Teamster News
Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morello Performs, Joins Picketing Truck Drivers At Port Of Los Angeles Terminal Long Beach Press Telegram ...Tom Morello, original member of rock bands Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave, took to a different stage Wednesday when he performed on the picket line at Evergreen Container Terminal at the Port of Los Angeles...
Retailers Step Up Holiday Imports In Case Of A West Coast Port Strike Forbes Magazine ...The dispute extended to the docks when ILWU workers temporarily honored the Teamster pickets and shut down container terminals at both ports on Tuesday, July 8...
Port Truckers’ Strike Sends Ripples Through Labor World MSNBC ...In terms of sheer numbers, the port truckers’ strike is not a major action. Only about 120 drivers walked off the job on Monday, when the strike began. Yet in terms of significance to the labor movement, this small workplace disruption is a national event...
6 minutes a day for bathroom breaks? Union cries foul Chicago Tribune ...Members of the Teamsters Local 743 who build sink stations at WaterSaver Faucet Co. and its sister company Guardian Equipment Inc. said that workers have been disciplined for exceeding their allotted bathroom time of 30 minutes per week, or 6 minutes per workday...
Trade
You have until July 21 to prevent deception in gov’t trade data Trade Reform ...Under a proposed federal rule, an iPhone made in China and sold to Europe could be falsely considered an American export! This dangerous rule would allow the federal government to magically shrink the trade deficit by claiming foreign manufacturing by foreign companies and workers is really USA-made...
GM says defective ignition switch made in China Trade Reform ...The No. 1 U.S. automaker said in a filing on Tuesday with U.S. safety regulators that the switch used in the Chevrolet Impala and Monte Carlo, Buick LaCrosse and Lucerne, and Cadillac DeVille and DTS cars that were recalled on June 16 was made by China-based Dalian Alps Electronics Co. Ltd. The switch problem is similar to the defect linked to at least 13 deaths...
Despite a Pledge by Samsung, Child Labor Proves Resilient New York Times ...they were part of a “labor dispatch system” that often funnels child laborers to factories during the summer to help meet a surge in orders that comes just ahead of the fall and winter shopping seasons in the United States and Europe. They were hired as temporary workers, they said, and paid through an agency that has recruitment channels in poor regions...
EFF, Reddit And Others Unite To Fight The Trans Pacific Partnership The Inquirer ...Two letters have been sent, and each takes on a related but different issue with the secretive trade agreement. Each letter has different signatures, and shows the broad, diverse opposition to the TPP...
State Battles
Gov. Scott Walker’s Campaign Violations New York Times ... According to state prosecutors, he was at the helm of a broad and illegal fund-raising effort that involved coordinating with outside spending groups and even controlling them...
Tipped Workers Seek Higher Wage Albany Times Union ...Seven other states have raised the tipped wage to the state minimum wage, including some states with the highest minimum wages in the country, such as Washington. Three of the states have indexed their minimum wage to inflation, something advocates also have called for in New York. Jack Temple, a policy analyst with the National Employment Law Project, said those states with some of the highest minimum wages for all workers also have some of the fastest restaurant industry growth...
Comfort the comfortable (opinion) Toledo Blade ...fully half of this year's $400 million tax cut will go to the top 5 percent of Ohio's taxpayers...
War On Workers
Fixing the Highway Trust Fund Isn't Rocket Science, but Stakes Are High AFL-CIO Now ...Unless Congress takes action, the fund will be depleted completely in less than one month...
One Of The NSA's Original Whistleblowers Says The Goal Is 'Total Population Control' The Guardian ...“The NSA is mass-collecting on everyone”, Binney said, “and it’s said to be about terrorism but inside the US it has stopped zero attacks..."
Detroit Residents Face Water Crisis as 36 Detroit Businesses Owe Over $4.2 Million in Back Bills firedoglake ...Over 7,000 residents already had their service cut off in June alone, before a single business faced the threat of collection. An estimated 40% of Detroit residents stand to lose water access by the end of the city’s brutal campaign to close delinquent accounts...
Mortgage Bankers: ‘Unsustainable Housing Bubble Is Inflating’ Wolf Street ...Six million homeowners in the U.S. are still underwater on their mortgages, with the average negative equity a whopping 33%. Yet with home prices soaring in many cities, total homeowner equity in the U.S. is at its highest level since late 2007. That doesn’t feel like a healthy, sustainable growth situation...
A Devastating Pattern Of Homelessness Among Late Baby Boomers Could Repeat In Millennials Business Insider ...Every decade, the group facing the highest risk of homelessness was born between 1954 and 1963...they came of age in the late 70s and early 80s in a period of depressed wages for unskilled workers, higher youth and young adult unemployment, and rising rental housing costs. At the same time, they faced a proliferation of crack cocaine, leading to social problems and incarceration...
How Inequality Is Hurting Whole Foods Huffington Post ...After popularizing luxury groceries for the well-off, Whole Foods is trying to take the concept to the masses. But amid growing inequality and a sluggish recovery, those masses have gone missing...
Miscellaneous
Report: U.S. Monitored E-mails Of Prominent Muslim Americans, Including Attorneys Washington Post ...A lengthy article published on the Intercept stated that the National Security Agency and the FBI monitored the e-mails of five Muslim Americans under procedures meant to target foreign terrorists and spies...
Fed Sets October End For Bond Buying Wall Street Journal ...Federal Reserve officials agreed at June's policy meeting to end their bond-buying program in October, putting an explicit end date on the experiment for the first time and closing a controversial chapter in central-banking annals with results still the subject of immense debate...
