Madison, WI, United States (AHN) – A Dane County judge on Thursday suspended the implementation of a law repealing collective bargaining for public employees in Wisconsin on grounds that Republican lawmakers passed it illegally.

Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi ruled that GOP senators violated the state’s open meetings law when they passed Act 10 on March 9 on short notice.

Under the open meetings law, the public should be given at least two hours’ notice for any public meetings.

Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne, a Democrat, petitioned the court to block the law after Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca claimed in a complaint that the public and Democrat lawmakers were not notified properly of the convening of a Senate committee that amended the bill and voted to pass it into law.

Senate staff announced the meeting on bulletin boards in the Capitol and informed legislators by e-mail at past 4 p.m. on March 9. The committee convened at 6 p.m. that day so the notice was made less than two hours as mandated by state law.

Only 20 people were allowed to attend the meeting, with Barca as the only Democrat present. Some 3,000 people who were refused entry into the meeting room signed a petition to make a record of the incident.

Gov. Scott Walker sought the law to balance Wisconsin’s 2012-2013 budget. The case will go to the state Supreme Court, which will decide on June 6 if it will take it.

Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald, the brother of Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, insisted that Act 10 was passed legally and expressed optimism that the Supreme Court will uphold its validity.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN Sports) – NBA players filed an unfair labor practices charge against the league Tuesday with the National Labor Relations Board.

In the complaint the players accuse the league of “harsh, inflexible and grossly regressive ‘takeaway’ demands.”

The National Basketball Players Association is seeking an immediate investigation by the NLRB, plus an injunction to stop the league’s threatened lockout of players when the current collective-bargaining agreement expires June 30.

The league responded by saying it is working toward putting a new deal in place.

“There is no merit to the charge filed by the players association as we have complied, and will continue to comply, with all of our obligations under the federal labor laws,” The NBA said in a statement. “It will not distract us from our efforts to negotiate in good faith a new collective bargaining agreement with the players association.”

Players association head Billy Hunter sent out a memo to players earlier this month that stated that the league is seeking a hard salary cap that would be a 22% reduction from the current $58-million soft-cap figure.

The union argued in its NLRB claim that the NBA has engaged in “classic ‘take it or leave it’ bargaining that is “intended to delay action on a renewal [collective bargaining agreement] until the NBA locks out the employees in order to coerce them into accepting the NBA’s harsh and regressive demands.”

The league and players have a bargaining session scheduled during the NBA Finals in Dallas or Oklahoma City.

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GABORONE, Botswana (IRIN) – Patients and schoolchildren are emerging as the biggest losers from a strike by public service workers in Botswana which is entering its sixth week.

Close to a 100,000 public servants, including about 1,500 considered essential workers, are staying away from their posts while government and unions tussle over salaries.

Medical practitioners have disregarded warnings by the Botswana Health Professions Council to go back to work or risk being deregistered – with the result that major health centres like the Nyangabgwe Referral Hospital in Francistown and Princess Marina Hospital in the capital, Gaborone, are barely functioning, and smaller clinics have closed completely.

Maria Bogadi, 24, is expecting her second child any day and is unsure where to go when her labour pains begin.

“What will I do if there is no one to attend to me at the hospital?” she said. “I cannot afford to go to a private clinic, they are very expensive.”

Bogadi and her husband usually survive on the small income they receive doing casual labour at public facilities through a government initiative called `Ipelegeng’ which provides limited employment to some 50,000 beneficiaries. While Bogadi’s husband continues to do work through the programme, he has not been paid since the strike began.

Winfred Rasina, an activist from the opposition Botswana Movement for Democracy, told IRIN the poor and the marginalized had been hardest hit by the disruption of public services.

“The projects meant for the poor such as `Ipelegeng’ are at a standstill because staff… are on strike,” she told IRIN.

Rasina added that the rich and middle classes were less affected because they were not dependent on government handouts and mostly used private schools and doctors.

When the strike action started on 18 April, it was meant to last only 10 days, but the government said it could not afford unions’ demands for a 16 percent wage increase and offered 5 percent. That figure has now been revised to 3 percent.

In a public address, President Ian Khama slammed union leaders for failing to appreciate that the country was recovering from a recession which had left the government with a significant deficit.

“You cannot give what you don’t have, that is a fact,” said Khama. “We should all be in this together and I have no intention of drawing out this painful recession any longer than it has to be. So I am afraid we have stood our ground and we will continue to stand our ground.”

Schools shut

The minister of education closed all public, primary and secondary schools indefinitely on 16 May following violent clashes between the police and students who were protesting about the absence of teachers in classrooms.

Later that day, the government announced that it had fired all essential workers who had refused to return to work in contempt of a court order that barred them from striking, including doctors, nurses and pharmacists already in short supply at public hospitals.

The Botswana Centre for Human Rights (Ditshwanelo) released a statement noting that the stalemate between government officials and union leaders had already led to the loss of lives due to the absence of adequate medical staff at health facilities.

Delays in the supply of medication and problems with waste collection caused by the strike have also had an impact on public health.

The Botswana Confederation of Commerce, Industry and Manpower (BOCCIM) said the protracted strike had also had a negative impact on the economy, causing serious cash flow problems for many companies that relied on government orders for goods and services.

“Businesses in all categories and sectors have experienced, in general, a slow growth period,” said the Confederation in a statement.

“We’ve had some instances where BOCCIM business members indicated that they may close shop within a month if the situation does not subside.”

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– Provided by Integrated Regional Information Networks.

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Indianapolis, IN, United States (AHN Sports) – According to numerous reports, the NFL is canceling next month’s rookie symposium in Canton, Ohio.

League officials are scheduled to officially inform teams of the cancellation during today’s NFL Spring Meeting in Indianapolis.

The symposium is designed to teach rookies life lessons on dealing with football, finances and their new lifestyle. Those lessons will have to wait.

Scheduled for June 26, the symposium was to been held in Canton, home of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, for the first time.

The league and the NFLPA are both waiting for a June 3 court hearing before the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on the legality of the ongoing lockout — the event is not going forward.

Teams have laid off or furloughed employees and had staff take pay cuts but the symposium is the first event to be called off due to the current labor unrest.

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Athens, Greece (AHN) – The Greek government is preparing tougher belt-tightening measures as it attempts to meet the terms of the country’s $110 billion (EUR 78 billion) bailout.

Prime Minister George Papandreou rejected debt restructuring ahead of a Monday cabinet meeting to tackle austerity measures, which includes tax hikes and sale of government assets.

Papandreou’s policy is in line with the European Central Bank stand that did not favor a debt restructuring for Greece. However, the drastic wage cut proposal may lead to more civil unrest among public employees. A study published on Sunday found that 80 percent of Greeks are not willing to make any more sacrifices for the country to enjoy further European Union and International Monetary Fund support for the bailout.

Experts opined that Greece is so mired in a debt spiral that more austerity measures would cause further recession and drastic drops in tax revenues. They warned that these economic consequences are self-reinforcing and very difficult to recover from.

While the prime minister is ready to fast track a $70.4 billion (EUR 50 billion) privatization program to raise more money to pay off the country’s mountain of debt, Papandreou said the government will keep its holdings in water and electricity utilities.

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Beijing, China (AHN) – Tight new controls on rare earth minerals were announced by China’s State Council on Thursday, which issued a national guideline for the industry.

World-wide high demand for rare earth minerals, which are essential in high tech manufacturing of electronics, has caused rapid development of mining for the minerals, which has exposed numerous problems.

Electronics that contain rare earths include everything from consumer electronics to hybrid car batteries and even weapons guidance systems.

Controls include export quotas for rare earth minerals. The new controls mark the first time rare earths have been designated a national strategic reserve in China.

Rare earth minerals are comprised of 17 chemical elements in the periodic table.

The commerce ministry began an immediate export quota on all iron alloys that contain more than 10 percent of rare earths.

In addition, China announced it would begin building a strategic reserve stockpile of rare earths.

The move was not unexpected.

But it is bound to increase anxiety over the availability of supplies to industries that depend on rare earths as well as anxiety over prices. China holds one-third of the world’s reserves of rare earths and provides more than 90 percent of global production.

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – Initial jobless claims declined by 29,000 to 409,000 for the week ending May 14 compared to the previous week’s tally of 438,000 claims.

That is still above the 400,000 mark. Analysts say first time unemployment compensation insurcance claims must drop below 400,000 and stay below that mark to signal the economy has turned around.

However, the less volatile four-week moving average was up by 1,250 from the previous figure, increasing to 439,000 claims.

The number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending April 30, the most recent week such data is available fell below the 8 million mark to 7,936,548, a decrease of 47,124 from the previous week.

Here is a look at which states had the largest increase in new claims for the week ending May 7.

• Alabama (+5,767)
• California (+4,015)
• Michigan (+3,122)
• Mississippi (+1,666)

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new york, ny, United States (AHN Sports) – Count New York Giants defensive tackle Chris Canty among those who feel that there will be NFL football this fall.

Canty for one feels that the labor impasse will be over soon enough and the season will get started when it is supposed to on Sept. 8.

“[The labor dispute] will definitely be settled. There will be a football season,” Canty told the New York Post Tuesday at the 18th annual Gridiron Gala at the Waldorf-Astoria in Manhattan, where he and Jets fullback Tony Richardson received awards for their commitment to community service.

“The fans don’t have to worry about that,” Canty added. “We’re going to have football this fall, and we’re going to try and put the quality product on the field that they are used to seeing come September.”

Canty is disappointed in Monday’s court ruling that froze a lower court’s injunction and allows the owners to continue the lockout at least until the players’ appeal begins June 3.

“It’s tough because you’d like to have the opportunity to prepare for the season in the offseason,” Canty said. “You’d like to be able to get with your teammates in the confines of the facilities and work with the coaches, to try and improve your football team and try to get ready to play your best football in the fall.”

Richardson feel the lockout has not affected him as much as a 16-year veteran of the league as it will younger players.

“I’m more concerned for guys who were just drafted,” he said. “They need to be in there working. They need to learn the lingo.”

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London, England, United Kingdom (AHN) – McDonald’s Europe will replace its cashiers with touch screen terminals and swipe cards at 7,700 outlets across the continent.

The move seeks to improve service and ensure the fast flow of diners amid difficult economic times.

McDonald’s Europe President Steve Easterbrook estimated that the replacement of cashiers by computer terminals would reduce customer serving times by three to four seconds per transaction.

McDonald’s Europe, which registered a 6.5 percent increase in sales growth for April, serves two million diners daily. The fast food chain’s European operations bested U.S. operations which logged a 4 percent growth and equaled sales growth in its Asian/Pacific, Middle Eastern and African operations.

The company’s operations was boosted primarily by McDonald’s outlets in U.K., France and Russia.

With the shift to terminals, diners in these outlets could no longer pay in cash but would have to use credit or debit cards to purchase meals.

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Sacramento, CA, United States (AHN) – The impasse over extending taxes continues in California despite a revised budget plan from Gov. Jerry Brown that relies on an unanticipated rise in revenue. Republicans have insisted on an alternative plan that would cut compensation for state workers by 10 percent.

The updated budget takes into account a current-year tax revenue increase of $2.8 billion and a budget year earnings boost of $3.5 billion, for a total adjusted revenue of $6.6 billion.

The windfall, combined with steps already implemented by Brown since taking office, has reduced the state’s deficit from $26.6 billion to $9.6 billion, which consists of a current shortfall of $4.8 billion and another $4.8 billion in the fiscal year starting this July.

Brown’s previous budget plan reduced spending by $12.5 billion and relied on revenue of $12 billion from extending taxes. His new budget cuts spending by $11.2 billion because of an increase in funds for public schools by $3 billion.

Additional cost-cutting measures such as the elimination of 43 boards and commissions, as well as more than 5,000 state jobs, compensates for a revenue package that has failed to attract support from Republicans.

Brown, who assumed office in January having served two terms as governor three decades ago, has dropped his plan to raise the personal income tax. Under his revised plan, Californians will pay $2 billion less in income taxes compared to his initial proposal. However, he is still seeking to extend the sales tax and vehicle license fee for five years through a ballot.

The tax package represents 42 percent of the revised plan, while spending cuts account for 48 percent. Cuts include previously announced measures such as the closure of 70 parks to save $11 million in the first year, a hiring freeze and the halving of the number of state cars and cell phones.

The ballot for the tax extensions must first be approved by two Republicans from the Assembly and two Republicans from the state Senate.

Republicans rejected the governor’s revised plan and accused him of “fund[ing] bigger government.”

“Assembly Republicans showed that we can protect funding for the classroom and law enforcement without raising taxes,” Assembly Minority Leader Connie Conway said in a statement. ” We call upon the governor to stop trying to raise people’s taxes and start working across party lines on a no-tax increase budget compromise.”

State GOP Chair Tom Del Beccaro added, “The bottom line is that Brown’s demand to increase spending while we have a deficit means that he still doesn’t understand that we can no longer spend beyond our means.”

The statemate with Republicans occurred in March when the governor suspended negotiations over what he said were “an ever changing list of collateral demands” in return for support for a special election, such as giving a $1 billion tax break to out-of-state corporations so the companies would bring jobs to California.

The alternative GOP budget plan relies on the higher April revenue to prevent cuts to education and law enforcement. It does not raise taxes and calls on state workers to “do their part” with a 10 percent reduction in pay, benefits and other employee costs, which Republicans say would provide the government with $1.1 billion in savings.

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