Business News brief

First Posted:

CV institutes furloughs

The Citizens’ Voice told hourly employees on Friday that they will be required to take one unpaid furlough day each month.
In a memo to employees, publishers Daniel Haggerty and Greg Lynett said the cutback was due to “ongoing challenging business conditions.” A Citizens’ Voice employee provided a copy of the memo to The Times Leader.
An employee at the Hazleton Standard-Speaker said employees there received a similar memo.
The furloughs will remain in effect throughout 2009 unless conditions improve, the publishers said.
W. Scott Lynett, chief executive of parent company Times-Shamrock Communications, declined comment.
The company has previously offered buyouts and managers have taken salary cuts in the face of an industrywide downturn in advertising.
Immigration rule axed
The Labor Department on Friday suspended a regulation adopted shortly before President George W. Bush left office that would have made it easier for farmers to bring in foreign workers.
Many immigration and labor advocacy groups had opposed the new rule for lowering wages and eliminating some protections for temporary farm workers. But farm owners supported the Bush administration changes, saying they eliminated red tape that made it harder to bring in foreign workers to help harvest crops.
Southwest adding fees
Southwest Airlines Co., which has bashed competitors for charging fees, said Friday it will add new fees for passengers who bring small pets onboard and for unaccompanied minors.
It will also raise the charge for checking a third piece of luggage or an overweight bag.
Other airlines have raised hundreds of millions of dollars since last year with new fees that include charges for checking one or two pieces of luggage and talking to reservations agents on the phone.
Setback for LifeLock
A federal court in California has blocked LifeLock, one of the industry’s biggest players, from setting up fraud alerts with Experian, one of the three main credit-reporting agencies that manage the fraud alerts.
Experian is suing LifeLock, claiming that LifeLock’s automatic renewal of customers’ fraud alerts — which happens every 90 days, when they expire — costs Experian millions of dollars in processing expenses.