TEAMSTERS
Teamsters: Seattle Drivers Win a Voice With Historic City Council Vote Teamster.org ...Drivers in Seattle’s for-hire industry won the right to collectively bargain over their wages and working conditions through an initiative passed by the City Council today. The Mike O’Brien-sponsored bill will now move to the mayor’s desk for his signature. Drivers and community supporters celebrated the bill’s passage...
Seattle first U.S. city to let Uber drivers unionize Detroit News ...Seattle on Monday became the first city in the nation to allow drivers of ride-hailing companies such as Uber and Lyft to unionize over pay and working conditions. Supporters erupted into cheers after the City Council voted 8-0 in favor of the legislation, which is seen as a test case for the changing 21st century workforce. The Teamsters Union Local 117 also celebrated the vote, while the National Right To Work Legal Foundation criticized it as a violation of drivers’ rights...
Teamsters Make Progress at Carhaul Talks, More Negotiations to be Scheduled Teamster.org ...The Teamsters Union and carhaul employer representatives continue to discuss and exchange proposals for a new national contract that are responsive to the concerns of the membership. Based on the talks just concluded last week, we can report some tentative progress. Many of the contract proposals have been resolved, but both sides still need to focus on the economic issues. The parties have decided to suspend talks over the holidays...
AFSCME and University reach tentative contract agreement Workday Minnesota ...AFSCME will brief clerical and technical workers this week on a tentative contract settlement with the University of Minnesota that the union said "begins to close the gap between the haves and have-nots at the University." The union credited solidarity among its local unions and with Teamsters Local 320 for leading to a breakthrough in the six-month negotiations...
GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
Hundreds of Myanmar Garment Workers Mark Seventh Day of Labor Strike Radio Free Asia ...More than 200 garment workers in Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon Monday marked the seventh day of a strike demanding full salary for November after the owner of the factory that employs them docked their pay for failing to meet production targets. The workers have been protesting since Dec. 7...
Steelworkers union calls on Canada, U.S. to reject TPP Canadian Manufacturing ...The executive board of the United Steelworkers have adopted a formal resolution urging Ottawa and Washington to reject the tentative Trans-Pacific Partnership. The union says the resolution is the precursor for a “fully engaged” TPP rejection campaign that will get underway in both Canada and the U.S. “The TPP will only continue the failed trade policies of the past"...
Major Summit Could Put World's Poorest Inhabitants on Corporate Chopping Block Alternet ...Last week, 453 civil society groups including trade unions, farmers, environmentalists, public interest groups and development advocates from over 150 countries wrote an urgent letter to members of the WTO to “express extreme alarm about the current situation of the negotiations in the WTO.” The 10th Ministerial meeting of the WTO is occurring against a backdrop of accelerated “mega-regional” comprehensive pro-corporate “trade” deals...
TPP trade agreement undercuts biologic patents Washington Examiner ...An important part of the deal is protection of intellectual property — including copyright, trademarks and patents — which are necessary for commercial and scientific innovation. The biggest obstacle to congressional approval, however, appears to be the deal's inadequate protection of intellectual property in "biologic" medicines...
Trans-Pacific Partnership Takes a Hit Hoosier Ag Today ...The Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal recently suffered a huge setback after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in an interview Congress should not take up the trade deal before the November elections. McConnell told the Washington Post that President Obama would be making a big mistake by pushing for a vote on TPP during the election cycle...
Don’t Be Misled; The TPP Is Still Coming Full Steam (opinion) OurFuture.org ...Recently there have been news reports that Republicans are going to delay TPP until after the 2016 elections. Do not be misled; this is a bargaining ploy. They want the Obama administration to make “side agreements” that give corporations even more. We have to keep up the fight, and keep getting the word out. People opposed to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) “trade” agreement have recently had their hopes lifted...
India's October tea output drops 7% as workers strike Economic Times ...India's tea production in key October month dropped 7 per cent from a year earlier to 158.06 million kg, the state-run Tea Board said in a statement, as a strike called by plantation workers in southern India hit plucking. Production in the southern state of Kerala, where plantation workers went on strike demanding higher wages, dropped 60 percent...
STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
Right-Wing GOP Governor Succeeds in Making More People Go Hungry Alternet ...Maine's Gov. Paul LePage can now claim the proud policy achievement of making more needy people go hungry. David Farmer reports in Daily Bangor News that during LePage's administration, the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, which administers SNAP benefits, has been so badly mismanaged it risks losing federal funding. The USDA also admonished the organization for failing to process applications in a timely way...
Amid $15 debate, tipped workers call for one minimum wage Times Union ...If state lawmakers approve a raise for all workers during the next legislative session, those earning tips say it’s time to dismantle the state’s two-tiered wage system. In a letter sent to Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday, Restaurant Opportunities Centers United Co-Founder and Co-Director Saru Jayaraman called on the governor to move to abolish the separate tipped minimum wage for certain workers in the restaurant and hospitality industries...
New state laws address gender pay gap, child care, disability leave SF Chronicle ...About three dozen employment laws take effect in California next year, including ones that bolster equal-pay protections, help workers with chronic health conditions and give parents unpaid time off to research schools and deal with child care emergencies. The most significant law on an annual list put out by the California Chamber of Commerce is SB358, the widely publicized Fair Pay Act...
Senate’s Motives At Issue As Redistricting Trial Starts CBS ...The decisions prompting state Senate leaders to choose a redistricting plan they recommended to a Leon County judge took center stage Monday, the first day of a trial to determine whether that map should go to the Florida Supreme Court. Circuit Judge George Reynolds has the task of recommending to the Supreme Court either the Senate’s redistricting proposal or one of several plans offered by a coalition of voting-rights groups...
Lincolnshire creates right-to-work zone that unions oppose Daily Herald ...Lincolnshire has become the first town in the Chicago area to establish itself as a right-to-work zone, a move critics have assailed as anti-union. t's also a move experts say is sure to face a legal challenge. To create the zone, the village board approved an ordinance preventing local employers from requiring workers to pay union dues with payroll deductions...
U.S. LABOR
Detroit casino workers ratify new contract Detroit Free Press ...Workers at Detroit's three casinos ratified a new five-year contract Sunday — ending months of contentious and complicated negotiations and providing relief to thousands of workers. Joe Daugherty, president of Unite Here Local 24 and head of the bargaining committee for a group of unions, said in an e-mail that a majority of workers at all three casinos approved the contract...
UAW-Nexteer workers to vote on second deal Detroit News ...UAW Local 699 President Rick Burzynski believes a second tentative agreement reached with Nexteer Automotive addresses concerns that led to a 20-hour strike and 97 percent of membership rejecting a first deal. “We pretty much addressed everything that our workers wanted,” he said Monday morning, a week after workers walked off their jobs and picketed the Chinese-owned auto supplier...
NLRB certifies VW Chattanooga election results Times Free Press ...The National Labor Relations Board has certified the results of the United Auto Workers election held at Volkswagen's Chattanooga plant on Dec. 3 and 4. Maintenance, or skilled trades, workers at the plant agreed to be represented by the UAW for collective bargaining purposes by a margin of 108 to 44...
Progress made in UAW, Kohler talks Sheboygan Press ...The Kohler Co. strike has entered its fifth week, with more talks scheduled for today between the company and the United Auto Workers Local 833. Union officials weren’t immediately available for comment Monday morning but posted on the UAW Local 833 Facebook page on Friday, Dec. 11, that there was “good movement in talks with the company today”...
IBEW 125 members ratify contract at Pacificorp NW Labor Press ...In votes counted Dec. 14, members of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 125 approved a new four-year contract with Pacific Power by a 72 percent margin. Local 125’s previous collective bargaining agreement with Pacific Power expired Jan. 26, 2015. In June and again in August, members voted down company proposals by overwhelming margins, and on Sept. 1, 2015, they authorized the union to call a strike...
Chicago Teachers Union’s Overwhelming Approval of Strike Shows Power of Bottom-up Organizing In These Times ...The numbers are in from the Chicago Teachers Union's strike authorization vote, and it's not even close. After three days of voting last week, 22,678 of the union's 24,752 eligible members cast ballots, and 96.05 percent of them voted “yes”—88 percent of all CTU members. The nation's third-largest — and arguably most important — teachers union has sent a clear message that they are willing to walk off the job amid their current round of contract negotiations...
SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
New rule: Truck drivers must electronically record hours Newsday ...An estimated 3 million commercial truck and bus drivers must electronically record their hours behind the wheel under a new government rule aimed at enforcing regulations designed to prevent fatigue. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration released the long-awaited rule on Thursday. Drivers have been required to keep paper logs of their hours dating back to 1938...
After Paris, There Is Some Room for Hope The Nation ... it will undoubtedly be many years before renewable forms of energy—wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, and others still in development—replace fossil fuels as the world’s leading energy providers. Nonetheless, 2015 can be viewed as the year in which the epochal transition from one set of fuels to another took off, with renewables making such significant strides...
On policing, the national mood turns toward reform Washington Post ...In Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel fired his police chief and faces a growing clamor for his resignation. In Baltimore, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake fired her police chief and abandoned plans to seek reelection. And in San Francisco, protesters are demanding the head of yet another police chief, prompting Mayor Edwin Lee to vow last week to overhaul police procedures regarding deadly force...
A Tense Baltimore Braces for A Verdict The Atlantic ...As the jury prepares to deliver a verdict in the trial of the first of six police officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray, the Baltimore police department is taking pains to reach out to the community and signal that it is ready to respond to any outcome, including protest. Community activists, meanwhile, say that distrust of the police still runs deep...
Robert Reich: Why the Middle Class Is in Revolt and Susceptible to a Dangerous 'Strongman' Alternet ...Now someone comes along who’s even more of a bully than those who for years have bullied them economically, politically, and even violently. The attraction is understandable, even though misguided. If not Donald Trump, then it will be someone else posing as a strongman. If not this election cycle, it will be the next one. The revolt of the anxious class has just begun...
Flood of Anti-Muslim Violence Driving Record Year for Crimes of Hate Common Dreams ...2015 is shaping up to be "one of the most intensely anti-Muslim periods in American history," according to reports, as increasing xenophobia and hateful rhetoric has propelled a record number of attacks on mosques and Islamic centers across the U.S...
Showing posts with label garment workers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label garment workers. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
Monday, November 9, 2015
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...
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...
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Today's Teamster News 07.22.15
Teamsters
Port Truck Drivers At Pac 9 Begin Strike Teamster.org ...Port truck drivers at Pac 9 in Los Angeles/Long Beach began a strike today to protest against their continued misclassification as independent contractors. While on strike they will continue their legal fight to recoup stolen wages and many will support their families by working at one of four Teamster companies - Eco Flow Transportation, Shippers Transport Express, Toll Group or Horizon Lines...
Local 727 Protects Wages, Working Conditions for Arlington OTB Members Local 272 ...Teamsters Local 727-represented Arlington Racecourse OTB workers ratified a new one-year agreement that protects their wages, benefits and working conditions. The agreement also includes an economic re-opener in the event that gaming legislation is passed. “The state’s horseracing industry is facing obstacles, but we were able to preserve our members’ jobs and secure fair wages and working conditions,” said John Coli Jr., President of Local 727...
Employee Misclassification Hearings Begin in Georgia Teamster.org ...Today in Savannah, Georgia, the site of one of the nation's largest ports, a public hearing will be conducted to hear cases of employee misclassification - 2,000 of which have been brought by port truck drivers misclassified as independent contractors. “We’re the lowest paid in the industry. Everybody else got a future in it but the driver. It’s time for a change and that’s why we’re raising our voices tomorrow.” John Jackson, Savannah, port driver...
Contract Truck Drivers Strike Indefinitely Against Pacific 9 Transportation In LA CBS ...Port truck drivers went on strike Tuesday to improve conditions for themselves, their families and all drivers. Workers declared their intent to not return to Pac 9 until they are properly classified as employees and provided safe trucks to drive, officials said. In fact, several workers have already joined a new Teamster company. “Pac 9 drivers have courageously withstood retaliation and mistreatment by their employer for over two years,” said Fred Potter, Teamsters Port Division Director...
Port truck drivers plan sixth strike against company LA Times ...Drivers at a trucking company serving the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports plan to walk away from their jobs Tuesday in an ongoing struggle to be deemed employees, a union representative said. The picket lines, scheduled to go up around the company’s truck yard and port terminals at 6 a.m. Tuesday, will mark the sixth strike against the company in nearly two years, Teamsters Union spokeswoman Barbara Maynard said...
Global Labor & Trade
Thousands of Garment Factory Workers Across Cambodia Are Fainting on the Job In These Times ...At the end of June, nearly 350 workers fainted in garment factories across Cambodia, with more than 100 collapsing on one day alone. These developments are part of a much wider pattern in the country: In 2011, there were 2,071 incidents of workers fainting, in 2012 there were 2,100. Last spring, nearly 120 workers fainted at two textile factories that make products for Puma and Adidas. From July of last year on, there were 733 fainting incidents across 14 different factories...
Work moves ahead on TPP trade pact, but nations still divided over deal Pew Research Center ...Trade ministers from the U.S. and 11 other nations from both sides of the Pacific will meet in Hawaii next Tuesday to attempt to finalize what would be the world’s largest regional trade and investment agreement: the Trans-Pacific Partnership. But while the pact has general public support in most of the countries involved, there are also deep partisan divisions in some of them over the issue. This partisanship suggests that TPP, one of President Barack Obama’s principal foreign economic policy legacies, is not yet a done deal...
US, Malaysia show least support for Trans-Pacific partnership - poll Turkish Weekly ...Americans and Malaysians show least support for the US-promoted Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal among all participants, with 38 percent of citizens backing the potential agreement, Pew Research Center poll, issued on Tuesday, found. “The weakest support is in the US and in Malaysia (38%),” the poll read. The TPP is set to become the largest free trade deal, involving 12 countries from the Asia-Pacific region...
Ottawa says it won’t be 'bullied' by U.S. over TPP dairy negotiations Globe & Mail ...The Canadian government says it will not be bullied as the United States ratchets up pressure on Canada’s heavily protected dairy sector ahead of what could be the final round of talks for a Pacific Rim trade deal spanning 12 countries. More than 20 members of U.S. Congress have written a letter to the Canadian government accusing it of being “unwilling to seriously engage in market access discussions regarding dairy”...
Company v Country: Investigating the booming and lucrative business of multinational companies suing governments (radio) BBC ...The strangely-named investor state dispute settlement (ISDS) system is built into thousands of treaties between countries around the world. It is a key part of negotiations for a new trade and investment treaty between the US and the EU. Yet on both sides of the Atlantic, resistance is mounting. Michael Robinson digs into the ISDS mechanism to find out if the fears are justified. Are these little-known lawsuits threatening the democratic process?...
Trade debate masks America’s competitive disadvantage (opinion) PBS ...The Trans-Pacific Partnership may be out of the headlines momentarily, but it continues to be as contentious as ever. the debate fails to include the real issue: the ability of the United States as a country to compete in the world economy. A winning strategy for the U.S. today requires much more than cooperation between government and business. We need a highly skilled work force, which in turn means a world-class education system and access for all. We need to repair and improve our infrastructure...
Austerity-hit Ireland debates how to spend extra €1.5bn Financial Times ...For two days last week, politicians, civil society activists and business leaders gathered at Dublin Castle to discuss something rare in austerity-ravaged Ireland — how to spend an extra €1.5bn. The sum represents the “fiscal space” the government says it has to cut taxes and increase spending in the 2016 budget...
Greece's debt crisis explained, in mythological terms LA Times ...Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras successfully persuaded his fellow Greeks to reject austerity measures in a recent referendum, but it was a "Pyrrhic victory" since he now faces an even more devastated economy and deeper austerity cuts. Against his own party's ideals, Tsipras has now committed himself to more "draconian" budget cuts, with Greece forced to carry out the "Sisyphean task" of ever-increasing austerity...
State & Living Wage Battles
National push for $15 minimum wage hits home for U.S. Senate workers Washington Post ...Baker is among a group of federal contract workers who are joining with union-backed advocates to call on lawmakers to do more to protect an increasingly privatized federal workforce, where low wages and minimal benefits often clash with the rhetoric espoused by elected leaders. “We work for them every day,” Baker said. “They have a clean environment; they’ve got good food to eat. They say, ‘Thank you very much’ and ‘Good work.’ But that’s not enough. I need more so I can pay my bills -- $15 and a union”...
North Carolina Just Relaxed Its Voter ID Law, But Will Voters Get The Memo? Huffington Post ...Voting rights advocates were at least somewhat pleased when the North Carolina General Assembly unexpectedly voted in June to modify the state's strict requirement that voters present government-issued photo ID at the polls. But now, they're concerned that the state won't adequately educate people about the softened ID law before it goes into effect next year...
L.A. County supervisors agree to boost minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020 LA Times ...Organized labor won an important victory Tuesday when the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to increase the minimum wage to $15, but it now faces a more daunting political challenge: convincing other local governments to join the movement. The widely anticipated move by the nation’s largest local government applies to unincorporated areas and hundreds of thousands of employees, mirroring a similar action by the city of Los Angeles...
New York fast food workers’ $15 wage vote on Wednesday KFOR ...New York’s fast food workers could soon get paid a lot more. On Wednesday, the wage board is set to vote on New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s proposal to raise the state’s minimum wage for fast food workers to $15 an hour. The meeting will be held in New York City at 2.30 pm. New York’s minimum wage for all workers has risen from $7.25 to $8.75 an hour in the last two years. By the end of this year, it will be $9...
If you want a living wage, be prepared to go on strike for it (opinion) The Guardian ...Is the best way to achieve higher wages really legislation? Many think so. Across the country, working people are eagerly waiting to feel the effects of new laws that raise the minimum wage. Seattle will see an increase to $15 by 2021, and Los Angeles will see the same increase by 2020. But this strategy detracts from the only power dynamic that can actually overturn economic inequality: class struggle...
How the American South Drives the Low-Wage Economy American Prospect ...Today, as the auto and aerospace manufacturers of Europe and East Asia open low-wage assembly plants in Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina, and Mississippi, the South has assumed a comparable role once more. Indeed, the South today shares more features with its antebellum ancestor than it has in a very long time. White Southern elites and their powerful allies among non-Southern business interests seek to expand to the rest of the nation the South’s subjugation of workers and its suppression of the voting rights of those who might oppose their policies...
U.S. Labor
1,000 NYC airport workers set to strike starting Wednesday Associated Press ...More than 1,000 subcontracted airport security officers, baggage handlers and wheelchair attendants at the city's two major airports plan to strike starting Wednesday night, according to a union that seeks to represent them. Officials with Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union said picketing would begin at Kennedy Airport at 10 p.m. Wednesday and at LaGuardia at 6 a.m. Thursday...
UAW Donates $50,000 in Memory of the Charleston 9 AFL-CIO ...Members of the UAW on Thursday announced a $50,000 donation to the Rev. Clementa Pinckney fund in honor of the Charleston 9 who were tragically murdered on June 17. “UAW members often speak of bridging the gap to lift up our communities. Through our long history of civil rights advocacy, economic justice advocacy and economic fairness advocacy, the very ideals that we have come to learn were so near and dear to those who lost their lives June 17 at the Emanuel AME Church,” said UAW President Dennis Williams...
Legislators told trucking companies deliberately misclassify workers Savannah Now ...Two independent truckers choked up separately as they testified before a legislative committee Tuesday about the toll they say comes from companies misclassifying workers as independent contractors instead of employees. The emotional moments came in the middle and end of a daylong hearing by a subcommittee of the Senate Insurance and Labor Committee assigned to study worker classification...
Unemployment Rates a Mixed Bag Associated Press ...Unemployment rates fell last month in 21 U.S. states and were unchanged in 17, as widespread job growth and a shrinking workforce reduce the ranks of those out of work. The Labor Department said Tuesday that unemployment rates rose in 12 states. Employers added jobs in 31 states and cut them in 17, with little change in the remaining two states. The figures reflect steady hiring nationwide. Employers added 223,000 jobs in June, and the U.S. unemployment rate fell to 5.3 percent from 5.5 percent...
Time Is Political Jacobin ...A recent survey of New York City retail workers found that only 17 percent of workers had a regular work schedule. Retail workers reported that in order to get more hours or more desirable shifts they sometimes had to compete with coworkers to sell a certain amount, or sign up the most people for store credit cards. In this way, they were battling with each other just for the ability to work and earn more...
Miscellaneous
Obama Administration Announces New Rules Protecting Military Families From Predatory Lenders Think Progress ...America’s armed forces personnel will no longer be exposed to exploitative payday loans after the Department of Defense (DOD) put new, long-delayed rules into place on Tuesday. The news marks a victory for an idea that had seemed at risk of being killed just months ago by lawmakers friendly to the lending industry...
Five Years Later, the Unfulfilled Promise of Dodd-Frank Common Dreams ...With several key promises of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act still unfulfilled, "Americans cannot be comforted that Wall Street will not wreak havoc again," according to a new report from the watchdog group Public Citizen. "Five years after President Barack Obama signed this legislation, Dodd-Frank remains largely incomplete," said Bartlett Naylor, Public Citizen’s financial policy advocate and author of the report...
6 insidious ways the one percent is ripping you off Salon ...In the wake of the financial crisis, there was a momentof hope that predatory businesses would no longer be able to pick at our bones like vultures. Instead, we’ve seen Dodd-Frank weakened and stalled, and the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau stymied at every turn. In the latest round, Republicans are thwarting the confirmation of Richard Cordray to lead the Bureau. Meanwhile, we continue to get fleeced...
“I Will Light You Up!” Disturbing Dashcam Footage Shows the Traffic Stop That Led to Sandra Bland’s Arrest. Slate ...Tuesday afternoon saw the release of extraordinary dashcam footage of the traffic stop that led to Bland’s arrest. In the video, you can see Bland’s car making a lane change right before the officer who was driving behind her, who has been identified as Texas Department of Public Safety trooper Brian Encinia, pulls her over. “You seem very irritated,” he says to her, while standing next to the driver’s side window...
Why the Black Lives Matter Protest at Netroots Nation Was Long Overdue (opinion) The Nation ...The action kicked off a necessary conversation about the Democratic candidates’ reluctance to address racism directly, the problem with saying “all lives matter,” and why economic populism devoid of a race and gender analysis will neither satisfy nor mobilize a sizeable chunk of progressive voters. These activists have changed the tone for the 2016 election season, putting Democrats on notice that they cannot expect the support of black voters—particularly young black voters—without speaking directly and meaningfully to issues of race and state power currently gripping the country...
Port Truck Drivers At Pac 9 Begin Strike Teamster.org ...Port truck drivers at Pac 9 in Los Angeles/Long Beach began a strike today to protest against their continued misclassification as independent contractors. While on strike they will continue their legal fight to recoup stolen wages and many will support their families by working at one of four Teamster companies - Eco Flow Transportation, Shippers Transport Express, Toll Group or Horizon Lines...
Local 727 Protects Wages, Working Conditions for Arlington OTB Members Local 272 ...Teamsters Local 727-represented Arlington Racecourse OTB workers ratified a new one-year agreement that protects their wages, benefits and working conditions. The agreement also includes an economic re-opener in the event that gaming legislation is passed. “The state’s horseracing industry is facing obstacles, but we were able to preserve our members’ jobs and secure fair wages and working conditions,” said John Coli Jr., President of Local 727...
Employee Misclassification Hearings Begin in Georgia Teamster.org ...Today in Savannah, Georgia, the site of one of the nation's largest ports, a public hearing will be conducted to hear cases of employee misclassification - 2,000 of which have been brought by port truck drivers misclassified as independent contractors. “We’re the lowest paid in the industry. Everybody else got a future in it but the driver. It’s time for a change and that’s why we’re raising our voices tomorrow.” John Jackson, Savannah, port driver...
Contract Truck Drivers Strike Indefinitely Against Pacific 9 Transportation In LA CBS ...Port truck drivers went on strike Tuesday to improve conditions for themselves, their families and all drivers. Workers declared their intent to not return to Pac 9 until they are properly classified as employees and provided safe trucks to drive, officials said. In fact, several workers have already joined a new Teamster company. “Pac 9 drivers have courageously withstood retaliation and mistreatment by their employer for over two years,” said Fred Potter, Teamsters Port Division Director...
Port truck drivers plan sixth strike against company LA Times ...Drivers at a trucking company serving the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports plan to walk away from their jobs Tuesday in an ongoing struggle to be deemed employees, a union representative said. The picket lines, scheduled to go up around the company’s truck yard and port terminals at 6 a.m. Tuesday, will mark the sixth strike against the company in nearly two years, Teamsters Union spokeswoman Barbara Maynard said...
Global Labor & Trade
Thousands of Garment Factory Workers Across Cambodia Are Fainting on the Job In These Times ...At the end of June, nearly 350 workers fainted in garment factories across Cambodia, with more than 100 collapsing on one day alone. These developments are part of a much wider pattern in the country: In 2011, there were 2,071 incidents of workers fainting, in 2012 there were 2,100. Last spring, nearly 120 workers fainted at two textile factories that make products for Puma and Adidas. From July of last year on, there were 733 fainting incidents across 14 different factories...
Work moves ahead on TPP trade pact, but nations still divided over deal Pew Research Center ...Trade ministers from the U.S. and 11 other nations from both sides of the Pacific will meet in Hawaii next Tuesday to attempt to finalize what would be the world’s largest regional trade and investment agreement: the Trans-Pacific Partnership. But while the pact has general public support in most of the countries involved, there are also deep partisan divisions in some of them over the issue. This partisanship suggests that TPP, one of President Barack Obama’s principal foreign economic policy legacies, is not yet a done deal...
US, Malaysia show least support for Trans-Pacific partnership - poll Turkish Weekly ...Americans and Malaysians show least support for the US-promoted Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal among all participants, with 38 percent of citizens backing the potential agreement, Pew Research Center poll, issued on Tuesday, found. “The weakest support is in the US and in Malaysia (38%),” the poll read. The TPP is set to become the largest free trade deal, involving 12 countries from the Asia-Pacific region...
Ottawa says it won’t be 'bullied' by U.S. over TPP dairy negotiations Globe & Mail ...The Canadian government says it will not be bullied as the United States ratchets up pressure on Canada’s heavily protected dairy sector ahead of what could be the final round of talks for a Pacific Rim trade deal spanning 12 countries. More than 20 members of U.S. Congress have written a letter to the Canadian government accusing it of being “unwilling to seriously engage in market access discussions regarding dairy”...
Company v Country: Investigating the booming and lucrative business of multinational companies suing governments (radio) BBC ...The strangely-named investor state dispute settlement (ISDS) system is built into thousands of treaties between countries around the world. It is a key part of negotiations for a new trade and investment treaty between the US and the EU. Yet on both sides of the Atlantic, resistance is mounting. Michael Robinson digs into the ISDS mechanism to find out if the fears are justified. Are these little-known lawsuits threatening the democratic process?...
Trade debate masks America’s competitive disadvantage (opinion) PBS ...The Trans-Pacific Partnership may be out of the headlines momentarily, but it continues to be as contentious as ever. the debate fails to include the real issue: the ability of the United States as a country to compete in the world economy. A winning strategy for the U.S. today requires much more than cooperation between government and business. We need a highly skilled work force, which in turn means a world-class education system and access for all. We need to repair and improve our infrastructure...
Austerity-hit Ireland debates how to spend extra €1.5bn Financial Times ...For two days last week, politicians, civil society activists and business leaders gathered at Dublin Castle to discuss something rare in austerity-ravaged Ireland — how to spend an extra €1.5bn. The sum represents the “fiscal space” the government says it has to cut taxes and increase spending in the 2016 budget...
Greece's debt crisis explained, in mythological terms LA Times ...Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras successfully persuaded his fellow Greeks to reject austerity measures in a recent referendum, but it was a "Pyrrhic victory" since he now faces an even more devastated economy and deeper austerity cuts. Against his own party's ideals, Tsipras has now committed himself to more "draconian" budget cuts, with Greece forced to carry out the "Sisyphean task" of ever-increasing austerity...
State & Living Wage Battles
National push for $15 minimum wage hits home for U.S. Senate workers Washington Post ...Baker is among a group of federal contract workers who are joining with union-backed advocates to call on lawmakers to do more to protect an increasingly privatized federal workforce, where low wages and minimal benefits often clash with the rhetoric espoused by elected leaders. “We work for them every day,” Baker said. “They have a clean environment; they’ve got good food to eat. They say, ‘Thank you very much’ and ‘Good work.’ But that’s not enough. I need more so I can pay my bills -- $15 and a union”...
North Carolina Just Relaxed Its Voter ID Law, But Will Voters Get The Memo? Huffington Post ...Voting rights advocates were at least somewhat pleased when the North Carolina General Assembly unexpectedly voted in June to modify the state's strict requirement that voters present government-issued photo ID at the polls. But now, they're concerned that the state won't adequately educate people about the softened ID law before it goes into effect next year...
L.A. County supervisors agree to boost minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020 LA Times ...Organized labor won an important victory Tuesday when the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to increase the minimum wage to $15, but it now faces a more daunting political challenge: convincing other local governments to join the movement. The widely anticipated move by the nation’s largest local government applies to unincorporated areas and hundreds of thousands of employees, mirroring a similar action by the city of Los Angeles...
New York fast food workers’ $15 wage vote on Wednesday KFOR ...New York’s fast food workers could soon get paid a lot more. On Wednesday, the wage board is set to vote on New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s proposal to raise the state’s minimum wage for fast food workers to $15 an hour. The meeting will be held in New York City at 2.30 pm. New York’s minimum wage for all workers has risen from $7.25 to $8.75 an hour in the last two years. By the end of this year, it will be $9...
If you want a living wage, be prepared to go on strike for it (opinion) The Guardian ...Is the best way to achieve higher wages really legislation? Many think so. Across the country, working people are eagerly waiting to feel the effects of new laws that raise the minimum wage. Seattle will see an increase to $15 by 2021, and Los Angeles will see the same increase by 2020. But this strategy detracts from the only power dynamic that can actually overturn economic inequality: class struggle...
How the American South Drives the Low-Wage Economy American Prospect ...Today, as the auto and aerospace manufacturers of Europe and East Asia open low-wage assembly plants in Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina, and Mississippi, the South has assumed a comparable role once more. Indeed, the South today shares more features with its antebellum ancestor than it has in a very long time. White Southern elites and their powerful allies among non-Southern business interests seek to expand to the rest of the nation the South’s subjugation of workers and its suppression of the voting rights of those who might oppose their policies...
U.S. Labor
1,000 NYC airport workers set to strike starting Wednesday Associated Press ...More than 1,000 subcontracted airport security officers, baggage handlers and wheelchair attendants at the city's two major airports plan to strike starting Wednesday night, according to a union that seeks to represent them. Officials with Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union said picketing would begin at Kennedy Airport at 10 p.m. Wednesday and at LaGuardia at 6 a.m. Thursday...
UAW Donates $50,000 in Memory of the Charleston 9 AFL-CIO ...Members of the UAW on Thursday announced a $50,000 donation to the Rev. Clementa Pinckney fund in honor of the Charleston 9 who were tragically murdered on June 17. “UAW members often speak of bridging the gap to lift up our communities. Through our long history of civil rights advocacy, economic justice advocacy and economic fairness advocacy, the very ideals that we have come to learn were so near and dear to those who lost their lives June 17 at the Emanuel AME Church,” said UAW President Dennis Williams...
Legislators told trucking companies deliberately misclassify workers Savannah Now ...Two independent truckers choked up separately as they testified before a legislative committee Tuesday about the toll they say comes from companies misclassifying workers as independent contractors instead of employees. The emotional moments came in the middle and end of a daylong hearing by a subcommittee of the Senate Insurance and Labor Committee assigned to study worker classification...
Unemployment Rates a Mixed Bag Associated Press ...Unemployment rates fell last month in 21 U.S. states and were unchanged in 17, as widespread job growth and a shrinking workforce reduce the ranks of those out of work. The Labor Department said Tuesday that unemployment rates rose in 12 states. Employers added jobs in 31 states and cut them in 17, with little change in the remaining two states. The figures reflect steady hiring nationwide. Employers added 223,000 jobs in June, and the U.S. unemployment rate fell to 5.3 percent from 5.5 percent...
Time Is Political Jacobin ...A recent survey of New York City retail workers found that only 17 percent of workers had a regular work schedule. Retail workers reported that in order to get more hours or more desirable shifts they sometimes had to compete with coworkers to sell a certain amount, or sign up the most people for store credit cards. In this way, they were battling with each other just for the ability to work and earn more...
Miscellaneous
Obama Administration Announces New Rules Protecting Military Families From Predatory Lenders Think Progress ...America’s armed forces personnel will no longer be exposed to exploitative payday loans after the Department of Defense (DOD) put new, long-delayed rules into place on Tuesday. The news marks a victory for an idea that had seemed at risk of being killed just months ago by lawmakers friendly to the lending industry...
Five Years Later, the Unfulfilled Promise of Dodd-Frank Common Dreams ...With several key promises of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act still unfulfilled, "Americans cannot be comforted that Wall Street will not wreak havoc again," according to a new report from the watchdog group Public Citizen. "Five years after President Barack Obama signed this legislation, Dodd-Frank remains largely incomplete," said Bartlett Naylor, Public Citizen’s financial policy advocate and author of the report...
6 insidious ways the one percent is ripping you off Salon ...In the wake of the financial crisis, there was a momentof hope that predatory businesses would no longer be able to pick at our bones like vultures. Instead, we’ve seen Dodd-Frank weakened and stalled, and the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau stymied at every turn. In the latest round, Republicans are thwarting the confirmation of Richard Cordray to lead the Bureau. Meanwhile, we continue to get fleeced...
“I Will Light You Up!” Disturbing Dashcam Footage Shows the Traffic Stop That Led to Sandra Bland’s Arrest. Slate ...Tuesday afternoon saw the release of extraordinary dashcam footage of the traffic stop that led to Bland’s arrest. In the video, you can see Bland’s car making a lane change right before the officer who was driving behind her, who has been identified as Texas Department of Public Safety trooper Brian Encinia, pulls her over. “You seem very irritated,” he says to her, while standing next to the driver’s side window...
Why the Black Lives Matter Protest at Netroots Nation Was Long Overdue (opinion) The Nation ...The action kicked off a necessary conversation about the Democratic candidates’ reluctance to address racism directly, the problem with saying “all lives matter,” and why economic populism devoid of a race and gender analysis will neither satisfy nor mobilize a sizeable chunk of progressive voters. These activists have changed the tone for the 2016 election season, putting Democrats on notice that they cannot expect the support of black voters—particularly young black voters—without speaking directly and meaningfully to issues of race and state power currently gripping the country...
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
Today's Teamster News 06.16.15
Teamsters
Michigan School Bus Workers Choose Teamsters Union Teamster.org ...School bus workers with First Student in Carleton, Mich., have voted overwhelmingly, 25-2, in favor of representation by Teamsters Local 283 in Wyandotte, Mich. The group of 35 drivers and monitors reached out to the Teamsters Union seeking a strong voice to address their workplace concerns...
Former De Blasio Staffer Wins Labor Backing in Queens Council Race Observer ...A former de Blasio administration staffer running for an open Queens City Council seat has won the first labor endorsement of the race. Rebecca Lynch, a member of Mr. de Blasio’s Community Affairs Unit until this month and a former Democratic district leader, won the backing of Teamsters Joint Council 16 today...
House needs to continue stand against fast track Teamster Nation ...The Teamsters would like to thank all lawmakers who stood with the people in that important vote. Pro-fast track lawmakers, however, are likely to pull out every procedural trick in the book to overturn it. That could mean taking another vote on Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) as early as tomorrow...
Global Labor & Trade
Obama, Boehner abandon plans for Tuesday trade vote Washington Post ...President Obama and his momentary Republican allies in Congress mulled several difficult choices Monday for rescuing trade legislation into which the president has invested a massive amount of political capital in the hope of completing a 12-nation trade deal across the Pacific Rim. Their first call was to abandon plans for a second vote Tuesday on a piece of legislation that must also pass for the entire package to advance to Obama’s desk...
Obama’s environmental allies not buying his trade pitch on climate Washington Post ...President Obama has made environmental safeguards one of the selling points of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. But environmental groups aren’t buying. The influential environmental groups — a key part of the effort to rally the Democratic base against the fast-track bill for trade talks — believe that a new trade pact could set back important gains achieved over the past two decades...
US fast-track vote leaves Pacific trade pact talks in limbo Associated Press ...How slow can you go? The effort to get U.S. trade legislation through Congress, clearing the way for progress on an Asia-Pacific trade accord, is in limbo once again. The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday shot down a proposal to give President Barack Obama authority to negotiate global trade deals for congressional approval or rejection, without amendments...
U.S. trade deal’s setback causes mixed reaction in Asia Washington Post ...The failure of a package of trade-related measures Friday in the House was a blow to President Obama, but it was also a blow to his ally, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, half a world away. Abe has made reviving Japan’s stubbornly anemic economy one of his top priorities, and forging a wide-ranging trade pact with the United States, through the Trans- Pacific Partnership (TPP)...
Nancy Pelosi: Trade promotion authority on its last legs (opinion) USA Today ...In order to succeed in the global economy, it is necessary to move beyond stale arguments of protectionism vs. free trade. To do so, we must recognize that workers' rights, consumer and intellectual protections, and environmental safeguards must be just as enforceable as the protection of the economic interests of investors...
Honduran Workers Win Unions at 3 Plants, Get Pact at 4th Solidarity Center ...Apparel workers in Honduras formed unions at three factories in recent days with the Central General de Trabajadores Honduras (CGT) and its apparel federation FESITRATEMASH, in a huge victory for workers seeking to improve their basic livelihoods. Some 9,000 workers at the Canadian-owned Gildan apparel factories in Choloma, San Pedro Sula and Villanueva make T-shirts, sweatshirts and sweatpants...
In the Global Apparel Industry, Abusive and Deadly Working Conditions Are Still the Norm In These Times ...We know about extreme incidents such as the Rana Plaza collapse that capture the world’s attention, however briefly, or when workers get so fed up with the conditions that they strike long enough and loud enough to get the Western world’s attention. But the day-to-day disasters that maim or kill a single worker or the accumulation of lead in workers’ bodies—those go almost completely unreported...
Threats of Default and 'Grexit' Loom as Greece Refuses to Surrender Common Dreams ...As threats of a debt default, potential 'Greek exit,' and stock market crash loom, both sides appear to be digging in their heels after negotiations between Greece and European lenders collapsed on Sunday. Greece's leftist leader, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, slammed his creditors for their "insistence" on austerity, which he described as a "pillaging" of Greece's imperiled economy...
State & Living Wage Battles
After Cutting Taxes On The Rich, Kansas Will Raise Taxes On The Poor To Pay For It Think Progress ...Kansas lawmakers concluded the longest legislative session in state history Friday night by approving a slate of regressive tax hikes that will balance the state’s budget by targeting low-income workers and their families. More than half of the $384 million in new revenue expected from the tax hike will come from cigarette taxes and sales taxes, two policies described as “regressive” because they fall more heavily on lower-income taxpayers than on the wealthy...
Poll: Voters want to keep prevailing wage law Detroit News ...A group seeking to repeal Michigan's 50-year-old prevailing wage law might find its biggest support among Republican state lawmakers: A new poll suggests likely voters want to keep union-level wages for government construction projects. More than 59 percent of likely voters support maintaining Michigan's prevailing wage...
Senate support for Scott Walker's budget is razor thin Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel ...Gov. Scott Walker's budget hangs by a gossamer thread in the GOP-controlled state Senate, where "no" votes from just three lawmakers within his own party would be enough to derail his spending plan. Already, two conservative Republican senators have made clear they will be extremely difficult — perhaps impossible — for Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) to win over without knocking moderate senators from their party out of the yes column...
Scott Walker's Wisconsin: A Laboratory for Oligarchs Truthout ...Scott Walker's attacks on unions and family paying jobs in Wisconsin helped elevate his national profile and ingratiated him with deep-pocketed political donors like the Kochs. Can he take this agenda nationwide? This weekend's New York Times Magazine has a cover story by Wisconsin native Dan Kaufman called "Scott Walker and the Fate of the Union" that digs deep into Walker's anti-worker crusade...
What’s the Matter With Indiana? Counterpunch ...Amid all that’s clearly wrong with Indiana’s current direction under right wing Republican rule, Quigley finds cause for optimism. “Despite a state political climate that proved inhospitable to labor in the right-to-work debate, private sector workers are launching union organizing campaigns across the state’s capital,” and in smaller towns as well. If We Can Win Here includes detailed case studies of membership recruitment...
Board Hears Support for Raising Food Workers’ Minimum Wage New York Times ...The mayor who faced a multitude of excited New York City workers in Manhattan on Monday morning was not Bill de Blasio. Instead, it was the mayor of Buffalo, Byron Brown, who listened patiently as a contingent of fast-food restaurant employees pleaded for an increase in their minimum wage to $15 an hour, cheered on by an auditorium filled with their colleagues and sympathizers...
U.S. Labor
Amid dispute with SEIU union, county makes contract offer Las Vegas Review-Journal ...Clark County managers have made a contract offer to their largest employee union amid a dispute over interpretation of a new state law that revamps collective bargaining for government workers. The offer would end concerns over the county’s moves to end paid union leave for employees and stop all increases to wages and benefits...
Saint Louis University Hospital nurses vote against de-authorization of union St. Louis Public Radio ...Members of a nurse’s union at St. Louis University Hospital voted against de-authorizing their union late Monday, a measure that would have effectively created a “right-to-work” policy within the hospital. The National Nurses United affiliate has about 650 members at SLU Hospital; only 140 voted in favor of de-authorization...
Ford wants to lead UAW talks to address wage disparity Detroit Free Press ...Detroit Three-UAW bargaining will begin in earnest the week of July 13 and Ford wants to be first to ink an agreement that creates a more even playing field when it comes to wages in the auto industry. In the normally secretive world of UAW talks, key dates and details were released Monday about the next stages of bargaining...
Woman Alleges Waffle House Manager Asked, ‘You’re Pregnant Again?’ Then Fired Her For Pregnancy Think Progress ...Tabitha Handy says she assured her employer at Waffle House that she could continue doing her job after she found out she was pregnant in September, but then she was allegedly fired over concerns about whether she could keep doing it. Now, she’s suing them.
When she first told her direct manager, according to the lawsuit, he replied that he didn’t know of any other pregnant workers at Waffle House and told her to tell upper management about it...
Milwaukee County Transit union workers holding strike vote Fox 6 Now ..Milwaukee County Transit union workers will vote Tuesday, June 16th on whether to go on strike. They’ve been working without a contract for more than two months. The local union is in the midst of contract negotiations with Milwaukee County. But if they don’t come to a deal, they could strike. The Amalgamated Transit Union Local 998 has more than one thousand members...
Surviving the Drought in California: Farm Workers Struggle to Put Food on the Table Truthout ...Undocumented farm workers are the backbone of America’s farm industry. Already living on the margins, the California drought is hitting them the hardest. People Power Media went to the heart of California’s Central Valley, in towns like Mendota, to find how the drought is impacting workers and their families...
Miscellaneous
Border Agent Allegedly Claimed That 3-Year-Old Child Crossed Border To ‘Look For Work’ Think Progress ...Since last summer, the Obama administration has adopted an aggressive deterrence strategy to lock up women and their children in detention under a “no release” policy as a way to deter future migrants from making the trek. Some people were released, but many were denied bond. Though many women and children currently in detention have favorable “credible fear” findings, many are still locked up in the three family detention centers...
U.S. industrial output hurt by weakness in manufacturing, mining Reuters ...U.S. industrial production unexpectedly fell in May as manufacturing and mining activity remained weak, a sign that a strong dollar and spending cuts in the energy sector continued to constrain economic growth. The softness in the production side of the economy contrasts starkly with recent upbeat data on retail sales, employment, consumer and small business confidence...
Michigan School Bus Workers Choose Teamsters Union Teamster.org ...School bus workers with First Student in Carleton, Mich., have voted overwhelmingly, 25-2, in favor of representation by Teamsters Local 283 in Wyandotte, Mich. The group of 35 drivers and monitors reached out to the Teamsters Union seeking a strong voice to address their workplace concerns...
Former De Blasio Staffer Wins Labor Backing in Queens Council Race Observer ...A former de Blasio administration staffer running for an open Queens City Council seat has won the first labor endorsement of the race. Rebecca Lynch, a member of Mr. de Blasio’s Community Affairs Unit until this month and a former Democratic district leader, won the backing of Teamsters Joint Council 16 today...
House needs to continue stand against fast track Teamster Nation ...The Teamsters would like to thank all lawmakers who stood with the people in that important vote. Pro-fast track lawmakers, however, are likely to pull out every procedural trick in the book to overturn it. That could mean taking another vote on Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) as early as tomorrow...
Global Labor & Trade
Obama, Boehner abandon plans for Tuesday trade vote Washington Post ...President Obama and his momentary Republican allies in Congress mulled several difficult choices Monday for rescuing trade legislation into which the president has invested a massive amount of political capital in the hope of completing a 12-nation trade deal across the Pacific Rim. Their first call was to abandon plans for a second vote Tuesday on a piece of legislation that must also pass for the entire package to advance to Obama’s desk...
Obama’s environmental allies not buying his trade pitch on climate Washington Post ...President Obama has made environmental safeguards one of the selling points of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. But environmental groups aren’t buying. The influential environmental groups — a key part of the effort to rally the Democratic base against the fast-track bill for trade talks — believe that a new trade pact could set back important gains achieved over the past two decades...
US fast-track vote leaves Pacific trade pact talks in limbo Associated Press ...How slow can you go? The effort to get U.S. trade legislation through Congress, clearing the way for progress on an Asia-Pacific trade accord, is in limbo once again. The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday shot down a proposal to give President Barack Obama authority to negotiate global trade deals for congressional approval or rejection, without amendments...
U.S. trade deal’s setback causes mixed reaction in Asia Washington Post ...The failure of a package of trade-related measures Friday in the House was a blow to President Obama, but it was also a blow to his ally, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, half a world away. Abe has made reviving Japan’s stubbornly anemic economy one of his top priorities, and forging a wide-ranging trade pact with the United States, through the Trans- Pacific Partnership (TPP)...
Nancy Pelosi: Trade promotion authority on its last legs (opinion) USA Today ...In order to succeed in the global economy, it is necessary to move beyond stale arguments of protectionism vs. free trade. To do so, we must recognize that workers' rights, consumer and intellectual protections, and environmental safeguards must be just as enforceable as the protection of the economic interests of investors...
Honduran Workers Win Unions at 3 Plants, Get Pact at 4th Solidarity Center ...Apparel workers in Honduras formed unions at three factories in recent days with the Central General de Trabajadores Honduras (CGT) and its apparel federation FESITRATEMASH, in a huge victory for workers seeking to improve their basic livelihoods. Some 9,000 workers at the Canadian-owned Gildan apparel factories in Choloma, San Pedro Sula and Villanueva make T-shirts, sweatshirts and sweatpants...
In the Global Apparel Industry, Abusive and Deadly Working Conditions Are Still the Norm In These Times ...We know about extreme incidents such as the Rana Plaza collapse that capture the world’s attention, however briefly, or when workers get so fed up with the conditions that they strike long enough and loud enough to get the Western world’s attention. But the day-to-day disasters that maim or kill a single worker or the accumulation of lead in workers’ bodies—those go almost completely unreported...
Threats of Default and 'Grexit' Loom as Greece Refuses to Surrender Common Dreams ...As threats of a debt default, potential 'Greek exit,' and stock market crash loom, both sides appear to be digging in their heels after negotiations between Greece and European lenders collapsed on Sunday. Greece's leftist leader, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, slammed his creditors for their "insistence" on austerity, which he described as a "pillaging" of Greece's imperiled economy...
State & Living Wage Battles
After Cutting Taxes On The Rich, Kansas Will Raise Taxes On The Poor To Pay For It Think Progress ...Kansas lawmakers concluded the longest legislative session in state history Friday night by approving a slate of regressive tax hikes that will balance the state’s budget by targeting low-income workers and their families. More than half of the $384 million in new revenue expected from the tax hike will come from cigarette taxes and sales taxes, two policies described as “regressive” because they fall more heavily on lower-income taxpayers than on the wealthy...
Poll: Voters want to keep prevailing wage law Detroit News ...A group seeking to repeal Michigan's 50-year-old prevailing wage law might find its biggest support among Republican state lawmakers: A new poll suggests likely voters want to keep union-level wages for government construction projects. More than 59 percent of likely voters support maintaining Michigan's prevailing wage...
Senate support for Scott Walker's budget is razor thin Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel ...Gov. Scott Walker's budget hangs by a gossamer thread in the GOP-controlled state Senate, where "no" votes from just three lawmakers within his own party would be enough to derail his spending plan. Already, two conservative Republican senators have made clear they will be extremely difficult — perhaps impossible — for Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) to win over without knocking moderate senators from their party out of the yes column...
Scott Walker's Wisconsin: A Laboratory for Oligarchs Truthout ...Scott Walker's attacks on unions and family paying jobs in Wisconsin helped elevate his national profile and ingratiated him with deep-pocketed political donors like the Kochs. Can he take this agenda nationwide? This weekend's New York Times Magazine has a cover story by Wisconsin native Dan Kaufman called "Scott Walker and the Fate of the Union" that digs deep into Walker's anti-worker crusade...
What’s the Matter With Indiana? Counterpunch ...Amid all that’s clearly wrong with Indiana’s current direction under right wing Republican rule, Quigley finds cause for optimism. “Despite a state political climate that proved inhospitable to labor in the right-to-work debate, private sector workers are launching union organizing campaigns across the state’s capital,” and in smaller towns as well. If We Can Win Here includes detailed case studies of membership recruitment...
Board Hears Support for Raising Food Workers’ Minimum Wage New York Times ...The mayor who faced a multitude of excited New York City workers in Manhattan on Monday morning was not Bill de Blasio. Instead, it was the mayor of Buffalo, Byron Brown, who listened patiently as a contingent of fast-food restaurant employees pleaded for an increase in their minimum wage to $15 an hour, cheered on by an auditorium filled with their colleagues and sympathizers...
U.S. Labor
Amid dispute with SEIU union, county makes contract offer Las Vegas Review-Journal ...Clark County managers have made a contract offer to their largest employee union amid a dispute over interpretation of a new state law that revamps collective bargaining for government workers. The offer would end concerns over the county’s moves to end paid union leave for employees and stop all increases to wages and benefits...
Saint Louis University Hospital nurses vote against de-authorization of union St. Louis Public Radio ...Members of a nurse’s union at St. Louis University Hospital voted against de-authorizing their union late Monday, a measure that would have effectively created a “right-to-work” policy within the hospital. The National Nurses United affiliate has about 650 members at SLU Hospital; only 140 voted in favor of de-authorization...
Ford wants to lead UAW talks to address wage disparity Detroit Free Press ...Detroit Three-UAW bargaining will begin in earnest the week of July 13 and Ford wants to be first to ink an agreement that creates a more even playing field when it comes to wages in the auto industry. In the normally secretive world of UAW talks, key dates and details were released Monday about the next stages of bargaining...
Woman Alleges Waffle House Manager Asked, ‘You’re Pregnant Again?’ Then Fired Her For Pregnancy Think Progress ...Tabitha Handy says she assured her employer at Waffle House that she could continue doing her job after she found out she was pregnant in September, but then she was allegedly fired over concerns about whether she could keep doing it. Now, she’s suing them.
When she first told her direct manager, according to the lawsuit, he replied that he didn’t know of any other pregnant workers at Waffle House and told her to tell upper management about it...
Milwaukee County Transit union workers holding strike vote Fox 6 Now ..Milwaukee County Transit union workers will vote Tuesday, June 16th on whether to go on strike. They’ve been working without a contract for more than two months. The local union is in the midst of contract negotiations with Milwaukee County. But if they don’t come to a deal, they could strike. The Amalgamated Transit Union Local 998 has more than one thousand members...
Surviving the Drought in California: Farm Workers Struggle to Put Food on the Table Truthout ...Undocumented farm workers are the backbone of America’s farm industry. Already living on the margins, the California drought is hitting them the hardest. People Power Media went to the heart of California’s Central Valley, in towns like Mendota, to find how the drought is impacting workers and their families...
Miscellaneous
Border Agent Allegedly Claimed That 3-Year-Old Child Crossed Border To ‘Look For Work’ Think Progress ...Since last summer, the Obama administration has adopted an aggressive deterrence strategy to lock up women and their children in detention under a “no release” policy as a way to deter future migrants from making the trek. Some people were released, but many were denied bond. Though many women and children currently in detention have favorable “credible fear” findings, many are still locked up in the three family detention centers...
U.S. industrial output hurt by weakness in manufacturing, mining Reuters ...U.S. industrial production unexpectedly fell in May as manufacturing and mining activity remained weak, a sign that a strong dollar and spending cuts in the energy sector continued to constrain economic growth. The softness in the production side of the economy contrasts starkly with recent upbeat data on retail sales, employment, consumer and small business confidence...
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
Today's Teamster News 06.03.15
Teamsters
Crystal Motor Express Drivers Choose Teamsters Teamster.org ...Drivers at Crystal Motor Express in Lynnfield, Mass., have voted overwhelmingly to join Teamsters Local 42 in Lynn, Mass. The newly organized group consists of 55 drivers. “Teamsters Joint Council 10 continues to focus on organizing in core industries. We welcome these freight drivers to the Teamster family,” said David W. Laughton, Secretary-Treasurer of Teamsters Joint Council 10...
Teamsters Urge Investor Support for Executive Pay Safeguard at Allegiant Travel Co. Teamster.org ...The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, a long-term investor of Allegiant Travel Company urges fellow shareholders to vote FOR Item #3 on the company’s proxy—a proposal that would help prevent unearned windfall awards being paid to executives in the event of a change of control. The shareholder proposal will be presented at the company’s annual meeting, which will be held June 18, 2015, in Las Vegas...
Teamsters Protest Sysco in Michigan Teamster.org ...Teamsters protested Sysco Corporation outside the Michigan Restaurant Association’s Capitol Day in Lansing, Mich., today. Sysco is the largest foodservice distributor in the nation. Sysco faces a federal investigation of 30 alleged violations of labor law and 35 objections to a May 7 Grand Rapids, Mich., union election in which a lead union supporter was fired and workers were threatened with the loss of benefits or their jobs if they voted for union representation...
President Pierce testifies for two-person crews, PTC at Congressional hearing BLET.org ...Dennis Pierce, National President of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) and President of the Teamsters Rail Conference, testified before the U.S. House of Representatives today and urged the timely implementation of Positive Train Control (PTC), coupled with a minimum two-person operating crew to ensure safety along the nation’s railroads...
Truckers say working conditions likely cause for recent tragedies WSAV ...Responding to two recent accidents involving trucks that resulted in ten deaths, a groups of local truck drivers say long hours may have been a likely factor. Teamsters Local 728 representative Jerome Irwin, Sr. stood with local drivers this morning...
For truck drivers at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, it's a waiting game KPCC ...More than 40 percent of U.S. imports flow through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. An army of 14,000 short-haul truck drivers are tasked with hauling that cargo from the port complex to warehouses and rail yards around Southern Calfornia. But some of those truckers say, despite their critical role at the ports, they are among the lowest paid workers there, due to ridiculously long wait times...
Global Labor & Trade
Wikileaks offers $100,000 for details of Obama’s trade deal Washington Post ...Wikileaks put a hit out on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal Tuesday, offering $100,000 to anyone who turns over the chapters that have yet to be leaked. The government-document exposing organization already published some chapters of the secret deal, but it wants the whole thing. It’s also using crowdfunding to raise the money to pay the bounty...
Hoyer Urges Civility Among Democrats in Trade Debate Roll Call ...He specifically discussed labor’s outsized influence in pressuring members to oppose legislation that would give President Barack Obama latitude to negotiate a major trade deal with Pacific nations. The AFL-CIO in particular has threatened Democrats who support so-called fast-track authority...
Liberals plot new way to blow up Obama’s trade deal Washington Post ...In the House, a big bloc of liberals has hit on what they hope will be a new way to sink Fast Track. It turns on an obscure aspect of this debate that has gone under-covered: A problematic funding mechanism for a program, which would be part of the whole deal, that grants assistance to workers displaced by trade. The Senate version of TAA is funded in part by cuts to Medicare growth...
Barney Frank: Obama Is Making 'A Big Mistake' On TPP Huffington Post ...Frank said Obama should leverage the trade deal, now being negotiated with 11 Pacific nations, to pass policies that would reduce income inequality, but are currently opposed by the powerful corporations backing TPP. Among the policies that Frank said that Obama could exchange for the trade deal are an increase in the minimum wage, stronger protections for unions, and the end of tax breaks for corporations that ship jobs overseas...
Rana Plaza Charges: ‘A Long-Delayed Step Toward Justice’ Solidarity Center ...Reports that at least 41 government officials have been charged in the deadly 2013 collapse of Rana Plaza in Bangladesh “represent a long-delayed step toward justice,” says Solidarity Center Asia Regional Program Director Tim Ryan. “Finally, after more than two years, the Bangladesh government is moving toward holding accountable those who were responsible for the deaths and injuries of hundreds of women and men toiling for pennies in those five garment factories”...
State & Living Wage Battles
Nevada minimum wage raised to $9 for workers without insurance Las Vegas Sun ... Nevada’s minimum wage is increasing to $9 an hour for workers not offered company health insurance. A conference committee of the Senate and Assembly agreed on amendments to SB193 that would raise the wage from $8.25 an hour...
Union workers oppose right-to-work Effingham Daily News ...Union workers packed Effingham City Council Chamber Tuesday evening to explain to city officials how the establishment of a right-to-work zone in the city would hurt their livelihoods. Gov. Bruce Rauner has pushed for the state to allow local communities to establish such zones...
New prevailing wage method won’t change much, union leader says WV Gazette ...New methodology for calculating prevailing wage rates for state-funded construction projects is not likely to dramatically change wages for construction workers, the executive director of the Affiliated Construction Trades Foundation said Tuesday. “In general, it should be about the same,” Steve White said of the new methodology for calculating prevailing wage, released Monday by WorkForce West Virginia...
WNC public hearings set on voter ID law Citizen-Times ...The State Board of Elections is holding the first of nine public hearings on the rules governing North Carolina's voter identification law. The first hearing is scheduled for Raleigh beginning at 5 p.m. on Wednesday at board headquarters. The other hearings will be held throughout the state during June...
St. Louis mayor supports a $15 minimum wage USA Today ...St. Louis could be the next city to raise its minimum wage significantly, if Mayor Francis Slay has his way. Slay spokeswoman Maggie Crane on Tuesday confirmed that the Democratic mayor wants to raise the city's minimum. A starting point for discussion is $15 per hour by Jan. 1, 2020...
Walmart is a cultural sickness: How the American workplace is enriching the wealthy — and destroying everyone else Salon ...The Waltons are among the wealthiest people on the globe, yet their business won’t guarantee American workers the fundamental dignity of having a child without fear of repercussion. And so it goes with workers’ rights across sectors of the economy. In any moral society, this would be considered a crime. And in more advanced societies, Walmart is forced to grant their workers more rights, like unionization...
U.S. Labor
United Auto Workers Units Draw Up Strike Plans Wall Street Journal ...With about 100 days remaining on a four-year labor pact, local United Auto Workers units are drawing up strike plans to prepare for potentially contentious negotiations with Detroit auto makers awash in profits. UAW officials—representing about 140,000 General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles employees—will soon begin negotiating a new deal ahead of a Sept. 14 contract deadline...
MedStar, nurses union reach tentative agreement Washington Business Journal ...Nurses at MedStar Washington Hospital Center stand to earn increases of up to 12.5 percent over the next four years if they ratify a tentative agreement with the hospital later this week. Officials from both MedStar and National Nurses United confirmed nurses will vote on whether to ratify the four-year contract by Friday. If approved, the contract will take effect immediately...
NLRB Office: Saint Xavier Adjuncts May Count Union Votes Inside Higher Ed ...A local National Labor Relations Board office decided this week that adjuncts at Saint Xavier University may count their union election votes. The count was halted four years ago after the Roman Catholic University opposed the National Education Association-affiliated union drive...
NLRB approves union at Golden Dragon plant Montgomery Advertiser ...A federal agency last week certified a vote to unionize a plant that Gov. Robert Bentley touted as an example of economic development. The National Labor Relations Board issued a certificate of recognition Thursday to workers at GD Copper USA at Pine Hill in Wilcox County. The workers voted 75 to 74 in November to unionize under the United Steelworkers...
Union files another charge with NLRB against Kittanning hospital Trib Live ...The technicians and licensed practical nurses union filed another charge with the National Labor Relations Board against ACHM Hospital Tuesday, alleging administrators have discriminated against its members.
“The hospital has discriminated against the employees for participating in union activities and have continually engaged in bad-faith bargaining,” said Curtis Dahn, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals union...
Miscellaneous
‘I Am Disappointed': Elizabeth Warren Blasts Top Financial Industry Overseer For Failing The Public Think Progress ...Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) head Mary Jo White is under renewed scrutiny Tuesday after Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) published a blistering 13-page letter to the commissioner listing the various ways in which she says White has failed to keep her promises to Warren and other senators since being sworn in in the spring of 2013...
US Congress passes surveillance reform in vindication for Edward Snowden The Guardian ...The US Senate on Tuesday passed a bill that would end the bulk collection of millions of Americans’ phone records, the most significant surveillance reform for decades and a direct result of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s revelations to the Guardian two years ago. Senators voted 67-32 to pass the USA Freedom Act...
America's crumbling infrastructure Yahoo News ...America’s infrastructure could be reaching a breaking point. Literally. When it comes to our transportation infrastructure — that’s railroads, water pipelines, ports, dams, bridges, airports and roads — the United States has gotten way off track. In fact, the American Society of Civil Engineers’ most recent report card gave America’s infrastructure a D+. And according to the World Economic Forum, the U.S. ranks 16th in quality of overall infrastructure...
Crystal Motor Express Drivers Choose Teamsters Teamster.org ...Drivers at Crystal Motor Express in Lynnfield, Mass., have voted overwhelmingly to join Teamsters Local 42 in Lynn, Mass. The newly organized group consists of 55 drivers. “Teamsters Joint Council 10 continues to focus on organizing in core industries. We welcome these freight drivers to the Teamster family,” said David W. Laughton, Secretary-Treasurer of Teamsters Joint Council 10...
Teamsters Urge Investor Support for Executive Pay Safeguard at Allegiant Travel Co. Teamster.org ...The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, a long-term investor of Allegiant Travel Company urges fellow shareholders to vote FOR Item #3 on the company’s proxy—a proposal that would help prevent unearned windfall awards being paid to executives in the event of a change of control. The shareholder proposal will be presented at the company’s annual meeting, which will be held June 18, 2015, in Las Vegas...
Teamsters Protest Sysco in Michigan Teamster.org ...Teamsters protested Sysco Corporation outside the Michigan Restaurant Association’s Capitol Day in Lansing, Mich., today. Sysco is the largest foodservice distributor in the nation. Sysco faces a federal investigation of 30 alleged violations of labor law and 35 objections to a May 7 Grand Rapids, Mich., union election in which a lead union supporter was fired and workers were threatened with the loss of benefits or their jobs if they voted for union representation...
President Pierce testifies for two-person crews, PTC at Congressional hearing BLET.org ...Dennis Pierce, National President of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) and President of the Teamsters Rail Conference, testified before the U.S. House of Representatives today and urged the timely implementation of Positive Train Control (PTC), coupled with a minimum two-person operating crew to ensure safety along the nation’s railroads...
Truckers say working conditions likely cause for recent tragedies WSAV ...Responding to two recent accidents involving trucks that resulted in ten deaths, a groups of local truck drivers say long hours may have been a likely factor. Teamsters Local 728 representative Jerome Irwin, Sr. stood with local drivers this morning...
For truck drivers at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, it's a waiting game KPCC ...More than 40 percent of U.S. imports flow through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. An army of 14,000 short-haul truck drivers are tasked with hauling that cargo from the port complex to warehouses and rail yards around Southern Calfornia. But some of those truckers say, despite their critical role at the ports, they are among the lowest paid workers there, due to ridiculously long wait times...
Global Labor & Trade
Wikileaks offers $100,000 for details of Obama’s trade deal Washington Post ...Wikileaks put a hit out on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal Tuesday, offering $100,000 to anyone who turns over the chapters that have yet to be leaked. The government-document exposing organization already published some chapters of the secret deal, but it wants the whole thing. It’s also using crowdfunding to raise the money to pay the bounty...
Hoyer Urges Civility Among Democrats in Trade Debate Roll Call ...He specifically discussed labor’s outsized influence in pressuring members to oppose legislation that would give President Barack Obama latitude to negotiate a major trade deal with Pacific nations. The AFL-CIO in particular has threatened Democrats who support so-called fast-track authority...
Liberals plot new way to blow up Obama’s trade deal Washington Post ...In the House, a big bloc of liberals has hit on what they hope will be a new way to sink Fast Track. It turns on an obscure aspect of this debate that has gone under-covered: A problematic funding mechanism for a program, which would be part of the whole deal, that grants assistance to workers displaced by trade. The Senate version of TAA is funded in part by cuts to Medicare growth...
Barney Frank: Obama Is Making 'A Big Mistake' On TPP Huffington Post ...Frank said Obama should leverage the trade deal, now being negotiated with 11 Pacific nations, to pass policies that would reduce income inequality, but are currently opposed by the powerful corporations backing TPP. Among the policies that Frank said that Obama could exchange for the trade deal are an increase in the minimum wage, stronger protections for unions, and the end of tax breaks for corporations that ship jobs overseas...
Rana Plaza Charges: ‘A Long-Delayed Step Toward Justice’ Solidarity Center ...Reports that at least 41 government officials have been charged in the deadly 2013 collapse of Rana Plaza in Bangladesh “represent a long-delayed step toward justice,” says Solidarity Center Asia Regional Program Director Tim Ryan. “Finally, after more than two years, the Bangladesh government is moving toward holding accountable those who were responsible for the deaths and injuries of hundreds of women and men toiling for pennies in those five garment factories”...
State & Living Wage Battles
Nevada minimum wage raised to $9 for workers without insurance Las Vegas Sun ... Nevada’s minimum wage is increasing to $9 an hour for workers not offered company health insurance. A conference committee of the Senate and Assembly agreed on amendments to SB193 that would raise the wage from $8.25 an hour...
Union workers oppose right-to-work Effingham Daily News ...Union workers packed Effingham City Council Chamber Tuesday evening to explain to city officials how the establishment of a right-to-work zone in the city would hurt their livelihoods. Gov. Bruce Rauner has pushed for the state to allow local communities to establish such zones...
New prevailing wage method won’t change much, union leader says WV Gazette ...New methodology for calculating prevailing wage rates for state-funded construction projects is not likely to dramatically change wages for construction workers, the executive director of the Affiliated Construction Trades Foundation said Tuesday. “In general, it should be about the same,” Steve White said of the new methodology for calculating prevailing wage, released Monday by WorkForce West Virginia...
WNC public hearings set on voter ID law Citizen-Times ...The State Board of Elections is holding the first of nine public hearings on the rules governing North Carolina's voter identification law. The first hearing is scheduled for Raleigh beginning at 5 p.m. on Wednesday at board headquarters. The other hearings will be held throughout the state during June...
St. Louis mayor supports a $15 minimum wage USA Today ...St. Louis could be the next city to raise its minimum wage significantly, if Mayor Francis Slay has his way. Slay spokeswoman Maggie Crane on Tuesday confirmed that the Democratic mayor wants to raise the city's minimum. A starting point for discussion is $15 per hour by Jan. 1, 2020...
Walmart is a cultural sickness: How the American workplace is enriching the wealthy — and destroying everyone else Salon ...The Waltons are among the wealthiest people on the globe, yet their business won’t guarantee American workers the fundamental dignity of having a child without fear of repercussion. And so it goes with workers’ rights across sectors of the economy. In any moral society, this would be considered a crime. And in more advanced societies, Walmart is forced to grant their workers more rights, like unionization...
U.S. Labor
United Auto Workers Units Draw Up Strike Plans Wall Street Journal ...With about 100 days remaining on a four-year labor pact, local United Auto Workers units are drawing up strike plans to prepare for potentially contentious negotiations with Detroit auto makers awash in profits. UAW officials—representing about 140,000 General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles employees—will soon begin negotiating a new deal ahead of a Sept. 14 contract deadline...
MedStar, nurses union reach tentative agreement Washington Business Journal ...Nurses at MedStar Washington Hospital Center stand to earn increases of up to 12.5 percent over the next four years if they ratify a tentative agreement with the hospital later this week. Officials from both MedStar and National Nurses United confirmed nurses will vote on whether to ratify the four-year contract by Friday. If approved, the contract will take effect immediately...
NLRB Office: Saint Xavier Adjuncts May Count Union Votes Inside Higher Ed ...A local National Labor Relations Board office decided this week that adjuncts at Saint Xavier University may count their union election votes. The count was halted four years ago after the Roman Catholic University opposed the National Education Association-affiliated union drive...
NLRB approves union at Golden Dragon plant Montgomery Advertiser ...A federal agency last week certified a vote to unionize a plant that Gov. Robert Bentley touted as an example of economic development. The National Labor Relations Board issued a certificate of recognition Thursday to workers at GD Copper USA at Pine Hill in Wilcox County. The workers voted 75 to 74 in November to unionize under the United Steelworkers...
Union files another charge with NLRB against Kittanning hospital Trib Live ...The technicians and licensed practical nurses union filed another charge with the National Labor Relations Board against ACHM Hospital Tuesday, alleging administrators have discriminated against its members.
“The hospital has discriminated against the employees for participating in union activities and have continually engaged in bad-faith bargaining,” said Curtis Dahn, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals union...
Miscellaneous
‘I Am Disappointed': Elizabeth Warren Blasts Top Financial Industry Overseer For Failing The Public Think Progress ...Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) head Mary Jo White is under renewed scrutiny Tuesday after Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) published a blistering 13-page letter to the commissioner listing the various ways in which she says White has failed to keep her promises to Warren and other senators since being sworn in in the spring of 2013...
US Congress passes surveillance reform in vindication for Edward Snowden The Guardian ...The US Senate on Tuesday passed a bill that would end the bulk collection of millions of Americans’ phone records, the most significant surveillance reform for decades and a direct result of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s revelations to the Guardian two years ago. Senators voted 67-32 to pass the USA Freedom Act...
America's crumbling infrastructure Yahoo News ...America’s infrastructure could be reaching a breaking point. Literally. When it comes to our transportation infrastructure — that’s railroads, water pipelines, ports, dams, bridges, airports and roads — the United States has gotten way off track. In fact, the American Society of Civil Engineers’ most recent report card gave America’s infrastructure a D+. And according to the World Economic Forum, the U.S. ranks 16th in quality of overall infrastructure...
Tuesday, June 2, 2015
Today's Teamster News 06.02.15
Teamsters
The Sinister Motives Lurking Beneath Amazon.com's Minnesota Debut Teamster.org ...Teamsters Local 120 and workers across Minnesota are questioning the motives behind Amazon.com, Inc., as the company prepares to break ground on a new distribution facility, while driving down wages for workers. After facing community pressure, Amazon, a multi-billion dollar corporation, recently withdrew its request for more than $6.4 million in tax incentives...
Teamsters Local 284 President Paul Suffoletto Responds to Management Changes at NetJets Teamster.org ...Today, the Teamsters Union was informed of a change in leadership at NetJets, Inc., which could impact hundreds of Teamsters Local 284-represented flight attendants, mechanics and related employees, stock clerks, maintenance controllers and flight dispatchers. The Teamsters Union was informed that CEO Jordan Hansell has left NetJets. Adam Johnson will replace Hansell as Chairman and CEO...
Port truck drivers: Companies must share blame WJCL News ...Drivers of trucks that service the Savannah ports have scheduled a press conference Tuesday at which they are expected to make the claim that trucking companies must share the blame for the recent spate of truck-related fatal accidents in the area. Drivers said in a press release issued Monday that long hours, low pay, and pressure from the trucking companies to deliver as many loads as possible a day all contribute to unsafe working conditions...
Global Labor & Trade
Dems in pressure cooker on trade The Hill ...House Democrats are in a pressure cooker ahead of a high-stakes vote on a vital piece of President Obama's ambitious trade agenda. The White House, joining the powerful business lobby, is applying a full court press in an effort to rally lawmakers behind contentious fast-track legislation that would grant the administration new powers to seal enormous international trade deals that would rank atop Obama's economic achievements...
Congress may take up Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal this week Michigan Radio ...Michigan’s congressional delegation is divided as a major new trade deal tops the agenda this week. The “Trans Pacific Partnership” would cover U-S imports and exports from a dozen nations. Flint Congressman Dan Kildee says the deal doesn’t do enough to address human rights and currency manipulation...
WikiLeaks Launches Campaign to Offer $100,000 "Bounty" for Leaked Drafts of Secret TPP Chapters Democracy Now ...Critics, including a number of Democratic lawmakers, oppose the TPP, saying it will fuel inequality, kill jobs, and undermine health, environmental and financial regulations. The negotiations have been secret, and the public has never seen most of the deal’s text. This morning the whistleblowing group WikiLeaks launched a campaign to change that. The group is seeking to raise $100,000 to offer what they describe as a bounty for the leaking of the unseen chapters of the TPP...
Australian MPs allowed to see top-secret trade deal text but can't reveal contents for four years The Guardian ...Australian politicians have been told they can view the current confidential negotiating text for the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, but only if they agree not to divulge anything they see for four years, despite expectations the deal could be finalised within months...
Don't Reward Human Traffickers (opinion) Roll Call ...The horrors along the Thai-Malaysian border revealed in the past week have shocked our consciences, and put the scourge of human trafficking at the front of international news. As shocking as those stories are, they are not the first reports from Malaysia. This reality is why I introduced an amendment to the “fast track” trade promotion bill that for the first time prohibits expedited, unamendable congressional consideration for any trade deal including the very worst human trafficking country...
UK rail strikes suspended after 2% pay rise offer BBC ...Planned rail strikes by workers from the RMT union have been suspended after an offer of a 2% pay rise this year, the arbitration service Acas has said. Acas said four days of talks helped "formulate" revised proposals for the RMT and other unions to consider. The RMT has 16,000 members at Network Rail in operations and maintenance...
Two Years Later, Murder Charges for Rana Plaza Tragedy, But Justice Elusive Common Dreams ...Bangladeshi police on Monday formally filed murder charges against 41 people for the Rana Plaza factory collapse over two years ago that killed 1,138 workers in what is is believed to be the worst single tragedy in the history of the world's garment industry. However, officials from the numerous Western retail corporations that did business with the factory—including Walmart, The Children’s Place, Benetton, Zara, and Mango—were not named among those facing charges...
State & Living Wage Battles
Right-to-work opponents run TV ads to press governor to follow through with his veto St. Louis Public Radio ...Although Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon already has declared he’ll veto an anti-union bill known as “right to work,’’ a labor coalition has launched a TV ad campaign anyway. The ad blitz is likely just the first salvo in what could be a summer-long effort by both sides to sway the public and politicians on the bill...
California Senate approves another minimum wage hike KTVL ...The California Senate has approved a plan to again raise California's minimum wage, lifting it to $13 an hour in 2017, then tied to the rate of inflation after that. Senators on Monday approved the bill, SB3 by Sen. Mark Leno, on a 23-15 vote, with Republican lawmakers opposed...
California lawmakers advance 'wage theft' bill for workers KSBY ...California lawmakers have advanced a "wage theft" bill in an effort to crack down on employers that shortchange workers. The state Senate on Monday approved the proposal on a 24-12 vote. SB588 by Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon would make it easier for the state labor commissioner to collect unpaid wages on behalf of workers...
Absentee voter ID bill dead in Alabama Legislature, lawmakers say AL.com ...A bill that would require voters to submit a copy of their photo ID when requesting an absentee ballot in the state of Alabama is dead, Rep. Reed Ingram said. Currently, Alabama is one of only three states that require a photo ID to submit an absentee ballot. The new rule would have required absentee voters to submit a copy of their photo ID on the frontend as well...
Legislature reinstates prevailing wages as part of deal with Dems Las Vegas Review-Journal ...Prevailing wages for school construction projects were resurrected Monday on the last day of the legislative session in an end-game concession to the Democratic minority. The state Senate amended Assembly Bill 172, rescinding a law already signed by Gov. Brian Sandoval that exempts schools from prevailing wage requirements...
Nevada legislature approves state's largest-ever tax hike USA Today ...The Nevada legislature approved the state's largest-ever tax hike that will raise up to $1.1 billion in new and extended taxes to initiate far-reaching reforms in Nevada's struggling K-12 education system. In a 30 to 10 vote Sunday, the Assembly approved all three major facets of Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval's tax plan...
How the Retail Industry Keeps People of Color in Poverty The Nation ...A new report by the think tank Demos and the NAACP shows that the retail industry, a leading source of employment in the post-recession "recovery,” is creating many more bad jobs than good ones—and blacks and Latinos are stuck in the lowest-paid positions with the least opportunity for advancement. Some leading retailers have faced legal challenges in recent years over racial or gender discrimination against workers, but the most harmful forms of racial bias operate just below the surface...
Robert Reich on the Real Texas Disaster: Clueless Pols Who Hate the Feds Until They Don't Alternet ...Texas dislikes the federal government so much that eight of its congressional representatives, along with Senator Ted Cruz,opposed disaster relief for the victims of Hurricane Sandy – adding to the awkwardness of their lobbying for the federal relief now heading Texas’s way. Yet even before the current floods, Texas had received more disaster relief than any other state...
U.S. Labor
Texas court upholds labor board's union election rule The Hill ...The Obama administration should be allowed to speed up the process by which employees unionize, a federal judge ruled Monday. Judge Robert Pitman of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas tossed out a lawsuit from business...
30,000 Teachers Walk Out in Protest of Big Class Sizes in Washington State In These Times ...On Tuesday, May 19, thousands of demonstrators marched through downtown Seattle to support a rolling strike by public school teachers across Washington state. The teachers are protesting what they say are unacceptably high class sizes and low pay, stemming from their state legislature’s failure to fully fund public education...
GE Begins Union Contract Talks Finances ...GE today began negotiations on a new national contract with the International Union of Electronic Workers/Communications Workers of America (IUE-CWA). Negotiations with the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) will begin tomorrow, June 2, 2015. GE holds separate talks with each union. The current four-year contracts with the unions expire at midnight on June 21, 2015...
For UAW members, two-tier wage issue is personal St. Louis Post-Dispatch ...The Austin family's dilemma is an emotionally charged example of why UAW President Dennis Williams is under pressure from rank-and-file union members to overhaul the two-tier wage system in contract talks this summer with the Detroit Three automakers. For decades, the UAW fought to get comparable pay for union members doing similar work. But in 2007, as the Detroit automakers were starting to bleed cash, UAW leaders agreed to create two classes of workers...
Miscellaneous
Glenn Greenwald: As Bulk NSA Spying Expires, Scare Tactics Can’t Stop "Sea Change" on Surveillance Democracy Now ...The government’s authority to sweep up millions of Americans’ phone records has expired. The practice exposed by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden could now face limited reforms as the Senate weighs the USA FREEDOM Act, which would require the government to ask phone companies for a user’s data rather than vacuuming up all the records at once...
New Data Offer First Infuriating Glimpse At How The Richest 0.001 Percent Pay Income Taxes Think Progress ...Tax day doesn’t sting much if you live at the gilded edge, according to new data on how the top one-hundredth of one percent and the top one-thousandth of a percent of all filers pay their income taxes. People who make tens of millions of dollars enjoyed falling income tax rates and ballooning wealth for a decade as middle-class taxpayers floundered...
The Sinister Motives Lurking Beneath Amazon.com's Minnesota Debut Teamster.org ...Teamsters Local 120 and workers across Minnesota are questioning the motives behind Amazon.com, Inc., as the company prepares to break ground on a new distribution facility, while driving down wages for workers. After facing community pressure, Amazon, a multi-billion dollar corporation, recently withdrew its request for more than $6.4 million in tax incentives...
Teamsters Local 284 President Paul Suffoletto Responds to Management Changes at NetJets Teamster.org ...Today, the Teamsters Union was informed of a change in leadership at NetJets, Inc., which could impact hundreds of Teamsters Local 284-represented flight attendants, mechanics and related employees, stock clerks, maintenance controllers and flight dispatchers. The Teamsters Union was informed that CEO Jordan Hansell has left NetJets. Adam Johnson will replace Hansell as Chairman and CEO...
Port truck drivers: Companies must share blame WJCL News ...Drivers of trucks that service the Savannah ports have scheduled a press conference Tuesday at which they are expected to make the claim that trucking companies must share the blame for the recent spate of truck-related fatal accidents in the area. Drivers said in a press release issued Monday that long hours, low pay, and pressure from the trucking companies to deliver as many loads as possible a day all contribute to unsafe working conditions...
Global Labor & Trade
Dems in pressure cooker on trade The Hill ...House Democrats are in a pressure cooker ahead of a high-stakes vote on a vital piece of President Obama's ambitious trade agenda. The White House, joining the powerful business lobby, is applying a full court press in an effort to rally lawmakers behind contentious fast-track legislation that would grant the administration new powers to seal enormous international trade deals that would rank atop Obama's economic achievements...
Congress may take up Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal this week Michigan Radio ...Michigan’s congressional delegation is divided as a major new trade deal tops the agenda this week. The “Trans Pacific Partnership” would cover U-S imports and exports from a dozen nations. Flint Congressman Dan Kildee says the deal doesn’t do enough to address human rights and currency manipulation...
WikiLeaks Launches Campaign to Offer $100,000 "Bounty" for Leaked Drafts of Secret TPP Chapters Democracy Now ...Critics, including a number of Democratic lawmakers, oppose the TPP, saying it will fuel inequality, kill jobs, and undermine health, environmental and financial regulations. The negotiations have been secret, and the public has never seen most of the deal’s text. This morning the whistleblowing group WikiLeaks launched a campaign to change that. The group is seeking to raise $100,000 to offer what they describe as a bounty for the leaking of the unseen chapters of the TPP...
Australian MPs allowed to see top-secret trade deal text but can't reveal contents for four years The Guardian ...Australian politicians have been told they can view the current confidential negotiating text for the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, but only if they agree not to divulge anything they see for four years, despite expectations the deal could be finalised within months...
Don't Reward Human Traffickers (opinion) Roll Call ...The horrors along the Thai-Malaysian border revealed in the past week have shocked our consciences, and put the scourge of human trafficking at the front of international news. As shocking as those stories are, they are not the first reports from Malaysia. This reality is why I introduced an amendment to the “fast track” trade promotion bill that for the first time prohibits expedited, unamendable congressional consideration for any trade deal including the very worst human trafficking country...
UK rail strikes suspended after 2% pay rise offer BBC ...Planned rail strikes by workers from the RMT union have been suspended after an offer of a 2% pay rise this year, the arbitration service Acas has said. Acas said four days of talks helped "formulate" revised proposals for the RMT and other unions to consider. The RMT has 16,000 members at Network Rail in operations and maintenance...
Two Years Later, Murder Charges for Rana Plaza Tragedy, But Justice Elusive Common Dreams ...Bangladeshi police on Monday formally filed murder charges against 41 people for the Rana Plaza factory collapse over two years ago that killed 1,138 workers in what is is believed to be the worst single tragedy in the history of the world's garment industry. However, officials from the numerous Western retail corporations that did business with the factory—including Walmart, The Children’s Place, Benetton, Zara, and Mango—were not named among those facing charges...
State & Living Wage Battles
Right-to-work opponents run TV ads to press governor to follow through with his veto St. Louis Public Radio ...Although Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon already has declared he’ll veto an anti-union bill known as “right to work,’’ a labor coalition has launched a TV ad campaign anyway. The ad blitz is likely just the first salvo in what could be a summer-long effort by both sides to sway the public and politicians on the bill...
California Senate approves another minimum wage hike KTVL ...The California Senate has approved a plan to again raise California's minimum wage, lifting it to $13 an hour in 2017, then tied to the rate of inflation after that. Senators on Monday approved the bill, SB3 by Sen. Mark Leno, on a 23-15 vote, with Republican lawmakers opposed...
California lawmakers advance 'wage theft' bill for workers KSBY ...California lawmakers have advanced a "wage theft" bill in an effort to crack down on employers that shortchange workers. The state Senate on Monday approved the proposal on a 24-12 vote. SB588 by Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon would make it easier for the state labor commissioner to collect unpaid wages on behalf of workers...
Absentee voter ID bill dead in Alabama Legislature, lawmakers say AL.com ...A bill that would require voters to submit a copy of their photo ID when requesting an absentee ballot in the state of Alabama is dead, Rep. Reed Ingram said. Currently, Alabama is one of only three states that require a photo ID to submit an absentee ballot. The new rule would have required absentee voters to submit a copy of their photo ID on the frontend as well...
Legislature reinstates prevailing wages as part of deal with Dems Las Vegas Review-Journal ...Prevailing wages for school construction projects were resurrected Monday on the last day of the legislative session in an end-game concession to the Democratic minority. The state Senate amended Assembly Bill 172, rescinding a law already signed by Gov. Brian Sandoval that exempts schools from prevailing wage requirements...
Nevada legislature approves state's largest-ever tax hike USA Today ...The Nevada legislature approved the state's largest-ever tax hike that will raise up to $1.1 billion in new and extended taxes to initiate far-reaching reforms in Nevada's struggling K-12 education system. In a 30 to 10 vote Sunday, the Assembly approved all three major facets of Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval's tax plan...
How the Retail Industry Keeps People of Color in Poverty The Nation ...A new report by the think tank Demos and the NAACP shows that the retail industry, a leading source of employment in the post-recession "recovery,” is creating many more bad jobs than good ones—and blacks and Latinos are stuck in the lowest-paid positions with the least opportunity for advancement. Some leading retailers have faced legal challenges in recent years over racial or gender discrimination against workers, but the most harmful forms of racial bias operate just below the surface...
Robert Reich on the Real Texas Disaster: Clueless Pols Who Hate the Feds Until They Don't Alternet ...Texas dislikes the federal government so much that eight of its congressional representatives, along with Senator Ted Cruz,opposed disaster relief for the victims of Hurricane Sandy – adding to the awkwardness of their lobbying for the federal relief now heading Texas’s way. Yet even before the current floods, Texas had received more disaster relief than any other state...
U.S. Labor
Texas court upholds labor board's union election rule The Hill ...The Obama administration should be allowed to speed up the process by which employees unionize, a federal judge ruled Monday. Judge Robert Pitman of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas tossed out a lawsuit from business...
30,000 Teachers Walk Out in Protest of Big Class Sizes in Washington State In These Times ...On Tuesday, May 19, thousands of demonstrators marched through downtown Seattle to support a rolling strike by public school teachers across Washington state. The teachers are protesting what they say are unacceptably high class sizes and low pay, stemming from their state legislature’s failure to fully fund public education...
GE Begins Union Contract Talks Finances ...GE today began negotiations on a new national contract with the International Union of Electronic Workers/Communications Workers of America (IUE-CWA). Negotiations with the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) will begin tomorrow, June 2, 2015. GE holds separate talks with each union. The current four-year contracts with the unions expire at midnight on June 21, 2015...
For UAW members, two-tier wage issue is personal St. Louis Post-Dispatch ...The Austin family's dilemma is an emotionally charged example of why UAW President Dennis Williams is under pressure from rank-and-file union members to overhaul the two-tier wage system in contract talks this summer with the Detroit Three automakers. For decades, the UAW fought to get comparable pay for union members doing similar work. But in 2007, as the Detroit automakers were starting to bleed cash, UAW leaders agreed to create two classes of workers...
Miscellaneous
Glenn Greenwald: As Bulk NSA Spying Expires, Scare Tactics Can’t Stop "Sea Change" on Surveillance Democracy Now ...The government’s authority to sweep up millions of Americans’ phone records has expired. The practice exposed by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden could now face limited reforms as the Senate weighs the USA FREEDOM Act, which would require the government to ask phone companies for a user’s data rather than vacuuming up all the records at once...
New Data Offer First Infuriating Glimpse At How The Richest 0.001 Percent Pay Income Taxes Think Progress ...Tax day doesn’t sting much if you live at the gilded edge, according to new data on how the top one-hundredth of one percent and the top one-thousandth of a percent of all filers pay their income taxes. People who make tens of millions of dollars enjoyed falling income tax rates and ballooning wealth for a decade as middle-class taxpayers floundered...
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