Teamsters
Technicians at Saint Vincent Hospital Vote Overwhelmingly to Join Teamsters Local 170 Teamster.org ...Technicians at Saint Vincent Hospital have become members of Teamsters Local 170 following an election yesterday in which more than 75 percent of voting workers cast ballots in favor of union representation. The vote count was 130-40 and there are more than 200 technicians in the bargaining unit...
Hoffa Statement on Minimum Wage Legislation Teamster.org ...Hoffa in response to the introduction today of the “Raise the Wage Act” by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), which would increase the federal minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020: “This legislation will offer a hand up to millions of U.S. families who are struggling to make ends meet"...
Osco Drug Pharmacists Join Teamsters Teamster.org ...Pharmacists at Osco Drug have voted to become members of Teamsters Local 340 in South Portland, Maine. The newly organized group consists of 20 pharmacists who work for Osco pharmacies located within 16 Shaw’s supermarkets throughout Maine...
Michigan truck drivers, warehouse workers rally for union at Sysco Fight Back News ...Around 50 workers and drivers joined a Teamsters Union Local 406 rally outside the food distribution giant Sysco Corporation on April 29. A huge black and gold Teamster truck was parked just outside the Sysco warehouse, bordering the Gerald R. Ford airport in Grand Rapids. Over 160 drivers and warehouse workers are demanding Sysco recognize their union affiliation with Teamsters 406...
Allegiant, Teamsters fighting over executive pay Vegas Inc ...The Teamsters union, already grappling with Allegiant Air in court over a possible pilots strike, is fighting with the carrier in the boardroom, too. The union, which owns a miniscule portion of Allegiant’s stock, is pushing back against the Las Vegas-based discount airline’s $8.5 million payout to former president and chief operating officer Andrew Levy...
Members of Congress Call on the Administration to Address Unfair Middle East Airline Subsidies Teamster.org ...Today 262 Members of Congress sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx urging them to request consultations with the governments of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) because those governments have been providing massive, market-distorting subsidies to their state-owned airlines...
Global Labor & Trade
Obama Accused Democrats Of Lying About Trade Deal, And They Aren't Having It Huffington Post ...Democrats are not happy about President Barack Obama's accusation that they are being "dishonest" about his trade agenda. Warren and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) responded by pointing out that the pact remains classified, making it a crime for lawmakers to share its details with the public...
New Democrats expect growing support for fast-track Politico ...A small group of House Democrats who back President Barack Obama’s effort to win “fast-track” trade legislation said Thursday they expect more party members to step forward in favor of the bill, but indicated Republicans would still have to provide the bulk of the votes to win its approval...
Obama to push case for trade deal at Nike headquarters in Oregon Reuters ...President Barack Obama will travel to Nike Inc headquarters in Oregon next Friday to argue that a 12-nation Pacific trade deal and the fast-track legislation needed to finalize the pact are good for workers. Obama faces tough opposition from his fellow Democrats in Congress over the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, which they fear could hurt American jobs and the environment...
Battle rages over key Obama trade policy Washington Post ...For many liberal critics, the problem with the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal isn’t simply the worry that it could lead to more job loss by exposing American manufacturing to more import competition. Rather, they assert that the TPP is in many ways not even a trade agreement: Its real offense is in the areas of intellectual property and global dispute settlement, where the deal, they say, could further tilt the playing field towards major corporations...
Chile upbeat on Pacific trade deal, urges Canada to give ground Reuters ...The 12 countries working toward a historic Pacific trade pact could reach a deal at the end of May, though Canada must still show greater willingness to open up its markets, a senior Chilean official said on Thursday. Chile is among the nations in talks over the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade pact that would cover 40 percent of the world economy and includes the United States and Japan...
Fast Track and TPP Bad for Development (opinion) Oxfam America ...“Trade can indeed spur economic growth and poverty reduction, but only if the rules actually benefit those at the lower end of the development ladder,” said Raymond C. Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America. “Although it is being negotiated in secret, what we currently know about the TPP lines up the trade deal to do exactly the opposite”...
Nepal Quake Galvanizes Local Unions; Felt in Bangladesh Solidarity Center ...The General Federation of Nepalese Trade Unions (GEFONT), which represents mostly blue-collar workers, the Nepal Trade Union Congress (NTUC), which includes teachers and other white-collar workers and the Joint Trade Union Coordination Center (JTUCC), the umbrella organization of GEFONT and the NTUC, say their employees are safe and now working to provide disaster relief...
Portugal: TAP pilots to begin 10-day strike as talks fail Euronews ...Portugal’s flagship air carrier TAP looks set to be grounded for ten days from now because of a strike by pilots. Last-minute talks between the pilots and management yesterday afternoon failed to produce results...
State & Living Wage Battles
Democrats make minimum wage pitch: $12 by ’20 Washington Post ...Top Democrats laid down their minimum-wage marker on Capitol Hill on Thursday, setting up their party's middle-class-focused economic message heading into the 2016 elections campaigns. Their pitch: "$12 by '20" — a $12 per hour federal minimum wage by 2020, which they say will give a pay raise to nearly 38 million Americans...
Senate committee to hold hearing on ending prevailing wage Channel3000 ...The state Senate's labor committee has scheduled a hearing on a GOP bill that would repeal Wisconsin's prevailing wage law. The committee set the hearing for Tuesday and plans to vote on the bill the following Thursday. The committee's chairman, Sen. Stephen Nass, is one of the bill's sponsors...
State Sen. Daylin Leach proposes raising state minimum wage to $15 per hour The Mercury News ...A legislative proposal to raise the Pennsylvania minimum wage to $15 per hour has been circulated to the 49 state senators by state Sen. Daylin Leach, D-17th Dist., who is seeking co-sponsors. The proposal, if it eventually becomes law, would also index the $15 minimum wage amount to inflation in future years and eliminate the current, $2.83-per-hour minimum wage for service workers who work for tips...
San Francisco set to introduce nation’s highest minimum wage Daily Journal ...San Francisco is getting ready to raise its minimum wage to $12.25 an hour, a rate that will have the city joining Oakland as the locales with the nation’s highest legally mandated pay for non-salaried workers. San Francisco’s new minimum is set to go into effect on Friday. It was approved by voters as part of an initiative that will increase the minimum wage to $15 in 2018...
U.S. Labor
On May Day, Longshore Workers Stop Work to Protest Racist Police Brutality In These Times ...This May 1 will see some serious protests against racism and police violence -- be they in Baltimore or Oakland. In fact, because ILWU Local 10 has announced it will stop work, the union may have created the space for thousands of protesters from around the Bay Area to join the marches. Using a provision in its contract, ILWU locals can “stop work” to discuss important matters on and off the waterfront...
Teachers at Four NY Archdiocese Schools on Strike NY1.com ...About 90 teachers are set to take part in today's strike at St. Jean Baptiste High School in Manhattan, Notre Dame Academy High School and Our Lady Queen of Peace School on Staten Island, and St. Thomas Aquinas School in the Bronx. The Federation of Catholic Teachers says it has filed unfair labor practice charges against the Archdiocese's Association of Catholic Schools...
SEIU, Franchisees Form Alliance In Support Of Industry Reforms Progress Illinois ...SEIU and franchisees are joining forces in a push to reform the nation's franchise industry as part of a new alliance announced Thursday being called "We Are Main Street." Those with the campaign "will support efforts to strengthen franchisee rights, share franchisee voices and provide research to fuel efforts for reform," according to the We Are Main Street website launched today by SEIU...
Microsoft’s Unionized Contract Workers Get Aggressive Bloomberg ...For more than two decades, the industry has outsourced an expanding range of jobs to contractors, including coders, chip designers, customer service reps, custodial staff, security guards, and cafeteria workers. “A lot of temps are really used as a permanent tier of second-class workers,” says Erin Hatton, author of The Temp Economy, a history of U.S. contingent labor. In September, 38 bug testers who review Microsoft apps voted to create a union, the Temporary Workers of America...
Wall Street owns our cities: The secret pension travesty threatening American workers Salon ...Currently, about 9 percent — or $270 billion — of America’s $3 trillion public pension fund assets are invested in private equity firms. Public officials are overseeing this massive payout to Wall Street at the very moment many of those same officials are demanding big cuts to retirees’ promised pension benefits...
Miscellaneous
Baltimore’s Economic Devastation Goes Back To Racist Housing Policy Think Progress ...There are many causes of a city’s economic decline, and much of Baltimore’s job loss is tied to the falling fortunes of the manufacturing sector. But the fate of the city’s black population has much to do with deliberate policy choices related to housing...
The Rise of the Machines: It's Happening (opinion) Truthout ...I argued that computers would take over many of the cognitive tasks that we find difficult, but that human beings would continue to be wanted for jobs that require common sense, including many forms of manual labor. Or as one friend described it at the time, my thesis was that we'll always need maids and gardeners. And it's happening...
