Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Hartford Courant (Connecticut), May 22, 2007, Tuesday

Copyright 2007 The Hartford Courant Company

All Rights Reserved

Hartford Courant (Connecticut)

May 22, 2007 Tuesday

STATEWIDE EDITION

SECTION: CONNECTICUT; Pg. B7


HEADLINE: HALE, DARRYL

BODY:

HALE, Darryl

Darryl Hale, 45, of Brook St., East Hartford, the loving husband of Vera (Crawford) Hale, and the devoted father of Hannah Elisabeth Hale, passed away quietly Thursday at Yale-New Haven Hospital. Born in Marysville, CA, the son of Preston Hale Sr. and Ethel Mae (Calhoun) Hale of Glendale, AZ, he received his Bachelor of Science degree in industrial labor relations from Cornell University and his Juris Doctorate from Harvard Law School, was presently an attorney for the National Labor Relations Board, and currently had the privilege and honor of being the pastor at New Born Church of God and True Holiness in Newington. In addition to his wife, daughter, and parents, he is survived by three brothers, Preston Hale Jr. of Austin, TX, Christopher Hale of Durham, NC, and Gary Hale of Hartford; and several nieces and nephews. A funeral service will be held Wednesday at 10 a.m. at New Born Church of God and True Holiness, 505 Church St., Newington. Burial will follow in Maple Cemetery, Berlin. Friends and relatives are invited to call at Porter's Funeral Home, 111 Chamberlain Hwy. in Kensington, on Tuesday from 6-9 p.m. Directions to the funeral home can be found at

www.portersfuneral.com

GRAPHIC: PHOTO: (B&W) MUG

The Record (Bergen County, NJ), May 22, 2007, Tuesday

Copyright 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.,

All Rights Reserved

The Record (Bergen County, NJ)

May 22, 2007 Tuesday

All Editions

SECTION: LOCAL; Pg. L08

HEADLINE: BCC presidential field down to two

BYLINE: Justo Bautista, North Jersey Media Group

BODY:

Edward Yaw, president of the County College of Morris, has withdrawn as a candidate for the same job at Bergen Community College, according to a published report.

Yaw, 64, was one of three finalists for the job. The others are G. Jeremiah Ryan, senior vice president of the Alman Group in Westfield; and Barbara A. Viniar, the executive director of the Institute for Community College Development at Cornell University.

The current Bergen president, Judith Winn, retires June 3. Bergen Community College is one of the largest two-year schools in the state, with 15,000 students.

- Justo Bautista

Lacrosse Magazine, May 21, 2007, Monday

Lacrosse Magazine, May 21, 2007, Monday

McMonagle, Uceny Take Home Outstanding Senior Athlete Awards At Senior Banquet

Baines, Belisle and Naeve also capture major individual awards on Monday evening


The Big Red announced its Senior Awards on Monday.


http://laxmagazine.cstv.com/sports/m-lacros/spec-rel/052107aaq.html

May 21, 2007

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Cornell seniors Matt McMonagle (Bryn Mawr, Pa.) and Morgan Uceny (Plymouth, Ind.) were recipients of the Charles H. Moore Outstanding Senior Varsity Athlete Award on Monday evening at the school's annual senior athletics banquet. Emily Baines (Naperville, Ill.) and Andrew Naeve (Miles, Iowa) both earned the Ronald P. Lynch Senior Spirit Award, given to student-athletes whose leadership on and off the field models the ideals of the Big Red athletics department. Mitch Belisle (Brewster, N.Y.) was recognized with the Mario St. George Boiardi '04 Leadership Award for most embodying leadership, athleticism and a strong work ethic.

The 2007 Ivy League Men's Lacrosse Player of the Year, McMonagle is the 19th three-time All-American in school history. A first-team All-America pick as a senior, he was a second-team selection as a junior and earned an honorable mention nod as a sophomore. A three-time first-team All-Ivy pick (the seventh in school history), the senior netminder is the winningest goalie in Cornell history and is also the winningest active goalie in Division I with 45 career victories to date. He currently ranks third in the nation in both goals against average (6.69) and save percentage (.628). A Tewaaraton Trophy nominee, McMonagle owns the school record for single-season goals against average (5.73 in 2006, third in NCAA history) and stands atop the school's career GAA list (7.18, third in NCAA history). The team co-captain and nominee for the Lowe's Senior Class Award and the leading candidate Ensign C. Markland Kelly, Jr. Award, McMonagle made a career-high 19 saves as the Big Red topped nationally-ranked Princeton, then again in an NCAA first round win over Towson. An outstanding student-athlete with a cumulative GPA of 3.61, McMonagle had a perfect 4.0 in the spring of 2006 and a 3.92 GPA this past fall. A physics major, McMonagle also minors in art history. He was named to the 2006 ESPN The Magazine/CoSIDA Academic All-District Men's At-Large Second Team and has earned Academic All-Ivy honors each of the last two years. For the past two years, the team co-captain has taken a leadership role as co-coordinator of the Save The Day Program. The program, which the men's lacrosse team began in 2004, partners with local businesses and members of the Ithaca community to raise money for The Dream Factory of Central N.Y. During the course of the season, for each save a Cornell goalie makes, a donation is made to the Dream Factory, which grants the wishes of chronically and critically ill children. McMonagle has also served as the Philanthropy Chairman for the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity and has directed the fraternity's Daffodil Days fundraiser, a program that has raised over $60,000 for the American Cancer Society. A member of the Red Key Society, a group whose purpose is to honor outstanding undergraduate contributors to both Cornell Athletics and the Cornell community, he has been involved in the program's two major service projects, participating in "Into the Streets" and helping to organize an athlete spring formal. He is the co-publicity chair for the 21 Run, an annual 5k run organized by the men's lacrosse team, in conjunction with Alpha Tau Omega. Last year, the 21 Run raised more than $10,000 to support and promote children's literacy in the Ithaca community through the Family Reading Partnership.


A three-time All-American and school record holder in the 800 meters on the track, Uceny has captured six individual Heptagonal titles (all at 800 meters) to go along with four relay crowns. Uceny holds the event's record at both the indoor and out Heps and was a part of the 4x400 relay team that holds both Heps marks. The Most Valuable Performer at the 2006 indoor ECAC meet, Uceny set a meet record in the 800 en route to winning the event. All told, Uceny holds eight school records (indoor 500, 800 and 1000 meters, indoor and outdoor 4x400, outdoor distance medley and sprint medley relays and outdoor 4x800), and three all-time Heps marks (4x400, 4x800 and sprint medley relays). Uceny serves as a team co-captain and helped lead Cornell to eight consecutive indoor and outdoor Heps team titles. She finished as high as fourth (2006 NCAA indoors) at the NCAA championships in the 800, and showed her versatility by posting the second-fastest time in the 1,500 meters in winning the event at the 2007 ECACs in her second collegiate race at that distance. Uceny is also a two-time Academic All-Ivy pick with a 3.30 grade point average in communication.

Baines was an instrumental part of a lightweight varsity eight men's crew that placed in the top two in the East in each of the last two seasons, including a national title in 2006. A coxswain who was cut from the women's team joined the freshman lightweights and quickly proved to be a strong leader. She coxed the first freshman boat in her rookie season, then moved up to the junior varsity boat as a sophomore, leading the squad to a 10-1 record and a runner-up finish at Eastern Sprints. Her junior year she coxed the first varsity to an Eastern Sprints and national title and a finals appearance in the Henley Royal Regatta. The 2007 season has already seen a second-place finish at the Eastern Sprints after a 6-1 regular season. A member of the Red Key Athletic Honorary Society and a two-time All-Ivy selection, Baines has a 3.37 grade point average in economics.

One of the most competitive and fiery athletes at Cornell, Naeve closed out a tremendous career by earning second-team All-Ivy honors this past year for the men's basketball team. The senior tri-captain averaged 10.5 ppg. and 7.6 rpg. (78th nationally) while shooting 54 percent from the floor in 28 starts. His league-leading 53 blocked shots as a senior rank fourth on the school's single-season list and 57th nationally, while his rebounding total was 85th in the country. Naeve ended the season third on the school's career shot block list (139), 17th in career rebounds (572) and equaled the school record for career games played at 109. The 6-10 center posted career-highs in points (293), rebounds (214), blocked shots (53), assists (34) and field goal percentage (.540) in 2006-07. Naeve had seven double-doubles during the season, including a monster 20-point, 10-rebound effort in a narrow loss at Ivy champion Penn. At one point he strung together five straight double-double efforts, a school record. The co-captain finished the 2006-07 season with a career-best 21 points in a win over Dartmouth and averaged an impressive 12.4 points, 8.0 rebounds and 2.5 blocks in Ivy League contests and was named team MVP. He also twice earned the team's James Paul II Award as the squad's top reserve. Off the court, Naeve was an Academic All-Ivy pick who has a grade point average of better than 3.0 in applied economics and management.

Belisle, who learned his trade under Boiardi as a freshman defender, developed into a two-time All-American while playing for one of the most dominant defenses in the country. An honorable mention All-America pick as a junior and a first-team pick as a senior, Boiardi became the first Big Red defender to take first-team honors since Ryan McClay (2002 and 2003). He anchored the third-best defense in the nation as a senior, allowing just 6.64 goals per game. A two-time first-team All-Ivy pick, he is routinely given the task of guarding the opposing team's most dangerous offensive threat and he has proven to be up to the challenge game-in and game-out. So far this season, Belisle's defensive marks have averaged less than half their season points per game average against the Big Red. Belisle has started every game for the past three seasons and has averaged 34 ground balls per year, including 40 in 2006-07. An outstanding student majoring in Industrial and Labor Relations, he holds an overall cumulative GPA of 3.8 and has a reached a perfect 4.0 GPA in three of the past four semesters, including a 4.12 this past fall. He was named Academic All-Ivy each of the last two years and earned the team's C.F. Morse Lacrosse Scholar-Athlete of the Year Award. The team co-captain served as the President of his fraternity, Alpha Tau Omega. Off the field, he was a founding member of the Mario St. George Boiardi '04 Literacy Corporation, a non-profit corporation on a mission to battle children's illiteracy in the Ithaca area. An active participant in the "Big Red Readers", which partners with the MSGB Literacy Corporation to send Cornell athletes to Ithaca area elementary schools to promote reading, he is the Co-Publicity Chair for the 21 Run, an annual 5k run organized by the Cornell men's lacrosse team, in conjunction with Alpha Tau Omega. Last year, the 21 Run raised more than $10,000 to support and promote children's literacy in the Ithaca community through the Family Reading Partnership. Belisle is a member of the Sphinx Head Honor Society, a group that recognizes members of the Cornell senior class who have given their time and passion to the university during their undergraduate years.

Newsday (New York), May 21, 2007, Monday

Copyright 2007 Newsday, Inc.

Newsday (New York)

May 21, 2007 Monday

NASSAU AND SUFFOLK EDITION

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A04

HEADLINE: PAY PACKAGE CONTROVERSY: COMPENSATION DEFENDED;

Big paycheck at nonprofit;

Long Island Development Corp. head's $686,805 pay package angers some observers, but board members say she's worth the money

BYLINE: BY ELIZABETH MOORE. elizabeth.moore@newsday.com

BODY:

Roslyn Goldmacher, president and CEO of the nonprofit Long Island Development Corp., which makes loans to small businesses Islandwide, made $686,805 in total compensation last year.

Her loyal current board of directors believe Goldmacher has earned every penny. After all, they say, she's an award-winning pioneer in small business finance and a tireless advocate for the little guy.

But others in the region's economic development community have been unhappy about Goldmacher's pay, which in recent years has been more than the heads of the Long Island Association, United Way of Long Island and Vision Long Island put together, according to charitable tax returns. She also earns more than all but one of her peers at 30 of the busiest community development companies around the country for which Newsday examined records.

Goldmacher emerged victorious from a bitter internal battle over her pay seven years ago, one that split LIDC from its government patrons. But ever since Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy heard about the pay package this spring, he has been scathing in his criticism.

"It's off-the-charts outrageous," said Levy, who takes pride in his own decision to give up more than $32,000 of the pay he could have received over the past four years to set an example of frugality with the public's money. "This isn't Wall Street, where you reward your best brokers with a bonus for making the firm more profitable. It's a not-for-profit entity. That kind of a salary gives a black eye to the whole process."

Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi declined to comment.

Goldmacher also declined to comment for this story. But Phyllis Hill Slater, chairwoman of the LIDC's compensation committee, passionately defends her pay.

"I don't think she makes enough for what she has to do," Slater said. "This is her brainchild. There's no other group that has done as much as she has done for economic development here on Long Island."

First certified by the federal Small Business Administration in 1980 to provide low-cost second mortgages, the Long Island Development Corporation has been Long Island's leading small business lender, offering financing and technical assistance to qualified businesses and nonprofits under a variety of government-backed programs, overseeing what board members called a portfolio of about 1,000 loans. It derives most of its income from fees charged to borrowers for brokering those loans and services and from fees from government and others for work it performs. In addition, in its 2005 fiscal year, about 4 percent of its revenue was from government grants and another 4 percent from direct public support.

LIDC recently expanded its range to the entire tri-state area.

Helped start LIDC in 1980

Goldmacher, 54, who co-founded the LIDC with two now-deceased partners in 1980 and has run it ever since, got a bachelor's degree in labor relations at Cornell University, expecting she would be a "famous union organizer," as she told the Long Island Business News four years ago. Instead, she earned a law degree from Hofstra University and threw herself into promoting small businesses, which she came to see as the engine for the region's economic development.

Since then, she has perennially topped lists of the region's most prominent women, garnering a slew of awards for initiatives like the Long Island Small Business Assistance Corp., which makes micro loans to women-owned businesses.

For much of its history LIDC had the gloss of a quasi-governmental agency, pooling local, county and federal grants to power its programs and stocking its board with officials, including the Nassau and Suffolk county executives. That changed in 2000, several sources said, after officials learned Goldmacher, then the executive director, was receiving bonuses that doubled her compensation.

LIDC board president John Garvey, a Roslyn Savings Bank vice president, stumbled on that fact after a bank foundation rebuffed his request for a donation, asking him to explain why the LIDC's IRS return showed Goldmacher had been paid more than $350,000 a year.

That pay, revealed on charitable tax returns that had not been shown to him, came as a surprise to other top board members as well, according to LIDC's then-vice chairman George Gatta, a former Suffolk deputy county executive. He could find no one on the board who had known of or approved any bonus beyond her base salary of about $175,000, he said.

Nassau officials forwarded the matter to the district attorney's office, but it found no wrongdoing because her full pay was disclosed on the tax returns, sources said.

Goldmacher loyalists then called a board meeting in November 2000, two months earlier than usual, voting to reorganize the LIDC board to reduce the number of government board seats and shorten board terms from two years to one. And though Garvey, the banker, had more than a year left in his term as president, Goldmacher's allies elected her to take his place. Garvey, now with North Fork Bank, declined to comment.

Goldmacher's defenders insist her full pay package was never a secret. They say the board reorganization was simply driven by changes in federal policy. But board member Tom Junor added, county officials should have let the LIDC handle the compensation matter internally. "They went public ... I was really ticked off at that - why didn't they bring it to us first?"

The upheaval led to a mass exodus. Islip economic development commissioner William Mannix said he quit the board in protest over the reduced voice of government in the body, though Islip Industrial Development Agency still contributes $6,250 he called a required local match for a longtime federal grant. Gatta also resigned in protest. The county seals were dropped from the LIDC letterhead and county support was ended.

"I felt very strongly that it was flouting its responsibility to maintain the public's trust," said Gatta, now Suffolk County Community College vice president for workforce and economic development. "I have always believed that not-for-profits like the LIDC exist to benefit the community, not to enrich their senior executives with inflated salaries and bonuses."

But Goldmacher's new board followed up by hiring a compensation specialist to study her pay package, concluded she was actually underpaid, and gave her a raise.

Pay at other nonprofits

Douglas Asofsky, a Citibank vice president and 15-year board member who became chairman in the reorganization, said the study looked at executives at nonprofit community development companies as well as for-profit small banks with similar portfolios. Slater said it took into account Goldmacher's long years of service to the LIDC. But Asofsky, Junor, Goldmacher and Slater declined to provide a copy of the study or any more details from it. They also declined to specify her base salary or the formula for determining her bonus.

Pay and benefit packages for salaried executives of Long Island's leading nonprofits vary widely, from $53,600 taken home last year by Vision Long Island's Eric Alexander to the $1.4 million collected by Michael Dowling to run the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System. Last year, Long Island Association President Matthew Crosson received $353,050; Patrick Foye was paid $199,556 to head the United Way.

Though 44 nonprofit lenders in the U.S. have processed more this year of the type of government-backed second mortgage the LIDC specializes in, Goldmacher's pay is extraordinarily high among those executives. Of 30 such companies for which tax records were available, the average pay was less than $250,000. Only one pay package could be found that was bigger than Goldmacher's: the $734,250 collected by Jacklyn Jordan, president of Capital Access Group of San Francisco, which processed $39.4 million in loans so far this year, more than twice the LIDC's $17.2 million.

Asofsky said the scope of Goldmacher's duties and the LIDC's wider range of programs merits her premium.

"She's our corporate counsel, she's our CEO and president, and she's really the best in the industry if you check with the trade association," he said. "She works seven days a week, she's absolutely incredible, she's on every board you can think of and we're thrilled to have her."

But even some of her loyalists are still not quite clear about how much she is paid. Martin Cantor, a longtime director who backed Goldmacher in the 2000 reorganization, estimated that she made "somewhere in the neighborhood of $450,000." Told his guess was $236,805 too low, he said he was still "comfortable" with it.

"If they knew the depth and breadth of her responsibility ... they'd realize she's fairly compensated," said Cantor, who published a book last year with LIDC help and left the board this year to take a paid position as LIDC's chief economist.

The Suffolk County executive begs to differ. "We can hire some major talent for one-third of that price," Levy said. "The board has to address this."

GRAPHIC: Cover Photo - Roslyn Goldmacher of the nonprofit Long Island Development Corp., which makes loans to small businesses

The Columbus Dispatch (Ohio), May 20, 2007, Sunday

The Columbus Dispatch (Ohio)

Autoworkers wary of new Chrysler boss
Cerberus likely to demand big concessions when UAW contract talks begin in summer
Sunday, May 20, 2007 3:48 AM
http://www.columbusdispatch.com/dispatch/content/business/stories/2007/05/20/cerberus_uaw.ART_ART_05-20-07_D2_VQ6OU3C.html

PAUL SANCYAASSOCIATED PRESS

Chrysler workers, like these at a Warren, Mich., plant, are uneasy about contract concessions that Cerberus Capital Management, the company's new majority owner, might seek with the UAW.

DETROIT -- With Detroit automakers losing billions and their market share declining, this summer's contract talks with the United Auto Workers already promised to be more contentious than ever.

But Monday's announcement that Daimler would sell most of Chrysler to private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP likely means the union will face even greater demands for givebacks as the automakers try to pare costs to compete with Honda and Toyota.

Chyrsler has 80,000 employees, including 6,700 in Cleveland and Toledo.

Cerberus is seen wielding a big bat regarding bargaining. Because it bought Chrysler for relatively little, it can threaten to sell off the company in pieces or take it into bankruptcy. It also will be looking for a quick return on its $7.4 billion investment for an 80.1 percent stake in Chrysler, many analysts said.

"What Cerberus does is bring to the forefront the real possibility, if the union doesn't agree to real major changes in the legacy costs, they would face bankruptcy rather than just an incremental adjustment" in wages or benefits, said Harry Katz, dean of the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations who has studied the auto industry for 25 years. "It brings home kind of the atom-bomb scare."

The mystery of Cerberus was on the minds of many Chrysler hourly workers last week after the sale was announced, with fears that wages, pension and health-care benefits could be cut. And worries about an industry outsider running an auto company have made their way onto the floors at other automakers' plants.

"I know I'm nervous about it," said Chuck Rogers, president of the UAW local at a General Motors Corp. transmission plant in Ypsilanti, Mich., with more than 2,000 workers. "I'm getting to the point where I'm ready to retire. I'm afraid if an outside company takes over, the UAW won't have any control over it."

Chief among demands from the Detroit Three will be reduction or elimination of their long-term liabilities for retiree health care, which total about $100 billion, said David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor.

With a declining U.S. market stifling growth, the only option to return Chrysler to profitability is to cut costs, especially the estimated $19 billion retiree health-care obligation, according to analysts.

Cerberus has a lot of leverage in the talks, analysts say, because it can threaten to dismember Chrysler or take it into bankruptcy protection, leaving workers with no health insurance and uncertain pensions.

Yet Cerberus Chairman John Snow, a former U.S. Treasury secretary, said the workers' fears are unfounded. He said that Cerberus is different from other private-equity firms because it holds companies much longer to turn them around.

He said the characterization of Cerberus as a corporate raider that will split up a company to make money is contrary to Cerberus' history.

"We never invest in a company with any plan other than what can be done to enhance the company's competitiveness and enhance its performance."

Cerberus, he said, has no exit strategy for Chrysler and has faith in its management's turnaround plan.

Cerberus bought Vanguard Car Rental, which operates the Alamo and National Brands, out of bankruptcy in 2003, and was criticized for swiftly moving the corporate headquarters and cutting hundreds of jobs. It wasn't long after the 2004 acquisition of the Mervyn's department store chain that Cerberus closed 80 stores and exited two of its biggest markets.

But Snow said Cerberus works well with organized labor, pointing to his relationship with unions while chairman and chief executive of railroad operator CSX Corp.

James Brunkenhoefer, national legislative director for the United Transportation Union, CSX's largest labor group, said CSX dealt with labor fairly under Snow, treating the union as an equal partner in solving problems.

"We had the best relationship with CSX under his tenure than we have had at any of the major railroads in the 25 years that I've been full time with the union," Brunkenhoefer said. "It definitely deteriorated after he left."

Buffalo News (New York), May 20, 2007, Sunday

Copyright 2007 The Buffalo News

All Rights Reserved

Buffalo News (New York)

May 20, 2007 Sunday

FINAL EDITION

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A1

HEADLINE: Woman makes hard choice in bid to avert breast cancer;

Double mastectomy done at young age

BYLINE: By Henry L. Davis - NEWS MEDICAL REPORTER

BODY:

Glynis Ritchie grew up with a frightening piece of information that gnawed away at her: She knew how she would die.

Breast cancer killed her grandmother, as well as her mother's two sisters. Her mother has battled the disease for nearly 11 years. Ritchie can also count at least a dozen more relatives over the last two decades with the cancer.

Knowing that many of them died young and that her risk was great, Ritchie made a gut-wrenching choice: Even though she is healthy, the 22-year-old Amherst native underwent surgery to have her breasts removed to reduce the chances of developing the disease.

Other women with a family history of breast cancer make a similar decision. But this case is different.

Ritchie is exceptionally young for a double preventive mastectomy, and her mother and father don't carry the known gene mutations associated with the disease.

"I saw daughters in my family developing the disease at earlier ages than their mothers," said Ritchie, who is recuperating in her parents' home. "It gave me this great sense of urgency to take care of something before there was a problem."

This year, an estimated 178,480 women in the United States will be diagnosed and 40,460 will die from invasive breast cancer, according to the American Cancer Society.

About 5 percent to 10 percent of all cases are linked to alterations in certain genes -- most commonly the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes.

Genes are the body's instruction manuals for making cells, and women with these gene mutations have up to an 80 percent chance of getting breast cancer. Medical advances have led to tests that can detect thousands of genetic defects linked to many diseases, including the inherited forms of breast cancer. But more knowledge has created new problems for patients.

Patients like Ritchie are often left with difficult choices, not clear-cut answers.

Ritchie attended Williamsville North High School and Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations. In the spring of 2006, she joined Teach for America in Atlanta, which places college graduates in low-income public schools with teacher shortages. Ritchie left the program to return home after her mother, Rebecca, developed breast cancer for the second time.

Rebecca Ritchie, a lawyer at Univera Healthcare and local playwright, was diagnosed with cancer in 1996, only a week after undergoing a double preventive mastectomy.

By the time Glynis came home last summer, her mother had exhausted the available chemotherapies and was deathly ill with a disease that remains a bit of a mystery to the Ritchies.

>High risk

BRCA mutations are often found in Jewish women of Eastern European descent, which describes Rebecca's side of the family. Moreover, genetic tests revealed three extended family members -- one on the mother's side and two on the father's -- with BRCA mutations.

But there's no sign of the known gene mutations in Glynis or her parents, suggesting an unidentified gene mutation that increases their risk for an altogether different reason.

"A negative test doesn't rule out a mutation. It's not 100 percent," said Carolyn Farrell, who has counseled the Ritchies as director of the clinical genetics service at Roswell Park Cancer Institute. Although cancer and death were constant parts of their lives, the family never talked about what Glynis might do about it. She just went about her life.

"I assumed she would get breast cancer. She probably had a 100 percent risk. The only question was how long she could safely wait until having a mastectomy," her mother said.

Many women at higher risk monitor themselves for symptoms, using mammograms. But Glynis worried that mammograms had failed to pick up early lesions in the cancers that stalked her family.

"I grew up believing that if you wait until someone finds something in your breast, it's too late," she said.

The turning point came sooner than later.

As they sat on a swing set in the backyard last August, Rebecca's condition at its worst, Glynis asked her mother about a mastectomy. Even with the family's history, it seemed like an extreme step for someone so young.

"My mother said she would never encourage me to do it or tell me what to do. But if she could be a fairy godmother and wave a wand so that this disease not dominate my life, she would do it," Glynis recalled.

That was all she needed to hear. The search began for the right medical team -- one specialist to remove the breasts and another to immediately perform reconstructive surgery. They also wanted doctors who would support Glynis' choice but not without question.

"The patient in this procedure has to be committed. Otherwise, they will be miserable," Rebecca said. "We needed physicians who were open to operating on a young person but who would also challenge the decision."

The first consultations with surgeons in Buffalo left Glynis discouraged. They told her she might be permanently mutilated by the procedure.

Surgery scared her. Like any young woman with thoughts of marriage and children, Glynis worried about her appearance. She knew it made her seem superficial, but she asked if she would be able to wear an evening gown, a style of special-occasion dress she loved.

>Hard decision

Not without using external artificial breast forms, the doctors said.

The cautious, reluctant reaction doesn't surprise Jeannine Salamone, a breast cancer survivor with the Young Survival Coalition, a New York City-based advocacy group.

"You can't depend on physicians to tell you what to do," she said. "You have to do your own homework on this to see if it's right for you."

So, Glynis worked the telephone, trying to find other young women who could put her mind at ease.

She came across Lindsay Avner in Chicago, who went on to form the BeBrightPink.org group after undergoing a double mastectomy to remove her healthy breasts last year when she was 24.

"A lot of doctors will tell you to wait, that you are too young to make this decision, that it's too drastic," she said. "But what difference does it make if you are going to do it anyway someday?"

Statistics on how many women opt for surgery over surveillance are unclear. Dr. Steven Narod of the Centre for Research in Women's Health in Toronto last year presented findings from his studies of 7,211 women over age 25 from 11 countries in which he found that 25 percent of U.S. women with BRCA mutations chose double preventive mastectomy.

Glynis eventually found two doctors who assured her that losing her breasts would not mean losing her femininity. They could restore her appearance, they said. She checked in to Beth Israel Hospital in New York City in late April for the operation, which research suggests lowered her risk by about 90 percent.

Although still recovering, Glynis and Rebecca are making plans to walk June 9 in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in Buffalo.

"I'm extremely sore, but it's nowhere near the pain cancer has wreaked on my family," Glynis said. "I'm lucky I've had an opportunity to take action."

Mother and daughter formed a team for mothers and daughters -- reach them at Mothers.Daughters@gmail.com -- with a goal of raising $10,000 for breast cancer research and treatment.

For Glynis, the event is also about overcoming adversity. "There's a chance you'll see me walking in an evening gown," she said.

e-mail: hdavis@buffnews.com

GRAPHIC: John Hickey/Buffalo News Glynis Ritchie, 22, left, had a double mastectomy to reduce the chances of developing breast cancer. Her mother, Rebecca, was diagnosed with cancer in 1996, a week after undergoing the same procedure.

Buffalo News (New York), May 19, 2007, Saturday

Copyright 2007 The Buffalo News

All Rights Reserved

Buffalo News (New York)

May 19, 2007 Saturday

FINAL EDITION

see also
http://www.buffalonews.com/145/story/79324.html?imw=Y

SECTION: BUSINESS; Pg. D6

HEADLINE: Lackawanna plant, union win 'Champions at Work' award;

Managers and labor saved the steel mill

BYLINE: By Fred O. Williams - NEWS BUSINESS REPORTER

BODY:

When Bethlehem Steel went out of business in 2003, its mill in Lackawanna almost went with it.

William Pienta, now head of the Steelworkers District 4, remembers being told not to bother attending contract talks -- the mill was tagged for shutdown anyway.

But "they refused to die," he said. "Management [locally] said 'like hell we're gonna close.' "

The remarks came during an award ceremony Friday recognizing the work of managers and labor that defied the odds and saved the plant, now with about 268 jobs.

The Steelworkers Local 2604 and Mittal Steel USA, the current owner of the Lackawanna plant, received the "Champions at Work" award from Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

"There's a part of the story [of steel] we don't tell enough -- the progress report," said Lou Jean Fleron, director of the Cornell Industrial and Labor Relations School's Institute for Industry Studies.

Losses that steel plants suffered often overshadow their progress in technology and environmental protection, workers' health, pay and benefits, and other advances, she said.

Bethlehem sold off its assets in bankruptcy to International Steel Group in 2003. In 2005, Netherlands-based Mittal Steel Group bought ISG. Last year Mittal merged with Arcelor, forming Luxembourg-based Arcelor Mittal, the global parent of Mittal Steel USA and its Lackawanna operation.

To keep the local plant alive, the steelworkers gave up work rules they and their fathers had fought for over generations, workers said -- even while Bethlehem's pensions were frozen and its retirees lost their health care coverage.

"Our ability to adapt got us where we are today," said Anthony Fortunato, president of Steelworkers Local 2604. "Without teamwork and partnership we are doomed to repeat our past."

The result is a plant that produces the same volume -- 500,000 tons of galvanized steel a year -- with half the men, operations manager Carl Pfeifer said.

Pay, about $18 to $21 an hour, is about the same, workers said, plus a weekly bonus based on production that can add 5 or 10 percent.

The concessions were far from popular, but "that was the only way it was going to work," said James Hickey of Amherst, a steelworker who started with Bethlehem in 1973.

Management has also changed, softening what used to be an autocratic stance. "They used to just do things and say, 'live with it,' " said Andrew Mihalik, the USW-Mittal training coordinator. Now there's more discussion beforehand.

The three-shift galvanizing operation has been running practically flat-out since it was launched in 1982, Pfeifer said, despite its location far from suppliers and customers in the Midwest.

Raw steel a quarter-inch thick comes to the plant in giant coils from sister plants in Ohio and Indiana. Lackawanna rolls it into sheets, treats it to reduce brittleness, and coats it with zinc in a "hot dip" process. Protected against corrosion, the galvanized steel goes back to the Midwest, chiefly to auto plants in Michigan and Ohio. Eighty percent of the plant's output goes to automakers.

When the mill started up, Bethlehem was shutting down the blast furnaces of its basic steel production nearby on the Lake Erie shore. "We were given very little chance of lasting more than a year or so," he said.

Mittal's galvanized operation and the bar mill nearby owned by Republic Steel represent the remnants of Bethlehem's former operations, with a combined total of about 500 production jobs, union officials said.

A serious accident in the plant Thursday injected a solemn note into the celebration. Production worker Stanley Brese lost an arm after he was drawn into a steel rolling machine.

OSHA investigators were on the site Thursday and will issue a report after speaking with the accident victim, area director Arthur Dube said.

Workers said it was the first serious accident they could think of in several years.

The ceremony Friday drew Mittal corporate officials and area elected leaders, including State Assemblyman Jack Quinn III and State Senators Antoine Thompson and William Stachowski.

Quinn's community liaison Tom Wisniewski, a former Machinists Union director, nominated the Lackawanna plant and union for the award.

The keynote address was given by former Buffalo Bill and current broadcaster Steve Tasker.

The Cornell "Champions at Work" award was launched after a study in 2000 of constructive labor relations at Western New York workplaces. The study linked labor-management cooperation to high-quality production and good-paying jobs.

The Champions award for Mittal and Steelworkers Local 2604 is the third given by Cornell's labor relations school. Previous recipients were the United Auto Workers Local 897 and the Ford Buffalo Stamping Plant in Hamburg, and the Communications Workers of America Local 14177 and New Era Cap Co. in Derby.

e-mail: fwilliams@buffnews.com

GRAPHIC: Robert Kirkham/Buffalo News Darrilyn Council watches a roll of galvanized steel take shape at Mittal's plant in Lackawanna.

AFX International Focus, May 18, 2007, Friday

Copyright 2007 AFX News Limited

AFX International Focus

May 18, 2007 Friday 11:35 PM GMT


HEADLINE: Cerberus may bring trouble for UAW

BODY:

DETROIT (AP) - With Detroit automakers losing billions and their market share in a slump, this summer's contract talks with the United Auto Workers promised to be more contentious than ever.

But Monday's announcement that Daimler would sell most of Chrysler to private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP likely means the union will face even deeper demands for givebacks as the automakers try to pare costs to compete with Honda and Toyota.

Cerberus is seen wielding a big bat when it comes to the bargaining. Because it bought Chrysler for relatively little, it can threaten to sell the company off in pieces or take it into bankruptcy. It also will be looking for a quick return on its $7.4 billion investment for an 80.1 percent stake in Chrysler, many analysts said.

'What Cerberus does is bring to the forefront the real possibility, if the union doesn't agree to real major changes in the legacy costs, they would face bankruptcy rather than just an incremental adjustment' in wages or benefits, said Harry Katz, dean of the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations who has studied the auto industry for 25 years. 'It brings home kind of the atom bomb scare.'

The mystery of Cerberus was on the minds of many Chrysler hourly workers this week after the sale was announced, with fears that wages as well as pension and health care benefits could be cut. And worries about an industry outsider running an auto company have made their way onto the floors at other automakers' plants.

'I know I'm nervous about it,' said Chuck Rogers, president of the UAW local at a General Motors Corp. transmission plant in Ypsilanti with more than 2,000 workers. 'I'm getting to the point where I'm ready to retire. I'm afraid if an outside company takes over, the UAW won't have any control over it.'

Chief among demands from the Detroit Three will be reduction or elimination of their long-term liabilities for retiree health care, which together total about $100 billion, said David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor.

With a declining U.S. market stifling top-line growth, the only option to return Chrysler to profitability is to cut costs, especially the estimated $19 billion retiree health care obligation, according to analysts.

Cerberus has a lot of leverage in the talks, analysts say, because it can threaten to dismember Chrysler or take it into bankruptcy protection, leaving workers with no health insurance and uncertain pensions.

Yet Cerberus Chairman John Snow, a former U.S. Treasury Secretary, said the workers' fears are unfounded. He said that Cerberus is different from other private equity firms because it holds companies much longer to turn them around.

In an interview with The Associated Press, he said the characterization of Cerberus as a corporate raider that will split up a company to make money is contrary to Cerberus' history.

'We never invest in a company with any plan other than what can be done to enhance the company's competitiveness and enhance its performance,' he said. 'We invest in undervalued companies where there are good management strategies, where there's a committed work force and good management teams.'

Cerberus, he said, has no exit strategy for Chrysler and has faith in its management's turnaround plan. The firm, he said, will hold companies indefinitely.

'We buy with the clear intention to help turn the company around, help it achieve its potential,' he said.

Cerberus bought Vanguard Car Rental, which operates the Alamo and National Brands, out of bankruptcy in 2003, and was criticized for swiftly moving the corporate headquarters and cutting hundreds of jobs. It wasn't long after the 2004 acquisition of the Mervyn's department store chain that Cerberus shuttered 80 stores and exited two of its biggest markets.

But Snow said Cerberus works well with organized labor, pointing to his relationship with unions while chairman and chief executive officer of railroad operator CSX Corp.

James Brunkenhoefer, national legislative director for the United Transportation Union, CSX's largest labor group, said CSX dealt with labor fairly under Snow, treating the union as an equal partner in solving problems.

'We had the best relationship with CSX under his tenure than we have had at any of the major railroads in the 25 years that I've been full-time with the union,' Brunkenhoefer said. 'It definitely deteriorated after he left.'

The union didn't give up or gain anything major while Snow was its leader, Brunkenhoefer said.

Snow also points out that Chrysler management, not Cerberus, will bargain with the UAW. Brunkenhoefer said Snow didn't do the bargaining for CSX, either, but did set the tone for management.

Regardless of who is at the table, they'll have to deal with the retiree health care costs or the U.S.-based auto industry will collapse, says Cole.

'Companies can't survive with that obligation, spotting competitors a couple of thousand dollars on every product,' Cole said.

Wages and benefits, which for the Detroit automakers are about $25 per hour more than Honda Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. pay at their U.S. plants, are secondary to the long-term health care liability, according to Cole.

'A $100 billion liability in a hugely competitive market is unbelievable,' Cole said. 'Unless there's a huge attack on that by both labor and management, these companies are not survivable over the longer term.'

Former Chrysler Chairman Lee Iacocca agrees that the legacy costs are the problem that must be dealt with. But in an essay written for Business Week, he said that problem existed long before Cerberus entered the business. It would be naive to think that a struggling company won't have to make cuts, he wrote.

'With new contract negotiations set to begin this summer, many workers fear they'll be forced to make huge concessions,' Iacocca wrote. 'But that fear existed before the sale. If Cerberus is serious about reviving Chrysler, it will have to take care of the employees who build the cars and the dealers who sell and service them.'

To resolve the health care liability, the Detroit Three are talking about jointly putting money into a giant trust and letting the union run its health care operation, similar to a solution worked out between the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. and the United Steelworkers.

Still, any such change will be a difficult sell for workers.

Rogers, the Ypsilanti local president, said workers know the realities yet struggle with givebacks because executives are paid millions. GM Chairman Rick Wagoner received compensation that the company valued at $9.57 million during 2006.

'We don't want GM to go under because it hurts everybody,' Rogers said. 'We have to be realistic, but the corporation should be realistic in the wages that they are making and paying each other.'

--

AP Business Writer Joe Bel Bruno in New York contributed to this report.

Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed

Reuters, May 17, 2007, Thursday

Reuters

Contract talks to kick off for 20,000 GE workers
Thu May 17, 2007 12:05PM EDT
http://www.reuters.com/article/tnBasicIndustries-SP/idUSN1733063720070517
By Scott Malone

BOSTON, May 17 (Reuters) - The cost of health care will be a bone of contention when General Electric Co. (GE.N: Quote, Profile, Research on Monday begins negotiations with unions representing more than 20,000 of its workers, whose contracts are due to expire in June.

Negotiators for the world's second-largest company by market capitalization will be meeting with representatives of 11 unions, who negotiate as a block.
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The alliance -- comprising of the International Union of Electronic Workers/Communications Workers of America, the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, Teamsters and other unions -- has in the past proven to be effective in negotiating for better contract terms, according to labor experts. "They are multi-union negotiations with a diversity of unions that people would think would be unlikely to work together," said Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell University's school of Industrial and Labor Relations, in Ithaca, New York. "They have run comprehensive campaigns for the last several contracts and done a good job of mobilizing members and working together."

The negotiations will cover workers at major GE facilities in New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Kansas. The current four-year contract expires at midnight on Sunday, June 17.

"We have a good relationship with our workers and with the unions," GE Chief Executive Jeff Immelt said in an interview this week. "There are big thorny issues in health care and other areas, but I think we'll have a robust and constructive dialogue with the union."

The unions also expect health care to be a focus.

"We're expecting that there is going to be a lot of emphasis on health-care costs shifting and also pensions," said Lauren Aspen, a spokeswoman for the unions. "Jeff Immelt's made some public statements about how if they had to do it over again, they would not be devising the same sort of benefit programs ... So we anticipate we're going to have some tough fights over that."

LABOR OUTLOOK

Since GE signed its first union contract in 1938, the company, with businesses from making jet engines to commercial lending, has faced four strikes related to national contract bargaining.

The rising cost of health care and defined-benefit pension plans for retirees have been hot-button topics across the economy, with major companies trying to phase out the expensive pension plans, in favor of managed employee savings, and shifting more of the growing tab for medical care to workers.

GE's unions face a different playing field than the United Auto Workers, which begins contract negotiations this summer with General Motors Corp. (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Ford Motor Co. (F.N: Quote, Profile, Research and DaimlerChrysler AG (DCXGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research. GE, which last year earned $20.83 billion on $163.39 billion in revenue, is in far better financial shape than Detroit's ailing Big Three.
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The company's financial health may make it easier for its workers to stick to their demands.

"It's not about, 'We all have to tighten our belts,' it's just about the owners of GE getting richer," said Bronfenbrenner of Cornell.

Other major U.S. manufacturers have recently faced strikes. Harley-Davidson Inc. (HOG.N: Quote, Profile, Research this year faced a three-week strike by 2,800 workers at its largest plant in York, Pennsylvania. The strike contributed to a 14.8 percent drop in the number of motorcycles the company shipped in the first quarter and took a toll on profits.

At Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. (GT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, 15,000 workers held a three-month strike late last year, agreeing in December to a contract that created a $1 billion trust fund to secure medical and prescription drug benefits for retirees.

Last spring, workers at United Technologies Corp.'s (UTX.N: Quote, Profile, Research Sikorsky helicopter unit struck for six weeks. But early this month, that conglomerate negotiated a new three-year contract with workers at its Hamilton Sundstrand airplane electronics unit without any disruption to production.

((Editing by Maureen Bavdek; Reuters Messaging: rm://scott.malone.reuters.com@reuters.net; Telephone: +1 617-367-4176; Boston.Newsroom@reuters.com)) Keywords: GE LABOR/

(C) Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution ofReuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expresslyprohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuterssphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group ofcompanies around the world.nN17330637


Boston Globe, May 13, 2007, Sunday

Boston Globe

Job security, pensions top issues in GE-union contract talks

By Stephen Singer, AP Business Writer | May 13, 2007
http://www.boston.com/news/local/connecticut/articles/2007/05/13/job_security_pensions_top_issues_in_ge_union_contract_talks/

HARTFORD, Conn. --No one is predicting harmony as General Electric Co. prepares to launch contract talks with labor unions that represent 23,000 workers, but the two sides at least agree what the top issues will be.
Article Tools

Job security, rising health care costs and pensions will be among the key issues in contract talks beginning next week with unionized workers and Fairfield-based GE, the sprawling conglomerate that makes aircraft engines, locomotives, medical imaging equipment and other products in the United States and internationally.

GE recorded revenues last year of $164 billion, but has been working to shed slow-growth businesses and further expand into overseas markets to improve its profitability.

GE's negotiations are seen a possible bellwether for manufacturers across the nation, as companies and unions watch to see how the company handles chronic issues of pensions and rising health care costs.

"This is definitely one of the bigger negotiations," said Richard Hurd, a labor studies professor at Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

National negotiations are expected to begin May 21 in New York with the Electrical, Salaried, Machine and Furniture Workers-Communications Workers of America, which represents about 10,000 workers and the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, with 4,000 members.

GE also will negotiate local contracts with the Machinists union, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, auto workers, steel workers and other unions.

GE's union workers make aircraft engines, appliances, locomotives, medical equipment, power turbines and other products across the country. The contract covers GE workers in Arkansas City, Kan.; Louisville, Ky.; Lynn, Mass.; Schenectady, N.Y.; Erie, Pa.; and elsewhere.

"Going forward, we anticipate one of the big fights on the table will be that new hires will not have a pension," Lauren Asplen, spokeswoman for the Coordinated Bargaining Committee of GE Unions. "We're also seeing a building crescendo on health care."

GE spokesman Gary Sheffer would not discuss specific bargaining issues, but said wages also are expected to be an issue.

"GE does not negotiate in the media and there is always a lot of rhetoric at this early stage of the negotiating process," he said. "We provide good jobs and good benefits, we provide our employees with a very attractive package of wages and benefits that compare favorably with our competitors, and while keeping GE's business competitive."

Despite GE's size and profitability, workers are jittery about their jobs, Asplen said.

During the current contract, which expires June 17, GE closed or announced the closing of three small motor plants, Asplen said.

Sheffer said that in the "vast majority" of closings, most of those who were eased out of their jobs retired or were helped by GE to speed up retirement to avoid layoffs.

Overseas sales this year are expected to roughly match its domestic business for the first time due to rapid global growth.

GE has a fast-rising presence in developing countries such as India, China, eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The company posted $10 billion in emerging market revenue in 2000, which rose to $29 billion this year and is expected to be $50 billion in three years. At the same time, it's been selling off slower-growth businesses such as insurance and plastics, focusing on faster-growth areas such as energy, oil and gas equipment, rail engines, health care technology, finance and water processing technology.

Ric Casilli, a business agent for Local 201 of IUE-CWA at GE's aircraft engine plant in Lynn, Mass., said GE has signaled it will try to shift health care costs and cut early retirement eligibility for some employees.

"We feel we're on the defense on these issues," he said.

Sinc

THE NATIONAL JOURNAL, May 12, 2007, Saturday

Copyright 2007 National Journal Group, Inc.
THE NATIONAL JOURNAL

May 12, 2007

SECTION: LOBBYING & LAW

HEADLINE: Immigration Economics

BYLINE: Neil Munro

HIGHLIGHT:
Some African-Americans say that illegal immigrationhurts the black community.

BODY:
Lobbyists and House members who support immigration have been
jarred by a newspaper advertisement that uses the moral clout of
a veteran black civil-rights leader to highlight anger among
working-class African-Americans about current immigration
levels.

In response to the anger highlighted in the ad, the
advocates have proposed a package of laws to counter perceptions
that immigration, both illegal and legal, is harming the black
community. The proposals include new anti-racism laws,
additional job-training programs, more business regulations, and
a public education campaign that would "counter stereotypes
about immigrants and African-Americans," says a statement by the
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, which helped draft the
package.

"We're not going to get anywhere without educating people
[that] the immigrants will not undermine our quality of life,"
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, told National Journal. She is
a leader on immigration issues for the Congressional Black
Caucus and sits on the House Judiciary Subcommittee on
Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and
International Law. The subcommittee is drafting an immigration
bill that may offer some form of amnesty to illegal immigrants
in the United States -- whose numbers could be as high as 12
million -- and create a new inflow of "guest workers."

The ad has been running in such inside-the-Beltway
publications as Roll Call and The Washington Post as part of a
$50,000 media campaign by the Coalition for the Future American
Worker, which calls itself an umbrella organization of
professional trade associations, population and environment
organizations, and immigration reform groups.

The ad is dominated by a photo of T. Willard Fair, head of
the Miami Urban League, and a declaration that "amnesty for
illegal workers is not just a slap in the face to black
Americans. It's an economic disaster." Fair has been fighting
racial discrimination for 44 years, and he sits on the board of
the D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies, which wants to
curb immigration.

The coalition has formed a "527" group called Independent
Voices for Change and is trying to raise money "from folks in
America, black and white, who share our particular position on
this issue," Fair said.

The coalition hopes that the ad will help win over a
decisive number of swing-voting whites in both parties by
shielding them from charges of xenophobia and racism. "We [also]
want to help the representatives understand that the majority
restrictionist position is a good moral one and on high ground,"
said Roy Beck, executive director for NumbersUSA, which supports
the coalition.

The small-dollar ad campaign has already prompted House
Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., to urge a
broader consideration of immigration's economic impact. The
displacement of U.S. workers, especially black workers, by waves
of immigrants is "a serious problem," he said. "A
full-employment economy has been my life's goal," said Conyers,
who was first elected to Congress in 1964. He would not
speculate on how an immigration bill would affect that goal.

At a May 3 hearing of the House immigration subcommittee,
the witness selected by the panel's Republicans was Vernon
Briggs, a Democrat and a labor-relations professor at Cornell
University, who argued that immigration "hurts the poor" and
will eventually produce a "nightmare" society where a few rich
dominate the many poor. Such an outcome, he said, would result
because unskilled American workers can't compete against
low-wage unskilled migrants.

Polls show that African-Americans and low-income people
mostly oppose greater immigration. A survey of 6,000 people
released in March 2006 by the Pew Research Center for the People
and the Press reported that 58 percent of "financially
struggling" Democratic respondents, and 56 percent of black
Democratic respondents, believed that legal and illegal
immigrants were "a burden."

Informal polls show even greater opposition to immigration.
Up to 80 percent of blacks in Houston oppose further Hispanic
immigration, said Michael Harris, a leading talk-show host on
KCOH radio in that city. "Most of my audience opposes it. They
see Hispanics as competition for jobs ... [and] rental
property," said Harris, who is African-American. Crowding in
schools and hospitals, as well as Hispanics' use of
affirmative-action benefits, also angers blacks, who feel
excluded from jobs when they can't speak Spanish, Harris said.

Some academic studies support such fears. Between 1995 and
2000, legal and illegal immigration reduced wages for U.S. high
school dropouts by 9.5 percent, according to a study by
economist George Borjas of Harvard University. Immigration since
2000 has likely pushed wages down further, he said. In March,
the unemployment rate was 4.5 percent, but the rate for high
school dropouts was 7.0 -- and was even higher for blacks (8.3
percent) and for black dropouts (18.7 percent), according to the
Labor Department.

Many black legislators are reluctant to discuss the
immigration controversy. "For many members, it is a very tricky
issue," said an aide to Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga.

Lobbyists for greater immigration downplay these concerns.
"There's quite strong support among minority communities for
legalization [of illegal immigrants]," said Frank Sharry, the
executive director of the National Immigration Forum, an
immigration-advocacy group that is backed by Hispanic groups;
immigration lawyers; the restaurant industry; and UNITE HERE, a
union whose 450,000 members work in hotels, restaurants, and
casinos and in the textile sector.

Sharry, however, conceded that the prospect of continued
immigration is contentious among blacks. "That's where the
concerns about competition and job displacement become more
intense," he said.

Immigration has helped the national economy, even as it has
had "very detrimental impacts" on unskilled workers in some
industries, such as meatpacking, where wages and the number of
unionized workers have fallen dramatically since the early
1980s, said immigration supporter Gerald Jaynes, a professor of
economics and African-American studies at Yale University.
Jaynes says that relocation and training programs should aid
those workers who lose out.

For decades, said Wade Henderson, the president of the
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, black unemployment has
exceeded the rate for whites because of racial discrimination,
and is now exacerbated by free trade in a global economy. He
said the impact of immigration is overstated. "As a lifelong
civil-rights advocate, I do not see this as an issue of
economics," Henderson said. "I see it as a moral one."

The legislative proposals offered by Henderson and his
allies call for, among other things, tighter enforcement of
fair-wage and overtime requirements, new rules on hiring and
advancement, job training, and expansion of naturalization rules
for workers recruited in any guest-worker program.

Arguments that immigration leaves blacks at an economic
disadvantage are intended to split the political alliance
between blacks and Latinos, said Rep. Artur Davis, D-Ala. In the
1890s, an emerging alliance of blacks and poor whites was broken
up by wealthier interests, and "I see echoes of it in our
politics today," he said. Henderson concurred, saying at the May
3 hearing that opponents of additional immigration "are not now,
nor have they ever been, friends of African-Americans."

"This is a thinly veiled charge of racism," retorted Rep.
Steve King, R-Iowa, the panel's ranking member, who says that
his constituents have lost income because local meatpacking
plants prefer to hire low-wage illegal immigrants. Asked in an
interview about King's comments, Henderson said that King's
"reaction suggests to me he does protest too much."

A potential white-black economic alliance against
immigration would pose a political problem for diversity
advocates. "We need to respond to these [Fair] ads," Rep. Luis
Gutierrez, D-Ill., told the hearing, because "history shows
[that blacks and Hispanics] have so much in common."

Although there is a tight alliance among African-American
and Hispanic legislators and liberal advocacy groups, the
immigration issue can mean headaches for representatives. For
example, Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., has repeatedly decried the
proposed guest-worker program and the use of illegal immigrants
as "slavery," yet he told National Journal, "I've a lot of
Dominicans [in my district].... I don't know what I'm going to
do." In 2000, Hispanics composed 48 percent of his district.

Top Democratic leaders and activists see Hispanic migration
as a long-term opportunity for the party. The arrival of
additional immigrant workers is "bad for blue-collars," Rep.
Barney Frank, D-Mass., chairman of the House Financial Services
Committee, told National Journal late last year. But immigrants
can help elect Democratic majorities, and "if [a Democratic
Congress] were to significantly strengthen unions, then you
would offset the negative effect on the income of workers," he
said.

Such calculations don't allay opponents of increased
migration. "The [Democratic] Party is certainly no longer the
party of the old Left -- unions, working people, minimum wages,
health and safety in the workplace -- and [it] now has gotten
into diversity, client politics, and all the rest of it," said
Briggs, who favors the ideal of economic equality.

Harris, the Houston radio host, says: "The black caucus is
more Democratic than black, they're more tied to the party than
to the people, and our representation ain't [worth] jack."

Los Angeles Business, May 11, 2007, Friday


Los Angeles Business from bizjournals - May 11, 2007
Insider promoted to State Fund executive committee
by Kelly Johnson
Sacramento Business Journal
http://losangeles.bizjournals.com/losangeles/stories/2007/05/07/daily47.html

State Compensation Insurance Fund, California's largest workers' compensation insurer, has promoted an insider to its executive team and committee.

David West, 56, becomes a vice president and a member of State Fund's executive committee after 27 years at the quasi-governmental agency. West had been underwriting manager.

His previous jobs at State Fund included San Francisco district office manager, personnel services manager and government relations officer. West earned a bachelor's degree in industrial and labor relations from Cornell University.

"David West brings extraordinary breadth and depth of experience and has demonstrated outstanding leadership throughout his State Fund career," said Larry Mulryan, interim State Fund president, in a news release Thursday. "State Fund as well as California's employers will continue to benefit from his expertise and insight."

State Fund was created by the Legislature in 1914 to be the workers' comp carrier of last resort, but grew amid problems in the workers' comp market to carry a majority of the business in the state. It's still the largest, with 30 percent to 40 percent of the market. As of March, San Francisco-based State Fund employed 824 people in Greater Sacramento.

The

US States News, May 7, 2007, Monday

Copyright 2007 HT Media Ltd.

All Rights Reserved

US States News

May 7, 2007 Monday 4:52 AM EST


HEADLINE: INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATIONS INSTITUTE FOR WOMEN AND WORK SPONSORS FORUM IN ALBANY ON STATE OF NEW YORK WOMEN

BYLINE: US States News

DATELINE: ITHACA, N.Y.

BODY:

The Cornell University College of Industrial and Labor Relations issued the following news release:

In New York state, women entrepreneurs still have trouble obtaining credit for small business, women lawyers are still paid less than men and domestic workers need more protection to get fair wages.

These were some of the issues discussed at "Women in New York State: The State of the State," April 25 in Albany. The forum, presented by the Institute for Women and Work (IWW) at Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, was in honor of National Women's Equal Pay Day.

The event attracted nearly 200 people from women's rights organizations, universities, legislative staff offices and the Legislature, including N.Y. State Assemblywomen Barbara Lifton (D-Ithaca), Catherine Nolan (D-Ridgewood), chair of the New York State Assembly Committee on Education, Patricia Eddington (D-Medford), and N.Y. State Sen. Suzi Oppenheimer (D-Mamaroneck). The April 25 program was developed at the request of the New York State Legislative Women's Caucus, chaired by Eddington, and the Assembly Task Force on Women's Issues, chaired by Lifton.

Francine Moccio, director of IWW, presented an overview of the Cornell project, which will assess the quality of work/life policies and practices, and the economic status of working women in New York on such issues as child care, health care coverage, the gender wage gap, educational attainment, workforce preparedness and political participation.

"The 'Women in New York: The State of the State' will provide policy-makers, business, labor as well as the general public with a comprehensive quality of work/life index that goes beyond measuring success as strictly the bottom line to assessing progress of New York state public policies and workplace practices for the advancement of New York women and their families," said Moccio. The findings of the project are due to be released during Women's History Month in March 2008.

Panelists, who represented women in nontraditional jobs, law and the service sector as well as immigrant women, women of color and women business owners, gave an overview of the research needs and "on the ground" employment and labor issues confronting poor to low-wage and middle- income and professional working women across the state.

For more information on the event or research project, contact Moccio at fam5@cornell.edu or (212) 340-2836.