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Updated 5/24/2004; 11:10:30 AM

Tuesday, May 18, 2004

Cheney Sings Wal-Mart's Praises. What does Dick Cheney love about Wal-Mart? The sweatshop labor? The union busting? The quest for lower and lower wages and benefits? [AlterNet]
4:51:34 PM

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Telecommuters Causing Mistrust In The Workplace?. A new study suggests that with the rise in telecommuters, many employees have never even met some of their closest colleagues. Because of that, many workers feel that they don't have as close a relationship to those colleagues as they should, and may not trust them as much as those they work with in person. In other words, there are other unintended consequences of telecommuting. Again, this seems to be the sort of thing that's highly dependent on how the telecommuting is done. For a team that works in a dispersed manner, it's still helpful for them to get together on a regular basis. "Invisible" workers who are going to be working closely with each other should be brought together occasionally. It may not completely solve the mistrust issue, but it's better than having them be completely faceless. [Techdirt]
4:48:29 PM

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Japanese truck maker prepares Arkansas site for parts plant. LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Toyota's Japanese truck-making partner said Tuesday it may add a truck assembly plant to a planned parts plant in Marion, where the company says it will break ground in July. Hino Motors Ltd. of Tokyo said it will open the parts plant at the 160-acre site in 2006 and consider a full truck-assembly plant there if its new American truck line does well enough. AP via Florida Times-Union May 18 2004 9:53PM GMT
4:47:21 PM

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Car plant closure in Australia to cost company $220m. MITSUBISHI Motors Australia will have to pay about $50million in employee entitlements and another $170 million in superannuation if it quits its two Adelaide factories. The 3500 employees of the plants in the southern suburbs will discover their fate on Friday, with the parent company confirming yesterday it would be revealing its long-awaited business plan in Tokyo then. news.com.au May 18 2004 10:09PM GMT
4:45:20 PM

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Oakland's unemployment rate drops. OAKLAND -- The city's unemployment rate fell to 9 percent in April from 9.9 percent in March, the largest single monthly decline in at least 14 years. Oakland's jobless rate was 10.7 percent last April and peaked at 11.6 percent in July, according to the state Employment Development Department. Oakland Tribune May 18 2004 12:18PM GMT
4:34:02 PM

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Jobs going offshore faster than estimated. New figures on offshore outsourcing suggest that American companies are sending even more white-collar jobs to low-wage countries such as India, China and Russia than researchers originally estimated. Roughly 830,000 U.S. service-sector jobs � ranging from telemarketers and accountants to software engineers and chief technology officers � will move abroad by the end of 2005, according to a report released Monday by Forrester Research Inc. The Cambridge, Mass.-based firm projected in 2002 that 588,000 jobs would move overseas by the end of next year. Pioneer Planet May 18 2004 2:10PM GMT
4:14:12 PM

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