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Baltimore City Council should require that all city workers are paid a higher living wage before it takes a second look at imposing the requiring on large retailers, a key city councilman said.

Councilman Warren Branch, chairman of City Council’s Labor subcommittee, raised the issue during a hearing on a proposed living wage bill. The bill, rejected July 22, would have required retailers grossing at least $10 million in sales a year to pay their employees an hourly wage set by the city. That amount is $10.59 and applies now to city contractors that do business with the city.

Branch said before the city considers the matter again it should ensure its own workers are being paid a living wage as well.

“Shouldn’t we clean our own houses out first before we talk about cleaning someone’s house?” Branch asked at Thursday’s hearing.

The city’s living wage bill does not apply to city employees, whose wages are negotiated by collective bargaining agreements. Temporary workers for the Department of Public Works’ Bureau of Solid Waste are not part of those agreements, department spokesman Robert Murrow said. There are 66 seasonal workers who get paid $7.90 an hour. That amount is

more than the state and federal minimum wage rates of $7.25 an hour but less than the city’s living wage for contractors no faxing payday loan. Another group of 25 tempoary workers with commercial driver’s licenses earn $11 an hour.

Those temporary workers are supposed to become city employees after two years of employment, but many are kept on beyond that date if full-time positions are not available. There are a dozen of those employees, but Murrow said the department is now trying to place them into permanent positions. He said the department has looked at the pay disparity and hopes to pay its temporary workers a living wage when finances permit.

“At this time that might not be fiscally possible but we’re aware of that,” he said.

Branch said he will try to rally City Council to increase those workers’ wages, which he said should happen before it takes another look at requiring retailers to pay a living wage to their employees. “As a collective group, that’s what we should do,” Branch said in an interview.

Council members James Kraft and Mary Pat Clarke also expressed support for the idea. Clarke, who sponsored the defeated living wage bill for retailers, said she will look to Branch to sponsor the wage increase for temporary city workers.

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Research Triangle Park-based Semiconductor Research Corp. is getting some big backing from IBM (NYSE: IBM) and energy giant ABB (NYSE: ABB), both of which are putting money into SRC’s $5 million clean energy initiative.

SRC supports numerous faculty research projects at universities across the country. In the clean energy effort, Purdue University will get a photovoltaic research center, and a smart grid research center will be created at Carnegie Mellon University.

Initial efforts will focus on development of new modeling and simulation tools for development of photovoltaic devices for use in solar energy as well as systems and technology to support smart grids for electricity payday loans for bad credit.

“The development of these capabilities is beyond the scale of a single company or even industry, making the cooperation between industry and academia critical to delivering the benefits of alternative energy on a global scale,” said SRC Executive Vice President Steven Hillenius in a statement.

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Advanced Inquiry Systems Inc., a company developing a semiconductor testing technology, has raised $10 million in a Series C round from a group of investors, according to a new filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The money will be used to help bring a product to market.

The Hillsboro company closed a $11 million Series B round last year, bringing its funding up to $33 million at the time.

The company has developed a proprietary silicon-based testing platform to enable lower cost testing of memory devices pay day advance.

The company’s previous investors include OVP Venture Partners, TL Ventures, Intel Capital, Applied Ventures, KT Ventures and Northwest Technology Ventures. The Series C round included a new undiscloved investor.

The company was founded in 2002. It declined to disclose revenue on its most recent SEC filing.

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Bank of America Corp. is switching from Fidelity Investments to Hewitt Associates Inc. and Plateau Systems as the Charlotte-based bank’s human-resource service providers, beginning in 2011.

Charlotte-based BofA is currently under contract with Fidelity, which has most of its 2,400 North Carolina employees in the Raleigh-Durham area, for such services. The bank, which ranks No. 5 in Raleigh-Durham market share, says the move will bring cost and operational efficiencies while also providing market-leading technologies to BofA managers and employees.

Under the new agreements, Hewitt will offer human-resources administration, payroll services and health-management administration, as well as information technology. Plateau Systems will provide employee training across BofA’s departments.

Financial terms weren’t disclosed.

Last year, Fidelity cut its investment in its large-client, human-resources administration and payroll-outsourcing business to focus on small and midsized markets. BofA says it evaluated options to continue with its contract with Fidelity but decided to request bids for a new human-resources provider.

Fidelity will continue to administer retirement services for BofA (NYSE:BAC).

Boston-based Fidelity is one of the world’s largest providers of financial services. It offers investment management, retirement planning, brokerage, and human resources and benefits outsourcing services.

Illinois-based Hewitt (NYSE:HEW) markets human-resources consulting and outsourcing services. The company has 23,000 workers in more than 30 countries. Last week, it announced plans to add 463 jobs in Charlotte during the next three years. Hewitt has 534 workers in North Carolina. The vast majority of them are in Charlotte.

The new jobs, primarily in HR and information technology, will be added to the company’s leased operations at University Research Park in north Charlotte.

Virginia-based Plateau Systems is a provider of work-force management technologies.

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MetroPCS Communications Inc., a wireless phone company known for its no-contract, prepaid service, posted a 2009 profit of $176.8 million.

The company credits an expansion into northeastern U.S. states and a broadening of its rate plans for its 2009 success.

Richardson-based MetroPCS (NYSE: PCS) posted an annual profit of $176.8 million, or 49 cents per share, on revenue of $3.5 billion in 2009. That is up from the company’s profit of $149 million, or 42 cents per share, on revenue of $2 cash advance america.8 billion in 2008.

For the fourth quarter of 2009, MetroPCS posted a profit of $33.1 million, or 9 cents per share, on revenue of $930 million. That compares to a profit of $14.6 million, or 4 cents per share, on revenue of $723.6 million for the fourth quarter of 2008.

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Charter Communications Inc. President and Chief Executive Neil Smit, the highest-paid executive in St. Louis, plans to leave the company to run rival Comcast Corp.

Smit, whose resignation from Charter is effective Feb. 28, will become president of Comcast Cable Communications in Philadelphia, The Wall Street Journal reports.

He will be replaced at Charter on an interim basis by Chief Operating Officer Michael Lovett.

Smit joined St. Louis-based Charter as CEO in 2005 and recently led the company’s financial restructuring through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy fast cash advance.

Smit ascended to the top of the Business Journal’s annual list of St. Louis’ highest-paid executives. With $7.4 million in cash compensation for 2008, Smit unseated Edward Jones Managing Partner James Weddle from the perch he’s held for the past two years. Smit rang up his chart-topping payday despite Charter’s staggering $2.45 billion loss last year and subsequent bankruptcy filing.

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The U.S. economy is in much more serious trouble than news reports, policy makers and pundits might lead you to believe. Cam Harvey explains in his blog payday loans guaranteed no fax.

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Bombardier

$405M contract awarded

Bombardier Inc. has received an order from Spain’s national rail operator to maintain a fleet of high-speed trains for 14 years, the Montreal-based transportation equipment maker announced Thursday.

RENFE will pay $917 million (U.S.) to Bombardier and Spanish railway vehicle maker Talgo to maintain the new trains. Bombardier’s share of the contract comes to $405 million.

The maintenance work will take place at RENFE’s depots in Spain.

Rusal

$2.6B U.S. IPO planned

Russian aluminum giant UC Rusal will try to raise as much as $2.6 billion (U.S.) by selling shares in Hong Kong in late January to reduce its mountain of debt, the company said Thursday.

Moscow-based Rusal – run by tycoon Oleg Deripaska – is seeking to sell more than 1.6 billion shares at a price between 12.50 Hong Kong dollars ($1.61 U.S.) and $9.10 (Hong Kong), according to the filing with Hong Kong’s stock exchange.

The potential proceeds range from $1.9 billion (U.S.) to $2.6 billion.

Washington Times

Paper to axe 40% of staff

The Washington Times will slash newsroom staff by more than 40 per cent and eliminate its sports section as it revamps to focus on politics, business and investigative reporting.

The newspaper’s Thursday edition announced the layoffs and said the last sports section would appear Friday. Among those let go was managing editor David Jones.

A new print edition will be launched Monday.

Diners Club

BMO completes buyout

BMO Financial Group announced Thursday that it has completed the acquisition of the Diners Club North American franchise from Citigroup. The acquisition, announced in November, puts BMO among the top commercial card issuers in North America.

BMO said the purchase will accelerate the bank’s expansion into the travel-and-entertainment card sector, particularly in the United States.

Marvel

Holders okay Disney deal

Shareholders of Marvel Entertainment Inc., home of Spider-Man and the Hulk, have approved the company’s acquisition by The Walt Disney Co., as expected.

Shareholders of the 70-year-old comic-book company voted at a special meeting Thursday.

With the $4.3 billion (U.S.) deal, Disney gets Marvel’s stable of more than 5,000 characters. Most of them are obscure, but several have been the basis for blockbuster movies in recent years.

From the Star’s wire services

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The Supreme Court again Monday turned away the latest challenge to Chrysler’s bankruptcy and sale to Italian automaker Fiat.

The justices declined an appeal filed by three Indiana state pension funds which hold a portion of Chrysler’s nearly $7 billion in secured debt. The court said the issue is moot since the Chrysler sale was formally completed six months ago.

The three funds — representing police officers and teachers — sought greater compensation for their share of the debt.

A federal appeals court — as well as a bankruptcy judge — approved the sale of the Chrysler assets.

The financially troubled domestic automaker had filed for bankruptcy April 30, and at the time pinned its future on the restructuring plan pushed by the White House.

Chrysler had been trying to leave behind its debt as part of the Chapter 11 process, a step that would wipe out much of the Indiana pension funds’ holdings.

The funds held about $42 million, or less than 1%, of Chrysler’s debt.

Lawyers for the funds argued to the Supreme Court that the Obama administration improperly used money from a federal bailout to help Chrysler. That money was designed, they say, to help only struggling financial institutions payday loan lenders.

Indiana Treasurer Richard Mourdock said the pension funds are secured creditors and, therefore, deserved a say in the outcome. They said they were no longer were seeking to block the sale but simply wanted to recover money for their investors.

Both Chrysler and the federal government said the sale to the Italian automaker had to be completed quickly to ensure domestic jobs were not lost and to keep Chrysler financially afloat for the long term.

The Justice Department, in a filing with the high court, said the president had the authority to tap into the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to help Chrysler. "As an economic matter … blocking the transaction would undoubtedly have grave consequences," wrote Solicitor General Elena Kagan.

The deal with Fiat and Chrysler was finalized in June, but legal appeals continued. The new company for now is to be owned jointly by the federal government, an autoworker’s union retiree fund and Fiat.

The case is Indiana State Police Pension Trust v. Chrysler LLC (09-285). 

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The Japanese government may delay an economic stimulus package after members of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s coalition said the proposed plan was insufficient.

“It probably won’t come together” today, Mikio Shimoji, head of policy research at the People’s New Party, told reporters in Tokyo. The head of the Social Democratic Party, also a minority coalition member, said the government was still debating the plan.

PNP leader and Financial Services Minister Shizuka Kamei has urged for spending of at least 8 trillion yen ($90 billion). Hatoyama’s Democratic Party of Japan had planned a package of as much as 4 trillion yen, Finance Ministry officials familiar with the matter have said.

Kamei “won’t relent on the 8 trillion yen figure,” Shimoji said, adding “We’ve put negotiations on hold same day payday loans.” He said signs the economic expansion has been weakening mean the government will need to spend more than planned.

“We’re in deflation, so we need something quantitative,” Shimoji said. “We think that unless it’s around 8 trillion yen, the economy won’t respond. They have no choice but to bow down,” he added, referring to the DPJ.

“I think there’s a possibility it won’t happen today,” SDP leader Mizuho Fukushima told reporters at the Prime Minister’s residence in Tokyo.

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