Jobs and Labor

Was Hostess' Death a Murder, Suicide or Natural Causes?

Or was it all three?

Here's What Happens When a Storm Pummels Your Wife's Pontiac with Baseball-Sized Hail

It happened in Coppell. You can probably guess when. Video is unsafe for work, presuming your boss isn't big on F-bombs.

The NBA Lockout is (Almost) Over. Here's What the Mavs Need to Do Before Christmas Day.

Editor's note: Rob Mahoney writes about the Mavericks on his ESPN-affiliated blog The Two Man Game and about basketball for The New York Times's Off the Dribble blog. Presumably his New York Times bio will henceforth note that he now writes about the Mavericks for Unfair Park. Hark: The NBA season ... More >>

How Resource Center Dallas Played a Part In Getting MLB to Add Sexual Orientation to CBA

​Yesterday Major League Baseball sent word that it has a new labor agreement in place with the Major League Baseball Players Association -- this one, good for five years. It hasn't been signed yet; Tuesday's announcement, which follows, details the memorandum of understanding that will formally re ... More >>

"Force Place" or a Cut of $3 Million: Dallas ISD Teachers, the Choice, Apparently, Is Yours

​We told you yesterday that the Dallas Independent School District is considering offering "excess" Chapter 21 employees -- teachers, principals, librarians, counselors -- a pile of cash worth $3 million to retire. After last night's called board meeting, it became clear that while that's probably ... More >>

2011 Dallas Cowboys Training Camp Day 6: My Top 10 Observer-ations

​10. Per the new collective bargaining agreement, the Cowboys are tweaking their San Antonio schedule. Today's padded practice ends at 4:15 p.m. instead of 5:30. Off day is moved from Wednesday to tomorrow. Plan accordingly. 9. Defensive coordinator Rob Ryan keeps calling cornerba ... More >>

The Endless Summer? 800 DISD Teachers Vie for 700 Jobs At One Downer of a Job Fair.

Photo by Leslie MinoraPolice directed traffic as teachers searched for parking at Harold Wendell Lang Sr. Middle School. We tried to get closer, we swear.​Hundreds of former Dallas Independent School District teachers flocked to Harold Wendell Lang Sr. Middle School late yesterday. They were h ... More >>

It's Off to Camp Chaos for the Cowboys

With the NFL lockout finally over, the Cowboys embark on an unprecedented training camp and an unpredictable 2011 season.

Jerry Jones on Salary Cap, CBA Negotiations: "It Doesn't Always Be The Way You Want It To Be"

And here you thought the NFL lockout was over. Not hardly: As Peter King puts it this morning, yesterday's Sure Thing turned into Sour Grapes rather quickly, with the players refusing to sign off on the owners' done deal. Jerry Jones, in the SI.com piece, had no comment about the new-but-not-signed ... More >>

Good News: The Lockout's Almost Over. Bad News: So Are Two-a-Days.

​I'll never forget the image. It was 2009 and your Cowboys were holding their afternoon training camp practice at San Antonio's Alamodome. In shorts. The pace and feel of coach Wade Phillips' camp mimicked that of a leisurely picnic kicking off a weekend 10-year high school reu ... More >>

The public school finance crisis is waking up moderates from their Tea Party-induced slumber.

Is Fort Worth's Star-Telegram Now a Newspaper Without a Home?

Flickr user: QuesterMark​Just got off the phone with Jim Witt, executive editor of the Star-Telegram, who pointedly did not deny this morning's hot rumor -- that the Fort Worth newspaper's building, which has been on the market since September 2008, has been sold and the staff told to work from ho ... More >>

DISD Trustee Eric Cowan On "Mass Layoffs," "The New Reality" and How We Got Here

Patrick MichelsEric Cowan​Dallas Independent School District trustee Eric Cowan's first blog entry of 2011 is a sobering follow-up to Superintendent Michael Hinojosa's budget-gutting presentation to the board on Thursday: "The Economics of Public Education." There's no easy way to sum it up, as Co ... More >>

For Job-Seekers, It Pays to at Least Pretend to be a Teetotaler

Definitely a bad call when your job interviewer is driving you to lunch.​Business etiquette books typically advise job seekers to take their cues from their interviewers, but a new study suggests that dictum doesn't apply when alcohol's involved. According to a study released today by the Uni ... More >>

A Strike at New York Mott's Plant to Become Protests at DFW Grocery Stores Starting Today

​On May 23, workers at the Mott's plant in Williamson, New York, went on strike -- the company's owner, Plano-based Dr Pepper Snapple Group, is demanding workers take a $1.50-an-hour pay cut and a reduction in benefits. Say union reps, "With unemployment rates high in the Williamson area, Mott's c ... More >>

In Advance of Layoffs, A.H. Belo Corp. to Reduce Salaries and Pension Contributions

A.H. Belo president and CEO Robert DecherdOn DMNCuts, word is A.H. Belo Corp. will start trimming staff at The Dallas Morning News early next week. Which will be followed on May 1 by pay cuts for all: Robert Decherd this morning sent a "Letter to Colleagues" in which the A.H. Belo chairman, CEO and ... More >>

Neimans Responds to the Now-Ubiquitous Rumor Concerning "More Layoffs Monday"

In recent days -- at least, ever since this item ran -- I've gotten, oh, maybe 15 e-mails from so-called Neiman Marcus insiders claiming the company's close to collapse and, at the very least, preparing for yet another round of deep, painful layoffs. Someone posted such a comment to Unfair Park only ... More >>

The Bailout Bonus Round: Jeb Hensarling Is Not Happy With AIG. Not at All.

In light of the news that American International Group -- better known as AIG -- is doling out those "distasteful" but nonetheless delicious bonuses to its execs, the House Financial Services Subcommittee is meeting at this very moment to discuss AIG and "how it got into its current situation, why i ... More >>

Union Puts the Squeeze on Tax Breaks

The only thing worse than giving developers subsidies is a union’s threat to stop the giveaways

Well, At Least We Know Where Kwame Kilpatrick Won't Be Working in Dallas

Former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, now a Dallas resident?As Jim noted last week, disgraced former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is out of the joint and heading to Texas -- where, no kiddin', he has a job interview tomorrow. So reports The Detroit News today, which eliminates one potential emplo ... More >>

Thousands of EDS Employees Were Laid Off By HP This Week

A Friend of Unfair Park who works -- sorry, make that worked -- for Electronic Data Systems in Plano sends this missive:Amazing how the DMN or any of the local news outlets has not reported the fact EDS has laid off 8,000 to 10,000 people this week. I was one of them on Monday. I will be on the payr ... More >>

Texas Mutual Says Thanks, But No Thanks, to State Oversight

Texas’ leading workers’ comp insurer says we don’t need courts and juries watching over them. Yeah, right.

Plausible Deniability

DISD's Also Sending Recruiters to the Laid-Off DISD Employee Job Fair

Crises Management

Yet Again, Live From 3700 Ross

Equal Pours

Raise a glass for workplace diversity

Don't Call Us: Dallas Jury Rules Against AT&T in Discrimination Case

Law Enforcement Labor Reps Lambast Sheriff Valdez for Playing Politics

Some 900 AA Flight Attendants Get a Choice: Get Pushed Out or Jump from the "Voluntary Bridge to Retirement"

Dimming at the Star-Telegram, As 130 Staffers Are About to Lose a Job

And the Hits Just Keep on Coming at KTVT-Channel 11

Who's the Boss?

"Not For Everyone"? Sure Sounds Like It

Dallas to El Paso: Give Us All Y our Teachers

Hard Day's Night

W is for Talent

Pre-emptive Spin

AJR article has News crew feeling apprehensive

The Missing People's Agenda

Plus: The Turkey Test; New Sheriff in Town

Deciphering the News

Belo's answers raise more questions

In Harm's Way

Changes to workers' comp law and city policy hit wounded police officers

The View From the Bottom

What's it like surviving the telecom bust? Numbers alone don't tell the story.

Long Haul

Dirty tricks or no, Teamsters say they won't stop their efforts to organize at Saia trucking

Strange bedfellows

National union leaders do the math and switch their position on immigration

Divided they stand

A pack of unions struggle for the right to represent DISD workers

Air homophobia

A gay-bashing pilot prompts a change at Southwest Airlines

Help wanted

A shortage of workers spells happy times for job-seekers and college graduates

Doling for dollars

The Cold War over, defense giant Lockheed Martin mines another government program for profit -- the war on poverty

The high cost of winning

An insurance company has been paying ex-Cowboys workers comp, but Jerry Jones insists it's not his problem

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