As Wage Debate Rages, Some Have Made the Shift
"Do you know what time of day it is?" he said.
SAN JOSE, Calif.----As lawmakers in the nation's capital are mired in debate over likely outcomes from raising the federal minimum wage, businesses hit with local wage increases across the U.S. already are grappling with the reality.
Ampleforth looked startled again. "I had hardly thought about it. They arrested me----it could be two days ago----perhaps three.’ His eyes flitted round the walls, as though he half expected to find a window somewhere. "There is no difference between night and day in this place. I do not see how one can calculate the time."
A Carl's Jr. franchisee in San Francisco offset the county's higher minimum wage----now $10.74----by using less shortening to make french fries. A White Castle in Illinois cut two jobs to match competitors' costs in nearby Indiana, where the mandated wage is lower. A California pretzel maker pays different wages at mall stores that straddle two cities.
They talked desultorily for some minutes, then, without apparent reason, a yell from the telescreen bade them be silent. Winston sat quietly, his hands crossed. Ampleforth, too large to sit in comfort on the narrow bench, fidgeted from side to side, clasping his lank hands first round one knee, then round the other. The telescreen barked at him to keep still. Time passed. Twenty minutes, an hour ----it was difficult to judge. Once more there was a sound of boots outside. Winston’s entrails contracted. Soon, very soon, perhaps in five minutes, perhaps now, the tramp of boots would mean that his own turn had come.
The consequences of a minimum-wage increase cut across everything from the number of hours employees are assigned, to menu prices to how often a drive-through lane is cleaned, according to interviews with more than a dozen businesses. The real-world impacts can vary: Some companies had no difficulties passing along labor-cost increases while other businesses said they might close marginal stores to pare losses.
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Monday, April 7, 2014
April 7, 2014.
Legendary Actor Mickey Rooney Dead at 93
The expression on his face changed. The annoyance passed out of it and for a moment he looked almost pleased. A sort of intellectual warmth, the joy of the pedant who has found out some useless fact, shone through the dirt and scrubby hair.
A short actor with a long career, Mickey Rooney was the biggest box-office draw in Hollywood in 1939 and spent the next 70 years trying with varying success to make his way back to that pinnacle.
"Has it ever occurred to you," he said, "that the whole history of English poetry has been determined by the fact that the English language lacks rhymes?"
Los Angeles Police confirmed that Mr. Rooney died Sunday at 93 years old, the Associated Press reported. He appeared in more than 200 films and was nominated for four Oscars. He started in the silent era and appeared in every decade until the 2010s, a career of nearly unequaled length heightened by the fact that he started in show business as a toddler vaudevillian.
No, that particular thought had never occurred to Winston. Nor, in the circumstances, did it strike him as very important or interesting.
Mr. Rooney was popular in Mickey McGuire shorts where he starred as a street-wise Irish kid, starting when he was just 7. He shot to fame as Andy Hardy, a frenetic teenager who, the Academy Award committee said in his special juvenile Oscar citation, brought to the screen "the spirit and personification of youth."
The expression on his face changed. The annoyance passed out of it and for a moment he looked almost pleased. A sort of intellectual warmth, the joy of the pedant who has found out some useless fact, shone through the dirt and scrubby hair.
A short actor with a long career, Mickey Rooney was the biggest box-office draw in Hollywood in 1939 and spent the next 70 years trying with varying success to make his way back to that pinnacle.
"Has it ever occurred to you," he said, "that the whole history of English poetry has been determined by the fact that the English language lacks rhymes?"
Los Angeles Police confirmed that Mr. Rooney died Sunday at 93 years old, the Associated Press reported. He appeared in more than 200 films and was nominated for four Oscars. He started in the silent era and appeared in every decade until the 2010s, a career of nearly unequaled length heightened by the fact that he started in show business as a toddler vaudevillian.
No, that particular thought had never occurred to Winston. Nor, in the circumstances, did it strike him as very important or interesting.
Mr. Rooney was popular in Mickey McGuire shorts where he starred as a street-wise Irish kid, starting when he was just 7. He shot to fame as Andy Hardy, a frenetic teenager who, the Academy Award committee said in his special juvenile Oscar citation, brought to the screen "the spirit and personification of youth."
Sunday, April 6, 2014
April 6, 2014.
The Unemployment Puzzle: Where Have All the Workers Gone?
"Apparently I have."
A big puzzle looms over the U.S. economy: Friday's jobs report tells us that the unemployment rate has fallen to 6.7% from a peak of 10% at the height of the Great Recession. But at the same time, only 63.2% of Americans 16 or older are participating in the labor force, which, while up a bit in March, is down substantially since 2000. As recently as the late 1990s, the U.S. was a nation in which employment, job creation and labor force participation went hand in hand. That is no longer the case.
He put a hand to his forehead and pressed his temples for a moment, as though trying to remember something.
What's going on? Think of the labor market as a spring bash you've been throwing with great success for many years. You've sent out the invitations again, but this time the response is much less enthusiastic than at the same point in previous years.
"These things happen," he began vaguely. "I have been able to recall one instance----a possible instance. It was an indiscretion, undoubtedly. We were producing a definitive edition of the poems of Kipling. I allowed the word “God” to remain at the end of a line. I could not help it!" he added almost indignantly, raising his face to look at Winston. "It was impossible to change the line. The rhyme was “rod”. Do you realize that there are only twelve rhymes to “rod” in the entire language? For days I had racked my brains. There WAS no other rhyme."
One possibility is that you just need to beat the bushes more, using reminders of past fun as "stimulus" to get people's attention. Another possibility is that interest has shifted away from your big party to other activities.
"Apparently I have."
A big puzzle looms over the U.S. economy: Friday's jobs report tells us that the unemployment rate has fallen to 6.7% from a peak of 10% at the height of the Great Recession. But at the same time, only 63.2% of Americans 16 or older are participating in the labor force, which, while up a bit in March, is down substantially since 2000. As recently as the late 1990s, the U.S. was a nation in which employment, job creation and labor force participation went hand in hand. That is no longer the case.
He put a hand to his forehead and pressed his temples for a moment, as though trying to remember something.
What's going on? Think of the labor market as a spring bash you've been throwing with great success for many years. You've sent out the invitations again, but this time the response is much less enthusiastic than at the same point in previous years.
"These things happen," he began vaguely. "I have been able to recall one instance----a possible instance. It was an indiscretion, undoubtedly. We were producing a definitive edition of the poems of Kipling. I allowed the word “God” to remain at the end of a line. I could not help it!" he added almost indignantly, raising his face to look at Winston. "It was impossible to change the line. The rhyme was “rod”. Do you realize that there are only twelve rhymes to “rod” in the entire language? For days I had racked my brains. There WAS no other rhyme."
One possibility is that you just need to beat the bushes more, using reminders of past fun as "stimulus" to get people's attention. Another possibility is that interest has shifted away from your big party to other activities.
Saturday, April 5, 2014
April 5, 2014.
How to Make Fracking Safer
"What are you in for?"
New York state has a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing. So do Los Angeles, Quebec and France. Polls show rising opposition to this controversial oil field technique, which cracks open rocks to free oil and natural gas, and some critics want it banned unless it can be proven safe.
"To tell you the truth----" He sat down awkwardly on the bench opposite Winston. "There is only one offence, is there not?" he said.
Meanwhile, U.S. energy companies are drilling and fracking about 100 wells every day across much of the country. Whether you think that it is an economic godsend or fear that it is an environmental disaster, whether you spell it fracking or fraccing (as the energy industry prefers), that is a lot of holes in the ground.
"And have you committed it?"
Fracking is a fairly straightforward process. You drill a well straight down for a few thousand feet and gradually turn the shaft until it runs horizontally through the shale. Then you isolate a section of the rock and inject water, sand and chemicals under high pressure. This makes the rock fracture----hence the name. The sand stays behind to prop open the new network of fractures, and oil and gas flow out.
"What are you in for?"
New York state has a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing. So do Los Angeles, Quebec and France. Polls show rising opposition to this controversial oil field technique, which cracks open rocks to free oil and natural gas, and some critics want it banned unless it can be proven safe.
"To tell you the truth----" He sat down awkwardly on the bench opposite Winston. "There is only one offence, is there not?" he said.
Meanwhile, U.S. energy companies are drilling and fracking about 100 wells every day across much of the country. Whether you think that it is an economic godsend or fear that it is an environmental disaster, whether you spell it fracking or fraccing (as the energy industry prefers), that is a lot of holes in the ground.
"And have you committed it?"
Fracking is a fairly straightforward process. You drill a well straight down for a few thousand feet and gradually turn the shaft until it runs horizontally through the shale. Then you isolate a section of the rock and inject water, sand and chemicals under high pressure. This makes the rock fracture----hence the name. The sand stays behind to prop open the new network of fractures, and oil and gas flow out.
Friday, April 4, 2014
April 4, 2014.
3-D Printer Makers Get Reality Check
"Ampleforth," he said.
IRWIN, Pa.----One of the biggest jobs facing ExOne Co. XONE -3.04% President David Burns and the heady 3-D printing industry is managing expectations, including his own.
There was no yell from the telescreen. Ampleforth paused, mildly startled. His eyes focused themselves slowly on Winston.
Last year, Mr. Burns predicted an 80% increase in sales for ExOne, which makes 3-D printers. Then in January, ExOne said sales growth, while strong, would be about half that amount due to deferred orders. ExOne's stock has fallen 46% since.
"Ah, Smith!" he said. "You too!"
"That was a mistake to have been that aggressive," said Mr. Burns, who remains optimistic.
"Ampleforth," he said.
IRWIN, Pa.----One of the biggest jobs facing ExOne Co. XONE -3.04% President David Burns and the heady 3-D printing industry is managing expectations, including his own.
There was no yell from the telescreen. Ampleforth paused, mildly startled. His eyes focused themselves slowly on Winston.
Last year, Mr. Burns predicted an 80% increase in sales for ExOne, which makes 3-D printers. Then in January, ExOne said sales growth, while strong, would be about half that amount due to deferred orders. ExOne's stock has fallen 46% since.
"Ah, Smith!" he said. "You too!"
"That was a mistake to have been that aggressive," said Mr. Burns, who remains optimistic.
Thursday, April 3, 2014
April 3, 2014.
Nike, Brooks Running Get Entangled in Track Controversy
There was a sound of marching boots outside. The steel door opened with a clang. A young officer, a trim black uniformed figure who seemed to glitter all over with polished leather, and whose pale, straight featured face was like a wax mask, stepped smartly through the doorway. He motioned to the guards outside to bring in the prisoner they were leading. The poet Ampleforth shambled into the cell. The door clanged shut again.
The sporting world got a jolt last week from the prospect that college football players might unionize. Now another surprise is afoot: U.S. track stars are considering a strike.
Ampleforth made one or two uncertain movements from side to side, as though having some idea that there was another door to go out of, and then began to wander up and down the cell. He had not yet noticed Winston’s presence. His troubled eyes were gazing at the wall about a metre above the level of Winston’s head. He was shoeless; large, dirty toes were sticking out of the holes in his socks. He was also several days away from a shave. A scrubby beard covered his face to the cheekbones, giving him an air of ruffianism that went oddly with his large weak frame and nervous movements.
Top professional track and field athletes are preparing for collective action against the sport's governing body that could lead some athletes to boycott the U.S. national track and field championships in June.
Winston roused himself a little from his lethargy. He must speak to Ampleforth, and risk the yell from the telescreen. It was even conceivable that Ampleforth was the bearer of the razor blade.
Discontent has been building among athletes over how USA Track & Field runs its meets and applies rules. Anger peaked after a pair of controversial decisions at the indoor national track and field championships in February, including the disqualification of a runner at the insistence of a coach with USATF principal sponsor Nike Inc. NKE -0.63%
There was a sound of marching boots outside. The steel door opened with a clang. A young officer, a trim black uniformed figure who seemed to glitter all over with polished leather, and whose pale, straight featured face was like a wax mask, stepped smartly through the doorway. He motioned to the guards outside to bring in the prisoner they were leading. The poet Ampleforth shambled into the cell. The door clanged shut again.
The sporting world got a jolt last week from the prospect that college football players might unionize. Now another surprise is afoot: U.S. track stars are considering a strike.
Ampleforth made one or two uncertain movements from side to side, as though having some idea that there was another door to go out of, and then began to wander up and down the cell. He had not yet noticed Winston’s presence. His troubled eyes were gazing at the wall about a metre above the level of Winston’s head. He was shoeless; large, dirty toes were sticking out of the holes in his socks. He was also several days away from a shave. A scrubby beard covered his face to the cheekbones, giving him an air of ruffianism that went oddly with his large weak frame and nervous movements.
Top professional track and field athletes are preparing for collective action against the sport's governing body that could lead some athletes to boycott the U.S. national track and field championships in June.
Winston roused himself a little from his lethargy. He must speak to Ampleforth, and risk the yell from the telescreen. It was even conceivable that Ampleforth was the bearer of the razor blade.
Discontent has been building among athletes over how USA Track & Field runs its meets and applies rules. Anger peaked after a pair of controversial decisions at the indoor national track and field championships in February, including the disqualification of a runner at the insistence of a coach with USATF principal sponsor Nike Inc. NKE -0.63%
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
April 2, 2014.
Southwest Airlines, Once a Brassy Upstart, Is Showing Its Age
No one else had spoken to him. To a surprising extent the ordinary criminals ignored the Party prisoners. ‘The polITS,’ they called them, with a sort of uninterested contempt. The Party prisoners seemed terrified of speaking to anybody, and above all of speaking to one another. Only once, when two Party members, both women, were pressed close together on the bench, he overheard amid the din of voices a few hurriedly whispered words; and in particular a reference to something called "room one-oh-one," which he did not understand.
CHICAGO----At Midway Airport here on Jan. 2, Southwest Airlines Co. LUV +1.40% canceled a third of its flights, lost 7,500 bags and, at one point, had 66 aircraft on the ground----about twice as many as the carrier has gates. Passengers were stuck on the tarmac late into the night.
It might be two or three hours ago that they had brought him here. The dull pain in his belly never went away, but sometimes it grew better and sometimes worse, and his thoughts expanded or contracted accordingly. When it grew worse he thought only of the pain itself, and of his desire for food. When it grew better, panic took hold of him. There were moments when he foresaw the things that would happen to him with such actuality that his heart galloped and his breath stopped. He felt the smash of truncheons on his elbows and iron-shod boots on his shins; he saw himself grovelling on the floor, screaming for mercy through broken teeth. He hardly thought of Julia. He could not fix his mind on her. He loved her and would not betray her; but that was only a fact, known as he knew the rules of arithmetic. He felt no love for her, and he hardly even wondered what was happening to her. He thought oftener of O’Brien, with a flickering hope. O’Brien might know that he had been arrested. The Brotherhood, he had said, never tried to save its members. But there was the razor blade; they would send the razor blade if they could. There would be perhaps five seconds before the guard could rush into the cell. The blade would bite into him with a sort of burning coldness, and even the fingers that held it would be cut to the bone. Everything came back to his sick body, which shrank trembling from the smallest pain. He was not certain that he would use the razor blade even if he got the chance. It was more natural to exist from moment to moment, accepting another ten minutes' life even with the certainty that there was torture at the end of it.
A severe snowstorm was the main culprit, but Southwest managers also blamed ramp workers, suggesting that nearly a third of them called in sick to protest slow contract talks. The spat boiled into a legal battle, with the workers suing Southwest for requiring they provide doctor's notes. They say they are chronically understaffed and are being blamed for executives' mismanagement of the storm.
Sometimes he tried to calculate the number of porcelain bricks in the walls of the cell. It should have been easy, but he always lost count at some point or another. More often he wondered where he was, and what time of day it was. At one moment he felt certain that it was broad daylight outside, and at the next equally certain that it was pitch darkness. In this place, he knew instinctively, the lights would never be turned out. It was the place with no darkness: he saw now why O’Brien had seemed to recognize the allusion. In the Ministry of Love there were no windows. His cell might be at the heart of the building or against its outer wall; it might be ten floors below ground, or thirty above it. He moved himself mentally from place to place, and tried to determine by the feeling of his body whether he was perched high in the air or buried deep underground.
Labor strife has long roiled the airline industry, but not Southwest. The carrier never has laid off workers or cut their pay, and has had only one strike in its history, a six-day mechanics' walkout in 1980.
No one else had spoken to him. To a surprising extent the ordinary criminals ignored the Party prisoners. ‘The polITS,’ they called them, with a sort of uninterested contempt. The Party prisoners seemed terrified of speaking to anybody, and above all of speaking to one another. Only once, when two Party members, both women, were pressed close together on the bench, he overheard amid the din of voices a few hurriedly whispered words; and in particular a reference to something called "room one-oh-one," which he did not understand.
CHICAGO----At Midway Airport here on Jan. 2, Southwest Airlines Co. LUV +1.40% canceled a third of its flights, lost 7,500 bags and, at one point, had 66 aircraft on the ground----about twice as many as the carrier has gates. Passengers were stuck on the tarmac late into the night.
It might be two or three hours ago that they had brought him here. The dull pain in his belly never went away, but sometimes it grew better and sometimes worse, and his thoughts expanded or contracted accordingly. When it grew worse he thought only of the pain itself, and of his desire for food. When it grew better, panic took hold of him. There were moments when he foresaw the things that would happen to him with such actuality that his heart galloped and his breath stopped. He felt the smash of truncheons on his elbows and iron-shod boots on his shins; he saw himself grovelling on the floor, screaming for mercy through broken teeth. He hardly thought of Julia. He could not fix his mind on her. He loved her and would not betray her; but that was only a fact, known as he knew the rules of arithmetic. He felt no love for her, and he hardly even wondered what was happening to her. He thought oftener of O’Brien, with a flickering hope. O’Brien might know that he had been arrested. The Brotherhood, he had said, never tried to save its members. But there was the razor blade; they would send the razor blade if they could. There would be perhaps five seconds before the guard could rush into the cell. The blade would bite into him with a sort of burning coldness, and even the fingers that held it would be cut to the bone. Everything came back to his sick body, which shrank trembling from the smallest pain. He was not certain that he would use the razor blade even if he got the chance. It was more natural to exist from moment to moment, accepting another ten minutes' life even with the certainty that there was torture at the end of it.
A severe snowstorm was the main culprit, but Southwest managers also blamed ramp workers, suggesting that nearly a third of them called in sick to protest slow contract talks. The spat boiled into a legal battle, with the workers suing Southwest for requiring they provide doctor's notes. They say they are chronically understaffed and are being blamed for executives' mismanagement of the storm.
Sometimes he tried to calculate the number of porcelain bricks in the walls of the cell. It should have been easy, but he always lost count at some point or another. More often he wondered where he was, and what time of day it was. At one moment he felt certain that it was broad daylight outside, and at the next equally certain that it was pitch darkness. In this place, he knew instinctively, the lights would never be turned out. It was the place with no darkness: he saw now why O’Brien had seemed to recognize the allusion. In the Ministry of Love there were no windows. His cell might be at the heart of the building or against its outer wall; it might be ten floors below ground, or thirty above it. He moved himself mentally from place to place, and tried to determine by the feeling of his body whether he was perched high in the air or buried deep underground.
Labor strife has long roiled the airline industry, but not Southwest. The carrier never has laid off workers or cut their pay, and has had only one strike in its history, a six-day mechanics' walkout in 1980.
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