Archive for California
Toyota Canada facing harsh questions in Ottawa
Posted by: | CommentsToyota Canada Inc. officials were under attack on Tuesday from federal MPs for their failure to notify regulators about safety issues regarding its accelerator pedal when the car maker first became aware of the flaw.
The company received its first complaint of unintended acceleration in late October, but MPs wanted to know why the world’s No. 1 car maker didn’t notify Transport Canada and Toyota owners until January, after it issued a recall for Canadian cars.
They acknowledged Canadian regulators had recently received 17 complaints regarding Toyota vehicles — but only one of those was related to unintended acceleration. Further, a review of its Canadian models, with all-weather floor mats built specifically for this market, did not share some of the same potential flaws as Toyota’s U.S. models.
Still, “we have 100% on the remedies for the floor mat and pedal assemblies,” Mr. Beatty said, adding nearly two-thirds of recalled Canadian cars have been repaired.
Over a quarter of million Toyota-made vehicles, or 270,000, were recalled across Canada – a.nd eight million worldwide — in an effort to address issues leading to unintended acceleration.
The Japanese car maker, No. 1 worldwide, has blamed sticky accelerators and floor mats for the cases of unintended acceleration. When he appeared before U.S. legislators, Mr. Toyoda apologized, and acknowledged the company’s rapid expansion in recent years might have affected the quality of its vehicles.
As a precautionary measure, Toyota temporarily halted production of eight models in Canada and the United States as it searched for a solution to the accelerator glitch. Production has since resumed.
“There was a serious safety problem, and you are talking to [the supplier] about a redesign but no one told Transport Canada until after the recall [in January]?,” a frustrated Mr. Watson told Toyota officials.
Mr. Beatty later explained the potential pedal problem in Canada was due to wear and condensation, and the company could not “trigger” a response before it had “a solution it could deploy.”
The acceleration cases have caused a public relations nightmare for Toyota. Last week, just as the car maker had appeared to put the worst behind it, a California driver claimed his Toyota Prius raced out of control on a California highway. But both Toyota and U.S. regulators said they found no evidence to support the driver’s claims.
Car analysts have focused on the prospect that drivers could be making mistakes — hitting the accelerator instead of the brake — or that Toyota vehicles could be subject to a software glitch or other problem that is hard to replicate.
More complaints about immigrants and laborers
Posted by: | CommentsFabian Gutierrez logged more than 60 hours a week slicing meat and stocking shelves with cheeses and milk at a neighborhood grocery for less than minimum wage and no overtime.
The 32-year-old Mexican immigrant said he put up with the situation for months because he was desperate to support his wife and young daughter. And like many co-workers, he was afraid to challenge his boss.
“All of us took abuse. We were disrespected,” said Gutierrez, who found help at a workers’ rights center, joined with other workers to sue the owner of La Fruteria and now works at another grocery store that he says treats him better.
Across the nation, the long-simmering problem of employers who don’t pay their workers appears to be getting worse, especially for immigrant laborers.
n the absence of aggressive federal action, some states and local governments have begun to tackle the issue on their own. They say employers who don’t pay overtime or minimum wage are unlikely to pay into state workers’ compensation or unemployment insurance funds — bilking taxpayers even as they’re cheating workers.
Workers rights centers say wage theft has become the No. 1 complaint they’ve heard in recent months.
In Chicago, Working Hands Legal Clinic, which is helping Gutierrez, received 161 complaints of wage theft from January through June 2008. That jumped by more than 60 percent to 252 complaints during the same period this year.
The Los Angeles-based National Day Laborer Organizing Network says at least 50 percent of day laborers — there are 120,000 on a given day in the U.S. — experience some form of wage theft.
About 68 percent of low-wage workers reported wage theft in 2008, regardless of citizenship status, according to a study released earlier this year that surveyed 4,400 low-wage workers in major U.S. cities, the first such extensive review in years.
“It’s not confined to the margins, or a few rogue employers. Employers realize that workers are desperate,” said Nik Theodore, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and lead author of the study conducted with the University of California, Los Angeles and the City University of New York. “It looks like standard business practice in many industries.”
Advocates say enforcing wage and hour laws even for laborers in the country illegally keeps wages for all workers from being driven down and ensures that employers who follow the rules can compete.
California has also required some businesses to pay a state registration fee, which pays workers if violations are later found and funds a collections department, making fines enforceable.
Some worker advocates say combining efforts for massive raids is good publicity but nets little for workers because the focus is on recovering unemployment or Social Security taxes for the state rather than overtime wages for the employee.
In response, New York Labor Commissioner M. Patricia Smith has worked with community-based groups and even unions, which are often the first to receive labor complaints, in a nationally recognized effort to identify employers violating labor laws.
Labor Secretary Hilda Solis has added about 250 wage and hour inspectors, and last week, the department signed an agreement with the New York labor department, Mexican Consulate and several other groups to create a call center that will provide Hispanic workers in the New York area information about their labor rights.
For now, Gutierrez and his former employer are trying to work things out in court, but he’s unsure if he’ll get all the back pay he says he’s owed.
Complaints against DirecTV soar after A.G. charges “deceptive” practices
Posted by: | CommentsThe state attorney general’s office received more than 50 overnight complaints against DirectTV after Rob McKenna filed a lawsuit against the company for “deceptive and unfair practices.”
That follows hundreds of complaints filed against the satellite television business, which McKenna said Tuesday was a huge number for a company operating in the state.
“These guys are off the charts,” McKenna said in a meeting with reporters. “We’ve had more complaints about them than any other (company) in America this year. So they really do stand out.”
The California-based company is accused of attracting customers with ads for low prices that hide fees and rate changes. The attorney general’s office filed a lawsuit Monday in King County Superior Court alleging that DirecTV had repeatedly violated the state’s Consumer Protection Act.
California-based DirecTV is accused of wooing new viewers with ads for low prices while hiding a multitude of fees, planned rate changes and terms that call for automatic renewals. Following a year-long investigation by its Consumer Protection Division, the Attorney General’s Office filed documents today in King County Superior Court that allege the company has repeatedly violated the state’s Consumer Protection Act. McKenna wants the company to put its terms in writing.
The state attorney general’s office received more than 50 overnight complaints against DirectTV after Rob McKenna filed a lawsuit against the company for “deceptive and unfair practices.”
That follows hundreds of complaints filed against the satellite television business, which McKenna said Tuesday was a huge number for a company operating in the state.
“These guys are off the charts,” McKenna said in a meeting with reporters. “We’ve had more complaints about them than any other (company) in America this year. So they really do stand out.”
The California-based company is accused of attracting customers with ads for low prices that hide fees and rate changes. The attorney general’s office filed a lawsuit Monday in King County Superior Court alleging that DirecTV had repeatedly violated the state’s Consumer Protection Act.
California-based DirecTV is accused of wooing new viewers with ads for low prices while hiding a multitude of fees, planned rate changes and terms that call for automatic renewals. Following a year-long investigation by its Consumer Protection Division, the Attorney General’s Office filed documents today in King County Superior Court that allege the company has repeatedly violated the state’s Consumer Protection Act. McKenna wants the company to put its terms in writing.
“They’re telling people they can sign up for a low introductory rate of $29.99 a month for 12 months, but literally in the fine print at the bottom of the ad there’s this rebate process you have to go through in order to obtain the introductory offer,” McKenna said. “Here’s the trick. Once they install they equipment you’re on the hook for the minimum period of the contract of two years. If you decide it’s not satisfactory…(there’s) up to $480 cancellation fee…We’ve been telling DirectTV they need to clean up their act for a long time and they’ve refused to make the changes that we require.”
DirecTV, in a statement, refutes those charges.
“We always strive to provide 100 percent customer satisfaction,” the statement said. The company also said that the number of complaints in Washington state represent less than 1 percent of their customers here.
Study: Toyota receives most complaints about sudden acceleration, followed by Ford
Posted by: | CommentsToyota was the target of 41% of all consumer complaints about the problem in 2008 cars, according to a Consumer Reports analysis. Ford received 28% of complaints.
Toyota registered far more complaints about sudden acceleration in its 2008 model-year vehicles than any other automaker, a new study has found.
Toyota and Lexus vehicles received 41% of all consumer complaints to a federal database about runaway acceleration, more than Chrysler, General Motors, Honda and Nissan combined, analysis by Consumer Reports found. Other than Toyota, the only automaker with double-digit rates of complaints was Ford, which was the subject of 28% of complaints.
Chrysler’s 2008 model-year vehicles received 9% of complaints and GM’s 5%; Honda had 4% of complaints and Nissan 2%, the study showed.
Toyota’s share of the U.S. market in 2007 and 2008, when 2008 model-year cars were sold, was roughly 16%.
Toyota could not immediately be reached for comment.
Toyota has been the subject of increasing scrutiny over sudden acceleration in the wake of an August accident in an an out-of-control Lexus ES outside of San Diego that took four lives, including that of an off-duty California Highway Patrolman.
That prompted Toyota to announce its largest-ever recall, of 4.26 million vehicles in the U.S. and Canada. Starting in January, the automaker will modify or replace accelerator pedals in seven Toyota and Lexus models, alter carpeting in some models and install new safety software. The recall includes vehicles from the 2005 through 2010 model years.
Toyota has repeatedly blamed interaction between the gas pedal and floor mats that could cause the pedal to become entrapped in a full-throttle position. But investigations into a number of accidents, including the San Diego county crash, have not conclusively found that the floor mat was responsible.
A Times review found that 19 people had died in sudden-acceleration accidents involving Toyota vehicles since the 2002 model year, more than all other automakers combined. In addition, The Times found that complaints of sudden acceleration increased dramatically after the automaker began replacing mechanical throttles with electronic throttle systems in the 2002 model year.
On Friday, the San Diego sheriff released a report on its three-month investigation into the Aug. 28 wreck, finding that “additional factors causing a sudden acceleration event (re: electrical, mechanical or computer generated) should not be ruled out.”
Consumer Reports limited its research to acceleration incidents that “could be a real dangerous safety issue,” excluding low-speed events or ones where the vehicle movement was arrested before the problem became more serious, according to Bartlett.
In addition, Consumer Reports excluded incidents that were reported after the San Diego crash to eliminate any spikes in complaints that could have been caused by publicity.
The remaining data, Bartlett said, indicated that Toyota was not the only automaker to receive unintended-acceleration complaints, since Ford also registered a higher number. The Ford complaints, however, were mostly limited to one model, the F-150 pickup, while Toyota complaints fell across a wide spectrum of vehicles, including ones not in the current recall.
California Could Boost Regulation of Disability Insurers, Experts Say
Posted by: | CommentsCalifornia could do more to investigate complaints against disability insurance providers, according to several legal experts, the Los Angeles Daily Journal reports.
Last month, a Daily Journal investigation found that disability insurers frequently deny or terminate benefits to people who have limited recourse to appeal the insurers’ decisions.
The investigation also found that the California Department of Insurance does little to regulate the practices of disability insurers.
The state Department of Insurance says it does not always have the power to intervene in claims denial cases because the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act governs employer-sponsored worker benefits.
Assembly Health Committee Chair Dave Jones (D-Sacramento) said the Department of Insurance could wield more power to investigate claims denials and protect disabled consumers. Jones is running to replace current Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner (R) next year.
Poizner is seeking the Republican gubernatorial nomination.
In related news, some advocacy groups plan to pressure lawmakers to change ERISA regulations if national health care reform legislation requires all residents to have insurance coverage.
ERISA currently prohibits individuals covered under group policies from appealing a claims rejection in state courts or from seeking punitive damages.
PG&E has received numerous complaints regarding its program of the future
Posted by: | CommentsPG&E cannot be pleased with the preliminary evaluations of its SmartMeter program, with numerous complaints of malfunctioning units and displeasure of the innovative $2.2 billion program.
Engineers designed SmartMeters to more accurately track the electricity or gas usage of a house or business — all information can also be read remotely, which has led to some grumbles of potential privacy issues. In an ideal situation, SmartMeters will be able to give home owners the ability to easily track energy usage of a refrigerator, dryer, and other appliances.
The state of California is working with PG&E to place 10 million SmartMeters throughout the state in the coming years — both in residential areas and business districts — but the program itself is off to a rocky start.
Some home owners are now saying their electricity bills greatly increased over the summer, either revealing a faulty SmartMeter, or intentional overcharging on the part of PG&E. There have been numerous other complaints also causing a bit of alarm among energy advocates and state officials.
14 more charged with insider trading
Posted by: | CommentsAfter weeks of speculation on Wall Street, prosecutors brought a fresh round of insider trading charges on Thursday that left no doubt they were aiming at hedge funds and the networks of market gossip that are endemic on trading floors.
The charges, against 14 money managers, lawyers and other investors, followed the arrest last month of a hedge fund billionaire, Raj Rajaratnam, on charges that he had profited from inside information.
In the latest criminal complaints, prosecutors described a network that used prepaid cell phones to avoid detection, and that was pierced in part through surveillance and wiretaps.
One law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing, said the authorities expected to make more arrests in the coming weeks. The investigation is part of a broad Federal Bureau of Investigation push into crimes related to hedge funds, including the addition of a third securities fraud unit in New York, the official said.
And for the first time, the authorities hinted that they might be brushing against the pinnacle of the hedge fund world, SAC Capital Management, a $12 billion Connecticut fund company. Neither SAC nor any current employee has been charged with wrongdoing.
The broadest of Thursday’s complaints names seven defendants, including Arthur J. Cutillo, a lawyer at the prestigious firm of Ropes & Gray, who is accused of offering tips on impending takeovers that the firm worked on. The tips were then passed among a group of lawyers and traders.
Plea agreement
As part of a plea agreement made public on Thursday, prosecutors agreed not to charge Richard Choo-Beng Lee, a California fund manager who worked at SAC from 1999 through January 2004, on any insider trading he committed at SAC as long as he had disclosed the insider trading to them. Lee pleaded guilty in October to insider trading while running his own hedge fund last year. ers and traders.
Defense lawyers who were not involved in the case said the government’s tactics, which included phone taps and wiring cooperating witnesses, were more typically used in organized crime than in securities fraud cases.
Galleon at center
Still, the investigation has not publicly ensnared any of the biggest hedge funds. And the total profits that the schemes are said to have produced are relatively modest, about $60 million so far.
Rajaratnam is not named in any of the complaints or pleas announced on Thursday. But Galleon, his company, appears to be at the center of the investigation. The two men identified as leaders of the ring, Zvi Goffer and Craig Drimal, are former employees of Galleon.
Goffer worked at Galleon from January to August 2008, while Drimal had an office at Galleon, according to the complaint. A person knowledgeable about Galleon said that Goffer had been laid off last year as part of a broader staff reduction, while Drimal was once an employee
Thursday’s complaint does not claim that the men used insider information on Galleon’s behalf. Instead, it claims that they traded for their own accounts, making millions of dollars buying stocks in companies that were about to be taken over. Drimal made the largest profits, earning $8 million, according to the complaint.
The defendants were concerned about the possibility of wiretaps and informants and frequently talked about ways to avoid being caught, according to the complaint. It said that in February 2008, Goffer warned Jason C. Goldfarb, another defendant, against making trades that were too obvious.
The complaints represent a significant expansion of a case that has gripped the hedge fund community.
Researching a company’s prospects is a crucial part of investing, and hedge fund managers, stock analysts and other investors regularly swap information about the companies they own. But they are not allowed to buy and sell stocks based on important information that has not been disclosed to the public, such as the news that a company is about to be taken over, or word from a corporate executive that a company’s earnings will fall short.
In contrast, much of the complaint against Rajaratnam focuses on his habit of swapping tips and rumors in advance of quarterly earnings reports and other corporate announcements, a practice on Wall Street that has been routine–at least until now.
Illegal Immigrants ?
Posted by: | CommentsThis article supports a theory that explains the illegal alien problem as part of the general environment in which it is found. It argues that the illegal alien problem is a diverse one and not simply a Mexico-US problem, and suggests that traditional immigration law enforcement strategies encourage an ever-increasing illegal alien population in the United States. Reasons why such a policy of enforcement exists are also discussed.
Characterizations of the illegal alien range from the sympathetic to the xenophobic. Such characterizations contribute to the confusion about the illegal alien problem. The media usually portrays the plight of the illegal alien in the United States using the historical view of a nation of immigrants. Often, the media resists portraying the illegal alien as anything but the hard working border-crosser that simply wants to feed his family. However, the traditional image of aliens may have changed as a result of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
By way of introduction, immigration law violators are not immigrants . They are aliens who are in the United States in violation of law. There is a profound difference between individuals who legally apply for admission and fulfill all the requirements for admission, and those who decide to enter the United States, or intentionally overstay their visa in violation of law.
Two years ago, illegal immigration was such a hot topic that any conservative politician who even mentioned the word “amnesty” for undocumented aliens—also called illegal immigrants—in anything other than a hostile tone risked being tarred and feathered and subject to a recall. But today the issue of aliens unlawfully present in the United States has been moved to the back burners, if not completely off the stove. The only recent controversy involving undocumented aliens is whether they and/or their children should be covered by the new healthcare plan that is currently being crafted by Congress. President Obama, on the other hand, is supportive of a “path to citizenship” for immigrants who are here unlawfully.
According to the Center for Immigration Studies, the number of illegal aliens in the United States dropped by almost 14 percent, or 1.7 million people, between the summer of 2007 and the spring of 2009. It has been estimated that the number of immigrants entering the U.S. illegally has dropped by one-third, while the number of illegal aliens returning to their homeland has more than doubled.
According to the Center for Immigration Studies, the number of illegal aliens in the United States dropped by almost 14 percent, or 1.7 million people, between the summer of 2007 and the spring of 2009. It has been estimated that the number of immigrants entering the U.S. illegally has dropped by one-third, while the number of illegal aliens returning to their homeland has more than doubled.
What are the reasons for this dramatic turnaround? One reason is that more of our border with Mexico has been fenced in, deterring potential immigrants from trying to illegally cross into the United States. Although during his candidacy President Obama pledged that he would moderate the Bush administration’s tough policy on immigration enforcement, his administration is pursuing an aggressive strategy for an illegal immigration crackdown that relies substantially on programs started by his predecessor
President Obama favors shifting the burden of immigration enforcement to employers, while making it difficult for illegal immigrants to get hired. It is estimated that tens of thousands of jobs created by the economic stimulus law could end up being filled by illegal immigrants, especially in big states like California where undocumented workers make up a substantial number of construction workers. Studies by two conservative think tanks estimate that illegal immigrants could take 300,000 construction jobs, or 15 percent of the two million jobs that new taxpayer-financed projects are expected to create.
Illegal immigrants come to the United States to improve their lives through the opportunities offered in this country, but often end up becoming employed in low-paying sectors that don’t attract American workers. The illegal workers may be abused and exploited by their employers, but they are afraid to report such abuse and exploitation to the authorities out of fear that they will be deported.
Illegal immigrants are a big burden on hospital emergency rooms. Unable to purchase health insurance, they do not receive preventive medical care. If they have a medical problem, they wait until it is serious enough to warrant treatment. Federal law requires emergency rooms to examine everyone who comes in with a medical complaint and to treat emergency conditions regardless of whether or not the person has health insurance or is here legally or illegally. Undocumented aliens should be free to purchase their own private insurance if they can afford it, and if they can’t, then they should be covered by Medicaid (Medi-Cal in California).
Undocumented aliens are vital to the economy of the United States, doing the jobs most Americans would not do. They are underpaid, overworked, exploited, work in substandard and often dangerous conditions, and live in constant fear of being caught by immigration authorities, jailed, and deported. Call them illegal aliens or undocumented aliens, the fact is that the lure of a better life in the once prosperous United States is hard to resist. We who are fortunate enough to live in the United States take many things for granted, such as pure drinking water, healthful and abundant food, easy transportation, a comfortable house or apartment to keep us cool in the hot summer and warm in the cold winter. Can you really blame a Latino or eastern man for wanting better living conditions for his wife and children, let alone himself? The squalor they often live in in the United States is considered by them to be a paradise as opposed to the cardboard shack, impure water, tainted food, and rampant disease of their native country
Complaint filed against La. recruiter of Fillipino teachers
Posted by: | CommentsNEW ORLEANS — A teacher union has filed complaints with state authorities alleging that a California company that recruits Fillipino teachers for Louisiana schools is operating illegally in the state, and charging the teachers exhorbitant, illegal fees.
The Louisiana Federation of Teachers says in a news release that the teachers were cheated out of thousands of dollars and worked in “virtual servitude.” The LFT filed complaints with the state Attorney General’s Office and the Louisiana Workforce Commission against United Placement Services of Los Angeles.
The complaints were filed on behalf of Fillipino teachers working in Caddo, East Baton Rouge and Jefferson parishes and in New Orleans. The company did not immediately respond to a telephoned request for comment.
Ethics complaints against Masto, Schneider thrown out
Posted by: | CommentsCARSON CITY — Complaints that charged Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto and state Sen. Mike Schneider with using their influence to restore the license of a homeopathic doctor were tossed out today by the Nevada Ethics Commission.
Ethics Commission members Erik Beyer and Jim Shaw said there was insufficient evidence to show that Masto and Schneider broke ethics laws as a result of their inquiries into the license suspension of Daniel Royal. The complaints against the two were filed by Edward T. Reed, identified as a former attorney general employee.
Reed had been the deputy attorney general who monitored the Board of Homeopathic Medical Examiners. Royal was president of the board.
According to the investigative report, Schneider asked Masto to look into the situation when an attempt to serve subpoenas on Royal and Dean Friesen was made in his office at the Legislature in 2007. Unknown to Masto, her office had been investigating the two men.
Schneider also was accused of showing up at a board meeting to urge members not to remove Royal as president. He had been Royal’s patient for a month in 2005, according to an Ethics Commission report.
Later that year the senator again asked Masto to look into the matter after Royal’s license was temporarily suspended on grounds he allowed Friesen, an unlicensed pharmacist, to practice homeopathy in his office.
The senator, according to documents, also secured a legislative counsel opinion that Royal could not be removed from office because he also was licensed by the Board of Osteopathy.
Schneider, according to the investigative report, was referred to by Masto as a slight acquaintance. She said she did not know Royal or Friesen.
In addition, Schneider also did not have a friendship or private commitment to Royal of Friesen from which he could have benefited, according to the documents.
Masto agreed after speaking with Schneider to have another deputy attorney general investigate the matter and based on her reports sought to have Royal‘s license restored, according to Ethics Commission documents.
The Homeopathy Board, after what was called a “non meeting” by the investigator, and then during an “emergency meeting,” ended the license suspension.
Although there were insufficient grounds to bring charges against Masto, Ethics Commission Executive Director Patty Cafferata called her actions in the situation “puzzling.” An attempt to contact Masto for comment tonight was unsuccessful