Today's Teamster News 11.17.15

TEAMSTERS
EVSC ratifies agreement with Teamsters  14 News  ...The EVSC school board ratified its agreement with Teamsters Local 215 on Monday. EVSC union members have been working under a tentative agreement with the school corporation. The contracts are for non-teaching positions, like custodians and other support staff. The board president calls it "a fair agreement"...
Uber Drivers, Taxis to Rally at Seattle City Hall  Local 117  ...Drivers will rally at City Hall on Wednesday, November 18 at 11 A.M. to highlight unfair working conditions in Seattle’s for-hire transportation industry and to demand fair pay, a level playing field, dignity, and respect. At the event, drivers will address a variety of issues such as public safety, driver safety, insurance regulations, deactivation, and low pay...
Teamster vote Nov. 23-24 at Threshold Enterprises  Santa Cruz Sentinel  ...Elena Cruz, 46, said she gets up at 3:30 a.m. so she can drive from her home in Castroville to Santa Cruz to start her 5 a.m. shift at Threshold Enterprises. She works in shipping and packaging for the privately held nutritional supplement-maker. She came to the Sentinel with two co-workers to explain why they support the union, which is negotiating a new contract to replace one for 600 workers that expired Sept. 16 and facing a decertification election on Nov. 23 and 24...

GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
Obama’s trade deal is in trouble  The Hill  ...President Obama’s trade deal with 11 other Pacific Rim countries is in deep trouble with Congress. Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) haven’t decided whether they’re going to support the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) — even after they helped the president win fast-track authority in a bruising interparty fight that was meant to ease its passage...
Anti-TPP Protesters in Washington, DC Call on Congress to Reject TPP Trade Deal  Sputnik News  ...The US Congress must not approve the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement and should start new trade talks on a deal that would raise working, environmental and human rights standards, US advocacy group PopularResistance.org Co-Director Margaret Flowers told Sputnik....
Putin questions U.S.-led TPP trade pact arrangements  Japan Times  ...Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized on Tuesday the way the U.S.-backed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal is being arranged, saying the “clandestine talks” do not promote stability in the Asia-Pacific region. His comments were published on the Kremlin website just before this week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum...
The TPP's Children's Table: Labor Rights and Currency   Truthout  ...The TPP has two classes of issues. On the one hand, there are the issues that really matter to the drafters of the deal. These are issues like protection of patents and copyrights and other forms of investment. That is the story of the adult table. The children's table is for issues that are of concern to labor rights, human rights and environmental rights activists...
More labour strikes in South African fruit industry  Fresh Plaza  ...More than 1500 workers, all members of FAWU employed by the Du Toit Agri Pty Ltd Group in Ceres, Prince Alfred Hamlet and Humansdorp in the Eastern Cape went on a strike Thursday, 12 November in demand of a wage increase and better working conditions. The company is said to be the leading packing and exporter of fruit and vegetables in the country. Last week a strike involving 2,000 banana workers at organic producer Umbhaba Banana Estates Farms, took place...
How the Paris Attacks Are Changing the EU’s Debate on Refugees  The Atlantic  ...The revelation that one of the suicide bombers who carried out Friday’s attacks on Paris entered Europe last month through the Greek island of Leros has complicated the increasingly fragile European plan to handle an historic migrant and refugee crisis. More than 700,000 people have entered Europe this year from the Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere...

STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
Lawmakers feel new influence to raise the minimum wage  Statesman Journal  ...Oregon lawmakers are under renewed pressure to raise the state's $9.25 minimum wage. If lawmakers won't, several coalition groups have said, the issue will be decided by Oregon voters on the 2016 ballot. Monday afternoon, protesters at the Senate Interim Committee On Workforce and General Government broke into chants of "Fifteen now" and "Black lives matter"...
Voter photo ID, ethics reform among top priorities for Missouri Senate Republicans  Missourinet  ...State Senate Republicans have caucused and the filing of bills will begin December 1. The man who can decide what does and doesn’t reach the Senate floor in the 2016 session said he can’t rank legislative priorities, but Mike Kehoe (R-Jefferson City) told Missourinet there are some issues that stand out. Voter photo ID will be proposed again...
Legislation cut California’s workers’ compensation medical costs  SacBee  ...Three years ago, Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature enacted a major overhaul of the system that compensates workers for job-related injuries and illnesses. Senate Bill 863, backed by employers and labor unions, affected many specific aspects of the system but was aimed largely at reducing medical costs and redirecting savings into cash benefit increases for disabled workers...
'Poverty Pay' Leads Walmart Employees to Skip Lunch or Steal it From Co-Workers  Alternet  ...Walmart employees are so poor that they are skipping lunch, sharing it or, in some cases, stealing it from their coworkers, some of the company’s workers claimed on Thursday while announcing a fast in protest of the company’s wages. Starting Friday morning, over 100 Walmart associates who are members of Our Walmart, a workers organization, and about a 1,000 supporters will begin a fast to shine light on what they describe as Walmart’s “poverty pay”...

U.S. LABOR
General Motors and UAW Union Delay Ratifying New Contract  Fortune  ...Disagreement between production workers and skilled trades workers at General Motors plants has pushed back the formal ratification of the United Auto Workers’ four-year labor agreement with the car company. The so-called Big Three automakers—Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, GM, and Ford—have all entered negotiations with the UAW...
Ford UAW workers voting on new contract today  WDRB ...Ford's 9,000 UAW members in Louisville are voting on a new contract today. The new contract will set wages and working conditions for Ford workers, and includes a number of pay increases, including an $8,500 signing bonus for each UAW member. If passed, it also comes with more than a billion dollars in upgrades to Louisville's two Ford plants...
Metro, Transit Union At Odds Over Contract  WVXU  ...The Amalgamated Transit Union Local 627 is encouraging members to attend Tuesday morning's Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority (SORTA) board meeting to speak out about the current contract situation. In a letter, the president of the union representing Metro employees told members their health insurance rates will dramatically increase next month despite the lack of a new contract...

Union of Sonoma County government employees plans strike Tuesday  Press Democrat  ...The largest group of unionized Sonoma County government employees is set to go out on a one-day strike Tuesday, protesting what it contends is a stingy contract offer from the county, bad faith in negotiating at the bargaining table and other issues it says amount to unfair labor practices...
8 in 10 Hotel Workers Have Been Harassed at Work  The Nation  ...As part of UNITE HERE!’s Housekeeper’s Global Week of Action campaign, the hospitality workers of Long Beach, California, rallied on Thursday to push the City Council to adopt a set of labor standards that would limit their workloads and strengthen protection from assault...
Kohler workers reject offer, OK first union strike at company since 1983  Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel  ...Union workers went on strike at Kohler Co. on Sunday after overwhelmingly rejecting what the firm had called its "last, best and final offer." Ninety-four percent voted down the Kohler proposal, Tim Tayloe, president of UAW Local 833, told cheering workers after the ballots were tallied...

SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
For-profit educator to pay $95.5M over recruitment tactics  CBS News  ...Federal officials on Monday said they reached a $95.5 million settlement with the nation's second-largest for profit educator, accused of running a high-pressure boiler room where admissions personnel were paid based purely on the number of students they enrolled. The civil settlement with Education Management Corporation, the biggest yet involving false claims to the Department of Education, stems from a case first brought by whistleblowers...
The GOP’s devious Wall Street welfare plan: Why the future of the economy hangs in the balance  Salon  ...This is a consequential week for the future of financial regulation. Republicans have pulled out a successful playbook: stick as many riders onto two must-pass bills as possible, holding them hostage to conservative ideology. The bills include a long-term reauthorization of the Highway Trust Fund, which expires shortly, and a package of appropriations bills to keep the government funded...
Predictable and Deplorable: Over Half of US Governors Vow to Slam Door on Refugees  Common Dreams  ...In what appears to be a textbook case of xenophobia and political fearmongering in the wake of a tragedy, more than a dozen U.S. governors have declared their states off-limits to Syrian refugees in the days following Friday's terror attacks in Paris. In a statement Monday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the country's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization, decried the rolling announcements as "un-American"...
Here We Go Again? Muslim Americans Brace for a Backlash After Paris  The Nation  ...When news of the Paris attacks spread, Muslim, Arab, and South Asian activists in the United States began a process that has become all too familiar in the 14 years after 9/11. In the midst of expressing their grief, Muslim, Arab, and South Asian advocates are also placed in the position of having to monitor for a backlash against their own communities...
Number of people killed by US police in 2015 at 1,000 after Oakland shooting  The Guardian  ...The number of people killed by law enforcement in the US this year has reached 1,000 after officers in Oakland, California, shot dead a man who allegedly pointed a replica gun at them. Authorities said several officers opened fire on the man on Sunday evening when he walked toward them as they towed away cars that had been used to perform so-called “sideshow” stunts in east Oakland...

Today's Teamster News 10.30.15

TEAMSTERS
Florida Teamsters Endorse Patrick Murphy for Senate  Teamster.org   ...Teamsters are proudly endorsing Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Fla.) in his election campaign for U.S. Senate in Florida.
Murphy has been a strong advocate for workers in the U.S. House of Representatives for Florida’s 18th congressional district since 2013...
Port Truck Strike Spreads to Warehouses  Capital & Main  ...While drivers with port trucking companies have been organizing and striking repeatedly over the last few years, they have recently begun coordinating with warehouse workers to increase pressure on the logistics industry. The Teamsters have entered into a partnership with the Warehouse Worker Resource Center, a nonprofit advocacy group for warehouse workers, and have prioritized organizing the thousands of workers in the warehouse and distribution industry...
Misclassified Port Truck Drivers Strike Gold Point Transportation  Teamster.org  ...Misclassified “independent contractor” port drivers employed by Gold Point Transportation, which is owned by 3Plus Logistics Co., which also owns Harbor Express, Inc., which has been the subject of wage theft claims by its drivers, went on strike yesterday to protest unfair labor practices including misclassification and wage theft. They are picketing at the company yard as well as at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach...
Union Works Swiftly to Secure First Contract at Standard Coffee  Local 727  ...After only three negotiation meetings with management, Teamsters Local 727 representatives have secured an agreement on a strong first contract for Standard Coffee members. The majority of the contract matches or exceeds the provisions in the contracts for Hinckley Springs inside and outside workers, which Teamsters Local 727 also represents. Standard Coffee is a division of Hinckley Springs...

GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
Several green groups outline demands for Pacific trade pact  The Hill  ...More than a dozen environmental and conservation groups on Thursday laid out eight pages of demands that they say lawmakers must use to judge the strength of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement. The groups, led by the Sierra Club, are sending a letter to members of Congress well in advance of an expected vote on the sweeping Asia-Pacific deal that was completed nearly a month ago with 11 other nations...
Anti-trade Democrats say Obama’s Pacific Rim trade pact is for the dogs  Washington Post  ...No one on Capitol Hill has been more dogged in opposing President Obama's Pacific Rim trade pact than Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and her small band of fiercely anti-trade House Democrats. On Thursday, they trotted out a new partner in their fight: Roxy, a 2-year-old bloodhound that they put on the trail to sniff out the elusive text of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)...
USTR releases TPA-mandated transparency plan  Politico  ...The Obama administration outlined for Congress this week its plan to tackle the thorny issue of transparency in future trade negotiations. The trade consultation and engagement guidelines transmitted by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative are a requirement of the fast track trade promotion authority law, required to be released 120 days after the legislation was enacted...
U.S. wary of EU proposal for investment court in trade pact  Reuters  ...The United States is wary of a European Union proposal for a new court system to settle investment disputes as part of the world's biggest free-trade agreement, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said. The proposals come after concerns that U.S. multinationals could use private arbitration rules in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) to challenge European food and environmental laws...
Trans-Pacific Partnership divides auto parts industry  CBC  ...As the auto parts sector awaits the appointment of a new trade minister, the industry is split over the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the trade deal that Canada signed and will soon have to ratify. New revelations from the still secret deal show that Canada agreed to phase out its 6.1 per cent tariff on imports of Japanese vehicles over a five-year period...
Brazil's Lula Urges Workers' Party to Back Austerity  Voice of America  ...Former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva urged the ruling Workers' Party on Thursday to back fiscal austerity measures in Congress, endorsing the efforts of Finance Minister Joaquim Levy to plug a gaping deficit. Members of Lula's leftist party have opposed moves by Lula's protégée, President Dilma Rousseff, to cut public spending...
Home of Uzbek Labor Rights Activist Burned  Solidarity Center  ...Uzbek labor rights activist Dimitry Tikhonov says his home office has been burned and all the equipment and documentation he collected on Uzbekistan’s use of forced labor in the country’s cotton harvests has been destroyed. No other room in his home was touched by the fire, he says. In late September, Tikhonov was arrested and beaten by police as he took photos of some 20 busloads of teachers and school employees forced into the cotton fields...

STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
Voter ID Laws and the Ghosts of Jim Crow  Huffington Post  ...The basic contours of the public discourse on voter ID laws are fairly clear. In-person voting fraud is rare. As Judge Richard Posner has concluded, restrictive voter ID laws are mainly the product of Republican legislatures targeting Democratic-leaning constituencies. Chief among those Democratic constituencies are African Americans and Latinos...
Massachusetts Immigration Reform 2015: Statewide 'Sanctuary City' Policy Pushed By Lawmakers, Has Bipartisan Opposition  IBTimes  ...Massachusetts, which advocates for “sanctuary cities,” the controversial policy instructing local police officers not to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement agents, may soon push for a statewide shielding of undocumented immigrants. Emboldened by a handful of existing sanctuary cities, at least two dozen state lawmakers have backed a proposal that would make the commonwealth a safe haven...
Study: 42 percent of Minneapolis workers don't have paid sick time  Star Tribune  ...About 123,000 Minneapolis workers don't have access to paid sick leave, according to a new analysis from the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Women's Policy Research. The report, released Thursday, says that number amounts to about 42 percent of Minneapolis residents ages 18 and older...
Portland 'clearly needs' a higher minimum wage, City Club says  Oregon Live  ...Portland needs a higher minimum wage, and state lawmakers should overturn a law that prevents cities from setting higher minimums, according to a City Club of Portland report released Thursday. Nine members of the civic group began studying the contentious issue in April...

U.S. LABOR
Janitorial workers reach 11th hour deal with managment association to avert strike  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette  ...A Pittsburgh union representing 1,000 commercial office cleaners reached an agreement Thursday with its management association, averting a strike just two days before the current contract was set to expire. Members of the 32BJ local, a part of the Service Employees International Union, voted to strike if the sides failed to reach a deal...
UAW-GM deal would improve newer workers' health plan  Detroit Free Press  ...UAW negotiators bargained significantly better health care coverage for about 11,000 General Motors workers hired since October 2007 and the automaker will pay for most of it. But if a majority of 52,700 workers ratify the tentative agreement reached last weekend...
House Panel Advances Bill to Clarify Joint Employer Standard   Littler  ...Following a series of congressional hearings on the National Labor Relations Board's Browning-Ferris decision, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce voted on Wednesday to advance a bill that would effectively reverse the Board's action in that case. The Committee voted 21-15 along party lines to send the Protecting Local Business Opportunity Act (H.R. 3459) to the House floor...
Macy’s Will Make Employees Work On Thanksgiving Day  Think Progress  ...Macy’s announced on Thursday that its doors will be open this holiday season, starting at 6 p.m. Thanksgiving evening. Sales will continue through Black Friday and the weekend in over 700 of its retail stores nationwide.
Macy’s, along with 12 other major retailers like Target, Best Buy, and JCPenny, made employees come in to work on Thanksgiving Day in last year...

SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
Why 4 Boys In South Carolina Have Been Shackled In Solitary Confinement For 6 Weeks  Think Progress  ...A thirty minute drive from Spring Valley High School, where Officer Ben Fields slammed and dragged a teenage girl out of her desk, several young boys have been shackled and locked in solitary confinement for close to six weeks with little to no human contact.
On September 19, corrections officers at the Broad River Road Complex, a detention center for kids aged 12 to 18 in Columbia, South Carolina, confronted a group of boys who were roughhousing...
Seething With Anger, Probe Demanded into Exxon's Unparalleled Climate Crime  Common Dreams  ...A broad coalition of community groups along with prominent leaders from the nation's top civil rights, environmental, and indigeneous people's movements on Friday sent a joint letter to the U.S. Department of Justice demanding a federal investigation into allegations that oil giant ExxonMobil knew about the role fossil fuels played in driving climate change since the 1970s but concealed that information—and later sought to discredit those issuing warnings—in order to protect its own financial interests...
Ted Cruz’s Tax Plan Hands The 1 Percent A Massive Break  Think Progress  ...On Thursday evening, Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) released a tax plan that calls for a flat tax of 10 percent that would end up with a benefit for the wealthiest 1 percent that dwarfs what everyone else would get. Corporations also get a big windfall. While they would lose all of the loopholes they use to lower their on-paper tax rate of 35 percent to about 19 percent, they would still see it drop further to a 16 percent “Business Flat Tax”...

Today's Teamster News 04.16.15

Teamsters
Big San Bernardino County union now Teamsters Local 1932   San Bernardino Sun   ...The San Bernardino Public Employees Association, which for more than 75 years has independently represented county, city and state employees across the Inland Empire, is now a chapter affiliate of Teamsters Local 1932. Results of the vote were announced Tuesday by SBPEA General Manager Deidre Rodriguez, with 3,143 members voting for Teamsters affiliation...
UPS driver saves choking woman  Fox Atlanta   ...Bryant got out of his delivery truck and performed the Heimlich maneuver while the woman's daughter called 911. Luckily, the 83-year-old victim was able to dislodge that piece of food. Paramedics then took her to a local hospital...
Teamsters take stand against fast track  Teamster Nation  ...The Teamsters joined some 1,200 fellow union members and fair trade advocates at a Capitol Hill rally today to call on Congress to stop pushing for fast track trade promotion authority that would allow a quick up-or-down vote on bad trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)...

Global Labor & Trade
The populists capture the Democratic Party  Washington Post   ...A quartet of senators and a dozen members of the House took the stage in a park across from the Capitol midday Wednesday to join hundreds of steelworkers, union faithful and environmentalists in denouncing President Obama’s bid for fast-track approval of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal...
‘Fast track’ trade authority is a mistake for most businesses  The Hill  ...When it comes to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the devil is in the details. As we understand it, the TPP will be terrible for the majority of U.S. businesses, and could prove devastating for American innovation...
Why President Obama's trade agenda just turned into a food fight Vox  ...UFCW hasn’t opposed all trade deals in the past. As the group’s chief, Marc Perrone, points out in the op-ed, the union supported the US-Korea free-trade agreement — at a time when major labor groups were divided on it. So UFCW’s defection signals an erosion of Obama’s trade coalition...
Progressives Take Stand as Fast Track Fight Kicks into High Gear on Capitol Hill  Common Dreams ...With legislation to speed up congressional approval of the Trans Pacific Partnership and other corporate-friendly trade deals on the verge of being introduced in Congress, a coalition of elected officials, labor unions, and environmental groups gathered outside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday to voice their vehement opposition to such a bill...
AFL-CIO seeks to turn Dems against Obama on trade  CNN  ...Labor unions are launching a new advertising campaign prodding Democratic lawmakers to break with President Barack Obama on free trade. The AFL-CIO will meet the introduction of a bill to fast-track Pacific Rim and European pacts with a six-figure online and radio advertising campaign targeting 16 Democrats in the Senate and 36 in the House, the group told CNN...
Special courts for foreign investors  The Hill  ...On the precipice of the biggest congressional trade debate in decades, a once-arcane investment provision has become a lightning rod of controversy in the intensifying battle over whether Congress should revive Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), also known as “fast track,” for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) calls this provision a system of “rigged, pseudo-courts”...
MEPs Want Health Excluded From TTIP Talks  EurActiv   ...Members of the Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) on Tuesday (14 April) voted in favour of an opinion which calls for five health-related areas to be excluded from the Transatlantic Trade and Investment partnership (TTIP) negotiations between the EU and the United States...

State & Living Wage Battles
Largest-Ever Strike Hits Fast Food Industry In 230 Cities  Think Progress   ...On Wednesday, fast food workers walked off the job in 230 cities, staging the largest-ever strike in their movement aimed at a $15 minimum wage and the right to form a union. The movement began with a single strike in New York City at the end of 2012 but has grown increasingly larger as the Fight for 15 movement has staged nine other days of coordinated strikes since then...
Hotel Industry Spins Wage Hikes as Extreme While CEOs Rake in Millions  Truthout.org  ...Omni Hotel CEO Robert Rowling is one of the richest people in the world, says Forbes, with a net worth of some $5.8 billion. Rowling has given huge contributions to Karl Rove’s American Crossroads and the Koch Brother’s Freedom Partners, which contribute to politicians across the nation working to block higher wages, paid sick days and union representation...
Fight for $15: Tens of Thousands Rally as Labor, Civil Rights & Social Justice Movements Join Forces  Democracy Now   ...Low-wage workers in the United States have staged their largest action to date to demand a $15-an-hour minimum wage, with some 60,000 workers walking off the job in more than 200 cities. The "Fight for $15" campaign brought together fast-food workers, home-care aides, child-care providers, Wal-Mart clerks, adjunct professors, airport workers and other low-wage workers...

Emanuel calls for City Council hearings on Rauner's 'right-to-work' zones  Chicago Sun Times   ...The public rift between Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his pal, Gov. Bruce Rauner, got wider Wednesday over Rauner’s provocative proposal to create local “right-to-work” zones. At a City Council meeting, Emanuel introduced a resolution declaring opposition to the governor’s plan...
Taxation Without Representation  Huffington Post   ...For the vast majority of Americans, "taxation without representation" isn't just a relic of high school social studies -- it's a perfect description of their relationship with a political system that's been thoroughly corrupted by money. A 2014 Princeton University study comparing 1,779 policy outcomes to more than 20 years of public opinion data found that "the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy"...
FEMA Is Preparing For The “Very Real Possibility” Of Urban Oil Train Disasters  Salon.com   ...The Federal Emergency Management Agency has begun to take on the task of sketching out scenarios for oil train derailments in densely populated urban areas, the Wall Street Journal reports. Last month, this took the form of an exercise involving New Jersey firefighters and emergency workers...
Repeal Of Estate Tax Rewards Billionaires, Punishes Working Americans  Huffington Post   ...Who deserves a break more these days: a struggling working family, or the heir to a billion-dollar fortune? According to the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, it's the billion-dollar baby. Recently, the House voted for a budget that would end tax credits for many working families that put $1,000 a year in their pockets, on average...
Wage Gains Won’t Last, Unless Fight for 15 Builds Worker Power (opinion) Counterpunch   ...Fight for 15 has been remarkably successful on wages, but unless it is trying to increase worker’s power on the job, any wage and benefit improvements won through public pressure, negative publicity, and community-based protest activity will be hard to sustain in the absence of ongoing workplace organization or networks of some sort...

U.S. Labor
Alabama Whistleblower Fired and Sued After Protesting Conditions NBC News   ...Selma, Alabama, factory worker who was fired, sued and slapped with a restraining order after leading a protest march is in court Wednesday to demand she be allowed to continue her fight for safer working conditions at the auto parts plant...
USW Rejects LyondellBasell's 'Last, Best and Final' Offer  Houston Press  ...After two days of voting, the final count came in late Tuesday night. Despite the fact that USW 227 members have been on strike since February 1, walking away from their jobs, paychecks and health insurance, the union members voted to continue the local strike...
Today’s Personality Tests Raise The Bar For Job Seekers  Wall Street Journal   ...In 2001, 26% of large U.S. employers used pre-hire assessments. By 2013, the number had climbed to 57%, reflecting a sea change in hiring practices that some economists suspect is making it tougher for people, especially young adults and the long-term unemployed, to get on the payroll...
The Insidious Way Corporate Thieves Are Stealing Workman's Comp Alternet   ...The infamous anti-labor bully, Wal-Mart, is among the leaders, but so are such prestigious chains as Macy's and Nordstrom, along with Lowe's, Kohl's and Safeway. Their goal is to gut our nation's workers compensation program, freeing corporate giants to injure or even kill employees in the workplace without having to cover all (or, in many cases, any) of the lost wages, medical care or burial expenses of those harmed...

Miscellaneous
Warren Blasts Government for Ignoring 'Blatantly Criminal Activity' on Wall Street   Common Dreams  ...In remarks on Wednesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren criticized the failure of both federal regulators and Justice Department officials to prosecute or otherwise hold to account Wall Street banks and financial institutions despite their long and steady pattern of "blatantly criminal activity"...
U.S. Consumers Open Their Wallets, Cautiously  Wall Street Journal ...Sales at retailers and restaurants increased 0.9% last month to a seasonally adjusted $441.4 billion, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. That was the biggest monthly gain in a year, but it was still down from November, when retail sales reached their highest level since the end of the recession...
Don’t Be So Happy About That Tax Refund  FiveThirtyEight   ...Most Americans don’t seem to have much problem with lending their money to the Treasury interest-free. The Bankrate survey found that 57 percent of respondents wanted to receive a refund, versus 27 percent who hoped to neither owe money nor get any back. That isn’t too surprising. Getting a government check in the mail (or direct-deposited into your bank account) feels like a windfall...

Today's Teamster News 07.28.14

Trade
Report: Germany To Reject EU-Canada Trade Deal  Globe and Mail   ...Germany is to reject a multi-billion free trade deal between the European Union and Canada which is widely seen as a template for a bigger agreement with the United States, a leading German paper reported on Saturday. Citing diplomats in Brussels, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung said Berlin objects to clauses outlining the legal protection offered to firms investing in the 28-member bloc. Critics say they could allow investors to stop or reverse laws...
Apocalypse Preview: Chinese River Turns Blood-Red  zero hedge   ...An inner city waterway in the eastern city of Wenzhou was found to have been inundated by an influx of blood-red water this morning...
The Factory in the China Food Scandal Is Foreign-Owned. That Could Have Made It a Target  Time   ...An undercover investigation by a Chinese TV station, which aired on Sunday, claimed that a factory in Shanghai owned by Illinois-based OSI Group was shipping the fast-food giants expired meat. Later, coffee-shop chain Starbucks in China and McDonald’s outlets in Japan got dragged into the mess, as they, too, had meat from the suspect factory in their products...
State Battles
Ohio Has Lost 25,000 Local Government Jobs Under John Kasich  Plunderbund   ...Ohio has seen “nearly 25,000 jobs lost in local government” since John Kasich has been governor of Ohio.  And “median incomes in Ohio have fallen about $7,000 over the past decade...”
City seeks $2M from unions  Racine Journal Times   ...Looking for help to close a projected a $4.6 million deficit next year, administration officials at City Hall are seeking $2 million in concessions from police and fire unions...
War on Workers
Steel jobs have plummeted by a third since 2000  NWI Times   ...Northwest Indiana's steel industry, which once drew immigrants from the world over and put bread on many tables for generations, has lost a third of its jobs since 2000...
Corporate Artful Dodgers (opinion)  New York Times   ...The federal government still gets a tenth of its revenue from corporate profits taxation. But it used to get a lot more — a third of revenue came from profits taxes in the early 1950s, a quarter or more well into the 1960s...
World of Resistance Report: IMF, World Bank, Giant Consultants Admit the Storm is Coming  truthout   ...three issues are prevalent in terms of assessing the fears and threats facing the global elite: 1) growing inequality, 2) decline of public trust in institutions of all kinds, and 3) the resulting social unrest...
Financial Predators Move On From Foreclosure Rescue, Enter Student Debt, Military Lending Spaces  naked capitalism   ... These scams are basically all the same: empty promises about obtaining a modification in exchange for up-front cash, with all the promises broken down the road. In this case, the offending parties happen to be law firms, who made the impression on the victims that they would provide legal representation in securing a modification...
Mike Mathieu: Big Data is Watching You  Next New Deal   ...In a darker turn, we begin to see a loss of human freedoms as behavior is increasingly predicted, tracked, and incentivized according to data models...
NSA Helps Crush Dissent at Home and Abroad  Washington Blog   ...The National Security Agency last year significantly expanded its cooperative relationship with the Saudi Ministry of Interior, one of the world’s most repressive and abusive government agencies. An April 2013 top secret memo provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden details the agency’s plans “to provide direct analytic and technical support” to the Saudis on “internal security” matters...
Auto shop worker killed when car falls on him  WIVB   ...The accident happened Friday afternoon at Yuya Complete Auto Repair on Skillen Street in Buffalo...
Miscellaneous
Outside money drives a deluge of political ads  New York Times   ... An explosion of spending on political advertising on television — set to break $2 billion in congressional races, with overall spots up nearly 70 percent since the 2010 midterm election — is accelerating the rise of moneyed interests and wresting control from the candidates’ own efforts to reach voters...