Teamsters
Tucson Bus Workers On Strike For Nearly A Week Arizona Republic ...Andrew Marshall with the Teamsters Local 104 says about 530 bus employees went on strike on Thursday last week. He says the union and Sun Tran are at an impasse over pay and safety issues like assaults on bus drivers and mold at a facility...
Global Labor & Trade
Robb: TPP Trade Deal Unlikely MacroBusiness ...Australia’s trade minister, Andrew Robb, has appeared at the National Press Club in Canberra today, where he admitted that concluding the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal is looking increasingly unlikely...
China’s Currency Falls For A Third Consecutive Day The Atlantic ...China’s currency devaluation continued for a third day Thursday, as the country’s central bank set the official exchange rate of the renminbi against the U.S. dollar 1.1 percent lower than the day before. Since Tuesday, when the People’s Bank of China stunned markets by announcing the devaluation, the yuan has fallen 4.4 percent, triggering fluctuations in equity markets around the world...
State & Living Wage Battles
Let’s Expose The Gender Pay Gap New York Times ...More than a half-century after President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act of 1963, the gap between what men and women earn has defied every effort to close it. And it can’t be explained away as a statistical glitch, a function of women preferring lower-paying industries or choosing to take time off for kids...
Redistricting Reform In Maryland And Virginia: Can The States Join Forces? Washington Post ...A logical starting point for such a compact is the fact that the two states’ political complexions are mirror images — one has a Republican governor stymied by Democratic legislators; the other has a Democratic governor foiled by Republicans. In both cases, elected lawmakers have arrogantly scoffed at reforming the process by which congressional maps are drawn, preferring to gerrymander districts for maximum partisan advantage...
White House To Hold Summit To Amplify Employees’ Voice In Workplace Wall Street Journal ...The White House will hold a summit in October to explore how American workers can amplify their voices on the job to get ahead, and it touted labor unions as a powerful way to enable that...
Study To Explore Raising The Minimum Wage In Long Beach Receives Unanimous Support Long Beach Post ...Long Beach officially launched itself into the center of the national minimum wage discussion last night, after the city council voted unanimously to approve a report that will explore the benefits and risks of raising wages across the city. The report, which is expected to take about 60 days to complete, could ultimately decide if the city joins others in the region in establishing a higher city-wide minimum wage...
Minding The Gap Philadelphia Inquirer ...With wages growing at the slowest rate in 33 years, the Securities and Exchange Commission's recent vote requiring publicly traded companies to report the ratio of chief executives' earnings to those of average workers should fuel discussion of income inequality and encourage companies to narrow the great divide...
Kansas Cancels Its Ultimate Plan To Punish The Poor Washington Post ...Kansas will not tell its welfare recipients how much cash they should be carrying, at least for now. The state announced last week it would not implement a controversial $25 daily limit on the benefits that enrollees can withdraw in cash from an ATM...
Worker Misclassification Bill Gets Initial NC House Approval WECT ...A second General Assembly chamber has backed an effort to prevent North Carolina businesses from avoiding paying taxes and other benefits by deliberately mislabeling workers as independent contractors...
SEC Admits It’s Not Monitoring Stock Buybacks To Prevent Market Manipulation The Intercept ...The Securities and Exchange Commission has admitted that it has no ability to enforce the main rule intended to prevent market manipulation when companies buy back their own stock, and has no intention to do so...
U.S. Labor
The Perils Of Ever-Changing Work Schedules Extend To Children’s Well-Being New York Times ...A growing body of research suggests that children’s language and problem-solving skills may suffer as a result of their parents’ problematic schedules, and that they may be more likely than other children to smoke and drink when they are older...
Is The Local Economy the Solution To A Post-Capitalist World? AlterNet ...According to community economics advocate Michael Shuman, mainstream economic development today is a scam. States and local government agencies spend big money to lure corporations to their region but do little to stimulate the local economy or support local businesses. And those small businesses, not the chain stores, are often what give a neighborhood its unique identity and make it desirable to live in...
Are Graduate Students ‘Workers’? The Nation ...So although they taught, researched and performed administrative tasks in exchange for the school’s financial support for their studies—even when working on a regular schedule with a designated hourly wage, under a supervisor—that labor wasn’t work, but rather, simply a privilege of their academic experience. This realm, supposedly, is one of scholarly discourse, not labor and capital...
Social Justice & Other News
As Tracy Morgan Heals, NTSB Says Driver In Fatal Crash Was Awake 28 Hours Los Angeles Times ...The investigation into the deadly crash has seemed to move as slowly as Morgan's recovery. But on Tuesday morning, National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Christopher Hart confirmed the driver of the truck that struck Morgan's limousine had been awake for more than 28 hours before the collision...
Why Financial Aid Might Make College More Expensive Vox ...A recent paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York finds that for every extra dollar a college gets in Pell Grants, the school charges 40 cents more in tuition. For every extra dollar in subsidized student loans, tuition goes up 65 cents. The effects were much more pronounced at private colleges...
Death Penalty In Connecticut Ruled Unconstitutional Huffington Post ...The Connecticut Supreme Court on Thursday ruled the state's death penalty is unconstitutional. The ruling will affect the 11 inmates currently on the state's death row. Lawmakers repealed the state's death penalty in 2012, but stipulated it only applied to future crimes. Plaintiffs in Thursday's case had argued the 2012 ban should also extend to prisoners already on death row...
Maine Implemented An Elaborate New Drug Test For Welfare. Just One Person Flunked. Think Progress ...Maine began screening applicants to its welfare program in April, requiring those with past drug felony convictions to take a drug test. But despite spending $624 on the program, just one person has tested positive so far, the Associated Press reports...
American Schools Are More Segregated Now Then They Were In 1968, And The Supreme Court Doesn’t Care Think Progress ...White residents had just learned that students from the mostly black district that includes Ferguson, Missouri would be joining their own children due to a law giving students in failing school systems the opportunity to attend classes elsewhere — and these white parents were pissed. One mother demanded metal detectors and drug sniffing dogs, because she falsely believed that the black district was struggling because of a record of “violent behavior.” “I shopped for a school district!” she proclaimed as the crowd of white parents erupted around her in cheers, “I deserve to not have to worry about my children getting stabbed, or taking a drug, or getting robbed.”...
The Persecution Of Chelsea Manning The Atlantic ...Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst convicted of giving a trove of secrets to WikiLeaks, is serving a 35-year sentence inside a military prison. And now she may be thrown into solitary confinement indefinitely, her lawyer says...
Labor And Industries Makes No Decision In Child-Labor Investigation Of Western Hockey League Seattle Times ...An investigation of the Western Hockey League (WHL) for possible child-labor violations by the state Department of Labor and Industries ended without a decision...
