While the state of Michigan was facing a $1.5 billion deficit in 2009, the Ortonville-Brandon Public School Board of Education signed a four-year deal with its custodians and maintenance people that would pay for 90 percent of their health care premiums.

The family plan for the luxurious MESSA health plan cost $17,171 in 2010 or about $2,000 less than what it could have cost the district to pay the salary of a new custodian.

More at source: MCC

DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

W.W. Grainger Inc.'s (GWW) April daily sales rose 12% from a year earlier as acquisitions continued to boost sales volume.

The supplier of industrial goods ranging from lighting to janitorial products has experienced double-digit percentage earnings growth in recent quarters, aided by growing demand from businesses and institutions trying to consolidate suppliers. The company is often considered a bellwether of the U.S. economy because of the breadth of its offerings. Grainger has also expanded its global footprint through acquisitions.

Acquisition gains added 5 percentage point to last month's sales growth. Excluding acquisitions, sales rose 7%, with 5 percentage points of the increase due to volume and 3 points due to higher prices, partly offset by a 1-percentage-point decline from foreign exchange.

More at source: Wall Street Journal  

Janitorial franchise Coverall is receiving a $3 million bill from a Massachusetts court this week in a lawsuit other franchisors are watching closely. At the heart of the case is a controversy over whether some franchise owners aren’t franchisees at all, but rather employees who’ve had to pay fees for the right to have their job.

The court ruled last fall that the Boca Raton, Fla.-based franchisor must pay back the franchise fees over 100 people undefined mostly new immigrants undefined paid the company, plus interest and lawsuit costs. The court’s opinion? Privately held Coverall misclassified its employees as franchisees, so their fees should be refunded.

More at source: Forbes

ABM Janitorial Services-Northeast filed the suit in New York state Supreme Court today, accusing the law firm of failing to pay about $299,000 for janitorial and related cleaning services at its offices at 1301 Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan through April 30. ABM Industries is based in New York.

More at source: Bloomberg

SINGAPORE undefined Eight Indonesian maids have fallen to their deaths from high-rise apartments in Singapore this year, and the Indonesia Embassy said Tuesday it is pushing for a ban on cleaning outside windows.

Indonesia, which supplies about half of Singapore’s 200,000 maids, has asked employment agencies to include a clause in work contracts that prohibits maids from cleaning the outside of windows or hanging laundry from high-rise apartments, Indonesian Embassy Counsellor Sukmo Yuwono told the Associated Press.

(Brings A New Meaning To I Don`t Do Windows)

More at source: Washington Post

The janitor who found the package alerted administrators, who then opened it and called for help. Personnel from the nearby towns of Lancaster, Clinton, Littleton, and Bolton quickly set up a decontamination tent outside the high school’s main entrance.

Coan, who was joined at a press briefing by the Nashoba regional superintendent and the Chiefs of the Bolton police and fire departments, said that the substance is being handed over to the FBI’s Worcester office, which will perform further testing.

More at source: Boston.com

“We decided to take a top to bottom look at our company’s impact on the environment, not only inside customer locations but outside it as well,” company President Ryan Stark said. “What we discovered is that we could lower our impact on the environment by changing how we traveled to locations.” The company analyzed each trip to locations and discovered that many of their service calls required single employees to travel to locations to perform inspections or perform routine service.

A pink marker flags the spot on the ground where Greg Myers says he found a human skull on Friday.

"Never know it could've been laying there for a year," Myers thought aloud.

He says he was cleaning out a drainage ditch in his front yard, like he does every spring, but this year he found something that isn't a part of his yearly routine.

"There were leaves there and stuff, and I thought it was an old ball or something until I shovel tapped it. Then I said, 'No! That ain't no ball!'," described Myers, "No, it's a human skull."

More at source: WKYT

Earlier this year, the 7 Investigation team knocked on the doors of several Treasure Valley homes on a meth property list where, legally, no one is supposed to live until they are properly cleaned.

We found people living in some. Others were unoccupied, like the apartment in this story. Over the past few months, KTVB followed the owner's costly quest to get off the list of homes that are made unlivable because of former meth labs.

More at source: KTVB

At Salary.com, the arithmetic is based on the time and value of all the various jobs moms take on, including laundry-machine operator, janitor, van driver, cook, facilities manager, psychologist and CEO (of the entire household). The results show that stay-at-home moms put in one honey of a workweek: 94.7 hours. After factoring in duties and corresponding approximate wages ($36.85 hourly for the “psychologist” role, $13.11 for “cook” responsibilities), a stay-at-home mother is worth an average of $17.80 per hour, or $112,962 annually.