Teamsters
The Teamsters Take on Tech Shuttle Unions SF Weekly ...Bauer's enjoys a cozy relationship with San Francisco's political establishment. But that relationship is about to be tested by the Teamsters union, which is determined to ensure that the jobs created by tech shuttle companies are union jobs. Just days after union organizers contacted Bauer's workers, Bauer's management started its own "independent" union called the "Professional Commuter Drivers' Union"...
Hawthorne Race Course Members Unanimously Ratify New Contract Local 727 ...Teamsters Local 727-represented starters and jockey valets at Hawthorne Race Course voted unanimously to ratify a new contract for the Fall 2015 and Spring 2016 meets. The one-year contract protects the members’ wages, benefits and working conditions and also includes an economic re-opener in the event that gaming legislation is passed...
Labor Trouble With Pilots Deepens At Republic Airways CBS ...The Teamsters group representing pilots at Republic Airways is balking at allowing a vote on the company’s contract offer, deepening the rift between labor and management at the regional airline. The Indianapolis company’s shares plunged 37 percent on Wednesday. Republic has threatened to begin a restructuring process if pilots don’t approve the proposal it offered last week...
ATA rebutts Teamsters, other labor groups on drug testing changes, urges Congress to allow hair tests OverDrive ...The American Trucking Associations has sent a letter to Congress asking lawmakers to retain in a trucking regulatory reform bill a provision that would allow carriers to use hair testing to satisfy driver drug screening requirements. The letter comes a week after the Teamster and other groups called on Congress to remove the drug testing reform measure...
Global Labor & Trade
Trans-Pacific Partnership Won’t Work Until the Cows Come Home Teamsters Canada ...With negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) now delayed, the Teamsters Union in Canada would like to remind Canadian negotiators that the 6000 dairy workers they represent are strongly against making any changes to our supply management system. The TPP has brought together several big players in the dairy industry, like Quebec’s Union des producteurs agricoles, the Dairy Farmers of Canada, and several other unions...
Obama, Japan's Abe discussed quickly concluding trade deal Reuters ...U.S. President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe discussed in a call on Tuesday their commitment to concluding the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement as soon as possible, the White House said on Wednesday...
TTIP controversy: The European Commission and Big Tobacco accused of cover-up after heavily redacted documents released Independent ...The European Commission has been accused of a cover-up after refusing to release details of talks between its officials and the tobacco industry during negotiations over the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) treaty. Corporate lobbying campaigners published documents that revealed the EU’s executive body had met and corresponded with lobbyists from British American Tobacco and Philip Morris.
Mustapa : No light at the end of the tunnel yet on TPPA Malaysia Reserve ...After five years of intense negotiations, Malaysia is still lobbying for resolutions on key sensitive areas in the controversial United States-led Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA). International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed said he still could not see "the light at end of the tunnel" in the areas of Bumiputera rights, state-owned enterprises (SOE) and labour...
China’s Meltdown Goes Deeper Than the Stock Market The Nation ...Even by conventional measures, China’s real economy was slumping well before the latest market shocks. China’s nominal GDP growth had been slipping in both construction and manufacturing-related industries while the financial sector surged, signaling the profound disconnect between the trading floor and the shop floor. The key difference is that stock-market volatility hurts share prices; turbulence in the real economy plunges workers into poverty and lethal risks at work...
Thai Official Gets 22 Years for Human Trafficking Solidarity Center ...Nurul Islam and three other Thai men from his village in Rakhine state believed the Rohingya brokers who promised to take them to Malaysia for jobs. Instead, the men were herded at gunpoint deep into a forest with 350 other migrant women, men and children, and told if they did not pay up to $2,300 each, they would be beaten and killed...
State & Living Wage Battles
California voters support increasing tobacco tax, raising minimum wage SacBee ...About two-thirds of California voters support increasing the state cigarette tax by $2 a pack, and a similar percentage would back a minimum wage hike to $15 an hour, according to a Field Poll released Wednesday. Proposals to raise the tobacco tax or increase the minimum wage have been introduced in the Legislature or as voter initiatives in recent years...
Kansas debate over voter ID law far from over KSN ...The state’s voter ID law has been the target of protests since well before it was enacted last year. Kobach’s law is being challenged again in court by two people who say the law violates their right to vote. Next week, Kobach is expected to purge more than 34,000 would-be voters throwing out their registration forms...
Call made to revisit state's minimum wage Chicago Tribune ...Families can't make it on their own making $7.25 an hour, Indiana's minimum wage, said state Sen. Karen Tallian, D-Ogden Dunes, who said she filed legislation to increase the rate for two or three years, but none of the bills received a hearing. Still, Tallian said she'll try again this year. She said she'll be filing another bill, this time asking that the minimum wage in Indiana be increased to between $9 and $11.50 an hour...
Alabama Risks Making It Much Harder To Get Required Voter ID Huffington Post ...The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency said Monday that proposed budget cuts would force it to close all but four driver's license offices, even though the state requires government-issued photo identification, like a driver's license, to vote in elections. The 45 other locations would be closed in phases, the agency said, if the Republican-controlled state legislature were to pass the kind of "drastic" budget cuts it's now considering...
Shumlin, Smith call for paid sick leave on Women's Equality Day VT Digger ...On the 95th anniversary of the 19th Amendment that gave women the right to vote, officials gathered to call for passage of a paid sick days bill in the next legislative session. Boosters say the legislation would bring Vermont a step closer to women’s equality. Gov. Peter Shumlin, state lawmakers and local activists held a news conference...
U.S. Labor
NLRB orders Manhattan College adjuncts' ballots counted Politico ...The National Labor Relations Board's regional director has ordered Manhattan College adjuncts' ballots to be counted in their vote for union recognition. The NLRB's decision came after it had ordered the ballots temporarily impounded following the vote. The college has said its adjuncts do not fall under the NLRB's jurisdiction...
Greenpeace Workers Strike for Job Security and a Union Socialist Alternative ...In San Diego and Sacramento, Greenpeace canvassers have gone on strike for job security and a union. The strike, which began on August 5, now includes the majority of both San Diego and Sacramento Frontline programs, Greenpeace’s in-house fundraising program. The striking workers demand increased job security through reforming the quota system, and a union...
Union files grievances with Haggen, Vons and Albertsons LA Times ...A union has filed grievances with Haggen Inc., Vons and Albertsons, alleging that recent layoffs and reduced hours for employees at Haggen stores violated a collective bargaining agreement. The grievances, which are called official complaints, were given to the companies Monday, said Rick Icaza, president of UFCW Local 770. The union also asked for a formal meeting...
Tucson, workers' union agree on labor contract Arizona Daily Star ...The city and a labor union representing its blue-collar workers compromised and reached an agreement Tuesday under the guidance of a federal mediator, quickly ending a contract dispute. AFSCME Local 449 Chairman Jerry Gebell said he couldn’t disclose details of the labor agreement, which must be approved by the Tucson City Council...
Chicago Mayor Proposes School Closures To Close Billion Dollar Budget Deficit, Parents Hunger Strike Think Progress ...A small group of parents and community members in the South Side of Chicago have gone on a hunger strike until the Chicago Board of Education agrees to a proposal to revitalize a local school. To understand what is happening in Chicago, and why the story has gained national attention in the news and on social media, you have to look at the long, heated fight between the Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel...
Longer Hours, More Stress, No Extra Pay: It’s Not Just Amazon, It’s the Modern Workplace The Nation ...American employers enjoy an inordinate amount of power over their employees, at all pay grades and skill levels. The vast majority of professionals say they work more than 50 hours a week. Retailers keep their workers on edge about whether or not they’ll work a given day or demand they work two shifts in one day. Few of us have the ability to push back when a boss tells us they want us working late or starting early...
Social Justice & Other News
Progressives Call on Clinton to End Wall Street-to-Washington Revolving Door Common Dreams ...Decrying what they describe as "a barely legal, backdoor form of bribery," a coalition of eight progressive groups representing nine million Americans is asking Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to condemn the controversial practice of Wall Street firms paying large bonuses, or "golden parachutes," to executives who take on government jobs...
The Drug War Has to End: David Simon on "The Wire" & Over-Policing of the Poor Democracy Now ...Earlier this year, President Obama described "The Wire" as "one of the greatest, not just television shows, but pieces of art, in the last couple of decades.” Simon said he aimed to portray how "raw, unencumbered capitalism" devalues human beings. Nearly a decade ago in Slate, Jacob Weisberg wrote: "No other program has ever done anything remotely like what this one does, namely to portray the social, political, and economic life of an American city...
Maryland Launches New Effort to End Racial Profiling by Police Common Dreams ...Maryland on Tuesday took a significant step to curb racial profiling and other discriminatory policing tactics, releasing broad new rules that aim to limit law enforcement officers from targeting individuals based on race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation, among other characteristics. The state's Attorney General Brian Frosh issued a nine-page memorandum to police...
