By Oregon Tax News,

Oregon is one of a few states that dedicates funds, paid by Oregon employers, to cover unpaid wages when a company fails and does not have money for payroll. Last year, the average payout was about $1,048 per worker. The fund pays amounts equal to unpaid wages up to a maximum of $4,000. Several incidents in the mid-1980s, when employees of distressed companies learned that banks were ahead of them in collecting debts, led to legislation that established a fund to protect workers.

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MINISTER for the Economy and Transport Ieuan Wyn Jones and our business columnist Dylan Jones-Evans have clashed over the SME credentials of WAG’s new business support strategy.

Last week the minister outlined a new direction of business support, which will see the £100m Single Investment Fund being replaced by a repayable loan approach.

The strategy also sees a greater focus on infrastructure including potentially funding to the tune of £200m the provision of high-speed broadband – at 100 megabits per second in urban areas – for companies in Wales by 2016.

The strategy is an acceptance that WAG can no longer pretend it can be a wealth creator through direct business support intervention, but instead needs to focus on providing an environment which will give businesses the best chance to flourish.

However, writing in his column in the Western Mail on Saturday Prof Jones-Evans, who is director of the Wales Fast Growth 50 initiative, claimed the new direction has been designed at the expense of the indigenous SME sector.

Prof Jones-Evan said: “It is hard to disagree with one of the central planks of the Economic Renewal Programme, namely of moving away from a grant culture towards one that is based on repayable loans.

“However, as 50% of the current grant money (ie the £100m Single Investment Fund) is now being transferred to infrastructure projects, this means that the small business sector in Wales is losing out on £50m of repayable loan capital.

“At a time when bank lending to small firms remains weak, it would seem WAG has reduced the amount of finance available to support the growth of the SME sector in Wales, the poorest region in the UK, where access to capital remains weaker than in other regions.

“One also has to question the focus of the remaining business support fund on six sectors of the economy, where the other £50m of investment cash will be targeted.

“From my experience of running the Wales Fast Growth 50 project for the past 12 years, growth is not limited to any particular sector, but can occur in any company which has the right product or service, an excellent management team and, more importantly, access to funds and markets to make it happen.”

He added: “If anyone had bothered to ask the thousands of small businesses in Wales for their views on business support, I am sure they would have said that it is not business support per se that is wrong, but the bureaucratic and time consuming processes.”

Prof Jones-Evans’ views produced a swift response from Mr Jones in a letter published in the Western Mail published yesteday.

He wrote: “It seems Dylan Jones-Evans must have not read the details of our new policy ‘Economic Renewal: a New Direction.

“From now on we will focus our resources on targeting the systemic issues within the Welsh economy and SMEs are at the heart of this new approach. We will be investing in infrastruc

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Article by: J.L. Wilson

Associated Oregon Industries

New regulations limiting the ability of employers to use credit histories for prospective employees and job applicants began on July 1 with Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian marking the occasion by holding sessions of a special seminar on the topic in Portland.

Both sessions were filled with owners, managers, human resource professionals and attorneys looking to get a full picture of the new law and administrative rules that prohibit most employers from using credit histories in employment decisions.

When it was clear that proponents of the law wanted to ban employer use of credit histories altogether, AOI worked to try and create a compromise in which employers could continue to use credit histories for key job positions that would have information and access to an employer’s assets. M

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WORK has begun on building the first anaerobic digestion plant attached to a food factory in Wales.

InSource Energy marked the start of work on the plant at Premier Foods’ RF Brookes ready-meals factory in Rogerstone, Newport, with a ceremony attended by Environ- ment Minister Jane Davidson.

The £5m facility will convert RF Brookes’ food waste into energy to help power the factory, which supplies ready meals to Marks & Spencer, providing significant savings in waste disposal and energy bills and reducing carbon emissions by around 8,500 tonnes per year.

WRAP Cymru (Waste and Resources Action Programme) provided a grant of £0.5m to part-fund the project under a programme supported by the Welsh Assembly Government to promote anaerobic digestion.

Construction will finish by the end of this year with the plant fully operational early next year.

John Scott, managing director of InSource Energy, said: “InSource Energy has worked closely with Premier Foods over the last two years to bring this exciting project to fruition, with vital support from the Welsh Assembly Government and WRAP Cymru.

“We look forward to delivering many similar projects with other UK food and drink manufacturers wishing to achieve the cost and environmental benefits of implementing this sustainable solution to the treatment of their biodegradable waste.”

RF Brookes managing director Phil Coles said: “Premier Foods is committed to embedding sustainability throughout our business operations. We’ve set a c

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The resounding effects of the economic downturn have some workers making healthier choices when it comes to lunch breaks and smoking habits during the work day. According to a new CareerBuilder survey, 47 percent of workers report they have been packing a lunch more often to eat healthier or help save money. When it comes to smoking habits, 44 percent of workers who smoke said they are more likely to quit smoking given today’s economic conditions.

In addition, one-in-five said that they have decreased the number of times they smoke during the work day (21 percent) or actually quit altogether (20 percent). T

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