Teamsters
Michigan Sysco Workers to Cast Ballots Amid Employer's Vicious Anti-Union Campaign Teamster.org ...Grand Rapids, Mich., Sysco workers will vote on Teamsters Local 406 representation Thursday after a months-long anti-union campaign waged by their employer, accused of multiple federal law violations during union organizing campaigns around the U.S...
Hoffa Statement On Reid Delaying Fast Track Teamster.org ...Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa in response to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid announcing he will not allow the chamber to quickly push fast track trade legislation through when it has a time-sensitive transportation funding bill on its plate: “Sen. Reid knows what America’s priorities should be. This Congress needs to figure out how to properly fund the nation’s transportation network"...
Teamsters’ Proposal At Funeral Services Company SCI Recommended By Leading Proxy Voting Advisor, ISS Teamster.org ...The country’s leading proxy voting advisor, ISS, recommends shareholders of Service Corporation of America vote for an equity retention proposal sponsored by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters at the company’s annual meeting on May 13...
Teamsters Join Community Leaders, Shareholders in Calling for Independent Monitoring Program at National Express AGM Teamster.org ...Today, the Teamsters Union and other institutional shareholders, along with community, faith and global labor representatives spoke at the National Express Group Annual General Meeting in London. They spoke in support of an independent monitoring program at the company’s U.S. school bus subsidiary, Durham School Services...
NAACP Leader, Member of Parliament Meet to Discuss Human Rights Concerns at National Express Group Teamster.org ...Doreen Lawrence, Baroness of Clarendon and a member of Britain’s House of Lords, met today with Dot Scott, president of the Charleston, S.C., chapter of the NAACP, on issues concerning civil rights, human rights and workplace conditions at Durham School Services in the United States. Durham is the school bus subsidiary of United Kingdom-based National Express Group PLC and the second-largest school bus transportation company in the U.S...
Victory for Dispatchers and Mechanics of Keolis Transit Teamsters Local 769 ...Today, May 6, 2015, the Dispatchers and Mechanics of Keolis Transit America Inc. in Fort Lauderdale, Florida unanimous voted “YES” to join our Brothers and Sisters at Teamsters Local 769. The election was conducted by the National Labor relation Board. There are 76 Bus Drivers in the bargaining unit...
Global Labor & Trade
Dem candidates slam Obama trade agenda The Hill ...Democratic Senate hopefuls are running hard against President Obama’s trade agenda. Swing-state Democrats are sounding the alarm that Obama’s free trade proposals, backed by their GOP opponents, would ship U.S. manufacturing jobs overseas and lead to greater unemployment at home...
Obama and Nike: Is company a model on trade - or a cautionary tale? Oregon Live ..."Nike is built on manufacturing shoes in countries with cheap labor costs," said Jason Stanford, spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based Coalition to Stop Fast Track, an anti-free trade group backed by labor unions and many other groups. "They're a big reason the shoe industry all looks like Nike now," with almost all of its products made overseas, he added...
Wall Street Titans Who Crashed Global Economy in 2008 Go Big for TPP Common Dreams ...Even as millions and millions of Americans continue to stand firmly in opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, those backing the TPP, including President Obama and a large majority of the Republican caucus, still have two dedicated demographic groups pledging their allegiance to the cause and arguing the so-called "free trade agreement (FTA)" would be good for average workers and the economy overall: billionaires and Wall Street titans...
Is free trade more important than ending forced labor? The Hill ...The proposed amendments are no-brainers. Why would the United States allow or improve commerce with a country that allows forced labor to be part of its economy? Why would the United States want to reward countries that fail so significantly to value human dignity? And why would the United States want to allow the importing of goods produced by children or those in bondage?...
German rail strike begins to slow Europe’s powerhouse Financial Times ...The strike has paralysed commuter services and disrupted commercial deliveries, raising fears about the power of small but influential unions to slam the brakes on industry in Europe’s biggest economy. The action by the train drivers’ union is due to last until Sunday morning...
China’s Manufacturing Hub Faces Labor Shortage and Higher Wages Bloomberg ...Salaries are rising, driven by improving productivity levels as manufacturers become more sophisticated and producers move up the value chain, the survey found. China’s policy makers are seeking to engineer a transition away from reliance on investment and cheap exports toward higher-end production, innovation, services and increased household consumption...
State & Living Wage Battles
New Jersey’s High Court Hears Christie’s Last Ditch Effort To Avoid Pension Payouts He Promised Think Progress ...When Christie failed to make the billions of dollars in payments he promised to 800,000 of the state’s working and retired public sector employees, more than a dozen of the state’s public worker unions filed suit. A lower court sided with the unions, ordering the state to pay an additional $1.6 billion into the pension funds this year. So the governor appealed the order to the state’s Supreme Court, which heard arguments this week...
These Are the American Workers Earning Less Than $15 per Hour In These Times ...According to the report, 42 percent of U.S. workers earn less than $15 an hour. More than half of African-Americans and 60 percent of Latinos make less than this figure. And 46.6 percent of those earning less than $15 are older than 35...
Labor Committee rejects Maine right-to-work bill Main Sun Journal ...he latest effort to make Maine a right-to-work state stumbled Wednesday, when lawmakers on the Legislature’s Labor Committee narrowly rejected a bill that would have allowed employees who benefit from collective bargaining to opt out of paying unions for those services...
Effort to repeal prevailing wage law likely to fail in committee today Journal Sentinel ...In March, Republican lawmakers passed right-to-work legislation to ban requirements that workers pay union fees, winning approval from Gov. Scott Walker even though he had said for years that it wasn't a priority for him. Now conservatives are targeting the prevailing wage, which sets pay for laborers on public works jobs such as bridges and highways...
New York governor proposes Wage Board to raise minimum wage Yahoo News ...New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Wednesday he would create a so-called Wage Board, a move apparently designed to allow him to raise the minimum wage without the approval of state lawmakers...
California city plans $16 minimum wage by 2019, highest in the U.S. Reuters ...Emmeryville, a small city in the San Francisco Bay Area, has given initial approval to the nation's highest minimum wage by setting baseline pay at $16 an hour in 2019, with gradual increases leading up to that level...
U.S. Labor
Chicago Therapists and Clients Protest Unexpected Closure of Major Mental Health Clinic In These Times ...Yesterday, around 100 people—including C4 staff and patients, activists with the Mental Health Movement, Arise Chicago and SEIU Local 73 members—rallied outside C4’s headquarters on Clark Street in the Uptown neighborhood. They called for a way to keep the clinics open—or at the very least, transparency in the crafting of a transition plan for over 300 staff who will lose their jobs...
Could Yale Graduate Students Be the Next to Unionize? The Nation ...Yale graduate students ramped up their organizing campaign on Tuesday as hundreds marched to deliver their union’s demands to the provost, calling for recognition and respect as part of the campus workforce. The action marks the latest push by the Graduate Employees and Students Organization (GESO-UNITE HERE) for official recognition...
AT&T workers in Dayton on grievance strike Dayton Daily News ...Around 300 AT&T workers in Dayton market walked out Wednesday from their jobs in a grievance strike, union officials with the Communications Workers of America Local 4322 said. The union, which represents call center, installation and repair technicians, has been in contract negotiations for several months with AT&T...
Miscellaneous
Transportation Emerges as Crucial to Escaping Poverty New York Times ...In a large, continuing study of upward mobility based at Harvard, commuting time has emerged as the single strongest factor in the odds of escaping poverty. The longer an average commute in a given county, the worse the chances of low-income families there moving up the ladder...
NSA phone data collection 'illegal', US court rules BBC ...A lower court judge erred in dismissing a lawsuit challenging the program's constitutionality, the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals said.
The ruling overturns a 2013 decision which said the programme was constitutional...
