There's not a lot of California Employment news today (or any, really) so I thought I'd post a link to an article about the new California quarter, reported by the Sacramento Bee.
For as much patriotism as I see these days, I hear just about as much anti-California sentiment within the state as I used to hear in other states against it. That's a shame. As employment lawyers of any stripe, we know things aren't perfect, but things are pretty good too.
Eureka!
1/31/2005
1/27/2005
Internet Security: Too much?
Apropos of my recent post on the many vulnerabilities of Microsoft Internet Explorer, I thought I would share another experience that has arisen in the context of this blog.
From time to time in connection with my law practice, I send out via email information to clients with an attachment. Sometimes there is little or no information in the actual text part of the email. Worse, sometimes there are multiple recipients.
Today, I noticed that three recipients rejected my email. Upon further investigation, I discovered that my law firm's IP address had been listed on a spammer service. (You can check yours here http://openrbl.org/ ) Ostensibly, this is because some mail with a virus or trojan was relayed at some point from this IP, or there was on open proxy.
This particular server runs a dedicated e-mail virus scanner that updates its indexes every 2 hours and heuristically scans for malicious code. It is behind a very expensive, very fancy Firebox firewall with literally five or six open ports. I have performed a security audit of this server on my own, and, I should add that it would be very difficult to penetrate it from outside.
I requested that my IP be removed, but I have no idea how effective this will be. This database claims that it lists 82,000+ IPs.
This is going too far.
I hate spam. I think it and spyware are combining to break the Internet. However, seriously impeding the flow of legitimate email is even more damaging. Spams can be deleted; block legitimate emails are unknown to the recipient!
Here are some suggestions in the meantime.
(1) No more e-mail lists. Use a blog or a hosted webpage and have people check the link.
(2) Use your ISP's SMTP relay exclusively (they might have ridiculous restrictions thought)
(3) Request a delivery receipt or a read receipt on all important messagegs.
It's one thing having to work to stop spam. It's another thing to have to monitor services tracking spammers to make sure your legit mail is working.
From time to time in connection with my law practice, I send out via email information to clients with an attachment. Sometimes there is little or no information in the actual text part of the email. Worse, sometimes there are multiple recipients.
Today, I noticed that three recipients rejected my email. Upon further investigation, I discovered that my law firm's IP address had been listed on a spammer service. (You can check yours here http://openrbl.org/ ) Ostensibly, this is because some mail with a virus or trojan was relayed at some point from this IP, or there was on open proxy.
This particular server runs a dedicated e-mail virus scanner that updates its indexes every 2 hours and heuristically scans for malicious code. It is behind a very expensive, very fancy Firebox firewall with literally five or six open ports. I have performed a security audit of this server on my own, and, I should add that it would be very difficult to penetrate it from outside.
I requested that my IP be removed, but I have no idea how effective this will be. This database claims that it lists 82,000+ IPs.
This is going too far.
I hate spam. I think it and spyware are combining to break the Internet. However, seriously impeding the flow of legitimate email is even more damaging. Spams can be deleted; block legitimate emails are unknown to the recipient!
Here are some suggestions in the meantime.
(1) No more e-mail lists. Use a blog or a hosted webpage and have people check the link.
(2) Use your ISP's SMTP relay exclusively (they might have ridiculous restrictions thought)
(3) Request a delivery receipt or a read receipt on all important messagegs.
It's one thing having to work to stop spam. It's another thing to have to monitor services tracking spammers to make sure your legit mail is working.
Assemblyman Disses New Regs
The Sacramento Bee reports.
State labor officials say they are simply providing choices for employees who want to work through meal breaks and leave early, rather than take a 30-minute breather in the middle of their shift."Frankly, I think this proposal is simply an attempt to usurp power from the Legislature and other public entities, and to consolidate it within the administration," said Koretz, D-West Hollywood.
And here's a puzzling comment. "Wednesday's hearing was the latest twist in what has become a recurrent theme at the Capitol: allegations that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is taking a heavy-handed approach to labor unions." As far as I know, meal periods are not one of the things that can be bargained away in a CBA, so I don't see how that affects unions per se.
Also, "seven former employees of Thunder Valley Casino have filed a civil suit alleging sexual harassment, age and sex discrimination and wrongful termination." The Bee reports. (It's hard to beat the Bee for California issues.) I think this will be an interesting and important development, ie to see how these turn out.
NLRB finds LA area hotels' declaration of an impasse was illegal. The Los Angeles Times reports.
1/26/2005
Views on Norcal Grocery Contract
The Contra Costa Times reports—the article frames the contract as less than perfect, but, of course, this one was reached without a nearly 5 month-long strike.
The Los Angeles Times notes that SBC is bringing back traditional pensions.
CLEL also notes that there haven't been any interesting employment law cases out of California courts for a while, but, if you're interested Kim at the UCL Practitioner is tracking the day-by-day evolution of Proposition 64.
The Los Angeles Times notes that SBC is bringing back traditional pensions.
CLEL also notes that there haven't been any interesting employment law cases out of California courts for a while, but, if you're interested Kim at the UCL Practitioner is tracking the day-by-day evolution of Proposition 64.
1/18/2005
Workers' Comp Rates Drop
Workers' Comp rates have dropped on average about 15% in the last six months. The Sacramento Bee reports.
1/12/2005
A Note On Computer Security & Changes To This Site
I am considering moving this site to one of my personal servers. If so, that move would be next week. The main change would be the URL, but I will continue to use blogger/blogspot for the foreseeable future.
While I'm on that note, I'd like to say a thing or two about the Internet and security. Before I became a lawyer, or even went to law school, I worked for almost 10 years in the computer industry. I owned a domain name in 1992, and was building computer networks well before the Internet revolution.
Back in those days, viruses were much more malicious. They would wipe out your hard drive. But like biological viruses, the ones that kill off the host organism too quickly do not get a chance to propagate. But today, the literally scores of programs that run without your knowledge on your computer diminish the power of your computer and suck internet bandwidth, thereby raising the cost. Yesterday's Internet Explorer vulnerbaility was the last straw for me, and I switched to Mozilla.
I was hopeful that anti-spam legislation would be almost as effective as the do not call list was for telephones; it has not been. Therefore, I'm even more doubtful that any legislative action against "spyware" will solve the problem either.
It's up to the software makers. They'd better act, because as I see it, the Internet is broken.
While I'm on that note, I'd like to say a thing or two about the Internet and security. Before I became a lawyer, or even went to law school, I worked for almost 10 years in the computer industry. I owned a domain name in 1992, and was building computer networks well before the Internet revolution.
Back in those days, viruses were much more malicious. They would wipe out your hard drive. But like biological viruses, the ones that kill off the host organism too quickly do not get a chance to propagate. But today, the literally scores of programs that run without your knowledge on your computer diminish the power of your computer and suck internet bandwidth, thereby raising the cost. Yesterday's Internet Explorer vulnerbaility was the last straw for me, and I switched to Mozilla.
I was hopeful that anti-spam legislation would be almost as effective as the do not call list was for telephones; it has not been. Therefore, I'm even more doubtful that any legislative action against "spyware" will solve the problem either.
It's up to the software makers. They'd better act, because as I see it, the Internet is broken.
1/11/2005
State Farm Settles
The LA Times reports.
And the Norcal grocery workers . . . not all worked out yet. The Chronicle reports.
State Farm Insurance Cos. agreed to pay $135 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that it failed to pay overtime to 2,600 claims adjusters in California.SF hotel union negotiations hit another snag. The SF Chronicle reports.
And the Norcal grocery workers . . . not all worked out yet. The Chronicle reports.
1/03/2005
AB 48
CLEL announces its first bill track of the 2005-06 Legislature: AB 48. As introduced, the bill is a shell. The Sacramento Bee has a report. According to this report, this measure would be indexed to inflation.