Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Today's Teamster News 10.02.13

Bon Appetit workers vote for union representation  Daily Pennsylvanian   ...The Bon Appetit Management Company dining hall workers voted Monday morning to be represented by the Teamsters Local 929...
Star-Ledger, unions reach agreement  Newspapers & Technology   ...The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J. reached a tentative agreement with production unions, Teamsters/GCC Local 8-N, to avoid a threatened shutdown…
Saginaw County fails to renew 14 of its 16 union contracts by Oct. 1 deadline  Michigan Live   ...About 540 employees in 14 of Saginaw County's 16 bargaining units are working under expired contracts, starting October 1. But during a special meeting Sept. 30, the Board of Commissioners approved two two-year contracts for workers who are members of Teamsters Local 214...
Will Poultry files notice of plant closing  Buffalo Business First   ...Will Poultry Co. has filed advance word of a shutdown of its William Street plant in Buffalo with the New York State Labor Department. The workers there are represented by Teamsters Local 264...
At 42 months and counting, current job “recovery” is slowest since Truman was president  Pew Research Center   ...In fact, not only were more jobs wiped out in the Great Recession than any other post-World War II downturn — 8.7 million, or 6.3% of the pre-recession peak payroll — but it’s taking longer to regain them than it did in the previous two post-recession recoveries combined...
Student Loan Defaults Surge To Highest Level In Nearly 2 Decades  Huffington Post   ...Recent college students are defaulting on federal loans at the highest rate in nearly two decades, reflecting "crisis" levels of student debt and a lackluster economy that leaves graduates with bleak employment prospects...
Multimillionaire Republican lawmaker says government shutdown ‘is my idea of fun’  Raw Story   ...As 800,000 federal employees were set to be furloughed due to a government shutdown on Tuesday, a Republican lawmaker with a net worth of around $6 million was positively cheerful about the situation, telling NPR that it was his “idea of fun...”
Does Wall Street Have Primary Dealers or Primary Stealers? (opinion)  ...There are three structural reasons we can’t get past the conversation that Wall Street is evil — the first being that it is evil under its current form and the public is reminded of just how evil on a weekly basis with the revelation of its ever more ingenious crimes, like over-charging by 80 times for electricity, withholding aluminum off the market and driving up the price of canned beer and soda, or selling investments designed to fail to unwary investors....
More Than 800,000 Federal Workers Are Furloughed  Wall Street Journal   ...Many national agencies, parks, museums closed and essential services unaffected...
Dollar weakens on government shutdown  New York Post   ...The first American government shutdown in 17 years weakened the dollar on Tuesday, sending it to an eight-month low against the euro, but otherwise left equity markets firmer while U.S. Treasury bonds fell...
Labor Department Confirms No Jobs Report Amid Shutdown  Wall Street Journal   ...The U.S. government Tuesday said it won’t release key economic data, including the monthly jobs report, while the government is partially closed because of the budget impasse...
21% of Americans without health insurance do not use the internet  Pew Research Center   ...Some of the groups most likely to not have health insurance are the same as those groups most likely to not be online...
Colombian workers' rights suffer despite US-Colombia free trade agreement  MinnPost   ...Was it a good-faith effort to improve labor rights in Colombia? Or a cynical maneuver to drum up votes for a trade pact? That’s the question human rights activists and some politicians are asking two years after the US Congress approved a free trade agreement with Colombia...
Wells Fargo Agrees To $869 Million Settlement With Freddie Mac  Associated Press   ...Wells Fargo & Co. has agreed to an $869 million settlement with Freddie Mac over claims on home loans it sold to the government-controlled mortgage finance company...
The Dishonesty of Voter ID Laws (opinion)  New York Times   ...The Justice Department on Monday sued North Carolina over the state’s restrictive new voting law, which requires photo identification for in-person voting and cuts back on early voting and same-day registration — all of which will disproportionately affect black voters...
Deal to privatize Port of Chicago falls through  Chicago Tribune   ...Negotiations to privatize the poorly run and foundering Port of Chicago by handing over management to a Denver company have fallen through, according to the transportation company that intended to take it over...
Stunning News On Preventable Deaths In Hospitals (opinion)  Huffington Post   ...In 1999, Americans learned that 98,000 people were dying every year from preventable errors in hospitals. As it turns out, those were the good old days...
Wearable tech such as Google Glass, Galaxy Gear raises alarms for privacy advocates  Washington Post   ...Samsung’s Galaxy Gear smart watch is set to hit U.S. stores this week, part of a new wave of wearable technology that some fear could open a largely unregulated door into users’ private lives...
OSHA Cites Georgia Power Co. with $119,000 in violations  OSHA Online   ...After a generator explosion at Plant Bowen of the Georgia Power Co. in April 2013, an investigation led by OSHA has issued the company with 17 serious safety violations. The explosion occurred during a maintenance shutdown at the Cartersville, GA plant...
Proposed California Laws Will Protect Immigrant Workers Even if Federal Reform Fails  Economic Policy Institute   ...If Governor Jerry Brown signs these four bills, the new laws will ameliorate some of the worst abuses immigrants suffer, including human trafficking, wage theft, and employer retaliation against workers who organize or report illegal acts to authorities...