Free Republic

The European Court of Human Rights has set an interesting predcedent for workplace internet use by ruling in favour of a company that accessed its employees personal online communications. In the case brought forward by Romanian national Bogdan Mihai Bărbulescu in 2007, the court argued that his employer was within its rights to access messages he had sent via Yahoo Messenger during work hours. Judges said it was legal because the employer had the right to “check the manner in which its employees complete their professional tasks”. Even though he was using Yahoo Messenger to chat with his fiancee and...

After spending several days complaining about Governor Walker’s proposed compensation changes for state employees (as if a 100 percent match on pension contributions and picking up 87 percent of health insurance premiums were raw deals) the union operatives have shifted gears. “It’s about rights, not pay,” is their new mantra. Organized government employee unions are expressing panic over their would-be inability to negotiate items other than pay. They are specifically troubled at the prospect of no longer being able to dictate work rules, engage in union activities during the work week or participate in negotiated procedures to mitigate their grievances...

CHICAGO—The sprawling McCormick Place became America's convention headquarters when it opened here 50 years ago, hosting buyers and sellers of products from candy bars to windmill turbines. But in recent months, a gradual drop-off in business here has turned into a rout as a string of high-profile shows have pulled out. With the recession cramping convention business across the U.S., exhibitors say Chicago's high costs and complex work rules make other venues more attractive. Chicago's Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, which runs McCormick, had an operating loss of $3.6 million in the fiscal year ended last June and expects to...

To the extent the MSM has been willing to report on the disadvantage under which the Big Three automakers operate compared to their non-union competitors, the focus has been on the huge wage differential. On this evening's Fox News Watch, conservative columnist Jim Pinkerton highlighted another issue which has gone largely unreported in the liberal media: the onerous union work rules that add literally thousands of positions to the job rolls compared to those of the foreign transplants. View video here.

The Big Three are hemorrhaging money, and struggling to stay competitive with foreign rivals. Fortune's Alex Taylor crunches the numbers. NEW YORK (Fortune) -- An enormous gap still separates the performance of Detroit automakers from their foreign competitors - and it isn't all their fault. The stupefying $12.7 billion loss that Ford Motor Co. reported Thursday for 2006 comes one year after General Motors' equally horrendous $10.6 billion loss for 2005. But for all the bad decisions these companies have made by not listening to their customers, they aren't entirely to blame. Structural inequities between the U.S. and Japan -...