Free Republic

SALT LAKE CITY — A state Republican delegate behind the effort to repeal Utah's illegal immigration reform bill called drafters of the legislation "traitors" Wednesday. At the same news conference, Brandon Beckham basically demanded the GOP-controlled Utah Legislature repeal HB116 by Sept. 30. The bill would establish a guest worker program for undocumented immigrants in 2013. "Those who drafted this bill are traitors to Utah and they will be held accountable by voters in 2012," he said with Sen. Stephen Urquhart, R-St. George, and Rep. Chris Herrod, R-Provo, and others standing behind him in the Capitol rotunda. Both lawmakers favor...

PORTLAND, Ore. - A mail carrier who was caught using a yard as his personal toilet will not be fired. The incident happened last month at a home in southeast Portland and a neighbor, Don Derfler, captured the man in the act with his camera. Derfler had been waiting for his babysitter when he saw his mailman acting odd at his neighbor's house across the street. The postal worker then pulled down his pants and that's when Derfler began snapping pictures. "We trust people like the postal service and meter readers and people of that nature," Derfler told us when...

Largest federal worker union sues for pay lost in event of shutdownBy Kevin Bogardus - 04/08/11 02:25 PM ET The nation's largest federal employee union sued the Obama administration Friday, seeking the repayment of wages lost during a government shutdown. The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) says in its lawsuit that the administration has violated the Constitution's appropriations clause and the 13th Amendment by requiring employees to work without pay during a federal closure. “Hundreds of thousands of federal employees will be required to work during a shutdown, and there’s no guarantee that Congress will keep the administration’s promise...

The number of state employees that have joined public sector unions has skyrocketed in the past decade. Over 10,000 state employees have joined unions, and still more requests are pending that would increase the number of unionized state employees to nearly 97 percent. But there's a dilemma: If pending requests are approved by the Illinois Labor Relations Board, nearly 97 percent of state workers would be represented by unions — including many employees once considered management. Only 1,700 “bosses” would be left out of nearly 50,000 state employees. There's concern about unionizing management, though, and ILRB needs to make a...

Woman dies at desk, but nobody notices Last Modified: Feb 18, 2011 04:52AM Perhaps if it hadn’t happened on a Friday, this sad tale wouldn’t have come to pass. As Los Angeles County employee Rebecca Walls toiled on a risk analysis audit, she apparently died at her desk, but nobody noticed her body until the next day. Co-workers described her as tireless. Always “working, working, working.” Clearly so hard that none of those cube farm co-habitants noticed she may not have been breathing when they left work. While the Los Angeles County Coroner investigates the cause of death of the...

A Louisiana state Senate employee has been formally reprimanded and suspended for a month without pay because she sent an e-mail message to hundreds of government workers showing President Barack Obama as white. Senate President Joel Chaisson announced the punishment Tuesday for Senate researcher Tammy Crain-Waldrop, who has been suspended since Dec. 1. Crain-Waldrop can return to work Jan. 3 and must send a written apology to Senate and House staff and lawmakers.

"Taking on the anti-Muslim racists" Blair Ellis reports from New York City on a demonstration that stood up to the racist tide of abuse against plans for an Islamic community center. August 23, 2010 Several hundred people challenged the right-wing's anti-Muslim hate in a counter-protest in downtown Manhattan THE PROPOSAL for the construction of an Islamic community center in lower Manhattan near the site of the World Trade Center has become a lighting rod for the right wing's war at home on Arabs and Muslims. But opponents of bigotry in New York City mobilized on August 22 to make sure...

A powerful Republican state senator said Monday he plans to sponsor legislation creating a one-of-a-kind Utah guest-worker card for immigrants. In doing so, Sen. Howard Stephenson will challenge federal authority as sole enforcer of immigration law and present a business-backed alternative to Arizona-style reform. “I believe the states have the power to regulate this a lot more than other people realize,” said Stephenson, who also heads the business-backed Utah Taxpayers Association.”We can have a legal guest-worker permit system in the state of Utah that would be regulated by the private sector at the cost of the employer and employee.”

Low-skilled workers have some of the highest unemployment rates in America. Adults without high school diplomas face an unemployment rate of 14.5%, almost three times as high as rates for college graduates, and well above the national average of 9.7%. The unemployment rate for teens, another low-skill group, is 26%. Reasonable people likely presume that Congress and the administration are doing everything possible to help low-skilled workers get jobs. But, come 2014, the new health care bill will make it harder for employers to hire low-skill workers. And, as workplaces around the country prepare to implement the Patient Protection and...

The Department of Labor has launched a special program to assist and protect illegal immigrant workers in the U.S., referred to as "vulnerable" and "underpaid" by the presidential cabinet member who heads the agency. Hundreds of new field investigators have been deployed to reach out to Latino laborers in areas with large numbers of illegal alien employees. Their message, in Spanish, is "we can help" bring workplace protections to the nation's most vulnerable and underpaid workers, including those who have no legal right to live in the Untied States. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, a former California congresswoman with close ties...

The Middlesex County Democratic Organization has fired a paid canvasser who falsely claimed to be the assistant deputy director of Governor Corzine’s re-election campaign when arrested by East Rutherford police Friday night. < snip > Silverstein also confirmed that the vehicle that Shih was driving when he was pulled over Friday night in East Rutherford was rented by the organization. He said he did not know whether Shih was in Bergen County on official MCDO business or on a personal errand.

Posted: Wednesday, 05 August 2009 4:37PM Pillsbury employee kills co-worker outside plant NEW ALBANY, Ind. (AP) - Authorities say a Pillsbury plant employee crashed his car through the southern Indiana factory's security gate during a shift change and then fatally shot a co-worker. Police say the shooting at the plant Wednesday morning came as officers were investigating a report of gunshots outside a home that was less than a mile away. New Albany Police Capt. Keith Whitlow says neither the suspect nor the victim lived at the home. Floyd County Coroner Leslie Knable told The Tribune that the shooting involved...

A citizen of India, Rajendrasinh B. Makwana attempted to sabotage the computer database at Fannie Mae. He was, according to news reports, employed as a so-called temporary foreign worker who had been authorized to work in the United States temporarily under the provisions of the H1B visa that had been issued to him. Here’s how this appalling situation can be summed up: This is the real threat to society, not the sinking of Fannie Mae. But the strange case of Makwana does bring up a number of issues. The main one is the use of H1B visa workers – and...

Just heard on FNC an update on the Chicago plant closing where union workers are protesting. The main complaint is that the plant's bank, Bank of America, received federal bailout money but did not extend the company's credit line, resulting in the plant closing. Now we have the Governor of Illinois saying that the State is going to suspend all business with BoA, essentially blackmailing the bank into lending to the company with the expectation that the plant will reopen and reemploy the protestors. My question is this: do we know that BoA did not have a legitimate financial reason...

After watching the Obama-Clinton debate ... I came away convinced that both candidates ...want to run this country like Argentina... In that country, Juan Peron-inspired labor syndicates ...dominate the economy... have ensured Argentina's isolation from international commerce and investment, and a slow but steady decline in living standards... If an American lost a job in the past decade, the charge goes, it's because in Mexico business has no labor obligations. This claim is not only untrue, it is the opposite of reality. Mexico is home to militant, high-powered unions and the most burdensome labor regulation in North America... Nafta has...

Drunk and missing home, construction worker Juan Carlos Franco stripped naked, broke into a house and tried forcing himself onto a young girl so he would be deported back to Guatemala, police say. He is jail for now -- in Miami-Dade. Franco was arrested by Miami Officer Ivan Camilo Monday afternoon on the 1600 block of Northwest First Avenue. A Miami-Dade Circuit Court judge on Tuesday granted him $57,500 bail. He was still jailed Tuesday afternoon. According to an arrest report, the girl was in her parent's bedroom when she heard strange noises. She noticed her bedroom light turn on....

ODESSA, Texas (AP) - President Bush's former deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove, says the government will need a temporary worker program to be successful with immigration reform. Rove said the program is needed reduce pressure on the nation's border security apparatus. But he says the details of such a program haven't been explained to the American public well. He also says the U.S. Border Patrol will need to be doubled and its budget tripled with 300 miles of fence built. The comments came yesterday as part of the John Ben Shepperd Public Leadership Institute's Distinguished Lecture Series at the...

The summer that shook the American workplace The new threat and hidden agenda of Labors new Government By Will Fine, Executive Director National Alliance for Worker and Employer Rights This summer has been the summer that shook the foundations of the Employee -Employer relationship as no time has in nearly thirty years. While our national security is being defended overseas, our domestic security has become imperiled by governmental transformation at the hands of Labor Union Central Command that has deployed a government it can control. The credibility of Congress is at stake to defend a free workplace.

A WORKER at a UK boat-building firm has been caught trying to steal a luxury yacht one piece at a time. James Light, 35, stole hundreds of yacht parts worth £55,000 ($133,000) over a period of seven years, Bournemouth Crown Court heard yesterday. He stole the parts from his former employer, Sunseeker.