TEAMSTERS
Teamsters Suspend Safeway Protests - For Now DC Labor ...Teamsters locals 730 and 639 have agreed to suspend their protests over the threatened closure of the Safeway Distribution Center in Upper Marlboro after State Senator Anthony Muse on Wednesday asked representatives of Safeway and Collington Services (which operates the center), along with the Teamsters, to participate in discussions aimed at preserving jobs at the center. The companies have until November 10 to respond to Muse’s request...
Despite Coca-Cola’s Regressive Proposals, Union Works to Fix Overtime Issues in Negotiations Local 727 ...As Coca-Cola management continued to drag its feet, the Teamsters Local 727 Bargaining Committee worked to tackle major non-economic issues during contract negotiations on Wednesday, November 4. The union revisited its proposal to clarify overtime assignments and ensure Coca-Cola effectively communicates with workers when posting mandatory overtime. The Teamsters’ proposal also establishes and guarantees 40-hour workweek schedules...
GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
Pacific partners release TPP details Reuters ...The long-awaited text of a landmark US-backed Pacific trade deal has been released. It reveals the details of a pact aimed at freeing up commerce in 40 per cent of the world's economy but is criticised for its opacity. If ratified, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will be a legacy-defining achievement for US President Barack Obama and his administration's pivot to Asia, aimed at countering China's rising economic and political influence...
TPP trade deal: text published online The Guardian ...New Zealand has put the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) online, offering the first detailed look at the world’s largest free trade deal, the most ambitious effort in years to remove barriers to commerce. The New Zealand government, which signed on to the deal, put the contents of the agreement on its website on Thursday, saying it would continue to undergo legal review...
Full Text of TPP Released to Public... And It's Horrible Common Dreams ...It's a disaster for people, the planet, democracy, and the future of the global economy. That was the immediate assessment of informed critics as world governments, including the United States, on Thursday morning made the full text of the controversial Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) available to the public for the first time...
What to Look for When the Trans-Pacific Partnership Text Is Released Huffington Post ...The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has been completed. The agreement is a big deal. It is said it writes the rules for doing business in the 21st century and covers 40 percent of the world's economy. The agreement will determine whether the giant corporations will increase their domination or if regular people will instead be able to fight back...
Trans-Pacific Partnership critics concerned about environment, IP clauses in trade pact's fine print ABC ...Critics of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) warn the full text of the agreement highlights serious concerns about environmental protections and intellectual property rights. For the first time the fine print of the agreement — which would eliminate 98 per cent of all tariffs between the 12 nations including Australia — has been released...
TPP leaders to meet on sidelines of APEC forum summit in Philippines Japan Times ...The leaders of 12 countries involved in the recently sealed Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade initiative will meet later this month in the Philippines to ensure early implementation of the pact, a government source said Wednesday. The meeting will be held on the sidelines of a two-day summit...
Thousands expected in student protest against austerity CBC ...Thousands of students from CEGEPs and universities are expected to take part in a large demonstration today against austerity measures imposed by the Quebec government. Close to 20 student associations representing more than 50,000 students have a strike mandate for the province-wide protest on Nov. 5...
Brazil President’s Own Party Resists Her Austerity Plans Wall Street Journal ...Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who is struggling to get the country’s Congress to pass legislation meant to curb a widening budget gap, faces more resistance from members of her own party than almost any other grouping, according to a recent survey of lawmakers. Ms. Rousseff’s left-wing Workers’ Party is reluctant to embrace spending cuts...
STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
Fast-food workers plan new strike, aim to sway election USA Today ...Fast-food workers, already a potent political force, are planning their largest nationwide strike yet next week and this time will leverage their crusade for a $15-an-hour wage in a bid to sway the 2016 presidential election. The group representing the workers, Fight for $15, plans on Tuesday to stage protests at restaurants in 270 cities, the most since it began organizing the demonstrations three years ago...
Missouri House sponsor of bill backers call ‘paycheck protection’ wants to bring it back in 2016 Missourinet ...The House sponsor of what supporters call “paycheck protection” and opponents call “paycheck deception” wants to file that bill again in 2016. A “right-to-work” bill was vetoed this year by Governor Nixon and supporters fell 13 votes short of overturning that veto in the state House. Some Republicans are now debating whether it should be brought back up in 2016...
400,000 People Could Lose Their Health Care Because No One Turned Out To Vote Think Progress ...If you live in Kentucky, you probably didn’t vote yesterday. Turnout in Tuesday’s gubernatorial election was simply dreadful. According to the state’s chief elections officer, preliminary results show that only 30.7 percent of voters actually cast a ballot in this off-off-year election. That compares with 45.9 percent of voters in 2014...
Will State Courts Fill a Void on Voting Rights? The Atlantic ...In recent years, as the U.S. Supreme Court has limited its protections of the right to vote, some state courts have stepped in to fill the void. State judges have looked to their state constitutions—which are more explicit in conferring the right to vote—to provide relief from onerous election laws. And, in doing so, they have shown how these documents can be powerful tools to improve America’s democracy...
Paid Sick Leave Wins At The Voting Booth Think Progress ...On Tuesday, voters in Elizabeth, New Jersey approved a paid sick days law that guarantees all residents the right to earn leave. Once it goes into effect, the city’s 25,000 private sector workers will be able to earn an hour of sick time for every 30 they work, capped at five days a year for those at companies with 10 or more employees and at three days at smaller companies, to care for themselves or a sick family member...
Campaign to raise Maine's minimum wage tops 90K signatures WCSH ...A proposal to raise Maine's minimum wage is set to appear on next year's ballot. The group "Mainers For Fair Wages" has collected more than 90,000 signatures, which is well over the minimum requirement to get the issue on the ballot. The proposal for the statewide ballot would raise Maine's minimum wage to $9 an hour in 2017...
Tacoma, Washington, Passes $12 Minimum Wage Huffington Post ...Residents of Tacoma, Washington, are ready to raise the minimum wage -- just not too quickly. Voters in the city of 200,000 appear to have approved a ballot measure this week that would gradually raise the minimum wage in the city to $12 per hour. At the same time, they seem to have turned down a more ambitious measure...
U.S. LABOR
UAW Warns of General Motors Strike If Workers Fail to Approve Contract Wall Street Journal ...United Auto Workers leaders are pressing members to ratify a proposed contract from General Motors Co. after a handful of factories turned it down in initial rounds of voting, with union officials saying a costly strike is likely unavoidable if the deal fails, according to several people familiar with the matter. The UAW’s voting on GM’s proposed agreement to 52,700 of its U.S. factory workers began late last week and ends Saturday...
UAW-GM agreement reportedly en route to ratification MLive ...A new, four-year contract between General Motors and 52,600 UAW workers in the U.S. appears headed for ratification. The Detroit Free Press reports that workers at GM's Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly, three sites in Pontiac and large plants in Missouri and Tennessee all gave the new contract clear majorities on Wednesday...
B&H Photo Warehouse Employees Vote to Join USW Union PR Newswire ...Today, workers at two B&H warehouses in Bushwick and in the Brooklyn Navy Yard voted by a 200-to-88 margin for representation by the United Steelworkers (USW) union. Workers had complained that they had been forced to work long hours in unsafe environments without proper training, while subject to discrimination...
NLRB Rejects Target’s Petition to Invalidate Union Vote in Brooklyn Wall Street Journal ...A small group of Target Corp. pharmacy workers in New York City are one step closer to becoming the retailer’s first ever union. The National Labor Relations Board on Tuesday rejected Target’s appeal to invalidate the group’s September vote to unionize. In a letter denying the appeal, the NLRB said Target hadn’t raised any “substantial issues warranting review”...
Oxfam Calls Out ‘Big Chicken’ for Rampant Labor Abuses In These Times ...One of the world’s most prominent hunger-fighting organizations has launched a publicity campaign aimed at improving wages and workplace safety in U.S. chicken processing plants. Oxfam kicked off the campaign with a report released October 26 that details substandard wages and benefits, unsafe working conditions, and a culture of hostility to labor rights for the estimated 250,000 workers employed in chicken plants...
Elizabeth Warren Wants to Give Seniors a Raise Mother Jones ...Elizabeth Warren wants to give seniors the same pay raise enjoyed by CEOs—and to raise taxes on some executive pay in the process. The liberal senator from Massachusetts is introducing a bill on Thursday to boost Social Security payments for 2016 with a one-time bump in benefits...
SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
Half Of Black Millennials Know A Victim Of Police Violence. What That Means For The 2016 Election. Think Progress ...Far before the Black Lives Matter movement was launched and before high-profile cases of police brutality permeated the national media, more than half of black millennials said in 2009 that they knew a victim of police violence. The University of Chicago released a report titled “Black Millennials in America” with the 2009 survey data that highlights how many people of color know victims of police violence...
With Historic Release of Drug Offenders & Help for Re-entry, US Takes "First Step" on Prison Crisis Democracy Now ...In the largest one-time release of federal prisoners in U.S. history, more than 6,000 inmates have been freed early under a resentencing effort for people convicted of nonviolent drug crimes. Decisions by the U.S. Sentencing Commission last year reduced prison terms for certain drug offenses and applied those changes retroactively...
America’s Prison Population Is Falling, but Too Slowly to Undo Decades of Growth Mother Jones ...Here’s the good news: The number of prisoners in the United States dropped last year to its lowest point since 2005, a trend likely to continue following the release of about 6,000 inmates from federal prisons in the past few days. And here’s the bad: The prison population still only dropped by 1 percent in 2014...
