Free Republic

LIMA (Reuters) - Peru's top court has ruled that workers cannot be fired for being drunk on the job, a decision that was criticized by the government on Wednesday for setting a dangerous precedent. The Constitutional Tribunal ordered that Pablo Cayo be given his job back as a janitor for the municipality of Chorrillos, which fired him for being intoxicated at work. The firing was excessive because even though Cayo was drunk, he did not offend or hurt anybody, Fernando Calle, one of the justices, said on Wednesday.

<p>Every January, descendants of Confederate soldiers gather in Wyman Park to...lay wreaths at the monument to Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, legendary generals of the Confederate States of America. And afterward, for 20 years now, everyone has gone across the street to the Johns Hopkins University for coffee and refreshments...Hopkins has informed the Maryland divisions of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans that it will not rent space to them.</p>

Gas stations should be allowed to charge any price they want. Stop and think. There are gas stations all around us. All of them havesimilar products and must compete with one another. We have regulations and agencies that watch to make sure there are no cooperative arrangements among stations. Why, then, are price-gouging laws such a bad idea? First, the price restriction interferes with market forces. For example, gas stations anticipate a lack of supply of gas over the next couple of weeks because of the hurricane in the gulf. They raise their gas prices to allocate the remaining supplies...

Christian and other religious groups opposed to abortion were allowed to advertise on Google for the first time from today, after the search engine capitulated in the face of a legal challenge. Google had banned pro-life religious groups from buying adverts against search terms such as “abortion” and “abortion help” but was forced to abandon its policy after it was accused of breaching equalities legislation. The challenge was brought by the Christian Institute, a cross-denominational pressure group, who said that Google’s change of heart was an acknowledgement of the rights of everybody to hold an opinion on the subject. Mike...

Mike Koelzer Grand Rapids, Sep 16, 2008 / 12:24 am (CNA).- Citing ethical objections and the potential of some contraceptive drugs to cause abortions, some pharmacies in the United States have decided not to carry contraceptives. One such store is Kay Pharmacy in Grand Rapids, Michigan, owned by Mike Koelzer, who explained his decision not to carry contraceptives in an e-mail interview with CNA. Koelzer explained that he stopped supplying birth control pills because, as is written on the drugs’ packaging inserts, such pills decrease the lining of the mother’s uterus. This makes the womb less hospitable for a...

Muslim cabbies whose religious beliefs go against driving passengers who carry alcohol have lost another round in Minnesota courts. The Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday against the cabbies' latest attempt to block penalties from being imposed when they refuse to transport passengers because they're carrying alcoholic beverages.

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For women struggling with infertility, the unpredictable and time-consuming treatment process can wreak havoc with work schedules, causing conflicts with bosses and triggering reprisals or layoffs. Now, a federal appeals court has come down on the side of women, fortifying legal protections on the job. In the first decision of its kind at the federal appeals-court level, a three-judge panel in Chicago found women who need time off work for infertility treatment may invoke the Pregnancy Discrimination Act as potential protection against adverse action. The ruling came in a case involving Cheryl Hall, a secretary who was laid off after...

The Florida Chamber of Commerce and The Florida Retail Federation argued for three years that business owners had an absolute right to control their employees. That's why they kept calling it the "take-your-guns-to-work" legislation. They claimed they could search employee vehicles and ban firearms from those vehicles in the employer's parking lot. They claimed businesses didn't care if customers had guns in cars, they only cared about their right to control employees. When the legislature passed the law protecting the rights of workers, The Florida Chamber of Commerce and the Florida Retail Federation filed a lawsuit in federal court asking...

As many as 5.4 million working Californians don't get any paid sick days - and they tend to be both sicker and poorer than employees who do receive sick leave, according to a report released Wednesday. "The more you need paid sick days, the less likely you are to have them," said Dr. Rajiv Bhatia, director of occupational and environmental health for San Francisco and a contributor to the report.

The proper role of government is to provide equal opportunity for all, not preferential treatment for any one particular group. Comparable worth is a warped social theory and all U.S. legislatures and courts that have considered it have rejected it for that very reason. The Paycheck Fairness Act (H.R. 1338), introduced by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) in the House and by Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) in the Senate, would amend the Equal Pay Act (EPA) to allow for unlimited compensatory and punitive damages, even if a disparity in pay is determined to be unintentional. It would also require the Department...

A federal judge has dealt a major defeat to Florida's business lobby by upholding the main thrust of a new law allowing employees with concealed weapons permits to take their guns to work. The so called "guns-at-work" law was the product of a three-year constitutional clash that pitted the powerful National Rifle Association against equally influential business groups over two basic constitutional concepts: the right of private property and the right to bear arms.

Europe's highest court ruled that a Belgian garage-door installer broke the European Union's antidiscrimination laws by stating publicly that he wouldn't hire Moroccans, even though there was no evidence any job applicant had actually been rejected. The decision expands the scope of EU discrimination laws, raises questions of free speech, and highlights a tension between the bloc and its constituent countries over how much sway Brussels should have in domestic labor-market affairs. A Belgian court originally found that the statements -- made in newspaper and television interviews -- might be unsavory but didn't necessarily amount to discrimination since no injured...

Walt Disney World fired a security guard on Monday after he protested the company's decision not to allow people with concealed weapons permits to keep guns in their cars on Disney property. Disney terminated Edwin Sotomayor, 36, of Orlando for violating three Disney employee policies, essentially for failing to cooperate with an internal investigation, said spokeswoman Zoraya Suarez. Sotomayor vowed to continue his fight. At issue is Florida's new law that allows people with concealed weapons permits to keep firearms in their vehicles in employee parking lots. Disney advised its employees late last month that the theme-park resort is exempt...

Bobby Jindal signs bill giving employees the right to have firearms in their automobiles "on company property".

Philly radio station refuses to run Democratic ad By David Matthews Posted: 07/03/08 02:29 PM [ET] A Philadelphia news radio station has rejected a Democratic ad that features an impersonator of President Bush thanking GOP congressional candidates for supporting the “Big Oil” agenda. Philadelphia KYW-AM Vice President and General Manager David Yadgaroff said his station decided not to run the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) ad because it was worried its listeners would be misled. “As an all-news station, we were concerned that our listeners would have been misled by usage of an impersonator in the creative delivery,” Yadgaroff said...

The Denver Post ran a column by Al Lewis that questioned the need to enact a Right to Work law in Colorado and the reaction has been visceral. Dozens of citizens have taken it upon themselves to teach Mr. Lewis a thing or two about the unfairness of forced unionism. A sample of the reaction: * . . . I am 72 years old and had been in the work force for 50 years prior to my employment with the City of Boulder and this is the FIRST time that I have ever been in a union. $10.00 a month...

It seems too lunatic to be true. But here a hair salon boss reveals how she was driven to the brink of ruin - and forced to pay £4,000 for 'hurt feelings' - after refusing to hire a Muslim stylist who wouldn't show her hair at work For Sarah Desrosiers, meeting Bushra Noah was not a moment in her life that she would describe as especially memorable. Not only was it brief - lasting little more than ten minutes - but it was rapidly obvious to Sarah that Bushra was not the person for the junior stylist position she was...

SAN FRANCISCO -- An employer has no right to read an employee's text messages without the worker's knowledge and consent, and federal law bars service providers from turning over the contents of the messages to the employer who pays for the service, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today. The court's unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel stemmed from a lawsuit by Ontario Police Sgt. Jeff Quon and three others against the city's service provider and the city and Police Department for violating his constitutional right to be free of unreasonable searches. Although the city had informed employees...

Howard Weyers tried the "carrot" approach by giving his employees incentives and encouragement to quit smoking. But when that didn't work, he resorted to the stick. A big stick. Weyers, owner of a health care benefits administrator in Lansing, Mich., gave his 200 employees an ultimatum in 2004: Quit smoking in 15 months or lose your job. He refused to hire smokers. Ultimately, he extended his smoking ban to employees' spouses and monitored compliance through mandatory random blood testing. Weyers' method, while effective, wouldn't fly in California because the state has laws that prohibit employers from making hiring or firing...