CRomnibus stalled! Keep those calls and emails coming.

The Teamsters Union is urging members to call and write their representatives in Congress with a message: Vote NO on the spending bill that would slash pensions and put tired truckers on the road while empowering Wall Street and the wealthy.

It's working. The bill, nicknamed the CRomnibus, is stalled despite the threat of a government shutdown at midnight Friday if it doesn't pass. (Congress could instead just pass a bill to continue funding at current levels.)

The bill includes provisions that would cut multiemployer pension benefits for people who've already earned them. It would change the hours-of-service rule to let truck drivers work 82 hours a week instead of the current 70. On top of that, it would undo financial reforms and let big banks gamble with money insured by taxpayers. It would also raise the amount of money very rich people can give to political candidates by a factor of 10.

The Hill reported "Funding bill struggles for votes; Short-term measure an option."

A $1.1 trillion bill to keep the government open appeared to be teetering Thursday after House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) announced her opposition and the package narrowly survived a procedural vote. 

The House went into recess shortly after 2 p.m. after the debate on the bill had concluded, something that could signal GOP leaders aren’t sure they have the votes necessary to pass the bill... 

Pelosi in a floor speech Thursday afternoon harshly criticized the language on Wall Street and a separate provision allowing wealthy political contributors to greatly increase their annual donations to political committees. 

“It will not have my support,” Pelosi said. “This is a moral hazard. We're being asked to vote for a moral hazard.”

If you haven't yet, please email your representatives in Congress and tell them to vote no on the CRomnibus. Just click on this link to send an email: http://ibt.io/cromnibus

Click on this link to make a call: http://teamster.org/protectpensions

It will only take a few minutes to do both.

Today's Teamster News 09.05.13

UAL Flight Simulator Techs Vote For Teamster Representation  teamster.org   ...flight simulator technicians at United Airlines voted for sole representation by the Teamsters Union. The 98 technicians were previously represented by the Teamsters at United in Denver and the Transport Workers Union at Continental in Houston prior to the 2010 merger...
TeamCare Improvements Announced for UPS Teamsters  teamster.org   ...Local union leaders representing UPS Teamsters who currently receive TeamCare health care benefits and those moving into the TeamCare plan met in Chicago today to learn about improvements made since the UPS National Master Agreement was ratified in June...
Workers plan major nationwide protest against Walmart for September 5th  Workday Minnesota   ...Workers in more than a dozen cities, including St. Paul, plan protests Thursday against Walmart’s treatment of its employees. Organizers expect thousands to participate in the demonstrations...
Paid Vacation’s Decline  New York Times   ...In 1992-93, 82 percent of American workers reported receiving paid vacation days. Today the share is down to 77 percent...
Minimum Wage Workers Largely Live In The South, Are Women  Huffington Post   ...Even in Hanson County, South Dakota, America’s cheapest county, a single full-time worker needs to earn $10.20 per hour -- nearly $3 more than the federal minimum wage -- to afford basic needs...
As austerity lifts, so does Europe  macrobusiness   ...Another good week for Europe as the latest PMI data shows the tentative recovery is gaining pace...
One In Seven American Families Faces Food Insecurity  ThinkProgress   ...An average of 11 percent of families were food insecure from 1998 to 2007, but in 2008 the rate spiked above 14 percent...
Budget Debates Matter: The Difference in GOP and Democratic Levels of Discretionary Spending for 2014 Translates into Nearly 1 Million Jobs  Economic Policy Institute   ...just as the intellectual case for austerity has fallen away, American policy is now set on an extremely austere auto-pilot that will slow growth and employment, all while the economy remains very far from recovered from the Great Recession...
The Failure of Free-Market Finance  Project Syndicate   ...high debt burdens, relentlessly rising for several decades – in the private sector even more than in the public sector – were a major threat to economic stability...
What we don't know about the $1.2 trillion student loan problem  Reuters   ...$28,000 -- The typical 2012 college graduate’s debt load upon Graduation Day, according to Hamilton Place Strategies...
The U.S. Trade Deficit Returns in July 2013  Economic Populist   ...The real news is the monthly China trade deficit just hit a new all time high of $30.1 billion...
Injunction preventing hundreds of RI foreclosures is lifted  HousingWire   ...A Rhode Island federal judge lifted a blanket injunction, which initially blocked foreclosures in 825 different cases...
Wealthy New Yorkers Call De Blasio’s Tax Plan Offensive  Bloomberg   ...When New York mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio first proposed taxing the rich so every child in the city could attend all-day preschool, it was October and he had support from fewer than 10 percent of Democrats in polls. Now he leads the pack...

Today's Teamster News 12.27.10

GOPers Remove 'Labor' From House Committee Name  TalkingPointsMemo   ...Republicans have decided to excise the word "labor" from the name of the House committee handling education and, yes, labor issues...
Tax Stocking Stuffers for Corporations  Economic Populist   ...our Congress just made it pay to create economic growth abroad!...
Lawmakers seek cash during key votes  Washington Post   ...members of Congress have held fundraisers and collected big checks while they are taking critical steps to write new laws...
The Looming Crisis in the States  (opinion)  New York Times   ...it is better to raise taxes on the rich than to lay off workers and cut spending...
The Big (Military) Taboo (opinion)  New York Times   ...The United States spends nearly as much on military power as every other country in the world combined...