Today's Teamster News 08.10.15

Teamsters
Picketers At Calgary BURNCO Location Protest Employee Lockout  Global News   ...The lockout affects members of Teamsters Union Local 362, which covers employees at plants in Airdrie, Springbank and Okotoks.The union says the biggest sticking point with the negotiations is seniority, which employees don’t want to give up...
Sun Tran Strike: Day 5  Arizona Daily Star   ...Teamsters want a pay raise and improved workplace safety conditions. Sun Tran says its offer “amounts to an increase of $2.7 million over the recommended three-year contract, while the offer issued by Teamsters Local Union 104 amounts to a $20.3 million increase.” Sun Tran also says it’s working with the union to address assaults on drivers and a mold issue in a maintenance building...
Teamster: Even The Top Guys In UFC Are Underpaid  SB Nation   ...While Thursday's announced garnered plenty of attention, details were still a little vague. To get a better idea of what exactly the Teamsters and UNITE HERE were trying to accomplish I spoke last Friday with Chris Griswold, Secretary-Treasurer of the Teamsters, Local 986...

Global Labor & Trade
Child Labor On The Rise In West Africa As Demand For Cocoa Grows  Wall Street Journal   ...Despite nearly 14 years of government and industry efforts aimed at combatting child labor in cocoa production, 21% more children are illegally laboring on cocoa farms in Ghana and Ivory Coast than five years ago, according to a Tulane University study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Labor...
How El Salvador’s Supreme Court Is Undermining Democracy—With Washington’s Help  The Nation   ...In fact, plans to undermine leftist governance in El Salvador go back years before the election of Sánchez Cerén, the first guerrilla leader of the leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) party to become president of El Salvador. The strategy centers on the country’s Supreme Court—and the US government has been in on it from the beginning...
Greece And Creditors In Final Push For Bailout  Huffington Post   ...Greece and international creditors sought to put final touches on a multi-billion euro bailout accord on Monday to keep the country financially afloat and meet an important debt repayment to the European Central Bank within days...

State & Living Wage Battles
Washington State Poised To Become Leader In Oil Train Safety Ahead Of Massive Increase In Traffic  Puget Sound Business Journal   ...Washington state is quickly becoming a leader in crude oil train safety standards. That's good because the state is gearing up to become a high-traffic zone for the controversial trains...
Corps Of Engineers Should FUSRAP-Up West Lake's Toxic Waste  St. Louis Post-Dispatch   ...The best solution for cleaning up radioactive waste buried at the West Lake Landfill in Bridgeton is to give control of the site to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers...
California Effort To Issue Driver’s Licenses To Immigrants Receives Surge Of Applicants  New York Times   ...When Alberto Fraire drives past a police car these days, he no longer worries about steep fines, or perhaps being hauled to jail and tangling with the immigration system. When California began issuing driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants this year, he was one of the first in line...
Amid Push For Higher Minimum Wage, Concern Rising About Workers Cheated Out Of Proper Pay  U.S. News & World Report   ...As a campaign to raise the minimum wage as high as $15 has achieved victories in such places as Seattle, Los Angeles and New York, it has bumped up against a harsh reality: Plenty of scofflaw businesses don't pay the legal minimum now and probably won't pay the new, higher wages either...
Another Sign That Momentum Is Building On Paid Parental Leave In The U.S.  Huffington Post   ...In the latest sign that support for paid family leave is growing in the U.S., Adobe on Monday announced a big expansion of benefits, including up to half a year of paid time off for new mothers...

U.S. Labor
The Outrageous Ascent Of CEO Pay  Huffington Post   ...For the last thirty years almost all incentives operating on American corporations have resulted in lower pay for average workers and higher pay for CEOs and other top executives. Consider that in 1965, CEOs of America's largest corporations were paid, on average, 20 times the pay of average workers. Now, the ratio is over 300 to 1...
Sysco Profit Drops, Hurt By US Foods-Related Costs  Wall Street Journal   ...Sysco Corp. said profit in its latest quarter fell, as the company booked charges stemming from its abandoned plan to acquire rival US Foods Inc...
Twisting Words To Make ‘Sharing’ Apps Seem Selfless  New York Times   ...Of course, marketing by its very nature involves concocting the most appealing expressions to attract consumers. But start-ups that enable consumers to summon drivers, lunch deliveries or domestic help at the tap of an app have added incentives to portray themselves in feel-good terms. Government regulators, legislators and courts in the United States have started scrutinizing the app-mediated service sector with the idea of determining whether longstanding consumer protection and labor rules apply to these new delivery models...
AT&T, Union Continue Negotiations After Contracts Expire  Bloomberg Business   ...AT&T Inc. and the Communications Workers of America continued talks on new labor contracts as current agreements covering more than 24,000 employees in the southeast U.S. expired...
CTU President: Contract Talks Haven’t Broken Down  WBBM   ...Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis disagrees contract talks with school officials have reached the “acrimonious” stage. She says meetings with public school officials have been very cordial and teachers have even been willing to take a pay freeze...

Social Justice & Other News
Virginia Recalling Specialty License Plates With Confederate Flag  NPR   ...Virginia's Department of Motor Vehicles will begin recalling specialty license plates depicting the Confederate battle flag following a federal judge's decision last week to dissolve an injunction that barred officials from blocking such plates...
The Confederate Flag Just Came Down In ‘The Last Capitol Of The Confederacy’  Think Progress   ...According to GoDanRiver.com, the Danville city council voted 7-2 last week to remove the Third National flag of the Confederacy from the lawn of the Sutherlin Mansion, a historic building which houses a museum paid for with public funds. The flag was erected in 1995 on the house’s lawn to commemorate its historical significance — namely, that it hosted the last official meeting of the Confederate presidential cabinet, making it the “Last Capitol of the Confederacy.”...
Congress’s Cybersecurity Plan Has Some Major Flaws  Think Progress   ...One complaint privacy advocates have is that CISA, as written, undercuts existing privacy laws that give citizens power to hold companies responsible for any digital recklessness...
Segregation 101  Huffington Post   ...Surveys of black families have found that most would prefer to live in racially integrated neighborhoods. But black families face a variety of obstacles in finding houses to buy or apartments to rent in such areas. Moreover, racial segregation isn't simply a byproduct of the fact that blacks have, on average, lower incomes than whites. Even middle-class African-American families tend to live in racially segregated areas; they, too, face discrimination when looking for apartments to rent or houses to buy...
Fox News v. Donald Trump: It’s Hard To Destroy A Monster Of Your Own Creation  Salon.com   ...For years, Fox News provided Donald Trump a platform to talk about politics to an audience of conservative voters. The network’s employees constantly bombarded him with questions and encouragement regarding his presidential ambitions. When he finally did run, Fox promoted and defended his candidacy in the face of near universal criticism. His presence at Fox News’ debate helped make it the most-watched primary debate in history. And after all that, when he finally got up on stage, Fox News shivved him...
A Gaggle Of Future Governors Just Had A Great Time In Maui  Huffington Post   ...Last month, a group of state attorneys general flew to Maui for the annual meeting of the Conference of Western Attorneys General. For several days, the top law enforcement officers -- who are often referred to as "aspiring governors" because of their tendency to run for and win higher elected office -- attended panels and swapped legal expertise on issues facing their states. They also mixed with executives, lawyers and lobbyists at a Waldorf Astoria resort that boasts tropical gardens, a swim-up bar and a grand view of Wailea Beach...

Today's Teamster News 08.03.14

State Battles
Scott Walker: Wisconsin GOP Considering Expanding Anti-Union Restrictions To Police, Firefighters  Huffington Post   ...Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R ) said this week that state Republicans might expand the state's controversial restrictions on collective bargaining to the two sectors spared from the new law more than two years ago...
Bruce Rauner channeled part of fortune to Cayman Islands  Chicago Sun-Times   ...(Illinois gubernatorial candidate) ultimillionaire Republican Bruce Rauner has channeled at least part of his fortune into the Cayman Islands, a Caribbean paradise long criticized as a tax haven for American investors...
The War on Workers
GOP pushing Labor Department to go easy on wage theft  Peoples World   ...Right-wing Republicans who run the House Education and the Workforce Committee are apparently pushing the Labor Department to ease up on wage theft, in favor of "compliance assistance" - department counsel to businesses.  But DOL is resisting, an advocate for low-wage workers says...
Big Banks Still a Risk  New York Times   ...The threat of high-cost taxpayer bailouts remains very much with us...
America’s Most Hated Banks  truthout   ...In a list of major banks reviled by Americans in order of volume of complaints, Bank of America takes first place, followed by Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and Citibank...
Senate Bombshell Testimony Today: Citigroup and Bank of America Stock Worthless Without Implied Government Guarantees  Wall Street on Parade   ...“The warranted rate of return on the stock of deeply undercapitalized firms like Citi and B of A [Bank of America] would have been sky high and their stock would have been declared worthless long ago if market participants were not convinced that authorities are afraid to force them to resolve their weaknesses...”
Worker Killed Along Schuylkill County Road  WNEP   ...Crews at the scene said the victim was working as a flagger in a work area...
Miscellaneous
The Rare, Solid Manufacturing Jobs Report  manufacture this   ...The country added 28,000 factory jobs in July. That’s the best monthly total manufacturing employment has seen since … November 2013, and it’s roughly the kind of number we’ll need to see every month through January 2017 if President Obama is to reach his goal of 1 million new manufacturing jobs for the U.S. economy during his second term...