Teamsters
The Sinister Motives Lurking Beneath Amazon.com's Minnesota Debut Teamster.org ...Teamsters Local 120 and workers across Minnesota are questioning the motives behind Amazon.com, Inc., as the company prepares to break ground on a new distribution facility, while driving down wages for workers. After facing community pressure, Amazon, a multi-billion dollar corporation, recently withdrew its request for more than $6.4 million in tax incentives...
Teamsters Local 284 President Paul Suffoletto Responds to Management Changes at NetJets Teamster.org ...Today, the Teamsters Union was informed of a change in leadership at NetJets, Inc., which could impact hundreds of Teamsters Local 284-represented flight attendants, mechanics and related employees, stock clerks, maintenance controllers and flight dispatchers. The Teamsters Union was informed that CEO Jordan Hansell has left NetJets. Adam Johnson will replace Hansell as Chairman and CEO...
Port truck drivers: Companies must share blame WJCL News ...Drivers of trucks that service the Savannah ports have scheduled a press conference Tuesday at which they are expected to make the claim that trucking companies must share the blame for the recent spate of truck-related fatal accidents in the area. Drivers said in a press release issued Monday that long hours, low pay, and pressure from the trucking companies to deliver as many loads as possible a day all contribute to unsafe working conditions...
Global Labor & Trade
Dems in pressure cooker on trade The Hill ...House Democrats are in a pressure cooker ahead of a high-stakes vote on a vital piece of President Obama's ambitious trade agenda. The White House, joining the powerful business lobby, is applying a full court press in an effort to rally lawmakers behind contentious fast-track legislation that would grant the administration new powers to seal enormous international trade deals that would rank atop Obama's economic achievements...
Congress may take up Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal this week Michigan Radio ...Michigan’s congressional delegation is divided as a major new trade deal tops the agenda this week. The “Trans Pacific Partnership” would cover U-S imports and exports from a dozen nations. Flint Congressman Dan Kildee says the deal doesn’t do enough to address human rights and currency manipulation...
WikiLeaks Launches Campaign to Offer $100,000 "Bounty" for Leaked Drafts of Secret TPP Chapters Democracy Now ...Critics, including a number of Democratic lawmakers, oppose the TPP, saying it will fuel inequality, kill jobs, and undermine health, environmental and financial regulations. The negotiations have been secret, and the public has never seen most of the deal’s text. This morning the whistleblowing group WikiLeaks launched a campaign to change that. The group is seeking to raise $100,000 to offer what they describe as a bounty for the leaking of the unseen chapters of the TPP...
Australian MPs allowed to see top-secret trade deal text but can't reveal contents for four years The Guardian ...Australian politicians have been told they can view the current confidential negotiating text for the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, but only if they agree not to divulge anything they see for four years, despite expectations the deal could be finalised within months...
Don't Reward Human Traffickers (opinion)
Roll Call ...The horrors along the Thai-Malaysian border revealed in the past week have shocked our consciences, and put the scourge of human trafficking at the front of international news. As shocking as those stories are, they are not the first reports from Malaysia. This reality is why I introduced an amendment to the “fast track” trade promotion bill that for the first time prohibits expedited, unamendable congressional consideration for any trade deal including the very worst human trafficking country...
UK rail strikes suspended after 2% pay rise offer BBC ...Planned rail strikes by workers from the RMT union have been suspended after an offer of a 2% pay rise this year, the arbitration service Acas has said. Acas said four days of talks helped "formulate" revised proposals for the RMT and other unions to consider. The RMT has 16,000 members at Network Rail in operations and maintenance...
Two Years Later, Murder Charges for Rana Plaza Tragedy, But Justice Elusive Common Dreams ...Bangladeshi police on Monday formally filed murder charges against 41 people for the Rana Plaza factory collapse over two years ago that killed 1,138 workers in what is is believed to be the worst single tragedy in the history of the world's garment industry. However, officials from the numerous Western retail corporations that did business with the factory—including Walmart, The Children’s Place, Benetton, Zara, and Mango—were not named among those facing charges...
State & Living Wage Battles
Right-to-work opponents run TV ads to press governor to follow through with his veto St. Louis Public Radio ...Although Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon already has declared he’ll veto an anti-union bill known as “right to work,’’ a labor coalition has launched a TV ad campaign anyway. The ad blitz is likely just the first salvo in what could be a summer-long effort by both sides to sway the public and politicians on the bill...
California Senate approves another minimum wage hike KTVL ...The California Senate has approved a plan to again raise California's minimum wage, lifting it to $13 an hour in 2017, then tied to the rate of inflation after that. Senators on Monday approved the bill, SB3 by Sen. Mark Leno, on a 23-15 vote, with Republican lawmakers opposed...
California lawmakers advance 'wage theft' bill for workers KSBY ...California lawmakers have advanced a "wage theft" bill in an effort to crack down on employers that shortchange workers. The state Senate on Monday approved the proposal on a 24-12 vote. SB588 by Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon would make it easier for the state labor commissioner to collect unpaid wages on behalf of workers...
Absentee voter ID bill dead in Alabama Legislature, lawmakers say AL.com ...A bill that would require voters to submit a copy of their photo ID when requesting an absentee ballot in the state of Alabama is dead, Rep. Reed Ingram said. Currently, Alabama is one of only three states that require a photo ID to submit an absentee ballot. The new rule would have required absentee voters to submit a copy of their photo ID on the frontend as well...
Legislature reinstates prevailing wages as part of deal with Dems Las Vegas Review-Journal ...Prevailing wages for school construction projects were resurrected Monday on the last day of the legislative session in an end-game concession to the Democratic minority. The state Senate amended Assembly Bill 172, rescinding a law already signed by Gov. Brian Sandoval that exempts schools from prevailing wage requirements...
Nevada legislature approves state's largest-ever tax hike USA Today ...The Nevada legislature approved the state's largest-ever tax hike that will raise up to $1.1 billion in new and extended taxes to initiate far-reaching reforms in Nevada's struggling K-12 education system. In a 30 to 10 vote Sunday, the Assembly approved all three major facets of Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval's tax plan...
How the Retail Industry Keeps People of Color in Poverty The Nation ...A new report by the think tank Demos and the NAACP shows that the retail industry, a leading source of employment in the post-recession "recovery,” is creating many more bad jobs than good ones—and blacks and Latinos are stuck in the lowest-paid positions with the least opportunity for advancement. Some leading retailers have faced legal challenges in recent years over racial or gender discrimination against workers, but the most harmful forms of racial bias operate just below the surface...
Robert Reich on the Real Texas Disaster: Clueless Pols Who Hate the Feds Until They Don't Alternet ...Texas dislikes the federal government so much that eight of its congressional representatives, along with Senator Ted Cruz,opposed disaster relief for the victims of Hurricane Sandy – adding to the awkwardness of their lobbying for the federal relief now heading Texas’s way. Yet even before the current floods, Texas had received more disaster relief than any other state...
U.S. Labor
Texas court upholds labor board's union election rule The Hill ...The Obama administration should be allowed to speed up the process by which employees unionize, a federal judge ruled Monday. Judge Robert Pitman of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas tossed out a lawsuit from business...
30,000 Teachers Walk Out in Protest of Big Class Sizes in Washington State In These Times ...On Tuesday, May 19, thousands of demonstrators marched through downtown Seattle to support a rolling strike by public school teachers across Washington state. The teachers are protesting what they say are unacceptably high class sizes and low pay, stemming from their state legislature’s failure to fully fund public education...
GE Begins Union Contract Talks Finances ...GE today began negotiations on a new national contract with the International Union of Electronic Workers/Communications Workers of America (IUE-CWA). Negotiations with the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) will begin tomorrow, June 2, 2015. GE holds separate talks with each union. The current four-year contracts with the unions expire at midnight on June 21, 2015...
For UAW members, two-tier wage issue is personal St. Louis Post-Dispatch ...The Austin family's dilemma is an emotionally charged example of why UAW President Dennis Williams is under pressure from rank-and-file union members to overhaul the two-tier wage system in contract talks this summer with the Detroit Three automakers. For decades, the UAW fought to get comparable pay for union members doing similar work. But in 2007, as the Detroit automakers were starting to bleed cash, UAW leaders agreed to create two classes of workers...
Miscellaneous
Glenn Greenwald: As Bulk NSA Spying Expires, Scare Tactics Can’t Stop "Sea Change" on Surveillance Democracy Now ...The government’s authority to sweep up millions of Americans’ phone records has expired. The practice exposed by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden could now face limited reforms as the Senate weighs the USA FREEDOM Act, which would require the government to ask phone companies for a user’s data rather than vacuuming up all the records at once...
New Data Offer First Infuriating Glimpse At How The Richest 0.001 Percent Pay Income Taxes Think Progress ...Tax day doesn’t sting much if you live at the gilded edge, according to new data on how the top one-hundredth of one percent and the top one-thousandth of a percent of all filers pay their income taxes. People who make tens of millions of dollars enjoyed falling income tax rates and ballooning wealth for a decade as middle-class taxpayers floundered...
