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Jobs report: press and dems seize on the negative
Reuters reports: “Payrolls Barely Rise in Weak Jobs Report.”
First the facts:
Unemployment rate fell to 5.7 percent, the lowest in over a year and down from 5.9 percent in November (it had been forecast to hold steady at 5.9 percent).
Non-farm payrolls in December increased by just 1,000, after a downwardly revised rise of [...]
Christian rights vs. gay rights in the Ninth Circuit: guess who wins?
Law.com has this article by Jason Hoppin in The Recorder:
“Cubicle Anti-Gay Postings Merited Firing.”
A former Hewlett-Packard employee whose silent protest of a workplace sensitivity campaign earned him a trip to the unemployment line can’t have his job back, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday.
Richard Peterson, described as a 55-year-old devout Christian, [...]
Aggressive employee wellness program pays off for Missouri city
Interesting healthcare article in the St. Louis Business Journal (registration required): St. Peters adds wellness plan, saves $1.2 million (by Carolyn Green)
While health insurance costs are skyrocketing for most employers, the city of St. Peters has saved $1.2 million during the last six years and expects the savings rate to increase next year because of [...]
Looking at the bright side of employee complaints
The latest “Dear Workforce” newsletter from Workforce Management Magazine (subscribe here) has this Q. & A. :
How to Deal with Employee Complaints About Managers?
Q. I have employees making bad comments and complaining about their managers. They are very unhappy about the way one of our locations is being run. They will [...]
Reverse discrimination settlement (in demotion case!) consumes half of employer’s annual budget
This AP story from Atlanta is incredible: Fulton County settles $18 million bias suit by librarians
The Fulton County Commission has opted for an $18 million settlement of a lawsuit filed by librarians who claimed they were discriminated against because they are white.
The settlement ends four years of litigation but represents more than half the entire [...]
Employment plays key role in Bush immigration reform plan
FindLaw (Reuters) reports:“Legal News - Bush to Propose Temporary Worker Program.”
“Hoping to attract more Hispanic support for his re-election bid, President Bush on Wednesday will propose a temporary worker program to help millions of immigrants work legally in the United States, officials said.”
Immigrants could enter the US legally if jobs were waiting for them. Undocumented [...]
Blogging gets attention
Dennis Kennedy reports in his blog: “The Magical Million Hit Mark – Yes, Blogs Might Work for You.”
I got a note from my web host, who was running my log files for 2003, that my web site had hit the magical 1,000,000 hits mark for 2003. As a frame of reference, there were 200,000+ [...]
Employers bear costs of employee depression
BenefitNews Connect reports: “Treatment costs down, yet depression still cost drain.”
New research indicates the economic burden depression places on employers may be somewhat self-inflicted. Although costs to treat the disease have decreased over a 10-year period, absenteeism and productivity costs have remained high, a sign employers do not yet have a firm grip on how [...]
"Names can never hurt me" (but they can get me a big settlement if I’m a schoolkid in California teased about homosexuality)
Yahoo! News (Reuters) reports: “Calif. Students Get $1.1 Mln in Gay Taunting Case”
Six students who said school officials mostly ignored their complaints that other students had taunted them with anti-gay remarks will receive $1.1 million under a settlement announced on Tuesday.
Alana Flores and five other students in Morgan Hill, 12 [...]
Coffee drinkers take comfort: it’s actually good for you
Reuters reports:“Coffee Lowers Diabetes Risk, U.S. Study Shows”
Men who drank more than six cups of full-caffeine coffee a day cut their risk of diabetes by more than half over 12 to 18 years, the study found. Women who drank that much coffee reduced their risk by 30 percent.
That’s great news for [...]
Annual Fortune magazine "Best Companies to Work For" list is out
CNN/Money reports: “J.M. Smucker tops Fortune ‘Best Companies to Work For’ list”; Fortune magazine names jam and jelly maker new No.1 company to work for in 2004.”
Jam and jelly maker J.M. Smucker & Co. made the top spot in Fortune magazine’s 2004 ranking of “Best Companies to Work For,” an annual list released Monday. [...]
More good jobs news: decline in announced job cuts
CNN/Money (Mark Gongloff) reports:“Can jobs momentum continue?”
U.S. businesses announced 93,020 job cuts in December, down 6.5 percent from 99,452 in November, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas . . . .
There were 1,236,426 job-cut announcements in all of 2003, down 16 percent from 1,466,823 in 2002.
“The decline in job cuts is certainly welcome [...]
Harassment claim a setup? Claimant caught in consensual relationship with alleged harasser after settling claim returns settlement money
Thanks to Michael Fox at Jottings by an Employer’s Lawyer for this one. The original story by Lee Melsek is entitled “Rekindled romance gets taxpayers $36,200 refund; Sexual harassment settlement repaid.”
Lee County [Florida] Property Appraiser Ken Wilkinson and his employee, Julie Dalton, on Wednesday repaid taxpayers the $36,200 she received last [...]
Tough to prove duress invalidating release of right to sue for discrimination
In Clark v. Riverview Fire Protection District (8th Cir. 1/5/04), the plaintiff was a firefighter who had been terminated for sleeping through a fire call. With the assistance of his union, an agreement was negotiated whereby he would be returned to employment subject to a one-year, unpaid, disciplinary suspension and final warning, [...]
More on healthcare issues
Catherine at sonria.org has another good post on healthcare: “Critique of BCBS’s The Uninsured in America.”
I’ve added my two cent’s worth on association health care plans in a comment to her post.
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