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Union members are planning a number of protests for today (Wednesday) over the pay of agency workers. The Communication Workers Union (CWA) says large recruitment agencies are skirting around the EU legislation that requires equal pay by employing staff permanently. The CWA maintains that many agency workers have been signing “pay between assignment,” or PBA, contracts without realising it would mean lower pay.

A funding website is helping to raise the cost of a community project that is refurbishing a disused public toilet in Somerset. The Loop de Loop scheme is raising £11,000 through Spacehive.com, which collects online contributions. It is turning the former WC into a gallery and food bar to drive footfall back into town. Loop de Loop, which has received backing from the presenter of Grand Designs Kevin McCloud, requires a further £7,000 in donations to reach its target. Tensor are specialists in Toilet Turnstiles that control access to loos, using coin, token or smart card methods. Styled in a tripod design, both single and double half height turnstiles are available allowing you to double your throughput while keeping the amount of space used by the turnstile to a minimum. They put up with high traffic volumes and can be placed in prestige access points – either interior or exterior installations. All of our turnstiles come complete with a two year warranty.  

An attempt to rob a shop left a volunteer very shaken by the incident. The volunteer, who only wanted to be identified as Heather, said she had been working at the shop for a few weeks and was alone on the shop floor when the attack happened on a weekday afternoon. She explained the shop was empty due to the bad weather keeping people away. The unknown assailant grabbed her and shouted: “Open the till, open the till.” Tensor can help commercial premises tighten up security and staff safety. For high security measures choose biometrics, which is the technique of studying the physical characteristics of a person such as a fingerprint, hand geometry, eye structure or voice pattern. Biometric methods of identification work by measuring unique human characteristics as a way to provide irrefutable proof of identity, for example, finger or iris scanning. Our recommended product for use with your Tensor System is our smart card access control scanner with built-in fingerprint reader.  

Police are looking into the alleged ill treatment of pupils. The investigation means the head teacher and five staff members have been replaced with temporary teachers at Revoe Community Primary School in Lancashire. A statement from Sarah Riding, cabinet member for education and schools, said parents had been informed of the situation. She added: “We were made aware of an issue… that raised concerns to us about the professional judgement made by a number of staff in relation to pupil well-being.” Tensor has the solution to better discipline and pupil attendance in schools with WinTA PC Clock, which involves technology ideal for a school or college. PC Clock is a simple PC based booking system ideal for schools where each pupil has access to a PC. Automatic and definable reports showing registrations or clockings can be viewed and printed. The reports can be customised using the Report Generator and can be printed automatically at any given time of the day.  

Found out on Facebook: a thief ended up being fined for his foul play. The 29-year-old chicken thief was apprehended after posting a photo on the popular social networking website. Anthony Campen had stolen the bird from a local school but made the mistake of publishing his new feathered friend online. Campen, who posted a photo of himself with the chicken on Facebook on January 28, was ordered to pay £135 compensation by magistrates this week. If only the ultimate in Access Control is good enough for your firm or organisation – then look no further than Tensor. The equipment is fully expandable and can control an access control system of one door all the way to a multi-site, multi-national enterprise. Our access control units can be directly connected via a peer to peer cable connection, or be part of a network using your existing Ethernet IT backbone. Tensor access control can also include USB port PC security with optional fingerprint reading.  

Fire crews tackled a substantial fire at a derelict school. The blaze broke out at about 02:45 on Tuesday morning. A fire service spokesman said about 30 per cent of the school in the east end of Glasgow had been affected, resulting in a large amount of smoke. He added that at the height of the fire, it was being tackled by 35 firefighters. It was quickly contained and there are not thought to be any injuries. Time and attendance and security products from Tensor can be integrated with fire roll call software to ensure health and safety at schools, factories or offices. As employees assemble at their fire roll call points, they use their proximity read smart cards or key fobs to record their presence. If employees have not brought their cards or fobs with them, they can be checked off manually using the generated reports that are printed off automatically. The cards grant exit in a quarter of a second.  

Detectives want to speak to two pedestrians who could have witnessed an armed robbery on Monday (February 25, 2013) afternoon. During the incident at a nightclub in Hampshire a man was tied up and threatened with what is believed to have been a handgun. Police said they were “very keen” to speak to two pedestrians who separately crossed the road towards the nightclub and also the driver of a red car who turned into an underground parking area nearby. Gates are an integral part of a durable Tensor security system. Tensor’s gates, barriers and turnstiles fully integrate with our smart card and biometric access control systems giving you full jurisdiction over movement and access in and around your site. All gates are supplied complete and are ready to accept power and data connections. Each gate is individually adjusted to meet your needs, ensuring exceptional durability and delivering longer lasting, problem-free operation. They work with a Smart Card, ticket, token or coin.  

BBC flagship programmes such as Strictly Come Dancing are threatened with severe disruption if strike action goes ahead. Unions announced on Tuesday (October 25) they are to ballot thousands of BBC staff over job losses. The corporation has had discussions with the likes of the National Union of Journalists since announcing 2,000 jobs cuts earlier this month. The result of the vote is not expected until November 24; therefore any action is likely to be scheduled for December. The time and attendance software for Tensor clocking and payroll systems deals with all manner of working rules and pay bands. Your company’s payroll department can create a wide range of daily working patterns (shifts), with either fixed or flexitime rules. These can run past midnight, making night shifts simple to define. Standard reports in Tensor WinTA include: Weekly Clock Card, Payroll Summary, Absence Summary, Exceptions, Job Booking and Working Time Directive Compliance. Using the Auto Clockout function, employees can be automatically clocked out at a certain time.

Daylight Saving Time starts at 2am on Sunday (October 30, 2011). Business will have to adjust their clocks and other systems like their PC networks or clocking regimes which rely on telling the correct time. Also, the EU Working Time Directive provides a complex set of employment rules and regulations that govern the number of hours an employee can work, and ultimately dictates the way all companies within the EU must operate. Tensor supplies time and attendance .NET systems that are the best available at handling all clocking recording methods. Tensor WinTA Lite, WinTA Enterprise, WinTA Access Enterprise, WinTA 16, WinTA CS or Tensor.NET systems will all need their Daylight Saving Time information changed, as this will affect the time shown on your Smart Card clocking stations. The changes are easily done – however, for those who require personal advice, the Tensor Helpdesk is easily contactable by telephone, fax, email or via this link. Helpdesk support is free to customers with current maintenance contracts.  

Police have promoted the Be A Nice Guy (BANG) campaign aimed at reducing anti-social behaviour over this year’s Hallowe’en and Bonfire Night period. Deputy Chief Constable of North Wales Police Ian Shannon said: “We wish for everyone to have a safe and happy Hallowe’en, but would like to remind people to have fun responsibly rather than disturbing others.” Their advice includes not knocking on doors where a ‘No Trick or Treat’ sign is visible. You can ensure a quiet crime-free Hallowe’en for your premises with Tensor’s access control and barrier devices. Tensor’s gates, barriers, and turnstiles fully integrate with our smart card and biometric access control systems giving you full jurisdiction over movement and access in and around your site. Car park barriers are the number one solution for controlling vehicle access to your site's road entry points. Immediately able to recognise and allow or deny access to personnel, the highly adaptable range of automatic barriers from Tensor caters for all sizes of premises.

An attempted robbery on a shop was thwarted by a snatch raid in reverse. This time shop worker Rasaratnam Rahulan grabbed what he thought was a weapon that was threatening him in the Sunderland premises. Mr Rahulan said: “I didn't want to give him the money. I didn't think about my safety, I'm just like that, I follow my instincts and thought I could get the gun off him.” In fact the ‘gun’ was a fake. Tensor can install for businesses a T3512 one door entry Smart Card Access Control system including a T3511 controller and WinACnet PC software. Door control plus Movement Monitoring is just one example of a T3512 configuration. The T3511 is so versatile it can use passive infrared sensors (PIR’s) and the WinACnet software to create a register of date and time stamped movement transactions recorded by the PC. This feature shows when and where movement in an area has taken place, and can trigger the alarm if required.

More than 100 jobs face the axe at a naan bread factory. The site’s owner, Allied Bakeries, has issued staff with a 90-day notice of redundancy, saying the cause is “fierce competition” in the bakery market. General manager of Patak's breads Martin Brewis said the planned shutdown early next year of the factory in Cumbernauld (Scotland), was "a very difficult decision". Allied Bakeries said it had not ruled out alternative plans for the plant. Tensor can help companies make efficiency savings with our time and attendance systems that offer swift throughput even at peak times. Contactless smart cards are used to operate your time and attendance systems. Our most popular smart card is the T1305, which is thin and flexible enough to be carried in your wallet. There is no battery, thus cards can be read an infinite number of times. Each smart card reader transmits a 125 KHz frequency field (the electromagnetic field), which is picked up by an aerial in the smart card.