Friday, October 26, 2012

FL: Restaurant workers targeted in expansion of union's activities ...

By Marianela Toledo | Florida Watchdog

SICK TIME: Unions and activist groups are pushing legislation that would require small businesses to provide paid sick time. Businesses say they can?t handle the financial strain.

MIAMI ? The latest battle brewing across Florida centers on?controversial county ordinances that would require employers to offer paid sick time, a move that would increase costs for small businesses still hurting in this severe recession.

In?Orlando, Citizens for a Greater Orange County?collected enough signatures to have the question placed on the November ballot. If voters pass it, all businesses within Orange County with 15 or more employees must provide paid sick leave.

However, opponents, including the?Greater Orlando Chamber of Commerce, Central Florida Hotel and Lodging Association?and Home Builders Association of Metro Orlando,?filed a complaint asking the?Orange County Circuit Court?for an injunction to stop the ballot initiative.

Miami-Dade County commissioners are set to decide on a similar proposed ordinance next month.

Unions and activist groups have rallied around the issue, but critics say this will increase burdensome regulations for small businesses.

At the federal and state levels, no laws require employers to provide paid sick leave to employees.

HERRLE: ?We want this issue to be addressed in Tallahassee as a single statewide policy.?

?There are over 300 governments in Florida between cities and counties, and if we would have 300 different policies on this issue, that would be a nightmare,? said?Bill Herrle, executive director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses in Florida. ?We represent about 10,000 businesses around the state, and what they don?t want is a local ordinance about this issue. We want this issue to be addressed in Tallahassee as a single statewide policy.?

He added that a small restaurant owner in one town shouldn?t?have different regulations from one 10 miles down the road, adding to business uncertainty and burdening small businesses.

If passed on Nov. 20, the Miami-Dade County ordinance would affect 45 percent of local workers and 88 percent of workers in the?restaurant?industry, which is the?third-largest private sector business in the?Miami-Dade?region, directly employing over 70,000 workers,?according to the?Miami Herald.

Unlike Florida, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., have laws that require certain employers to provide paid sick leave. In response to this law, some employers in San Francisco have cut vacation benefits to offset the increased costs associated with sick leave for full- and part-time employees, according to Bloomberg News.

The Orange County sick leave initiative is estimated to cost businesses between $69.2 million and $82.3 million each year, according to a study by William Seyfried, professor of economics at Rollins College in Winter Park.

Other key findings in his study point to a greater impact on small businesses, estimating that 40 percent of employees will lose similar benefits to pay for the measure, and 54 percent of businesses will see their annual profits reduced.

Florida Watchdog tried to reach the Greater Chamber of Commerce in Miami, but it said it is not ready to take a position on this issue at this time.

ORGANIZE: The Restaurant Opportunities Center is backing an effort to offer sick time pay for food service employees

A report titled ?Backed into the Corner,? released in August by the?Restaurant Opportunities Center?of Miami and the?Miami-Dade Coalition for Healthy Families and Workplaces,?has been presented as the greatest evidence for why the measure should be adopted.

The report concludes that workers feel pressured to work while sick, afraid of not being paid during their absence.

?In this economy, we need to make sure that people can afford to stay home when they or a loved one are sick without fear that they?ll fall behind on bills or lose their job,? Commissioner?Barbara Jordan,?who introduced the bill, told the?Huffington Post.??No working person in Miami-Dade should be forced to choose between their family?s economic security and their family?s health.?

Capitol reporter?Will Patrick, of the?James Madison Institute, a nonprofit free-market think thank based in Tallahassee, said there is sufficient cause for concern that labor organizations?? led and financed by out-of-state groups?? may be trying to maneuver around right-to-work laws and unionize Florida?? one area at a time.

?One way that labor organizations and their political allies are maneuvering around such laws in Florida?? soon to be the nation?s third most populous state?? is through non-unionized activism and workforce centers,? he wrote in Capitol Vanguard.

?Jobs with Justice,?Organize Now?and the?Restaurant Opportunities Center?are just a few of the groups currently working a ground game in Florida to train and mobilize workers as labor activists, particularly in the restaurant and retailing industries.?

Contact Marianela Toledo at?toledo.marianela@gmail.com

Source: http://watchdog.org/59986/fl-restaurant-workers-may-be-targeted-to-expand-unions-activities-in-florida/

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Monday, October 8, 2012

GRD Football Night | Granville Recreation District

Posted on October 8th, 2012 by Lara

The Granville Recreation District?s Tackle and Flag Football (3rd-6th) teams and Cheerleader (3rd-6th) squads have been invited to attend a Granville High School Football game. Head Football coach, JR Wait, would like you to come to cheer on the Blue Aces and be recognized at half time for participating in the GRD football and cheerleading programs.

Players will be admitted free of charge to the game by wearing their team shirt/uniform. ?Parents and siblings will need to pay at the door.

Varsity Football Game is Friday, October 12th.? Game beginning at 7:30 PM.? The players will be recognized at half time.

Thanks for supporting your Granville High School athletes!? Have a fun evening.

Grant Willis, Football Commissioner

Source: http://www.granvillerec.org/2685/grd-football-night/

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As Online Retailers Launch Vendor Financing, Is Apple Credit Corp ...

As we have been saying for over a year now, there are two key issues (one of which follows logically from the other) that central bankers are banging their heads against: the increasing scarcity of money good-assets, i.e., credible collateral, that can be pledged in exchange for debt at both the private and public level, and the collapsing cash flows at the corporate and household level (both incidentally direct artifacts of ubiquitous central planning and central banker intervention). This, among various other reasons chief among which is the parallel collapse in CapEx and R&D spending at the corporate level, is the main reason for the now secular decline in corporate revenues, which in turn will impact corporate profitability for years to come (now that the easy cost cuts have been made and firms have no choice but to cut into the muscle), and why any expectations that currency dilution will transform into higher profits in a time when input costs rise far more aggressively than revenues, are merely pipe dreams, as is the market's obsession with expanding PE multiples. Perhaps the best confirmation that the much needed cash flows continue to not materialize, is the news that first Amazon, and now Google, are slowly migrating to a model of vendor financing, whereby they provide credit to their product and service vendors to stimulate top line growth. And while this may boost AMZN and GOOG stock price briefly, all it indicates is what we have all know for a long time: the US consumer is once again tapped out, and is unwilling and/or unable to spend money at the rate needed to justify either the forecast S&P earnings or the applied multiple, confirming fundamentals are even more disjointed from market surreality than previously expected.

From the FT:

Google is getting into the credit business for the first time, with the launch on Monday of a programme in the UK to finance purchases of its search advertising by businesses.
?
The move marks the opening of a new front in the battle between the biggest internet companies, as they turn to their balance sheets as a source of competitive advantage. Amazon said last week that it had begun making loans to independent sellers that offer their products on its marketplace, marking the online retailer?s first move into financial services.

Google?s decision to issue its own credit card, which will also be made available in the US within weeks and other unspecified countries later, signals the company?s first attempt to use its huge cash reserves to support its core search advertising business by subsidising low-interest rate credit lines.
?
It said it would offer customers credit of between $200 and $100,000 a month to pay for their use of Adwords, which places messages next to the results in its search engine and made up the bulk of its $37bn in advertising revenues last year.

Where it gets downright scary however, is the admission of Google's Treasuer for the reason why Google is entering the crediting business:

?They weren?t buying Adwords as much as they need to,? said Brent Callinicos, Google?s treasurer. A pilot lending programme begun in the US a year ago had led to customers advertising more, he added.

Or, stated differently, we have crossed the IRR threshold where without Google's model no longer generates the rate of return our shareholders demand of it. The same shareholders who recently pushed Google to its all time high price and who are perfectly oblivious to this very disturbing dynamic below the otherwise shiny surface.

As for Amazon's endless "diversification" strategy, no surprise there. The one time retailer, which is now into video streaming, cloud sharing, stock exchanging, who knows what else and recently entered the real estate business, has been desperate to expand into something, anything, that will boost its meager profitability, so far without success. The time to experiment may have now run out, since AMZN now too has to provide debt to lever up its "vendors":

Amazon also indicated that its lending was aimed at credit-starved
businesses that would otherwise struggle to finance initiatives such as
expanding the inventory of products they sold on its site.

?We?re
providing a solution to a problem that is vexing many sellers,? Amazon
said. ?A lack of access to cash can inhibit their growth.?

What is left unsaid, is that a lack of cash will lead to a lack of transactions, and a lack of commissions which will immediately crash AMZN's already razor thin margins.

Finally, the admission that corporate cash now has to be used to fund the lowest possible returning IRR project, where discharges and bad loans will soon galore as the ongoing depression once again strikes with a vengeance, in the process crippling long-term profitability prospects, will not be easy to extract. Instead we get spin:

Google executives did not rule out going deeper into financial services with the provision of more lending products to the small and medium-sized businesses that make up the bulk of its 1m search advertising customers, though they said the company was not planning any moves at present.

?

?We are helping them, uniquely, with online marketing ? we aren?t going into a finance business as Google,? said Francoise Brougher, vice-president of sales and operations for small and medium businesses at Google.

Of course not. For now. Because suddenly those massive growth multiples will have to be dramatically readjusted, not to mention starting to value online "retailers" as... banks?

Which finally brings us to the topic of Apple, and its Braeburn hedge fund, which for the time being is allocating its $120+ billion cash stash for safe purposes. How long before shareholders demand a boost to ROEs and insist that Apple pull an AMZN and/or GOOG, and launch Apple Credit Corp, providing credit cards that can only be used to purchase AAPL products?

If we were betting people we would say 3-6 months...

P.S. the currently offered Barclaycard financing option for Apple product purchases is not the same, as the balance sheet risk lies with Barclays, not with Apple's balance sheet. Soon that will change.

Your rating: None Average: 4.8 (6 votes)

Source: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-10-08/online-retailers-launch-vendor-financing-apple-credit-corp-imminent

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Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Fighting spreads in Aleppo's walled city, Syria's cultural jewel

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Fires that gutted a vast historic market have broken out in other areas of the Old City of Aleppo, a world heritage site, as rebels and government forces fight for the ancient heart of Syria's biggest city, opposition activists said on Monday.

The rebels last week announced a fresh attempt to seize the wider city, home to 2.5 million people, which was until July firmly under the control of President Bashar al-Assad.

With government forces holding the large medieval citadel in the heart of the Old City, the fighting that has already claimed more than 30,000 lives across Syria seems certain to destroy more cultural treasures too.

"Rebels control more that 90 percent of the Old City now," said Ameer, an opposition activist working with rebel brigades.

But he said they were struggling to hold their positions under heavy artillery fire.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of activists across Syria, said at least 100 people had been killed countrywide on Monday, including 18 members of the security forces in an ambush on a convoy heading from the central city of Homs to the eastern desert town of Palmyra.

In Aleppo, Ameer said rebels still held the Souk al-Madina, a covered market of 13 km (8 miles) of vaulted stone alleyways and carved wooden facades, once a major tourist attraction.

Fires that damaged more than 1,500 shops had been put out, he said, but new fires had now broken out in the Old City's Zahrawi, Aqaba and Bab Al Nasr markets. Plumes of black smoke were rising from many districts, and gunfire could be heard.

The rebels are sensitive to suggestions that they might have brought the conflict to one of Syria's greatest historical and commercial centers. Aleppo was once the last stop before Europe for traders plying the ancient Silk Route from Asia.

"It's urban warfare. I cannot blame any side specifically for the fires," Ameer said over Skype.

"POISON OF TERRORISM"

The 18-month-old uprising-turned-civil war has pitted Assad's minority Alawite sect against rebels who are mostly from the Sunni majority, stirred sectarian tensions in the Middle East and divided world powers.

In a speech to the U.N. General Assembly, Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem accused the United States, France and the mostly Sunni Muslim Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey of supporting terrorism by providing arms and money to rebels, and said their calls for Assad to step down were "blatant interference".

All the five countries have denied arming the rebels, although some have given logistical support such as communications equipment. However, Gulf sources told Reuters in July that Turkey had set up a secret base with Saudi Arabia and Qatar to direct military and communications aid to the rebels.

In talks with Moualem, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon "raised in the strongest terms the continued killings, massive destruction, human rights abuses, and aerial and artillery attacks committed by the government", Ban's spokesman said.

Assad has painted Syria's uprising as a Sunni Muslim conspiracy, which many Syrians say is a tactic to deter minority groups from joining the revolt. Revenge attacks are common.

The Observatory said Mohammad al-Assad, a prominent founder of the 'shabbiha' groups, which started life as smuggling networks in the 1980s and have developed into pro-Assad militias, was severely wounded at the weekend.

It said Assad, a relative of the president known as the Sheikh of the Mountain, had been shot in a row about smuggling revenues in the family hometown of Qurdaha in the Alawite mountains.

Other activists said the fighting had been triggered by some Alawite families' fear of being dragged into a sectarian war. A visitor to the area said roads had been blocked on Sunday.

CYCLE OF DESTRUCTION

Syria's uprising has developed its own cycle of destruction. When rebel fighters - lightly armed and low on ammunition - push forward, government forces respond with artillery until fighters and civilians are flushed out and the army can move in.

But the rebels often sneak back, and the cycle restarts, suggesting bleak prospects for Aleppo's Old City, where the weekend's fires came close to the Great Mosque, parts of which are a thousand years old.

UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova said that, as a signatory to the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, Syria was obliged to safeguard its heritage from the ravages of war.

"The human suffering caused by this situation is already extreme," she said in a statement. "That the fighting is now destroying cultural heritage that bears witness to the country's millenary history - valued and admired the world over - makes it even more tragic."

A visitor to the Old City, who asked not to be named, said the fires, which started on Saturday, were a side effect of the fighting in the covered market, famous for its silks.

"An electrical fire started during clashes and spread quickly," he said, adding that several rebel groups, including those from the most prominent Tawheed Brigade, were involved in the rebel advance, which has had only marginal success.

UNESCO believes that five of Syria's six world heritage sites have already been damaged. The other sites include the ancient desert city of Palmyra, the Crac des Chevaliers crusader fortress and parts of old Damascus.

(Additional reporting by Dominic Evans in Beirut and John Irish in Paris; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fighting-spreads-aleppos-walled-city-syrian-cultural-jewel-112850643.html

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Monday, October 1, 2012

Bill and Giuliana Rancic Will Show Their Baby's Birth | Famecrawler

75686PCN Guilianna15 199x300 Giuliana Rancic: Baby Dukes Birth Will Be Televised

Bill and Giuliana Rancic.

Proud new parents are often eager to share everything with the world, from the official birth announcement to the video of baby?s first steps.

So it is with Giuliana and Bill Rancic. Ever since the birth of their son, Edward Duke, they?ve been sharing photos and talking to interviewers about the sheer joy of being parents after so many long and frustrating years.

Now they?re taking the sharing a step further. Giuliana tells the Chicago Sun-Times Sunday magazine Splash that they?ll be airing their home footage of Duke?s birth on the upcoming season of their reality show, Giuliana & Bill.

The couple had previously decided that they wanted the birth to stay personal. They told the Style Network not to send their cameras into the Denver delivery room when their gestational surrogate, Delphine, went into labor. But Giuliana and Bill did bring their own video camera to capture the miraculous moment.

And now that a month has passed, they?ve reconsidered their decision.

?This is our sixth season and people have followed our story for years,? Giuliana tells the magazine.

?To have people praying for you and supporting you and wanting the best for you and wanting you to have this baby so badly, and then to say, ?Thanks for all your prayers, thanks for your support, we?re not showing the baby.? That?s wrong.? So they gave their own footage to the producers.

But there?s lots more for Giuliana & Bill fans to see before the birth episode airs. The new season, which starts Tuesday, will also feature Giuliana?s baby shower, her coverage of the Olympics in London, the couple?s search for a larger house and their hunt for just the right nanny for little Duke.

The Rancic family has been spending time in Chicago while Bill supervises the opening of his new restaurant. Soon, they?ll be packing up again and traveling back to Los Angeles to settle into their new home.

What do you think? Are you glad Giuliana and Bill are sharing the birth video?

[Photo: via PacificCoastNews]

More from Shana:

Drop Dead Gorgeous! Amy Adams Goes Shopping With Her Family

Jessica Alba and Family Have Lunch in L.A.

Family Day! Heidi Klum and Her Boyfriend Go to the Park With Her Kids

Kristin Cavallari Can?t Wait to Be a Mom Again!

Kim vs. Kourtney: The Kardashians Go Dragon Boat Racing

Read more of Shana?s writing at Momsperiments.

And don?t miss a post! Follow Shana on Twitter!

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 Giuliana Rancic: Baby Dukes Birth Will Be Televised

Source: http://blogs.babble.com/famecrawler/2012/09/30/giuliana-rancic-baby-dukes-birth-will-be-televised/

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Afghan 'inside' attack puts U.S. troop deaths at 2,000

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) ? An apparent insider attack by Afghan forces has killed a U.S. service member and a foreign civilian contractor with NATO, officials said Sunday. The shooting ?the latest in a string of attacks on international troops by their Afghan allies ? marked the 2,000th U.S. troop death in Afghanistan over the long-running conflict.

A U.S. official confirmed that the service member killed was American. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the nationality of the dead had not yet been formally announced.

At least two Afghan soldiers were also killed in Saturday's attack at an Afghan army checkpoint in Wardak province, said Shahidullah Shahid, a provincial government spokesman.

An Afghan soldier turned his gun on the Americans and started shooting, Shahid said. He said the checkpoint was in Sayd Abad district, just outside a joint U.S.-Afghan base.

"Initial reports indicate that a misunderstanding happened between Afghan army soldiers and American soldiers," Shahid said. He said investigators had been sent to the site to try to figure out what happened.

An Afghan military spokesman declined to comment.

Afghan soldiers and policemen ? or militants in their uniforms ? have gunned down more than 50 foreign troops so far this year, eroding the trust between coalition forces and their Afghan partners. An equal number of Afghan policemen and soldiers also died in these attacks, giving them reason as well to be suspicious of possible infiltrators within their ranks.

The attacks are taking a toll on the partnership between international and Afghan forces, prompting the U.S. military to restrict operations with small-sized Afghan units earlier this month.

The close contact ? with coalition forces working side by side with Afghan troops as advisers, mentors and trainers ? is a key part of the U.S. strategy for putting the Afghans in the lead as the U.S. and other nations prepare to pull out their last combat troops at the end of 2014, just 27 months away.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/afghan-inside-attack-puts-us-troop-deaths-2-062902604.html

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