Register Now for the JRHMSF Golf and Poker Tournaments teamster.org ...Sign up for the James R. Hoffa Memorial Scholarship Fund's 12th Annual "Drive for Education" Invitational Golf Tournament and 8th Annual "All In For Education" Texas Hold 'Em Poker Tournament in early May. The proceeds benefit children and financially dependent grandchildren of Teamster members...
Private Prisons Are a Net Loser for the Public teamster.org ...Governments, pressed by the corporate class, have in recent years increasingly looked for ways to outsource duties and services that could provide them with income. The growth in private prisons, as a result, has soared...
Black History Month: T.A. Stowers and the Early Teamsters Union teamster.org ...In August 2014, it will have been 112 years since a joint convention of the Team Drivers’ International Union and the Teamsters’ National Union was held in Niagara Falls, NY. At that convention in 1903, history was made for a number of reasons...
The Heated Politics of Free Trade Bring No Smoke, Plenty of Fire National Journal ...Biden, Madigan, and Schneiderman … joined 39 other states’ attorneys general in a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman protesting emerging provisions in the Trans-Pacific trade pact that they fear would exempt U.S. tobacco companies from complying with state tobacco laws and regulations...
Local Lawmakers Weigh In on Right to Work Bills The Missourian ...A House bill seeks to have a public vote on whether Missouri should become a right to work state...
Evidence Mounting that Walker Campaign Is at Center of Criminal Probe Center for Media and Democracy ...Newly-unsealed court documents and media leaks add to a growing body of evidence that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s campaign is at the center of a wide-ranging secret probe into campaign finance violations during the state's contentious 2011 and 2012 recall elections...
Kasich floats ‘deregulation’ for schools Columbus Dispatch ...He could seek to ease licensing requirements for teachers to make it easier for business professionals to come into classrooms and teach, or establish some sort of formal tie between the state Board of Education and the business community so that business leaders could have a more-direct influence on curriculum...
More than a dozen communities in California could run out of water in months AFP ...California’s State Water Project announced for the first time in its 54-year history that it cannot deliver anything beyond the bare minimum to maintain public health and safety...
Weak Job Growth, but Declining Unemployment Give Mixed Picture in January Center for Economic and Policy Research ...The establishment survey showed the economy created just 113,000 jobs in January. Coupled with the 75,000 increase reported for December, this is the weakest two-month stretch since December, 2010-January 2011...
Payroll Data Shows a Lag in Wages, Not Just Hiring New York Times ...Wages are stuck, and barely rose at all in 2013. They were up 1.9 percent last year, or a mere 0.4 percent after accounting for inflation. Not only was that increase even smaller than the one recorded in 2012, it was half the normal rate of wage gains in the two decades before the last recession...
Chart of the Day #2: The Madness of Austerity Mother Jones ...If public sector employment had been growing normally during this period, we'd have about a million more jobs than we do now and the unemployment rate would probably be below 6 percent...
U.S. consumer credit posts biggest jump in 10 months Reuters ...U.S. consumer credit in December grew by the most in nearly a year due to a sharp increase in credit card usage...
I'm a Member of the American 'Used-to-Haves' Huffington Post ...I used to have a house. I used to go on vacations. I used to shop at department stores, get my hair done and even enjoy pedicures. Now, I don't. I'm a member of the American "Used-to-Haves."...
Privacy Activists' Nuclear Option: Suing Oakland Over Spy Center's Nuclear Weapons Contractors truthout ...The $10.9 million surveillance center is being built in stages and funded primarily through a Department of Homeland Security grant. The center will integrate the Oakland Police Department's license-plate scanners and gunshot detectors as well as social media feeds, mapping systems, feeds from hundreds of public and private cameras all over the city and other monitoring technologies into a centralized hub...
Brave Domino's Workers Successfully Win Back Stolen Wages ThinkProgress ...NYC Domino's workers win $1.3 million in settlement over withholding pay...
Union: IBM cuts coming again to New York Burlington Free Press ...An IBM employees’ union is warning workers to expect more job cuts in Vermont and New York later this month...
Ford steps up criticism of currency manipulation Detroit News ...Ford Motor Co. stepped up its campaign to convince the Obama administration to include provisions to block currency manipulation in a proposed 12-nation free trade agreement...
Rio fare protesters seize main station and let commuters travel free The Guardian ...After street protests, station invasions and turnstile vandalism, Rio de Janeiro’s free public transport movement finally got what it wanted for a few hours on Thursday night with a takeover of the city’s main train and bus hub...
Poverty Wages Unraveling Cambodia’s Garment Industry Inter Press Service ...Cambodia’s garment industry is regularly plagued with strikes and protests. But when armed security forces opened fire on striking workers in the capital city of Phnom Penh on Jan. 3, killing five and injuring dozens, it suddenly became clear that there is no end in sight for the crisis...
Democratic groups counter Kochs’ Senate push Politico ...A collection of Democratic-aligned groups are launching a coordinated push in 2014 Senate races to counter heavy spending from the powerfully funded conservative organization Americans for Prosperity, Democratic strategists said Thursday evening...
Federal Lawsuit Filed Against FEC Seeks to Shed Light on Karl Rove's "Dark Money" Donors truthout ...The votes by the three Republican FEC Commissioners effectively quashed any further official investigation into the allegations that Rove's group violated the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA) when it spent the majority of its money during the 2010 election cycle on electioneering, but failed to register as a "political committee" with the FEC, as required by law...
