Teamsters
Retired Funeral Directors, Teamsters Local 727 Reps Stand Up For Workers at Shareholders Meeting Teamster.org ...Longtime employees and Teamsters Local 727 representatives on May 13 called out funeral industry giant Service Corporation International’s poor business practices and called on its Board of Directors to take action during the company’s annual shareholders meeting in Houston...
National Red Cross Negotiations Begin Teamster.org ...Last week, leaders from eight national unions met with representatives from American Red Cross in Washington, D.C., and reached an agreement to formally enter into national negotiations. This is a significant step in ensuring Red Cross’ mission and its employees are moving towards a brighter future...
Can the Taxi Union Get the Courts to Shut down Uber and Lyft in DC? DC Inno ...Uber, Lyft and Sidecar were given an unfair advantage by the regulations approved last year by the D.C. Council according to the Metro Area Taxi Operators Association. The taxi union, which is affiliated with the Teamsters, filed a class-action lawsuit with six D.C. taxi drivers in U.S. District Court against the city on Friday...
Global Labor & Trade
House GOP split jeopardizes trade deal Politico ...Democrats in Congress are in open warfare with President Barack Obama over his pitch for fast-track authority to negotiate trade deals, but conservative dissenters are conducting their fight quietly behind closed doors — even though they may be the key to approving the deal...
GOP turns to Tea Party to win trade powers for Obama The Hill ...House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and GOP leaders have turned to some unlikely allies to rally support for a key trade bill: Tea-Party conservatives, including some prominent names from the raucous House Freedom Caucus. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) recently tapped Rep. Tom McClintock to give the weekly GOP address, in which the conservative Californian declared: “Trade means prosperity”...
Forced Trade and the Damaging Effects of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (opinion) In These Times ...Senators who voted last week to Fast Track ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) call it a free trade deal, but really, it’s forced trade imposed on protesting American workers who have endured its damaging effects for decades. Under the free trade regime, rich and powerful corporate interests have hauled in ever-higher profits as they shipped manufacturing overseas to low-wage, no-environmental-regulation countries...
WaPo Takes Another Shot at Senator Warren on Behalf of the TPP (opinion) CEPR ...The fast-track authority needed to get the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) through Congress must be in real trouble. Why else would the Washington Post devote so much space to pushing the deal and attacking its critics? The latest was a diatribe by editorial board member Jonathan Capehart which is directed largely at Senator Elizabeth Warren. The piece starts by basically calling Senator Warren a liar for describing the TPP as "secret"...
How One Country Is Poised To Hold McDonald’s Accountable Think Progress ...Brazil’s Senate will hold public hearings on worker allegations that McDonald’s has flouted the country’s strict labor protections for decades, union officials announced on Thursday. When politicians solicit worker testimony at the August hearing, they will create a second forum within the Brazilian government for a slate of allegations that echo accusations in the United States...
Why the Philippines’ Deadly Factory Fire Will Not Be the Last The Nation ...The deaths of 72 workers at a sandals factory in the Philippines earlier this month is sadly not shocking news; risk of mass death is practically considered a regular cost of doing business in the regional factories. But the blaze coincides with two grim anniversaries for Global South labor: the death of more than 1,100 workers in the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh in 2013, and the subsequent launch of a landmark safety program for Bangladesh factories...
Striking Mineworker Injured, 6 Arrested in Peru Solidarity Center ...Six mineworkers were arrested and one injured from police gunfire yesterday as some 100 workers protested at the Ministry of Labor and Employment Promotion in Lima, Peru. The miners, who have been on strike for 17 days at Buenaventura’s Uchucchacua silver mine in the coastal region north of Lima, are calling for immediate improvement in safety and health conditions in the mines...
State & Living Wage Battles
John Kasich on campaign trail: No need for right-to-work law Cincinnati ...Gov. John Kasich says he still believes Ohio doesn't need a right-to-work law, even though he last week rescinded union rights for roughly 15,000 health-care and child-care workers. The governor's increasingly moderate stance on unions had drawn criticism from fellow Republicans – whom he's courting as he explores a possible bid for president...
Prevailing wage supporters plan defense as repeal petitions are approved for circulation MLive ...Construction trade groups say they plan to publicly defend Michigan's prevailing wage law in the face of a petition drive seeking to repeal it. "Let me tell you one thing, we're not going to take this lying down by any means," said Patrick "Shorty" Gleason, legislative director of the Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council...
Bucking GOP leadership, Assembly panel to take up prevailing wage law Journal Sentinel ...Three weeks after an effort to repeal the state's prevailing wage law failed in a Senate committee, an Assembly panel will make its own attempt to get rid of the policy that sets a minimum wage for those building roads, schools and other public infrastructure. The move goes against GOP legislative leaders. They have said they want to rewrite the law, not repeal it...
Ted Cruz's Iowa Chairman Spent $250K to Stop People From Voting Mother Jones ...By tapping Schultz, Cruz also tied himself to Schultz's leading cause: trying to restrict voting under the guise of combating voter fraud. During his four years as secretary of state, Schultz spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to unearth evidence of fraud but ended up finding little and being cited for the mismanagement of public funds...
LA’s Min. Wage Will Be $15 by 2020. But This Bay Area City’s Minimum Will Be $14.44 By July. In These Times ...Most of the increases will be implemented gradually over several years. LA’s minimum wage, for example, will reach $15 by 2020. But earlier this month, one small California city decided that its low-wage workers shouldn’t have to wait that long for a living wage. This summer, Emeryville will set a new national precedent when its minimum wage surges to nearly double the federal rate...
Senate committee to vote on proposed minimum wage hike WPRI ...Rhode Island’s lowest paid workers could soon be getting another raise. The Senate Labor Committee is set to vote Wednesday on legislation that would increase the state’s minimum wage to $10.10 per hour. If approved, the $1.10 increase would go into effect January 1...
Better Pay Comes Only When We Demand It (opinion) CounterPunch ...The nation’s second-biggest city joins Seattle, San Francisco and little Emeryville, Calif., in forging the way to a decent minimum. These victories are a product of the demonstrations and protests of fast food and other low-wage workers. They risked their jobs to demand decency. They put a human face on workers who labor full time but can’t lift their families out of poverty. They exposed the lie that these were transitory jobs for the young while they went to college or high school..
U.S. Labor
Public-Sector Jobs Vanish, Hitting Blacks Hard New York Times ...The decline reverses a historical pattern, researchers say, with public sector employees typically holding onto their jobs even during most economic downturns. Because blacks hold a disproportionate share of the jobs, relative to their share of the population, the cutbacks naturally hit them harder...
NLRB dismisses union complaint against Boeing’s North Charleston site Post and Courier ...The National Labor Relations Board said it has dismissed a complaint filed by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers in the wake of the union’s canceled vote at Boeing Co.’s North Charleston operations. The IAM had accused Boeing of “deliberately encouraging and promoting harassment, assaults and threats of violence against union supporters”...
T-Mobile US touts workforce gains, draws CWA ire RCR Wireless ...T-Mobile US continues to court controversy with its labor practices as the mobile operator announced the expansion of a call center in Alabama while at the same time the Communications Workers of America has asked T-Mobile US parent company Deutsche Telekom to “protect” worker rights at those locations...
Why turning the Postal Service into a bank isn’t nearly as ridiculous as it sounds Salon ...The American Postal Worker’s Union, which represents over 200,000 clerks and support service staff, is in the middle of contract negotiations, and has vowed to make postal banking part of their core demands. APWU President Mark Dimondstein praised the Inspector General’s report, saying it “confirms that the Postal Service can act now to provide consumers with affordable financial services while strengthening our trusted national treasure, the public Postal Service”...
Miscellaneous
Robert Reich: Corporate Collusion Is Rampant and We All Pay the Steep Price Alternet ...The banks had engaged in the biggest price-fixing conspiracy in modern history. Their self-described “cartel” used an exclusive electronic chat room and coded language to manipulate the $5.3 trillion-a-day currency exchange market. It was a “brazen display of collusion” that went on for years, said Attorney General Loretta Lynch. But there will be no trial, no executive will go to jail, the banks can continue to gamble in the same currency markets...
8 Ways Robots Are Taking Over Our Jobs and Our World Alternet ...One of the next great challenges American workers are starting to face is the increasing automation of jobs that previously could only be done by a living, breathing human being. Here are eight jobs that robots are taking over as they take over the world...
