More, more.-- "Job speed-up is emerging as a top complaint for low-wage employees as diverse as food processing and tourism [hotel workers]. It has become a pivotal bargaining issue in some union contracts. And increasingly, health and safety experts consider it a source of injury and illness."--Los Angeles Times, June 19.

Not enough--"In Los Angeles pork-processing plants, workers once limited by union contracts to boning 60 hams an hour are up to 70 an hour. "Maids at a Las Vegas strip resort have in five years gone from cleaning 14 rooms to 17 rooms per shift."--Same.

No more!--"Speedup takes its toll in many ways, such as a veteran food service employee being fired for failing to keep up with new production quotas or a young immigrant’s fatal slip of a knife on a fast meat-cutting line. In small but growing numbers, many workers are taking a stand and saying ‘no more.’"-Los Angeles Times.

Check in mail--The recently deceased queen mother of the United Kingdom did not depart with a bank overdraft of some $10 million as rumored. In fact, a Buckingham Palace spokesperson firmly declared, the overdraft was under $1.5 million. And while she left little cash, her art works and jewelry she left behind put her fortune well past the $60 million mark.

Gourmet fare--Officials at an Indiana state prison warned inmates to stop eating pigeons. A prisoner told the press the prison cut back on the amount of food being served. Prison officials said there was no cutback in the amount of nutrition.

Read it and retch--With a fund being set up for September 11 survivors and relatives of victims, Oklahoma City shysters are busy. Families of victims of the bombing of the city’s federal building have been advised that the lawyers are lobbying to get them into the fund. If they succeed, the lawyers say, they would like a 25 percent cut, plus "expenses."

And if they pass?--In a none too subtle move to bar women from seeking to become firefighters, a new physical fitness test in Jackson, Mississippi, includes wearing a 50 pound vest and dragging around a 165-pound dummy. (That’s the guy who administers the test?)

Busy defending ‘homeland’?--Two years ago, the General Automation company in Irvine, California, laid off 100 workers, neglecting to pay two weeks wages, vacation time, or back medical payments due them. The local, state and federal authorities seem powerless to aid them. So far, 11 employees have filed claims. No comment from the company.

Clinton can’t stiff them?--Ex-prez Clinton earned $9.2 million in speakers fees last year. But he and his spouse still owe "millions of dollars in legal bills stemming from probes of White House shenanigans.

How grand--"We think moving faster on head count reductions is good for employees, particularly when it reduces uncertainty."--Carly Florina, #1 at Hewlett Packard, announcing that 10,000 employees will take "voluntary" early retirement, with more to follow.  
 
 
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