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In a case that affects thousands of businesses and millions of workers, the California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that employers are under no obligation to ensure that workers take legally mandated lunch and rest breaks

The unanimous opinion came after workers’ attorneys argued that abuses are routine and widespread when companies aren’t required to issue direct orders to take the breaks. They claimed employers take advantage of workers who don’t want to leave colleagues during busy times.

The case was initially filed nine years ago against Brinker International, the parent company of Chili’s and other eateries, by restaurant workers complaining of missed breaks in violation of California labor law.

But the high court sided with businesses when it ruled that requiring companies to order breaks is unmanageable and those decisions should be left to workers.

The opinion written by Associate Justice Kathryn Werdegar explained that state law does not compel an employer to ensure employees cease all work during meal periods, instead saying the employee is at liberty to use the time as they choose.

“The employer is not obligated to police meal breaks and ensure no work thereafter is performed,” Werdegar wrote.

The court’s decision could greatly reduce the numerous class-action lawsuits surrounding the issue that cost companies millions of dollars in legal costs.

“The courts are making it clear that you have to create a system and a procedure that fully allows employees an opportunity to take breaks and meal periods, and if they do that they do not have to be Big Brother and individually monitor each employee to ensure that they’ve taken every bit of their breaks,” said Steve Hirschfeld, founder and CEO of the Employment Law Alliance, an employer-side legal trade group.

Attorneys for workers said low-wage workers such as those at Chili’s and other restaurants face unique issues that dissuade them from requesting meal and rest periods.

“The decision … should have required employers to take affirmative steps to provide meal periods, and not just adopt policies that allow them,” Fernando Flores of the Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center, said in a statement.

“The (court) previously held that employees who are denied their rest and meal periods face greater risk of work-related accidents _ especially low-wage workers who engage in manual labor,” Flores said.

The Brinker decision doesn’t account for the public health and general welfare argument and weakens these standards for millions of low-wage workers across California, he added.

State law has mandated meal and rest breaks for decades. But in 2001, California became one of only a few states that impose a monetary penalty for employers who violate these laws, requiring employers to pay one hour of wages for a missed half-hour meal break. There is no federal law requiring employers to provide such breaks.

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The sweet deal at Crestwood Court, with dirt-cheap rents and all the space you could want, may have come to an end.

But now many of the mall’s little birdies are spreading their wings. A number of the mom-and-pop shops who used the mall’s three-year-long ArtSpace experiment as a business incubator have started moving into other spaces around town.

Bryan Laughlin Jr., who runs The Option B Designery, just signed a lease to move into a building about a mile south of the St. Louis Galleria on Brentwood Boulevard. He ended up finding a generous landlord there, too.

“It’s kind of a blessing in disguise, because we’re in a situation where we’re not paying much more for a prime spot in Brentwood as opposed to paying less for a bigger space in basically a ghost town,” he said.

But he’s not complaining about his year in Crestwood Court.

While the mall didn’t get a lot of traffic, it did give he and his brother a chance to bring in more sales and run a showroom for their business, which previously operated solely online. They sell antiques, art and fashion from the Victorian Era to Yves Saint Laurent and also restore furniture with their father.

“Since we ran it ourselves, we made quite a bit of money last year to help set us up for the future of our business,” he added.

Jennifer Klayman and her mother, Lois, are also happy with their new digs on the Delmar Loop. The duo moved Re-Designz, an eclectic vintage and retro goods store, to a storefront next to the Tivoli last month.

Like many ArtSpace tenants, they had to move out of Crestwood Court by the end of February to make way for still somewhat mysterious redevelopment plans for the mall.

“Crestwood was a good foundation to get our product known and our name known – to get some recognition – so when we moved we did have a following,” she said.

The rent is higher on the Loop – and the space is about half the size – but Klayman says she gets a lot more foot traffic coming by. And, she added, the smaller quarters has forced her to edit down the selection.

“That’s good, because it makes me pick and choose pieces more carefully,” she said.

Denise Krekeler has actually upgraded to a bigger space after leaving the mall paydayloan. She and her husband moved their store, Yeti Gaming, into a 4,000-square foot space last week. They wanted to stay in the area, near their customer base, so they just moved down the street from the mall to 361 Watson Plaza.

They had quickly outgrown the 1,200-square foot space they had in the mall. Kids often spilled out into the mall’s corridors as they played in the store’s Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! tournaments.

So she was ready to move on around the same time the mall announced that tenants had to move out. Still, she was sad to say goodbye to the community that had formed in her corner of the mall with a nearby science fiction lounge and an anime store.

“We all became friends,” she said. “So that was kind of hard to leave. But it was a wonderful experience for a small business owner who wanted to try something who probably wouldn’t get a chance to do that in a regular strip mall.”

BIGGER BOXES

So last week I wrote about how big box stores are becoming smaller boxes. Then, of course, Menard Inc. had to come along and prove me wrong – or at least, give us an exception to the rule.

As you might have read this week, the Wisconsin-based home improvement retailer was chosen by the Richmond Heights city council to develop a two-story, 246,346 square foot store just east of Hanley Road. That doesn’t sound like a small – or even smaller – box at all.

The retailer has been bucking the trend and doubling the size of some of its stores. And the new ones it is building are obviously quite big.

Jeff Abbott, a Menards spokesman, didn’t respond to a question about the company’s strategy to build bigger stores. And he didn’t go into detail about the retailer’s attempts to open its first stores here.

In addition to the Richmond Heights location, the company is also seeking a zoning change to put in a store on Manchester Road in west St. Louis County.

“We’re working through approvals but have nothing official to report at this time,” Abbott wrote in an email.

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Emerson said today that is has purchased the Marine Container and Boiler business of Johnson Controls, Inc.

The Ferguson-based manufacturer said it made the acquisition to expand its refrigeration technology offerings to shippers. Terms were not disclosed.

The Johnson unit is based in Denmark and supplies equipment that runs refrigerated sea containers and marine boilers, as well as equipment that monitors the temperature of shipping containers on land or at sea payday loan lenders. The technology is connects more than 650,000 containers and 2,200 ships to a centralized monitoring server.

It will become part of Emerson’s Climate Technologies division.

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Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer said Israel shouldn

Thousands of people from across Poland demonstrated noisily Friday outside Parliament to protest government plans to raise the retirement age to 67.

The law currently allows women to retire at age 60 and men at 65, but Prime Minister Donald Tusk wants to raise the retirement age to 67 for all Poles, saying it will increase pensions while reducing state debt.

The plan, supported by many economists, has angered the public. The unions are deeply unsatisfied by a new agreement the ruling coalition parties reached Thursday that would allow people to go into partial retirement earlier but with lowered monthly payments for the rest of their lives.

Piotr Duda, head of the Solidarity trade union, said the plan gives Poles the choice of “either working until death or quickly dying of hunger.”

The protesters, blowing horns and carrying Solidarity white-and-red banners, were equally vocal.

“People are not strong enough to work as long as machines, 48 years, it is physically impossible,” said Arkadiusz Maziar, a 40-year-old coal miner from Zory, in southern Poland no faxing payday loans.

“Tusk is an office clerk and he will never understand this. I am here to defend the people,” he said.

Danuta Nowaczek, a 50-year-old cook from Zabrze, in the South, does not believe that longer work would markedly improve her pension, or that she will live to benefit from it.

“This is a joke, this plan and I don’t want to work longer,” Nowaczek said. “My father did not even live to get his retirement” at 65.

The crowd showed their anger as the lawmakers were debating a motion signed by some 1.4 million Solidarity supporters to hold a referendum on the matter.

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More bad news for Chinese telecom giant Huawei this week is raising questions about the company’s ability to do business with the West.

Huawei, which is second only to Sweden’s Ericsson in telecom equipment sales, was blocked on Monday from bidding on a $36 billion Australian national broadband contract.

The Australian government is working to connect virtually the entire country to a high-speed fiber-optic broadband network, and Huawei wanted to supply the project with much of the necessary infrastructure equipment. The government-run National Broadband Network Co. wanted to consider Huawei, but the Australian Security Intelligence Organization recommended that the Chinese company not be allowed to bid for security reasons, Australia’s Financial Review reported.

Getting barred from foreign contracts is becoming a frequent problem for the Shenzhen, China-based company.

Also this week, the New York Times reported that a cybersecurity joint venture between Huawei and security firm Symantec (, Fortune 500) ended in November because of Symantec’s concerns that its relationship with Huawei would prevent it from getting a sensitive U.S. government security contract. Symantec did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and a spokesman for Huawei denied the Times’ account.

The setbacks for Huawei are just more links in a long chain of defeats in Western countries — particularly in the United States.

U.S. lawmakers and regulators have blocked Huawei from three proposed acquisitions and many more partnerships over the past decade, including a bid for 3Com and a supply deal with Sprint, both of which contract with the U.S. military. 3Com was eventually purchased by Hewlett-Packard (, Fortune 500).

Huawei has no problems getting contracts in many places around the globe. The company does business in 140 countries and serves 500 operators, including 45 of the 50 largest global telecom companies.

But it can’t count Verizon (, Fortune 500), AT&T (, Fortune 500), Sprint (, Fortune 500) or T-Mobile USA among its customers. Or the American government pay day loans.

Huawei faces three key obstacles, all of them geo-political in nature.

First, Huawei’s CEO is Ren Zhengfei, once a civil engineer for the People’s Liberation Army. The most advanced, persistent cyberattacks emanate from China, and the U.S. government believes many are sponsored by the Chinese government. Those attacks have captured intellectual property from U.S.-based corporations and secrets from the U.S. military.

Second, Huawei — like all companies based in the Communist country — has ties with the Chinese government.

Finally, the company has historically been willing to supply Iran with networking equipment, which Iran reportedly used to track its citizens. Huawei has since said it would scale back its relationship with Iran.

Huawei says it is being unfairly treated and mischaracterized.

"Huawei recognizes that there are geopolitial tensions; however, Huawei is a private company owned by its employees, financed by major commercial banks," said Bill Plummer, a spokesman for the company. "We would encourage anyone who wants to learn about the company to engage in facts."

Over the past year, Huawei has become increasingly vocal about what it sees as misinformation spread about the company. Most notably, Huawei released an open letter last February detailing its relationships with governments both in China and around the world.

The company constantly points to the many countries that it does do business in, including the United Kingdom, as examples of its integrity and focus on security.

There’s a big incentive to keep haggling, pushing and persuading. The United States is a $30 billion telecom market — and growing. As mobile traffic soars and 4G networks roll out, there’s a huge need for infrastructure spending.

But with Australia’s big "N-O" to Huawei and recent revelations about why Symantec was so eager to dump it as a partner, it’s clear Huawei still has a lot of convincing to do. 

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Global stocks were buoyant Tuesday while the euro struck a near one-month high against the dollar after Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke indicated that U.S. monetary policy will remain loose for some time to come to spur the economy.

On Monday, Bernanke said the U.S. job market was still weak despite recent signs of improvement. Investors interpreted his comments as a clear suggestion that the Fed will continue to prop up the economy by keeping short-term interest rates near zero. Some even speculated it could mean the Fed would be willing to buy up more bonds.

The Fed has so far embarked on two rounds of bond-buying, most recently in late 2010, known as quantitative easing. The idea is to drive down long-term interest rates and encourage investors to buy stocks. The second round ignited a 28 percent Wall Street rally over eight months.

The mere thought that a third round of bond-buying, dubbed QE3 by industry insiders, might be possible triggered a turnaround in markets, which last week had been shaken by signs of economic slowdown in China and Europe.

“Once again we are through the looking glass, in a world where stocks rise on hopes that U.S. economic data will weaken, since this then raises the probability that the Fed will launch QE3,” said Ben Critchley, a sales trader at IG Index.

“We remain stuck in a world where markets seem unable to cope without the possibility of monetary stimulus, underscoring the fact that the global economy still has some way to go before it is successfully weaned off active central bank intervention,” he said.

In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was up 0.3 percent to 5,392 while Germany’s DAX rose 0.7 percent to 7,130. The CAC-40 in France was 0.6 percent higher at 3,524.

Wall Street was also poised for a solid opening after Monday’s stellar gains, which saw the Standard & Poor’s 500 index close at 1,416.51, its best finish since May 2008 _ both Dow futures and the S&P futures indicated a 0.2 percent advance at the open.

In the currency markets, the euro continued to find support as investors became more comfortable with riskier trades. Conversely, Bernanke’s hint that rates will remain low hurt the dollar _ lower rates tend to weigh on a currency by reducing the returns investors get from holding it.

The euro was up 0.2 percent at $1.3374, its highest level for nearly a month.

Bernanke’s comments also helped support prices for commodities since they are traded in dollars _ when the U.S. currency drops, commodities become more attractive to investors holding other currencies, such as the euro.

The benchmark New York oil price was up 18 cents at $107.21 a barrel, near nine-month highs.

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Americans have pumped less gas every week for the past year.

During those 52 weeks, gasoline consumption dropped by 4.2 billion gallons, or 3 percent, according to MasterCard SpendingPulse. The decline is the longest since a 51-week period during the recession.

The main reason: higher gas prices. The national average for a gallon of gas is $3.88, the highest ever for this time of year, and experts say it could be $4.25 by late April. As a result, Americans are taking fewer trips to restaurants and shopping malls. When they take a vacation, they’re staying closer to home.

But the decline in gas consumption is also a sign that efforts to push car makers to produce vehicles with better gas mileage are paying off. The average new car now gets nearly 24 miles to the gallon, compared with about 20 mpg just four years ago, according to the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute.

“I’d expect to see lower gasoline consumption for several years to come,” Rice University energy expert Ken Medlock says.

Americans have cut back on fill-ups for extended periods before. In 2008, gas spiked from $3.04 to $4.11 per gallon in seven months. It wasn’t until January 2009, when the national average for gas had dropped to $1.86 that consumption increased. Drivers bought more gasoline for 23 weeks in a row.

“The spike in 2008 was a real shock to the system,” Medlock says. “There’s still a residual impact on people’s driving behavior.”

There were other stretches of reduced gas use, notably two into the 1970’s and one in the early 1980’s. But in those cases, Americans eventually went back to driving big cars and trucks that guzzled gas.

This time may be different. Medlock thinks economic growth will be too modest and gas prices will stay too high for Americans to start driving more anytime soon. Economists expect the U.S. economy to grow 2.5 percent in 2012. The government estimates that gas will average a record $3.79 per gallon for the year.

John Gamel, who oversees MasterCard SpendingPulse’s weekly consumption report, points to rising sales of fuel-efficient vehicles.

“People have gotten used to elevated prices and they’ve made their long-term purchases,” Gamel says. “They’re going to be using less fuel.”

Consumers now care more if a car gets good gas mileage than if it’s reliable, stylish or comes with a great deal, according to a survey of more than 24,000 new-vehicle owners taken last summer and fall by J.D. Power and Associates. That wasn’t the case in the nine previous years that J.D. Power conducted the survey.

Automakers have listened to consumers, and responded to stricter government fuel economy requirements. They’ve improved engines and transmissions so cars burn less fuel. They’ve also made cars more aerodynamic, boosting mileage by cutting wind drag. The government is gradually increasing gas mileage requirements so that by 2025, cars and trucks will have to average 54.5 mpg.

Between February 2011 and February 2012, the combined city-highway mileage of a new vehicle sold in the U.S rose to 23.7 mpg from 22.7. Better gas mileage has a huge impact on the overall economy. At $3.86 per gallon, U.S. drivers would save $35.8 billion per year with a 1 mpg improvement for the entire fleet of cars, trucks and buses, according to Michael Sivak, a research professor with the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute.

Consumers would appreciate the help. The rise in gas prices has been so steep that they’re still spending more on gas than a year ago despite using less.

Gasoline prices rose by 24 percent in the last 52 weeks, according to auto club AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. MasterCard, which collects purchase receipts from more than 100,000 service stations around the country, said spending on gas rose by 20 percent during the period.

In 2011, Americans spent 8.4 percent of their household income on gasoline, or about $4,155, compared with 6.7 percent in 2010, according to experts at OPIS.

W.M. Lewis, a general contractor in Anchorage, Alaska, says he is spending as much as $150 a week on gas. He’s consolidating his errands, but still limiting his driving because fuel keeps getting more expensive.

“It’s changing everybody’s plans,” he says. “You have less money to spend.”

Behind all this is the high price of oil. Brent crude, which is used to price most of the oil used to make gasoline at many U.S. coastal refineries, has jumped by 16 percent this year to more than $124 per barrel. Benchmark U.S. crude has risen 9 percent this year to more than $107 per barrel.

Increased gas use by the growing number of drivers in China and other developing nations more than makes up for the drop in the U.S. That contributes to an increase in global demand for oil, which in turn pushes the price higher. Fear of a disruption to oil supplies from the Middle East also is keeping oil prices at lofty levels.

____

Krisher reported from Detroit. Associated Press Writer Rachel D’Oro in Anchorage contributed to this report.

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LONDON/BEIJING

As more details emerge about the massive $26 billion foreclosure settlement between the five biggest mortgage lenders and the states’ attorneys general, a growing number of borrowers are realizing that the deal will do little, if anything, to help them out.

Proponents of the settlement deal tout that roughly 1 million homeowners who owe more on their homes than their homes are worth are expected to have their mortgage balances lowered through principal reductions and another 750,000 would be able to refinance into loans with lower interest rates.

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However, that’s only a fraction of the 11 million homeowners who are currently underwater on their homes, according to CoreLogic. And it’s also a mere sliver of the 3.5 million people who lost their homes to foreclosure over the past four years.

"The impact [of this settlement] will be small," said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics. "It’s not a home run; it’s a single."

Principal reductions will also only apply to certain borrowers who have mortgages still held by the five major lenders: Bank of America (, Fortune 500), CitiBank (, Fortune 500), Wells Fargo (, Fortune 500), J.P. Morgan Chase (, Fortune 500) and Ally Financial.

Borrowers who have a mortgage held by Fannie Mae (, Fortune 500) or Freddie Mac () — roughly half the market — are out of luck. Loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration are also ineligible.

Please buy our $2 million dream home

"If it’s offered to one group, it should be offered for all," said Stacy Ovendale from Seattle, who says her home has lost nearly 50% of its value. "When my mortgage was written up, I had to take whatever program was available to me at the time, which happened to be FHA. … It’s so frustrating because my loan is with Bank of America but since it’s FHA, my mortgage is current and I have chosen to be responsible, there is nothing they can offer me in the way of principal reduction."

Edward DeMarco, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, said he won’t allow the agencies to reduce borrowers’ loan balances because it is unfair to taxpayers and works no better than other foreclosure prevention methods, such as lowering interest rates, extending loan terms or delaying payments.

To Cat Gouldman, who lives in the D.C. area, it’s a raw deal. Like her mortgage, most loans are not retained by the original lenders. They’re sold to Fannie or Freddie best payday advance. Borrowers aren’t given a choice when their loans are sold.

Britney Spears’ home for sale — half off!

In fact, the mortgage Gouldman and her husband took out changed hands several times. First, it was sold to Wells Fargo, then to IndyMac and then it was taken over by Fannie. Her home has lost about half of its value, she said, and she’s upset that she won’t be able to get the same principal relief that other borrowers will receive.

"This is not the right message for the federal government to send out," she said. "Do homeowners walk into banks asking if their loan is backed by Fannie Mae? I don’t think so."

"I think it’s a travesty," said Derek Buckingham of Everett, Wash., who has a Freddie loan. "The government appears to still have no accountability for the problems they helped incentivize the banks to create."

Some borrowers may qualify for much larger reductions than others, as well.

Bank of America, for example, said it will slash mortgage balances by an average of $100,000 or more for roughly 200,000 homeowners. The goal, according to BofA, is to reduce the amount owed on the home to 100% match the current market value. Meanwhile, the other four major mortgage lenders, CitiBank, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and Ally Financial, are expected to reduce qualified borrowers’ principal to between 115% and 125% of the value of their homes — an amount that the Department of Housing and Urban Development said should average about $20,000.

For the homeowners who bought responsibly and made their payments faithfully, the real inequity comes in the fact that their tax dollars are paying for government-funded programs to prevent foreclosures while irresponsible borrowers accrue the benefits like the ones offered in the settlement.

8 multimillion-dollar foreclosures

"So, these people who are underwater get a break from the banks, and other hard working folks like us get screwed?" wrote Karthik Subramanian, of Aurora, Ill., in an email.

"What I think is unfair, is that people who didn’t overleverage their homes, who paid their mortgages on time, who didn’t borrow more than they could afford, even if the bank said they could afford more, the people who had good common sense and have done the right thing, are left with all of this business loaded on their backs," wrote Jamie Smith of Sonoita, Ariz.

That said, every homeowner could benefit from such bailouts if they help to turn around the ailing housing market, where home price declines and slow sales continue to threaten the fragile economic recovery. The settlement, however, may not help enough borrowers to do even that, said Moody’s Zandi. 

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