Teamsters
Drivers For Apple, Yahoo, EBay, Zynga, Genentech and Amtrak Join Teamsters teamster.org … Drivers who transport employees for six big Silicon Valley companies have voted overwhelmingly 104 to 38 in favor of representation by Teamsters Local 853 in San Leandro, Calif...
CDT Workers Ratify First Union Contract teamster.org ...Nine months after emphatically voting to join Teamsters Local 727, nearly 700 paratransit drivers, garage attendants, dispatchers and customer service representatives at Cook DuPage Transportation (CDT) in Chicago have ratified their first union contract...
Shaw’s fights Teamsters’ effort to unionize Maine pharmacists Bangor Daily News ...Shaw’s Supermarkets is fighting an effort by the Teamsters union to organize the chain’s pharmacists at 16 stores in Maine, arguing its pharmacy managers are supervisors and therefore are not able to join a labor union...
Trade
Trade critics take to Senate floor — Cutler: U.S., Japan close to deal — Anti-TPP group threatens Wyden with primary Politico ...A group of President Barack Obama’s fellow Democrats took to the Senate floor Thursday to oppose his flagship trade initiative, the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, which they said would lead to big job losses and give big corporations too much power over public health and safety laws...
Sen. Elizabeth Warren Kicks Off Assault Against Secret Trade Agreement Crooks and Liars ...Elizabeth Warren is going after the TPP (yay!) and the White House is saying, oh, you misunderstood. But we've already seen the kind of insane copyright protections this administration wants - the kind that makes it impossible for other countries to make generic copies of needed medication, for instance...
TTIP: Transatlantic Trade Deal Text Leaked To BBC BBC News ...The trade union Unite said "real risks" remained because of the dispute resolution mechanism TTIP is expected to include. The union's Scottish regional secretary, Pat Rafferty said: "Last week Lord Livingston tried to pull the wool over the eyes of the Scottish people...
Canada Won't Take 'No' For An Answer On Keystone XL Forbes ...Canada’s leadership, including its prime minister, Stephen Harper, has repeatedly made clear its annoyance with the Obama administration’s Hamlet-like deliberations over the pipeline, suggesting that American rejection of the proposed project — which requires a special permit from the White House to cross the border — was simply not an option...
State Battles
WV Senate Leader Says Right-To-Work Bill Dead This Session Associated Press …Senate Majority Leader Mitch Carmichael said a push to make West Virginia a right-to-work state is dead this session...
No One in Wisconsin Asked to Kill Unions Except Special Interests The Daily Beast ...This death warrant for unions wasn’t drafted in Wisconsin though. The fingerprints of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a right-wing special-interest group, were found all over the bill. Nevertheless, Governor Scott Walker is ready to sign it after dealing unions a mortal wound in 2011 by ending the right to collective bargaining for public employees...
Construction Workers Rally Against Eliminating Prevailing Wage Las Vegas Sun ...Union and nonunion workers overwhelmed hallways and committee rooms. They marched outside, waved banners and filled committee rooms to watch lawmakers vet SB119, one of the most controversial bills in this year's legislative session...
Maine Shows That Publicly Financed Elections Really Can Work Moyers and Company ...It worked well for several cycles. Hundreds of candidates were able to run and win office without prostrating themselves before big donors and lobbyists. Farmers, waitresses, and others who usually can’t make their voice heard in politics were able to go to Maine’s state capital Augusta and represent their constituents free from the influence of special interest cash...
War on Workers
How One Community Is Kicking The Koch Brothers' Harmful Black Dust Out Of Their Neighborhood Huffington Post ...It’s not easy to take on a wealthy, multi-national corporation and win. Especially for residents of Chicago’s struggling southeast side. But that’s exactly what's happening on the banks of the Calumet River, where the steel plants that used to give residents of a mostly Hispanic neighborhood access to a middle-class lifestyle were replaced, nearly two years ago, with black dust called petroleum coke (“petcoke”) piled five or six stories tall...
Oil Train Wrecks Increase Pressure For Tougher Safety Rules Philadelphia Inquirer ...Fiery wrecks of trains hauling crude oil have intensified pressure on the Obama administration to approve tougher standards for railroads and tank cars despite industry complaints that it could cost billions and slow freight deliveries...
Railroads Want One-Man Crews On Massive Freight Trains NBC News ...Railroads have proposed eliminating the job of on-board conductor on most trains, leaving just an engineer aboard. The workers argue that one-person crews will mean more out-of-control trains, like the runaway that caused the Lac-Mégantic disaster in 2013...
L&I Probing Death Of Mabton Dairy Worker Yakima Herald Republic ...State workplace safety officials are investigating the drowning in a manure lagoon Wednesday of a 27-year-old old dairy employee...
Miscellaneous
Gas’s Drop Drives U.S. Into Deflation Territory Wall Street Journal ...Driven by a tumble in oil prices since mid-2014, the consumer-price index fell 0.1% in January from a year earlier, the Labor Department said Thursday. It was the first year-over-year decrease since October 2009. Prices fell 0.7% from December...
