TEAMSTERS
Shuttle Bus Drivers For Apple, Ebay, Yahoo, Silicon Valley Giants Approve Labor Contract, Winning Pay Raises And Benefits IBTimes ...Shuttle bus drivers for some of the biggest companies in Silicon Valley have scored a boost in working standards. Nearly 100 workers at Compass Transportation, a firm that provides bus service for companies like Apple, eBay and Yahoo, approved a labor agreement Sunday that includes significant pay raises and new benefits. It comes months after the drivers voted to join the Teamsters union...
Silicon Valley’s Bus Drivers Are Fighting Their Way Into The Region’s Uneven Economic Boom Think Progress ...Private bus routes that inspired rowdy protests around Silicon Valley in recent years will now deliver some shared prosperity in that booming but divided region. Drivers on the routes are seeing their wages and benefits increase dramatically thanks to unionization and contract negotiations. Drivers joined the Teamsters as protests and media scrutiny put pressure on tech firms and bus vendors alike over the past few years...
Coca-Cola Offers Insulting Economics Package, Ignores Vast Majority of Teamster Proposals Local 727 ...With only one more day of contract negotiations on the calendar, management for Coca-Cola returned to the bargaining table with Local 727 on Monday admitting they “didn’t know where to begin.” Cola-Cola management offered no explanation for what they’ve been doing with their time throughout the previous eight bargaining sessions. Instead, when negotiations came to a close on Nov. 23, the company ignored nearly all of the union’s outstanding proposals...
GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
New police raids, more arrests in attacks on Korean trade union rights IUF.org ...The increasingly authoritarian government of Korean President Park Geun-hye is stepping up its attacks on trade unions and their rights. Two-hundred police raided the office of the KCTU Korean Public Service and Transport Workers' Union (KPTU) on November 6, seizing documents of the union's Cargo Truckers Solidarity Division (KPTU-TruckSol), whose members transporting products for the food company Pulmone are fighting for union recognition and safe working conditions...
Indonesian workers strike against new pay regulations Bangkok Post ...Thousands of Indonesian workers rallied in several cities on Tuesday to demand the government repeal a new rule that they say limits pay increases. Labour unions say the rule only allows a maximum 10% increase per year in monthly salaries and puts them in a weak position in negotiations with employers...
Obama Talks TPP Abroad While Concerns Persist for Voters At Home, New Polling Shows American Manufacturing ...President Obama is attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit this week where 19 world leaders gather annually to discuss growth and trade. The hot topic at this year’s meeting: The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The president will be selling its benefits to his counterparts, but Americans back home are far from convinced...
China and U.S. Say They’ve Made Strides in Trade Talks New York Times ...In their first top-level trade talks since President Obama hosted China’s leader in September, the United States and China said on Monday that they had made progress on sticking points, including preventing the theft of trade secrets and opening the Chinese market more broadly to American multinationals...
TPP allows Internet censorship to favour big corporations, say Pakatan MPs Malaysian Insider ...The Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) will protect the interests of big corporations more than the rights of Internet users, opening the door to wider censorship, Pakatan Harapan lawmakers said today. Internet service providers (ISP) would be given the role of "internet police" in the new trade pact when it comes to copyrighted content...
TPP: Massive giveaway to corporate interests (opinion) The Hill ...What does it take to bring Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump together? One terrible trade deal - the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The reasoning behind this diverse opposition is simple – the TPP is a massive giveaway to corporate special interests that will give hardworking Americans two things they can’t afford – lost jobs and lower wages...
Pacific Trade and Worker Rights (editorial) New York Times ...Obama administration officials say the T.P.P. goes further on labor standards than those earlier pacts. For example, the T.P.P.’s labor chapter requires all 12 countries to adopt minimum wage, working hour and occupational safety regulations. That is an improvement, but it could turn out to be mostly symbolic because the agreement does not specify how countries should set minimum wages. Nor does it establish any minimum standard for safety regulations...
Five years into austerity, Britain prepares for more cuts Reuters ...After laying off nearly half its staff over the last five years, scaling back street cleaning and relying on volunteers to work at some of its libraries, the London borough of Lewisham is getting ready for what could be much more painful spending cuts. Officials in Lewisham's town hall, like those across the country, know they will have to shoulder much of Chancellor George Osborne's renewed push to fix Britain's budget...
STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
Constitutional amendment for higher minimum wage sought Review Journal ...Backers of raising Nevada's minimum wage filed a proposed constitutional amendment Monday that would abolish the state's existing two-tiered system and gradually increase the rate to $13 an hour. The initiative filed with the secretary of state's office by the Committee to Raise the Minimum Wage in Nevada would set a rate of $9.25 an hour beginning in late 2018...
Thanksgiving Is Almost Here, and Over a Million New Yorkers Might Go Hungry The Nation ...This Thanksgiving, New Yorkers will be asked to “Remember the Needy.” But for millions of households, that starts with thinking about themselves. The latest statistics on hunger in the city tells the proverbial Tale of Two Cities as a Tale of Two Pantries. New York’s abysmal wealth gap is evident in many indicators: unemployment rates, rent hikes, surveys showing heavy economic anxiety...
Right-to-Work Whack-a-Mole American Prospect ...Right-to-work legislation continues to bubble up in states that have been successful in staving off such laws. Call it a never-ending game of right-to-work whack-a-mole. Last week, West Virginia Senate President Bill Cole called for lawmakers to pass right-to-work legislation in what he—and conservatives invariably—characterize as an attempt to attract businesses to the economically downtrodden region...
Who Turned My Blue State Red? (opinion) New York Times ...In eastern Kentucky and other former Democratic bastions that have swung Republican in the past several decades, the people who most rely on the safety-net programs secured by Democrats are, by and large, not voting against their own interests by electing Republicans. Rather, they are not voting, period. They have, as voting data, surveys and my own reporting suggest, become profoundly disconnected from the political process...
Pittsburgh paid sick leave law effective date delayed Lexology ...While the City of Pittsburgh previously announced that its Paid Sick Days Act (“PSDA”) would become effective on January 11, 2016, a Court order, as part of a lawsuit against the City challenging the validity of the PSDA, has extended this date by 60 days, to March 11, 2016. The one-page order from the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas broadly covers “implementation, application and enforcement” of the PSDA...
U.S. LABOR
SEIU-UHW Revives Ballot Measure To Cap Hospital Executives' Pay California Healthline ...On Friday, Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West revived a ballot measure that would cap hospital executives' pay after dropping a similar initiative 18 months ago, the Sacramento Business Journal reports. In November 2013, SEIU-UHW filed two proposed ballot initiatives with the state Attorney General's Office...
A holiday boost for UAW workers The Detroit News ...An estimated 142,000 American autoworkers, including 60,000 in Michigan, will receive retroactive pay and $3,000-$10,000 signing bonuses before Christmas, following contract ratifications between Detroit’s Big Three and the United Auto Workers. Collectively, contract bonuses from General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV are estimated to put more than $400 million, before taxes, into the pockets of hourly union members...
Disney workers mount H-1B challenge Politico ...Disney caught some bad press in June after the New York Times and other outlets reported that the company planned to lay off about 250 workers and replace them with guest workers. Now those workers are filing complaints against Disney. At least 23 of them petitioned the EEOC to hear their case...
Wage Gap Between Men and Women Closing For Wrong Reason: Male Wages Are Falling Alternet ...The wage gap between men and women is finally starting to close—but only because male wages are falling, according to a new briefing paper released Tuesday by the Economic Policy Institute. “No one in this country should work full-time and live in poverty,” said Massachsetts Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren at a Capitol Hill press conference to release the report...
The faces of the new food revolution Al Jazeera ...The “food movement” is complex and often misunderstood. Read snarky Slate articles and you might be led to believe the movement is a white, elitist phenomenon whose poster child is a Lululemon-wearing, latte-sipping Whole Foods shopper and whose de facto guru is Michael Pollan. In other words: out of touch with working Americans. But the people on the frontlines of the struggle to make healthy, sustainable, local food accessible to all Americans defy this stereotype...
How Delusional Nostalgia Is Killing the White Working Class Alternet ...A new poll from the Public Religion Research Institute finds there are a few things you can count on about those who believe America’s best days are behind us. They are overwhelmingly white, and if you dig a bit deeper and examine the socioeconomics, often working class. Despite all evidence to the contrary, they stubbornly believe white people are subject to the same levels of racism as black and other people of color. They think the U.S. was a better place in the 1950s, when Jim Crow was law, immigrants were overwhelmingly European, women knew their place, and gay people were essentially invisible...
SOCIAL JUSTICE &OTHER NEWS
In Biggest Tax Evasion Scheme of Its Kind, Big Pharma Becomes Behemoth Common Dreams ...Big Pharma just became Huge Pharma. Creating the world's largest drugmaker—and paving the way for higher pharmaceutical prices—Viagra-maker Pfizer Inc. and Allergan PLC, which manufactures Botox, said Monday that they would merge in a so-called inversion deal worth up to about $155 billion...
Texas wants immigration case delay that could push Supreme Court decision beyond Obama's term US News & World Report ...Texas asked the Supreme Court Monday for more time to answer the Obama administration's immigration appeal, a delay that probably would prevent the plan to shield millions of immigrants from deportation from taking effect during Barack Obama's presidency. The plan that Obama unveiled a year ago mainly affects people who are living in the country illegally, but who have children who are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents...
'Now More Than Ever': In Paris and Beyond, Climate Movement Will Be Heard Common Dreams ...The march may be cancelled, security may be strengthened, but the global climate movement is vowing that its voice will still be heard as world leaders convene in Paris for international negotiations over the future of the planet. Citing security concerns in the wake of the attacks in Paris, the city's Prefecture of Police on Wednesday cancelled a massive climate justice march planned for November 29...
Black Lives Matter Protesters Shot in Minneapolis Slate ...Police in Minneapolis were looking for three white male suspects Tuesday morning after gunmen opened fire and injured five people at a Black Lives Matter protest around 10:45 p.m. on Monday night, reported the Star Tribune. The protests where the shooting took place have been going on for more than a week, with demonstrators calling for answers in the death of 24-year-old Jamar Clark, a black man who was shot in the head by a police officer. Witnesses said Clark was in handcuffs when he was shot...
Chicago officer who shot black teen 16 times to face murder charge, reports say The Guardian ...A charge of murder is expected to be filed against a white Chicago police officer accused of shooting a black teenager 16 times, just one day before a deadline by which a judge has ordered the city to release a squad-car video of the incident. Veteran officer Jason Van Dyke is expected to be indicted on Tuesday on a murder charge in the killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald...
Why Trump's Race-Baiting Works Slate ...Donald Trump has spent most of his campaign indulging and encouraging nativism and anti-immigrant sentiment. When it came to other racial and ethnic groups, however, Trump was silent, even telling crowds that he had a “great relationship with the blacks.” This past weekend, that changed. While Trump has been explicit with his nativist, and now racist, rhetoric, he’s not an innovator. If large numbers of Republicans are responsive to Trump’s vitriol, it’s because he echoes—in less coded terms—the discourse of much of right-wing media...
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, Elected After Popular Uprising, Defends Local Control of Schools Democracy Now ...The education system of Newark, New Jersey has faced years of crisis, with high dropout rates, low-performing schools and a state takeover dating back two decades. In 2010, Republican Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, former Democratic Mayor Cory Booker of Newark and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg joined forces to revamp Newark schools. But despite trumpeting their plan as a model for national school reform, millions of dollars flowed not to schools but to outside consultants...
