Today's Teamster News 08.07.14

Teamster News
Unions No Enemy To Achievement  Worcester Telegram and Gazette   ...Last month, teachers at the Advanced Math and Science Academy Charter School in Marlboro voted to join the Teamsters, and in so doing picked the scab of a festering lie — that unions are the enemy of a competitive American business climate...
GET Officials Summoned To City Council Meeting  Bakersfield Californian   ...Tuesday, GET issued a news release spelling out for the first time its weeks-old bargaining position with Teamsters Local 517, the union representing the more than 250 bus drivers and mechanics who walked off the job July 15...
Tentative agreement reached between Sun Tran, Teamsters  Tucson Business   ...Sun Tran officials and representatives of Teamsters Local 104 have announced a tentative agreement on a new contract and assured normal bus service through at least tomorrow...
Teamsters Support Rep. Dan Maffei  Teamsters Locals 294 and 317   ..."Local Teamster Unions 294 and 317 proudly support Rep. Dan Maffei because he is a proven leader for the hardworking men and women of Central New York and someone who has worked tirelessly on efforts to strengthen the middle and grow the economy...
Trade
Trade Gap Shrinks To Five-Month Low As U.S. Imports Drop  Bloomberg News   ...The gap shrank 7 percent to $41.5 billion, the smallest since January, from May’s $44.7 billion, Commerce Department figures showed today...
State Battles
Thousands Attend Mountain Moral Monday In Asheville  USA Today   ...Barber said lawmakers are hurting schools and children by not adequately funding education. They have taken away rights through sweeping restrictions on how people vote, he said. They have raised taxes on working people and cut taxes for the rich and corporations, he said...
Map: Where's Scott Walker?  The Cap Times   ...Since November 2012, the governor has been traveling the country — most recently to Colorado — looking a lot like a 2016 presidential candidate...
Just how accurate are Wisconsin's vote counting machines?  Daily Isthmus   ..."You don't need to understand the intricacies of computer security to understand that if computers managed by the likes of Target and the Federal Reserve Bank can be hacked, computers managed by my municipality or county can be hacked," she says...
Union-Backed City Council Members Clear The Way For Referendum On $12.25 Minimum Wage  Daily Signal   ...Last week, the council voted, 5-3, against a moderate proposal to raise the minimum wage over time and to exempt small businesses in the early stages so they could adjust. The council did so to clear the way for a ballot measure to put before the voters in November that would raise the wage for all businesses to $12.25 beginning in March...
War On Workers
How the Decline of Labor Unions Led to Stagnant Wages  Motley Fool   ...From the years 2000 to 2012, college graduates saw a rise in pay of only 1% . For those with a high school diploma or only a smattering of college, wages actually fell during that time span...
Guitar Center Accused Of Unfair Labor Practices  Huffington Post   ...More than a year after its initial election victory at a Guitar Center store, the union representing the chain's first unionized employees is accusing the retailer of bargaining in "bad faith" and trying to purge the union...
Minn. Restaurant Charging Customers Minimum Wage Fee  CBS News   ...People eating at a Stillwater restaurant Tuesday noticed a new fee added to their bill. Owners of the Oasis Cafe are charging a 35 cent minimum wage fee. They say it’s to offset the cost of an increased minimum wage for tipped employees...
A comprehensive investigation of voter impersonation finds 31 credible incidents out of one billion ballots cast  Washington Post   ...ID laws are not aimed at the fraud you’ll actually hear about. Most current ID laws (Wisconsin is a rare exception) aren’t designed to stop fraud with absentee ballots (indeed, laws requiring ID at the polls push more people into the absentee system, where there are plenty of real dangers). Or vote buying. Or coercion. Or fake registration forms. Or voting from the wrong address. Or ballot box stuffing by officials in on the scam. In the 243-page document that Mississippi State Sen. Chris McDaniel filed on Monday with evidence of allegedly illegal votes in the Mississippi Republican primary, there were no allegations of the kind of fraud that ID can stop...
Part-time workers find full-time jobs elusive  McClatchy   ...The number of unemployed people is 24 percent higher now than it was in December 2007 when the recession began. But the number of people like Alexander _ known as involuntary part-time workers _ is 66 percent higher, more than double what it was back then...
The 1% May Be Richer Than You Think, Research Shows  Bloomberg   ...The 1 percent is literally rich beyond measure, depriving nations of billions in tax revenue and obscuring shifts in global inequality...
AP Source: BofA Nears $16-$17B Settlement With US  Associated Press   ...Bank of America is nearing a $16 billion to $17 billion settlement to resolve an investigation into its role in the sale of mortgage-backed securities before the 2008 financial crisis...
New Statistics: Pregnancy Discrimination Claims Hit Low-Wage Workers Hardest  Washington Post   ...pregnancy discrimination cases show some of the most overt, if unconscious, discrimination of any cases they litigate. Now, new data released by the EEOC show that that discrimination hits virtually every industry and every geographic area of the country...
Highway 101 Worker Killed In Redwood City When Driver Veers Off Road  CBS News   ...A highway road worker was killed Tuesday after a car ran off of Highway 101 in Redwood City and into a crew worksite...
Miscellaneous
Subpoena Could Drag The NFL Into Cheerleader Wage-Theft Cases  Bloomberg Businessweek   ...Roger Goodell, the NFL commissioner under scrutiny for his response to domestic violence allegations against a running back, now faces a further potential headache: a subpoena seeking to depose him on the league’s role in cheerleaders’ pay (or lack thereof)...
New Post-Snowden Leaks Reveal Secret Details Of U.S. Terrorist Watch List  Time Magazine   ...The published documents describe government efforts using the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE), a database used by federal state and local law-enforcement agencies to identify and track known or suspected terrorist suspects. The database has been subject to public debate and federal litigation, because of the secretive process that determines inclusion on this list...

Today's Teamster News 05.23.14

Have a wonderful holiday, everyone! TeamsterNation will be on hiatus over the Memorial Day holiday. We'll see you again Tuesday morning!
Teamster News
Youngstown Approves Pacts With 2 Employee Unions  Insurance News Net   ...City council approved contracts with two labor unions that provide salary increases for the first time in about four years. The deals with Teamsters Local 377, which represents 30 street department workers...
Trade
TTIP: EU And US Prepare To Enhance Global Corporatocracy With Free Trade Deal  International Business Times   ...Belgian MP Alain Maron, who was one of the 200 arrested in Belgium last Thursday, May 15, as an unauthorized protest against TTIP broke out in Brussels, branded the deal "an erosion of consumer and human rights."...
State Battles
Two Ways Chris Christie Screwed Over Pensioners for GOP Donors  In These Times   ...Christie isn't being forced to renege on the pension payment—he's choosing to spend money on corporate subsidies and investment fees rather than on those pension promises...
EXCLUSIVE: We name the political donors whose firms got $14bn of pension cash from New Jersey  Pando   ...political donors associated with 43 financial firms managing New Jersey pension money have spent a total of $11.6 million on contributions to New Jersey politicians and to major political organizations operating in New Jersey elections...
Koch Brothers' Detroit Abomination: Stunning Avarice And Cruelty Reaches New Low  Salon.com   ...After much controversy and debate, Michigan's Republican Gov. Rick Snyder has agreed to provide $195 million in state funding that will limit pension cuts to no more than 4.5 percent and protect the Detroit Institute of Art from liquidating its collection. "This is a settlement. This is not a bailout." Snyder said. "And I want to be very, very clear about that." Not so fast Gov. Snyder. Americans for Prosperity has built a shiny new website...
War On Workers
Just Released: What Kinds of Jobs Have Been Created during the Recovery?  Liberty Street Economics   ...during the recession, the vast majority of jobs that were lost in the nation and across the region were middle-skill jobs, such as construction workers, teachers, machine operators, and administrative support workers. These jobs have not come back during the recovery...
Students Now Indentured to the Banksters  Truthout   ...Back in January, 31-year-old Tony Muzzatti, who at the time owed around $60,000 in student loan debt to Sallie Mae and always made on-time payments, was told that he had to immediately make a payment of $10,000, or face asset seizures. That's because his grandmother, who also happened to be his cosigner on the student loans, had just died...
Business That Bashed Obama's OSHA Just Had Horrifying Industrial Accident  Huffington Post   ...During the 2012 presidential campaign, Wisconsin businessman Lance Johnson said President Barack Obama's workplace safety inspectors were burdening him and killing jobs with too much red tape. "I've never been audited by more government agencies in my life than I have under Obama." Johnson, president of Johnson Brass & Machine Foundry Inc. in Saukville, Wisconsin, told the Wall Street Journal in a Nov. 2, 2012 campaign story. On Monday, Johnson's foundry was the site of a horrifying industrial accident...
Cutting Off Emergency Unemployment Benefits Hasn't Pushed People Back To Work  Five Thirty Eight   ...Of the roughly 1.3 million Americans whose benefits disappeared with the end of the program, only a quarter had found jobs as of March, about the same success rate as when the program was still in effect; roughly another quarter had given up searching...
Larry Summers: Student Debt Is Slowing The U.S. Housing Recovery  Wall Street Journal   ...Former White House adviser Lawrence Summers said Wednesday that student debt is slowing the housing recovery and the broader economic recovery, adding a prominent voice to the debate in Washington...
Over 100 McDonald's Workers Arrested Protesting Outside Shareholder Meeting  Think Progress   ...More than 100 workers and dozens of other protesters were arrested during peaceful protests outside McDonald's corporate headquarters on Wednesday. On Thursday, a thousand McDonald's workers and their supporters are marching on the company's Oak Brook, Illinois campus...
Sallie Mae Torments Faithful Student Borrowers After Co-Signers Die  Huffington Post   ...Seven borrowers who had been paying their Sallie Mae student loans on time for years were unexpectedly threatened with asset seizures after a Sallie Mae contractor demanded they immediately repay tens of thousands of dollars simply because a family member had died...
Miscellaneous
Ray LaHood Declares U.S. Highways ‘One Big Pothole’ at ALK Summit  Truckinginfo   ...Former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood opened the second day of the ALK Technology Summit in Princeton, N.J., on Wednesday by telling attendees that while the U.S. is "the greatest country in the world [our] transportation and infrastructure is a big mess..."
NSA reform bill loses backing from privacy advocates after major revisions  The Guardian   ...A landmark surveillance bill, likely to pass the US House of Representatives on Thursday, is hemorrhaging support from the civil libertarians and privacy advocates who were its champions from the start...

Banks hate the CFPB, and now House Republicans are trying to weaken it

,br /> A new public database that lists customer complaints about the way banks treat them is threatening to force banks to clean up their act -- and the banks don't like it one little bit.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau manages the database (you can see if your bank is on it here). The American Banker reported last year that consumers are now banks' biggest regulatory threat -- because of the database:

CFPB officials have aggressively urged consumers to file a complaint on the agency's public database, which has swelled to more than 200,000 complaints since going live in March. The agency uses that data to determine where it will focus its attention next, including both what regulations it writes and enforcement actions it takes against individual institutions. 

As a result, some observers said banks need to realize that the best way to avoid the added attention or an enforcement action derived from complaints is by making it easier for customers to resolve the issue with the institution first. That includes improving the visibility of their complaint-taking systems and attempting to address problems quickly before a customer seeks out regulators for help.
"All of the [banking] agencies are looking at complaints much more intensely," said Ed Kramer, executive vice president of regulatory affairs at Wolters Kluwer Financial Services.

That's why House Republicans are doing the banks' bidding and trying to cripple the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Today, the House House Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit today heard testimony on 11 bills that weaken the CFPB's authority, subject it to regulatory burdens and possible litigation. 

Here are some more reasons why the banks hate the CFPB:

• It has returned more than $400 million to nearly 6 million consumers cheated by credit card companies; 
• Established rules to ban banks and mortgage companies from lending money without verifying borrowers' ability to repay; 
• Protected military families against illegal foreclosures;
• Protected veterans from for-profit trade school scams; 
• Allowed consumers to find out how much they are charged for sending money overseas; 
• Investigated banks for abusive overdraft practices.

How ALEC and AT&T are trying to screw you

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is teaming up with the country's largest telecommunications company to try to raise prices and limit phone and internet service for consumers and businesses. And the regulatory agency that oversees U.S. communications policy is listening and taking preliminary steps to implement the plan.

ALEC, which is mostly an escort service for corporations and state lawmakers, is going national on this matter. Its member company AT&T filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) last year calling for a nationwide upgrade of communications networks. That would involve replacing more of the existing copper infrastructure with fiber-optic cable over several years. AT&T wants such changes be tested in different pilot programs across the U.S. Earlier in the month, a FCC task force charged with looking into the issue agreed, proposing the agency conduct select trials.

No one is doubting that fiber networks are better. They provider faster broadband service, clearer voice service and video programming. But there is small print with big repercussions for the public on this issue. Under existing law, AT&T, Verizon and other phone companies formerly part of the nation's Bell system need to allow competitors access to the copper network so they too can provide service. That obligation would go away with a fiber network.

As Bruce Kushnick, executive director of the New Networks Institute, details in his recent Huffington Post column:

AT&T and the telcos keep talking about free markets and competition, when, in fact, one of the goals of this transition is to close down the rights of all competitors currently using the networks. In fact, AT&T's plan has been to get the government to protect their business by writing laws to block competitors.

In August, 2012, AT&T wrote that the FCC should eliminate any requirements or obligations on AT&T and the local phone companies and remove the rights of competitors to rent the networks at wholesale rates.

Other consumer protections would disappear. Requirements that AT&T and other landline phone companies serve all customers in their territories would be removed. So would many customer service regulations. And state regulatory commissions that have had oversight of these telephone companies for decades would lose much of their role. The result? Higher prices and less consumer protections.

The petition also discounts all the gains that have been made to improve copper networks. Many competitive telecom companies have been able to ramp up Internet speeds over the existing infrastructure through technological innovations. Copper networks are also more reliable during bad weather and natural disasters because they can provide phone service even if a home or business loses power.

There is still time for concerned citizens to contact the FCC and tell them not to allow ALEC and telecom big-wigs to dictate policy that will hurt the public. Let the agency know that consumers count!

Kitty litter in cigarettes, horsemeat in burritos

As Congress  flushes the U.S. economy into into the toilet allows across-the-board government spending cuts, Gawker brings us two gems that show why consumers need more (not less) government protection from powerful corporations.

First we learn the spreading horse meat scandal now hits Taco Bell:

The latest round of tests conducted by Britain's Food Standards Agency found that ground beef used at all local Taco Bell locations contained trace amounts of horse DNA...

Ikea had to stop selling Swedish meatballs after horse meat was found in them. Burger King also acknowledged that some of its burgers had horse meat in them.

Taco Bell released a statement in the U.S., saying:

Our domestic restaurants have not been, and will not be, impacted because we do not use any meat from Europe. We stand for quality and we use 100% premium beef. Like all beef in the United States, ours is USDA inspected and then passes our own 20 quality checkpoints.

Well, maybe not for long, according to Food Safety News:

...the nearly 9 percent across-the-board budget cut could mean that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which oversees 80 percent of the food supply, could cut 2,100 food facility inspections and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, in charge of meat and poultry safety, could be forced to furlough all its employees for a total of 15 days to meet the reductions.

Then there's this charming item about tobacco companies putting kitty litter in cigarettes to avoid a federal excise tax. Gawker tells us:

Apparently there is cat litter in cigarettes—or rather the clay found in cat litter is used in cigarettes as filler. This allows tobacco companies to "weigh down" their cigarettes so that they will fall into the "large cigar" category-helping the companies avoid a federal excise tax increase of 2,653%. The rule goes as follows:

It requires "a rolled tobacco product to weigh at least 3 pounds per 1,000 to be labeled as a 'large' or 'premium' cigar where taxes increased just 155 percent."

This filler is legal; though the rule states that weight must be achieved to qualify as a large cigar, there is no stipulation about how this weight is achieved.

Corporate tax avoidance is a big reason the U.S. government doesn't have enough revenue to meet its obligations. Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa commented on that today:

We cannot allow working people to again be victimized by the Republican Party’s ongoing battle to protect billionaires and multinational corporations from their responsibility to pay their fair share of taxes. 

By not acting to end the sequester, Republicans are telling us that that these tax loopholes and their billionaire benefactors are more important than creating jobs and stimulating commercial activity in their own country. They prefer to defend an unfair tax code while attacking retirement and health benefits that Americans work all their lives to earn.

Read the whole thing here.