Teamster News
Teamsters To Remember Former President Killed In Crash WLWT ...Members of one union will gather to remember their former President after he was killed in a crash. Troy Stapleton was a member of the Teamsters for 40 years and served as President from 2005 to 2011...
Park Ridge patrol officers join Teamsters union Park Ridge Herald-Advocate ...Park Ridge police officers have changed their labor union representation as negotiations of a new contract with the city begin...
Workers At Rite-Aid's Poca Facility OK Contract Charleston Daily Mail ...Rite Aid's distribution center in Poca will remain open until 2017 under a new contract approved by union workers. Rite Aid had planned to close the facility in 2016...
Trade
U.S. Dairy Biz In A Churn Over TPP The Register ...Farmers, rather than economics or 'net freedom activists are once again putting pressure on Trans Pacific Partnership negotiators, with the U.S. dairy sector uniting against the proposed treaty...
US trade deficit at two-year high in April Associated Press ...The U.S. trade deficit jumped to a two-year high in April, as exports declined and imports surged to a record high...
China Angry About U.S. Tariff Hike On Solar Panels Oil Price ...China’s Ministry of Commerce on June 4 sharply criticized as protectionist a U.S. decision to raise tariffs on imports of Chinese-made solar panels by 35.2 percent...
State Battles
Michigan Senate Passes Plan To Ease Detroit Pension Cuts New York Times ...The Michigan Senate on Tuesday agreed to Gov. Rick Snyder's call for spending millions in state funds to spare the pensions of Detroit retirees from deeper cuts and to avoid the sale of artwork from the city's museum...
Wage Theft Bill Unanimously Passes First Vote DCist ...A bill that aims to increase the penalties for wage theft--when a company illegally withholds an employee's wages, or denies benefits--unanimously passed the first vote and reading by the D.C. Council today...
Vermont Passes Call for Convention to Overturn Citizens United! RootStrikers ...Vermont just became the first state to call for a convention to amend the U.S. Constitution to reverse Citizen's United and get money out of politics...
German Official Vows Fight To Unionize Chattanooga VW Plant Is Not Over Nashville Business Journal ...The fight to unionize Volkswagen's factory in Chattanooga is far from over despite the United Auto Workers narrow defeat in a February election in which workers declined to organize...
War On Workers
Wal-Mart workers strike in major cities CNN ...Union organizers said employees were set to walk picket lines through out the day in Tampa, Miami, Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Los Angeles and San Francisco...
Walmart Pours Billions Into Share Buybacks Rather Than Investing In Its Workers Daily Kos ...As Walmart's shareholder meeting approaches, there's a slew of news on the effect the retail giant has on the American economy--and protests against how it treats its workers...
City Council members rip Walmart’s charity of ‘dangerous dollars’ New York Post ...More than half the members of the City Council have fired off a letter to Walmart demanding that it stop making millions in charitable contributions to local groups here. Twenty-six of the 51 members of the Council charged in the letter that the world’s biggest retailer’s support of local causes is a cynical ploy to enter the market here...
How Privatizing Government Hollowed Out The Middle Class MSNBC ...The federal government employs more than three times as many contract workers as government workers and state and local governments spent a combined $1.5 trillion on outsourcing. One result, according to Demos, a non-profit public policy organization, is that the federal government effectively pays $12 or less to nearly two million contract workers...
The ZIRP Economy Unmasked: Zero Growth In Private Labor Hours Since 1998 David Stockman's Corner ...in 2013—the year of 32% stock returns—the business sector of the US economy generated no more labor hours than it did way back in Bill Clinton’s blue dress period (1998) yet purportedly produced 42% more output in real terms...
$15 Minimum Wage Permits Few Luxuries In US Cities ABC News ...A $15 minimum wage like the one adopted in Seattle doesn't buy many luxuries in most American cities...
Luxury Housing for the Top One Percent Booms While the Rest of the Housing Market Stagnates Counterpunch ...Now the housing market appears to be stalling out, except for luxury purchases by the elite whose wealth was protected by virtually every economic policy advanced through the financial crisis...
Miscellaneous
America Still Needs Strong Unions Detroit News ...In the United States the middle class and working families keep getting less and less of the economic pie that they play such a critical role in creating. Why are workers in Western Europe, Scandinavia and Australia doing so much better? A key factor is a much higher percentage of these countries who belong to unions...
