Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Today's Teamster News 11.20.13

Teamsters File Suit Against Allegiant Air   Teamsters Local 1224   ...The International Brotherhood of Teamsters Airline Division and Teamsters Local 1224 filed a lawsuit against Allegiant Air Friday afternoon, November 15, in the federal district court in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.  The lawsuit alleges that Allegiant Air is violating the Railway Labor Act by disregarding many of the provisions and protections contained in the Work Rules Agreement negotiated by Allegiant Air and AAPAG, the former independent union representing the pilots of Allegiant Air...
Teamsters, church distribute free dinners  Troy Messenger   ...This Thanksgiving, the Teamsters National Black Caucus and the youth department of Dunn’s Chapel AME Church are teaming up for their sixth annual distribution of Thanksgiving meals for the elderly, handicapped and disabled veterans on November 23...
36-Hour Strike Targets Trucking Companies at LA and Long Beach Ports  89.3 KPCC   ...Dozens of truck drivers for companies that move cargo in and out of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are walking picket lines on Monday, as part of a long-running campaign by the Teamsters Union to organize truck drivers at ports nationwide...
Port Truck Drivers On Strike in Long Beach  teamster.org   ...Port truck drivers employed by Green Fleet, Pac9 and American Logistics were joined on picket lines by Teamster port drivers from New Jersey along with drivers from Savannah and Seattle during the 36-hour strike in Long Beach. See the video...
Revealed: McDonalds tells workers to “sing away stress,” “chew away cares,” and go to church  Salon   ...“Stress hormone levels rise by 15% after ten minutes of complaining" the giant corporation warns employees online...
Wal-Mart could pay every U.S. employee $14.89 just by not buying its own stock  The Salon   ...Rather than buying stock to enrich Waltons, says new report, Wal-Mart could use the same cash to give $5.83 raises...
Meet The Lawmaker Trying To Protect Workers' Thanksgivings  Huffington Post   ...(Mike) Foley, a Democrat representing Cleveland in the Ohio House of Representatives, plans to introduce a bill in the next several weeks requiring that stores open on Thanksgiving pay their workers triple time. The bill would also protect workers from retaliation if they opt out of working the holiday...
Congress May Have Just Killed The Trans-Pacific Partnership   The Diplomat   ...The increasingly beleaguered Trans-Pacific Partnership might have been delivered a mortal blow last week when a large bipartisan group of Congress members came out against giving President Obama Fast Track Trade Promotion Authority...
JPMorgan finalizes $13 billion settlement with U.S. over toxic mortgages  Washington Post   ...This marks the largest penalty ever levied against a single company...
Capital gains: Spending on contracts and lobbying propels a wave of new wealth in D .C.  Washington Post   ...The winners in the new Washington are not just the former senators, party consiglieri and four-star generals who have always profited from their connections. Now they are also the former bureaucrats, accountants and staff officers for whom unimagined riches are suddenly possible...
OSHA Levies $1 Million Fine Against Carrier for Firing Whistleblowers   Trucking Info   ...The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has ordered Gaines Motor Lines of N.C. along with company officials to compensate four former truck drivers who were fired in violation of federal whistleblower laws and pay more than $1 million in back pay wages, interest and damages...
Kids to Skip Meals After Food Stamp Cuts  AlterNet   ...A map published by Stateline highlights the impact of $5 billion in food stamp cuts across the country...
Right-wing pension-cutters get humiliated by their own survey data  Salon   ...Though the anti-pension coalition has spent millions of dollars on ads and public campaigns to portray public employees as greedy parasites, the pollsters found that “voters have generally favorable views of public employees” and that those favorable views are found among voters of both political parties. Poll respondents gave teachers, police officers and state public employees net favorability ratings of 88, 86 and 60 percent, respectively....
How Austerity Kills Innovation  Alternet   ... the most important background condition for any seller of things is the ability of other people to buy the things you want to sell. Thus, a years-long spell of mass unemployment will be absolute poison to the entrepreneur class as a whole...
A ‘Historic Moment’ for Campus Solidarity  In These Times   ...In a labor action rarely seen on university campuses, graduate student employees in the University of California system announced on Wednesday that they plan to strike alongside university service workers walking off the job next week due to allegations of illegal retaliation against members of their union...
State Rep. Uses Sledgehammer To Destroy Homeless People’s Possessions  ThinkProgress   ...five-term State Rep. Tom Brower (D) ... told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser about his own personal brand of “justice”: “If I see shopping carts that I can’t identify, I will destroy them so they can’t be pushed on the streets.” Brower has waged this campaign for two weeks, estimating that he’s smashed about 30 shopping carts in the process....
Google to pay Massachusetts $357k to settle allegations that it improperly tracked some consumers’ Web habits  Boston Globe   ...Google Inc. has agreed to pay the Commonwealth $357,000 as part of a $17 million settlement with nearly 40 states to settle allegations that it placed tracking cookies on the computers of some consumers using the Safari browser without their knowledge or consent, the office of Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley said Monday...