Growth in productivity disappoints

Productivity climbed at a slower-than-expected pace in the second quarter as the highest year-on-year jump in U.S. labor costs in seven years restrained its growth and kept inflation worries alive.

The Labor Department reported that productivity, the gauge of how much any given worker can produce in an hour, rose at a 1.8% annualized pace in the second quarter.

That was somewhat slower than Wall Street economists had expected and came on the heels of a 0.7% advance at the start of this year as the economy nearly stalled.

Unit labor costs, a key measure of inflation and profit pressures, grew at a 2.1% pace.

TOYS Mattel identifies firm in recall

Mattel Inc. identified the Chinese vendor that made nearly 1 million Fisher-Price toys that were recalled last week because they might contain lead.

El Segundo-based Mattel said Lee Der Industrial Co. in Guangdong province made the 967,000 toys sold in the U.S. between May and this month.

Mattel last week recalled the plastic preschool toys, including popular Big Bird, Elmo and Dora characters, because they were made with paint found to have excessive amounts of lead.

TELECOM FCC orders cell roaming pacts

The Federal Communications Commission voted to require large cellphone companies to enter roaming agreements with rivals, a move that regional operators said would allow them to offer more-reliable service.

Roaming agreements allow customers of one company to use another network when they travel outside the range of their carriers’ cell towers. The 5-0 decision is meant to ensure that subscribers of smaller mobile-phone companies have service beyond the reach of their local network.

The FCC ruling also covers “push to talk” connections and text messaging.

ENERGY Claims against Chevron tossed

A U.S. court dismissed three lawsuits by Ecuadoreans who admitted allegations that pollution by Chevron Corp. had caused them or their relatives’ cancer were false.

The suits were part of a group of claims alleging that the company’s dumping in the Ecuadorean rain forest caused cancer in the communities. Several lawsuits remain under those claims.

They are unrelated to a larger litigation going on in Ecuador, which seeks $6 billion in damages from the U.S. oil company on charges that it contaminated the rain forest from 1972 to 1992. Chevron denies the claims.

RETAIL Wal-Mart to face class-action suit

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. must face a class action by South Carolina employees claiming that the company forced them to work through breaks and off the clock, a judge ruled.

Current and former hourly workers from July 31, 1999, forward can sue in a single case, Judge Perry M. Buckner III in Walterboro, S.C., said. The group of about 100,000 workers is large enough and their claims similar enough to allow a class action, Buckner said in an Aug. 1 ruling.

Wal-Mart faces more than 70 U.S. wage-and-hour suits by employees claiming it failed to pay for all hours worked.

BIOTECH Genentech drug raises clot risk

Genentech Inc.’s cancer drug Avastin, when given along with chemotherapy, raises the risk of blood clots, according to a company-sponsored study that confirms a hazard already associated with the drug.

From Times Wire Services