Today's Teamster News 03.15.15

Teamsters
New JFK truck rules will drive job growth  Crain's New York Business   ...Not long ago, the Teamsters represented 5,000 air-freight drivers at JFK. Today, it's 1,200. And it's not just Teamsters. JFK supports more than 50,000 jobs in the city. An uncompetitive airport puts them at risk.
But a de Blasio administration regulation that took effect March 5 finally harmonized our trucking rules with the rest of the country, so industry-standard trucks can now pick up and drop off at JFK...
Trade
Do unions have the oomph to stop Obama's trade agenda?  Politico   ...“They certainly have gotten the attention of people who have relied on union support,” said Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), who acknowledged that her fellow Democrats often take labor’s loyalty for granted...
TPP: Just don't do it  The Ed Show   ...Nike implores employees to support TPP, which would boost trade to Nike's Vietnam manufacturing ties. Ed Schultz, Rep. Jan Schakowsky and Charles Kernaghan discuss...
State Battles
Over 350 Workers Gather in New Hampshire to Call on Gov. Scott Walker to Apologize for Anti-Worker Agenda, Statements  Granite State Progress   ...Over 350 workers gathered outside of a NH GOP event in New Hampshire today to condemn Scott Walker’s anti-working family agenda and call for an apology following his recent CPAC comments equating working men and women with the terror group, ISIS...
War on Workers
A Lot Fewer Americans Get Unemployment Benefits Than You Think  Huffington Post   ... The share of unemployed Americans who receive unemployment insurance benefits has dwindled to its lowest point in decades, thanks in part to benefit cuts in Republican-led states...
By Saving Billions in Retiree Health and Pension Benefits, Auto Bailouts Were an Even Bigger Success Than Acknowledged  Economic Policy Institute   ...Thanks to the success of the federal bailouts, the company pension plans have all continued and paid all benefits earned by the retirees. And no pension liabilities have been transferred to the PBGC or the federal government...
Housemate Takes Blame for Shining Laser at Planes in Bronx  New York Times   ...After being charged this week with injuring several pilots by shining a laser beam at their plane, Frank J. Egan was held up as a pest, his arrest an example of pinpoint investigative work...

Today's Teamster News 03.18.14

Teamster News
County sets public hearing on contract with Teamsters  Topeka Capital Journal   ...The Shawnee County Commission made plans Monday to hear public comments at its March 31 meeting regarding an impasse between Shawnee County and its approximately 470 employees represented by the Teamsters Union...
Trade
The TPP Tries to Put a "No Exit" Sign on America's Crapified Health Care System by Allowing Medical Procedures to be Patented World-wide  truthout   ...if some guy decided to patent a medical procedure like, oh, looking at a patient’s teeth using a dental mirror (“tilt the mirror at the correct angle to display the crown or other surface”) that patent could be approved, if the examiner had a bad day, even though the procedure is neither new nor revolutionary. That would raise the price of dental care world-wide...
Fashion Faux Pas? Free Trade and Sweatshop Labor in Guatemala  truthout   ..."In several CAFTA countries things are worse now than when CAFTA went into effect..."
State Battles
Ohio Mistrusts Democracy  New York Times   ...Ohio Republicans must not think their political candidates can win a fair fight against Democrats...
GOP Bill Designed to Disrupt John Doe Dark Money Probe, Court Filings Confirm  Center for Media and Democracy   ...New court filings confirm that Wisconsin's John Doe campaign finance investigation hinges on how state election law treats "issue ad" groups coordinating with political campaigns, shedding new light on a Republican effort to quietly change the law in advance of Governor Scott Walker's reelection campaign...
The Battle for Chattanooga: Southern Masculinity and the Anti-Union Campaign at Volkswagen  In These Times   ...“Work is not supposed to be a popularity contest, but that’s exactly what it is, unless you’re protected [by a union],” says Gravett, who since graduating from high school in 1985 has worked in various factories, including Dupont, Cleveland Tubing, Polyloom and Volkswagen...
Pensiongate? Christie Campaign Donors Won Huge Contracts  The Nation   ...While trumpeting “pension reform,” the New Jersey governor placed retiree assets in the hands of hedge fund managers bankrolling his political career...
The War on Workers
Hunger crisis: Charities are strained as nearly 1 in 5 New Yorkers depend on aid for food  New York Daily News   ...In a city of wealth, 1.4 million people rely on a network of 1,000 food pantries and soup kitchens to eat. That's an increase of 200,000 people in five years, and the city's programs are struggling to keep up with that need...
Low-Wage Workers Are Finding Poverty Harder to Escape  New York Times   ...More than half of those who make $9 or less an hour are 25 or older, while the proportion who are teenagers has declined to just 17 percent from 28 percent in 2000, after adjusting for inflation...
Wells Fargo foreclosure manual under fire  Washington Post   ...lenders, including Wells Fargo, used forged and shoddy paperwork during the recession to quickly foreclose on struggling homeowners, a practice known as “robo-signing.” Those charges led to a $25 billion national mortgage settlement that was supposed to put an end to such abusive practices, but bankruptcy lawyer Linda Tirelli says nothing has changed...
Miscellaneous
Obama auto rescue saved 2.6 million jobs and over $100 billion  examiner   ...The total loss of jobs would have topped 2.6 million if the entire auto industry would have been left to collapse and the report also notes that the bailout "saved or avoided the loss of $105.3 billion in transfer payments and the loss of personal and social insurance tax collections -- or 768% of the net investment...”

Joe the Plumber, now a confused autoworker

Samuel "Joe" Wurzelbacher -- a.k.a., “Joe the Plumber" -- announced he has landed a union job with Chrysler, the Toledo Blade reports.

He says he's fine with unions. He wrote:

In order to work for Chrysler, you are required to join the Union, in this case UAW. There’s no choice – it’s a union shop – the employees voted to have it that way and in America that’s the way it is.

He's not fine with President Obama -- who saved the auto industry, thus enabling Joe the Plumber to get a good union job.

And he's fine with politicians like job-killer Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who has interfered with employees' votes to have a union their way.

We think Joe the Plumber is confused.

Romney profited from auto bailout, then screwed workers

Mitt Romney made $15 million from a hedge fund investment that sent most of Delphi's job overseas. The hedge fund principals blackmailed the government into an enormous payout.

Investigative journalist Greg Palast explains in The Nation:

It all starts with Delphi Automotive, a former General Motors subsidiary whose auto parts remain essential to GM’s production lines. No bailout of GM—or Chrysler, for that matter—could have been successful without saving Delphi. So, in addition to making massive loans to automakers in 2009, the federal government sent, directly or indirectly, more than $12.9 billion to Delphi—and to the hedge funds that had gained control over it.

One of the hedge funds that invested in Delphi was Elliott Management. Romney invested $1 million in the fund through his wife's blind trust.

Romney never would have profited had it not been for the U.S. taxpayer. Writes Palast:

...without taking billions in taxpayer bailout funds—and slashing worker pensions—the hedge funds’ investment in Delphi would not have been worth a single dollar, according to calculations by GM and the US Treasury. 

Altogether, in direct and indirect payouts, the government padded these investors’ profits handsomely. The Treasury allowed GM to give Delphi at least $2.8 billion of funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to keep Delphi in business. GM also forgave $2.5 billion in debt owed to it by Delphi, and $2 billion due from (Elliott Management's director Paul) Singer and company upon Delphi’s exit from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The money GM forgave was effectively owed to the Treasury, which had by then become the majority owner of GM as a result of the bailout. Then there was the big one: the government’s Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation took over paying all of Delphi’s retiree pensions. The cost to the taxpayer: $5.6 billion. The bottom line: the hedge funds’ paydays were made possible by a generous donation of $12.9 billion from US taxpayers.

Then the hedge funds sent the company to China. Palast:

...they rid Delphi of every single one of its 25,200 unionized workers. 

Of the twenty-nine Delphi plants operating in the United States when the hedge funders began buying up control, only four remain, with not a single union production worker. Romney’s “job creators” did create jobs—in China, where Delphi now produces the parts used by GM and other major automakers here and abroad. Delphi is now incorporated overseas, leaving the company with 5,000 employees in the United States (versus almost 100,000 abroad).

Now the United Auto Workers are suing Romney for breaking ethics laws by failing to disclose his investment in Delphi.

Nice guy. Maybe he'll finish last.