Teamster News
MV Transportation Drivers Unanimously Choose Teamsters Union IBT ...MV Transportation drivers have voted unanimously, 67-0, to join Teamsters Local 890 in Salinas, Calif., to improve their working conditions. The 91 drivers provide adult paratransit services, shuttle and tourist trolley routes in Salinas and Monterey...
Calif. Senate Approves Bill To Protect Temporary Workers IBT ...The California Senate approved AB 1897 Wednesday evening. The bill will hold companies accountable for serious violations of the rights of workers on their premises that are committed by their own labor suppliers...
Uber Drivers In Southern California Form Association With Teamsters Local 986 IBT ...The California App-Based Drivers’ Association (CADA) met in El Monte, California on Tuesday, to formalize its affiliation with Teamsters Local 986...
How One Union Is Playing For Both Sides In The Battle Between Uber And Taxis BuzzFeed ...As the bitter divide between ride-sharing and taxi companies continues to grow, one union is trying to unite all the drivers, no matter who they work for...
Trade
TTIP Will Sacrifice Food Safety For Faster Trade, Warn NGOs EurActiv ...The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) will irreversibly put EU consumers and animals at risk, the European Commission will be warned today...
Kristen Marshall: Reject the TPP (opinion) DailyCamera ...“Why are we relying on WikiLeaks for information about TPP?”; and “What about Congress?”...
State Battles
Ballot Initiatives Become Pricey Playgrounds Of Parties And Corporations Washington Post ...For the first time in history, spending on the approximately 125 ballot questions facing voters in 41 states is likely to top $1 billion in campaign spending this year — and perhaps much more: Oil and gas companies in Alaska spent more than $170 for every vote they won in a successful campaign to reject higher taxes earlier this month...
The End Of The Scott Walker Experiment? Slate ...the biggest national test taking place in Wisconsin is a test of the Walker Hypothesis, which held that a politician who enacted conservative policies and didn’t shrink from the resulting controversy would be rewarded by a wide range of voters—conservatives, but also swing voters. ... With each new poll showing a close race, that hypothesis grows weaker...
DOR: Fiscal year revenue comes in $281.2 million below projections WisPolitics Budget Blog ...The largest shortfall came in income taxes, where the state collected $178.7 million less than expected. Corporate tax collections were also significantly lower, coming in $97.7 million behind projections...
War On Workers
You're Losing $18,000 A Year Because Of Income Inequality Huffington Post ..."Stagnant growth at the middle is just the flip side of fast growth at the top," Elise Gould, the author of the paper and EPI’s director of health policy research, told The Huffington Post...
When Do We Start Calling This “The Greater Depression”? Washington Center for Equitable Growth ...Between the start of 2005 and the end of 2007 U.S. real GDP grew at 3.1%/year. The recession trough in 2009 saw the U.S. real GDP level 11% lower than the 2005-2007 trend. Today it stands 16% below...
Most Americans Think The Economy Is Permanently Damaged Huffington Post ..."Looking at the aftermath of the recession, it is clear that the American landscape has been significantly rearranged," Rutgers professor Cliff Zukin said in a press release. "With the passage of time, the public has become convinced that they are at a new normal of a lower, poorer quality of life."...
For Every Education Level, Real Wages Have Gone Down So Far This Year Bloomberg Businessweek ...From the first half of 2007 to the first half of this year, real wages declined 4.9 percent for workers with a high school degree and 2.5 percent for workers with a college degree. Workers with advanced degrees registered an increase of only 0.2 percent over those seven years...
In Corporations, It’s Owner-Take-All (opinion) Washington Post ...Lazonick looked at the 449 companies listed every year on the S&P 500 from 2003 to 2012. ... That’s a total of 91 percent of their profits that America’s leading corporations targeted to their shareholders, leaving a scant 9 percent for investments, research and development, expansions, cash reserves or, God forbid, raises...
Sheriff releases name of Kalispell Walmart worker killed in fall Missoulian ...Larry Wurtz has been identified as the Kalispell Walmart employee who died after falling from a movable staircase in a back room of the store last week...
Worker hit and killed by SF city truck in the Bayview SF Gate ...A San Francisco Department of Public Works garbage truck struck and killed a crew member Thursday morning, city officials said...
Miscellaneous
Boomer Wealth Dented by Mortgages Poses U.S. Risk Bloomberg ...The share of Americans 65 and older with mortgage debt rose to 30 percent in 2011 from 22 percent in 2001, according to a May analysis by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau based on the latest available figures...
