Have a wonderful holiday, everyone! TeamsterNation will be on hiatus over the Memorial Day holiday. We'll see you again Tuesday morning!
Teamster News
Youngstown Approves Pacts With 2 Employee Unions Insurance News Net ...City council approved contracts with two labor unions that provide salary increases for the first time in about four years. The deals with Teamsters Local 377, which represents 30 street department workers...
Trade
TTIP: EU And US Prepare To Enhance Global Corporatocracy With Free Trade Deal International Business Times ...Belgian MP Alain Maron, who was one of the 200 arrested in Belgium last Thursday, May 15, as an unauthorized protest against TTIP broke out in Brussels, branded the deal "an erosion of consumer and human rights."...
State Battles
Two Ways Chris Christie Screwed Over Pensioners for GOP Donors In These Times ...Christie isn't being forced to renege on the pension payment—he's choosing to spend money on corporate subsidies and investment fees rather than on those pension promises...
EXCLUSIVE: We name the political donors whose firms got $14bn of pension cash from New Jersey Pando ...political donors associated with 43 financial firms managing New Jersey pension money have spent a total of $11.6 million on contributions to New Jersey politicians and to major political organizations operating in New Jersey elections...
Koch Brothers' Detroit Abomination: Stunning Avarice And Cruelty Reaches New Low Salon.com ...After much controversy and debate, Michigan's Republican Gov. Rick Snyder has agreed to provide $195 million in state funding that will limit pension cuts to no more than 4.5 percent and protect the Detroit Institute of Art from liquidating its collection. "This is a settlement. This is not a bailout." Snyder said. "And I want to be very, very clear about that." Not so fast Gov. Snyder. Americans for Prosperity has built a shiny new website...
War On Workers
Just Released: What Kinds of Jobs Have Been Created during the Recovery? Liberty Street Economics ...during the recession, the vast majority of jobs that were lost in the nation and across the region were middle-skill jobs, such as construction workers, teachers, machine operators, and administrative support workers. These jobs have not come back during the recovery...
Students Now Indentured to the Banksters Truthout ...Back in January, 31-year-old Tony Muzzatti, who at the time owed around $60,000 in student loan debt to Sallie Mae and always made on-time payments, was told that he had to immediately make a payment of $10,000, or face asset seizures. That's because his grandmother, who also happened to be his cosigner on the student loans, had just died...
Business That Bashed Obama's OSHA Just Had Horrifying Industrial Accident Huffington Post ...During the 2012 presidential campaign, Wisconsin businessman Lance Johnson said President Barack Obama's workplace safety inspectors were burdening him and killing jobs with too much red tape. "I've never been audited by more government agencies in my life than I have under Obama." Johnson, president of Johnson Brass & Machine Foundry Inc. in Saukville, Wisconsin, told the Wall Street Journal in a Nov. 2, 2012 campaign story. On Monday, Johnson's foundry was the site of a horrifying industrial accident...
Cutting Off Emergency Unemployment Benefits Hasn't Pushed People Back To Work Five Thirty Eight ...Of the roughly 1.3 million Americans whose benefits disappeared with the end of the program, only a quarter had found jobs as of March, about the same success rate as when the program was still in effect; roughly another quarter had given up searching...
Larry Summers: Student Debt Is Slowing The U.S. Housing Recovery Wall Street Journal ...Former White House adviser Lawrence Summers said Wednesday that student debt is slowing the housing recovery and the broader economic recovery, adding a prominent voice to the debate in Washington...
Over 100 McDonald's Workers Arrested Protesting Outside Shareholder Meeting Think Progress ...More than 100 workers and dozens of other protesters were arrested during peaceful protests outside McDonald's corporate headquarters on Wednesday. On Thursday, a thousand McDonald's workers and their supporters are marching on the company's Oak Brook, Illinois campus...
Sallie Mae Torments Faithful Student Borrowers After Co-Signers Die Huffington Post ...Seven borrowers who had been paying their Sallie Mae student loans on time for years were unexpectedly threatened with asset seizures after a Sallie Mae contractor demanded they immediately repay tens of thousands of dollars simply because a family member had died...
Miscellaneous
Ray LaHood Declares U.S. Highways ‘One Big Pothole’ at ALK Summit Truckinginfo ...Former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood opened the second day of the ALK Technology Summit in Princeton, N.J., on Wednesday by telling attendees that while the U.S. is "the greatest country in the world [our] transportation and infrastructure is a big mess..."
NSA reform bill loses backing from privacy advocates after major revisions The Guardian ...A landmark surveillance bill, likely to pass the US House of Representatives on Thursday, is hemorrhaging support from the civil libertarians and privacy advocates who were its champions from the start...
