Absenteeism

Steering his gray sedan with one hand while reading names and addresses from computer printouts grasped firmly in the other, truant officer Herman Velarde turned up a narrow barrio street overlooking the Los Angeles River, near where he grew up. "What keeps me going is that there are great kids around here," he said. "Not taking care of them would be like a farmer losing his crops. Lose your crops, nobody eats. Right?"

Hourly workers at Mazda Motor Manufacturing Corp. have voted for fat cash bonuses for themselves for perfect attendance and automatic dismissal for anyone missing 15 days of work a year. The vote, held Monday and Tuesday, is the latest effort to curb high absenteeism, which auto makers regard as a serious roadblock to boost quality and cut costs. Last week, Osamu Nobuto, Mazda's top U.S.

The rate of employee absences in the United States is at its lowest point this decade, with family issues and personal illness the most common reasons people miss work, according to a survey of 451 human resources executives released by Riverwoods, Ill.-based employment researcher CCH Inc. The mean average 1997 absenteeism rate slid to 2.32%, from 2.77% in 1996, the unit of Dutch publishing group Wolters Kluwer said. The decade-high rate was 3.07% in 1991.

Until federal law prohibited the practice, it was not unusual for some employers concerned about rates of absenteeism to reject job applicants solely because of their race, gender or age, on the assumption that nonwhites, women and older workers were likely to miss more days of work and so reduce profitability. Now a new study by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's research arm suggests that employers who cling to these stereotypes and try to evade the anti-discriminatory ban are not only violating the law but probably depriving themselves of qualified employees as well.

Pointing to more employee problems at the Southern California Rapid Transit District, a new independent audit has found that absenteeism among bus drivers is worse than previously reported. Every day, an average of 13% of RTD bus drivers are away from their jobs on unscheduled absences--costing the transit agency $18.6 million a year, according to an RTD summary of the audit released Tuesday.

The absenteeism rate of Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) on Senate roll-call votes rose sharply this month as he campaigned for governor of California and remained in the state for a firsthand look at earthquake relief activities before returning to Washington Monday. Although he missed only three of 242 roll calls in the first nine months of this year, Wilson failed to vote 22 consecutive times because he has been out of town since Oct. 7.

When his 7-year-old daughter came home from her Long Beach elementary school with a letter from the district attorney's office, Joel Weinberg hit the roof. The form letter threatened criminal prosecution, telling Weinberg that his daughter Summer had a poor attendance record, reminding him that "attendance is mandatory" in California, and urging him to attend a meeting today at Patrick Henry Elementary School "to prevent possible court action."