World briefs (September 11, 2000)

This isn’t “right”

London — Design bias against left-handed people is causing them to suffer a greater number of injuries and premature deaths in the workplace. This from the General, Municipal and Boilermakers’ Union, which chose to mark International Left-Handers Day by calling on employers to make workplaces more friendly for the 13 to 30 per cent of staff who are left-handed. “We are trying to celebrate left-handedness,” said a spokesperson for the union, citing a study that found significantly more southpaws are killed in accidents and, on average, die nine years earlier than their right-handed co-workers. Equipment designed for right-handed people also causes left-handed workers to make damaging and unnatural movements that lead to greater incidences of repetitive strain injury.

Good spies are hard to find
Jerusalem — After decades fighting a war against enemies of the state, Israel’s legendary intelligence agency, Mossad, is now fighting the war for talent. The booming high-tech economy has forced the secretive spy agency to forgo their tradition of vague and anonymous want ads and go public with a recruitment campaign in Israeli newspapers with ads that proclaim, “The Mossad is opening up.”

Big bucks down under
Manly, Australia — HR managers and directors are among Australia’s highest-paid executives. A new survey by Morgan and Banks shows HR general managers receive between $120,000 ($101,901 Cdn.) and $175,000 ($148,606 Cdn.) a year, while directors make as much as $250,000 ($212,294 Cdn.).

Company liable for overworked employee’s suicide
Tokyo — A Japanese high court has found a company should have picked up on the warning signals of the deteriorating health of an overworked employee who eventually killed himself. The court ordered the Dentsu advertising agency to pay the employee’s family more than $2.3 million Cdn.

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