REI CEO Says Closing On Black Friday Is A 'Radical Idea'

REI will be sacrificing one of its top business days when it closes its 143 retail stores on Black Friday to encourage customers to spend time outside.

CEO Jerry Stritzke told HuffPost Live on Wednesday that the decision to close up shop for the day wasn't "made lightly," and admits that "it's a bit of a startling idea from a retail perspective."

"[We] certainly had to think hard about it. This is new news. I haven't spoken to very many of my contemporaries about the issue, but I'm excited by the idea," Stritzke said. "I think it's intriguing that we can create this conversation [about] something so central to our brand and kind of who we are."

This is the first time REI will close on Black Friday, even though the day after Thanksgiving has historically been a "top 10 business day" for the company, according to Stritzke. However, the company's decision exemplifies some retailers' recent opposition to keeping stores open on what is traditionally a family holiday, and the day after.

Online shoppers will still be able to purchase items from REI on Black Friday, though they'll initially be directed to a blackout screen imploring them to explore the outdoors. Online sales aren't the initiative's priority, however.

"It's easier to leave [the website] on than turning it off," Stritzke explained.

Watch Jerry Stritzke's conversation with HuffPost Live in the clip above.

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Amazon Prime Now Drivers Claim They Were Paid Below Minimum Wage

Well, that didn't take long.

It was just a few weeks ago that Amazon launched its Amazon Prime Now service in Los Angeles and several other metropolitan areas, promising customers one- and two-hour delivery for tens of thousands of products.

On Tuesday, four former Amazon Prime Now drivers in Southern California sued the online retail behemoth, claiming the labor model behind the service is a sham. The drivers had made deliveries for roughly a month before they filed their complaint, which alleges violations of minimum wage and overtime pay laws.

The lawsuit provides yet another glimpse at how Amazon keeps its prices low in part by shaving labor costs deep down in its logistics network.

The drivers named in the complaint were not actually Amazon employees. Rather, they were "independent contractors" working on behalf of a courier service called Scoobeez, which the lawsuit indicates has a contract with Amazon. Since the drivers don't work for Amazon, the retailer doesn't have to worry about paying payroll taxes, workers' compensation costs or unemployment insurance taxes on them.

And since the workers are independent contractors, Scoobeez doesn't bear those costs, either. The drivers must cover their own work-related expenses, including providing their own vehicles and gasoline. Therein lies the claim that the Amazon-Scoobeez arrangement runs afoul of labor law: After paying their own automobile expenses, the drivers say their wages fell below California's minimum wage of $9 per hour. They also claim they were not paid the required time-and-a-half rate when they worked more than eight hours a day.

The suit argues that the drivers are, in fact, employees of Scoobeez, not independent contractors, as they've been classified.

The drivers were working for hourly pay, as opposed to the per-delivery rate that's common in the courier industry, according to the suit. Beth Ross, the attorney who filed the case, says the drivers typically logged at least 50 miles per day on their cars, often reaching or exceeding 100 miles. After subtracting the cost of gasoline and wear and tear on the automobiles from the $11-per-hour wage, Ross says the pay came out to roughly $60 for 8.5 hours of work on some shifts, or approximately $7 per hour.

"They are being paid a sub-minimum wage, and Amazon knew that," Ross told The Huffington Post. "And they're giving away the service for free to customers. Well, guess who's paying for it? Down-and-out, down-on-their-luck low-wage workers with no other job opportunities."

(Note: The Amazon Prime Now service is free for Prime members requesting a two-hour delivery; it costs $7.99 per order for one-hour delivery, with a $15 minimum order. The Prime service itself costs $99 per year.)

An Amazon spokeswoman said the company does not comment on pending litigation. A message left for Scoobeez, which was named as a co-defendant in the suit, was not immediately returned.

The independent contractor scheme is a cost-saving arrangement that already facilitates many Amazon Prime deliveries, as HuffPost detailed last year in a story about the Amazon contractor Lasership. Many of that company's drivers said they earned so little after expenses that a car breakdown would put them out of business.

The use of independent contractors is fast becoming the norm in trucking and delivery services nationwide, since it saves companies so much money. FedEx is widely credited with pioneering the independent contractor model, and the delivery giant has been fending off related lawsuits from drivers for years. Ross successfully sued FedEx on behalf of drivers in a closely watched case that was settled earlier this year for $228 million.

In addition to the minimum wage and overtime claims, the Amazon Prime Now lawsuit also accuses the company of breach of contract. The Amazon Prime Now app allows customers to leave a tip for their courier, but Ross alleges that the four drivers did not receive all their tips.

"This is brand-new ground for Amazon," Ross said of the Prime Now service. "They have the opportunity to make it right before this becomes a very entrenched business practice. They can set themselves apart from the rest of so-called sharing economy."

This Startup Offers Women An Amazing, Affordable and Thoughtful Perk

Not every company can afford to offer Netflix-level year-long maternity leaves. In fact, even Netflix doesn't offer that benefit to all of its workers. Still, there are creative ways to give perks to new moms. 

Domo, a 5-year-old startup based in Utah with a workforce of 600 employees, came up with something pretty innovative.

Every pregnant woman at the company gets $2,000 in gift cards to buy maternity clothes, according to an article by Claire Zillman in Fortune. 

If you've ever had to go to work in an office while pregnant, you will instantly understand why this is awesome.

For those of you who haven't, here's the deal: No one really wants to spend/waste money on maternity clothes -- you only need them for a very limited amount of time and they are expensive. Most of us just sort of muddle through, buying a few things, borrowing a lot of things and making do with stuff in our closet that is stretchy or big.

That's fine when you're home on the weekends, but it's a big bummer at the office, where you want to maintain a professional appearance and often wind up donning some pretty weird garments. Like, oh I don't know, a maternity shirt your cousin wore in the 1990s with a bow at the collar that seems like an OK idea in the morning but makes you feel like a sad, old Christmas present. (That may be something I know about firsthand.)

Domo's chief executive came up with the idea for the perk after his assistant became pregnant, Zillman told Fortune. 

The company, which helps other businesses manage their data, doesn't offer Cadillac-level maternity leave. You get one month at full pay and then six weeks at partial pay. Five or six people have used the clothing benefit so far, Fortune reports.

Would more paid leave probably be preferable to a new wardrobe? Yes, sure. Still, the gift cards are a nice idea and certainly signal to employees that they're valued at a time that can feel very uncertain to a lot of women. And small signals like that add up, making employees more loyal to companies, which are then less likely to have to train new workers because their current ones stick around. It's a win-win -- and nobody has to dress like a Christmas present.

 

2 Simple Ways To Keep Healthy At A Demanding Job

Kamala Harris is one of the most accomplished women in U.S. politics, but she still finds time to take care of herself.

Harris served as the district attorney of San Francisco before being named the state's attorney general in 2011. She was the first woman, first African-American and the first Asian-American to hold the job. Now, she's running for the U.S. Senate, when current California Senator Barbara Boxer steps down in 2016. 

In a Friday interview with Lenny Letter, Lena Dunham's new email newsletter, Harris shared how she keeps balance in her life. It's very simple: eat good food and exercise every day, even when you are working around the clock.

In order to find balance, I feel very strongly about two things in particular in terms of routine. Work out, and eat well. I can’t say how many women I’ve mentored in college. I say, "Are you working out every morning?" No. Then I say, “You’ve got to work out.” It has nothing to do with your weight. It’s about your mind. I work out every morning. Only half an hour. I get on the treadmill. That’s it. Every morning, I don’t care what time. It gets your blood flowing. It gets your adrenaline flowing. I believe in eating well. It’s not fanatical. Eat good food. Make sure you’ve got good vegetables.

Harris's claims are backed up by the research. A 2012 study in the journal Population Health Management showed both unhealthy eating and a lack of exercise were linked to massive drops in workplace productivity. 

Time to go jump on the treadmill!

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Even The Most Elite Women Are Subject To The Gender Pay Gap

A business degree, even from one from a top school in the country, won't be enough to protect women from the gender gap in compensation.

A report Bloomberg Businessweek published Tuesday found that the difference in pay for men and women swells as time goes by. Both groups leave their MBA programs earning about the same -- men's $105,000 to women's $98,000 -- but the split becomes more exacerbated years later. By the time they're six to eight years out of school, median compensation for men is $175,000, and $140,000 for women. For the latter, that rounds out to about 80 percent of men's paychecks, proving unfortunately that the roughly 78 cents women make to a man's dollar still holds up.

The study counters arguments that the pay gap between men and women results from a discrepancy in education and skills, Businessweek reporter Natalie Kitroeff told HuffPost Live on Wednesday. "We're looking at them coming out of the same schools, in the same years," Kitroeff said. "It was surprising to find that there was such a persistent gap, and we found this across every single industry."

Men gain the most ground in year-end bonuses. When those are excluded, the pay gap shrinks. Women who graduated Columbia's business school between 2007 and 2009, for example, earned a median of $170,000 in 2014, while men raked in $270,000. The difference in base salaries, though, was just $30,000.

The study's findings also reject the notion that the gap stems from women choosing to go into fields that pay less. Generally, men do enter the more lucrative industries, including consulting, real estate and finance, at higher rates -- 43 percent of men versus 32 percent of women -- but "even when women went into the highest-paying industries, they were paid less," Kitroeff said.

And let's not forget that the gender pay gap starts way before higher degrees. At the most elite colleges in the U.S., male alumni far outearn their female classmates, with Harvard men earning an average of $53,600 more than women 10 years after they start their undergraduate studies.

Even The Most Elite Women Are Subject To The Gender Pay Gap

A business degree, even from one from a top school in the country, won't be enough to protect women from the gender gap in compensation.

A report Bloomberg Businessweek published Tuesday found that the difference in pay for men and women swells as time goes by. Both groups leave their MBA programs earning about the same -- men's $105,000 to women's $98,000 -- but the split becomes more exacerbated years later. By the time they're six to eight years out of school, median compensation for men is $175,000, and $140,000 for women. For the latter, that rounds out to about 80 percent of men's paychecks, proving unfortunately that the roughly 78 cents women make to a man's dollar still holds up.

The study counters arguments that the pay gap between men and women results from a discrepancy in education and skills, Businessweek reporter Natalie Kitroeff told HuffPost Live on Wednesday. "We're looking at them coming out of the same schools, in the same years," Kitroeff said. "It was surprising to find that there was such a persistent gap, and we found this across every single industry."

Men gain the most ground in year-end bonuses. When those are excluded, the pay gap shrinks. Women who graduated Columbia's business school between 2007 and 2009, for example, earned a median of $170,000 in 2014, while men raked in $270,000. The difference in base salaries, though, was just $30,000.

The study's findings also reject the notion that the gap stems from women choosing to go into fields that pay less. Generally, men do enter the more lucrative industries, including consulting, real estate and finance, at higher rates -- 43 percent of men versus 32 percent of women -- but "even when women went into the highest-paying industries, they were paid less," Kitroeff said.

And let's not forget that the gender pay gap starts way before higher degrees. At the most elite colleges in the U.S., male alumni far outearn their female classmates, with Harvard men earning an average of $53,600 more than women 10 years after they start their undergraduate studies.

There’s A Shortage Of Cooks In America. Here’s The Simple Solution.

Despite what some viral videos would have you believe, there are too few cooks in America.

High-end restaurants are having trouble finding cooks who are skilled enough to prepare their dishes, according to a New York Times report published Wednesday. Restaurants have spent years putting off raising the pay at the back of the house, and it's finally catching up with them.

There's a lot of handwringing from established chefs about how kids these days aren't willing to submit themselves to the tough conditions to which junior members of the kitchen staff are traditionally exposed.

"Many chefs blame television for presenting unrealistic versions of life in restaurant kitchens, and they are outraged that the skills they have mastered over decades are viewed as optional by the new generation," the Times' Julia Moskin writes.

It's possible, though, that there is something much simpler going on: Would-be cooks don't think the work is worth the pay. Below is a chart showing the median annual pay of cooks and head chefs since late 2001. The orange lines show where that pay would be if it had kept up with inflation. Not only is pay for the average chef quite low, especially for the first few years -- it's actually getting worse. 

That said, the Times story itself is not exactly concerned with the average hash-slinging job. The real work shortage, according to the Times, is in the high-end kitchens:

The demand is up for chefs who can produce elegant food and know their way around a pair of tweezers, but many young cooks reject entry-level kitchen jobs -- with their harsh conditions, low pay and long hours -- where those skills are taught ... To effect change, [restaurateurs] say, they will soon be forced to raise prices.

What's happening is that foodie culture and celebrity chefs have vastly expanded both the demand for complicated food and the aspirations of chefs looking to make their mark on the industry. But every new trendy restaurant needs several line cooks who can execute an ambitious menu for a relative pittance. Outside of the truly exceptional restaurants with multiple Michelin stars, those worker bees are getting harder to find. This is particularly true in large cities with soaring rents, and in small cities where there just aren't enough experienced cooks to go around. The sweet spots, where things seem to be going OK, are biggish-but-not-too-expensive cities like Seattle, Houston and Portland, Oregon, according to the Times.

It's pretty clear the solution here is to raise wages. Making life better in the kitchen might help a little, but nothing attracts people to jobs like cash. The problem is that restaurant margins are nearly always thin -- so there's not a lot of room to raise wages without raising prices. And that risks giving loyal diners sticker shock, particularly in an economy where customers' paychecks aren't exactly getting more robust. You can see why restaurateurs might want to put off this course of action as long as possible.

But it looks like change is finally on the way. A number of minimum wage laws are coming down the pike, particularly in New York and California, that are likely to force restaurants to change. And the industry is making some moves of its own. 

Last week, restaurateur Danny Meyer made a splash by announcing in Eater that he's eliminating tipping from all of his restaurants in New York, joining a select group of restaurants in the city that have already done away with the practice. Instead, Meyer said, he will compensate his staff fairly by raising prices across the menu. The real winners in this new system will be the cooks, who don't share waiters' tips under the traditional arrangement.

Eater's Ryan Sutton explains the way things work at a fancy New York restaurant: "Some of the city’s top servers easily clear $100,000 annually. But the problem isn’t what waiters make, it’s what cooks make. A mid-level line cook, even in a high-end kitchen, doesn’t have generous patrons padding her paycheck, and as such is, on average, unlikely to make much more than $35,000 a year."

Meyer explicitly says in that story that his concern is the dwindling supply of talent in the kitchen. 

Uber Driver's Rape Sentencing Is Just The Latest Controversy For Company

A former Massachusetts Uber driver has been sentenced to 10 to 12 years in prison after raping a female passenger, adding to a growing list of Uber drivers accused of sexual assault.

Boston native Alejandro Done, 47, who pled guilty, was sentenced last Friday on charges including kidnapping, assault and battery, and aggravated rape, according to USA Today.

On Dec. 6, 2014, Done picked up a woman heading to her home in Cambridge. Done told the woman that she would have to pay him in cash. The two went to an ATM to withdraw money, then Done drove her to a secluded location, reported the Star Tribune.

Done kept the victim trapped in the car as he strangled and sexually assaulted her. 

The felon has previously been charged with five other unsolved sexual assaults that happened in the Boston area between 2006 and 2010. That case is still pending. Uber told USA Today that Done had passed a background check, and had no prior criminal record.

"The defendant preyed upon a young woman who trusted that he was who he portrayed himself to be," District Attorney Marian Ryan said in a statement. "I encourage the public to take precautions when using any ride-sharing service."

In another recent case, in South Carolina, a sixth-grade teacher, who was moonlighting as an Uber driver was arrested on charges of kidnapping and forcible rape. Patrick Aiello, 39, allegedly assaulted a 23-year-old woman in August. The woman managed to escape from the car and was struck by another one in the process.  

A former Uber driver in India, Shiv Kumar Yadav, was convicted of raping a female passenger Tuesday. 

Many states in the U.S. are demanding that Uber ensure its background checks are more thorough. Last year, prosecutors in California filed a complaint against the ride-hailing service for failing to adequately vet drivers, some of whom have been convicted sex offenders, kidnappers and murderers.

Last April, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker proposed a bill giving his state oversight in background checks. Uber has backed the legislation proposal, and hosts a petition on its website in favor of the governor's plan, which has more than 30,000 signatures.

Uber faces a litany of other problems. Last weekend, drivers called for a strike and demanded better pay and higher fares. The service has been suspended in Spain for creating unfair competition and it is banned in Italy for not adhering to licensing rules. French taxi drivers, who were upset by having to compete with Uber, took to the streets last summer, smashing cars and setting tires on fire.

The Secret Behind Norway's Electric Car Revolution

Norway is speeding past other countries in the electric car race.

The trick, it seems, is setting high vehicle taxes and offering generous exemptions.

By stripping electric cars of a 25 percent sales tax and a registration tax that averages more than $12,000 depending on  a vehicle's weight and polluting fossil fuel emissions, the Nordic country has zoomed past its original projections for swapping out its gas-burning fleet for electrics, according to a report published Friday in The New York Times. 

Norway expected 50,000 of the country's 2.5 million registered private vehicles to run on electricity by 2017. Instead, it hit 66,000 last month, in addition to 8,000 gasoline-electric hybrids.

But what's most impressive is how Norway powers those electric vehicles: gushing rivers. Over 95 percent of the country's electricity is produced by hydropower, according to 2011 data from the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate, a government agency. 

As David Jolly wrote in the Times:

That makes Norway’s electricity cleaner and relatively cheap -- a further impetus for adopting e-cars. (A country where much of the electricity is generated by coal-fired power plants would not see as many environmental benefits from switching to electric vehicles.)

And all that despite the fact that fossil fuels have enriched Norway. The country -- which is not part of the European Union and uses its own currency, the krone -- is the world's seventh-largest producer of oil and third-biggest natural gas exporter. 

The issue with electric cars in the United States is they suck energy from a grid powered by burning fossil fuels. That increases their carbon footprint. Considering electric cars are meant to reduce global emissions and combat climate change, that's a problem.

In contrast with Norway, hydropower made up just 6 percent of U.S. electricity production last year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Coal accounted for 39 percent, and natural gas hit 27 percent. 

Sorry Folks, But Standing Desks May Not Make You Any Healthier

You've probably heard that keeping your rear planted in your desk chair for hours on end may be as much of a health hazard today as smoking was for previous generations.

Prolonged sitting has been linked to an increased risk of heart disease, cancer and even premature death. But at least we have standing desks to combat the problem, right? Maybe not.

According to a new study, published online in the International Journal of Epidemiology on Oct. 9, standing at your desk may be no better than sitting, and that's because it's the being still that has the negative impact on your health. (Maybe it's time to replace your standing desk with a treadmill desk.)

For the study, the researchers monitored the behavior and health of 3,720 men and 1,412 women over the course of 16 years. Beginning in 1985, the London-based volunteers recorded how many hours a week they spent sitting.

At the end of the 16-year period, the researchers tallied the hours and then checked the National Health Service Central Registry and determined that 450 of the participants had died. But the researchers found no correlation between time spent sitting and mortality.

The findings challenge previous research showing that sitting for long periods can shorten your lifespan even if you exercise often.

"Any stationary posture where energy expenditure is low may be detrimental to health, be it sitting or standing. The results cast doubt on the benefits of sit-stand work stations," Dr. Melvyn Hillsdon, associate professor of Sport and Health Sciences at the University of Exeter in England and a co-author of the study, said in a written statement.

The researchers concluded that sitting itself won't kill you. Rather, a sedentary lifestyle in general may be what's harmful to your health. 

"Research is not black and white, and if a single study finds X or Y that doesn’t mean that this is the truth we should all go along with," Dr. Emmanuel Stamatakis, associate professor at the University of Sydney in Australia and a co-author of the study, said in an email. "The recent study findings are in disagreement with the rest of the literature and there must be a reason for this."

Also on HuffPost:

Sorry Folks, But Standing Desks May Not Make You Any Healthier

You've probably heard that keeping your rear planted in your desk chair for hours on end may be as much of a health hazard today as smoking was for previous generations.

Prolonged sitting has been linked to an increased risk of heart disease, cancer and even premature death. But at least we have standing desks to combat the problem, right? Maybe not.

According to a new study, published online in the International Journal of Epidemiology on Oct. 9, standing at your desk may be no better than sitting, and that's because it's the being still that has the negative impact on your health. (Maybe it's time to replace your standing desk with a treadmill desk.)

For the study, the researchers monitored the behavior and health of 3,720 men and 1,412 women over the course of 16 years. Beginning in 1985, the London-based volunteers recorded how many hours a week they spent sitting.

At the end of the 16-year period, the researchers tallied the hours and then checked the National Health Service Central Registry and determined that 450 of the participants had died. But the researchers found no correlation between time spent sitting and mortality.

The findings challenge previous research showing that sitting for long periods can shorten your lifespan even if you exercise often.

"Any stationary posture where energy expenditure is low may be detrimental to health, be it sitting or standing. The results cast doubt on the benefits of sit-stand work stations," Dr. Melvyn Hillsdon, associate professor of Sport and Health Sciences at the University of Exeter in England and a co-author of the study, said in a written statement.

The researchers concluded that sitting itself won't kill you. Rather, a sedentary lifestyle in general may be what's harmful to your health. 

"Research is not black and white, and if a single study finds X or Y that doesn’t mean that this is the truth we should all go along with," Dr. Emmanuel Stamatakis, associate professor at the University of Sydney in Australia and a co-author of the study, said in an email. "The recent study findings are in disagreement with the rest of the literature and there must be a reason for this."

Also on HuffPost:

One Of America's Most Influential Restaurateurs Is Eliminating Tips

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Noted restaurateur Danny Meyer, the CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group, announced plans on Wednesday to banish tipping at each of the group's 13 full-service New York City restaurants.

According to The New York Times, the rollout for this initiative will begin in November, and is expected to take a full year to implement. Union Square Hospitality Group restaurants include everything from The Modern, a Michelin-starred restaurant at the Museum of Modern Art, to Marta, a high-end pizzeria north of Madison Square Park.

Meyer explained the decision in a statement:

Recently, our entire company has been engaged in a robust conversation about how we can provide even more meaningful career opportunities and advancement for our 1,800 employees. It has become increasingly clear to us that a major obstacle in this endeavor is the practice of tipping.
 
There are countless laws and regulations that determine which positions in a restaurant may, and may not share in gratuities. We believe hospitality is a team sport, and that it takes an entire team to provide you with the experiences you have come to expect from us. Unfortunately, many of our colleagues — our cooks, reservationists, and dishwashers to name a few — aren’t able to share in our guests’ generosity, even though their contributions are just as vital to the outcome of your experience at one of our restaurants.

The lack of tips at the 13 restaurants will be offset by an across-the-board increase in prices, but in his statement, Meyer argued the end-cost to consumers won't change all that much, if at all.

"Once these changes are implemented, the total cost you pay to dine with us won’t differ much from what you pay now," he wrote.

"But for our teams, the change will be significant," Meyer added. "We will now have the ability to compensate all of our employees equitably, competitively, and professionally. And by eliminating tipping, our employees who want to grow financially and professionally will be able to earn those opportunities based on the merit of their work."

Meyer opened Union Square Cafe in 1985 at the age of 27, and is behind a number of acclaimed New York City restaurants. As Eater notes, he has clearly been mulling this over for some time, judging by this excerpt from a newsletter he wrote in 1994:

The American system of tipping is awkward for all parties involved: restaurant patrons are expected to have the expertise to motivate and properly remunerate service professionals; servers are expected to please up to 1,000 different employers (for most of us, one boss is enough!); and restaurateurs surrender their use of compensation as an appropriate tool to reward merit and promote excellence … Imagine, if to prompt better service from your shoe salesman, you had to tip on the cost of your shoes, factoring in your perception of his shoe knowledge and the number of trips he took to the stockroom in search of your size. As a customer, isn’t it less complicated that the service he performs is included in the price of your shoes?

Also on HuffPost: 

Self-Driving Buses Are Coming, But Not To America (Yet)

Singapore said Monday that it plans to start rolling out self-driving buses sometime next year.

The Ministry of Transport designated almost 4 miles of road to test the buses.

"We hope to one day deploy a network of demand-responsive shared vehicles to form a new mobility system for intra- and inter-town travel," the government said in a statement on Facebook. "This will provide convenient point-to-point transport mode within towns, and help us rely less on private cars. In time to come, we also wish to have self-driving buses operating on fixed routes and scheduled timings to reduce the heavy reliance on manpower."

But the tiny city-state isn't the only place in East Asia actively pursuing self-driving public transportation.

In nearby China, bus manufacturer Yutong said last October that tests on its autonomous bus yielded successful results while driving on a 20-mile stretch between Zhengzhou and Kaifeng, in Henan province.

By contrast, the race to produce safe self-driving vehicles in the U.S. has focused on personal cars. Google's self-driving cars look like individual bug-like pods. Tesla, on the hand, has added autonomous features to its newest all-electric vehicles.

American Apparel Lawsuit Is 'Mother Of All Sexual Harassment Cases,' Judge Says

Things are not going well for American Apparel founder and former CEO Dov Charney.

American Apparel's board fired Charney for misconduct, including sexual harassment, last December. He then turned around and sued the company for defamation. That lawsuit's prospects aren't looking good after the latest hearing.

At the Sept. 30 proceeding, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Terry Green blocked the suit -- but not before a few harsh words for Charney.

"You know, I think there’s a greater likelihood that I’ll be the first American astronaut stranded on Mars before [Charney] wins this lawsuit," Green said, according to Litigation Daily.

He didn't stop there. According to the Wall Street Journal, Green went on to describe how the case would go if it went to trial. He didn't think it would end well for Charney.

"No rational company would hire this guy,” Judge Green said at the Sept. 30 hearing, describing the arguments that would be made if Mr. Charney’s case went to trial. “It would be insane. This is sexual harassment. This is the mother of all sexual harassment cases. I mean, this is so far over the top, that you can’t see the top anymore. I mean, it’s just…”

Prior to Charney's outster, multiple former employees filed lawsuits against him alleging all sorts of misconduct, from choking a store manager to forcing an employee into "sex slavery."

The judge ended the hearing almost wistfully, according to Above the Law: "This would be certainly an entertaining trial. It certainly beats your usual breach of contract case." However, he went on, "I just don’t see it.”

American Apparel filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday.  

Stephen Hawking Says We Should Really Be Scared Of Capitalism, Not Robots

Machines won't bring about the economic robot apocalypse -- but greedy humans will, according to physicist Stephen Hawking.

In a Reddit Ask Me Anything session on Thursday, the scientist predicted that economic inequality will skyrocket as more jobs become automated and the rich owners of machines refuse to share their fast-proliferating wealth.

 

If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality.

Essentially, machine owners will become the bourgeoisie of a new era, in which the corporations they own won't provide jobs to actual human workers.

As it is, the chasm between the super rich and the rest is growing. For starters, capital -- such as stocks or property -- accrues value at a much faster rate than the actual economy grows, according to the French economist Thomas Piketty. The wealth of the rich multiplies faster than wages increase, and the working class can never even catch up.

But if Hawking is right, the problem won't be about catching up. It'll be a struggle to even inch past the starting line.  

Also on HuffPost:

Stephen Hawking Says We Should Really Be Scared Of Capitalism, Not Robots

Machines won't bring about the economic robot apocalypse -- but greedy humans will, according to physicist Stephen Hawking.

In a Reddit Ask Me Anything session on Thursday, the scientist predicted that economic inequality will skyrocket as more jobs become automated and the rich owners of machines refuse to share their fast-proliferating wealth.

 

If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality.

Essentially, machine owners will become the bourgeoisie of a new era, in which the corporations they own won't provide jobs to actual human workers.

As it is, the chasm between the super rich and the rest is growing. For starters, capital -- such as stocks or property -- accrues value at a much faster rate than the actual economy grows, according to the French economist Thomas Piketty. The wealth of the rich multiplies faster than wages increase, and the working class can never even catch up.

But if Hawking is right, the problem won't be about catching up. It'll be a struggle to even inch past the starting line.  

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Why Another Big Bank Is Jumping On The Anti-Coal Bandwagon

Citigroup on Monday became the third banking giant this year to slash its lending to coal-mining companies.

The move, which follows similar pledges this year from Bank of America and Crédit Agricole, will make it more difficult for companies producing coal, a major source of pollution and contributor to climate change, to finance future projects.

Now, credit lines extended to any coal companies by Citi must first gain "senior approval" and pass more rigorous ethics guidelines that factor in human rights.

"Citi's credit exposure to coal mining companies has declined materially since 2011," Citi said in a 10-page memo on its environmental practices. "Going forward, we commit to continue this trend of reducing our global credit exposure to coal mining companies." 

The U.S. coal industry has been a financial disaster this year. There have been a string of high-profile bankruptcies, and borrowing costs for U.S. coal companies soared from 8 percent at the start of the year to 65 percent in July.

These are all important indicators that the financing activity Citi has pledged to cut down on is getting riskier -- which means there are very good reasons for Citi to decrease its exposure to coal companies that have nothing to do with the environment. It's just what a smart banker should do.

But that still represents a shift for Citi, which, it's worth remembering, shoveled billions of dollars at bad mortgages in the period leading up to the financial crisis.

Citi did not immediately respond to questions about whether its new commitment goes beyond the decline in lending that would already be expected as the coal industry struggles. 

To be sure, there are signs that the banking industry is waking up to the economic and existential threats that climate change poses.

In a joint statement last week, a group of six colossal U.S. banks called for a "strong global climate agreement" during the United Nations' upcoming conference in Paris. Citi was among them.

But though progress has already been significant, the industry has a long way to go to take really meaningful steps to reduce climate change.

"Reducing credit exposure is only a partial step forward," Lindsey Allen, executive director of the nonprofit Rainforest Action Network, said in a statement. "We urge Citigroup and Wall Street laggards such as Morgan Stanley to cut all financing ties to both coal mining and coal-fired power."

One CEO's Quote Sums Up Resilience Of Flood-Drenched South Carolina

After the storm comes the sun.  

The chief executive of the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday urged workers to return to their jobs in hopes of kickstarting the region's economy after combined storm systems deluged 11 counties around the state capital.

"It's a sunny day here," Frank Knapp Jr. told The Huffington Post in a phone interview. "It's the first time I've seen sun in many days."

Floodwaters inundated homes and businesses around the state on Sunday after rains from Hurricane Joaquin combined with other weather systems. On Tuesday morning, the death toll from the storm rose to at least 11. The cost of damages is soaring beyond $1 billion. Some businesses in the inundated counties reported looting, according to local newspaper The State.

But commerce can carry humankind through its bleakest hours.

In Zaartari, the largest camp housing Syrian refugees in Jordan, residents have set up businesses along a road called Market Street, which is also known fondly as the Champs-Élysées. In New Orleans, a decade after the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina, restaurants like the Crazy Lobster Bar and Grill emerged stronger than before, knitting themselves into the fabric of the rebuilt city. In Berlin, where a razor wire company turned down a hefty contract that would have delivered a dangerous fencing product to Hungary to keep out refugees, even the refusal to engage in commerce can become an act of hope and human resilience.

Now, it's time for South Carolina's business community to rebuild.

"People need to get to work," Knapp said. "We need to get the economy back up and moving again."

Sadly, this the devastation in South Carolina could become a new normal. Though Gov. Nikki Haley said the area around Columbia hadn't seen such severe flooding "in a thousand years," extreme weather is expected to become more common as climate change, resulting largely from human air pollutants, intensifies.

"One thing we must not allow to influence our future behavior is the characterization of this storm as a 1 in a 1,000-year event," Knapp, who also vice chairs the nonprofit American Sustainable Business Council, wrote in a blog post on Monday evening. "Governor Haley has prominently used that statistic and many people will believe that this was simply a freak, almost Biblical act of nature that we will probably never see again. This is simply not the case and we do a disservice to the public by giving them false hope."

ATM Fees Have Never Been Higher

Ever been a little bit lazy or drunk and out too late and used a random ATM on a sidewalk, in a bar, at some strange bank? This is your annual reminder to stop.

The average out-of-network ATM fee is now $4.52, up 4 percent from last year and 21 percent since 2010, according to a report released Monday from Bankrate.com, a personal finance site that tracks banking costs. That includes both the fee charged by your bank and the out-of-network fee charged by the ATM operator.

“In all likelihood these fees are going to continue to go up,” Greg McBride, Bankrate’s chief financial analyst, told The Huffington Post.

Cities With Highest Average ATM Fees

Atlanta $5.15

New York $5.03

Phoenix $4.88

Miami $4.84

 Milwaukee $4.78

Cities Lowest Average ATM Fees

San Francisco $3.85

Cincinnati $3.86

Kansas City $4.01

Dallas $4.11

Seattle $4.21

Bankrate surveyed a total of 243 banks in 25 large U.S. markets in July and August, looking at ATM and overdraft fees of interest and noninterest accounts.

McBride said this is the ninth straight year ATM fees have gone up. And it’s happening for a bunch of reasons. First, people have gotten smarter about not using random ATMs, McBride said. Second, banks feel comfortable raising out-of-network fees because they don’t have to worry about alienating non-customers.

But mostly this is the result of regulations passed after the financial crisis that make it slightly more difficult for banks to levy more hidden and sneaky fees elsewhere. For example, a 2009 law requires that bank customers opt-in if they want the bank to lend them money when they overdraw their accounts.

Another law, part of the goliath Dodd-Frank Act, restricts the amount of money banks can charge retailers when you pay with a debit card, so-called swipe fees. 

So banks are making up the lost revenue at the ATM and by charging more for checking accounts. “If you own a restaurant and hamburger prices are restricted, you’d raise the price of soda and fries,” McBride explains.

Bankrate’s survey also found that just 37 percent of non-interest checking accounts are completely free, down from 76 percent in 2009.

If the fee picture seems bleak to you, the good news is: These ATM fees are much easier to avoid. You just need to stick with in-network ATMs and plan out your month of cash consumption a little more carefully. If you’re in a pinch, you can also choose to get cash back when you’re shopping at your local supermarket, McBride said.

Less hopeful: This is a strategy that won't be as easy for those typically lower-income people who live in underbanked areas.

Be careful out there, everyone.

Via: NerdWallet

 

Want To Make America Great Again? Support Working Women.

If Donald Trump, Jeb Bush and their fellow Republican presidential candidates truly want to make the United States “great again," there’s actually a reasonably simple way to do it: support working women.

The U.S. once had the world's highest percentage of women in the workforce, but over the past quarter-century, we’ve fallen behind. Policies that make it easier for women to work could vault us to the top again -- and stimulate economic growth, too.   

If American women were to enter the job market at the same rate as men, work the same hours as men and take jobs in sectors with higher productivity (think more women in tech, fewer at Walmart), gross domestic product would grow 4.2 percent over the next 10 years, according to a report released last week from researchers at McKinsey & Company. (A report from the International Monetary Fund estimates even higher growth, 5 percent, if women participated equally in the workforce.) That’s about $4.3 trillion more than what our GDP growth would be if it chugs along at an expected rate of 2.6 percent, the researchers said.

“This is one of the biggest levers they could pull, and one of the easiest ways to get a significant jump in GDP growth,” Kweilin Ellingrud, a managing partner at McKinsey who worked on the report, told The Huffington Post.

The full report considered how greater gender equality would affect GDP -- a measure of all the economic activity in the country -- globally and by region. The researchers broke out the U.S. numbers for HuffPost.

The last time the U.S. economy approached 4.2 percent GDP growth was during the Clinton administration -- when GDP grew at 3.8 percent. It’s about the same growth rate Bush is promising, and a bit less than what Trump said he’d deliver if elected president.

Bush and Trump both seem to believe they’ll increase GDP growth by cutting taxes on the rich, but economists have widely debunked the idea that such a proposal would actually be effective.

The stampede of women into the workforce that began in the late 1960s was one of the key drivers of U.S. economic growth in the second half of the 20th century, along with the invention of the Internet. 

But in recent decades, American women's ascendance in the workplace has flatlined. Since 1990, the percentage of U.S. women of working age (15-64) in the labor market has ticked up only one percentage point, to 75 percent. Meanwhile, European countries have surged ahead of us, according to data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development published in the Economic Report of the President.

Those countries were able to push the needle by enacting policies that support dual-income families: paid parental and sick leave, free universal preschool, subsidized child care and more pressure on businesses to enact policies that support parents. The U.S. doesn’t do any of that.

No Republican presidential candidate has voiced support for federally mandated paid parental leave of the sort you see in all other major industrialized countries -- and they don't even talk about that other stuff. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton does support a modest amount of paid leave and free preschool -- but she's hardly proposing the kinds of policies you'd find overseas, which are considered pretty far off the mainstream in the U.S.

Nearly one-third of the gap between the U.S. and these other countries can be traced back to the lack of work-family policies in the United States, according to a widely cited study from two researchers at Cornell University.

The McKinsey report comes to a similar conclusion. The researchers outline four things that keep women out of the workforce around the world:

1. A lack of education
2. Restrictions on women’s financial and digital freedom
3. An absence of legal protections against discrimination and abuse
4. Time spent on “free labor,” uncompensated work at home and child care.  

The good news is that the U.S. is pretty great at addressing those first three problems -- well ahead of much of the developing world. It’s on the “free labor” front that we fall down. Women are still doing the bulk of housework and child care, even though about 70 percent of women with children under the age of 18 have jobs. 

Are we, as a society, supporting these women so they can make the money that helps them care for their families? Are we making it relatively simple for a woman to have children and a career? We are not.

Many women, without access to paid parental leave, are back on the job just two weeks after giving birth. Others choose lower-paying, part-time work and juggle an intense and exhausting schedule of child care to scrape by. Some women who want to work must instead rely on government assistance because they cannot afford child care. Their lives, and the lives of their children, are measurably worse as a result.

Even at the highest levels of the workforce, women -- and, increasingly, men -- are finding it too difficult to manage home and work duties, as Anne-Marie Slaughter argues in her new book, Unfinished Business.

The McKinsey researchers are not suggesting that women simply abandon home and enter the workforce, but that there are all kinds of ways to help men and women better balance the time they spend on unpaid and paid work, Mekala Krishnan, another researcher, told HuffPost in an email. They include better on-site child care facilities at businesses, flexible work policies and a more equitable distribution of work between men and women.

Still, there’s a conservative argument that goes something like this: Well, if women work, then no one will have the babies!

In turns out the opposite is true. Indeed, in countries where it’s too hard to juggle motherhood and work, women choose work. Aiming to increase Japan's low birthrate and boost its economic growth, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe recently announced the country would make preschool free of charge and give more support to mothers and fathers. 

“Work-family policies are always framed as some nice thing to do,” Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, CEO of a gender balance consulting firm that works with Fortune 100 companies, told HuffPost. But it’s so much more than that. This is an economic issue that affects everyone.

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Massive Data Breach At Experian Exposes Personal Data For 15 Million T-Mobile Customers

Experian, the world's biggest consumer credit monitoring firm, on Thursday disclosed a massive data breach that exposed sensitive personal data of some 15 million people who applied for service with T-Mobile US Inc.

Connecticut's attorney general said he will launch an investigation into the breach.

Experian said it discovered the theft of the T-Mobile customer data from one of its servers on Sept. 15. The computer stored information about some 15 million people who had applied for service with telecoms carrier T-Mobile during the prior two years, Experian said.

T-Mobile Chief Executive John Legere said the data included names, addresses, birth dates, Social Security numbers, drivers license numbers and passport numbers. Such information is coveted by criminals for use in identity theft and other types of fraud.

"Obviously I am incredibly angry about this data breach and we will institute a thorough review of our relationship with Experian," T-Mobile Chief Executive John Legere said in a note to customers posted on the company's website. "But right now my top concern and first focus is assisting any and all consumers affected."

The Experian breach is the latest in a string of massive hacks that have each claimed millions - and sometimes tens of millions - of customer records, including the theft of personnel records from the U.S. government this year, a 2014 breach on JPMorgan Chase and a 2013 attack on Target Corp's cash register systems.

It is also the second massive breach linked to Experian. An attack on an Experian subsidiary that began before Experian purchased it in 2012 exposed the Social Security numbers of 200 million Americans and prompted an investigation by at least four states, including Connecticut.

Experian on Thursday said it had launched an investigation into the new breach and consulted with law enforcement.

The company offered two years of credit monitoring to all affected individuals. People, however, said that they did not want credit protection from a company that had been breached.

Legere responded by promising to seek alternatives.

"I hear you," he said on Twitter. "I am moving as fast as possible to get an alternate option in place by tomorrow."

Experian said the breach did not affect its vast consumer credit database.

Legere said no payment card or banking information was taken.

T-Mobile had nearly 59 million customers as of June 30. A representative for the carrier said that not all 15 million of the affected applicants had opened accounts with T-Mobile.

The telecom carrier's shares were down 1.3 percent in extended trading after closing little changed at $40.13 on the New York Stock Exchange.

In the earlier data breach affecting Experian, a Vietnamese national confessed in U.S. court last year to using a false identity to opening an account with the unit, known as Court Ventures, sometime before Experian purchased it in 2012.

A spokeswoman for Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen said on Thursday that it would investigate the latest attack.

The spokeswoman, Jaclyn Falkowski, declined to elaborate on the T-Mobile incident, but said the investigations of the Court Ventures matter "is active and ongoing."

(Additional reporting by Karen Friefeld and Arathy Nair; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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Gender Equality Won't Just Change Women's Lives -- It'll Change Everyone's

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What would the world be like if we achieved true equality for women?  

The global economy might be stronger, for one thing. But such a shift would need to come with trade-offs -- adjusting traditional gender roles and modifying public policies to support a balanced family life.

A recent report from McKinsey & Company estimated that if women were to achieve economic parity with men across the world -- meaning they worked the same hours and made the same amount of money in total -- the resulting economic output would add $28 trillion in global gross domestic product per year.

What the report doesn't mention, however, is who would take over the vast amount of unpaid labor that women around the world do for their households and families on a daily basis. 

True, women aren't the only ones who raise children, care for aging parents and sick relatives or do the cooking and cleaning; but globally, women are still the default caregivers in many places. If more women choose to pursue careers and professional leadership roles, more men also need to step into the role of caregiver. On top of that, governments and employers must recognize the importance of caregiving and provide benefits that encourage it. 

This is the point of foreign policy expert Anne Marie Slaughter's new book, Unfinished Business, a follow-up to her seminal 2012 Atlantic piece, "Why Women Still Can’t Have It All." 

At a book launch event Monday night hosted by the New America Foundation, where Slaughter serves as CEO, the author spoke to former New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn about what Slaughter calls the "infrastructure of care." In the U.S., this infrastructure barely exists. It used to be maintained largely by the women who stayed home. As women have gone into the workforce, families have had to patch together a way to take care of young children and ageing parents -- with less and less time to spare.

"We need an equal infrastructure of care: a set of arrangements and institutions that allows citizens to flourish not only in the pursuit of their individual goals but also in their relationships to one another," Slaughter wrote in her book.

We build and maintain roads as a society because we recognize that most people will need to use them. Why, she asked, do we not provide "high-quality paid care" for those who need it: the young, the sick and the elderly? 

Both women and men, she argued on Monday, must manage to balance their work and their families in a world where the workday is never really over, paid family leave is not a guarantee and childcare often costs more than rent. "We should think of this not as a women's problem, but as a care problem," Slaughter said at the event.

She added that while men need to step into larger family roles if there is going to be more equality at work, reworking society is a policy problem that goes far beyond the struggles of ambition in wealthy families. People across the class spectrum need more support than they currently get for caregiving.

Slaughter mentions in her book that one of the most progressive organizations when it comes to subsidizing care is, ironically, the Pentagon. The Department of Defense provides on-site day care for children of the men and women who work there. They also pay the day care employees just as well as other employes. 

"[T]he part of the U.S. government most directly responsible for upholding national security recognizes the need to pay wages that can attract and retain college- and graduate-school-educated workers to provide care and early learning to the children of all employees from birth onward," she wrote.

Indeed, Slaughter said in both the book and at Monday's talk that she believes the care of young children is important enough to rise to the level of a national security issue.

"Children's brains are shaped most in the first five years of their lives, so it's not an exaggeration to say that the care and education of our children from birth to age five is a national security issue," she wrote in her book.