Asga has scheduled a webinar on Employment Law – Living with Covid in the Workplace, on 4 November, aimed at helping sign companies deal with the myriad issues the virus has thrown up.

Today is deadline day for print workers in Victoria, with those classed as authorised workers needing to have at least one Covid vaccination by the end of the day, or a booking for one by next Friday, in order to come into work on Monday, under the state government’s health order.

The fourth Print & Digital Convention in Dusseldorf has dropped its live stream option, making it an in-person event only, due to “insufficient demand” for the virtual version.

Recycling printing plates is helping the environmental push, as their short life means they are back in the circular economy far faster than aluminium from other applications.

The National Print Awards and remaining state PICAs have been rescheduled to Friday 5 November, and will run as a combination of in-person and live streaming events.

Print and paper environmental lobby group Two Sides has successfully challenged 810 global organisations, resulting in them taking down misleading anti-paper statements from their websites.

The Victoria state government has told all authorised workers, which includes all manufacturing workers including printers, that they must have at least one Covid jab by next Friday 15 October, and the second by 26 November, to carry on with their jobs.

Print trade associations are urging printers to be cautious if they are thinking of using the downloadable Vaccine Response Kit from SPC as part of any mandatory workplace vaccination plan.

Employers association PVCA will run a webinar on Friday morning where printers will be able to dig into the hot topic of mandatory vaccinations and liability with the association’s IR experts.

And while the industry grapples with workplace vaccinations, printers are facing increased costs as soaring shipping charges send prices of many consumables, including paper, up again.

It’s been a long and slow slog, but for the Carbon Balanced Printing initiative introduced several years ago, the direction of travel is definitely forwards. The initiative sees printers and print buyers band together to offset their carbon emissions through funding nature regeneration.

Print businesses looking to implement a mandatory vaccination policy can check out the Vaccine Response Plan from food packager SPC - the first company in Australia to mandate no jab no work - which it has made available to all.

Surging growth in the US and UK has seen print software business printIQ move its sales and marketing functions to those markets. The business will remain headquartered in Australia and New Zealand, with founder Anthony Lew at the helm.

The latest issue of the ANZ print industry’s trade magazine Print21 is arriving on desks, with the bumper issue featuring much of the technology that would have been on show at PacPrint.

Australia’s largest distributor of printable materials and consumables, Ball & Doggett, is strengthening its leadership team, with Leigh Hooper, Rob Brussolo and Paul Bartolo all taking new senior roles.