Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Today's Teamster News 04.02.14

Teamster News
New York's Tom O'Donnell Named Teamsters Motion Picture Director  Reuters   ...International Brotherhood of Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa today announced the appointment of Tom O'Donnell, President of Teamsters Local 817 in Lake Success, New York as Director of the Teamsters Motion Picture and Theatrical Trades Division...
CCTA Strike Heads Into Third Week, Board To Explore Options  WPTZ   ...The Board of Commissioners at the Chittenden County Transportation Authority will meet Monday morning to address the agency's bus drivers' strike as the impasse marks the start of its third week...
Teamsters allege union-busting tactics  Charleston Gazette   ...local Teamsters leaders believe the company’s new owners, Proud Eagle Inc., are taking a very different approach, including using “union-busting tactics...”
Trade
Tobacco Lobby Targets Trans-Pacific, Trans-Atlantic Pacts  Legal Times   ...As the United States continues negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Trans Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, tobacco giant Phillip Morris International Management SA has turned to former Rep. Bill Paxon (R-New York) and other Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld lobbyists for help...
State Battles
Tight Vote On "Pay Check Protection" Leaves Future For "Right-To-Work" Uncertain  PoliticMO   ...With just one vote to spare, the Missouri House of Representatives gave first-round approval to legislation aiming to restrict a labor union's ability to automatically raise political funds from members...
Federal Judge Allows Part Of Right-To-Work Lawsuit Against State Of Michigan To Proceed  Detroit Free Press   ...A lawsuit challenging Michigan's controversial right-to-work law is still alive in U.S. District Court following a judge's ruling today...
Radio host files federal civil rights lawsuit for Capitol Police arrest  LaCrosse Tribune   ...A local radio host Monday filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against three (Wisconsin) Capitol Police officers who handcuffed and ticketed him during last summer’s mass arrests of singing protesters...
Revised and Updated Data Indicate Minnesota-Wisconsin Economic Activity Gap Increases  Econbrowser   ...the cumulative gap between Minnesota and Wisconsin for January is now over 2.2%...
Letter Shows Tennessee Governor Linked VW Incentives To Rejecting UAW  Detroit News   ...Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslem told Volkswagon AG the state would offer the automaker $300 million in economic incentives, but only if voters at Volkswagon's Chattanooga, Tennessee factory voted against joining the United Auto Workers in February...
Appeals Court Finds Florida's 2012 Voter Purge Broke The Law  Talking Points Memo   ...The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the state's efforts to remove non-citizens from the rolls violated the act's so-called "90 Days Provision," which requires states to “complete, not later than 90 days prior to the date of a primary or general election for Federal office, any program the purpose of which is to systematically remove the names of ineligible voters from the official lists of eligible voters...”
The War on Workers
The Next Level Of The Anti-Koch Campaign: Treat David Koch Like A Candidate For Office  Buzzfeed   ... In 1980, David Koch ran in and funded a presidential campaign that called Social Security “The Ultimate Pyramid Scheme” and promised to abolish and replace it...
Wage War Brews at Johns Hopkins Hospital  Insurancenews.net   ...About 2,000 workers at Johns Hopkins Hospital have threatened to strike if the hospital does not agree to a wage increase of as much as forty percent for some employees...
Former McDonald’s Store Managers Say They Withheld Wages  Bloomberg   ...Two former McDonald’s Corp. (MCD) store managers, assisting with a campaign to raise pay for fast-food workers, said they helped withhold employees’ wages at the restaurant chain after facing pressure to keep labor costs down...
Nearly 90% Of Fast-Food Workers Allege Wage Theft, Survey Finds  Los Angeles Times   ...The vast majority of fast-food workers in the U.S. say they've been the victims of wage theft according to a survey released Tuesday...
At McDonald's, Wage Theft Is Just Another Managerial Task  TakePart   ...It's closing time at McDonald's and in addition to mopping the floors and closing out the registers, apparently one other important task helps keep this multi-billion dollar company running cheaply and efficiently...
Ormond Beach fighting a plague of zombie homes  Bay News 9   ...There's a group of Ormond Beach homeowners battling a zombie home problem -- homes that are standing dead and sucking the life out of entire neighborhoods...
Euro-Zone Jobless Rate Stays High  Wall Street Journal   ...The euro zone's economic recovery has been too weak to significantly reduce the number of people without jobs, as figures released Tuesday showed the unemployment rate has been unchanged since October 2013...
Miscellaneous
Clarity Sought As Northwestern Football's Labor Effort Evolves  USA Today   ...Ever since the National Labor Relations Board announcement last Wednesday that Northwestern's football players had been deemed employees by the regional director of the board's Chicago office...
How Labor Unions Can Save The NCAA  Slate   ...Last week after the National Labor Relations Board announced its decision to allow Northwestern football players to unionize, some said it would mark the death knell for the current amateurism model of intercollegiate athletics...
PG&E indicted on 12 criminal charges in San Bruno blast case  San Francisco Chronicle   ...Pacific Gas and Electric Co. was indicted Tuesday on 12 federal criminal counts related to the 2010 gas pipeline explosion that leveled a San Bruno neighborhood and killed eight people, including allegations that it did not conduct required inspections that could have prevented the disaster...
Goldman And SocGen Accused Of Defrauding Libya Out Of Billions With Derivatives During Gaddafi's Reign  Forbes   ...major U.S. and European financial firms, including Goldman Sachs and Societe Generale, actively courted executives of the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), which, flush with $60 billion of the nation’s oil profits, paid rich fees to invest with Western banks and funds, in some cases losing their whole investment.  Now, the LIA is suing Goldman Sachs and Societe Generale in London, while the SEC and the U.S. Justice Department are also scrutinizing the practices of hedge fund Och-Ziff and private equity firm Blackstone...