Fast track flunkies go all out to try to force vote in Senate

Earlier this week, the Senate's top Democrat Harry Reid put his foot down on the fast track trade bill, saying he would not allow supporters to quickly jam the measure through the chamber. Well, not surprisingly, corporations and their lawmaker cronies didn't like that. So they are pushing back hard.

Protesters took a stand against fast track on Capitol Hill in April.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is forcing the issue by calling for a procedural vote known as cloture as soon as next week. If he can get 60 votes, the Senate can end debate on the matter and take a final vote on fast track. But whether he can get those 60 votes is the big question.

It could take a bipartisan effort to stop cloture. A handful of Democrats have decided to side with big business already on fast track, which means any vote will be very close. For U.S. workers and those who support fair trade, there is no margin for error.

Just in case anyone needed a reminder on why stopping fast track is essential, he is a primer: it would allow quick votes to be taken on bad trade deals like the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), with no chance to amend the deals. That is particularly insidious when details of trade agreements are shielded from public view.

Yet supporters are doing everything they can to push for fast track and the TPP. Today, President Obama is in Oregon to visit Nike Headquarters, and the company is doing all it can to shill for the trade deals. The company says it could create 10,000 new U.S.-based jobs at Nike if the Pacific Rim trade pact is approved. This is the shoe manufacturer, mind you, that is the poster boy for sweatshops worldwide.

Well the Teamsters aren't buy it, and the American public shouldn't either. As Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa said today:

The promise of job creation as a result of these unbalanced trade agreements is a just a broken record replaying the same corporate lies. We’ve heard it all before – and the middle class is tired of bearing the brunt of these unfair trade agreements.

Before NAFTA was passed, General Electric promised more than 10,000 new jobs would be created. Instead, GE eliminated 11,675 jobs directly due to increased competition from imports and offshoring under NAFTA. Chrysler promised 4,000 new jobs and it eliminated nearly 18,000 jobs. And just last month, Caterpillar announced it will move two production lines from Joliet, Illinois to Mexico, costing the community 230 jobs.

With a track record like this, you can understand why working men and women are skeptical of trade agreements. Global corporations like Nike take advantage of the rules outlined in trade deals like NAFTA and TPP. The system is rigged to benefit companies that move operations to countries where they can take advantage of low wages and weak labor protections. Nike alone employs 990,000 workers in low-wage countries.

We must not repeat the mistakes of the past by passing TPP and watching more manufacturing jobs leave our country while the middle class suffers.

It's time to take a stand against these big business bullies. If workers want to protect American jobs and their wages there is only one answer -- say no to fast track. Make sure to let the Senate know they should be doing the same.

Today's Teamsters News 05.07.15

Teamsters
Michigan Sysco Workers to Cast Ballots Amid Employer's Vicious Anti-Union Campaign  Teamster.org  ...Grand Rapids, Mich., Sysco workers will vote on Teamsters Local 406 representation Thursday after a months-long anti-union campaign waged by their employer, accused of multiple federal law violations during union organizing campaigns around the U.S...
Hoffa Statement On Reid Delaying Fast Track  Teamster.org  ...Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa in response to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid announcing he will not allow the chamber to quickly push fast track trade legislation through when it has a time-sensitive transportation funding bill on its plate: “Sen. Reid knows what America’s priorities should be. This Congress needs to figure out how to properly fund the nation’s transportation network"...
Teamsters’ Proposal At Funeral Services Company SCI Recommended By Leading Proxy Voting Advisor, ISS  Teamster.org  ...The country’s leading proxy voting advisor, ISS, recommends shareholders of Service Corporation of America vote for an equity retention proposal sponsored by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters at the company’s annual meeting on May 13...
Teamsters Join Community Leaders, Shareholders in Calling for Independent Monitoring Program at National Express AGM  Teamster.org  ...Today, the Teamsters Union and other institutional shareholders, along with community, faith and global labor representatives spoke at the National Express Group Annual General Meeting in London. They spoke in support of an independent monitoring program at the company’s U.S. school bus subsidiary, Durham School Services...
NAACP Leader, Member of Parliament Meet to Discuss Human Rights Concerns at National Express Group  Teamster.org   ...Doreen Lawrence, Baroness of Clarendon and a member of Britain’s House of Lords, met today with Dot Scott, president of the Charleston, S.C., chapter of the NAACP, on issues concerning civil rights, human rights and workplace conditions at Durham School Services in the United States. Durham is the school bus subsidiary of United Kingdom-based National Express Group PLC  and the second-largest school bus transportation company in the U.S...
Victory for Dispatchers and Mechanics of Keolis Transit   Teamsters Local 769  ...Today, May 6, 2015, the Dispatchers and Mechanics of Keolis Transit America Inc. in Fort Lauderdale, Florida unanimous voted “YES” to join our Brothers and Sisters at Teamsters Local 769. The election was conducted by the National Labor relation Board. There are 76 Bus Drivers in the bargaining unit...

Global Labor & Trade
Dem candidates slam Obama trade agenda  The Hill  ...Democratic Senate hopefuls are running hard against President Obama’s trade agenda. Swing-state Democrats are sounding the alarm that Obama’s free trade proposals, backed by their GOP opponents, would ship U.S. manufacturing jobs overseas and lead to greater unemployment at home...
Obama and Nike: Is company a model on trade - or a cautionary tale?  Oregon Live  ..."Nike is built on manufacturing shoes in countries with cheap labor costs," said Jason Stanford, spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based Coalition to Stop Fast Track, an anti-free trade group backed by labor unions and many other groups. "They're a big reason the shoe industry all looks like Nike now," with almost all of its products made overseas, he added...
Wall Street Titans Who Crashed Global Economy in 2008 Go Big for TPP  Common Dreams  ...Even as millions and millions of Americans continue to stand firmly in opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, those backing the TPP, including President Obama and a large majority of the Republican caucus, still have two dedicated demographic groups pledging their allegiance to the cause and arguing the so-called "free trade agreement (FTA)" would be good for average workers and the economy overall: billionaires and Wall Street titans...
Is free trade more important than ending forced labor?  The Hill   ...The proposed amendments are no-brainers. Why would the United States allow or improve commerce with a country that allows forced labor to be part of its economy? Why would the United States want to reward countries that fail so significantly to value human dignity? And why would the United States want to allow the importing of goods produced by children or those in bondage?...
German rail strike begins to slow Europe’s powerhouse  Financial Times  ...The strike has paralysed commuter services and disrupted commercial deliveries, raising fears about the power of small but influential unions to slam the brakes on industry in Europe’s biggest economy. The action by the train drivers’ union is due to last until Sunday morning...
China’s Manufacturing Hub Faces Labor Shortage and Higher Wages  Bloomberg  ...Salaries are rising, driven by improving productivity levels as manufacturers become more sophisticated and producers move up the value chain, the survey found. China’s policy makers are seeking to engineer a transition away from reliance on investment and cheap exports toward higher-end production, innovation, services and increased household consumption...

State & Living Wage Battles
New Jersey’s High Court Hears Christie’s Last Ditch Effort To Avoid Pension Payouts He Promised  Think Progress   ...When Christie failed to make the billions of dollars in payments he promised to 800,000 of the state’s working and retired public sector employees, more than a dozen of the state’s public worker unions filed suit. A lower court sided with the unions, ordering the state to pay an additional $1.6 billion into the pension funds this year. So the governor appealed the order to the state’s Supreme Court, which heard arguments this week...
These Are the American Workers Earning Less Than $15 per Hour  In These Times  ...According to the report, 42 percent of U.S. workers earn less than $15 an hour. More than half of African-Americans and 60 percent of Latinos make less than this figure. And 46.6 percent of those earning less than $15 are older than 35...
Labor Committee rejects Maine right-to-work bill  Main Sun Journal   ...he latest effort to make Maine a right-to-work state stumbled Wednesday, when lawmakers on the Legislature’s Labor Committee narrowly rejected a bill that would have allowed employees who benefit from collective bargaining to opt out of paying unions for those services...
Effort to repeal prevailing wage law likely to fail in committee today  Journal Sentinel  ...In March, Republican lawmakers passed right-to-work legislation to ban requirements that workers pay union fees, winning approval from Gov. Scott Walker even though he had said for years that it wasn't a priority for him. Now conservatives are targeting the prevailing wage, which sets pay for laborers on public works jobs such as bridges and highways...
New York governor proposes Wage Board to raise minimum wage  Yahoo News   ...New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Wednesday he would create a so-called Wage Board, a move apparently designed to allow him to raise the minimum wage without the approval of state lawmakers...
California city plans $16 minimum wage by 2019, highest in the U.S.  Reuters  ...Emmeryville, a small city in the San Francisco Bay Area, has given initial approval to the nation's highest minimum wage by setting baseline pay at $16 an hour in 2019, with gradual increases leading up to that level...

U.S. Labor
Chicago Therapists and Clients Protest Unexpected Closure of Major Mental Health Clinic  In These Times  ...Yesterday, around 100 people—including C4 staff and patients, activists with the Mental Health Movement, Arise Chicago and SEIU Local 73 members—rallied outside C4’s headquarters on Clark Street in the Uptown neighborhood. They called for a way to keep the clinics open—or at the very least, transparency in the crafting of a transition plan for over 300 staff who will lose their jobs...
Could Yale Graduate Students Be the Next to Unionize?  The Nation   ...Yale graduate students ramped up their organizing campaign on Tuesday as hundreds marched to deliver their union’s demands to the provost, calling for recognition and respect as part of the campus workforce. The action marks the latest push by the Graduate Employees and Students Organization (GESO-UNITE HERE) for official recognition...
AT&T workers in Dayton on grievance strike  Dayton Daily News  ...Around 300 AT&T workers in Dayton market walked out Wednesday from their jobs in a grievance strike, union officials with the Communications Workers of America Local 4322 said. The union, which represents call center, installation and repair technicians, has been in contract negotiations for several months with AT&T...

Miscellaneous
Transportation Emerges as Crucial to Escaping Poverty  New York Times  ...In a large, continuing study of upward mobility based at Harvard, commuting time has emerged as the single strongest factor in the odds of escaping poverty. The longer an average commute in a given county, the worse the chances of low-income families there moving up the ladder...
NSA phone data collection 'illegal', US court rules  BBC  ...A lower court judge erred in dismissing a lawsuit challenging the program's constitutionality, the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals said.
The ruling overturns a 2013 decision which said the programme was constitutional...

Reid is slowing down fast track in Senate

Local 657 members in San Antonio voiced their opposition to fast track last week.

Corporate elites everywhere received some bad news last night when Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced he would not allow the chamber to move forward with consideration of fast track trade legislation until other more time-sensitive measures are dealt with by lawmakers.

Reid, a strong opponent of fast track, said he would not concede to the whims of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who wants to speed fast track trade authority through the Senate before dealing with transportation and foreign intelligence measures that are brushing up against deadlines. He told the Huffington Post:

McConnell said he wanted to move to trade in the next two or three weeks, and I'm going to -- maybe he can, but I don't think he's going to have an easy time doing it, because I will not let him do that. We're not going to lay over, as I said, until we have some way to move forward on FISA and the surface transportation bill. He has some decisions to make and he's going to have to work around me and the caucus.

It's the latest bad news for big business, which has led the push for fast track because it knows its the only way it can get secret trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) approved. Late last week, House leaders conceded they didn't have the votes to get fast track passed. Add it together, and its almost enough to make a billionaire go bonkers.

More and more lawmakers are starting to see the glaring problems the Teamsters and other fair trade advocates have had with fast track. Lost jobs, lower wages and unsafe food and products are just a few of them.

But increasingly there are signs that U.S. trade is not living up to the promises of its proponents.
In fact, just this morning the Commerce Department released March trade figures showing the trade deficit soared by 43 percent over the previous month, reaching $51.4 billion. That's no way to create new American jobs.

Fast track is the wrong track for America!

Don't let Wall Street get its hands on Social Security

Will President Obama propose cuts to Social Security in his State of the Union address on Tuesday? That's the burning question among those who've noticed that the attacks on the middle class gathered steam since the November elections.

The peerless Dean Baker is bracing for Obama's speech. The economist hopes Senate President Harry Reid (a good Teamster friend) will thwart any attempt to gut the immensely popular, efficient and solvent Social Security system. Baker wrote a terrific piece in the Huffington Post, titled "Can Harry Be a Hero?" that's worth reading in its entirety. Baker explains why Social Security is under attack (Hint: It isn't because it's breaking the budget and it isn't because it's in financial trouble.)

There is no doubt that the forces arrayed against Social Security are enormously powerful. The wealthy hate the idea of government money going to anyone but them, and since the vast majority of Social Security benefits are going to low and middle-income families, the program is an outrage to their sensibilities.

The financial industry also knows a cash cow when they see one. It would take more than $10 trillion in private accounts to generate the same amount of money as Social Security pays out each year in benefits. If the financial industry collected just 1.0 percent of this sum in fees each year, it would mean another $100 billion a year into the coffers of the Merrill Lynch set.

If you're worried about Social Security, and you should be, go to the website for "Strengthen Social Security."  There you'll find what you can do to fight the latest attempts by Wall Street to destroy the middle class.

Links 07/14//10

Fed Sees Slower Growth Wall Street Journal
Monthly Trade Gap Is Biggest Since '08 Wall Street Journal
Obama and the Pink Scare Wall Street Journal
FedEx Looks to 777s To Deliver an Edge Wall Street Journal
New York press banks on foreclosures New York Times
Harry Reid sets vote on Wall Street reform Politico
The Democrats' middle-class problem Politico
Job market's a gray area: older workers outnumber teens Bloomberg
Study: Many workers' retirement savings will run out too soon Associated Press

Links 07/13/10

Finance Bill Close to Passage in Senate Wall Street Journal
Avis Aims To Outbid Rival Hertz for Dollar Wall Street Journal
Chinese Factories Now Compete to Woo Laborers New York Times
No extension of unemployment benefits in sight for the long-term jobless Washington Post
Harry Reid stresses job-based agenda Politico
Unions step up 2010 election pressure The Hill
Labor increases the pressure on GOP centrists ahead of July work session The Hill
House GOP To Make Jobs a Priority The Hill