Teamsters register members to vote so the billionaires don't call all the shots

Tomorrow is National Voter Registration Day, but for many Teamster locals EVERY day is voter registration day.

This year there are 36 governors up for election, and if you don't think that matters think again. Four years ago a crew of ALEC-backed candidates became governors and they applied ALEC economics to their states. The results have been disastrous.

Teamster Local 769's secretary-treasurer, Josh Zivalich

Scott Walker was elected governor in Wisconsin and public service workers lost their collective bargaining rights. Now, Wisconsin faces a $1.8 billion budget deficit and the state is 33rd in the country in job creation. Last month, Wisconsin lost 4,300 jobs.

Same story in Kansas, where Sam Brownback slashed taxes for corporations and raised them for working-class families. The state's job growth is anemic and it faces hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue shortfalls. The New York Times reported,

Mr. Brownback’s proudly conservative policies have turned out to be so divisive and his tax cuts have generated such a drop in state revenue that they have caused even many Republicans to revolt.

In Ohio, John Kasich tried to do what Walker did in Wisconsin with SB5. It was only after a massive effort by Ohio Teamsters and other union members that SB5 was repealed.

In Michigan, Gov. Rick Snyder sneaked right-to-work past voters behind closed doors in a lame-duck session, after saying he wouldn't. Gov. Mitch Daniels did the same thing in Indiana.

In Florida, Gov. Rick Scott tried to privatize many of the state's prisons, and it was only the hard work of Teamster corrections officers that prevented that from happening.

Still think it doesn't matter if you vote? Fine, don't. Let the billionaires call the shots. But if you do think it matters and you haven't registered, click on this link: http://ibt.io/vote

It will take you to a web page where you can register online.

Today's Teamster News 07.31.14

Teamster News
Consumer Watchdog Campaign: Teamsters, Transit Workers Back Prop 46 Campaign To Protect Patient Safety  Insurance News   ...Two powerful labor groups, the California Teamsters Public Affairs Council and the California Conference Board-Amalgamated Transit Union, have joined the growing list of organizations and individuals that support Proposition 46, the patient safety initiative on California's Nov. 4 ballot...
Police Union Endorses Lake County Sheriff’s Challenger, Jason Patt  Lake Forester   ...The Teamsters Local 700, the union representing corrections officers and supervisors along with lieutenants and sergeants of the Lake County Sheriff’s Highway Patrol Division, has endorsed the sheriff’s opponent in the upcoming election...
Teamsters Applaud Putnam County Decision To Reject Republic Services’ Florida Landfill Bid  teamster.org   ...The Teamsters Union is lauding the Putnam County (Fla.) Board of Commissioners today on its decision to reject Republic Services’ [NYSE: RSG] bid to buy the Putnam County landfill...
IKEA Canada To Pay Damages To The Teamsters Union  teamster.org   ...The British Columbia Labour Relations Board … concluded that Ikea violated the law when it negotiated directly with workers and offered to all workers who accepted to cross the picket line better working conditions (including a $2.50 an hour premium and a $500 bonus) than the working conditions that it had offered to the Teamsters at the bargaining table...
NLRB Reviews Local Teamster Petition to Expand Definition of 'Dual Employer'   National Legal and Policy Center   ...When does being employed by a contractor also mean being employed by the corporation with which it contracts? The National Labor Relations Board currently is reviewing this issue in a potential landmark case. If the board rules in favor of a Teamsters local, unions everywhere could have a powerful organizing weapon...
LA Unified reaches agreement with principals, police, teamsters  LA School Report   ...Teamsters Local 572, whose members include school administrative assistants, cafeteria managers, area operations supervisors and bus supervisors approved a similar contract with a bonus payment for the last year...
State Battles
Chris Christie Pension Cuts Could Damage Economy: Report  International Business Times   ...when combined with private pension benefits, the spending generated by the national retirement system supports more than 6 million jobs: 4.4 percent of the total national workforce. The report also says that the economic multiplier effect from retirees spending their pension benefits generates $135 billion a year in federal, state and local tax revenues...
N.J. Unions Update Lawsuits To Block Christie's Pension Cuts  Newark Star-Ledger   ...More than a dozen public-worker unions have updated their lawsuits aiming to stop Gov. Chris Christie from slashing scheduled payments to New Jersey's pension system for government employees...
In Kansas, Brownback tried a red-state ‘experiment.’ Now he may be paying a political price  Washington Post   ...Advised by Arthur Laffer, the father of supply-side economics, and supported by special interest groups backed by conservative billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, he pushed through legislation that cut taxes and spending, eliminated state jobs and denied far more applications for welfare assistance...
The Republican Occupation of Detroit  Daily Beast   ...City agencies and entire school districts have been outsourced or privatized; public employees have been laid off in droves; municipalities have sold off vast swaths of public land; and city employee unions have seen their contracts whittled down to nothing...
Cargill to close Milwaukee beef facility, cut 600 jobs  Milwaukee Journal Sentinel   ..."It is unfortunate that we must close any beef plant because of the impact to good people, their families and the community...
Democratic Assembly Candidates In Northern Wisconsin Say Act 10 Has Caused ‘Teacher Flight'  Wisconsin Public Radio   ...Gov. Scott Walker’s Act 10 law, saying it’s causing teachers to leave the state. When Walker pushed Act 10 through the Legislature in his first few months as governor in 2011, he called it a tool for local governments and school boards to balance budgets because it took away almost all union bargaining power...
Sick Leave Policies Pick Up Steam  CNN Money   ...the San Diego city council was one of two cities -- the other being Eugene, Ore. -- to pass new laws mandating paid sick leave on Monday...
War On Workers
Employees’ Pay in U.S. Is Smaller Slice of Income Pie  Bloomberg   ...Worker pay was a smaller piece of the U.S. income pie than earlier estimated as some Americans collected significantly more in interest and dividend payments over the past two years...
White Collar Wage Theft Is Trending: Companies Using Jail And Illegal Arrangements To Prevent Employees From Leaving  Forbes   ...white collar occupations such as engineers and developers are facing intricate wage theft schemes that are obfuscated by backroom deals and threats of criminal prosecution on a national scale...
A Bill to Get the Labor Movement Back on Offense  The Nation   ...The Ellison-Lewis legislation would amend the National Labor Relations Act to include protections found under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act to include labor organizing as a fundamental right. That would give workers a broader range of legal options if they feel discriminated against for trying to form a union...
Banks Cash In On Inversion Deals Intended To Elude Taxes  New York Times   ...Investment banks are estimated to have collected, or will soon collect, nearly $1 billion in fees over the last three years advising and persuading American companies to move the address of their headquarters abroad (without actually moving)...
The Charter School Profiteers  Jacobin   ...When we welcome schools that lack democratic accountability (charter school boards are appointed, not elected), when we allow public dollars to be used by those with a bottom line (such as the for-profit management companies that proliferate in Michigan), we open doors for opportunism and corruption...
Construction Worker Killed At FSU Construction Site  Tallahassee Democrat   ...A 25-year-old construction worker was killed Monday afternoon in a construction elevator accident on Florida State University campus, said Major Jim Russell, Florida State University Police Department spokesman...
Higher Minimum Wage, Faster Job Creation (opinion)  New York Times   ...The minimum wage has been raised many times without hurting employment...
Miscellaneous
Wall Street Analysts Predict The Slow Demise Of Walmart And Target  Huffington Post   ...Shoppers are increasingly turning to the web or to smaller, more conveniently located stores, cutting into the market share of big-box retailers like Walmart and Target, the analysts wrote...

Walker's anti-union law gutted ... it seems

The courts are siding with the protesters, mostly and for now.

The smoke has yet to clear from the Wisconsin state attorney general's decision last week not to appeal a court ruling that gutted most of Job-killer Gov. Scott Walker's anti-union law. You know, the one that triggered the month-long uprising in Madison.

Here's what happened: First, the Wisconsin state Court of Appeals upheld a ruling that struck down as unconstitutional parts of Walker's law, known as Act 10, at least for now. A few days later, state Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said he wouldn't appeal that ruling. Instead, he said he'd wait for the court to rule on the merits of the bill.

It's not clear where that leaves Wisconsin public employee unions. The lawsuit was brought by the Madison teachers union and Public Employees Local 91, representing Milwaukee public workers. Van Hollen says the appeals court ruling only applies to those two unions.

Lester Pines, the lawyer representing the two unions said he's wrong. According to the Wisconsin State Journal,

He noted that Colas struck down major features of the law, including the prohibition on collective bargaining beyond base wages, the requirement that local voters approve any raises exceeding the cost of living, mandatory annual recertification elections for unions, prohibiting payroll deductions for union dues and other provisions. 

“The state has consistently framed the question to say, ‘Employers don’t worry about this. This doesn’t apply to you,’ ” Pines said. “Which is somewhat unprecedented, since a circuit court has declared part of the law unconstitutional on its face. It has said the law is null and void, as if it does not exist.” 

The lawsuit was filed against Walker and the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission, which arbitrates labor disputes between public employers and its workers and unions. WERC chief legal counsel Peter G. Davis said Friday that his agency “has not determined what the impact of the Colas decision on the WERC and public sector employers might be.”

A Marquette University law professor says the constitutional challenge to the law is a serious one.  Commenting on the initial ruling, Edward A. Fallone writes that similar challenges have succeeded in other states. He notes that the law exempts police and firefighter unions. As a result,

(Judge Juan Colas) ...held that the law differentiates between entities that represent public employees in collective bargaining — imposing conditions on certain bargaining entities but not others – and that the State had failed to advance a sufficient justification for this disparate treatment.  According to Judge Colas, the differential treatment of bargaining entities violated the First Amendment right of the affected unions to association and expression, and it also violated the Equal Protection Clause.  Judge Colas also held that the law violates the Home Rule provisions of the Wisconsin Constitution by dictating rules for Milwaukee that the law did not apply to other municipalities. 

Stay tuned.