Thursday, October 30, 2003

More Food Buyers Crossing the Lines Lured by sale items, a growing number of people venture back to their local grocers. Los Angeles Times http://www.latimes.com/la-fi-super30oct30,1,5028945,print.story By Abigail Goldman and Nancy Rivera Brooks, Times Staff Writers October 30, 2003 More Southern Californians are venturing back to their local Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons stores, although the supermarket chains and the union representing striking workers disagree about how many people are crossing the picket lines and what it means. Shoppers interviewed this week said they were returning to the stores for sale items, or the few things they couldn't find anywhere else. Some said they were just fed up with the inconvenience created by the strike that began Oct. 11.... "The success or failure of the strike is not measured by a total shutdown; it's measured immediately by the number of shoppers who go elsewhere, and longer term by the number of shoppers who might change their buying patterns," said HARLEY SHAIKEN, A UC BERKELEY PROFESSOR who specializes in labor issues. "That's a pretty tough prospect for these chains."...   Source: UC Berkeley in the News 12:16:38 PM    comment []

UC part-time staff to get vacation pay Oakland Tribune http://www.oaklandtribune.com/Stories/0,1413,82~1726~1732986,00.html By Staff Reports October 30, 2003 Current and former temporary clerical workers at UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, will receive more than $300,000 in back vacation pay as part of a settlement with the university. The settlement was part of an agreement providing benefits to "floater" employees at Berkeley, said LABOR RELATIONS MANAGER DEBRA HARRINGTON. The employees' union, the Coalition of University Employees, said the settlement offers monetary compensation to employees in the university's temporary assistance pool who were denied vacation credit....   Source: UC Berkeley in the News 12:14:47 PM    comment []

Overseas job-shifts could hit Bay Area Contra Costa Times http://www.bayarea.com/mld/cctimes/business/7139145.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp By Ellen Lee, Contra Costa Times Oct. 30, 2003 Up to 14 million jobs, many of them in the Bay Area, are at risk of being shipped overseas, two UC BERKELEY ECONOMISTS said Wednesday in a research report. They range from computer programmers to clerks who input data, from medical transcriptionists to paralegals, and are not concentrated solely in the high-tech market, said ASHOK DEO BARDHAN AND CYNTHIA KROLL, ECONOMISTS AT UC BERKELEY'S FISHER CENTER FOR REAL ESTATE AND URBAN ECONOMICS. "The bottom line is, if there is a job that can be done equally well, equally efficiently, at a much lower cost in a different part of the world, then that job is at risk in today's globalizing world," Bardhan said. The report also said that many of the jobs that were lost during the downturn will not return.... 12:12:04 PM    comment []

Copyright 2003 Lincoln Cushing