Employees

At the Canoga Park Bowl, everyone knew James Shamp. His job was to clean, but he did so much more. Bowlers described him as a comedian and their loyal cheerleader. He greeted regulars with a big handshake followed by a succession of jokes that would continue through their games. "He was the black Chevy Chase," said Robert Battle, a member of the Equally Offensive bowling team. .

As the stock market continues to founder, more companies -- especially tech firms -- are looking for ways to bring relief to workers whose compensation is largely tied to their employers' share prices. In January alone, more companies have offered to exchange or reprice stock options that have little chance of quick payoffs for their owners than in all of 2007, research firm Equilar Inc. said Friday.

By and large, the chance to change insurance plans came and went for many people several months ago. But new employees of companies offering healthcare get a second chance to choose a plan that best suits them in terms of coverage and cost. Note to those folks: Don't blow it.

Here's the vacation no one wants, courtesy of the recession: forced time off without pay. Financially struggling universities, factories and even hospitals are requiring employees to take unpaid "furloughs" -- temporary layoffs that amount to one-time pay cuts for workers and a cost savings for employers. This year, the number of temporarily laid off workers hit a 17-year high.

Hours before he walked into his workplace at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center with two handguns to fatally shoot his bosses and then himself, Mario Ramirez went about his morning routine with his usual kindness and good cheer, his sister-in-law said. He gave his children breakfast, took them to school (he had moved his family to Alhambra because its classrooms seemed safer than those in Boyle Heights) and returned home to get ready for his job as a technician at the hospital's pharmacy.

Top Los Angeles County officials are conducting a case-by-case review of all health department employees known to have criminal histories in order to determine whether some workers have convictions that should disqualify them from their jobs, Supervisor Mike Antonovich said Tuesday.

American International Group Inc., the insurer saved from collapse by government money after losses on credit-default swaps, offered about $450 million in retention pay to employees of the unit that sold the derivatives, according to two people familiar with the situation. About 400 workers at the financial products unit may get the money in two installments, said the people, who declined to be named because details of the payments were confidential.

Yahoo Inc.'s employees will forgo their usual pay raises this year as the slumping Internet company struggles to boost its profit in a brutal recession. The Sunnyvale, Calif., company confirmed the salary freeze Thursday, the day after informing employees of the decision. The austerity measure marks one of the first cost-cutting actions taken by Yahoo's new chief executive, Carol Bartz, who was hired two weeks ago to engineer a turnaround.

She was sinking in a soured economy until co-workers gave her a hand up by sending her Down Under. Employees at a Pasadena auto dealership chipped in to pay the way to Australia for car saleswoman Sue Ellis after she learned that her elderly mother was facing a cancer operation there and had a roughly 20% chance of surviving.

A senior member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform wants his panel to investigate whether insurance giant American International Group Inc. and other providers have unnecessarily denied and delayed costly medical treatment for civilian contractors injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) also called for an investigation into the Labor Department's role in overseeing the federally financed insurance system for civilians working overseas.