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Jul 16, 2010

JUDGE REJECTS SCHWARZENEGGER'S MINIMUM WAGE ORDER

 

JUDGE REJECTS SCHWARZENEGGER'S MINIMUM WAGE ORDER
Schwarzenegger Minimum Wage Denied
 
JUDGE REJECTS
 
SCHWARZENEGGER'S
 
MINIMUM WAGE ORDER -
 
http://crimewatch.us/487MARL.gif
(above): Judge Patrick Marlette
 
 
Judy Lin reports:
 
"A judge on Friday declined to make the state controller comply with an order by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to pay state workers minimum wage while the state remains without a budget.

"Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Patrick Marlette denied the administration's request for a temporary restraining order that would have forced the controller to pay the federal minimum wage immediately to about 200,000 state workers.

"Marlette ruled it would cause too much harm to employees.

"Deputy Controller Hallye Jordan said the decision means state workers will continue to receive their full wages in July and August."

Court blocks minimum wage
 move for Calif. state workers

(above): AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

"We were very pleased that the judge took into consideration our
arguments and the impact it would have on hundreds of thousands
of state employees who have worked for their checks and expect the
full amount," Deputy Controller Hallye Jordan said after the ruling.
 

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The judge did say he will allow the administration's lawsuit to proceed so the courts can sort out whether the controller must pay minimum wage in the future. The judge indicated he would like to set a full hearing for late August.

Lynelle Jolley, a spokeswoman for Schwarzenegger's Department of Personnel Administration, said the administration is confident it will ultimately prevail in the courts.

"We also hope that the Legislature is going to pass a budget in the meantime so we aren't forced to pay our employees minimum wage," Jolley said.

Earlier this month, a state appeals court in Sacramento ruled in favor of Schwarzenegger. It said the Republican governor has the authority to order minimum wage for civil service workers because the state has not passed a budget for the current fiscal year, which started July 1.

Schwarzenegger's order would cover about 200,000 of the state's work force of 237,000, who would be paid the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour if the courts ultimately find in his favor. Salaried managers who are not paid on an hourly basis would see their pay cut to $455 a week.

If wages are cut, employees would be reimbursed after a state budget is passed and signed.

Patricia Velez, an environmental scientist at the state Department of Fish and Game, said she was relieved by the judge's ruling Friday.

"It would do a lot of harm to state scientists and to all state employees not to get paid on time," said Velez, who also is president of the California Association of Professional Scientists. "I mean we all have the same bills to pay."

The Schwarzenegger administration filed its original lawsuit in Superior Court two years ago after the governor first attempted to impose the minimum wage during a previous budget deadlock. The controller, who cuts state paychecks, has refused to comply.

State Controller John Chiang has filed a counter lawsuit, arguing he cannot make the changes. He said California's decades-old computerized payroll system is incapable of handling the pay reduction.

The system was designed more than 60 years ago and was last revamped in 1970. The latest effort to update it is expected to be implemented in 2012.

During Friday's hearing, administration attorney Chris Thomas argued the interests of taxpayers aren't being represented because the controller has refused to comply with the wage law.

"We think an injunction is critical," Thomas told the judge. "This is our only recourse for preventing what we believe will be an inevitable violation of the law."

Marlette said the harm that would be done to state workers by cutting wages outweighs the conduct of the controller.

"That's pretty dramatic, don't you think?" the judge said.

Chiang, a Democrat who has received $190,000 in union campaign contributions this year, also warned that paying the minimum wage would violate the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act. That could lead to costly fines for the state.

In a second ruling Friday, the judge denied a request by several unions to join the lawsuit on Chiang's side. They included the Service Employees International Union Local 1000 and the California Correctional Peace Officers Association.

A possible pay cut would not apply to employees covered by unions that recently reached tentative labor agreements with the Schwarzenegger administration.

State doctors and lawyers would not receive any paycheck because minimum wage laws do not apply to those professions.

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Gilad Atzmon: British Jews Support Israeli War Crimes

 



The Jewish community in Britain seems to be over the moon. A survey that was published a few days ago suggests that British Jews are nothing but  'peace lovers'. The Guardian was also quick to report that  77% of "British Jews favour a 'two-state solution' in Israel".

In practice, this actually means that at least 77% of British Jews believe that millions of dispossessed Palestinians should continue to dwell in refugee camps and never be allowed to their  homes, cities, and villages. I am actually far from impressed with British Jewry's inclination towards peace. 

 
       

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Gilad Atzmon discusses Tolerance, History and Revisionism on Aspen GrassRoots TV

 

Gilad Atzmon discusses Tolerance, History and Revisionism on Aspen GrassRoots TV

http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/gilad-atzmon-discusses-tolerance-history-and-revisionism-on.html

Peace.
Michael Santomauro @ 917-974-6367

What sort of Truth is it that crushes the freedom to seek the truth?

Let's End Thought Crimes in the Twenty-first Century. -- to separate historical fact from propaganda…peace is patriotic!

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Tikun Olam : Jewish Terrorist, Charged With Multiple Palestinian Murders, 'Outs' Chief of Shin Bet's Jewish Terror Department

 



Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place
July 16, 2010 12:46 AM

Jewish Terrorist, Charged With Multiple Palestinian Murders, 'Outs' Chief of Shin Bet's Jewish Terror Department

Jewish rightist site claims this is Avi Arieli, chief of Shin Bet's Jewish department

The Israeli police have arrested an alleged key Jewish settler terrorist, Chaim Pearlman, charging him with involvement in multiple murders and woundings of Palestinians going back as far as 12 years.  As part of Pearlman's counter-campaign to impugn

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More on the 'Emergency Committee for Israel'

 


More on the 'Emergency Committee for Israel'

Where would this world be without people like Jim Lobe and Eli Clifton who do the investigative journalistic work that appears much too rarely at well-known mainstream news outlets? In a black hole controlled by special interest groups and the PR companies they employ to advertise for them. According to Clifton and Lobe, the recently [...]

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Dalton's Holocaust Radio Debate on April 24, 2010:

http://www.americanfreedomradio.com/Barrett_10.html

Peace.

Michael Santomauro
Editorial Director
Call anytime: 917-974-6367
ReporterNotebook@Gmail.com

http://www.DebatingTheHolocaust.com

Amazon's: DEBATING THE HOLOCAUST: A New Look At Both Sides by Thomas Dalton

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THE BOYCOTT IS WORKING! ..... SETTLERS ARE WORRIED

 


THE BOYCOTT IS WORKING! ..... SETTLERS ARE WORRIED

While at the same time acting like it doesn't exist.... An Israeli cashier looks stunned when asked about the anti-settlement campaign.

"There's a boycott?" she asks.


Settlers worry about impact of Palestinian boycott

By Patrick Moser

MISHOR ADUMIM, Palestinian Territories — Israeli settler and industrialist Avi Elkayam, 35, has no patience with the Palestinian boycott of settlement products. "It's economic terrorism," he shouts shaking his fist.

The months-old campaign has had a limited financial impact so far but it has a catastrophic potential, he says.

"It's economic terrorism that will lead to real terror when thousands of people lose their jobs," says Elkayam, who heads the bosses union in Mishor Adumim, the largest Israeli industrial park in the occupied West Bank.

A new Palestinian law imposes prison sentences of up to five years and fines of up to 22,000 dollars (18,000 euros) for trading in settlement goods, but the Palestinian Authority (PA) has yet to pass a proposed legislation that would severely punish Palestinians working for settlers.

The 3,000 Palestinians, out of a total of 4,000 employees, in Mishor Adumim, outside Jerusalem, could be forced to quit their jobs if the PA makes good on its threat to ban settlement work.

With 22,000 Palestinians working in Israeli settlements, the ban would have serious repercussions both for the Palestinian economy, where unemployment is high, and for settler businesses, many of which would be forced to shut down.

The presence of nearly a half million Israelis in more than 120 settlements scattered across the West Bank, including annexed east Jerusalem, has long been one of the thorniest issues in the Middle East peace process.

The international community considers all West Bank settlements illegal because they are built on Palestinian territory which Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War.

But while 72 percent of Palestinians support the boycott on products, according to a recent opinion poll, 60 percent oppose the ban on settlement work.

Business leaders in the settlements insist they contribute to the Palestinian economy, by offering pay well above West Bank levels -- though lower than Israeli wages.

And Elkayam is convinced he has a deep bond with his employees, saying they are "like brothers."

"For 20 years we have managed to create peaceful coexistence. This decision to boycott will end it," he says, his angry tone raising eyebrows among patrons in Avi's Restaurant, one of his businesses in the industrial park on the dusty edge of the Judaean desert.

Even so, he is not worried about the immediate financial impact of the boycott.

"Officially no one here is selling to the Palestinian territories," he says, adding that about five percent of the 300,000 dollars a month his sweets factory rakes in comes from Palestinians.

"We use our Jewish ingenuity, for example by labelling the goods as coming from Tel Aviv."

The practice of fake labels of origin is widespread, according to a senior executive at a Mishor Adumim factory, who asked not to be identified.

In some cases it is also used for exports to countries like Saudi Arabia, which not only object to settlements but profess little love for Israel itself, she says.

She too is unfazed by the boycott of products, but admits she is seriously worried about the possibility the PA could enact a law banning Palestinians from working in settlements as of January 1.

"That could force us to close down," she says. Other plants would find themselves in the same situation and thousands of Palestinians would find themselves jobless.

At the Gush Etzion junction, in the heart of Israel's emblematic settlement bloc whose name it bears, Musa Johar shrugs off the anti-settlement campaign.

"If I don't work, who'll feed my children?" the 55-year-old Palestinian construction worker asks, adding that it is by necessity and not choice that he helps build homes for settlers.

Sitting at a gas station cafe, he points to the supermarket behind him, the latest Rami Levy -- a chain named after its millionaire Israeli owner -- to open in a West Bank settlement.

"Even Palestinian police shop here," he says.

Many of the employees are Palestinian. Among the shoppers, many wear traditional Arab robes and headscarves.

An Israeli cashier looks stunned when asked about the anti-settlement campaign.

"There's a boycott?" she asks.

And store manager Ovadia Levy says he can't understand what the whole fuss is about.

"Shoppers come from Hebron, Bethlehem, Beit Jala, they come here happily and with no fear," he says.

"It's clean, it's beautiful, prices are good, there's a large selection -- they have nothing like this where they come from."

Source

An extensive ad campaign was launced in the Israeli press today calling on all Israelis NOT to support the Boycott...

The following video is also a part of the campaign, glorifying the settlements and the role they play in Israeli production....




--


Dalton's Holocaust Radio Debate on April 24, 2010:

http://www.americanfreedomradio.com/Barrett_10.html

Peace.

Michael Santomauro
Editorial Director
Call anytime: 917-974-6367
ReporterNotebook@Gmail.com

http://www.DebatingTheHolocaust.com

Amazon's: DEBATING THE HOLOCAUST: A New Look At Both Sides by Thomas Dalton

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