Teamsters
Gregory Floyd Named Teamsters International Trustee Teamster.org ...The International Brotherhood of Teamsters announced today that Gregory Floyd was appointed to serve as an International Trustee on the General Executive Board. Floyd is the President of Teamsters Local 237 in New York City, the union’s largest local chapter with more than 24,000 members that work in the public sector...
Ron Herrera Appointed Teamsters Western Region International Vice President Teamster.org ...Herrera has served on the General Executive Board as an International Trustee since 2012. Herrera, who was also recently appointed director of the Teamsters Solid Waste, Recycling and Related Industries Division, has spent his entire career as a vocal advocate for workers in Southern California. He is also Secretary-Treasurer of Teamsters Local 396 in Covina, Calif., Executive Director of the National Hispanic Caucus and Recording Secretary of Joint Council 42...
Willbros' Investors Call for Sale of Oil & Gas Business; Launch Watchdog Website Teamster.org ...The International Brotherhood of Teamsters have joined with other investors of Willbros Group [NYSE: WG] to demand swift and drastic actions by Willbros’ board of directors including the sale of its Oil and Gas segment. Willbros stock price has dropped 73 percent over the past year, hitting a record low of $1.50 in recent weeks...
Teamsters Gain Ally In Mexican Trucking Challenge Law360 ...A truck drivers' lobbying group has launched a bid to join the International Brotherhood of Teamsters' Ninth Circuit challenge of an Obama administration move to open the U.S. border to Mexican trucking services...
Failed fast track is nearly upon us -- again TeamsterNation ...Despite the Teamsters and our allies making clear that U.S. residents will be hurt if fast track can be used to quickly push secret trade deals like the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) through Congress, some lawmakers had decided to side with big business instead...
Global Labor & Trade
Greece defends bailout tactics as latest deadline looms The Guardian ...Eurozone officials disagreed with this assessment, saying Athens was still able to meet its international obligations, and regarded its ability to pay public sector wages and pensions as a domestic problem, according to the report. They deplored Greece’s unwillingness to discuss cuts to public sector pensions...
50 Reasons We Cannot Afford the TPP Public Citizen ...The TPP would extend the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) model that has contributed to massive U.S. trade deficits and job loss, downward pressure on middle class wages, unprecedented levels of inequality, lagging exports, new floods of agricultural imports, and the loss of family farms...
When corporate profit trumps human rights, we all lose (opinion) The Hill ...The United States is the largest economy in the world and a global leader in the advancement of human rights. We should not reward countries that abuse the human rights of LGBT people and women with a trade agreement that would establish those countries as privileged trading partners...
What Is a 'Corporatist Agenda,' and Where Can We Find One? (opinion) Huffington Post ...The White House has several serious challenges with this narrative. First, TPP looks like a corporatist agenda, walks like one, quacks like one, and has the same effect on my daily life as a corporatist agenda. When you say, "It's not a corporatist agenda," you immediately put your credibility in doubt...
What's driving Seattle's opposition to international trade pact? Income inequality, Bellevue rep says Puget Sound Business Journal ...The massive Trans Pacific Partnership is in “real trouble,” and much of that is because average voters find nothing in it for them. Regional debate about the 12-nation TPP trade agreement has been fiery recently, with the Seattle City Council last month unanimously voting to oppose it in the current form...
State & Living Wage Battles
Judge Overturns Gov. Rauner’s Order Restricting Union Dues CBS ...A judge has issued an order requiring Illinois government agencies to immediately reinstate mandatory union dues for nonmembers. Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner last month issued an executive order ending the dues, which nonmembers must pay to cover the cost of non-political union activities that benefit all employees...
Gov. Rauner hopes deal will speed resolution of union dues dispute State Journal-Register ...Gov. Bruce Rauner's administration has agreed to allow government agencies to resume taking fees from the paychecks of nonunion members to cover union representation while his lawsuit challenging the legality of the fees is resolved in court...
Reining in payday loans falls by wayside in New Mexico Associated Press ...High-interest lending practices have been a target of consumer advocates for decades in New Mexico, one of the poorest states in the country. They failed again this year in the Legislature, however, as bills that would have capped interest rates on payday loans at 36 percent fell by the wayside...
Why the federal government still sometimes doesn’t obey its own minimum wage laws Washington Post ...The Service Contract Act is obscure, and the Department of Labor has to police every complaint, so sometimes it's just overlooked. In its complaint, Good Jobs Nation says in total the violations have deprived 65 workers of $1,578,700 in wages at three workplaces over the two years the statute covers. Their findings illustrate the difficulty the federal government has had in enforcing its own laws...
Federal janitors and zoo groundskeepers file wage theft complaint Daily Kos ...The minimum wage isn't the only wage rate that applies—or should apply—to many federal contract workers, and a group of people who work in Washington, DC, institutions say they're not getting the pay they're legally entitled to. Janitors at the Department of Education, groundskeepers at the National Zoo, and tour bus drivers under a contract with the National Park Service say they haven't been getting the SCA-mandated prevailing wage
Workers Sue Walmart For Manipulating Employee Classification To Deny Them Overtime Pay Think Progress ...because they are labeled managers, they are exempt from federal overtime laws that require employers to pay workers time and a half for more than 40 hours of work a week. The lawsuit alleges that they “were ‘managers’ in name only because they did not have the managerial duties or authority”...
U.S. Labor
Doctors at University of California health clinics go on strike LA Times ...Unionized doctors began a strike Saturday at student health clinics on University of California campuses in Southern California, saying administrators had acted unfairly during negotiations for the physicians' first contract...
Striking Lyondell Houston refinery workers to weigh final offer Reuters ...More than 400 striking hourly workers represented by the United Steelworkers union (USW) at Lyondell Basell Industries' Houston refinery are scheduled to vote on the company's last, best and final offer on Monday and Tuesday, a local union official said on Sunday...
NEA: No Child Left Behind rewrite doesn’t level the playing field Washington Post ...The head of the country’s largest teachers union said that her organization does not support a bipartisan proposal in the Senate to replace the nation’s main federal education law because it does not go far enough to create equal educational opportunities for poor children...
Miscellaneous
Report Reveals How Corporate Tax Dodgers Avoid Paying Their Fair Share - or Any Share At All Common Dreams ...Pointing to egregious examples of Fortune 500 corporations "manipulating the tax system to avoid paying even a dime in tax on billions of dollars in U.S. profits," a new report from Citizens for Tax Justice makes a sharp case for corporate tax reform..,
Will Hillary's Constant Feeding at the Corporate Trough Make it Hard for Her to Embrace Needed Populism? (opinion) Alternet ...The Clinton campaign plans to focus on “economic security” – but the question is: whose? Clinton can adopt classical Democratic positions based on expanding the safety and boosting wages, but her ability to truly transform America's economy and reduce economic inequality will be hampered if she feels indebted to the very same corporations that made her husband and her rich...
Showing posts with label Mexican trucks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mexican trucks. Show all posts
Monday, April 13, 2015
Friday, April 10, 2015
Today's Teamster News 04.10.15
Teamsters
Teamsters: Long Beach Approves Construction Agreement Press-Telegram ...The City of Long Beach, California, has approved a new project labor agreement (PLA) for construction projects. This agreement puts into a motion an agreement to hire unionized labor for use on construction projects costing more than $500,000 each. Hundreds of construction workers in Southern California are represented by Teamsters Local 952, 166 and others...
OOIDA Files As Intervenor In Lawsuit Over Open Border To Mexican Trucks Land Line Magazine ...The granting of long-haul trucking authority to Mexico-domiciled motor carriers operating in the U.S. would adversely affect small-business truckers and highway safety, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association stated in a federal court filing on Tuesday, April 7. On behalf of the Association and its members, OOIDA filed a petition to intervene in a lawsuit brought by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters...
Global Labor & Trade
White House Reveals Desperate Lack Of Support For TPP Truthout ...The White House is having a hard time generating any momentum for fast-track trade authority for the TPP and other agreements. The Obama administration pushed to stop the Seattle City Council from opposing fast-track legislation and the TPP, but instead got a unanimous vote against them from a major port city that trades with Asia...
As Oil Money Flowed, Clinton Turned Back on Rights Abuses in Colombia: Report Common Dreams ...A new investigative look at the ties between big business interests in Colombia, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and her family's charitable foundation are raising troubling questions about the role that corporate trade deals and big oil may have played in softening the powerful Democrat's position on human rights in the South American country...
One Lethal Loophole In The TPP CounterPunch ...After spending five long years negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, the Obama administration is now pushing for the fast-track authority from Congress that would make it easier to get the final deal approved. One serious problem is that the TPP is not likely to include rules on currency, which is leading lawmakers from both parties to consider opposing the agreement. They are right to be concerned...
Fast track on trade is wrong track for America (opinion) The Register-Guard ...The TPP is built upon the foundation of the failed NAFTA and Korea “free trade” agreements. It incorporates all their shortcomings, which directly led to the loss of 743,000 American jobs and put downward pressure on wages in a wide variety of occupations. The new provisions will make it easier for corporations to challenge our labor, environmental and consumer protection laws...
Are These Strikes a Sign of Growing Militancy Among China’s Workers? The Nation ...It seems that even if not directly in contact, workers are aligned in their pushback against global manufacturing’s “race to the bottom.” As the relentless pressure to suppress labor costs begins to finally bottom out, workers may find new leverage on the shop floor, across the city, and maybe even across borders...
Protesters march in France as nationwide strikes target schools, Eiffel Tower and airspace US News ...Thousands of protesters, many blowing whistles and waving union flags, marched through Paris and other French cities on Thursday in a day of nationwide strikes.The protesters aired an array of grievances against state funding cuts, planned increases in the retirement age, and business-friendly reforms that could make firing workers easier...
State & Living Wage Battles
Politicians Try To Union-Bust Their Way To The White House Newsweek ...Fiery labor icon Mother Jones cannot be resting peacefully beneath the crabgrass in the Union Miners’ Cemetery, not far from Springfield, Illinois, where Bruce Rauner, the recently elected Republican governor, has launched an unprecedented attack on organized labor. Rauner is challenging public and private unions on several fronts—even pushing the state’s municipalities to create “right-to-work zones”...
Officials Use Decrepit Bridges, Highways To Make Their Point Washington Post ...In about 150 other cities, mayors and other officials will do stand-ups in front of bridges that need replacement and congested highways to make the point. The mayors say they’ll descend on Washington on May 11 to lobby Congress, but the attention they get Thursday will be played out on television, in print and online to the public at large...
California Lawmakers Propose Expanding Benefits To Some Immigrants San Francisco Chronicle ...California legislative leaders took a bold step Tuesday toward protecting immigrants living in the country without documentation by backing legislation to offer Medi-Cal and other public services to a population they said they want to help move out of the shadows...
Unions Oppose Bill That Would Bar Managers From Joining Albany Times Union ...In a week full of bills that have Nevada unions crying foul, an Assembly committee has passed an amended version of a bill that would dramatically change collective bargaining rules for Nevada public employees...
Senate Democrats Are Getting Fed Up With The SEC's Delay On CEO Pay Rule Huffington Post ...Senate Democrats are losing patience with the Securities and Exchange Commission over the agency's failure to implement a new CEO pay rule. Democrats have been pushing the SEC for nearly five years to move forward with the rule, which Congress required the agency to develop under the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law. The rule would mandate that companies publicly disclose the ratio of their CEO's pay to the median earnings of workers at the firm...
Wall Street has gobbled up billions of New York City pension dollars Daily Kos ...Wall Street, not retired workers, has been getting the profits from New York City's pension funds, according to the city comptroller's office. Management fees have sucked up more than $2 billion over 10 years, virtually erasing gains for the funds that provide pensions for 715,000 city workers...
What corporate America should do for low-wage workers (opinion) Fortune ...On April 15, fast food, retail, and other low-wage workers are planning a wave of actions to demand a $15 minimum wage. This should be a wake-up call to the business community. It’s a moral disgrace that so many hard-working Americans have to scrape to get by on a minimum wage that is 25% below what it was in 1968...
U.S. Labor
Conservative Groups Rally Behind Gerawan Farming Capital & Main ...This year the Gerawans’ local state Assembly member, Republican Jim Patterson of Fresno, introduced Assembly Bill 1389. It would allow outside anti-union parties (such as Silvia Lopez) to inject themselves into mandatory mediation proceedings on the same basis as the union’s elected negotiating committee. Further, it would permit growers to decertify unions that “abandon” workers for three years...
Bank Workers Tell Their Bosses: Stop Making Us Sell Shady Products To Poor People Think Progress ...The newest line of criticism for the banking industry is coming from within, as a group of rank-and-file banking employees prepare to demand that their employer stop ordering them to use predatory sales tactics and start treating them as a valued piece of the workforce...
Miscellaneous
New Minutes Show Federal Reserve Sticking To A Gradual Approach On Rates Washington Post ...Members of the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee were divided at the mid-March meeting over whether to raise interest rates in June or to wait a bit longer, but they remained united in their expectation that they would raise rates gradually...
Defenders of Wealth Blame Workers For Lousy Recovery, Not Policies Protecting Profits Alternet ...The Wall Street financed group Third Way and the Wall Street Journal gave us more proof for this proposition yesterday with a new explanation for the "jobless recovery." Their basic story is that the economy lost routine, relatively low-skilled jobs, but it now needs workers with high-skills for the new jobs that are being created...
Teamsters: Long Beach Approves Construction Agreement Press-Telegram ...The City of Long Beach, California, has approved a new project labor agreement (PLA) for construction projects. This agreement puts into a motion an agreement to hire unionized labor for use on construction projects costing more than $500,000 each. Hundreds of construction workers in Southern California are represented by Teamsters Local 952, 166 and others...
OOIDA Files As Intervenor In Lawsuit Over Open Border To Mexican Trucks Land Line Magazine ...The granting of long-haul trucking authority to Mexico-domiciled motor carriers operating in the U.S. would adversely affect small-business truckers and highway safety, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association stated in a federal court filing on Tuesday, April 7. On behalf of the Association and its members, OOIDA filed a petition to intervene in a lawsuit brought by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters...
Global Labor & Trade
White House Reveals Desperate Lack Of Support For TPP Truthout ...The White House is having a hard time generating any momentum for fast-track trade authority for the TPP and other agreements. The Obama administration pushed to stop the Seattle City Council from opposing fast-track legislation and the TPP, but instead got a unanimous vote against them from a major port city that trades with Asia...
As Oil Money Flowed, Clinton Turned Back on Rights Abuses in Colombia: Report Common Dreams ...A new investigative look at the ties between big business interests in Colombia, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and her family's charitable foundation are raising troubling questions about the role that corporate trade deals and big oil may have played in softening the powerful Democrat's position on human rights in the South American country...
One Lethal Loophole In The TPP CounterPunch ...After spending five long years negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, the Obama administration is now pushing for the fast-track authority from Congress that would make it easier to get the final deal approved. One serious problem is that the TPP is not likely to include rules on currency, which is leading lawmakers from both parties to consider opposing the agreement. They are right to be concerned...
Fast track on trade is wrong track for America (opinion) The Register-Guard ...The TPP is built upon the foundation of the failed NAFTA and Korea “free trade” agreements. It incorporates all their shortcomings, which directly led to the loss of 743,000 American jobs and put downward pressure on wages in a wide variety of occupations. The new provisions will make it easier for corporations to challenge our labor, environmental and consumer protection laws...
Are These Strikes a Sign of Growing Militancy Among China’s Workers? The Nation ...It seems that even if not directly in contact, workers are aligned in their pushback against global manufacturing’s “race to the bottom.” As the relentless pressure to suppress labor costs begins to finally bottom out, workers may find new leverage on the shop floor, across the city, and maybe even across borders...
Protesters march in France as nationwide strikes target schools, Eiffel Tower and airspace US News ...Thousands of protesters, many blowing whistles and waving union flags, marched through Paris and other French cities on Thursday in a day of nationwide strikes.The protesters aired an array of grievances against state funding cuts, planned increases in the retirement age, and business-friendly reforms that could make firing workers easier...
Politicians Try To Union-Bust Their Way To The White House Newsweek ...Fiery labor icon Mother Jones cannot be resting peacefully beneath the crabgrass in the Union Miners’ Cemetery, not far from Springfield, Illinois, where Bruce Rauner, the recently elected Republican governor, has launched an unprecedented attack on organized labor. Rauner is challenging public and private unions on several fronts—even pushing the state’s municipalities to create “right-to-work zones”...
Officials Use Decrepit Bridges, Highways To Make Their Point Washington Post ...In about 150 other cities, mayors and other officials will do stand-ups in front of bridges that need replacement and congested highways to make the point. The mayors say they’ll descend on Washington on May 11 to lobby Congress, but the attention they get Thursday will be played out on television, in print and online to the public at large...
California Lawmakers Propose Expanding Benefits To Some Immigrants San Francisco Chronicle ...California legislative leaders took a bold step Tuesday toward protecting immigrants living in the country without documentation by backing legislation to offer Medi-Cal and other public services to a population they said they want to help move out of the shadows...
Unions Oppose Bill That Would Bar Managers From Joining Albany Times Union ...In a week full of bills that have Nevada unions crying foul, an Assembly committee has passed an amended version of a bill that would dramatically change collective bargaining rules for Nevada public employees...
Senate Democrats Are Getting Fed Up With The SEC's Delay On CEO Pay Rule Huffington Post ...Senate Democrats are losing patience with the Securities and Exchange Commission over the agency's failure to implement a new CEO pay rule. Democrats have been pushing the SEC for nearly five years to move forward with the rule, which Congress required the agency to develop under the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law. The rule would mandate that companies publicly disclose the ratio of their CEO's pay to the median earnings of workers at the firm...
Wall Street has gobbled up billions of New York City pension dollars Daily Kos ...Wall Street, not retired workers, has been getting the profits from New York City's pension funds, according to the city comptroller's office. Management fees have sucked up more than $2 billion over 10 years, virtually erasing gains for the funds that provide pensions for 715,000 city workers...
What corporate America should do for low-wage workers (opinion) Fortune ...On April 15, fast food, retail, and other low-wage workers are planning a wave of actions to demand a $15 minimum wage. This should be a wake-up call to the business community. It’s a moral disgrace that so many hard-working Americans have to scrape to get by on a minimum wage that is 25% below what it was in 1968...
U.S. Labor
Conservative Groups Rally Behind Gerawan Farming Capital & Main ...This year the Gerawans’ local state Assembly member, Republican Jim Patterson of Fresno, introduced Assembly Bill 1389. It would allow outside anti-union parties (such as Silvia Lopez) to inject themselves into mandatory mediation proceedings on the same basis as the union’s elected negotiating committee. Further, it would permit growers to decertify unions that “abandon” workers for three years...
Bank Workers Tell Their Bosses: Stop Making Us Sell Shady Products To Poor People Think Progress ...The newest line of criticism for the banking industry is coming from within, as a group of rank-and-file banking employees prepare to demand that their employer stop ordering them to use predatory sales tactics and start treating them as a valued piece of the workforce...
Miscellaneous
New Minutes Show Federal Reserve Sticking To A Gradual Approach On Rates Washington Post ...Members of the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee were divided at the mid-March meeting over whether to raise interest rates in June or to wait a bit longer, but they remained united in their expectation that they would raise rates gradually...
Defenders of Wealth Blame Workers For Lousy Recovery, Not Policies Protecting Profits Alternet ...The Wall Street financed group Third Way and the Wall Street Journal gave us more proof for this proposition yesterday with a new explanation for the "jobless recovery." Their basic story is that the economy lost routine, relatively low-skilled jobs, but it now needs workers with high-skills for the new jobs that are being created...
Thursday, March 12, 2015
Teamsters carry on the fight against Mexican trucks, file lawsuit
The Teamsters are taking their battle to keep dangerous Mexican trucks off U.S. highways into a third decade with a lawsuit filed earlier this week.
The suit, filed March 10 before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, says the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's action to open the border was “arbitrary and capricious” and not what Congress intended.
The reason FMCSA's decision was "arbitrary and capricious"? Congress ordered the agency to conduct a pilot program with Mexican trucks to determine if they were safe enough to use U.S. highways. Only about a dozen Mexican carriers participated in the pilot program, not enough to draw a sound conclusion about the likely safety of Mexican trucks.
The Department of Transportation's (DOT) Inspector General agreed the pilot program involved too few Mexican trucks to determine their future safety performance. And the IG pointed out DOT couldn’t inspect enough carriers in Mexico because of the danger to transportation inspectors. The Teamsters have long argued that letting Mexican trucks travel in the United States was unfair because Mexico is too dangerous for Americans drivers.
FMCSA went ahead anyway and announced it would open the border to Mexican trucks later this year. Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa said then,
This policy change by the DOT flies in the face of common sense and ignores the statutory and regulatory requirements of a pilot program. Allowing untested, Mexican trucks to travel our highways is a mistake of the highest order and it’s the driving public that will be put at risk by the DOT’s rash decision.The lawsuit seeks to reverse the FMCSA's decision. The Teamsters were joined in the suit by Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety and the Truck Safety Coalition.
Inside FMCSA notes the agency may face further challenges:
In addition to the Teamster’s recent legal challenge, efforts to reverse FMCSA’s decision may emanate from Congress. Congress has stepped in before to prevent the agency from opening the door to Mexican truckers and could do so again.
Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR), ranking minority member on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has made no secret of his opposition to FMCSA’s decision and has suggested it may be subject to congressional review.Hoffa has also sent a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman asking him to reopen talks on Mexican trucks during Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations.
Today's Teamster News 03.12.15
Teamsters
Teamsters hit FMCSA with lawsuit over move to open border for Mexican carriers Overdrive ...The Teamsters Union announced this week it has filed a lawsuit against the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s recent move to expand its cross-border trucking program with Mexico...
Teamsters Win Landslide Shareholder Vote At Hologic teamster.org ... A shareholder proposal sponsored by the Teamsters-affiliated GCC Benevolent Trust Fund secured an overwhelming majority vote of shareholders at last week’s Hologic Incorporated annual meeting. The proposal called on the Board of Directors to submit the adoption, maintenance or extension of any poison pill plan to a vote of the shareholders...
Hoffa: Film Tax Credits Are Worth Saving Detroit News ...Lawmakers on the campaign trail in Michigan have rightfully stressed the need for jobs in recent years. They say it is a top priority. But once within the cozy confines of the Statehouse in Lansing, too many seem to lose sight of the issue or its importance to their constituents. Case in point — a House committee’s decision last week to back legislation that ends some $50 million in annual tax credits to encourage films and television shows to shoot in the Great Lakes State...
Teamsters, RI Hospital Negotiations Stall Rhode Island Public Radio ...The Teamsters represent about 2500 nursing assistants, food service, and other workers at Rhode Island Hospital. They’ve threatened to strike if negotiators can’t agree on job protections and wage hikes, as well as improvements to their retirement plan...
Debate Over Fawn's Police Coverage Intensifies Pittsburgh Tribune Review ...Smith had a copy of a letter dated March 2, from Tom Huck, business agent for Teamsters Local 249 which represents the police, to supervisors chairman David Montanari. The supervisors and Teamsters negotiators were unable to come to a contract agreement for the police and the contract is headed to arbitration. In the letter, also sent to the Valley News Dispatch, Huck criticized the supervisors for allowing the shifts to go unmanned...
County Employees Receive Pay Hike Ottumwa Courier ...Employees in two different bargaining units were given identical pay increases by Wapello County Board of Supervisors Tuesday night. Teamsters Local 238 for the courthouse bargaining unit and Teamsters Local 238 for the sheriff's bargaining unit will receive a two percent increase on July 1, 2015, and July 1, 2016 and a two and half percent increase on July 1, 2017...
Trade
Push against investment rules in U.S. trade deals picks up Reuters ...Law professors from across the United States urged lawmakers to keep rules to protect foreign investors out of trade pacts on Wednesday, warning they would give big companies too much power...
Huckabee slams 'globalists,' free trade agreements Politico ...Expressing deep skepticism of proposed free trade agreements, Mike Huckabee warned in Iowa Saturday that the United States is becoming like communist China...
Unions To Fight Trade Pact By Freezing Political Donations Wall Street Journal ...The move is part of the unions’ campaign against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, which the Obama administration is negotiating with 11 nations around the Pacific Ocean. The unions worry the trade agreement could send more jobs to low-wage countries, including Vietnam and Malaysia...
Paul Krugman: TPP At The NABE New York Times ...Why, exactly, should the Obama administration spend any political capital – alienating labor, disillusioning progressive activists – over such a deal?...
Health Impact Assessment: TPP Poses Risks To Affordable Medicines, Tobacco Control And Nutrition Labeling Techdirt ...The negotiations are still being conducted with a total lack of transparency -- especially compared to TAFTA/TTIP, where public pressure has led to the release of a large number of documents from the EU, though not from the US...
State Battles
Unions Challenge Wisconsin's New 'Right-To-Work' Law In Court Reuters ...The Wisconsin state AFL-CIO and two other unions filed suit on Tuesday challenging a new statute that lets private-sector employees avoid joining unions or paying dues even when covered by union-negotiated contracts...
Right-To-Work: NM Senate Panel Tables Bill KOTA ...A New Mexico Senate panel has voted along party lines to stop the advance of a bill that prohibits requiring workers to join a union and pay dues as a condition of employment...
War on Workers
Not a Puzzle—Wages Growth is Sluggish Because Employers Hold All the Cards Economic Policy Institute ...We’ve finally seen 12 consecutive months of job growth above 200,000, but wage growth shows little sign of accelerating. The question that everyone seems to be asking now is, when will wage growth pick up?...
Business Pushes for Delay, Litigation, and One-Sided Access in Union Elections Economic Policy Institute ... The NLRB is updating obsolete election rules that fail to recognize modern developments like e-mail, and which encourage excessive litigation and delay. Yet a panel stacked with anti-union lawyers attacked the rules as if they were ending American democracy...
How income fraud made the housing bubble worse Science Daily ... The researchers place the blame for falsified earnings listed on mortgage applications -- which the researchers call "buyer income overstatement" -- on brokers producing mortgages intended to be sold as securities...
Worker Electrocuted, Killed On South Tropical Trail Space Coast Daily ...A worker was killed Tuesday at about 2:45 p.m. while replacing power poles...
Teamsters hit FMCSA with lawsuit over move to open border for Mexican carriers Overdrive ...The Teamsters Union announced this week it has filed a lawsuit against the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s recent move to expand its cross-border trucking program with Mexico...
Teamsters Win Landslide Shareholder Vote At Hologic teamster.org ... A shareholder proposal sponsored by the Teamsters-affiliated GCC Benevolent Trust Fund secured an overwhelming majority vote of shareholders at last week’s Hologic Incorporated annual meeting. The proposal called on the Board of Directors to submit the adoption, maintenance or extension of any poison pill plan to a vote of the shareholders...
Hoffa: Film Tax Credits Are Worth Saving Detroit News ...Lawmakers on the campaign trail in Michigan have rightfully stressed the need for jobs in recent years. They say it is a top priority. But once within the cozy confines of the Statehouse in Lansing, too many seem to lose sight of the issue or its importance to their constituents. Case in point — a House committee’s decision last week to back legislation that ends some $50 million in annual tax credits to encourage films and television shows to shoot in the Great Lakes State...
Teamsters, RI Hospital Negotiations Stall Rhode Island Public Radio ...The Teamsters represent about 2500 nursing assistants, food service, and other workers at Rhode Island Hospital. They’ve threatened to strike if negotiators can’t agree on job protections and wage hikes, as well as improvements to their retirement plan...
Debate Over Fawn's Police Coverage Intensifies Pittsburgh Tribune Review ...Smith had a copy of a letter dated March 2, from Tom Huck, business agent for Teamsters Local 249 which represents the police, to supervisors chairman David Montanari. The supervisors and Teamsters negotiators were unable to come to a contract agreement for the police and the contract is headed to arbitration. In the letter, also sent to the Valley News Dispatch, Huck criticized the supervisors for allowing the shifts to go unmanned...
County Employees Receive Pay Hike Ottumwa Courier ...Employees in two different bargaining units were given identical pay increases by Wapello County Board of Supervisors Tuesday night. Teamsters Local 238 for the courthouse bargaining unit and Teamsters Local 238 for the sheriff's bargaining unit will receive a two percent increase on July 1, 2015, and July 1, 2016 and a two and half percent increase on July 1, 2017...
Trade
Push against investment rules in U.S. trade deals picks up Reuters ...Law professors from across the United States urged lawmakers to keep rules to protect foreign investors out of trade pacts on Wednesday, warning they would give big companies too much power...
Huckabee slams 'globalists,' free trade agreements Politico ...Expressing deep skepticism of proposed free trade agreements, Mike Huckabee warned in Iowa Saturday that the United States is becoming like communist China...
Unions To Fight Trade Pact By Freezing Political Donations Wall Street Journal ...The move is part of the unions’ campaign against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, which the Obama administration is negotiating with 11 nations around the Pacific Ocean. The unions worry the trade agreement could send more jobs to low-wage countries, including Vietnam and Malaysia...
Paul Krugman: TPP At The NABE New York Times ...Why, exactly, should the Obama administration spend any political capital – alienating labor, disillusioning progressive activists – over such a deal?...
Health Impact Assessment: TPP Poses Risks To Affordable Medicines, Tobacco Control And Nutrition Labeling Techdirt ...The negotiations are still being conducted with a total lack of transparency -- especially compared to TAFTA/TTIP, where public pressure has led to the release of a large number of documents from the EU, though not from the US...
State Battles
Unions Challenge Wisconsin's New 'Right-To-Work' Law In Court Reuters ...The Wisconsin state AFL-CIO and two other unions filed suit on Tuesday challenging a new statute that lets private-sector employees avoid joining unions or paying dues even when covered by union-negotiated contracts...
Right-To-Work: NM Senate Panel Tables Bill KOTA ...A New Mexico Senate panel has voted along party lines to stop the advance of a bill that prohibits requiring workers to join a union and pay dues as a condition of employment...
War on Workers
Not a Puzzle—Wages Growth is Sluggish Because Employers Hold All the Cards Economic Policy Institute ...We’ve finally seen 12 consecutive months of job growth above 200,000, but wage growth shows little sign of accelerating. The question that everyone seems to be asking now is, when will wage growth pick up?...
Business Pushes for Delay, Litigation, and One-Sided Access in Union Elections Economic Policy Institute ... The NLRB is updating obsolete election rules that fail to recognize modern developments like e-mail, and which encourage excessive litigation and delay. Yet a panel stacked with anti-union lawyers attacked the rules as if they were ending American democracy...
How income fraud made the housing bubble worse Science Daily ... The researchers place the blame for falsified earnings listed on mortgage applications -- which the researchers call "buyer income overstatement" -- on brokers producing mortgages intended to be sold as securities...
Worker Electrocuted, Killed On South Tropical Trail Space Coast Daily ...A worker was killed Tuesday at about 2:45 p.m. while replacing power poles...
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
Today's Teamster News 03.04.15
Teamsters
Teamsters ratify four-year contract at AMR nwLaborPress.org …Members of Teamsters Portland Local 223 and Vancouver Local 58 ratified a new four-year collective bargaining agreement at American Medical Response (AMR). The 450-member bargaining unit provides ambulance service to Multnomah and Clackamas counties in Oregon, and Clark and Cowlitz counties in Washington...
Bus Drivers Ratify New Contract With First Student WTOC ...After several long months of negotiations, Savannah First Student employees represented by Teamsters have overwhelmingly ratified their new contract, 117 to four, according to a spokesperson from Teamsters 728...
Teamsters Want Mexican Trucking Row Revisited In TPP Law360 …The International Brotherhood of Teamsters on Monday publicly called on U.S. trade officials to use the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks to reopen deliberations on Mexico's cross-border trucking services, blasting the administration's move to open the border to Mexican truckers earlier this year...
Teamsters To Protest Republic Services Teamsters Local 728 ...On Wed., March 4 at 12 p.m., sanitation workers who work for Republic Services, Inc. [NYSE: RSG] will hold an informational picket to educate the public on the company's human rights violations. Workers at Republic allege that Republic has broken federal laws that protect workers' rights, by unilaterally changing pay and working conditions without negotiating with their union...
S.F. politician calls for labor peace at bus stops USA Today …With labor unions in negotiations with the transportation companies that ferry Silicon Valley tech workers, a San Francisco legislator is calling on the city to consider "labor harmony" when granting permits to corporate shuttles...
Coming detraction: Tax credit ax? Boston Herald …Sean O’Brien, president of Teamsters Local 25, drivers for the movie biz, [said] “Through the tax credit, we have created an industry where people can make a good living and provide for their families,” he said...
Miller, State Attorneys General Join FTC In Challenging Sysco-US Foods Merger Storm Lake Pilot Tribune ...Attorney General Tom Miller and a bipartisan group of state attorneys general today joined the Federal Trade Commission's administrative complaint challenging a proposed merger between food distribution giants Sysco and US Foods...
Canadian National Railway and the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, representing rail traffic controllers, reach a collective agreement Yahoo! News ...The collective agreement covering about 185 rail traffic controllers expired on December 31, 2014...
Trade
Japanese official: Adding currency rules would kill Pacific trade pact Reuters …Any effort to add rules against currency cheating in a 12-nation Pacific trade pact would mean the end of negotiations, a senior Japanese negotiator said on Tuesday...
TPP Free Trade Agreement Would Increase Cost of Medicine In Mexico, Peru, Chile, And Other Countries Latin Times …TPP -- the Trans-PacificPartnership -- is making waves from Peru to Australia, concerning public health officials and consumer advocates. TPP, which would expand trade in 11 Pacific Rim countries, includes draft provisions for unprecedented expansion of pharmaceutical patent protection that could drive up the cost of medicine...
Let's Debate The Trans-Pacific Partnership -- History's Largest Trade Deal -- Before OKing It (opinion) Los Angeles Times ...If you haven't heard much about the TPP, that's part of the problem. It would be the largest trade deal in history — involving countries stretching from Chile to Japan, representing 792 million people and about 40% of the world economy. Yet it's been devised in secret, with a disproportionate amount of advice coming from corporations and Wall Street. This secrecy is the norm since NAFTA...
State Battles
Gov. Rauner asks community to back right to work in 'voter empowerment agenda' address Chicago Sun Times ...Rauner, who has in recent weeks focused on an agenda to allow “right to work” zones in targeted areas of the state, spent much of his address selling that point. It had one Illinois union saying Rauner held a “political obsession with crushing the unions that advocate for the middle class.”...
What a Right-to-Work Law Could Mean For Wisconsin Unions WUWM ...nion membership would likely fall in Wisconsin, if the state enacts such a measure It’s the trend, according to Cheryl Maranto. She’s a management professor at Marquette University. Maranto says union numbers tend to drop in right-to-work states, partly because many unions think it’s futile to expand into new workplaces there...
Minnesota Jobs Committee chair working to bring businesses from Wisconsin to Minnesota State Representative Pat Garofalo ...In light of legislation passed by the Wisconsin State Senate and being debated in the Wisconsin State Assembly that would make Wisconsin a "Right To Work" state, Job Growth and Energy Affordability Committee Chairman Rep. Pat Garofalo, R-Farmington, has extended an invitation to two Wisconsin businesses offering assistance relocating their headquarters to Minnesota...
Right To Work For Less: Gov. Scott Walker Wants To Lower Worker Pay In Wisconsin (opinion) Washington Post ...Look, there are no perfect institutions in America, and unions are no exception. But they exist for a critically important reason: to balance out the inherent power of employers over workers and, thus, to enforce a more equitable distribution of the fruits of growth. In this regard, it is not a coincidence that as unions have diminished in numbers and power, the earnings of the middle class have stagnated...
Bill restricting union dues collection fails but not dead yet in Pa. Senate PennLive ...An attempt to pass a controversial amendment to a bill that would restrict union dues collection from state and school employees' paychecks narrowly failed in the state Senate on Monday. But most likely, we haven't seen the last of this amendment to this so-called paycheck protection bill...
Common Construction Repeal May Require Further Study Indiana Public Media ...The Indiana House easily approved legislation repealing the state’s common construction wage, and the bill’s support in the Senate looks strong. That means pushing the issue to summer study committee could be opponents’ best hope...
Bill Would Reestablish N.H. Minimum Wage, Raise It To $10 An Hour By 2018 NHPR ...Under the bill backed by seven Democratic state Senators, the increased minimum wage would take effect at the beginning of 2016. The bill calls for further increases to $9 an hour in 2017 and $10 an hour in 2018...
War on Workers
NLRB Election Rules Near Test in Congress; Changes Said to ‘Streamline' Board Process Bloomberg BNA ...Congress is about to take up proposals to block the National Labor Relations Board from implementing changes in its representation case rules and procedures set to take effect April 14...
Being a poor corporate citizen is hurting McDonald’s Washington Post …McDonald’s, that once-great American symbol of ingenuity and ruthless efficiency, is having some major difficulties, as its plummeting profits and recent C-suite shake up can attest…
Accident In The Zoo Interchange: 33-Year-Old Construction Worker Killed; Investigation Underway WITI ...A construction worker was killed while working on the Zoo Interchange project near 91st Street in Milwaukee on Saturday morning, February 28th...
Worker Killed At Natchitoches Parish Paper Mill KSLA ...Natchitoches Parish authorities have confirmed with KSLA News 12 that a man was killed in a paper mill accident...
Miscellaneous
Maine Bill Takes On NSA Spying With Transpartisan Support Tenth Amendment Center ...A bill filed in the Maine Senate late last week represents a transpartisan effort taking on the surveillance state. The legislation would not only support efforts to turn off NSA’s water in states where a physical NSA facility is located, but would also have immediate practical effects on how surveillance is used in some situations...
Teamsters ratify four-year contract at AMR nwLaborPress.org …Members of Teamsters Portland Local 223 and Vancouver Local 58 ratified a new four-year collective bargaining agreement at American Medical Response (AMR). The 450-member bargaining unit provides ambulance service to Multnomah and Clackamas counties in Oregon, and Clark and Cowlitz counties in Washington...
Bus Drivers Ratify New Contract With First Student WTOC ...After several long months of negotiations, Savannah First Student employees represented by Teamsters have overwhelmingly ratified their new contract, 117 to four, according to a spokesperson from Teamsters 728...
Teamsters Want Mexican Trucking Row Revisited In TPP Law360 …The International Brotherhood of Teamsters on Monday publicly called on U.S. trade officials to use the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks to reopen deliberations on Mexico's cross-border trucking services, blasting the administration's move to open the border to Mexican truckers earlier this year...
Teamsters To Protest Republic Services Teamsters Local 728 ...On Wed., March 4 at 12 p.m., sanitation workers who work for Republic Services, Inc. [NYSE: RSG] will hold an informational picket to educate the public on the company's human rights violations. Workers at Republic allege that Republic has broken federal laws that protect workers' rights, by unilaterally changing pay and working conditions without negotiating with their union...
S.F. politician calls for labor peace at bus stops USA Today …With labor unions in negotiations with the transportation companies that ferry Silicon Valley tech workers, a San Francisco legislator is calling on the city to consider "labor harmony" when granting permits to corporate shuttles...
Coming detraction: Tax credit ax? Boston Herald …Sean O’Brien, president of Teamsters Local 25, drivers for the movie biz, [said] “Through the tax credit, we have created an industry where people can make a good living and provide for their families,” he said...
Miller, State Attorneys General Join FTC In Challenging Sysco-US Foods Merger Storm Lake Pilot Tribune ...Attorney General Tom Miller and a bipartisan group of state attorneys general today joined the Federal Trade Commission's administrative complaint challenging a proposed merger between food distribution giants Sysco and US Foods...
Canadian National Railway and the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, representing rail traffic controllers, reach a collective agreement Yahoo! News ...The collective agreement covering about 185 rail traffic controllers expired on December 31, 2014...
Trade
Japanese official: Adding currency rules would kill Pacific trade pact Reuters …Any effort to add rules against currency cheating in a 12-nation Pacific trade pact would mean the end of negotiations, a senior Japanese negotiator said on Tuesday...
TPP Free Trade Agreement Would Increase Cost of Medicine In Mexico, Peru, Chile, And Other Countries Latin Times …TPP -- the Trans-PacificPartnership -- is making waves from Peru to Australia, concerning public health officials and consumer advocates. TPP, which would expand trade in 11 Pacific Rim countries, includes draft provisions for unprecedented expansion of pharmaceutical patent protection that could drive up the cost of medicine...
Let's Debate The Trans-Pacific Partnership -- History's Largest Trade Deal -- Before OKing It (opinion) Los Angeles Times ...If you haven't heard much about the TPP, that's part of the problem. It would be the largest trade deal in history — involving countries stretching from Chile to Japan, representing 792 million people and about 40% of the world economy. Yet it's been devised in secret, with a disproportionate amount of advice coming from corporations and Wall Street. This secrecy is the norm since NAFTA...
State Battles
Gov. Rauner asks community to back right to work in 'voter empowerment agenda' address Chicago Sun Times ...Rauner, who has in recent weeks focused on an agenda to allow “right to work” zones in targeted areas of the state, spent much of his address selling that point. It had one Illinois union saying Rauner held a “political obsession with crushing the unions that advocate for the middle class.”...
What a Right-to-Work Law Could Mean For Wisconsin Unions WUWM ...nion membership would likely fall in Wisconsin, if the state enacts such a measure It’s the trend, according to Cheryl Maranto. She’s a management professor at Marquette University. Maranto says union numbers tend to drop in right-to-work states, partly because many unions think it’s futile to expand into new workplaces there...
Minnesota Jobs Committee chair working to bring businesses from Wisconsin to Minnesota State Representative Pat Garofalo ...In light of legislation passed by the Wisconsin State Senate and being debated in the Wisconsin State Assembly that would make Wisconsin a "Right To Work" state, Job Growth and Energy Affordability Committee Chairman Rep. Pat Garofalo, R-Farmington, has extended an invitation to two Wisconsin businesses offering assistance relocating their headquarters to Minnesota...
Right To Work For Less: Gov. Scott Walker Wants To Lower Worker Pay In Wisconsin (opinion) Washington Post ...Look, there are no perfect institutions in America, and unions are no exception. But they exist for a critically important reason: to balance out the inherent power of employers over workers and, thus, to enforce a more equitable distribution of the fruits of growth. In this regard, it is not a coincidence that as unions have diminished in numbers and power, the earnings of the middle class have stagnated...
Bill restricting union dues collection fails but not dead yet in Pa. Senate PennLive ...An attempt to pass a controversial amendment to a bill that would restrict union dues collection from state and school employees' paychecks narrowly failed in the state Senate on Monday. But most likely, we haven't seen the last of this amendment to this so-called paycheck protection bill...
Common Construction Repeal May Require Further Study Indiana Public Media ...The Indiana House easily approved legislation repealing the state’s common construction wage, and the bill’s support in the Senate looks strong. That means pushing the issue to summer study committee could be opponents’ best hope...
Bill Would Reestablish N.H. Minimum Wage, Raise It To $10 An Hour By 2018 NHPR ...Under the bill backed by seven Democratic state Senators, the increased minimum wage would take effect at the beginning of 2016. The bill calls for further increases to $9 an hour in 2017 and $10 an hour in 2018...
War on Workers
NLRB Election Rules Near Test in Congress; Changes Said to ‘Streamline' Board Process Bloomberg BNA ...Congress is about to take up proposals to block the National Labor Relations Board from implementing changes in its representation case rules and procedures set to take effect April 14...
Being a poor corporate citizen is hurting McDonald’s Washington Post …McDonald’s, that once-great American symbol of ingenuity and ruthless efficiency, is having some major difficulties, as its plummeting profits and recent C-suite shake up can attest…
Accident In The Zoo Interchange: 33-Year-Old Construction Worker Killed; Investigation Underway WITI ...A construction worker was killed while working on the Zoo Interchange project near 91st Street in Milwaukee on Saturday morning, February 28th...
Worker Killed At Natchitoches Parish Paper Mill KSLA ...Natchitoches Parish authorities have confirmed with KSLA News 12 that a man was killed in a paper mill accident...
Miscellaneous
Maine Bill Takes On NSA Spying With Transpartisan Support Tenth Amendment Center ...A bill filed in the Maine Senate late last week represents a transpartisan effort taking on the surveillance state. The legislation would not only support efforts to turn off NSA’s water in states where a physical NSA facility is located, but would also have immediate practical effects on how surveillance is used in some situations...
Saturday, February 21, 2015
Today's Teamster News 02.21.15
Teamsters
Swissport Canada And Teamsters Reach Collective Agreement AviationPros ...Today, the Honourable Dr. K. Kellie Leitch, Minister of Labour and Minister of Status of Women, congratulated Swissport Canada Handling Inc. and the Canada Council of Teamsters on the renewal of their collective agreement. The agreement covers the Swissport Canada Handling Inc. unit, who work at Dorval and Mirabel airports in Montreal...
Rail Strike Ends With Binding Arbitration Free Press ...The rails were only empty for a day at Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) as the company and its union put a halt to the 24-hour strike after agreeing to binding arbitration, mere hours before back-to-work legislation could be put into place...
Legislature Ratifies Agreement In Unanimous Vote Daily Mail ...After months of deliberation, an agreement was reached between Greene County and Greene County Public Employees, Teamsters Local 294 affiliated with International Brotherhood of Teamsters...
FTC Files Lawsuit Challenging Sysco-US Foods Merger Wall Street Journal ...A divided Federal Trade Commission sued Thursday to block Sysco Corp. ’s acquisition of rival US Foods Inc., a long-awaited move that sets the stage for a major court battle over a plan to combine the nation’s two largest food distributors...
Trade
Obama begins sales pitch on trade to wary United States public Reuters ...President Barack Obama on Saturday began a broad sales pitch to the US public about the merits of free trade deals, an area in which he faces stiff resistance from many in his own Democratic party...
Sally Hempy: Stop this TPP deal (LTE) Daily Camera …The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is similar to NAFTA and a dozen other so called free-trade deals that have turned out poorly for America but very well for transnational corporations...
State Battles
Wisconsin Senate To Vote Next Week On Right-To-Work Bill La Crosse Tribune ...The Wisconsin Legislature will take up a right-to-work bill next week in a surprise move that runs contrary to the wishes of likely 2016 presidential candidate Gov. Scott Walker who had urged lawmakers to delay any debate until later in the year...
Scott Walker says he'll sign fast-tracked right-to-work bill Milwaukee Journal Sentinel …After saying in his re-election bid that he wouldn't push so-called right-to-work legislation, Gov. Scott Walker committed Friday to signing it, acting after GOP leaders fast-tracked the proposal for a Senate vote next week...
Cole Says He Won’t Push Right To Work If House Doesn’t Have Time West Virginia Metro News ...It’s possible the issue won’t make it through this legislative session. State Senate President Bill Cole (R-Mercer) said Thursday on MetroNews Talkline he wants the Senate to take up Right To Work, but they’re not going to do it if the House doesn’t have time to address it before the end of the regular session...
U. Of I., Other Universities Brace For Rauner Funding Cuts Chicago Tribune ...Gov. Bruce Rauner drew big applause three weeks ago when he rolled out his vision of making the University of Illinois the best college in the country, but those cheers turned to jeers the other day when he proposed cutting public university spending by nearly $400 million...
War on Workers
Trucks Bound For Mexico Choke Traffic Flow Brownsville Herald ...One trucker, standing on a fellow trucker’s ride stopped in the middle of International Boulevard, said most of the Mexico-bound semis were coming from the Port of Brownsville...
Shipping lines and dockworkers reach deal; port shutdown averted Los Angeles Times …Shipping companies and dockworkers reached a tentative deal late Friday on a new labor contract, avoiding a shutdown of 29 ports that would have choked off trade through the West Coast...
Awarded Stolen Wages, Workers Struggle to Collect New York Times …Mr. Lino, like Ms. Jimenez, Mr. Cao and their several dozen co-workers, has not collected anything close to the money that various agencies, boards and courts have found was due him. State and federal laws intended to protect people from being cheated out of their earnings often yield only pieces of paper declaring what they are owed, not actual cash...
The Death of American Unions Is Killing American Marriage New Republic … Poverty itself, it seems, is the chief agent of marital decline among the poor. This is especially true of falling wages among working class men, who have borne the brunt of the right-wing war on labor unions…] [M]en in the bottom quartile of earnings have had a wage cut of 60 percent, and a contemporaneous drop in marriage rates to about 50 percent, from 86 percent…
Cranking Up For 2016 (opinion) New York Times ...Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin, is said to be a rising contender for the Republican presidential nomination. So, on Wednesday, he did what, these days, any ambitious Republican must, and pledged allegiance to charlatans and cranks...Obama begins sales pitch on trade to wary United States public...
Worker killed in Madison construction site accident Associated Press …Officials say the worker was injured when the masonry at the site collapsed just after 7:30 a.m. Friday. Fire Department spokeswoman Lori Wirth said the man had been working near a stairwell at the rear of the building...
Swissport Canada And Teamsters Reach Collective Agreement AviationPros ...Today, the Honourable Dr. K. Kellie Leitch, Minister of Labour and Minister of Status of Women, congratulated Swissport Canada Handling Inc. and the Canada Council of Teamsters on the renewal of their collective agreement. The agreement covers the Swissport Canada Handling Inc. unit, who work at Dorval and Mirabel airports in Montreal...
Rail Strike Ends With Binding Arbitration Free Press ...The rails were only empty for a day at Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) as the company and its union put a halt to the 24-hour strike after agreeing to binding arbitration, mere hours before back-to-work legislation could be put into place...
Legislature Ratifies Agreement In Unanimous Vote Daily Mail ...After months of deliberation, an agreement was reached between Greene County and Greene County Public Employees, Teamsters Local 294 affiliated with International Brotherhood of Teamsters...
FTC Files Lawsuit Challenging Sysco-US Foods Merger Wall Street Journal ...A divided Federal Trade Commission sued Thursday to block Sysco Corp. ’s acquisition of rival US Foods Inc., a long-awaited move that sets the stage for a major court battle over a plan to combine the nation’s two largest food distributors...
Trade
Obama begins sales pitch on trade to wary United States public Reuters ...President Barack Obama on Saturday began a broad sales pitch to the US public about the merits of free trade deals, an area in which he faces stiff resistance from many in his own Democratic party...
Sally Hempy: Stop this TPP deal (LTE) Daily Camera …The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is similar to NAFTA and a dozen other so called free-trade deals that have turned out poorly for America but very well for transnational corporations...
State Battles
Wisconsin Senate To Vote Next Week On Right-To-Work Bill La Crosse Tribune ...The Wisconsin Legislature will take up a right-to-work bill next week in a surprise move that runs contrary to the wishes of likely 2016 presidential candidate Gov. Scott Walker who had urged lawmakers to delay any debate until later in the year...
Scott Walker says he'll sign fast-tracked right-to-work bill Milwaukee Journal Sentinel …After saying in his re-election bid that he wouldn't push so-called right-to-work legislation, Gov. Scott Walker committed Friday to signing it, acting after GOP leaders fast-tracked the proposal for a Senate vote next week...
Cole Says He Won’t Push Right To Work If House Doesn’t Have Time West Virginia Metro News ...It’s possible the issue won’t make it through this legislative session. State Senate President Bill Cole (R-Mercer) said Thursday on MetroNews Talkline he wants the Senate to take up Right To Work, but they’re not going to do it if the House doesn’t have time to address it before the end of the regular session...
U. Of I., Other Universities Brace For Rauner Funding Cuts Chicago Tribune ...Gov. Bruce Rauner drew big applause three weeks ago when he rolled out his vision of making the University of Illinois the best college in the country, but those cheers turned to jeers the other day when he proposed cutting public university spending by nearly $400 million...
War on Workers
Trucks Bound For Mexico Choke Traffic Flow Brownsville Herald ...One trucker, standing on a fellow trucker’s ride stopped in the middle of International Boulevard, said most of the Mexico-bound semis were coming from the Port of Brownsville...
Shipping lines and dockworkers reach deal; port shutdown averted Los Angeles Times …Shipping companies and dockworkers reached a tentative deal late Friday on a new labor contract, avoiding a shutdown of 29 ports that would have choked off trade through the West Coast...
Awarded Stolen Wages, Workers Struggle to Collect New York Times …Mr. Lino, like Ms. Jimenez, Mr. Cao and their several dozen co-workers, has not collected anything close to the money that various agencies, boards and courts have found was due him. State and federal laws intended to protect people from being cheated out of their earnings often yield only pieces of paper declaring what they are owed, not actual cash...
The Death of American Unions Is Killing American Marriage New Republic … Poverty itself, it seems, is the chief agent of marital decline among the poor. This is especially true of falling wages among working class men, who have borne the brunt of the right-wing war on labor unions…] [M]en in the bottom quartile of earnings have had a wage cut of 60 percent, and a contemporaneous drop in marriage rates to about 50 percent, from 86 percent…
Cranking Up For 2016 (opinion) New York Times ...Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin, is said to be a rising contender for the Republican presidential nomination. So, on Wednesday, he did what, these days, any ambitious Republican must, and pledged allegiance to charlatans and cranks...Obama begins sales pitch on trade to wary United States public...
Worker killed in Madison construction site accident Associated Press …Officials say the worker was injured when the masonry at the site collapsed just after 7:30 a.m. Friday. Fire Department spokeswoman Lori Wirth said the man had been working near a stairwell at the rear of the building...
Friday, February 13, 2015
Today's Teamster News 02.13.15
Teamsters
Cross-Border Trucking Program Moving Forward Texas Tribune ...After two decades of political posturing, a cross-border trucking program will soon be ready to roll, opening up an avenue to expand trade between Texas and Mexico....
Teamsters Approve New Contracts at MillerCoors Breweries In N.C. And Texas teamster.org …Teamsters at MillerCoors breweries in Eden, N.C., and Fort Worth, Texas, have ratified new, three-year contracts. The agreements cover more than 900 employees at the two breweries and provide lifetime retiree health care benefits. Members of Local 391 and 997 at each location voted Saturday to ratify the contracts by 88 percent...
Teamster Unity Versus Heidelberg Family Feud teamster.org ... In a dramatic show of unity in the face of unreasonable demands on Heidelberg Distributing’s unionized workforce, Teamsters who represent approximately 500 workers at six of Heidelberg’s family-owned distributorships of beer, wine and spirits in Ohio declared their solidarity by marching together into negotiations with Teamsters Local 284 in Columbus for contract talks yesterday. Employees there voted to join the Teamsters two years ago, but are still without a contract...
Clark County School District Employees Win New Teamster Election teamster.org ...Today, in a major victory for workers, the Employee-Management Relations Board (EMRB) acknowledged that the supermajority election rule for Clark County School District (CCSD) support staff was not in the best interest of the employees and has ordered a new election take place requiring simple majority...
Hoffa To President Obama: Sign The Keystone Pipeline Act teamster.org ...With the passage of the Keystone Pipeline Act by the House of Representatives today, Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa is urging President Obama to sign the legislation when it reaches his desk...
GW Professor Becomes Inaugural James R. Hoffa Teamsters Professor In Modern American Labor History Newswise ...Eric Arnesen, a specialist in the history of race, labor, politics and civil rights was officially installed yesterday as the George Washington University’s James R. Hoffa Teamsters Professor in Modern American Labor History...
York County Prison Counselors Get New Contract York Dispatch ...The county and Teamsters Local 776, which represents the workers, couldn't reach a deal and were slated to go to arbitration, when the two sides revisited the contract and were able to reach an agreement...
Sysco Meets With FTC Commissioners In Effort To Allay Antitrust Concerns Wall Street Journal ...Sysco Corp. met with the five commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission in a last-ditch attempt to avert a possible antitrust lawsuit to block the food distributor’s planned $3.5 billion purchase of rival US Foods Inc...
Trade
Council Member Helen Rosenthal calls for NYC to be a "TPP-Free Zone" Helen Rosenthal ...On Thursday Council Member Helen Rosenthal introduced a new resolution that opposes the President’s “fast-track” authority over the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and declares New York City a “TPP-Free Zone.”...
Liberal Democrats align with Tea Party against Obama’s trade agenda Daily Times ...A coalition of liberal Democrats and Tea Party Republicans is fighting against US President Barack Obama’s
ambitious trade agenda that he hopes to secure before he leaves office...
The ‘Movement of Movements’ against Fast Tracking the TPP has the power to win Daily Kos …Since the President’s State of the Union message where he announced his plan to push corporate trade agreements and seek Fast Track trade promotion authority, the movement against Fast Track, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and globalized trade has grown. Instead of the bump in support that Obama expected after the State of the Union, opposition has increased inside Congress and in the grass roots...
Leaked : TTIP negotiations to constrain regulations that protect public interest unbalanced evolution …According to the proposal, as soon as a new regulation is in the pipeline, businesses should be informed through an annual report, and be involved. This is now called 'early information on planned acts', until recently called 'early warning'….This means businesses, for instance, at an early stage, can try to block rules intended to prevent the food industry from marketing foodstuffs with toxic substances, laws trying to keep energy companies from destroying the climate, or regulations to combat pollution and protect consumers.”...
A corporate coup d’etat Illinois Times ...You haven’t heard of the TPP? Dubbed “a corporate coup d’etat” by Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, it’s a grandiose grab for power masked as a trade deal allowing an unprecedented level of global corporate rule over Americans. One reason we commoners don’t know about it is that the corporate and governmental elites of the 12 nations that have been negotiating this momentous deal in strict secrecy not only are keeping us in the dark, but also Congress. Another reason, however, is that the mass media has been shockingly silent, apparently even incurious, about what clearly is a huge story with historic consequences...
State Battles
Missouri House Approves Right-To-Work Bill, But Margin Not Veto-Proof St. Louis Public Radio ...For the first time ever, the Missouri House has approved a right-to-work bill that curbs union rights. But the House’s 92-66 vote Wednesday afternoon was far short of the number – 109 -- needed to withstand a likely veto by Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat with close union ties...
‘Paycheck Protection’ Bill Aims At Unions Lee's Summit Journal ...A [Missouri] House committee on Monday signed off on legislation supporters have christened “paycheck protection” — and detractors call “paycheck deception” — that would require public employees to give permission before union dues are taken from their paychecks...
Beer Battle Brewing In Frankfort Spills Into Commercials WHAS ...A-B InBev has stressed that House Bill 168 is backed by rival distributorships that want to take over businesses it would be forced to sell. The Belgium-based company has the backing of the Teamsters Union. About 200 Teamsters work at the Louisville facility...
House panel shoots down two Senate bills opposed by Kentucky unions Herald-Leader ... Union workers flooded the state Capitol on Thursday to express their disdain for bills that would allow people to work for unionized employers without joining the union and repeal the prevailing-wage requirement for school construction projects. They liked what they heard in the House Labor and Industry Committee. The panel overwhelmingly voted down Senate Bill 1, the so-called right-to-work bill sponsored by Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, and SB 9, the prevailing-wage measure sponsored by Sen. Wil Schroder, R-Campbell County...
More Kentucky Counties Getting Behind the Right-to-Work Movement WKU ...Butler County is joining the growing list of Kentucky counties passing or considering right-to-work laws. ..
Right-Wing Media Discover A Lawless Executive Order They Support -- It's Anti-Union, Of Course Media Matters for America ...Right-wing media are celebrating Gov. Bruce Rauner's (R-IL) executive order blocking public-sector unions from collecting "fair share" fees from the state employees they represent, even though there is no precedent for such a move...
Education Is Newest Target Of Kansas Budget Cuts New York Times ...The cuts come amid a larger budget picture in which the governor has been forced to fill a $344 million budget gap for the fiscal year ending in June; a shortfall of nearly $600 million has been forecast for the fiscal year starting July 1....
States Dangle Water To Tempt California Dairy Farmers NBC News ...Mark Watte, a diversified row crop and dairy farmer in Tulare, said he's considered moving his 1,000-cow operation out of California due to water shortages and burdensome regulations, but his family obligations keep him here...
War on Workers
Are You Being Served - By A Drone Bloomberg News ...Timbre introduced tablets at its restaurants more than three years ago to enable customers to place orders faster; it resulted in a 25 percent increase in productivity, Chia said. It now plans to equip its five venues with eight drones each, four at the bar and four for the kitchen. After diners place their orders on the tablets, the drones will pick up the food and drinks from the kitchen or bar and deliver them to a service area, from where the staff will take them to the tables, he said. They will also be loaded with empties to take back to the kitchen...
OUTRAGE! Indiana Wants Workers To Repay Unemployment Cash Received Because State Messed Up! Praise Indy ...During the summer months school bus drivers, Head Start workers and others who work most of the year, but have a hiatus during the summer, used to be able to file for unemployment benefits. But the Legislature changed the law prohibiting it. But it seems none told employees at state unemployment offices who approved the benefits when workers applied. Now, after catching their mistake, the state wants the workers to payback the cash, even though it was the state that screwed up...
Oil Workers Are Striking Because They're Underpaid and Overworked—and It's Killing Them New Republic ...The union accuses oil companies like Shell and BP of keeping operations too lean while oil prices are low, hiring inexperienced non-union operators, and overworking staff. "We're concerned about the excessive overtime," said Lynne Hancock, a spokesperson for United Steelworkers. "In a lot of locations the workers have mandatory overtime. And when people are working non-stop, they get tired and fatigued. And when you are fatigued, you have a tendency to make some mistakes...
Study says 401(k)-style public pensions cost more than traditional plans Reuters ...Public worker unions and others who back traditional pensions over 401(k)-style plans got ammunition on Tuesday from a new study that shows U.S. state governments that made the switch did not achieve the predicted savings but rather lost money...
South Texas oil worker dies, fell from rig Associated Press …An oil field worker in South Texas has died after falling while near the top of a 50-foot rig...
Miscellaneous
Goldman: Here's Why Oil Crashed—and Why Lower Prices Are Here to Stay Bloomberg News ...The big take-away: “[T]he decline in oil has been driven by an oversupplied global oil market,” wrote Goldman economist Sven Jari Stehn. As a result, “the new equilibrium price of oil will likely be much lower than over the past decade.”...
Cross-Border Trucking Program Moving Forward Texas Tribune ...After two decades of political posturing, a cross-border trucking program will soon be ready to roll, opening up an avenue to expand trade between Texas and Mexico....
Teamsters Approve New Contracts at MillerCoors Breweries In N.C. And Texas teamster.org …Teamsters at MillerCoors breweries in Eden, N.C., and Fort Worth, Texas, have ratified new, three-year contracts. The agreements cover more than 900 employees at the two breweries and provide lifetime retiree health care benefits. Members of Local 391 and 997 at each location voted Saturday to ratify the contracts by 88 percent...
Teamster Unity Versus Heidelberg Family Feud teamster.org ... In a dramatic show of unity in the face of unreasonable demands on Heidelberg Distributing’s unionized workforce, Teamsters who represent approximately 500 workers at six of Heidelberg’s family-owned distributorships of beer, wine and spirits in Ohio declared their solidarity by marching together into negotiations with Teamsters Local 284 in Columbus for contract talks yesterday. Employees there voted to join the Teamsters two years ago, but are still without a contract...
Clark County School District Employees Win New Teamster Election teamster.org ...Today, in a major victory for workers, the Employee-Management Relations Board (EMRB) acknowledged that the supermajority election rule for Clark County School District (CCSD) support staff was not in the best interest of the employees and has ordered a new election take place requiring simple majority...
Hoffa To President Obama: Sign The Keystone Pipeline Act teamster.org ...With the passage of the Keystone Pipeline Act by the House of Representatives today, Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa is urging President Obama to sign the legislation when it reaches his desk...
GW Professor Becomes Inaugural James R. Hoffa Teamsters Professor In Modern American Labor History Newswise ...Eric Arnesen, a specialist in the history of race, labor, politics and civil rights was officially installed yesterday as the George Washington University’s James R. Hoffa Teamsters Professor in Modern American Labor History...
York County Prison Counselors Get New Contract York Dispatch ...The county and Teamsters Local 776, which represents the workers, couldn't reach a deal and were slated to go to arbitration, when the two sides revisited the contract and were able to reach an agreement...
Sysco Meets With FTC Commissioners In Effort To Allay Antitrust Concerns Wall Street Journal ...Sysco Corp. met with the five commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission in a last-ditch attempt to avert a possible antitrust lawsuit to block the food distributor’s planned $3.5 billion purchase of rival US Foods Inc...
Trade
Council Member Helen Rosenthal calls for NYC to be a "TPP-Free Zone" Helen Rosenthal ...On Thursday Council Member Helen Rosenthal introduced a new resolution that opposes the President’s “fast-track” authority over the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and declares New York City a “TPP-Free Zone.”...
Liberal Democrats align with Tea Party against Obama’s trade agenda Daily Times ...A coalition of liberal Democrats and Tea Party Republicans is fighting against US President Barack Obama’s
ambitious trade agenda that he hopes to secure before he leaves office...
The ‘Movement of Movements’ against Fast Tracking the TPP has the power to win Daily Kos …Since the President’s State of the Union message where he announced his plan to push corporate trade agreements and seek Fast Track trade promotion authority, the movement against Fast Track, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and globalized trade has grown. Instead of the bump in support that Obama expected after the State of the Union, opposition has increased inside Congress and in the grass roots...
Leaked : TTIP negotiations to constrain regulations that protect public interest unbalanced evolution …According to the proposal, as soon as a new regulation is in the pipeline, businesses should be informed through an annual report, and be involved. This is now called 'early information on planned acts', until recently called 'early warning'….This means businesses, for instance, at an early stage, can try to block rules intended to prevent the food industry from marketing foodstuffs with toxic substances, laws trying to keep energy companies from destroying the climate, or regulations to combat pollution and protect consumers.”...
A corporate coup d’etat Illinois Times ...You haven’t heard of the TPP? Dubbed “a corporate coup d’etat” by Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, it’s a grandiose grab for power masked as a trade deal allowing an unprecedented level of global corporate rule over Americans. One reason we commoners don’t know about it is that the corporate and governmental elites of the 12 nations that have been negotiating this momentous deal in strict secrecy not only are keeping us in the dark, but also Congress. Another reason, however, is that the mass media has been shockingly silent, apparently even incurious, about what clearly is a huge story with historic consequences...
State Battles
Missouri House Approves Right-To-Work Bill, But Margin Not Veto-Proof St. Louis Public Radio ...For the first time ever, the Missouri House has approved a right-to-work bill that curbs union rights. But the House’s 92-66 vote Wednesday afternoon was far short of the number – 109 -- needed to withstand a likely veto by Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat with close union ties...
‘Paycheck Protection’ Bill Aims At Unions Lee's Summit Journal ...A [Missouri] House committee on Monday signed off on legislation supporters have christened “paycheck protection” — and detractors call “paycheck deception” — that would require public employees to give permission before union dues are taken from their paychecks...
Beer Battle Brewing In Frankfort Spills Into Commercials WHAS ...A-B InBev has stressed that House Bill 168 is backed by rival distributorships that want to take over businesses it would be forced to sell. The Belgium-based company has the backing of the Teamsters Union. About 200 Teamsters work at the Louisville facility...
House panel shoots down two Senate bills opposed by Kentucky unions Herald-Leader ... Union workers flooded the state Capitol on Thursday to express their disdain for bills that would allow people to work for unionized employers without joining the union and repeal the prevailing-wage requirement for school construction projects. They liked what they heard in the House Labor and Industry Committee. The panel overwhelmingly voted down Senate Bill 1, the so-called right-to-work bill sponsored by Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, and SB 9, the prevailing-wage measure sponsored by Sen. Wil Schroder, R-Campbell County...
More Kentucky Counties Getting Behind the Right-to-Work Movement WKU ...Butler County is joining the growing list of Kentucky counties passing or considering right-to-work laws. ..
Right-Wing Media Discover A Lawless Executive Order They Support -- It's Anti-Union, Of Course Media Matters for America ...Right-wing media are celebrating Gov. Bruce Rauner's (R-IL) executive order blocking public-sector unions from collecting "fair share" fees from the state employees they represent, even though there is no precedent for such a move...
Education Is Newest Target Of Kansas Budget Cuts New York Times ...The cuts come amid a larger budget picture in which the governor has been forced to fill a $344 million budget gap for the fiscal year ending in June; a shortfall of nearly $600 million has been forecast for the fiscal year starting July 1....
States Dangle Water To Tempt California Dairy Farmers NBC News ...Mark Watte, a diversified row crop and dairy farmer in Tulare, said he's considered moving his 1,000-cow operation out of California due to water shortages and burdensome regulations, but his family obligations keep him here...
War on Workers
Are You Being Served - By A Drone Bloomberg News ...Timbre introduced tablets at its restaurants more than three years ago to enable customers to place orders faster; it resulted in a 25 percent increase in productivity, Chia said. It now plans to equip its five venues with eight drones each, four at the bar and four for the kitchen. After diners place their orders on the tablets, the drones will pick up the food and drinks from the kitchen or bar and deliver them to a service area, from where the staff will take them to the tables, he said. They will also be loaded with empties to take back to the kitchen...
OUTRAGE! Indiana Wants Workers To Repay Unemployment Cash Received Because State Messed Up! Praise Indy ...During the summer months school bus drivers, Head Start workers and others who work most of the year, but have a hiatus during the summer, used to be able to file for unemployment benefits. But the Legislature changed the law prohibiting it. But it seems none told employees at state unemployment offices who approved the benefits when workers applied. Now, after catching their mistake, the state wants the workers to payback the cash, even though it was the state that screwed up...
Oil Workers Are Striking Because They're Underpaid and Overworked—and It's Killing Them New Republic ...The union accuses oil companies like Shell and BP of keeping operations too lean while oil prices are low, hiring inexperienced non-union operators, and overworking staff. "We're concerned about the excessive overtime," said Lynne Hancock, a spokesperson for United Steelworkers. "In a lot of locations the workers have mandatory overtime. And when people are working non-stop, they get tired and fatigued. And when you are fatigued, you have a tendency to make some mistakes...
Study says 401(k)-style public pensions cost more than traditional plans Reuters ...Public worker unions and others who back traditional pensions over 401(k)-style plans got ammunition on Tuesday from a new study that shows U.S. state governments that made the switch did not achieve the predicted savings but rather lost money...
South Texas oil worker dies, fell from rig Associated Press …An oil field worker in South Texas has died after falling while near the top of a 50-foot rig...
Miscellaneous
Goldman: Here's Why Oil Crashed—and Why Lower Prices Are Here to Stay Bloomberg News ...The big take-away: “[T]he decline in oil has been driven by an oversupplied global oil market,” wrote Goldman economist Sven Jari Stehn. As a result, “the new equilibrium price of oil will likely be much lower than over the past decade.”...
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Today's Teamster News 01.27.15
Teamsters
Hoffa: No Time To Waste In Letting Public, Lawmakers Know About Fast Track Huffington Post ...congressional leaders want to move on fast track, and soon. That means those standing up for the interests of hardworking Americans must step up their efforts. After all, not everyone is aware of the consequences that a quick up-or-down vote on the 12-nation Pacific Rim trade deal will bring. It will devastate not only wage earners, but their families as well...
Teamsters Score Second Drayage Victory Journal of Commerce ...The Teamsters are gaining more traction in their attempt to unionize Southern California drayage truckers after drivers at an SSA Marine subsidiary chose a union local as their exclusive bargaining representative...
Open For Business Journal of Commerce ...The U.S. Department of Transportation’s decision to finally open the border to Mexican trucking companies — a stipulation of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement stymied by opponents for two decades — resolves none of the political controversy over allowing Mexican trucks on U.S. highways and still faces severe political backlash from critics, including the Teamsters union...
Trade
Protests As Trans-Pacific Partnership Talks Resume In New York Today Crooks & Liars ...Negotiators working on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) convened today in New York City. Even the location was kept secret until the last possible minute, but hundreds of trade, labor, environmental, health, communities of color, anti-GMO and food justice, anti-fracking, animal and other activists still showed up in the big blizzard to protest the secret trade agreement and "fast track" trade promotion authority (TPA)...
U.S. says final contours of Pacific trade pact coming into focus Reuters …The final form of an ambitious Pacific trade pact is coming into focus, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said on Tuesday as he urged Congress get behind the U.S. trade agenda...
The TPP Will Sink the Middle Class Thom Hartmann …we now know that the TPP would give big pharmaceutical companies virtual monopoly patent power, let corporations sue countries in international courts over regulations that those corporations don’t like, and gut environmental and financial rules.
The One Power Democrats Don’t Want Obama To Have The Hill ...Democrats and some Republicans are adamant that trade promotion authority (TPA) would give Obama’s trade team too much control over negotiations, and are making their opposition known in a barrage of press conferences on Capitol Hill...
State Battles
Gov. Mike Pence's state-run news outlet will compete with media Indianapolis Star …Gov. Mike Pence is starting a state-run taxpayer-funded news outlet that will make pre-written news stories available to Indiana media, as well as sometimes break news about his administration, according to documents obtained by The Indianapolis Star...
Right To Work Support In Legislature Backing Down Badger Herald ...Right-to-work legislation, which looks to limit unions’ governing power, is losing pull as a priority issue in Wisconsin’s Legislature this session. Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, said in a statement this month he no longer expects right-to-work legislation to be brought up any time soon, a dramatic shift from his earlier statements that he intended to make the movement a priority this session...
Dropkick Murphys ‘literally hate' Scott Walker for using their song at Iowa convention New York Daily News ...The Dropkick Murphys have no problem dropping the hate word when it comes to politicians using their music at events especially when Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker entered the Iowa Freedom Summit to the song ‘I’m Shipping Up to Boston.’...
Kentucky: A New Frontier for Right-to-Work Laws? The National Law Review ... this appears to be the first time efforts by smaller units of “state government” (i.e., counties) have been undertaken on this front. While the NLRA allows “states” to pass and implement right-to-work laws, it is not clear if smaller units of local government can pass these laws or not...
Michigan Union Membership Dropped Significantly In 2014, First Full Year Under Right-To-Work Law MLive ...Overall, 14.5 percent of wage and salary workers in Michigan were members of a union in 2014, down from 16.3 percent in 2013, according to federal statistics released Friday...
Wage theft rampant in Colorado The Durango Herald ...From telemarketers to tortilla manufacturers, workers in myriad industries have suffered from employers failing to pay them wages they are owed, a Rocky Mountain PBS I-News investigation has found...
Oregon Strippers Prepare to Fight For Workplace Protection Laws Willamette Week ...Nude dancers who want more rights and better workplace protections are pushing forward with bills to create new rules for Oregon strip clubs. A coalition of dancers, social workers and other advocates have drafted two bills they hope will get a hearing in Salem when lawmakers reconvene in February...
Will Sandoval Use The Bill To Achieve Collective Bargaining Reform? Las Vegas Review Journal ...Assemblyman Randy Kirner, R-Reno, is requesting the most comprehensive measure ...It would clarify the rules that exclude supervisors from collective bargaining, prohibit using government funds to pay employees engaged in union activities, require employees to seek union deductions before they would be collected by a government entity and make agreements retroactive to the date of the expiration of the previous contract. It also would require a final contract offer to be made public...
Possible Ballot Measure Could Be Bargaining Chip In Minimum-Wage Debate Seattle Times ...Democrats in Olympia are making one thing clear about a new proposal to raise the minimum wage: If it doesn’t pass this year, be ready for a ballot initiative...
War on Workers
Koch Brothers’ Budget of $889 Million for 2016 Is on Par With Both Parties’ Spending New York Times …The political network overseen by the conservative billionaires Charles G. and David H. Koch plans to spend close to $900 million on the 2016 campaign, an unparalleled effort by coordinated outside groups to shape a presidential election that is already on track to be the most expensive in history...
The State Of The Unions: Membership Is Up, But Density Still Drops Washington Post ...What's interesting about this is that union membership actually went up last year, with 41,000 new union members in the private sector and 8,000 in public. But the number of people working increased much more than that. The long-term trend has been that union membership in the public sector -- meaning government employees -- has grown, while private sector membership has dropped...
As inequality soars, the nervous super rich are already planning their escapes Guardian ...“I know hedge fund managers all over the world who are buying airstrips and farms in places like New Zealand because they think they need a getaway,” he said...
Woman, age 30, killed during robbery at Sunhouse store Sunday night myhorrynews.com ...On Sunday night at around 10 p.m., a female clerk was shot and killed at the Sunhouse on Cultra Road between Highway 701 and Highway 501 in Conway, Horry County Deputy Coroner Tony Hendrick has confirmed...
State Patrol: Army veteran, ER worker killed when a driver ran a stop sign BringMeTheNews …A 47-year-old emergency room manager and Gulf War veteran was killed after police say he was broadsided by a car that ran through a stop sign...
Miscellaneous
Regulators Advance Plans For Truck Driver Training Journal of Commerce ...The amount of time future truck drivers must spend in training and how rigorous a program they must complete will be determined not by federal fiat but through negotiations. Federal regulators are proceeding with a negotiated rule-making on minimum national truck driver training standards, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said in December...
FOIA Documents Reveal Massive DEA Program to Record American’s Whereabouts With License Plate Readers ACLU …The Drug Enforcement Administration has initiated a massive national license plate reader program with major civil liberties concerns but disclosed very few details, according to new DEA documents obtained by the ACLU through the Freedom of Information Act...
Hoffa: No Time To Waste In Letting Public, Lawmakers Know About Fast Track Huffington Post ...congressional leaders want to move on fast track, and soon. That means those standing up for the interests of hardworking Americans must step up their efforts. After all, not everyone is aware of the consequences that a quick up-or-down vote on the 12-nation Pacific Rim trade deal will bring. It will devastate not only wage earners, but their families as well...
Teamsters Score Second Drayage Victory Journal of Commerce ...The Teamsters are gaining more traction in their attempt to unionize Southern California drayage truckers after drivers at an SSA Marine subsidiary chose a union local as their exclusive bargaining representative...
Open For Business Journal of Commerce ...The U.S. Department of Transportation’s decision to finally open the border to Mexican trucking companies — a stipulation of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement stymied by opponents for two decades — resolves none of the political controversy over allowing Mexican trucks on U.S. highways and still faces severe political backlash from critics, including the Teamsters union...
Trade
Protests As Trans-Pacific Partnership Talks Resume In New York Today Crooks & Liars ...Negotiators working on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) convened today in New York City. Even the location was kept secret until the last possible minute, but hundreds of trade, labor, environmental, health, communities of color, anti-GMO and food justice, anti-fracking, animal and other activists still showed up in the big blizzard to protest the secret trade agreement and "fast track" trade promotion authority (TPA)...
U.S. says final contours of Pacific trade pact coming into focus Reuters …The final form of an ambitious Pacific trade pact is coming into focus, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said on Tuesday as he urged Congress get behind the U.S. trade agenda...
The TPP Will Sink the Middle Class Thom Hartmann …we now know that the TPP would give big pharmaceutical companies virtual monopoly patent power, let corporations sue countries in international courts over regulations that those corporations don’t like, and gut environmental and financial rules.
The One Power Democrats Don’t Want Obama To Have The Hill ...Democrats and some Republicans are adamant that trade promotion authority (TPA) would give Obama’s trade team too much control over negotiations, and are making their opposition known in a barrage of press conferences on Capitol Hill...
State Battles
Gov. Mike Pence's state-run news outlet will compete with media Indianapolis Star …Gov. Mike Pence is starting a state-run taxpayer-funded news outlet that will make pre-written news stories available to Indiana media, as well as sometimes break news about his administration, according to documents obtained by The Indianapolis Star...
Right To Work Support In Legislature Backing Down Badger Herald ...Right-to-work legislation, which looks to limit unions’ governing power, is losing pull as a priority issue in Wisconsin’s Legislature this session. Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, said in a statement this month he no longer expects right-to-work legislation to be brought up any time soon, a dramatic shift from his earlier statements that he intended to make the movement a priority this session...
Dropkick Murphys ‘literally hate' Scott Walker for using their song at Iowa convention New York Daily News ...The Dropkick Murphys have no problem dropping the hate word when it comes to politicians using their music at events especially when Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker entered the Iowa Freedom Summit to the song ‘I’m Shipping Up to Boston.’...
Kentucky: A New Frontier for Right-to-Work Laws? The National Law Review ... this appears to be the first time efforts by smaller units of “state government” (i.e., counties) have been undertaken on this front. While the NLRA allows “states” to pass and implement right-to-work laws, it is not clear if smaller units of local government can pass these laws or not...
Michigan Union Membership Dropped Significantly In 2014, First Full Year Under Right-To-Work Law MLive ...Overall, 14.5 percent of wage and salary workers in Michigan were members of a union in 2014, down from 16.3 percent in 2013, according to federal statistics released Friday...
Wage theft rampant in Colorado The Durango Herald ...From telemarketers to tortilla manufacturers, workers in myriad industries have suffered from employers failing to pay them wages they are owed, a Rocky Mountain PBS I-News investigation has found...
Oregon Strippers Prepare to Fight For Workplace Protection Laws Willamette Week ...Nude dancers who want more rights and better workplace protections are pushing forward with bills to create new rules for Oregon strip clubs. A coalition of dancers, social workers and other advocates have drafted two bills they hope will get a hearing in Salem when lawmakers reconvene in February...
Will Sandoval Use The Bill To Achieve Collective Bargaining Reform? Las Vegas Review Journal ...Assemblyman Randy Kirner, R-Reno, is requesting the most comprehensive measure ...It would clarify the rules that exclude supervisors from collective bargaining, prohibit using government funds to pay employees engaged in union activities, require employees to seek union deductions before they would be collected by a government entity and make agreements retroactive to the date of the expiration of the previous contract. It also would require a final contract offer to be made public...
Possible Ballot Measure Could Be Bargaining Chip In Minimum-Wage Debate Seattle Times ...Democrats in Olympia are making one thing clear about a new proposal to raise the minimum wage: If it doesn’t pass this year, be ready for a ballot initiative...
War on Workers
Koch Brothers’ Budget of $889 Million for 2016 Is on Par With Both Parties’ Spending New York Times …The political network overseen by the conservative billionaires Charles G. and David H. Koch plans to spend close to $900 million on the 2016 campaign, an unparalleled effort by coordinated outside groups to shape a presidential election that is already on track to be the most expensive in history...
The State Of The Unions: Membership Is Up, But Density Still Drops Washington Post ...What's interesting about this is that union membership actually went up last year, with 41,000 new union members in the private sector and 8,000 in public. But the number of people working increased much more than that. The long-term trend has been that union membership in the public sector -- meaning government employees -- has grown, while private sector membership has dropped...
As inequality soars, the nervous super rich are already planning their escapes Guardian ...“I know hedge fund managers all over the world who are buying airstrips and farms in places like New Zealand because they think they need a getaway,” he said...
Woman, age 30, killed during robbery at Sunhouse store Sunday night myhorrynews.com ...On Sunday night at around 10 p.m., a female clerk was shot and killed at the Sunhouse on Cultra Road between Highway 701 and Highway 501 in Conway, Horry County Deputy Coroner Tony Hendrick has confirmed...
State Patrol: Army veteran, ER worker killed when a driver ran a stop sign BringMeTheNews …A 47-year-old emergency room manager and Gulf War veteran was killed after police say he was broadsided by a car that ran through a stop sign...
Miscellaneous
Regulators Advance Plans For Truck Driver Training Journal of Commerce ...The amount of time future truck drivers must spend in training and how rigorous a program they must complete will be determined not by federal fiat but through negotiations. Federal regulators are proceeding with a negotiated rule-making on minimum national truck driver training standards, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said in December...
FOIA Documents Reveal Massive DEA Program to Record American’s Whereabouts With License Plate Readers ACLU …The Drug Enforcement Administration has initiated a massive national license plate reader program with major civil liberties concerns but disclosed very few details, according to new DEA documents obtained by the ACLU through the Freedom of Information Act...
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Today's Teamster News 01.22.15
Teamsters
Hunts Point Teamsters Vote To Ratify Contract, Call For City Investment teamster.org … Workers at Hunts Point Market voted to approve a new, three-year contract today, with 97 percent of workers voting "yes." The 1,300 workers, members of Teamsters Local 202, will receive significant wage increases in each year of the contract...
Teamsters' Partnership Trains Veterans For CDLs teamster.org …The Teamsters, the U.S. Army and ABF Freight formally entered into a partnership today which provides for commercial driver's license training for military personnel that are transitioning to civilian life...
Effingham County Quickly Reaches Contract With Union Effingham Daily News ...After the Effingham County Board approved a new contract with the Teamsters Union on Tuesday, board Chairman Jim Niemann announced that negotiations with both the Teamsters, which represents Highway Department employees, and the Laborers, who represent county employees in a variety of departments, lasted less than an hour each...
NRMCA Names New Jersey Man 2015 Driver Of The Year NRMCA ...[Edward] Rieper, whose home plant is located in Bogota, N.J., was honored for his career achievements, outstanding safety record, professionalism, driving competency and customer service skills. He has worked for Eastern Concrete Materials for more than 29 years, and is a proud member of Teamsters Local 560. “I am very proud of Eddie’s accomplishments,” says Teamsters Local 560 President, Tony Valdner. “It is a testament to the professionalism at Eastern Concrete and their drivers as a whole.”...
Trade
Democrats to fight Obama on secret trade deal authorization RT …Congress knows little about the specifics of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement (TPP) trade deal between 12 Asia-Pacific countries, but President Obama used his State of the Union speech to push Congress to support a fast-track vote on the deal...
Troubled TTIP Isn't The Only 'Trade' Takeover Busting Our Sovereignty (opinion) Common Dreams ...Even as controversial 'trade' deal, TTIP, sputters, other deals to give corporations as much power as countries are being negotiated even more secretively....
Report Says TTIP Would Undermine Toxic Pesticide Regulations Manufacturing.net ...Many Europeans have voiced concerns that the new agreement will lower the EU’s standards for environmental and food safety, and a new report by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) takes aim at just that — saying that proposals for TTIP could translate into more pesticides making their way into EU food markets...
State Battles
DAVID ROSMAN: Right to work is not right for Missouri (opinion) Missourian …As of Jan. 18, more than a half-dozen proposed laws and two state House joint resolutions have been filed concerning the limitations of organizing labor unions. There will be more shortly. All are wrong for the conduct of business in Missouri...
Missouri businesses seek to curb cities’ powers on minimum wage, discrimination The Kansas City Star …The chamber is focused on a three-pronged agenda. It wants to ban local governments from implementing discrimination laws that are stricter than the state’s. It wants to prohibit cities from boosting their minimum wage. And it wants to ban cities from mandating benefits such as vacation or sick leave...
Opposition to ‘Right to Work’ measure grows, debate not likely before April elections Wisconsin Gazette …A group of business leaders opposed to making Wisconsin a so-called right-to-work state announced 50 new members this week...
Should West Virginia Repeal the Prevailing Wage? West Virginia Public Broadcasting …President of the West Virginia AFL-CIO Kenny Perdue disagreed with Cole's position, saying a repeal of the wage could bring in out-of-state contractors and developers with their own workforce at lower wages forcing West Virginians out of their jobs...
[Gov. Susana] Martinez supports right-to-work legislation Associated Press …opponents say such measures are an attack on unions and won’t create jobs or save the state any money...
Michigan Supreme Court Hears Challenge to States Right to Work Law The National Law Review …in UAW v. Green, Case No. 147700 ... the United Autoworkers (UAW) filed to challenge the application of Michigan’s Right to Work law to 35,000 State employees. The UAW has been arguing that Michigan’s Right to Work law does not apply to state employees who are under the jurisdiction of and whose wages are set by the Michigan Civil Service Commission...
State Ed Department: Brownback’s Budget Cuts $127.4 Million From Schools Wichita Eagle ...Gov. Sam Brownback’s proposed budget represents about a $127.4 million cut in schools’ regular K-12 operating funds from this fiscal year to next year, according to a report released Tuesday by the state Department of Education...
Rick Scott's FDLE Scandal Blows Open, Demands Probe (opinion) ...For those who missed it, the former head of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement — 35-year-veteran Gerald Bailey — has started spilling the beans. Bailey portrays Scott and his staff as a group of unethical, hard-core politicos who would go to great lengths — willing even to fabricate a criminal investigation — to get themselves out of a jam...
War on Workers
DeFazio Pledges To Push Back Against Mexico Truck Program The Trucker ...The ranking member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure has made it known he is not comfortable with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s decision to open the United States border to Mexican-domiciled trucking companies...
How The Trucking Industry Could Be Vastly More Efficient Citylab ...Meet Transfix, a start-up that fashions itself "Uber for trucks."...
Wireless device in two million cars wide open to hacking ars technica …An electronic dongle used to connect to the onboard diagnostic systems of more than two million cars and trucks contains few defenses against hacking, an omission that makes them vulnerable to wireless attacks that take control of a vehicle, according to published reports. US-based Progressive Insurance said it has used the SnapShot device in more than two million vehicles since 2008. The dongle tracks users' driving to help determine if they qualify for lower rates…
Five Years On, Citizens United Is Worse Than Anyone Imagined (opinion) St. Louis Post-Dispatch ...A hundred years from now, after it’s been reversed, Citizens United will be regarded, with Dred Scott v. Sandford and Plessy v. Ferguson, as one of the most anti-democratic decisions the court ever made...
Help wanted: Fast food cashier, $15 an hour ScienceDaily …Researchers from the University of Massachusetts Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) have released a working paper verifying the ability of American fast food restaurants to more than double the minimum wage of their lowest paid workers to $15 an hour over a four-year period without causing the widespread employment losses and decline in profits often cited by critics of such increases...
Construction worker killed while directing traffic on Cahaba River Road Alabama's 13 …[Chance Richard] Rollan was directing traffic in the back of the construction site on Cahaba River Road when he was struck from behind by a vehicle. According to Lt. Edwards the vehicle was driven by a 23-year-old female. She told investigators at the scene that she was leaning over to pick up her coffee when she veered off the road and struck Rollan...
Construction worker dies after fall down Manhattan elevator shaft New York Daily News …Frank Dragotta, 61 of Morganville, N.J., fell one story from the second floor inside the W. 70th St. building near Columbus Ave. at about 8:45 a.m...
Miscellaneous
4 GOP Hopefuls Expected To Attend Koch Event Politico ...Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Marco Rubio of Florida, and Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin received coveted invitations to speak to the vaunted network assembled by the billionaire industrialist megadonors Charles and David Koch, the sources said...
Hunts Point Teamsters Vote To Ratify Contract, Call For City Investment teamster.org … Workers at Hunts Point Market voted to approve a new, three-year contract today, with 97 percent of workers voting "yes." The 1,300 workers, members of Teamsters Local 202, will receive significant wage increases in each year of the contract...
Teamsters' Partnership Trains Veterans For CDLs teamster.org …The Teamsters, the U.S. Army and ABF Freight formally entered into a partnership today which provides for commercial driver's license training for military personnel that are transitioning to civilian life...
Effingham County Quickly Reaches Contract With Union Effingham Daily News ...After the Effingham County Board approved a new contract with the Teamsters Union on Tuesday, board Chairman Jim Niemann announced that negotiations with both the Teamsters, which represents Highway Department employees, and the Laborers, who represent county employees in a variety of departments, lasted less than an hour each...
NRMCA Names New Jersey Man 2015 Driver Of The Year NRMCA ...[Edward] Rieper, whose home plant is located in Bogota, N.J., was honored for his career achievements, outstanding safety record, professionalism, driving competency and customer service skills. He has worked for Eastern Concrete Materials for more than 29 years, and is a proud member of Teamsters Local 560. “I am very proud of Eddie’s accomplishments,” says Teamsters Local 560 President, Tony Valdner. “It is a testament to the professionalism at Eastern Concrete and their drivers as a whole.”...
Trade
Democrats to fight Obama on secret trade deal authorization RT …Congress knows little about the specifics of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement (TPP) trade deal between 12 Asia-Pacific countries, but President Obama used his State of the Union speech to push Congress to support a fast-track vote on the deal...
Troubled TTIP Isn't The Only 'Trade' Takeover Busting Our Sovereignty (opinion) Common Dreams ...Even as controversial 'trade' deal, TTIP, sputters, other deals to give corporations as much power as countries are being negotiated even more secretively....
Report Says TTIP Would Undermine Toxic Pesticide Regulations Manufacturing.net ...Many Europeans have voiced concerns that the new agreement will lower the EU’s standards for environmental and food safety, and a new report by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) takes aim at just that — saying that proposals for TTIP could translate into more pesticides making their way into EU food markets...
State Battles
DAVID ROSMAN: Right to work is not right for Missouri (opinion) Missourian …As of Jan. 18, more than a half-dozen proposed laws and two state House joint resolutions have been filed concerning the limitations of organizing labor unions. There will be more shortly. All are wrong for the conduct of business in Missouri...
Missouri businesses seek to curb cities’ powers on minimum wage, discrimination The Kansas City Star …The chamber is focused on a three-pronged agenda. It wants to ban local governments from implementing discrimination laws that are stricter than the state’s. It wants to prohibit cities from boosting their minimum wage. And it wants to ban cities from mandating benefits such as vacation or sick leave...
Opposition to ‘Right to Work’ measure grows, debate not likely before April elections Wisconsin Gazette …A group of business leaders opposed to making Wisconsin a so-called right-to-work state announced 50 new members this week...
Should West Virginia Repeal the Prevailing Wage? West Virginia Public Broadcasting …President of the West Virginia AFL-CIO Kenny Perdue disagreed with Cole's position, saying a repeal of the wage could bring in out-of-state contractors and developers with their own workforce at lower wages forcing West Virginians out of their jobs...
[Gov. Susana] Martinez supports right-to-work legislation Associated Press …opponents say such measures are an attack on unions and won’t create jobs or save the state any money...
Michigan Supreme Court Hears Challenge to States Right to Work Law The National Law Review …in UAW v. Green, Case No. 147700 ... the United Autoworkers (UAW) filed to challenge the application of Michigan’s Right to Work law to 35,000 State employees. The UAW has been arguing that Michigan’s Right to Work law does not apply to state employees who are under the jurisdiction of and whose wages are set by the Michigan Civil Service Commission...
State Ed Department: Brownback’s Budget Cuts $127.4 Million From Schools Wichita Eagle ...Gov. Sam Brownback’s proposed budget represents about a $127.4 million cut in schools’ regular K-12 operating funds from this fiscal year to next year, according to a report released Tuesday by the state Department of Education...
Rick Scott's FDLE Scandal Blows Open, Demands Probe (opinion) ...For those who missed it, the former head of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement — 35-year-veteran Gerald Bailey — has started spilling the beans. Bailey portrays Scott and his staff as a group of unethical, hard-core politicos who would go to great lengths — willing even to fabricate a criminal investigation — to get themselves out of a jam...
War on Workers
DeFazio Pledges To Push Back Against Mexico Truck Program The Trucker ...The ranking member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure has made it known he is not comfortable with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s decision to open the United States border to Mexican-domiciled trucking companies...
How The Trucking Industry Could Be Vastly More Efficient Citylab ...Meet Transfix, a start-up that fashions itself "Uber for trucks."...
Wireless device in two million cars wide open to hacking ars technica …An electronic dongle used to connect to the onboard diagnostic systems of more than two million cars and trucks contains few defenses against hacking, an omission that makes them vulnerable to wireless attacks that take control of a vehicle, according to published reports. US-based Progressive Insurance said it has used the SnapShot device in more than two million vehicles since 2008. The dongle tracks users' driving to help determine if they qualify for lower rates…
Five Years On, Citizens United Is Worse Than Anyone Imagined (opinion) St. Louis Post-Dispatch ...A hundred years from now, after it’s been reversed, Citizens United will be regarded, with Dred Scott v. Sandford and Plessy v. Ferguson, as one of the most anti-democratic decisions the court ever made...
Help wanted: Fast food cashier, $15 an hour ScienceDaily …Researchers from the University of Massachusetts Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) have released a working paper verifying the ability of American fast food restaurants to more than double the minimum wage of their lowest paid workers to $15 an hour over a four-year period without causing the widespread employment losses and decline in profits often cited by critics of such increases...
Construction worker killed while directing traffic on Cahaba River Road Alabama's 13 …[Chance Richard] Rollan was directing traffic in the back of the construction site on Cahaba River Road when he was struck from behind by a vehicle. According to Lt. Edwards the vehicle was driven by a 23-year-old female. She told investigators at the scene that she was leaning over to pick up her coffee when she veered off the road and struck Rollan...
Construction worker dies after fall down Manhattan elevator shaft New York Daily News …Frank Dragotta, 61 of Morganville, N.J., fell one story from the second floor inside the W. 70th St. building near Columbus Ave. at about 8:45 a.m...
Miscellaneous
4 GOP Hopefuls Expected To Attend Koch Event Politico ...Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Marco Rubio of Florida, and Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin received coveted invitations to speak to the vaunted network assembled by the billionaire industrialist megadonors Charles and David Koch, the sources said...
Friday, January 16, 2015
Teamsters gear up for new battle against unsafe Mexican trucks
The Teamsters are once again preparing to reverse a U.S. Department of Transportation's decision to open the border to Mexican trucks.
The Teamsters have long fought to keep the border closed to unsafe trucks even after NAFTA took effect on Jan. 1, 1994. The union succeeded for decades.
In September 2007, the Bush administration launched a ‘demonstration program’ to allow Mexican trucks to travel throughout the United States. The program lasted for a year and a half while the Teamsters lobbied Congress to end it. In March 2008, Congress passed a bill cutting off funding for the program, and President Obama signed it into law.
Mexico then retaliated by imposing $2.4 billion in tariffs on 80 products it imports from the United States.
With prodding from the Teamsters, Congress ordered the Transportation Department to let some Mexican trucks to U.S. highways only as part of a rigorously supervised pilot program. As a precaution, Congress ordered the Transportation Department’s watchdog, the inspector general, to report regularly on the pilot program.
In December 2014, the inspector general reported the pilot program failed under the law. Only 15 carriers participated in it, making it impossible to know if Mexican trucks are safe enough to drive on U.S. highways.
The inspector general also reported the Transportation Department couldn’t inspect enough carriers in Mexico because of the danger to transportation inspectors. The Teamsters have long argued that letting Mexican trucks travel in the United States was unfair because American truckers don’t want to travel in Mexico because of the ongoing drug war.
Shocking news was announced in January. First, the Transportation Department decided to open the border to Mexican trucks even after the pilot program failed.
Second, the Transportation Department had already secretly allowed 351 Mexican trucking carriers to drive wherever they wanted to in the United States. Transportation officials claimed NAFTA allowed them to do it under ‘direct foreign investment’ provisions of the treaty. Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa said,
This policy change by the DOT flies in the face of common sense and ignores the statutory and regulatory requirements of a pilot program. Allowing untested, Mexican trucks to travel our highways is a mistake of the highest order and it’s the driving public that will be put at risk by the DOT’s rash decision.Hoffa also fired off a letter to Transportation Department Secretary Anthony Foxx to say opening the border to Mexican trucks jeopardized U.S. highway safety.
The Teamsters are now exploring all options in the continuing fight to keep the roads safe for the motoring public. Keep an eye on this space to find out what happens next.
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