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The MillerCoors brewing company will soon be forced to pull 39 brands of beers from every restaurant, bar and liquor store in the state of Minnesota.

It’s all because the company couldn’t renew its brand label registration before the state’s government shut down.

“What that means is they’re not able to either distribute or sell their product in this state,” said Doug Neville, spokesperson for the Minnesota Department of Public Safety.

MillerCoors, a joint venture of SABMiller and Molson Coors, put in for the renewal in mid June, but that application wasn’t accepted because the company “overpaid their fees,” according to Neville.

“When they resubmitted their application it wasn’t received in time for us to process it before the government shutdown occurred.”

Neville said the bare-bones staff with the state Alcohol and Gambling Enforcement department have reached out to MillerCoors for a removal plan, so he said it will likely be a day or two before the company begins pulling the product.

Beer is just the latest in a long line of casualties — including 22,000 state workers — to fall victim to the state’s government shutdown.

What is happening in Italy? Old stereotypes have been common in recent reporting of the worsening crisis in the eurozone. These Mediterranean countries with their big state debts, “problems” with criminality and established black economies have frequently been lumped together as the “sick men of Europe”: lazy, unproductive, with trade unions who go on strike and people who protest in the streets. How outdated they are! Yet this kind of analysis is almost useless in helping us understand what is happening in Italy, and why is it taking place now. It also gives us no insight into the deep human costs produced by Italy’s current problems.

There is no doubt that the Italian economy is in deep trouble. The huge state debt has been in place for decades. Savage cuts have hit the education and the university sector. Many young people find it almost impossible to find stable work, thanks to a massive increase in the flexible nature of the labour market, something that has been pushed by governments of both the left and right in the 1990s and 2000s.

As a result, a whole generation is being systematically excluded from professional work and state institutions. Read more…

The huge pay hikes of top executives is unacceptable while workers fight for “reasonable” wages, the Congress of South African Trade Unions said on Monday.

“Cosatu is outraged that at a time when workers are struggling for modest improvements in their low wages, that chief executives are taking home increases a good 10% higher than what the workers are demanding,” said spokesperson Patrick Craven.

Craven noted with anger a report indicating that the average pay of executive directors of the top 40 Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed companies increased last year by 23.3% to R4.8-million.

He said South Africa had already been rated the most unequal society in the world.

Modest demands
“These latest increases at the highest levels have widened the gap still further. They make the unions’ demands seem even more modest and reasonable.

“This report … Read more…

Area elementary students who were named winners in J.P. Mascaro & Sons RESPECT Program Poster Contest recently gathered at the company.

AUDUBON — J.P. Mascaro & Sons recently held a celebration dinner for grant recipients from the Mascaro RESPECT Program. At the June 17 event, nearly $18,000 in educational grants was awarded to eight area elementary schools for innovative educational initiatives related to character education. This group of grants follows $12,000 in grants awarded by the RESPECT Program in February 2011.

RESPECT is an interactive educational program developed by J.P. Mascaro & Sons three years ago that is presented annually to more than 25,000 area elementary school students to make them aware of the importance of respect in their lives, including respect for the environment.

Receiving RESPECT Program grants were Cayuga Elementary School in Philadelphia, $4,960; St. Agnes Elementary School in Philadelphia, $3,225; St. John Vianney Elementary School in Allentown, $5,000; and the Blessed Virgin Mary

Elementary School in Darby, $1,260. S

Read more…

Travel accessories for business travel have to do double duty. Lenovo ThinkPad SL510 Notepad

Besides making sure all your personal needs are met, they have to ensure that you can still do business quickly and easily wherever you are too.

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) will continue wage negotiations with the Chamber of Mines’ gold producers in Johannesburg to prevent a possible strike, the union said on Tuesday.

The union would meet with mine negotiators at the Chamber of Mines offices on Hollard Street in Marshalltown on Wednesday at 10am for discussions, spokesperson Lesiba Seshoka said.

The NUM is demanding an increase of 14%, but when the two parties last met on July 4, the chamber only offered a 5% increase, he said.

“If the attitude is similar to the collieries … Read more…