INDIANAPOLIS undefined Spring has officially arrived and after such a crummy winter, part of your spring cleaning might be the carpet.

But there is something you need to know about hiring carpet cleaners before you call for help.

“Anybody with a pulse and a pickup truck can call themselves a carpet cleaner,” said Tom King, owner of Sani-Bright Carpet Cleaning in Indianapolis.

“In the state of Indiana, there’s no licensing for carpet cleaning. There’s no licensing nationally for carpet cleaning. There’s only the Institute of Inspection Cleaning and Restoration Certification (IICRC), which is the national certification you can get.”

Just two days after April Fools Day, the California State Assembly passed House Resolution 29 to denounce outsourcing of government services to private contractors and pledging oppose all future “outsourcing of public services and assets.” Despite staunch opposition from the League of Cities and other local government agencies across the state, the bill was first read on the Assembly floor in the morning of April 3rd, substantially amended, and passed the very same day on a Democrat party-line vote. The California Assembly is now demanding that all janitors in the State of California be unionized.

The anti-Wal-Mart crusader leading the fight to unionize the company once threatened a non-union janitorial company with death threats, The Daily Caller has learned.

Dan Schlademan runs the United Food and Commercial Workers Union’s (UFCW) Making Change at Walmart group, which is fighting for pay hikes for Wal-Mart employees and to block the retail giant from opening new stores that could drive down wages in various regions. The Making Change at Walmart campaign is organizing employees at every stage of the Walmart supply chain, including logistics and warehouse workers.

Schlademan made the threat in a phone call to the president of Houston’s Professional Janitorial Services (PJS) while Schlademan was working for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Schlademan ran the SEIU’s Justice for Janitors campaign in Houston in 2006. The phone conversation was captured on tape.

PJS, which Schlademan threatened while working for SEIU, was recently subjected to federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) site visits on which SEIU representatives joined government OSHA inspectors. PJS, despite SEIU pressure, is still a nonunion company.

“Brent, I want you to understand something. I’m your one defender. Everyone else is saying ‘Let’s go kill PJS,’” Schlademan told PJS’ president in a phone call.

Schlademan later acknowledged his use of death threats in a March 13, 2008 oral videotaped deposition in a PJS defamation lawsuit against SEIU reviewed by The Daily Caller.

An opposing lawyer asked Schlademan if “there were folks at the union that wanted to hurt or harm PJS?”

The California Department of Labor has issued more than $336,000 in assessments against a San Diego County-based janitorial service that will eventually go to workers who were not paid proper wages, according to a statement from the agency.

The assessments were issued against California Office Maintenance Inc., which is based in Poway. The amount covers rest and meal breaks that workers didn’t get, overtime payments they weren’t paid and, in some cases, hiring a “husband and wife team” but paying them only one salary.

According to the company’s website, they have a variety of commercial clients that include retailers, offices, theaters and non-profit businesses.

More at source: Press Enterprise

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The Tennessee Department of Health has notified the Cheatham County school district of one active case of tuberculosis at Sycamore High School, the district announced Wednesday morning in a news release.

The Department of Health is currently conducting a public health investigation, and the district is fully cooperating with the effort, the release stated.

The release stated the Department of Health is scheduling an on-site clinic test date to screen students identified by the department who have been in close contact with the person.

School spokesperson Jeff Bennett said parents will be notified of the test date.

The Cheatham County school district, according to the release, was made aware of a possible issue on March 11, and this was confirmed by the Department of Health on March 27, stating the potential exposure occurred earlier in the school year.

The school district chose to develop an action plan to address safety concerns and distribute parental information, the release said.

More at source: Tennesean

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Empire Janitorial Sales and Services Inc. has paid $277,565 in overtime back wages to 233 current and former janitorial service workers employed by Acadian Payroll Services LLC, the U.S. Department of Labor reported March 25. The investigation found that employees were wrongfully classified as independent contractors and paid an hourly wage with no overtime wages of time and one-half their regular rate of pay for hours worked more than 40 in a week.

Additionally, Acadian Payroll Services did not establish a seven-day workweek and failed to maintain proper records of weekly hours worked by its employees, according to the Department of Labor.

Empire Janitorial Sales and Services and Acadian Payroll Services shared joint employer responsibilities. Both companies agreed to future compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act; however, full payment of back wages was made by Metairie, La.-based Empire Janitorial Sales and Services, which cooperated with the investigation.

“Misclassified independent contractors could be re-classified employees of two or more entities for the purposes of some laws, but not for the purposes of others,” says Eric Rumbaugh, a partner with law firm Michael Best and Friedrich LLC. “Courts sometimes find joint liability between two or more entities in FLSA cases if each entity qualifies as an “employer” under the applicable test.” 

“We are pleased that the employer agreed to reclassify janitorial staff as employees, establish a seven-day workweek and to compensate workers properly when they work overtime,” said Cynthia Watson, the Wage and Hour Division’s regional administrator for the Southwest. “Misclassified workers are often denied access to basic benefits and protections under the FLSA, such as the Family and Medical Leave Act, overtime, minimum wage and unemployment , to which they are entitled.”

More at source: Staffing Industry

LUDOWICI, Georgia -- How far would you go to teach your teenager a lesson about cleaning their room? A soldier in Georgia says he was tired of asking his teenage daughter to clean her room, so he decided to do something about it. After she refused to clean it, the dad moved the girl's bedroom into the driveway, complete with a sign that read, "Haley, room moved to driveway. Clean it next time." She found out about it after she came home from school. While the daughter was upset at first, dad has compromised with her.  He says he'll paint her room so they can both have a fresh start.

Read More at source: News 4

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) undefined After a tip to ReportIt, Target 8 went undercover to discover a man with a wild name, a shady past and a nude house cleaning business that local police are also checking out.

The questionable business being run out of an office at Brookfield Office Plaza on 28th Street is owned by a man named Sexual Sin Blue.

That wasn’t always his name undefined he grew up in Lansing as Reginald Jones. Target 8 never learned precisely why he changed his name.

It could have something to do with his business, which is, “as he explained it, naked house cleaning,” Grand Rapids Police Department Lt. Pat Merrill said.

Blue has been running Craigslist employment ads for Grand Rapids, Muskegon and the Detroit area for his Exotic Five Star Professional Maid Service, a business he started in Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

The ad says “Exotic means ‘NUDE’ house cleaning for high-profile clients.”

Grand Rapids police detectives show up at Sexual Sin Blue’s office Friday to find out what he was doing and offer some advice: namely, that he should have talked to city licensing and zoning officials first.

“The type of business we’re talking about got our attention. We said, ‘Wait a minute: Has this gentleman talked to anybody? Because this is probably not going to fly.’ He’s going to want to run it through first. Don’t want to waste a bunch of money try to start a business here that’s going to be shut down,” Merrill said.

Target 8 went undercover to fill out an application. Blue said the job was just house cleaning. He did not mention anything about it being nude.

He told another Target 8 investigator he was running a regular cleaning service for rich clients as well as the nude cleaning gig.

And he asked the undercover applicant for $25 to run a criminal background check on her.

That, the Better Business Bureau says, should be a red flag.

“If someone asked me to pay them $25 to do a background check on me and I was applying for a job with them, I would turn around and walk out the door,” West Michigan BBB President Phil Catlett said.

Catlett said people looking for a job should be wary of online employment ads that want money upfront, a practice he says is becoming more common.

“But,” he qualified, “From a credible employer, highly unusual.”

And Blue does have some credibility problems. He has a long history of passing bad checks in Michigan along with fraud, larceny, trespassing, property destruction and prostitution charges. When he was in California, police got him for auto theft, grand theft, larceny and soliciting for prostitution.

When Target 8 went to talk to him with cameras rolling, he declined to comment and shut his office door.

Police say he hasn’t paid his rent on his office space and the landlord is trying to get him out. They say Blue told them he’s thinking about his next move.

More at source: WoodTV

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