IN BRIEF
TOKYO — Nissan said an engine plant wrecked by the March 11 tsunami will likely return to operations in June, but expected it would take “some time” for auto production to run at full capacity.
Nissan spokesman Mitsuru Yonekawa said the Iwaki factory, one of Nissan's two engine plants in Japan, still has no running water. The factory makes 376,000 engines annually.
Nissan shut down its entire auto production in Japan from March 14 to 16. Nissan said all its auto plants were running under limited capacity due to parts shortages.
WASHINGTON — Clothing maker Levi Strauss will pay about $1 million in back wages to 596 employees after the government found overtime and record keeping violations, the Labor Department said.A government investigation found that the San Francisco-based company misclassified several groups of workers as exempt from overtime, including assistant store managers at some newly acquired stores.The Labor Department said the assistant managers were required to work off the clock during late-night closings, early-morning openings and staffing shortages. The company failed to record all the hours that employees worked in its payroll system, the agency said.Levi Strauss spokeswoman Kelley Benander said the company cooperated with government officials to address the problems.
WASHINGTON — The Postal service could save a substantial amount of money by reducing mail delivery to five days, the Government Accountability Office said.The post office, which lost $8.5 billion last year, has proposed eliminating Saturday delivery as one of several moves aimed at reducing costs.Officials have estimated the change would save $3.1 billion annually, and a new GAO study agreed that savings would be large, depending on how the cutback is handled.
