Employment

A former Hollywood studio attorney was sentenced Monday to 200 hours of community service and his wife to three years in prison for holding their live-in housemaid in forced labor in the couple's Culver City home. James Jackson, former vice president of legal affairs at Sony Pictures, was also ordered to pay a $5,000 fine during his sentencing in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. He pleaded guilty earlier to harboring Nena Ruiz, a domestic worker whose visa had expired.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and other municipal leaders unveiled a green energy initiative Tuesday by the city's utility that they predict will create as many as 400 union jobs over the next three years to install and maintain solar panels on city buildings and other structures around Los Angeles. Villaraigosa promoted the new effort as part of a larger clean-growth strategy during an appearance atop a Los Angeles Convention Center parking garage with solar panels as a backdrop.

One of the nation's largest Chinese-language newspapers was slapped with a federal court order to pay $5.2 million to past and current employees who were forced to work 12-hour days without breaks or overtime pay. The Chinese Daily News, based in Los Angeles and New York, must pay more than $3.5 million in damages and penalties in addition to more than $1.5 million in interest to the workers, according to an order issued late Thursday by U.S. District Judge Consuelo B. Marshall in Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles Harbor Commission on Thursday unanimously approved a clean air plan requiring shipping companies to buy and maintain a modernized fleet of big rigs and employ thousands of independent truckers who currently operate under contract. A spokesman for the American Trucking Assn. derided the plan as a "scheme to unionize port drivers" and vowed that his group would sue the port.

Aboard the retired cruise ship Queen Mary -- a World War II veteran redeployed as a tourist attraction -- former members of the armed services Thursday got an extra ration of employment help. But, between a sagging economy and years of specialized experience, many veterans say they still can't find decent jobs or feel pigeonholed into low-paying fitness, security or law enforcement positions.

After a lifetime spent digging for black clams in the swamps that line the coast here, Clojilda Velasco remembers when she could count on finding 400 a day. Now she's lucky if she gets 100. But she still shares when one of the other women comes up salado, or unlucky.

Are you a new graduate about to get your first job? Shanti Atkins would like a few words with you. An attorney who works with companies that want to avoid employment gaffes that can lead to lawsuits, Atkins has seen too many young workers sabotage their careers by confusing what's cool in school with what's OK in the office. "There are profound differences between acceptable work behavior and acceptable school behavior," said Atkins, 33.

With a bulbous head and plank-like wings, the aircraft resembles a lumbering whale. And its seven-word, 49-letter name -- Broad Area Maritime Surveillance Unmanned Aerial System -- is a whopper. But the award last month of a Navy contract to build the hulking, robotic patrol plane, nicknamed BAMS, could not have come at a better time for Northrop Grumman Corp. and, in particular, its military aircraft business headquartered in El Segundo.

In the summer of 2003, Austin Highsmith, a young actress from North Carolina, packed a suitcase and drove cross-country in pursuit of the Hollywood dream. Years followed, as they do, of waiting tables and auditions, until February when the 27-year-old finally landed her first big break as a guest star on CBS' "Ghost Whisperer." But as luck had it, her episode aired the same week the writers strike began. Hardly any Hollywood honchos saw it.

Five days a week, Max Gumbert drives up to the 95,000-square-foot Home Depot store in this leafy suburb at the northern edge of Silicon Valley, straps on an orange apron sagging with customer service badges and gets to work. For eight hours every day, in a shift that often ends at 10:30 p.m., the flooring specialist answers questions: Hardwood or laminate? Ceramic tile or sandstone? Nylon or wool? Pergo or bamboo? Does cork absorb sound better than carpet?