South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and other Republican governors are calling on the National Labor Relations Board to dismiss its complaint against Boeing.
Haley and 15 other GOP governors wrote to the board’s general counsel, Lafe Solomon, on Thursday saying the probe hamstrings governors who are trying to create jobs.
The letter was released Friday as the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing in North Charleston on the complaint.
The labor board alleges Boeing built an assembly line for its new 787 aircraft in South Carolina to avoid unionized workers in Washington state. Boeing has challenged the complaint, saying no union workers lost jobs.
Haley and Solomon are scheduled to testify during the hearing.
The first week of June brought a burst of blazing heat to the St. Louis area, with a daily heat index of about 100 degrees, according to the National Weather Service. And for those who earn their livings outside, the scorching conditions have fueled added caution.
“You got to work when you can,” said Mike Prouhet, a cement mason with J.L. Brown that contracts with St. Louis city, “but this kind of got us unexpected, in a hurry.”
It takes four to 14 days to become acclimated to the heat, so the first days of extreme heat are the most dangerous, when people should be careful not to overexert themselves, said Pam Walker, director of the St. Louis City Health Department.
Because only so much work can be done in the shade, area employers are taking extra precautions to protect employees from illness during the heat of summer.
Elizabeth Gotway, the public relations manager at Six Flags St. Louis, said the park circulated a trailer equipped with air conditioning around the park, rotated employees’ tasks between sunny and shady areas and provided sprayers so they could cool off. In addition, the park educates workers about staying hydrated and provides neck fans and water for free.
“You have to be vigilant because a lot of our employees are teens and they’re invincible,” Gotway said with a laugh.
Still, Gotway said, they normally do not have to take such precautions so early in the season.
The Missouri Department of Transportation educates its employees about avoiding stress from the sun, such as wearing light-colored and loose-fitting clothing and avoiding caffeine and alcohol, said Becky Allmeroth, a district engineer for MoDOT’s St. Louis region.
“We watch each other closely,” she said. “Working on roads in traffic is dangerous in and of itself, and it’s made more dangerous if someone shows signs of fatigue.”
MoDOT employees are taught to recognize the symptoms of heat exhaustion and how to take care of co-workers suffering from the heat, giving them breaks in shady areas.
MoDOT sometimes has its employees work an earlier, cooler shift to avoid too much heat exposure, Allmeroth said.
Jeremy Turner, owner and operator of Lawn Doctor, had a simple recommendation for working in the heat: Wear polyester. Turner has learned that lesson since he moved from work in kitchens and bathrooms to the outdoors in the spring of 2010, when he started his company. Lawn Doctor, based in Creve Coeur, specializes in fertilization and weed control. The company’s three employees maintain several hundred lawns in the area, he said low interest rate personal loans.
Lee Bailes, the CEO of Guier Fence, said that in addition to starting earlier, working later and allowing more breaks in the afternoons, he has hired additional employees to ease the workload.
Guier Fence, which is based in the Kansas City area and has been in business for more than 30 years, has franchises throughout the state. The St. Louis office, operated by Derek and Kelley Burt, contracts with two or three regular installers and takes on additional workers as necessary.
Yet sticking to what’s recommended is not so easy, he says.
“Most (of my employees) handle it well,” Bailes said. “They enjoy working outside and with their hands, and know that the heat just comes with it.”
Bailes says he heard complaints, especially during the first few days of the heat wave when workers hadn’t yet figured out how to deal with high temperatures.
Bob Frederic, president of St. Louis-based Frederic Roofing, said his company had been starting jobs earlier in the day, getting under way as early as 6 a.m. He issues the same warnings about clothing and watching coworkers but said they couldn’t work eight hours a day. Frederic, whose company employs 60 people, said they stopped working about noon on hot days.
“It’s a tough time of year for the roofing industry,” said Frederic, who has been roofing for 30 years. “It’s not that we don’t have the work, it’s a matter of getting it done.”
Adding to Frederic’s frustration is the fact that spring was so wet. Now, with the heat, it has hard to make up days lost to spring rains. His company has scheduled work for Saturdays, but Frederic said that he hesitated to do so too often because “even with shorter hours, (in this heat) you need a two-day weekend to recoup.”
Frederic said that he hoped the temperatures wouldn’t remain so high for the rest of the summer but that “the good news is that after it has been 98 and 100 degrees, 90 will feel a lot better, like winter.”
Julie Phillipson, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in St. Louis, added to the optimism.
“An extremely warm start to June doesn’t necessarily mean the summer will be extremely hot,” she said.
The temperature projections for the summer months have a 33 to 40 percent chance of being below normal, though this may mean periods of extreme heat are followed by cold periods, Phillipson said.
Air Canada
Japan’s consumer prices in April rose for the first time in more than two years on a temporary spike in energy and tobacco prices, the government said Friday.
Japan’s core consumer price index, which excludes fresh food, climbed 0.6 percent last month from a year earlier, marking the first year-on-year increase since December 2008, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said.
The rise in Japanese consumer prices was due to a jump in gasoline and tobacco prices. The ministry said education costs were also higher in April. On a month-on-month basis, Japan’s core consumer price index was up 0.4 percent last month.
But economist Hiroshi Watanabe at the Daiwa Institute of Research said the April increase in consumer prices does not mean Japan’s economy has emerged from deflation.
“The April results were mainly lifted by temporary factors, such as a surge in tobacco prices. Overall, Japan’s economy still remains under deflationary pressure as the economy has yet to post a steady recovery,” he said.
The world’s No. 3 economy has been battling periods of deflation _ or a steady decline in prices _ since the 1990s. Deflation is a burden as it can hamper economic growth by depressing company profits, sparking wage cuts and causing consumers to postpone purchases. It also can increase debt burdens.
Faced with tumbling output and exports following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, Japan’s economy recently slipped into a recession after contracting at an annualized rate of 3.7 percent in the January-March quarter.
Stock futures are down sharply as new warnings about European finances stoke fears about that region’s debt crisis. The euro dipped to its lowest level in two months.
Ahead of the opening bell, Dow Jones industrial average futures are down 97, or 0.8 percent, at 12,369. S&P 500 index futures are down 10, or 0.8 percent, at 1,317. Nasdaq 100 futures are down 20, or 0.8 percent, at 2,324.
Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s cut its outlook Saturday on Italy’s debt to negative from stable.
Financial markets in Spain are down sharply after a defeat for its ruling Socialist party caused investors to fear that the government cannot solve its public finance issues.
On Friday, the Fitch ratings agency downgraded Greece’s debt rating further into junk status.
Earlier this month, Bell and Quebecor, two giants in the Canadian broadcasting and telecom landscape, became embroiled in a dispute over Sun News Network, the recently launched all-news television station.
At first glance, the dispute appeared to be little more than a typical commercial fight over how much Bell should pay to Quebecor to carry the Sun News Network channel on its satellite television package. When the parties were unable to reach agreement, Bell removed Sun News, leaving a placeholder message indicating
This Memorial Day weekend Americans will be skipping the souvenir tee-shirt.
More travelers are expected to hit the road than have since the Great Recession. But they’ll be keeping a tight grip on their wallets thanks to higher gas prices. The typical family plans to spend $692, a decrease of 14 percent from last year’s $809.
“You’ll see people eating sandwiches out the cooler instead of going into a restaurant,” says Susanne Pelt, spokeswoman for the South of the Border roadside attraction in South Carolina.
AAA projects 34.9 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more from home _ a slight increase of 100,000 travelers from last year and the highest number since 2007. But those who do make the journey will be spending a lot less, AAA and its survey partner IHS Global Insight say, based on interviews with 325 Americans who plan to travel for the holiday.
Rising gas prices are on the minds of 40 percent of travelers, with many planning to take shorter trips or otherwise conserve money. That might mean picking a Holiday Inn Express over a Holiday Inn or driving to a free beach instead of an amusement park.
But most refuse to abandon their vacation altogether.
“Americans really believe a vacation is a right,” says Joseph A. McInerney, CEO of the American Hotel & Lodging Association. “It’s not a luxury.”
And it’s not just higher gas prices that families have to deal with.
Rates at AAA three diamond hotels are expected to increase 5 percent from a year ago to $148 a night. Cheaper two diamond properties are up 10 percent to $109.
“We are seeing some folks who are saying they have to pinch pennies to make the trip,” says Paula Werne, spokeswoman for Holiday World in the southern Indiana town of Santa Claus.
With the stock market up and the economy generally better than a year ago, not everybody is scrimping and saving.
AAA predicts that 2.93 million people will board an airplane over the Memorial Day weekend, up 11.5 percent from last year despite higher airfares. The airlines have hiked airfares seven times since the start of the year. The average cost of a ticket is up more than 10 percent from last year.
That spike in air travel has also driven up the total distance families are expected to travel to 792 miles. That’s 27 percent greater than last year’s average travel distance of 626 miles.
Increased air travel is a sign that people at the higher end of the income scale are faring better. Those with incomes above $50,000 a year make up 69 percent of those who plan to travel, according to AAA. Last year, they were just 58 percent of the total.
The reason: higher gas prices take up a larger share of lower-income families’ household budgets.
As Memorial Day weekend approaches, pump prices are at their highest level in three years. That’s because oil rose 35 percent from mid-February through late April.
AAA conducted its survey from April 19 to April 23. Since then, gas prices have fallen. The average retail price slipped 8 cents in the past two weeks. Further declines are expected. That could help hotels, resorts and restaurants who count on summer tourists.
Last year, the price of gas fell 20 cents a gallon from the time of AAA’s survey to Memorial Day. AAA had originally predicted 32.1 million would travel. Ultimately, that number was 34.8 million.
Still, gas prices are above $4 a gallon in nine states and the District of Columbia. That plays a large part in people’s vacation planning.
“Gas prices are much more psychological than financial for most people,” says Steve Carvell, associate dean for academic affairs at Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration.
Americans are paying an average of $3.91 a gallon at the pump _ $1.05 more than last year. That’s an extra $37 for a family driving 800 miles over the weekend.
“For most people, that’s not going to make or break a vacation plan,” Carvell says.
Brad Garner, chief operating officer at travel firm at STR Global, says people will find a way to make trips work.
The extra cost to fill up the family car over the holiday weekend equates to “a pizza and a six-pack of beer,” says Garner.
Many businesses are playing into that phycology, with hotels and tourist attractions once again offering gas cards to guests.
The Door County Maritime Museum in Sturgeon Bay, Wis., and the Wisconsin Maritime Museum about 100 miles to the south recently started a joint effort to encourage travelers to drive to the two museums, stopping at several cities along Lake Michigan along the way.
Bob Desh, executive director of the first museum says he wants tourists to look at the area differently.
“This is kind of a one-tank weekend trip along the coast,” Desh says.
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Mayerowitz reporter from New York. Reporters Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, S.C., John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, and Carrie Antlfinger in Milwaukee, Wis., contributed to this report.
International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s arrest is an embarrassment that won’t derail attempts to bolster aid for Greece as officials head to Brussels for crisis talks, economists said.
Strauss-Kahn, 62, had been scheduled to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel today and then attend discussions with euro-area finance ministers in Brussels tomorrow as officials consider further support to stave off a Greek default. He has been charged with attempted rape and a criminal sex act on a woman in a New York hotel. Strauss-Kahn denies the charges.
“Its incredibly embarrassing, and not the IMF’s or Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s finest hour, but I don’t think this ought to undermine what’s going on,” Peter Westaway, chief European economist at Nomura International Plc in London, said in an interview. “I don’t think it will affect negotiations on Greece. In the end, issues for Greece and policy making are more important than that and they’ll carry on.”
European officials are working to prevent the region’s first default as Greek ministers plead for terms to be relaxed on 110 billion-euros ($155 billion) of aid from the IMF and European Union in a debt crisis that has also engulfed Ireland and Portugal. Economists said that talks to reconsider Greece’s aid terms are taking place between institutions rather than individuals and so can endure such turmoil.
“It’s not a fatal blow to the Greek situation,” James Nixon, chief European economist at Societe Generale in London, said in an interview. “Any of these negotiations are larger than a single person.”
EU-Led Aid
The Greek government said in a statement that it “operates institutionally and continues without interruption implementing the program for the country to exit the crisis.” The EU has led efforts to aid Greece and has contributed two-thirds of the funds committed to the rescue of the nation’s economy.
The IMF will be represented at Monday’s euro-area finance ministers’ meeting by Deputy Managing Director Nemat Shafik, who oversees the organization’s work in a number of EU nations, IMF spokesman Bill Murray said in an e-mailed statement today.
Seventeen nations use the euro.
Greece is seeking an extension to the loans and has argued Europe should issue common bonds to stem the region’s fiscal crisis. Eighty-five percent of those surveyed last week in a Bloomberg Global Poll said the country won’t honor its debts, with majorities predicting the same fate for Portugal and Ireland.
Greek Position
Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou on May 13 opposed a debt restructuring, appealing to claims made by the IMF that the country’s debt “is sustainable.” Germany opposes a common-bond issue, saying such a move would weaken member states’ incentives to cut their deficits.
It’s too early to say whether Greece needs more help with its debt crisis, though “extra measures” may be needed if the country can’t return to financial markets next year as planned under the European-led aid program agreed last year, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said in an interview with ARD television in Berlin.
It’s “disappointing” that Strauss-Kahn’s meeting with Merkel is cancelled because the IMF had been pressing for stronger measures that may involve the possibility of a restructuring of Greek debt, Societe General’s Nixon said.
“The meeting could have been quite important in injecting some realism in the discussions and presumably now that voice won’t be heard,” he said. “The IMF have been pushing for a more realistic position, and presumably the gravity of that voice has been lost.”
‘Leadership Vacuum’
Eswar Prasad, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said that Strauss-Kahn’s arrest may still unsettle investors at a time of tension because of the region’s debt crisis.
“Just the perception that DSK’s departure could create a leadership vacuum at the IMF and shift the institution’s attitude towards Greece and other weak European countries may be enough to roil markets and raise uncertainty at a vulnerable time for the euro zone,” he said.
Hotel Incident
The charges against Strauss-Kahn stem from an incident that allegedly occurred yesterday against a 32-year-old female at a Sofitel hotel in midtown Manhattan, the New York Police Department said in an e-mailed statement early today. He will appear in a Manhattan court later today, police Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne told BBC television in an interview.
Strauss-Kahn played a key role in efforts to stem the European debt crisis which started last year in Greece, with a pledge to contribute about a third of future bailouts in the region by the EU. His term at the IMF is scheduled to expire next year. Speculation in France had mounted that he would leave early to stand for president.
The charges against him won’t affect moves to extend aid to Portugal, which is implementing austerity measures to qualify for an international aid package of as much as 78 billion euros from the EU and IMF, said Gilles Moec, European economist at Deutsche Bank AG.
“The progress can continue and there should not be a change in its dynamics,” he said in an interview.
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