Finally, more retailers are being thankful for their employees

The good news is that it seems more and more retailers are getting the message that workers should be able to spend Thanksgiving Day with their families, not toiling away at work.

The bad news? Some companies still aren't complying and probably never will. Paging Walmart ...

Anyway, employees of Costco, T.J. Maxx, Nordstrom, Crate and Barrel, American Girl, Burlington Coat Factory, The Home Depot, Marshalls and Staples won't have to be on the job next Thursday. REI, meanwhile, is doing one better -- closing Thanksgiving Day as well as Friday. They're even paying their workers too!

Walmart still refuses to close on Thanksgiving.

But that good cheer is not being extended to employees of Walmart, Target, Macy's, Best Buy, Toys R Us, Kmart or Kohl's. They still are putting financial gains above time with family. Or so they think.

The real kick in the pants is that opening for a few hours on Thanksgiving does not even yield more profits for companies. They're just taking in funds that they would have earned eventually during the holiday shopping season anyway. So thousands of workers give up their holiday for nothing.

As The Street noted:

Labor groups have pushed back on big chains forcing employees to come in for the holiday, while consumer groups have called for shoppers to boycott going out on Thanksgiving 

And stores have started to answer -- though likely more because the strategy of opening on Thanksgiving doesn't add to the bottom line, rather than for workers' morale. Indeed, retailers are finding that being open on Thanksgiving isn't necessarily boosting holiday sales, but rather that Thursday's sales are simply coming at the expense of those on Black Friday.

Whatever the reason, it's the right call. It's time for others to do the same.

Today's Teamster News 11.05.15

TEAMSTERS
Teamsters Suspend Safeway Protests - For Now  DC Labor  ...Teamsters locals 730 and 639 have agreed to suspend their protests over the threatened closure of the Safeway Distribution Center in Upper Marlboro after State Senator Anthony Muse on Wednesday asked representatives of Safeway and Collington Services (which operates the center), along with the Teamsters, to participate in discussions aimed at preserving jobs at the center. The companies have until November 10 to respond to Muse’s request...
Despite Coca-Cola’s Regressive Proposals, Union Works to Fix Overtime Issues in Negotiations  Local 727  ...As Coca-Cola management continued to drag its feet, the Teamsters Local 727 Bargaining Committee worked to tackle major non-economic issues during contract negotiations on Wednesday, November 4. The union revisited its proposal to clarify overtime assignments and ensure Coca-Cola effectively communicates with workers when posting mandatory overtime. The Teamsters’ proposal also establishes and guarantees 40-hour workweek schedules...

GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
Pacific partners release TPP details  Reuters   ...The long-awaited text of a landmark US-backed Pacific trade deal has been released. It reveals the details of a pact aimed at freeing up commerce in 40 per cent of the world's economy but is criticised for its opacity. If ratified, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will be a legacy-defining achievement for US President Barack Obama and his administration's pivot to Asia, aimed at countering China's rising economic and political influence...
TPP trade deal: text published online  The Guardian  ...New Zealand has put the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) online, offering the first detailed look at the world’s largest free trade deal, the most ambitious effort in years to remove barriers to commerce. The New Zealand government, which signed on to the deal, put the contents of the agreement on its website on Thursday, saying it would continue to undergo legal review...
Full Text of TPP Released to Public... And It's Horrible  Common Dreams  ...It's a disaster for people, the planet, democracy, and the future of the global economy. That was the immediate assessment of informed critics as world governments, including the United States, on Thursday morning made the full text of the controversial Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) available to the public for the first time...
What to Look for When the Trans-Pacific Partnership Text Is Released  Huffington Post  ...The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has been completed. The agreement is a big deal. It is said it writes the rules for doing business in the 21st century and covers 40 percent of the world's economy. The agreement will determine whether the giant corporations will increase their domination or if regular people will instead be able to fight back...
Trans-Pacific Partnership critics concerned about environment, IP clauses in trade pact's fine print  ABC  ...Critics of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) warn the full text of the agreement highlights serious concerns about environmental protections and intellectual property rights. For the first time the fine print of the agreement — which would eliminate 98 per cent of all tariffs between the 12 nations including Australia — has been released...
TPP leaders to meet on sidelines of APEC forum summit in Philippines  Japan Times  ...The leaders of 12 countries involved in the recently sealed Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade initiative will meet later this month in the Philippines to ensure early implementation of the pact, a government source said Wednesday. The meeting will be held on the sidelines of a two-day summit...
Thousands expected in student protest against austerity  CBC  ...Thousands of students from CEGEPs and universities are expected to take part in a large demonstration today against austerity measures imposed by the Quebec government. Close to 20 student associations representing more than 50,000 students have a strike mandate for the province-wide protest on Nov. 5...
Brazil President’s Own Party Resists Her Austerity Plans  Wall Street Journal  ...Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who is struggling to get the country’s Congress to pass legislation meant to curb a widening budget gap, faces more resistance from members of her own party than almost any other grouping, according to a recent survey of lawmakers. Ms. Rousseff’s left-wing Workers’ Party is reluctant to embrace spending cuts...

STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
Fast-food workers plan new strike, aim to sway election  USA Today  ...Fast-food workers, already a potent political force, are planning their largest nationwide strike yet next week and this time will leverage their crusade for a $15-an-hour wage in a bid to sway the 2016 presidential election. The group representing the workers, Fight for $15, plans on Tuesday to stage protests at restaurants in 270 cities, the most since it began organizing the demonstrations three years ago...
Missouri House sponsor of bill backers call ‘paycheck protection’ wants to bring it back in 2016  Missourinet  ...The House sponsor of what supporters call “paycheck protection” and opponents call “paycheck deception” wants to file that bill again in 2016. A “right-to-work” bill was vetoed this year by Governor Nixon and supporters fell 13 votes short of overturning that veto in the state House. Some Republicans are now debating whether it should be brought back up in 2016...
400,000 People Could Lose Their Health Care Because No One Turned Out To Vote  Think Progress  ...If you live in Kentucky, you probably didn’t vote yesterday. Turnout in Tuesday’s gubernatorial election was simply dreadful. According to the state’s chief elections officer, preliminary results show that only 30.7 percent of voters actually cast a ballot in this off-off-year election. That compares with 45.9 percent of voters in 2014...
Will State Courts Fill a Void on Voting Rights?  The Atlantic  ...In recent years, as the U.S. Supreme Court has limited its protections of the right to vote, some state courts have stepped in to fill the void. State judges have looked to their state constitutions—which are more explicit in conferring the right to vote—to provide relief from onerous election laws. And, in doing so, they have shown how these documents can be powerful tools to improve America’s democracy...
Paid Sick Leave Wins At The Voting Booth  Think Progress  ...On Tuesday, voters in Elizabeth, New Jersey approved a paid sick days law that guarantees all residents the right to earn leave. Once it goes into effect, the city’s 25,000 private sector workers will be able to earn an hour of sick time for every 30 they work, capped at five days a year for those at companies with 10 or more employees and at three days at smaller companies, to care for themselves or a sick family member...
Campaign to raise Maine's minimum wage tops 90K signatures  WCSH  ...A proposal to raise Maine's minimum wage is set to appear on next year's ballot. The group "Mainers For Fair Wages" has collected more than 90,000 signatures, which is well over the minimum requirement to get the issue on  the ballot. The proposal for the statewide ballot would raise Maine's minimum wage to $9 an hour in 2017...
Tacoma, Washington, Passes $12 Minimum Wage  Huffington Post  ...Residents of Tacoma, Washington, are ready to raise the minimum wage -- just not too quickly. Voters in the city of 200,000 appear to have approved a ballot measure this week that would gradually raise the minimum wage in the city to $12 per hour. At the same time, they seem to have turned down a more ambitious measure...

U.S. LABOR
UAW Warns of General Motors Strike If Workers Fail to Approve Contract  Wall Street Journal  ...United Auto Workers leaders are pressing members to ratify a proposed contract from General Motors Co. after a handful of factories turned it down in initial rounds of voting, with union officials saying a costly strike is likely unavoidable if the deal fails, according to several people familiar with the matter. The UAW’s voting on GM’s proposed agreement to 52,700 of its U.S. factory workers began late last week and ends Saturday...
UAW-GM agreement reportedly en route to ratification  MLive  ...A new, four-year contract between General Motors and 52,600 UAW workers in the U.S. appears headed for ratification. The Detroit Free Press reports that workers at GM's Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly, three sites in Pontiac and large plants in Missouri and Tennessee all gave the new contract clear majorities on Wednesday...
B&H Photo Warehouse Employees Vote to Join USW Union  PR Newswire  ...Today, workers at two B&H warehouses in Bushwick and in the Brooklyn Navy Yard voted by a 200-to-88 margin for representation by the United Steelworkers (USW) union. Workers had complained that they had been forced to work long hours in unsafe environments without proper training, while subject to discrimination...
NLRB Rejects Target’s Petition to Invalidate Union Vote in Brooklyn  Wall Street Journal  ...A small group of Target Corp. pharmacy workers in New York City are one step closer to becoming the retailer’s first ever union. The National Labor Relations Board on Tuesday rejected Target’s appeal to invalidate the group’s September vote to unionize. In a letter denying the appeal, the NLRB said Target hadn’t raised any “substantial issues warranting review”...
Oxfam Calls Out ‘Big Chicken’ for Rampant Labor Abuses  In These Times  ...One of the world’s most prominent hunger-fighting organizations has launched a publicity campaign aimed at improving wages and workplace safety in U.S. chicken processing plants. Oxfam kicked off the campaign with a report released October 26 that details substandard wages and benefits, unsafe working conditions, and a culture of hostility to labor rights for the estimated 250,000 workers employed in chicken plants...
Elizabeth Warren Wants to Give Seniors a Raise  Mother Jones  ...Elizabeth Warren wants to give seniors the same pay raise enjoyed by CEOs—and to raise taxes on some executive pay in the process. The liberal senator from Massachusetts is introducing a bill on Thursday to boost Social Security payments for 2016 with a one-time bump in benefits...

SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
Half Of Black Millennials Know A Victim Of Police Violence. What That Means For The 2016 Election.  Think Progress  ...Far before the Black Lives Matter movement was launched and before high-profile cases of police brutality permeated the national media, more than half of black millennials said in 2009 that they knew a victim of police violence. The University of Chicago released a report titled “Black Millennials in America” with the 2009 survey data that highlights how many people of color know victims of police violence...
With Historic Release of Drug Offenders & Help for Re-entry, US Takes "First Step" on Prison Crisis  Democracy Now  ...In the largest one-time release of federal prisoners in U.S. history, more than 6,000 inmates have been freed early under a resentencing effort for people convicted of nonviolent drug crimes. Decisions by the U.S. Sentencing Commission last year reduced prison terms for certain drug offenses and applied those changes retroactively...
America’s Prison Population Is Falling, but Too Slowly to Undo Decades of Growth  Mother Jones  ...Here’s the good news: The number of prisoners in the United States dropped last year to its lowest point since 2005, a trend likely to continue following the release of about 6,000 inmates from federal prisons in the past few days. And here’s the bad: The prison population still only dropped by 1 percent in 2014...

Target's cheesy new anti-union video leaves out something important

Dawn and Ricardo, the stars of Target's new union-busting video

Target, the nation's third-largest retailer, has a new union-busting video that describes unions as 'businesses' (and Target isn't?).

Watch it here.

As Hamilton Nolan at Gawker points out, the video leaves out the real reason Target employees shouldn't join a union:

Target does not want any of its employees to unionize is not because it fears a loss of its precious "culture," but because it fears having to pay higher wages and provide better benefits and working conditions. I don't know how that bit was left out of the script. Quite an oversight.

Unions 4 Workers posted An Maben's terrific response to the video on their Facebook page:

Unions are a 'business' that only exist to perpetuate themselves. Yeah, right. Due to my mother's union membership, her job was protected when her boss tried to fire her and replace her with a younger woman - just because the woman was younger - her job evaluations were actually not as good as my mother's. Because of her union, my mother had a pension to add to her Social Security and excellent Medicare supplement insurance after working at the company only 15 years. Yeah, because of her 'terrible' union my 50-something mom kept her job and my parent's retirement years were much better. Why is Target so afraid of unionization? Because they don't want to supply any of that to their employees.

 'Nuf said.

First Walmart, then Target's earnings are down

Target today reported its profit fell 46 percent after a weak holiday season. Last week, Walmart announced its profit fell 21 percent.

Today, the Washington Post reported

The results don’t surprise retail analysts, but they signal the onset of a rough year for one of the nation’s biggest retailers while the industry is already facing setbacks. The extreme winter weather, weak holiday sales, sluggish labor market and low consumer confidence have hit most retailers’ profits.

Here's the problem: Huge retailers that pay their workers low wages create poverty. And poor people can't afford to spend much at retailers, which cuts into their profit.

Impoverishing your work force is not a good business plan.

Today's Teamster News 01.31.14

Hoffa Praises Bill to Discourage Excessive CEO Pay  teamster.org   ...Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa praised U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, for introducing a bill to end a taxpayer subsidy for excessive CEO pay...
Teamsters Win First Contract at Kennedy Space Center  teamster.org   ...Badging clerks at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center ratified their first union contract on Tuesday as members of Teamsters Local 769. The new pact secures wage increases, improved vacation benefits and protection of full-time jobs in the 10-member bargaining unit...
Teamsters, Fast Track opponents making an impact. You can too.  TeamsterNation   ...Members of Congress are starting to listen to the thousands of Teamsters who are calling, emailing, rallying and telling them face-to-face: Vote NO on Fast Track...
Applications are now being accepted for the JRHMSF  teamster.org   ...The 2014-2015 scholarship for high school seniors has an application deadline of March 31, 2014. Visit the James R. Hoffa Scholarship Fund Information Center for eligibility requirements and application procedures...
Lunches seized from kids in debt at Salt Lake City elementary  The Salt Lake Tribune   ...Up to 40 kids at Uintah Elementary in Salt Lake City picked up their lunches Tuesday, then watched as the meals were taken and thrown away because of outstanding balances on their accounts — a move that shocked and angered parents...
The Danish Government Nearly Collapsed Today Over A Deal With Goldman Sachs  Business Insider   ...Denmark's government is in turmoil after the Socialist People's Party (SF) quit the ruling coalition over a deal with Goldman Sachs, Lars Eriksen of the Guardian reports. The deal involves Goldman purchasing a 19% stake in state-owned utility Dong Energy for $1.5 billion. Denmark’s shareholding would fall to about 60%...
Coal Markets Hit Hard as Emerging Economies Begin to Wobble  Oil Price   ...Slowing growth in developing countries has started to affect the commodities market, especially for coal, as orders are slashed and prices have fallen as much as 10 percent in a month...
Spy Agencies Work On Psychologically Profiling Everyone  Washington's Blog   ...Newly-released documents from Edward Snowden show that the NSA and other spy agencies are tracking people’s psychological and lifestyle traits such as sexual preference, extroversion-versus-introversion, and whether people are leaders or followers...
Beer buzz? FAA grounds plan to deliver 12-packs by drone  Minneapolis Star Tribune   ...The idea seemed ingenious: Delivering 12-packs of beer to the cold, windswept surfaces of popular ice fishing lakes — using a drone...
Lawsuit: KBR transported soldiers' ice in unsanitized morgue trailers  Military Times   ...The Justice Department is suing KBR and two foreign companies for allegedly defrauding the Army. The most shocking accusation: Workers used “refrigerated trailers to transport ice for consumption by the troops that had previously been used as temporary morgues without first sanitizing them.”...
Wall Street’s New Housing Bonanza  New York Times   ... Investment bankers and lawyers are now lining up to finance investors, from big private equity firms to plumbers and dentists moonlighting as landlords, who are buying up foreclosed houses and renting them out...
U.S. West Coast Labor Tensions Push Shippers to Look at Alternative Routes  Journal of Commerce ...Li & Fung Logistics is preparing alternatives to shipping through U.S. West Coast ports, as the global sourcing giant expects some type of International Longshore and Warehouse Union disruption tied to the negotiations for a contract to replace the current one that expires June 30...
States Have Lost $1.76 Billion After Long-Term Unemployment Benefits Lapsed  ThinkProgress   ...State economies have lost $1.76 billion after Congress let the benefits program for the long-term unemployed lapse at the end of last year, according to a calculation from the Democratic Policy & Communications Center...
Citigroup to limit work hours, force bankers to use vacation time  Bloomberg News   ...Citigroup Inc. will require junior bankers to take Saturdays off and use all of their vacation time each year as the firm joins an industry effort to improve working conditions...
State Moves To Make Sure Workers Don’t Lose Pay If They Get The Flu  ThinkProgress   ...On Wednesday, the Washington State House passed a bill that would guarantee workers paid time off for an illness or to care for a sick family member...
U.S. has launched criminal probe into Target cyberattack  Los Angeles Times   ...The Justice Department said Wednesday that it has launched a criminal investigation into the recent cybertheft of more than 110 million Target customers' personal data...
Union Members Overwhelmingly Vote to Ratify Caesars Entertainment Contract  unitehere.org   Members of the Culinary and Bartenders Unions voted yesterday to ratify a new five-year agreement with Caesars Entertainment. The contract covers 13,000 workers in Las Vegas...

Today's Teamster News 01.11.14

Teamsters Joint Council 16 Applauds Governor Cuomo's Signing of New York State Commercial Goods Industry Fair Play Act  Teamsters Joint Council 16   ...Teamsters Joint Council 16 expressed their thanks to Gov.  Andrew Cuomo for signing the New York State Commercial Goods Industry Fair Play Act (A5237B/S5867) and giving the Empire State the strongest worker misclassification legislation in the country...
Teamsters overwhelmingly reject YRC contract extension  Kansas City Star   ...YRC said it would operate normally despite the vote’s outcome...
Liam Neeson lambastes call to ban horse-drawn carriages  New York Post   ...Hollywood badass Liam Neeson went one-on-one with killjoy Mayor de Blasio, slamming Hizzoner for vowing to ban the city’s 220-plus clip-clopping, carriage-pulling equines from city streets and Central Park...
Teamsters, World Airways Fail To Reach Concessionary Agreement  teamster.org   ...Today, Teamster representatives of the Flight Attendants and Pilots of World Airways announced that bankruptcy discussions with their employer failed to yield an agreement on concessions their carrier was seeking...
Trade bill to open debate on globalization as Congress demands more oversight  Washington Post Lawmakers have proposed a bill that would narrow the Obama administration’s room to negotiate new free-trade agreements, demanding that sensitive issues such as currency ma­nipu­la­tion be covered in future treaties and deepening congressional oversight of the process...
20 years of NAFTA show why TPP must be stopped  Raw Story   ...The post-NAFTA era has been marked by growing inequality, declining job security and new leverage for corporations to attack government regulations enacted in the public interest...
The Majority Of Congresspeople Are Millionaires For The First Time Ever  ThinkProgress   ...More than half of all members of Congress had a net worth of more than a million dollars in 2012, according to a review by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP). It is the first time in American history that a majority of federal lawmakers have been millionaires, the group said...
U.S. Economy Added Only 74,000 Jobs in December  New York Times   ...The latest data from the Labor Department suggests that the economy lost some momentum, even as the unemployment rate dropped to 6.7 percent...
People Not In Labor Force Soar To Record 91.8 Million; Participation Rate Plunges To 1978 Levels  zero hedge   ...in December the civilian labor force did what it usually does in the New Normal: it dropped from 155.3 million to 154.9 million, which means the labor participation rate just dropped to a fresh 35 year low...
300,000 Without Water After Coal Industry Chemical Spill In W. Virginia  crooksandliars   ...A chemical spill into West Virginia's Elk River has led to a tap water ban for up to 300,000 people, shut down bars and restaurants and led to a run on bottled water in some stores as people looked to stock up...
How is Privatization Failing America?  The Real News   ... From healthcare to education, research shows an increase in privatization leaves the public with the losses and corporations with the gains...
How the Big Cell Phone Companies Are Getting Away with Ripping You Off Each Month  AlterNet   ...If you live in America, there’s a good chance you’ve not been overjoyed by your wireless plan. Simply by using a device essential to your daily life, you have been screwed...
Life in the Electronic Concentration Camp: The Many Ways That You're Being Tracked and Controlled  Truthout   ...“A security camera doesn’t respond to complaint, threats, or insults. Instead, it just watches you in a forbidding manner. But we don’t even scream back because technology companies have convinced us that we need to be connected to them to be happy...
We Need Privacy Laws for the Digital Era  The Salon   ...Updating the Fourth Amendment has been done before, to address the invention of cars, phones and GPS. It’s time to do it again...
Swiss Bank Helped 400 Americans Dodge Taxes On $600 Million  ThinkProgress   ...Swiss bank Julius Baer told hundreds of Americans how to evade U.S. taxes on a total $600 million in wealth, according to a court ruling published Wednesday in Switzerland...
Wall Street Predicts $50 Billion Bill to Settle U.S. Mortgage Suits  New York Times   ...Wall Street could pay nearly $50 billion to buy peace from federal authorities who are taking aim at the banks over their role in the mortgage crisis...
The Income Inequality Implications of Job Automation: Over 47 Percent of Jobs May Be at Risk  Huffington Post ...Researchers have pointed out that our nation's growing income inequality is indicative of increased automation. When will the exponential growth of computing technology allow for jobs that may be viewed as safe to be taken over?...
Why it’s Great to Be the Boss  Pew Research Center   ...In addition to bigger paychecks, America’s bosses are more satisfied with their family life, jobs and overall financial situation than are non-managerial employees, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey...
Target says up to 70 million customers had data stolen in holiday breach  Associated Press   ...Retail giant revises previous estimate of 40m customer accounts, which included credit cards as well as phone numbers and emails...
Georgia GOPer Attacking Free School Lunch Expensed $4,200 In Meals  Talking Points Memo   ..."Kingston and his staff expensed nearly $4200 in meals for business purposes to his congressional office, paid for by the American taxpayer," WSAV 3's Dan Kartunen reported. The amount could have purchased nearly 2,000 Georgia school lunches...
Alaska moves step closer to vote on legalizing recreational marijuana use  The Guardian   ...A citizens' group hoping to make Alaska the third state in the nation to legalize recreational use of marijuana took a step closer Wednesday, submitting more than 46,000 signatures to the state election office...
Boeing machinists allege unfair labor practices, seek revote  Reuters   ...Angry Boeing machinists have filed eight unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board alleging their union's top leaders manipulated a recent contract vote, and demanding that ballots be recast...
The Boeing kleptocracy  Corrente   ...CEO Jim McNerney dumped 282,037 shares this past August. This is not management, it is asset stripping...

Welcome to Food Stamp Nation. Yup, it's us.

There are now 46 million people in America who use food stamps, 34 percent more than two years ago and 74 percent more than four years ago.

That's one out of every five Americans. It is a scandal and a tragedy. It is also a direct result of the corporate war on workers. Many Target and Walmart employees, for example, use food stamps.

Low pay forces a lot of people to accept government help. Forty percent of the people who use food stamps are in families where at least one person has a job. Reports Reuters,

In some parts of the country, shoppers using food stamps have almost become the norm. In May 2011, a third of all people in Alabama were on food stamps -- though part of that was because of emergency assistance after communities were destroyed by a series of destructive tornadoes. Washington D.C., Mississippi, New Mexico, Oregon and Tennessee all had about a fifth of their population on food stamps that month...

Over the past 20 years, the characteristics of the program's recipients have changed. In 1989, a higher percentage were on benefits than working, but as of 2009 a higher percentage had earned income...

And that's only likely to get worse: So far in the recovery, jobs growth has been concentrated in lower-wage occupations, with minimal growth in middle-income wages as many higher-paid blue collar jobs have disappeared.

And 6 percent of the 72.9 million Americans paid by the hour received wages at or below the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour in 2010. That's up from 4.9 percent in 2009, and 3 percent in 2002, according to government data.

What's even more disgusting is that extremist politicians are now considering cutting the budget for food stamps even as they refuse to consider raising taxes on the wealthy. According to Reuters,

Republican leaders in the House of Representatives propose changing the program so that the funding is through a "block grant" to the states, rather than allowing it to grow automatically when needed due to an emergency, such as a natural disaster or economic crisis.

And Karl Rove, for example, just penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal saying,

...it is Mr. Boehner's challenge to make certain Congress doesn't substitute more spending on food stamps and unemployment benefits for measures that will actually spur job creation and economic growth...

Makes you want to hurl -- if you're lucky enough to have something in your stomach.

Today's Teamster News 10/15/10

Chamber of Commerce hits Democratic Senate candidates on union bill The Hill ...The two “issue ads” in Missouri and Pennsylvania target candidates Joe Sestak and Robin Carnahan, respectively, for their support of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA)...

Paul, Conway spar over union balloting in Ky. Associated Press ...Paul positioned himself as a staunch opponent of the proposed Employee Free Choice Act ... Conway said he believes employees should be able to form a union if 50 percent of workers want one...

How much can we blame on state pensions? Washington Post ...Pension obligations currently account for 3.8 percent of the average state's spending. That's not where the current crisis is coming from...

Taking a Vote on Union Construction New York Times ...next month, residents of San Diego County, which includes the two cities, will vote on a similar ban against favoring unions in county construction contracts...

As Genesys Regional Medical Center technical workers approve contract, registered nurses prepare for more rough negotiations ahead Flint Journal ...recording secretary Angie Oberman ... (said) “It feels like we’ve been at war for 10 months and now there is justice for it all,” ...

In Cities Fighting Wal-Mart, Target Welcomed Wall Street Journal ...the opposition has caused Wal-Mart to lose ground to competitors—notably Minneapolis-based Target, which has moved into large cities in recent years with comparatively little opposition despite also employing nonunion workers.