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Christian Teacher Lost Her Job After Being Told Praying For Sick Girl 'Was Bullying' By JONATHAN PETRE 20th December 2009 Distraught: Olive Jones said her dismissal 'was like a bad dream that had come true' [Pic in URL] A devout Christian teacher has lost her job after discussing her faith with a mother and her sick child and offering to pray for them. Olive Jones, a 54-year-old mother of two, who taught maths to children too ill to attend school, was dismissed following a complaint from the girl’s mother. She was visiting the home of the child when she spoke...

A northern Idaho pharmacist who tackled a gun-toting robber and received a special award from the city of Coeur d'Alene has been fired for violating company policy. Jerry Gunderson says he was dismissed from the Shopko pharmacy ... A Shopko spokeswoman at the company's corporate office in Green Bay, Wis., declined to comment. Police arrested the man and Gunderson later received a Citizen Appreciation Award from city leaders.

A localized media frenzy has ensued after a Catholic reporter was let go from his 19-year position at a Maine newspaper for voicing his opinion against same-sex “marriage” and the campaign to legalize it in Maine. According to an article by the Maine Public Broadcasting Network, Larry Grard, a former employee of the Morning Sentinel, was sent a mass email from the pro-gay rights organization, Human Rights Campaign (HRC), following the repeal of the same-sex “marriage” law in Maine during the mid-term elections on Nov. 4. In the email, Trevor Thomas, spokesman for the HRC, voiced his disappointment with the...

Zikerria Bellamy, 17, said two managers at an Orlando restaurant wouldn't give her an interview on two separate occasions in July. ... A spokeswoman for the local restaurant, Allison Garrett, said in a statement the employee who left the voice mail "acted outside the scope of his authority and was not responsible for hiring." He no longer works at the restaurant. ... Bellamy is a male who has been living as a female for about the past six years. She said she completed a job application online, then was called to the store for an interview. When one manager refused...

Is it wrong for an American to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas? Sounds like a crazy question, but it’s actually at the center of a lawsuit that’s on its way to court. Promila Awasthi is a US citizen, originally from India. She lives in Silicon Valley, and worked for software giant Infosys at its Fremont, Calif. office in 2008. When she was there, she claims, she was routinely teased by two of her supervisors for celebrating American holidays. “Why, as an Indian, should you be celebrating Thanksgiving?” she says she was asked. “You should not be doing that,” she was told.

Grard was fired by Bill Thompson, editor of the Sentinel and its sister paper the Kennebec Journal in Augusta, shortly after the Nov. 3 election in which Maine voters repealed a same-sex marriage law approved by the Legislature. Grard said he arrived at work the morning after the vote to find an e-mailed press release from the Human Rights Campaign in Washington, D.C., that blamed the outcome of the balloting on hatred of gays. Grard, who said he’d gotten no sleep the night before, used his own e-mail to send a response. “They said the Yes-on-1 people were haters. I’m...

CLEARWATER — If a dog were to accompany a restaurant chef to work, most people would have no problem with a state inspector kicking the dog to the curb. But when the food vendor happens to be a gas station, and its offerings stop at cans of Coke and bags of Doritos, and the dog is a charismatic chocolate Labrador named Cody, the response evolves into a public outcry — against the state. "Thumbs down on the Department of Agriculture. Tackle some real problems. Human customers bring more contamination — not to mention danger — than a well-cared-for pooch," said...

CLEARWATER, Fla. -- A state health inspector says a dog familiar to many regular customers at a Gulf coast gas station will no longer be able to join his owner at work. The Clearwater BP station's owner, Karim Mansour, received a warning from the Florida Department of Health on Thursday, informing him that Cody would have to go or all of the store's food - mostly bottled soda, candy and other snacks - would be declared unfit for consumption.

Here is video showing a 72 year-old Walmart Greeter being savagely punched in the face by a passerby at a Pennsylvania Walmart. The video also discusses the attack, which was carried out by a man who had been refused "check-cashing" assistance inside the store. As he walked outside the store, the man then punched the elderly greeter, breaking bones in the man's face. . . . (VIDEO)

<p>As important as the outcome of this case is the precedent it could set for extending special treatment to Muslim employees to the exclusion of others -- essentially creating a second class of employees: workplace dhimmis. "Hertz sued over Muslim prayers," from (News Service That May Not Be Named)...Hertz Global Holdings Inc., the second-largest U.S. rental car company, was sued by former employees who say its policy of allowing Muslims to take daily prayer breaks discriminates against non-Muslim workers. Katie Barkley and Shirley Harris, who worked as part-time drivers moving Hertz cars from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport to other locations, claim Muslim employees were given as many as three paid, 15-minute prayer breaks each shift while non-Muslim employees were denied equal time off, according to the suit filed Nov. 30 in federal court in Atlanta.</p>

New Haven, Conn. (AP) -- A group of black Connecticut firefighters hopes to block promotions for white firefighters who won a discrimination case before the U.S. Supreme Court. The black New Haven firefighters argue in papers filed Monday that they still have a right to challenge the validity of the promotional exam.

SALT LAKE CITY -- A gay rights group says it is securing Republican support in the Utah state Legislature for anti-discrimination laws. The Deseret News reports members of the Utah Log Cabin Republicans, a gay and lesbian political group, say two bills granting gays extra rights in Utah will have GOP sponsors when they go before the Legislature in the 2010 session. The group is not saying who those sponsors are. One of the measures is similar to an ordinance approved in Salt Lake City that states gay workers can't be fired because of their sexuality. The Deseret News reports...

CHICAGO -- They're antsy and edgy, tired of waiting for promotion opportunities at work as their elders put off retirement. A good number of them are just waiting for the economy to pick up so they can hop to the next job, find something more fulfilling and get what they think they deserve. Oh, and they want work-life balance, too. Sounds like Gen Y, the so-called "entitlement generation," right? Not necessarily, say people who track the generations. In these hard times, they're also hearing strong rumblings of discontent from Generation X. They're the 32- to 44-year-olds who are wedged between...

Details here. So this is what it has come to -- this is the fruit of the long-term efforts by groups such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations and others, to stigmatize and demonize everyone who speaks honestly about the threat of jihad and Islamic supremacism. People are afraid to speak up about what they see, when they know it is wrong. And all it cost this week was 13 dead and 38 wounded.

WPTV: Last month, when Trevor Keezer started bringing his Bible to work, Keezer says his manager confronted him about the ["One nation under God, indivisible."] button. "That's when I was told it had to come off, or I would be sent home. So they sent me home for six straight days without pay. And then today they terminated me."

A manager at a Massachusetts retail store claims he was unjustly fired after he told a colleague he thought her impending marriage to another woman was wrong.

A Massachusetts man was fired from a national retail corporation because of his traditional beliefs on same-sex marriage. Peter Vadala was formally dismissed from his job as second deputy manager of the Brookstone store at Boston’s Logan Airport on August 12, 2009, after a supervisor reported him to Human Resources regarding an incident two days earlier.

A short workweek and the prospect of early retirement. Job-protection laws that make it almost impossible to get fired. Seven weeks of holidays and vacation time a year. Oh, and paid lunches. A harried American worker might ask: What's not to like? And a dissatisfied French worker might respond: Plenty. A wave of suicides at the country's largest telecommunications firm has unnerved France, long viewed by many outside the country as a cushy haven for employees. Experts say the incidents are the most visible examples of the growing phenomenon of stress-induced illness in the country. Marie Peze opened the first...

I have been job-hunting for some time now and applying for jobs online. I applied for one job in particular which is an office job and received the following email in response to my application and resume: "I have reviewed your resume and I am very interested in hiring you. Before I can setup an appointment, I would need your recent credit score. Your credit score is required because the position you applied for includes handling company cash and using a company credit card. Don't worry, if your score is low for a legitimate reason, you will have an opportunity...

Union anger over the Federal Aviation Administration's decision to revoke the licenses of two Northwest Airlines pilots threatens to disrupt voluntary safety-reporting programs used by many carriers, according to industry officials. FAA regulators Tuesday revoked the licenses of both pilots aboard Northwest Flight 188, which failed to respond to air-traffic controllers for about 90 minutes. The union isn't defending actions of the pilots, who asked to be protected under voluntary reporting rules. But officials of the Air Line Pilots Association claim regulators jumped the gun and disregarded voluntary procedures worked out over many years among regulators, airlines and unions. The...

A Florida man says he was fired from his job at The Home Depot for wearing an American flag pin that said "One nation under God, indivisible." Trevor Keezer, 20, said he had worn the button ever since he started working at the home improvement retailer 19 months ago. He said it was his way of supporting U.S. troops, the Florida Sun-Sentinel reported. Keezer, whose brother Army Spc. Steven Keezer Jr. is set to return to Iraq in December, said none of his supervisors had anything negative to say about the pin until last month when he began bringing his...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Kansas City Chiefs running back Larry Johnson issued his second apology in the past yearTuesday and was told to stay away from the team while the NFL and the Chiefs complete their investigation into his use of a gay slur.. his references to the media in this week's controversial "tweets" to his fans. As Johnson was releasing his apology, a national gay rights advocacy organization called on the league and the team to take disciplinary action against the two-time Pro Bowler. The latest chapter in Johnson's stormy career began Sunday night when he questioned coach Todd...

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – A former cashier for The Home Depot who has been wearing a "One nation under God" button on his work apron for more than a year has been fired, he says because of the religious reference. The company claims that expressing such personal beliefs is simply not allowed. "I've worn it for well over a year and I support my country and God," Trevor Keezor said Tuesday. "I was just doing what I think every American should do, just love my country." The American flag button Keezer wore in the Florida store since March 2008...

When Suzanne Fetting sees women shuffling down sidewalks in heels way too high for them, it makes the confidence coach crazy. "Instead of lifting their feet up and planting them gracefully, they do a little thing called shuffling," says Fetting, a former runway model. "It drives me nuts." And if they aren't dragging their feet forward, they wear the heels the way they wear running shoes. "They don't have that sexy sway that you get when you activate the hips," she says, adding you have to do that if you wear five-inch stilettos. Fetting, who'll be speaking this weekend at...

ESPN fired Steve Phillips on Sunday, less than a week after a newspaper revealed that he had had an affair with a 22-year-old production assistant with the network. “Steve Phillips is no longer working for ESPN,” the network said in a statement. “His ability to be an effective representative for ESPN has been significantly and irreparably damaged, and it became evident it was time to part ways.”

It’s that time of year. College seniors from around the world are graduating, and they are hitting the career world looking for a job. And the interesting thing is that most are not doing it alone. Many parents are by their Gen Y’s side and not just for support and to be a sounding board. If you are a helicopter parent who is hovering over your adult child’s job hunt and interview process, you may be hurting your child’s professional development and their chances to land the job. Helicopter parents have not only been bombarding college campuses, they are now...

TALK-SHOW host David Letterman has been recorded on tape having sex with a female staff member - and he is worried that the footage will eventually be leaked, it's reported today. Letterman, 62, recently admitted to having a series of sexual relationships with some of the women that work for him. The chat show host and a much-younger female co-worker have apparently been captured on a studio surveillance tape in a compromising position. “If the tape makes its way into the criminal case, it’ll explode his marriage to smithereens,” a source told the National Enquirer magazine.

A Pennslyvania firefighter was suspended without pay for refusing to remove an American flag sticker from his locker, Myfoxphilly.com reported. James Krapf of Chester, Pa., violated a department policy that states personal items can only be posted inside employee lockers when he stuck the flag on the outside. According to Myfoxphilly.com, the firefighters' union warned 11 others to remove personal items or face similar suspensions, all without pay.

ORONTO (Reuters) – A Canadian truck driver has been fined for smoking in his vehicle because it is considered his workplace, a police spokeswoman said on Friday. A police officer saw the 48-year-old trucker driving on a highway in southwestern Ontario with a cigarette in his mouth on Wednesday, and gave him a C$305 ($290) ticket. The Smoke-Free Ontario Act, adopted in 2006, prohibits smoking in an enclosed workplace or enclosed public area, and that extends to work vehicles, said Constable Shawna Coulter of the Ontario Provincial Police in Essex County.

(AP / CBS) It's not unusual for employees to be fired for browsing pornographic Web sites at work. But a Pennsylvania gun owner named Tony Jackson may have been the first person ever fired for looking at Web sites featuring gun parts. Jackson worked at a Lotus Notes administrator at Planco, a subsidiary of Hartford, Conn.-based insurance company The Hartford. He's a firearms instructor and self-described Second Amendment advocate who, while at work in May 2007, visited Web sites including shotgun maker Mossberg and Impact Guns's online store because he and his wife were planning on going skeet shooting and...

Women In the Workplace (As seen in 1944 training film) An old 1944 film on women in the workplace. It's been chopped up to the funniest moments. The original is available at http://www.archive.org

Nearly 30 former Procter & Gamble workers who were fired for e-mailing pictures of naked people and off-color jokes about President Obama through the company's computers are fighting to collect unemployment benefits, saying they didn't do anything wrong because "everyone else" did it, too. At a hearing Friday in South Scranton, the company's attorney, Ben Josielevski of Scranton, said the workers broke harassment and discrimination policies that are laid out in the company's business conduct manual, which employees are required to sign. Twenty-nine workers at the Procter & Gamble plant in Washington Twp. near Mehoopany were fired in two rounds...

David Letterman, who built his career skewering philandering politicians and show business “weasels” and “boneheads,” finds himself in the middle of his own celebrity scandal, after he admitted having multiple affairs with employees of his production company, Worldwide Pants. For the intensely private Mr. Letterman, the revelations, which resulted from a bizarre extortion attempt, are sure to be extremely embarrassing, especially as he tries to extend his lead in the late-night contest. ”I have had sex with women who work for me on this show,” he told his audience on Thursday night, calling himself “creepy.” He added that he hoped...

Weird. And awful. According to a press release sent by Letterman’s PR reps, the host first received a package three weeks ago from someone who claimed to have information about alleged sexual relations he has had with female employees of the “Late Show.”… “This morning, I did something I’ve never done in my life,” Letterman said on Thursday’s edition of CBS’ “Late Show.” “I had to go downtown and testify before a grand jury.” As part of the testimony, Letterman admitted that he had engaged in sexual relationships with staff members. “My response to that is, yes I have. Would...

A con artist who claimed to have proof that David Letterman bedded several female staff members tried to extort $2 million from the the funnyman, he told his audience Thursday night. The stunning admission came hours after Letterman testified before a grand jury and admitted to "sexual relationships with members of his staff." "This morning, I did something I've never done in my life," said Letterman. "I had to go downtown and testify before a grand jury." The "Late Show" host received a package from an individual who claimed to have information on his dalliances with female employees and said...

A hospital employee dressed in a gorilla costume and passing out bananas to the sounds of “Hail to the Chief” may have been an effort to recognize employees for a job well done, but some Regional Medical Center trustees are calling the incident offensive and racist. Trustees Betty Henderson and Dr. Oscar Butler Jr. called for greater sensitivity and diversity training opportunities on the part of hospital staff and employees to ensure a similar incident does not reoccur. “I know in the beginning in six days God created the earth and on the seventh day he made man,” Henderson said....

It’s hard to get students these days to pay attention in class, so the Rev. William Brooks decided the best way to get their eyes focused on the teacher is to replace them with big-breasted ones. Brooks, the headmaster at St. Mark’s Episcopal School in Fort Lauderdale, is accused of trying to fire all of his old female teachers and replacing them with “buxom ones,” according to a letter to the school from U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The letter will likely be included in a lawsuit from some of the teachers who feel left out in the cold because...

A white Philadelphia police officer who came to work with his hair in cornrows was ordered by a superior to get a haircut, even though black colleagues wear the same type of braids. The Philadelphia Daily News reported Monday that Officer Thomas Strain was put on desk duty earlier this month because of the hairstyle. A police spokesman, Lt. Frank Vanore, said Strain's boss didn't feel the braids were "professional."

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — A former IBM employee who was fired for visiting an adult chat room while at work is appealing a court decision against him. The worker, 60-year-old James Pacenza (Puh-SEHN'-zuh), claims combat stress from Vietnam made him a sex-and-Internet addict who should have been treated, not dismissed.

A call by the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists asking employers to work with unions to conduct risk assessments and if necessary allow workers to replace high heels with comfortable shoes in the workplace created a controversy this week. Unions passed a motion at the Trades Union Congress conference demanding that women have the right to comfortable footwear in the workplace. Defenders of the stiletto claimed that unions were attempting to ban the shoes in the workplace, but the podiatrists defended their position, stating that high heels can cause such foot problems as blisters, corns, calluses, damaged joints, knee and...

RALEIGH, N.C. - Crystal Lee Sutton, whose fight to unionize Southern textile plants with low pay and poor conditions was dramatized in the film "Norma Rae," has died. She was 68. Sutton died Friday in a hospice after a long battle with brain cancer, her son, Jay Jordan, said Monday. "She fought it as long as she could and she crossed on over to her new life," he said. Union organizers had targeted J.P. Stevens, then the country's second-largest textile manufacturer , because the industry was deeply entwined in Southern culture and spread across the region's small towns. However, North...

Within the past year Sarah Schupp has hired five new employees with freshly minted college degrees. She fired one on his first day for inappropriate sexual comments to a co-worker. Another lasted a week before getting a pink slip. ..." you can't call in sick at 7:45 a.m. just because you don't want to come to work at 8 a.m." Jeanne Achille also was disappointed with the hiring of a recent college hire, promoted by a university professor as a "superstar" and fired after three weeks when it was discovered she spent hours online at work visiting a dating site....

Today's most over used and abused office buzzwords are more effective at prompting eye rolls rather than real action, according to an Accountemps executive. “When business or industry terms become overused, people stop paying attention to them,” said Accounttemps Chairman Max Messmer, who is the author of Managing Your Career For Dummies. Many of this year's words like "synergy," "on the same page" and "think outside the box" were also noted as exhausted in a 2004 survey. These are 2009's office buzzwords that need to be retired: * Leverage: As in, “We intend to leverage our investment in IT infrastructure...

Obama credits Unions with creating modern benefits like paid leave and minimum wage . The facts are that unions had nothing to do with the federal laws that created both. In fact Unions opposed the passage of federal laws that provided such benefits. At a federal level FMLA passed in 1993 provides provides for only 12 weeks of unpaid family leave to workers that work at a business with 50 or more employees. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paid_Family_Leave. At the time of the law's passage about 30% of workers nationwide received such benefits, and today about the same number do so. FMLA did not...

Teachers are demanding the right to get drunk at weekends as they protest against a tough new code of conduct. More than 10,000 have signed a petition calling for the scrapping of rules which require them to uphold 'public trust' in their profession outside school. The code, drawn up by the General Teaching Council [GTC] and coming into force next month, aims to reinforce the traditional role of teachers as pillars of society. It urges teachers to act as role models for pupils inside and outside the classroom by maintaining 'reasonable standards in their own behaviour'. One teacher, who asked...

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2009 (ENDA) is a proposed federal law which would have the effect, according to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), of "making it illegal to fire, refuse to hire or refuse to promote employees simply based on a person's sexual orientation or gender identity." ENDA (H.R. 2981 - H.R. 3017 - S. 1584) has been changed from the "gay-only" version the House passed in 2007 to include language banning job discrimination based on "gender identity" as well as sexual orientation - complete with special protections for the transgendered. It would mean your child's teacher, if he...

A transgender driver's return behind the wheel of a taxi has lasted just a month. Andre Edwards, 51, walked out of her job at Leyland-based Eco Cabs following a series of rows with her new bosses – and they don't want her back. The move comes less than a month after the Evening Post revealed how the company, based on Mellor Road, had given her a chance to work two months after she was sacked from Leyland Taxis

Momentum is building for Congress to pass the first major civil rights act protecting gays and transsexuals, supporters say, and one of the stars in the debate is a barrier-breaking transgender staffer on Capitol Hill. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, would prohibit workplace discrimination - including decisions about hiring, firing and wages - based on sexual orientation or gender identity. It would exempt religious organizations, the military and businesses with less than 15 workers. The driving force behind the bill has been Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the longest-serving of the three openly gay members of Congress. He expects hearings...

We talked yesterday about anti-gun David Michaels, Obama's pick to head the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. And we saw that a "public health" excuse for infringing on the right to keep and bear arms has been used in the past. Continuing from "Second Opinion: Measuring the Violence": A pilot project at CDC in the 1990s to monitor firearm fatalities drew ire from gun advocates and was stopped after three years. Now all money appropriated to CDC to study injuries comes with a stipulation from Congress that the funds cannot be used to advocate for gun control. Why was that?...

BROOMFIELD, Colo. -- Two college students who tackled a shoplifter at a Best Buy in Broomfield, Colo., have been fired. Jared Bergstreser, 20, and Colin Trapp, 23, were fired Sunday, two weeks after they tried to stop a man fleeing the store at the FlatIron Marketplace, reported KMGH-TV in Denver. "A gentleman came by us in a red shirt with a bunch of product in his hand. It was pretty obvious that he hadn't paid for it yet," Trapp said. "I just kind of reacted. I wasn't thinking about it and followed the guy out the front door and tackled...