The Worker Thread

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Vrede too
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Re: The Worker Thread

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Re: The Worker Thread

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rstrong wrote:
Wed Jul 12, 2017 8:19 pm
.... Patent trolls tend not to do or invent anything. They exist only to rack up out-of-court settlements....
EFF Wins Court Ruling Upholding Invalidation of Bad Patent That Threatened Podcasters
Personal Audio Didn’t Invent Anything New, EFF Argued
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rstrong
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Re: The Worker Thread

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To sum up:

1996: File a vague patent related to audio. Claim that it covers "playlists", despite everyone already having those, and start extorting money from them. Use that money to build up a war chest to launch more lawsuits.

2009: Podcasts have become popular. Re-file the patent as a "new" one with a broader scope to cover those. Start extorting MORE people an companies....

2013: ...for example, Adam Carolla and HowStuffWorks.

2014: Adam Carolla Settles With Podcasting Patent Troll: Even With A Strong Case And $500k In The Bank, It's Too Expensive To Fight
Furthermore, the EFF notes that this situation shows just how ridiculous the patent troll situation is. When you have a very strong case, and $500,000 given to you via crowdfunding specifically to kill this patent troll... and most experts agreed it still wasn't nearly enough, which is why settling is the right move:
[...]
Trolls know this and use the cost of defense to extort settlements. In the rare case where someone shows a willingness to fights to the end, the troll will often save its patent at the last moment with a walk-away deal. This is likely what happened in Carolla’s case.
2017: EFF fights the battle. They rally lawyers and the Harvard Cyberlaw Clinic to work pro-bono, and crowd-fund the tens of $thousands in Patent Office filing fees alone. And win.

That last bit is the only unusual part. It doesn't happen in the vast majority of cases. And yet even in this case the patent troll walks away with all the profits they've made in a decade of extortion.

It's like someone finally caught after a decade of bank robberies. No jail time, no charges filed, and they can keep all the money. The only penalty is that one of their guns is taken away.

I guess they learned their lesson. Let's all celebrate that the system works.

/s

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Re: The Worker Thread

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Kinda snarky, I merely posted a relevant article. Remember, our ONLY disagreement on this issue is that you want to take away recourse from real victims that aren't rich.
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Re: The Worker Thread

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Vrede too wrote:
Fri Aug 25, 2017 4:08 am
Kinda snarky, I merely posted a relevant article. Remember, our ONLY disagreement on this issue is that you want to take away recourse from real victims that aren't rich.
I want to give them recourse. Under the current system Adam Carolla had a very strong case and $500,000 just fight a patent troll. And most experts agreed it still wasn't nearly enough. We now know definitively that he was in the right, but $500,000 just wasn't enough.

"Loser pays" wont entirely fix that, but it's a big step in the right direction.

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Re: The Worker Thread

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What you are calling "just wasn't enough" is really rich folks making a calculated guess as to what will cost them more. "Loser pays" means that poor victims never sue at all and that perps are given that much more freedom to create victims. You should be campaigning for strengthening the penalties for truly frivolous suits, instead, and for tighter regulation in the first place. Anyhow, all I did was post a relevant article.
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Re: The Worker Thread

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Always be yourself! Unless you can be a goat, then always be a goat.
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1312. ETTD.

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Re: The Worker Thread

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City governments are raising standards for working people—and state legislators are lowering them back down

This happened with the infamous HB2 in NC. I'm not sure what the eventual compromise means for workers.
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Re: The Worker Thread

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Vrede too wrote:
Sun Sep 03, 2017 10:55 am
City governments are raising standards for working people—and state legislators are lowering them back down

This happened with the infamous HB2 in NC. I'm not sure what the eventual compromise means for workers.

And the right claimed for years that ALEC was pure fiction invented by the looney left.
Trump: “We had the safest border in the history of our country - or at least recorded history. I guess maybe a thousand years ago it was even better.”

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Re: The Worker Thread

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I used to favor consistency in significant law, which generally meant I favored federal laws, state laws, and thought local laws should be limited to issues like zoning, utility management, etc. This is undoubtedly because during most of my life the laws passed at the federal and (normally) state level have been more favorable to the betterment of society. I had no idea that there would be a time when all of the federal government and most of the state governments were run by Mr. Burns supported by third-grade drop-outs. Gotta be careful what you wish for.

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Re: The Worker Thread

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Globe & Mail: Canada demands U.S. end ‘right to work’ laws as part of NAFTA talks
Canadian negotiators are demanding the United States roll back so-called "right to work" laws – accused of gutting unions in some U.S. states by starving them of money – as part of the renegotiation of the North American free-trade agreement. The request is part of a push by Ottawa to get the U.S. and Mexico to adopt higher labour standards under the deal.
[...]
Canada believes that lower labour standards in the United States and Mexico, including right to work, give those countries an unfair advantage in attracting jobs.
[...]
Jerry Dias, the leader of Canada's largest private-sector trade union, said Ottawa's negotiators are: pushing Mexico on its corporate-sanctioned unions, which are accused of negotiating collective agreements unfavourable to workers; agitating for both countries to offer a year of paid family leave, as Canada does; and targeting American right-to-work laws that allow workers in unionized shops to refuse to pay dues, draining money from unions.

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Re: The Worker Thread

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That's hilarious. Of course, we will scrap NAFTA entirely before ever doing that, but it's great that Canada is highlighting that these trade agreements primarily benefit the bosses.
Always be yourself! Unless you can be a goat, then always be a goat.
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Re: The Worker Thread

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USA Today: Don't end NAFTA. Canada needs US bodily fluids.
Canada used to have a sufficient supply of domestic sperm donors. But in 2004, we passed the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, which made it illegal to compensate donors for their sperm.
[...]
Reliance on your blood plasma looked like it might change a little bit when, in 2012, a company called Canadian Plasma Resources announced plans to open clinics in Ontario dedicated to collecting blood plasma. The trouble is that its business model included compensating donors. Almost immediately, groups such as the Canadian Union of Public Employees and the Canadian Health Coalition began to lobby the Ontario government to pass a law to stop CPR from opening clinics. Ontario obliged in 2014, passing the Safeguarding Health Care Integrity Act, which among other things made compensation illegal.

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Re: The Worker Thread

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rstrong wrote:
Wed Sep 13, 2017 5:30 pm
USA Today: Don't end NAFTA. Canada needs US bodily fluids.
I really appreciate Canada's Irma assistance and offer of Harvey aid. So, look for a package in the mail, rstrong. :o


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Re: The Worker Thread

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I don't know Cheryl Stanton, but her appointment is old news. https://www.bna.com/exbush-attorney-sta ... 014451979/
However, I'm guessing" that since she is a Trump appointee, she is likely a sleaze-bag of some sort. Having said that, I don't think the fact that she "spent her career defending major corporations accused of cheating their employees" as necessarily negative. Defense people (such as myself) spend a good bit of effort in getting their clients into compliance. They often have a broader perspective on what the law requires and how to comply. Plaintiff attorneys, on the other hand, are often as knowledgeable in the law but they have much the same approach as personal injury people. They find some means to bring a suit, and they work diligently to win the biggest award they can. Nothing wrong with that, but if you're picking somebody to run Wage-Hour, I'd take the defense person. Ogletree is a good firm, and she's probably a good lawyer, but there's some evil there somewhere or Trump would never have nominated her.

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Re: The Worker Thread

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I don't know Cheryl Stanton, but her appointment is old news. https://www.bna.com/exbush-attorney-sta ... 014451979/
However, I'm guessing" that since she is a Trump appointee, she is likely a sleaze-bag of some sort. Having said that, I don't think the fact that she "spent her career defending major corporations accused of cheating their employees" as necessarily negative. Defense people (such as myself) spend a good bit of effort in getting their clients into compliance. They often have a broader perspective on what the law requires and how to comply. Plaintiff attorneys, on the other hand, are often as knowledgeable in the law but they have much the same approach as personal injury people. They find some means to bring a suit, and they work diligently to win the biggest award they can. Nothing wrong with that, but if you're picking somebody to run Wage-Hour, I'd take the defense person. Ogletree is a good firm, and she's probably a good lawyer, but there's some evil there somewhere or Trump would never have nominated her.

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Re: The Worker Thread

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O Really wrote:
Fri Sep 15, 2017 7:50 pm
I don't know Cheryl Stanton, but her appointment is old news. https://www.bna.com/exbush-attorney-sta ... 014451979/ However, I'm guessing" that since she is a Trump appointee, she is likely a sleaze-bag of some sort....
Your link says: "The White House is expected to name former George W. Bush administration attorney Cheryl Stanton ..."

Her actual appointment was delayed until 9/1. More on both her and David Zatezalo:

Policy Watch: Two more foxes nominated to run hen houses in the Trump administration
Two officials with a history of anti-worker behavior nominated to be worker advocates
Last edited by Vrede too on Fri Sep 15, 2017 8:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Worker Thread

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You're right, of course, in that the actual appointment is "news" but it's no surprise, unless one had hoped that she would get derailed in nanny-gate or something.

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Re: The Worker Thread

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It's more difficult to organize opposition until an actual appointment, especially with an administration that's as rumor ridden and flaky as Dolt .45's.
Always be yourself! Unless you can be a goat, then always be a goat.
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Re: The Worker Thread

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She'll have a harder time making wage-hour regulations ineffective and cutting enforcement than some of her other colleagues. If you think you've got a race discrimination or harassment problem with your employer, you are required to first go to the EEOC. With a Trump-appointed EEOC chair, the agency can ignore, stonewall, or just change the rules on how charges are processed. Eventually, the EEOC will issue a "right to sue" letter, but without some EEOC findings, it's an uphill battle. Wage-hour issues, on the other hand, are not required to go through the DOL Wage-Hour Division at all, and can go straight to federal court. Decisions at that level will be based on what the law says and on former decisions, not so much on transient regulations. So if she cuts enforcement, more complaints will go to court, resulting in higher costs to employers and more toys for defense attorneys.

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