Today's Teamster News 02.12.15

Teamsters
Ken Hall: Right to work is wrong for West Virginia  Charleston Gazette   ...West Virginia citizens are correct to be skeptical of politicians proposing a right-to-work law...
Outcome of Teamsters’ bid to represent CCSD workers pending  Las Vegas Review-Journal   …Dozens of Clark County School District’s bus drivers, janitors, cooks and other support staff hoped to learn late Wednesday what union would be representing the 11,263 workers at the bargaining table. But that decision was postponed until Thursday morning when the Nevada Local Government Employee-Management Relations Board will rule on the validity of Teamsters Local 14’s bid to take over as the workers’ union...
San Bernardino County labor union to vote on joining Teamsters  The Sun   …San Bernardino County’s largest labor union announced Wednesday that its board will vote this month on whether to become a chartered, independent local of the Teamsters...
CP faces weekend strike deadline  The Sun   …Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. is bracing for a possible strike this weekend by the Teamsters union that threatens to damp profit at the country’s second-biggest carrier...
Study Finds UC Workers Are Underpaid  Daily Nexus   ...According to initial reports from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) released two weeks ago, sponsored by Teamsters Local 2010, a majority of University of California union workers receive wages less than the basic one-adult, one-child family’s yearly budget...
Hoffa: Walking Man’ Not Alone In His Struggles  Detroit News   ...Sometimes real life can seem like a movie. Such is the case with James Robertson, the 56-year-old Detroit man who walked 21 miles round trip to his factory job in Rochester Hills each day after his car died and his job moved further into the suburbs...
US Regulators Skeptical Of Huge Food Merger Ahead Of Vote  New York Post   ...Regulators are set to vote in the afternoon on the controversial $3.5 billion merger of the top two distributors of food to schools, restaurants and hospitals that critics charge will lead to higher foods costs across the country, The Post has learned...
Trade
NAFTA shadows Obama's efforts to seek clout for trade deals  Ledger-Enquirer   …A 21-year-old ghost haunts President Barack Obama and his allies as he presses Congress for enhanced powers to make trade deals with Japan and other nations. Obama says new trade deals will avoid the shortcomings of NAFTA, the 1994 North America Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada, which many Americans blame for big job losses, especially in manufacturing...
Currency Warriors Get Boost At G-20 Meeting  Wall Street Journal   ...The world’s top finance leaders on Tuesday in effect backed currency depreciation as a tool for promoting growth by signaling strong support for aggressive easy-money policies aimed at boosting the fragile global economy...
Agricultural Reforms in Japan Pave the Way for TPP  The Diplomat   ...Last October, Japan’s powerful farm lobby, the Japan Agriculture Cooperative (JA), still had the clout to stall Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) ministerial negotiations between Japan and the U.S. over tariffs on sensitive farm products. However, recent reforms tip the balance of power firmly in favor of the government, accelerating JA’s slow demise and paving the way for greater market liberalization and deregulation in Japanese agriculture...
State Battles
Missouri takes a step toward becoming ‘right-to-work’ state  Associated Press   …Missouri took a step toward joining 24 other states with right-to-work laws when its House voted Wednesday to bar the collection of fees from workers who choose not to join a union...
New Mexico House Judiciary Postpones Vote On 'Right-To-Work' Bill  Santa Fe Daily Times   ...Opponents and backers of a highly divisive "right-to-work" bill that would prohibit union membership as a condition for employment in New Mexico testified for five hours before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday evening. After hearing public comments on the legislation, the committee decided to hold off on a vote until Friday afternoon...
Butler County OKs Right-To-Work Ordinance  Bowling Green Daily News   ...Butler County Fiscal Court Monday approved the first reading of a right-to-work ordinance. The ordinance was approved with a vote of 4-1, Deputy Judge-Executive Kim West said. District 4 Magistrate David Whittinghill voted against the measure...
Special Election, Right-To-Work Discussed At Fiscal Court  Maysville Ledger Independent   ...During the meeting, Judge-Executive Larry Foxworthy told the court he would like to wait until the right-to-work law is sorted out in the court system before it is discussed any further in Fleming County...
Minimum Wage Bill Passes Ky. House  Louisville Courier Journal   ...A bill to raise Kentucky's minimum wage to $10.10 an hour by 2017 passed the House in a largely party-line vote on Tuesday, but the bill again faces an uphill battle in the Senate...
Compromise Crafted On Prevailing Wage  MetroNews   ...Under the compromise reached Wednesday, the task of determining the prevailing wage would be turned over to the state’s Workforce Development office, which would consult with economists at WVU and Marshall to determine the formula for what the pay should be. That formula would still need to be approved by the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Government and Finance...
War on Workers
Congress and President Obama Cannot Sit Idly By While Companies Use H-1B Guestworkers to Replace American Workers  Economic Policy Institute   …A recent investigation by Computerworld revealed that hundreds of information technology (IT) workers were laid off by Southern California Edison (SCE) and replaced with temporary foreign workers through the H-1B guestworker visa program, which allows employers to hire temporary foreign workers for up to six years if they have at least a college degree (most work in IT)…it doesn’t look like any action will be taken to reverse it…
Bernie Sanders: Keeping US From Becoming Oligarchy 'A Struggle We Must Win'  Common Dreams   ...senator says growing wealth gap, high poverty rates, health care crisis signs of country slipping into control of small billionaire class...
Judge Rules For NSA In Warrantless Search Case  Reuters   ...A U.S. judge on Tuesday ruled in favor of the National Security Agency in a lawsuit challenging the interception of Internet communications without a warrant, according to a court filing...
Justice Department Is Seeking Felony Pleas By Big Banks In Foreign Currency Inquiry  New York Times   ...The Justice Department is pushing some of the biggest banks on Wall Street — including, for the first time in decades, American institutions — to plead guilty to criminal charges that they manipulated the prices of foreign currencies...

Today's Teamster News 03.23.13

Fed's Raskin Bemoans Low-Wage Nature of Jobs Recovery  Reuters   ...Too much of the recent growth in employment has been concentrated in low-wage and temporary jobs, leaving the recovery on shaky ground, a top Federal Reserve official said Friday...
While Cyprus Sinks, France and Slovenia Start to Founder  naked capitalism   ...As the Cyprus restructuring drama has moved into high gear, it’s obscured news of a serious deterioration in the French economy and the weakened condition of Slovenia, which has a population and GDP roughly 1.5 times as large as that of Cyprus...
Friends of Wells Fargo Typo Victim Larry Delassus Suing For Wrongful Death  LA Weekly   ...A disabled Navy veteran who was in and out of the hospital, Delassus began receiving notices in March of 2009 stating that he was delinquent on Los Angeles County property taxes on his home … The bank was wrong -- Delassus was paid ahead by nearly six months...
Illinois gets $808 million train business Walker destroyed here  The Political Environment   ...When Scott Walker and his legislative supplicants killed high-speed train development and expansion for Wisconsin in 2011, they also broke a contract to build train equipment for several states at a developing Milwaukee factory in the economically-depressed 30th. St. corridor...
Pension overhaul hurts middle class (LTE)  Tampa Bay Times   ...about 800,000 Floridians benefit from the Florida Retirement System pension plan. Rational businessmen should be wary of a proposal that undercuts the spending power of 800,000 Floridians...
LePage: Gas project excludes workers  Portland Press Herald   ...Gov. Paul Le-Page on Thursday criticized a natural gas company that plans to invest $350 million to bring a natural gas pipeline through central Maine, saying a labor agreement the company adopted will favor unions and discriminate against most Maine construction workers...
The Prevailing Wage is now on Snyder's menu  Detroit News   ...With the ink barely dry on Michigan’s new right to work law, Mitten State media seem hungry for another knock-down, drag out fight between the state’s Republican Majority of Everything and Big Labor – this time over the state’s prevailing wage law...
Citizens Gather to Oppose ‘Anti-Worker’ Legislation  KSMU   ...A small group of Springfield citizens gathered in front of the Chamber of Commerce Thursday to discuss what they call anti-worker legislation...
House Passes Liquor Bill  PoliticsPA   ...Following seven hours of debate on Thursday, the Pennsylvania House approved HB 790 105-90.  This is the furthest that any legislation has made it through the Pennsylvania General Assembly since the end of Prohibition eighty years ago...
Reverend Jesse Jackson and two Michigan congressmen challenge emergency financial manager law  ABC News   ...Democrats John Conyers and Gary Peters sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office asking for an audit. The letter suggests emergency managers mismanaged other cities in Michigan and perhaps, federal funds...

Today's Teamster News 01.23.13

U.N. Agency Warns of Rising Unemployment  New York Times  ...More than 197 million people worldwide are jobless, and an additional 39 million have simply given up looking for work, a United Nations agency said on Monday, warning that government budget-balancing was hurting employment and would probably lead to more job losses soon...
11 European Countries Adapted A Financial Transactions Tax, And the U.S. Should Too (opinion)  Think Progress  ... 11 members of the Eurozone today received the go-ahead to apply a financial transactions tax to trades of stocks and derivatives that occur within their countries…As former Labor Secretary Robert Reich tweeted, “Most of Europe will now tax financial transactions, generating billions for hard-pressed budgets. U.S. should do same.”...

Hyundai plant one of 100 factories shutting down in wake of Beijing pollution scare  autoblog   ...the area's children's hospitals are receiving up to 10,000 patients per day with respiratory ailments...
Greece charges statisticians over size of deficit  FT   ...Greece has brought criminal charges against the official responsible for measuring the country’s debt, thereby calling into question the validity of its €172bn second bailout by the EU and International Monetary Fund...
Goldman, Other Welfare Queens Tell Us Forget Social Security-Medicare Until 70  Agonist.org  ...A long standing Money Party front, the Business Roundtable, wants you to wait until you’re 70 years old before you get Social Security and Medicare benefits. This is just a reprise of the November 2012 dictate from the king of corporate cronyism, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein...

House Republicans unveil measure to suspend debt ceiling until May 19  The Hill …House Republicans on Monday unveiled legislation that will suspend the debt ceiling until mid-May, setting the stage for a floor vote as soon as Wednesday... 

Reid warns of ‘nuclear option’ on filibuster  Politico  ...Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says Democrats will take the unprecedented step of changing filibuster rules on a party-line vote if Republicans don’t agree to a bipartisan deal this week...

'Right to Work' in Michigan: Depleting Unions, Dashing Dreams  Jurist  ...RTW regimes set in motion a relentless downward spiral: RTW laws lead to weaker unions, and weaker unions lead to worsening economic conditions for those who can least afford it. Michigan, regardless of its pro-union traditions and culture, is now headed into that vortex...

Kansas Unions Bill Seeks To Undercut Labor's Political Power  Huffington Post  ...The battle over labor unions has reached a new state, with Kansas legislators due to start discussing a proposal that would curtail unions' political power on Wednesday. The Kansas legislation would specifically prohibit public-employee unions from establishing automatic deductions from employee paychecks to pay for political activities... 
Another Walker Aide Sentenced to Prison in Secret "John Doe" Investigation  PR Watch  ...Another top official to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker during his tenure as Milwaukee County Executive has been sentenced to two years in prison for embezzling funds intended for families of veterans...
PPP: Maine Gov. LePage Extremely Unpopular  Talking Points Memo   ...Fifty-five percent of voters in the state said they disapprove of LePage's performance as governor, compared with 39 percent who approve...

Summerville School Bus Workers Vote To Authorize Strike At Durham  IBT  ...School bus drivers and monitors who transport students for Durham School Services in Summerville's Dorchester School District 2 have voted 77-0 to authorize a strike. The drivers and monitors, members of Teamsters Local 509, join Charleston County Durham drivers who also voted unanimously, 186-0, on Jan. 15 to authorize a strike...

Teamsters March In Atlanta To Demand Justice For Sanitation Workers  IBT  ...At the annual Martin Luther King Day march yesterday, more than 400 sanitation workers and Teamster allies joined workers from the 1968 Memphis sanitation strike to demand that Republic Services/Allied Waste [NYSE: RSG] treat its workers equally and with respect. They were joined by sanitation workers in Dekalb County who are fighting to form a union...

Today's Teamster News 03.09.12

Labor negotiations between LePage administration, union going to trial  Bangor Daily News   ...Ayotte ultimately ruled that the LePage administration must stand trial before the board on charges that it negotiated in bad faith and interfered with the rights of MSEA workers...
Right-to-work schism dominates GOP amendment debate  Politics in Minnesota   ...talks on right-to-work have stalled as internal GOP discussions of constitutional amendments in the House and Senate have heated up...
Federal judge tosses NJ unions' pensions suit  CBS News   ...A federal judge on Monday threw out a lawsuit brought by New Jersey teachers, police officers, firefighters and public workers challenging a law that requires them to pay more for their pensions and health benefits ... an appeal will be filed...
Union-buster joins Wisconsin recall fight  Salon   ...The Wisconsin recall ad wars have a new player: the Center for Union Facts, the well-heeled union-bashing outfit founded by food and beverage super-lobbyist Rick Berman.  A CUF source says the self-described “union watchdog” is spending “just over a million dollars” in Wisconsin, and “may do more in the coming weeks.”...
Banks foreclosing on US churches in record numbers  Reuters   ...The surge in church foreclosures represents a new wave of distressed property seizures triggered by the 2008 financial crash, analysts say, with many banks no longer willing to grant struggling religious organizations forbearance.Since 2010, 270 churches have been sold after defaulting on their loans...
GOP Loses Big Voter Suppression Case In Federal Court  Alternet   ...A federal court has rejected an appeal from the Republican National Committee to modify a 30-year-old legal agreement that prevented it from engaging in one of the most offensive forms of voter suppression: targeting minority voters whose credentials were to be challenged once they enter polling places...
GAO: Almost Half of Bailed Banks Repaid the Government With Money "From Other Federal Programs"  naked capitalism   ...Our banking system is still reliant on the government for support...

Maine voter suppression law defeated!

While Ohioans voted last night to repeal the anti-worker SB5 law, Mainers defeated a voter suppression law at the polls.

Maine's Republican-controlled Legislature passed a law in June requiring voters to register at least two business days before an election. Since 1973, Maine had a pratice of same-day voter registration on election day.

The law is part of a trend nationwide of lawmakers trying to pass laws to keep potential voters from casting ballots.

The referendum was put on the ballot and voters -- including Teamters -- vetoed it. 

Traci Place, a business agent with Teamsters Local 340 in Maine, said:

Obviously this is a huge victory. The law was a recent change to voter registration and it didn't make any sense. It was just more of the same from Paul LePage and his regime in trying to suppress our voices in Maine, and the voters wouldn’t let their voices be suppressed.

It just goes to show: When the 99 percent stand up to the one percent, we win.

Today's Teamster News 09.29.11

Walker’s Special Session for Private Companies  The Progressive   ...“It is an abuse of power to talk about job creation and bipartisanship as a cover for advancing a partisan agenda that rewards Republican donors and special interests at the expense of Wisconsin’s working, middle-class families,” said Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca...
Ohio Gov. John Kasich's job approval numbers, support for SB5 still lagging but improving  Cleveland Plain Dealer   ...Ohio Gov. John Kasich's job approval number has hit 40 percent, his highest mark since he took office in January, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll...
LePage Gives New Reason for Removing Labor Mural  WABI   ,,,LePage told him he ordered the mural removed because the money the state spent on it came from a fund meant to provide benefits to the unemployed.  Previously he said he had the mural removed to show that Maine treats employees and employers equally...
Florida Gov. Rick Scott changes arithmetic on jobs pledge  Sun-Sentinel   ...Gov. Rick Scott said this week that Florida is making progress attracting new business but changed his arithmetic on how many jobs the state must create to meet his No. 1 campaign pledge...
Little saved from lower debit fees  Politico   ...In a continuing big bank versus consumer battle, the lower fees that banks begin charging Saturday for debit card swipes might not in the end generate that much savings...
More Americans Are Doubling-Up  Wall Street Journal   ...More people are living with family amid high unemployment rates and a slow economy, but while the phenomenon is keeping the poverty rate lower, it has wider negative economic consequences...Fewer households means fewer consumers for businesses desperate for demand... 

Today's Teamster News 09.08.11

Wisconsin official told DMV not to push free voter ID cards  Reuters   ...A Wisconsin official has discouraged state workers from volunteering information about free IDs available under a controversial voter identification law that critics complain is designed to suppress votes, a memo leaked on Wednesday showed...
NH Senate kills voter ID law  Associated Press   ...The state Senate has killed a bill that would have required New Hampshire voters to produce government-issued photo identification to vote...
Ohio Farmers Union opposes union law, wants repeal  Associated Press   ...A coalition of unionized farmers opposes Ohio's new law placing limits on public employee unions and is urging voters to overturn it on November's ballot...
NJ gov met with oil exec before gas pact pullout  Associated Press   ...Months before New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announced the state was withdrawing from a pact aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions among 10 Northeastern states, he met with one of the billionaire oil industry brothers who have fought to end regional greenhouse gas initiatives...
LePage’s Koch Brothers connection revealed  Boston Portland Phoenix   ...Guess who is the new corporate chair of ALEC for the state of Maine? ... none other than Ann Robinson, a trusted advisor to Governor Paul LePage who simultaneously maintains her day job as a corporate lobbyist...
Many in U.S. slip from middle class, study finds  Washington Post   ...Nearly one in three Americans who grew up middle-class has slipped down the income ladder as an adult...

Today's Teamster News 08.29.11

Walker tells students to take a (tuition) hike  The UWM Post   ...UW-Milwaukee undergraduates and faculty will bear the brunt of Governor Scott Walker’s controversial biennial budget cuts to the UW System this semester, paying 51 percent of the $16.8 million dollars lost annually in state revenue...
Gov. John Kasich's administration moves closer to privatizing lottery  Clevelan Plain Dealer   ...The administration plans to hire a consultant to look at the nuts and bolts of converting the $2.6 billion lottery into a quasi-government agency and determine its value...
Where are all the jobs LePage was going to create? (opinion)  Kennebec Journal   ...Gov. Paul LePage has hired an expensive New York lawyer to negotiate the contract with the union. The union has put forth in good faith cost-savings measures only to have this administration turn them down...
Farmworkers trek through valley on way to Sacramento  The Modesto Bee   ...The march started in Madera on Tuesday and will reach the capital on Sept. 4. A small group is doing the entire route, but bigger crowds are expected for various segments...
NLRB chairwoman departs; political fights loom for labor panel  The Hill   ...Without new people to fill those seats, the five-member board will be down to just two – not enough to have the legal authority to issue decisions, due to a 2010 Supreme Court ruling...
The case of the US jobless recovery: Assertive management meets the double hangover  VoxEU   ...The US is missing millions of jobs. This column argues that the total is 10.4 million. It claims that 3 million of these can be traced to the weakened bargaining position of labour and the growing assertiveness of management in slashing costs to maintain share prices...   

ME Gov cuts-and-pastes corporate wish lists

Wow. This is pretty wild. Maine Gov. Paul LePage -- the guy who removed a labor history mural from the state's Labor Department -- just rubber stamps corporate requests for giveaways.

The Portland Phoenix reports,

Confidential administration dossiers show Governor Paul LePage crafted significant portions of his regulatory reform agenda by literally copying and pasting passages from the memos his staff received from corporate lobbyists and their clients, turning swaths of it into little more than a set of giveaways to favored companies. The dossiers also reveal the governor's wish list for labor, employment, tax, and banking reform, and his plans for executive action and rules changes in these and other sectors — major changes to longstanding Maine practices that he can achieve without the approval of the legislature.

... Simply put, LePage makes policy by letting corporate interests do it for him, and he often endorses their formulations over even his own. This coziness raises serious questions about both the governor's level of engagement in policy and the limited circle of interests he seeks to represent.

Here are some highlights.

• two Portland-based law firms wrote at least 28 of the 50 environmental rollbacks LePage submitted to lawmakers in January, some of which are now law.
• LePage's staff photocopied and submitted a restaurant owner's proposal rolling back Maine's civil rights and wage and tip sharing laws;
• lobbyists' schemes to repeal the ban on the use of strikebreakers and to eliminate unemployment benefits for strikers made it word-for-word into LePage's reform proposal.
• The Maine Innkeepers' Association plan to weaken child labor laws was cut-and-pasted into LePage's reform proposal.

Read the whole thing here.

Today's Teamster News 07.17.11

Wisconsin's Walker concedes mistakes, defends policies  Reuters   ..."The mistake I made early on is, I looked at it almost like the head of a small business: identify a problem, identify a solution and go out and do it," Walker told Reuters...
Count on SB5 being on ballot  Columbus Dispatch   ...It's (not quite) official: Ohioans will have the chance to vote yes or no on the controversial public employee collective-bargaining bill known as Senate Bill 5...
Anger lingers over Minnesota shutdown  Associated Press   ...The abrupt agreement on a budget deal to end Minnesota’s government shutdown, in which Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton dropped his call for new taxes and Republicans agreed to spend more than they wanted, has some people wondering why it had to happen at all...
Gov. Chris Christie's pension and a health care reform a gift to liberals  NJ.com   ...Gov. Chris Christie’s budget cuts are so harsh toward vulnerable people, you wonder what he could do for an encore...
Fight over labor mural removal by Gov. LePage not over yet   Bangor Daily News   ...Judge Woodcock is expected to rule on the motion for summary judgment later this summer...
We're Spent  New York Times   ...The notion that the United States needs to begin moving away from its consumer economy — toward more of an investment and production economy, with rising exports, expanding factories and more good-paying service jobs — has become so commonplace that it’s practically a cliché. It’s also true....

Memo to Govs Gone Wild: Stop cutting

Guess what's a big drag on our economy right now? The loss of state and local jobs.

All our Governors Gone Wild have got their economics exactly backasswards. That goes for Scott Walker in Wisconsin, Chris Christie in New Jersey, John Kasich in Ohio, Rick Snyder in Michigan, Rick Scott in Florida, Nikki Haley in South Carolina and Paul LePage in Maine.

Here's a chart that makes the point:

According to Kevin Drum at Mother Jones,

...federal employment really isn't all that important. It's been relatively flat for the past four decades, while the real action in public sector employment has mostly been at the state and local level. So when conservative politicians rail against the explosion of the federal bureaucracy, they're wrong on multiple counts. It's mostly local government jobs that have grown over the past few decades, and it's mostly local government jobs that have been lost over the past few years — and this has acted as a huge drag on the economy. If stimulus money should be going anywhere, that's where it should be going.

Today's Teamster News 06.30.11

WI Recall: New Daily Kos polling shows path to victory  Daily Kos   ...In August, months and months of effort will culminate in a set of unprecedented recall elections in the state of Wisconsin, focused on a single aim: taking back the state Senate from Republicans and dealing a major blow to Gov. Scott Walker's war against the middle class, students, and above all, unions...
Record 1.3M back vote to torpedo Senate Bill 5  Toledo Blade   ...6,000 (people) paraded through downtown Columbus to file boxes containing 51,000 petitions...
Benton Harbor Emergency Manager restricts park access  Michigan Messenger   ...Locals are no longer allowed to take early morning walks in the park under an order issued by Benton Harbor’s Emergency Manager Joe Harris...
Rick Scott Admits He Was in Colorado for Koch Brothers Retreat  Broward-Palm Beach New Times   ...We finally have an answer as to where Gov. Rick Scott was this weekend, and it confirms our suspicion: at the billionaire Koch brothers' secret conference outside Vail, Colorado...
Minnesota government shutdown hours away  Politico   ...Minnesota is on the verge of a government meltdown if it does not pass a budget by the end of the day Thursday - potentially shuttering highway rest stops, suspending low-income child care, and even closing the state zoo...
LePage vows to renew union dues fight next year  Kennebec Journal   ...A day before the expiration of state workers' union contracts, Gov. Paul LePage told lawmakers Wednesday that he will push again next year for legislation to stop requiring nonunion state workers to pay a portion of union dues...

Today's Teamster News 06.26.11

John Nichols: Walker’s pay-to-play state budget  The Cap Times   ...Walker’s budget, the most fiscally and economically irresponsible in Wisconsin history, cheats Wisconsin taxpayers, families and communities in order to pay off his political benefactors...
Kasich’s $55.5 Billion Ohio Budget Will Sell Prisons  Bloomberg News   ...Kasich said there will be efforts apart from the budget to have companies take over state assets or services, including the lottery and the 241-mile (388-kilometer) Ohio Turnpike...
Financial Martial Law (P.A. 4) repeal gets a jump start in Ann Arbor  Eclectablog   ...nearly 100 local activists, concerned citizens and organizers got together for an informational townhall meeting...
Banner year for companies, not consumers  Palm Beach Post   ...The insurance bill Crist vetoed last year got passed and signed under Scott. It allows insurance companies to jack up rates 15 percent without getting approval from the Office of Insurance Regulation...
Workers target LePage at rally  Kennebec Journal   ...Workers rallied at the State House on Saturday to criticize Gov. Paul LePage for rejecting an offer to extend state worker contracts with no pay raises and for his decision to hire a (union-busting) New York lawyer to conduct negotiations...
Even for Cashiers, College Pays Off  New York Times   ...The educated American masses helped create the American century, as the economists Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz have written...

36 reasons to thank a union

Here's a great idea: Any elected official who enjoys benefits and rights that union members fought and died for should give them up.

That doesn't just mean pensions for members of Congress. That means holiday pay, vacations, weekends and privacy rights for people like randy Sen. Randy Hopper in Wisconsin, wingnut Gov. Paul LePage in Maine, nutcase Sen. Jim DeMint in South Carolina and all the others (you know who they are).

The Big Corporation blog offers a list of 36 reasons to thank a union, pointing out that employers did not suddenly feel generous and grant workers two days off every week. Here's the list.

And we love the Big Corporation Pledge of Allegiance, which we suspect the Koch brothers recite every day.

I Pledge Allegiance to the Banks of the United States of America

And to the Corporations for Which They Stand

One Nation Where Money is God

Made Divisible, No Liberty or Justice at All...

FL: Bad for people, great for corporations (VIDEO)

With acid sarcasm, The Campaign for America's Future brings us three good reasons to do business in Florida: prisons, poverty and unemployment. Re prisons:

Are you doing business in a state that puts public safety above profits?  Then come to the Sunshine State, where facilities for more than 20,000 inmates have been privatized for your profit-seeking pleasure. With more offenders getting locked up each day, there are limitless opportunities for growth...Repeat offenders are really just loyal customers.

And what is it with these Republican governors? Do any of them have an original idea? We understand that the attacks on workers are a conspiracy cooked up by billionaires and CEOs, but can't they at least use different words? The ones who destroy collective bargaining rights for government workers ALL call it a "toolkit" for local governments. And they ALL say their state is "Open for business."

In Maine, a Tea Party supporter of wingnut Gov. Paul LePage actually paid for a highway sign that said "Open for Business." Which he bought in Alabama. (Maine DOES have companies that make highway signs.) LePage's administration put the sign up in York, a gateway to the state.

Then the sign was stolen.

Reports Counterpunch in "The Moral of the Mural,"

In a move worthy of Abbie Hoffman, someone stole an "Open for Business" sign that Maine's controversial right-wing Governor Paul LePage had placed on the Maine Turnpike near the primary highway entrance to the state, and days later another unknown soul offered to trade the sign for a mural depicting Maine's labor history that LePage had previously removed from the state Department of Labor in an act that drew national attention.

The much-ballyhooed Open for Business highway sign went missing before Memorial Day and has yet to be found. But on June 2 an ad appeared on Craigslist offering to sell a "right-wing political sign" for $1,000 or trade it for "a multi-panel mural depicting the labor movement," a clear reference to the Labor Department mural removed by LePage.

A "ransom note" for the highway sign was also found taped to the door of WKIT/WZON, two Bangor radio stations owned by Stephen King, an erstwhile Bangor resident. In classic ransom note style the message was written with letters from newspapers and magazines that had been cut out and glued to a sheet of paper.

Maine's Senate Republicans loved the sign so much they had a cardboard replica made up to hang in their office.

Today's Teamster News 06.05.11

(Sorry, got the date wrong. It's the 6th!)
Firefighters, Teamsters Pitch In For Tornado Relief   WCVB-TV   ...The MA Building Trades Council, the Professional Firefighters of MA and Teamsters Local 25 are holding a Labor Tornado Relief Effort at statewide fire stations until Thursday, June 9...
Wisconsin activists create Walkerville to taunt governor, tout change  CNN   ...Eighty years after Hoovervilles sprung up around the country, and four months after tens of thousands descended on the Wisconsin state capitol, progressives have a new home in what they're calling Walkerville...
SB5 Repeal Backers Pound the Pavement in Ohio  Public News Service   ...It's crunch time for opponents of Ohio's controversial collective bargaining law...
Recall attempts target Snyder, a dozen other GOPs  Detroit Free Press   ...Recall attempts are fairly easy to start but it's far tougher to make the ballot and win an election...
Scott's budget brings job losses  Ocala.com   ... There will be significant layoffs for workers in state mental health hospitals, juvenile justice facilities and state prisons...
Pension 'reforms' an insult to hardworking Mainers  (opinion)   Morning Sentinel  ...It would be one thing if these folks were allowed to participate in Social Security -- where employees and employers traditionally contribute equal shares of 7.65 percent of a worker's income to the retirement fund -- but they're not...
Republicans get their way, mostly, in final budget  Las Vegas Sun   ...Gov. Brian Sandoval and Republicans extended for two years taxes passed in 2009 to fund a budget that contains pay cuts and layoffs for public employees and cuts to social services...

ME's wingnut gov. to gut child labor laws

Wingnut Maine Gov. Paul LePage is expected to sign new legislation loosening child work rules. The Bangor Daily News reports the bill, which has already passed the Senate, allows teens to work an additional four hours during the school week, increasing the limit from 20 to 24 hours, and allows them to work 15 minutes later, until 10:15 p.m. on school days. Republican legislators said the new law will allow teens to contribute to their families’ finances and pay for increasing college costs, while Democratic legislators rightfully say Maine needs to create good jobs for adults first.

“Given the current high unemployment rate in Maine, we should be spending our time and energy here creating jobs for people’s parents not increasing the amount of hours 16- and 17-year-olds can work,” said Rep. Erin Herbig, D-Belfast.

It comes as no surprise the bill has the support of the Maine Restaurant Association and the Maine Innkeepers Association.

“I think this bill should be more rightly titled an act to exploit our children for the financial benefit of the restaurant and the hospitality industry,“ Rep. Timothy Driscoll, D-Westbrook, told The Bangor Daily News.

The original bill, sponsored by Sen. Debra Plowman, R-Hampden, would have lifted all of the restrictions on the hours 16-year-olds can work while school is out of session and would have eliminated all restrictions on the hours 17-year-olds can work.

Legislation that would have instituted a “training” minimum wage of $5.25 for teens, below the state’s $7.50 minimum wage, was defeated by the legislature’s labor committee earlier this month. A very small favor for which it is difficult to be thankful.

Today's Teamster News 05.23.11

State proposal would send $250 million to certified capital companies  Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel   ...Legislation that Gov. Scott Walker says will create jobs would provide hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks to insurance companies, while giving control of a $250 million fund to out-of-state financial management companies that would not have to pay back the fund's principal and would keep up to 80% of its profits...
Kasich friends in high demand  The Columbus Dispatch   ...3 who have long been advisers to governor become top lobbyists...
Our View: LePage has not made case for energy overhaul  (opinion) Portland Press-Herald   ...His bill that would stop the diversification of Maine's electricity portfolio would not help the businesses that want to invest billions of dollars in Maine on renewable energy projects, including wind, tidal, biomass and solar...
Thousands at Michigan Capitol protest school cuts  Associated Press   ...Several thousand people have demonstrated at Michigan's Capitol to protest against past and future cuts in state funding for public schools...
Petitions for Snyder recall to circulate  Detroit News   ... A group seeking the recall of Gov. Rick Snyder is to begin collecting signatures today as the Michigan Republican Party begins a fundraising campaign to fight the effort...
Florida Gov. Rick Scott signs controversial election laws  CBS News  ...Florida Gov. Rick Scott this week signed a set of election law changes intended to curb voter fraud that Democrats and other groups say amount to voter suppression...

Today's Teamster News 05.20.11

Voter ID passed by Wisconsin Senate, sends bill to Gov. Scott Walker Sheboygan Press ...Spectators in the Senate gallery exploded into shouts and screams after the vote, yelling “Shame! Shame! Shame!” and “Recall! Recall! Recall!” They then burst into singing “We Shall Overcome...”
Does Alvin Brown's victory in politically conservative Jacksonville mean tougher times for Florida's Gov. Rick Scott and the GOP? Florida Courier ...(He) comes into office raising questions about whether his win could portend tougher times for Republicans in what has been a staunchly conservative county...
Maine moves to loosen teen labor laws Stateline   ...A controversial proposal to let teenagers work longer hours during the school year is headed to the desk of Governor Paul LePage, a Republican who supports the changes...
Montgomery County Democrats bash Corbett budget, agenda The Times-Herald ...they claim (it) would cripple public schools, social services agencies and cut jobs...
Anxiety keeps the super-rich safe from middle-class rage The Guardian ...The Institute for Fiscal Studies reports that last year incomes among the top 1% grew at the fastest rate in a decade...
Editorial: Missouri Legislature, governor, fail on job creation promise stltoday.com ...Its leaders' alleged job creation agenda lay in tatters on the Capitol's marble floors, trampled by a stampede of partisan politicians, with plenty of evidence that most of them were worried mostly about one job and one job only: their own...
Teamsters Endorse U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley for U.S. Senate IBT  ...The Teamsters Union is proudly backing U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley in her election campaign for U.S. Senate for the state of Nevada, the union announced today...
Teamsters Call on Loomis Leadership to Restore Workers' Rights in U.S.  IBT   ...Teamsters International Vice President Rome Aloise formally called on Loomis AB’s CEO Lars Blecko and Chairman of the Board Alf Göransson to meet with the Teamsters and restore the fundamental rights of their U.S. employees to be represented by the union of their choice...

Today's Teamster News 05.14.11

Could Scott Walker’s overreach cost GOP a Senate seat they might have won?  Wshington  Post   ...One key takeaway from the news that Wisconsin Senator Herb Kohl is set to retire is that the national Republican Party could end up coming to regret Governor Scott Walker’s overreach in a major way...
Live-blogging the 'We Are Wisconsin' rally at the Capitol on May 14  Isthmus   ...Join us here starting early Saturday afternoon for the "We Are Wisconsin" rally on the Capitol Square, marking the 90th day since protests started in downtown Madison over Gov. Scott Walker's agenda for the state...
Connecticut Unions Agree to $1.6 Billion in Givebacks  New York Times   ...
Threatened with nearly 5,000 layoffs, representatives for 45,000 unionized state employees agreed Friday to $1.6 billion in concessions over two years to help balance a budget that Gov. Dannel P. Malloy says includes pain for everyone: record tax increases, substantial program cuts and worker givebacks in health care, pension benefits and wages...
Ohio: A New Kind of Battleground  The Nation   ...Although more and better jobs are what Ohio most needs, in mid-March Governor John Kasich introduced a budget that is sure to lead to dramatic job losses, with tens of thousands of public employees set to be laid off...
The Myth of Moderate Mitch  The New Republic   ...Elected with the help of donations from the Koch brothers, (Daniels) signed bills that abolished the right of teachers to bargain for anything other than wages and wage-related benefits and initiated the largest private-school voucher program in the country... he’s also privatized a state highway ... he supports Paul Ryan’s plan to cut taxes for the rich while starving Medicare...
Bill Nemitz: Dill's win unmistakably a message to Augusta  Portland Press-Herald   ..."I have not heard a single person raise any substantive issue other than Governor LePage and the crisis of leadership in Augusta," Dill said. "I mean, not a single person!"...
TN bill to curb teacher bargaining rights advances  Business Week   ...A proposal to curb Tennessee teachers' collective bargaining rights is once again advancing in the House after an amendment was withdrawn Tuesday to do away with negotiations altogether...