US Foods Drivers in Michigan Vote to Join Teamsters Teamster.org ...Domicile drivers at US Foods in Kalamazoo, Mich., voted yesterday to join Teamsters Local 337 in Detroit. The drivers voted more than 70 percent in favor of Teamster representation, joining more than 200 US Foods drivers and warehouse workers in Novi, Mich., who are already members of Local 337...
Teamsters: Port Truck Drivers At 3 Major Drayage Firms Return To Work Teamster.org ...Striking drivers from Intermodal Bridge Transport, Pacer Cartage, and Harbor Rail Transport returned to work this morning after a four day strike that drastically impacted company operations and left containers bound for the companies’ customers – including Walmart, Costco, Toyota, General Electric, Target, Procter and Gamble, and JC Penney – languishing on the docks at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach as nearly all marine terminals turned away trucks from struck companies...
BLET urges FRA to require additional buffer cars on crude oil trains BLE-T.org ...The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen is urging the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) and the nation’s Class 1 rail carriers to take action to address a serious shortcoming in current railroad operating regulations that endangers the lives of train crew members who work on crude oil trains...
Convention Center files emergency motion in Carpenters, Teamsters case Philadelphia Business Journal ...The Carpenters and Teamsters, the two unions who filed the unfair labor charges against the Convention Center, were barred from working at the site after failing to sign a new customer satisfaction agreement by a May 5 deadline last year. The unions maintain that they had until May 10, the date of a contract extension...
Global Labor & Trade
Extreme secrecy eroding support for Obama's trade pact Politico ...If you want to hear the details of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal the Obama administration is hoping to pass, you’ve got to be a member of Congress, and you’ve got to go to classified briefings and leave your staff and cellphone at the door. If you’re a member who wants to read the text, you’ve got to go to a room in the basement of the Capitol Visitor Center and be handed it one section at a time, watched over as you read, and forced to hand over any notes you make before leaving...
Obama vows to help pro-trade Democrats fight off the left wing Washington Post ...President Obama is pledging to campaign for skittish House Democrats against challenges from the left if they support his massive Pacific free-trade pact, putting his political capital on the line as the administration enters a crucial stretch to win passage...
American workers deserve a trade deal negotiated in public (opinion) Cleveland.com ...the fact that "fast track" would give the president of the United States unilateral authority to negotiate global trade deals under a cloak of secrecy where Congress can only vote up or down on the final deal is indicative of an agreement that could only pass with no scrutiny...
May Day: Workers Stand Strong in Face of Threats Solidarity Center ...Workers in Bahrain, Burundi, Morocco, Swaziland and Turkey are standing strong in the face of economic and political threats this May Day. Working women and men are undaunted by intimidation and, in some cases, risking their lives to exercise their freedom to gather in the public space and stand up for their rights. This year more than ever, May Day stands as a beacon for internationally recognized human and labor rights...
Germany Braces for Longest Rail Strike as Drivers Walk Out Bloomberg ...The government-owned train operator is wrestling with the union over pay, working hours and which employees the union may represent. This week’s strike alone may cost the German economy about 500 million euros ($557 million) as depleted stocks and stuttering supply chains may result in production being hampered or even halted at some companies...
Bus strikes: Hundreds of thousands of workers stranded in massive walkout over privatisation of routes Irish Mirror ...The first day of a 48-hour bus strike left hundreds of thousands of commuters stranded and disrupted Bank Holiday travel yesterday. Pickets were held at Bus Eireann and Dublin Bus depots as drivers walked out over a row on the planned privatisation of 10% of routes...
Bus strikes: Hundreds of thousands of workers stranded in massive walkout over privatisation of routes Irish Mirror ...The first day of a 48-hour bus strike left hundreds of thousands of commuters stranded and disrupted Bank Holiday travel yesterday. Pickets were held at Bus Eireann and Dublin Bus depots as drivers walked out over a row on the planned privatisation of 10% of routes...
State & Living Wage Battles
Wisconsin Republicans Don’t Want Food Stamp Recipients Buying Beans, Potatoes, Pasta Sauce Think Progress ...Low-income Wisconsin families won’t be able to buy shellfish with food stamps, and will have a much harder time getting basics like dried beans, pasta sauce, and cooking spices into their kitchens, under the latest state-level Republican proposal to tighten the government’s grip on the poor...
Jasper County GOP boosts right-to-work legislation The Joplin Globe ...Members of the Jasper County Republican Central Committee passed a resolution in support of right-to-work legislation currently before the Missouri General Assembly, then heard opposing viewpoints on whether the bill could survive a gubernatorial veto. The vote came Thursday in a quarterly meeting of the group...
Here’s How The Nation’s Two Largest States Plan To Crack Down On Predatory Lending Think Progress ...If the Texas laws pass, the two largest states in the country would likely be building payday loan databases at the same time. California regulators are introducing a new slate of rules for policing high-cost lending, including a database provision that would help the state to better enforce the rules that are already on the books...
G.O.P. Expands Labor Battle to Laws Setting State Construction Wages New York Times ...Indiana’s Republican-held legislature narrowly voted in April to repeal the state’s so-called common construction wage, a provision that had been around in various forms for 80 years and that sets pay standards for workers on publicly financed projects. The debate over the change, which Mr. Pence has said he supports, was muted compared with two decades ago, when tens of thousands of union workers turned up at the State Capitol and held off repeal...
San Francisco Minimum Wage Rises to $12.25, Other Bay Area Cities Considering Hikes NBC Bay Area ...San Francisco will join the city of Oakland in having the highest minimum wage in the nation as it increases its minimum wage from $11.05 to $12.25. Affecting more than 142,000 workers, the pay hike is the first in a set of increases that will see the minimum wage rise to $15 per hour by 2018, according to officials from the Service Employees International Union 1021...
U.S. Labor
NLRB rules against Pennsylvania-American Water Business Management ...The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has ruled that Pennsylvania-American Water Co. violated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) when it disciplined two Pittsburgh-area workers for refusing to cross a picket line. The board also censured the company for removing a union letter from a bulletin board...
Strike avoided, UAW and administration come to agreement The Daily UW ...UW union UAW Local 4121 announced Thursday night it had reached a bargaining agreement with the Cauce administration, avoiding a strike. The union represents research assistants and teaching assistants. The tentative agreement with the UW will be sent to union members for review. If ratified, the contract would become binding...
National Nurses Union reached a deal with UCMC, avoids strike The Chicago Maroon ...As union-affiliated nurses employed by the University of Chicago Medical Center (UCMC) and the hospital braced for a planned one-day nurses’ strike on April 30, an announcement early this week signaled the aversion of the strike and a sudden and complete resolution of more than eight months of contentious contract negotiations between the two parties...
Miscellaneous
Candidate Sanders Calls for 'Political Revolution' Against Billionaire Class Common Dreams ...Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders is calling for revolution. The independent senator from Vermont who just this week announced his bid for Democratic nominee, minced no words when speaking on ABC's This Week on Sunday. "I think I'm the only candidate who's prepared to take on the billionaire class which now controls our economy, and increasingly controls the political life of this country"...
Robert Reich: America’s economy is a nightmare of our own making Salon ...The ensuing debate over the merits of the “free market” versus an activist government has diverted attention from how the market has come to be organized differently from the way it was a half-century ago, why its current organization is failing to deliver the widely shared prosperity it delivered then, and what the basic rules of the market should be...
'We Have Each Other's Backs': May Day Rallies Highlight Black Lives Matter Movement Common Dreams ...With May Day rallies taking place worldwide on Friday, activists in the U.S. are expanding their message—historically focused on workers' rights—to take a stand for racial justice, as the Black Lives Matter movement against police brutality continues to spread...
