Teamsters
Local 330 PACE Bus Drivers Secure Strong Contracts The Teamsters ...Full- and part-time PACE River Division bus drivers represented by Teamsters Local 330 recently ratified separate collective bargaining agreements guaranteeing new raises and enhanced job security. The Teamsters voted overwhelmingly to approve new seven-year contracts, which provide fair and equitable wage increases...
Teamster Magazine: About, For and Printed By Teamsters Teamster.org ...Recently, the printing operation of the magazine was awarded to a company near Milwaukee, the Arandell Corporation. Arandell employs hundreds of employees at their facility, many of whom are members of the IBT’s Graphic Communications Conference Local 577m. Quality workmanship is what Arandell is known for and the Teamsters Union has already received compliments on the improvement...
New Contracts For Niles Police, Fire Journal and Topics ...Niles village trustees approved five-year retroactive union contracts with patrolmen and firefighters Tuesday, July 2. Both groups have been working without contracts since 2012. The deals, both with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 700, expire in 2017...
Cranesville Truckers Picket In Scotia Albany Times Union ...Unionized truck drivers walked the picket line at Cranesville Ready Mix in Scotia Wednesday in a dispute over who would pay for health insurance in their new contract. Bill Latulipe, shop steward for Teamsters Local 294, which represents about 20 drivers at the plant and another in Albany, said the company "gave us a final offer," telling the union "to take it or leave it"...
Teamsters Local 357 Files Lawsuit Against Republic Airways Teamster.org ...Today, Teamsters Local 357 in Plainfield, Ind., filed a lawsuit against Republic Airways for unilaterally changing pilots’ working conditions regarding “open time” flying without first agreeing with the union about those changes. More than 2,200 Republic pilots are members of Local 357 and have been seeking a fair contract from the company since 2007...
Medford Mayoral Candidate Stephanie Muccini Burke Scores Two More Union Endorsements Medford Transcript ...“Teamsters Local No. 25 officers, agents and the entire membership is pleased to support your campaign for mayor of Medford with a donation from our DRIVE political action committee,” wrote President Sean O’Brien. “Teamsters Local Union No. 25 is an organization made up of 11,000 members from across Greater Boston including nearly 400 active and retired members that live in the city of Medford...
In Rare Step, Workers At California Group Home Unionize ProPublica ...Workers at a former orphanage in San Francisco that now functions as a large group home for troubled children have unionized -- a rare step by frontline employees who work at facilities that can be both demanding and dangerous...
Hoffa Statement On State Department's Upgrading Of Malaysia On Trafficking List Teamster.org ...Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa in response to reports that the State Department is about to upgrade the Malaysian government’s standing in its annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report in an effort to smooth the approval of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP): “For years, we have heard from TPP supporters that this 12-nation deal will improve labor conditions for workers around the world. Yet the public can now see there are no obstacles Pacific Rim trade supporters are unwilling to push aside in order to get this agreement done."...
Global Labor &Trade
Japan, U.S. resume working-level TPP talks Japan News ... Japanese and U.S. government officials resumed their talks related to Trans-Pacific Partnership multilateral free trade negotiations in Tokyo on Thursday, seeking breakthroughs on differences over “sensitive” rice and auto parts trade. Tokyo and Washington will hold the working-level talks through Friday, ahead of the upcoming ministerial meeting of the 12 TPP-negotiating countries...
Obama To Upgrade Malaysia On Human Rights Despite Mass Graves Huffington Post ...The Obama administration will remove Malaysia from its official list of the world's worst human trafficking offenders, according to Reuters, a move human rights advocates fear will damage U.S. credibility. The maneuver would allow the administration to continue negotiating a controversial trade agreement with Malaysia and 10 other Pacific nations...
Are Human Rights Violations Already Being Trumped By Corporate Trade Deal? Common Dreams ...The Obama administration is reportedly poised to upgrade the ranking it gives Malaysia on its efforts to stamp out human trafficking. The move is being criticized as an affront to human rights that could help move forward a pending controversial trade deal. The State Department gives the ranking it its annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report...
Radical austerity’s brutal lies: How Krugman and Chomsky saw through dehumanizing neoliberal spin (opinion) Salon ...The referendum in Greece refuting the European Union’s unbending insistence on radical austerity as the medicine Greeks must continue to swallow is simply not to be missed for its multiple layers of significance. To put the core take-home first, we are all Greeks as they stand against the neoliberal orthodoxy. Their battle is perfectly of a piece with one that needs to be called by its name and waged in our great country...
Sharing the Voices of Marginalized People in Pakistan Solidarity Center ...“Our problem is that since we are the residents of [the] riverside and known as ‘Boat People,’ our children are suffering,” says a man who lives along the Indus River in Pakistan. The residents of his community make baskets and sell fish, and transport people along the river with boats they spend months making by hand. Some say “these sailors are self-dependent, they are not a burden on the Pakistan economy,” explains politician Zartaj Gul. But in reality, she says, “we have cornered them and made them the untouchables of Pakistan"...
Possible Greece Bailout Deal Emerges As Pro-European Greeks Rally In Athens Vice ...The proposals are currently being evaluated by the European Commission, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund. On Friday morning, French President Francois Hollande described them as "serious and credible," but stressed that nothing was final...
State & Living Wage Battles
The Struggle For Fairness For Transgender Workers New York Times ...Americans’ understanding of transgender people has been shaped recently by the riveting, glamorous lives of the former Olympian Caitlyn Jenner and the actress Laverne Cox. The two, though, are far from representative of an economically disadvantaged community that continues to face pervasive employment discrimination, partly as a result of lagging legal protections...
NLRB Backs Off -- For Now -- From Undermining State Right-To-Work Laws Business Journals ...The NLRB suspended a request for briefs on whether it should allow unions to collect fees in right-to-work states from non-union workers who are represented by unions in grievance procedures. That’s because the case that prompted this request has been settled...
Chris Christie Looks Likely To Veto New Jersey Voting Reforms Huffington Post ...The Democracy Act was passed out of the state Senate on June 29 and sent to Christie's desk. The bill would introduce online voter registration, establish in-person early voting, require that election materials be available in more languages, allow pre-registration for 17-year-olds and enact automatic voter registration when voters apply for driver's licenses. It would also require the governor to appoint temporary U.S. senators from the same party as outgoing senators...
Slay Proposes Compromise Setting City Minimum Wage At $11 Per Hour By 2020 St. Louis Post Dispatch ...Mayor Francis Slay is proposing a compromise bill setting a city minimum wage of $11-an-hour by 2020. Slay and Alderman Shane Cohn had originally proposed instituting a $15-an-hour minimum wage within the same time frame, but the bill was met with opposition and a series of delays...
Florida Court Finds Politics Determined District Lines New York Times ...The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday rejected political gerrymandering by state legislators and ordered eight congressional districts redrawn within 100 days, a decision likely to complicate preparations for next year’s elections...
U.S. Labor
The Real Problem With Jeb Bush’s Claim That People Need To Work Longer Hours Think Progress ...Bush claimed that if workers were able to get scheduled for more hours, they would “through their productivity gain more income for their families.” Obviously more hours would equal a larger paycheck. But Bush’s suggestion that being more productive will produce individual prosperity for American workers in the 21st century is flat wrong...
Miscellaneous
Organizing for Affordable Housing in the South Truthout ...Stagnant wages, ballooning rental costs and the shrinking supply of affordable housing are heaping an ever-growing burden on low-income families. "Out of Reach," a new study by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, found minimum-wage workers can no longer afford an average one-bedroom apartment in any state in America. Since 2009, the federal baseline wage has remained stagnant, but rents have jumped 15.2 percent...
Are Uber And Lyft Driving Recalled Cars? American Prospect ...It turns out that despite Uber and Lyft’s public rhetoric about safety, consumers that use these services may be riding in vehicles with unfixed safety recalls. Neither company requires its drivers to repair recalled cars; in fact, the mandatory safety inspections do not even involve checking to see if a car has been recalled...
The Arne Duncan Era Has Not Been Good For Students Common Dreams ...When Obama was elected, many educators and parents thought that Obama would bring a new vision of the federal role in education, one that freed schools from the test-and-punish mindset of George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind. But Arne Duncan and Barack Obama had a vision no different from George W. Bush and doubled down on the importance of testing...
Feds: Hackers Stole Data Of 21.5 Million People Politico ...Hackers stole sensitive information on 21.5 million people in a recently disclosed cyber-attack that breached the federal government’s database of security background checks, the Office of Personnel Management disclosed Thursday...
George W. Bush Charged $100K For Speech At Wounded Veterans Event The Hill ...Former President George W. Bush billed a charity for wounded military veterans $100,000 in speaking fees three years ago, a new report says...
Marking Historic Moment, South Carolina Removes Confederate Flag NPR ...During an emotional ceremony and amid popular cheers, the Confederate battle flag was brought down from a 30-foot flagpole that sits on the grounds of the Statehouse in Columbia, S.C. The historic ceremony marked the end of an era and was conducted by South Carolina state troopers, who marched in formation in front of a cheering crowd of hundreds...
New York City To Relax Bail Requirements For Low-Level Offenders New York Times ...New York City officials announced a plan on Wednesday to change bail requirements for some low-level offenders in an effort to keep thousands of people accused of nonviolent crimes and misdemeanors out of the troubled Rikers Island jail complex...
