Showing posts with label debt collectors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label debt collectors. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Today's Teamster News 07.16.14

Teamster News
Teamsters Propose End To Potential $283M Executive Pay Give-Away At McKesson  IBT   ...ISS, the country’s largest proxy advisor, announced its recommendation that McKesson shareholders vote ‘FOR’ Item #6 on the company proxy to support a Teamster-sponsored proposal that urges the company to address the automatic accelerated vesting of equity awards in the event of a change of control and termination...
YRC, Teamsters Sign Off On New Board Member  Kansas City Business Journal   ...William "Bob" Davidson will join YRC Worldwide. Late Friday, the Overland Park-based less-than-truckload carrier (Nasdaq: YRCW) and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters announced that the union-nominated company-approved Davidson will join YRC's nine-member board...
Events July 17-20 To Commemorate 80th Anniversary Of 1934 Teamsters Strike  Twin Cities Daily Planet   ...Events planned for four days July 17-20 will commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Minneapolis Teamsters strikes of 1934. considered the most significant single labor event in Minnesota history. Films, music, speeches, a march, a street festival, a picnic and a lecture by the author of a new book about the 1934 strike will be featured. Event organizers also have reached out to descendants of 1934 strikers to include them in 80th anniversary events...
Oxford Deputies To Picket Courthouse Tuesday To Protest Wages  Oxford Hills Sun Journal   ...Oxford County Sheriff's deputies are expected to picket in front of the courthouse on Western Avenue on Tuesday morning to draw attention to their labor dispute with the county. Deputies are asking for a contract, higher wages and a reinstatement of border patrols, according to Ray Cote, Teamsters Local 340 representative...
GET Bus Strike Starts At 12:01 A.M. Tuesday  Bakersfield Californian   ...With no breakthrough in sight Monday, a six-month-old labor dispute pushed Bakersfield to the brink of its first bus strike in 34 years. The union representing 257 bus drivers and mechanics at Golden Empire Transit District said its members walked off the job at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday after failing to reach agreement with management on raises and some drivers' classification...
Trade
Japan, U.S. to meet again in August on TPP  Japan Times   ...Japan and the United States reaffirmed their commitment to settle as soon as possible the disputes standing in the way of finalizing the Trans-Pacific Partnership, agreeing to hold talks again next month, Japanese officials said...
Dems Push to Delay Trans-Pacific Partnership Until After Elections  New American   ...Democrats in Congress are pumping the brakes on negotiations of a multinational trade pact, worried that a significant bloc of their base would leave the party should the agreement be approved before the November elections...
State Battles
Activists Pitch L.A. Ballot Measure For Citywide $15 Minimum Wage  Los Angeles Times   ...A coalition of activists has taken the first step in a campaign for a $15 minimum wage for workers across Los Angeles, drafting language for a ballot measure that would follow in the footsteps of a boost recently approved in Seattle...
Obama admin to join voting rights cases in Ohio and Wisconsin  MSNBC   ...The moves would represent the first time that Holder’s Justice Department has intervened against statewide voting laws outside the areas that the Supreme Court freed from federal oversight in last year’s Shelby County v. Holder ruling...
War On Workers
The Inverted World of Mobile Capital  Project Syndicate   ...A growing number of American companies are seeking to move their legal headquarters abroad by acquiring or merging with foreign companies...
A Push to Give Steadier Shifts to Part-Timers  New York Times   ...The recent, rapid spread of on-call employment to retail and other sectors has prompted proposals that would require companies to pay employees extra for on-call work and to give two weeks’ notice of a work schedule...
Debt Collection 'Factory' Preyed On Broke Americans: Lawsuit  Huffington Post   ...A federal watchdog is suing a collection agency that allegedly operated like a "factory" churning out lawsuits against cash-strapped borrowers, often using misleading, deceptive and illegal practices...
The Staples Boycott: A Big Teachers Union Gets on Board  Wall Street Journal   ...“Postal workers are the most amazing public servants,” said American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten. “Who does Staples really want and need to come into its stores every single day? Teachers. The best way we can help is if we say to Staples: ‘You do this to the postal workers, and we aren’t buying supplies in your stores.’”...
A Tale Of ‘Too Big To Fail’ In Higher Education  New York Times   ...to varying degrees, the predicament of unaccountable colleges overseen by ineffective accreditors exists nationwide...
Miscellaneous
Germany's plan to take on NSA: Block eavesdroppers with classical music, and use typewriters  Telegraph   ...Politicians in Germany have devised an ingenious solution to combat the threat of eavesdropping by American spies: playing classical music during their meetings...
Senators Blast NCAA, ESPN In Review Of College Athletics  Roll Call   ...Senators hammered NCAA President Mark Emmert on July 9, as questions about student-athlete compensation, graduation rates, health care and sexual assault took center stage. Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., kicked off by (saying) ... There’s a growing perception that college athletics, particularly Division I football and basketball, are not avocations at all. What they really are is highly profitable commercial enterprises.”...

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Today's Teamster News 03.19.14

Teamster News
Teamster bus drivers at CCTA will continue strike  Associated Press ...About 70 bus drivers, represented by Teamsters Local 597, went on strike Monday leaving about 9,500 people who ride the buses every day in Burlington, Vermont scrambling...
Teamster Simulator Technicians at Southwest Approve New Contract  Dallas Morning News   ...Southwest Airlines and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters announced Friday that flight simulation technicians have approved a two-year contract...
Teamsters: Ask Congress to Fund High Speed Rail and Amtrak  teamster.org   ...The Republicans in the House have taken a whack at funding for Amtrak and eliminated funding for high speed rail. They want to cut federal spending on Amtrak by 29 percent and eliminate funding for High Speed Rail...
Pepsi Lays Off 60 Workers  WREG-TV   ...Meetings are underway between the PepsiCo company and Teamsters Local 984 after 60 employees were laid off unexpectedly Thursday. The company says it was a matter of efficiency, but the union says PepsiCo violated the law by not giving workers a 60 day notice...
Teamsters: Poverty Is Bad For Your Health  teamster.org   ...Covering the tab for life’s basic needs has always been tough for lower income people. But increasing reports make it clear that being a member of the working poor is also hazardous to your health and could drive you to an early grave...
Trade
New Study Shows Dangers of Trade Agreements that Help Corporations Sue Governments  naked capitalism   ...Pacific Rim/OceanaGold is ...  one of 31 oil, gas, and mining corporations suing governments in Latin America in the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), based at the World Bank. ICSID is the most frequently used tribunal under existing pro-corporate, anti-democratic trade and investment rules...
Korea Trade Agreement – Exports Actually Decrease  Trade Reform   ...the USTR is embarrassed that our exports to Korea actually decreased since the Korea trade and global government agreement was passed.  Yes.  Exports (not net exports) decreased...
State Battles
New York Settles With McDonald's Restaurants In Wage Theft Investigation
  Huffington Post   ...New York state has reached a settlement with the owner of seven McDonald's franchises that will give nearly $500,000 to fast-food workers who claimed they were shorted on pay, according to state Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman...
Calif. Gov. Brown takes swipes at GOP, praises labor unions  Los Angeles Times   ...Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown gave a rousing pro-worker speech to a ballroom filled with union representatives Monday night, thanking organized labor for helping pass his vote-approved tax hike in 2012 and worker's compensation reform and vowing to be “around for the next five years.’’...
How Auto Dealers Are Muscling State Legislatures Into Barring Tesla Motors  AlterNet   ...New Jersey is the latest state to ban the electric car company from selling directly to consumers, which threatens auto dealers' business model. Is New York next?...
RI pension settlement ballots mailed
  Associated Press   ...Mail ballots have been sent to the retired and active public workers who will soon decide the fate of a proposed settlement in the litigation surrounding Rhode Island’s 2011 pension overhaul...
War on Workers
The rich strike back   Politico   ...“I hope it’s not working,” Ken Langone, the billionaire co-founder of Home Depot and major GOP donor, said of populist political appeals. “Because if you go back to 1933, with different words, this is what Hitler was saying in Germany. You don’t survive as a society if you encourage and thrive on envy or jealousy...”
Southern California Port Truck Drivers Allege Labor Exploitation  New America Media   ...A new report by a national labor rights group says that the port truck driving industry is rampant with examples of companies employing tactics to exploit drivers, from misclassification as an independent contractor, to depriving drivers of employee benefits, workplace standards and proper wages…
Fifth financial executive with ties to JPMorgan found dead  Housing Wire   ...Just over 11 weeks into 2014 comes tragic news that an 11th financial executive has apparently committed suicide...
The Plummeting Labor Market Fortunes of Teens and Young Adults  Brookings   ...Employment prospects for teens and young adults in the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas plummeted between 2000 and 2011. On a number of measures—employment rates, labor force underutilization, unemployment, and year-round joblessness—teens and young adults fared poorly, and sometimes disastrously...
Inside Low-wage Workers’ Plan to Sue McDonald’s — and Win  Portside   ...The wall that fast food workers hope to blast through with these class-action suits is the franchise system. All of the lawsuits name McDonald’s itself as a defendant, even though most of the targeted restaurants are owned not by McDonald’s but by McDonald’s franchisees...
Union chief accuses SEPTA of trying to provoke strike  Philadelphia Inquirer   ...With no bargaining talks scheduled between SEPTA and transit workers, the president of the agency's largest union accused it of trying to provoke a strike...
Amazon’s near sweatshops and awful conditions: It doesn’t have to be this way   Salon ...Labor conditions at Amazon and Wal-Mart are like the pre-New Deal era. These reforms, working elsewhere, would help...
The Shocking Ways Debt Collectors Are Hounding U.S. Military Service Members  AlterNet   ...Companies use threats of rank reduction and courts-martial...
Miscellaneous
Coalition Files Lawsuit Against Idaho Ag-Gag Law That Targets Journalism, Whistleblowing & Speech  Fire Dog Lake   ...A coalition of groups and journalists are challenging a law passed in Idaho, which makes it possible for anyone who secretly films or records animal abuse to be jailed for up to a year...
2013 Was a Record Year For Oil-Train Accidents, and Insurers Are Wary  Alternet   ...All told, railcar accidents spilled more than 1.15 million gallons of crude oil in 2013, federal data shows, compared with an average of just 22,000 gallons a year from 1975 through 2012 — a fifty-fold spike...
24 States Pressure Walmart, Walgreens To Stop Selling Cigarettes  Huffington Post   ...Attorney Generals from 24 states, Washington D.C., and three U.S. territories sent letters to the country's biggest pharmaceutical retailers Monday, including Walmart and Walgreens, asking them to stop selling tobacco products...
9 Retailers Closing The Most Stores  24/7 Wall St.   ...Brick-and-mortar retailers have been suffering from slow economic activity for years, as well as from increased competition from online retailers. The rise in store closings is a prominent sign of their struggles...

Saturday, March 15, 2014

Today's Teamster News 03.15.14

Teamster News
Donora OKs four-year Teamster contract for police
  Pittsburgh Tribune-Review   ...The Donora, Penn. council unanimously approved a tentative four-year contract with Teamsters Local 205 that includes a wage increase and one-time bonuses for four full-time officers and several part-time officers...
Teamsters Secure New Contract with Richland Township  Penn Live   ...Richland Township employees will receive a raise of at least 75 cents per hour for this year, approved March 5, the same night that township supervisors endorsed a new five-year contract with Teamsters Local 205, based in White Oak, Penn., which represents six full-time public-works employees...
Food contracts cycle underway again for Southern Calif. Teamsters, UFCW  People's World   ...A historic core industry of the two major unions (Teamsters and UFCW) in Southern California, retail food, has begun its every-five-years-or-so cycle of bare-knuckle contract negotiations...
3 Labor Organizations Endorse Deb Goldberg for MA Treasurer
  GoLocalWorchester   ...Deb Goldberg's campaign for Massachusetts Treasurer received a boost Thursday after receiving endorsements from Teamsters Local 25, Painters DC #35 and Brookline Fire Fighters Local 950, citing her dedication to wage equality and respect for workers...
Time for Congress to Move on Income Inequality  teamster.org ...A Senate committee took up discussion of income inequality during a hearing this week focused on how to improve the lives of working families. But unfortunately, not everyone agreed that Capitol Hill needed to lend a hand to lift wages...
Trade
Teamsters: U.S.-Korea Trade Deal Marks Two Years of Failure  teamster.org   ...On the two-year anniversary of the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS), the Teamsters Union denounces the pact as another failed trade deal that enriches global corporations while eliminating middle-class jobs in the United States...
REPORT: NAFTA’s Deadly Legacy: Corporate Profits Over People And Planet
  MintPress News   ...Ahead of Transatlantic and Transpacific trade deals, report authors warn: 'Remember NAFTA'...
State News
Attack on Labor  The Tribune-Review   ...In Harrisburg, legislation has been proposed to prevent the automatic withholding of union dues from public employees' paychecks...This legislation serves only to undermine the timely, efficient payment of monies that are rightfully due to unions. Automatic withholding is routinely used by employers to collect money owed for charitable contributions, for insurance premiums, for child support and for taxes...
Alabama House approves payday loan database  Associated Press   ...The Alabama House of Representatives on Thursday voted to create a state database to enforce an existing $500 limit on how much people can borrow at one time from the short-term lenders...
Bill targeting predatory lending sent to Maine governor  Associated Press   ...The Democratic-controlled House and Senate gave final approval to the bill this week that aims to protect Mainers from unlicensed online lenders who offer illegitimate short-term loans that can drain consumers' bank accounts with high interest rates and fees...
New York union membership grows 8% from 2012 to 2013
  Long Island Newsday ...Unions in New York State added 145,000 members last year, the first increase since 2007, new federal data show. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday that the ranks of private-sector and government unions in the state totaled nearly 2 million in 2013, a gain of 8 percent from a year earlier...
War on Workers
Wall Street and Multinationals Get Theirs While America Suffers  Economic Populist   ...corporations are stockpiling cash, tax free, abroad and added $206 billion to their coffers in 2013.  The offshore cash holdings now are $1.95 trillion.  Three of the biggest labor arbitragers and offshore outsourcers of them all, Microsoft, IBM and Apple, account for 18.2% of the 2013 offshore cash holdings increase.  All of these companies have fired top tier Scientists and Engineers and replaced them with cheaper foreign guest workers as well as moved R&D jobs offshore...
Obama: If You 'Work More, You Should Get Paid More'  WBNI   ...President Obama signed a memo directing his labor secretary to rewrite the rules governing overtime in the country...
People Think We’re in a Recession. Don’t Blame Them.  New York Times   ... 57 percent still think the economy is in recession... for much of America, despite years of modest gross domestic product growth and strong stock market gains, the economy isn’t good...
A Relentless Widening of Disparity in Wealth  New York Times   ...the economic forces concentrating more and more wealth into the hands of the fortunate few are almost sure to prevail for a very long time...
Greek unemployment rises to 27.5 percent  Associated Press   ...Official figures show the unemployment rate in Greece increased to 27.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013 as the economy struggled to emerge from a protracted recession...
New York City transit workers have personal info exposed
  Associated Press ...The Social Security numbers and other personal information of about 15,000 New York City transit workers has been found on a CD inside a refurbished computer sold by a retailer, according to a letter obtained by The Associated Press...
Bank of America back in court over $2.1 billion fraud penalties  Reuters   ...A U.S. judge wrestled on Thursday with a U.S. Justice Department request that Bank of America Corp pay $2.1 billion in penalties after being found liable for fraud over defective mortgages sold by its Countrywide unit...
Debt Collectors Go After Service Members Despite Protections  Truthout ...Debt collectors are targeting members of the Armed Services by calling their superior officers, threatening reduction in rank and even courts-martial, despite stepped-up efforts to protect them from abuse, according to a government report issued last week...
More Than 900 Workers Have Already Died Building Qatar’s World Cup Facilities  Smithsonian   ...400 Nepalese migrant workers had already died at building sites. Between 2010 and 2012 more than 700 workers from India lost their lives working on construction sites in Qatar, too...
For the first time in years, contract talks between city and unions show both sides want a deal  New York Daily News ...Talks began this week between the de Blasio administration and city unions over labor contracts for 300,000 municipal workers. It was night and day compared to the Bloomberg era...

Thursday, November 7, 2013

Today's Teamster News 11.07.13

D.C. Taxi Operators Sue to Stop Fines, Towings  teamster.org   ...The Teamster-affiliated Washington, D.C. Taxi Operators Association has filed a lawsuit on behalf of the city’s more than 6,000 cab drivers, demanding that the District stop towing and impounding taxis and issuing fines to drivers who have been unable to install new dome lights or credit card machines...
Teamsters,Wegmans Meet With Federal Mediator  teamster.org   ...Teamsters Local 118 representatives and Wegmans resumed discussions Tuesday to resolve an ongoing contract dispute, this time joined by a mediator from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS.) Previous efforts to engage FMCS were thwarted by a 16-day government shutdown...
eBay CEO Shares Lessons from His First Job as a Teamster  EcommerceBytes.com   ...eBay’s CEO John Donahoe talks about his job after high school working for his friend's father's beer distribution company as a Teamster, which taught him two great leadership lessons…
Planned layoffs jumped in October on drug, financial firm cutbacks  Los Angeles Times   ...Planned layoffs by U.S. employers jumped 13.5% last month, led by cutbacks at pharmaceutical and financial services firms, according to a report Wednesday...
Planned treaties cause pain for citizens; pleasure for corporations (opinion)  Lebanon Daily News   ...If you don't know what the TPP and the TTIP are, you can be forgiven. The governments and corporations involved don't want you to know because these international agreements they are negotiating are that good for them and that bad for you...
South Carolina Ports Launch Clean Trucks Program  Truckinginfo   ...The South Carolina Ports Authority has announced a new Clean Truck Certification Program to take effect on Jan. 1, 2014 that would require trucks serving the container terminals to have engines manufactured in 1994 or later...
One by One, States Are Pushing Bans on Sick Leave Legislation  Economic Policy Institute   ...Nearly 40 million Americans—almost 40 percent of the private-sector workforce—lack the right to even a single day of paid sick leave. These employees commonly go to work sick, or leave sick children home alone, out of fear of dismissal...
California Wal-Mart workers strike, following stunning Florida victory  The Salon   ...West Coast Wal-Mart workers walked off the job as the union-backed campaign says Florida strikers won major changes...
Next Time You're Tempted To Give A Bad Tip, Consider This  Huffington Post   ...The federal minimum wage for tipped workers is only $2.13 per hour...
The Biggest, Baddest Prison Profiteer of Them All  Huffington Post   ..."CCA" has become a dirty word. Because profiting off mass incarceration is a dirty business. When private prison company Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) squanders taxpayer money and runs facilities rife with human rights abuses, it's dragging its own name through the mud...
The super-rich no longer need a middle class  AlterNet   ...They now inhabit a privatized economy and have left us at the mercy of the market...
Inside the Psyche of the 1% -- Many Actually Believe Their Ideology of Greed Makes for a Better World  AlterNet   ...If the 1% are to develop the same level of understanding of others that the 99% has, they will need to walk in their shoes...
US Tax Policy In One Chart: Rising Individual Income Taxes; Falling Corporate Income Taxes  Zero Hedge   ...Because those record offshore (tax-haven arbitraged) corporate cash balances will not grow themselves, obviously...
Apple discloses government data requests -- what little it can  Los Angeles Times   ...The company released a report Tuesday that provided some general information about requests for information it receives from governments. But seeking full disclosure is an effort in futility...
Euro Crisis Takes Major Toll On Life Satisfaction  Reuters   ...Ordinary people's satisfaction with life has plunged in the euro zone countries worst hit by the financial crisis as faith in their governments' ability to ease the strain has shrunk according to a recent study...
Consumer watchdog targets debt collectors  Los Angeles Times...   The federal government's consumer financial watchdog plans to crack down on the nation's 4,500 debt collectors with new rules to rein in the companies' aggressive tactics...
It’s Time To Stop Starving U.S. Investment  teamster.org   ...An analysis of infrastructure spending by the Financial Times shows U.S. public investment is at its lowest level since World War II. Public sector investment is now just 3.6 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product, and austerity is hurting everything from building roads to investing in science and education...