SAN ANTONIO, Nov. 16, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Rockin' Green, an eco-friendly laundry detergent and cleaning products company, took home top honors last week at the Stevie® Awards for Women in Business. The company's founder, Kimberly Webb, was named "Best Entrepreneur" for a non-services business up to 100 employees, and the company was named the "Fastest-Growing Company of the Year."

"These awards celebrate our hard work and dedication to the families we support, such as those in the cloth diapering and natural living communities, with natural, clean rinsing and safe detergents and cleaning products," says Webb. "We are honored to add the Stevie Awards to our list of accolades and are now inspired to keep continue on our mission to provide eco-friendly cleaning products to more families worldwide."

More at source: Market Watch

As the clock ticked down to a midnight deadline, Harvard and unionized custodial workers struck a new five-year contract late last night that includes wage increases, health care, and four weeks of paid vacation time.

If an agreement had not been reached by midnight -- when the union’s contract expired -- Harvard’s janitorial staff would likely have gone on strike, union officials said.

Sarah Betancourt, a spokeswoman for the union, said in a statement that the new contract was “a victory for Harvard janitors and the 99 percent,” referring to the Occupy Wall Street movement.

“Harvard University janitors have fought for one Harvard, with fairness and dignity for all,” she said in the statement. “With Harvard’s reputation as a preeminent institution for higher education, this agreement will be seen as an example for other universities to treat workers with the dignity and respect they deserve.

More at source: Boston.com

A Metroplex company accused of sexually harassing women and persuading them to enter sham marriages to foreign nationals seeking U.S. citizenship has settled a federal discrimination lawsuit.

Courtesy Building Services, a janitorial and construction company with offices in Dallas and Fort Worth, forced former Operations Manager Melissa Gaona and other women to work in a "good old boy" atmosphere, according to the suit by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Comments about women's bodies and references to the strip club across the street "were a constant occurrence," the agency alleged.

The suit also alleged that Gaona and at least one other employee were pressured as part of their jobs and during work hours to agree to marry noncitizens who were friends of management. The marriages were "for the purpose of furthering attainment of citizenship for the noncitizen," according to the suit, which was filed in federal court last year.

Unless you always diligently line the oven with aluminum foil, every home cook will occasionally need to clean the oven. Even a self-cleaning oven isn't a self-sweeping oven. It just burns off spilled food at extreme temperatures. The charred remains (and typically some of the stuck spilled food) will still be in the oven.

More at source: MNN

In what could be seen as something of an indictment of modern art, an overzealous cleaner damaged a $1.1 million installation in Germany by removing a “stain” that was in fact an integral part of the work.

The janitor at Dortmund’s Museum Ostwall scrubbed away a patina intended to look like a dried rain puddle at the base of Martin Kippenberger’s

Read more at source: TIME

MOREHEAD CITY, N.C. –  Undersea exploration may seem a far cry from carpet cleaning. But iRobot, a company best known to consumers for its fully automated Roomba vacuum cleaner, also produces Seaglider, a robot capable of performing underwater missions of up to nine months on a single battery charge, and at a fraction of the cost of a manned research vessel.

(WXYZ) - Two women share some frightening stories about the same man they say terrorized them. He came to their homes when they responded to ads from a major department store to have their air ducts cleaned.

What is disturbing is that this serviceman is a career criminal with a history of harassing women. 7 Action News Investigator Scott Lewis discovered this is not uncommon. Criminals are slipping through the cracks and into peoples' homes.

A German museum is continuing to show a controversial $1.1m modern art installation after one of its cleaners deciding what the piece really needed was a good going over with some Cilit Bang.

Martin Kippenberger's "When it Starts Dripping from the Ceiling" was on loan to Dortmund's Ostwall Gallery from a private collector. The piece consists of a lattice work of wooden slats surmounting a plastic tray. Under the tray was an artfully applied patina meant to look like a puddle of dried rainwater.

More at source: The Register

More at source: Daily Herald

October is the time of year when cardboard gravestones pop up on front lawns and paper skeletons dance on porches, but one man hopes to spend his time year-round in cemeteries.

Cleaning and maintaining gravestones gives Mark Henderson a chance to enjoy history while offering a hard-to-find service.

"When you walk into a graveyard, you're walking into an open-air museum," said Henderson, who is also an officer with the Memphis Police Department. "I don't see a graveyard as a place full of dead people. I see it as a place full of history

More at source: Commercial Appeal