Monday, May 20, 2013

Today's Teamster News 05.20.13

Bangladesh Factory Safety Accord: At Least 14 Major North American Retailers Decline To Sign Huffington Post   ...The deadline to sign onto the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh passed on Tuesday, and at least 14 major North American retailers declined to participate...
The great tax charade: Amazon plays the system while businesses like ours suffer  The Independent   ...We own a pair of independent book shops in Warwickshire. All around us the high street is, essentially, collapsing.... It’s simply not fair that Amazon starts at a an advantage on every sale because it’s not paying its fair share of tax...
Robert Reich: The Hollowing-Out of Government  Moyers & Company   ...The deadly explosion at a West, Texas, fertilizer plant was absolutely preventable. The plant was had not been inspected since 1985, and heavily violated safety standards. Why did this happen? The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is the government agency set to ensure workplace safety, but it’s been steadily hollowed out by Republicans…
Koch Brothers Dump Three-Story Pile of Toxic Byproduct on Detroit  The Gawker   ...There's a new addition to the scenic view along the Detroit River: a three-story pile of petroleum coke, a byproduct of the tar sands drilling in northern Canada over 2,000 miles away...
Class-Action Lawsuit Aimed at Walmart  Hispanic Business   ...Walmart can be sued for being negligent in hiring contractors that employ workers at their distribution centers, according to a federal ruling this week...
Michael Kinsley Feels Your Austerity Pain, Middle Class, But Pain Makes You Beautiful  Huffington Post   ...The austerity policies that gripped the world in the face of the global economic downturn have not worked. Unless the intent was to make a bad situation almost intractably worse...
Say no to Chained CPI scheme (opinion)  Times-Standard   ...Recipients of Social Security benefits and those about to retire should be aware that President Obama's proposed switch to the so-called Chained Consumer Price Index is, if adopted, will result in reduced benefits to all recipients...
Corporations Are Stealing From Hard Working Americans  New Hampshire Labor News   ...If you do not agree that corporations are stealing from Americans then you do not understand our current tax structure...
How Trade Pacts Threaten Public Health and Freedom  U.S. News & World Report   ...Let's face it: trade agreements bore most people. But modern trade pacts reach deep into our lives in ways that have nothing to do with trade. Deals now under discussion undermine the freedom of people everywhere to decide how to live, and they restrict the ability of democratically-elected governments to promote public health. It's time for the rest of us to pay attention…
Winners and losers from the 2013 session of the Missouri General Assembly  Kansas City Star   ...More importantly for the labor movement, the GOP largely abandoned the bill that unions most despised — a ban on unions requiring workers to pay dues, better known as “right to work.”...
Wisconsin Gov. Walker signs work-share bill  Green Bay Press Gazette   ...Gov. Scott Walker has signed into law a bill creating a program that gives employers an alternative to laying off employees when work slows...
Minimum Wage Hike Would Give Women A Needed Boost  Hartford Courant   ...Recently, the Appropriations Committee of the Connecticut General Assembly took a strong step toward growing and strengthening the wages of Connecticut's lowest-wage earners by voting to increase the state's minimum wage. In doing so, the committee also took a stand for women, as women are disproportionately impacted by a low minimum wage...
Texas sues BP, Halliburton, others over oil spill  CNN News   ...Texas on Friday became the latest state to sue BP, Halliburton and others tied to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, alleging the parties "engaged in willful and wanton misconduct" and seeking penalties and damages "to the fullest extent allowed by law."...
Indiana Halts Support of Fertilizer Plant on U.S. Bomb Concerns  Bloomberg News   ...Indiana Governor Mike Pence pulled his support of a plan by a Pakistani company to build a fertilizer plant after the Pentagon raised concerns that its products were being used to make bombs...
Georgia depends heavily on federal money  Atlanta Journal-Constitution   ...With Congress promising more federal spending cuts, some Georgia officials are facing up to a politically unpopular fact: the state has become more reliant on billions of dollars from Washington since the start of the Great Recession...