NATIONAL
December 16, 2007 | Bob Drogin, Times Staff Writer
washington -- Mitt Romney twice emphasized his unique business background when he and eight other Republican presidential candidates faced off in a debate last week in Iowa. "I've spent the last, as I've told you, 25 years in the private sector," former Massachusetts Gov. Romney declared at one point. "I understand why jobs come and why jobs go. I've done business in 20 countries."
BUSINESS
April 12, 2012 | By Marc Lifsher, Los Angeles Times
SACRAMENTO — The two biggest players in California's workers' compensation system — labor unions and large employers — are quietly crafting the biggest overhaul of the mandatory insurance program in a decade. The goal: provide more care to injured workers without raising premiums for businesses. The negotiations are focused on squeezing waste from California's $15-billion system, which, while huge, often delays or denies compensation and medical care that could get injured workers back on the job. Average compensation paid to California workers in cases of permanent partial disability was $12,000 last year.
BUSINESS
July 5, 2011 | By W.J. Hennigan, Los Angeles Times
Bob Kahl slips in through a side door of the vast, abandoned hangar and looks at what's left of the assembly plant where he worked for nearly 40 years. He remembers the hum of power tools, the biting aroma of cutting oil, swarms of workers plugging away on a labyrinth of yellow scaffolding. All that's left is a few piles of broken concrete and a sea of colorless dust that coats a Palmdale factory floor the size of two football fields. "Welcome to the birthplace of America's space shuttle fleet," said Kahl, 60, smiling.
BUSINESS
August 5, 2011 | By Richard Verrier, Los Angeles Times
Veteran Hollywood talent manager Patrick W. O'Brien has been convicted of violating state law by operating a bait-and-switch scam on aspiring actors and their parents, according to the Los Angeles city attorney's office. O'Brien, 51, operator of Los Angeles-based companies Pat O'Brien Talent Management and Talent Marketing and Promotions Inc., entered a no-contest plea to one count of operating an advance-fee talent representation service and one count of failing to file a $50,000 bond with the state labor commission, the city attorney's office said in a statement Thursday.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
May 21, 2007 | Sam Quinones, Times Staff Writer
Shortly after his release from prison four years ago, Julio Silva entered the apprenticeship program in the Ironworkers Union Local 433 in La Palma. To his alarm, he learned that ironworkers called all first-year apprentices "punk." He had been an East Los Angeles gang member, a drug user, and a car burglar in and out of jail. In that world, a "punk" was someone's prison sex slave. But Silva tried not to let it bother him. The more he worked at his new job, the more his skills improved.
BUSINESS
July 13, 1994 | From Times Staff and Wire Reports
Study Links Weight, Height to Wages: Girls who were obese adolescents and boys who were short were found to have lower wages years later compared to their thinner and taller counterparts, a study shows. The Dartmouth College study of more than 12,500 people born in England, Scotland and Wales found girls who were fat at age 16 wound up with lower-paying jobs at age 23, even if they had since lost weight.