Friday, November 15, 2013

Today's Teamster News 11.15.13

Teamsters Support Walmart Strikers   teamster.org   ...Teamsters are out front supporting Walmart worker protests in the run-up to the nationwide strike planned for Friday, Nov. 29, or Black Friday. Walmart workers want respect, a living wage and the right to form a union...
Teamsters Support 'SAFE SKIES ACT Of 2013  teamster.org   ...The Teamsters Union applauds today’s re-introduction of the ‘Safe Skies Act of 2013’ by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA). The bill would bring air cargo and supplemental pilots under the same safety regulations as air passenger pilots, standardizing rules within the industry...
Teamsters Condemn Cab Commission's Denying Driver Time To Speak At Public Meeting  DCist   ...At yesterday's extremely chaotic D.C. Taxicab Commission meeting, which was attended by over one hundred city cabbies, a driver without copies of his testimony for the commissioners was told he could not speak...
Maine Teamsters Endorse Michaud For Governor, Jackson For Congress  Teamsters Local 340   ...Teamsters Local 340 in South Portland, Maine announced that its executive board unanimously voted to endorse both Rep. Mike Michaud (D-2nd District) in his run for governor and State Senator Troy Jackson who is running for the 2nd Congressional District seat being vacated by Michaud...
Hoffa: Lawmakers Increasingly Realize Fast Track Is a Fraud  Huffington Post   ...The Teamsters for years have been an outspoken critic of fast-track trade authorization which allows bad proposed trade agreements to move through Congress on just a quick up-or-down vote. And in the last week, we were joined by 185 House lawmakers who feel the same way...
The more you know about the odious Trans-Pacific Partnership, the less you’ll like it  The Guardian   ...That is why it's been negotiated in secret meetings dominated by governments and corporations...
US trade deficit widened 8% in September  Associated Press   ...imports increased to the highest level in 10 months while exports slipped. The wider gap suggests growth was somewhat slower over the summer than previously estimated...
US mobility for young adults falls to 50-year low  Associated Press   ...Among adults ages 25-29, just 4.9 million, or 23.3 percent, moved in the 12 months ending March 2013. That's down from 24.6 percent in the same period the year before. It was the lowest level since at least 1963. The peak of 36.7 percent came in 1965, during the nation's youth counterculture movement...
Facebook and Microsoft help fund rightwing lobby network, report finds  The Guardian   ...State Policy Network rejects climate change, opposes workers' rights – and is backed by some top US tech and telecoms firms...
Koch-backed nonprofit spent record cash in 2012  Center for Public Integrity   ...Americans for Prosperity — the main political arm of billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch — spent a staggering $122 million last year as it unsuccessfully attempted to defeat President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats, according to a Center for Public Integrity review of documents filed in Colorado...
How McDonald's And Walmart Became Welfare Queens  Bloomberg   ...It seems that welfare queens are back in the news these days. This time, they are even bigger, richer and less deserving of taxpayer support...
An example of how the banking cartels control countries  the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens   ...The biggest private banks created a complex financial environment with complex financial destructive "tools" which governments are unable to manage. Governments are forced to turn to the same banks for "advising services" while they are flooded with former bank executives placed in key positions. This explains why the biggest private banks receive bailout packages of billions at the expense of taxpayers, loading governments with more debt...
Justices grill lawyers over neutrality agreements between employers and unions  Washington Post   ...Supreme Court justices seemed reluctant Wednesday to disallow a type of agreement between employers and unions that has become increasingly important to the labor movement as it tries to grow its ranks...
Poverty Is America's #1 Education Problem (opinion)  AlterNet   ...Teachers' unions are not the reason America's schools are in trouble...
Troubled Youth Prison Company Wins Even More Contracts  Huffington Post   ...Despite voluminous evidence that inmates have suffered violence, sexual abuse and neglect inside the facilities of a private juvenile prison operator, the state of Florida has in recent weeks awarded fresh contracts to the company...
Lockheed to cut 4,000 jobs as U.S. government spending wanes  Reuters   ...Defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp said on Thursday it plans to cut 4,000 jobs, or more than 3 percent of its worldwide workforce, to cope with declines in U.S. spending...
Swiss voters likely to reject salary cap bill for executives  Raw Story   ...Swiss voters look set to reject a law to rein in executive pay in a looming referendum, with a poll released Wednesday showing only around a third back the plan...
German union's incoming boss warns VW about avoiding unions  Reuters   ...The incoming leader of an influential German union warned Volkswagen AG on Wednesday about trying to avoid unions in Tennessee, where the German automaker has an assembly plant...
Giant, Safeway workers authorize possible strike   Washington Post   ...Unionized employees at Washington area Safeway and Giant Food stores voted Wednesday to authorize a strike against the grocery chains if the two parties fail to agree on a new contract...
Any proposal to ban BART workers from striking is not a simple matter (opinion)  San Francisco Examiner   ...The California Supreme Court has gone back and forth on whether public-sector employees, such as these BART workers last month, are allowed to walk off the job...
Boeing machinists soundly reject labor deal Reuters   ...Boeing machinists soundly rejected an eight-year labor contract extension on Wednesday that would have let them build the company's newest jetliner in Washington, a historic decision that could forever alter the course of Boeing's 97-year presence in the state...