Today's Teamster News 06.28.14

Teamster News
Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency, Employees' Union Reach Deal  Daily Freeman   ...An agreement between the Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency board and 21 agency employees who are part of the Teamsters union gives the employees raises of 2 percent per year for 2014, 2015 and 2016 and, for the first time, mandates employee contributions to their heath insurance costs....
Parking Employees Can Seek Arbitration To Regain Jobs  Scranton Times-Tribune   ...The Commonwealth Court said Lackawanna County Judge Vito Geroulo erred when he ruled Teamsters Local 229 had to first obtain the judge’s permission before it could seek an arbitration hearing on behalf of garage maintenance workers who lost their jobs after a private firm, Central Parking, took over operation of the city’s five parking garages...
Costanzo's Bakery Sales Drivers Join Teamsters Local 264  teamster.org   ...route sales drivers at Costanzo’s Bakery overwhelmingly voted to join Teamsters Local 264 in Cheektowaga, N.Y. despite a concerted effort by the company to discourage unionization that included weekly captive audience meetings and intimidation...
Teamster Local Union Leaders Endorse Proposed AEI Agreement  teamster.org   ...Leaders of Teamster local unions that represent workers at Air Express International (AEI) met today and unanimously endorsed the proposed National Master AEI Agreement and the company’s final offer...
Trade
Obama TPP Trade Officials Got Hefty Bonuses From Big Banks As “Reward” For Joining Government  America Blog   ...Officials tapped by the Obama administration to lead the Trans-Pacific Partnership [TPP] trade negotiations have received multi-million dollar bonuses from CitiGroup and Bank of America, financial disclosures obtained by Republic Report show...
State Battles
Paycheck Deduction Bills Advance In Pa. Legislature  CBS Philly   ...Controversial legislation that would limit union deductions from the paychecks of public employees is in position for a possible vote as lawmakers wrap up work before summer recess...
Meeting In Providence, Unitarians Join Protest For Fair Wages  Providence Journal   ...In his opening prayer, Rodriguez said low-wage workers have to make “terrible decisions between paying their rent and feeding their families. … Pay them enough to live.” By mid-rally, the crowd had grown to more than 250. The signs they held included “Minimum Wage is a Moral Outrage.”...
War On Workers
U.S. Supreme Court Ruling Seen Unlikely To Alter Past NLRB Decisions  Reuters   ...A Supreme Court ruling on Thursday raised questions about the validity of more than 1,000 U.S. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decisions, but any cases the board reconsiders will likely end with similar decisions, labor lawyers said...
Investors Who Bought Foreclosed Homes in Bulk Look to Sell  New York Times   ...The single-family home market, after a wave of acquisitions by companies backed by Wall Street money, is changing as institutional buyers now focus more on expanding their operations to manage tens of thousands of homes across the United States...
To Get A Fair Share, Sharing Economy Workers Must Unionize  Al-Jazeera America   ...Only four years after the service debuted in San Francisco, Uber drivers nationwide are getting organized and demanding better treatment...
No, The Long-Term Jobless Aren't 'Catching A Break'  FiveThirtyEight   ... Only about 11 percent of the long-term jobless find jobs each month, little better than in the depths of the recession. Moreover, even those who do find jobs are often able to find only part-time or short-term work...
Miscellaneous
Report: Mexican Military Chopper Crosses Into US, Shoots At Border Agents  CBS Las Vegas   ...Mexican authorities were conducting a drug interdiction operation when the incident happened early Thursday morning on the Tohono O’odham Indian Nation. The Mexican chopper fired at the agents and then flew back into Mexico....  
PRISM, Local Edition: NY DA Employs 381 Secret Orders to Gather Complete Digital Dossiers from Facebook  Electronic Frontier Foundation   ...The DA was looking for evidence of disability fraud, and saw Facebook as a treasure trove.  … Perhaps some of them, after claiming a disability, would post a windsurfing selfie or write about their marathon training, and evidence their fraud...
6 Groups That Are Reinventing Organized Labor  Think Progress   ...while in this changed economy just 11.3 percent of the nation’s wage and salary workers — about 14.5 million people — belong to unions, millions of other American workers are also organizing and uniting for better conditions, in a manner outside of the union structure created by the National Labor Relations Act...
U.S. Government, Not Banks, Should Service Loans, Professors Argue  Chronicle of Higher Education   ...Student-loan servicers are not doing enough to help borrowers. Mr. Fink and Mr. Zullo argue that the federal government should consider moving the responsibility to an agency with the capacity and inclination to help manage the student-loan crisis...

Today's Teamster News 08.01.13

Teamsters Protest McKesson's Worker Abuse And Executive Pay At Shareholder Meeting  IBT   ...Teamsters from across the country protested today outside the annual shareholder meeting of San Francisco-based McKesson Corporation, North America’s leading pharmaceutical distributor...
No end in sight for Teamsters strike against Gold Cross  Imperial Valley Press   ...The Gold Cross ambulance employees strike entered its third day Tuesday, and with talks between the company and the employees’ union at a standstill, there is no end in sight...
UPS Freight Negotiations Update  IBT   ...The UPS Freight National Negotiating Committee met today to discuss concerns that members have raised about the tentative agreement that was rejected. The committee also discussed the next steps for continuing negotiations with the company so that an agreement can be put to another membership vote. View the memo here...
Civil Service ruling in Scranton Parking Authority case seen as harbinger   Scranton Times-Tribune   ...A state Civil Service Commission dismissal of a furlough appeal by Scranton Parking Authority's former executive director may be a harbinger in an unrelated arbitration case involving union workers, who are members of Teamsters Local 229, who also were laid off...
2013 Teamsters Leadership Academy (TLA) Course Summary and Registration Form  IBT   ...Check out the Teamsters Leadership Academy schedule of programs for Teamster leaders that available for the remainder of this year. Download the schedule here...
Economic Recovery by Statistical Manipulation  Counterpunch   ...he Obama administration will announce a major revision of how it calculates GDP which will bump up GDP numbers by as much as 3% according to some estimates...
New Amtrak trains, made in USA  manufacture this   ...The Department of Transportation reports that the first of Amtrak's new fleet of electric locomotives, called Cities Sprinters, rolled out of a Siemens plant in Sacramento, CA...
Trucks transported 60.8% of U.S.-NAFTA trade in May 2013   Trucker News Services   ...The Bureau of Transportation Statistics released May, North American Free Trade Agreement freight numbers showing that trucks carried 60.8 percent of the $98.6 billion of freight moved in May 2013 between the United States and its NAFTA partners, Canada and Mexico...
Union leader says BART contract talks were unproductive  KTVU News   ...BART management met with union leaders again Tuesday to try to reach an agreement before the contract for the transit agency's employees expires Sunday night but a union official said the talks weren't productive...
Protests about low wages continue in Kansas City  Kansas City Star   ...Stand Up KC, a campaign to give a collective voice to low-paid fast-food workers, staged a rally and march Tuesday afternoon at which 500 people advocated for higher pay and union rights...
Bankrupt Detroit Receives Less U.S. Aid Than Colombia  Bloomberg News   ...President Barack Obama proposed giving Colombia about $323 million in aid next year, mostly to combat drug trafficking and violence. Detroit, with an 81 percent higher homicide rate, will get $108.2 million...
Walmart Embroiled in D.C. Wage Battle  KNWA-TV   ...Walmart is threatening to pull out three of its stores that are planned to open this fall in the nation's capital. If the mayor signs the Large Retailer Accountability Act that was passed by the D.C. Council, the corporation could be forced to pay its employees more than $4 above minimum wage...
Fox Claims That Feeding Seniors In Need Is An Effort To Buy Their Vote  Media Matters for America   ...Fox News continued its campaign to demonize programs that provide necessary food assistance to millions of Americans by attacking the AARP's effort to enroll eligible seniors in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), baselessly claiming the program was an effort to buy their vote and dismissing the fact that many eligible seniors find it difficult to get the assistance they need...
Prison Guard Union Still Smarting Over Closure Announcement  WXXI News   ...Correction officers say they are still in “shock”, that late on a July Friday, with very little advance warning, New York's Gov. Cuomo’s prison agency announced the closure of four prisons within the next year...
Group accuses Apple supplier of labor abuses  Associated Press   ...A labor rights group Monday accused a Chinese company that makes iPhones for Apple Inc. (AAPL) (AAPL) of abuses including withholding employees' pay and excessive working hours...
Opinion: NC House Dances With Joy Over Their Accomplishments  CNN iReport  ...It should have been a solemn day last Thursday when the NC General Assembly passed legislation that has been called the most severe voter restrictions  ... in the country, but instead there was fiddling, dancing and ice cream...