Jason and Rodney Carr hate to raise their prices. Their Gardena, Calif.-based distributor of curtains and home fabrics, Softline Home Fashions, usually keeps its costs low by sourcing materials overseas: 100% of their raw goods and 80% of their finished products come from China. But recently, China hasn't paid off the way it used to. In the past five months, the Carrs have seen their manufacturing expenses rise 20%.
Dear FSB: I was reading your article Overtime Bomb and I have a question: We're a paving contractor company that does jobs throughout Southern California. Every day our drivers go to and from various jobsites and we pay them straight time for the travel portion. They receive time-and-a-half for the time over 8 hours a day and/or over 40 hours a week while on the job site; however the drive time does not count for OT - so, a driver can get paid for 50 hours straight-time only. We have done this for 20 years. I have never questioned or been questioned on whether it is legal or not. Is it?
Dear Annie: When I finished my MBA this past spring, I got three pretty good job offers. But the employer I really wanted to work for kept putting me off - scheduling more rounds of interviews, telling me they still had other candidates to see before they could make a decision, and so on.
The Atlanta Falcons on Tuesday said they did not anticipate star quarterback Michael Vick's indictment on charges related to dogfighting.
The survival of brands like Chevrolet, Ford and Chrysler could very well depend on whether the United Auto Workers union is willing to assume a $100 billion headache.
A study of New York City eateries contends that kitchens consistently violate labor code. And experts say the problems apply everywhere in the U.S.
It's baaaack!! Yes, "comparable worth," which faded out around the same time the Bay City Rollers were disbanding, is making a comeback, under the euphemism "pay equity". To wit: the Fair Pay Act of 2007. Introduced by Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) in April (Illionois Sen. and Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama is one of 15 co-sponsors) the Act notes the existence of wage differentials between men and women.
The Supreme Court limited workers' ability to sue for pay discrimination Tuesday, ruling against a Goodyear employee who earned thousands of dollars less than her male counterparts but waited too long to complain
The NBA has released its list of early-entry candidates for the draft, and that means it's time to crunch some numbers.
Islanders defenseman Sean Hill on Friday became the first NHL player suspended for violating the league's drug policy -- a 20-game ban that will carry into next season.
Jason and Rodney Carr hate to raise their prices. Their Gardena, Calif.-based distributor of curtains and home fabrics, Softline Home Fashions, usually keeps its costs low by sourcing materials overseas: 100% of their raw goods and 80% of their finished products come from China. But recently, China hasn't paid off the way it used to. In the past five months, the Carrs have seen their manufacturing expenses rise 20%.
Dear FSB: I was reading your article Overtime Bomb and I have a question: We're a paving contractor company that does jobs throughout Southern California. Every day our drivers go to and from various jobsites and we pay them straight time for the travel portion. They receive time-and-a-half for the time over 8 hours a day and/or over 40 hours a week while on the job site; however the drive time does not count for OT - so, a driver can get paid for 50 hours straight-time only. We have done this for 20 years. I have never questioned or been questioned on whether it is legal or not. Is it?
Dear Annie: When I finished my MBA this past spring, I got three pretty good job offers. But the employer I really wanted to work for kept putting me off - scheduling more rounds of interviews, telling me they still had other candidates to see before they could make a decision, and so on.
The Atlanta Falcons on Tuesday said they did not anticipate star quarterback Michael Vick's indictment on charges related to dogfighting.
The survival of brands like Chevrolet, Ford and Chrysler could very well depend on whether the United Auto Workers union is willing to assume a $100 billion headache.
A study of New York City eateries contends that kitchens consistently violate labor code. And experts say the problems apply everywhere in the U.S.
It's baaaack!! Yes, "comparable worth," which faded out around the same time the Bay City Rollers were disbanding, is making a comeback, under the euphemism "pay equity". To wit: the Fair Pay Act of 2007. Introduced by Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) in April (Illionois Sen. and Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama is one of 15 co-sponsors) the Act notes the existence of wage differentials between men and women.
The Supreme Court limited workers' ability to sue for pay discrimination Tuesday, ruling against a Goodyear employee who earned thousands of dollars less than her male counterparts but waited too long to complain
The NBA has released its list of early-entry candidates for the draft, and that means it's time to crunch some numbers.
Islanders defenseman Sean Hill on Friday became the first NHL player suspended for violating the league's drug policy -- a 20-game ban that will carry into next season.
The following are letters from Kirk Kerkorian's Tracinda Group to the DaimlerChrysler Board and DaimlerChrysler board member Jerome B. York to Dr. Dieter Zetsche regarding a $4.5 billion buyout of the Chrysler Group.
Also in this column: • Wizards at a loss without Butler • Chinese 7-footer the No. 3 pick? A lot of uncalled-for hot air is being exhaled on rumors that Billy Donovan will leave NCAA champion Florida to coach in the NBA. This much I can tell you: If an NBA team hires Donovan, it will mean that its owner either doesn't know what he's doing, or that he's infatuated by the short-term buzz generated by the hot college coach of the moment.
Hereby a moratorium shall be observed on all draft talk involving Greg Oden and Kevin Durant for the remainder of March Madness. That's because I've stumbled across a far more intriguing draft story which, until today, has gone virtually unnoticed in the NCAA women's tournament.
That slightly acrid odor that permeated the first 36 hours of free agency was the smell of money burning holes in the pockets of NFL general managers. Engorged with spendable cash because of an elevated salary cap, teams threw millions at a crop of players mediocre in every way but luck. What did it mean to be a free agent at a time when franchises averaged a record $14.95 million in cap room? It meant that by the end of last Saturday, four players who have never made a Pro Bowl -- guards Eric Steinbach (who signed with the Browns) and Derrick Dockery (Bills), tackle Langston Walker (Bills) and linebacker London Fletcher (Redskins) -- had deals totaling $148.5 million. "That's what happens when you have 32 owners with money to spend, thinking they're one or two players away," said San Francisco coach Mike Nolan. He should know. The 49ers, who went 7-9 last year but hung around in the wild-card race, had a league-high $38 million in salary-cap space. They promptly made a nice player (but not a superstar),
ELIZABETH BRADT WAS A GREAT VETERINARIAN but a lousy HR manager. Within a year of opening All Creatures Veterinary Hospital in Salem, Mass., half her employees had quit. Bradt blamed herself; unsur...
Sidney Crosby will still put his pants on one leg at a time, only in 2007-08 the Penguins star won't be putting on his uniform but instead a "uniform system." That's what Reebok calls the threads that were unveiled this week at the All-Star Game and will be worn throughout the league next season. The "system" designation lends a white-lab-coat air of empiricism to the long-anticipated rollout of the new duds. Reebok and the NHL have put out all kinds of impressive data to reinforce the notion: Compared with the jerseys currently used, the new ones are 14% lighter at the start of the game, 25% lighter at the end because they don't absorb as much moisture, 10% cooler and, according to wind-tunnel research performed by MIT's redoubtable science guys, 9% more aerodynamic. All of this means that Canadiens right wing Alexei Kovalev should gain the blue line even faster than he does now before still hanging on to the puck 89% longer than necessary.
Sidney Crosby will still put his pants on one leg at a time, only in 2007-08 the Penguins star won't be putting on his uniform but instead a "uniform system." That's what Reebok calls the threads that were unveiled this week at the All-Star Game and will be worn throughout the league next season. The "system" designation lends a white-lab-coat air of empiricism to the long-anticipated rollout of the new duds. Reebok and the NHL have put out all kinds of impressive data to reinforce the notion: Compared with the jerseys currently used, the new ones are 14% lighter at the start of the game, 25% lighter at the end because they don't absorb as much moisture, 10% cooler and, according to wind-tunnel research performed by MIT's redoubtable science guys, 9% more aerodynamic. All of this means that Canadiens right wing Alexei Kovalev should gain the blue line even faster than he does now before still hanging on to the puck 89% longer than necessary.
Baseball's playoffs would seem to be a good argument both for and against a more level financial playing field in baseball.
Major League Baseball and the Players Association are making progress in quiet, almost daily labor negotiations, and the two sides appear poised to reach agreement on a new deal without the typical work stoppages or even strike threats that have characterized past labor agreements.
Fifty people have drowned this year in accidents during trips down whitewater rivers in the United States, where state-by-state safety laws can be spotty.
Berkshire Hathaway said late Tuesday that it has agreed to acquire two California workers' compensation firms as the insurance- focused conglomerate run by billionaire Warren Buffett expands its bet on the once-troubled market.
The head of the United Auto Workers union promised to work with bankrupt auto parts makers and troubled U.S. automakers to help turn around the struggling sector, but also said that the industry can not downsize itself to success.
An explosion at an eastern Kentucky coal mine killed five miners Saturday, but a sixth survived and walked out on his own, a Mine Safety and Health Administration official confirmed.
With Barry Bonds bearing down on Babe Ruth's home run mark, it seems every sportswriter and baseball fan is concerned about the sanctity of baseball's records due to Bonds' alleged use of steroids.
As you watch the Kentucky Derby this Saturday, consider this ... most of the guys hanging by their fingers and toes to those charging 40-mph thoroughbreds are going to walk away with only $50 for their risk.
So you're standing in the yard of your new house - only it's missing its windows, a shower is on the front porch, and there's rainwater inside because of a hole in the roof the size of a Hyundai. Oh, and your contractor? Apparently he's gone into the witness protection program.
Students and labor unions in France plan to take to the streets on Tuesday to celebrate the repeal of a controversial jobs law.
Major French labor unions are expected to meet Wednesday with representatives of President Jacques Chirac's party over a contested youth jobs law that has sparked nationwide protests.
The state set a deadline, but Michael Jackson plans to beat it.
California officials have fined Michael Jackson nearly $170,000 and ordered employees at the pop star's Neverland Ranch to stop working, after finding that employees had not been paid since December and the ranch's workers' compensation coverage had been allowed to lapse.
Federal government fines for coal mine safety violations are far below the level imposed by other government agencies and may not be offering incentives for mine companies to fix safety problems, according to a published report.
West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin has called on all mines in his state to halt operations until thorough safety checks are made, following the deaths of two miners on Wednesday.
Rescue teams reached the face of a West Virginia coal mine Friday but found no sign of two missing miners, officials said.
Less than 30 hours after the state of West Virginia scrapped its state-run workers' compensation fund and handed the reins to privately owned BrickStreet Mutual Insurance Co., the newly formed company was faced with its first tragedy: the Sago Mine explosion.
Can the NHL go from being No Hockey League for the past 15 months to being the Now Hot League?
BP PLC will pay a fine of $21.3 million to settle government claims of more than 300 safety violations after a March explosion and fire at its huge Texas City, Texas refinery that killed 15 and injured more than 170.
Gary McLaughlin, an electrical contractor in San Francisco, recently got a call from a real estate agent who needed a house rewired before its new owners moved in. He checked out the house and faxe...
When Zurich Financial let Bob Miller go in February 2003, he wasn't worried. His résumé was impeccable. He had 20 years of experience under his belt and plenty of references describing him as a hig...
If you want to stem the flood of high school players and underclassmen into the National Basketball Association, a good place to start is with the salary restrictions placed on rookie contracts.
In 1992, American International Group Inc.'s (AIG) top lawyer said in a memo to then-Chief Executive Maurice R. "Hank" Greenberg that the insurer's reporting of workers' compensation premiums "is permeated with illegality" that was "so serious it could threaten the existence of senior management if disclosed," people who have seen the document told The Wall Street Journal.
In a victory for older workers, the Supreme Court concluded Wednesday that people over 40 can sue for alleged age discrimination under a less burdensome legal standard of proof.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission collected a record $420 million from employers that violated workplace discrimination laws even as the total number of complaints filed dropped for the second consecutive year.
Dear Annie: A friend of mine was laid off recently, supposedly because he failed to meet certain (ridiculously high) goals. In truth, he thinks it was because he is much older and more expensive th...
FedEx Corp, the world's largest air-express mail service, was ordered to pay $1.5 million for retaliating against an employee who tried to promote two minority workers, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Wednesday.
The U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether the gender equity law that prohibits discrimination in women's sports also affords protections to people who report the unfair treatment.
The National Hockey League lost a whopping $273 million in 2003 as revenues plunged and TV ratings fell to the level of bowling and arena football. In desperation, the NHL agreed to a deal earlier ...
A key fact has been lost amid all of the fiery rhetoric and political posturing surrounding new federal overtime rules that took effect Monday: Some 18 states have overtime regulations that effectively nullify federal rules.
Controversial new rules regarding overtime pay went into effect Monday, with the Bush administration and labor advocates squabbling over how many U.S. workers are affected.
This being an election year, President Bush this month dusted off an old proposal aimed at making life a little easier for employees who earn overtime pay.
A federal district court in San Francisco certified a sex discrimination class action suit against Wal-Mart earlier this summer. (When a court "certifies" a class action, it allows the case to proceed with a class of plaintiffs, according to class action rules -- as opposed to with a number of individual plaintiffs.)
Don't know if you're owed overtime pay? You're not alone.
As the sun sets this week on "Friends," NBC's long-running hit sitcom, the writers, producers and network remain embroiled in litigation.
Under fire for its plan to overhaul rules for overtime pay, the Bush administration has revised its proposal to protect overtime for police, firefighters and some white-collar employees earning up to $100,000 a year.
Those who argue that money is the key to winning in baseball are only half right.
In real life, what could be called Erin Brockovich moments occur very rarely. Lawsuits by injured victims are common enough. But they almost never make it to trial. Rarer still is the tingling mome...
Two weeks before the recall election, California corporate leaders took an extraordinary step. On Sept. 22, 30 prominent CEOs--including Craig Barrett of Intel, Carly Fiorina of HP, and David Pottr...
On a cold Philadelphia day this past February, 50-year-old Janice Winston received something that warmed her considerably: a $400,000 payment from her former employer, Verizon Communications. The m...
Until Oct. 24, 1997, I thought I was doing all I could to prevent employees from getting hurt. Then a young printing-press operator tripped, fell into a press at my family's plastic-bag factory, an...
When the economy was booming, "lots of companies took away their noncompetes because they couldn't attract people," says Larry Lorber, a partner at Proskauer Rose. "Now it may be a different situat...
The insurance industry wasn't the direct target of the terrorist attack on Sept. 11, but it might as well have been. First, there were the lost lives and business disruptions inflicted on insurers,...
Now that Congress has repealed the ergonomics standard, are small businesses off the hook? Not exactly. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration can still levy fines and demand workplace c...
Imagine pulling up to an emergency room with a wailing child only to find the doctors outside, marching on a picket line. That's the image managed-care officials want you to focus on as they fight ...
America is no place to age gracefully. Of course, basketball players, dancers, and fashion models are finished young; mathematicians and chess players peak early too. So do construction workers and...
The nice-nice, hug-hug made by NBA Commissioner David Stern and union leader Billy Hunter last week was understandable. The two men staved off humiliation with an all-night negotiating session and ...
DEAR ANNIE: I am a female working for a global FORTUNE 500 chemical company. I recently took a new position that was supposed to involve a lot of international travel, and I was excited about the o...
Fred Nahas is not your typical union activist. The 51-year-old doctor is a vascular surgeon in Somer's Point, N.J., and earns a comfortable six-figure income. His only experience with a picket line...
Edward McKeever always knew his job could kill him. For 25 years, he assembled steel girders into office towers and magnificent bridges like the 4,260-foot-long Verrazano Narrows span that links Br...
Texaco, Mitsubishi, Morgan Stanley, Smith Barney, the U.S. Army. What do these employers have in common? They have all been the target of recent allegations of either harassment or discrimination i...
You probably thought you had your child-care problems licked when you found the perfect nanny or babysitter, right? Little did you know your difficulties were just beginning. Unless you've hired a ...
A few weeks before he was fired in August 1990, James O'Connor says, his boss told him that he was "too damn old" to travel around Virginia and the Carolinas overseeing the company's vending machin...
THE CASE FOR AGEISM
GROWTH SITUATION
AT A TIME when corporate managers are doggedly driving out every excess cost, some executives still view workers' compensation as an intractable cost of doing business. But an increasing number are...
LIKE tuberculosis and measles, child labor is making a comeback in the U.S. From New York to California, employers are breaking the law by hiring children of 7 to 17 who put in long, hard hours and...
About one American worker in 10,000 dies in an on-the-job accident. Cooks in restaurants have higher mortality rates than firemen. Federal regulations on formaldehyde exposure result in expenditure...
With the ranks of workers ages 50 and up growing by about 1% each year amid massive corporate layoffs, age-bias complaints filed with state and federal regulators have jumped 28% since 1990 to more...
LET'S TRAVEL FORWARD in time a few years. Joe Jones, a union leader at Autoparts R Us Inc., is addressing his fellow members on the company's board of directors. He is wearing a hard hat. After con...
Some years back we took an IQ test (don't ask why). One section was designed to elicit information about one's common-sense understanding of various phenomena in everyday life. Among the questions ...
THE GREAT American Job Machine, which put 18 million more people to work between 1982 and 1990, is stuck in the mud. Employment losses in the recession have been modest compared with those during t...
WHAT WE DON'T understand about stress could fill volumes. And it does. Some books say stress is an invigorating tonic; others, that it's lethal. Stress stands implicated in practically every compla...
Your servant senses that it is time for a little more back talk on the subject of ageism. Every time you turn around these days, there is another uplifting editorial deploring bias against the oldi...
DOLE WINNING APPLAUSE FOR LABOR DEPT. ACTIONS was the hackle-raising headline in the New York Times the other day, and the subjacent text confirmed the present writer's instant intuition about who ...
The news from Washington is that the Bush Administration is making with the meat-ax in this year's budget planning, and yet OSHA will get the 6% increase it boldly requested. The news stories expla...
A new movement that seeks to change the way people think about law has emerged in the past decade. Called critical legal studies, it goes to the core of the controversy over judicial activism. Thes...
For today's two-paycheck parents, nothing outranks the importance of lining up competent child care. But finding professional live-in help turns many parents , into either paupers or criminals. Tra...
The specter of a corporate restructuring or takeover where you work may leave you feeling decidedly insecure not only about your job but also about your retirement benefits. Your jitters are justif...
In his outstretched hand, Keeping Up's senior policy analyst brandished a now-empty library folder labeled ''AGED, United States, Discrimination, 1980 -- .'' Piled around his ankles was a three-inc...
AN OBSCURE government insurance agency known as OPIC -- Overseas Private Investment Corporation -- has long had a high profile among U.S. companies with risky investments overseas. Over the past fo...
Workers' Compensation death benefits for the family of a roofer who was killed when he fell from a building where he was stealing copper material for salvage have been upheld by the Appellate Divis...
With pennant contenders scheduled to play and draw big crowds, the union representing major league baseball players called a strike for August 6. Unless owners sign a new collective bargaining agre...
SALEM, ORE. -- A harried . . . union chief who suffered a disabling stroke while having sex is entitled to $950.30 a month in workers' compensation benefits, the Oregon Court of Appeals ruled yeste...
A detail curiously omitted in the plethora of commentary on Hardhatgate, as the media nomenclature department may yet decide to baptize the event, is that the spotlighted union behavior was apparen...
THE ISSUE of product liability has been kicking around Congress for nearly a decade, but it has suddenly taken on new life -- and a new direction. Washington business lobbyists have favored a bill ...
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