Friday, May 3, 2013

Today's Teamster News 05.03.13

"Fix the Debt" CEOs Enjoy Taxpayer-Subsidized Pay  Institute for Policy Studies   ...A new report by IPS and Campaign for America's Future shows that America’s top CEOs are pocketing massive taxpayer subsidies at the same time they’re pushing austerity cutbacks in government programs that benefit ordinary citizens...
Foreclosure Settlement Checks Significantly Smaller Than Regulators Forecasted: Homeowners  Huffington Post   ...Adam Crain reckoned he was due $125,000. That amount would come as compensation for losing his Oak Harbor, Wash., home to foreclosure while he was serving aboard a naval vessel in the Middle East. He calculated that sum using a table distributed by federal regulators. Eight hundred dollars was all he received...
US Manufacturing Growth Slows; Construction Spending Falls  Reuters   ...The pace of U.S. manufacturing growth slowed in April as the sector expanded only modestly, an industry report showed on Wednesday. A separate report showed that construction spending fell in March...
Clinton waiting in the wings, Democratic group paves way for a woman president  NBC News   ...With former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton waiting in the wings, a prominent Democratic group launched an effort Thursday to pave the way for electing America's first woman president...
Koch brothers making Cassidy Senate campaign a 2014 priority  Times-Picayune   ...The conservative billionaire Koch brothers, who poured millions of dollars into the 2012 elections, have given their largest single political action committee donation for the 2014 mid-term races to Rep. Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, who is challenging Sen. Mary Landrieu, the three-term Democratic incumbent, in next year's Louisiana Senate race...
GOP Senator: I Voted Against Equal Pay For Women Because We Have Enough Laws  Think Progress   ...Women in full-time year-round jobs earned 77 cents for every dollar earned by a man. Yet, at a town hall earlier this week, Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) claimed that Congress has done enough to ensure that women receive equal pay for equal work. Indeed, she justified her vote against legislation intended to prevent employers from dodging federal equal pay law…
US flag-covered spire hoisted to NY's WTC roof  Associated Press   ...Adorned with an American flag that flapped in the breeze, the last pieces of a silver spire were hoisted to the top of the World Trade Center on Thursday as construction workers cheered its ascent...
A Single Garment Of Destiny’ For American And Bangladeshi Workers  Shanker Blog   ...“Injustice anywhere,” Martin Luther King famously wrote in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, “is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” Two recent events which might seem worlds apart provide evidence that working people around the globe are indeed tied together in King’s “single garment of destiny.”...
US trade deficit drops to $38.8 billion in March as flow of crude oil falls to 17-year low  Associated Press   ...The U.S. trade deficit narrowed in March for a second month as the daily flow of imported crude oil dropped to the lowest level in 17 years. The deficit with China hit a three-year low...
Rep. Chris Taylor: Judge astonished at Scott Walker's attack on rights  The Cap Times   ...Gov. Scott Walker boasts about having the courage to stand up to public workers. He’ll tell right-wing audiences that crowds of 100,000 protesters outside of his office didn’t rattle him. Yet Walker has spent the last eight months, and thousands of taxpayer dollars, issuing $200 citations to individuals for peacefully singing, holding signs and, in some instances, walking in circles around the rotunda...
Europe's workers cry May Day against austerity  The Guardian   ...May Day is traditionally a time when European workers would pause to celebrate labor rights and the reforms which were won from employers and governments in earlier days. But with more people out of work across Europe than ever before, there has been an outpouring of anger over the region's financial plight...
Texas state officials tell legislators that educating West residents about plant was local responsibility   Dallas Morning News   …Texas Department of Public Safety officials told state lawmakers that educating residents in West – and in other Texas towns – about possible dangers of chemicals stored in nearby facilities falls to local officials…
NC Senators Force ALEC Bill Through Committee Without Even Counting Votes  Nation of Change   ...ALEC and the SPN groups have made killing clean energy incentives a national priority this year; after failing in Kansas, facing delays in Ohio and having a rough start in North Carolina...
Tom Morello Liberates Four 'Union Town' Songs for May Day  SPIN   ...Get 'em while they're free. To commemorate International Workers' Day, a.k.a. May Day (May 1), political firebrand/'90s rock icon Tom Morello has partnered with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters to share tracks from the Union Town EP, the 2011 release from Morello's Nightwatchman project...
Huge Response To Teamsters’ Tom Morello Labor Music Giveaway Crashed The Servers – But We’re Back!  IBT   ...Wow! The response to our Tom Morello “Union Town” music giveaway at Teamster.org was so overwhelming, it crashed the web servers! Luckily, we’re back up and running...
UPS driver honored for 30 years of safe deliveries  Yakima-Herald   ...Peggy Larson is too polite to tell us how to drive. But if more of us drove like she does, the roads would be a lot safer. Larson, 54, of Port Orchard last month completed her 30th accident-free year as a driver for United Parcel Service...