Teamster News
Teamsters Denounce Inclusion of Pension Reform Bill to Omnibus Spending Bill teamster.org ...“Today we have seen the ugly side of political backroom dealings as thousands of retirees may have their pensions threatened by proposed legislation that reportedly includes massive benefit cuts...
Friday deadline looms in behind-the-scenes battle over truck safety TeamsterNation ...More people will die if Congress weakens truck safety to make the trucking industry happy. And Congress may just do that as it races to meet the Dec. 12 deadline to pass a budget bill. Teamsters are joined with safety advocates to fight an effort to let truck drivers work 82 hours a week...
More Drowsy, Overworked Truck Drivers New York Times ...the rider that Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, is pushing on behalf of trucking interests. This atrocious giveaway would suspend existing Department of Transportation truck safety regulations put in place in 2012 following a lengthy, transparent and data-driven process to make sure truck drivers get sufficient rest when operating on the nation’s highways...
Booker fights to keep sleep rules for truckers Newark Star Ledger ...A giant spending bill needed to fund the U.S. government past Thursday also could suspend rules governing when truckers can be behind the wheel, an effort drawing from opposition from U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and others...
Teamsters Urge Facebook To Boost Pay For Shuttle Drivers USA Today ...In a letter obtained by USA TODAY, Teamsters official Rome Aloise called on Zuckerberg to amend Facebook's contract with Loop Transportation, the contractor who employs the drivers, to allow for improved wages...
Hoffa To Congress: Stop Bailout For UPS, Protect Retiree Benefits teamster.org ...International Brotherhood of Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa today wrote a letter that was sent to the Congressional leadership and circulated to all members of Congress, expressing strong opposition to proposed legislation that would result in a $2 billion bailout of United Parcel Service (UPS)...
Teamsters At Las Vegas Hotel Ratify First Contract teamster.org ...The workers ratified their five-year contract by a vote of 23 to 3 on December 8, 2014. The group includes warehouse workers, groundskeepers and valets. The Cromwell, the only boutique hotel on the Strip, was built as the Barbary Coast Hotel & Casino and was later know as Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall and Saloon...
Leslie Marshall Show Features Teamsters Fight At NetJets teamster.org ...More than 600 Teamster members are currently in a fight for fair wages and benefits from NetJets, an airline for the global super-rich. Paul Alves, a Teamsters Airline Division representative, talks with Leslie Marshall about that fight and what it means for Teamsters who work hard, transporting multi-millionaires and billionaires and their pampered pets...
Ed O’Neill: An Interview With a Modern Family Man and Union Guy Capital and Main ...So, I’ve always been, in my heart of hearts, a teamster, a union guy...
Trade
Americans Protest Against TPP, Too Free Malaysia Today ...An hour of noisy protests ensured that chief negotiators involved in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks today were aware of growing US public opposition to the trade agreement and the dim prospects that US President Barack Obama will obtain Fast Track trade authority, Public Citizen said...
Got a T-Shirt? Chances Are Child Labor Was Involved AFL-CIO Blog ...Cotton production involves the most child labor and forced labor in the world, according to the 2014 “List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor” by the U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs...
State Battles
WMC agenda includes right-to-work, tax breaks for the rich, unfettered frac sand mining The Capital Times …The state's biggest business lobby has laid out its legislative agenda for tax breaks, union busting and frac sand mining, and Republican lawmakers are lining up to carry it out...
Kentucky’s right to work movement changing battlefields (opinion) The Courier-Journal ...Republicans failed to capture control of Kentucky’s state House of Representatives in November’s election, putting the conservative goal of passing a statewide right-to-work law out of reach for at least another two years...
UAW certified to represent VW workers in Tennessee Detroit Free Press …An accounting firm has certified that the UAW represents more than 45% of Volkswagen workers, giving the union the ability to meet with the automaker's management on a regular basis….
Senate Panel Approves Atlantic City Financial Rescue Plan Press of Atlantic City ...A New Jersey Senate committee Monday approved a rescue plan designed to fix Atlantic City’s fiscal crisis by providing a stable source of casino payments to support the declining tax base...
$15 Minimum Wage Could Be On Tacoma Ballot In 2015 News Tribune ...Tacoma could be the state’s latest battleground for a $15 minimum wage...
Florida Minimum Wage To Top $8 As Debate Grows Florida Today ...The automatic increase of 12 cents an hour, recalculated by law each year based on the federal Consumer Price Index, will increase the state minimum wage to $8.05 in January, up from $7.93. Voters in 2004 approved a constitutional amendment aimed at annual minimum-wage hikes...
War on Workers
Supreme Court: Amazon need not pay workers for security check time cnet …The justices say theft prevention screening isn't integral to warehouse employees' jobs, so Amazon doesn't have to provide compensation...
The Battle Over Working Time: A Countermovement Against Neoliberalism American Prospect ...Fast Food workers, taxi drivers, port truckers, Wal-Mart employees, car washers, Fed Ex freight truck drivers and many health-care workers are all organizing unions...
Big Job Gains and Rising Pay in Labor Data New York Times …employers added 321,000 jobs in November, a much stronger number than economists had predicted and the 10th consecutive month of net job gains above 200,000. Even more significant was that the improving job market finally delivered a sharp jump in average hourly earnings for ordinary workers that was double the anticipated 0.2 percent increase…
Wages Are Finally Rising, But America Still Needs A Big Raise Washington Post ...Increased productivity, in other words, has gone to increased profits instead of increased wages. The result, as you can see, is a big gap between how much workers are making now and how much they would have been making if wages had grown the 4 percent-a-year that they should have...
Miscellaneous
US Court Extends NSA Surveillance Rules In Current Form Computer World ...A U.S. secret court has extended the authorization of the National Security Agency to continue surveillance of phone records in its current form after a reform bill ran into difficulties in the Senate...
