Corporations Behaving Badly

[RTH10260]

cause it just popped up, but older article

Florida's HOA board members charged with stealing over $2M of residents' money
The case has not been closed yet, but a mix of theft, fraud and money laundering charges were announced on Tuesday

Associated Press
Published November 16, 2022 3:32pm EST

Several current and former board members on one of Florida's largest homeowners associations have been charged with stealing more than $2 million of residents' money.

Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle announced a mix of theft, fraud and money laundering charges on Tuesday against current president Monica Isabel Ghilardi, 52; board member Myriam Arango Rodgers, 76; former board member Yoleidis Lopez Garcia, 47; former president Marglli Gallego, 41; and Jose Antonio Gonzalez, 45, who is Gallego's husband and accused of running two companies that were paid at least $1.26 million in HOA funds.

"This case is not closed," Fernandez Rundle said during a news conference. "These are not the end of the criminal arrests."

Gallego had been the Hammocks Community Association's president until she was arrested in April 2021 on theft charges. That arrest was part of a long-running probe that also led to the new charges. The HOA oversees 40 communities and over 6,500 units in West Kendall, located southwest of Miami.

A significant part of the investigation centered around board members writing checks, in some cases for hundreds of thousands of dollars, to vendors for services that weren't actually being provided, prosecutors said. Then the vendors would return laundered money after keeping a portion for themselves.




https://www.foxnews.com/us/floridas-hoa ... ents-money

[raison de arizona]

What a nightmare.

CVS pharmacists are fed up. They're understaffed, overloaded with patients, and some report having to give 125 covid boosters in one day, on top of their other work.

So last week they staged walkouts at 22 stores in Kansas City.

Today, they plan to protest across the country.

[johnpcapitalist]

What a nightmare.

CVS pharmacists are fed up. They're understaffed, overloaded with patients, and some report having to give 125 covid boosters in one day, on top of their other work.

So last week they staged walkouts at 22 stores in Kansas City.

Today, they plan to protest across the country.

I know someone who has been a pharmacist for 35 years, mostly at big chains. She says the issues expressed here are true of all large pharmacy chains. There's a shortage of pharmacists because the pay is so low. They purge all the oldsters with lots of experience even though the rookies make lots of mistakes.

She recently got off the treadmill by becoming the head of pharmacy services at a multi-location medical marijuana dispensary. She took the job because she knows it can help people. She's never smoked a joint in her life, so it's not because she's a stoner looking for the employee discount.

[raison de arizona]

I know someone who has been a pharmacist for 35 years, mostly at big chains. She says the issues expressed here are true of all large pharmacy chains. There's a shortage of pharmacists because the pay is so low. They purge all the oldsters with lots of experience even though the rookies make lots of mistakes.

She recently got off the treadmill by becoming the head of pharmacy services at a multi-location medical marijuana dispensary. She took the job because she knows it can help people. She's never smoked a joint in her life, so it's not because she's a stoner looking for the employee discount.

I have a family member who is a pharmacist, she's ended up in management to get a decent paycheck.

[Suranis]

https://lasvegassun.com/news/2023/sep/2 ... -out-to-v/

Culinary Union members give OK for strike as talks with Strip properties continue

By Katie Ann McCarver (contact)

Published Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2023 | 5:59 p.m.

The Culinary Workers Union announced Tuesday night that a citywide strike authorization members voted on earlier in the day passed with 95% support.

Thousands of members of the union, some with kids on their shoulders or in strollers and others leading chants like “No contract, no peace,” showed up to vote on the authorization, ultimately approving it, Tuesday at the Thomas & Mack Center.

Despite months of negotiations between Nevada’s largest labor union and major resort companies, a new contract is still out of reach for tens of thousands of hospitality workers. Negotiations are slated to continue next week. The authorization gives the union the ability to call for work stoppage, but it hasn't set a deadline for doing so.

“Today, Culinary and Bartenders Union members have sent the strongest message possible to the casino industry to settle a fair contract as soon as possible, said Ted Pappageorge, secretary-treasurer and chief negotiator of the Culinary Union, in a statement Tuesday night.

“If these gaming companies don’t come to an agreement, the workers have spoken and we will be ready to do whatever it takes — up to and including a strike. Workers brought every single one of these companies through the pandemic and into a great recovery, and workers deserve a fair share. Companies are doing extremely well and we are demanding that workers aren’t left behind,” he stated.

Union leaders were met with raucous applause during a program in which they evoked the long and successful history of organized labor in Las Vegas, with signs saying, “One job should be enough,” and urged members to vote in favor of authorizing a strike.

[AndyinPA]

I go to a Rite Aid for prescriptions, and it's about the same, noticeably different from the past. All pharmacists in PA close their areas and have lunch from 1:30 to 2:00. That's fairly new. My location is closing this weekend.

A lot of the pharmacies are in trouble because of the opioid lawsuits, too.

[Kriselda Gray]

What a nightmare.

CVS pharmacists are fed up. They're understaffed, overloaded with patients, and some report having to give 125 covid boosters in one day, on top of their other work.

So last week they staged walkouts at 22 stores in Kansas City.

Today, they plan to protest across the country.

I know how bad it is in KC. Because of my insurance (and my almost 2 decades of opioid pain med usage, during which I've only used the one CVS location), it's simplest for me to use CVS pharmacies, but I've been having real problems with getting my meds handled in a reasonable amount of time due to short staffing. Part of the problem for me is that if I switch pharmacies, there's a risk it could look like I'm trying to do something hinky with getting my pain meds, so I'm kind of stuck because I can't risk running out of those. At the same time, I can only request a new script for them like 3 days before the old one is going to run out, and with as far backed up as they get because of the shortfall of staff, sometimes it's cutting it pretty close anyway. Ugh!

[Ben-Prime]

My late uncle was a pharmacist, and his oldest son is now. My first job was working for my uncle's best friend in a pharmacy when I was 16. I would later go to work for both of them when they briefly left corporate pharmacy and started a small mom-and-pop. I've kept track of the industry and, yeah, this is insane-but-true.

My cousin, who is also my older godson, had done some enlisted time in the USAF while deciding what to do with his life, then decided to follow in his dad's footsteps. He's trying now in his late 30s to get back into the Air Force, commissioning as an officer and serving as a military pharmacist because of the better respect and working conditions. No joke. His family is all in for it. I think it's just a matter of the military sealing the deal. The punchline is that he works at the in-house pharmacy of a supermarket chain well-known for treating people well. It's their thing. And the pharmacy life is STILL beating him down.

[johnpcapitalist]

[H]e works at the in-house pharmacy of a supermarket chain well-known for treating people well.

I never expected to see those two phrases in the same sentence.

I thought supermarkets were the epicenters of jobs of pure drudgery and treating staff as disposable automatons that they would have to put up with until robotics had advanced far enough...

[Ben-Prime]

[H]e works at the in-house pharmacy of a supermarket chain well-known for treating people well.

I never expected to see those two phrases in the same sentence.

I thought supermarkets were the epicenters of jobs of pure drudgery and treating staff as disposable automatons that they would have to put up with until robotics had advanced far enough...

Publix. Known in Florida as the "Wal-Mart Killer" because it's one of the few stores Wal-Mart rarely puts out of business when they go head-to-head. And because "Wal-Mart Survivor" doesn't sound as cute. People literally choose it for customer service reasons, they vest employees with stock, and they are well-known for jobs programs for individuals with developmental disabilities. If it weren't for the fact that one of the company heirs is a well-known funder of certain right-wing causes, they'd be an angel company to almost everyone.

[Frater I*I]

Publix. Known in Florida as the "Wal-Mart Killer" because it's one of the few stores Wal-Mart rarely puts out of business when they go head-to-head. And because "Wal-Mart Survivor" doesn't sound as cute. People literally choose it for customer service reasons, they vest employees with stock, and they are well-known for jobs programs for individuals with developmental disabilities. If it weren't for the fact that one of the company heirs is a well-known funder of certain right-wing causes, they'd be an angel company to almost everyone.

Except for they are anti-union...

[northland10]

Except for they are anti-union...

I cannot speak for that case as I don't know the company well so they could be major jerks about unions. That is out of my knowledge base. However, I have noticed a few companies over the years who were never unionized but as best as I could tell, it was not the management being difficult about it. They had found a surefire way to avoid unionization. Take away the employees' incentive to unionize. If you treat your staff well, not just in pay and benefits but in the work environment, unions have trouble organizing because the employees don't see the value of the union.

Too many corporate leaders think that part of running a company is not valuing what makes the company run. Leadership to them is telling other what to do instead of leading them as part of the team that brings value to the company. You don't treat them as part of the same group, they will look for that blowing elsewhere, such as a union.

A good leader would also know how to use a union as a benefit to the organization.

[RTH10260]

‘Control the narrative’: how an Alabama utility wields influence by financing news
A Floodlight investigation found Alabama Power runs a news service and its foundation bought a Black newspaper. Neither publishes critical stories about the utility

Miranda Green for Floodlight
Wed 17 Jan 2024 12.00 CET

In the more than a decade since Alabama regulators allowed a landfill to take in tons of waste from coal-burning power plants around the US, neighbors in the majority-Black community of Uniontown frequently complain of thick air so pungent it makes their eyes burn.


On some days, it can look like an eerily white Christmas in a place that rarely sees snow.

“When the wind blows, all the trees in the area are totally gray and white,” said Ben Eaton, a Uniontown commissioner and president of Black Belt Citizens Fighting for Health and Justice, a local group that is pushing to shutter the facility.

Residents of the former plantation town complain of high rates of kidney failure and neuropathy – two symptoms of exposure to coal ash, whose toxic byproduct contains mercury and arsenic. The controversy has been covered for years in local and national news outlets, including a civil rights case Eaton’s group filed – and lost – to close the landfill.

Just last year, coal ash in the state drew national attention when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) tentatively denied a state clean-up proposal that it found to be too weak for waste coming in part from its largest electricity provider – Alabama Power.



https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ngham-news

[RTH10260]

Del Monte Kenya representatives accused of seeking to cover up circumstances of men’s deaths
Exclusive: Investigation uncovers claims Del Monte representatives offered bribes in attempt to persuade men to back company’s version of events

Edwin Okoth, Emily Dugan and Grace Murray
Thu 8 Feb 2024 06.00 CET

Representatives of Del Monte Kenya have been accused of offering bribes in an attempt to cover up the circumstances in which four men died after going to steal pineapples from its farm in December.

The men’s bodies were recovered from a river on the vast plantation near Thika on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day last year. The four were part of a group of men who it is claimed were chased by the farm’s security guards after going to steal pineapples on 21 December.

An investigation by the Guardian and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has uncovered allegations that representatives of Del Monte Kenya made multiple attempts to bribe groups of men in the weeks after the deaths.

Men in the group who went to steal from the farm claimed in interviews and sworn statements that they saw their friends “brutally beaten” by guards with metal rods next to the pineapple field. They said two had been incapacitated when they were thrown in the river by guards and that another had had a stone thrown at his head as he tried to swim away.

In interviews and affidavits, representatives of Del Monte are also accused of offering jobs and money to those willing to make statements that the men simply drowned running away from a botched raid.




https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/ ... ens-deaths

[raison de arizona]

Shameful. I get that it is probably LEGAL, but they should still be ashamed of themselves. One can do a lot of things that aren't ILLEGAL, but are still dick moves. Enter GE.
https://x.com/RBReich/status/1757472223781114247?s=20

GE boasted $7 billion in profit in 2023. So it must have paid a lot in federal taxes, right?

If you guessed $1, you’d still be high. In fact, GE got a *refund* of $423 million.

This is what I mean when I say the tax system is rigged for the rich.

[MN-Skeptic]

Shameful. I get that it is probably LEGAL, but they should still be ashamed of themselves. One can do a lot of things that aren't ILLEGAL, but are still dick moves. Enter GE.
https://x.com/RBReich/status/1757472223781114247?s=20

GE boasted $7 billion in profit in 2023. So it must have paid a lot in federal taxes, right?

If you guessed $1, you’d still be high. In fact, GE got a *refund* of $423 million.

This is what I mean when I say the tax system is rigged for the rich.

Nope. Former tax accountant here. As long as GE paid everything they were legally required to pay, I have no problem with them. Corporate taxes can be extremely complex. But it's up to Congress to devise fair tax laws. If companies are paying too little, it's because that is how Congress has structured the law.

[raison de arizona]

I disagree. Integrity is doing the right thing even when no one is watching. It’s unpatriotic.

[MN-Skeptic]

I remember hearing these quotes from Judge Learned Hand back when I was working on my master's degree in business taxation:

Any one may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the Treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes.

Helvering v. Gregory, 69 F.2d 809, 810-11 (2d Cir. 1934)

Over and over again courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging one's affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everybody does so, rich or poor; and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands: taxes are enforced exactions, not voluntary contributions. To demand more in the name of morals is mere cant.

Commissioner v. Newman, 159 F2d 848 (1947)

[raison de arizona]

I get what you are saying, and I respect it. But I don’t believe that it is moral for a company making $7B a year to not only not pay any income tax, but to additionally take half a billion from those of us that ARE paying it.

[MN-Skeptic]

And that is the fault of Congress, not of the businesses.

I worked for a very sharp tax director who pointed out that expenses of corporations are passed along to their customers. Raise the cost of raw materials, the price of the product goes up. Raise corporate taxes, the price of the product goes up. Taxes are just another expense of doing business. The customer always pays in the end. Ironically, cutting expenses, such as taxes, don't always get passed along to the customer. A lot of times management just declares how wonderful they managed the company and increased profits and so therefor they're getting huge bonuses.

And, as I've said before, this is why I own stock in companies. They will always find a way to make a profit and our government - whether Republicans or Democrats - will ensure that they do.

[Volkonski]

Companies don't always find a way to make a profit.

[MN-Skeptic]

And that is why your investment in stocks should be in a low-cost broad-based index fund of the total stock market or something similar. (Basic Bogleheads investment advice - Forum, Wiki.) I do own a few individual stocks, but I not enough to hurt me if they all went bust.

[RTH10260]

Woman suing after renting a car in Las Vegas: 'I would not rent a car again ... never'

8 News Now — Las Vegas
16 Feb 2024

Danielle Brissett sat in jail for six days in August of 2023 after being arrested in front of her children. It happened after Enterprise Rent-A-Car reported the Kia Sedona she rented in 2016 was stolen.

[Slim Cognito]

I hope she cleans them out.

[RTH10260]

KARE 11 Investigates: Her husband was murdered. Insurance denied her claim.
A woman filed a claim for the blood-soaked bedding where she was brutally attacked, and her husband was murdered. State Farm said ‘No’ – until KARE 11 got involved.

Author: Lauren Leamanczyk, Steve Eckert
Published: 11:56 AM CST February 15, 2024
Updated: 10:26 PM CST February 15, 2024

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. — A home invader struck before dawn – attacking a man and his wife while they were still in bed.

Mark Novak and his wife Pam were both brutally beaten and repeatedly stabbed.

Mark died trying to protect his wife.

Pam fought for her life and spent days in intensive care – but survived.

She never imagined she was about to have another fight on her hands – getting State Farm Insurance to cover items, including their blood-soaked bed, damaged in the deadly attack.



https://www.kare11.com/article/news/inv ... 45138b2c2e

State Farm stood by the denial, even after she got a lawyer and appealed.

The reason?

“Personal property damaged by blood is not a named peril,” State Farm wrote in a denial letter.