Employees

A judge ruled Thursday that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has the power to order the 15,600 employees of other elected statewide officials to take furlough days as part of a budget-cutting measure. State Controller John Chiang, who had doubted the governor's authority and asked the court to decide, said he would appeal the ruling.

Your editorial (May 15) about the California Supreme Court decision recognizing the right of public employees to strike was both temperate and right on point. The conservative doom sayers are already all but predicting the imminent collapse of state and local government, so a preemptive blow for moderation and reason was much needed. Most public workers in California have the right to bargain collectively with their employers to determine salaries, hours and working conditions, just as workers in the private sector do. Since the final decision on all the subjects in negotiation is typically left with the employer, the "bargaining" is virtually meaningless unless the employees also have some chips to play.

Homestore.com Inc. said it has accepted the resignation or terminated seven employees as a result of an internal accounting inquiry that earlier this month prompted the company to restructure its management. Three of the seven employees leaving the Westlake Village-based company had previously been placed on administrative leave. Shares of Homestore.com, the largest Internet lister of homes available for sale, closed off 11 cents at $2.46 on Nasdaq before the news was announced.

A robber bound and gagged four employees of a bar Sunday morning before fleeing with an undetermined amount of cash, authorities said. The robbery occurred at the Yankee Tavern at 32400 Street of the Golden Lantern at 2 a.m. The robber went into the office of the bar, drew a gun and demanded money from the two people in the office, Sheriff's Department Lt. Jay Mendez said. Two dishwashers apparently wandered into the office about that time, he said.

The Veterans Administration said some of its employees accepted gifts, speaking fees and other favors from a pharmaceutical company doing business with the agency. Spokeswoman Donna St. John said the VA inspector general's office had determined that favors were accepted by 75 to 100 employees from Smith Kline & French Laboratories of Philadelphia. A Smith Kline spokesman said the firm had been cooperating with the VA investigation for more than a year. St.

Employees of low-cost computer maker EMachines Inc. shared a $72.5-million windfall when the company was sold last month to rival Gateway Inc. Founder John Hui distributed more than half of the profit from the $290-million cash and stock sale to the Irvine company's 138 employees. Managers, warehouse workers and other employees received checks equal to at least 30% of their annual salaries. Some executives got bonuses of nearly $100,000. About two dozen executives split 12.

Yahoo Inc., owner of the most-visited U.S. website, adopted severance plans for employees that would pay as much as two years of salary to fend off a $44.6-billion bid from Microsoft Corp. Full-time employees would get at least four months of severance pay, and executive officers would get 24 months, Yahoo said Tuesday in a regulatory filing. Employees will be eligible for the payments if they depart within two years of a purchase.

Time Warner Inc. on Monday said data on 600,000 current and former employees stored on computer backup tapes was lost by an outside storage company and that the U.S. Secret Service is investigating the incident. Time Warner's data storage company, Boston-based Iron Mountain Inc., lost the tapes during transport to a storage facility, Time Warner said. The world's largest media company, which owns America Online, HBO and Warner Bros.

Second of two parts Phil Richards used to like his job driving a forklift in a produce and meat warehouse. He took pride in steering a case of beef with precision. Now, he says, he has to speed through the warehouse to meet quotas, tracked by bosses each step of the way. Through a headset, a voice tells him what to do and how much time he has to do it. It makes the Unified Grocers warehouse in Santa Fe Springs operate smoothly with fewer employees, but it also makes Richards' work stressful.