Teamsters
Port truck drivers to wage 6th strike beginning Tuesday Press-Telegram ...Port truck drivers at a Carson-based company announced Monday they will again walk off the job to protest what they describe as wage theft and unfair working conditions. Drivers with Pacific 9 Transportation will begin pickets at 6 a.m. Tuesday at the company’s yard in Carson, then spread to marine terminals at the Port of Long Beach and Port of Los Angeles, according to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which is trying to win unionization for the drivers...
Teamsters Deliver Results for Annual Food Drive Teamster.org ...This year’s sixth annual “Feed the County” campaign in Aroostook County, Maine, once again garnered a successful result thanks to efforts by Teamsters Local 340 in South Portland, Maine. At Saturday’s “Potato Blossom Parade” in Fort Fairfield, Maine, the Teamsters collected 10,000 pounds of food. They also raised $6,000 in monetary donations. This allows Catholic Charities to obtain 54,000 pounds of food...
Minneapolis Teamsters Commemorate '34 Teamsters Strikes (video) Teamster.org ...Former General Secretary-Treasurer Tom Keegel joined Local 120 staffer (and granddaughter) Haylee Hilton to discuss the significance of the first marker to commemorate the historic 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters strikes. The marker was unveiled during a June 18 ceremony in the city's Warehouse District...
Negotiations remain at standstill between EVSC Board and Teamsters Courier & Press ...Two weeks after the July 6 Evansville Vanderburgh School Board meeting, which was overflowing into the administration building’s lobby with Teamsters Local 215 members, collective bargaining sessions between the two groups remain at a standstill. Teamsters Local 215 President Chuck Whobrey said nothing new has happened since the last school board meeting...
Global Labor & Trade
House Democrats, Advocates Blast Trade Deal Protections For Drug Companies Huffington Post ...House Democrats and health care advocates blasted drug patent provisions in a current draft of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement on Friday, criticizing the Obama administration for advancing policies that could drive up drug global drug costs. Reps. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), together with health advocates and a representative of the generic drug maker Mylan, called on the Obama administration to change aspects of the 12-nation Pacific Rim trade pact...
EU TTIP chief negotiator: ISDS proposal being finalized Politico ...The European Union will soon give the United States a formal proposal for revamping an investment dispute settlement mechanism that has raised concerns in Europe over the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership pact. “We would be aiming to put forward a proposal to the United States that is different from the existing ISDS [investor-state dispute settlement] regime,” Ignacio Garcia Bercero, the EU chief TTIP negotiator, told reporters...
House Dems: Financial safeguards needed in trade deal The Hill ...Four House Democrats on Monday urged the Obama administration to ensure that a pending Asia-Pacific trade deal includes strong capital controls that would help minimize the damaging effects of financial crises. The lawmakers want the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) to give governments more flexibility to protect the stability of their financial systems by stemming the flow of speculative capital...
Pacific Partnership needs reform before it will help workers: Richard Trumka (opinion) USA Today ...The debate over the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has just begun and workers in dozens of industries from every sector are going to have plenty to say about it. The last six months mark a fundamental shift in how our nation approaches and evaluates international trade proposals. Since before the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), international trade has been treated as a "no-brainer," the sole purview of corporate and neo-liberal elites...
Greek banks reopen as citizens brace for new austerity measures Christian Science Monitor ...Orderly lines formed outside banks in Athens Monday morning as Greek banks reopened for the first time in three weeks. With the government contemplating withdrawing from the euro, faced with about €200 billion in debt, and the prospect of harsh austerity measures attached to any bailout from Europe – Greek banks had been shuttered for weeks to prevent the financial system from collapsing under a flood of withdrawals...
How Can Greece Break Out of the Austerity Trap? The Nation ...Greek banks have reopened this week, but Greece’s economy remains trapped in a tragic financial standoff—ironically, an economic war orchestrated by the monetary system originally designed to promote peaceful cooperation. So as the protests, financial panic, and political brinksmanship run their course, can anyone envision Greece actually rebuilding from this mess? ...
Bitterness remains as Crown Metal workers end 2-year strike The Star ...After a strike that spanned two bitter winters, the taste of victory is far from sweet for the workers of Crown Metal packaging. Employees narrowly voted Sunday night to ratify a new collective agreement with the Toronto-based beer can manufacturer, after one of province’s longest pickets in recent history...
State & Living Wage Battles
Bills seek more stable hours for low-paid workers Boston Globe ...Unpredictable scheduling is on the rise across the country as the part-time and around-the-clock labor force expands, and there is a growing movement to give employees, most of them low-wage, more control over when they work. A federal bill reintroduced last week and cosponsored by Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, as well as bills in 10 states, including Massachusetts, would require employers to stabilize schedules...
Members Of Congress Introduce Largest Minimum Wage Hike Yet Think Progress ...On Wednesday, members of Congress will introduce a national increase in the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) along with Democratic Reps. Keith Ellison (MN), Raúl Grijalva (AZ), and other members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus will release details of the legislation after a morning event that day. A $15 minimum wage hike marks a significant increase from past Democratic bills to raise it...
Sanders to push $15 minimum wage bill The Hill ...Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is pushing new legislation to raise the minimum wage for all workers to $15 an hour. The Democratic presidential candidate, who has made addressing income inequality a centerpiece of his campaign, will introduce the minimum wage bill Wednesday. Sanders has long called for a $15 minimum wage, but this is the first bill he is introducing to do so...
Wisconsin dairy farmers push for immigration reform Journal Sentinel ...Wisconsin dairy farmers are pushing for immigration reform, saying they need a federal labor policy that guarantees they will have enough employees to maintain and expand their businesses. By some estimates, nearly half or more of the hired help on U.S. dairy farms is immigrant labor — with a large percentage of those workers being undocumented. Without the foreign help, some farmers say, they would be forced to quit milking cows...
Florida Legislature to redraw congressional lines in August Associated Press ...Florida's Republican-controlled Legislature, dealing with the fallout of a sharply critical decision by the state's highest court, will hold a nearly two-week special session in August to draw up new congressional districts. House Speaker Steve Crisafulli and Senate President Andy Gardiner finally announced Monday that they were summoning legislators back to town to respond to the court. In an extraordinary ruling earlier this month, the Florida Supreme Court gave lawmakers just 100 days to draw up the new map...
How Hedge and Vulture Funds Have Exploited Puerto Rico’s Debt Crisis The Nation ...over the past few years there’s been a growing presence of hedge funds, which avoid regulatory oversight and are solely interested in profit, regardless of how a national—or in the case of Puerto Rico, territorial—economy performs. Vulture funds, their more extreme counterparts, specifically target debt that is distressed or in danger of default in troubled economies, hoping to cash in on settlements after buying the debt for pennies on the dollar...
L.A. County supervisors set to vote on minimum wage increase LA Times ...Los Angeles County supervisors are expected to vote Tuesday to boost the minimum wage in county-controlled unincorporated areas from $9 to $15 over the next few years, following the lead of the city of Los Angeles. The anticipated vote could put the greater Los Angeles area on track to a $15-an-hour regional wage -- or could result in a patchwork system in which some of the 87 smaller independent cities in the county move to a higher wage and others hold out...
U.S. Labor
N.M. Field and Dairy Laborers Win Right To Workers’ Comp—Court Calls Exemption ‘Absurd’ In These Times ...The New Mexico Court of Appeals ruled in June that excluding field and ranch workers from workers’ comp protection is unconstitutional. It was the second victory for New Mexico’s farmworkers in less than a year—and that’s big news in a low-wage sector made up primarily of immigrant workers, where victories tend to be few and far between. The first victory came last August when farmworkers finally started getting paid the correct minimum wage...
NLRB: Wilkes-Barre General Hospital violated federal law by withholding nurses’ longevity pay Times Leader ...The National Labor Relations Board has upheld a ruling that Wilkes-Barre General Hospital violated federal labor law when it withheld longevity-based pay from nurses last year. In an order dated July 14, the NLRB upheld the decision of Administrative Law Judge Susan A. Flynn, who ruled in September that the hospital violated the National Labor Relations Act when it failed to pay longevity-based wage increases to nurses after their union contract expired...
Unions’ New Target For Improving T-Mobile: The German Government Buzzfeed ...Telecommunications workers in America and Europe are petitioning the German Bundestag, or parliament, to take responsibility for labor conditions at U.S.-based T-Mobile. The German government owns a 31.7% share in Deutsche Telekom, the primary parent company of T-Mobile. This is enough, workers at Germany’s ver.di union and the U.S. Communications Workers of America argue, to mean the government should use its shareholder power to pressure Deutsche Telekom into enforcing international labor standards at its subsidiary...
The UAW and two tier employment Michigan Radio ...The UAW thinks their membership has sacrificed enough. Most of their higher-paid longtime, or “legacy,” workers make $28.50 an hour. But they haven’t had a raise in eight years, which, in reality, means they’ve had a pay cut. And the newer, Tier II workers can make a maximum of $19.28 an hour, which means that some workers are making more than $300 dollars a week less than another guy next to them who is doing the same job...
Miscellaneous
Smashing All Previous Records, 2015 on Track to Be Hottest Year Yet Common Dreams ...The planet Earth, with mankind's help, is leap-frogging into sweltering new territory. With the monthly update from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) out Monday, three of the world's official climate reporting agencies agree that June 2015 was the hottest on record, and that this year is shaping up to be the hottest year yet. Scientists attribute this heat to human-induced global warming coupled with a particularly potent El Niño event...
Hillary Clinton—'Black lives matter. Everyone in this country should stand firmly behind that.' Daily Kos ...Although there is a tremendous amount of debate happening in the world of progressive activists about the #BlackLivesMatter protests at the conference over the weekend, there can be no denying they have elevated this debate to an unprecedented level. Their tenacious, relentless protesting means that real criminal justice reform will be a topic that no presidential candidate will be able to skirt if he or she wants to have any serious chance for the nomination or the White House...
Sandra Bland and the Long History of Racism in Waller County, Texas The Atlantic ...Waller County, Texas, has had a complicated racial history since the days when it was a part of Mexico. The messy, confusing double legacy of that history has persisted to the present, most recently embodied in the death of Sandra Bland in a Waller County jail cell. Bland, a 28-year-old from Chicago, was on a road trip to start a new job at her alma mater, historically black Prairie View A&M University, when she was pulled over by a state trooper for failing to signal a turn...
Red States 'Feel The Bern' as Populist Message Resonates Common Dreams ...On his latest round of campaign rallies this weekend, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) drew three more huge crowds in support of his populist message. And while this has become a common occurrence these days for the senator, who is running for president in the 2016 election as a Democrat, the most recent turnouts are particularly significant because he is on a red-state swing...
