Word: minimum
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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There are several answers, none of them reassuring. Most important, Yeltsin presides over a system that was built with one purpose: to give him as much power as possible and reduce to an absolute minimum the political latitude of both parliament and his own ministers. Second, Yeltsin is profoundly jealous of anyone who tries to steal his limelight, and during his illness he has divided caretaker duties between presidential chief of staff Anatoli Chubais and Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin, two men whose approaches to politics and government are diametrically opposed. The result, as the President undoubtedly intended, is political stalemate...
Despite postelection euphoria, 1996 turned out to be, in the words of commentator Otto Latsis, "the lost year for reform." More than 30 million people are earning less than Russia's minimum wage. The transformation of Russia's bloated conscript army into a much smaller, more efficient and better-armed fighting machine has not begun. In foreign policy, Yeltsin's more liberal aides had hoped to move Russia further into the mainstream of international relations. Instead, Moscow is bogged down in an ill-tempered exchange with the West over NATO's expansion plans. Western diplomats say the President's absence...
...sexy, Guess?, Inc.'s long-cultivated image began turning seedy last summer. First, five contractors for the $500 million clothing empire were cited by California inspectors for illegal home-sewing operations. Then a class-action suit accused Guess and 16 subcontractors of paying their mostly immigrant workers less than minimum wage. Ornery picket lines spread from Guess's shop on Beverly Hills' Rodeo Drive to its 66 other retail outlets across the country. And in a final one-two punch, the National Labor Relations Board forced the firm to rehire employees it had fired for union sympathizing, while...
Senate majority leader Trent Lott seemed to understand this distinction at the end of the congressional session last summer, when he broke a logjam to pass not only welfare reform but also an increase in the minimum wage and a bill making health insurance more portable as workers move between jobs. Voters rewarded him and his colleagues with the Senate's highest approval ratings in a decade and with a Republican gain of two seats in the November elections...
...rising tide is making the minimum wage disappear in some areas. Schnuck Markets, a 92-store grocery chain based in St. Louis, is using bounties to fill 350 vacancies ranging from bagger to deli worker. Schnuck gives $10 gift certificates to employees whose referrals are hired; plus $50 to the employee and new worker after 90 days; plus another $50 to the newcomer after six months and yet another after a year. But it's still hard to hold help in a region where the boom in tourism and riverboat gambling lets workers quit jobs on Friday and find...