Teamsters
Teamsters Statement on Presidential Endorsement Process Teamster.org ...On Tuesday, Sept. 29 the Teamsters Union General Executive Board decided to not endorse a presidential candidate at this time. The Teamsters look forward to meeting with Hillary Clinton, Sen. Bernie Sanders and any other candidate, regardless of party affiliation, who is committed to improving the lives of America’s working families...
Teamsters Call on UPS CEO to Get Company Out of ALEC During Protest in Detroit Teamster.org ...Detroit Teamsters were joined by representatives from labor, environmental, community, and religious groups at a protest today outside a Detroit Economic Club luncheon where UPS CEO David Abney was the keynote speaker. The group staged the protest to call on UPS to cease all affiliation with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)...
Seabury Connector drivers & attendants join Teamsters 639 UnionCity ...Bus drivers and attendants at Seabury Connector have organized with Teamsters Local 639. "These drivers work hard every day transporting seniors around the nation’s capital and now have the opportunity to get the justice they deserve with a Teamster contract," reports Local 639. The organizing win is the seventh consecutive victory for Local 639, which notes that "Expanding our membership brings greater power to all our members"...
Brockton custodians ratify Teamsters contract with city The Enterprise ...More than 120 custodians, craftsmen and truck drivers employed by the Brockton Public Schools have ratified their first-ever collective bargaining agreement with Teamsters Local 653 in Easton. That includes members of the Brockton Public School Custodians Association, which agreed last fall during a controversial series of collective bargaining discussions to accept lower pay rates for school crossing-guard duty...
Homeless tech bus driver finds new home SF Chronicle ...Roughly 180 bus drivers organized by the Teamsters continue to fight for higher wages and a more comprehensive benefits package. Compass has not yet agreed to what the drivers have asked for. Among the points of disagreement: the number of paid holidays for drivers and the amount Compass should pay for drivers’ health care and 401(k) plans, union members said...
Global Labor & Trade
Japan, U.S. agree to aim for conclusion of TPP talks this week Japan Times ...Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden agreed Tuesday that the two countries will cooperate in an effort to conclude talks on a Pacific free trade initiative this week, according to statements by both governments. Biden and Abe agreed that their negotiating teams for the Trans-Pacific Partnership would work closely together “with the goal of resolving the limited number of outstanding issues at the upcoming ministers meeting in Atlanta”...
House Dems want investigation of Malaysia's raised trafficking status The Hill ...Six House Democrats have asked the State Department’s watchdog to investigate the process that led to an upgrade of Malaysia’s human trafficking status. Reps. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), Lloyd Doggett (Texas), Alan Grayson (Fla.), Louise Slaughter (N.Y.), Brad Sherman (Calif.) and Barbara Lee (Calif.) are questioning whether the administration promoted Malaysia to preserve fast-track authority for a sweeping Asia-Pacific trade deal...
Thousands of Ontario jobs at stake in Pacific Rim trade talks The Star ...The livelihoods of thousands of Ontario autoworkers and farmers are on the negotiating table as Canada heads into a round of high-stakes trade bargaining this week with the United States and 10 other Pacific Rim countries. Concluding the talks, which would create a massive free-trade zone touching four continents, hinges on the participants’ ability to overcome deep divisions...
Ottawa area farmers hold tractor protest against the Trans Pacific Partnership Canadians.org ...Ottawa area farmers brought a long convoy of tractors into downtown Ottawa this morning for a protest against the concessions the Harper government is poised to make at the Trans Pacific Partnership talks in Atlanta this week. CBC has reported, "Canada is preparing to open the border to more American milk, without getting reciprocal access for Canadian dairy farmers in the United States"...
EU ambassador: TTIP conclusion next year ‘feasible’ Politico ...EU Ambassador the the U.S. David O’Sullivan said Tuesday that he believes Brussels and Washington could complete their bilateral trade pact by next year, but emphasized that the talks aren’t happening in a vacuum. “We are negotiating very seriously, and we have a common objective to try to conclude this agreement with this administration”...
NWC workers strike over health insurance coverage Jamaica Observer ...Over 1200 National Water Commission (NWC) workers stopped working islandwide this morning, further threatening the poor water supply caused by months of drought. They are protesting against a decision by the NWC’s management to transfer their health insurance coverage from Medecus to Sagicor. The workers are represented by four trade unions...
Kerala’s plantation workers’ strike: Poor pay and strong union Indian Express ...Kerala’s plantation sector has come to a standstill following the agitation of three lakh estate workers demanding that the daily wage be increased from Rs 232 to Rs 500. The demand has suddenly arisen as a fall-out of the historic agitation of women workers at the Munnar Kannan Devan Hills Plantations Limited (KDHPL), earlier this month...
State & Living Wage Battles
7 Disastrous Effects Of The Illinois Budget Crisis Think Progress ...First term Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) has been in office for eight months and the state has not had a budget for nearly half that time. The governor is trying to tie passage of the new budget to changes in labor laws — including creating “right-to-work zones” — that would hurt state workers and to changes in the tax code, but the legislature refuses to sign the package...
Immigration bill heads to Gov. Pat McCrory News & Observer ...The [NC] state House voted 70-43 Tuesday night to restrict forms of ID for non-citizens and ban counties and municipalities from having “sanctuary city” policies that limit enforcement of immigration laws. The bill will be sent to the governor. Supporters of the measure say local governments shouldn’t get to opt out of federal laws...
Right-to-work vote opens rift in Missouri’s GOP Kansas City Star ...Kidd was one of 20 GOP lawmakers who voted against overriding Gov. Jay Nixon’s veto of a so-called “right-to-work” bill. The bill would have made 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. And Republican opposition killed it. That vote earned Kidd and his colleagues some powerful enemies...
W.Va. officials to reveal new prevailing wage Wednesday Associated Press ...West Virginia workforce officials say they are releasing the state’s new prevailing wage, which relied on a survey that received high participation marks from contractors. WorkForce West Virginia will release new minimum wages for public construction projects Wednesday. Agency spokeswoman Chelsea Ruby says 74 percent of contractors surveyed responded, with surveys sent to more than 5,000 businesses...
Minimum Wage Fight For $15: Oregon Ballot Measure Planned If Lawmakers Don't Pass Increase, Activists Say IB Times ...Oregon voters may get to raise the state’s minimum wage next fall if a group of labor unions and social activists gets its way. Unless state lawmakers pass a bill to increase the wages early next year, the Raise the Wage coalition will gather enough signatures to put the measure on the November ballot in 2016, the group's leaders announced this week...
Group launches ballot initiative to mandate paid sick leave in Michigan MLive ...A group of activists on Tuesday announced a statewide ballot initiative aimed at enacting a law that would require Michigan employers to offer all workers one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked. The law would allow workers to take paid time off for personal or family health needs...
Protesters call for $15 minimum wage at Oak Park rally Chicago Tribune ...Dozens of fast food workers and supporters gathered inside Oak Park Village Hall Sept. 28 to call for the village to raise its minimum wage. Oak Park voters backed a "living wage" for village employees and contractors hired by the village in a 2009 referendum. The Oak Park Village Board has discussed the issue in the years since, but stalled on voting on any measure...
U.S. Labor
At the ‘Big 3’ grocers, bargaining begins with UFCW NW Labor Press ...Bargaining has begun over new union contracts for 10,000 workers at Fred Meyer, Safeway and Albertsons stores in Portland and Bend, Oregon. And for the first time, United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 555 will be bargaining with all grocery, meat, central checkout, and non-food contracts at a single table...
Ford UAW workers threaten strike; FCA-UAW contract hangs in balance MLive ..Workers at Ford Motor Co.'s Kansas City, Mo. truck plant are on a five-day strike notice over disagreements with the Dearborn company. The Kansas City plant employs about 7,500 workers, who build the Ford F-150. The announcement Tuesday from Settles comes as Fiat Chrysler workers continue to vote on a tentative contract between the UAW and FCA...
UAW-FCA deal appears headed for defeat Detroit News ...The tentative four-year contract between the United Auto Workers and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles appears headed for defeat, after a majority of members at both the Sterling Heights Assembly Plant and Toledo Assembly Complex voted it down, The Detroit News has learned. A UAW spokesman Wednesday said he the UAW was not commenting while voting is ongoing, and a FCA spokeswoman declined comment...
Labor talks ongoing for USW, U.S. Steel Business Times ...The United Steelworkers and United States Steel Corp. continue to meet in Pittsburgh over efforts to reach a new contract, but a final deal has yet to be reached, according to an update posted to the union's website Monday. "Our bargaining team met among themselves and with company representatives for several hours on Monday, discussing a wide range of issues"...
Rank-and-File Teachers Object As Nation's Biggest Union Weighs Early Clinton Endorsement Common Dreams ...A rumored presidential endorsement by the nation's largest union is exposing a rift between rank-and-file members who are "feeling the Bern" and leadership who appear more willing to err on the Clinton side of caution. Various news reports have indicated that an announcement by the 3-million strong National Education Association is expected sometime this week...
Income Inequality Would Be Much Worse If Women Hadn’t Entered The Workforce Think Progress ...A new analysis from the Center for American Progress (CAP), which houses ThinkProgress, finds that between 1963 and 2013, income inequality among the bottom 95 percent of married couples increased by nearly 25 percent. Yet without a concurrent increase in women’s earnings, which rose fivefold over the same period, inequality would have grown more than 50 percent faster, rising instead by 38 percent...
Social Justice & Other News
The Data Are Damning: How Race Influences School Funding The Atlantic ...In America, schools with a lot of minority students are chronically underfunded. Is that the case because these students are poor, and poor communities have fewer resources for funding their schools? Or, is it because of the color of these students’ skin?Unsettlingly, recent research from data scientist David Mosenkis finds that poverty alone does not explain the underfunding...
Robert Reich: Donald Trump & Jeb Bush Plans Would Slash Taxes for the 1 Percent Democracy Now ...On the campaign trail, Republican candidates are proposing massive new tax cuts for the rich despite growing economic inequality across the country. On Monday, Donald Trump unveiled a plan to lower the income tax rate to the lowest level since 1931, cut corporate taxes and abolish the estate tax. Meanwhile, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush has proposed broad tax cuts for individuals and corporations as part of his economic plan...
Showing posts with label AFT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AFT. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Thursday, September 24, 2015
Today's Teamster News 09.24.15
Teamsters
Worker advocates turn sights on warehouse industry in Southern California JOC ...In what could be the beginning of a larger effort to focus on working conditions and eventually organize the warehouse sector of the transportation industry, workers at a warehouse near the Port of Los Angeles walked off their jobs Tuesday, attracting the support of the Teamsters union. The job action at California Cartage Company was sponsored by the Warehouse Worker Resource Center...
Warehouse Workers of Los Angeles, Unite! The Nation ... A few dozen workers at the California Cartage warehouse went on strike on Tuesday to protest poverty wages and harsh working conditions. Though backed by the advocacy group Warehouse Workers Resource Center (WWRC), with support from the Teamsters, the strikers don’t have a union—many aren’t even permanent employees...
Port truckers continue to strike Fleet Owner ...As they await a ruling from the California Labor Commissioner on their wage and hour claims totaling in excess of $6 million, on Tuesday, Sept. 12, port drivers from Pacific 9 Transportation (Pac 9), who say they have been misclassified as independent contractors, have entered their 11th week on strike, according to the Teamsters Port Division. They plan to continue picketing at the company’s Carson-based yard and conduct “ambulatory picketing”...
Safe Mover Members Ratify New Contract With Raises Local 727 ...Teamsters Local 727 members at M. Lange, Inc. have ratified a new three-year contract with annual raises and vacation fund increases. Local 727 representatives also secured employer-paid contribution increases to allow members to retain their top-notch union benefits. “These members are another part of our local union’s diverse and growing membership,” said John Coli Jr., President of Local 727...
Global Labor & Trade
Pacific trade pact negotiators move closer to deal on rules for autos Reuters ...Japan, the United States, Mexico and Canada are moving closer to a deal on rules for the automotive industry in a landmark Pacific trade deal, a leading obstacle to agreement on the 12-nation pact, officials briefed on the talks said on Wednesday.` Although two-day talks between negotiators from the four nations on auto trade did not reach a final agreement, ministers were readying for meetings in Atlanta...
Canada heads to TPP talks in Atlanta with key auto content issue unresolved Globe and Mail ...Canada’s Trade Minister Ed Fast is heading to Atlanta to join a pivotal round of talks that could yield a massive Pacific Rim trade deal – even though Japan has so far refused to give ground on rules in the proposed accord that could hurt Canada’s auto sector. The very same unreconciled differences between Canada and Mexico on one hand, and Japan on the other, stalled a Trans-Pacific Partnership trade accord last summer...
Malmstrom and Froman Discussed Upcoming TTIP Negotiations EIN News ...EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström today met with her American counterpart, US Trade Representative Michael Froman, in Washington DC. The purpose of the meeting was to take stock of the ongoing negotiations on a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Both sides agreed on the need to accelerate discussions and achieve progress in all areas under negotiation. To give an additional boost to the talks, contacts between negotiating teams will be intensified...
Brazil hit by anti-austerity protests Agence France Presse ...Hundreds of demonstrators besieged government offices in Brazil Wednesday to protest plans for deep budget cuts as part of an austerity plan. President Dilma Rousseff, faced with a deepening recession and rising inflation, has put forth an austerity plan that involves $17 billion in cuts to bring the federal budget out of the red. Opposed to that plan, several hundred protesters blocked the entrance to the Finance Ministry's Sao Paulo headquarters...
EU Refugee Crisis: How Will European Countries Pay For The Influx Of Thousands Of People? International Business Times ...As refugees from the Middle East and North Africa continued Wednesday making dangerous sea crossings into Europe, EU officials were meeting in Brussels deliberating over increased emergency funding to cope with the influx of people. The crisis comes at a time when many states are still trying to dig themselves out from deep economic problems...
State & Living Wage Battles
'Right-to-work' bill being drawn up in Ohio House Cleveland.com ...An Ohio lawmaker said he plans to introduce a "right-to-work" bill that would prohibit private-sector labor union membership as a condition of employment. State Rep. Tom Brinkman said Wednesday that his bill, which he plans to introduce next month, would ban "closed shops" and forbid unions from charging "fair-share fees" to non-union workers at private-sector workplaces. The Cincinnati Republican said he intends to introduce the bill sometime next month...
Hinsdale District 86 to petition state leaders to change prevailing wage rates Chicago Tribune ...Hinsdale High School District 86 will petition state leaders to use a new method of calculating the prevailing wage rate. The school board passed a resolution asking that the Illinois Department of Labor use both private and public wage rates when setting the prevailing wage rate for the counties. The district will send the resolution to Gov. Bruce Rauner, House Speaker Michael Madigan, Senate President John Cullerton and the state senators and representatives for the areas that District 86 encompasses...
Poll: New Yorkers support $15 minimum wage Syracuse.com ...New York voters strongly support Gov. Andrew Cuomo's plan to raise the state's minimum wage to $15 per hour, according to a new Siena College poll made public Thursday. The poll found 59 percent of voters support Cuomo's plan to gradually phase in the higher minimum wage, compared to 38 percent who oppose the increase...
Judge allows voter-ID lawsuit to proceed Associated Press ...A judge on Wednesday declined to dismiss a lawsuit challenging North Carolina’s photo identification requirement to vote that starts next year, even though lawmakers recently eased the mandate for some without IDs wishing to cast ballots. Superior Court Judge Michael Morgan denied the motion of attorneys for the state to toss out the suit...
U.S. Labor
Judge Rules Nation’s Largest Peach Grower Interfered with UFW Vote AllGov.com ...Gerawan Farming Inc., America’s biggest peach grower, thought it was rid of the United Farm Workers (UFW) 20 years ago when the elected bargaining representative of its field hands walked away (out of frustration, they say) and did not return—until October 2012. The UFW sought to sit down at the bargaining table with Gerawan after the long absence, but the Fresno-area company refused and tried to decertify the union...
Workers at Alabama auto supplier vote to join UAW union AL.com ...Employees at a northeastern Alabama auto parts manufacturer have voted in favor of joining the United Auto Workers union. The 89-45 vote was at Commercial Vehicle Group Inc. in Piedmont. A press release posted on the UAW's website cited low pay -- ranging from $9.70 to $15.80 per hour for production workers -- high health care costs and the plant's increasing use of temporary workers as some of the reasons behind the successful union vote...
First Student, AFSCME negotiating Unit 5 bus contract Pantagraph ...School bus drivers and monitors who work for Normal-based McLean County Unit 5's bus service are finally on their way to a union contract. First Student Inc., the Cincinnati-based bus provider contracted by Unit 5, has recognized and started negotiating with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees...
Republican Senator Offers A Serious Idea For Combating The Gender Wage Gap Think Progress ...After years of Republicans standing in lockstep against a Democratic bill aimed at closing the gender wage gap, a Republican senator just introduced a bill that looks nearly identical to it. On Tuesday, Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) introduced the Gender Advancement in Pay (GAP) Act, a bill aimed at gender wage discrimination. The bill’s elements look nearly identical to those in the Paycheck Fairness Act, a measure backed by a number of Democrats...
Cab Drivers Stop Traffic at Chicago Airports, Protesting Rahm Emanuel’s Uber-Friendly Proposal In These Times ...Hundreds of cab drivers at O’Hare and Midway airports in Chicago halted service late Wednesday morning in protest of new rules in Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s proposed 2016 budget. The action, which was organized by Cab Drivers United/AFSCME Local 2500 (CDU), saw drivers blocking traffic. Drivers acted in response to Emanuel’s proposed rules, which would allow rideshare services like Uber and Lyft access to the airports while maintaining their exemption from many of the regulations to which traditional taxi services are subject...
Charter School Network Challenges NLRB Ruling Allowing Teach for America Members To Unionize In These Times ...Detroit 90/90, the charter school management group that operates University Prep, the city’s largest charter school network, furthered its challenge of ongoing union organizing by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), recently appealing a ruling made by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) last month that stated that Teach for America (TFA) members should be in the same bargaining unit as professional teachers...
Social Justice & Other News
Sanders: We Must End For-Profit Prisons Common Dreams ...The U.S. has less than five percent of the world's population, yet we incarcerate about a quarter of its prisoners -- some 2.2 million people. There are many ways that we must go forward to address this tragedy. One of them is to end the existence of the private for-profit prison industry which now makes millions from the incarceration of Americans...
"We Are Living at a Critical Moment of History": The Pope on Poverty, Immigration & Climate Change Democracy Now ...Pope Francis heads to Capitol Hill today to become the first pope ever to address Congress. On Wednesday, he spoke at the White House, then addressed hundreds of U.S. bishops at St. Matthew’s Cathedral. At the White House, Pope Francis spoke about poverty, immigration and climate change. "Mr. President, I find it encouraging that you are proposing an initiative for reducing air pollution," Pope Francis told President Obama...
Women Walk 100 Miles To See Pope Francis, Plead For Immigration Reform Huffington Post ...When more than 100 women arrived at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, they had made it 97 miles by foot, and only had three to go to the middle of D.C. The women, who are mostly immigrants, some of them undocumented, started their pilgrimage in Pennsylvania on Sept. 15 and traveled to Washington to see Pope Francis...
With Letter and Hug, Five-Year-Old Takes Immigration Plea to Pope Francis Common Dreams ..."I believe I have the right to live with my parents. I have the right to be happy." With a message and a hug, five-year-old Sophie Cruz on Wednesday transformed a few minutes of Pope Francis' first U.S. visit into a resounding call for immigration reform. Cruz, who was attending Francis' cavalcade on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. with her father and a group of immigration activists, caught media attention when she ran through a barricade to meet the Popemobile and deliver a letter to the Catholic leader...
USDA Does Not Have The Cash To Keep Food Stamps Running If The Government Shuts Down Think Progress ...Tens of millions of vulnerable Americans would lose their food stamps benefits if Republicans bent on defunding Planned Parenthood force the second government shutdown of the Obama era next week, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) warned on Tuesday. Unlike the 2013 shutdown when cash reserves allowed Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to be disbursed as normal, “USDA will not have the funding necessary for SNAP benefits"...
Worker advocates turn sights on warehouse industry in Southern California JOC ...In what could be the beginning of a larger effort to focus on working conditions and eventually organize the warehouse sector of the transportation industry, workers at a warehouse near the Port of Los Angeles walked off their jobs Tuesday, attracting the support of the Teamsters union. The job action at California Cartage Company was sponsored by the Warehouse Worker Resource Center...
Warehouse Workers of Los Angeles, Unite! The Nation ... A few dozen workers at the California Cartage warehouse went on strike on Tuesday to protest poverty wages and harsh working conditions. Though backed by the advocacy group Warehouse Workers Resource Center (WWRC), with support from the Teamsters, the strikers don’t have a union—many aren’t even permanent employees...
Port truckers continue to strike Fleet Owner ...As they await a ruling from the California Labor Commissioner on their wage and hour claims totaling in excess of $6 million, on Tuesday, Sept. 12, port drivers from Pacific 9 Transportation (Pac 9), who say they have been misclassified as independent contractors, have entered their 11th week on strike, according to the Teamsters Port Division. They plan to continue picketing at the company’s Carson-based yard and conduct “ambulatory picketing”...
Safe Mover Members Ratify New Contract With Raises Local 727 ...Teamsters Local 727 members at M. Lange, Inc. have ratified a new three-year contract with annual raises and vacation fund increases. Local 727 representatives also secured employer-paid contribution increases to allow members to retain their top-notch union benefits. “These members are another part of our local union’s diverse and growing membership,” said John Coli Jr., President of Local 727...
Global Labor & Trade
Pacific trade pact negotiators move closer to deal on rules for autos Reuters ...Japan, the United States, Mexico and Canada are moving closer to a deal on rules for the automotive industry in a landmark Pacific trade deal, a leading obstacle to agreement on the 12-nation pact, officials briefed on the talks said on Wednesday.` Although two-day talks between negotiators from the four nations on auto trade did not reach a final agreement, ministers were readying for meetings in Atlanta...
Canada heads to TPP talks in Atlanta with key auto content issue unresolved Globe and Mail ...Canada’s Trade Minister Ed Fast is heading to Atlanta to join a pivotal round of talks that could yield a massive Pacific Rim trade deal – even though Japan has so far refused to give ground on rules in the proposed accord that could hurt Canada’s auto sector. The very same unreconciled differences between Canada and Mexico on one hand, and Japan on the other, stalled a Trans-Pacific Partnership trade accord last summer...
Malmstrom and Froman Discussed Upcoming TTIP Negotiations EIN News ...EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström today met with her American counterpart, US Trade Representative Michael Froman, in Washington DC. The purpose of the meeting was to take stock of the ongoing negotiations on a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Both sides agreed on the need to accelerate discussions and achieve progress in all areas under negotiation. To give an additional boost to the talks, contacts between negotiating teams will be intensified...
Brazil hit by anti-austerity protests Agence France Presse ...Hundreds of demonstrators besieged government offices in Brazil Wednesday to protest plans for deep budget cuts as part of an austerity plan. President Dilma Rousseff, faced with a deepening recession and rising inflation, has put forth an austerity plan that involves $17 billion in cuts to bring the federal budget out of the red. Opposed to that plan, several hundred protesters blocked the entrance to the Finance Ministry's Sao Paulo headquarters...
EU Refugee Crisis: How Will European Countries Pay For The Influx Of Thousands Of People? International Business Times ...As refugees from the Middle East and North Africa continued Wednesday making dangerous sea crossings into Europe, EU officials were meeting in Brussels deliberating over increased emergency funding to cope with the influx of people. The crisis comes at a time when many states are still trying to dig themselves out from deep economic problems...
State & Living Wage Battles
'Right-to-work' bill being drawn up in Ohio House Cleveland.com ...An Ohio lawmaker said he plans to introduce a "right-to-work" bill that would prohibit private-sector labor union membership as a condition of employment. State Rep. Tom Brinkman said Wednesday that his bill, which he plans to introduce next month, would ban "closed shops" and forbid unions from charging "fair-share fees" to non-union workers at private-sector workplaces. The Cincinnati Republican said he intends to introduce the bill sometime next month...
Hinsdale District 86 to petition state leaders to change prevailing wage rates Chicago Tribune ...Hinsdale High School District 86 will petition state leaders to use a new method of calculating the prevailing wage rate. The school board passed a resolution asking that the Illinois Department of Labor use both private and public wage rates when setting the prevailing wage rate for the counties. The district will send the resolution to Gov. Bruce Rauner, House Speaker Michael Madigan, Senate President John Cullerton and the state senators and representatives for the areas that District 86 encompasses...
Poll: New Yorkers support $15 minimum wage Syracuse.com ...New York voters strongly support Gov. Andrew Cuomo's plan to raise the state's minimum wage to $15 per hour, according to a new Siena College poll made public Thursday. The poll found 59 percent of voters support Cuomo's plan to gradually phase in the higher minimum wage, compared to 38 percent who oppose the increase...
Judge allows voter-ID lawsuit to proceed Associated Press ...A judge on Wednesday declined to dismiss a lawsuit challenging North Carolina’s photo identification requirement to vote that starts next year, even though lawmakers recently eased the mandate for some without IDs wishing to cast ballots. Superior Court Judge Michael Morgan denied the motion of attorneys for the state to toss out the suit...
U.S. Labor
Judge Rules Nation’s Largest Peach Grower Interfered with UFW Vote AllGov.com ...Gerawan Farming Inc., America’s biggest peach grower, thought it was rid of the United Farm Workers (UFW) 20 years ago when the elected bargaining representative of its field hands walked away (out of frustration, they say) and did not return—until October 2012. The UFW sought to sit down at the bargaining table with Gerawan after the long absence, but the Fresno-area company refused and tried to decertify the union...
Workers at Alabama auto supplier vote to join UAW union AL.com ...Employees at a northeastern Alabama auto parts manufacturer have voted in favor of joining the United Auto Workers union. The 89-45 vote was at Commercial Vehicle Group Inc. in Piedmont. A press release posted on the UAW's website cited low pay -- ranging from $9.70 to $15.80 per hour for production workers -- high health care costs and the plant's increasing use of temporary workers as some of the reasons behind the successful union vote...
First Student, AFSCME negotiating Unit 5 bus contract Pantagraph ...School bus drivers and monitors who work for Normal-based McLean County Unit 5's bus service are finally on their way to a union contract. First Student Inc., the Cincinnati-based bus provider contracted by Unit 5, has recognized and started negotiating with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees...
Republican Senator Offers A Serious Idea For Combating The Gender Wage Gap Think Progress ...After years of Republicans standing in lockstep against a Democratic bill aimed at closing the gender wage gap, a Republican senator just introduced a bill that looks nearly identical to it. On Tuesday, Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) introduced the Gender Advancement in Pay (GAP) Act, a bill aimed at gender wage discrimination. The bill’s elements look nearly identical to those in the Paycheck Fairness Act, a measure backed by a number of Democrats...
Cab Drivers Stop Traffic at Chicago Airports, Protesting Rahm Emanuel’s Uber-Friendly Proposal In These Times ...Hundreds of cab drivers at O’Hare and Midway airports in Chicago halted service late Wednesday morning in protest of new rules in Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s proposed 2016 budget. The action, which was organized by Cab Drivers United/AFSCME Local 2500 (CDU), saw drivers blocking traffic. Drivers acted in response to Emanuel’s proposed rules, which would allow rideshare services like Uber and Lyft access to the airports while maintaining their exemption from many of the regulations to which traditional taxi services are subject...
Charter School Network Challenges NLRB Ruling Allowing Teach for America Members To Unionize In These Times ...Detroit 90/90, the charter school management group that operates University Prep, the city’s largest charter school network, furthered its challenge of ongoing union organizing by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), recently appealing a ruling made by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) last month that stated that Teach for America (TFA) members should be in the same bargaining unit as professional teachers...
Social Justice & Other News
Sanders: We Must End For-Profit Prisons Common Dreams ...The U.S. has less than five percent of the world's population, yet we incarcerate about a quarter of its prisoners -- some 2.2 million people. There are many ways that we must go forward to address this tragedy. One of them is to end the existence of the private for-profit prison industry which now makes millions from the incarceration of Americans...
"We Are Living at a Critical Moment of History": The Pope on Poverty, Immigration & Climate Change Democracy Now ...Pope Francis heads to Capitol Hill today to become the first pope ever to address Congress. On Wednesday, he spoke at the White House, then addressed hundreds of U.S. bishops at St. Matthew’s Cathedral. At the White House, Pope Francis spoke about poverty, immigration and climate change. "Mr. President, I find it encouraging that you are proposing an initiative for reducing air pollution," Pope Francis told President Obama...
Women Walk 100 Miles To See Pope Francis, Plead For Immigration Reform Huffington Post ...When more than 100 women arrived at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, they had made it 97 miles by foot, and only had three to go to the middle of D.C. The women, who are mostly immigrants, some of them undocumented, started their pilgrimage in Pennsylvania on Sept. 15 and traveled to Washington to see Pope Francis...
With Letter and Hug, Five-Year-Old Takes Immigration Plea to Pope Francis Common Dreams ..."I believe I have the right to live with my parents. I have the right to be happy." With a message and a hug, five-year-old Sophie Cruz on Wednesday transformed a few minutes of Pope Francis' first U.S. visit into a resounding call for immigration reform. Cruz, who was attending Francis' cavalcade on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. with her father and a group of immigration activists, caught media attention when she ran through a barricade to meet the Popemobile and deliver a letter to the Catholic leader...
USDA Does Not Have The Cash To Keep Food Stamps Running If The Government Shuts Down Think Progress ...Tens of millions of vulnerable Americans would lose their food stamps benefits if Republicans bent on defunding Planned Parenthood force the second government shutdown of the Obama era next week, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) warned on Tuesday. Unlike the 2013 shutdown when cash reserves allowed Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to be disbursed as normal, “USDA will not have the funding necessary for SNAP benefits"...
Thursday, July 16, 2015
Today's Teamster News 07.16.15
Teamsters
Hoffa: Congress Must Step Up to Protect Pensions Teamster.org ..."America’s retirement system has been undermined by Wall Street’s collapse seven years ago and poor government policy decisions in recent years. Rather than come up with creative plans to save the hard earned benefits of America's retirees, Congress instead passed a law last year that allows their pension benefits to be cut by as much as 30 percent. This would be devastating for those least able to take such a hit to their living standards. But there is a solution that doesn’t require retiree benefit cuts"...
Hoffa: The Time Has Passed for Short-Term Solutions for Highway Funding Teamster.org ...Today, the House voted to extend federal highway funding for another five months as the July 31 expiration of the current funding quickly approaches. This marks the fourth time this year that the House has voted to extend highway funding for the short-term rather than buckling down and finding a long-term solution. “The longer our representatives on Capitol Hill are unable to agree on long-term highway funding, the further and further our infrastructure falls into disrepair,” said Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa...
Teamsters Applaud Department of Labor Interpretation on Misclassified Workers Teamster.org ...The Teamsters Union applauds the findings in the U.S. Department of Labor Administrator’s Interpretation 2015-1, which recognizes the need to eliminate employee misclassification, citing the practice’s serious threat to workers’ rights. The Teamsters Union has been leading the fight against misclassification on both the state and federal levels for more than a decade,” said Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa...
Obama appoints emergency board in NJ Transit labor dispute NJ.com ...President Obama on Wednesday named an emergency board to try to resolve the labor dispute between NJ Transit and its engineers. The action came after the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen unanimously voted July 8 to go out on strike unless the president formed the board, which has 30 days to recommend ways to resolve the impasse...
Global Labor & Trade
Greece approves contentious austerity measures, smoothing way for bailout Washington Post ...Hours after police and demonstrators clashed in central Athens, Greek lawmakers on Thursday approved austerity measures that were overwhelmingly rejected by their citizens just days ago. The vote represented a stark turnabout for the government, and it was the price Greece’s lenders demanded for saving the country from a whirlwind of economic turmoil. It was a stunning defeat for populist forces that have pushed for a break from years of grinding cuts...
Yeutter sees 'slim' prospects for TPP agreement at Hawaii session AgriPulse ...Former U.S. Trade Representative Clayton Yeutter said he thinks chances are “slim” that the U.S. and 11other nations trying to forge the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will reach agreement during the upcoming negotiations in Hawaii in late July. Earlier this month, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said negotiators had made “considerable progress” in closing gaps on remaining issues...
U.S. senators concerned over Malaysia human-trafficking rating Reuters ...Nineteen U.S. senators, including Democrats and Republicans, sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday expressing "grave concern" that Malaysia may be upgraded in this year's U.S. list of human trafficking offenders. Reuters reported last week that the U.S. State Department plans to reverse last year’s downgrade of Malaysia in its annual TIP report, which could smooth the way for a major U.S.-led free-trade deal with the Southeast Asian nation and 11 other countries...
Report Exposes 'Revolving Door' Within Corporate-Dominated TTIP Talks Common Dreams ...As European delegates met with stakeholders in Brussels Wednesday to discuss the details of a massive, pending trade deal between the U.S. and Europe, a new report highlights the revolving door that exists between negotiators of the deal and the industries expected to profit from it. Watchdog groups have long warned that the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) will benefit multinational corporations at the expensive of public and environmental health, labor rights, and state sovereignty...
Senators Press Kerry On Slavery About-Face Huffington Post ...A group of 19 senators led by Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday, urging him not to remove Malaysia from the U.S. government's formal list of the world's worst human trafficking offenders. Doing so would allow the Obama administration to evade trade restrictions with Malaysia, after Congress passed legislation blocking trade perks for Tier 3 nations. Malaysia is a key nation involved in the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations...
Greek MPs pass austerity bill as Athens police clash with protesters The Guardian ...Five years into the worst crisis to hit their country in decades, Greek MPs voted by a large majority in the early hours of Thursday morning to accept draconian austerity as the price of further bailout funds but at great personal cost to prime minister Alexis Tsipras. In a vote that saw tensions soar in and outside parliament, the embattled leader’s radical leftist Syriza party suffered huge losses as 40 MPs revolted against the measures...
A Nation Torn: Greece Grapples With 'Humiliating' Austerity Deal Common Dreams ..."The scene in Athens is explosive," King's College London professor and Syriza central committee member Stathis Kouvelakis wrote for Jacobin Wednesday afternoon. Both in and outside of Greek Parliament, tensions are running high. A largely peaceful anti-austerity rally was disrupted at one point by an hour-long clash between anti-austerity protesters and police, leading to about 50 arrests...
UK unemployment rises for first time in two years BBC ...The UK unemployment total has risen for the first time in two years, according to the Office for National Statistics. The ONS said 1.85 million people were unemployed in the March-to-May period, an increase of 15,000 from the previous quarter, with the jobless rate at 5.6%. The ONS also showed that the pace of pay rises continued to pick up...
Swazi Human Rights Leaders Released from Prison Solidarity Center ...Imprisoned Swazi human rights leader Mario Masuku and student activist Maxwell Dlamini were granted bail today by the Supreme Court of Swaziland, according to the Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA). The two were charged with terrorism and jailed in May 2014 for slogans they allegedly shouted at a May Day rally. In May, an international delegation of union leaders traveled to Swaziland, calling on the government to guarantee the rights of workers to freely form unions and exercise freedom of speech and assembly...
State & Living Wage Battles
Scott Walker Tries To Change Welfare Rules So He Can Drug Test People Who Need Food Stamps Think Progress ...Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) sued the federal government Tuesday in an effort to protect a new program to drug test food stamp recipients. Walker signed his state’s budget into law Sunday, which included a provision to start drug testing people who apply for food stamps. But given that states have little leeway in making changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, better known as food stamps), Federal officials were expected to block the program...
GOP Is Standing Firm On Wages The Intelligencer ...West Virginia Senate President Bill Cole said GOP leaders likely will introduce a repeal of the state's prevailing wage on the first day of the 2016 legislative session if they remain unsatisfied with a state agency's efforts to recalculate the wage. There's been a battle brewing since June between Republican lawmakers and WorkForce West Virginia...
Kansas’s Teacher Exodus The Atlantic ...Frustrated and stymied by massive budget cuts that have trimmed salaries and classroom funding, Kansas teachers are “fleeing across the border” to neighboring states that offer better benefits and a friendlier climate for public education, NPR’s Sam Zeff reported. To be sure, this is a tough time for the Sunflower State, where funding shortfalls forced a half-dozen districts to shorten their academic calendars, and teacher jobs are being advertised on billboards...
After a May uptick, Michigan unemployment holds steady in June MLive ...The state's unemployment rate held at a steady 5.5 percent throughout May and June, according to numbers from the Michigan Department of Technology Management and Budget. That's slightly higher than the national average of 5.3 percent...
Uber Fined, Faces Possible Suspension in California for Not Reporting Accessibility Data Slate ...Uber’s dust up with regulators continued on Wednesday when the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) hit the ride-hailing company with a $7.3 million fine for skirting state laws designed to ensure passengers are treated fairly. A CPUC judge said Uber had not provided sufficient data to determine if the company was meeting these requirements, a violation of the 2013 law that allowed Uber to operate in the state...
“We Need to Stop Being Nice”: IL Labor, Community Activists Push Progressive Budget Crisis Solutions In These Times ...In the shadow of a potential state government shutdown, 125 leaders and policy wonks from 63 non-profit, community organizing and labor organizations came together on June 29 to deliberate over a series of proposals for revenue solutions to Illinois’s budget shortfall. Their goal: to push past the austerity narrative that has long constricted progressive policymaking at all levels of government in the state...
LA’s Garcetti says $15 minimum wage will lift 600,000 out of poverty Market Watch ...Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said Wednesday that his city’s recent decision to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour over the next five years will lift 600,000 L.A.-area wage earners out of poverty. “In my city, where one out of four people live in poverty, we have a shot at putting that money back on Main Street,” Garcetti said at a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C...
U.S. Labor
NLRB Judge: Boeing Wrong For Withholding Job Relocation Information KPLU ...Boeing violated labor law by not giving information to its engineers’ union regarding plans for moving jobs out of the Puget Sound region, a National Labor Relations Board administrative law judge has ruled. Since 2013, the aerospace company has been moving work out of the region that had previously been done by members of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA)...
Jeb Bush Wants More Americans To Work Long Hours But Doesn’t Want To Pay Them Overtime Think Progress ...Speaking at an event in Iowa on Tuesday, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush voiced his opposition to the Obama administration’s proposal to expand overtime protection to an extra five million workers. Calling it “the wrong approach,” he argued that the plan will result in lower wages, less overtime available, fewer people working, and will also ban business owners from giving managers bonuses...
Jeep Wrangler decision could come down to UAW talks Detroit News ...Jeep Wrangler production is anticipated to be a part of the 2015 contract negotiations between Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and the United Auto Workers. After nine months of speculation about when a decision could come and Toledo officials orchestrating an aggressive land and incentive package to keep production in that city, the decision could arise as part of the collective bargaining agreements between the automaker and union...
USW focuses on Goodyear's plans for investment in U.S. plants Rubber & Plastics News ...While Goodyear's decision to locate a $550 million tire plant in Mexico might be considered a blow to the United Steelworkers, the labor union that represents about 9,000 Goodyear workers in the U.S. is claiming a partial victory. The USW said it negotiated a commitment from Goodyear to invest a like amount in its unionized U.S. plants for “high-value-added” tire production above and beyond the $700 million the tire maker already had budgeted for 2015...
Three-year IBEW contract up for Council approval KRBD ...Ratification of a new three-year contract with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers is in front of the Ketchikan City Council Thursday night. The current contract expired on Dec. 31. If approved, the new contract will be retroactive to the start of this calendar year...
CCAC Adjunct Faculty Joins American Federation Of Teachers WESA ...Adjunct faculty at the Community College of Allegheny County voted to join their full-time colleagues as members of the American Federation of Teachers on Tuesday. “Being able to negotiate a living wage for ourselves was obviously the number one issue,” said adjunct art professor Gene Marsh, “and some other issues relating to benefits or access to full-time positions as they open up”...
Americans are taking less vacation time than ever — and it's hurting their relationships Today ...A survey of 1,200 adults by the U.S. Travel Association found that Americans are taking fewer vacation days than they did 15 years ago (16 days per year) with many people not taking all the vacation days they earn. And eschewing vacation time for more work can be damaging for relationships. "A lot more Americans now are working harder than ever," Dr. Sue Varma, a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at the NYU Langone Medical Center, told Today...
Calm Down: SCOTUS’s ‘Friedrichs’ Case Won’t Mean the End of the American Labor Movement In These Times ...here are good reasons to be concerned. A ruling in favor of Friedrichs would legally and morally permit some workers to be “free riders”—individuals who take advantage of what the union by law must provide them without paying for it. Perhaps more important, it would disregard the fundamental reasoning behind the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)-protected “union security clauses.” But there are many other reasons to think that, win or lose on this case, the labor movement may not be as seriously damaged as many now fear...
Miscellaneous
Why Are the Koch Brothers and Van Jones Teaming Up to End Mass Incarceration? Democracy Now ...This week President Obama has launched a major push to reform the country's criminal justice system. On Monday, he granted clemency to 46 men and women facing extreme sentences - in some cases life in prison - for nonviolent drug offenses. Tomorrow he is set to become the first sitting president to visit a federal prison. Obama praised the "unlikely bedfellows" campaigning together for criminal justice reform from the left and right, including the Koch Brothers and Van Jones...
Detroit Is Ground Zero in the New Fight for Water Rights The Nation ...The rise of Detroit’s water movement comes none too soon. One year after the wave of disconnections began, the threat of mass shutoffs has spread to Baltimore, while the climate-related drought in California has forced the government to institute water-use restrictions. From coast to coast, the United States is careening into an age of widespread water instability. And once again, as so many times before, the Motor City is on the front lines of the resistance...
Hoffa: Congress Must Step Up to Protect Pensions Teamster.org ..."America’s retirement system has been undermined by Wall Street’s collapse seven years ago and poor government policy decisions in recent years. Rather than come up with creative plans to save the hard earned benefits of America's retirees, Congress instead passed a law last year that allows their pension benefits to be cut by as much as 30 percent. This would be devastating for those least able to take such a hit to their living standards. But there is a solution that doesn’t require retiree benefit cuts"...
Hoffa: The Time Has Passed for Short-Term Solutions for Highway Funding Teamster.org ...Today, the House voted to extend federal highway funding for another five months as the July 31 expiration of the current funding quickly approaches. This marks the fourth time this year that the House has voted to extend highway funding for the short-term rather than buckling down and finding a long-term solution. “The longer our representatives on Capitol Hill are unable to agree on long-term highway funding, the further and further our infrastructure falls into disrepair,” said Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa...
Teamsters Applaud Department of Labor Interpretation on Misclassified Workers Teamster.org ...The Teamsters Union applauds the findings in the U.S. Department of Labor Administrator’s Interpretation 2015-1, which recognizes the need to eliminate employee misclassification, citing the practice’s serious threat to workers’ rights. The Teamsters Union has been leading the fight against misclassification on both the state and federal levels for more than a decade,” said Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa...
Obama appoints emergency board in NJ Transit labor dispute NJ.com ...President Obama on Wednesday named an emergency board to try to resolve the labor dispute between NJ Transit and its engineers. The action came after the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen unanimously voted July 8 to go out on strike unless the president formed the board, which has 30 days to recommend ways to resolve the impasse...
Global Labor & Trade
Greece approves contentious austerity measures, smoothing way for bailout Washington Post ...Hours after police and demonstrators clashed in central Athens, Greek lawmakers on Thursday approved austerity measures that were overwhelmingly rejected by their citizens just days ago. The vote represented a stark turnabout for the government, and it was the price Greece’s lenders demanded for saving the country from a whirlwind of economic turmoil. It was a stunning defeat for populist forces that have pushed for a break from years of grinding cuts...
Yeutter sees 'slim' prospects for TPP agreement at Hawaii session AgriPulse ...Former U.S. Trade Representative Clayton Yeutter said he thinks chances are “slim” that the U.S. and 11other nations trying to forge the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will reach agreement during the upcoming negotiations in Hawaii in late July. Earlier this month, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said negotiators had made “considerable progress” in closing gaps on remaining issues...
U.S. senators concerned over Malaysia human-trafficking rating Reuters ...Nineteen U.S. senators, including Democrats and Republicans, sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday expressing "grave concern" that Malaysia may be upgraded in this year's U.S. list of human trafficking offenders. Reuters reported last week that the U.S. State Department plans to reverse last year’s downgrade of Malaysia in its annual TIP report, which could smooth the way for a major U.S.-led free-trade deal with the Southeast Asian nation and 11 other countries...
Report Exposes 'Revolving Door' Within Corporate-Dominated TTIP Talks Common Dreams ...As European delegates met with stakeholders in Brussels Wednesday to discuss the details of a massive, pending trade deal between the U.S. and Europe, a new report highlights the revolving door that exists between negotiators of the deal and the industries expected to profit from it. Watchdog groups have long warned that the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) will benefit multinational corporations at the expensive of public and environmental health, labor rights, and state sovereignty...
Senators Press Kerry On Slavery About-Face Huffington Post ...A group of 19 senators led by Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday, urging him not to remove Malaysia from the U.S. government's formal list of the world's worst human trafficking offenders. Doing so would allow the Obama administration to evade trade restrictions with Malaysia, after Congress passed legislation blocking trade perks for Tier 3 nations. Malaysia is a key nation involved in the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations...
Greek MPs pass austerity bill as Athens police clash with protesters The Guardian ...Five years into the worst crisis to hit their country in decades, Greek MPs voted by a large majority in the early hours of Thursday morning to accept draconian austerity as the price of further bailout funds but at great personal cost to prime minister Alexis Tsipras. In a vote that saw tensions soar in and outside parliament, the embattled leader’s radical leftist Syriza party suffered huge losses as 40 MPs revolted against the measures...
A Nation Torn: Greece Grapples With 'Humiliating' Austerity Deal Common Dreams ..."The scene in Athens is explosive," King's College London professor and Syriza central committee member Stathis Kouvelakis wrote for Jacobin Wednesday afternoon. Both in and outside of Greek Parliament, tensions are running high. A largely peaceful anti-austerity rally was disrupted at one point by an hour-long clash between anti-austerity protesters and police, leading to about 50 arrests...
UK unemployment rises for first time in two years BBC ...The UK unemployment total has risen for the first time in two years, according to the Office for National Statistics. The ONS said 1.85 million people were unemployed in the March-to-May period, an increase of 15,000 from the previous quarter, with the jobless rate at 5.6%. The ONS also showed that the pace of pay rises continued to pick up...
Swazi Human Rights Leaders Released from Prison Solidarity Center ...Imprisoned Swazi human rights leader Mario Masuku and student activist Maxwell Dlamini were granted bail today by the Supreme Court of Swaziland, according to the Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA). The two were charged with terrorism and jailed in May 2014 for slogans they allegedly shouted at a May Day rally. In May, an international delegation of union leaders traveled to Swaziland, calling on the government to guarantee the rights of workers to freely form unions and exercise freedom of speech and assembly...
State & Living Wage Battles
Scott Walker Tries To Change Welfare Rules So He Can Drug Test People Who Need Food Stamps Think Progress ...Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) sued the federal government Tuesday in an effort to protect a new program to drug test food stamp recipients. Walker signed his state’s budget into law Sunday, which included a provision to start drug testing people who apply for food stamps. But given that states have little leeway in making changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, better known as food stamps), Federal officials were expected to block the program...
GOP Is Standing Firm On Wages The Intelligencer ...West Virginia Senate President Bill Cole said GOP leaders likely will introduce a repeal of the state's prevailing wage on the first day of the 2016 legislative session if they remain unsatisfied with a state agency's efforts to recalculate the wage. There's been a battle brewing since June between Republican lawmakers and WorkForce West Virginia...
Kansas’s Teacher Exodus The Atlantic ...Frustrated and stymied by massive budget cuts that have trimmed salaries and classroom funding, Kansas teachers are “fleeing across the border” to neighboring states that offer better benefits and a friendlier climate for public education, NPR’s Sam Zeff reported. To be sure, this is a tough time for the Sunflower State, where funding shortfalls forced a half-dozen districts to shorten their academic calendars, and teacher jobs are being advertised on billboards...
After a May uptick, Michigan unemployment holds steady in June MLive ...The state's unemployment rate held at a steady 5.5 percent throughout May and June, according to numbers from the Michigan Department of Technology Management and Budget. That's slightly higher than the national average of 5.3 percent...
Uber Fined, Faces Possible Suspension in California for Not Reporting Accessibility Data Slate ...Uber’s dust up with regulators continued on Wednesday when the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) hit the ride-hailing company with a $7.3 million fine for skirting state laws designed to ensure passengers are treated fairly. A CPUC judge said Uber had not provided sufficient data to determine if the company was meeting these requirements, a violation of the 2013 law that allowed Uber to operate in the state...
“We Need to Stop Being Nice”: IL Labor, Community Activists Push Progressive Budget Crisis Solutions In These Times ...In the shadow of a potential state government shutdown, 125 leaders and policy wonks from 63 non-profit, community organizing and labor organizations came together on June 29 to deliberate over a series of proposals for revenue solutions to Illinois’s budget shortfall. Their goal: to push past the austerity narrative that has long constricted progressive policymaking at all levels of government in the state...
LA’s Garcetti says $15 minimum wage will lift 600,000 out of poverty Market Watch ...Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said Wednesday that his city’s recent decision to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour over the next five years will lift 600,000 L.A.-area wage earners out of poverty. “In my city, where one out of four people live in poverty, we have a shot at putting that money back on Main Street,” Garcetti said at a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C...
U.S. Labor
NLRB Judge: Boeing Wrong For Withholding Job Relocation Information KPLU ...Boeing violated labor law by not giving information to its engineers’ union regarding plans for moving jobs out of the Puget Sound region, a National Labor Relations Board administrative law judge has ruled. Since 2013, the aerospace company has been moving work out of the region that had previously been done by members of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA)...
Jeb Bush Wants More Americans To Work Long Hours But Doesn’t Want To Pay Them Overtime Think Progress ...Speaking at an event in Iowa on Tuesday, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush voiced his opposition to the Obama administration’s proposal to expand overtime protection to an extra five million workers. Calling it “the wrong approach,” he argued that the plan will result in lower wages, less overtime available, fewer people working, and will also ban business owners from giving managers bonuses...
Jeep Wrangler decision could come down to UAW talks Detroit News ...Jeep Wrangler production is anticipated to be a part of the 2015 contract negotiations between Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and the United Auto Workers. After nine months of speculation about when a decision could come and Toledo officials orchestrating an aggressive land and incentive package to keep production in that city, the decision could arise as part of the collective bargaining agreements between the automaker and union...
USW focuses on Goodyear's plans for investment in U.S. plants Rubber & Plastics News ...While Goodyear's decision to locate a $550 million tire plant in Mexico might be considered a blow to the United Steelworkers, the labor union that represents about 9,000 Goodyear workers in the U.S. is claiming a partial victory. The USW said it negotiated a commitment from Goodyear to invest a like amount in its unionized U.S. plants for “high-value-added” tire production above and beyond the $700 million the tire maker already had budgeted for 2015...
Three-year IBEW contract up for Council approval KRBD ...Ratification of a new three-year contract with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers is in front of the Ketchikan City Council Thursday night. The current contract expired on Dec. 31. If approved, the new contract will be retroactive to the start of this calendar year...
CCAC Adjunct Faculty Joins American Federation Of Teachers WESA ...Adjunct faculty at the Community College of Allegheny County voted to join their full-time colleagues as members of the American Federation of Teachers on Tuesday. “Being able to negotiate a living wage for ourselves was obviously the number one issue,” said adjunct art professor Gene Marsh, “and some other issues relating to benefits or access to full-time positions as they open up”...
Americans are taking less vacation time than ever — and it's hurting their relationships Today ...A survey of 1,200 adults by the U.S. Travel Association found that Americans are taking fewer vacation days than they did 15 years ago (16 days per year) with many people not taking all the vacation days they earn. And eschewing vacation time for more work can be damaging for relationships. "A lot more Americans now are working harder than ever," Dr. Sue Varma, a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at the NYU Langone Medical Center, told Today...
Calm Down: SCOTUS’s ‘Friedrichs’ Case Won’t Mean the End of the American Labor Movement In These Times ...here are good reasons to be concerned. A ruling in favor of Friedrichs would legally and morally permit some workers to be “free riders”—individuals who take advantage of what the union by law must provide them without paying for it. Perhaps more important, it would disregard the fundamental reasoning behind the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)-protected “union security clauses.” But there are many other reasons to think that, win or lose on this case, the labor movement may not be as seriously damaged as many now fear...
Miscellaneous
Why Are the Koch Brothers and Van Jones Teaming Up to End Mass Incarceration? Democracy Now ...This week President Obama has launched a major push to reform the country's criminal justice system. On Monday, he granted clemency to 46 men and women facing extreme sentences - in some cases life in prison - for nonviolent drug offenses. Tomorrow he is set to become the first sitting president to visit a federal prison. Obama praised the "unlikely bedfellows" campaigning together for criminal justice reform from the left and right, including the Koch Brothers and Van Jones...
Detroit Is Ground Zero in the New Fight for Water Rights The Nation ...The rise of Detroit’s water movement comes none too soon. One year after the wave of disconnections began, the threat of mass shutoffs has spread to Baltimore, while the climate-related drought in California has forced the government to institute water-use restrictions. From coast to coast, the United States is careening into an age of widespread water instability. And once again, as so many times before, the Motor City is on the front lines of the resistance...
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
Today's Teamster News 07.15.15
Teamsters
Teamsters Urge Airgas Investors to Vote Against Directors Teamster.org ...In a letter to Airgas stockholders, Teamsters General Secretary-Treasurer Ken Hall is urging shareholders to withhold support for all three independent directors standing for re-election at the company’s Annual Meeting on August 4, 2015, in Philadelphia. "These long-tenured directors, who each joined the board in 1999, and serve together on the board’s Governance and Compensation Committee, have failed to implement a proposal to declassify the board of directors"...
California bill would protect carriers from misclassification claims — if they settle with drivers CCJ ...California lawmakers are considering a misclassification amnesty program for drayage companies that would relieve port drayage companies from liability for penalties associated with misclassification of drivers as independent contractors if the company enters into a settlement agreement with the state before 2017. The Teamsters-backed bill stipulates the agreement would also require the motor carrier to convert independent contractor truckers to employee drivers...
Growing Labor Movement Shakes Up Silicon Valley KQED ...Silicon Valley companies are reluctant to discuss the issue of wages and their relationships with their service workers. And they refuse to discuss the recent labor agitation and organizing. But they have to be aware of the increased activism. In February, for example, shuttle bus drivers for Yahoo, Apple, Genentech, eBay and Zynga voted to joined the Teamsters union...
Senator Feinstein: Safety first, not bigger trucks (opinion) The Hill ...the Senate Appropriations Committee recently approved an amendment to allow even longer trailer trucks on our highways. This provision stands in stark contrast to highway safety, putting the profits of trucking companies ahead of personal safety. The Teamsters Union opposed this amendment too, arguing that our highways are not designed for the larger configurations...
Global Labor & Trade
Japan minister says TPP deal without some nations possible The Mainichi ...Japan's minister in charge of a 12-country Pacific Rim free trade initiative said Tuesday one possible option is to reach a broad agreement without some members that are unwilling to end negotiations at the next ministerial meeting later this month in Hawaii. Economic and Fiscal Policy Minister Akira Amari did not name the countries he thinks could be excluded from a Trans-Pacific Partnership deal, but Canada and New Zealand are said to be lagging behind...
Trans-Pacific Partnership deal in sight, says Andrew Robb The Australian ...Trade Minister Andrew Robb is “confident’’ a deal on the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership will be signed within weeks after a ministerial meeting to clinch the agreement late this month. Mr Robb also said he was confident that China, which is not party to the TPP negotiations, could eventually be able to join, as a precursor to creating an Asia-Pacific free-trade zone...
Canada and Ukraine announce 'milestone' free trade agreement The Guardian ...Canada formally announced a “milestone” free trade agreement with Ukraine after the two countries’ prime ministers met in Ottawa on Tuesday. The agreement, which has to be ratified by both nations’ parliaments, will be implemented as soon as possible, Stephen Harper said after meeting Arseniy Yatsenyuk. With more than a million people claiming roots in Ukraine, Canada has supported Kiev many times since the 2014 revolution...
The TPP's Bad Medicine Foreign Affairs ...U.S.-drafted TPP terms include patent linkage, which can allow spurious patent filings to delay generic market entry. Further, a proposed investor-state dispute settlement system would allow pharmaceutical corporations to force a government into arbitration over decisions that would reduce the price of medicines. A similar process has served as the platform for corporate challenges to the Canadian government’s invalidation of drug patents, antismoking regulations in Australia and Uruguay, and an environmental court ruling in Ecuador...
Undermining the State Department's trafficking report (opinion) The Hill ...Recent press reports suggest that the State Department will recommend that Secretary John Kerry take a shameless and unprincipled stand in this year's Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP Report) by concluding that the government of Malaysia is making significant efforts to combat human trafficking. The State Department is trying to ensure that, come what may, Malaysia can stay part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)...
TTIP will force all Europeans to take Greece's medicine (opinion) Politics UK ...If the Greek crisis has shown how the institutions of the EU will stop at nothing to force through their own brand of capitalist discipline, TTIP is confirmation that we will all soon be tasting the same medicine. This week sees the 10th round of negotiations towards the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the controversial EU-US trade deal that threatens our jobs, our public services and our democracy itself...
Greek parliament to vote on austerity bill amid growing dissent in governing party US News & World Report ...Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras faced a rising wave of hostility from members of his own party Wednesday ahead of a parliament vote on an austerity bill that condemns the country to years of spending cuts but is required to get a new bailout package. The raft of consumer tax increases and pension reforms has led to growing anger among Greece's governing left-wing Syriza party, while the country's civil servants' union voiced its objections with a 24-hour public sector strike...
Key Driver Of International Austerity Push Now Says Europe Must Forgive Greek Debt Think Progress ...A day after agreeing to discuss a new Greek bailout, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned European Union leaders that their expectations for Greece’s financial future are unsupported by the facts. A realistic accounting of things requires Europe to agree to forgive Greece’s debts or else leave them uncollected for a generation, a leaked report from the group says...
UK unemployment in surprise rise Yahoo News ...Britain's unemployment rate climbed to 5.6 percent in the quarter ending in May, with the number of jobless up for the first time in over two years, data showed Wednesday. Unemployment edged up from 5.5 percent in the quarter ending in February, the Office for National Statistics said in a statement...
Ecuador National Strike: Labor, Social Groups To Protest As Pressure On Correa Grows International Business Times ...Labor unions and social groups in Ecuador are planning a one-day national strike to launch another blow against President Rafael Correa, who is still grappling with mass outrage over a slate of tax proposals. Correa has accused opposition factions of fomenting a “soft coup” against his government. Unions and social and indigenous groups said this week that a “people’s national strike” would take place next month...
Farm Workers’ Global Struggle for Rights on the Job Solidarity Center ...Agriculture employs nearly half of the world’s workforce. Low-paying and seasonal, it also is one of the three most hazardous sectors for workers (along with construction and mining), according to the International Labor Organization. Despite the hardships, agricultural workers—cacao harvesters in the Dominican Republic, vegetable farmers in South Africa and Moroccan vineyard and olive grove laborers in Meknes—are joining with unions and worker associations to improve their workplaces and win rights on the job...
After Greece’s defeat, we need a new European movement against austerity (opinion) The Guardian ...Ater five months of negotiations, Sunday evening brought a moment of painful realisation: democracy has left the EU building. The proposals put forward by the German government and its allies were preposterous – a clear message that any government opposing neoliberalism and austerity should be brought to its knees at all costs...
State & Living Wage Battles
The Past Goes On Trial in North Carolina The Atlantic ...A group of plaintiffs—including the Justice Department, NAACP, and League of Women Voters—are suing the state over new voting laws implemented in 2013, saying that they represent an attempt to suppress the minority vote. The new laws were passed shortly after the Supreme Court struck down a section of the Voting Rights Act that required some jurisdictions to seek approval from the federal government before altering voting laws...
Scott Walker Strips Wisconsin Workers Of 'Living Wage' In New State Budget Huffington Post ...Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) signed the new state budget into law on Sunday with a last-minute change that strips the words "living wage" from state laws and replaces it with "minimum wage." The change means minimum-wage Wisconsin workers will earn nearly $6,000 per year less than what the Massachusetts Institute of Technology calculates is a living wage in the state...
Bangor considers raising minimum wage WCSH ...Bangor City Council has introduced an ordinance that would increase the city's minimum wage. The proposal comes a week after Portland's City Council voted to increase its minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. If the Bangor ordinance passes, the minimum wage would increase 75 cents every year for three years...
State unemployment rate climbs to 5.5 percent Statesman Journal ...Oregon’s unemployment rate was 5.5 percent in June, a slight increase from May’s rate of 5.3 percent. The increase was not a surprise because one characteristic of Oregon’s labor market following the Great Recession has been small increases in the unemployment rate during the summer months...
Oregon governor signs paid sick leave, retirement legislation Yahoo News ...Oregon Governor Kate Brown signed legislation on Monday mandating paid sick leave for nearly all workers and establishing a first-of-its kind state-run retirement program for private sector employees. Brown said the four bills, dubbed the "Fair Shot" agenda, will help working, low-income families...
Scott Walker makes Mitt Romney look like FDR: The Kohl’s shopper is even more callous toward the poor Salon ...Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker thinks his humble background gives him working class appeal. But we know the man who shops at Kohl’s is wholly owned by the Kochs. But if he wasn’t born a plutocrat, he’s a zealous convert to the cause. His first shot out of the gate Monday night, after his relatively successful campaign launch, was to attack the minimum wage on his friend Sean Hannity’s show...
Four Ways ALEC Tried to Ruin Your State This Year Alternet ...In a year with unprecedented rightwing dominance in state legislative chambers, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has continued to wreak havoc in states across the country--despite an ongoing exodus of high-profile corporate members, including BP, Google, and several high-tech firms...
WV Legislature staff finds prevailing wage documents missing from first submission State Journal ...A law passed during the 2015 regular legislative session called for the state’s prevailing wage rate to be recalculated, with the new method in place July 1, 2015. There currently is no prevailing wage rate in place because the wage expired and a new method has not yet been set and a proposal to allow an extension to Sept. 30 in which to set a rate was voted down...
U.S. Labor
USW Local 444 rejects three-year contract proposal Daily Gate City ...The Membership of United Steel Workers Local 444 has voted to reject a three year contract proposal from Henniges Automotive in Keokuk, according to a union news release. The ratification meeting took place Friday at the Grand Theatre in Keokuk after the proposal was reviewed before the membership. The union and the employer have agreed to continue work under the terms of the 2012-2015 bargaining agreement with an extension agreement signed July 10...
Alabama Company Admits Locking Katrina Workers in Squalid Camps, Settles for $20 Million Slate ...An Alabama company has agreed to a $20 million settlement and admitted that workers it brought from India to rebuild oil rigs after Hurricane Katrina were deceptively recruited and then forcibly corralled in squalid, overcrowded camps, the Los Angeles Times reports. The settlement covers several lawsuits brought against marine services company Signal International by 200 guest workers...
Fiat Chrysler, UAW agree on ending two-tier wages CBS ...Fiat Chrysler (FCUA) CEO Sergio Marchionne and United Auto Workers President Dennis Williams agree on at least one thing: getting rid of the two-tier wages for hourly workers in the company's U.S. plants. Marchionne and Williams formally opened bargaining a new four-year contract for Fiat Chrysler's 35,700 workers Tuesday. The current contract expires in September...
Teachers Say No Freaking Way to AFT Endorsement of Hillary Clinton Common Dreams ...On Saturday, July 11th - the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President, Randi Weingarten came under fire after her executive council voted overwhelmingly to endorse Hillary Clinton for the democratic primary for President of the United States. AFT is the parent organization of Washington Teachers' Union, Local 6 and has 1.5 million members...
Union to challenge new prison food contract Detroit Free Press ...A union representing state employees is challenging the State of Michigan's decision to take the prison food contract away from one private company and give the contract to a second company without first calling for bids. Michigan AFSCME Council 25 said today it will challenge as unlawful the $158-million three-year deal with Trinity...
UFW launches a sponsored AdelanTech Leadership Program The Californian ...A dozen Salinas-area residents have been selected for the first AdelanTECH Leadership Program that will empower emerging rural leaders into so-called “STEM” industries. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and math. In an effort to give opportunities to dedicated but underserved students, the UFW in association with AT&T, CORO and Udacity will launch for the first time their AdelanTECH Leadership Program...
Growth in the ‘Gig Economy’ Fuels Work Force Anxieties New York Times ...When the California Labor Commissioner’s Office ruled last month that an Uber driver was an employee deserving of a variety of workplace protections — and was not, as the company maintained, an independent contractor — it highlighted the divided feelings many Americans have about what is increasingly being called the “gig economy”...
11 jobs where a hard day’s work only results in poverty Salon ...Why should people in the richest country on Earth toil long hours for wages that would make Charles Dickens recoil in horror? A lot of Americans have been wondering the same thing. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in 2012, 1.57 million Americans earned the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Millions more were just above that figure, and plenty actually ended up below it...
Miscellaneous
Martin O’Malley lays out broad immigration plan MSNBC ...Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley outlined an extensive immigration plan on Tuesday, vowing that if elected, he would make comprehensive reform a priority on his first day in office. The former Maryland governor said he would expand President Obama’s embattled executive actions on immigration and ultimately press Congress to resurrect a bipartisan deal on comprehensive reform to extend a pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States...
Black Children Almost 4 Times More Likely to Grow Up Poor Than Whites Common Dreams ...For the first time since the U.S. Census began, the number of black children living in poverty has surpassed the number of poor white children, despite the significant difference in population size, a new Pew Research study published Tuesday has found. According to the Pew analysis of recent Census data, in 2013, 14.7 million children in the U.S. (roughly 20 percent) lived in a household with an annual income below $23,624 for a family of four. This marks a decline of two percent since 2010...
Millennials Who Are Thriving Financially Have One Thing in Common The Atlantic ...there are those who are doing just great—owning a house, buying a car, and consistently putting money away for retirement. These, however, are not your run-of-the-mill Millennials. Nope. These Millennials have something very special: rich parents. These Millennials have help paying their tuition, meaning they graduate in much better financial shape than their peers...
ExxonMobil gave millions to climate-denying lawmakers despite pledge The Guardian ...ExxonMobil gave more than $2.3m to members of Congress and a corporate lobbying group that deny climate change and block efforts to fight climate change – eight years after pledging to stop its funding of climate denial, the Guardian has learned. Climate denial – from Republicans in Congress and lobby groups operating at the state level – is seen as a major obstacle to US and global efforts to fight climate change...
'Money Isn't Justice': Eric Garner Family Calls for Real Accountability Common Dreams ...The family of Eric Garner held a press conference Tuesday to discuss the $5.9 million settlement it reached with New York City days before the one-year anniversary of his death—and to renew calls to criminally charge the police officer who put Garner in a fatal chokehold last July. Garner, an unarmed 43-year-old black man, died on July 17, 2014 after white New York City police officer Daniel Pantaleo used a chokehold to subdue him...
Teamsters Urge Airgas Investors to Vote Against Directors Teamster.org ...In a letter to Airgas stockholders, Teamsters General Secretary-Treasurer Ken Hall is urging shareholders to withhold support for all three independent directors standing for re-election at the company’s Annual Meeting on August 4, 2015, in Philadelphia. "These long-tenured directors, who each joined the board in 1999, and serve together on the board’s Governance and Compensation Committee, have failed to implement a proposal to declassify the board of directors"...
California bill would protect carriers from misclassification claims — if they settle with drivers CCJ ...California lawmakers are considering a misclassification amnesty program for drayage companies that would relieve port drayage companies from liability for penalties associated with misclassification of drivers as independent contractors if the company enters into a settlement agreement with the state before 2017. The Teamsters-backed bill stipulates the agreement would also require the motor carrier to convert independent contractor truckers to employee drivers...
Growing Labor Movement Shakes Up Silicon Valley KQED ...Silicon Valley companies are reluctant to discuss the issue of wages and their relationships with their service workers. And they refuse to discuss the recent labor agitation and organizing. But they have to be aware of the increased activism. In February, for example, shuttle bus drivers for Yahoo, Apple, Genentech, eBay and Zynga voted to joined the Teamsters union...
Senator Feinstein: Safety first, not bigger trucks (opinion) The Hill ...the Senate Appropriations Committee recently approved an amendment to allow even longer trailer trucks on our highways. This provision stands in stark contrast to highway safety, putting the profits of trucking companies ahead of personal safety. The Teamsters Union opposed this amendment too, arguing that our highways are not designed for the larger configurations...
Global Labor & Trade
Japan minister says TPP deal without some nations possible The Mainichi ...Japan's minister in charge of a 12-country Pacific Rim free trade initiative said Tuesday one possible option is to reach a broad agreement without some members that are unwilling to end negotiations at the next ministerial meeting later this month in Hawaii. Economic and Fiscal Policy Minister Akira Amari did not name the countries he thinks could be excluded from a Trans-Pacific Partnership deal, but Canada and New Zealand are said to be lagging behind...
Trans-Pacific Partnership deal in sight, says Andrew Robb The Australian ...Trade Minister Andrew Robb is “confident’’ a deal on the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership will be signed within weeks after a ministerial meeting to clinch the agreement late this month. Mr Robb also said he was confident that China, which is not party to the TPP negotiations, could eventually be able to join, as a precursor to creating an Asia-Pacific free-trade zone...
Canada and Ukraine announce 'milestone' free trade agreement The Guardian ...Canada formally announced a “milestone” free trade agreement with Ukraine after the two countries’ prime ministers met in Ottawa on Tuesday. The agreement, which has to be ratified by both nations’ parliaments, will be implemented as soon as possible, Stephen Harper said after meeting Arseniy Yatsenyuk. With more than a million people claiming roots in Ukraine, Canada has supported Kiev many times since the 2014 revolution...
The TPP's Bad Medicine Foreign Affairs ...U.S.-drafted TPP terms include patent linkage, which can allow spurious patent filings to delay generic market entry. Further, a proposed investor-state dispute settlement system would allow pharmaceutical corporations to force a government into arbitration over decisions that would reduce the price of medicines. A similar process has served as the platform for corporate challenges to the Canadian government’s invalidation of drug patents, antismoking regulations in Australia and Uruguay, and an environmental court ruling in Ecuador...
Undermining the State Department's trafficking report (opinion) The Hill ...Recent press reports suggest that the State Department will recommend that Secretary John Kerry take a shameless and unprincipled stand in this year's Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP Report) by concluding that the government of Malaysia is making significant efforts to combat human trafficking. The State Department is trying to ensure that, come what may, Malaysia can stay part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)...
TTIP will force all Europeans to take Greece's medicine (opinion) Politics UK ...If the Greek crisis has shown how the institutions of the EU will stop at nothing to force through their own brand of capitalist discipline, TTIP is confirmation that we will all soon be tasting the same medicine. This week sees the 10th round of negotiations towards the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the controversial EU-US trade deal that threatens our jobs, our public services and our democracy itself...
Greek parliament to vote on austerity bill amid growing dissent in governing party US News & World Report ...Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras faced a rising wave of hostility from members of his own party Wednesday ahead of a parliament vote on an austerity bill that condemns the country to years of spending cuts but is required to get a new bailout package. The raft of consumer tax increases and pension reforms has led to growing anger among Greece's governing left-wing Syriza party, while the country's civil servants' union voiced its objections with a 24-hour public sector strike...
Key Driver Of International Austerity Push Now Says Europe Must Forgive Greek Debt Think Progress ...A day after agreeing to discuss a new Greek bailout, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned European Union leaders that their expectations for Greece’s financial future are unsupported by the facts. A realistic accounting of things requires Europe to agree to forgive Greece’s debts or else leave them uncollected for a generation, a leaked report from the group says...
UK unemployment in surprise rise Yahoo News ...Britain's unemployment rate climbed to 5.6 percent in the quarter ending in May, with the number of jobless up for the first time in over two years, data showed Wednesday. Unemployment edged up from 5.5 percent in the quarter ending in February, the Office for National Statistics said in a statement...
Ecuador National Strike: Labor, Social Groups To Protest As Pressure On Correa Grows International Business Times ...Labor unions and social groups in Ecuador are planning a one-day national strike to launch another blow against President Rafael Correa, who is still grappling with mass outrage over a slate of tax proposals. Correa has accused opposition factions of fomenting a “soft coup” against his government. Unions and social and indigenous groups said this week that a “people’s national strike” would take place next month...
Farm Workers’ Global Struggle for Rights on the Job Solidarity Center ...Agriculture employs nearly half of the world’s workforce. Low-paying and seasonal, it also is one of the three most hazardous sectors for workers (along with construction and mining), according to the International Labor Organization. Despite the hardships, agricultural workers—cacao harvesters in the Dominican Republic, vegetable farmers in South Africa and Moroccan vineyard and olive grove laborers in Meknes—are joining with unions and worker associations to improve their workplaces and win rights on the job...
After Greece’s defeat, we need a new European movement against austerity (opinion) The Guardian ...Ater five months of negotiations, Sunday evening brought a moment of painful realisation: democracy has left the EU building. The proposals put forward by the German government and its allies were preposterous – a clear message that any government opposing neoliberalism and austerity should be brought to its knees at all costs...
State & Living Wage Battles
The Past Goes On Trial in North Carolina The Atlantic ...A group of plaintiffs—including the Justice Department, NAACP, and League of Women Voters—are suing the state over new voting laws implemented in 2013, saying that they represent an attempt to suppress the minority vote. The new laws were passed shortly after the Supreme Court struck down a section of the Voting Rights Act that required some jurisdictions to seek approval from the federal government before altering voting laws...
Scott Walker Strips Wisconsin Workers Of 'Living Wage' In New State Budget Huffington Post ...Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) signed the new state budget into law on Sunday with a last-minute change that strips the words "living wage" from state laws and replaces it with "minimum wage." The change means minimum-wage Wisconsin workers will earn nearly $6,000 per year less than what the Massachusetts Institute of Technology calculates is a living wage in the state...
Bangor considers raising minimum wage WCSH ...Bangor City Council has introduced an ordinance that would increase the city's minimum wage. The proposal comes a week after Portland's City Council voted to increase its minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. If the Bangor ordinance passes, the minimum wage would increase 75 cents every year for three years...
State unemployment rate climbs to 5.5 percent Statesman Journal ...Oregon’s unemployment rate was 5.5 percent in June, a slight increase from May’s rate of 5.3 percent. The increase was not a surprise because one characteristic of Oregon’s labor market following the Great Recession has been small increases in the unemployment rate during the summer months...
Oregon governor signs paid sick leave, retirement legislation Yahoo News ...Oregon Governor Kate Brown signed legislation on Monday mandating paid sick leave for nearly all workers and establishing a first-of-its kind state-run retirement program for private sector employees. Brown said the four bills, dubbed the "Fair Shot" agenda, will help working, low-income families...
Scott Walker makes Mitt Romney look like FDR: The Kohl’s shopper is even more callous toward the poor Salon ...Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker thinks his humble background gives him working class appeal. But we know the man who shops at Kohl’s is wholly owned by the Kochs. But if he wasn’t born a plutocrat, he’s a zealous convert to the cause. His first shot out of the gate Monday night, after his relatively successful campaign launch, was to attack the minimum wage on his friend Sean Hannity’s show...
Four Ways ALEC Tried to Ruin Your State This Year Alternet ...In a year with unprecedented rightwing dominance in state legislative chambers, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has continued to wreak havoc in states across the country--despite an ongoing exodus of high-profile corporate members, including BP, Google, and several high-tech firms...
WV Legislature staff finds prevailing wage documents missing from first submission State Journal ...A law passed during the 2015 regular legislative session called for the state’s prevailing wage rate to be recalculated, with the new method in place July 1, 2015. There currently is no prevailing wage rate in place because the wage expired and a new method has not yet been set and a proposal to allow an extension to Sept. 30 in which to set a rate was voted down...
U.S. Labor
USW Local 444 rejects three-year contract proposal Daily Gate City ...The Membership of United Steel Workers Local 444 has voted to reject a three year contract proposal from Henniges Automotive in Keokuk, according to a union news release. The ratification meeting took place Friday at the Grand Theatre in Keokuk after the proposal was reviewed before the membership. The union and the employer have agreed to continue work under the terms of the 2012-2015 bargaining agreement with an extension agreement signed July 10...
Alabama Company Admits Locking Katrina Workers in Squalid Camps, Settles for $20 Million Slate ...An Alabama company has agreed to a $20 million settlement and admitted that workers it brought from India to rebuild oil rigs after Hurricane Katrina were deceptively recruited and then forcibly corralled in squalid, overcrowded camps, the Los Angeles Times reports. The settlement covers several lawsuits brought against marine services company Signal International by 200 guest workers...
Fiat Chrysler, UAW agree on ending two-tier wages CBS ...Fiat Chrysler (FCUA) CEO Sergio Marchionne and United Auto Workers President Dennis Williams agree on at least one thing: getting rid of the two-tier wages for hourly workers in the company's U.S. plants. Marchionne and Williams formally opened bargaining a new four-year contract for Fiat Chrysler's 35,700 workers Tuesday. The current contract expires in September...
Teachers Say No Freaking Way to AFT Endorsement of Hillary Clinton Common Dreams ...On Saturday, July 11th - the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President, Randi Weingarten came under fire after her executive council voted overwhelmingly to endorse Hillary Clinton for the democratic primary for President of the United States. AFT is the parent organization of Washington Teachers' Union, Local 6 and has 1.5 million members...
Union to challenge new prison food contract Detroit Free Press ...A union representing state employees is challenging the State of Michigan's decision to take the prison food contract away from one private company and give the contract to a second company without first calling for bids. Michigan AFSCME Council 25 said today it will challenge as unlawful the $158-million three-year deal with Trinity...
UFW launches a sponsored AdelanTech Leadership Program The Californian ...A dozen Salinas-area residents have been selected for the first AdelanTECH Leadership Program that will empower emerging rural leaders into so-called “STEM” industries. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and math. In an effort to give opportunities to dedicated but underserved students, the UFW in association with AT&T, CORO and Udacity will launch for the first time their AdelanTECH Leadership Program...
Growth in the ‘Gig Economy’ Fuels Work Force Anxieties New York Times ...When the California Labor Commissioner’s Office ruled last month that an Uber driver was an employee deserving of a variety of workplace protections — and was not, as the company maintained, an independent contractor — it highlighted the divided feelings many Americans have about what is increasingly being called the “gig economy”...
11 jobs where a hard day’s work only results in poverty Salon ...Why should people in the richest country on Earth toil long hours for wages that would make Charles Dickens recoil in horror? A lot of Americans have been wondering the same thing. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in 2012, 1.57 million Americans earned the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Millions more were just above that figure, and plenty actually ended up below it...
Miscellaneous
Martin O’Malley lays out broad immigration plan MSNBC ...Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley outlined an extensive immigration plan on Tuesday, vowing that if elected, he would make comprehensive reform a priority on his first day in office. The former Maryland governor said he would expand President Obama’s embattled executive actions on immigration and ultimately press Congress to resurrect a bipartisan deal on comprehensive reform to extend a pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States...
Black Children Almost 4 Times More Likely to Grow Up Poor Than Whites Common Dreams ...For the first time since the U.S. Census began, the number of black children living in poverty has surpassed the number of poor white children, despite the significant difference in population size, a new Pew Research study published Tuesday has found. According to the Pew analysis of recent Census data, in 2013, 14.7 million children in the U.S. (roughly 20 percent) lived in a household with an annual income below $23,624 for a family of four. This marks a decline of two percent since 2010...
Millennials Who Are Thriving Financially Have One Thing in Common The Atlantic ...there are those who are doing just great—owning a house, buying a car, and consistently putting money away for retirement. These, however, are not your run-of-the-mill Millennials. Nope. These Millennials have something very special: rich parents. These Millennials have help paying their tuition, meaning they graduate in much better financial shape than their peers...
ExxonMobil gave millions to climate-denying lawmakers despite pledge The Guardian ...ExxonMobil gave more than $2.3m to members of Congress and a corporate lobbying group that deny climate change and block efforts to fight climate change – eight years after pledging to stop its funding of climate denial, the Guardian has learned. Climate denial – from Republicans in Congress and lobby groups operating at the state level – is seen as a major obstacle to US and global efforts to fight climate change...
'Money Isn't Justice': Eric Garner Family Calls for Real Accountability Common Dreams ...The family of Eric Garner held a press conference Tuesday to discuss the $5.9 million settlement it reached with New York City days before the one-year anniversary of his death—and to renew calls to criminally charge the police officer who put Garner in a fatal chokehold last July. Garner, an unarmed 43-year-old black man, died on July 17, 2014 after white New York City police officer Daniel Pantaleo used a chokehold to subdue him...
Monday, July 13, 2015
Today's Teamster News 07.13.15
Teamsters
Dauphinais Concrete Workers Choose Teamsters Local 170 Teamster.org ...It didn’t take long for 19 ready-mix cement truck drivers and mechanics in Sutton, Mass., to become card-carrying Teamster members, after a one-day sign-up with Teamsters Local 170 in Worcester, Mass. Workers expressed their overwhelming interest in forming a union at Dauphinais Concrete. Shortly thereafter, Local 170 Secretary-Treasurer Mike Hogan reached a card-check agreement with the company...
Truckers at Los Angeles Port Vote to Unionize Wall Street Journal ...Short-haul truckers employed by Eco Flow in the Los Angeles and Long Beach port complexes voted unanimously to unionize, but the Teamsters still face an uphill battle to organize the wider labor pool. A group of truck drivers at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach voted late Wednesday to join the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, becoming the fourth company at the port to unionize...
Dauphinais Concrete Workers Choose Teamsters Local 170 Teamster.org ...It didn’t take long for 19 ready-mix cement truck drivers and mechanics in Sutton, Mass., to become card-carrying Teamster members, after a one-day sign-up with Teamsters Local 170 in Worcester, Mass. Workers expressed their overwhelming interest in forming a union at Dauphinais Concrete. Shortly thereafter, Local 170 Secretary-Treasurer Mike Hogan reached a card-check agreement with the company...
Truckers at Los Angeles Port Vote to Unionize Wall Street Journal ...Short-haul truckers employed by Eco Flow in the Los Angeles and Long Beach port complexes voted unanimously to unionize, but the Teamsters still face an uphill battle to organize the wider labor pool. A group of truck drivers at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach voted late Wednesday to join the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, becoming the fourth company at the port to unionize...
Teamsters score victory in drayage unionization push JOC ...Drivers for the Southern California drayage company Eco Flow voted this week to join the Teamsters Union. This development is not a surprise because Eco Flow was formed on the employee-driver model, but it is nevertheless a victory by the union in its attempt to organize drayage companies across the country...
Global Labor & Trade
Japan, U.S. aim to settle TPP rice issue Japan News ...Japan and the United States have ended their working-level talks for a Trans-Pacific Partnership deal by agreeing to make a political judgment on a proposed rice import quota later this month. The two countries aim to settle the issue, along with other difficult problems including automobile parts trade, at a meeting of TPP minister Akira Amari and U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman...
U.S.-Canada Dairy Spat Sours Trade Talks Wall Street Journal ...Milk may do a body good, but it’s giving trade negotiators fits. Because of a decades-old dispute between the U.S. and Canada, dairy is emerging as the thorniest issue souring final talks to conclude a sweeping trade agreement, known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, linking 12 countries around the Pacific...
Clinton to face grilling by union leaders on trade, economic issues Reuters ...U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton will meet privately this month with leaders of the nation's largest labor federation as she seeks to prevent a revolt by union members infuriated by her cautious stance on a looming trade deal, labor sources told Reuters. Leaders with the AFL-CIO, an umbrella group for 56 member unions representing more than 12.5 million workers, will press her on issues such as trade...
Obama Is in a Bind on Drugs That Could Cost Consumers Billions of Dollars Bloomberg ...The Obama administration is caught in a trap as it tries to bring home a trade deal with its Pacific Rim partners. Some of the chief beneficiaries may be big drug companies like Novartis AG, Roche Holding AG, and Pfizer Inc. while the losers could be consumers in both the U.S. and the region. The administration says it’s bound by congressionally imposed instructions to try to get as much current U.S. law as possible into trade accords...
Rights groups urge U.S. to reconsider Malaysia human-trafficking rating Reuters ...Human rights groups and some U.S. lawmakers urged the U.S. government on Thursday to reconsider plans to upgrade Malaysia from the lowest tier on its list of worst human trafficking hubs, citing a lack of evidence that Malaysia had made advances against trafficking...
Obama Won’t Let Some Mass Graves Stop the TPP The Nation ...When Congress finally passed fast-track trade authority last month, there was a major problem for President Obama and his trade negotiators: a provision of the bill forbid any fast-tracked trade deal from including countries on Tier 3 of the State Department’s human trafficking list. Malaysia is home to many “outsourcing companies” that are, in reality, professional slaving operations: foreign workers...
Greece Agrees to Its Third European Bailout After Marathon Talks TIME ...The last round of talks on the Greek debt crisis went through the night on Sunday for 17 grueling hours, but when European leaders finally emerged from the negotiating rooms in Brussels on Monday morning, they announced that they had reached a unanimous deal to save Greece from going bankrupt and crashing out of the European currency union. But even from the rough contours outlined at a press conference on Monday morning, it was clear that Greece had bowed to nearly all the demands of its creditor nations...
'Austerity Has Won': Greece Submits to Divisive Reforms Common Dreams ...After 31 hours of tense weekend talks—and five years of crippling austerity—Greece and its foreign creditors have struck a deal: an €86 billion bailout that will keep Greece in the Eurozone in exchange for controversial economic reforms that include tax hikes, pension overhauls, and severe budget cuts if the nation misses fiscal targets imposed and monitored by the so-called Troika...
Malaysia: Widespread Forced Labor, Abuse of Migrants Solidarity Center ...The widespread abuse reported across industries and the number of workers involved demonstrate that these cases are not isolated incidents involving rogue employers, but workplace practices condoned within an officially sanctioned environment that denies fundamental human rights. The Asia-Pacific region has the greatest number of forced laborers in the world, accounting for more than 50 percent of all forced labor victims. Globally, forced labor generates $51 billion per year in illegal profits...
Investing in Agriculture in Developing Countries: Whole World Says Yes, WTO Says No Alternet ...Farmers, development activists and food security advocates are united in the need for resilient agro-ecological local food systems to achieve the right to food. Unfortunately, there remains an international constraint to achieving this: The global rules that actually govern agriculture—not just for trade but also domestic production—are set in the World Trade Organization, and they are appallingly unfair and antiquated...
State & Living Wage Battles
Scott Walker Wants To Run The Country. Here Is How He Ran Wisconsin. Think Progress ...With the wealthy and powerful Koch brothers behind him and a contentious state budget out of the way, Wisconsin’s polarizing Gov. Scott Walker will announce Monday evening what many have long suspected: that he will seek the Republican nomination for President in 2016. Much of Walker’s appeal to conservatives lies in his record of enacting far-right policies as the governor of a historically progressive, working class swing state...
Made in America: Walmart's Misleading Claims Truthout ...When Walmart kicked off its U.S. Manufacturing Summit on Tuesday, Walmart it posed as a friend of the American worker, a creator of U.S. jobs and a force for reducing inequality. But, as the American Manufacturing Association dutifully points out this week, we shouldn't be fooled by the giant retailer's newly populist rhetoric...
In Last-Minute Budget Change, Scott Walker Plans To Drug Test Everyone Who Needs Food Stamps Think Progress ...Just ahead of his official announcement that he’s running for president, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) signed his state’s budget into law while vetoing 104 items Sunday, twice as many as in the last two budgets. One significant change would make it easier for the state to drug test anyone who applies for food stamps...
Florida Supreme Court orders new congressional map with eight districts to be redrawn Tampa Bay Times ...The Florida Supreme Court took a wrecking ball to Florida's political landscape Thursday, throwing out the state's carefully crafted congressional districts drawn by the GOP-led Legislature and ordering a new map within 100 days. In the historic 5-2 ruling, the court not only ruled the maps were the product of an unconstitutional political gerrymandering, it signaled its deep distrust of lawmakers...
The Right’s Stealth Plan to Kill Unions: Do It County by County Daily Beast ...While many in Illinois, like Schmidgall, consider right to work impossible, they might want to start paying attention before counties begin turning anti-union one by one like they have in neighboring Kentucky. In last six months in there, Yessin has been instrumental in implementing right to work in 12 of Kentucky’s 120 counties. While he wouldn’t say who exactly he’s working with, Yessin made clear his organization is taking the fight to Illinois...
'This is our Selma': North Carolina voting rights trial threatens 50 years of progress The Guardian ...A landmark voting rights trial that opens in North Carolina on Monday will determine the way the 2016 presidential election is conducted in the state and could have long-lasting implications for the politics of the American south. The federal district court in Winston-Salem is expected to take at least two weeks to consider a legal challenge to the state’s recent changes to its voting laws...
Governor's finance office opposes bill raising minimum wage in California LA Times ...Citing significant new costs to the state and a negative effect on businesses, Gov. Jerry Brown's finance department is opposing a bill that would raise California's $9 minimum wage to $11 an hour on Jan. 1 and boost it again to $13 a year later...
Scott Walker Poised To Give Payday Lenders Radical New Powers To Prey On The Poor Think Progress ...Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) has just a few days to decide whether to extend vast new business privileges to payday lending companies in his state. The measure would allow payday lenders to start selling new lines of products to their customers. It would also license them to market annuities, a complex financial product in which the consumer effectively gambles on how long they will live...
U.S. Labor
Faced With I-9 Immigration Raid During Negotiations, Chicago Meatpacking Workers Walked Off the Job In These Times ...The mostly Latino immigrant workforce had found out several weeks earlier that they were they were going to be audited by the Department of Homeland Security, which meant their immigration papers would be closely scrutinized and workers found with falsified or otherwise improper documents would be fired. They were on strike. More than 100 workers left the plant for two and a half hours...
Starbucks and Other Corporations to Announce Plan to Curb Unemployment of Young People New York Times ...Spearheaded by Starbucks and its chief executive, Howard Schultz, nearly 20 big American corporations will unveil a plan on Monday to find jobs for 100,000 unemployed young people over the next three years. The effort, to be called the 100,000 Opportunities Initiative, is aimed at the estimated 5.6 million Americans ages 16 to 24...
Hillary Clinton Wins Key Endorsement From American Federation of Teachers TIME ...Hillary Clinton has secured the first major union endorsement of the 2016 Democratic presidential primary. The American Federation of Teachers, a powerful, 1.6 million-strong national union, voted on Saturday to endorse the former secretary of state, calling Clinton a “champion” for “working families”...
Healthcare packages likely to be revised in UAW, Detroit Three talks: WSJ Reuters ...Healthcare packages are likely to be revised and profit-sharing agreements could be altered in talks for new contracts scheduled to begin on Monday between the United Auto Workers (UAW) and The Big Three U.S. automakers, the Wall Street Journal reported citing people familiar with the negotiations...
Ford will move its small car production out of the country in 2018 Daily Kos ...The Ford Motor Company will move its production of C-Max and Focus small cars to an undesignated foreign nation in three years, the company announced Thursday. A likely new location is Mexico. Focus is already built at plants in China, Argentina, Germany, Russia, Thailand, Taiwan and Vietnam. Germany has a C-Max factory. Ford currently manufactures those automobiles at its plant in Wayne, Michigan, where it employs some 4,400 workers...
Santa Clara County workers represented by SEIU Local 521 to re-vote on contract agreement KLIV ...A re-vote on a contract agreement is scheduled for July 22nd for Santa Clara County workers represented by the SEIU Local 521. The second vote was called for by the union after they found evidence of misrepresentation to the unit’s membership about the overall agreement. Union members voted last week against the deal...
USW starts contract talks with ArcelorMittal, U.S. Steel NWI Times ...The United Steelworkers union has kicked off contract talks with ArcelorMittal and U.S. Steel. Union officials expect a difficult bargaining session since the industry has been struggling with a record level of imports and has laid off workers nationwide. ArcelorMittal lost $728 million in the first quarter, while U.S. Steel lost $75 million...
What’s Next for the Domestic Workers Movement? The Nation ...Five years after that first victory movement leaders at the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), an organization we co-founded in 2007, have paused to reflect on what the legislative strategy has achieved and where we must go from here...
Miscellaneous
Why Clinton and Bush are battling over immigration CNN ...Clinton, who has at times been tepid in the past, is taking the most liberal positions possible on undocumented immigrants' rights -- including supporting a pathway to citizenship. Bush, who's been a leading Republican advocate of immigration reform, doesn't share that position, even as he strikes a more inclusive tone than many of his primary opponents...
How Aggressive Policing Affects Police Officers Themselves The Atlantic ...The lawsuit, which was filed four months ago, takes issue with the department’s alleged implementation of quotas for arrests and court summonses. Such quotas are prohibited in New York, as well as in several other states, but the NYPD, the plaintiffs maintain, nevertheless holds officers to monthly goals for making arrests and writing tickets...
Pope Blasts 'Unbridled Capitalism'; Begs Forgiveness from Native Americans Common Dreams ...In a far-reaching speech in Bolivia on Thursday, Pope Francis offered his apologies to, and begged forgiveness from, the native people of the Americas as he acknowledged the brutal treatment they received throughout the so-called "conquest of America." In a speech that also touched on the need to rapidly move away from the destructive model of unbridled capitalism—which he described as the "dung of the devil"—Francis went much further than any of his predecessors...
Mexican Drug Lord “El Chapo” Guzmán Escapes From Prison (Again) Slate ...n a huge embarrassment for President Enrique Peña Nieto's government, Mexico's most notorious drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, escaped from a maximum security prison for the second time in 15 years. The kingpin escaped through a one-mile-long tunnel that opened up in a shower area of his cell, according to the Associated Press. The tunnel had ventilation and lighting as well as a motorcycle connected to a rail...
NAACP Ends South Carolina Boycott After Confederate Flag Comes Down Common Dreams ...Late Saturday afternoon, the NAACP voted to end the organization's longtime boycott of South Carolina, just a day after the Confederate battle flag came down from the South Carolina Statehouse. The civil rights organization said in a tweet that its National Board of Directors passed an 'Emergency Resolution' to end the boycott...
Psychologists Collaborated with CIA & Pentagon on Post-9/11 Torture Program, May Face Ethics Charges Democracy Now ...A new independent review has revealed extensive details on how members of the the American Psychological Association, the world’s largest group of psychologists, were complicit in torture, lied and covered up their close collaboration with officials at the Pentagon and CIA to weaken the association’s ethical guidelines and allow psychologists to participate in the government’s enhanced interrogation programs after 9/11...
Global Labor & Trade
Japan, U.S. aim to settle TPP rice issue Japan News ...Japan and the United States have ended their working-level talks for a Trans-Pacific Partnership deal by agreeing to make a political judgment on a proposed rice import quota later this month. The two countries aim to settle the issue, along with other difficult problems including automobile parts trade, at a meeting of TPP minister Akira Amari and U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman...
U.S.-Canada Dairy Spat Sours Trade Talks Wall Street Journal ...Milk may do a body good, but it’s giving trade negotiators fits. Because of a decades-old dispute between the U.S. and Canada, dairy is emerging as the thorniest issue souring final talks to conclude a sweeping trade agreement, known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, linking 12 countries around the Pacific...
Clinton to face grilling by union leaders on trade, economic issues Reuters ...U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton will meet privately this month with leaders of the nation's largest labor federation as she seeks to prevent a revolt by union members infuriated by her cautious stance on a looming trade deal, labor sources told Reuters. Leaders with the AFL-CIO, an umbrella group for 56 member unions representing more than 12.5 million workers, will press her on issues such as trade...
Obama Is in a Bind on Drugs That Could Cost Consumers Billions of Dollars Bloomberg ...The Obama administration is caught in a trap as it tries to bring home a trade deal with its Pacific Rim partners. Some of the chief beneficiaries may be big drug companies like Novartis AG, Roche Holding AG, and Pfizer Inc. while the losers could be consumers in both the U.S. and the region. The administration says it’s bound by congressionally imposed instructions to try to get as much current U.S. law as possible into trade accords...
Rights groups urge U.S. to reconsider Malaysia human-trafficking rating Reuters ...Human rights groups and some U.S. lawmakers urged the U.S. government on Thursday to reconsider plans to upgrade Malaysia from the lowest tier on its list of worst human trafficking hubs, citing a lack of evidence that Malaysia had made advances against trafficking...
Obama Won’t Let Some Mass Graves Stop the TPP The Nation ...When Congress finally passed fast-track trade authority last month, there was a major problem for President Obama and his trade negotiators: a provision of the bill forbid any fast-tracked trade deal from including countries on Tier 3 of the State Department’s human trafficking list. Malaysia is home to many “outsourcing companies” that are, in reality, professional slaving operations: foreign workers...
Greece Agrees to Its Third European Bailout After Marathon Talks TIME ...The last round of talks on the Greek debt crisis went through the night on Sunday for 17 grueling hours, but when European leaders finally emerged from the negotiating rooms in Brussels on Monday morning, they announced that they had reached a unanimous deal to save Greece from going bankrupt and crashing out of the European currency union. But even from the rough contours outlined at a press conference on Monday morning, it was clear that Greece had bowed to nearly all the demands of its creditor nations...
'Austerity Has Won': Greece Submits to Divisive Reforms Common Dreams ...After 31 hours of tense weekend talks—and five years of crippling austerity—Greece and its foreign creditors have struck a deal: an €86 billion bailout that will keep Greece in the Eurozone in exchange for controversial economic reforms that include tax hikes, pension overhauls, and severe budget cuts if the nation misses fiscal targets imposed and monitored by the so-called Troika...
Malaysia: Widespread Forced Labor, Abuse of Migrants Solidarity Center ...The widespread abuse reported across industries and the number of workers involved demonstrate that these cases are not isolated incidents involving rogue employers, but workplace practices condoned within an officially sanctioned environment that denies fundamental human rights. The Asia-Pacific region has the greatest number of forced laborers in the world, accounting for more than 50 percent of all forced labor victims. Globally, forced labor generates $51 billion per year in illegal profits...
Investing in Agriculture in Developing Countries: Whole World Says Yes, WTO Says No Alternet ...Farmers, development activists and food security advocates are united in the need for resilient agro-ecological local food systems to achieve the right to food. Unfortunately, there remains an international constraint to achieving this: The global rules that actually govern agriculture—not just for trade but also domestic production—are set in the World Trade Organization, and they are appallingly unfair and antiquated...
State & Living Wage Battles
Scott Walker Wants To Run The Country. Here Is How He Ran Wisconsin. Think Progress ...With the wealthy and powerful Koch brothers behind him and a contentious state budget out of the way, Wisconsin’s polarizing Gov. Scott Walker will announce Monday evening what many have long suspected: that he will seek the Republican nomination for President in 2016. Much of Walker’s appeal to conservatives lies in his record of enacting far-right policies as the governor of a historically progressive, working class swing state...
Made in America: Walmart's Misleading Claims Truthout ...When Walmart kicked off its U.S. Manufacturing Summit on Tuesday, Walmart it posed as a friend of the American worker, a creator of U.S. jobs and a force for reducing inequality. But, as the American Manufacturing Association dutifully points out this week, we shouldn't be fooled by the giant retailer's newly populist rhetoric...
In Last-Minute Budget Change, Scott Walker Plans To Drug Test Everyone Who Needs Food Stamps Think Progress ...Just ahead of his official announcement that he’s running for president, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) signed his state’s budget into law while vetoing 104 items Sunday, twice as many as in the last two budgets. One significant change would make it easier for the state to drug test anyone who applies for food stamps...
Florida Supreme Court orders new congressional map with eight districts to be redrawn Tampa Bay Times ...The Florida Supreme Court took a wrecking ball to Florida's political landscape Thursday, throwing out the state's carefully crafted congressional districts drawn by the GOP-led Legislature and ordering a new map within 100 days. In the historic 5-2 ruling, the court not only ruled the maps were the product of an unconstitutional political gerrymandering, it signaled its deep distrust of lawmakers...
The Right’s Stealth Plan to Kill Unions: Do It County by County Daily Beast ...While many in Illinois, like Schmidgall, consider right to work impossible, they might want to start paying attention before counties begin turning anti-union one by one like they have in neighboring Kentucky. In last six months in there, Yessin has been instrumental in implementing right to work in 12 of Kentucky’s 120 counties. While he wouldn’t say who exactly he’s working with, Yessin made clear his organization is taking the fight to Illinois...
'This is our Selma': North Carolina voting rights trial threatens 50 years of progress The Guardian ...A landmark voting rights trial that opens in North Carolina on Monday will determine the way the 2016 presidential election is conducted in the state and could have long-lasting implications for the politics of the American south. The federal district court in Winston-Salem is expected to take at least two weeks to consider a legal challenge to the state’s recent changes to its voting laws...
Governor's finance office opposes bill raising minimum wage in California LA Times ...Citing significant new costs to the state and a negative effect on businesses, Gov. Jerry Brown's finance department is opposing a bill that would raise California's $9 minimum wage to $11 an hour on Jan. 1 and boost it again to $13 a year later...
Scott Walker Poised To Give Payday Lenders Radical New Powers To Prey On The Poor Think Progress ...Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) has just a few days to decide whether to extend vast new business privileges to payday lending companies in his state. The measure would allow payday lenders to start selling new lines of products to their customers. It would also license them to market annuities, a complex financial product in which the consumer effectively gambles on how long they will live...
U.S. Labor
Faced With I-9 Immigration Raid During Negotiations, Chicago Meatpacking Workers Walked Off the Job In These Times ...The mostly Latino immigrant workforce had found out several weeks earlier that they were they were going to be audited by the Department of Homeland Security, which meant their immigration papers would be closely scrutinized and workers found with falsified or otherwise improper documents would be fired. They were on strike. More than 100 workers left the plant for two and a half hours...
Starbucks and Other Corporations to Announce Plan to Curb Unemployment of Young People New York Times ...Spearheaded by Starbucks and its chief executive, Howard Schultz, nearly 20 big American corporations will unveil a plan on Monday to find jobs for 100,000 unemployed young people over the next three years. The effort, to be called the 100,000 Opportunities Initiative, is aimed at the estimated 5.6 million Americans ages 16 to 24...
Hillary Clinton Wins Key Endorsement From American Federation of Teachers TIME ...Hillary Clinton has secured the first major union endorsement of the 2016 Democratic presidential primary. The American Federation of Teachers, a powerful, 1.6 million-strong national union, voted on Saturday to endorse the former secretary of state, calling Clinton a “champion” for “working families”...
Healthcare packages likely to be revised in UAW, Detroit Three talks: WSJ Reuters ...Healthcare packages are likely to be revised and profit-sharing agreements could be altered in talks for new contracts scheduled to begin on Monday between the United Auto Workers (UAW) and The Big Three U.S. automakers, the Wall Street Journal reported citing people familiar with the negotiations...
Ford will move its small car production out of the country in 2018 Daily Kos ...The Ford Motor Company will move its production of C-Max and Focus small cars to an undesignated foreign nation in three years, the company announced Thursday. A likely new location is Mexico. Focus is already built at plants in China, Argentina, Germany, Russia, Thailand, Taiwan and Vietnam. Germany has a C-Max factory. Ford currently manufactures those automobiles at its plant in Wayne, Michigan, where it employs some 4,400 workers...
Santa Clara County workers represented by SEIU Local 521 to re-vote on contract agreement KLIV ...A re-vote on a contract agreement is scheduled for July 22nd for Santa Clara County workers represented by the SEIU Local 521. The second vote was called for by the union after they found evidence of misrepresentation to the unit’s membership about the overall agreement. Union members voted last week against the deal...
USW starts contract talks with ArcelorMittal, U.S. Steel NWI Times ...The United Steelworkers union has kicked off contract talks with ArcelorMittal and U.S. Steel. Union officials expect a difficult bargaining session since the industry has been struggling with a record level of imports and has laid off workers nationwide. ArcelorMittal lost $728 million in the first quarter, while U.S. Steel lost $75 million...
What’s Next for the Domestic Workers Movement? The Nation ...Five years after that first victory movement leaders at the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), an organization we co-founded in 2007, have paused to reflect on what the legislative strategy has achieved and where we must go from here...
Miscellaneous
Why Clinton and Bush are battling over immigration CNN ...Clinton, who has at times been tepid in the past, is taking the most liberal positions possible on undocumented immigrants' rights -- including supporting a pathway to citizenship. Bush, who's been a leading Republican advocate of immigration reform, doesn't share that position, even as he strikes a more inclusive tone than many of his primary opponents...
How Aggressive Policing Affects Police Officers Themselves The Atlantic ...The lawsuit, which was filed four months ago, takes issue with the department’s alleged implementation of quotas for arrests and court summonses. Such quotas are prohibited in New York, as well as in several other states, but the NYPD, the plaintiffs maintain, nevertheless holds officers to monthly goals for making arrests and writing tickets...
Pope Blasts 'Unbridled Capitalism'; Begs Forgiveness from Native Americans Common Dreams ...In a far-reaching speech in Bolivia on Thursday, Pope Francis offered his apologies to, and begged forgiveness from, the native people of the Americas as he acknowledged the brutal treatment they received throughout the so-called "conquest of America." In a speech that also touched on the need to rapidly move away from the destructive model of unbridled capitalism—which he described as the "dung of the devil"—Francis went much further than any of his predecessors...
Mexican Drug Lord “El Chapo” Guzmán Escapes From Prison (Again) Slate ...n a huge embarrassment for President Enrique Peña Nieto's government, Mexico's most notorious drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, escaped from a maximum security prison for the second time in 15 years. The kingpin escaped through a one-mile-long tunnel that opened up in a shower area of his cell, according to the Associated Press. The tunnel had ventilation and lighting as well as a motorcycle connected to a rail...
NAACP Ends South Carolina Boycott After Confederate Flag Comes Down Common Dreams ...Late Saturday afternoon, the NAACP voted to end the organization's longtime boycott of South Carolina, just a day after the Confederate battle flag came down from the South Carolina Statehouse. The civil rights organization said in a tweet that its National Board of Directors passed an 'Emergency Resolution' to end the boycott...
Psychologists Collaborated with CIA & Pentagon on Post-9/11 Torture Program, May Face Ethics Charges Democracy Now ...A new independent review has revealed extensive details on how members of the the American Psychological Association, the world’s largest group of psychologists, were complicit in torture, lied and covered up their close collaboration with officials at the Pentagon and CIA to weaken the association’s ethical guidelines and allow psychologists to participate in the government’s enhanced interrogation programs after 9/11...
Wednesday, July 1, 2015
High court could curb union rights
Public sector unions are the target of Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, where a handful or public school teachers are suing the state's teachers union affiliate saying they shouldn't have to pay union dues. This, of course, even though they get the full benefit of the union hammering out a contract and representing them.
The Los Angeles Times explains what's at stake:
At issue is the court’s 1977 precedent in Abood vs. Detroit Board of Education, which today allows government worker unions in California and 20 other states to collect “fair share” fees to cover the costs of collective bargaining, even from employees who do not join or support the union.
Though the high court has said workers cannot be required to pay for a union’s political activities, it has concluded that they should contribute something toward a union’s cost of negotiating better wages and benefits for everyone.
The court’s conservatives, particularly Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., have long questioned whether these forced fees in the public sector violate free speech because they require employees to support a union they may oppose.While any ruling wouldn't affect private sector unions because only the government is required to abide by the First Amendment, its effect could be substantial nonetheless. The Teamsters represent more than 260,000 public sector workers, and millions are represented by other unions.
Representatives from the NEA, AFT, AFSCME, SEIU and the California Teachers Association said there is no reason the freedom of public workers to advocate for better services and communities should be curtailed as part of this case:
We are disappointed that at a time when big corporations and the wealthy few are rewriting the rules in their favor, knocking American families and our entire economy off-balance, the Supreme Court has chosen to take a case that threatens the fundamental promise of America—that if you work hard and play by the rules you should be able to provide for your family and live a decent life.
The Supreme Court is revisiting decisions that have made it possible for people to stick together for a voice at work and in their communities—decisions that have stood for more than 35 years—and that have allowed people to work together for better public services and vibrant communities.Government employees are not the enemy. They are just hardworking Americans doing what they can to keep a roof over their head and food on the table. Powerful interests are trying to demagogue these workers for their own political gain. Workers represented by unions shouldn't lose one of their only vehicles they have to fight for their rights.
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