Teamsters
Hoffa Pledges Solidarity With UAW In Big Three Negotiations Teamster.org ...In remarks at the Detroit Labor Day Parade today, International Brotherhood of Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa pledged solidarity with the United Auto Workers (UAW) in their contract negotiations with the Big Three: Ford, Chrysler and GM. “I know you haven’t picked a target yet, but it’s one of those three,” Hoffa said. “If the UAW goes on strike, I make a pledge on behalf of the 1.4 million Teamster members – we will honor your picket lines"...
Workers at Center of NLRB's 'Joint Employer' Ruling Vote to Join Teamsters Union Teamster.org ...The California waste workers at the center of a recent major National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ‘joint employer’ ruling have voted overwhelmingly in favor of representation by Teamsters Local 350 in Daly City, Calif. Workers with Browning-Ferris Industries (BFI), which is now owned by Republic Services, cast their ballots in a union representation election in April 2014...
Teamsters win election in labor case at center of recent NLRB ruling LA Times ...Workers at the Silicon Valley recycling plant that was central to a recent landmark National Labor Relations Board ruling have voted in support of being represented by the Teamsters union. The vote involved Browning-Ferris Industries, a Houston waste management company that used a subcontractor, Leadpoint Business Services, to staff its recycling center in Milpitas, Calif...
Glimmer of hope in ending the Tucson bus strike Tucson News Now ...The Teamsters Local 104 union and Sun Tran will meet for an all-day session on Tuesday to see if the two sides can come to an agreement to end the 33-day-old walkout. Regardless of the outcome on Tuesday, the two sides have also scheduled another all-day meeting for Thursday...
Silicon Valley’s Labor Uprising In These Times ...The Teamsters have seen four union victories in 2015: the warehouse workers at Google Express, waste disposal workers at Genentech, and workers at two transportation companies that collectively serve Apple, Genentech, Yahoo, eBay, Zynga, Evernote and Amtrak. These are the drivers of the infamous symbols of Silicon Valley’s burgeoning class war: the elite private buses from San Francisco and environs to Silicon Valley...
Richard Greenwald: Power in a union (opinion) Daily News ...As workers in old-line industries wake up, workers in emerging ones are coming to realize that unions are not anathema to their experience. Here, the hero of the day is Rome Aloise, international vice president and secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 853 on the West Coast. The Teamsters have been building on their history of aggressive organizing efforts...
This Labor Day, Let’s Look to the Future Teamster.org ..."The first Monday in September is set aside to remember the workers who made this country great. For more than 100 years, the hard work and dedication of Teamster members have been a symbol of pride, strength and unity throughout America. Typically, we look back to honor the countless union members, labor leaders and other historically significant figures who paved the way. This Labor Day, however, I want us to look to the future"...
Global Labor &Trade
Japan, U.S. to resume TPP auto talks Wednesday in Washington Japan Times ...Japan and the United States will resume bilateral talks Wednesday in Washington on auto trade issues under the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade initiative, the Foreign Ministry said. The negotiations, to continue through Friday, will follow a ministerial meeting of all 12 TPP countries in late July in Hawaii, where they failed to secure a much-anticipated broad agreement...
US, Japan keen to strike a quick agreement on TPP Today ...In what may be an injection of political capital into the stalled talks on the ambitious Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact, Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso and United States Treasury Secretary Jack Lew have agreed this week that the two countries should work on concluding the agreement at an early date. Mr Aso told reporters that he discussed with Mr Lew the need to quickly strike a deal on the US-led TPP pact...
China free trade agreement should be renegotiated or blocked, say unions The Guardian ...Unions are urging parliament to block the China-Australia free trade agreement (Chafta) if Canberra does not reopen negotiations with Beijing, taking a stronger line than the federal opposition which has suggested safeguards for Australian jobs could be enshrined in domestic law without jeopardising the deal. Representatives of the ACTU – the peak union body – told the treaties committee on Monday that the problems “lie with the text of the agreement itself”...
HHI workers strike, more strikes to follow IHS Maritime ....Workers at Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) went on strike on 4 September and are planning more industrial action this month. From 0800-1200hrs local time on 4 September, HHI workers refused to work, causing the world's biggest shipbuilder to suspend production at its Ulsan yard. That followed a previous strike on 26 August. A joint strike with workers from South Korea's two other major shipbuilders, Samsung HI and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, is also planned for 9 September...
Thousands Reach Austria as Refugee Crisis Issues 'Wake-up Call' Common Dreams ...Thousands of refugees were welcomed into Austria on Saturday after epic journeys from Hungary that many were forced to begin to take on foot. As USA Today reports, Hungary, which had spent days stopping migrants from leaving by train, provided buses to take them into Austria. The government relented under international pressure and after desperate refugees who had camped out at the Budapest train station simply began walking toward the border...
State & Living Wage Battles
Right-to-work veto clash looms in Missouri Kansas City Star ...After nearly a year of debate, procedural hijinks and political maneuvering, the question of whether to make Missouri the country’s 26th right-to-work state will come to a head this month. Neither side seems particularly confident in the outcome. A bill passed by the General Assembly this spring would make it a misdemeanor for anyone to be required to become a union member or to pay dues to a labor organization as a condition of employment...
Right-to-work debate dominates St. Louis Labor Day Parade St. Louis Today ...It was a common message in the banners on the floats, which read “Right to Work is Wrong For Missouri” and “Right to Work Leads Missouri Right to the Bottom.” And it was a common refrain from parade-watchers, many of them decked out in brightly colored T-shirts touting their opposition to the “right to work” legislation the Legislature passed this year...
Workers march through Trenton to call for minimum wage hike NJ.com ...As the nation recognized Labor Day, workers from across New Jersey marched on Monday through Trenton to show support for raising the minimum wage and other labor issues. With elected officials by their sides, workers from New Jersey's Service Employees International Union marched from Trenton City Hall to the Statehouse, according to an NJTV News report...
Voter ID law still faces pushback after legislative changes Daily Tar heel ...North Carolina will join more than 30 states requiring some form of ID at the polls when the law goes into effect in 2016. Seven of those states mandate photo ID, while the rest grant exceptions for acceptable excuses or nonphoto ID. North Carolina lawmakers have defined reasonable impediments as including issues with transportation to the polls, a lack of documentation and family responsibilities...
Unions’ ranks grow in right-to-work Arizona AZ Central ...Arizona labor unions have something to celebrate this Labor Day, with union membership in the state rising last year for the first time since the start of the recession. Unionized workers rose from 5 percent of the state’s labor force in 2013 to 5.3 percent in 2014, an increase of 16,000 workers over the year to a total of 138,000 union members, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics...
Walmart Says Its Reforming Its Brutal Scheduling System, but Workers Tell a Different Story The Nation ...Walmart is the American economy’s Invisible Hand, and it giveth and taketh away. So just months after announcing grand plans to give workers raises and better schedules, the mega-retailer appears to be rolling back its generosity, hour by hour. Bloomberg News reports that at various stores workers have seen systematic cutbacks to their schedules...
U.S. Labor
Unions look to bolster numbers, power at Detroit's annual Labor Day parade Michigan Radio ...Thousands of union members marched into downtown Detroit Monday as part of the city’s annual Labor Day parade. The UAW is in the midst of bargaining new contracts with Detroit automakers. The current “two-tier” wage system dividing older and newer assembly line workers members is expected to be a central issue, as are health care and profit-sharing...
UAW in no rush to pick contract target from Detroit 3 Detroit Free Press ...UAW President Dennis Williams said Monday the union is making progress with all three Detroit automakers and is not ready yet to pick a target in its contract negotiations, even though there are only seven days left before contracts expire for about 141,000 autoworkers. Williams, who spoke at the Ford National Program Center near Hart Plaza in Detroit, said he is in no rush to name a lead company...
What The Uber Economy Means For The Future Of Work Think Progress ...Rideshare service Uber is facing the possible rupture of its entire business model in a key case that could have even further reaching implications for the U.S. economy. Uber is facing accusations that it illegally misclassifies its drivers as independent contractors rather than employees, therefore ducking responsibility for a variety of schedule and wage protections afforded to employees...
10 times GOP candidates gave labor a giant middle finger Salon ...With a crowded field of 17 candidates, the GOP’s 2016 presidential slate features at least two leading Republican candidates who have risen to right-wing notoriety by pushing laws stripping collective bargaining rights from most public employees and another favorite who insists that Americans should just “work longer hours.” And that’s just a start...
Just in Time for Labor Day, NLRB Rules in Favor of Hooters Workers In These Times ...Just in time for Labor Day, the leading workers’ rights agency within the U.S. government has a tip for the waitresses serving up beer and chicken wings at Hooters. The tip from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is not an extravagant one, nor is it exclusive to the wait staff at Hooters restaurants. Instead, it is a re-affirmation of the labor board’s basic policy that employers cannot use mandatory arbitration agreements to limit the labor rights of employees...
Obama Marks Labor Day With New Order Expanding Paid Sick Leave Common Dreams ...President Barack Obama on Monday will issue an executive order expanding paid sick leave for federal contract employees and call on Congress to pass similar legislation, marking Labor Day with a speech at a morning rally in Boston, Massachusetts, where voters recently approved a more worker-friendly policy. The order will require federal contractors to offer one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked...
The media vs. the American worker: How the 1 percent hijacked the business of news Salon ...Working people, meanwhile, find themselves lavished with much less attention. And forget about unions, which, even in their diminished state, still represent millions and millions of people. The number of outlets with reporters dedicated to covering labor issues has steadily shrunk in recent years, even as the technological revolution makes an examination of modern-day labor practices more important than ever...
Can Millennials Save Unions? The Atlantic ...With irreverent, Internet-fluent headlines, Gawker is seen as a prototypical Millennial media company. For that reason, many saw Gawker’s move as a sign of more to come. “If the unionization effort succeeds, it will be a big PR boost for the ailing labor movement,” wrote Steven Greenhouse, the former labor reporter for The New York Times, on the eve of the vote. “It will show that unions, which have focused in recent years on organizing low-wage workers, can also attract hip, highly educated workers, many of them Ivy League graduates”...
Social Justice & Other News
Immigration reformers seize on Pope Francis’s visit The Hill ...Immigration reformers on and off of Capitol Hill are hoping Pope Francis's visit to Washington this month will serve as a catalyst for ending immigrant detentions. The Obama administration has stirred a whirlwind of criticism for expanding its detention of illegal immigrant families in response to last summer's migrant surge — a policy many Democrats and human rights advocates have condemned as harmful to the health of the women and children being held...
Is Southern California the New Deep South? Slate ...While the Deep South has moved away from capital punishment, Riverside County, California, has become the buckle of a new Death Belt. An hour’s drive from Los Angeles, with a population of 2.3 million (6 percent of California’s population), Riverside has produced more death sentences since 2010 than any other county in America except one—Los Angeles County, which is four times its size...
Baltimore to pay Freddie Gray's family $6.4m in wrongful death settlement The Guardian ...The city of Baltimore says it has reached a $6.4m wrongful death settlement with the family of Freddie Gray, a black man who died after suffering a critical spine injury while in police custody. Gray’s death in April sparked protests, rioting and unrest that shook Baltimore for days. Six Baltimore police officers face criminal charges...
