Trade
What Happens in Geneva ... The Mammoth Global Trade Agreement You’ve Never Heard Of In These Times ...our governments are negotiating further deregulation of the financial sector, solely in the interests of large financial corporations,” says Daniel Bertossa, senior policy and advocacy officer at Public Services International (PSI), a global public-sector union federation based in France...
US trade officials say it’s their way or the highway on TPP CIO ...Certification means that the US can refuse to bring an agreement with a country into force until the country has altered its laws to satisfy the US understanding of its obligations under the agreement...
War on Workers
What the NLRB Announcement on McDonald's Means AFL-CIO ...Historically McDonald's has claimed it has no authority over wages or complaints of workers' rights violations at its franchise locations because that is up to the individual owners, but the NLRB general counsel determined McDonald's could be liable as a joint employer in these kinds of situations...
Seeking New Start, Finding Steep Cost New York Times ...Millions of unemployed Americans like Mr. DeGrella have trained for new careers as part of the Workforce Investment Act, a $3.1 billion federal program that, in an unusual act of bipartisanship, was reauthorized by Congress last month with little public discussion about its effectiveness. Like Mr. DeGrella, many have not found the promised new career...
Report Says I.R.S. Inaction May Have Increased Fraud Risk New York Times ...A government investigator said Thursday that the Internal Revenue Service failed to do background checks on some private contractors who handled confidential information, exposing more than a million taxpayers to a risk of fraud and identity theft...
Ferguson Unrest Shows Poverty Grows Fastest in Suburbs Bloomberg ...In Ferguson, Missouri, a community of 21,000 where the poverty rate doubled since 2000, the dynamic has bred animosity over racial segregation and economic inequality...
Across Asia's borders, labor activists team up to press wage claims Reuters ...Negotiations over pay and working conditions have typically remained within national borders, but activists are now bringing more muscle to the table and putting more pressure on employers and governments by using shared experiences in nearby markets...
Miscellaneous
Transporting Bakken crude by rail a volatile situation Chronicle Times ...As federal regulators continue investigating why tank cars on three trains carrying North Dakota crude oil have exploded in the past year, energy experts say part of the problem might be that some producers are deliberately leaving too much propane in their product, making the oil riskier to transport by rail...
Bank Overseer PwC Faces Penalty and Sidelining of Regulatory Consulting Unit New York Times ...The giant consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers occupies a position of trust on Wall Street, acting as a shadow regulator of sorts that promises the government an impartial look inside the world’s biggest banks. But the firm — hired and paid by the banks it examines — has now landed in the regulatory spotlight for obscuring some of the same misconduct it was supposed to unearth...
