Employees

The Veterans Affairs Department handed out $24 million in bonuses to thousands of employees over a two-year period, some under questionable circumstances, the agency's inspector general reported. The inspector general accused one recently retired VA official of acting "as if she was given a blank checkbook," as awards and bonuses were distributed to employees of the Office of Information and Technology in 2007 and 2008. The official, Jennifer S. Duncan, also engaged in nepotism and got $60,000 in bonuses herself, the inspector general said.

Nine California Department of Motor Vehicles offices were forced to close for part of Columbus Day when hundreds of state workers stayed home to protest the loss of the paid holiday. In February, the Legislature eliminated two of state employees' 14 annual paid holidays to save the state $26 million. Employees also lost Lincoln's birthday when it was combined into a single Presidents Day. The Department of Personnel Administration said about 560 of the DMV's 4,300 employees -- 13% -- had unauthorized absences Monday.

From the local Lamborghini dealership to dry-cleaning shops to office cubicles, the pending sale of Countrywide Financial Corp. prompted a universal question Friday: Now what? The troubled mortgage lender is a major presence in the business and residential corridor that straddles Los Angeles and Ventura counties on both sides of the 101 Freeway. More than 600 people work at the headquarters complex in Calabasas, with about 4,500 more a few miles to the northwest in Simi Valley.

A federal judge blocked the government from conducting background checks of low-risk employees at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory after an appeals court said the investigations threatened the constitutional rights of workers. U.S. District Judge Otis Wright issued the injunction Friday after the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed his earlier ruling and issued a sharp rebuke to the judge.

Seven workers at the San Onofre nuclear power plant near San Clemente have been disciplined or fired in connection with a rash of safety and security problems uncovered by federal regulators last year, Southern California Edison officials said Tuesday. "Where the acts were deliberate misconduct, employees were discharged and contract workers were no longer permitted on the property," said Gil Alexander, an Edison spokesman.

The Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide whether employees are protected from being fired or demoted if they cooperate with an internal investigation of a supervisor who is accused of discrimination. Under federal law, it is illegal to discriminate against employees based on their race, religion or sex. The law also protects from retaliation workers who file a federal civil rights lawsuit or a federal discrimination complaint.

Ford Motor Co. is expected to offer a new round of buyouts to all of its 54,000 hourly workers in the U.S., a move that could trim thousands of jobs and pave the way for lower-wage replacements. Under the Dearborn, Mich.-based company's new contract with the United Auto Workers, which was reached in November, the company can replace employees taking the buyouts with workers who would be paid $14.20 an hour, or about half the wage of a current worker. Under the contract, as much as 20% of Ford's U.S. hourly workforce could be paid the lower wages.

Mariam, a 28-year-old retail chain employee, went to great lengths to get fired. Knowing she would be ineligible for unemployment payments if she simply quit, Mariam asked her company to fire her, but she was turned down. Then she simply stopped showing up for work. Her wish was granted at last -- she was fired, went on the dole and found a new job six months later. Soon, such convoluted yet surprisingly common schemes may be a thing of the past.

Some people think Sam Zell should reread his new employee handbook. During a meeting last week with Orlando Sentinel employees, the Tribune Co. chairman ended his answer to a photographer's questions about hard news coverage by directing a two-word obscenity at her. A video of the meeting made its way to YouTube and on Monday was on the media gossip website Gawker, which described Zell as a "salty billionaire."

In the weeks leading up to the launch of a new payroll system, Los Angeles Unified School District officials had plenty of warning that the $95-million technology project would have serious problems. Critical hardware had failed numerous times. Flawed data collected over decades proved difficult to clean up and input into the new system. Payroll clerks complained that training had fallen far short -- more than 60 schools didn't have a single staff member who'd received any training.