Today's Teamster News 01.14.14

UPS Freight Teamsters Approve 5-Year Pact  Transport Topics   ...UPS Freight employees in the Teamsters union approved a five-year agreement that gives workers a total $2.50 per hour wage boost...
Three county union contracts nearing vote  Times Leader   ...Luzerne County Council in Pennsylvania is expected to vote this month on three new collective bargaining agreements with unionized workers, including members of Teamsters Local 401 in Wilkes-Barre...
After 2 strikes and 18 months, school bus drivers approve contract  Poughkeepsie Journal   ...After 18 months, two strikes and multiple charges filed, school bus drivers and monitors with Teamsters Local 445 approved a contract with Poughkeepsie-based Durham School Services that will improve working conditions and safety…
WV: Freedom Industries Has Ties to Koch Brothers  DailyKos   ...If news reports have left you with the impression that Freedom Industries - the company that has contaminated the water supply serving 300,000 people (and who knows how much wildlife) in nine West Virginia counties - is a rinky-dink Charleston operation, that might be because the media isn't mentioning its influential ties...
Lack of oversight questioned in West Virginia chemical spill  Salon   ...Reports question why state and company officials were so slow to respond to the leak...
Boeing Goes to Pieces  The American Conservative   ...Aerospace execs sell their industry to Japan­—one part at a time...
GOP lawmakers propose allowing 7-day work week in Wisconsin  Associated Press   ...Wisconsin manufacturing and retail workers could volunteer to work seven days straight without a day off under a bill two Republican lawmakers are circulating on behalf of the state's largest business group...
Per Capita Income: Wisconsin vs. Minnesota  Econbrowser   ...Real per capita income in Wisconsin has lagged Minnesota a cumulative 2.2% (log terms) since 2011...
Florida House panel votes to ban new red-light cameras  Daytona Beach News-Journal   ...Installation of new red-light cameras would be banned across the state under a bill that passed a key committee in the Florida House Thursday, signaling a renewed debate over the devices’ use to catch traffic light violations...
EU report reveals massive scope of secret NSA surveillance  DW   ...Moraes and his fellow rapporteurs showed themselves unconvinced that the NSA's only goal is the fight against terrorism, as the US government has claimed. In their draft report, European politicians suspect that there are instead "other power motives," such as "political and economic espionage."...
An Investment Manager's 2014 Update on the Top 1%  Who Rules America?   ...Wealth and income are streaming to the very top of the system and, particularly, to those who are direct or indirect beneficiaries of the financial industry. Professionals and workers have slipped further behind...
New report says millions of women at risk of falling into poverty, economic ruin  NBC News   ...a staggering number of women across the country are still teetering on the verge of poverty and economic disaster...
A Farewell to Retirement Security  In These Times   ...Here’s what the loss of pensions at Boeing means for U.S. workers...
BP loses bid over Gulf oil payouts  BBC News   ...BP has lost an appeal to cancel the terms of its multi-billion-dollar settlement with businesses over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster.  A US federal appeals court upheld the terms of the original 2012 settlement...
Now Neiman Marcus appears to have been hacked, too  Washington Post   ...Hours after we learned that the hack against Target was much worse than initially feared, the retailer Neiman Marcus has also admitted it was compromised during the holiday season...
Now We Know: JPMorgan Chase Is Worse Than Enron  Truthout   ...It's beginning to look as if JPMorgan Chase has had a hand in every major banking scandal of the last decade...
Feds investigating Christie’s use of money intended for Sandy relief  Salon   ...According to a CNN report, federal investigators are now looking into whether New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie steered Sandy relief funds to a firm that promised to feature him and his family in its ads to promote tourism at the Jersey Shore...
Unseasonably harsh weather kept a quarter of a million Americans home from work last month  Salon   ...And that was before the polar vortex...

Today's Teamster News 10.30.13

Newsday drives off with new union pact  New York Post   ...Just two weeks after rejecting a new labor contract, workers, who are members of the IBT/Graphic Communications Conference at Newsday, ratified the same pact that cuts 25 driver jobs but hikes pay for the remaining workers by 6 percent over four years...
Grocery worker contract vote begins Tuesday  KIRO TV   ...Voting on the proposed contract will take place at several locations Tuesday and Wednesday for the unionized grocery workers, including members of Teamsters Local 38...
YRC requests meeting with Teamsters for company update   Kansas City Business Journal ...YRC Worldwide Inc. is calling its members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters to Dallas to talk about the company's future...
UPS TCI Supplement Passes   teamster.org   ...The UPS TCI Supplement has passed by a vote of 87 to 12. That brings the total number of revoted local supplements and riders that have been approved by members to seven...
Rail optimistic on union deal as strike deadline nears  Reuters   ...Canadian National Railway Co., the country's largest railroad, said on Monday it is still talking with the union representing about 3,300 conductors and other workers and expects the two sides will be able to avoid a strike...
U.S. sham corporations aid drug lords  CNN   ... the Russian "Merchant of Death" Victor Bout used a global network of shell companies to move the funds of his international outfit, which authorities say provided weapons used to fuel conflicts throughout Africa, South America and the Middle East. At least 12 shell companies in Texas, Florida and Delaware have been linked to him...
Dutch Rabobank fined $1 billion over Libor scandal  Reuters   ...U.S. and European regulators have fined Dutch lender Rabobank $1 billion for rigging benchmark interest rates, making it the fifth bank punished in a scandal that has helped to shred faith in the industry...
'We got away with murder': £2.2m avoidance boast of Gordon Ramsay's tax expert in leaked memo  Daily Mail   ...Gordon Ramsay ‘really got away with murder’ as his company hid ‘incriminating evidence’ of alleged fraud from the taxman, a leaked memo claims...
The Coming Food Stamp Cut Will Hit 900,000 Veterans  ThinkProgress   ...Benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), otherwise known as food stamps, will automatically drop come Friday thanks to the loss of additional funds from the 2009 stimulus bill. That cut will hit about 900,000 of the country’s veterans...
Senate OKs Obama pick for NLRB general counsel  The Guardian   ...Senators voted 62-37 Tuesday to end Republican delaying tactics against Richard Griffin, who Obama nominated to be NLRB general counsel...The general counsel investigates and prosecutes cases before the board. Griffin is a Democrat and long-time labor lawyer...
Another View: Americans' appetite for Amtrak service growing (opinion)  Des Moines Register   ...On the heaviest traveled passenger rail corridor in the nation, the Northeast Corridor, Amtrak keeps breaking ridership records...
Municipal workers, nurses, pensioners protest against austerity  Cyprus Mail   ...Tuesday, in the Republic of Cyprus, was a day of protests outside parliament and the finance ministry as nurses, pensioners and municipality workers all gathered to voice their discontent at government imposed cuts. Municipality workers from trade unions PEO and DEOK went on strike for four hours to protest against a further 12 per cent cut to state funding for 2014...
8 Scary Facts About The Trans-Pacific Partnership   BuzzFeed   ...The Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, is a massive, secret trade agreement being negotiated behind the backs of Congress and the American people...
Brunei Sultan Raises More Worries About TPP   teamster.org   ...The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has rightfully come under fire for its potential to make things worse for workers and consumers both in the U.S. and the 11 other countries which are currently involved in negotiations...
Snyder rejected pension fund conditions  Detroit News   ...Gov. Rick Snyder’s testimony Monday in Detroit's historic Chapter 9 case marked a dramatic turn, featuring a sitting governor forced to defend a series of decisions likely to set a national precedent for union protections and pension rights in municipal bankruptcy...
Republican Says He'd Bring Back Slavery If His Constituents Asked Him To  AlterNet   ...A Nevada Republican sparked outrage after he told members of the GOP that he’d bring back slavery if that’s what his constituents wanted...
More follies from the Kasich circus! Toledo Blade   ...A Blade investigation of Ohio’s taxpayer-funded job-creation efforts discovered that businesses did not create thousands of jobs that state documents said they did. The probe also revealed that Ohio development officials awarded tens of millions of dollars to companies they knew little about. Much of that money is now lost...
Gov. Walker says he cannot yet comment on alleged discrepancies in his book  WKOW   ...Governor Scott Walker (R-Wisconsin) says he cannot yet comment on alleged discrepancies between what is reportedly published in his upcoming book and the recording of a phone conversation he had with a blogger posing as billionaire Republican donor David Koch on February 22, 2011...

Today's Teamster News 10.10.13

Ballots Sent to Some ABF Teamsters for Strike Vote  truckinginfo   ...Less-than-truckload carrier ABF has been notified by the Teamsters Union that ballots to authorize a strike are being mailed on Tuesday to nearly 1,800 employees covered by the Central Region Local Cartage supplement...
Teamsters again declare bargaining impasse with Pasco  Tampa Tribune   ...Three years after Pasco County workers voted to form a union, they still don’t have a contract. The Teamsters Local 79 declared impasse for the second time last Friday, which means both sides will again plead their case to a special magistrate...
All in the Family  teamster.org   ...Shelley Goodman has witnessed a lot of hardship in her 21 years as a Durham School Services school bus driver and Teamster organizer...
Hoffa: Government Shutdown A Financial Crisis for Workers  Detroit News   ...The Republican shutdown of the federal government is being felt not only in Washington, but here in Michigan as well. Workers, military members and even children are the unfortunate victims of the political budget games...
Labor takes time to celebrate Local's 100 years  Anderson Valley Post   ...On October 5, organized labor took some time off to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Teamsters Local 137 at the Shasta District Fairgrounds in Anderson...
Hoffa: Unions Need Global Solidarity  Huffington Post   ...In a few short decades, our country and our world have changed dramatically. In the last 30 years, America has gone from the world's biggest creditor nation to the one holding the world's largest debt...
Newsday driver jobs may be cut  New York Post   ...Cablevision is hoping to shave $10 million in costs from its money-draining Newsday operating by booting about 35 drivers, who are members of Graphic Communications Conference Local 406...
The Kochs Can't Control the Monster They Created  The Atlantic   ...The billionaire conservatives join the ranks of business interests trying to rein in the GOP's base, but it has turned into an unstoppable force...
Gallup: GOP approval at all-time low  Salon   ...A new poll finds the GOP with the lowest party approval rating in Gallup history...
Starting tomorrow, we’re down 90 percent of our nuclear safety regulators  Salon   ... efforts to make the reactors safer, such as changes meant to prevent something similar to what’s going on at Fukushima from happening here, will be put on hold...
There's an International Plan to Censor the Internet in the Works -- Let's Stop It in Its Tracks  Alternet   ...The lack of general awareness about the TPP is exactly what unelected trade officials and lobbyists hope for; the more covert the negotiations, the easier it is to usher in extreme new Internet censorship rules...
How Private Tech Companies Are Collecting Data on You and Selling Them to the Feds for Huge Profits  Alternet   ... Inside your mobile phone and hidden behind your web browser are little known software products marketed by contractors to the government that can follow you around anywhere...
New EPI Economic Indicator: Monthly Updates of the Number of “Missing Workers” and What the Unemployment Rate Would Be If They Were Looking for Work  Economic Policy Institute   ...if the nearly 5 million missing workers were looking for work and thus counted as unemployed, the unemployment rate in August would have been 10.1 percent instead of 7.3 percent...
McDonald's Employee Confronts Executive: I Can't Afford Shoes For My Children  The Real News   ...Salgado confronted the president of McDonald’s, Jeff Stratton, about her wages during his speech at the Union League Club of Chicago….She and six other protesters were given tickets for trespassing...
Thousands Join Teachers' Protest in Rio de Janeiro  Portside   ...March draws biggest turnout since wave of protests during Confederations Cup in June, and anarchist groups clash with police...
Michigan Education Association Retains 99% Of Members  WKAR Public Media   ...As we hear from The Michigan Public Radio Network’s Rick Pluta, the president of the Michigan Education Association says 99 percent of its members have opted to stick with the union...
School buses roll again in Boston; disgruntled drivers meet with bus company officials  Boston Globe   ...Hundreds of Boston school buses ferried students to schools yesterday morning with only a few delays, a day after a surprise strike by the drivers sent thousands of parents scrambling for alternatives...
When Giant Banks Pay Fines, Where Does the Money Go? Does It Stop Crime?  AlterNet   ...If somebody broke into your home and stole your belongings, you’d expect to see some serious consequences if they got caught. But when banks rob Americans—and even cast them out of their own homes illegally—the worst that usually happens is a fine...
Under Scott Walker, Wisconsin keeps increasing its long-term borrowing  The Cap Times   ...Gov. Scott Walker has honed his reputation as a fiscal conservative, taking credit for closing a $3.6 billion spending gap left from the Jim Doyle administration...
GOP bets on economy haven't paid off (opinion)  NWI Times   ...The way Gov. Mitch Daniels and fellow Republicans talked in early 2012, I was ready to set up a toll gate at the state line when the anti-union right-to-work bill was approved...
Bill Schuette to Michigan Supreme Court: Don't waste your time on right-to-work appeal  Detroit Free Press   ...The Michigan Supreme Court shouldn't waste its time taking up an appeal over one of the state's controversial right-to-work laws, Republican Attorney General Bill Schuette wrote in a court filing this week...

Straight from the elephant’s mouth

Longtime congressional staffer Mike Lofgren says the main function of today’s Republic Party is to make the party’s super-rich supporters even richer. All that other culture war saber-rattling is just the bait for working Americans to vote against their own economic interests.

That’s not exactly news to most of us who follow politics and economic issues in this country, but it is remarkable coming from Lofgren. He's a former GOP operative who puts all the cards on the table in a recent interview with Truthout.

Lofgren’s new book, “The Party is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted,” takes both parties to task for the decline of the middle class. But he saves much of his criticism for the GOP.

He told Truthout:

The primary purpose of the GOP these days is to provide tax breaks and other financial advantages (such as not regulating pollution and other socially costly externalities) to their wealthy donor base. All the rest of their platform, all the culture wars stuff, is simply rube bait.

These people know what they’re doing. They use a superficial populism tinged with craziness to further a rational, plutocratic agenda.

Lofgren blames much of the Republicans’ success on a complicit media and commercialized society:

Since the GOP is loath to tell the public in straightforward terms what their economic agenda is, and the media are not exactly forcing the GOP's hand, and, finally, the people are operating in a knowledge deficit, Republicans respond by sleight of hand: "We're more American than that Kenyan socialist in the White House!" Or "The Obama administration is riddled with Muslim extremists." Or "Planned Parenthood is taxpayer-subsidized murder." Or "Obama wants to take away your guns." Even "Obama raised your taxes," when in fact he lowered them.

While he credits the labor movement for the “upward arc” that led to a middle class in America, Lofgren says the movement has lost momentum in part because of a stultifying consumer culture:

[In the 1880s and 1930s] going on strike was a serious business that could get you killed. Governors routinely called out the national guard with orders to shoot to kill, and companies hired Pinkerton thugs to murder strike leaders. Yet, somehow, they got wage and hour laws, abolition of child labor, the recognition of unions, and other improvements… This movement ran out of steam. It may partly have been due to the very consumer society it created, because its fruits - particularly the electronic media - encouraged an atomization of society and a personalization of our problems and failures. Solidarity at the union hall doesn't cut it when American Idol is on.

Lofgren also points out how globalization has ended any sense of nationalism among the 1 percent:

So-called globalization resulted in our economic elites having a ready relief valve anytime workers become restive. And it effected a psychological change. Where our elites were once national, now they identify more with their elite counterparts in London, Tokyo, and Beijing than with their own countrymen of lesser means.

So what’s the solution? We need to get money out of politics:

There is so much money washing through the political system that political action through the traditional party system has been neutralized… Nothing will be solved in Congress until we get the money out of politics… But of course, doing that is a chicken-and-egg problem insofar as the current money-dominated system is designed precisely to prevent that from happening.

[But] these problems are not existential "givens." They arose because of stupidity and lack of attention, and they are amenable to solutions we can devise.

We only hope that Lofgren is right and that this party for the 1 percent will soon be over.

-- Union Thug

Here's a GOP presidential candidate who makes sense

 
We're pretty sure most Teamsters will like what former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer has to say.

Today's Teamster News 07.22.11

Plain Talk: 101-year-old disgusted with Walker's voter ID law  The Cap Times   ...“Are Scott Walker and his followers deliberately making it difficult for the elderly, disabled, poor and young to vote? My mother thinks so..."
SB 5 outlook looks grim in latest poll  Columbus Dispatch   ...Ohio's collective-bargaining law would be crushed out of existence if the vote were today, a new poll shows...
Ability to pay is top factor in labor disputes  Detroit Free Press   ...A local government's ability to pay will be the top factor an arbitrator considers when settling labor disputes involving police and fire departments under legislation signed Wednesday by Gov. Rick Snyder...
N.H. GOP struggles to stay afloat  Politico   ...At one point recently, the party had just $1,300 in its federal account, according to local reports, prompting its finance chairman, Bill Binnie, to hold a meeting of party leaders last week to discuss the situation...
N.J. unions halted donations for legislators before vote to overhaul pensions, benefits  NJ.com   ...Three major public worker unions’ committees stopped donating to state lawmakers while the legislators — who face elections in November — were preparing to vote on a landmark overhaul of pensions and health benefits...
Layoffs Deepen Gloom  Wall Street Journal   ...Companies are laying off employees at a level not seen in nearly a year, hobbling the job market and intensifying fears about the pace of the economic recovery...