Today's Teamster News 05.05.14

Trade
Block the Trans Pacific Partnership (opinion)  Quad City Times   ...For anyone not familiar with TPP, it is yet another bad trade deal that does not take human rights, consumer rights, worker rights and environmental standards into adequate consideration...
Pacific partners should push back against TPP until U.S. shows respect for financial reforms  The Japan Times   ...One big risk that may be a deal breaker is U.S. insistence that TPP partners surrender their right to regulate global finance...
State Battles
With Unlimited Financial Campaign Contributions, One Robber Baron Can Control a State  Truthout   ...If you want to see how just one Wall Street robber baron can squash democracy for the sake of greed and privatization, just look to the Missouri legislature…."Sinquefield and his wife spent more than $28 million in disclosed donations in state elections since 2007, plus nearly $2 million more in disclosed donations in federal elections since 2006, for a total of at least $30 million..."
War on Workers
Recovery Has Created Far More Low-Wage Jobs Than Better-Paid Ones  New York Times   ...The deep recession wiped out primarily high-wage and middle-wage jobs. Yet the strongest employment growth during the sluggish recovery has been in low-wage work, at places like strip malls and fast-food restaurants...
Homeless and working for Amazon: the trap of the seasonal job cycle  Guardian   ...Since Amazon opened its warehouse in Jeffersonville, one homeless shelter, Haven House, has been a home to between two and six of its employees at all times...
Deride and Conquer: Dismantling the USPS  Truthout   ...Since the 1970s, the right has patiently tried to wrest control of the US Postal Service from the government using a three-step strategy characterized by: a) ideologically legitimizing its effort through scholarship cooked up in Koch-funded think tanks like Cato and the American Enterprise Institute; b) politically codifying it in generic, legal templates drawn up in legislative boiler rooms like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and c) economically executing their plan by forcing USPS to operate in a commercial arena where it would be squeezed on one side by government constraints, and, on the other, forced to compete with global private carriers like FedEx and UPS not subject to the same legislative mandates...
LEAKED: Docs obtained by Pando show how a Wall Street giant is guaranteed huge fees from taxpayers on risky pension investments  Pando   ...An increasing number of those pension funds are being stealthily diverted into high-fee, high-risk “alternative investments” that deliver spectacular rewards for the Wall Street firms paid to manage them – but not such great returns for pensioners and taxpayers...
Jobless Benefits Are Disappearing Much Faster Than Jobs Are Appearing  Five Thirty Eight   ...Fewer Americans are receiving unemployment benefits than any time in nearly six years. And yet there are 2 million more people unemployed than there were back then...
Too Big to Jail Continues: DOJ May Charge Two Banks with Criminal Acts, But Not Hold Them Criminally Accountable  Truthout   ...The Department of Justice might make an agreement with banks in which they would plead guilty to criminal activity without, it appears, holding them criminally responsible beyond fines and perhaps some temporary restrictions...
U.S. Firms With Irish Addresses Get Tax Breaks Derided as ‘Blarney’  Bloomberg   ...The technique these companies use to lower their tax bills -- shifting legal addresses to low-tax Switzerland, Ireland, and Bermuda -- was in the spotlight last week. Pfizer Inc., the largest U.S. drugmaker, said it’s seeking a British address, a move that might save more than $1 billion a year in U.S. taxes...
Miscellaneous
Circus Audience Initially Thought Accident Was Part of the Act  ABC News   ...Authorities are trying to determine what caused a support frame to collapse during an aerial hair-hanging stunt during a circus performance Sunday, sending eight acrobats crashing to the ground and injuring 11...The incident happened about 45 minutes into a performance of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus' legends show … in Providence, R.I...

Today's Teamster News 02.03.13

GOP to Filibuster Obama's Consumer Watchdog Pick  Mother Jones   ...A little more than a week after Senate Democrats decided not to weaken the filibuster, Republicans are vowing to filibuster President Barack Obama's nominee to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau unless its powers are reduced...
Banks, at Least, Had a Friend in Geithner  New York Times   ...“The legal and regulatory framework that Geithner leaves behind for preventing a future financial crisis inspires little confidence, especially amid scandals emerging almost weekly at banks too big and complex to manage, regulate, police and fail....”
Deep Military Cuts Begin as Congress Dawdles  Military.com   ...Congressional leaders appear to have reach consensus that it is safer politically to allow deep and arbitrary cuts to military budgets than it is to negotiate a large debt-reduction deal that would have names attached...
Applebee’s fires waitress who posted receipt from pastor complaining about auto-tip  Yahoo News   ...An Applebee's waitress who posted a receipt with a note from a pastor complaining about the automatic gratuity added to the bill on the Internet was fired on Wednesday after the pastor complained to her manager...
Helmets to Hardhats: Placing soldiers in good jobs  Northwest Indiana Times   ...Programs like the Helmets to Hardhats organization and the Iron Workers Local 395 Apprenticeship Program are working to combat this problem and bring quality careers to America’s troops returning home from overseas...
Union backers say Nissan threatens plant closure  Associated Press   ...Pro-union workers said Tuesday that Nissan Motor Co. has threatened to close its Canton, Miss. assembly plant if workers vote for the United Auto Workers to represent them, though the company denies such threats...
Ford's UAW workers to get $8,300 profit payout  Detroit Free Press   ...UAW members have not had a wage increase in at least eight years, relying on lump-sum payments and profit sharing for between 20% and 25% of their annual pay...
Plan to sell state-owned power plants might be revived  Milwaukee Journal Sentinel   ..."The plan to sell off some or all of the 37 state government-run power and heating plants was dropped in 2011 amid complaints the bill did not include provisions requiring that they be sold through a competitive bidding process..."

The big rig: Most shocking Wall Street heist yet

Some men rob with a six gun, some with a fountain pen.

You try to be cynical about Wall Street, but you just can't keep up.

The latest scandal in the world of high finance and risky trading involves the London-based bank Barclay’s. It just shows that the greed of the one percent knows no limits.

Barclay’s already paid more than $450 million to U.S. and British bank regulators to settle charges that it manipulated LIBOR. But the scandal is spreading to more big banks. It's a gigantic financial crime.

But first about LIBOR: It stands for the "London Interbank Offered Rate." It's the average interest rate that big London banks say they'd charge if they were borrowing from other banks. The LIBOR rate is a guide to rates charged for trillions -- yup, trillions -- of dollars in loans throughout the world financial system.

This is complicated stuff. But one thing isn't complicated: a bunch of rich guys stole money. Maybe even yours.

As former Labor Secretary Robert Reich explains, instead of setting the LIBOR rate according to future worth, the bankers rigged the interest rate so their derivative gambling paid off at the expense of anyone on the other side of the bets. Reich tells us who else is involved:

So far, the scandal has been limited to Barclay's …whose top executives have been forced to resign, and whose traders' emails give a chilling picture of how easily they got their colleagues to rig interest rates in order to make big bucks.

But Wall Street has almost surely been involved in the same practice, including the usual suspects -- JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Bank of America -- because every major bank participates in setting the LIBOR rate, and Barclay's couldn't have rigged it without their witting involvement.

This is massive fraud, Reich adds:

This is insider trading on a gigantic scale. It makes the bankers winners and the rest of us -- whose money they've used for to make their bets -- losers and chumps.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the LIBOR rate affects a mind-blowing $800 trillion in various financial contracts – that’s 10 times the annual output of the entire planet!

Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi sums up the stakes like this:

This is unbelievable, shocking stuff. A sizable chunk of the world's adjustable-rate investment vehicles are pegged to Libor, and here we have evidence that banks were tweaking the rate downward to massage their own derivatives positions.

The impact of the crime isn't entirely clear yet and may not be for months. We do know this: Hundreds of local governments in America may have been fleeced by Wall Street if LIBOR rates were artificially lowered. According to the Economist:

[The city of] Baltimore entered into over $100m in interest-rate swaps…Lower LIBOR-linked payments to the city would have meant less money to cover the outgoing fixed-rate payments. If LIBOR was artificially suppressed, the city would have been losing millions annually.

Naked Capitalism puts the LIBOR swindle in perspective

When people go to conduct business, they expect (or at least once did) to be treated fairly by vendors. And it wasn’t that long ago that regulators would come down hard on firms that broke the rules, not based on any computation of damages, but on the idea that certain types of behavior were not tolerated.

Once again, the super-rich have demonstrated they will do anything for profit, including robbing all of us blind. This scandal proves how thoroughly rotten the banking system is and why stronger enforcement is still desperately needed.

-- Union Thug

Today's Teamster News 03.18.12

Year-over-year Change in Public and Private Payroll Employment  Calculated Risk   ...American bosses added 2.021 million jobs in the year ended in February. That's a 1.5 percent job growth pace. It's the fastest bout of hiring since January 2007...
Barriers to Change, From Wall St. and Geneva  New York Times   ...Financial institutions, eager to maintain their profitable status quo, have lobbied hard against change. As a result, too-big-to-fail institutions have become even bigger and more powerful...
Under Siege, Wis. Gov. Walker Faces Defeats, Blunders—and Looming Recall  In These Times   ...People are upset about the state’s terrible economic performance, the governor is under investigation in a John Doe probe, he faces a recall election this spring, and people are really upset by all of his cutbacks," Kraig added...
Pension Case Headed directly to Florida Supreme Court  WCTV   ...In another setback to Gov. Rick Scott and the other defendants, and another victory for Florida’s public workers, the First District Court of Appeal has granted the Florida Education Association’s request that last week’s pension decision be certified directly to the Florida Supreme Court for final determination. ... “This could help hundreds of thousands of middle-class Florida families who have seen their incomes tumble while the governor and legislative leaders handed out tax giveaways to corporations.”
Hundreds gather for Capitol rally against bill on unions  Atlanta Journal Constitution   ..."This is an extreme attack on our basic democratic rights," said Ben Speight of Teamsters Local 728, who attended the rally. "It's also an attempt to bankrupt and destroy our unions."...
Coors Is Tasteless, Say Teamsters on St. Patrick's Day  Teamsters Joint Council 7   ...More than 100 Teamsters marched in the St. Patrick's Day parade today to raise awareness about anti-immigrant behavior, worker abuse and discrimination by DBI Beverage, the distributor of products by Coors Brewing Co. in Northern California...

Today's Teamster News 01.29.12

State senate will hold right to work hearing Monday  Post-Tribune   ...On the heels of the Indiana House passing divisive right-to-work legislation, the Indiana Senate will hold a committee hearing Monday with the goal of sending the bill to the governor before the Super Bowl...
Dave Bachman: Prison makeover is too big and too fast  Tallahassee Democrat   ...The one consideration that I feel has not been sufficiently aired is the potential that such widespread changes may have to upset the good order, control and discipline in some institutions, resulting in "unintended consequences..."
Scott Walker Faces Tightening Noose in John Doe Investigation  Veterans News Now   ...a John Doe investigation covering Walker’s tenure as Milwaukee County executive and his successful 2010 run for governor has reached into the inner circles of Scott Walker’s longtime aides and allies. “A criminal complaint has uncovered a ’secret email system’ that was ‘routinely used by selected insiders within the Walker administration’ for county business as well as unofficial purposes such as campaigning...
A Victory for the Public on Foreclosures?  Rolling Stone   ...this deal ... appears to have been effectively negotiated down from a bloocurdling outrage to whatever it is now, which is probably something far less than that: it may still be a serious underpay, but it's not the unreal, criminal giveaway it was originally meant to be...
Trying to Inch the WTO Away from Extreme Financial Deregulation  Eyes on Trade   ...The World Trade Organization’s General Agreement on Trade in Services limits the kinds of financial regulations countries can impose...
Erie Teamsters vote to give leaders strike authorization  Go Erie   ...The union represents about 160 city of Erie workers, including Bureau of Streets employees...

Today's Teamster News 12.08.11

Inmate labor returns  KTUL   ..."$60 a month is still very cheap labor," said Pam Polk, Collinsville's (Okla.) city manager, who is looking forward to the productivity. "The inmate work program really helps us get some of the bigger projects done," she said...
The House passes “Let’s make it even worse Act”  firedoglake   ...Not satisfied merely doing nothing to create jobs while violating many of their claimed morality laws ... the GOP-led House of Representatives passed the following yesterday:  A bill that would give the controlling party of either chamber of Congress veto power over any major new regulation...
Ind. Gov. Daniels says state found untouched $300M  Associated Press   ...Indiana Democrats called for investigations into how an administration sometimes held up by Republicans as a model for the rest of the U.S. could misplace so much money...
Poll: Elizabeth Warren soars 7 up over Scott Brown  Boston Herald   ...The new poll results are bound to send more shockwaves across the country, where Democrats and Republicans are closely watching to see whether the Harvard Law professor can knock off one of the GOP’s rising stars...
What Government Aid?  Baseline Scenario   ...the way our government currently distributes goodies makes it possible for people to think that they are paragons of individual self-reliance while still being enormous beneficiaries of other people’s tax dollars. That explains a lot about politics today...
Deutsche Bank CEO target of suspicious envelope: police  Reuters   ...a senior U.S. law enforcement official said it contained explosives...Ackermann is the face of capitalism in Germany and is one of the few senior managers in the country who is always surrounded by bodyguards...  

Today's Teamster News 11.23.11

Unions pack Indiana Statehouse to protest 'right to work'  Louisville Courier-Journal   ...Hundreds of union workers crowded the Statehouse hallways Tuesday, waving signs and chanting “shame on you” outside the Indiana House and Senate chambers as lawmakers organized for their 2012 session...
Scott Walker petitions take center stage in Wisconsin  Politico   ...officials are projecting a general election in May or June. That timeline means Democrats want to remain focused on Walker until at least next year...
Bill Cotterell: Teamsters offer extra toughness  Tallahassee Democrat   ...Gov. Rick Scott and the Republican-run Legislature still want to privatize prisons in 18 counties of South Florida, and probably the rest of the state, eventually...
Weary, blistered Wall Street protesters reach DC  Associated Press   ...Organizers said the march, which they called Occupy the Highway, accomplished their goal of taking their concerns about income equality and corporate influence in politics on the road, including to rural communities that previously had little exposure to the movement...
The Old Order Stifles the Birth of a New Egypt  New York Times   ...The vestiges of Mr. Mubarak’s order — the military, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists, or fragmented liberals and leftists — seem ill prepared to navigate the transition from his rule...
Financial Finger-Pointing Turns to Regulators  New York Times   ...The IndyMac collapse, with its multibillion-dollar cost to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation fund, highlights the role played by federal overseers of financial companies in the years leading up to the crisis. It also raises questions about whether government officials should be held accountable for dubious conduct related to the failure of an institution and whether the government has avoided pursuing some cases because of the roles regulators have played...

Links 08/26/10

Wal-Mart Asks Supreme Court to Hear Bias Suit New York Times ...Wal-Mart Stores asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to review the largest employment discrimination lawsuit in American history.

Housing Market Plunged in July, Fueling Anxiety New York Times ...Housing sales in July plunged 25.5 percent below the level of a year ago...

Despite Reform, Banks Have Room for Risky Deals New York Times ...financial regulation...will not stop banks from making bets that some critics deem risky...

SEC backs labor on corporate board votes Washington Times ...The Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday handed labor and social-activist groups a big victory by approving rules making it easier for them to put allies on corporate boards...

Should a Union-Busting Company Build the MLK Memorial? Washington City Paper ... the United Construction Workers union ...says Dulles, Va.-based Southland Concrete—which is doing the concrete work for the $120 million project—has by far the most complaints from its workers.

Construction workers win $2.2 million settlement Associated Press ...state Attorney General Jerry Brown says investigators uncovered a years-long scheme at Country Builders, Inc. to cheat employees and evade workers' compensation costs.

GOP seizes on private-public pay gap as a midterm election issue The Hill ...Federal workers have become a new flashpoint in the fight between Republicans and Democrats on the economy.

Court Hears Effort to Delay Dollar Thrifty Buyout Vote New York Times ...Shareholders of the Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group asked a judge on Wednesday to delay a vote on the company’s $1.2 billion sale to Hertz Global Holdings, contending that the board had failed to consider a higher offer from the Avis Budget Group.