Teamster News
Allied Waste Workers Go Back To Work Daily Journal ...Terry Hancock, president of Teamsters Local 731, the union representing the 24 waste haulers and two mechanics that serve many communities within parts of Kankakee, Iroquois and Will counties, said a negotiating session has been set for Friday. Workers will continue to work under the four-year contract, which expired Jan. 31...
First Student School Bus Workers Choose Teamsters teamster.org ...First Student school bus drivers and monitors in Adrian, Mich., have voted to join Teamsters Local 1038 in Detroit. There are 29 drivers and monitors in the bargaining unit. “We want to be treated equally, and we would like to have some sick days. When we get sick, we don’t have any,” said Cindy Justice, an aide on a bus for children with special needs...
School safety agent struck by bosses: Teamsters New York Post ...A school safety agent was struck in the chest and her hand was crushed in a door while she was being grilled by her bosses, according to a labor grievance...
What It’s Like To Win A 19-Year Union Organizing Campaign In The South Washington Post ...A couple weeks ago, a group of 14,500 U.S. Airways and American Airlines customer service representatives, people who take reservations over the phone and work check-in counters and boarding gates voted to unionize with the Teamsters and the Communication Workers of America. The election was remarkable for a couple reasons: First, because of the margin of victory, with 86 percent voting yes on 77 percent turnout. And second, because it took place in the anti-union South, with most of the agents in Florida, Texas, North Carolina and Arizona...
Trade
Interview: TPP talks unlikely to conclude in 2014, says expert Xinhua ...The trade talks of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement are unlikely to conclude this year as the United States and Japan have differences on the market access of agricultural products, a U.S. expert said Thursday...
US NGOs Warn TTIP Could Weaken Chemical Oversight Chemical Watch ...In the US, critics of the negotiations say they are wary of how the TTIP agreement could hold back work to tighten regulation at the state level; which they say is important in the face of continuing weak federal legislation. In particular, they point to investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) measures they say would allow corporations to challenge, and potentially overturn, tighter state regulations...
State Battles
Corporate executives are purchasing our states — one governorship at a time Salon ...The Republican Governor’s Association has devised a layaway purchase plan allowing brand-name corporations to make secret donations of $100,000 or more a year to the RGA in support of the corporate-friendly agenda of various GOP governors. And a lot of execs have been buying...
Supreme Court to weigh Arizona redistricting challenge Reuters ...The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear a challenge by Arizona's legislature to a voter-approved plan that stripped state lawmakers of their role in drawing congressional districts in an bid to remove partisan politics from the process...
One in five Wisconsin voters don't know they'll need photo ID to vote in November The Cap Times ...With the election about a month away, roughly one-fifth of Wisconsin voters are unaware that they will be required to show a photo ID at the polls on Nov. 4...
ACLU Asks Supreme Court To Block Wisconsin Voter ID Law Los Angeles Times ...Civil rights lawyers filed an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court on Thursday seeking to block Wisconsin from enforcing a strict voter ID law they say could prevent as many as 300,000 of the state’s registered voters from casting a ballot next month...
6 Ohio lawmakers defend ALEC in letter to Google cleveland.com ...Six Ohio lawmakers signed onto a letter admonishing Google for cutting financial support of conservative policy group ALEC and for accusing the organization of denying climate change...
Businessman Nik Patel Held Rick Scott Fundraiser At Home Orlando Sentinel ...Orlando hotelier Nik Patel, who was arrested Wednesday on fraud allegations, held a fundraiser for Gov. Rick Scott at his home in Windermere in April...
War On Workers
US Issues Final Minimum Wage Rule For Contractors ABC News ...Labor Secretary Thomas Perez issued a final rule on Wednesday raising the minimum wage for employees of federal contractors to $10.10 an hour. The action puts in force a step announced by President Barack Obama in February. The Labor Department said nearly 200,000 American workers will benefit from the new minimum, which takes effect Jan 1...
US: Tobacco Group Adopts Child Labor Protections Human Rights Watch ...The Tobacco Growers Association of North Carolina, which represents more than 2,300 tobacco farmers in North Carolina and neighboring states, issued a policy on October 1, 2014 stating that it “does not condone the use of child labor.” The policy says that children under 16 should not be hired to work on tobacco farms, even with parental permission...
Job Woes Linger in 29 States as U.S. Recovers Unevenly Economy in Crisis ...Nevada, Arizona and Florida are among those furthest from their peak employment during the December 2007-June 2009 downturn. Those states, along with five others – Alabama, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey and Ohio — remain more than 50,000 positions short of that level...
Why is our Infant Mortality so Bad? Economist's View ...That difference was almost entirely due to excess inequality in the US...
Hackers’ Attack on JPMorgan Chase Affects Millions New York Times ...A cyberattack this summer on JPMorgan Chase compromised the accounts of 76 million households and seven million small businesses, a tally that dwarfs previous estimates by the bank and puts the intrusion among the largest ever...
The Middle Class Is Poorer Today Than It Was In 1989 Washington Post ...the top 1 percent grabbed 95 percent of all the gains during the recovery's first three years. And that's not even the most depressing part. Even adjusted for household size, real median incomes haven't increased at all since 1999. That's right: the middle class hasn't gotten a raise in 15 years...
Rising Tides Lift All Yachts – Why the 1% Grabs all the Gains From Growth naked capitalism ...While our economy is often referred to as “market-driven”, it is actually driven by power. P. O. W. E. R...
Pro-Union Burger King Worker Disciplined For Poor Pickle Placement Huffington Post ...EYM King, which runs 22 Burger King restaurants in and around Detroit, broke labor law by threatening a worker for discussing protests while on the job; giving a disciplinary warning to a union sympathizer; and enforcing a "no solicitation" rule on its own employees. Most absurdly, the company was found to have illegally sent a pro-union worker home one day for allegedly failing to "put pickles on her sandwiches in perfect squares as she was supposed to do"...
Federal Appeals Court Rules Evidence from Warrantless GPS Tracking Does Not Have to Be Suppressed firedoglake ...In 2010, FBI agents attached a GPS tracking device to the car of Harry Katzin in order to track his movements because they suspected he was involved in the robberies of multiple Rite-Aid pharmacies. The agents did not seek a warrant from a judge...
Worker killed in south Ga. industrial accident WRCBtv.com ...a front-end loader crushed 61-year-old Isabel Gomez while he was working on a hydraulic system at an agricultural business Thursday morning...
Charter schools, civil rights and the theft of education funds The Hill ...the lax system of federal oversight of the rapidly expanding charter industry has led to the theft of more than $100 million due to fraud, mismanagement and outright theft...
