PR Resource – Muarateweh.net

The three women at the center of a lawsuit filed by the federal government against Bloomberg LP are not the first to accuse the financial information company founded by Mayor Michael Bloomberg of discrimination.

A separate suit was recently filed in Manhattan federal court by another woman who said she also experienced discrimination based on her pregnancy and maternity leave, like the three women in the suit filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Thursday.

Monica Prestia, who began working for Bloomberg LP as a sales representative in 1997, filed a suit in June claiming the company discriminated against her after she became pregnant in February of 2005.

The company treated her differently than similarly employed male workers and subjected her to “harassment, hostile work environment and other forms of discrimination,” the complaint said.
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Local union leaders on Friday endorsed a tentative agreement between General Motors Corp. and the United Auto Workers that requires GM to pay out at least $35 billion for retiree health care, establishes lower wages for thousands of new employees and offers an unprecedented number of promises for future work at U.S. plants, according to a summary of the agreement provided by the UAW.

The agreement still is subject to a vote of GM’s 74,000 UAW members, which should be completed by Oct. Ǫ. UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said he’s confident members will support the agreement and that Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC will match many of its terms.

“We’re happy with this stuff,” he said.

GM spokesman Dan Flores said both UAW workers and the company benefit from the agreement. GM didn’t release any specifics of the contract Friday; the company typically waits until the contract is ratified to make detailed comments. (continue reading…)

DIBRUGAR, India – He’s a genteel man, with a sprawling plantation house, courtly manners and an estate of carefully trimmed tea bushes that stretches across the gentle hills of Assam, blanketing the land as far as you can see.

Manoj Jalan, a fifth-generation planter with a 5,000-acre estate, summed up his situation simply: “This is a rough business.”

“I was born here, in this building,” Jalan said, standing in front of a colonial-era house. “Tea is a way of life for us.”

India has long been famous for its tea, and the $1.5 billion industry launched by British colonials nearly two centuries ago is, after China’s, the world’s second largest. More than 1 million tons were grown in 2007, much of it here in the northeastern state of Assam.

But production costs are mounting and a brutal insurgency has targeted the planters. (continue reading…)

In a time of collapsing mega-deals, a few well-structured buyouts with sound companies can still get done. Deals to take 3Com Corp. and Avaya Inc. private that made news on Friday show that major private-equity transactions are squeaking through these days, making a lie of the recent refrain that deal making is dead.

Wounded, yes. Dead, no.

“We’ve been through a real shock to the system, and if you’re not somewhat nervous then you don’t have a pulse,” said Alfred E. Goldman, chief market strategist of A.G. Edwards & Sons. “But, it’s like any investment, the good will triumph over the bad ones.”

The dislocation of global credit markets — where buyout shops raise money to acquire companies and then take them private — has caused big private equity deals to dry up. (continue reading…)

NEW YORK – American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. bounced property tax checks for some Maryland homeowners, local and state officials said Monday, and they have demanded an explanation from the bankrupt mortgage lender and servicer.

The Maryland Commissioner of Financial Regulation filed an inquiry with American Home Mortgage on Friday. Melville, N.Y.-based American Home Mortgage has five days to respond to the letter, said Joseph Rooney, the deputy commissioner for Maryland’s financial regulator.

Officials in New York and Washington state are also looking into bounced checks there.

Mortgage servicers typically collect property tax payments each month with a borrower’s mortgage payment. The property taxes are then placed in an escrow account and held until property tax bills are due. Because they are placed in an escrow account, funds should always be available to make the payments. (continue reading…)

SINGAPORE – Oil prices continued to drop Tuesday after the easing of concerns about supply disruption in the Gulf of Mexico, but analysts said expectations of tighter supplies ahead may limit the decline.

Light, sweet crude for November delivery fell 58 cents to $80.37 a barrel in Asian electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by midmorning in Singapore.

The decline was a continuation of the overnight trend that saw the contract fall 67 cents a barrel to settle at $80.95 a barrel, said David Moore, a commodity strategist with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney.

“The U.S. production in the Gulf of Mexico is coming back on-stream, so that’s taken some of the heat out of the oil price,” Moore said. A tropical depression developing in the Gulf helped push crude oil futures to record levels above $83 a barrel last week as oil companies evacuated oil platforms and shut in production. (continue reading…)

Wall Street retreated Monday, taking a break from last week’s big advances, as financial stocks fell amid fresh concerns about tightness in the credit markets. With little fresh data to go on Monday, investor enthusiasm weakened by midsession. Sectors from banks to homebuilders showed declines, while technology stocks fared better.

Investors worried that the credit markets might not loosen up despite last week’s half-point rate cut by the Federal Reserve. Stocks began to give up their gains after the International Monetary Fund warned the credit upheaval hurting international financial markets would likely be “protracted” and dampen growth of the global economy. The financial sector also weakened after Reuters reported that Deutsche Bank might have to write down a portion of its loan portfolio.

While its stock didn’t fall sharply, General Motors Corp. shares lost ground after the United Auto Workers began its first nationwide strike during auto contract negotiations since 1976. (continue reading…)