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Calls have been made for a zero tolerance policy against threats in essential stores

The FCC is granting a blanket waiver to broadcasters of the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) requirement that mandates broad recruitment outreach for all open full-time positions when the … more

CUMULUS MEDIA Classic Rock WXMX  (98.1 THE MAX)/MEMPHIS, TN and the MEMPHIS MADE BREWING CO. are teaming up with AJAX DISTRIBUTING COMPANY of MEMPHIS to help hospitality workers … more

The workforce of the 21st century is more diverse than before. Over 85% of the total global workforce comprises frontline workers. Frontline workers are essentially the employees that have to be ‘present’ to accomplish their jobs. Unlike knowledge workers who can work from anywhere, frontline workers have to be on the ‘field’ which can be...

At the same time Vice President Mike Pence was in Iowa on Friday to discuss the nation’s food supply security, U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack called on the administration to take more measures to...

COVID-19 is a brutal villain, infecting millions and taking more than 185,000 lives worldwide, just over 100 of which were Iowans at the time of this writing. In the face of this, Iowans are showing the strength of their character. Individual acts of courage have become everyday occurrences. Nowhere is this truer than in our state’s long-term care centers.

The threat facing those in long-term care is unprecedented. Because many who are infected remain asymptomatic, efforts to prevent the virus from being introduced into facilities has proved difficult. Once the virus is introduced, it is hard to impede its spread — and virtually impossible without enhanced testing capabilities and more personal protective equipment (PPE) than we have access to today.

Long-term care providers have taken unprecedented steps to protect their residents, including prohibiting non-essential visitors in early March. Unfortunately, even with these measures and following guidance from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other public health officials, more than 3,600 long-term care facilities nationwide have been impacted by the virus, including 13 in Iowa.

Yet, in the face of this challenge, our long-term care workers are performing with a valor we have not seen during peacetime in a generation; maybe two.

While many of us are hunkered down in our homes teleworking and spending time with our families, these caregivers are leaving their families to provide care for the loved ones of others. What these caregivers are doing and what they are sacrificing is remarkable. We owe them our gratitude, and we owe them our best efforts to address their critical needs.

Adequate PPE and routine testing for long-term care are paramount. While there has been significant attention paid to providing hospitals with PPE, it is imperative we not overlook those working in long-term care.

More than 70% of long-term care facilities nationwide report they lack enough PPE. This not only puts our caregivers at risk, it also puts the people they care for at greater risk. Preventing the introduction of the virus and containing its spread in nursing homes and assisted living facilities is one of the most important things we must do to relieve pressure on hospitals now.

Testing is a critical area where more support is needed. There are protocols in place to limit the spread of the virus once it is in a facility, including establishing isolation wings where those who have the virus are kept apart from the rest of the residents and are cared for by staff who do not interact with those in the rest of the building. But the virus leaves many of those infected without symptoms, these steps cannot be effectively implemented without broader testing.

We applaud Gov. Kim Reynolds’ recent action to broaden testing for some of Iowa’s long-term care staff. Equally important is the plan to address potential staff shortages which may result from expanded testing. Since a test result only captures an individual’s infection status for a fixed period of time, long-term care staff and residents must be prioritized at the highest level to receive ongoing testing to effectively identify infections and respond as early as possible.

Those one the front lines of this fight need the tools to confront, contain and ultimately defeat the virus. There is reason to be hopeful. Even though residents of long-term care are particularly at risk, most recover from the virus. Caregivers can do even more amazing work if we get them the tools they need: protective equipment, testing and staffing.

It is time to rally around our long-term care residents and staff, and give them the support they need and deserve.

Brent Willett is president and CEO of the Iowa Health Care Association.

Chet Culver really should have known better.

Iowa’s former Democratic governor wrote a letter to current Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds decrying her administration’s declaration that workers who refuse to return to jobs amid COVID-19 fears would be denied unemployment benefits. He was among many who questioned whether Reynolds’ policy is even lawful, considering that unemployment rules allow Iowans to claim benefits for unsafe, intolerable or detrimental working conditions.

“Any such ill-conceived scheme that deprives them of choice and forces those hardworking, yet vulnerable, employees to report to unsafe workplace environments, while the positive incidences of COVID-19 infection are on the rise, is not merely penny-wise and pound-foolish — it is just plain wrong,” Culver argued.

But Culver should have known any overture for the rights of workers during the pandemic would fall on deaf ears. We learned Tuesday that more than 1,600 workers at four meatpacking plants tested positive for the virus. Reynolds continues insisting companies such as Tyson, with more than 1,300 cases at three facilities, are doing all they can to protect workers. In one Tyson facility at Perry, 58 percent of its employees contracted the virus.

Culver lost in 2010 to the Branstad-Reynolds ticket, a team that would go on to gut collective bargaining for public employees and make it far more difficult for injured workers to get compensation, among other greatest hits composed by its big business allies.

And Culver was bounced from office after issuing bonded debt to help Iowa communities, including Cedar Rapids, recover from natural disasters of 2008. Republicans dubbed him “Big Debt Chet” and decried his mismanagement of a crisis.

Strong management, apparently, is Reynolds’ decision to partially reopen 77 counties even as COVID-19 case numbers grow and deaths mount, and before ramped up testing and modeling provide critical information on the scope of the virus.

On Monday Reynolds received a lofty “A” grade from FreedomWorks and the Committee to Unleash Prosperity. Reynolds appeared on a conference call sponsored by the groups to talk about her strategy for reopening Iowa.

FreedomWorks and the Committee to Unleash Prosperity are conservative groups playing a key role in organizing “liberation” protests in Wisconsin, Oklahoma and elsewhere. FreedomWorks, with roots in the Tea Party movement, has been mobilizing local protesters and organizing events, according to The New York Times. It’s also conducting tracking polls in swing congressional districts and sharing data with presidential advisers and congressional staff.

“This isn’t political, and it shouldn’t be for anybody,” Reynolds told reporters this week when asked about her virus response.

FreedomWorks is among 24 groups who sent a letter to the president in April urging him to waive the Renewable Fuel Standard for the rest of the year due to pandemic concerns, potentially freeing Iowa farmers from more of their already scarce income.

So step aside Big Debt Chet. We’re unleashing prosperity. Even if workers get trampled.

(319) 398-8262; todd.dorman@thegazette.com

Four Republican senators closely allied with President Donald Trump are urging him to suspend all new guest worker visas for 60 days, and to suspend other types of worker visas including those for advanced skills sought by the technology industry, until unemployment in the United States “has returned to normal levels.”

The senators, who include Iowa’s Chuck Grassley, said that Trump’s April 22 order suspending most immigrant visas for 60 days doesn’t go far enough.

While Trump suspended the issuing of new green cards for would-be U.S. permanent residents, they want visas affecting skilled workers, agriculture workers and others to face curbs.

“Given the extreme lack of available jobs for American job-seekers as portions of our economy begin to reopen, it defies common sense to admit additional foreign guest workers to compete for such limited employment,” wrote the senators, who also include Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri.

The letter was reported earlier by Politico.

The letter from some of the Senate’s most prominent immigration hard-liners could put new pressure on the president to expand his executive order, which drew criticism from business, civil rights and immigrant rights groups who said it would keep companies from hiring critical workers and could prevent family reunification.

The president said at the time there would be carve-outs for migrant agricultural workers, and promised to make it even easier for farmers rebounding from the coronavirus crisis to hire labor from other countries.

The order exempts individuals seeking to permanently enter the country as a medical professional or researcher, as well as members of the armed forces, those seeking asylum or refugee status, and children being adopted by American parents.

In their letter, the senators said Trump should go much further by suspending all new guest worker visas for 60 days.

“Exceptions to this suspension should be rare, limited to time-sensitive industries such as agriculture, and issued only on a case-by-case basis when the employer can demonstrate that they have been unable to find Americans to take the jobs,” they wrote.

After the 60 days, they said, Trump should continue to suspend new non-immigrant guest workers for one year or until U.S. unemployment returns to “normal levels.”

That should include H-1B visas for highly skilled workers in the technology and other industries, H-2B visas for non-agricultural seasonal workers and those in the Optional Practical Training Program that extends visas of foreign students after they graduate.

About three-quarters of H-1B visas go to people working in the technology industry, though the exact levels vary year by year.

They also called on Trump to suspend the EB-5 immigrant visa program “effective immediately,” calling it “plagued by scandal and fraud” and in need of change.

EB-5 visas allow immigrant investors to qualify for a green card by investing at least $900,000 in a business that will employ at least 10 Americans.

At the same time Vice President Mike Pence was in Iowa on Friday to discuss the nation’s food supply security, U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack called on the administration to take more measures to protect workers in food processing plants.

Loebsack also questioned the decisions to reopen the economy being made by the Trump administration and Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds.

“I don’t think we’re ready for that yet, quite honestly,” the Iowa City Democrat said.

“Ready” will be when adequate protections are in place for the people processing America’s food, Loebsack said.

Workers are showing up on the job, but “they fear for their families, they fear for themselves, they fear for everybody,” Loebsack said. “They don’t know if they’re going to catch this thing or not. But they’re there.”

Of particular concern are workers in food processing, such as those in meatpacking plants in Iowa where more than 1,600 cases of COVID-19 have been reported.

“I really believe that we should not open the plants if we do not ensure worker safety,” Loebsack said.

He called for President Donald Trump to use the Defense Production Act, which the president invoked to keep meatpacking plants open, to ensure an adequate supply of personal protective equipment for packing plant workers.

If Pence and the president are concerned about the nation’s food supply, then they need to “keep those workers safe and, therefore, keep those processing plants running” to avoid meat shortages at the grocery store, Loebsack said.

“We can’t have those plants running if workers are not protected. It’s that simple,” he said. “It’s not just the workers, it’s the families, it’s the community at large.”

With unemployment at 14.7 percent — probably higher, Loebsack said, Congress should extend federal coronavirus-related unemployment benefits of $600 a week beyond their current July end date.

He’s also pleased that the last relief package fixed a Small Business Administration Economic Injury Disaster Loan program to allow farmers to apply for assistance.

Comments: (319) 398-8375; james.lynch@thegazette.com

Seasonal Worker Programme and Pacific Labour Scheme workers can extend their stay for up to 12 months to work for approved employers as long as pastoral care and accommodation needs of workers are met to minimise health risks to visa holders and the community. Approved employers under the Seasonal Worker Programme and Pacific Labour Scheme […]

The post What can I do if I am on a working holiday or seasonal worker visa in the Coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis? appeared first on Visa Australia - Immigration Lawyers & Registered Migration Agents.

https://aralroca.com/blog/opencv-in-the-web

Nicholas Kristof: Before the coronavirus pandemic, I crept behind [expletive] Danish lines to explore: How scary is Denmark? How horrifying would it be if the United States took a step or two in the direction of Denmark? Would America lose its edge, productivity and innovation, or would it gain well-being, fairness and happiness?

More than 1,000 workers at the Tyson Foods plant in Waterloo have tested positive for the coronavirus, a county public health leader said Thursday -- more than double the number Gov. Kim Reynolds had said were infected the day before.

With the coronavirus pandemic, many folks switched to working online. Things like teaching, business meetings and other face-to-face activities have been replaced with video calls. Home has become both home and workplace, and admit it: your wardrobe totally reflects this. Creative duo The Workmans shows this “fashion crossover” in their latest photo series #COVIDwear. The […]

The post #COVIDwear: a hilarious photo series showing quarantine fashion of remote workers appeared first on DIY Photography.

By Patricia Cohen and Tiffany Hsu The New York Times Company…

New TV ads that started airing on morning shows throughout the Spokane region are aimed at grocery shoppers, but they're not hawking deals on cabbage or Cap'n Crunch.…

Oakland's alaMar Kitchen & Bar is about to start serving 1,500 free meals per week to restaurant workers who have been displaced and derailed by the coronavirus outbreak.

Located at 100 Grand Ave., chef Nelson German's popular seafood restaurant has just issued this announcement:

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Off the Grid will stage a two-part free-meal giveaway today, April 8, from 12 noon to 1 p.m. at Nob Hill Foods Alameda and from 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. at Pak 'N Save Emeryville.

It's part of the Grocery Employees Meal Fund, which OTG recently launched to help creators feed grocery-store employees and their family members throughout the Covd-19 crisis.…

Now through May 5, healthcare workers and first responders can collect free "Thank You Meals" at any McDonald's location nationwide.

The promotion began on April 22.…

An employee at a Dunkin' (formerly Dunkin' Donuts) restaurant in Concord has inspired the company's brand-new DIY Dunkin' Donut Kits.

Norma Valkenaar asked the restaurant's franchisee, Matt Cobo, whether she could bring home some donuts, frosting, and sprinkles so that her young nephews could experiment with customizing their own treats.…

Faculty, staff and some students with the College of Engineering and Technology at Western Carolina University are using 3D printers at the college's Rapid Center to develop visors for face shields for use by healthcare workers in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Patrick Gardner, Director of the WCU Rapid Center, was i nterviewed in this Friday Feature piece. The interview first aired on April 17, 2020. Posted by Host and Producer of The Friday Feature- Paul Foster, WNCW Senior Producer, News Director, and Morning Edition Regional Host

The Census Bureau says it is continuing the gradual relaunch of limited field operations for the 2020 census next week in nine states where the coronavirus pandemic forced the hand-delivery of paper forms in rural areas to be suspended in mid-March. On May 13, some local census offices in Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington are scheduled to restart that fieldwork, according to an updated schedule the bureau published on its website Friday. All workers are expected to be trained in CDC guidance in preventing the spread of COVID-19, and besides a new reusable face mask for every 10 days worked and a pair of gloves for each work day, the bureau has ordered 2 ounces of hand sanitizer for each census worker conducting field operations, the bureau tells NPR in an email. The announcement means more households that receive their mail at post office boxes or drop points are expected to find paper questionnaires left outside their

The retired NBA player has sent a thousand of free pizzas to the key workers during the ongoing coronavirus lockdown at police stations and local hospital in Miami.

Employability project invests in local people helping to fulfil all-important roles.

Discounts for serviced apartments in Birmingham city centre.

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The Caring Foundation donates meals to West Midlands Ambulance Service.

Two web designers say they were fired by Amazon for organizing a virtual town hall to hear from the company’s low-paid warehouse staff.

Most of the layoffs are at its Boston headquarters and its European office in Berlin. The company has about 17,000 employees worldwide.

Through a program called “Feed the Soul,” hospital workers across North Carolina are receiving deliveries of nutritious meals as they respond to growing needs to treat COVID-19 patients. The program also supports local restaurants seeing a slowdown in business. The meal deliveries are made possible by contributions made to an emergency response fund created by the North Carolina Healthcare Foundation ( NCHF ), a nonprofit charitable organization. To date, the program has delivered more than 10,000 meals to staff at 13 hospitals in Asheville, Charlotte, Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill. The program is now expanding to Greenville and Wilmington in eastern North Carolina. North Carolina has more than 200,000 hospital workers, many of whom are appreciating the delicious and nutritious meals prepared by local restaurants. “While most of us are staying home to eat meals due to social distancing, hospital employees are working around-the-clock to care for growing numbers of coronavirus

The donation will impact a number of countries in Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia-Pacific, including India.

The body has appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and state chief ministers to facilitate payement of wages to workers for these two months. GEMA president Vijay Jindal also sought intervention of Textile Minister Smriti Irani and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the matter.

Amazon has become a lifeline for consumers facing lockdowns and restrictions around the world, and the company is in the process of adding some 175,000 new employees to cope with the surging demand. But the company has also faced protests from warehouse workers and activists who claim Amazon has failed to do enough to keep them safe.

The death marks the fourth confirmed COVID-19-linked death of an Amazon worker, following deaths in Hawthorne, California; Tracy, California and the death of a Staten Island, New York, worker who was stationed at the JFK8 fulfillment centre.

A storage safe manufacturer is closing two Chicago-area factories and moving operations to Mexico to counteract the effects of metal tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump's administration. The Chicago Tribune reports Stack-On Products will lay off about 150 people at its Wauconda and McHenry plants when they close Oct. 12. Human resources director Al Fletcher said Tuesday the decision to relocate operations to Juarez, Mexico, was made about two months ago. That's when Trump announced tariffs on numerous goods and materials from China as well as other countries. Stack-On makes products ranging from tool boxes to gun vaults. Fletcher says the company has a plant in China and another in Mexico, and its only U.S. factories were the two in the Chicago area.

THIS is terrible news (City Blinds and Shutters ceases trading immediately – with 63 jobs lost, Glasgow Times online).

Host Jeff Hayden welcomes Robert Wyman and Jason Marcus, Specialists in Workers' Compensation Law, certified by the California Board of Legal Specialization, State Bar of California. Questions for Robert and Jason? Please call Your Legal Rights toll-free 866-798-8255.

On this edition of Your Call, we’ll talk about farmworkers and meat processing plant workers on the front lines of the COVID-19 crisis.

On this edition of Your Call, we’ll speak with Dr. Ann López , executive director of the Center for Farmworker Families about how California's farmworkers are still unprotected, months after the COVID-19 crisis began.

On this edition of Your Call, we're speaking with Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz about how the US government has handled the COVID-19 crisis. He says the public safety net is not working and the US is on course for a second Great Depression.

On this edition of Your Call, we’ll hear from janitors on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic. They have expressed fear over the lack of PPE, hazard pay and paid sick leave, and the heavy use of chemicals in cleaning supplies.

The Census Bureau says it is continuing the gradual relaunch of limited field operations for the 2020 census next week in nine states where the coronavirus pandemic forced the hand-delivery of paper forms in rural areas to be suspended in mid-March. On May 13, some local census offices in Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington are scheduled to restart that fieldwork, according to an updated schedule the bureau published on its website Friday. All workers are expected to be trained in CDC guidance in preventing the spread of COVID-19, and besides a new reusable face mask for every 10 days worked and a pair of gloves for each work day, the bureau has ordered 2 ounces of hand sanitizer for each census worker conducting field operations, the bureau tells NPR in an email. The announcement means more households that receive their mail at post office boxes or drop points are expected to find paper questionnaires left outside their

What does it mean to find a sense of self in work? The new film " Working Man " explores this question through a group of laid off factory workers as they fight for the reopening of their fictional factory -- the last of its kind in the small Midwestern city where they live.

The Census Bureau says it is continuing the gradual relaunch of limited field operations for the 2020 census next week in nine states where the coronavirus pandemic forced the hand-delivery of paper forms in rural areas to be suspended in mid-March. On May 13, some local census offices in Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington are scheduled to restart that fieldwork, according to an updated schedule the bureau published on its website Friday. All workers are expected to be trained in CDC guidance in preventing the spread of COVID-19, and besides a new reusable face mask for every 10 days worked and a pair of gloves for each work day, the bureau has ordered 2 ounces of hand sanitizer for each census worker conducting field operations, the bureau tells NPR in an email. The announcement means more households that receive their mail at post office boxes or drop points are expected to find paper questionnaires left outside their