USA and Canada

10. The first Labor Day

America's first Labor Day parade took place in New York City on 5 September 1882, organized by the Central Labor Union.

After marching from City Hall, past reviewing stands in Union Square, and then uptown to 42nd Street, the workers and their families gathered in Wendel's Elm Park for a picnic, concert, and speeches.

As Americans celebrate Labor Day, the laborers being celebrated are ever fewer in number, with the US economy having lost over 8 million jobs since the recession took hold and national unemployment standing at almost 15 million people.

Last week’s figures from the US Labor Department revealed that the economy lost another 54,000 jobs in August, with the unemployment rate now standing at 9.6 percent.

UK oil giant BP has revived the sale of its Alaskan assets after failing to sell them to US oil and gas company Apache in July, according to a report in the Financial Times.

Houston-based Apache is said to be still in the running to purchase the assets, while US-based Occidental Petroleum is also seen as a potential bidder.

The FT said it is not yet known whether BP is planning to sell its entire 26 per cent stake in the giant Prudhoe Bay oilfield, which includes the operating rights.

Canadian mining giant Goldcorp has agreed to buy Andean Resources Limited for C$3.6 billion, thereby adding the Cerro Negro gold deposit in Argentina to its assets.

The Cerro Negro gold project is an advanced-stage, high-grade vein system in the Santa Cruz province of Argentina, with indicated resources of 2.54 million ounces of gold and 23.56 million ounces of silver. Inferred resources total 523,000 ounces of gold and 3.12 million ounces of silver.

Automaker Nissan has announced a partnership with the state of Hawaii to promote electric vehicles (EVs) and their supporting charging network across the state.

The partnership was announced at the Asia Pacific Clean Energy Summit and Expo in Honolulu, and is Nissan’s first definitive agreement in the United States. The zero emission all-electric Nissan Leaf will be available in Hawaii beginning in January 2011.

Gifford’s Ice Cream, central Maine’s third-generation family ice cream business, has been acclaimed “Grade A & Ice Cream Grand Champion” at the 2010 World Dairy Expo. Gifford’s also earned the title of “World’s Best Chocolate” for the third time.

The only international judging contest of its kind, the World Dairy Expo is considered the industry’s most important dairy competition. The awards will be presented to winners at this year’s five-day Expo in Madison, to take place September 28 – October 2.

Westlake Chemical Corporation announced today it is proceeding with the delayed construction of a new chlor-alkali plant to be located at its vinyls manufacturing complex in Geismar, Louisiana. The new unit is expected to double the company’s production from250,000 electrochemical units (ECUs) annually, to 520,000 ECUs.

Westlake, headquartered in Houston, Texas, manufactures and supplies petrochemicals, polymers and fabricated products including ethylene, polyethylene, styrene, propylene, caustic, VCM, PVC and PVC pipe, windows and fence.

Many corporations like to think they have best practice processes already in place. Richard Ilsley of Synogis highlights the top 10 fundamental issues that must be considered with respect to any best practice process.

It is hard to find an organisation that is not using the term ‘best practice’ somewhere within its sales operation. It seems that no matter where you go, someone is talking about it and everyone wants it. But what is it and how do we know when we have it?

What businesses actually want from their sales and operational planning, says Andrew Kinder of Infor, is the ability to explore ‘what if’ scenarios across the business quickly and accurately.

Driven by base realignments, lease considerations and homeland security concerns, a large-scale courtroom and office project at AndrewsAir Force Base was placed on the fastest of fast tracks. Keith Regan learns how the project team uses a design-build approach and constant communication to keep the project on its aggressive schedule.