So now he is back in Boston, Massachusetts and preparing to go on trial.   Now the prosecution wants to conduct background checks on prospective jurors.  Bulger’s defense attorneys consider this harassment.  Interesting.

According to Boston.con…”Prosecutors filed a motion Thursday arguing that background checks could help determine whether potential jurors have truthfully answered questionnaires and would minimize the possibility of a mistrial.”

Be curious to see how this plays out in court.

According to the article on ABC–”Tide detergent is currently a hot target because it is compact, expensive and easy to sell on the streets for profit, police said. The Street name: “liquid gold.”

“Sometimes we get rings that just do alcohol,” Lee said. “And then we get some that do just meat and seafood.”

Investigators say boosters move the loot for cents on the dollar to fencing operations — the black market resellers of the stolen goods — which sell the stolen merchandise in plain sight in stores. Boosters, fencers, Mr. Bigs, all of those involved in these shoplifting operations can potentially make millions a year from boosting and re-selling stolen goods.”

According to the article, annual losses to retail shrinkage are as high as $37 Billion.

Police are cracking down on the  boosters.   There are raids galore and secret warehouse are filled with contraband confiscated from the raids.

It is no secret anymore that a large number of employees live in fear of workplace violence and workplace bullying.  The violence can come from job hazards as it comes from, say, taxi drivers and retail staff.  Or it can come from within the job, either through patients, as the most frequent case for healthcare workers, or from managers and staff members, or agitated relatives and lovers who intrude upon the workplace to raise havoc.

None of this is good for employment morale.  There are esteem issues, a notable decline in productivity, and of course the threat of real injury and the subsequent liability issues.

This article comes from TribLive.  It discusses the different cases of assaults and violent episodes that the nurses in Western Pennsylvania Hospitals must encounter as part of their daily routine.   No fun, for sure.

According to the article…”

Thomas’ experience is similar to that of many ER nurses surveyed during the past four years by the national Emergency Nurses Association, half of whom said they had been physically or verbally abused at work during the past week.

Of that, about 12 percent suffered physical abuse, while about 42 percent suffered verbal abuse, said Lisa Wolf, director of the group’s Institute for Emergency Nursing Research.”

Read more: http://triblive.com/news/westmoreland/3423102-74/hospital-emergency-health#ixzz2SomJpF5k

Here is but part of what Sullivan had to write…”Fortunately, a recent research study covering several industries demonstrated that top performers do in fact make higher quality referrals. The University of California/Berkeley study, “The Value of Hiring through Referrals” highlighted the output and profit impact differential between referrals that emanated from high, average, and low-performing employees. The study allowed for a ROI calculation because it included both the added costs of the referrals as well as the positive business impacts created by more effective hires. Conclusions that I have drawn from this research include:

• Referral hires produce more – Hires from referrals produce approximately 25 percent more profit impact than hires from other sources.
• Top performer referrals produce three times more – A referral from a top performer who is hired will produce nearly three times more profit impact for the firm compared to the referred worker from a below average performer. A top performer referral who is hired will have a 90 percent greater profit impact than the average referral.
• Higher retention — Referred workers are between 10 percent and 30 percent less likely to quit than workers hired from other sources.”

According to the notice distributed by the law firm Seyfarth and Shaw….”

Two types of employers are generally exempt from the law’s prohibitions: (1) banks or financial institutions; and (2) employers who are required by law to procure consumer credit information. These two classes of employers are permitted to obtain and use credit information for all their employees, regardless of specific positions or responsibilities and need only abide by the law’s additional adverse action requirements (detailed below).

The vast majority of employers, however, are prohibited from requesting or using an applicant or employees’ consumer credit information unless that information is “substantially related to the employee’s current or potential job.” The statute defines the substantially related language to mean one of two types of positions:

1. A position that constitutes executive or management personnel (or officers or employees who constitute professional staff to executive and management personnel) and which involves one or more of the following:

• sets the direction or control of a business, division, unit or an agency of the business;
• owes a fiduciary responsibility to the employer;
• has access to customers’, employees’ or the employer’s financial information; or
• has the authority to make payments, collect debts or enter into contracts.

2. A position that involves contracts with defense, intelligence, national security, or space agencies of the federal
government.

Even for these positions where credit information is “substantially related to the employee’s current or potential job”, an employer must satisfy two additional requirements before it uses and applicant or employee’s consumer credit information in making an employment decision. First, the employer must have a “bona fide purpose” for requesting or using the information in the credit report. Second, the employer must disclose its bona fide purpose to the applicant employee. Notably, the law is silent as to when this disclosure must be made and does not define the term “bona fide purpose.”

Also, when consumer credit information is “substantially related to the employee’s  current or potential job” an employer may, but is not required to, afford the applicant or employee an opportunity to explain any unusual or mitigating circumstances (e.g. error, lay off, identity theft, medical expenses etc. ).”

According to the Washington Post…”In the aftermath of the vote, most Americans said they believe the Senate shouldn’t have rejected background checks. And even more Americans — including a clear majority of Republicans — support expanding background checks with the Senate entirely removed from the equation, new data from Gallup show.

The Gallup poll conducted an experiment where half of those polled were asked whether the Senate should have passed a measure to expand background checks. The other half were asked a different question on background checks without mentioning the Senate action.

In the first question, 65 percent of Americans said the Senate should have passed background checks, while 29 percent agreed with the upper chamber’s decision to reject the measure.”

The special software utilizes a combination of automated and manual review processes. The program ignores information that is not legally allowable in the hiring process, such as the “protected class” characteristics defined by federal anti-discrimination law. The final report does not contain data concerning race, religion, national origin, age, sex, familial status, sexual orientation, disability status and other information not allowed to be used as decision points.

“It is a terrific background checking instrument for those employers seeking to identify any red flags that originate from the job applicant’s social media postings,” said Nick Gustavson, Corra Group Co-Founder. “It is also a good instrument for business research.

“For employment screening, the social media search will reveal the negatives about an applicant,” said Gustavson. “This is not to weed out the less conventional character with excellent skill sets, but the candidate with serious issues an employer would like to know about in advance. “We have seen some real doozies, where the candidate’s posts are explicitly sexual, racial, or misogynist, or where threats of violence are really alarming.”

For the complete press release, click on this link.

According to the article in HR Magazine UK….”The TUC estimates that between 3% and 5% of all work absences are due to alcohol, which costs the UK economy nearly £2 billion a year. Recent research from drug and alcohol screening provider Concateno reveals that one in 30 employees (3.23% of the 1.6 million UK employees it tested in 2011) has drugs in their system at any one time in the workplace. If that figure were extrapolated for the UK population, it would equate to 940,000 people. And a 2012 survey by law firm Blake Lapthorn found that most organisations think the use of alcohol (61%) and drugs (54%) by employees outside the office has an adverse effect on their work.

For the full article click on this link

According to the article in Fox News…”Both sides of the debate, it seemed, were gearing up for a protracted legislative battle that could last through the next congressional election. Democrats appeared to acknowledge that the amendment’s failure Wednesday meant they would not be able to pass any gun bill in the short-term, despite initial claims that the mass shooting in Newtown, Conn., might spur a hasty legislative response in Congress.

Mass Courts Closed 4/15; DC Courts Closed 4/16 

All courts in Massachusetts will be closed on Monday, April 15, 2013 in observance of Patriots’ Day. Washington, D.C. courts will be closed on Tuesday, April 16, 2013 in observance of Emancipation Day.