Monday, August 26, 2013

Today's Teamster News 08.26.13

Congress, Public Waking Up to Trans-Pacific Partnership  Nation of Change   ...Members of Congress are starting to pay attention to the upcoming, secretly negotiated Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) “trade” agreement that isn’t really about trade. And the public is also becoming aware that this runaway job-loss express train is coming straight at us...
America's Outsourcers to be Reclassified as Manufacturers  Economic Populist   ...Don't like the trade deficit, low GDP and the public outrage over the offshore outsourcing?  Change the accounting method to make it go away!  Such is the agenda of government statisticians it appears...
Walmart's Latest 'Buy America' Sham  Huffington Post   ...Walmart's growing control of the grocery sector is pushing down wages throughout food production...
Governors applaud Made in the USA, but do their laws support American manufacturing?  manufacture this   ...Eight governors were quick to applaud Wal-Mart for their U.S. manufacturing efforts. But do their states' laws promote U.S. manufacturing through “buy America” provisions for state public works projects?...
Fast-Food Workers Will Strike On August 29 — Here's What You Need to Know  PolicyMic   ...Fast-food workers and labor groups are now calling for a $15/hour minimum wage and many are also asking for opportunities to unionize. Beginning with walk-outs in individual fast-food restaurants last year, the movement has progressed from the local to a national scale. A national strike by fast-food employees is set to take place on August 29...
Dr. King, The March on Washington, and Full Employment  Jared Bernstein Blog   ...[f]ifty years ago, the unemployment rate was 5 percent for whites and 10.9 percent for blacks, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Today, it is 6.6 percent for whites and 12.6 percent for blacks...
Elizabeth Warren May Control Larry Summers's Fate  Bloomberg   ...Warren indicated that Summers was too friendly to Wall Street, where he has made a lot of money as a consultant during his time away from government...
ObamaCare's architects reap windfall as Washington lobbyists  The Hill   ...ObamaCare has become big business for an elite network of Washington lobbyists and consultants who helped shape the law from the inside...
Cash Hoarders Devastate Economy The Real News   ..The wealthiest Americans are sitting on trillions of dollars in cash. They aren't reinvesting,...
Oregon Man Holds Up Bank For $1, Waits To Be Arrested To Get Health Care  Liberaland   ...Timothy Dean Alsip, 50, is homeless and needed health care, so he allegedly robbed a bank so he could medical attention...
REPORT: American Workers Have Seen A ‘Lost Decade’ In Wage Growth  ThinkProgress   ...Despite productivity gains of nearly 25 percent from 2000 to 2012, “wages were flat or declined for the entire bottom 60 percent” of the workforce, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI)...
Colin Powell On Republican Voting Restrictions: ‘It’s Going To Backfire’  ThinkProgress   ...These kinds of procedures that are being put in place to slow the process down, and make it likely that fewer Hispanics and African Americans might vote I think is going to backfire, because these people are going to come out and do what they have to do in order to vote and I encourage that...
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman files Donald Trump 'University' $40 million fraud suit  Daily News   ...Schneiderman’s office accuses Trump of defrauding more than 5,000 people nationwide through his “Trump University” that offered free seminars to help them get rich by teaching real estate-investing techniques used by the billionaire developer-turned-reality TV star...
The AFL-CIO Is Exploring New Investments in Alt-Labor and Texas Organizing  The Nation   ...the past two decades have seen an explosion in the number of “alt-labor” groups organizing and mobilizing workers outside of traditional union representation or bargaining; such groups currently mostly rely on union or foundation funding...
Private lobbyists get public pensions in 20 states  Associated Press   ...hundreds of lobbyists in at least 20 states ... get public pensions because they represent associations of counties, cities and school boards, an Associated Press review found. Legislatures granted them access decades ago on the premise that they serve governments and the public. In many cases, such access also includes state health care benefits...
Child poverty in Britain is causing 'social apartheid'  The Guardian   ...Britain risks "sleepwalking into a world where inequality becomes so entrenched that our children grow up in a state of social apartheid", according to a leading charity...