Teamsters
Arbitration Looming In Oxford County Sheriff's Deputy Pay Dispute NPR ...The labor dispute between Oxford County and the Teamsters Union over deputy pay rates will likely go to interest arbitration, say union officials, after the county failed to agree to a pay increase...
FTC Gives Ground On Merger Challenges Wall Street Journal ...Amid growing pressure from congressional Republicans, the Federal Trade Commission is revising procedures for challenging mergers it believes are anticompetitive, a move that could factor into its pending case against the deal that would combine Sysco Corp. and US Foods Inc...
Trade
What Would A Worker-Friendly Trans-Pacific Partnership Look Like? (opinion) The Week ...The biggest potential problem with TPP is that past international trade deals have eroded middle-class jobs, particularly in manufacturing, while increasing incomes at the top, thus creating even more of an hourglass economy...
State Battles
Editorial: From 'right-to-work' to the 'servant economy' St. Louis Post-Dispatch ...The decline of America’s middle class in the past four decades is attributable to many factors, one of them being the decline in union membership; right-to-work depresses union membership further. It will decrease dues payments that unions tend to spend on candidates who support unions, most of whom are not Republicans...
Wisconsin 'dead last' in the Midwest in creating jobs? PolitiFact Wisconsin ...Among the 10 Midwestern states we’ve checked on previous "dead last" claims, Wisconsin is at the bottom, if not "dead last"...
A Tale Of Two States Huffington Post ...Those two governors took these two states -- Minnesota and Wisconsin -- down two very different paths. Today, Minnesota's unemployment rate is 3.6 percent -- far below the nationwide rate of 5.7 percent - while Wisconsin's job growth has been among the worst in the region and its income growth has been among the worst in the nation...
Nevada Bill Aims To Scrap Minimum Wage That Voters Passed By Ballot Initiative ThinkProgress ...In 2006, the state’s voters approved a constitutional amendment that sets a standard minimum wage, but Hardy’s resolution would repeal it and give the legislature the ability to control the wage...
Illinois Unions Ramp Up To Thwart 'Right To Work' Chicago Tribune ...Illinois is surrounded by states that have adopted right-to-work laws that allow some workers to refrain from paying union dues, including Indiana, Iowa and Michigan. And the anti-union momentum shows no signs of slowing down, though it's a bigger challenge in Illinois, which has a Democrat-controlled legislature less likely to approve such a change...
You Try Living On The Minimum Wage (opinion) New York Times ...Over half a million workers in New York State subsist on the minimum wage of $8.75 an hour. That’s about $18,000 a year for those working 40 hours a week. Anyone who thinks that is generous should try spending just $350 a week on food, housing, gas and heat...
Bills Coming Monday Would Raise Minimum Wage By City Or Statewide Vote Denver Post ...On Monday, state Rep. Dominick Moreno, D-Commerce City, will announce two new pieces of legislation that could give a pay raise to Colorado's minimum-wage earners. One bill would let voters in 2016 set the minimum wage as well as a formula to grant increases, with a goal of reaching $12.50 an hour by 2020. If that fails, another bill would let cities with a high cost of living — resort towns such as Aspen, and Telluride, and possibly Denver and Boulder — to set their own local minimum wages...
War on Workers
Worker Killed At Port Of Anchorage Alaska Public Media ...A worker was killed at the Port of Anchorage earlier today while handling military equipment. Lindsey Whitt is the head of the External Affairs for the Port, and says this morning’s incident involved cargo shipping to the 1st Stryker Brigade in Fairbanks...
McDonald’s Workers Complain Of Widespread Burns And Injuries BuzzFeed News ...Nearly 30 McDonald’s employees in stores across 19 cities have filed complaints with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that allege the fast food giant creates a hazardous working environment that has led to widespread burns and other injuries to employees...
Faith V. Greed: The Battle Between Faith-Based Organizations And The Payday Loan Industry Consumerist ...“The Bible condemns gaining wealth through usury; and the writers of Scripture warn about gaining wealth through exploiting the poor… [but] The State of Alabama allows Payday lenders to charge an annual interest rate of 456%.” So reads a 2014 Alabama Baptist State Convention resolution condemning predatory payday loans and recommending a 36% cap on interest rates. This resolution is just one of many efforts by faith-based organizations all around the country to combat the payday loan industry and other questionable financial products they believe are hurting low-income Americans and eroding communities...
To fix inequality, Democrats are pushing unions The Washington Post ...At a time when GOP is gaining ground in very public attacks on labor, the left is coming to the defense of collective bargaining...
Miscellaneous
Oil Pipeline Boom Goes On Despite Keystone XL Setback USA Today ...While the Keystone project awaits a final decision, scenes like these are unfolding almost every week in lesser-known developments that have quietly added more than 11,600 miles of pipeline to the nation's domestic oil network. Overall, the network has increased by almost a quarter in the last decade. And the work dwarfs Keystone. About 3.3 million barrels per day of capacity have been added since 2012 alone — five times more oil than the Canada-to-Texas Keystone line could carry if it's ever built...
A Police Gadget Tracks Phones? Shhh! It’s Secret New York Times ...A powerful new surveillance tool being adopted by police departments across the country comes with an unusual requirement: To buy it, law enforcement officials must sign a nondisclosure agreement preventing them from saying almost anything about the technology...
