Teamster News
Teamsters seek "pay parity" raises for prison staff The Florida Current ...Dozens of correctional officers converged on Florida's capitol Tuesday to lobby legislators for a pay raise, saying their jobs guarding convicted felons are just as dangerous as those of the cops who put them there...
Hoffa: So-Called Right to Work Is Still Wrong for Workers Huffington Post ...ALEC and the Koch Brothers falsely preach that right to work (for less) gives workers more freedom. But all it guarantees is that hard-working Americans will work more for less if states continue to approve such bad laws...
Trade
The Trans-Pacific Partnership Is Terrible For Public Health Huffington Post ...Fifteen years ago, basic AIDS drugs cost more than $10,000 per person, per year. Many of the people who needed them the most, especially those living in poor countries, couldn't pay...
Japan, Australia Trade Agreement Could Make TPP Completion Harder Farm Futures ...Australia and Japan have completed negotiations on a Free Trade Agreement that at least one U.S. Ag group says will have implications on agricultural trade and the ongoing discussions surrounding the Trans-Pacific Partnership...
State Battles
Missouri doesn’t need divisive ‘right-to-work’ law (opinion) Kansas City Star ...Apart from the Missouri Chamber of Commerce, there is no hue and cry for right-to-work in Missouri. Nor is there valid evidence that union-busting tactics bring more jobs to states...
Outside Special Interests Lean on MO Legislators to Push ALEC’s Anti-Worker Agenda PR Watch ... Grover Norquist tweeted that the Missouri House would vote on and pass Right to Work, as if he had a crystal ball -- or more likely -- a hotline to the Speaker….Just a few months ago, Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform (acting under the absurd name "Center for Worker Freedom") was the leading group trying to stop workers at Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga...
Deal voted down in Rhode Island pension overhaul Associated Press ...A proposed settlement that would end the legal fight over Rhode Island’s 2011 landmark pension overhaul, which has been a model for other states looking to rein in runaway pension costs, was rejected by one of the groups voting on it, officials announced Monday. The parties were ordered back into mediation...
VW considering tossing election results and accepting UAW union, group says Chattanooga Times Free Press ...An anti-union group said today that Volkswagen is considering disregarding the February election results over United Auto Workers representation at the Chattanooga plant and accepting authorization cards the union claims to have collected last year...
UConn Basketball Player Speaks Of 'Hungry Nights,' Going To Bed 'Starving' Huffington Post ...His on-court skills have generated a lot of money, but University of Connecticut basketball player Shabazz Napier says there are nights he can't afford food...
War on Workers
SEC Goldman Lawyer Says Agency Too Timid on Wall Street Misdeeds Bloomberg ...A trial attorney from the Securities and Exchange Commission said his bosses were too “tentative and fearful” to bring many Wall Street leaders to heel after the 2008 credit crisis, echoing the regulator’s outside critics...
Rich people rule! Washington Post ...“economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence...”
If 97% Percent of Americans Sold Everything They Owned and Spent It on Congressional Elections, They Still Couldn't Max Out AlterNet ...Learn the scary new math of political fundraising...
Mike Lofgren: Can't We Just Say the Roberts Court Is Corrupt? Truthout ...Even in the absence of what Justice Roberts narrowly defines as "quid pro quo corruption," a court that consistently decides all relevant cases on behalf of corporate interests - most recently McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission - undermines its own legitimacy as well as the Constitution...
Miscellaneous
Citigroup To Pay $1.13 Billion Over Sketchy Mortgage Practices Associated Press ...Citigroup has agreed to pay $1.13 billion to settle claims by investors seeking that the lender buy back billions in residential mortgage-backed securities...
USDA estimates that 31% of the food supply is lost and uneaten US Food Policy ...In the United States, 31 percent—or 133 billion pounds—of the 430 billion pounds of the available food supply at the retail and consumer levels in 2010 went uneaten...
