Jobs and Labor

Workers at ExxonMobil's Massive Baytown Plant (Almost) Went On Strike over safety

The folks over at Exxon Mobil's Baytown refinery were facing a possible Norma Rae situation last week when local United Steelworkers representatives threatened a strike if the Exxon people didn't put in the health and safety provisions they'd asked for in their contracts. Local USW rep Rich "Hoot" ... More >>

National Tour on Minimum Wage Tosses Houstonians Between Rocks and Hard Places

Qvtaive Harris is 20 years old. He's slender, with knobby elbows and a small afro, wearing sharp white pants and a teal shirt from the Texas Organizing Project. He's sitting, surrounded by a half-dozen mothers, another half-dozen reporters, and a small woman from the Department of Labor. The women ... More >>

NFL Free Agency 2013: Your Texans Cheat Sheet (Cap Numbers, Restructure Candidates, and More!)

Back in the day, when I used to have oodles and oodles of idle time on my hands during prime game-show watching hours (that's code for "back in college"), Wheel of Fortune was a staple of my game-show dance card. (For the record, Tic Tac Dough, Joker's Wild and Price is Right -- the Sopranos of game ... More >>

Royce White Close To Returning To The Houston Rockets

After a standoff that's lasted since virtually the beginning of the 2012-2013 NBA season, and on the heels of a piece that ran on HBO's Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel on Tuesday night, it appears that Houston Rockets rookie forward Royce White will soon return to work under parameters contained in a ... More >>

Houston's Austin Tice, Missing: The Most Dangerous Of Assignments -- Freelance Journalism In A War

When Houston journalist Austin Tice left for Syria eight months ago to cover the country's devolution and nascent civil war, he melted into a country that has become, both anecdotally and statistically, the most dangerous place in the world to be a journalist. He did it as a freelance reporter, pos ... More >>

Six Ways Telecommuting Is Better Than Business Travel

I have had the fortunate pleasure to be someone who works from home for many years now. I gave up the idea of an office when I realized that most of the people who work for me don't live in the same city as I do and setting up an office space just for myself seemed a little sad and depressing. Plus, ... More >>

NFL Owners Celebrate New CBA, Now They Just Need The Players To Sign It

Or is it?​ "I'm pleased to report that the definitive agreement that we've negotiated with the union, the owners approved it today by a vote of 31, with one abstention, and I'm quite pleased. It's a 10-year agreement." -- Houston Texans owner Bob McNair on a conference call Thursday night I ... More >>

More NFL Owner Premature "Celebra-culation" As Lockout Rolls On

​So, the NFL owners ratified the proposed collective bargaining agreement on Thursday afternoon. Instead of following up that approval with a brief, measured statement from commissioner Roger Goodell (an appropriate follow-up since the deal is not done until the players approve it), the owners ... More >>

Curt Flood: The Story of a Well-Paid Slave

Baseball's forgotten man​The man's name is Curt Flood. He spent a majority of his career with the St. Louis Cardinals, winning multiple Gold Gloves for his superb defensive play. He was one of the outstanding baseball players of the 1960s. But when he's remembered nowadays, he's not remembe ... More >>

Comment of the Day: Union Leaders, Corrupt and Not

​We have some great commenters here on Hair Balls, and it's time we paid some damn attention to them. So we'll be highlighting a Comment of the Day each morning, from the previous day's work. Maybe two comments, even. This will all be determined by a highly rigorous scientific formula involv ... More >>

City Selling Its Downtown HPD Headquarters, Preventing Jailer Layoffs

For sale or lease: HPD HQ​Houston will look to sell or lease the downtown police headquarters as part of a deal that will keep HPD from having to lay off 273 jailers, Mayor Annise Parker announced today. The city and the HPD pension plan also agreed to allow the city to defer payment of $17 m ... More >>

Summer Jobs: Top Five Ways to Get Employed

Somebody's got to roll the burritos.​It's just about summertime, when the heat descends and the bugs surface, reminding you that you do actually live on a swamp. And if you're a teen, there's another thing a'coming to bite you in the butt -- the summer job search. This season will be no picni ... More >>

Janet Civitelli: How Not To Be Young & Recessioned

​Today's installment of Young & Recessioned features Janet Civitelli, associate director of career services at the University of Houston, who helps college grads find jobs in a toughened job market. When the economy is booming, you can have mediocre job search skills and still land a job. But ... More >>

Dmetrius Alexander, Young & Recessioned: You're Just A Set Of Keywords In A Search Engine

​Today's Installment of Young & Recessioned features Dmetrius Alexander, a 26-year-old from San Antonio that found the only thing worse than being unemployed in Houston for ten months is searching for jobs online. I went to St. Mary's University in San Antonio. I always wanted to get into busi ... More >>

Unions Take to the Barricades For Old Teachers

Photo by Margaret Downing​Both the local AFL-CIO chapter and the Houston Federation of Teachers are urging a huge turnout at Thursday night's Houston ISD board meeting to protest planned layoffs of teachers and other district employees in an attempt to stop what one union leader calls "this insane ... More >>

Yes, Anastasia, You Too Can Cyber Land a Job in a Recession

​Pardon us, but we're about to impart some useful, seasoned knowledge on you. Don't get too accustomed to it, however. We'll return to our regularly scheduled programming of a wee bit of technology talk with a whole lot of intertwined innuendo in no time.But for today, we educate. Our topic? E ... More >>

Life, Post-Ike: A Full Recovery

Just when it looked like UTMB might leave Galveston forever, local legislators saved it.

Hey Houston!! You're Getting A Raise!! (Well, Some Of You Are)

​There's startling news out of a new survey by Hewitt Associates, a national human-resources firm: People are getting raises.In this day and age! Not only that, but Houston is at the top of the pack for this strange, more or less unheard-of phenomenon.Hewitt's survey shows that Houston workers can ... More >>

Mature Strippers and Lottery Money:

Not coming to anywhere near you

Your Federal Government: Protecting The Rights Of Old People To Work In Strip Clubs

Now this is the kind of federal government you're getting now that Obama's in office -- the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is suing a Houston strip club for firing a worker because she was too old.Finally, we have a gover -- what the hell? We're gonna get old strippers now? Bring back McCai ... More >>

Some Thoughts On The Chronicle Cuts: So Long, Suburbs

(Note: For a while, this item was posted with the wrong byline -- it's by Steve Olafson, not Richard Connelly, and always has been. Thanks, and sorry.)The layoffs at the Houston Chronicle cut much deeper into the editorial side of the newspaper than the announced company-wide 12 percent reduction ... More >>

Here's A Plan: Fewer People, More Work At The Chronicle

The Houston Chronicle is having problems, like most big-city dailies, but it might get a whole lot worse. One of the latest rumors sweeping the San Francisco Chronicle would have the deskies in Houston handling headline writing, copy editing and layout for their ailing sister paper by The Bay. The o ... More >>

Fox 26 News May Be Facing Some Big Job Cuts

Difficult times may be coming for Channel 26, Fox's local news operation.A television-news website reports that Fox is planning big cutbacks at stations across the country. "Stations like New York's WNYW, Chicago's WFLD and Houston's KRIV are expected to be hit hard," reports TVNewserKRIV is an "own ... More >>

Bad Faith and Texas Mutual Insurance: Plausible Deniability

State doesn't keep track of how many denials are reversed on appeal

Bad Faith and Texas Mutual Insurance

Houston attorney Mike Doyle and TMI are locked in a battle over truth, lies and an employee's right to workers' comp benefits.

Fool's Gold

Desperate clients hand over thousands of dollars for a chance at a job

Black and White

Good ol’ boys prosper at the Harris County Sheriff’s Office. Many African-Americans don’t.

Moving Target

The city is rolling out the welcome mat for CITGO. But many workers want the company to get lost.

Behind the Happy Face

Labor pains flare in a worker's fight with Wal-Mart

Paying Their Way

Taking the Plunge

Saad Mahmoud is a Rice engineering grad. Instead of fielding $60,000-a-year job offers, he's been trading manual-labor skills for rent-free living -- while waiting out one of the worst job markets in two decades.

Pink Slip Exhibits

When the cash-flush MFAH vows no layoffs, don't believe it

Bloody Monday

For 14 workers of the struggling opera, the fat lady sings

Hard to Say Good-bye

Economic woes hit the Chronicle, and job cuts are coming

CEO Mom

To Penny Warner, home is where the work and children are

He's an Out-of-Comptroller!

Former city tourism official accused of paying mom's nursing home bills out of agency funds

Workers Reject a Union

A January walkout fails to bring representation to Quietflex

Awakening Giant

Immigrant Hispanic workers at Quietflex spoke out. Now their struggle may reshape organized labor in Houston.

Affirmative Action for Whom?

UH's score on the EEOC raises credibility questions

Circle Those Wagons!

When the UH leader fired back atsex-bias accusers, did he shoot himself in the foot?

News Hostage

Steel Reunion

Union Tank Car vote reflects labor's rebound

(Pay)checks and (Im)balances

Fat starting salaries! Hefty raises! HISD says its administrators deserve them.

The Mean Spirit of Texas?

Two veteran TV news reporters accuse Channel 11 of age discrimination

The Insider

Static

Minimal Theories

Despite the rhetoric, evidence on the minimum wage initiative isn't conclusive either way

Bloodletting?

The medical examiner's controversial DNA expert is fired... for doing her job

DisUnion

Rent by charges of corruption and ineffective representation, Teamsters Local 988 may be driving itself to destruction

Beneath the Dogs

A court victory for laid-off Latino workers spotlights the harsh conditions in Houston's surplus of small plastics plants