http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24419570

A-month long strike has finally come to an end as a 10% increase this year and 8% increases for the next two years has finally been agreed upon by the National Union of Metalworkers in South Africa. The strike started like many others, in which a the workers felt they were being a terribly low minimum wage that did not agree with their working effort and hours. However, the strike seemed to cause large problems in the industry due to the multiple disruptions and conflicts. It has been said that exports have been affected primarily as the halt in production failed to meet its export quota.

It has even been stated that large companies such as BMW have stopped future plans to expand in South Africa. This can be very damaging for the industry in many ways, as it provides the government with less revenue and the expansion may have caused job opportunities leading to a decrease in unemployment in South Africa. This shows the power and proportions of the strike, also leading to why the 10% pay deal was agreed by the opposing forces.An overall loss of 2 Billion Dollars in lost output from companies such as BMW, Ford, Nissan and General Motors. This affects the economic growth of South Africa and due to strikes in other industries such as the mining, construction and aviation industry, it raises many concerns about the stability and the rate of growth in the South African economy. These ongoing waves of strikes have been a big issue with the domestic and international companies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxEpDytiBAY

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24377350

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0kjI08n4fg

180,000 cars catch fire in the United states every year, therefore a single car to catch fire that injured no one should not cause much attention. However, this particular car happened to be a Tesla Model S. Tesla Motors is a car manufacturer built around electrical cars. The reason that this car model catching on fire caught the eye off so many due to the fact that its batteries might have been to blame, which is a danger for multiple cars.No one was injured during the crash and the cause of the fire is still unknown. However, the shares in Tesla took a 6.2% fall after this incident; the largest one day decline since July.

This type of event was expected by Tesla due to the nature of the lithium-ion batteries, this has always been a worry or issue that Tesla had to deal with. There is no certain sign of faulty batteries in any other Tesla cars, however they must be careful as another fire or another incident may cause an even larger decrease in share prices. This would harm many of the stakeholders and may lead to large recovery costs. Therefore, contingency planning is needed immediately and appropriately.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23990485

An ethical decision is one that meets both legal requirements and shares ethical standards of the community. In this case, on both accounts Apple has acted unethically. Recently a US judge has restricted technology giants Apple for fixing prices of e-books which is also known as collusion. In most countries this is illegal and governments try to prevent and abolish this in order to protect consumers. This is because by colluding, the firms involved can come together to set the prices higher for the consumers to increase revenue earned. Furthermore, the consumers do not have many substitutes this cannot be negotiated and demand does not decrease thereby acting like a monopoly. In this case, an e-book that was typically priced at $9.99 on sites such as amazon rose to $12.99 or $14.99 (BBC).

We can say that this is an unethical decision as it affects the stakeholders of Apple and the other e-book retailers in a negative. The stakeholders that are negatively affected are the consumers as they have to pay a higher price for the same product that is not worth that much. However, this since there will be an increase in revenue due to the price increase, the shareholder and internal stakeholders will have benefits from this.

Welcome to UBC Blogs. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!