Trade
Japan economy minister says TPP agreement difficult by year-end: report Reuters ...Japan's Economy Minister Akira Amari said on Saturday he saw progress in Asia-Pacific regional trade negotiations, although it would be difficult to reach an agreement by the end of the year, according to Jiji press...
US says TPP is its priority, as China touts free-trade zone AFP ...A China-backed vision for Asia-Pacific free trade is only a "long-term aspiration", a top US commerce official said Sunday, stressing that Washington remains focused on its own plans for a regional trade agreement...
US rules out major Trans-Pacific trade announcement at APEC Business Recorder ...There will be no "major announcement" on a Washington-backed Asia-Pacific free trade deal during a meeting of leaders from the region in Beijing this week, US Trade Representative Michael Froman said on Sunday...
State Battles
Republicans rule in the Missouri and Kansas statehouses, and the consequences could be profound Kansas City Star ...Missouri: The GOP is also expected to once again take aim at public employee unions by making it more difficult for them to collect dues from members. However, allowing employees in the private sector covered by union contracts to refuse to pay union dues or fees — more commonly known as right to work — still appears too steep a hill to climb, even with larger legislative majorities....Kansas: There also might be a run at limiting collective bargaining rights for teachers, especially after the teachers unions spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in a failed attempt to defeat Brownback this year...
Nearly half of Indiana's charter schools doing poorly or failing WTHR ...nearly half of the state's 76 charter schools are doing poorly or failing...
Common construction wage at risk next year Kokomo Perspective ...If the common wage is eliminated, it will result in job loss and lower wages for local workers, according to Chet Fincher, business agent for the Carpenters Local 615...
How Voter Suppression Helped Produce the Lowest Turnout in Decades The Intercept ...the evidence is piling up that systematic voter suppression, including voter ID laws and dubious vote-fraud prevention software, played a significant part in keeping people from casting ballots, as well...
War on Workers
5 New Lows for Walmart—Just Last Month UK Progressive ...From slashing employee healthcare, to stalling on wage increases, to investing in unsustainable energy and selling offensively labeled Halloween costumes, Walmart has stooped to new lows in October. Walmart workers have been fighting back, such as two weeks ago when hundreds of employees and their supporters ralliedin front of Walmart heiress Alice Walton’s luxury New York City condo. Twenty-six of them were arrested...
A Blank Page in the S.E.C. Rule Book, Four Years Later New York Times ...Executives should return compensation earned improperly as a result of accounting shenanigans at their companies. But four years after Congress told the Securities and Exchange Commission to write a rule making it easier to recover unearned pay, that rule remains unwritten...
Lenders Can Now Disable Your Car When You're Driving on the Freeway Alternet ...Car dealers and automotive lenders are targeting those with poor credit by installing GPS-based kill switches, or starter-interrupt devices, on the cars that they sell...
Kaci Hickox, boyfriend leaving Maine after Ebola quarantine fight Portland Press Herald ...the couple will stay through Monday, after which a state court order expires and Hickox will no longer have to submit to daily health monitoring, inform state officials of travel plans and let them know if her health changes...
Worker killed in fall at Gillette-area power plant Casper Star Tribune ... Authorities are investigating after a worker was killed in a fall at a power plant in Gillette...
Worker at Ohio bowling alley dies when clothing gets caught in machinery, authorities say New York Daily News ...A maintenance worker at an Ohio bowling alley died Thursday in what a former colleague calls a "freak accident." David Geiger, 53, passed away when his clothing got caught in machinery while he was working on a pinsetter at Northwest Lanes in Fairfield, WCPO reported...
Showing posts with label KS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label KS. Show all posts
Sunday, November 9, 2014
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
Today's Teamster News 11.05.14
Teamster News
Teamsters, Human Rights Groups Decry Inaction By Salvadoran Government On Gilberto Soto Murder teamster.org ...A full-page ad scheduled for publication in tomorrow’s edition of El Salvador’s largest daily newspaper denounces the government for its continued inaction on the 10th anniversary of the assassination of Gilberto Soto, a representative of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Soto was killed while visiting El Salvador to establish fraternal relations with transport workers there and throughout Central America...
Rep. Marcy Kaptur celebrates victory at Teamsters Hall NBC24.com ...Rep. Kaptur arrived at the Teamsters Hall around 10 p.m. to thunderous applause from the crowd of about 100 that were assembled...
Voting No On 1 To Repeal AO 37 Will Save Anchorage Millions (opinion) Alaska Dispatch News ...Each year, Anchorage receives millions of dollars in federal grants that finance much of our public transit system. Since 2007, Anchorage has been awarded over $31 million in federal transit grants. If AO 37 remains law, Anchorage will lose eligibility for that funding, but will not lose the expense of replacing buses and maintaining bus stops...
ArcBest Sees Increase In Third-Quarter Revenue, Production Levels Fort Smith Times Record ...McReynolds said the new labor deal between ABF Freight and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters ratified last October is “tracking as expected” and the savings of $55 million to $65 million would be realized...
Sysco Keeps Planning For US Foods Merger Amid Delay Houston Chronicle ...The Teamsters Union is worried that jobs will be cut in regions where Sysco and US Foods overlap. The group represents more 7,600 Sysco warehouse workers and drivers and 4,000 US Foods warehouse workers. It said in its October newsletter that 2,500 jobs are at stake...
Trade
Agribusiness: TPP Won’t Be Decided This Month WHO ...U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman says the final agreement on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will not be made at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit this month in Beijing...
State Battles
Republican Scott Walker wins Wisconsin governor race Capital Gazette ...Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker has won re-election, Reuters/Ipsos projected on Tuesday, prevailing in a tough fight against Democratic challenger Mary Burke...
Gov. Paul LePage wins a second term; Michaud concedes Bangor Daily News ...Paul LePage, the outspoken former businessman who rode a Republican wave into the governor’s mansion and late-night talk show jokes in 2010, has won re-election in Maine...
Kasich, GOP roll in Ohio election Newark Advocate ...Gov. John Kasich led a Republican statewide trouncing of Democrats Tuesday night, assuring Kasich's spot in the discussion about GOP presidential candidates...
Wolf Ousts Corbett in Pa. Governor's Race NBCDFW.com ...Democrat Tom Wolf, who gave $10 million of his own money to underwrite an early TV ad campaign that endeared the businessman and first-time candidate to voters, unseated Gov. Tom Corbett on Tuesday, sending the unpopular incumbent to a historic defeat...
Republican Gov. Rick Scott Defeats Democrat Charlie Crist in Florida Wall Street Journal ...Republican Gov. Rick Scott of Florida won re-election Tuesday, fending off a vigorous challenge from Democrat Charlie Crist and providing the GOP a boost in a key swing state ahead of the 2016 presidential election...
GOP Gov. Rick Snyder Defeats Democrat Mark Schauer in Michigan Wall Street Journal ...Michigan Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, who acknowledged voters’ discontent with the state’s economy recovery, locked up his re-election Tuesday on a promise to help place workers in better-paying jobs...
Brownback Wins in Kansas, Keeping Alive Tax-Cut Crusade Bloomberg ...Kansas Governor Sam Brownback won a second term, surviving a backlash to an anti-tax crusade that pitted him against fellow Republicans and tested voters’ patience for the Tea Party agenda...
California Voters Deal Blow To Prisons, Drug War Huffington Post ...Nonviolent felonies like shoplifting and drug possession will be downgraded to misdemeanors under the ballot measure, Proposition 47. As many as 10,000 people could be eligible for early release from state prisons, and it's expected that courts will annually dispense around 40,000 fewer felony convictions...
War on Workers
Riding Wave of Discontent, G.O.P. Takes Senate New York Times ...Propelled by economic dissatisfaction and anger toward the president, Republicans grabbed Democratic Senate seats in North Carolina, Colorado, Iowa, West Virginia, Arkansas, Montana and South Dakota to gain their first Senate majority since 2006...
To Angry Voters, Washington Comes Out the Biggest Loser New York Times ...Optimism about the future was in short supply in this a-pox-on-all-your-houses climate. And the sense of pessimism appears greater than in the last big election: Nearly two-thirds of voters say the nation is on the wrong track, up from a little over half in 2012...
Construction Worker Killed In Turnpike Crash WMTW ...A worker has been killed in an accident at a construction site on the Maine Turnpike in York, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration...
Uber And Its Shady Partners Are Pushing Drivers Into Subprime Loans ValleyWag ...Instead of mortgages, this time a bubble has formed around auto loans, and reliably ruthless Uber is in the thick of it. Two "partners" in Uber's vehicle financing program are under federal investigation, but Uber hasn't slowed its aggressive marketing campaign to get drivers with bad credit to sign up for loans...
Chipotle Faces Wage Theft Allegations From Workers Franchise Herald ...Chipotle employees from Colorado and Minnesota are alleging that the company often makes workers continue their services "off the clock" without pay. Several of these employees wrote official court statements explaining that they had to continue to clean up their restaurant locations despite the time keeping system clocking them out at 12:30 a.m...
Judge Orders Joseph Esposito To Sit For Deposition After Ebola, ISIS Excuses Were Deemed ‘Not Satisfactory’ New York Daily News ...City lawyers contended that Emergency Management Commissioner Joseph Esposito was too busy to be deposed for an Occupy Wall Street-related civil suit last week because of the Ebola crisis....Esposito, 64, was slated to answer questions under oath last week for a suit brought by a woman who says she was wrongly arrested during the Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011...
Miscellaneous
NSA Chief Bet Money On AT&T As It Spied On You Daily Beast ...At the same time Gen. Keith Alexander was running the National Security Agency, the United States’ biggest spying outfit, he was also trading stocks in an obscure technology company that had a sweetheart deal with one of the NSA’s most important sources of intelligence—the global phone and Internet giant AT&T...
Teamsters, Human Rights Groups Decry Inaction By Salvadoran Government On Gilberto Soto Murder teamster.org ...A full-page ad scheduled for publication in tomorrow’s edition of El Salvador’s largest daily newspaper denounces the government for its continued inaction on the 10th anniversary of the assassination of Gilberto Soto, a representative of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Soto was killed while visiting El Salvador to establish fraternal relations with transport workers there and throughout Central America...
Rep. Marcy Kaptur celebrates victory at Teamsters Hall NBC24.com ...Rep. Kaptur arrived at the Teamsters Hall around 10 p.m. to thunderous applause from the crowd of about 100 that were assembled...
Voting No On 1 To Repeal AO 37 Will Save Anchorage Millions (opinion) Alaska Dispatch News ...Each year, Anchorage receives millions of dollars in federal grants that finance much of our public transit system. Since 2007, Anchorage has been awarded over $31 million in federal transit grants. If AO 37 remains law, Anchorage will lose eligibility for that funding, but will not lose the expense of replacing buses and maintaining bus stops...
ArcBest Sees Increase In Third-Quarter Revenue, Production Levels Fort Smith Times Record ...McReynolds said the new labor deal between ABF Freight and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters ratified last October is “tracking as expected” and the savings of $55 million to $65 million would be realized...
Sysco Keeps Planning For US Foods Merger Amid Delay Houston Chronicle ...The Teamsters Union is worried that jobs will be cut in regions where Sysco and US Foods overlap. The group represents more 7,600 Sysco warehouse workers and drivers and 4,000 US Foods warehouse workers. It said in its October newsletter that 2,500 jobs are at stake...
Trade
Agribusiness: TPP Won’t Be Decided This Month WHO ...U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman says the final agreement on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will not be made at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit this month in Beijing...
State Battles
Republican Scott Walker wins Wisconsin governor race Capital Gazette ...Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker has won re-election, Reuters/Ipsos projected on Tuesday, prevailing in a tough fight against Democratic challenger Mary Burke...
Gov. Paul LePage wins a second term; Michaud concedes Bangor Daily News ...Paul LePage, the outspoken former businessman who rode a Republican wave into the governor’s mansion and late-night talk show jokes in 2010, has won re-election in Maine...
Kasich, GOP roll in Ohio election Newark Advocate ...Gov. John Kasich led a Republican statewide trouncing of Democrats Tuesday night, assuring Kasich's spot in the discussion about GOP presidential candidates...
Wolf Ousts Corbett in Pa. Governor's Race NBCDFW.com ...Democrat Tom Wolf, who gave $10 million of his own money to underwrite an early TV ad campaign that endeared the businessman and first-time candidate to voters, unseated Gov. Tom Corbett on Tuesday, sending the unpopular incumbent to a historic defeat...
Republican Gov. Rick Scott Defeats Democrat Charlie Crist in Florida Wall Street Journal ...Republican Gov. Rick Scott of Florida won re-election Tuesday, fending off a vigorous challenge from Democrat Charlie Crist and providing the GOP a boost in a key swing state ahead of the 2016 presidential election...
GOP Gov. Rick Snyder Defeats Democrat Mark Schauer in Michigan Wall Street Journal ...Michigan Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, who acknowledged voters’ discontent with the state’s economy recovery, locked up his re-election Tuesday on a promise to help place workers in better-paying jobs...
Brownback Wins in Kansas, Keeping Alive Tax-Cut Crusade Bloomberg ...Kansas Governor Sam Brownback won a second term, surviving a backlash to an anti-tax crusade that pitted him against fellow Republicans and tested voters’ patience for the Tea Party agenda...
California Voters Deal Blow To Prisons, Drug War Huffington Post ...Nonviolent felonies like shoplifting and drug possession will be downgraded to misdemeanors under the ballot measure, Proposition 47. As many as 10,000 people could be eligible for early release from state prisons, and it's expected that courts will annually dispense around 40,000 fewer felony convictions...
War on Workers
Riding Wave of Discontent, G.O.P. Takes Senate New York Times ...Propelled by economic dissatisfaction and anger toward the president, Republicans grabbed Democratic Senate seats in North Carolina, Colorado, Iowa, West Virginia, Arkansas, Montana and South Dakota to gain their first Senate majority since 2006...
To Angry Voters, Washington Comes Out the Biggest Loser New York Times ...Optimism about the future was in short supply in this a-pox-on-all-your-houses climate. And the sense of pessimism appears greater than in the last big election: Nearly two-thirds of voters say the nation is on the wrong track, up from a little over half in 2012...
Construction Worker Killed In Turnpike Crash WMTW ...A worker has been killed in an accident at a construction site on the Maine Turnpike in York, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration...
Uber And Its Shady Partners Are Pushing Drivers Into Subprime Loans ValleyWag ...Instead of mortgages, this time a bubble has formed around auto loans, and reliably ruthless Uber is in the thick of it. Two "partners" in Uber's vehicle financing program are under federal investigation, but Uber hasn't slowed its aggressive marketing campaign to get drivers with bad credit to sign up for loans...
Chipotle Faces Wage Theft Allegations From Workers Franchise Herald ...Chipotle employees from Colorado and Minnesota are alleging that the company often makes workers continue their services "off the clock" without pay. Several of these employees wrote official court statements explaining that they had to continue to clean up their restaurant locations despite the time keeping system clocking them out at 12:30 a.m...
Judge Orders Joseph Esposito To Sit For Deposition After Ebola, ISIS Excuses Were Deemed ‘Not Satisfactory’ New York Daily News ...City lawyers contended that Emergency Management Commissioner Joseph Esposito was too busy to be deposed for an Occupy Wall Street-related civil suit last week because of the Ebola crisis....Esposito, 64, was slated to answer questions under oath last week for a suit brought by a woman who says she was wrongly arrested during the Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011...
Miscellaneous
NSA Chief Bet Money On AT&T As It Spied On You Daily Beast ...At the same time Gen. Keith Alexander was running the National Security Agency, the United States’ biggest spying outfit, he was also trading stocks in an obscure technology company that had a sweetheart deal with one of the NSA’s most important sources of intelligence—the global phone and Internet giant AT&T...
Saturday, November 1, 2014
Today's Teamster News 11.01.14
Teamster News
FedEx Freight Workers In New Jersey Vote To Join Teamsters Local 701 teamster.org ...A group of 113 drivers at FedEx Freight’s South Brunswick, N.J., terminal voted today to join Teamsters Local 701. The vote was 66 to 42...
Teamsters Local 988 Laundry Drivers Ratify Contract teamster.org ...Laundry drivers and members of Teamsters Local 988 in Houston have voted unanimously to ratify a two-year contract with Angelica Textile...
The Ballot Box Is The Great Equalizer For Workers (opinion) Huffington Post ...There are real consequences for workers if they don't make it to the ballot box,...
NYC Carriage Horses Clip-Clop Away While De Blasio Stalls Bloomberg Businessweek ...New York Mayor Bill de Blasio assured animal-rights activists during his run for City Hall that he would rid Central Park of horse-drawn carriages, which he called inhumane….Now, 10 months into his term, tourists still pay $50 for a 20-minute trot through the park, while at City Hall, a draft for legislation has yet to be written and no one is saying why....
Nicholas Lanzilli Secures Additional Endorsements Medford Transcript ...I am honored to receive additional endorsements by a number of respected groups in the area. ...Teamsters Local 25...
Teamsters Trumpet Unemployment Payout To LA-LB Port Truck Driver Journal of Commerce ...A Los Angeles-Long Beach port truck driver who said she was misclassified as an independent contractor was awarded a check for $9,000 in unemployment benefits by the California Employment Development Department this week, giving Teamsters fuel in their campaign to organize local drayage drivers...
Unfinished Construction Has Protesters Marching Near The West Lake Landfill Fox 2 St. Louis ...Unfinished construction work along St. Charles Rock Road has demonstrators raising public health concerns...
Trade
TTIP Debate Suffering From Lack Of Transparency The Parliament Magazine ...The transatlantic trade and investment partnership (TTIP), currently being negotiated between the EU and the US, is by far the most controversial agreement the EU has ever negotiated. Since the start of discussions, opposition has been growing among the civilian population and certain political parties, despite the fact that the final content of the project cannot be discussed in detail, even one year on...
State Battles
McConnell victory could make Kentucky right-to-work Politico ... “Should the Kentucky House go Republican,” writes Labor & Employment’s Mike Elk, “state Senate Majority Leader Damon Thayer has already said that his first priority will be to pass a right-to-work bill.” Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear would likely veto, but to no avail: In Kentucky, all it takes to override a gubernatorial veto is a simple majority of both houses...
Mark Schauer will ax the 'retirement tax' - and Republicans will help him Michigan Live ...If Mark Schauer is elected governor, you can probably kiss the reviled "retirement tax" and other tax hikes goodbye...
All about absentees? Michigan Democratic Party push appears to be paying off in early returns Michigan Live ...One out of every three or four residents who vote in Michigan's general election could do so via absentee ballot before the polls even open on Tuesday, and early indications suggest the trend may benefit Democrats...
Ohio May Disenfranchise Voters For Technical Errors ThinkProgress ...election officials in Ohio can throw out legitimate absentee and provisional ballots that have small errors — such as leaving out a middle name — and in many cases they don’t have to give the voter a chance to fix the problem...
Closing Argument: Kochs Fight To Save Candidate Cronies In Critical Election RealKochFacts ...learn more about Republican candidates who share the Koch agenda and are being propped up by the secretive billionaires in North Carolina, Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, Kentucky, Michigan, Oregon,Wisconsin, and Florida...
Midterms 2014: Candidates With Ties To Pension Business May Gain Control Of State Pension Funds International Business Times ...government ethics experts express concern that governors drawn from the ranks of companies that manage pension money could bring an inherent conflict of interest: Their duty to do right by taxpayers and retirees could be pitted against their personal financial interests and their loyalties to longtime Wall Street associates...
“Indescribably insane”: A public school system from hell Salon ...The needs of [Philadelphia] children are secondary, however, to a right-wing governor in Tom Corbett who remains fixated on breaking the district in order to crush the teachers union and divert money to unproven experiments like vouchers and privately run charters. If the city’s children are left uneducated and impoverished among the smoldering wreckage of a broken school system, so be it...
San Francisco To Raise Minimum Wage To $11.05 Per Hour Reuters ...San Francisco will raise the city's minimum wage to $11.05 per hour from the start of next year, up from $10.74 currently, the mayor's office said on Thursday...
Kansas tax cuts fail again, as new revenue numbers plague Sam Brownback but help Paul Davis Kansas City Star ...In October, individual income tax receipts were almost $27 million below what the state had estimated it would take in, or a jarring 15 percent off expectations. Why does that matter? Because this is the tax that Brownback and the Legislature cut in 2012. The promise then was that more jobs would flood Kansas, eventually pumping back up income tax collections. That’s not working — at all...
More Than 750 people Turn Out For Meeting On Oil-Train Study Seattle Times ...State officials are proposing more funding and more regulatory authority to step up oversight of the surging numbers of oil trains carrying crude through Washington, and to better prepare for any possible spills...
Donors get special access to GOP governors as potential 2016 contenders Washington Post ...One key to the [Republican Governors' Association] fundraising prowess is the exclusive donor access effort, called the Executive Roundtable program, which gives wealthy contributors up-close access to governors at quarterly policy seminars. The initiative has helped create a permanent network of high-net-worth donors who augment the group’s funding from corporation...
War on Workers
Judge in Maine Eases Restrictions on Nurse New York Times ...In a victory for a nurse who treated Ebola patients in West Africa, a judge in Maine on Friday rejected arguments by the state that her movements should be firmly restricted, praising her “compassion” even as he acknowledged the public’s fears about the virus...
Casino Closings Take Toll On Atlantic City Travel Press of Atlantic City ...Fewer cars, buses, airport passengers and rail riders are heading to Atlantic City following the shutdown of three casinos in recent weeks, the latest travel figures show...
Police: Construction worker killed by dump truck DelawareOnLine ...State troopers and emergency crews are on the scene of a fatality in Lewes where a construction worker was hit by a dump truck, police said...
Lafayette construction worker dies on the job KLFY ...Scott Police responded to a 911 call just before 9 a.m. Tuesday regarding a Scott Materials employee that was fatally injured on the job...
Miscellaneous
Starbucks to deliver coffee to your desk starting in 2015 Los Angeles Times ...The delivery service will be available through Starbucks Corp.’s mobile app, which currently lets customers pay at the store through their phone, Schultz said...
Lack of mechanics threatens U.S. Air Force target date for F-35 Reuters ...The U.S. Air Force may miss its target of August 2016 to start using the Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jet in combat if Congress blocks the service's plan to retire its A-10 tank-killer aircraft, a top U.S. general said...
FedEx Freight Workers In New Jersey Vote To Join Teamsters Local 701 teamster.org ...A group of 113 drivers at FedEx Freight’s South Brunswick, N.J., terminal voted today to join Teamsters Local 701. The vote was 66 to 42...
Teamsters Local 988 Laundry Drivers Ratify Contract teamster.org ...Laundry drivers and members of Teamsters Local 988 in Houston have voted unanimously to ratify a two-year contract with Angelica Textile...
The Ballot Box Is The Great Equalizer For Workers (opinion) Huffington Post ...There are real consequences for workers if they don't make it to the ballot box,...
NYC Carriage Horses Clip-Clop Away While De Blasio Stalls Bloomberg Businessweek ...New York Mayor Bill de Blasio assured animal-rights activists during his run for City Hall that he would rid Central Park of horse-drawn carriages, which he called inhumane….Now, 10 months into his term, tourists still pay $50 for a 20-minute trot through the park, while at City Hall, a draft for legislation has yet to be written and no one is saying why....
Nicholas Lanzilli Secures Additional Endorsements Medford Transcript ...I am honored to receive additional endorsements by a number of respected groups in the area. ...Teamsters Local 25...
Teamsters Trumpet Unemployment Payout To LA-LB Port Truck Driver Journal of Commerce ...A Los Angeles-Long Beach port truck driver who said she was misclassified as an independent contractor was awarded a check for $9,000 in unemployment benefits by the California Employment Development Department this week, giving Teamsters fuel in their campaign to organize local drayage drivers...
Unfinished Construction Has Protesters Marching Near The West Lake Landfill Fox 2 St. Louis ...Unfinished construction work along St. Charles Rock Road has demonstrators raising public health concerns...
Trade
TTIP Debate Suffering From Lack Of Transparency The Parliament Magazine ...The transatlantic trade and investment partnership (TTIP), currently being negotiated between the EU and the US, is by far the most controversial agreement the EU has ever negotiated. Since the start of discussions, opposition has been growing among the civilian population and certain political parties, despite the fact that the final content of the project cannot be discussed in detail, even one year on...
State Battles
McConnell victory could make Kentucky right-to-work Politico ... “Should the Kentucky House go Republican,” writes Labor & Employment’s Mike Elk, “state Senate Majority Leader Damon Thayer has already said that his first priority will be to pass a right-to-work bill.” Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear would likely veto, but to no avail: In Kentucky, all it takes to override a gubernatorial veto is a simple majority of both houses...
Mark Schauer will ax the 'retirement tax' - and Republicans will help him Michigan Live ...If Mark Schauer is elected governor, you can probably kiss the reviled "retirement tax" and other tax hikes goodbye...
All about absentees? Michigan Democratic Party push appears to be paying off in early returns Michigan Live ...One out of every three or four residents who vote in Michigan's general election could do so via absentee ballot before the polls even open on Tuesday, and early indications suggest the trend may benefit Democrats...
Ohio May Disenfranchise Voters For Technical Errors ThinkProgress ...election officials in Ohio can throw out legitimate absentee and provisional ballots that have small errors — such as leaving out a middle name — and in many cases they don’t have to give the voter a chance to fix the problem...
Closing Argument: Kochs Fight To Save Candidate Cronies In Critical Election RealKochFacts ...learn more about Republican candidates who share the Koch agenda and are being propped up by the secretive billionaires in North Carolina, Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, Kentucky, Michigan, Oregon,Wisconsin, and Florida...
Midterms 2014: Candidates With Ties To Pension Business May Gain Control Of State Pension Funds International Business Times ...government ethics experts express concern that governors drawn from the ranks of companies that manage pension money could bring an inherent conflict of interest: Their duty to do right by taxpayers and retirees could be pitted against their personal financial interests and their loyalties to longtime Wall Street associates...
“Indescribably insane”: A public school system from hell Salon ...The needs of [Philadelphia] children are secondary, however, to a right-wing governor in Tom Corbett who remains fixated on breaking the district in order to crush the teachers union and divert money to unproven experiments like vouchers and privately run charters. If the city’s children are left uneducated and impoverished among the smoldering wreckage of a broken school system, so be it...
San Francisco To Raise Minimum Wage To $11.05 Per Hour Reuters ...San Francisco will raise the city's minimum wage to $11.05 per hour from the start of next year, up from $10.74 currently, the mayor's office said on Thursday...
Kansas tax cuts fail again, as new revenue numbers plague Sam Brownback but help Paul Davis Kansas City Star ...In October, individual income tax receipts were almost $27 million below what the state had estimated it would take in, or a jarring 15 percent off expectations. Why does that matter? Because this is the tax that Brownback and the Legislature cut in 2012. The promise then was that more jobs would flood Kansas, eventually pumping back up income tax collections. That’s not working — at all...
More Than 750 people Turn Out For Meeting On Oil-Train Study Seattle Times ...State officials are proposing more funding and more regulatory authority to step up oversight of the surging numbers of oil trains carrying crude through Washington, and to better prepare for any possible spills...
Donors get special access to GOP governors as potential 2016 contenders Washington Post ...One key to the [Republican Governors' Association] fundraising prowess is the exclusive donor access effort, called the Executive Roundtable program, which gives wealthy contributors up-close access to governors at quarterly policy seminars. The initiative has helped create a permanent network of high-net-worth donors who augment the group’s funding from corporation...
War on Workers
Judge in Maine Eases Restrictions on Nurse New York Times ...In a victory for a nurse who treated Ebola patients in West Africa, a judge in Maine on Friday rejected arguments by the state that her movements should be firmly restricted, praising her “compassion” even as he acknowledged the public’s fears about the virus...
Casino Closings Take Toll On Atlantic City Travel Press of Atlantic City ...Fewer cars, buses, airport passengers and rail riders are heading to Atlantic City following the shutdown of three casinos in recent weeks, the latest travel figures show...
Police: Construction worker killed by dump truck DelawareOnLine ...State troopers and emergency crews are on the scene of a fatality in Lewes where a construction worker was hit by a dump truck, police said...
Lafayette construction worker dies on the job KLFY ...Scott Police responded to a 911 call just before 9 a.m. Tuesday regarding a Scott Materials employee that was fatally injured on the job...
Miscellaneous
Starbucks to deliver coffee to your desk starting in 2015 Los Angeles Times ...The delivery service will be available through Starbucks Corp.’s mobile app, which currently lets customers pay at the store through their phone, Schultz said...
Lack of mechanics threatens U.S. Air Force target date for F-35 Reuters ...The U.S. Air Force may miss its target of August 2016 to start using the Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jet in combat if Congress blocks the service's plan to retire its A-10 tank-killer aircraft, a top U.S. general said...
Thursday, October 2, 2014
Today's Teamster News 10.02.14
Teamster News
City Sanitation Workers Get In The Pink For Breast Cancer Awareness Month New York Daily News ...The 6,300 members of the Sanitation Department will be wearing pink ribbons on their green uniforms for the next 31 days in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. “This has touched a lot of us throughout the department,” said sanitation worker Brian Tullo, whose mother battled breast cancer. ..
BLET Members Convene 3rd National Convention teamster.org ...BLET National President Dennis R. Pierce delivered his state of the union speech during the opening session of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen's Third National Convention...
New Legislation Aimed At Curbing Ridesharing Controversy In DC WUSA ...The Teamsters Local 922, which has formed an association with more than one thousand independent Washington taxi drivers, also issued a statement criticizing Cheh's bill. The legislation "does not do enough to provide for public safety, industry stability, or equity for taxi drivers," the Teamsters statement said...
Trade
The vulnerability of being ill informed: the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement and Global Public Health Journal of Public Health ...the TPPA poses serious risks to global public health, particularly chronic, non-communicable diseases. At greatest risk are national tobacco regulations, regulations governing the emergence of generic drugs and controls over food imports by transnational corporations...
State Battles
Kansas: Continued Budget Hemorrhaging Econbrowser ...Tax collections by Kansas state government in September fell a sobering $21 million below projections to mark the fourth time in the past six months revenue failed to match targets, officials said Tuesday...
Wisconsin Has 3rd-Lowest Business Start-Up Rate In Country, According To Census Data Wisconsin Public Radio ...According to the data, about 5,700 businesses with employees were created in Wisconsin in 2012, which constitutes less than 6 percent of all Wisconsin firms. Only Iowa and West Virginia had lower rates for the year...
In Wisconsin, A Push For Voter ID Law, But Not Voter IDs Center for Media and Democracy ...The Advancement Project and ACLU have noted that the state would need to issue 6,000 IDs per day to protect the right to vote. Yet two-thirds of the state's Department of Motor Vehicles offices are only open part-time, and just one is open on Saturday, making it exceptionally difficult for working people to get an ID or to drive a friend or family member who doesn't have one...
Report: Fla. voters had country’s longest waits to cast ballots Miami Herald ...Voters in Florida waited far longer than those in other states to cast their votes in the 2012 election, hampered by long ballots and cutbacks in early voting options, according to a new report by congressional auditors...
National union leader visits Maine to back Michaud, condemn LePage ‘right to work’ push Bangor Daily News ...The president of the nation’s largest unionized labor organization came to Maine on Wednesday to boost Democratic U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud’s campaign for governor, calling the congressman “a friend of the working people, whether they’re union or not.”...
NJ’s minimum wage rising in January by 13 cents Asbury Park Press ...The 1.59 percent increase, from $8.25 an hour to $8.38, is required under a constitutional amendment approved by 61 percent of voters last November that raised the mimimum wage by $1 and provided for automatic yearly increases to keep pace with inflation...
Minimum wage to rise to $8.10 for Ohio workers in 2015, up 15 cents cleveland.com ...The increase, announced Tuesday by the Ohio Department of Commerce, will benefit workers employed by companies with annual gross receipts greater than $297,000 a year...
Court Blocks Part of New North Carolina Voting Law Associated Press ...Parts of North Carolina's new voting law, considered one of the toughest in the nation, were set aside for next month's elections because they were likely to disenfranchise black voters, a federal appeals court panel ruled Wednesday...
War On Workers
Two years after college, too many grads are still 'adrift' The Hill ... Two years after graduation, 24 percent of graduates have been forced to move back home with their parents. No less shocking, 74 percent of college graduates "are receiving financial support from their families." Moreover, 23 percent of graduates who are "in the labor market are unemployed or underemployed," that is, they find themselves in jobs in which they work fewer than "20 hours per week" or where the majority of peer employees "have not completed even a year of college." Finally, a mere 47 percent of working graduates enjoy full-time jobs that "pay $30,000 or more annually," and this at a time when the average debt load for students who borrowed to attend college stands at $29,400...
Wal-Mart’s New Scheme To Prey On America’s Poor Salon.com ...to open an account, you have to buy a $2.95 “starter kit” from Walmart. There’s also a minimum deposit of $20 required. A visit to an out-of-network ATM will get you a $2.50 charge, and customers who do not keep a balance of $500 a month will get hit with a fee of $8.95. This last bit is especially worrying: if you suddenly lose your job, you can quickly rack up burdensome fees...
Worker Killed in Valley Forklift Accident WOWT ...Valley police say George Young was using a standing forklift Monday night while working at Midwest Manufacturing. At some point, the machine backed into a shelving unit and pinned him...
Miscellaneous
September U.S. Consumer Confidence Unexpectedly Drops Wall Street Journal ...U.S. consumers unexpectedly pulled back on their economic optimism in September, according to a report released Tuesday. The Conference Board, a private research group, said its index of consumer confidence fell to 86.0 in September from a revised 93.4 in August, first reported as 92.4...
City Sanitation Workers Get In The Pink For Breast Cancer Awareness Month New York Daily News ...The 6,300 members of the Sanitation Department will be wearing pink ribbons on their green uniforms for the next 31 days in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. “This has touched a lot of us throughout the department,” said sanitation worker Brian Tullo, whose mother battled breast cancer. ..
BLET Members Convene 3rd National Convention teamster.org ...BLET National President Dennis R. Pierce delivered his state of the union speech during the opening session of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen's Third National Convention...
New Legislation Aimed At Curbing Ridesharing Controversy In DC WUSA ...The Teamsters Local 922, which has formed an association with more than one thousand independent Washington taxi drivers, also issued a statement criticizing Cheh's bill. The legislation "does not do enough to provide for public safety, industry stability, or equity for taxi drivers," the Teamsters statement said...
Trade
The vulnerability of being ill informed: the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement and Global Public Health Journal of Public Health ...the TPPA poses serious risks to global public health, particularly chronic, non-communicable diseases. At greatest risk are national tobacco regulations, regulations governing the emergence of generic drugs and controls over food imports by transnational corporations...
State Battles
Kansas: Continued Budget Hemorrhaging Econbrowser ...Tax collections by Kansas state government in September fell a sobering $21 million below projections to mark the fourth time in the past six months revenue failed to match targets, officials said Tuesday...
Wisconsin Has 3rd-Lowest Business Start-Up Rate In Country, According To Census Data Wisconsin Public Radio ...According to the data, about 5,700 businesses with employees were created in Wisconsin in 2012, which constitutes less than 6 percent of all Wisconsin firms. Only Iowa and West Virginia had lower rates for the year...
In Wisconsin, A Push For Voter ID Law, But Not Voter IDs Center for Media and Democracy ...The Advancement Project and ACLU have noted that the state would need to issue 6,000 IDs per day to protect the right to vote. Yet two-thirds of the state's Department of Motor Vehicles offices are only open part-time, and just one is open on Saturday, making it exceptionally difficult for working people to get an ID or to drive a friend or family member who doesn't have one...
Report: Fla. voters had country’s longest waits to cast ballots Miami Herald ...Voters in Florida waited far longer than those in other states to cast their votes in the 2012 election, hampered by long ballots and cutbacks in early voting options, according to a new report by congressional auditors...
National union leader visits Maine to back Michaud, condemn LePage ‘right to work’ push Bangor Daily News ...The president of the nation’s largest unionized labor organization came to Maine on Wednesday to boost Democratic U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud’s campaign for governor, calling the congressman “a friend of the working people, whether they’re union or not.”...
NJ’s minimum wage rising in January by 13 cents Asbury Park Press ...The 1.59 percent increase, from $8.25 an hour to $8.38, is required under a constitutional amendment approved by 61 percent of voters last November that raised the mimimum wage by $1 and provided for automatic yearly increases to keep pace with inflation...
Minimum wage to rise to $8.10 for Ohio workers in 2015, up 15 cents cleveland.com ...The increase, announced Tuesday by the Ohio Department of Commerce, will benefit workers employed by companies with annual gross receipts greater than $297,000 a year...
Court Blocks Part of New North Carolina Voting Law Associated Press ...Parts of North Carolina's new voting law, considered one of the toughest in the nation, were set aside for next month's elections because they were likely to disenfranchise black voters, a federal appeals court panel ruled Wednesday...
War On Workers
Two years after college, too many grads are still 'adrift' The Hill ... Two years after graduation, 24 percent of graduates have been forced to move back home with their parents. No less shocking, 74 percent of college graduates "are receiving financial support from their families." Moreover, 23 percent of graduates who are "in the labor market are unemployed or underemployed," that is, they find themselves in jobs in which they work fewer than "20 hours per week" or where the majority of peer employees "have not completed even a year of college." Finally, a mere 47 percent of working graduates enjoy full-time jobs that "pay $30,000 or more annually," and this at a time when the average debt load for students who borrowed to attend college stands at $29,400...
Wal-Mart’s New Scheme To Prey On America’s Poor Salon.com ...to open an account, you have to buy a $2.95 “starter kit” from Walmart. There’s also a minimum deposit of $20 required. A visit to an out-of-network ATM will get you a $2.50 charge, and customers who do not keep a balance of $500 a month will get hit with a fee of $8.95. This last bit is especially worrying: if you suddenly lose your job, you can quickly rack up burdensome fees...
Worker Killed in Valley Forklift Accident WOWT ...Valley police say George Young was using a standing forklift Monday night while working at Midwest Manufacturing. At some point, the machine backed into a shelving unit and pinned him...
Miscellaneous
September U.S. Consumer Confidence Unexpectedly Drops Wall Street Journal ...U.S. consumers unexpectedly pulled back on their economic optimism in September, according to a report released Tuesday. The Conference Board, a private research group, said its index of consumer confidence fell to 86.0 in September from a revised 93.4 in August, first reported as 92.4...
Monday, September 22, 2014
Teamsters register members to vote so the billionaires don't call all the shots
Tomorrow is National Voter Registration Day, but for many Teamster locals EVERY day is voter registration day.
This year there are 36 governors up for election, and if you don't think that matters think again. Four years ago a crew of ALEC-backed candidates became governors and they applied ALEC economics to their states. The results have been disastrous.
Scott Walker was elected governor in Wisconsin and public service workers lost their collective bargaining rights. Now, Wisconsin faces a $1.8 billion budget deficit and the state is 33rd in the country in job creation. Last month, Wisconsin lost 4,300 jobs.
Same story in Kansas, where Sam Brownback slashed taxes for corporations and raised them for working-class families. The state's job growth is anemic and it faces hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue shortfalls. The New York Times reported,
In Michigan, Gov. Rick Snyder sneaked right-to-work past voters behind closed doors in a lame-duck session, after saying he wouldn't. Gov. Mitch Daniels did the same thing in Indiana.
In Florida, Gov. Rick Scott tried to privatize many of the state's prisons, and it was only the hard work of Teamster corrections officers that prevented that from happening.
Still think it doesn't matter if you vote? Fine, don't. Let the billionaires call the shots. But if you do think it matters and you haven't registered, click on this link: http://ibt.io/vote
It will take you to a web page where you can register online.
This year there are 36 governors up for election, and if you don't think that matters think again. Four years ago a crew of ALEC-backed candidates became governors and they applied ALEC economics to their states. The results have been disastrous.
 |
| Teamster Local 769's secretary-treasurer, Josh Zivalich |
Same story in Kansas, where Sam Brownback slashed taxes for corporations and raised them for working-class families. The state's job growth is anemic and it faces hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue shortfalls. The New York Times reported,
Mr. Brownback’s proudly conservative policies have turned out to be so divisive and his tax cuts have generated such a drop in state revenue that they have caused even many Republicans to revolt.In Ohio, John Kasich tried to do what Walker did in Wisconsin with SB5. It was only after a massive effort by Ohio Teamsters and other union members that SB5 was repealed.
In Michigan, Gov. Rick Snyder sneaked right-to-work past voters behind closed doors in a lame-duck session, after saying he wouldn't. Gov. Mitch Daniels did the same thing in Indiana.
In Florida, Gov. Rick Scott tried to privatize many of the state's prisons, and it was only the hard work of Teamster corrections officers that prevented that from happening.
Still think it doesn't matter if you vote? Fine, don't. Let the billionaires call the shots. But if you do think it matters and you haven't registered, click on this link: http://ibt.io/vote
It will take you to a web page where you can register online.
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
Today's Teamster News 09.10.14
Teamster News
Teamster Endorsements Announced For Santa Monica City Council Race Santa Monica Mirror ...The City of Santa Monica Trades & Maintenance Teamsters Local 911 have announced its endorsements of Kevin McKeown, Michael Feinstein, and Pam O’Connor for the Nov. 4 Santa Monica City Council election...
Animal Rights Activists Protested A Fashion Show Starring A ‘Breaking Amish’ Star Vice ...Throughout the day, Stoltz spends hours at a ballroom applying makeup and trying on clothes and her wig, but when I arrive at Central Park, I only see dozens of activists screaming at middle-age men driving horse carriages. “VICTOR D’SOUZA! ANIMAL ABUSER!” they scream as street performers dance to Papa Roach-like music...
Outdoor Flea Market Coming to Teamsters Parking Lot in Court Square DNA Info ..."I went ahead and spoke with the Teamsters and they were really excited about it — they want to support local vendors and the arts," she said...
Teamsters Claim Racial Wage Discriminiation by Republic; Firm Denies waste360 ...The Teamsters union has filed a claim with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) that in Atlanta Republic Services Inc. offers overtime to white employees but not black employees. ..
Workers Apprehensive About Sysco Acquisition of US Foods Workers Independent Radio ...A merger between the country’s two largest food distribution companies has raised concerns that thousands of good-paying, good-benefit union jobs are at risk. Food giant Sysco has provided no assurances about what will happen after they finish their acquisition of US Foods however they claim the merger will result in 600 million dollars in savings from what they call “synergies”...
Trade
Farmers Union Opposing Trans Pacific Partnership WNAX ...250 Farmers Union members from across the country are in the nation’s Capital this week telling Congress to vote against the Trans Pacific Partnership...
Farm minister seeks U.S. concessions in TPP talks Japan News ...Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Koya Nishikawa on Tuesday requested the United States to make concessions at bilateral talks on an envisioned Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement...
State Battles
Sam Brownback Has Bankrupted State So Much He Trails Democrat Paul Davis by 10 Points in Deep Red Kansas Grunge ...“Governor Sam Brownback and the Republican legislature were so confident that slashing safety nets, cutting education, and spending a budget surplus on tax cuts for the rich would produce an economic bonanza, they gave the wealthy well over a billion dollars in unfunded tax cuts that has the state’s economy starved of revenue. … Kansas is lagging behind the rest of the nation in creating jobs besides facing a revenue shortfall of massive proportions.”...
Plexus has net job loss in Wisconsin according to WEDC memo WKOW ...An internal memo from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) shows Plexus Corp. has cut more than 300 jobs in the state since agreeing to add more jobs as part of an enterprise zone tax credit contract...
Federal Court To Hear WI Voter ID Lawsuit This Week WKOW ...Multiple lawsuits have been filed since the state Legislature passed the measure in 2012. The state Supreme Court ruled it constitutional earlier this summer. The three-judge panel will be asked this week to reinstate Wisconsin's voter ID law in time for the November elections...
Lawsuit Over Scott Walker Recall Election Probe To Be Argued In Appeals Court Huffington Post ...Prosecutors investigating Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's recall election campaign hope to convince a federal appeals court to eventually allow them to resume a probe of possible illegal fundraising and coordination with conservative groups...
DeVos family donates $1M to Michigan Republicans; Dems trail in fund-raising Detroit Free Press ...Members of western Michigan’s DeVos family donated nearly $1 million to the Michigan Republican Party in the latest reporting period, bringing the total amount the family has donated to the party for this election cycle to about $1.4 million, newly filed campaign finance reports show...
Founder of 2 short-lived Columbus charter schools indicted on theft counts Columbus Dispatch ...Andre Rasheen Tucker, who founded the two Talented Tenth Leadership Academies, was indicted by a Franklin County grand jury on Friday on two counts of theft. Prosecutor Ron O’Brien said Tucker stole checks made out to the school totaling about $7,500...
Georgia GOPer Complains About Early Voting, Excessive Black Voting Talking Points Memo ...A Republican state senator in Georgia has vowed to end Sunday balloting in DeKalb County due to the fact that the area is "dominated by African American shoppers and it is near several large African American mega churches."...
Chris Christie’s downgrades start to pile up MSNBC ...Wall Street analysts at Fitch Ratings today downgraded New Jersey’s bond rating for the second time this year, citing the state’s poor economic performance, Gov. Chris Christie’s rosy revenue forecasts – which failed to materialize – and his decision to plug the resulting budget gap by cutting $2.4 billion in funding for the state’s strained pension system...
Common Cause and More Than 50 Other Groups Call on Google to Quit the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) Common Cause ...Common Cause and 54 other organizations joined Wednesday in asking Google to drop its membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a secretive corporate lobbying group...
NJ Leaders Seek A New Course For Atlantic City CBS News ...Unable to wait for any ultimate solution, officials in Atlantic City are scrambling to help displaced casino workers get government assistance and maybe even new jobs...
Microsoft Deletes ALEC Membership Minneapolis Star Tribune ...ALEC and its allies demonize school teachers as the major cause of poor student performance while remaining silently complicit on the most serious causes—a lack of early childhood development, unsafe homes and high mobility in school districts due to poverty, drugs and alcohol. It is a perverse joke that ALEC has a long history of bitterly opposing initiatives that address these very social ills...
Council Members Aim To Boost Local Min Wage Louisville Courier Journal ...A long-discussed measure to raise the local minimum wage to $10.10 over three years is scheduled for a first reading by the Louisville Metro Council this week...
States move to ensure pregnant workers get fair chance to stay on job Washington Post ...Delaware is the latest in a growing number of states and localities to pass what lawmakers call “common sense” legislation to keep pregnant women working with certain accommodations, if warranted, as long as they don’t pose undue hardship on businesses. In the past 18 months, measures to ensure such accommodations have passed unanimously in New York City, Philadelphia, Providence, R.I., and in West Virginia. Bipartisan efforts have resulted in laws in Maryland, Minnesota and New Jersey – where only one lawmaker voted against the bill…
War On Workers
Big-Money Radical Right Groups Help Huge Grower to Avoid Paying Millions Already Owed Its Farm Workers Huffington Post ...Well-financed anti-labor groups related to America's radical right are coming to the aid of giant Fresno, Calif.-based Gerawan Farming to avoid implementing a union contract under which it already owes millions of dollars to thousands of its grape and tree fruit workers...
Big Tobacco’s Child Workers: Young Laborers Endure Health Risks, Harsh Conditions On U.S. Farms Democracy Now ...Even as tobacco companies are legally barred from selling cigarettes to children, they are reportedly profiting from child labor. Investigations by The New York Times and Human Rights Watch reveal hundreds, if not thousands, of children are working on tobacco farms in the United States...
Low Wage Growth, High Long-Term Unemployment Recognized as International Problem naked capitalism ...Workers not sharing in productivity gains has become normal...
Road commission worker killed by motor grader Better Roads ...A Kent County, Michigan, road commission worker has been killed after being hit by a motor grader...
Worker killed in industrial accident at Bridgeton refrigeration equipment factory St. Louis Post-Dispatch ...Federal safety inspectors and union leaders are investigating the death of an employee Saturday at the Hussman factory here...
American Apparel to Pay $1M After Worker 'Mangled and Killed' NBC News ...Clothing manufacturer and retailer American Apparel has agreed to pay out more than $1 million after a factory worker was killed by an industrial knitting machine at a company facility in southern California...
Miscellaneous
Raiders To Pay $1.25 Million To Cheerleaders Over Wage Theft Lawsuit Huffington Post ...The Oakland Raiders have agreed to pay $1.25 million to settle a lawsuit brought by 90 members of the team's cheerleading squad who alleged they were underpaid or faced lengthy delays in receiving their wages in violation of California labor law...
Teamster Endorsements Announced For Santa Monica City Council Race Santa Monica Mirror ...The City of Santa Monica Trades & Maintenance Teamsters Local 911 have announced its endorsements of Kevin McKeown, Michael Feinstein, and Pam O’Connor for the Nov. 4 Santa Monica City Council election...
Animal Rights Activists Protested A Fashion Show Starring A ‘Breaking Amish’ Star Vice ...Throughout the day, Stoltz spends hours at a ballroom applying makeup and trying on clothes and her wig, but when I arrive at Central Park, I only see dozens of activists screaming at middle-age men driving horse carriages. “VICTOR D’SOUZA! ANIMAL ABUSER!” they scream as street performers dance to Papa Roach-like music...
Outdoor Flea Market Coming to Teamsters Parking Lot in Court Square DNA Info ..."I went ahead and spoke with the Teamsters and they were really excited about it — they want to support local vendors and the arts," she said...
Teamsters Claim Racial Wage Discriminiation by Republic; Firm Denies waste360 ...The Teamsters union has filed a claim with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) that in Atlanta Republic Services Inc. offers overtime to white employees but not black employees. ..
Workers Apprehensive About Sysco Acquisition of US Foods Workers Independent Radio ...A merger between the country’s two largest food distribution companies has raised concerns that thousands of good-paying, good-benefit union jobs are at risk. Food giant Sysco has provided no assurances about what will happen after they finish their acquisition of US Foods however they claim the merger will result in 600 million dollars in savings from what they call “synergies”...
Trade
Farmers Union Opposing Trans Pacific Partnership WNAX ...250 Farmers Union members from across the country are in the nation’s Capital this week telling Congress to vote against the Trans Pacific Partnership...
Farm minister seeks U.S. concessions in TPP talks Japan News ...Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Koya Nishikawa on Tuesday requested the United States to make concessions at bilateral talks on an envisioned Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement...
State Battles
Sam Brownback Has Bankrupted State So Much He Trails Democrat Paul Davis by 10 Points in Deep Red Kansas Grunge ...“Governor Sam Brownback and the Republican legislature were so confident that slashing safety nets, cutting education, and spending a budget surplus on tax cuts for the rich would produce an economic bonanza, they gave the wealthy well over a billion dollars in unfunded tax cuts that has the state’s economy starved of revenue. … Kansas is lagging behind the rest of the nation in creating jobs besides facing a revenue shortfall of massive proportions.”...
Plexus has net job loss in Wisconsin according to WEDC memo WKOW ...An internal memo from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) shows Plexus Corp. has cut more than 300 jobs in the state since agreeing to add more jobs as part of an enterprise zone tax credit contract...
Federal Court To Hear WI Voter ID Lawsuit This Week WKOW ...Multiple lawsuits have been filed since the state Legislature passed the measure in 2012. The state Supreme Court ruled it constitutional earlier this summer. The three-judge panel will be asked this week to reinstate Wisconsin's voter ID law in time for the November elections...
Lawsuit Over Scott Walker Recall Election Probe To Be Argued In Appeals Court Huffington Post ...Prosecutors investigating Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's recall election campaign hope to convince a federal appeals court to eventually allow them to resume a probe of possible illegal fundraising and coordination with conservative groups...
DeVos family donates $1M to Michigan Republicans; Dems trail in fund-raising Detroit Free Press ...Members of western Michigan’s DeVos family donated nearly $1 million to the Michigan Republican Party in the latest reporting period, bringing the total amount the family has donated to the party for this election cycle to about $1.4 million, newly filed campaign finance reports show...
Founder of 2 short-lived Columbus charter schools indicted on theft counts Columbus Dispatch ...Andre Rasheen Tucker, who founded the two Talented Tenth Leadership Academies, was indicted by a Franklin County grand jury on Friday on two counts of theft. Prosecutor Ron O’Brien said Tucker stole checks made out to the school totaling about $7,500...
Georgia GOPer Complains About Early Voting, Excessive Black Voting Talking Points Memo ...A Republican state senator in Georgia has vowed to end Sunday balloting in DeKalb County due to the fact that the area is "dominated by African American shoppers and it is near several large African American mega churches."...
Chris Christie’s downgrades start to pile up MSNBC ...Wall Street analysts at Fitch Ratings today downgraded New Jersey’s bond rating for the second time this year, citing the state’s poor economic performance, Gov. Chris Christie’s rosy revenue forecasts – which failed to materialize – and his decision to plug the resulting budget gap by cutting $2.4 billion in funding for the state’s strained pension system...
Common Cause and More Than 50 Other Groups Call on Google to Quit the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) Common Cause ...Common Cause and 54 other organizations joined Wednesday in asking Google to drop its membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a secretive corporate lobbying group...
NJ Leaders Seek A New Course For Atlantic City CBS News ...Unable to wait for any ultimate solution, officials in Atlantic City are scrambling to help displaced casino workers get government assistance and maybe even new jobs...
Microsoft Deletes ALEC Membership Minneapolis Star Tribune ...ALEC and its allies demonize school teachers as the major cause of poor student performance while remaining silently complicit on the most serious causes—a lack of early childhood development, unsafe homes and high mobility in school districts due to poverty, drugs and alcohol. It is a perverse joke that ALEC has a long history of bitterly opposing initiatives that address these very social ills...
Council Members Aim To Boost Local Min Wage Louisville Courier Journal ...A long-discussed measure to raise the local minimum wage to $10.10 over three years is scheduled for a first reading by the Louisville Metro Council this week...
States move to ensure pregnant workers get fair chance to stay on job Washington Post ...Delaware is the latest in a growing number of states and localities to pass what lawmakers call “common sense” legislation to keep pregnant women working with certain accommodations, if warranted, as long as they don’t pose undue hardship on businesses. In the past 18 months, measures to ensure such accommodations have passed unanimously in New York City, Philadelphia, Providence, R.I., and in West Virginia. Bipartisan efforts have resulted in laws in Maryland, Minnesota and New Jersey – where only one lawmaker voted against the bill…
War On Workers
Big-Money Radical Right Groups Help Huge Grower to Avoid Paying Millions Already Owed Its Farm Workers Huffington Post ...Well-financed anti-labor groups related to America's radical right are coming to the aid of giant Fresno, Calif.-based Gerawan Farming to avoid implementing a union contract under which it already owes millions of dollars to thousands of its grape and tree fruit workers...
Big Tobacco’s Child Workers: Young Laborers Endure Health Risks, Harsh Conditions On U.S. Farms Democracy Now ...Even as tobacco companies are legally barred from selling cigarettes to children, they are reportedly profiting from child labor. Investigations by The New York Times and Human Rights Watch reveal hundreds, if not thousands, of children are working on tobacco farms in the United States...
Low Wage Growth, High Long-Term Unemployment Recognized as International Problem naked capitalism ...Workers not sharing in productivity gains has become normal...
Road commission worker killed by motor grader Better Roads ...A Kent County, Michigan, road commission worker has been killed after being hit by a motor grader...
Worker killed in industrial accident at Bridgeton refrigeration equipment factory St. Louis Post-Dispatch ...Federal safety inspectors and union leaders are investigating the death of an employee Saturday at the Hussman factory here...
American Apparel to Pay $1M After Worker 'Mangled and Killed' NBC News ...Clothing manufacturer and retailer American Apparel has agreed to pay out more than $1 million after a factory worker was killed by an industrial knitting machine at a company facility in southern California...
Miscellaneous
Raiders To Pay $1.25 Million To Cheerleaders Over Wage Theft Lawsuit Huffington Post ...The Oakland Raiders have agreed to pay $1.25 million to settle a lawsuit brought by 90 members of the team's cheerleading squad who alleged they were underpaid or faced lengthy delays in receiving their wages in violation of California labor law...
Sunday, July 20, 2014
Today's Teamster News 07.20.14
Trade
Backroom talks on dangerous TTIP agreement must end (opinion) EurActive ... TTIP will work to boost corporate power, make it harder for states to regulate markets in the interest of citizens, and attack workers' rights, as well as consumer protection criteria, and environmental standards...
TPP a bade deal (opinion) Daily Camera ... the TPP is shrouded in secrecy, with participants, negotiators, even Congress sworn to keep the details private. Of course, multinational corporations have access to the actual language, just not you and I...
State Battles
Sam Brownback’s Kansas Catastrophe Daily Beast ...a state Supreme Court decision ... found that Brownback and the legislature had cut funding for schools unfairly and too deeply in 2011, and would have to find budget savings elsewhere...
Republican Mayor Partners With Moral Monday Movement, Walks 273 Miles For Health Care Access Huffington Post ...A Republican mayor has partnered with the progressive-backed Moral Monday movement to protest the closure of his small-town's hospital. Belhaven, North Carolina Mayor Adam O'Neal set off on a 14-day, 273-mile walk to Washington, D.C. on Monday to draw attention to what he calls the "medical desert" ...
States That Raised Minimum Wage See Faster Job Growth, Report Says NPR ...In a report on Friday, the 13 states that raised their minimum wages on Jan. 1 have added jobs at a faster pace than those that did not...
War on Workers
Austerity Is Poisoning The Economy, In 2 Charts Huffington Post ...The broad spending cuts that were the fruits of the Republican Congress' budget obsession of the past few years have already cost the U.S. economy $351 billion in lost economic activity, according to a new study...
Meet Executive Order 12333: The Reagan rule that lets the NSA spy on Americans Washington Post ... the NSA is building a data center in Utah five times the size of the U.S. Capitol building, with its own power plant that will reportedly burn $40 million a year in electricity...
Between Suspicious Deaths and Cy Vance Criminal Prosecutions, Technology Jobs On Wall Street Are Now Among the Most Dangerous in America Wall Street on Parade ...the Judge’s decision “represents a damning indictment of those assistant U.S. attorneys, assistant district attorneys and FBI agents who have now twice pursued an unlawful prosecution of an innocent man at the behest of Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs...”
Walmart Investors - Worry Plenty About Tracy Morgan Lawsuit Forbes ...Walmart isn’t doing all that well. It is losing customers, even as the economy recovers. For a decade Walmart has struggled to grow revenues, and same store sales have declined – only to be propped up by store closings. Despite efforts to grow offshore, attempts at international expansion have largely been flops. Efforts to expand into smaller stores have had mixed success, and are marginal at generating new revenues in urban efforts...
Miscellaneous
The rise of data and the death of politics The Guardian ...Jim Farley, a senior Ford executive, acknowledged that "we know everyone who breaks the law, we know when you're doing it. We have GPS in your car, so we know what you're doing. By the way, we don't supply that data to anyone..."
Backroom talks on dangerous TTIP agreement must end (opinion) EurActive ... TTIP will work to boost corporate power, make it harder for states to regulate markets in the interest of citizens, and attack workers' rights, as well as consumer protection criteria, and environmental standards...
TPP a bade deal (opinion) Daily Camera ... the TPP is shrouded in secrecy, with participants, negotiators, even Congress sworn to keep the details private. Of course, multinational corporations have access to the actual language, just not you and I...
State Battles
Sam Brownback’s Kansas Catastrophe Daily Beast ...a state Supreme Court decision ... found that Brownback and the legislature had cut funding for schools unfairly and too deeply in 2011, and would have to find budget savings elsewhere...
Republican Mayor Partners With Moral Monday Movement, Walks 273 Miles For Health Care Access Huffington Post ...A Republican mayor has partnered with the progressive-backed Moral Monday movement to protest the closure of his small-town's hospital. Belhaven, North Carolina Mayor Adam O'Neal set off on a 14-day, 273-mile walk to Washington, D.C. on Monday to draw attention to what he calls the "medical desert" ...
States That Raised Minimum Wage See Faster Job Growth, Report Says NPR ...In a report on Friday, the 13 states that raised their minimum wages on Jan. 1 have added jobs at a faster pace than those that did not...
War on Workers
Austerity Is Poisoning The Economy, In 2 Charts Huffington Post ...The broad spending cuts that were the fruits of the Republican Congress' budget obsession of the past few years have already cost the U.S. economy $351 billion in lost economic activity, according to a new study...
Meet Executive Order 12333: The Reagan rule that lets the NSA spy on Americans Washington Post ... the NSA is building a data center in Utah five times the size of the U.S. Capitol building, with its own power plant that will reportedly burn $40 million a year in electricity...
Between Suspicious Deaths and Cy Vance Criminal Prosecutions, Technology Jobs On Wall Street Are Now Among the Most Dangerous in America Wall Street on Parade ...the Judge’s decision “represents a damning indictment of those assistant U.S. attorneys, assistant district attorneys and FBI agents who have now twice pursued an unlawful prosecution of an innocent man at the behest of Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs...”
Walmart Investors - Worry Plenty About Tracy Morgan Lawsuit Forbes ...Walmart isn’t doing all that well. It is losing customers, even as the economy recovers. For a decade Walmart has struggled to grow revenues, and same store sales have declined – only to be propped up by store closings. Despite efforts to grow offshore, attempts at international expansion have largely been flops. Efforts to expand into smaller stores have had mixed success, and are marginal at generating new revenues in urban efforts...
Miscellaneous
The rise of data and the death of politics The Guardian ...Jim Farley, a senior Ford executive, acknowledged that "we know everyone who breaks the law, we know when you're doing it. We have GPS in your car, so we know what you're doing. By the way, we don't supply that data to anyone..."
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Today's Teamster News 07.15.14
Teamster News
Avalon Teamsters stage 6-hour demonstration over wages, benefits CantonRep.com ...About 20 members of Teamsters Local 92 employed by Avalon Foodservice walked off the job for about six hours Monday in what a union official called a “pre-strike” demonstration over wages and health insurance...
A federal agency is about to answer the question: Who do you actually work for? Washington Post ...the NLRB has granted an appeal from the Teamsters, which attempted to hold an election for all employees of a recycling plant in Milpitas, Calif. -- not just the staffing agency that controls the bulk of the payroll -- after a regional panel found in favor of Browning-Ferris Industries...
Trade
Carmakers Are Central Voice in U.S.-Europe Trade Talks New York Times ...European and American automakers are some of the biggest corporate proponents of a new trans-Atlantic trade pact, even as some other industries oppose disrupting the status quo. Negotiations for that pact, which have struggled to gain momentum for more than a year, resumed Monday in Brussels...
Manufacturing groups press for broad tariff elimination The Hill ...More than a dozen manufacturing groups on Friday urged the Obama administration to press for the elimination of all tariffs as part of the Asia-Pacific trade deal negotiations...
What's next in the OCTG trade case? manufacture this ...It's not over yet. Those tariffs that Commerce announced? Now they go over to the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), which will have to confirm them. That means the petitioners in the Commerce case (U.S. Steel and other domestic OCTG makers) will have to prove injury or the threat of injury to their industry...
State Battles
Prison food supplier has Michigan officials at wit's end Detroit Free Press ...Maggots in the kitchen and on the chow line. Workers caught smuggling contraband or engaging in sex acts with inmates. Food shortages and angry prisoners. Those are among the problems that have plagued Michigan prisons since December when the state — in a move aimed at saving more than $12 million a year — switched from using state workers to feed prisoners to a private contractor, Aramark Correctional Services of Philadelphia...
Kansas’ Ruinous Tax Cuts (opinion) New York Times ...The 2012 cuts were among the largest ever enacted by a state, reducing the top tax bracket by 25 percent and eliminating all taxes on business profits that are reported on individual income returns…Kansas, in fact, was one of only five states to lose employment over the last six months, while the rest of the country was improving. It has been below the national average in job gains for the three and half years Mr. Brownback has been in office. Average earnings in the state are down since 2012, and so is net growth in the number of registered businesses...
War On Workers
U.S. Drug Firms Seek Inversion Deals to Evade Taxes New York Times ...By buying a smaller overseas competitor and reincorporating abroad — a maneuver called inversion — health care companies are extricating themselves from the American tax regimen...
Workers Struggle In Hamptons Playground For Rich USA Today ...Southampton, with its privet hedges, pristine beaches and some estates costing tens of millions, also is where 40% of children get free or reduced school lunches, where a food pantry serves up to 400 clients a month and where some doctors and nurses share homes owned by the local hospital because they can't afford to buy or rent...
United Airlines Opens Door For Raises For Low-Wage Airport Workers Newark Star-Ledger ...With raises at stake for 3,700 low-paid cabin cleaners, baggage handlers and other airport workers in Newark, United Airlines acknowledged that its contractors are typically bound to follow local laws or rules governing the airports where they work...
Avalon Teamsters stage 6-hour demonstration over wages, benefits CantonRep.com ...About 20 members of Teamsters Local 92 employed by Avalon Foodservice walked off the job for about six hours Monday in what a union official called a “pre-strike” demonstration over wages and health insurance...
A federal agency is about to answer the question: Who do you actually work for? Washington Post ...the NLRB has granted an appeal from the Teamsters, which attempted to hold an election for all employees of a recycling plant in Milpitas, Calif. -- not just the staffing agency that controls the bulk of the payroll -- after a regional panel found in favor of Browning-Ferris Industries...
Trade
Carmakers Are Central Voice in U.S.-Europe Trade Talks New York Times ...European and American automakers are some of the biggest corporate proponents of a new trans-Atlantic trade pact, even as some other industries oppose disrupting the status quo. Negotiations for that pact, which have struggled to gain momentum for more than a year, resumed Monday in Brussels...
Manufacturing groups press for broad tariff elimination The Hill ...More than a dozen manufacturing groups on Friday urged the Obama administration to press for the elimination of all tariffs as part of the Asia-Pacific trade deal negotiations...
What's next in the OCTG trade case? manufacture this ...It's not over yet. Those tariffs that Commerce announced? Now they go over to the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), which will have to confirm them. That means the petitioners in the Commerce case (U.S. Steel and other domestic OCTG makers) will have to prove injury or the threat of injury to their industry...
State Battles
Prison food supplier has Michigan officials at wit's end Detroit Free Press ...Maggots in the kitchen and on the chow line. Workers caught smuggling contraband or engaging in sex acts with inmates. Food shortages and angry prisoners. Those are among the problems that have plagued Michigan prisons since December when the state — in a move aimed at saving more than $12 million a year — switched from using state workers to feed prisoners to a private contractor, Aramark Correctional Services of Philadelphia...
Kansas’ Ruinous Tax Cuts (opinion) New York Times ...The 2012 cuts were among the largest ever enacted by a state, reducing the top tax bracket by 25 percent and eliminating all taxes on business profits that are reported on individual income returns…Kansas, in fact, was one of only five states to lose employment over the last six months, while the rest of the country was improving. It has been below the national average in job gains for the three and half years Mr. Brownback has been in office. Average earnings in the state are down since 2012, and so is net growth in the number of registered businesses...
War On Workers
U.S. Drug Firms Seek Inversion Deals to Evade Taxes New York Times ...By buying a smaller overseas competitor and reincorporating abroad — a maneuver called inversion — health care companies are extricating themselves from the American tax regimen...
Workers Struggle In Hamptons Playground For Rich USA Today ...Southampton, with its privet hedges, pristine beaches and some estates costing tens of millions, also is where 40% of children get free or reduced school lunches, where a food pantry serves up to 400 clients a month and where some doctors and nurses share homes owned by the local hospital because they can't afford to buy or rent...
United Airlines Opens Door For Raises For Low-Wage Airport Workers Newark Star-Ledger ...With raises at stake for 3,700 low-paid cabin cleaners, baggage handlers and other airport workers in Newark, United Airlines acknowledged that its contractors are typically bound to follow local laws or rules governing the airports where they work...
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Today's Teamster News 07.02.14
Teamster News
RTC Bus Driver Contract Extended To July 31 Reno Gazette-Journal ...A contract extension until July 31 for Washoe County public transit employees was agreed to today by their labor union and MV Transportation, which operates the transit system for the Regional Transportation Commission of Washoe County...
Labor Board Rules In Favor Of Union Bennington Banner ...Nearly a month after a single challenged ballot left the notion of Green Mountain Express bus driver joining the Teamsters Union hanging, the National Labor Relations Board has ruled in the union’s favor...
'Longmire' Crew Member's Death Is Suspected to Be Caused by Too-Long Working Hours AceShowBiz ...A crew member of A&E's crime drama series "Longmire" named Gary Tuck, 48, died early morning on Saturday, June 28, in a car accident. Gary's truck rolled over on a highway in an area known as Stanley, N. M. when he was on his way home from the drama's set around 4:30 A.M. Gary was a member of Teamsters Local 492...
NYCLASS Furious That Bill de Blasio Hasn’t Banned Horse Carriages Yet New York Observer ...Mr. de Blasio and his advisers have been shying away from banning the Central Park-based carriages, sources say, and are not pressuring the City Council to pass a bill after promising last year the carriages would be history when he took office...
Trade
Plan a Made-in-the-USA July 4th Celebration manufacture this ...Display your stars and stripes with a Made in the USA flag (you’d be surprised – not all flags are!)...
State Battles
Private Contractor For Michigan Prisons Repeatedly Failed To Give Inmates Enough Food Think Progress ...Less than a year after Michigan shifted responsibility for feeding its prisoners to a private contract with international food services conglomerate Aramark, the state Department of Corrections (DOC) is warning the company that it may yank the contract if chronic food shortages and security violations don’t cease...
The Minimum Wage Will Increase Tomorrow In D.C. Washington City Paper ...Beginning tomorrow, the minimum wage will jump to $9.50 per hour from today's $8.25...
California Minimum Wage Rising To $9 Per Hour Tuesday KCRA ...California's minimum wage will rise to $9 an hour when a new law takes effect on Tuesday and provides workers with the first such increase since 2008. That amount will increase again to $10 an hour starting on Jan. 1, 2016, under AB10, which Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law last fall...
Gov. Scott Walker to blame for poor job growth (opinion) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ...The 2011-'12 reductions of 10% in real per student K-12 spending were the fourth-largest in the nation. Cuts in higher education spending, the reduction in the purchasing power of state employees through Act 10 and foregone federal dollars in Walker's rejection of high-speed rail and Medicaid investments all helped dampen aggregate demand in the state (compared to other states) and throw sand in the gears of Wisconsin's job creation machinery...
Dead Last in Jobs in the Midwest Wisconsin State AFL-CIO ...You know what doesn’t create jobs? Rejecting high-speed rail projects, failing to expand Medicaid for the poor, focusing on voter disenfranchisement laws instead of job growth policies, taking money out of local economies with austerity policies such as Act 10, tax cuts for the rich and a lack of accountability and transparency in the WEDC, the jobs agency created by Gov. Walker that has been plagued by scandals...
Whistling Past the Intellectual Graveyard Econbrowser ...After three years of an experiment in ALEC-Laffernomics, Kansas lags the US economy significantly...
War On Workers
America Ranks 36th in Feeling Free to Choose What to Do With Your Life firedoglake ...many of the first world countries where people are more satisfied with their freedom of choice are the Scandinavian countries with very large social safety nets. Despite the Republican claim that a “government takeover” of health care would destroy our freedom, those countries with far more government involvement in health care feel freer...
Why is Washington still protecting the secret political power of corporations? (opinion) Guardian ...Regulators at the SEC could illuminate the future of campaign donations. But they aren't interested in disclosing the truth – even though voters are...
Profiteering on Banker Deaths: Regulator Says Public Has No Right to Details Wall Street on Parade ... JPMorgan held $17.9 billion in Bank-Owned Life Insurance (BOLI) assets, a dark corner of the insurance market that allows banks to take out life insurance policies on their workers, secretly pocket the death benefits, and receive generous tax perks subsidized by the U.S. taxpayer...
Miscellaneous
Court Gave NSA Broad Leeway In Surveillance, Documents Show Washington Post ...Virtually no foreign government is off-limits for the National Security Agency, which has been authorized to intercept information “concerning” all but four countries, according to top-secret documents...
Here Are 4 Lawsuits That Could Inflict More Damage On Unions After Harris V. Quinn Mother Jones ...It's possible that one of these cases could do further damage to the labor movement—with the potential to wipe out the precedent set in 1977's Abood v. Detroit Board of Education decision. (In Abood, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of public-employee unions collecting fair-share fees from non-members to pay the costs of collective bargaining.)...
RTC Bus Driver Contract Extended To July 31 Reno Gazette-Journal ...A contract extension until July 31 for Washoe County public transit employees was agreed to today by their labor union and MV Transportation, which operates the transit system for the Regional Transportation Commission of Washoe County...
Labor Board Rules In Favor Of Union Bennington Banner ...Nearly a month after a single challenged ballot left the notion of Green Mountain Express bus driver joining the Teamsters Union hanging, the National Labor Relations Board has ruled in the union’s favor...
'Longmire' Crew Member's Death Is Suspected to Be Caused by Too-Long Working Hours AceShowBiz ...A crew member of A&E's crime drama series "Longmire" named Gary Tuck, 48, died early morning on Saturday, June 28, in a car accident. Gary's truck rolled over on a highway in an area known as Stanley, N. M. when he was on his way home from the drama's set around 4:30 A.M. Gary was a member of Teamsters Local 492...
NYCLASS Furious That Bill de Blasio Hasn’t Banned Horse Carriages Yet New York Observer ...Mr. de Blasio and his advisers have been shying away from banning the Central Park-based carriages, sources say, and are not pressuring the City Council to pass a bill after promising last year the carriages would be history when he took office...
Trade
Plan a Made-in-the-USA July 4th Celebration manufacture this ...Display your stars and stripes with a Made in the USA flag (you’d be surprised – not all flags are!)...
State Battles
Private Contractor For Michigan Prisons Repeatedly Failed To Give Inmates Enough Food Think Progress ...Less than a year after Michigan shifted responsibility for feeding its prisoners to a private contract with international food services conglomerate Aramark, the state Department of Corrections (DOC) is warning the company that it may yank the contract if chronic food shortages and security violations don’t cease...
The Minimum Wage Will Increase Tomorrow In D.C. Washington City Paper ...Beginning tomorrow, the minimum wage will jump to $9.50 per hour from today's $8.25...
California Minimum Wage Rising To $9 Per Hour Tuesday KCRA ...California's minimum wage will rise to $9 an hour when a new law takes effect on Tuesday and provides workers with the first such increase since 2008. That amount will increase again to $10 an hour starting on Jan. 1, 2016, under AB10, which Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law last fall...
Gov. Scott Walker to blame for poor job growth (opinion) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ...The 2011-'12 reductions of 10% in real per student K-12 spending were the fourth-largest in the nation. Cuts in higher education spending, the reduction in the purchasing power of state employees through Act 10 and foregone federal dollars in Walker's rejection of high-speed rail and Medicaid investments all helped dampen aggregate demand in the state (compared to other states) and throw sand in the gears of Wisconsin's job creation machinery...
Dead Last in Jobs in the Midwest Wisconsin State AFL-CIO ...You know what doesn’t create jobs? Rejecting high-speed rail projects, failing to expand Medicaid for the poor, focusing on voter disenfranchisement laws instead of job growth policies, taking money out of local economies with austerity policies such as Act 10, tax cuts for the rich and a lack of accountability and transparency in the WEDC, the jobs agency created by Gov. Walker that has been plagued by scandals...
Whistling Past the Intellectual Graveyard Econbrowser ...After three years of an experiment in ALEC-Laffernomics, Kansas lags the US economy significantly...
War On Workers
America Ranks 36th in Feeling Free to Choose What to Do With Your Life firedoglake ...many of the first world countries where people are more satisfied with their freedom of choice are the Scandinavian countries with very large social safety nets. Despite the Republican claim that a “government takeover” of health care would destroy our freedom, those countries with far more government involvement in health care feel freer...
Why is Washington still protecting the secret political power of corporations? (opinion) Guardian ...Regulators at the SEC could illuminate the future of campaign donations. But they aren't interested in disclosing the truth – even though voters are...
Profiteering on Banker Deaths: Regulator Says Public Has No Right to Details Wall Street on Parade ... JPMorgan held $17.9 billion in Bank-Owned Life Insurance (BOLI) assets, a dark corner of the insurance market that allows banks to take out life insurance policies on their workers, secretly pocket the death benefits, and receive generous tax perks subsidized by the U.S. taxpayer...
Miscellaneous
Court Gave NSA Broad Leeway In Surveillance, Documents Show Washington Post ...Virtually no foreign government is off-limits for the National Security Agency, which has been authorized to intercept information “concerning” all but four countries, according to top-secret documents...
Here Are 4 Lawsuits That Could Inflict More Damage On Unions After Harris V. Quinn Mother Jones ...It's possible that one of these cases could do further damage to the labor movement—with the potential to wipe out the precedent set in 1977's Abood v. Detroit Board of Education decision. (In Abood, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of public-employee unions collecting fair-share fees from non-members to pay the costs of collective bargaining.)...
Friday, May 2, 2014
Large rally exposes ALEC's secret summit with lawmakers in Kansas City
 |
| ALEC may be meeting with lawmakers behind closed doors, but not in secret anymore. |
For many years, ALEC flew below everyone's radar, claiming to be a 'nonpartisan' group and describing the money it spent on lawmaker vacations 'scholarships.' For the past few years, ALEC's secret lobbying has been exposed by unions and civil rights, civic, environmental and faith groups.
Just this week, a report came out showing ALEC spent $1,652,525 in just two states -- Kansas and Missouri -- to secretly wine, dine and fly lawmakers to lavish resorts since 2006. In exchange, lawmakers try to pass legislation that weakens workers' rights, empowers corporations, eradicates public education, destroys retirement security and eliminates workplace and food safety.
Our friends at the Center for Media and Democracy explain what ALEC is doing in Kansas City behind those closed doors:
...at ALEC's Spring Task Force Summit this week in Kansas City, it is clear that corporations are still the ones calling the shots.
For example, legislators attending the Commerce, Insurance, and EconomicDevelopment task force meeting on Friday will be treated to a presentation titled “Regulating Electronic Cigarettes: Jeffersonian Style.”
Electronic cigarette maker NJOY paid to join ALEC last year, according to internal documents published by The Guardian. (As the New York Times has reported in "Selling Poison by the Barrel," the liquid nicotine sold for e-cigarettes is highly poisonous in small doses, especially for children.)Thanks to Brother Bill Moore, international representative with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, for these photos!
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Today's Teamster News 04.08.2014
Teamster News
Teamsters seek contract at Corona food warehouse Press-Enterprise ...Union leaders in Southern California are asking U.S. Foods, the second-largest food supplier in the country and the subject of a huge proposed merger deal, to begin contract negotiations with workers at a Corona distribution center...
Trade
What The Heck Is The Trans-Pacific Partnership And Why Should I Be Concerned? Consumerist ...It's 2014, and we're living in an increasingly globalized economy. International trade has been ramping up for centuries and a carefully plotted web of agreements keeps goods, services and money moving around the world...
Colombia's Anti-Union Violence Remains Rampant after Three Years of the FTA-Enabling Labor Action Plan Public Citizen ... 73 Colombian unionists have been murdered, according to a report released today by Colombia’s National Union School, a group recognized by the LAP as an authoritative source of monitoring data. There were more four more unionist murders in 2013 than in 2012...
Congress needs to act on China’s unfair trade practices Indianapolis Star ...America ran a $456 billion trade deficit in 2013, $318 billion of which came from trade with China alone. This doesn’t happen naturally. China illegally subsidizes for its state-run businesses to encourage these deficits. And it manipulates its currency to make its goods cheaper and competing American goods more expensive...
U.S. Expresses Support For Taiwan's TPP Bid Radio Taiwan International ...Taiwan's foreign ministry says the United States has openly expressed its support for Taiwan's bid to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)...
State Battles
More Lawmakers Pushing Identical Bills Written By National Groups AZ Central ...Arizona lawmakers introduced six bills this session seeking a U.S. Constitutional Amendment to impose new fiscal restraints on the federal government...
Exploited Temp Workers May Finally Get Some Relief Salon ...California could become one of the first states in the nation to hold companies legally responsible for wage and safety violations by their subcontractors and temp agencies if a bill proposed Friday becomes law...
War on Workers
More Than 20 Striking Students Arrested, Belying University of California’s Era of ‘Labor Peace’ In These Times ...The work stoppage, staged in protest of past alleged attempts by UC to intimidate graduate workers for labor organizing, was quickly met with what workers say was a further attempt at intimidation: The arrest of 20 students at UC Santa Cruz who were picketing early Wednesday morning...
Paid-For Legislature Takes Teacher Tenure From Thousands In Kansas firedoglake ...Weekend, overnight exploits by purchased ideologues and rank amateurs in the Kansas State legislature stripped KS public school teachers of due process rights...
I Looked Up The Fastest-Growing Jobs In America, And Boy Was It Depressing Business Insider ...secretaries, food workers, and caretakers. The median salary for the fastest-growing raw-numbers occupations, shown in the table below, is $30,000...
Hot Air Hisses Out Of Housing Bubble 2.0: Even Two Middle-Class Incomes Aren’t Enough Anymore To Buy A Median Home Testosterone Pit ...in 40 large cities, only 10% of the homes are affordable on one median salary … and … “just 41% of homes currently for sale across 40 US cities are affordable for a family earning two median incomes…”
The Money Against The Minimum Wage Open Secrets ...The minimum wage debate is back on Capitol Hill, and the usual suspects -- trade groups in industries that hire a lot of low-wage workers …have laid out huge amounts of money … giving more than $5.5 million to Congress over the past two election cycles and spending more than $91 million on lobbying just last year...
If the New York Stock Exchange is a “High-Frequency Brothel” then the SEC is its Pimp Wall Street on Parade ...Not only are the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq allowing high frequency traders to co-locate their computers next to the main computers of the exchanges to gain a speed advantage over other customers at a monthly cost that only the very rich can afford to pay but they’re now tacking on infrastructure charges that price everyone out of efficient use of the exchanges except the very top tier of trading firms...
All Work And No Pay Moyers & Company ...You've heard about the wave of recent protests calling on fast food chains like McDonald's and Burger King to raise wages for their employees, who are forced to live on next to nothing. But did you know that many workers in sit-down restaurants may be faring even worse?...
Corker Must Come Clean On The Volkswagon Union Election The Hill ...Sen. Bob Corker's problems concerning his intrusion in February's union election at Volkswagon in Chattanooga just got more serious. Confidential e-mails obtained this week by a Nashville television station...
Labor Secretary Will "Respect" NLRB Ruling Granting Northwestern Football Players Right To Unionize Des Moines Register ...U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez will respect the decision by the National Labor Relations Board last week that Northwestern football players have the right to unionize, he said at a news conference in Des Moines Saturday...
Miscelleneous
Young People Understand Unions Can Solve Problems U.S. News and World Report ...Last week, the National Labor Relations Board's Chicago Regional Director issued a notable finding: football players at Northwestern University are employees of the university for purposes of federal labor law...
Teamsters seek contract at Corona food warehouse Press-Enterprise ...Union leaders in Southern California are asking U.S. Foods, the second-largest food supplier in the country and the subject of a huge proposed merger deal, to begin contract negotiations with workers at a Corona distribution center...
Trade
What The Heck Is The Trans-Pacific Partnership And Why Should I Be Concerned? Consumerist ...It's 2014, and we're living in an increasingly globalized economy. International trade has been ramping up for centuries and a carefully plotted web of agreements keeps goods, services and money moving around the world...
Colombia's Anti-Union Violence Remains Rampant after Three Years of the FTA-Enabling Labor Action Plan Public Citizen ... 73 Colombian unionists have been murdered, according to a report released today by Colombia’s National Union School, a group recognized by the LAP as an authoritative source of monitoring data. There were more four more unionist murders in 2013 than in 2012...
Congress needs to act on China’s unfair trade practices Indianapolis Star ...America ran a $456 billion trade deficit in 2013, $318 billion of which came from trade with China alone. This doesn’t happen naturally. China illegally subsidizes for its state-run businesses to encourage these deficits. And it manipulates its currency to make its goods cheaper and competing American goods more expensive...
U.S. Expresses Support For Taiwan's TPP Bid Radio Taiwan International ...Taiwan's foreign ministry says the United States has openly expressed its support for Taiwan's bid to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)...
State Battles
More Lawmakers Pushing Identical Bills Written By National Groups AZ Central ...Arizona lawmakers introduced six bills this session seeking a U.S. Constitutional Amendment to impose new fiscal restraints on the federal government...
Exploited Temp Workers May Finally Get Some Relief Salon ...California could become one of the first states in the nation to hold companies legally responsible for wage and safety violations by their subcontractors and temp agencies if a bill proposed Friday becomes law...
War on Workers
More Than 20 Striking Students Arrested, Belying University of California’s Era of ‘Labor Peace’ In These Times ...The work stoppage, staged in protest of past alleged attempts by UC to intimidate graduate workers for labor organizing, was quickly met with what workers say was a further attempt at intimidation: The arrest of 20 students at UC Santa Cruz who were picketing early Wednesday morning...
Paid-For Legislature Takes Teacher Tenure From Thousands In Kansas firedoglake ...Weekend, overnight exploits by purchased ideologues and rank amateurs in the Kansas State legislature stripped KS public school teachers of due process rights...
I Looked Up The Fastest-Growing Jobs In America, And Boy Was It Depressing Business Insider ...secretaries, food workers, and caretakers. The median salary for the fastest-growing raw-numbers occupations, shown in the table below, is $30,000...
Hot Air Hisses Out Of Housing Bubble 2.0: Even Two Middle-Class Incomes Aren’t Enough Anymore To Buy A Median Home Testosterone Pit ...in 40 large cities, only 10% of the homes are affordable on one median salary … and … “just 41% of homes currently for sale across 40 US cities are affordable for a family earning two median incomes…”
The Money Against The Minimum Wage Open Secrets ...The minimum wage debate is back on Capitol Hill, and the usual suspects -- trade groups in industries that hire a lot of low-wage workers …have laid out huge amounts of money … giving more than $5.5 million to Congress over the past two election cycles and spending more than $91 million on lobbying just last year...
If the New York Stock Exchange is a “High-Frequency Brothel” then the SEC is its Pimp Wall Street on Parade ...Not only are the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq allowing high frequency traders to co-locate their computers next to the main computers of the exchanges to gain a speed advantage over other customers at a monthly cost that only the very rich can afford to pay but they’re now tacking on infrastructure charges that price everyone out of efficient use of the exchanges except the very top tier of trading firms...
All Work And No Pay Moyers & Company ...You've heard about the wave of recent protests calling on fast food chains like McDonald's and Burger King to raise wages for their employees, who are forced to live on next to nothing. But did you know that many workers in sit-down restaurants may be faring even worse?...
Corker Must Come Clean On The Volkswagon Union Election The Hill ...Sen. Bob Corker's problems concerning his intrusion in February's union election at Volkswagon in Chattanooga just got more serious. Confidential e-mails obtained this week by a Nashville television station...
Labor Secretary Will "Respect" NLRB Ruling Granting Northwestern Football Players Right To Unionize Des Moines Register ...U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez will respect the decision by the National Labor Relations Board last week that Northwestern football players have the right to unionize, he said at a news conference in Des Moines Saturday...
Miscelleneous
Young People Understand Unions Can Solve Problems U.S. News and World Report ...Last week, the National Labor Relations Board's Chicago Regional Director issued a notable finding: football players at Northwestern University are employees of the university for purposes of federal labor law...
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Today's Teamster News 04.01.14
Teamster News
CCTA Management and Drivers Still Make No Deal Burlington Free Press ...After another marathon negotiation session, no deal was reached between Chittenden County Transportation Authority management and the Teamsters Local 597 bus drivers' union, the two sides said Saturday...
City of Chicago Member wins Primary Election for Cook County Board Local 700 ...Teamsters Local 700 member Luis Arroyo, Jr. will soon transition from a motor truck driver for the City of Chicago to a democratic nominee for the Cook County Board of Commissioners...
Tom O’Donnell Replaces Leo Reed As Director Of Teamsters Deadline Hollywood ...Tom O’Donnell, the current president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 817 in New York, has been named director of the Teamsters Motion Picture and Theatrical Trades Division, replacing the venerable Leo Reed, who left the post in January after 25 years at the helm...
Teamsters: Lack of county pay raises hurts services Topeka Capital Journal ...Shawnee County’s ability to provide quality services is suffering because the county commission isn’t giving employees pay raises, Teamsters Union members said at Monday’s commission meeting...
Trade
Trans-Pacific Partnership: Geopolitics, Not Growth The National Interest ...If you have to pick a winner, it’s Vietnam by a significant margin. By 2025, Vietnam would stand to gain nearly $96 billion or 28 percent of its GDP. This is largely due to exports increasing an estimated 37 percent...
Why do a majority of Americans oppose fast-tracking the TPP? The New American ...A recent poll reveals a majority of Americans oppose giving President Obama an end run around the constitution by fast tracking the Trans Pacific Partnership...
State Battles
Right to Work Vote in Missouri House Could Have Narrow Margin St. Louis Post-Dispatch ...One business priority touted by Republican Leadership has been slow to move out of the Missouri House this session. Right-to-work legislation has stalled partly because of divisions within the Republican Party and concerns the issue could endanger Republicans in swing districts...
Employee misclassification affects Illinois workers' compensation benefits Digital Journal ...The independent contractor versus employee classification may affect whether you will qualify for workers' compensation benefits following an on-the-job injury...
New York state joins NYC in suing FedEx for shipping untaxed cigarettes Reuters ...New York State joined New York City in suing package delivery company FedEx Corp for allegedly violating state and federal laws by illegally delivering contraband cigarettes to people's homes...
New York Times suggests Wisconsin voting changes are part of larger GOP swing-state effort Cap Times ...A story this weekend notes that laws like the new one to reduce voting hours in Wisconsin are also being passed in other states where the electorate swings between Republicans and Democrats...
'Paycheck protection' lets some workers get free benefits (Opinion) Patriot News ...The Paycheck Protection Act would destroy the current system of union dues and fair share payments for public employees and put in its place an unfair one...
Detroit: bankrupt city readies for divisive $450m Red Wings arena The Guardian ...Billionaire Mike Illitch to build new hockey stadium but critics question use of $284.5m of public money...
Arizona GOP gives private prison company $1 million to house inmates who don’t exist Raw Story ...Lobbyists for the private prison company GEO Group convinced lawmakers to include almost $1 million extra in funding despite the fact that the Arizona Department of Corrections claimed the money wasn’t needed...
War on Workers
U.S. Regulators Say Oil Industry Withholding Data on Rail Crashes Oil Price ...Federal regulators said on March 28 that the oil industry was withholding key information related to the series of train derailments and explosions involving transporting crude oil...
Chemical industry-funded senators want to hide chemical industry funding of studies Raw Story ...OSHA chief David Michaels wants to update guidelines for working with silica dust, a significant hazard for construction workers and others exposed to the industrial byproduct that can cause lung cancer and other deadly diseases...
Walmart Realizes It’s Losing Billions Of Dollars By Denying Workers More Hours ThinkProgress ...Walmart will begin adding worker hours this year as part of an effort to address complaints about empty shelves at the company’s understaffed stores. Fixing the chain’s stocking problems could be worth $3 billion per year, a tacit acknowledgment that Walmart’s notorious efforts to wring productivity out of skeleton crews have hurt its bottom line...
Walmart Has A Lower Hiring Rate Than Harvard Admissions Rates Crooks and Liars ...It’s hard to find oneself among the freshman class at America’s top universities–and it should be! However, you may find it surprising to know that it is actually tougher to find a job at Walmart than it is to attend one of these schools...
Payday loans, overdraft fees can drain finances Post and Courier ...A new federal report has detailed reasons why payday lending is a financial horror that traps people in a cycle of high-interest debt...
Miscellaneous
New Alabama food truck regulations prevent local churches from feeding the homeless The Raw Story ...Food truck regulations that went into effect on January 1, 2014 are preventing churches in Birmingham, Alabama from feeding the homeless...
CCTA Management and Drivers Still Make No Deal Burlington Free Press ...After another marathon negotiation session, no deal was reached between Chittenden County Transportation Authority management and the Teamsters Local 597 bus drivers' union, the two sides said Saturday...
City of Chicago Member wins Primary Election for Cook County Board Local 700 ...Teamsters Local 700 member Luis Arroyo, Jr. will soon transition from a motor truck driver for the City of Chicago to a democratic nominee for the Cook County Board of Commissioners...
Tom O’Donnell Replaces Leo Reed As Director Of Teamsters Deadline Hollywood ...Tom O’Donnell, the current president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 817 in New York, has been named director of the Teamsters Motion Picture and Theatrical Trades Division, replacing the venerable Leo Reed, who left the post in January after 25 years at the helm...
Teamsters: Lack of county pay raises hurts services Topeka Capital Journal ...Shawnee County’s ability to provide quality services is suffering because the county commission isn’t giving employees pay raises, Teamsters Union members said at Monday’s commission meeting...
Trade
Trans-Pacific Partnership: Geopolitics, Not Growth The National Interest ...If you have to pick a winner, it’s Vietnam by a significant margin. By 2025, Vietnam would stand to gain nearly $96 billion or 28 percent of its GDP. This is largely due to exports increasing an estimated 37 percent...
Why do a majority of Americans oppose fast-tracking the TPP? The New American ...A recent poll reveals a majority of Americans oppose giving President Obama an end run around the constitution by fast tracking the Trans Pacific Partnership...
State Battles
Right to Work Vote in Missouri House Could Have Narrow Margin St. Louis Post-Dispatch ...One business priority touted by Republican Leadership has been slow to move out of the Missouri House this session. Right-to-work legislation has stalled partly because of divisions within the Republican Party and concerns the issue could endanger Republicans in swing districts...
Employee misclassification affects Illinois workers' compensation benefits Digital Journal ...The independent contractor versus employee classification may affect whether you will qualify for workers' compensation benefits following an on-the-job injury...
New York state joins NYC in suing FedEx for shipping untaxed cigarettes Reuters ...New York State joined New York City in suing package delivery company FedEx Corp for allegedly violating state and federal laws by illegally delivering contraband cigarettes to people's homes...
New York Times suggests Wisconsin voting changes are part of larger GOP swing-state effort Cap Times ...A story this weekend notes that laws like the new one to reduce voting hours in Wisconsin are also being passed in other states where the electorate swings between Republicans and Democrats...
'Paycheck protection' lets some workers get free benefits (Opinion) Patriot News ...The Paycheck Protection Act would destroy the current system of union dues and fair share payments for public employees and put in its place an unfair one...
Detroit: bankrupt city readies for divisive $450m Red Wings arena The Guardian ...Billionaire Mike Illitch to build new hockey stadium but critics question use of $284.5m of public money...
Arizona GOP gives private prison company $1 million to house inmates who don’t exist Raw Story ...Lobbyists for the private prison company GEO Group convinced lawmakers to include almost $1 million extra in funding despite the fact that the Arizona Department of Corrections claimed the money wasn’t needed...
War on Workers
U.S. Regulators Say Oil Industry Withholding Data on Rail Crashes Oil Price ...Federal regulators said on March 28 that the oil industry was withholding key information related to the series of train derailments and explosions involving transporting crude oil...
Chemical industry-funded senators want to hide chemical industry funding of studies Raw Story ...OSHA chief David Michaels wants to update guidelines for working with silica dust, a significant hazard for construction workers and others exposed to the industrial byproduct that can cause lung cancer and other deadly diseases...
Walmart Realizes It’s Losing Billions Of Dollars By Denying Workers More Hours ThinkProgress ...Walmart will begin adding worker hours this year as part of an effort to address complaints about empty shelves at the company’s understaffed stores. Fixing the chain’s stocking problems could be worth $3 billion per year, a tacit acknowledgment that Walmart’s notorious efforts to wring productivity out of skeleton crews have hurt its bottom line...
Walmart Has A Lower Hiring Rate Than Harvard Admissions Rates Crooks and Liars ...It’s hard to find oneself among the freshman class at America’s top universities–and it should be! However, you may find it surprising to know that it is actually tougher to find a job at Walmart than it is to attend one of these schools...
Payday loans, overdraft fees can drain finances Post and Courier ...A new federal report has detailed reasons why payday lending is a financial horror that traps people in a cycle of high-interest debt...
Miscellaneous
New Alabama food truck regulations prevent local churches from feeding the homeless The Raw Story ...Food truck regulations that went into effect on January 1, 2014 are preventing churches in Birmingham, Alabama from feeding the homeless...
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Today's Teamster News 03.18.14
Teamster News
County sets public hearing on contract with Teamsters Topeka Capital Journal ...The Shawnee County Commission made plans Monday to hear public comments at its March 31 meeting regarding an impasse between Shawnee County and its approximately 470 employees represented by the Teamsters Union...
Trade
The TPP Tries to Put a "No Exit" Sign on America's Crapified Health Care System by Allowing Medical Procedures to be Patented World-wide truthout ...if some guy decided to patent a medical procedure like, oh, looking at a patient’s teeth using a dental mirror (“tilt the mirror at the correct angle to display the crown or other surface”) that patent could be approved, if the examiner had a bad day, even though the procedure is neither new nor revolutionary. That would raise the price of dental care world-wide...
Fashion Faux Pas? Free Trade and Sweatshop Labor in Guatemala truthout ..."In several CAFTA countries things are worse now than when CAFTA went into effect..."
State Battles
Ohio Mistrusts Democracy New York Times ...Ohio Republicans must not think their political candidates can win a fair fight against Democrats...
GOP Bill Designed to Disrupt John Doe Dark Money Probe, Court Filings Confirm Center for Media and Democracy ...New court filings confirm that Wisconsin's John Doe campaign finance investigation hinges on how state election law treats "issue ad" groups coordinating with political campaigns, shedding new light on a Republican effort to quietly change the law in advance of Governor Scott Walker's reelection campaign...
The Battle for Chattanooga: Southern Masculinity and the Anti-Union Campaign at Volkswagen In These Times ...“Work is not supposed to be a popularity contest, but that’s exactly what it is, unless you’re protected [by a union],” says Gravett, who since graduating from high school in 1985 has worked in various factories, including Dupont, Cleveland Tubing, Polyloom and Volkswagen...
Pensiongate? Christie Campaign Donors Won Huge Contracts The Nation ...While trumpeting “pension reform,” the New Jersey governor placed retiree assets in the hands of hedge fund managers bankrolling his political career...
The War on Workers
Hunger crisis: Charities are strained as nearly 1 in 5 New Yorkers depend on aid for food New York Daily News ...In a city of wealth, 1.4 million people rely on a network of 1,000 food pantries and soup kitchens to eat. That's an increase of 200,000 people in five years, and the city's programs are struggling to keep up with that need...
Low-Wage Workers Are Finding Poverty Harder to Escape New York Times ...More than half of those who make $9 or less an hour are 25 or older, while the proportion who are teenagers has declined to just 17 percent from 28 percent in 2000, after adjusting for inflation...
Wells Fargo foreclosure manual under fire Washington Post ...lenders, including Wells Fargo, used forged and shoddy paperwork during the recession to quickly foreclose on struggling homeowners, a practice known as “robo-signing.” Those charges led to a $25 billion national mortgage settlement that was supposed to put an end to such abusive practices, but bankruptcy lawyer Linda Tirelli says nothing has changed...
Miscellaneous
Obama auto rescue saved 2.6 million jobs and over $100 billion examiner ...The total loss of jobs would have topped 2.6 million if the entire auto industry would have been left to collapse and the report also notes that the bailout "saved or avoided the loss of $105.3 billion in transfer payments and the loss of personal and social insurance tax collections -- or 768% of the net investment...”
County sets public hearing on contract with Teamsters Topeka Capital Journal ...The Shawnee County Commission made plans Monday to hear public comments at its March 31 meeting regarding an impasse between Shawnee County and its approximately 470 employees represented by the Teamsters Union...
Trade
The TPP Tries to Put a "No Exit" Sign on America's Crapified Health Care System by Allowing Medical Procedures to be Patented World-wide truthout ...if some guy decided to patent a medical procedure like, oh, looking at a patient’s teeth using a dental mirror (“tilt the mirror at the correct angle to display the crown or other surface”) that patent could be approved, if the examiner had a bad day, even though the procedure is neither new nor revolutionary. That would raise the price of dental care world-wide...
Fashion Faux Pas? Free Trade and Sweatshop Labor in Guatemala truthout ..."In several CAFTA countries things are worse now than when CAFTA went into effect..."
State Battles
Ohio Mistrusts Democracy New York Times ...Ohio Republicans must not think their political candidates can win a fair fight against Democrats...
GOP Bill Designed to Disrupt John Doe Dark Money Probe, Court Filings Confirm Center for Media and Democracy ...New court filings confirm that Wisconsin's John Doe campaign finance investigation hinges on how state election law treats "issue ad" groups coordinating with political campaigns, shedding new light on a Republican effort to quietly change the law in advance of Governor Scott Walker's reelection campaign...
The Battle for Chattanooga: Southern Masculinity and the Anti-Union Campaign at Volkswagen In These Times ...“Work is not supposed to be a popularity contest, but that’s exactly what it is, unless you’re protected [by a union],” says Gravett, who since graduating from high school in 1985 has worked in various factories, including Dupont, Cleveland Tubing, Polyloom and Volkswagen...
Pensiongate? Christie Campaign Donors Won Huge Contracts The Nation ...While trumpeting “pension reform,” the New Jersey governor placed retiree assets in the hands of hedge fund managers bankrolling his political career...
The War on Workers
Hunger crisis: Charities are strained as nearly 1 in 5 New Yorkers depend on aid for food New York Daily News ...In a city of wealth, 1.4 million people rely on a network of 1,000 food pantries and soup kitchens to eat. That's an increase of 200,000 people in five years, and the city's programs are struggling to keep up with that need...
Low-Wage Workers Are Finding Poverty Harder to Escape New York Times ...More than half of those who make $9 or less an hour are 25 or older, while the proportion who are teenagers has declined to just 17 percent from 28 percent in 2000, after adjusting for inflation...
Wells Fargo foreclosure manual under fire Washington Post ...lenders, including Wells Fargo, used forged and shoddy paperwork during the recession to quickly foreclose on struggling homeowners, a practice known as “robo-signing.” Those charges led to a $25 billion national mortgage settlement that was supposed to put an end to such abusive practices, but bankruptcy lawyer Linda Tirelli says nothing has changed...
Miscellaneous
Obama auto rescue saved 2.6 million jobs and over $100 billion examiner ...The total loss of jobs would have topped 2.6 million if the entire auto industry would have been left to collapse and the report also notes that the bailout "saved or avoided the loss of $105.3 billion in transfer payments and the loss of personal and social insurance tax collections -- or 768% of the net investment...”
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