United States Labor

High-tech companies will have to wait at least until September to hire additional foreign workers, as the Senate recessed Friday without passing legislation that would authorize increased numbers of temporary visas after the White House raised objections. The legislation would lift the current cap on visas for these foreign engineers and other highly skilled workers, allowing about 200,000 more of them into the country over the next five years.

American women for the first time on record have become slightly more likely than men to be laid off from long-term jobs, according to a federal study released Wednesday. The study, which tracked workers from 1995 through 1997, found that 4.8% of women employees lost long-term jobs in downsizings during that three-year period, versus 4.4% for men.

At the leafy campus of Aerospace Corp. in El Segundo, the average age of the rocket scientists who design satellites, launch vehicles and space systems is 47. The employee turnover rate is an almost unheard-of 4% annually. Many workers are still going strong in their 70s; others retire, but are invited back as part-time consultants. "As the work force ages, we'll be in a good position," says Marlene Dennis, the company's general manager of human resources. "We sell experience.

The nation's business expansion produced nearly 300,000 new jobs in May, enough to hold the unemployment rate at a surprising 4.3%, the lowest level in a generation, the Labor Department reported Friday. The news of a surge in jobs helped power a strong stock market rally, with the Dow Jones industrial average gaining 167.15 points to close the day at 9,037.71. The index of blue chip companies closed above the 9,000 level for the first time in two weeks. Many economists had believed that the 4.

Called unexpectedly to work late one evening, Michiko Kamiyama searched in vain for a baby-sitter for her 8-year-old daughter before grappling with a decision that bedevils countless working parents. In the end, she left the girl alone in the home. It turned out to be the wrong choice. Huntington Beach police took her daughter away that night, and Kamiyama, a widow who works as a singer and a waitress, was convicted of misdemeanor child abuse. She spent more than three months in jail.

Called unexpectedly to work late one evening, Michiko Kamiyama searched in vain for a baby-sitter for her 8-year-old daughter before grappling with a decision that bedevils countless working parents. In the end, she left the girl alone in the home. It turned out to be the wrong choice. Huntington Beach police took her daughter away that night, and Kamiyama, a widow who works as a singer and a waitress, was convicted of misdemeanor child abuse. She spent more than three months in jail.

President Clinton, trumpeting his legislative agenda at a Capitol Hill love feast staged by hundreds of Democratic allies, on Thursday threw his weight behind a plan to give America's minimum-wage workers a $1-an-hour raise. "The economy will support it," Clinton declared fervently, saying that 12 million workers stand to benefit from a proposal to raise the current minimum wage of $5.15 by 50 cents in each of the next two years. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.

Workers who earn minimum wage will see their pay increase to $5.75 per hour starting Sunday in the second phase of the state's two-step increase in the minimum wage. The raise is a result of voter approval of Proposition 210 in 1996. The Department of Industrial Relations' labor division has established a toll-free phone number, (888) ASK-WAGE, providing recorded information in English, Spanish and Chinese to employers and employees on state and federal minimum wage laws.

The scene is haunting: A 12-foot fence crowned with razor wire bracketing two sides of a square large enough for two outdated sewing machines set on two tiny tables. On one open side of this cage-like setting is a reproduction of a letter, a desperate plea from a worker begging for freedom. "I want to go home. . . . I give you my word as an honest person, I won't cause trouble for you. . . . Have mercy on poor people who are working . . . for [their] destitute families in Thailand."

Thirty-five years after the Equal Pay Act outlawed gender-based wage discrimination, working women still face a passel of inequities come payday, say those fighting for equal wages for women. Employers are still telling women that men deserve more pay because they have families to support, ignoring the growing role of women's wages in sustaining most U.S. families. Women still face lingering suspicion about whether they are really in the work force to stay.