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Parrot worker left untreated for days By Philip Edwards (Filed: 13/11/2005) Crucial treatment for a hospital worker exposed to Britain's first case of deadly bird flu through his other job as a quarantine worker was delayed by at least three days because of a blunder by government officials, the Sunday Telegraph has learnt. Officials at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are understood to have risked an outbreak of the disease by failing to alert local health authorities that Howard Savage urgently needed antiviral treatment. Mr Savage, who runs the quarantine centre where two infected parrots died, approached...

One of the more appealing aspects about being on the Left is that you do not necessarily have to engage your opponents in debates over the truth or falsehood of their positions. You can simply dismiss your opponent as "anti." Anti-worker: It all began with Marxism. If you opposed communism or socialism, you were not merely anti-communist or anti-socialist, you were anti-worker. This way of dismissing opponents of leftist ideas is now the norm. Anyone, including a Democrat, who raises objections to union control of state and local politics is labeled anti-worker: "anti-teacher," "anti-firefighter," "anti-nurse," etc. This is how the...

support the secret ballot protection act now in Congress!

Heat May Have Killed Second Farm WorkerUPDATED: 11:10 am EDT July 26, 2005 ROXBORO, N.C. -- A migrant farm worker who was found dead near a Person County soybean field died of heart attack or heat stroke, the county sheriff said Tuesday. Pablo Ordaz was working at the Walker Farm, a tobacco and grain farm in Olive Hill, on Tuesday when he said he wanted to quit for the day because he didn't feel well, Person County Sheriff Dennis Oakley said. Ordaz left the farm and was last seen walking toward a mobile home at the farm. He never returned...

Injuries rise, but Hispanic workers shun safety classes SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Despite federal reports that Hispanic workers are suffering from rising rates of injury and death, Utah's Spanish-language safety classes are full of empty chairs. ''Efforts to reach out and provide training to them has been very ineffective,'' said Peter Groesbeck, program administrator for the Utah Labor Commission. ''We need to understand the dynamics of this working sector of the state's work force.'' The Labor Commission plans a study to learn more about Spanish speaking immigrant workers and hope to use it to improve attendance at the free...

N. Korea: 'Straw' Safety Helmets At the construction site of Pyongyang Music Academy along Tae-dong River, soldiers as construction workers are wearing 'straw' safety helmets instead of plastic ones, working on indoor plastering. [Yonhap News]

Workplace experts predict a rise in absenteeism today because of the opening of the last Star Wars movie. Click here for the rest of the story.

1962 Sunday Missal Mass Readings/Propers for the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker   Colors:  White   INTROIT  Wisdom 10:17 Wisdom rendered to the just the wages of their labors, and conducted them in a wonderful way: and she was to them for a covert by day, and for the light of stars by night. [P.T. Alleluia, alleluia.] -- (Ps. 126. 1). V.: Glory be to the Father . . . -- Wisdom rendered to the just . . .   COLLECT - O God, Creator of all things, Who dost impose on man the law of work; grant...

MILWAUKEE (AP) - An airport worker loading baggage in Milwaukee got locked inside the cargo hold of an airplane that flew to Philadelphia. The worker was "a little stressed" but uninjured after the unscheduled flight, a spokeswoman for Midwest Airlines said Friday. The cargo hold was heated and pressurized. The man was stowing a wheelchair aboard the plane when other employees closed the cargo door because they did not see him, airline spokeswoman Carol Skornicka said. "He knew where it was going," she said. "He tried to get somebody's attention, but it didn't work. When it landed, he jumped out...

In addition to borrowing several employees from the Legislature and using state and federal funds to pay their salaries, Secretary of State Kevin Shelley also was lent a San Francisco city employee for half of last year. The arrangement, which allowed Shelley to bypass the state's civil service system in order to fill a routine scheduling position, was detailed in a contract between the secretary of state and the office of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. The contract was noted in an audit released Tuesday by the State Personnel Board that accused Shelley, a San Francisco Democrat, of using inappropriate...

Gingrich Hogwash Just a bit ago I heard one of those promos they do for radio shows and the bite was of Newt on KABC Los Angeles' McIntyre in the Morning. McIntyre asks Newt about the borders and Newt's answer was to this effect: there is a need for a guest worker green card program. Such a statement is hogwash because a green card means permanent resident. Guest workers would not be guests if they have a green card. Having a green card means one is not a guest. It means one lives here -- permanently. It means the holder...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - The Schwarzenegger administration on Thursday released a sweeping set of regulations aimed at revising how doctors evaluate permanent injuries to workers and how much compensation they are paid. The new regulations are a key element of the landmark reform of the state's compensation system approved by the Legislature last spring and aimed at cutting billions from the rates employers pay for insurance. The new proposal calls for the use of guidelines developed by the American Medical Association for measuring permanent disabilities. The administration also wants to employ a new formula for translating the degree of injury into...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

Patriotic Great-Grandma Volunteers For Iraq Duty Oklahoma Woman, 72, To Be Deployed To War Zone POSTED: 7:16 am EST November 22, 2004 LAWTON, Okla. -- A 72-year-old great-grandmother from Oklahoma is preparing for deployment to the war zone in Iraq. Lena Haddix will be a civilian employee of the Department of Defense and volunteered for the duty. She said she wanted to do something for her country. Haddix was a military wife and has worked at the Fort Sill PX since 1977. She's expected to have a similar job in Iraq, working 10 hours a day. Her preparation for deployment...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - The Schwarzenegger administration is drafting regulations that would go beyond state law and result in "atrocious" cuts in benefits for employees who are partially disabled by job-related injuries, workers' attorneys said Wednesday. The California Applicants' Attorneys Association said it would file a lawsuit if the Division of Workers Compensation attempts to implement the changes. "They basically made something up," said David Schwartz, the association's president. "Unfortunately, what they made up is turning out to drastically reduce permanent disability benefits." But Rick Rice, assistant secretary of the Labor and Workforce Development Agency, called the association's complaints "propaganda" and...

The chairman of a House International Relations subcommittee yesterday urged the Bush administration to drop its proposed temporary guest-worker program and not "reward Mexican nationals living and working illegally in the United States" with legal status. "It is our hope that in future discussions with the Mexican government, you will encourage Mexico to do its part to address illegal immigration rather than encourage their citizens to illegally enter the U.S.," said Rep. Elton Gallegly, California Republican, who heads the subcommittee on terrorism, nonproliferation and human rights, in letters to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Homeland Security Secretary Tom...

At the same time, younger activists--including members of the WORKER COMMUNIST PARTY--carried out their own initiatives, which led most notably to the formation of the UNION OF THE UNEMPLOYED IN IRAQ (UUI). Both groups of activists are opposed to the U.S. occupation, says Thomas. The main difference, he says, is that unions associated with the UUI "are not at all hesitant to support labor action in the face of the various decrees that are in place that prohibits labor organizing and strikes."

H1-b Abolition Update by Robert Locke The immigration crisis, like the federal budget, is an aggregate made up of many different line items. One of them is the notorious H1-b program that is used to bring foreign technology workers and nurses into the United States. Due to pressure from the tech industry, the annual quota for this visa was bumped up during the late-90's dot-com bubble to 195,000 per year. Thankfully, a sunset provision was included in the legislation and the annual quota is now down to 65,000, but this is a number that really ought to be zero, so...

McCain discusses immigration PHOENIX - The federal government has failed to address illegal immigration in the Southwest and needs to wake up, Sen. John McCain told Hispanic leaders Saturday. "It is in our national interest to bring the 8 to 12 million undocumented immigrants out of the shadows and allow them an opportunity to become citizens of this great nation," McCain said at the annual conference of the National Council of La Raza. The Washington-based civil rights group and political think tank dedicates itself to promoting Hispanic issues. McCain said federal policy and border enforcement have failed to alleviate the...

<p>Facing a drop in funding and a tough job market for technology professionals, the Department of Labor is poised to kill a program that trains Americans to fill positions held by foreign guest workers.</p> <p>The department created the H-1B Training Program in the late 1990s as a way for Americans to learn skills in high demand by employers. The funding came from fees employers of foreign workers paid to get H-1B visas, which allowed the foreigners to take technical jobs that went unfilled during the dot-com boom. The Labor Department used those fees and other funding to pay $328 million in scholarships and grants to community groups to develop training programs for U.S. citizens and permanent residents.</p>