Thursday, March 9, 2017
In world first, Iceland to require firms to prove equal pay
by Jill Lawless
Iceland will be the first country in the world to make employers
prove they offer equal pay regardless of gender, ethnicity, sexuality
or nationality, the Nordic nation's government said Wednesday —
International Women's Day.
The
government said it will introduce legislation to parliament this month,
requiring all employers with more than 25 staff to obtain certification
to prove they give equal pay for work of equal value.
While
other countries, and the U.S. state of Minnesota, have equal-salary
certificate policies, Iceland is thought to be the first to make it
mandatory for both private and public firms.
The North Atlantic island nation, which has a population of about 330,000, wants to eradicate the gender pay gap by 2022.
Equality and Social Affairs Minister Thorsteinn Viglundsson said "the time is right to do something radical about this issue."
"Equal
rights are human rights," he said. "We need to make sure that men and
women enjoy equal opportunity in the workplace. It is our responsibility
to take every measure to achieve that."
Iceland
has been ranked the best country in the world for gender equality by
the World Economic Forum, but Icelandic women still earn, on average, 14
to 18 percent less than men.
In
October thousands of Icelandic women left work at 2:38 p.m. and
demonstrated outside parliament to protest the gender pay gap. Women's
rights groups calculate that after that time each day, women are working
for free.
The
new legislation is expected to be approved by Iceland's parliament
because it has support from both government and opposition lawmakers.
The government hopes to implement it by 2020.
Viglundsson
said some people had argued the law imposes unneeded bureaucracy on
firms, and is not necessary because the pay gap is closing.
"It
is a burden to put on companies to have to comply with a law like
this," he acknowledged. "But we put such burdens on companies all the
time when it comes to auditing your annual accounts or turning in your
tax report.
"You have to dare to take new steps, to be bold in the fight against injustice."
NC Democrats introduce bills to raise minimum wage to $15/hr, ensure equal pay for women
by Beairshelle Edmé
They want to raise the minimum from $7.25 per hour to $15 per hour and from $2.15 per hour to $5 for tipped wage employees.If passed, House Bill 238 and Senate Bill 174 would add paid sick and
family leave, as well as ensure women have equal pay for equal work.Sen. Ben Clark (D-Cumberland and Hoke), is also pushing to ban the box, an effort to remove application questions about a person’s criminal past.
These lawmakers say all the provisions in the bills will benefit North Carolina families and the state’s economy.
“We want the people in our state to both survive and thrive and this minimum wage is not even at the survival level,” said Sen. Angela Bryant (D-Halifax, Nash, Wilson, Vance and Warren).
Democrats are also proposing to add several tax credits, including earned income, childcare and dependent care.
Wednesday, March 8, 2017
The Daily Drift
Welcome to Today's Edition of
Carolina Naturally
Carolina Naturally
Carolina Naturally is read in 210 countries around the world daily.
Women ... !
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Today in History
| 1618 | Johannes Kepler discovers the third Law of Planetary Motion. | ||
| 1702 | Queen Anne becomes the monarch of England upon the death of William III. | ||
| 1790 | George Washington delivers the first State of the Union address. | ||
| 1853 | The first bronze statue of Andrew Jackson is unveiled in Washington, D.C. | ||
| 1855 | The first train crosses Niagara Falls on a suspension bridge. | ||
| 1862 | On the second day of the Battle of Pea Ridge, Confederate forces, including some Indian troops, under General Earl Van Dorn surprise Union troops, but the Union troops win the battle. | ||
| 1862 | The Confederate ironclad C.S.S. Virginia (formerly U.S.S. Merrimack) is launched. | ||
| 1880 | President Rutherford B. Hayes declares that the United States will have jurisdiction over any canal built across the Isthmus of Panama. | ||
| 1904 | The Bundestag in Germany lifts the ban on the Jesuit order of priests. | ||
| 1908 | The House of Commons, London, turns down the women’s suffrage bill. | ||
| 1909 | Pope Pius X lifts the church ban on interfaith marriages in Hungary. | ||
| 1910 | Baroness de Laroche becomes the first woman to obtain a pilot’s license in France. | ||
| 1921 | Spanish Premier Eduardo Dato is assassinated while leaving Parliament in Madrid. | ||
| 1921 | French troops occupy Dusseldorf. | ||
| 1941 | Martial law is proclaimed in Holland in order to extinguish any anti-Nazi protests. | ||
| 1942 | Japanese troops capture Rangoon, Burma. | ||
| 1943 | Japanese forces attack American troops on Hill 700 in Bougainville. The battle will last five days. | ||
| 1945 | Phyllis Mae Daley receives a commission in the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps. She will become the first African-American nurse to serve duty in World War II. | ||
| 1948 | The U.S. Supreme Court rules that religious instruction in public schools is unconstitutional. | ||
| 1954 | France and Vietnam open talks in Paris on a treaty to form the state of Indochina. | ||
| 1961 | Max Conrad circles the globe in a record time of eight days, 18 hours and 49 minutes in Piper Aztec. | ||
| 1965 | More than 4,000 Marines land at Da Nang in South Vietnam and become the first U.S. combat troops in Vietnam. | ||
| 1966 | Australia announces that it will triple the number of troops in Vietnam. | ||
| 1970 | The Nixon junta discloses the deaths of 27 Americans in Laos. | ||
| 1973 | Two bombs explode near Trafalgar Square in Great Britain injuring 234 people. | ||
| 1982 | The United States accuses the Soviets of killing 3,000 Afghans with poison gas. | ||
| 1985 | Thomas Creighton dies after having three heart transplants in a 46-hour period. |
Tragedy Strikes After Pawn Shop Sells Gun To Mentally Ill Woman
A horrific story of how lax gun laws lead to tragedy every day.
‘Outright cowardice’
Tuesday, March 7, 2017
The Daily Drift
Welcome to Today's Edition of
Carolina Naturally
Carolina Naturally
Carolina Naturally is read in 210 countries around the world daily.
With actual fruit ... !
You want the unvarnished truth?
Today in History
| 322 BC | The Greek philosopher Aristotle dies. | |
| 161 | On the death of Antoninus at Lorium, Marcus Aurelius becomes emperor. | |
| 1774 | The British close the port of Boston to all commerce. | |
| 1799 | In Palestine, Napoleon captures Jaffa and his men massacre more than 2,000 Albanian prisoners. | |
| 1809 | Aeronaut Jean Pierre Blanchard — the first person to make an aerial voyage in the New World — dies at the age of 56. | |
| 1838 | Soprano Jenny Lind (“the Swedish Nightingale”) makes her debut in Weber’s opera Der Freischultz. | |
| 1847 | U.S. General Winfield Scott occupies Vera Cruz, Mexico. | |
| 1849 | The Austrian Reichstag is dissolved. | |
| 1862 | Confederate forces surprise the Union army at the Battle of Pea Ridge, in Arkansas, but the Union is victorious. | |
| 1876 | Alexander Graham Bell is granted a patent for the telephone. | |
| 1904 | The Japanese bomb the Russian town of Vladivostok. | |
| 1906 | Finland becomes the third country to give women the right to vote, decreeing universal suffrage for all citizens over 24, however, barring those persons who are supported by the state. | |
| 1912 | French aviator, Heri Seimet flies non-stop from London to Paris in three hours. | |
| 1918 | Finland signs an alliance treaty with Germany. | |
| 1925 | The Soviet Red Army occupies Outer Mongolia. | |
| 1927 | A Texas law that bans Negroes from voting is ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. | |
| 1933 | The board game Monopoly is invented. | |
| 1933 | The film King Kong premieres in New York City. | |
| 1935 | Malcolm Campbell sets an auto speed record of 276.8 mph in Florida. | |
| 1936 | Hitler sends German troops into the Rhineland, violating the Locarno Pact. | |
| 1942 | Japanese troops land on New Guinea. | |
| 1951 | U.N. forces in Korea under General Matthew Ridgeway launch Operation Ripper, an offensive to straighten out the U.N. front lines against the Chinese. | |
| 1968 | The Battle of Saigon, begun on the day of the Tet Offensive, ends. | |
| 1971 | A thousand U.S. planes bomb Cambodia and Laos. | |
| 1979 | Voyager 1 reaches Jupiter. |
Acupuncture improves outcomes in carpal tunnel syndrome in part by remapping the brain
Though
the practice of acupuncture predates current understanding of
physiology by several millennia, it often provides measureable
improvements in health outcomes, particularly in the area of chronic
pain. Now, in a study reported in the … Read more
A Comfortable Present
There was an immediate backlash of hilarity in my Twitter feed at least, with the general sentiment ranging from “Yup!” to my own sense of “Future? This is the present, and I’m fine with that.” Mediaite tracked down Gilda Wabbit, the drag queen in the photo, for a fabulous comment:
I’d like to see a future where it isn’t a big deal for a woman in full modesty garb to sit next to a drag queen in NYC. It’s become a bit of a sensation, but her and I were just existing. The freedom to simply be yourself in a sea of people who aren’t like you is a freedom we all deserve.Indeed.
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