Alaska Employment Law

Alaska Public Records Act: Rena Delbridge, at Alaska Dispatch, has a story on the state FOIA litigation between Andree McLeod (rep’d by Don Mitchell) and Sarah Palin (rep’d by Thomas Van Flein), in front of Anchorage Superior Court Judge Patrick McKay.

The Recession Hits Alaska: Andrew Sullivan’s continuing series “The View From Your Recession” recently included this comment by an Alaskan:

Alaska is always a couple years behind the rest of the nation, and the recession is finally hitting us:  hard.  I was laid off from my job of 5 1/2 years in August and am on my last week completing a project for another firm.  My friend Robyn and her wife are being laid off from their jobs as journeyman carpenters w/ one of Alaska’s largest contractors for the first time in ten years.  Alaska is a prevailing wage state, which is one of the reasons I live here, but that is now hurting us.  Lower 48 contractors are underbidding locals right and left.  I applied for work at Red Dog Mine along w/ 400 other land surveyors, and did not get an interview.  So, it looks like I am moving to Kazakhstan.  Temporarily (I think) to train in their surveyors on Leica brand instrumentation and translate old USSR coordinate systems into real world UTM.  My only hope is that I get the job.