evidence of that 'convict stain' [mentality], where people would deny they had convicts in their family, or they were ashamed, and often the convict side of the family was erased from history.' But statistics don't lie: 'If you look at the entire Australian population, over 20% of them are descended from convicts,' he says. 'In Tasmania, it's closer to 70%. [It was] this major influx of dispossessed British people being used to build this colony virtually as British slaves. It remains one of the biggest forced migrations of the 19th century.' It was disastrous for the island's Aboriginal people. 'There's no doubt that the arrival of convicts was terrible news for First Nations Australians,' Steve Thomas says, 'and we open the show with this.' The arrival of British graziers from the 1820s coincided with the war against the Aboriginal population; those who were not killed were banished to Flinders Island in Bass Strait. 'The land grab was enormous,' Thomas says. 'But, you know, I guess our contention is that convicts did not choose to be here. They were forced and most of them had no way of getting back.' Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion In 1851, as gold was discovered in Victoria, Tasmania's former convicts joined the thousands flocking to seek their fortune. They were not welcome. In 1852 the Melbourne Argus described a Vandemonian as 'a pestilential addition to our population' and said 'his coming is an evil we must guard against at all costs'. In the same year the Victorian government passed the Convicts Prevention Act to prevent Vandemonians from making the trip across the strait. It didn't work. And, while many Vandemonian visitors failed to find their fortune on the goldfields, turning to crime or dying paupers, some did very well indeed – including Samuel Phillips, who had been sentenced to transportation for poaching. Eventually given his ticket of leave, he made his way to the goldfields and had a huge strike. 'He was smart enough to just hide it and get back to England as a rich man,' Mick Thomas says. 'And – this is a true story – he purchased the estate on which he got caught poaching!' (In the show, Darren Hanlon brings this story to life in his song The Wildest Dreams of Samuel.) Steve Thomas says views about convict ancestry have changed significantly. 'Genealogy has become really big and this shame that many Tasmanians had about their convict past … gradually has faded, so that what was a stain is now a bit of a badge of honour … people are actually sort of looking back at their convict past. Now they talk about things like convict chic!' The 2013 performances in Hobart were 'so emotional for people', Mick Thomas says. He recalls one young woman, the descendant of a convict featured in the show, accosting him in the foyer. '[She said:] 'You don't know what this means to my family. This is so raw.'' Thomas says the heavy material the team was working with had to be balanced with lightness and humour, a delicate mix required to get the stories across in an entertaining yet truthful way. 'In the end, they are ripping stories,' he says. 'It comes down to the thing that Mark Twain said when he toured Australia, that Australian history reads like a pack of lies but it's all true. So they're ripping yarns. But, you know, they're still people's lives.' Vandemonian Lags is at Ulumbarra Theatre, Bendigo, on 22 May; Melbourne Recital Centre on 23 May; Her Majesty's Theatre, Ballarat, on 24 May; and Frankston Arts Centre on 25 May
Associated Press
01-04-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
BX Studio Achieves Webflow Enterprise Partner Status - Joins Elite Group of Certified Enterprise Solutions Providers
Los Angeles, CA — March 31, 2025 — BX Studio, a leading web design and development agency specializing in Webflow solutions, today announced it has been named an official Webflow Enterprise Partner. This prestigious designation recognizes BX Studio's deep expertise in leveraging Webflow's platform to deliver enterprise-grade digital experiences. The Webflow Enterprise Partner certification is awarded to a select group of agencies that demonstrate exceptional proficiency in implementing Webflow solutions for large-scale enterprises. As a certified partner, BX Studio is positioned to help organizations harness the full potential of Webflow's no-code platform while ensuring enterprise-level security, scalability, and governance. 'Achieving Webflow Enterprise Partner status represents a significant milestone in our journey,' said Jacob Sussman, Founder and CEO of BX Studio. 'This recognition validates our team's commitment to mastering Webflow's capabilities and delivering exceptional value to our enterprise clients. We're excited to expand our service offerings and help more organizations transform their digital presence through Webflow's powerful platform.' BX Studio's elevation to Enterprise Partner status enables the agency to offer enhanced services including: Enterprise-grade website architecture and implementation Advanced security and compliance solutions Multi-site management and global content governance Custom integrations with enterprise systems Dedicated support and training for enterprise clients 'Enterprise organizations increasingly seek the agility and design freedom of Webflow combined with the security and scalability their business demands,' added Steve Thomas, Director of Project Management at BX Studio. 'As a Webflow Enterprise Partner, we're uniquely positioned to bridge this gap, helping enterprises achieve digital excellence without compromising on their specialized requirements.' BX Studio has already successfully implemented Webflow Enterprise solutions for clients across industries including technology and professional services. The agency's portfolio showcases its ability to create visually stunning, high-performing websites that meet the complex needs of enterprise clients. ### About BX Studio BX Studio is a premier web design and development agency specializing in creating exceptional digital experiences through Webflow. Founded in 2021, the agency combines creative design thinking with technical expertise to deliver websites that drive business results. BX Studio serves clients ranging from ambitious startups to global enterprises, with a focus on creating intuitive, high-performing, and visually compelling digital experiences.
