Today's Teamster News 01.20.14

Group Focused on Government Ethics Puts Scott Walker on List of “Worst Governors in America”  Center for Media and Democracy   ...Walker made the list of most ethically challenged public officials due to poor marks in several categories, including cronyism, scandal, mismanagement and excessive partisanship. The report reviews his promotion of the Koch Brothers' agenda -- the Kochs are some of his biggest campaign donors...
Rising Tide of Public Outrage on the Verge of Stopping a Shady Corporate Deal in Washington  Alternet   ...Turn up the heat: election years are a terrible time to pass anything controversial and the Trans-Pacific Partnership is becoming politically toxic...
US trade debate prompts fears of delay in talks  Financial Times   ...A heated debate over trade in the US Congress risks stalling two trade negotiations that cover 70 per cent of the global economy, senior international officials have warned...
7 Reasons We Don’t Want ‘Fast Track’ Trade Deals  Buzzfeed   ...It’s a policy designed to ensure that Congress passes any and all trade deals the administration negotiates. Kind of like if your teacher had to give you an A no matter how pathetic your work actually was...
NYC Politicians and Workers Ready to Battle Over Horse-Drawn Carriages  skift.com   ...It’s one of the first items on New York City Mayor Bill) de Blasio’s to-do list, but his efforts to ban the carriages could bring up much larger issues of employment and the importance of tourism...
Palmer farm against ending NYC horse carriages  WWLP.com   ..."We believe it's going to add to a current terrible crisis in homelessness with the horses we already have in the country,” said Pamela Rickenbach. "And more than the horses losing their jobs, the families that would lose their jobs also."...
The Undeserving Rich (opinion)  New York Times   ...for the past three decades and more the main obstacle facing the poor has been the lack of jobs paying decent wages...
‘Dark money’ and corruption, here and abroad (opinion)  Washington Post   ...A surge in independent spending is invading the election of state supreme court justices, and much of it comes from hidden sources. ... (In 2011-12) special-interest groups spent an unprecedented $15.4 million on TV ads and other election materials in state judicial campaigns during that period...
US tech firms make eleventh-hour attempt to halt tax avoidance reforms  The Guardian   ...Silicon Valley has launched a last-ditch attempt to derail plans devised by the G20 group of countries to close down international loopholes that are exploited by the likes of Google, Amazon and Apple to pay less tax in the UK and elsewhere...
The robots are coming for white-collar jobs  Macrobusiness   ...Take, for example, the autonomous driverless cars under development by Google. They are a prime example of a how a human worker, such as long-haul truck and taxi drivers, could soon be replaced by machines – just like a scene from the 1990s futuristic movie Total Recall or the 2000s film Artificial Intelligence...
Walmart under fire after customer takes photos of tanks full of dead and dying fish  Daily Mail   ...A New Jersey Walmart customer has become the owner of a number of fish she purchased after discovering a dozen dirty fish tanks filled with dead and dying fish at her local store...
Google is hiring security guards to protect its work buses in San Francisco following protests over tech workers driving up city rents  Daily Mail   ...In San Francisco, many long-time residents believe the influx of richly compensated workers at Google and other big technology companies such as Facebook Inc and Twitter Inc has pushed rents to unaffordable levels in neighborhoods that once were homes to the working class...
Moral Monday A Branding Exercise Blaming Republicans for Stuff Democrats Helped Them Do (opinion)   Black Agenda Report   ...The problem is that Democrats enabled and helped Republicans to enact the immoral policies which Moral Monday spokespeople inveigh against in the first place...
What Happens When the Poor Receive a Stipend? (opinion)  New York Times   ...a little extra money may confer long-lasting benefits on poor children...

Teamster horse carriage drivers carry on the fight for their jobs

Teamsters -- and horses -- have been doing this for a loooong time. 

New York City's new mayor Bill deBlasio may have stepped in it with his crusade to eliminate the good Teamster jobs of horse-carriage drivers.

Irish actor Liam Neeson, a friend of some of the carriage drivers, called right-wing New York Daily News columnist Andrea Peyser to make a case for keeping their jobs:

The 61-year-old heartthrob interrupted his hectic A-list acting schedule to call me Thursday night, alarmed by de Blasio’s treachery. 

“It’s criminal!’’ cried Liam. “This is an iconic, historic part of New York. 

“The horses are incredibly well-treated. They’re regulated up the wazoo. They get five weeks’ holiday every year.’’ (How many people get that much down time?) “Tourists love them.” 

He speculated that efforts to ban the carriage trade resulted from a land grab by greedy developers eager to get hold of horse stables on Manhattan’s West Side: 

“I think it’s about real estate. I’m not the kind of person to use my celebrity’’ to promote causes, he said. But, ‘‘the horses are happy.

Our Teamster brothers and sisters -- members of Local 553 -- are not happy with deBlasio's proposal. Brother Steve Malone explained to msnbc how the mayor's proposal to replace the hoses with replica antique cars won't fly:

...each carriage driver with a medallion would have the option to operate one of the cars–but with a catch: the 68 drivers who own a medallion to operate a carriage have already purchased them, but they would have to buy a new medallion to run an electric car. 

According to Stephen Malone, spokesman for the Horse Carriage, that could cost up to $175,000. The medallion he uses for his horse and carriage has been in his family since his father began driving in 1964.   

“They are going to saddle me with an unfounded, untested business and stick me with the debt for it,” Malone told msnbc.  

You can help our equestrian brothers and sisters in New York by clicking here.

New York's new mayor's top priority: Get rid of Teamster jobs

Our Teamster Brother Steve Malone.

It seems there's only one person on the planet who thinks New York City's top priority is to ban horse-drawn carriages and eliminate the drivers' good Teamster jobs.

Unfortunately, that person is the new mayor of New York City, Bill deBlasio.

DeBlasio says he'll replace the iconic carriages with electric replicas of antique cars. (We're not kidding.) Teamsters Local 553 is fighting to save the jobs of the 100 carriage drivers who, by all accounts (except for obsessed animal rights activists) treat their horses very, very well.

George Miranda, Teamsters Joint Council 16 president, said:

Our members in the iconic Central Park horse drawn carriage industry are proud of their heritage, take tremendous care of their horses and support their families with good blue collar jobs. The Teamsters will fight for their survival.

Demos Demopolous, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 553, is leading the fight. He told Politico:

We are against the thought of the electric car replacing the horse carriage industry. 

These are all horse people. This is what they do.

(To help save the jobs of our equestrian brothers and sisters, click here.)

Here are just some of the people who think Mayor deBlasio has, um, the wrong priorities.

Actor Liam Neeson:

I was in the stables today and many days over the past few years, I know some of these guys, and I just hate how they’re — the horse-drawn carriage industry is being attacked nowadays...these are the fittest, well-fed, best kept horses I’ve ever seen. I’m a horse rider and lover for many, many years.

Jimmy Fallon:

He wants to get rid of horse-drawn carriages in Central Park because they're inhumane. Meanwhile, thousands of unemployed New Yorkers said, 'I'll pull the carriage.'

American Spectator writer Robert Stacy McCain:

Defenders of the carriage industry point to a real-estate executive who is one of de Blasio's major campaign donors as the driving force behind the effort to abolish the carriages.

Journalist Michael Gross, writing about real-estate executive Steve Nislick:

What are the odds that good neighbor Nislick, the out-of-state real estate developer, simply covets those valuable, underdeveloped New York lots — and has teamed up with ambitious pols to use the emotions of animal rights activists as fuel for their own agendas?

The Daily Beast columnist Nick Gillespie:

A hundred-plus years of tradition and a hundred-plus jobs (for humans) gone, just like that, because de Blasio believes that horse-drawn carriages “are not humane.”

New York Times writer Andrew Rosenthal:

Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio ... has a problem prioritizing. While we wait for him to appoint his team (oh so slowly) and we wonder what his policies are going to be, exactly, on things like schools, Mr. de Blasio announced yesterday that one of his first acts will be … to ban carriage horses from Central Park.

Conservative Washington Examiner columnist Judson Phillips:

De Blasio is starting his term as dictator by dictating. He is dictating a group of people out of their jobs. These are the iconic horse drawn carriages in New York.

Christina Hansen, carriage driver and liaison for the Horse and Carriage Association of New York City:

De Blasio has never visited our stables,” , told FoxNews.com. “This really has nothing to do with the welfare of the horses. If it did, we could sit down with Mayor de Blasio or the City Council ... and have a discussion. This is about radical animal rights ideology, it’s about money power, politics and real estate. 

Dr. Harry Warner, former chairman of American Association of Equine Practitioners' (AAEP) Equine Welfare Committee, who examined the horses:

I didn't see a single horse that didn't show all the signs that we associate with contentment.

James Baussmann, a senior account manager with Text100 Boston, a global communications firm:

It should be left alone! My wife and I just moved from NYC after 10 years of living in Manhattan/Queens. A hansom cab ride was/is on our ‘NYC bucket list’ that we created before we moved. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to it before we moved … and now we’re afraid we’ll never get the chance.

Father Brian Jordan, Rabbi Gershon Tannenbaum and Maryam Kashmir, president of the Muslim Student Association at St. Francis College, writing in the New York Daily News:

Many of New York City’s horse carriage drivers ... have followed a calling to work with animals, and they have been denied basic respect by those seeking to ban their carriages. These drivers must be permitted to continue their good work and carry on the tradition of caring and respecting the horses that help provide them a fair living.

Rush Limbaugh:

...these people think that automobiles and fossil-fueled vehicles are destroying the climate and would love to take us back to the horse and buggy days, except the new mayor of New York thinks it is cruel and inhumane for horses to pull carriages with people in them.

Once again, help our brothers and sisters out. Click here.