Teamsters
EVSC, Teamsters to resume negotiations Monday Courier & Press ...After three weeks of standstill in discussions, the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp. and Teamsters Local 215 negotiating teams have agreed to meet next week for collective bargaining sessions. Local 215 President Chuck Whobrey said meetings are scheduled for Monday and Tuesday...
Teamsters Join Battle Against HOS Changes, Truck Size Provisions Trucking News ...The Teamsters Union this week stood with Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), representatives for highway safety advocates and law enforcement and families of highway accident victims to denounce a series of provisions it claims would threaten the safety of the driving public. This week, the Senate will follow the House and mark up the FY 2016 transportation appropriations bill...
Teamsters at Fleischmann's Plant Make Vinegar for the World Local 727 ...Vinegar is Bob Maza’s unofficial family business. Maza followed in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps as an operator at Fleischmann’s Vinegar Co., beginning at age 17. “My dad got me the job. I started there right out of high school in 1972, and I’ve been there ever since,” said Maza, a Teamsters Local 727 steward...
The war against bad trade deals continues TeamsterNation ...The battle now turns to the TPP. Americans have not yet seen the text of this lengthy and complex agreement and even elected officials have limited access to the document. Teamsters and other advocates plan on keeping up the pressure to build real and enforceable labor and environmental standards...
Global Labor & Trade
Congress renews 'fast track' trade authority USA Today ...The Republican-controlled Congress delivered a significant second-term victory for President Obama, sending to his desk a six-year renewal of trade promotion authority intended to advance one of the largest trade pacts in history later this year. Trade promotion authority, more commonly referred to as "fast track" or TPA, reestablishes an expedited legislative process for presidents to submit trade deals to Congress that can only be approved or rejected, not amended...
Senate approves fast-track, sending trade bill to White House The Hill ...The Senate voted Wednesday to approve fast-track authority, securing a big second-term legislative win for President Obama after a months-long struggle. The 60-38 Senate vote capped weeks of fighting over the trade bill, which pitted Obama against most of his party — including Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)...
Fast-Track’s Passage Sets Up Round Two on Obama’s Trade Agenda Wall Street Journal ...The White House and Republican leaders notched a significant victory Wednesday with the Senate’s passage of divisive trade legislation, but the win kicks off a grueling, monthslong process to complete a Pacific trade pact that still faces domestic opposition and must win final congressional approval. President Barack Obama is expected to sign the fast-track legislation within days, clearing a negotiating roadblock that prevented officials from moving ahead on the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership...
Here’s how much corporations paid the Senate to fast-track passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Raw Story ...The US Senate passed Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) — the fast-tracking bill — by a 65-33 margin on 14 May. Last Thursday, the Senate voted 62-38 to bring the debate on TPA to a close. Those impressive majorities follow months of behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing by the world’s most well-heeled multinational corporations with just a handful of holdouts.
Even in Chicago, Democrats Sprint Away From Obama on Trade National Journal ...Even in Obama's home base, trade has driven a deep rift between the president and his fellow Democrats. At the same time, the labor movement has ramped up pressure on lawmakers to vote against fast-track, which they say will cost American jobs and slash wages. And Chicago-area Democrats locked in primaries that could be decided by a spare few thousand votes can ill afford to get on the wrong side of labor on a litmus-test issue...
Pay deal averts rail strike threat BBC ...The threat of a UK national rail strike has been averted after Network Rail agreed a two-year pay deal with unions. Members of the RMT, TSSA and Unite unions have voted to accept the offer. The deal includes a 2% pay rise this year and a pay increase in line with RPI inflation next year...
Greece 'Shoved Over Red Line' as IMF Pushes Even Harsher Cuts Common Dreams ...More austerity, more cuts, or no deal. That's the message the International Monetary Fund threw back at the Greek government after negotiators on Wednesday rejected the latest reform proposals submitted by the Syriza government. According to reporting on the ground, there were a "flurry of proposals, counter-proposals, leaks and verbal attacks" in Brussels as Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras continued to try to hash out an acceptable bail-out...
China Workers Contracted by Uniqlo Strike Over Plant Closure ABC News ...More than 300 Chinese workers at a garment factory that supplies international brands such as Uniqlo have been protesting for about two weeks what they say is a unilateral decision by the management to close down. The strike is one of more than 1,000 collective actions since January by Chinese workers, who are increasingly turning to group actions in fighting for their rights...
State & Living Wage Battles
Dispute over union fees could return to Supreme Court Sacramento Bee ...Powerful public-sector unions are facing another high-profile legal challenge that they say could wipe away millions from their bank accounts and make it tougher for them to survive. A group of California schoolteachers, backed by a conservative group, has asked the Supreme Court to rule that unions representing government workers can't collect fees from those who choose not to join...
Scott Walker Reveals Extreme Views On Equal Pay Think Progress ...He likened the push for equal pay laws to seeking to make more people reliant on government. “For [Obama and Clinton], your measure of success in government is how many people are dependent on the government.”
But what Walker implies he’d rather do to address the wage gap — give women more education and qualifications — won’t do the trick...
Debate ramping up ahead of vote on right-to-work veto Joplin Globe ...While it never received support from a number of House and Senate Republicans from districts near the state’s urban cores, right-to-work received unanimous support from the Republicans who represent Southwest Missouri. The bill was passed out of a committee chaired by Lant, R-Pineville, who said in a recent interview that he is pushing the effort to override Nixon’s veto...
NAACP head says state ‘blinked’ on voter ID Winston-Salem Journal ...A noisy protest staged last week by the state NAACP at the N.C. Legislative Building in Raleigh forced legislators to pass the law that modifies the voter ID law, the Rev. William Barber, the president of the N.C. chapter of the NAACP, said Wednesday. “They blinked,” Barber said. “They had to go back and fix what was clearly voter suppression”...
De Blasio refused offer linking minimum wage to pension deal Capital New York ...Mayor Bill de Blasio was offered a deal to raise the minimum wage for New York City in exchange for supporting a police pension proposal, but he rejected the offer, multiple sources told Capital. The deal, offered by the Republican-controlled State Senate, would have established an $11.50-an-hour minimum wage for New York City, the sources familiar with the talks said...
Lawmakers Unanimously Approve Country’s Most Robust Paid Sick Leave Law Think Progress ...The Montgomery County, Maryland council voted unanimously to pass a paid sick leave bill on Tuesday, making the town the 23rd place in the country to enact such a requirement. The law is one of the most robust to be passed at the city or state level so far. “The Montgomery County paid sick days laws is one of the strongest yet, and it should serve as a model for the state of Maryland and the nation,” said Charly Carter, director of Maryland Working Families...
U.S. Labor
Someone Has to Sort Your Recycling, and It’s a Disgusting and Dangerous Job The Nation ...The industries that pride themselves on being friends of the earth are often hostile to workers, according to new research on the safety conditions in recycling plants. Published by the Massachusetts Council for Occupational Safety and Health (MassCOSH), National COSH, and other advocacy groups, the analysis of the industry shows that, despite the green sector’s clean, progressive image, workers remain imperiled by old-school industrial hazards...
Marathon refinery workers in Texas to end strike July 6 The Courier ...Unionized workers at Marathon Petroleum Corp.’s Galveston Bay refinery in Texas will go back to work July 6 following nearly five months of striking. They ratified a contract with the company on Tuesday. About 1,200 workers at the refinery in Texas City, Texas, walked off the job Feb. 1...
Verizon and its unions off to tough start to contract talks Times Union ...Verizon and the unions that represent 38,000 of its workers in the Northeast, including about 1,000 in the Capital Region, have gotten off to an acrimonious start to their contract negotiations. After Verizon publicized it had offered employees wage increases, which included a $1,000 cash payment in the final year of a proposed three-year agreement, union officials accused the company of trying to surgarcoat what was really a bad deal...
AT&T, CWA begin negotiations for 27,000 Southeast employees Fierce Telecom ...AT&T has begun contract negotiations with 27,000 employees in its Southeast territory represented by the Communications Workers of America (CWA). The Southeast region, which was formerly BellSouth, has wireline employees in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Both parties met yesterday with both presenting their own position statements on the negotiation process...
School bus company underpaid workers in NY state more than $290K, Cuomo says; Poughkeepsie employees affected Daily Freeman ...More than $290,000 in wages have been returned to 462 workers at Durham School Services locations across New York as the result if an investigation by the state Department of Labor’s Division of Worker Protection, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Monday. The labor department launched an investigation after Service Employees International Union Local 200 raised concerns about possible pay violations at the Durham location in Syracuse...
Miscellaneous
Federal Judge Halts Sysco-US Foods Merger Wall Street Journal ...A federal judge on Tuesday issued a preliminary injunction blocking Sysco Corp.’s planned acquisition of US Foods Inc., a ruling that could kill a deal to combine the nation’s two largest food distributors. The decision handed a high-profile victory to the Federal Trade Commission, which filed a lawsuit in February chanllenging the transaction on anti-trust grounds...
Obamacare upheld by US supreme court as conservative justices rescue law The Guardian ...Chief justice John Roberts has come to the rescue of Barack Obama’s healthcare reforms for a second time as the US supreme court struck down a Republican-led challenge to Obamacare that could have gutted the legislation and stripped millions of Americans of their health insurance. The decision in the high stakes case of King v Burwell all but guarantees that Obamacare will survive...
U.S. to Reduce Long Stays for Families at Immigration Centers New York Times ...In a sharp change of policy, Homeland Security officials announced plans Wednesday to end the long-term detention of mothers with children caught crossing the border illegally by allowing most of them to be released quickly on bond. The changes by Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson expanded policies he ordered last month that were designed to shorten family detention but that had only limited effect...
Deadly American Extremism: More White Than Muslim The Atlantic ...It’s an accident of fate that Dzokhar Tsarnaev’s formal sentencing for the Boston Marathon bombing is happening just now, as the U.S. continues to reel from the Charleston massacre. Jihadists have killed 26 people, versus 48 by what New America calls “right-wing extremists.” In that way, Dylann Roof is far more representative of political violence in 21st century America than Dzokhar Tsarnaev could ever be...
