Teamsters
Anti-Union Allegiant CEO Lives His Worst Dream: Teamster Pilots Forbes ...In January, pilots voted 465-8 to authorize a strike. Now, the union is moving on two fronts to use the threat of a strike to improve working conditions. Pilots were prepared to strike on April 2, but on April 1 a U.S. district court judge in Las Vegas issued a temporary restraining order. A hearing is scheduled for Friday, April 10...
Horse Carriage Foes Spend $14k on Subway Ads City & State ...Demos Demopoulos, executive officer of the Teamsters Local 553 union that represents about 120 horse carriage drivers, said his group is also lobbying the Council. Demopoulos claimed a majority is opposed to the bill and noted that polling has shown that public opinion is on the side of drivers...
Detroit residents unite to honor Viola Liuzzo USA Today ...The committee, supported by the Greening of Detroit, has received financial commitments totaling $300,000 from the UAW-Ford and the Teamsters, among others, and two fundraisers are planned for upcoming days. (Anthony Liuzzo Sr., who died in 1978, was a Teamsters official.)...
NYCHA worker may have been killed by faulty trash machine NY Daily News ...An investigation by Teamsters Local 237, which represents 8,000 NYCHA workers, has since found evidence that contradicts the NYPD theory and suggests maintenance failures may have contributed to Jackson’s death...
Global Labor & Trade
White House Says Enviros Love This Trade Pact, But Enviros Say Otherwise Huffington Post ...The Obama administration has angered a host of environmentalist organizations with an Internet campaign that suggests green groups broadly support the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership, which environmentalists have in fact been fighting for years...
The True Myths on the Trans-Pacific Partnership CEPR ...The proponents of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) are doing everything they can to try to push their case as they prepare for the fast-track vote before Congress this month. They begin by giving us three myths, all of which happen to be accurate depictions of reality...
Strikes proliferate in China as working class awakens Today Online ...More than three decades after Beijing began allowing market reforms, China’s 168 million migrant workers are discovering their labour rights through the spread of social media. They are on the forefront of a labour protest movement that is posing a growing and awkward problem for the ruling Communist Party...
State & Living Wage Battles
Right-to-work backers vow continued push Albuquerque Journal ...A high-profile push to approve a New Mexico right-to-work law stalled during the recent 60-day legislative session, but the issue appears likely to be back next year — both in the Roundhouse and on the 2016 campaign trail...
State Looking For National Role In Union-Backed Bill Hartford Courant ...Connecticut gained widespread attention in recent years as a national leader in Democratic circles by increasing the minimum wage and passing a first-in-the-nation statewide mandate for paid sick days for some service employees...
Nevada Senate approves minimum wage increase bill Las Vegas Review Journal ...A Republican-backed bill to overhaul Nevada’s overtime law and increase the minimum wage for some workers was approved Friday by the state Senate on a party-line vote, with Democrats calling the measure a “slap in the face” to the working poor...
U.S. Supreme Court Declines To Review North Carolina Voting Law Huffington Post ...The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to review the legality of new Republican-backed voting restrictions in North Carolina that were part of a law opponents argued was aimed at making it harder for voters who tend to favor Democrats to cast ballots...
Kansas Will Limit Welfare Recipients To $25 A Day Think Progress ...During debate over the bill state Sen. Oletha Faust-Goudeau (D) pointed out that many recipients need to withdraw hundreds of dollars some days in order to be able to pay rent...
Fast Food Workers: Thanks for the Raise, McDonald’s, But We Said $15 an Hour, Not $10 In These Times ...The company, fighting to improve its battered image, may not have intended the move to be a joke. But in the end, many workers saw the welcome boost in pay and benefits as largely a fraud perpetrated on the public as well as on fast food workers...
This City Could Become The Next Detroit Think Progress ...Starting this week, 25,000 households in Baltimore will suddenly lose their access to water for owing bills of $250 or more, with very little notice given and no public hearings...
U.S. Labor
Be Nervous (But Not Panicked) About The March Jobs Report FiveThirtyEight ...Employers added 126,000 jobs last month, breaking a 12-month streak of growth over 200,000 jobs, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday. The report was far weaker than most economists expected and represented the slowest pace of growth since the end of 2013. The government also revised down its estimate of January and February hiring by a combined 69,000 jobs...
Michigan Factory Owner Gives Out $6 Million In Thank-You Bonuses Huffington Post ...When J.C. Huizenga sold his namesake machinery manufacturing company, he wanted to share the spoils. The Huizenga Group chairman gave out nearly $6 million in bonuses to more than 575 workers in his two Michigan factories. It was his way of thanking the employees for helping grow the company, which now earns about $170 million in annual sales, according to CBS News...
Trade workers set to benefit from Gov. Jerry Brown's project list Los Angeles Times ...At his recent groundbreaking for the state's high-speed train, Gov. Jerry Brown paused while extolling the project to laud the union workers who will build it. "You've got to put something in the ground," Brown said, riffing on what drives economic growth. "You've got to get these building trades men and women doing stuff. That's what makes America — what makes the world — go 'round."...
Workers — not employers — are the real wage movers and shakers (opinion) Washington Post ...“We’re too big and complicated a system to do anything in reaction to a particular group or something happening,” Karen King, who has the wonderful title of “chief people officer” at McDonald’s, said Wednesday, explaining her company’s decision to raise wages for some of its employees. If you believe that, don’t go near anyone purporting to sell you a bridge, even if it comes with fries on the side...
