Teamster News
Teamsters: Port Trucking Industry Dealt Another Blow teamster.org ...This week, the first of the fired drivers, Yesenia Rivas, was awarded $9,000 in unemployment benefits by the California Employment Development Department (EDD) – benefits that are only available to “employees,” not “independent contractors.”...
Recycling Workers Continue Strike At Waste Management Bay Area Sites San Jose Mercury News ...Teamsters Joint Council President Rome Aloise characterized the ILWU's struggle against Waste Management as unrealistic and called the workers "pawns" of the union leadership. "The slogan and campaign that has been developed is based on a promise that cannot be met and is designed to create false hope for the workers," Aloise said...
Grimes Courts Labor Votes With Warren In Kentucky Fresno Bee ...Stephen Piercey, a 32-year-old UPS worker and a steward in the Teamsters union, said he supports Grimes because she opposes right to work legislation that would allow companies to hire nonunion workers, which he said would weaken the labor union's ability to bargain for its members...
Trade
Germany Turning Sour on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership naked capitalism ...Germans are particularly aware of the dangers of these foreign investor panels due to payments the German government has been forced to make. Vattenfal, a Swedish company, is a serial trade pact litigant against Germany. In 2011, Der Spiegel reported on how it was suing for expected €1 billion plus losses due to Germany’s program to phase out nuclear power...
Why Support The TPP When It Will Let Foreign Corporations Take Our Democracies To Court? The Guardian ...ISDS clauses enable foreign corporations to sue a host country for laws or policies, or even court decisions, they find inconvenient and objectionable. This has the effect of giving foreign investors more rights than local investors; more influence than local citizens...
Monsanto Agritech Lobbying For The TTIP: Britain Spearheads Campaign To Make European GMO Regulation Meaningless Center For Research On Globalization ...The TTIP aims to force Europe to drop its GMO regulatory standards. If this occurs, Claire Robinson argues that Europe will adopt the type of worthless product-based regulatory assessments that occurs in the US...
Report Links Brands To 'Slavery' In Indian Mills Women's Wear Daily ...A new report alleging “modern-day slavery” in five Indian textile mills prompted at least three of the Western retailers —H&M, Primark and C&A — linked to the factories on Tuesday to pledge to take either punitive or remedial action...
State Battles
Court Refuses To Intervene In Case of 40,000 Missing Voters In Georgia Think Progress ...On Tuesday, Judge Christopher Brasher of the Fulton County Superior Court denied a petition from civil rights advocates to force Georgia’s Secretary of State to process an estimated 40,000 voter registrations that have gone missing from the public database...
Scott Walker Runs Ad Supporting Equal Pay After Repealing Wisconsin's Equal Pay Law Huffington Post ...Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) released an ad on Tuesday in which his female lieutenant governor applauds his support for equal pay for women -- just two years after the governor signed a bill repealing the state's equal pay law...
War on Workers
Money Koch Bros. Stole from Tribes Could Swing Mid-Term Elections Indian Country Media Network ...The committee issued its report (Senate Report 101-216) in 1989: “Koch Oil, the largest purchaser of Indian oil in the country, was engaged in a widespread and sophisticated scheme to steal crude oil from Indians and others through fraudulent mismeasuring and misreporting.” The committee sent the report to the Justice Department and DOJ convened a grand jury to examine possible criminal charges, but no indictments had been returned before the group was disbanded in 1992...
Oil Train Protesters March On Downtown Spokane KXLY ..."Oil trains are dangerous," said King County Executive Dow Constantine, "they can leak, they can catch fire. There have been explosions that are tremendously dangerous to people and property. Second, they take up space that could be used by people here producing agricultural products, manufactured products being shipped from Montana, Idaho, Eastern Washington to the ports, and that capacity that we're losing is costing Washington State jobs."...
Nurse Kaci Hickox 'Will Go to Court' Over Maine Ebola Quarantine Rule ABC News ...Kaci Hickox, a nurse who treated Ebolapatients and threatened to sue New Jersey over being quarantined before she was discharged, today threatened to sue Maine if officials there do not lift a 21-day quarantine restriction...
Amtrak worker killed by train MidHudson News ...An Amtrak employee was struck and killed by one of the railroad’s trains while he was working on a section of the track late Wednesday morning...
Construction worker dies after he's struck by truck on Verrazano-Narrows Bridge Staten Island Advance ...Shell, who was employed by STV, a contractor working on the bridge, was working in a closed work zone in front of the Verrazano-Narrows administration building in Staten Island when he was struck by a truck delivering asphalt to the site...
Recovery efforts continue for contractor who died in trench collapse MyFOXDetroit.com ...Crews are continuing the efforts Thursday morning to recover the body of a construction worker killed in a trench collapse in Grosse Pointe Woods...
Dead babies near oil drilling sites raise questions for researchers Denver Post ...Part of the reluctance of residents around Vernal to ascribe any ill effects to energy-field pollution could be tied to the average $3,963 average monthly nonfarm wage in Uintah County — the highest in Utah...
Why Does the U.S. Senate Need a Petition Drive to Hold Hearings on the Secret Goldman Sachs’ Tapes Wall Street on Parade ...Senators Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown believe they may have a battle on their hands getting their colleagues on the Senate Banking Committee to agree to hold hearings on the now notorious tape recordings secretly made by former New York Fed bank examiner, Carmen Segarra, showing a cozy relationship between the regulator and Goldman Sachs...
Miscellaneous
Police: Woman Decapitated, Son Struck By Train In Murder-Suicide In Farmingdale CBS Local ...A woman was decapitated by her son in the middle of the street, he then killed himself by stepping in front of a Long Island Rail Road train in Farmingdale, police said Wednesday...
FBI demands new powers to hack into computers and carry out surveillance Guardian ...Agency requests rule change but civil liberties groups say ‘extremely invasive’ technique amounts to unconstitutional power grab...
UK Spies Get Bulk Access To NSA Data, Court Rules Fox News ...The British government's insistence that its spies don't use the vast espionage powers of the U.S. National Security Agency to sidestep U.K. restrictions on domestic eavesdropping was called into question by a court document published Wednesday...
