Teamsters
County public employees to vote for Teamsters affiliation Daily Press ... Ballots have been mailed out to more than 15,000 San Bernardino County, city and agency employees to vote on whether they want to join Teamsters, officials said...
Trade
Ron Wyden's internet freedom allies fret he'll abandon them on trade pact The Oregonian ...Sen. Ron Wyden was greeted Friday morning at his Umatilla town hall meeting by a 30-foot-long blimp urging him to oppose an upcoming trade pack that critics say could curb internet freedom...
Wyden faces wide scope of question East Oregonian ...Education and international trade were on the minds of citizens who showed up to a town hall meeting hosted by Sen. Ron Wyden in Umatilla Friday...
TPP clock ticks as Congress dallies on trade authority Japan Times ... Negotiations on a contested Pacific free trade pact have apparently hit a new snag — a U.S. legislative delay in bringing forward a bill viewed as crucial to concluding the deal. Dashing earlier expectations, the U.S. Congress has yet to submit a bill that would grant what is called Trade Promotion Authority to President Barack Obama so he can sign trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership without deep legislative scrutiny...
Getting It Wrong on Trade: TPP Is Not Good for Workers Beat the Press ...What part of getting kicked in the face do you not understand?...
State Battles
'Right to work' laws aren't about jobs or rights. They're about power. The Week ... If you're an average worker who just wants to make more money, should you oppose "Right to Work" statutes? Absolutely...
Prevailing Wage Laws: Why Are They An Increasingly Popular Target For Republican State Legislators? International Business Times ... This session, Nevada has already repealed prevailing wages for school construction projects. A bill that scales back West Virginia’s system awaits the signature of the governor. Indiana nears a repeal. Michigan mulls a similar proposal. Some Wisconsin Republicans see it as the next step after right-to-work...
War on Workers
Working Minority Families Are Twice As Likely To Be Low-Income As Whites Wall Street Journal ... Racial and ethnic minorities made up 40% of all working families, but accounted for 58% of working families that are low-income...
NYU Graduate Students Win Historic Victory The American Prospect ...the Graduate Students Organizing Committee of the United Autoworkers, or GSOC, reached a historic, tentative agreement with administrators at New York University, averting a strike that was scheduled to begin just hours later...
Worker killed after being thrown from machine Equipment World ...Law enforcement and Occupational Safety and Health Administration officials are investigating the death of a construction worker on a jobsite in Rutherford County, North Carolina...
Miscellaneous
The rise of luxury toilet paper Washington Post ...Sales in the United States of what the industry calls "luxury" rolls — anything quilted, lotioned, perfumed or ultra-soft, from two- to four-ply — climbed to $1.4 billion last year, outpacing all other kinds of toilet paper for the first time in nearly a decade...
