AFP - Ireland's new premier Brian Cowen vowed Wednesday to make winning a crunch EU referendum next month his first priority, immediately after being elected to succeed veteran leader Bertie Ahern.

EU eyes early warning on French finances (AFP)

AFP - France may need an early warning on its public finances, the European Commission warned Monday, predicting that the French deficit was slipping dangerously towards an EU limit.

Employee misbehavior can occur many different ways. And, you now can hire a productive employee that will help the company instead of hurting it. I base my overall approach to layoffs on compassion for the separated worker. (This is a little bit like reassignment, but it works.) If you decide to fire for off-duty conduct, this is a high risk layoff. Although this may be mentally exhausting to you as the Hr supervisor or sole proprietor, you should respect each employee as well as their privacy.

If you're a top level supervisor, have one of your senior managers or have an employment lawyer review it. In the military, service workers are not obligated to follow illegal orders and the same holds true in the civilian workers as well. It'll only take you 30 to 90 days to document bad performance with escalating discipline, which is a short time. It's true whoever has the most documentation wins. Also you should have policies on the layoff method and conditions for a lay off. Fourth, you should report to the unemployment commission when you learn the employee has taken another full-time job, started a firm, gone back to school full-time or stopped looking for a job. It helps if you create an official employee discipline form for your organization. For example, don't lay off someone the day before Christmas or right before he and his wife take their kids to Disney World. The legal method to terminate an employee has to include the correct processes. Don't embarrass workers by having them escorted off the property.