Teamsters
Hoffa Calls for Bipartisan Approach to Infrastructure Investment Teamster.org ...Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa stressed the need for a commitment by Democrats and Republicans to put aside partisan agendas and move forward to find a long-term solution to surface transportation funding. Department of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour joined Hoffa at a National Press Club Newsmakers press conference today to discuss infrastructure investment...
The Teamsters Want Bi-Partisan Infrastructure Unity To “Get America Working” WIN ...The International Brotherhood of Teamsters has launched their “Get America Working Campaign” calling for massive new investments in infrastructure, transportation and clean energy. The American Society Of Civil Engineers estimates that America needs to spend $3.6 trillion to modernize and repair roads, bridges, ports, airports, railroads and water systems. Teamsters President Jim Hoffa says making these investments would create jobs...
Hoffa: Teamsters Urging Bipartisan Effort to Fix Roads, Bridges Newsmax ...The Teamsters union is pushing a bipartisan effort to repair America's crumbling infrastructure and get the country back on top, the group's president James P. Hoffa, tells Newsmax TV. "There's no Republican bridge, there's no Democratic bridge, there's an American bridge," Hoffa said Wednesday on "The Hard Line"...
Baumann and Sons Buses Inc., Acme Buses, Teamsters Local 1205 to resume school bus labor talks Thursday, union chief says Newsday ...Federal mediation was put on hold early Thursday morning between a major Long Island school bus contractor and its drivers -- a situation closely watched by school districts and parents whose children ride the company's vehicles to get to and from school. Teamsters Local 1205 and Ronkonkoma-based Baumann & Sons Buses Inc. and its affiliate, Acme Buses, plan to reconvene at 4 p.m. Thursday to continue negotiations, union president Timothy Lynch said...
Council sends message to Sun Tran: resolve strike Arizona Daily News ...The Tucson City Council made a political statement Wednesday in the ongoing Sun Tran strike, telling the management to “make every effort to resolve the labor dispute immediately.” Thursday marks the 36th day of the strike. They told Professional Transit Management to meet its obligation to negotiate in good faith with the Teamsters...
Global Labor & Trade
Auto parts makers make plea to save sector as TPP talks resume CBC ...Auto parts makers in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico have urged their governments not to give in to demands from Japan for less NAFTA-made content in vehicles at new talks on the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Canadian and Mexican negotiators are in Washington today trying to work out terms for automotive issues in the trade deal which would open up freer trade among 12 Pacific nations...
US Aims for Next TPP Meeting in Late September MarketPulse ...The United States has sounded out some of the other countries involved in Pacific Rim free trade negotiations about holding the next ministerial gathering in late September on the margins of a session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, negotiation sources said Tuesday. Separately, Japan and the United States will resume bilateral talks on auto trade issues under the 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership trade initiative in Washington from Wednesday, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said...
USTR offers update on TPP following Maui meeting Farm Futures ...Following a meeting of the 12 countries represented in the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement, the office of the U.S. Trade Representative this week briefed members of the House Ag Committee on TPP movement and released an updated progress report on the anticipated deal. According to the report, USTR says "substantial progress" was specifically made on market access for goods and services as well as environmental issues...
TPP up by year’s end, says US envoy John Berry The Australian ...The US ambassador to Australia says the President and Secretary of State are confident they will be able to sign the 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership by the end of the year, facilitating trade through the Asia-Pacific. In Adelaide to attend an innovation roundtable yesterday, John Berry talked up the benefits of the $200 billion TPP, along with international trade partnerships, at an American Chamber of Commerce in Australia forum...
South Africa FAWU Workers Strike Turns Violent Eyewitness News ...Police are keeping a watchful eye on hundreds of Food and Allied Workers' Union (Fawu) members on strike in Ceres. The demonstrators are demanding a 12% increase from Ceres Fruit Growers which has been offering six percent. The striking employees have braved the chilly and wet weather to demonstrate outside the company’s gates...
Hyundai Motor S.Korea union authorises strike; talks continue Reuters ...Hyundai Motor's union workers in South Korea have voted to authorise a strike after failing to reach a deal in annual wage talks and on reforms to its pay structure. Workers could go on strike as early as Sept. 14, although the union and company management agreed to resume negotiations later on Thursday, union spokesman Hwang Ki-tae said...
Peru: 20,000 Public Health Care Workers Strike TeleSUR ...The strike of public health care workers is the latest sign that Peru’s underfunded system is in trouble. Public health care workers have launched a 24-hour strike on Wednesday to pressure Peru’s government into implementing agreements reached in 2014. Last year, after workers held an 18-day strike, the government signed an agreement, which addressed various issues...
State & Living Wage Battles
New York Could Be The First State With A $15 Minimum Wage Think Progress ...On Thursday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) will become the first governor to call for a $15 minimum wage across his entire state. A wage hike would need to be passed by the state legislature, where the state senate is Republican-controlled. But if his proposal were to become reality, that would give New York the country’s highest state minimum wage...
Tennessee Higher Education Talks Big, Acts Cheap The Nation ... Under a plan recently issued by the administration of Governor Bill Haslam—who won national accolades for making Tennessee the first state to offer comprehensive “free community college for all”—workers at public facilities across the state, including higher-education institutions, will see their jobs outsourced, potentially at the expense of wages and benefits...
California Governor signs two-person crew law BLET ...California Governor Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown signed a two-person crew bill into law on September 8, signifying a significant boost to railroad safety. The bill reads in part: “This bill would prohibit, on and after February 1, 2016, a train or light engine used in connection with the movement of freight, as specified, from being operated unless it has a crew consisting of at least 2 individuals”...
Paid sick leave movement is alive and kicking CBS ...And about 39 percent of U.S. private sector workers lack access to any sick paid leave, according to a joint study by the Institute for Women's Policy Research and the National Partnership for Women & Families. hat has led several local municipalities and at least four states -- California, Connecticut, Oregon and Massachusetts -- to establish their own paid sick leave laws to ensure that workers don't have to chose between working sick, losing part of their pay or, in some cases, losing their jobs altogether...
Puerto Rico Proposes Harsh Austerity To Solve The Debt Crisis Think Progress ...The government of Puerto Rico put forward an official plan on Wednesday to tackle its looming $72 billion debt crisis. In exchange for demanding some concessions from the island’s hedge fund creditors, the government is promising to pay workers less than the minimum wage, slash retirement benefits, limit collective bargaining, cut funding to universities, and shut down more K-12 schools...
Sustain Gov. Jay Nixon’s veto of Missouri anti-union bill (editorial) Kansas City Star ...A controversial “right to work” bill, which is expected to take center stage in the Missouri General Assembly’s veto session next week, is part of a long-term effort by right-wing interests to cripple union strength around the nation. It bodes poorly for Missouri workers and the state’s economy and must not be passed over Gov. Jay Nixon’s veto...
U.S. Labor
UPS pilots' union to vote on potential strike The Hill ...The union that represents UPS pilots is calling a vote on a potential strike against one of the nation's largest parcel delivery companies. The Louisville, Ky.-based Independent Pilots Association (IPA), which has more than 2,600 members, said Wednesday that it would hold a vote on a potential strike against UPS beginning on Oct. 1. Union leaders said the vote is an effort to win concessions from UPS after multiple years of protracted labor talks...
'Fighting for Incredible List of Educational Reforms,' Seattle Teachers Go on Historic Strike Common Dreams ...For the first time in 30 years, Seattle teachers are hitting the picket lines on Wednesday after the teachers union and the school board failed to negotiate a tentative agreement. The Tuesday decision to strike—made with what the union describes as "an unprecedented, thunderous unanimous vote," closes schools on what would have been the first day of school for roughly 50,000 students...
Analysts: GM likely UAW target, small strike probable The Detroit News ...General Motors Co. likely will be selected as the lead for UAW negotiations as contracts expire with the Detroit’s Big Three next week, according to Buckingham Research Group auto analysts, who also believe there is a high probability of a small strike. “We view GM as a probable target, given new CEO Mary Barra is likely more labor friendly vs. Mark Fields and Sergio Marchionne,” analysts from the research firm said...
US Unemployment Benefit Applications Dropped to 275,000 AP ...Fewer Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, keeping this key indicator of labor market health near historic lows. The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly applications for unemployment benefits dropped 6,000 to a seasonally adjusted 275,000. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, increased 500 to 275,750...
Republicans take aim at NLRB's 'joint employer' ruling The Hill ...The GOP is girding for another fight with the Obama administration over a controversial labor policy. The Protecting Local Business Opportunity Act, introduced Wednesday by Republicans, would roll back a policy that holds companies liable for labor violations committed by their business partners...
Unions 30 Years Ago Are Somehow Making People Richer Today The Atlantic ...According to the study, people between the ages of 26 and 37 who are working full time and whose parents did not go to college and were not in a union earn an average of $39,000 today. But a very similar group of people—everything the same except that they had one parent who was in a union—those people are earning $46,000...
Labor vs. Silicon Valley, David vs. Goliath? (video) MSNBC ...Unions are spreading like wildfire through tech’s low-wage workforce and Derecka Mehrens, Executive Director of Working Partnerships USA says, ‘we’re winning’. Temple Law Professor Brishen Rogers and MSNBC’s Zack Roth discuss what’s next for innovative labor campaigns...
Social Justice & Other News
Jeb Bush’s Tax Plan Is Mostly A Giveaway To The Rich Think Progress ...In a speech on Wednesday, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush will unveil his tax plan. He also previewed the plan in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal Tuesday evening. While the plan is still just an outline of what Bush would do and therefore doesn’t include many details, many of the changes he wants to make would benefit the wealthiest Americans...
Why Europe’s Trains Are So Much Better Than America's The Atlantic ...California is the only place in the U.S. where high-speed rail (HSR) plans are really moving forward, albeit not that quickly or smoothly. The state is currently building a 520-mile high-speed line from San Francisco to L.A., which will eventually extend to Sacramento to the north and San Diego to the south. The German Marshall Fund put out a report in June on the lessons California could draw from the well-developed HSR systems in Germany and France...
Zero Tolerance for Childhood Slate ...“Kids for cash” is emblematic of a larger problem: the tendency to criminalize so much of what young people do, the tendency to hit them with draconian punishments that are out of proportion to the crime itself, and the ways the system itself profits financially from those impulses...
German Lawmaker: At the Root of Refugee Crisis are Wars Led by the U.S. in the Middle East Democracy Now ...The United Nations is now estimating at least 850,000 people are expected to cross the Mediterranean this year and next, seeking refuge in Europe to escape violence and unrest in Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, sub-Saharan Africa and other regions. Already 366,000 people have arrived in Europe this year. Annette Groth, member of the German Parliament and spokeswoman for human rights for the Left Party, asks "What is the root for this massive migration?It is war, it is terror, and it is the former U.S. government who is accountable for it"...
Showing posts with label Peru. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Peru. Show all posts
Thursday, September 10, 2015
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
Today's Teamster News 08.25.15
Teamsters
Airgas Workers Join Teamsters Teamster.org ...Drivers, plant operators and fillers at the Airgas facility in Islandia, N.Y., have voted to join Teamsters Local 282. The successful effort was the culmination of hard work by the organizing committee and business agent Mike Bourgal. “Nationwide, this company has recently changed their attitude toward their hardworking, loyal workforce and this vote is an example of what happens when employers disrespect their employees,” said Keith Gleason, Director of the Teamsters Tankhaul Division...
1,200 Teamsters show SBCo. BOS they mean business Examiner ...San Bernardino County leaders scoffed at the idea that the county’s general employees have had enough of pay and benefit cuts so much so that they would take a few hours out of a weekend morning to attend a union rally. They were expecting a low turnout. They were wrong. More than 1,200 Teamsters showed for the event...
Google delivery workers vote to join Teamsters union Silicon Valley Business Journal ...The push to unionize Silicon Valley workers went one step further on Friday when 151 Google Express warehouse and shipping workers voted in favor of joining a union. The employees work for Adecco, a temp agency subcontracted by Google. The employees aim to join Teamsters Local 853, the same organization which unionized shuttle drivers for Apple, Yahoo and eBay last month...
10 years after Katrina: Teamsters recall unprecedented disaster, undaunted response Teamster Nation ...Responding to emergencies of all kinds over the last century has created a strong, unique sense of pride and solidarity among all Teamster members. On the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall, the Teamsters Union is looking back on how the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast recovered and rebuilt their homes, businesses and lives...
Global Labor & Trade
Handful of issues remaining in TPP: Froman New Straits Times ...There are only a handful of issues to be resolved in the ongoing Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations, said US Trade Representative Michael Froman. "The Hawaii ministerial meeting was productive and we closed a dozen difficult issues, and at the end of the day there are now a handful of issues which needed further work"...
Asian countries shift focus to regional trade after TPP delay AFR.com ...Asian countries have agreed to speed-up the conclusion of a more localised trade agreement after the delays finishing a competing US-led pact, in a bid to maintain regional economic integration just as a growth slowdown is hitting financial markets. Economic ministers, including trade minister Andrew Robb, agreed that the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) should be substantively finished...
No Trans-Pacific trade deal if auto parts sector threatened: trade minister The Record ...Canada will not sign a Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal that would allow Japanese vehicles into North America with fewer parts manufactured here, says Ed Fast, the federal minister of international trade. "We have made it very clear as a Canadian government that we will only sign a TPP agreement if it is in Canada's national interest"...
How TiSA strolls off with our services TNI.org ...While TTIP is currently the center of attention, more trade agreements are looming over our heads. In July, our world leaders hauled up in their backrooms to discuss TiSA, an extensive service agreement meant to put (public) services, like the water supply, in the hands of the international market...
Floored: The True Cost of Unenforced Trade Deals Huffington Post ...Using rules in the U.S.-Peru free trade pact, EIA and the Center for International Environmental Law petitioned the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) to take action under the trade pact and verify the legal origin of shipments from two companies, including Maderera Bozovich SAC, because of their history of exporting significant volumes of timber to the U.S. from logging concessions with illegal activity. But USTR never did so...
Peru Construction Workers Win New Pact, Rights Solidarity Center ...Construction workers in Peru are celebrating a new contract that significantly improves wages and benefits, and are hailing a new legislative order, which in part addresses ongoing violence against union members in the building and construction trades. The new one-year contract gives workers up to a 5 percent wage increase and includes education benefits for workers’ children up to age 22...
Greek lawmakers approve third bailout after all-night debate Dispatch Times ...Tsipras told lawmakers that the bailout package is a “necessary choice” for the nation, despite unwelcome tax hikes and spending cuts. However, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is facing rebellion within his left-wing Syriza party, with more than 40 Syriza MPs voting against the bailout in parliament on Friday...
McDonald’s Workers Take Fight for $15 to Brazil, Accuse Company of “Cannibal Capitalism” In These Times ...In addition to the U.S. and Brazilian delegations, politicians and labor union officials from Europe, including France and Germany, and Korea presented wide-ranging critiques of McDonald’s practices. “The verdict of today’s hearing is clear: no company is more responsible than McDonald’s for driving a global race to the bottom,” said Scott Courtney, assistant to the president of the Service Employees International Union...
State & Living Wage Battles
Dems push right-to-work repeal Lansing State Journal ...Michigan House Democrats are pushing what is likely a doomed effort to repeal the state’s controversial right-to-work laws. Legislative language introduced last week by state Rep. John Chirkun, D-Roseville, would “reaffirm the continuing public policy of this state” that union payments are necessary for “the stability and effectiveness of labor relations in the public sector”...
Thousands protest Koch Brothers convention in Ohio People's World ...In a powerful rebuff to extremist efforts to push "Right-To-Work" and other anti-working class programs, some 4000 union members and supporters poured into Columbus Friday, Aug. 21 to protest the "Summit on the American Dream" held by Americans for Prosperity" (AFP), a political action group funded by the right-wing billionaire brothers, Charles and David Koch...
Future of voter ID lawsuit heard in N.C. state court Journal Now ...A lawsuit challenging North Carolina’s voter identification requirement should be allowed to continue even after the legislature added exceptions this summer easing the mandate that goes into effect next year, lawyers fighting the law told a state judge Monday. But a state attorney said the changes made to the 2013 law have addressed the accusations made in the litigation, giving registered voters who lack a qualifying photo ID a way to cast ballots in person anyway...
Labor Secretary Tom Perez is 'proud to stand with the Fight for 15' Daily Kos ...Labor Secretary Tom Perez is heading to Detroit this week to meet with fast food workers. Ahead of that trip, he's making clear his support for the workers' organizing efforts. The movement has been instrumental in raising the minimum wage in cities like Seattle and Los Angeles; a wage board in New York has recommended a $15 wage for the fast food industry, which is expected to be approved soon...
Home Healthcare Workers Haven’t Qualified for Minimum Wage for 80 Years. Now They Do. The Nation ...t took about 40 years after the passage of federal wage standards for the government to decide that domestic workers deserved a minimum wage. And it’s taking nearly another 40 years for home healthcare workers—the subset of the industry specializing in elder and disability care—to gain the same protections. The Obama administration has amended federal wage and hour regulations to close a longstanding exemption...
St. Louis aldermen will debate minimum wage hike today STL Today ...The St. Louis Board of Aldermen will again take up the contentious issue of a citywide minimum wage hike Tuesday. Various proposals to institute a citywide minimum wage have been kicked around. Last month, the aldermen left for vacation without taking action on a bill that would institute an increased minimum wage by 2020...
U.S. Labor
The Stock Market Drop Exposes The Dangers Of Privatizing Social Security Think Progress ...The stock market continued a period of volatility on Monday. Media reports sounded the alarm as the DOW opened 1,000 points down and other indexes took huge hits, only to climb back up a bit later in the day. While that performance, which had some people calling it black Monday, may have knocked a good deal of money out of people’s 401(k) retirement accounts, Social Security benefits remain by and large untouched by such fluctuations...
UAW wants local and national contracts at Fiat Chrysler Detroit Free Press ...The UAW isn't just trying to reach a new national agreement with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles to replace the one set to retire Sept. 14 -- the union is simultaneously working to hammer out local contracts covering each plant across the nation. The approach is a change in strategy from 2011 and aims to prevent a scenario where the ratification of local contracts can languish for years...
Union lawsuit claims bus system violated constitutional rights amid contract talks MLive ...The union that represents The Rapid workers is suing the Grand Rapids transit authority in federal court in the middle of ongoing contract negotiations. The lawsuit filed Monday, Aug. 24, in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids alleges The Interurban Transit Partnership, or The Rapid, violated the First and Fourteenth Amendment rights of members of the Amalgamated Transit Union...
Deere, UAW to kick off contract talks amid roiling economy Crain's ...Deere and its unionized workforce are kicking off contract talks as the slowing global economy weakens the equipment manufacturer. Moline-based Deere and the United Auto Workers are set to start bargaining today, according to a spokeswoman for the Detroit-based union. The contract covering approximately 11,000 UAW members expires Oct. 1...
Social Justice & Other News
Thirty Miles From Selma, a Different Kind of Civil Rights Struggle Truthout ...In the last decade, little has roused this town in the heart of Alabama's "black belt," 30 miles west of Selma, like the Arrowhead Landfill, a sprawling dump. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, while touting the importance of tackling environmental racism, has done little to address the residents' concerns - until now. Spurred by a citizens' complaint alleging the Arrowhead Landfill violates the civil rights of surrounding black property owners...
Ferguson Judge Orders Major Reforms in Victory for Protesters Slate ...In the year-plus since Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Missouri, protesters, reporters, and the Department of Justice have all been critical of the city’s hyperaggressive municipal court system. On Monday, the city’s new municipal judge announced a major overhaul of the system; per judge Donald McClellin’s statement, all warrants issued before 2015 will be recalled...
400+ Miles Into Journey for Justice, Marchers Call for Police Reform Common Dreams ...Social justice and human rights activists are rallying Monday on the steps of the South Carolina State Capitol Building, calling for full-scale criminal justice reform including national, uniform standards for use of force among all local, state, and federal law enforcement agents. The demonstration is part of the NAACP's Journey for Justice March...
Airgas Workers Join Teamsters Teamster.org ...Drivers, plant operators and fillers at the Airgas facility in Islandia, N.Y., have voted to join Teamsters Local 282. The successful effort was the culmination of hard work by the organizing committee and business agent Mike Bourgal. “Nationwide, this company has recently changed their attitude toward their hardworking, loyal workforce and this vote is an example of what happens when employers disrespect their employees,” said Keith Gleason, Director of the Teamsters Tankhaul Division...
1,200 Teamsters show SBCo. BOS they mean business Examiner ...San Bernardino County leaders scoffed at the idea that the county’s general employees have had enough of pay and benefit cuts so much so that they would take a few hours out of a weekend morning to attend a union rally. They were expecting a low turnout. They were wrong. More than 1,200 Teamsters showed for the event...
Google delivery workers vote to join Teamsters union Silicon Valley Business Journal ...The push to unionize Silicon Valley workers went one step further on Friday when 151 Google Express warehouse and shipping workers voted in favor of joining a union. The employees work for Adecco, a temp agency subcontracted by Google. The employees aim to join Teamsters Local 853, the same organization which unionized shuttle drivers for Apple, Yahoo and eBay last month...
10 years after Katrina: Teamsters recall unprecedented disaster, undaunted response Teamster Nation ...Responding to emergencies of all kinds over the last century has created a strong, unique sense of pride and solidarity among all Teamster members. On the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall, the Teamsters Union is looking back on how the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast recovered and rebuilt their homes, businesses and lives...
Global Labor & Trade
Handful of issues remaining in TPP: Froman New Straits Times ...There are only a handful of issues to be resolved in the ongoing Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations, said US Trade Representative Michael Froman. "The Hawaii ministerial meeting was productive and we closed a dozen difficult issues, and at the end of the day there are now a handful of issues which needed further work"...
Asian countries shift focus to regional trade after TPP delay AFR.com ...Asian countries have agreed to speed-up the conclusion of a more localised trade agreement after the delays finishing a competing US-led pact, in a bid to maintain regional economic integration just as a growth slowdown is hitting financial markets. Economic ministers, including trade minister Andrew Robb, agreed that the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) should be substantively finished...
No Trans-Pacific trade deal if auto parts sector threatened: trade minister The Record ...Canada will not sign a Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal that would allow Japanese vehicles into North America with fewer parts manufactured here, says Ed Fast, the federal minister of international trade. "We have made it very clear as a Canadian government that we will only sign a TPP agreement if it is in Canada's national interest"...
How TiSA strolls off with our services TNI.org ...While TTIP is currently the center of attention, more trade agreements are looming over our heads. In July, our world leaders hauled up in their backrooms to discuss TiSA, an extensive service agreement meant to put (public) services, like the water supply, in the hands of the international market...
Floored: The True Cost of Unenforced Trade Deals Huffington Post ...Using rules in the U.S.-Peru free trade pact, EIA and the Center for International Environmental Law petitioned the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) to take action under the trade pact and verify the legal origin of shipments from two companies, including Maderera Bozovich SAC, because of their history of exporting significant volumes of timber to the U.S. from logging concessions with illegal activity. But USTR never did so...
Peru Construction Workers Win New Pact, Rights Solidarity Center ...Construction workers in Peru are celebrating a new contract that significantly improves wages and benefits, and are hailing a new legislative order, which in part addresses ongoing violence against union members in the building and construction trades. The new one-year contract gives workers up to a 5 percent wage increase and includes education benefits for workers’ children up to age 22...
Greek lawmakers approve third bailout after all-night debate Dispatch Times ...Tsipras told lawmakers that the bailout package is a “necessary choice” for the nation, despite unwelcome tax hikes and spending cuts. However, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is facing rebellion within his left-wing Syriza party, with more than 40 Syriza MPs voting against the bailout in parliament on Friday...
McDonald’s Workers Take Fight for $15 to Brazil, Accuse Company of “Cannibal Capitalism” In These Times ...In addition to the U.S. and Brazilian delegations, politicians and labor union officials from Europe, including France and Germany, and Korea presented wide-ranging critiques of McDonald’s practices. “The verdict of today’s hearing is clear: no company is more responsible than McDonald’s for driving a global race to the bottom,” said Scott Courtney, assistant to the president of the Service Employees International Union...
State & Living Wage Battles
Dems push right-to-work repeal Lansing State Journal ...Michigan House Democrats are pushing what is likely a doomed effort to repeal the state’s controversial right-to-work laws. Legislative language introduced last week by state Rep. John Chirkun, D-Roseville, would “reaffirm the continuing public policy of this state” that union payments are necessary for “the stability and effectiveness of labor relations in the public sector”...
Thousands protest Koch Brothers convention in Ohio People's World ...In a powerful rebuff to extremist efforts to push "Right-To-Work" and other anti-working class programs, some 4000 union members and supporters poured into Columbus Friday, Aug. 21 to protest the "Summit on the American Dream" held by Americans for Prosperity" (AFP), a political action group funded by the right-wing billionaire brothers, Charles and David Koch...
Future of voter ID lawsuit heard in N.C. state court Journal Now ...A lawsuit challenging North Carolina’s voter identification requirement should be allowed to continue even after the legislature added exceptions this summer easing the mandate that goes into effect next year, lawyers fighting the law told a state judge Monday. But a state attorney said the changes made to the 2013 law have addressed the accusations made in the litigation, giving registered voters who lack a qualifying photo ID a way to cast ballots in person anyway...
Labor Secretary Tom Perez is 'proud to stand with the Fight for 15' Daily Kos ...Labor Secretary Tom Perez is heading to Detroit this week to meet with fast food workers. Ahead of that trip, he's making clear his support for the workers' organizing efforts. The movement has been instrumental in raising the minimum wage in cities like Seattle and Los Angeles; a wage board in New York has recommended a $15 wage for the fast food industry, which is expected to be approved soon...
Home Healthcare Workers Haven’t Qualified for Minimum Wage for 80 Years. Now They Do. The Nation ...t took about 40 years after the passage of federal wage standards for the government to decide that domestic workers deserved a minimum wage. And it’s taking nearly another 40 years for home healthcare workers—the subset of the industry specializing in elder and disability care—to gain the same protections. The Obama administration has amended federal wage and hour regulations to close a longstanding exemption...
St. Louis aldermen will debate minimum wage hike today STL Today ...The St. Louis Board of Aldermen will again take up the contentious issue of a citywide minimum wage hike Tuesday. Various proposals to institute a citywide minimum wage have been kicked around. Last month, the aldermen left for vacation without taking action on a bill that would institute an increased minimum wage by 2020...
U.S. Labor
The Stock Market Drop Exposes The Dangers Of Privatizing Social Security Think Progress ...The stock market continued a period of volatility on Monday. Media reports sounded the alarm as the DOW opened 1,000 points down and other indexes took huge hits, only to climb back up a bit later in the day. While that performance, which had some people calling it black Monday, may have knocked a good deal of money out of people’s 401(k) retirement accounts, Social Security benefits remain by and large untouched by such fluctuations...
UAW wants local and national contracts at Fiat Chrysler Detroit Free Press ...The UAW isn't just trying to reach a new national agreement with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles to replace the one set to retire Sept. 14 -- the union is simultaneously working to hammer out local contracts covering each plant across the nation. The approach is a change in strategy from 2011 and aims to prevent a scenario where the ratification of local contracts can languish for years...
Union lawsuit claims bus system violated constitutional rights amid contract talks MLive ...The union that represents The Rapid workers is suing the Grand Rapids transit authority in federal court in the middle of ongoing contract negotiations. The lawsuit filed Monday, Aug. 24, in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids alleges The Interurban Transit Partnership, or The Rapid, violated the First and Fourteenth Amendment rights of members of the Amalgamated Transit Union...
Deere, UAW to kick off contract talks amid roiling economy Crain's ...Deere and its unionized workforce are kicking off contract talks as the slowing global economy weakens the equipment manufacturer. Moline-based Deere and the United Auto Workers are set to start bargaining today, according to a spokeswoman for the Detroit-based union. The contract covering approximately 11,000 UAW members expires Oct. 1...
Social Justice & Other News
Thirty Miles From Selma, a Different Kind of Civil Rights Struggle Truthout ...In the last decade, little has roused this town in the heart of Alabama's "black belt," 30 miles west of Selma, like the Arrowhead Landfill, a sprawling dump. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, while touting the importance of tackling environmental racism, has done little to address the residents' concerns - until now. Spurred by a citizens' complaint alleging the Arrowhead Landfill violates the civil rights of surrounding black property owners...
Ferguson Judge Orders Major Reforms in Victory for Protesters Slate ...In the year-plus since Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Missouri, protesters, reporters, and the Department of Justice have all been critical of the city’s hyperaggressive municipal court system. On Monday, the city’s new municipal judge announced a major overhaul of the system; per judge Donald McClellin’s statement, all warrants issued before 2015 will be recalled...
400+ Miles Into Journey for Justice, Marchers Call for Police Reform Common Dreams ...Social justice and human rights activists are rallying Monday on the steps of the South Carolina State Capitol Building, calling for full-scale criminal justice reform including national, uniform standards for use of force among all local, state, and federal law enforcement agents. The demonstration is part of the NAACP's Journey for Justice March...
Monday, July 27, 2015
Today's Teamster News 07.27.15
Teamsters
Allentown Healthcare Workers Vote For Teamster Representation Teamster.org ...A majority of janitorial workers working for Crothall Healthcare at Lehigh Valley Hospital in Allentown, Penn., have recently voted to be represented by Teamsters Local 773. There are 233 total employees in the group which consists of staff members assigned in the cleaning crews, room preparation and as floor technicians...
Chicago Teamsters at Translogix Ratify New Three-Year Contract Joint Council 25 ...Approximately 180 members of Teamsters Local 710 ratified a new three-year contract with Translogix by a two-to-one margin on June 10. Teamsters who work out of two Chicago facilities will receive either a pay raise or yearly bonus — respective to their location — as part of the new contract. In addition, language regarding pushback scheduling has been improved...
Global Labor & Trade
Despite criticism from Congress, Malaysia, Cuba taken off US human trafficking blacklist US News & World Report ...The State Department has taken Malaysia and Cuba off its blacklist of countries failing to combat modern-day slavery. That could leave the U.S. open to criticism that politics is swaying the often-contentious rankings in its annual human trafficking report. Critics contend that Malaysia's upgrade is related to its participation in a U.S.-backed trade agreement among Pacific Rim countries...
Rice, milk and cars among the stumbling blocks in historic trade pact Politico ...The Obama administration is closer than ever on a breakthrough on the biggest trade deal in world history. But years of delicate negotiating could be undone by Canadian milk. Or Japanese rice. Or U.S. pharmaceutical patents. Top trade officials from 12 countries scattered around the Asia-Pacific region descended on the island of Maui on Friday for a week of meetings...
The Trans-Pacific Partnership issues in-depth Politico ...There are hundreds if not thousands of issues to resolve within the nearly 30 chapters of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership pact, which would cover more than 40 percent of world economic output. A complicated four-way dance is going on in the dairy negotiations, and right now everyone is waiting for Canada to make its move. U.S. dairy producers were opposed to the agreement when it only included New Zealand...
Corporate lobbying expense jumps as U.S. trade debate rages Reuters ...Washington lobbying by companies and groups involved in global trade boomed in the past nine months, records show, as Congress debated a landmark trade pact proposed by President Barack Obama, the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Lobbying expenditures by members of a pro-TPP coalition increased to $135 million in the second quarter of 2015, up from $126 million in the first quarter and $118 million in the fourth quarter of 2014...
TPP enters final negotiations NZ Herald ...A controversial trade deal between New Zealand and other Pacific Rim countries including the United States enters final negotiations this week. Prime Minister John Key said there would be "give and take" in the final negotiations of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), but he remained confident in the deal...
Wyden: Canada must open door to dairy for trade deal KTVZ ...Canada must agree to significantly expand market access for dairy products from the United States in any Trans Pacific Partnership deal, Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, wrote to Canadian Ambassador Gary Doer on Friday. Wyden and Hatch said their support for a final TPP agreement that includes Canada is contingent on Canada’s ability to meet TPP’s high standards...
TPP meeting 'will reveal changes to dairy markets' Radio NZ ...New Zealand's special agricultural trade envoy is expecting a crucial meeting on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) this week will reveal how far key countries will go to open up their protected dairy markets. Mike Petersen is on his way to Hawaii for ministerial talks on the Pacific-wide trade pact. Trade Minister Tim Groser is still waiting for a further offer on opening up the dairy markets of Japan, Canada and the United States...
Peru: Construction Union Leaders Murdered Solidarity Center ...One construction union leader was killed and another injured as the men left a union organizing meeting in Casma, Peru, this week. Miguel Cotelo Villanueva, a member of the Federación de Trabajadores en Construcción Civil de Perú (Federation of Civil Construction Workers of Peru, FTCCP), Peru’s largest construction union, is the most recent of 14 construction union leaders murdered in the past five years. Victor Rodas, another FTCCP union leader, was murdered on July 10 in similar circumstances...
Greek Austerity and Its Resemblance to African Debt Peonage Global Research ...The current situation in Greece resembles the debt peonage that many African countries have been subjected to for decades. They suffered the consequences of the so-called structural adjustment under the supervision of the international finance institutions and the result was economic and social devastation. In the post-Independence Zimbabwe, for example, the Mugabe government abandoned its ‘growth with equity’ strategy and went for the economic model designed by the World Bank and the IMF...
State & Living Wage Battles
Push for $15 minimum wage gathers steam Dallas Morning News ...The federal minimum wage has stood at $7.25 an hour since 2009, but labor unions and anti-poverty advocates are pushing a rate more than twice that amount as the new standard needed to afford hourly earners a decent living. The movement to make $15-per-hour the mandatory minimum over the next several years has seen success in a number of cities and is starting to spill over to statehouses and public universities...
Prevailing wage debate continues among WV officials State Journal ...Republican lawmakers said their intention with the 2015 legislation was not to eliminate the wage, but to come up with a better way of determining it. As a result of Senate Bill 361, WorkForce West Virginia, a division of the state Department of Commerce tasked with making sure West Virginians can be put to work, was asked by the West Virginia Legislature to come up with what the prevailing hourly wage for public improvement projects should be...
Dunkin' Donuts CEO Who Earns $10 Million Claims to Be Outraged by $15 Minimum Wage Alternet ...This week, the New York Wage Board recommended that the state's fast food workers should make $15 per hour, which has been the rallying cry for the labor movement across the country. Dunkin Donuts CEO Nigel Travis – who previously held senior positions at Papa John's and Burger King, other low-wage employers – appeared on CNN and decried the $15 minimum wage as “absolutely outrageous.” He went on to claim that the move will prevent his company from hiring more people...
Is There A Subliminal Message In Walmart’s Minimum Wage TV Ad? Buzzfeed ...It has been a good week for the Fight for 15, the national movement to raise pay for low wage workers to $15 an hour. From New York to California and D.C., cities and public institutions have moved closer to pay hikes that center around the number, more than twice the current federal minimum. Today, a union-backed campaign is calling for a Federal Trade Commission investigation into a Walmart commercial it claims is “unfairly implying that workers are paid enough to support themselves and their families”...
Uber Wins a Battle With New York, Now It’s War The Nation ...When New York Mayor Bill De Blasio talked of a Tale of Two Cities on the campaign trail, promising to address an epidemic of social inequality, he probably wasn’t expecting a viral app to drive a multibillion-dollar wedge through Gotham’s fault-lines of race and class. But now De Blasio and city lawmakers have been blindsided by Uber’s corporate surge, forced to stall an attempt to cap the company’s expansion...
U.S. Labor
Verizon Communications (VZ) Workers Vote To Strike Amid Tense Contract Talks International Business Times ...Many of the almost 40,000 workers at Verizon Communications Inc.'s wireline unit voted to strike amid negotiations over a new labor agreement. The Communications Workers of America (CWA) union announced the results of the vote -- 86 percent of the workers who cast ballots approved the strike -- during a rally in New York Saturday. The move does not necessarily mean workers will go on strike...
Mitsubishi, UAW partnering to ID buyer for plant Pantagraph ...Workers returned to the Mitsubishi auto plant on Monday with both the company and the United Auto Workers pledging to "work collaboratively to identify a suitable buyer to assume operations of the facility." In a statement, the company repeated that production at the Normal plant will stop at the end of November...
USW takes aim at new contract proposals Chicago Tribune ...United Steelworkers said Friday it has received more proposals from ArcelorMittal seeking additional concessions from its workers as the two sides continued to meet to hammer out a new three-year contract. The union said the new proposals came as its committee was still working on a response to the steel giant's initial proposal made earlier this week...
The New American Slavery: Invited to the U.S., Foreign Workers Find A Nightmare Buzzfeed ...The H-2 visa program invites foreign workers to do some of the most menial labor in America. Then it leaves them at the mercy of their employers. Thousands of these workers have been abused — deprived of their fair pay, imprisoned, starved, beaten, raped, and threatened with deportation if they dare complain. And the government says it can do little to help...
Did ICE Violate Its Own Deportation Guidelines in Arresting Chicago-Area Unionized Meatpackers? In These Times ...On Friday, June 26, workers from the Ruprecht Company’s meatpacking factory in Mundelein, Illinois, walked off the job in a spontaneous strike against a pending immigration audit. Several weeks later, eight Ruprecht workers, three of whom are members of UNITE HERE Local 1, have been apprehended by immigration authorities. In a statement, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said the eight workers were picked up after the department discovered the workers had records that fall within its priorities for arrest during a routine immigration audit...
D.C. Circuit Backs NLRB on Hospital Discipline Cases Bloomberg ...The National Labor Relations Board properly held that a Virginia hospital violated federal labor law when it discharged, disciplined or failed to promote three nurses because they engaged in protected concerted activity, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held July 24. The court also approved the board's decision that a second nurse was given a final written warning for protesting INOVA's treatment of Miller and a third nurse was denied a promotion, both in violation of the National Labor Relations Act...
Why Women Shouldn’t Have to Act Like Dudes at Work The Atlantic ...When it comes to gender equality in the workplace, the research on its economic benefits is clear: Equality can boost profits and enhance reputation. But the progress of women in the workplace is so far inadequate: Women are woefully underrepresented in executive positions, the pay gap persists, and the motherhood penalty is very real...
Social Justice & Other News
Body Cams Are The Next Step In The Over-Policing Of Schools Think Progress ...Burlington Community School District in Burlington, Iowa may be the first school district in the nation to ensure that all of its 13 administrators, principals and associate principals, wear body cameras. Administrators have compared the need for body cameras in schools to the need for body cameras on police officers. But as with police officers, the argument against body cameras for administrators is that the administrators still hold the power since they hold the camera...
Vowing to #SayHerName and More, Hundreds Gather to Honor Life and Death of Sandra Bland Common Dreams ...Hundreds of people attended the funeral of Sandra Bland on Saturday at the DuPage African Methodist Episcopal Church in Lisle, Illinois outside of Chicago to commemorate the woman whose untimely death in Texas jail cell on July 13 has further galvanized a national call demanding something be done about the extreme levels of police violence and the pervasive mistreatment of black women, men, and other minorities across the country...
Paul Krugman: The GOP has never “abandoned its dream” of destroying the social safety net Salon ...In his Monday column at the New York Times, economist Paul Krugman went after GOP presidential hopeful Jeb Bush for claiming that Medicare ought to be “phased out,” claiming that such talk is emblematic an ideologically motivated desire on the part of the Republican Party to destroy the social safety net — especially if there’s evidence that it’s working...
“Collective Healing” at Nat’l Black Lives Matter Convergence Ends with Police Pepper-Spraying Teen Democracy Now ...More than a thousand Black Lives Matter supporters converged in Cleveland, Ohio, this weekend for a historic conference to raise national attention about police brutality and other pressing issues, including immigration rights, economic justice and LGBTQ rights. During the opening ceremony, family members of more than 20 African Americans killed by police took to the stage to speak about why they continue to fight for justice...
Taking a road trip this summer? Enjoy America's crumbling infrastructure The Guardian ...The US’s once gleaming interstate highway system is in crisis. The federal program that funds maintenance and improvements – the Highway Trust Fund – is set to expire on 31 July. Congress passed a five-week funding “patch” to extend the deadline, one of 34 it has passed in the last nine years. But if lawmakers don’t settle upon a more permanent solution, the US Department of Transportation says the fund will become insolvent before year’s end...
The disingenuous ways Uber hides behind its algorithm Slate ...In June, the California Labor Commission ruled in favor of classifying Uber driver Barbara Ann Berwick as an employee and not as an independent contractor. But the battle over ride-hailing apps continues to rage as companies, governments, activists, and incumbent businesses all seek to shape how a new generation of companies will be regulated. A class-action suit with potentially even bigger implications continues to wind its way through the federal courts, with Uber resisting every step of the way...
Judge rules U.S. government should not hold immigrant children Reuters ...The U.S. government is violating a 1997 settlement by detaining unauthorized immigrant children, and an order may be forthcoming to require the release of the minors and parents detained with them, a judge in California has ruled. The ruling on Friday by U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee follows an influx across the U.S.-Mexico border of immigrants from Central America...
Aging Infrastructure Plagues Nation’s Busiest Rail Corridor New York Times ...In Maryland, a century-old rail tunnel needed emergency repairs this winter because of soil erosion from leaks, causing widespread train delays. In Connecticut, an aging swing bridge failed to close twice last summer, stopping train service and stranding passengers. And last week, New Jersey Transit riders had a truly torturous experience. There were major delays on four days because of problems with overhead electrical wires and a power substation, leaving thousands of commuters stalled for hours...
Allentown Healthcare Workers Vote For Teamster Representation Teamster.org ...A majority of janitorial workers working for Crothall Healthcare at Lehigh Valley Hospital in Allentown, Penn., have recently voted to be represented by Teamsters Local 773. There are 233 total employees in the group which consists of staff members assigned in the cleaning crews, room preparation and as floor technicians...
Chicago Teamsters at Translogix Ratify New Three-Year Contract Joint Council 25 ...Approximately 180 members of Teamsters Local 710 ratified a new three-year contract with Translogix by a two-to-one margin on June 10. Teamsters who work out of two Chicago facilities will receive either a pay raise or yearly bonus — respective to their location — as part of the new contract. In addition, language regarding pushback scheduling has been improved...
Global Labor & Trade
Despite criticism from Congress, Malaysia, Cuba taken off US human trafficking blacklist US News & World Report ...The State Department has taken Malaysia and Cuba off its blacklist of countries failing to combat modern-day slavery. That could leave the U.S. open to criticism that politics is swaying the often-contentious rankings in its annual human trafficking report. Critics contend that Malaysia's upgrade is related to its participation in a U.S.-backed trade agreement among Pacific Rim countries...
Rice, milk and cars among the stumbling blocks in historic trade pact Politico ...The Obama administration is closer than ever on a breakthrough on the biggest trade deal in world history. But years of delicate negotiating could be undone by Canadian milk. Or Japanese rice. Or U.S. pharmaceutical patents. Top trade officials from 12 countries scattered around the Asia-Pacific region descended on the island of Maui on Friday for a week of meetings...
The Trans-Pacific Partnership issues in-depth Politico ...There are hundreds if not thousands of issues to resolve within the nearly 30 chapters of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership pact, which would cover more than 40 percent of world economic output. A complicated four-way dance is going on in the dairy negotiations, and right now everyone is waiting for Canada to make its move. U.S. dairy producers were opposed to the agreement when it only included New Zealand...
Corporate lobbying expense jumps as U.S. trade debate rages Reuters ...Washington lobbying by companies and groups involved in global trade boomed in the past nine months, records show, as Congress debated a landmark trade pact proposed by President Barack Obama, the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Lobbying expenditures by members of a pro-TPP coalition increased to $135 million in the second quarter of 2015, up from $126 million in the first quarter and $118 million in the fourth quarter of 2014...
TPP enters final negotiations NZ Herald ...A controversial trade deal between New Zealand and other Pacific Rim countries including the United States enters final negotiations this week. Prime Minister John Key said there would be "give and take" in the final negotiations of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), but he remained confident in the deal...
Wyden: Canada must open door to dairy for trade deal KTVZ ...Canada must agree to significantly expand market access for dairy products from the United States in any Trans Pacific Partnership deal, Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, wrote to Canadian Ambassador Gary Doer on Friday. Wyden and Hatch said their support for a final TPP agreement that includes Canada is contingent on Canada’s ability to meet TPP’s high standards...
TPP meeting 'will reveal changes to dairy markets' Radio NZ ...New Zealand's special agricultural trade envoy is expecting a crucial meeting on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) this week will reveal how far key countries will go to open up their protected dairy markets. Mike Petersen is on his way to Hawaii for ministerial talks on the Pacific-wide trade pact. Trade Minister Tim Groser is still waiting for a further offer on opening up the dairy markets of Japan, Canada and the United States...
Peru: Construction Union Leaders Murdered Solidarity Center ...One construction union leader was killed and another injured as the men left a union organizing meeting in Casma, Peru, this week. Miguel Cotelo Villanueva, a member of the Federación de Trabajadores en Construcción Civil de Perú (Federation of Civil Construction Workers of Peru, FTCCP), Peru’s largest construction union, is the most recent of 14 construction union leaders murdered in the past five years. Victor Rodas, another FTCCP union leader, was murdered on July 10 in similar circumstances...
Greek Austerity and Its Resemblance to African Debt Peonage Global Research ...The current situation in Greece resembles the debt peonage that many African countries have been subjected to for decades. They suffered the consequences of the so-called structural adjustment under the supervision of the international finance institutions and the result was economic and social devastation. In the post-Independence Zimbabwe, for example, the Mugabe government abandoned its ‘growth with equity’ strategy and went for the economic model designed by the World Bank and the IMF...
State & Living Wage Battles
Push for $15 minimum wage gathers steam Dallas Morning News ...The federal minimum wage has stood at $7.25 an hour since 2009, but labor unions and anti-poverty advocates are pushing a rate more than twice that amount as the new standard needed to afford hourly earners a decent living. The movement to make $15-per-hour the mandatory minimum over the next several years has seen success in a number of cities and is starting to spill over to statehouses and public universities...
Prevailing wage debate continues among WV officials State Journal ...Republican lawmakers said their intention with the 2015 legislation was not to eliminate the wage, but to come up with a better way of determining it. As a result of Senate Bill 361, WorkForce West Virginia, a division of the state Department of Commerce tasked with making sure West Virginians can be put to work, was asked by the West Virginia Legislature to come up with what the prevailing hourly wage for public improvement projects should be...
Dunkin' Donuts CEO Who Earns $10 Million Claims to Be Outraged by $15 Minimum Wage Alternet ...This week, the New York Wage Board recommended that the state's fast food workers should make $15 per hour, which has been the rallying cry for the labor movement across the country. Dunkin Donuts CEO Nigel Travis – who previously held senior positions at Papa John's and Burger King, other low-wage employers – appeared on CNN and decried the $15 minimum wage as “absolutely outrageous.” He went on to claim that the move will prevent his company from hiring more people...
Is There A Subliminal Message In Walmart’s Minimum Wage TV Ad? Buzzfeed ...It has been a good week for the Fight for 15, the national movement to raise pay for low wage workers to $15 an hour. From New York to California and D.C., cities and public institutions have moved closer to pay hikes that center around the number, more than twice the current federal minimum. Today, a union-backed campaign is calling for a Federal Trade Commission investigation into a Walmart commercial it claims is “unfairly implying that workers are paid enough to support themselves and their families”...
Uber Wins a Battle With New York, Now It’s War The Nation ...When New York Mayor Bill De Blasio talked of a Tale of Two Cities on the campaign trail, promising to address an epidemic of social inequality, he probably wasn’t expecting a viral app to drive a multibillion-dollar wedge through Gotham’s fault-lines of race and class. But now De Blasio and city lawmakers have been blindsided by Uber’s corporate surge, forced to stall an attempt to cap the company’s expansion...
U.S. Labor
Verizon Communications (VZ) Workers Vote To Strike Amid Tense Contract Talks International Business Times ...Many of the almost 40,000 workers at Verizon Communications Inc.'s wireline unit voted to strike amid negotiations over a new labor agreement. The Communications Workers of America (CWA) union announced the results of the vote -- 86 percent of the workers who cast ballots approved the strike -- during a rally in New York Saturday. The move does not necessarily mean workers will go on strike...
Mitsubishi, UAW partnering to ID buyer for plant Pantagraph ...Workers returned to the Mitsubishi auto plant on Monday with both the company and the United Auto Workers pledging to "work collaboratively to identify a suitable buyer to assume operations of the facility." In a statement, the company repeated that production at the Normal plant will stop at the end of November...
USW takes aim at new contract proposals Chicago Tribune ...United Steelworkers said Friday it has received more proposals from ArcelorMittal seeking additional concessions from its workers as the two sides continued to meet to hammer out a new three-year contract. The union said the new proposals came as its committee was still working on a response to the steel giant's initial proposal made earlier this week...
The New American Slavery: Invited to the U.S., Foreign Workers Find A Nightmare Buzzfeed ...The H-2 visa program invites foreign workers to do some of the most menial labor in America. Then it leaves them at the mercy of their employers. Thousands of these workers have been abused — deprived of their fair pay, imprisoned, starved, beaten, raped, and threatened with deportation if they dare complain. And the government says it can do little to help...
Did ICE Violate Its Own Deportation Guidelines in Arresting Chicago-Area Unionized Meatpackers? In These Times ...On Friday, June 26, workers from the Ruprecht Company’s meatpacking factory in Mundelein, Illinois, walked off the job in a spontaneous strike against a pending immigration audit. Several weeks later, eight Ruprecht workers, three of whom are members of UNITE HERE Local 1, have been apprehended by immigration authorities. In a statement, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said the eight workers were picked up after the department discovered the workers had records that fall within its priorities for arrest during a routine immigration audit...
D.C. Circuit Backs NLRB on Hospital Discipline Cases Bloomberg ...The National Labor Relations Board properly held that a Virginia hospital violated federal labor law when it discharged, disciplined or failed to promote three nurses because they engaged in protected concerted activity, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held July 24. The court also approved the board's decision that a second nurse was given a final written warning for protesting INOVA's treatment of Miller and a third nurse was denied a promotion, both in violation of the National Labor Relations Act...
Why Women Shouldn’t Have to Act Like Dudes at Work The Atlantic ...When it comes to gender equality in the workplace, the research on its economic benefits is clear: Equality can boost profits and enhance reputation. But the progress of women in the workplace is so far inadequate: Women are woefully underrepresented in executive positions, the pay gap persists, and the motherhood penalty is very real...
Social Justice & Other News
Body Cams Are The Next Step In The Over-Policing Of Schools Think Progress ...Burlington Community School District in Burlington, Iowa may be the first school district in the nation to ensure that all of its 13 administrators, principals and associate principals, wear body cameras. Administrators have compared the need for body cameras in schools to the need for body cameras on police officers. But as with police officers, the argument against body cameras for administrators is that the administrators still hold the power since they hold the camera...
Vowing to #SayHerName and More, Hundreds Gather to Honor Life and Death of Sandra Bland Common Dreams ...Hundreds of people attended the funeral of Sandra Bland on Saturday at the DuPage African Methodist Episcopal Church in Lisle, Illinois outside of Chicago to commemorate the woman whose untimely death in Texas jail cell on July 13 has further galvanized a national call demanding something be done about the extreme levels of police violence and the pervasive mistreatment of black women, men, and other minorities across the country...
Paul Krugman: The GOP has never “abandoned its dream” of destroying the social safety net Salon ...In his Monday column at the New York Times, economist Paul Krugman went after GOP presidential hopeful Jeb Bush for claiming that Medicare ought to be “phased out,” claiming that such talk is emblematic an ideologically motivated desire on the part of the Republican Party to destroy the social safety net — especially if there’s evidence that it’s working...
“Collective Healing” at Nat’l Black Lives Matter Convergence Ends with Police Pepper-Spraying Teen Democracy Now ...More than a thousand Black Lives Matter supporters converged in Cleveland, Ohio, this weekend for a historic conference to raise national attention about police brutality and other pressing issues, including immigration rights, economic justice and LGBTQ rights. During the opening ceremony, family members of more than 20 African Americans killed by police took to the stage to speak about why they continue to fight for justice...
Taking a road trip this summer? Enjoy America's crumbling infrastructure The Guardian ...The US’s once gleaming interstate highway system is in crisis. The federal program that funds maintenance and improvements – the Highway Trust Fund – is set to expire on 31 July. Congress passed a five-week funding “patch” to extend the deadline, one of 34 it has passed in the last nine years. But if lawmakers don’t settle upon a more permanent solution, the US Department of Transportation says the fund will become insolvent before year’s end...
The disingenuous ways Uber hides behind its algorithm Slate ...In June, the California Labor Commission ruled in favor of classifying Uber driver Barbara Ann Berwick as an employee and not as an independent contractor. But the battle over ride-hailing apps continues to rage as companies, governments, activists, and incumbent businesses all seek to shape how a new generation of companies will be regulated. A class-action suit with potentially even bigger implications continues to wind its way through the federal courts, with Uber resisting every step of the way...
Judge rules U.S. government should not hold immigrant children Reuters ...The U.S. government is violating a 1997 settlement by detaining unauthorized immigrant children, and an order may be forthcoming to require the release of the minors and parents detained with them, a judge in California has ruled. The ruling on Friday by U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee follows an influx across the U.S.-Mexico border of immigrants from Central America...
Aging Infrastructure Plagues Nation’s Busiest Rail Corridor New York Times ...In Maryland, a century-old rail tunnel needed emergency repairs this winter because of soil erosion from leaks, causing widespread train delays. In Connecticut, an aging swing bridge failed to close twice last summer, stopping train service and stranding passengers. And last week, New Jersey Transit riders had a truly torturous experience. There were major delays on four days because of problems with overhead electrical wires and a power substation, leaving thousands of commuters stalled for hours...
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Today's Teamster News 05.27.15
Teamsters
Retired Funeral Directors, Teamsters Local 727 Reps Stand Up For Workers at Shareholders Meeting Teamster.org ...Longtime employees and Teamsters Local 727 representatives on May 13 called out funeral industry giant Service Corporation International’s poor business practices and called on its Board of Directors to take action during the company’s annual shareholders meeting in Houston...
National Red Cross Negotiations Begin Teamster.org ...Last week, leaders from eight national unions met with representatives from American Red Cross in Washington, D.C., and reached an agreement to formally enter into national negotiations. This is a significant step in ensuring Red Cross’ mission and its employees are moving towards a brighter future...
Can the Taxi Union Get the Courts to Shut down Uber and Lyft in DC? DC Inno ...Uber, Lyft and Sidecar were given an unfair advantage by the regulations approved last year by the D.C. Council according to the Metro Area Taxi Operators Association. The taxi union, which is affiliated with the Teamsters, filed a class-action lawsuit with six D.C. taxi drivers in U.S. District Court against the city on Friday...
Global Labor & Trade
House GOP split jeopardizes trade deal Politico ...Democrats in Congress are in open warfare with President Barack Obama over his pitch for fast-track authority to negotiate trade deals, but conservative dissenters are conducting their fight quietly behind closed doors — even though they may be the key to approving the deal...
GOP turns to Tea Party to win trade powers for Obama The Hill ...House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and GOP leaders have turned to some unlikely allies to rally support for a key trade bill: Tea-Party conservatives, including some prominent names from the raucous House Freedom Caucus. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) recently tapped Rep. Tom McClintock to give the weekly GOP address, in which the conservative Californian declared: “Trade means prosperity”...
Forced Trade and the Damaging Effects of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (opinion) In These Times ...Senators who voted last week to Fast Track ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) call it a free trade deal, but really, it’s forced trade imposed on protesting American workers who have endured its damaging effects for decades. Under the free trade regime, rich and powerful corporate interests have hauled in ever-higher profits as they shipped manufacturing overseas to low-wage, no-environmental-regulation countries...
WaPo Takes Another Shot at Senator Warren on Behalf of the TPP (opinion) CEPR ...The fast-track authority needed to get the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) through Congress must be in real trouble. Why else would the Washington Post devote so much space to pushing the deal and attacking its critics? The latest was a diatribe by editorial board member Jonathan Capehart which is directed largely at Senator Elizabeth Warren. The piece starts by basically calling Senator Warren a liar for describing the TPP as "secret"...
How One Country Is Poised To Hold McDonald’s Accountable Think Progress ...Brazil’s Senate will hold public hearings on worker allegations that McDonald’s has flouted the country’s strict labor protections for decades, union officials announced on Thursday. When politicians solicit worker testimony at the August hearing, they will create a second forum within the Brazilian government for a slate of allegations that echo accusations in the United States...
Why the Philippines’ Deadly Factory Fire Will Not Be the Last The Nation ...The deaths of 72 workers at a sandals factory in the Philippines earlier this month is sadly not shocking news; risk of mass death is practically considered a regular cost of doing business in the regional factories. But the blaze coincides with two grim anniversaries for Global South labor: the death of more than 1,100 workers in the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh in 2013, and the subsequent launch of a landmark safety program for Bangladesh factories...
Striking Mineworker Injured, 6 Arrested in Peru Solidarity Center ...Six mineworkers were arrested and one injured from police gunfire yesterday as some 100 workers protested at the Ministry of Labor and Employment Promotion in Lima, Peru. The miners, who have been on strike for 17 days at Buenaventura’s Uchucchacua silver mine in the coastal region north of Lima, are calling for immediate improvement in safety and health conditions in the mines...
State & Living Wage Battles
John Kasich on campaign trail: No need for right-to-work law Cincinnati ...Gov. John Kasich says he still believes Ohio doesn't need a right-to-work law, even though he last week rescinded union rights for roughly 15,000 health-care and child-care workers. The governor's increasingly moderate stance on unions had drawn criticism from fellow Republicans – whom he's courting as he explores a possible bid for president...
Prevailing wage supporters plan defense as repeal petitions are approved for circulation MLive ...Construction trade groups say they plan to publicly defend Michigan's prevailing wage law in the face of a petition drive seeking to repeal it. "Let me tell you one thing, we're not going to take this lying down by any means," said Patrick "Shorty" Gleason, legislative director of the Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council...
Bucking GOP leadership, Assembly panel to take up prevailing wage law Journal Sentinel ...Three weeks after an effort to repeal the state's prevailing wage law failed in a Senate committee, an Assembly panel will make its own attempt to get rid of the policy that sets a minimum wage for those building roads, schools and other public infrastructure. The move goes against GOP legislative leaders. They have said they want to rewrite the law, not repeal it...
Ted Cruz's Iowa Chairman Spent $250K to Stop People From Voting Mother Jones ...By tapping Schultz, Cruz also tied himself to Schultz's leading cause: trying to restrict voting under the guise of combating voter fraud. During his four years as secretary of state, Schultz spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to unearth evidence of fraud but ended up finding little and being cited for the mismanagement of public funds...
LA’s Min. Wage Will Be $15 by 2020. But This Bay Area City’s Minimum Will Be $14.44 By July. In These Times ...Most of the increases will be implemented gradually over several years. LA’s minimum wage, for example, will reach $15 by 2020. But earlier this month, one small California city decided that its low-wage workers shouldn’t have to wait that long for a living wage. This summer, Emeryville will set a new national precedent when its minimum wage surges to nearly double the federal rate...
Senate committee to vote on proposed minimum wage hike WPRI ...Rhode Island’s lowest paid workers could soon be getting another raise. The Senate Labor Committee is set to vote Wednesday on legislation that would increase the state’s minimum wage to $10.10 per hour. If approved, the $1.10 increase would go into effect January 1...
Better Pay Comes Only When We Demand It (opinion) CounterPunch ...The nation’s second-biggest city joins Seattle, San Francisco and little Emeryville, Calif., in forging the way to a decent minimum. These victories are a product of the demonstrations and protests of fast food and other low-wage workers. They risked their jobs to demand decency. They put a human face on workers who labor full time but can’t lift their families out of poverty. They exposed the lie that these were transitory jobs for the young while they went to college or high school..
U.S. Labor
Public-Sector Jobs Vanish, Hitting Blacks Hard New York Times ...The decline reverses a historical pattern, researchers say, with public sector employees typically holding onto their jobs even during most economic downturns. Because blacks hold a disproportionate share of the jobs, relative to their share of the population, the cutbacks naturally hit them harder...
NLRB dismisses union complaint against Boeing’s North Charleston site Post and Courier ...The National Labor Relations Board said it has dismissed a complaint filed by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers in the wake of the union’s canceled vote at Boeing Co.’s North Charleston operations. The IAM had accused Boeing of “deliberately encouraging and promoting harassment, assaults and threats of violence against union supporters”...
T-Mobile US touts workforce gains, draws CWA ire RCR Wireless ...T-Mobile US continues to court controversy with its labor practices as the mobile operator announced the expansion of a call center in Alabama while at the same time the Communications Workers of America has asked T-Mobile US parent company Deutsche Telekom to “protect” worker rights at those locations...
Why turning the Postal Service into a bank isn’t nearly as ridiculous as it sounds Salon ...The American Postal Worker’s Union, which represents over 200,000 clerks and support service staff, is in the middle of contract negotiations, and has vowed to make postal banking part of their core demands. APWU President Mark Dimondstein praised the Inspector General’s report, saying it “confirms that the Postal Service can act now to provide consumers with affordable financial services while strengthening our trusted national treasure, the public Postal Service”...
Miscellaneous
Robert Reich: Corporate Collusion Is Rampant and We All Pay the Steep Price Alternet ...The banks had engaged in the biggest price-fixing conspiracy in modern history. Their self-described “cartel” used an exclusive electronic chat room and coded language to manipulate the $5.3 trillion-a-day currency exchange market. It was a “brazen display of collusion” that went on for years, said Attorney General Loretta Lynch. But there will be no trial, no executive will go to jail, the banks can continue to gamble in the same currency markets...
8 Ways Robots Are Taking Over Our Jobs and Our World Alternet ...One of the next great challenges American workers are starting to face is the increasing automation of jobs that previously could only be done by a living, breathing human being. Here are eight jobs that robots are taking over as they take over the world...
Retired Funeral Directors, Teamsters Local 727 Reps Stand Up For Workers at Shareholders Meeting Teamster.org ...Longtime employees and Teamsters Local 727 representatives on May 13 called out funeral industry giant Service Corporation International’s poor business practices and called on its Board of Directors to take action during the company’s annual shareholders meeting in Houston...
National Red Cross Negotiations Begin Teamster.org ...Last week, leaders from eight national unions met with representatives from American Red Cross in Washington, D.C., and reached an agreement to formally enter into national negotiations. This is a significant step in ensuring Red Cross’ mission and its employees are moving towards a brighter future...
Can the Taxi Union Get the Courts to Shut down Uber and Lyft in DC? DC Inno ...Uber, Lyft and Sidecar were given an unfair advantage by the regulations approved last year by the D.C. Council according to the Metro Area Taxi Operators Association. The taxi union, which is affiliated with the Teamsters, filed a class-action lawsuit with six D.C. taxi drivers in U.S. District Court against the city on Friday...
Global Labor & Trade
House GOP split jeopardizes trade deal Politico ...Democrats in Congress are in open warfare with President Barack Obama over his pitch for fast-track authority to negotiate trade deals, but conservative dissenters are conducting their fight quietly behind closed doors — even though they may be the key to approving the deal...
GOP turns to Tea Party to win trade powers for Obama The Hill ...House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and GOP leaders have turned to some unlikely allies to rally support for a key trade bill: Tea-Party conservatives, including some prominent names from the raucous House Freedom Caucus. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) recently tapped Rep. Tom McClintock to give the weekly GOP address, in which the conservative Californian declared: “Trade means prosperity”...
Forced Trade and the Damaging Effects of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (opinion) In These Times ...Senators who voted last week to Fast Track ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) call it a free trade deal, but really, it’s forced trade imposed on protesting American workers who have endured its damaging effects for decades. Under the free trade regime, rich and powerful corporate interests have hauled in ever-higher profits as they shipped manufacturing overseas to low-wage, no-environmental-regulation countries...
WaPo Takes Another Shot at Senator Warren on Behalf of the TPP (opinion) CEPR ...The fast-track authority needed to get the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) through Congress must be in real trouble. Why else would the Washington Post devote so much space to pushing the deal and attacking its critics? The latest was a diatribe by editorial board member Jonathan Capehart which is directed largely at Senator Elizabeth Warren. The piece starts by basically calling Senator Warren a liar for describing the TPP as "secret"...
How One Country Is Poised To Hold McDonald’s Accountable Think Progress ...Brazil’s Senate will hold public hearings on worker allegations that McDonald’s has flouted the country’s strict labor protections for decades, union officials announced on Thursday. When politicians solicit worker testimony at the August hearing, they will create a second forum within the Brazilian government for a slate of allegations that echo accusations in the United States...
Why the Philippines’ Deadly Factory Fire Will Not Be the Last The Nation ...The deaths of 72 workers at a sandals factory in the Philippines earlier this month is sadly not shocking news; risk of mass death is practically considered a regular cost of doing business in the regional factories. But the blaze coincides with two grim anniversaries for Global South labor: the death of more than 1,100 workers in the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh in 2013, and the subsequent launch of a landmark safety program for Bangladesh factories...
Striking Mineworker Injured, 6 Arrested in Peru Solidarity Center ...Six mineworkers were arrested and one injured from police gunfire yesterday as some 100 workers protested at the Ministry of Labor and Employment Promotion in Lima, Peru. The miners, who have been on strike for 17 days at Buenaventura’s Uchucchacua silver mine in the coastal region north of Lima, are calling for immediate improvement in safety and health conditions in the mines...
State & Living Wage Battles
John Kasich on campaign trail: No need for right-to-work law Cincinnati ...Gov. John Kasich says he still believes Ohio doesn't need a right-to-work law, even though he last week rescinded union rights for roughly 15,000 health-care and child-care workers. The governor's increasingly moderate stance on unions had drawn criticism from fellow Republicans – whom he's courting as he explores a possible bid for president...
Prevailing wage supporters plan defense as repeal petitions are approved for circulation MLive ...Construction trade groups say they plan to publicly defend Michigan's prevailing wage law in the face of a petition drive seeking to repeal it. "Let me tell you one thing, we're not going to take this lying down by any means," said Patrick "Shorty" Gleason, legislative director of the Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council...
Bucking GOP leadership, Assembly panel to take up prevailing wage law Journal Sentinel ...Three weeks after an effort to repeal the state's prevailing wage law failed in a Senate committee, an Assembly panel will make its own attempt to get rid of the policy that sets a minimum wage for those building roads, schools and other public infrastructure. The move goes against GOP legislative leaders. They have said they want to rewrite the law, not repeal it...
Ted Cruz's Iowa Chairman Spent $250K to Stop People From Voting Mother Jones ...By tapping Schultz, Cruz also tied himself to Schultz's leading cause: trying to restrict voting under the guise of combating voter fraud. During his four years as secretary of state, Schultz spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to unearth evidence of fraud but ended up finding little and being cited for the mismanagement of public funds...
LA’s Min. Wage Will Be $15 by 2020. But This Bay Area City’s Minimum Will Be $14.44 By July. In These Times ...Most of the increases will be implemented gradually over several years. LA’s minimum wage, for example, will reach $15 by 2020. But earlier this month, one small California city decided that its low-wage workers shouldn’t have to wait that long for a living wage. This summer, Emeryville will set a new national precedent when its minimum wage surges to nearly double the federal rate...
Senate committee to vote on proposed minimum wage hike WPRI ...Rhode Island’s lowest paid workers could soon be getting another raise. The Senate Labor Committee is set to vote Wednesday on legislation that would increase the state’s minimum wage to $10.10 per hour. If approved, the $1.10 increase would go into effect January 1...
Better Pay Comes Only When We Demand It (opinion) CounterPunch ...The nation’s second-biggest city joins Seattle, San Francisco and little Emeryville, Calif., in forging the way to a decent minimum. These victories are a product of the demonstrations and protests of fast food and other low-wage workers. They risked their jobs to demand decency. They put a human face on workers who labor full time but can’t lift their families out of poverty. They exposed the lie that these were transitory jobs for the young while they went to college or high school..
U.S. Labor
Public-Sector Jobs Vanish, Hitting Blacks Hard New York Times ...The decline reverses a historical pattern, researchers say, with public sector employees typically holding onto their jobs even during most economic downturns. Because blacks hold a disproportionate share of the jobs, relative to their share of the population, the cutbacks naturally hit them harder...
NLRB dismisses union complaint against Boeing’s North Charleston site Post and Courier ...The National Labor Relations Board said it has dismissed a complaint filed by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers in the wake of the union’s canceled vote at Boeing Co.’s North Charleston operations. The IAM had accused Boeing of “deliberately encouraging and promoting harassment, assaults and threats of violence against union supporters”...
T-Mobile US touts workforce gains, draws CWA ire RCR Wireless ...T-Mobile US continues to court controversy with its labor practices as the mobile operator announced the expansion of a call center in Alabama while at the same time the Communications Workers of America has asked T-Mobile US parent company Deutsche Telekom to “protect” worker rights at those locations...
Why turning the Postal Service into a bank isn’t nearly as ridiculous as it sounds Salon ...The American Postal Worker’s Union, which represents over 200,000 clerks and support service staff, is in the middle of contract negotiations, and has vowed to make postal banking part of their core demands. APWU President Mark Dimondstein praised the Inspector General’s report, saying it “confirms that the Postal Service can act now to provide consumers with affordable financial services while strengthening our trusted national treasure, the public Postal Service”...
Miscellaneous
Robert Reich: Corporate Collusion Is Rampant and We All Pay the Steep Price Alternet ...The banks had engaged in the biggest price-fixing conspiracy in modern history. Their self-described “cartel” used an exclusive electronic chat room and coded language to manipulate the $5.3 trillion-a-day currency exchange market. It was a “brazen display of collusion” that went on for years, said Attorney General Loretta Lynch. But there will be no trial, no executive will go to jail, the banks can continue to gamble in the same currency markets...
8 Ways Robots Are Taking Over Our Jobs and Our World Alternet ...One of the next great challenges American workers are starting to face is the increasing automation of jobs that previously could only be done by a living, breathing human being. Here are eight jobs that robots are taking over as they take over the world...
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