Today's Teamster News 11.09.15

TEAMSTERS
Waste Workers in Tennessee Join Teamsters Local 667  Teamster.org  ...Drivers at Waste Management, Inc., in Memphis, Tenn., have voted to join Teamsters Local 667 seeking improved wages and benefits. The 37-worker unit remained strong and united as the company waged a vicious anti-worker campaign. During the campaign, the workers were joined in support by students and campus workers...
Workers Speak Up After Being Told To Go Back To Work After Chemical Spill  Think Progress  ...A group of immigrant workers and community members rallied on Thursday at Taylor Farms in California, the largest producer of fresh-cut fruits and vegetables, asking for safer work conditions nearly one month after managers failed to evacuate the plant after a chemical spill. At the Taylor Farms’ Tracy plant, about 900 workers have been trying to organize a union with the Teamsters over the past two years...
Labor and Climate Groups Blast TPP as Full Text is Released  American Prospect  ...Within hours of the text’s release, leading environmental, labor, and civil liberties groups blasted the deal for its lackluster provisions on workers rights, climate change, and human rights. On Twitter, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters noted that the TPP includes no penalties for human trafficking...

GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
Lufthansa cabin crew strike affects 113,000 passengers  AP  ...Some 113,000 Lufthansa passengers were facing domestic and international cancellations Monday due to all-day walkouts at three German airports staged by a cabin crew union protesting cost cuts. The UFO flight attendant union says it will rotate its strike action to different airports as it presses its demands regarding early retirement payments...
Finance chair: Trade deal may need to be renegotiated  The Hill  ...The top Republican overseeing trade in the Senate on Friday suggested inadequate intellectual property protections may halt the passage of a sweeping Asia-Pacific trade agreement. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said he is most concerned about a provision in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that provides pharmaceutical companies with up to eight years of exclusive rights to their clinical trial data, instead of the 12-year standard set by Congress six years ago...
How the five most contentious issues in Obama’s big trade deal turned out  Washington Post  ...The full text of the Trans Pacific Partnership became public Thursday, and there's a lot we still don't know about it. This deal isn't really about lowering tariffs, after all — much more importantly, it's the rulebook for trade across a giant region. While advocacy groups acknowledged some improvements from previous drafts, they're still worried that even the best provisions won't be enforced...
Trans-Pacific Partnership Text Released, Waving Green Flag for Debate  New York Times  ...The release on Thursday of the full text of President Obama’s trade accord with 11 Pacific Rim nations brought out opponents and supporters and officially opened what may be the last big battle of the president’s tenure: winning congressional approval of the largest regional trade deal in history. The opposition mainly came from the left, as an array of unions, environmental groups and public advocacy organizations that typically resist global trade agreements registered their dismay...
Historic Trade Deal Confirms Critics' Worst Fears  Huffington Post  ...The United States government released the final text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership on Thursday, and a wide array of advocacy groups did not like what they saw. Organizations promoting climate change action and global health have long argued that the 12-nation trade deal would undermine participating countries’ freedom to set and preserve their own economic and social policies...
TPP revealed: Pact details ignite debate over privacy, internet freedom, whistleblowers  RT  ...With the release of the full text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a sharpening of arguments on both sides outline a debate about privacy, corporatism, internet freedom and intellectual property, and even the plight of whistleblowers. The world got its first look at the international agreement between 12 Pacific Rim countries on Thursday, exactly one month after it was finalized on October 5...
Chris Hedges: TPP Is the Most Brazen Corporate Power Grab in American History  (opinion) Alternet  ...The release Thursday of the 5,544-page text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership—a trade and investment agreement involving 12 countries comprising nearly 40 percent of global output—confirms what even its most apocalyptic critics feared. “The TPP, along with the WTO [World Trade Organization] and NAFTA [North American Free Trade Agreement], is the most brazen corporate power grab in American history,” Ralph Nader told me...
Over three million Europeans sign anti-TTIP petition  DW.com  ...A European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) called "Stop TTIP" on Monday handed over an updated list of 3.28 million signatures from people opposed to the planned free trade agreement between the EU and the US. The list was given to the head of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, in Berlin, with the campaigners demanding a parliamentary hearing...
1 Worker Dies, 18 Faint at Cambodian Garment Factory  AP  ...One worker died and 18 others fainted at a garment factory in eastern Cambodia that has been closed pending an investigation, authorities said Friday. They were sent to a hospital, where a 21-year-old worker later died, he said. On Friday, 14 more workers fell ill with similar symptoms...
Rising Left Bloc in Portugal Could Threaten Austerity Drive  New York Times  ...Last month’s elections in Portugal were meant to deliver a clear verdict on the center-right coalition of Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho, whose austerity program has been held up as a model by creditors and countries like Germany that have advocated belt-tightening in Europe. Instead, it yielded a vexing muddle, allowing both left and right to claim victory...

STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
Right-to-Work weighed heavily in Kentucky race for governor  PR News  ...Right-to-Work may not have been a front-and-center issue in the highly competitive race for governor in Kentucky, but it was a major issue behind the scenes. Those on both sides of the divisive Right-to-Work issue knew that whoever won the governor’s race in Kentucky might play a critical–if not pivotal–role on whether the state becomes the next to fall to Right-to-Work...
Fight for $15 rallies and strikes Tuesday supporting minimum wage hike  Cleveland.com  ...Demonstrations are planned throughout Ohio, including Cincinnati, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo and Youngstown, according to the labor-backed Fight for $15 movement, which is organizing the day of action. The locations of these rallies and the day on which they are being held is not by happenstance. Fight for $15, intends to send a political message by rallying on the steps of City Halls throughout the country...
Childcare Workers Make 40% Less Than the Nationwide Median Wage  The Nation  .... Tuesday’s protests in Atlanta and hundreds of other cities will launch the Fight for $15’s yearlong campaign leading up to Election Day. The SEIU-backed movement to press nationwide demands for a living wage and a union, now includes their demand as voters, that politicians commit to raising pay and working conditions. With hourly wages averaging about $10.30, childcare workers earn some 40 percent less than the nationwide median wage...
How Corrupt Is Your State?  Mother Jones  ...In Missouri, a lawmaker who pushed through a bill that prohibited cities from banning plastic bags in supermarkets also happened to be the director of the state's Grocer's Association. New Mexico lawmakers passed a resolution that exempted their emails from public scrutiny...
Wisconsin Begins Drug Testing Applicants For Food Stamps And Unemployment Benefits Today  Think Progress  ...On Monday, many Wisconsin residents who apply for food stamps, unemployment benefits, jobs training, or benefits and training from a handful of other state programs will have to be screened and potentially tested for drug use. Applicants will have to fill out a questionnaire about drug use, and depending on their answers, may have to submit to an actual test...

U.S. LABOR 
Ford UAW leaders meet to approve proposed agreement  Detroit Free Press  ...The UAW's top elected Ford leaders from around the country are in Detroit today to review a tentative agreement reached last week between the automaker and the union that would deliver $10,000 in signing bonuses and $9 billion in new U.S. product investments, retaining or creating 8,500 jobs...
UAW deals with Ford, GM enter critical week  The Detroit News  ...Monday marks the beginning of a critical week for labor negotiations between the United Auto Workers and two of Detroit’s Big Three automakers. Labor leaders at Ford Motor Co. will convene at 10 a.m. Monday at the UAW-Ford National Programs Center on Jefferson in downtown Detroit to accept or reject a proposed tentative deal that the union and Dearborn automaker agreed to Friday afternoon...
AFSCME withdraws petition for OU call center union election  Athens News  ...A major public employees union, citing an alleged “aggressive” campaign undertaken by “hired union busters,” has withdrawn its petition for an election for student workers employed at Ohio University’s call center in Athens. The university and Wilson-Bennett Technology – the subcontractor OU pays to manage the alumni fundraising call center – have denied hiring the alleged union busting group...
Why Childcare Workers Are So Poor, Even Though Childcare Costs So Much  The Atlantic   ...Childcare is really expensive. In some states the costs can top 15 percent of the median income for a married couple. And when looking at single-family households, that burden can easily pass 40 percent of the median income. One place all that money is not going: the pockets of the workers doing all that childcare...
Rutgers group documents Trump Taj Mahal casino workers' fight for benefits  NJ.com  ...NJ Spark, a social justice journalism lab at Rutgers University, is chronicling the fight of workers at Trump Taj Mahal Casino Hotels to have their health insurance and pension benefits restored. The union is demanding the restoration of the workers' health insurance and pension benefits, which were stripped away by the casino's previous owner, Trump Entertainment Resorts, as part of a $14.6 million cost cutting campaign...

SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
With Mass Civil Disobedience, Young Activists March Against 'Broken System'  Common Dreams  ...Roughly 1,000 young activists are marching through the streets of Washington, D.C. on Monday in what they hope will be the largest-ever planned civil disobedience action to demand racial, immigration, and climate justice reform for a "broken" political system. Under the banner Our Generation, Our Choice, millenials from a range of grassroots advocacy organizations...
University of Missouri president resigns amid protests  Daily Kos  ...Today, faculty, students, graduate students, and student-athletes at the University of Missouri will be engaged in protests as the Board of Curators calls a special meeting to address a long-simmering racial tension and protest surrounding racial incidents on campus. The #ConcernedStudent1950 protests center around the hunger strike of Jonathan Butler, a graduate student who began the strike in response to several unaddressed incidents of bigotry...
Paul Krugman just made perfect sense of Donald Trump, Ben Carson and angry white Republican voters  Salon  ...Some people who feel left behind by the American story turn self-destructive; others turn on the elites they feel have betrayed them. No, deporting immigrants and wearing baseball caps bearing slogans won’t solve their problems, but neither will cutting taxes on capital gains. So you can understand why some voters have rallied around politicians who at least seem to feel their pain...

"Racism Isn't Funny": Trump's SNL Gig Draws Outrage, Calls to Disrupt Show  Common Dreams  ...From civil rights groups to lawmakers to Hollywood A-listers, members of the public are furious that the popular comedy program Saturday Night Live (SNL) has invited 2016 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump—whose rhetoric demonizing immigrants has reportedly inspired hate crimes—to host its November 7th show...

Today's Teamster News 09.14.15

Teamsters
Hoffa, Gov. Nixon Rally With Hundreds to Defeat Right-to-Work in Missouri  Teamster.org  ... Teamsters General President James P. Hoffa joined Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon and Missouri AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer and House Minority Leader Jake Hummel at a rally in Kansas City, Mo. today to support a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers working to uphold the governor’s veto of right-to-work legislation...
Hoffa: Mo. Legislature Must Remember Workers While Mulling RTW Veto Override  Huffington Post  ...Corporations, not satisfied enough with their sky-high profits, are trying yet again to rally Missouri lawmakers in an attempt to override the veto of Gov. Jay Nixon and pass so-called right-to-work (RTW) legislation that would drive down salaries and hamper workplace rights of everyday workers. A bipartisan collection of legislators stand in the way of an override. And the Teamsters and other allies are mobilizing in advance...
Teamsters Union Remembers Sept. 11  Teamster.org  ...The Teamsters Union remembers the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks today, and the Teamster members who were critical to rescue, recovery and rebuilding efforts. The Teamster response to the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, was enormous and encompassed dozens of Teamster local unions across multiple states...
Mediation resumes Monday between school bus company, workers  Newsday  ...Federal mediation will resume Monday between a Long Island school bus company and its workers in a dispute that could affect an estimated 15,000 students in Nassau and Suffolk counties. Ronkonkoma-based Baumann & Sons Buses Inc. and its affiliate, Acme Buses, and employees in Teamsters Local 1205 had resumed talks at 4 p.m. Thursday...
Kansas City Unions Rally As Crucial 'Right To Work' Vote Nears In Missouri  KCUR  ...More than 500 union members and politicians rallied in Kansas City on Saturday to show their support for Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon's veto of a so-called "right-to-work" bill. International Brotherhood of Teamsters President James P. Hoffa spoke passionately to the crowd of people packed into the Teamsters Local 41 hall...

Global Labor & Trade
TPP talks motor on  Politico  ...Trade negotiators from Japan, Canada and Mexico are back in their capitals to mull the progress they made during three days of talks in Washington last week on auto issues in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. "There are issues we still have to resolve," Japan's lead auto negotiator, Takeo Mori, told reporters late Friday. Negotiators were “very productive” but will have to consult with their governments...
Auto parts differences between Japan, U.S. and others seen clouding prospects for next TPP ministerial talks  The Japan Times  ...The 12 countries taking part in Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade negotiations are likely to face difficulties in arranging a ministerial meeting as Japan, the United States and others were unable to narrow the gap over the automotive sector in recent working-level talks. The participating nations are aiming to hold a ministerial session later this month or in early October...
Japan's Amari says Japan-U.S. auto trade talks 'very severe'  Reuters  ...Japanese Economy Minister Akira Amari said on Friday officials from Japan and the United States are having "very severe" auto trade talks but aim to narrow the gap between the two sides. Amari also said the schedule for the next round of talks among ministers from a 12 nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact cannot be fixed unless there is the prospect for an agreement...
Kenya: Cotu Suspends Nationwide Workers Strike  AllAfrica  ...The Central Organization of Trade Unions (COTU) has suspended a nationwide workers strike slated for Monday. COTU Secretary-General Francis Atwoli said that they took the action pending a Tuesday's court ruling on case by Teachers Service Commission in which it is challenging the legality of the two week old teachers strike...
First-Ever Domestic Workers Union Launched in Mexico   Solidarity Center  ...Dozens of union members and their allies from across Mexico gathered today to celebrate the official launch of the country’s first domestic workers’ union, SINACTTRAHO. The union’s formation culminated a 15-year struggle for rights on the job by those whose work often goes unrecognized, and today’s events marked the union filing for official government recognition...
Across Europe, Tens of Thousands Rally to Welcome Refugees  Common Dreams  ...Tens of thousands of Europeans took to streets in London and elsewhere across the continent Saturday in a massive demonstration of support and solidarity for those seeking refuge from the war and violence in the Middle East. The day of action was called to welcome the refugees, and send a signal to leaders worldwide who have either turned their back or or reluctantly agreed to house a small portion of the migrants...
In Upset, Socialist Jeremy Corbyn Elected as U.K. Labour Leader on Antiwar, Pro-Refugee Platform  Democracy Now  ...Longtime British socialist MP Jeremy Corbyn has just been elected leader of the opposition Labour Party after running on an antiwar, anti-austerity platform. When Corbyn first announced his candidacy three months ago, oddsmakers put his odds of winning at 200 to one. But on Saturday, Corbyn won in a landslide...

State & Living Wage Battles
Scott Walker wants every state to be a right-to-work state  Washington Post  ...Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) is best known for severely weakening the public unions in his state in 2011, sparking angry protests and a recall election that he survived. Now, as Walker tries to revive his bid for the presidency, he is reminding primary voters of that fight -- and plans to call for sweeping national labor reforms during a speech in Las Vegas on Monday afternoon...
Unions rally against 'right-to-work' override in Missouri  St. Louis Public Radio  ...Union members are making sure Missouri Republican lawmakers who voted against ‘right-to-work’ earlier this year know that they will have union support during the next election. Missouri's chapter of the AFL-CIO held a rally and knocked on doors Saturday in Jefferson County ahead of the General Assembly’s veto session next Wednesday. That's when a vote to override Gov. Jay Nixon's veto of a  "right-to-work" bill could be brought to the floor...
Senator says Unemployment Bill Could Wind up in Court  OzarksFirst  ...State Senate Republicans think they can override the veto of an unemployment bill during the Legislature’s veto session.  The chamber’s Democratic leader disagrees. The bill would reduce the length of time a person could receive unemployment benefits to as few as 13 weeks depending on the state’s unemployment rate. The current length is 20 weeks...
Business, labor groups battle over prevailing wage, corporate income tax initiatives  MiBiz  ...Two statewide petition drives could change the business landscape in Michigan if they’re enacted by the Legislature or eventually passed by voters in 2016. Organized labor groups have started collecting signatures for a plan that would increase the corporate income tax rate from 6 percent to 11 percent to raise $900 million a year for road funding. Meanwhile, labor groups are also opposed to a separate petition drive seeking to repeal Michigan’s prevailing wage law...
Gov. Cuomo: Raising State Minimum Wage Could Spur Economy  CBS  ...Gov. Andrew Cuomo continued his push for a higher state minimum wage on Saturday. As WCBS 880’s Sophia Hall reported, after the governor marched in the Labor Day Parade down Fifth Avenue he said the minimum wage was designed to allow people to work full-time and have a decent living. But Cuomo said on $8.75 an hour, it’s just not enough in New York...
Puerto Rican workers, unions, protest new austerity plan  Reuters  ...Thousands of public sector workers demonstrated on Friday against an austerity plan to help pull Puerto Rico out of a massive debt crisis, saying the private sector should take more of the pain. The island's government is calling for shared sacrifice, and concessions from citizens and investors alike, as it tries to lift itself out of a $72 billion debt hole...
Right Wing's False Narrative on Scott Walker Probe Fueling Attack on Election Watchdog  Truthout  ...Newly-released emails from the now-halted campaign finance investigation into Scott Walker and his allies are being touted by right-wing media as proof of the probe's partisan motivations. In truth, the emails demonstrate that prosecutors had a stated goal of not influencing the gubernatorial election, and show a career federal prosecutor leaning over backwards to avoid doing so...

U.S. Labor
Seattle teacher strike: parents show support despite scheduling upheaval  The Guardian  ...With parents rushing to find last-minute childcare, Seawell and four other families from Hawthorne Elementary collaborated to create an ad hoc childcare collective – a creative solution for a situation that took many by surprise. Despite the inconvenience, Seawell fully supports the teachers entering the third day of a strike that kept kids home on their first days back at school...
Fiat Chrysler in Weaker State Is Surprise UAW Talks Target  Bloomberg  ...The United Auto Workers chose Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, the weakest of the Detroit Three carmakers, as the surprise target for negotiating a new labor agreement, indicating a high priority on having fundamentally similar contracts with all three companies. The choice bucks the union’s tradition of choosing the strongest company among Fiat Chrysler, General Motors Co. or Ford Motor Co. to extract the best terms for its 140,000 members...
Negotiations break down between USW, ArcelorMittal  Duluth News Tribune  ...Te United Steelworkers union reported over the weekend that contract talks with ArcelorMittal have broken down and representatives have returned to plants. The contract negotiations directly affect 30,000 USW workers across the U.S. ArcelorMittal owns and operates the Minorca mine in Virginia with about 300 employees where, so far, layoffs have been avoided...
Evidence Keeps Piling Up: Unions Are Very, Very, Very Good for Workers  Common Dreams  ...With most of the largest organized workforces in the U.S. going to the bargaining table before the end of next year, "it is likely that more workers will be seeking raises through the collective bargaining process in 2015–2016 than at any other point in recent American labor history." So says the AFL-CIO, whose report, released Friday, offers a comprehensive look at the current state of collective bargaining in a period when an estimated 5 million American workers will bargain for new contracts...
Inflation-Adjusted Wages Have Declined Since Great Recession, and Worse for Low-Wage Occupations  Alternet  ...While the overall economy and the job situation has improved markedly since those early months of 2009 when 700-800,000 Americans were being laid off every month, the percentage of people not working or who are working part-time and want full-time jobs or have given up looking for a job but would accept one if offered is still 10.3 percent, well above the pre-recession rate...
Woman Fired For Being Transgender Scores A Victory  Think Progress  ...On Thursday, the Southern Poverty Law Center, which represented her in her lawsuit against Summerford, announced that the nursing home has agreed to pay her a financial settlement, as well as to implement a workplace nondiscrimination policy for sexual orientation and gender and to provide LGBT training for human resource employees...
Scott Walker to Propose Restrictions on Unions Nationwide  Wall Street Journal  ...Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who rose to national prominence by battling his state’s public-sector labor unions, is set to unveil Monday a plan to strip power from unions nationwide. The Republican presidential candidate’s proposal, which he plans to announce at an afternoon speech in Las Vegas, would eliminate the National Labor Relations Board, prohibit federal employee unions, institute right-to-work laws nationwide and repeal the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931...
How Child Care Is Becoming A Crisis In America  Think Progress  ...Child care is both an economic necessity and barrier to employment for most families: 65 percent of children under six have either both parents or a single parent in the workforce. At the same time, most working parents encounter significant barriers to finding affordable, high-quality child care. The cost of child care is increasing squeezing middle class families...

Social Justice & Other News
What Is Really At Stake With The Debate Over Whether To Eliminate Perkins Loans  Think Progress  ...As the Perkins loan program comes back for reauthorization, 95 members of Congress, along with groups representing universities and colleges, are ready to defend it from Republican lawmakers who would like to eliminate it. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, advocates for streamlining student loans by eliminating Perkins and combining the student loan programs into one student loan program...
Meet the busboy who's taking on Donald Trump over immigration  LA Times  ...Aca was angry about Trump's pronouncements that Mexico was sending rapists and criminals to the U.S. An aspiring photographer, he had recently started taking pictures of fellow immigrants holding signs that said, "I am not a rapist" and "I am not a criminal." He said yes to the friend who asked to film him, and they got to work on a short video with a provocative title: "Meet the Undocumented Immigrant Who Works in a Trump Hotel"...

Today's Teamster News 11.08.13

Teamster Taxi Drivers Call On D.C. Mayor To Apologize For Offensive Comment  teamster.org   ...“District taxi drivers are calling on Mayor Vincent Gray to publicly apologize for the shameful and callous comment made by his spokesman yesterday in an online Washingtonian article about a lawsuit filed by the Teamster-affiliated Washington, D.C. Taxi Operators Association...
New lawsuit targets D.C. taxicab rules  Washington Post   ...D.C.’s new Teamsters-affilliated cab drivers group has wasted no time raising its profile. On Monday, less than a week after holding their first organization meeting, the members marched to deliver a letter to Mayor Vincent Gray protesting the city’s decision to impound taxis that failed to install new dome lights by Nov. 1...
Talks Begin Between A-B InBev, Teamsters  CBS KMOX News   ...It’s uncharted territory as the Teamsters begin contract talks with Anheuser-Busch InBev for the first talks since InBev purchased A-B five years ago...
A Message to our Active-Duty Military and Veterans from Jim Hoffa  teamster.org   ...On this Veteran’s Day, I want to say thank you for your service to our country. The Teamsters Union is so grateful to all the men and women in uniform, from recent active duty veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq to those who have served in previous years...
International Fact-Finding Mission To Probe IKEA’s Behavior In Canada  itfglobal.org   ...An international fact-finding team has arrived in Canada to examine an ongoing dispute at Swedish retail giant IKEA’s Richmond, British Columbia, store. The team is tasked with investigating the situation at the store, where 350 workers who are members of Teamsters Local 213, have been locked out by the company...
Greensburg City Council budget to call for no tax increase or service cuts, raises for public workers Pittsburgh Tribune-Review   ...Greensburg City Council will introduce a 2014 budget next week that calls for no increase in real estate taxes or cuts in services, and a contract that includes a pay increase for the public service workers represented by Teamsters Local 30 in Jeannette, Pennsylvania...
Tearing out asbestos with bare hands: Meet the boss from hell  Salon   ...A group of immigrants say their boss wielded their status as a weapon when they stood up to extreme abuses: from hanging from the top of a four-story building without scaffolding, to removing asbestos without gloves...
“They have blood on their hands”: Meet Wal-Mart’s worst nightmare  Salon   ...A top Bangladesh labor leader slams retailers, issues a plea to consumers, and explains why her life is in danger...
Anonymous Wal-Mart workers unload and urge protests on new website  Salon   ...On second day of a strike, a labor group unveils the latest tool for combining the web with old-fashioned organizing...
How Can the New York Times Endorse an Agreement the Public Can't Read?  Electronic Frontier Foundation   ...The New York Times' editorial board has made a disappointing endorsement of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), even as the actual text of the agreement remains secret. That raises two distressing possibilities: either in an act of extraordinary subservience, the Times has endorsed an agreement that neither the public nor its editors have the ability to read. Or, in an act of extraordinary cowardice, it has obtained a copy of the secret text and hasn't yet fulfilled its duty to the public interest to publish it...
Exxon “disappointed” with $2.7 million fine for Arkansas pipeline spill  Salon   ...The company was found to have violated safety regulations in the 5,000-gallon spill in Arkansas that forced residents to evacuate their homes…
Senate bill targets corporations that deduct settlement payouts  Washington Post   ...JPMorgan Chase’s pending $13 billion settlement with the Justice Department has revived calls from some in Congress that corporations should be prevented from claiming tax deductions on such deals...
Wall Street Bonuses May Rise 10 Percent This Year  Reuters   ...Wall Street's biggest risk takers - its bond traders - will probably see their bonuses drop this year, while people in safer roles, such as money managers, will likely get a boost, according to a forecast by compensation consulting firm Johnson Associates...
Three Graphs That Show How Being A Young Adult In America Is A Financial Nightmare  The Atlantic   ...Poverty is an astonishingly common experience here in the world's richest country. Almost 40 percent of American adults experience it for at least a year by age 60...
The Cost Of Childcare Rose Last Year, Is More Than Rent Or Food  ThinkProgress   ...Families paid more for childcare in 2012 than in 2011, with the costs of center care rising by 2.7 percent for an infant and 2.6 percent for a four-year-old, which eat up a huge amount of families’ budgets, according to a new report...
FBI ‘Accidentally’ Investigated Anti-War Site For Six Years  Fire Dog Lake   ...When the managing editor of antiwar.com, sent an email to the FBI requesting help in dealing with threats to hack his website he probably didn’t realize HE was going to become the subject of the investigation. But that is exactly what happened. How do you "accidentally" do something for six years?...
C.I.A. Is Said to Pay AT&T for Call Data  New York Times   ...The C.I.A. is paying AT&T more than $10 million a year to assist with overseas counterterrorism investigations by exploiting the company’s vast database of phone records, which includes Americans’ international calls, according to government officials...
As Twitter Goes Public, Taxpayers Stand To Lose Billions On Tech Stocks  ThinkProgress   ...The hotly anticipated Twitter IPO calls attention to stock option tax breaks that cost taxpayers billions...
Wells Fargo to pay $335M to settle FHFA dispute  Associated Press   ...Wells Fargo will pay $335 million to resolve claims that it misled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac about risky mortgage securities that it sold them prior to the housing collapse...