Wednesday, July 21, 2021

Wikinews correspondent J.J. Liu spoke with Technological University Dublin (TUD) senior lecturer at the School of Surveying & Construction Management, Dr Lorcan Sirr on Friday regarding the supply of housing in the Republic of Ireland and relevant parallels across the rest of Europe, as well as recent developments by the government and private sector that are causing a rise in rents and home prices in the Irish real estate market.

Dr Sirr is a regular contributor to The Irish Times and has provided commentary to Irish radio station Newstalk, national broadcaster Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ) and various other publications. In addition to being a chartered planning and development surveyor and assessor to the Society of Chartered Surveyors, Dr Sirr is a Peace Commissioner and former external examiner for the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, according to his profile on Worky.

Dr Sirr was a lecturer and former head of research for the Faculty of the Built Environment at the Dublin Institute of Technology, which entered a merger with two partner institutes to become TUD January 1, 2019. He received his bachelor’s degree in estate management at the University of Greenwich, United Kingdom, and master’s degree in urban design and PhD in town planning at the University of Manchester. He has a second master’s in literature from KU Leuven, Belgium, and speaks French.

Tuesday, May 2, 2006

According to the Washington Post, nearly sixty percent of the federal government’s workforce will be eligible for retirement over the next ten years; with ninety percent of senior executive service officials expected to do so. Besides depleting Social Security funds, baby boomers will once again leave a big impression on the American workforce and economy. Calling it a “federal retirement tsunami,” the United States Office of Personnel Management (the bureau responsible for government human resources) is preparing for this event in a few manners. In a news release today by the bureau, Director Linda Springer announced that the office would be releasing a major media campaign in efforts to recruit future employees.

With only twenty four percent of United States citizens with a bachelor degree or higher, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, it’s no wonder it has been difficult to attract qualified or interested employees for federal government positions; particularly young people. “We’ve been hearing for so long about how incompetent and shady the government is, but a lot don’t understand the benefits,” said Howard University sophomore Victoria Hooks.

“The challenge is clear, and we are hard at work… with a 21st Century approach to the workplace, the federal government will ride the retirement wave and set the standard for a modern workplace… It will be a modern workplace, one that requires innovative training and encourage more flexibility by managers. The federal workforce will be one that the American people can count on,” said Springer in support of the initiatives for recruitment. Other efforts for recruitment will also include additional employment benefits such as special salaries and relocation bonuses, especially for women.

The recruitment advertisements will reveal themselves in a series of four commercials around the country beginning in mid May 2006.

Sunday, October 10, 2021

On Saturday, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law Assembly Bill 1084 (AB-1084), which requires retailers with 500 or more employees throughout the state to keep a gender-neutral area for childcare products and toys. The law is set to take effect in 2024.

The bill says that “a retail department store that offers childcare items or toys for sale shall maintain a gender neutral section or area, to be labeled at the discretion of the retailer, in which a reasonable selection of the items and toys for children that it sells shall be displayed, regardless of whether they have been traditionally marketed for either girls or for boys.” Boy and girl sections are not prohibited, but a common section alongside them is required. While the original version included clothing, during California Senate proceedings that part was removed from the text.

Non-compliance calls for a US$250 civil penalty for a first case, and US$500 for subsequent violations. Courts could order the violator to pay court costs and attorney’s fees.

Assembly members Evan Low and Cristina Garcia, both members of the Democratic Party, introduced the bill into the California Assembly, the lower house of the state’s legislature. AB-1084 was amended by both houses, then passed the Assembly in a 49-16 vote on September 2 before being sent to the governor’s desk for approval.

Speaking about the bill, Low said, “Part of it is to make sure if you’re a young girl that you can find a police car, fire truck, a periodic table or a dinosaur. And then similarly, if you’re a boy, if you’re more artistic and want to play with glitter, why not? Why should you feel the stigma of saying, ‘Oh, this should be shamed’, and going to a different location?”

On July 25, Garcia noted in a Facebook post, “As a math teacher I saw 1st hand how playtime creates the building blocks for attaining spatial awareness that’s important for studying geometry, unfortunately these toys are often labeled as boy toys. Removing the gender identity from these toys will hopefully lead to more boys & girls entering STEM fields.”

The bill was opposed by members of the Republican Party: Republican state Senator Melissa Melendez said, “I don’t think parents need the government to step in and tell them how they should shop for their children”. In opposition of the bill, the Capitol Resource Institute argued that “it is not the business of the government to instruct retail stores how they should display and market their merchandise.”

On April 6, during a public hearing before the Business and Professions Committee of the Assembly, Greg Burt of the California Family Council called AB-1084 “impossible to comply with” as it does not define the intended meaning of “reasonable amount” and “a bill like this opens the door to a never-ending number of complaints from activist groups who don’t like the way stores are marketing their products to one sex or another”.

Assembly Bill 2826, introduced to the Assembly by Low in 2020, which targeted a similar goal, died in the Legislature.

Retail corporation Target, with 1915 stores in the United States, dropped traditional toy section labeling in 2015. “In fact it would be more difficult to find a large retailer today that segregates toys by gender”, noted the Southwest California Legislative Council, an opponent of the bill.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Members of Australia’s Health Services Union (HSU) will go on strike in Victoria next week in a dispute over stalled wage and career structure negotiations. Over 5000 physiotherapists, speech pathologists and radiation therapists will walk off the job next week, effectively closing the state’s 68 largest health services.

The strike will force the closure of intensive care units and emergency departments across the state.

It is feared the strike could continue into Easter.

National secretary of the HSU, Kathy Jackson said admissions would be crippled, while intensive care patients would have to be evacuated to New South Wales, Tasmania and South Australia as hospitals will not be able to perform tests or administer treatment.

“When an ambulance shows up you can’t admit a patient without an X-ray being available, you can’t intubate them and you can’t operate on them,” she said.

“If something goes wrong in an ICU you need to be able to X-ray, use nuclear medicine or any diagnostic procedure,” said Ms Jackson.

Ms Jackson said the HSU offered arbitration last year, but the state government refused. “They’re not interested in settling disputes, they hope that we are just going to go away.”

“We’re not going away, we’ve gone back and balloted the whole public health workforce in Victoria, those ballots were successful, 97 percent approval rating,” she said.

The HSU is urging the government to commence serious negotiations to resolve the dispute before industrial action commenced.

The government has offered the union a 3.25 per cent pay increase, in line with other public sector workers but the union has demanded more, but stopped short of specifying a figure.

Victorian Premier John Brumby said the claim would be settled according to the government’s wages policy. “The Government is always willing and wanting to sit down and negotiate with the relevant organisations . . . we have a wages policy based around an increase of 3.25 per cent and, above that, productivity offset,” he told parliament.

The union claims it is also arguing against a lack of career structure, which has caused many professionals to leave the health service. Ms Jackson said wages and career structures in Victoria were behind other states.

Victorian Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu said he was not in support of the proposed strike and called on the government to meet with unions. “There could not be a more serious threat to our health system than has been announced today.”

“We now have to do whatever is possible to stop this strike from proceeding,” he said.

The opposition leader will meet with the union at 11:30 AM today.

Victorian Hospitals Industry Association industrial relations services manager Simon Chant said hospitals were looking at the possible impact and warned that patients may have to be evacuated interstate if the strike goes ahead.