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Howdini hacks are back, just in time for spring cleaning, with 9 green cleaning tips for a clean house using eco-friendly products! You don't need all the chemicals for a neat result, just a few common environmentally friendly products that you already own.

Watch out, Roomba - a new class of robotic cleaning machine might be headed to the top of the food chain.

Tennant Co. CEO and President Chris Killingstad says the Golden Valley-based manufacturer of floor scrubbers, sweepers and vacuums is "exploring autonomous navigation technology" to cut labor costs for customers.

Tennant is exploring technology to let its floor cleaners operate autonomously.

NYGAARD PHOTOGRAPHY

He described Tennant's (NYSE: TNC) robotics efforts as a "longer-term proposition" that could let the company's cleaning machines operate without a human at the controls.

More at source: Biz Journals

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Five janitorial staff members who work in Stanford’s academic center shared their needs and goals for their new labor contract with at least 40 students in a forum at the Markaz on April 14. The staff raised three key issues: wages, cost of living and medical benefits.

The worker’s forum was the latest joint effort by the SEIU United Service Workers West (USWW) union and Stanford’s Student And Labor Alliance (SALA) to win more favorable terms for Bay Area custodial staff in ongoing contract renegotiations. The negotiation process will culminate in a contract on April 30, which the union will vote on collectively.

While Stanford has expressed interest in working with contractor C&W to grant campus custodial staff extra benefits, workers remain concerned about health insurance and wages amid soaring rental costs in the area. Other workers in the SEIU USWW union who work for corporate organizations may also face a more hostile renegotiation process.  

More at source:  Stanford Daily

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Routine house cleaning, maintenance, cleaning an old shelf in the basement that had been there forever, I looked up and it had a false top, a top that no one's ever noticed. I saw the old motor sitting up there in the rafters," Thomas explained.

Thomas says he was quite surprised, and has no idea where the World War II-era explosive came from.

"Obviously curious, cautious, concerned, and so I thought about it for a little bit and looked at it," Thomas said.

Thomas comes from a military background, so he says he felt comfortable enough transporting it to the police department. That's when the authorities took over.

"Our officers were sent in to assess the situation, they looked at it and determined that it was a military ordinance appeared to be a rocket propelled grenade," said Steven Klein, assistant chief of the Fond du Lac Police Department.

More at source: ABC

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SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — The cleaning products in your home may contain hidden hazardous ingredients, according to the Environmental Working Group latest analysis.

EWG studied thousands of product labels, images and company webpages.

Their latest analysis is critical of the cleaning product industry, citing concerning ingredients in many products and an overall lack of transparency on product labels.

More at source: CBS

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A robot revolution has been the stuff of movie and literary fiction for a long time. Often times, depictions of that revolution are gory and end when the last humans are whipped out by the machine.

In reality, the robot revolution is turning out to be a lot friendlier and pretty helpful, too. Imagine Rosie the robot maid in the 60s Hanna-Barbera cartoon “The Jetsons” working in your office.

The multi-surface ECOVACS Deebot D63S is a robot as benign as they come, whose only objective is to keep your floors clean.

What The ECOVACS Deebot D63S Can Do

1

The Deebot D63S is essentially an intelligent vacuum cleaner with four cleaning modes to tackle the different surface of your home.

The Deebot D63S can be controlled from the LCD panel on the unit or a remote control and can be scheduled to automatically start cleaning your floors as soon as you leave your office or home.

The vacuum starts cleaning once it decouples itself from the charging station. The robot then proceeds to clean your hardwood, carpet, and ceramic floor at only 60 decibels, which is the same level of noise as a normal conversation at three feet.

A specially designed agitator brush with a double helix bristle pattern lift dust and dirt from bare-floors and carpet while the vacuum places the dirt into the dustbin and filter. The Deebot cleans the various surfaces with equal efficiency using its four cleaning modes

• AUTO – everyday vacuuming
• INTENSIVE – deeper cleaning
• EDGE – cleaning along baseboards
• SPOT – specific area cleaning

MOUTAIN BROOK, Ala. (WIAT) — Superstar is the word teachers, students and parents use to describe their janitor at a Mountain Brook elementary school.

Suffering from cancer, he sends a message of hope through his passion that he pours into work.

Jerome Lewis shines up the building at Crestline Elementary School. Every day at 8 a.m., he shows up to work with keys and a smile. A breath of fresh air when the day stinks is how one student describes him.

Jerome greets each of them by name and goes out of his way to show he cares.

“He’ll come over to me and be like, ‘hey kid, what’s up?’” said Lillie Wright, 6th grader at Crestline Elementary School. Wright said that he makes everyone feel good about themselves.

More at source: WNCN

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A plan to increase California’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2022 has opened the biggest fault lines yet between advocates of higher pay and critics who say it kills jobs and raises prices for consumers.

Proponents say the Golden State’s bold move will provide a decent living wage for millions of low-income residents, prove a bonanza for California’s economy and prompt other states to follow.

“They’re showing that it’s economically realistic to restore decent wages at the bottom” of the pay scale, says Paul Sonn, general counsel of the National Employment Project.

But opponents say it will force employers to replace workers with technology and sow particular hardship in a diverse California economy that includes many rural and distressed areas whose businesses can’t afford such a lofty base wage.

“We’ll have a lot of businesses close,” says Michael Saltsman, research director for the Employment Policies Institute, which is partly funded by the restaurant industry.

Under the plan, the state’s minimum wage would rise from $10 to $10.50 in 2017 and increase gradually each year through 2022. Sonn says $15 an hour – or about $30,000 a year --  would simply allow families to afford the basics.

More at source: USAtoday

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Likening their misdeeds to war crimes, a federal judge sentenced two Ukrainian brothers to 20 years in prison Thursday for their roles in a modern-day slavery operation in Port Richmond, in which victims were beaten, kidnapped, raped, and terrorized to keep them working in janitorial jobs for little to no pay.

Mykhaylo Botsvynyuk, 37, and Yaroslav Churuk, 48, said nothing and showed little reaction as District Judge Paul S. Diamond handed down their punishment, more than four years above the maximum term outlined by federal sentencing guidelines.

"In the 12 years I have been doing this job, these are perhaps the worst crimes I have ever seen," the judge said. "You sought to destroy these people by using them almost to death. The evidence in this case hearkens back to war crimes tribunals in demonstrating just how cruel and abhorrent people's conduct can be."

Three of the victims sat in the courtroom's front row, struggling to hide their deep emotional scars. Even a decade removed from their time spent working seven days a week, sleeping five or more to a room in a dirty Port Richmond apartment, and living in fear that any attempt at escape would be met with violent retribution, one rubbed his eyes red.

Another woman's weeping began the moment the judge took the bench.

"We didn't receive any money. We were half-starving. We were tired," said one former worker, whose name was withheld, as he testified through a Ukrainian interpreter. Of his captors, he added, "They didn't have anyth

Likening their misdeeds to war crimes, a federal judge sentenced two Ukrainian brothers to 20 years in prison Thursday for their roles in a modern-day slavery operation in Port Richmond, in which victims were beaten, kidnapped, raped, and terrorized to keep them working in janitorial jobs for little to no pay.

Mykhaylo Botsvynyuk, 37, and Yaroslav Churuk, 48, said nothing and showed little reaction as District Judge Paul S. Diamond handed down their punishment, more than four years above the maximum term outlined by federal sentencing guidelines.

"In the 12 years I have been doing this job, these are perhaps the worst crimes I have ever seen," the judge said. "You sought to destroy these people by using them almost to death. The evidence in this case hearkens back to war crimes tribunals in demonstrating just how cruel and abhorrent people's conduct can be."

Three of the victims sat in the courtroom's front row, struggling to hide their deep emotional scars. Even a decade removed from their time spent working seven days a week, sleeping five or more to a room in a dirty Port Richmond apartment, and living in fear that any attempt at escape would be met with violent retribution, one rubbed his eyes red.

Another woman's weeping began the moment the judge took the bench.

"We didn't receive any money. We were half-starving. We were tired," said one former worker, whose name was withheld, as he testified through a Ukrainian interpreter. Of his captors, he added, "They didn't have anyth

More at source:  Philly.com

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