Criminal Convictions and Employment Rights In New York State

New York has a strong policy toward preventing discrimination based on prior criminal convictions and its progressive policy outlook should encouraged. In 2007 a report concluded that New York employees were largely unfamiliar with State laws regulating an employer’s use of prior criminal convictions for employment-related decisions, and in response, the legislature amended Section 296 of New York Executive Law to require employers to post and disseminate information regarding a job applicant’s or current employee’s rights with respect to an employer’s use of prior criminal convictions. With one in five adults having a criminal record in the United States, legislation such as this is vital to keeping the work force in New York strong

Dishwashers: Workers in a Low-Wage Occupation

There are no educational or licensing requirements to become a dishwasher. Typically, dishwashers are trained on the job by experienced co-workers. Some employers require employees to complete educational materials addressing issues including safety guidelines, equipment maintenance, and cleansing procedures

Cloning, characterization, and chromosomal localization of human superillin (SVIL)

Supervillin is a 205-kDa F-actin binding protein originally isolated from bovine neutrophils. This protein is tightly associated with both actin filaments and plasma membranes, suggesting that it forms a high-affinity link between the actin cytoskeleton and the membrane. Human supervillin cDNAs cloned from normal human kidney and from the cervical carcinoma HeLa S3 predict a bipartite structure with three potential nuclear localization signals in the NH2-terminus and three potential actin-binding sequences in the COOH-terminus. In fact, throughout its length, the COOH-terminal half of supervillin is similar to segments 2-6 plus the COOH-terminal headpiece of villin, an actin-binding protein in intestinal microvilli. A comparison of the bovine and human sequences indicates that supervillin is highly conserved at the amino acid level, with 79.2% identity of the NH2-terminus and conservation of three of the four nuclear localization signals found in bovine supervillin. The COOH-terminus is even more conserved, with 95.1% amino acid identity overall and 100% conservation of the villin-like headpiece. Supervillin mRNAs are expressed in all human tissue tested, bu are most abundant in muscle, bone marrow, thyroid gland, and salivary gland; comparatively little message is found in brain. Human supervillin mRNA is approximately 7.5 kb; this message is especially abundant in HeLa S3 cervical carcinoma, SW480 adenocarcinoma, and A549 lung carcinoma cell lines. The human supervillin gene (SVIL) is localized to a single chromosomal locus at 10p11.2, a region that is deleted in some prostate tumors