Teamster News
Teamsters Back School Bus Drivers in Fight Against ‘Rampant’ Wage Theft In These Times ...More than 350 Baltimore-area bus drivers, who are members of Teamsters Local 570, are preparing to celebrate victory in a $1.25 million wage theft case against Durham School Services, an Illinois-based bus-contracting company with operations across much of the country...
Teamsters Stand Up for Port Truck Drivers at Skechers teamster.org ...Join port truck drivers who are standing up for their rights by signing this online petition. They were fired by Skechers' trucking contractor, Green Fleet Systems, after they exercised their rights on the job...
Illinois Teamsters Training Fund Certifies 1,300 Drivers in 2013 teamstersjc25.com ...For the third consecutive year, more than 1,000 truck drivers, students and military veterans across Illinois completed safety and licensing training with Teamsters Joint Council 25...
Teamsters Taxi Association Turn Up the Heat in D.C. Politics teamster.org ...In an effort to gain more information to help us fight for D.C. taxi drivers’ interests, the Washington, D.C. Taxi Operators Association has sent a survey to D.C. mayoral candidates and to D.C. City Councilmembers. See the survey here...
UK Pension Funds Join With Teamsters Union In Submitting Resolution To National Express Annual General Meeting teamster.org ...The shareholder proposal calls for the Board to expand the role and responsibilities of its Safety and Environment Committee to provide quality oversight of the company's human capital management and to adopt a meaningful and enforceable workplace human rights policy...
Trade
NAFTA Report Warns Of Trade Deal Environmental Disasters Huffington Post ...A report aims to offer an object lesson to President Barack Obama: Free trade deals have high costs in unintended consequences for the environment, people's way of life, and local sovereignty...
Trans-Pacific Partnership Reveals Deadly Cost of American Patents naked capitalism ... a cancer specialist in New Zealand (one of the TPPA counties) warned that the TPPA would prolong the high cost of treating breast cancer because of new rules to protect biotechnology-based cancer drugs from competition from generics. And this will affect the lives of cancer patients...
Ford to Move Production of Large Trucks from Mexico to Ohio Fox Business ...The automaker said it will invest $168 million in the Cleveland-area facility, which currently makes Ford’s E-series vans. Ford expects the plant to begin production of the F-650 and F-750 commercial trucks early next year before they go on sale in the spring of 2015...
Chinese components found in B-1 bombers and F-16 fighters RT ...A Pentagon investigation has found that despite prohibitions by federal law, multiple US aircraft and weaponry are housing Chinese parts and raw materials...
State Battles
Pennsylvania GOP aims to end legal exemptions for unions Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ..."It would criminalize members engaged in protected activity," he continued, "such as organizing drives and picket lines..."
How the GOP ambushed the VW union election The Hill ...One local group, Southern Momentum, played a critical role in this frenzy of anti-unionism. Southern Momentum claims to represent ordinary Volkswagen workers, but surprisingly for a grassroots organization, it engaged the services of Projections, Inc., one of the nation’s leading union avoidance firms...
Moral Mondays call for change WBNG 12 Action News ...Binghamton, NY community members are pushing for a state budget that works more for the middle class. Opposition to Gov. Andrew Cuomo's budget extended Monday from religious leaders and labor groups to parents and working families...
Vermont Governor Shumlin calls for wage increase Associated Press ...Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin called on lawmakers Monday to raise the state minimum wage but details about how it will be implemented have yet to be finalized. Shumlin is proposing an incremental increase to $10.10 by 2017...
Wisconsin big business interests back campaign finance bill The Cap Times ...A campaign finance bill that would ease a number of political contribution rules and expand the time period during which lobbyists can contribute to state campaigns is backed by two of the biggest special interest groups in Wisconsin...
FBI investigating Idaho prison run by Corrections Corporation of America VT Digger ...The FBI is investigating Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) after its Idaho prison was so violent inmates dubbed it “Gladiator School,” according to a report by the Associated Press...
War on Workers
Obama Will Seek Broad Expansion of Overtime Pay New York Times ...On Thursday, the president will direct the Labor Department to revamp its regulations to require overtime pay for several million additional fast-food managers, loan officers, computer technicians and others whom many businesses currently classify as “executive or professional” employees to avoid paying them overtime...
Deal reached to protect retiree committee in Detroit bankruptcy case The Detroit News ...The city’s lawyers Tuesday announced they have reached a deal that will protect members of a retiree committee from lawsuits associated with Detroit’s bankruptcy case...
Port trucking almost at a halt behind Unifor pickets Vancouver Sun ...Trucking operations at Port Metro Vancouver container terminals ground to a near-halt Monday as about 300 unionized terminal truck drivers set up pickets to join more than 1,000 non-union drivers who withdrew their services more than a week ago...
5 reasons slaves still catch your seafood dinner The Salon ...The $7.3 billion seafood industry in Thailand still use slave labor. What's worse: America keeps giving it a pass...
Americans' Views on Quality Job Prospects Still Recovering Gallup ...Twenty-seven percent of Americans say it is now a good time to find a "quality job." This is up from the low levels between 2009 and 2012, but the last time Americans' optimism about job prospects reached 30% was January 2008...
Safety Flaws Found in New Inspections of Factories in Bangladesh New York Times ...A team plans to assess 1,500 garment factories by early September. Reports on the first 10 factories ... found that some factories lacked adequate fire doors, did not have required sprinkler systems and had dangerously high weight loads on several floors...
The Democrats Stand Up to the Kochs (Opinion) New York Times ...Democrats have for too long been passive in the face of the vast amounts of corporate money, most of it secret, that are being spent to evict them from office and dismantle their policies...
Miscellaneous
ALEC Launches New Effort To Influence Local Government Policy ThinkProgress ...The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an organization known for helping to advance corporate interests by writing and then pushing to pass conservative legislation at the state level, has created a new initiative. The new project “will offer corporate America a direct conduit into the policy making process of city councils and municipalities"...
Greek tax inspectors get anger management classes amid no ease in austerity measures The Republic ...Greek tax inspectors are being offered anger management classes after the government said they would have to continue enforcing a deeply unpopular emergency tax...
