Free Republic

The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses. And an official of the World Health Organization’s European operation said the body is closely monitoring the investigation into the events that took place at Baxter International’s research facility in Orth-Donau, Austria. “At this juncture we are confident in saying that public health and occupational risk is minimal at present,” medical officer Roberta Andraghetti said from Copenhagen, Denmark. “But what remains unanswered are the circumstances surrounding the incident in the Baxter facility in Orth-Donau.” The...

A new year is here, and with it, a new workplace phenomenon that bosses and employees should prepare for: quiet hiring. Quiet hiring is when an organization acquires new skills without actually hiring new full-time employees, says Emily Rose McRae, who has led Gartner's future of work research team since its 2019 inception, focusing on HR practices. Sometimes, it means hiring short-term contractors. Other times, it means encouraging current employees to temporarily move into new roles within the organization, McRae says. "The reality for the next year is — whether or not we go into a recession — everyone's a...

September 14, 2005 Suit Says Wal-Mart Is Lax on Labor Abuses Overseas By STEVEN GREENHOUSE A labor rights group filed a class-action lawsuit yesterday against Wal-Mart Stores in which apparel workers in Bangladesh, China and other countries assert that Wal-Mart violated its contractual obligations by not enforcing its code of conduct for overseas contractors. The lawsuit, filed in state court in Los Angeles, makes the novel argument that Wal-Mart's code of conduct created contractual obligations between it and thousands of workers employed by contractors who were supposed to comply with the code. In the lawsuit brought by the International Labor...

THE FACTS surrounding Ahmed Abu Ali's detention and possible torture in Saudi Arabia remain shrouded in diplomatic and law enforcement secrecy. Caution, therefore, is certainly in order in assessing the U.S. government's role in the arrest a year and a half ago of this American citizen and in his detention without charge or access to counsel ever since. But as U.S. District Judge John D. Bates put it last week in a compelling opinion on the case, Mr. Abu Ali's lawyers "have not only alleged, but have presented some unrebutted evidence, that [his] detention is at the behest and ongoing...