TPP wipes out in Hawaii, and why it's good for workers

It seems the Teamsters and fellow fair-trade allies aren't the only ones who have problems with Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Several of the 12 nations currently negotiating the pact are raising concerns as well.

The U.S., Canada, Japan and Mexico are among the nations who still have major problems with the deal. Dairy, auto trade and medicines are some of the outstanding issues, the article stated. And now the future of the deal is in doubt, The New York Times reported:

[T]he failure to complete the deal — eight years in the making — means the next round of negotiations will push the United States ratification fight into 2016, a presidential election year. Most Republican candidates are very likely to back it, but a final agreement would force the Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton to declare her position, which she has avoided.

This agreement is not a good deal for this country, Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa said today. He noted that some 30,000 good-paying Teamster dairy jobs could be jeopardized, while in return store shelves in this country will be littered with cheap products and unsafe food. There are real moral implications if the deal is approved, he stated:

The Teamsters and other fair trade advocates have taken a staunch stand against the TPP because of how this far-reaching proposal will affect workers across the globe. It will result in thousands of U.S. jobs being shipped overseas, and does not adequately address forced labor and human rights violations that continue to be an issue in nations like Malaysia and Vietnam.

Those worries are still very real. That’s why even if this Pacific Rim trade pact is eventually approved, Congress must do the right thing and reject it.

The TPP also would do nothing to halt the practice of currency manipulation, which drives up the cost of American products abroad and drives down the price for foreign goods sold here. The practice has taken a toll on the U.S. automobile industry, stifling sales of American vehicles overseas. Yet the agreement does nothing to stop it.

It's time the productivity of American workers showed up in their paychecks, and that means no more unfair trade deals. Now Congress needs to ensure that happens.

Human rights before huge profits from TPP

Putting people before the powerful. It's a statement the Teamsters firmly believe in, and one that U.S. democracy supports by having a one-person, one-vote system in place. But a report released today by the State Department raises some concerns about whether American policy is following the same path.

Workers shouldn't have to pay for TPP corporate profits.

As part of the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) document, the U.S. upgraded the standing of Malaysia despite concerns raised by human rights activists here and abroad about the nation's forced labor practices. Its new ranking would allow it to participate in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which is currently being discussed in Hawaii.

Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa said the welfare of workers must be considered before any trade agreement:

While negotiators are trying to finish up discussions on the TPP this week, America should not lose focus on what is truly important. Malaysia must come into compliance with international labor standards that ban forced labor before it is allowed to participate in this Pacific Rim trade agreement. Our standing in the world demands the U.S. to take such a position for those being exploited around the world.

This is just the latest, of course, in a litany of potential problems involving the 12-nation Pacific Rim trade deal. This agreement will ship thousands of jobs overseas, weaken labor standards (as the Malaysia action shows), and allow unsafe food and products to flood American shores. It will also balloon the U.S. trade deficit by doing nothing to curtail currency manipulation by other countries, which will lower the price of imported goods into the U.S. while raising the price of products we export.

There are many hurdles that still need to be worked out as part of TPP. Nations have a litany of concerns, as Politico points out, that trade leaders need to solve going forward:

Canada wants to protect its dairy and poultry producers and Japan, its rice farmers. American drug companies want other countries to adopt strong U.S. protections on a blockbuster new class of medicines called biologics, and U.S. automakers oppose giving Japan more market access. Canada and Malaysia are particular concerns because of difficult domestic politics that could make it more difficult for them to close in Maui, even if other countries are ready.

At the end of the day, the Teamsters' concerns about Malaysia and trade are the same -- people need to count more than corporations. Elected officials need to remember that too.

Today's Teamster News 02.11.15

Teamsters
Teamsters give CP Rail 72-hour strike notice  CBC News   …3,330 locomotive engineers and conductors could walk off the job this weekend…
Farmers, Gov’t Brace For Possible Railway Labour Problems  Regina Leader Post   ...The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC), which represents unionized locomotive engineers, conductors, trainmen and yardmen throughout Canada, says its members have voted by 93 per cent in favour of a strike if they can’t reach an agreement with the Canadian Pacific Railway...
Sysco-US Foods Merger Faces Skepticism, Doubts About Remedies  teamster.org   ...As Sysco attempts to overcome antitrust issues plaguing its proposed acquisition of US Foods, the transaction faces skepticism from elected officials, consumer advocates, food service establishments, workers and others. They warn there may be no adequate remedies to protect consumers in an industry that, in the words of lawmakers on the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee, “touches every single American consumer who eats meals away from home.”...
Golan's Workers Win First Union Contract, End 6-Month Strike  Progress Illinois   ...Following a strike that lasted six months, unionized workers at Golan's Moving and Storage in Skokie are back on the job after winning their first labor contract with their employer. Prior to the strike, workers at the Skokie moving company, located at 3600 Jarvis Ave., were waiting for their first labor contract for months after having won union representation by Teamsters Local 705 back in December 2013...
Trade
U.S. Lawmakers Put Currency Cheating On Trade Agenda  Reuters   ...U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday unveiled bipartisan legislation to stop trading partners from manipulating exchange rates, and a senior Democrat vowed to keep pushing for rules against currency cheating in trade deals...
Corrected Trade Data Confirm Ballooning Trade Deficit Under Korea FTA and More Than Twice the Trade Deficit With NAFTA Partners  Public Citizen Global Trade Watch   ...The corrected data, which remove foreign-produced goods from the tally of U.S. exports, reveal that the U.S. goods trade deficit with NAFTA partners is actually more than twice as large as indicated in the raw data, topping 182 billion. And three years after passage of the U.S pact with Korea that served as the template for the TPP, the U.S. goods trade deficit with Korea has ballooned 72 percent, spelling the loss of more than 70,000 U.S. jobs...
Left and Right Align in Fighting Obama’s Trade Agenda  New York Times   ...About 150 of the House’s 188 Democrats have already signed on to letters opposing fast track, an ominous figure for the president, since Mr. Boehner said last Congress he would need as many as 50 Democratic votes...
Trade Must Not Trump Women's Human Rights (opinion)  Huffington Post   ...Women's rights groups, including the Feminist Majority Foundation, sent President Obama a letter last summer, requesting that the administration remove Brunei from TPP negotiations or suspend TPP talks until Brunei revokes its penal code...
State Battles
Missouri Republicans target public employee unions  Washington Post   ...A measure that would severely limit the power of some public employee unions is advancing through the Missouri state House, opening the latest front in the GOP’s nationwide fight to curb one of the Democratic Party’s wealthiest constituencies. A House committee approved so-called “paycheck protection” legislation Monday...
Nurses Condemn Illinois Governor’s Anti-Worker Executive Order  National Nurses United   ...“Nurses, emergency responders, child welfare advocates, and public servants who enforce public oversight and regulatory protections are among the many groups of workers threatened by the order,” said Martese Chism, a Chicago registered nurse and board member for National Nurses Organizing Committee-Illinois, an NNU affiliate...
Davis Introduces Bill Which Would Require At Least Two Man Train Crews  KCSR   ...District 43 State Senator Al Davis of Hyannis wants to keep the thought of one man crews in the past. Davis has introduced Legislative Bill Number 192 (Nebraska), which would require all train crews in the state to have at least two individuals...
War on Workers
IRS Issues John Doe Summons To FedEx, DHL, UPS, HSBC In Massive Offshore Account Hunt  Forbes   …A federal judge approved the IRS issuing summonses requiring FedEx, DHL, UPS, and a bevy of other handlers to produce information about U.S. taxpayers who used Sovereign Management & Legal Ltd. for offshore accounts and assets...
Investors Should Know Pay Gap Between C.E.O.s and Workers (opinion)  New York Times   ...It has been well documented that large pay gaps between chief executives and their workers severely weaken companies and put investments in those companies at risk. These gaps inhibit teamwork and lead to lower job satisfaction and morale, higher employee turnover, reduced productivity and inferior product quality...
Should you join a union? The research says yes.  Washington Post   ...unions serve as a bulwark against wage inequality — which now can be illustrated mostly in the negative. A 2011 study attributed a fifth to a third of increased income inequality among men to the decline in union representation between 1973 and 2007...
Investor: Peasants Will Be Out With Pitchforks if We Don't Start Sharing the Wealth  Bloomberg News   ...Society at large has to enjoy some of the largesse, or else the pitchforks come out...
Uber Drivers Are Scrambling To Make Ends Meet After Latest Fare Cuts  New York Observer   ...Uber slashed fares in Washington D.C. two weeks ago in another attempt to get their app onto every phone they can and edge out “Big Taxi.” ... A number of drivers we spoke to—some who we reached out to, some who got in touch with us after seeing our previous reporting—say that the fare cuts are scorched-earth warfare tactics that sacrifice great drivers on the altar of competition...
The Koch Brothers Raised $249 Million At Their Latest Donor Summit  Mother Jones   ...Donors at the Palm Springs confab pledged $249 million toward funding the Koch brothers' grand plan, according to two sources with knowledge of the fundraising haul. ...If the Koch network raises comparable sums at its remaining donor retreats between now and November 2016—it tends to hold two to three such gatherings a year—it will easily meet, if not surpass, its $889 million target...
Comcast worker killed in Glen Ridge accident recalled as accomplished fighter, dedicated father  NJ.com   ...A Comcast employee who was killed while working on a utility pole last week was an accomplished martial arts fighter and dedicated father to three sons....
Miscellaneous
Virginia Tech Undertakes Restart Study, Looking For 250 Driver Participants  The Trucker   ...The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute is looking for some 250 truck drivers to participate in the Congressionally-mandated study that could ultimately determine whether drivers have unlimited use of the 34-hour restart provision or whether they will only be allowed a restart only once every 168 hours and then must include two consecutive 1 a. m.-5 a.m. time periods. VTTI was awarded a $4 million contract by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to conduct the study...

Today's Teamster News June 15, 2014

Teamsters
Obama signs order; SEPTA Regional Rails to roll Sunday  Philly.com   ...President Obama signed an executive order Saturday evening, appointing an emergency board to mediate the SEPTA labor dispute, thus averting a lengthy strike. All 13 SEPTA Regional Rail lines should be back to normal operating schedules Sunday morning...
Trade
Obama’s Free Trade Strategy Falters in Asia  Inter Press Service  ...Obama’s latest trip to Asia, however, underlined the inability of Washington to balance its economic and geopolitical initiatives in the region. While Obama managed to strike new strategic agreements with leading Southeast Asian countries, namely Malaysia and the Philippines, and strengthen bilateral military alliances with Japan and South Korea, there was, in turn, no concrete development vis-à-vis the ongoing TPP negotiations...
State Battles
Mayor vetoes collective bargaining ordinance  WANE   ...(Fort Wayne) Mayor Tom Henry has vetoed the ordinance passed by the City Council that would have ended collective bargaining for non-public safety union employees...
International Human Rights Violations in Detroit  On the Commons   ...The water department has decreed that it will turn the water off to all 150,000 residences that are behind on their bills   by the end of the summer although it has made no such threat to the many corporations and other institutions that are in arrears on their bills as well...
War on Workers
Recession linked to more than 10,000 suicides  CBS News   ...New research suggests that the economic downturn could be linked with more than 10,000 suicides across North America and Europe. The study found that between 2008 and 2010, rates of suicide surged in the European Union, Canada and the United States…
A Three-Pronged Attack on Organized Labor  Huffington Post   ...The claim that companies leave the U.S. to avoid paying union wages is false. It's an outright lie disseminated by free market fundamentalists, and anyone who believes it is a dupe. The reason companies leave is to avoid paying an American wage...
Who actually earns the minimum wage?  CBS News   ...While more than a quarter of all low-wage workers were teenagers back in 1979, today only about one in 10 are teens ... almost 37 percent of these employees on low wages, defined as less than $10.10 per hour, are between 35 to 64 years old...
Senior NSA Executive: NSA Started Spying On Journalists in 2002 … In Order to Make Sure They Didn’t Report On Mass Surveillance  Washington's Blog   ...Senior NSA executive Thomas Drake tells Washington’s Blog that the spying on reporters started12 years ago – in 2002 – and has been fairly systematic...
Miscellaneous
As Iraq fighting rages, gas prices climb  CBS Money Watch   ...A rising tide of violence in Iraq is driving up prices at the pump...
Wait Times at the VA  Angry Bear   ...the VA is well beyond the typical private healthcare system in providing “evidence-based protocols of care — not inadvertently ordering up dangerous combinations of drugs, or performing unnecessary surgeries and tests just to make a buck and treating the whole patient and not just one part at a time...”

Today's Teamster News 03.28.14

Teamster News
Council Votes To Encourage End To CCTA Strike  WPTZ   ...The Burlington City Council has voted to encourage management with the Chittenden County Transportation Authority and the bus drivers' union, represented by the Teamsters, to end the nearly two-week strike as soon as possible...
Victory at Pasco County, Florida for Teamsters Local 79  teamster.org   ...More than 1,100 Pasco County, Florida public employees will soon be voting on a first Teamster contract now that Local 79, Tampa and the county have agreed on a tentative contract. According to the local union, such issues as seniority, break time, overtime pay, holidays, uniforms and more are addressed in the contract...
Teamsters: The Deadline To Apply For A James R. Hoffa Scholarship Is March 31  teamster.org   ...The Fund will award $800,000 in scholarships this year to children and financially dependent grandchildren of Teamster members...
A Brief Glimpse of Human Rights Advances In The Teamsters  teamster.org   ...Women and minorities have always been active in the labor movement. Much of the crit­ical legislation that has been passed over the years started as grassroots movements from within one or more of these groups, even though they frequently did not receive credit or recognition for their efforts. View the full post, here...
March Madness: Brought to You by the Teamsters  Counterpunch   ...This (NLRB) ruling (which applies only to private colleges and universities, and not public institutions) ... gives college basketball players the right to unionize as well.  Just think about that.  March Madness, brought to you by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters!  Is this a great country, or what?...
Trade
U.S. Steelmakers Accuse South Korea Of Dumping  Independent Business Journal   ...U.S. Steel Corp., the largest U.S. producer of the metal by volume, said South Korea is dumping steel pipes and tubes in the U.S...
NAFTA at 20  AFL-CIO   ...NAFTA pushed small Mexican farmers off their lands, increasing the flow of desperate undocumented migrants...
State Battles
Still No Wage Agreement In Annapolis  Baltimore Sun ...The standoff in Annapolis over raising the minimum wage intensified Tuesday...
Missouri Union Members Rally Against Right To Work  Associated Press   ...About a thousand Missouri union members rallied at the state Capitol to combat legislation that would prohibit labor contracts from requiring that all employees pay union fees...
Minnesota Unions Come To Dakotas' Aid  Twin Cities Daily Planet   ...With more than 20,000 job openings and the nation's lowest unemployment rate, North Dakota is desperately seeking skilled workers to build infrastructure that keeps pace with its oil boom. Despite the conservative state's laws unfriendly to organized labor, six Minnesota-based trade unions are stepping up to help...
Mississippi Senate Gives Final Approval To 3 Anti-Union Bills  Associated Press   ...Bills that aim to restrict union organizing and picketing practices in Mississippi, as well as limit governments' abilities to pressure employers to use unionized workers, are on their way to Gov. Phil Bryant...
Hidden Cameras Catch Lobbyists, AZ Lawmakers Wining And Dining  CBS 5 News   ...CBS 5 Investigates rolled hidden cameras during a membership drive for one of the country's most secretive and controversial organizations. Lobbyists and state lawmakers mingled over steaks and drinks in a private room at the Valley's exclusive Donovan's Steakhouse, an event put on by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)...
Wisconsin GOP Heads Off Criminal Probe Into Corporate Election Spending By Trying To Make It Legal  ThinkProgress   ...Wisconsin’s State Senate Majority Leader, who is reportedly under investigation for his role in a possibly illegal campaign finance scheme, has come up with a novel way to shut down the criminal probe: changing the state law to legalize the activity in question...
War on Workers
The 67 People As Wealthy As The World's Poorest 3.5 Billion  Forbes   ...Each of the 67 is on average worth the same as 52 million people from the bottom of the world’s wealth  pyramid...
Northwestern Football Players Win First Round In Union Battle  Huffington Post ...Football players at Northwestern University have cleared the first major hurdle in their closely watched unionization effort, with an official of the National Labor Relations Board determining that the players are employees and thus eligible to vote in a union election...
GOP States Are The Most Dependent On Government  Huffington Post ...If we learned nothing else during the 2012 election, it is that some of us are makers, hard-working folk solely responsible for America's prosperity, and others are takers, who want the federal government to pay for luxuries like food and health care...
Feds Tally Rollovers Of Payday Loans  The Columbus Dispatch ...About half of all payday loans are made to people who extend the loans so many times that they end up paying more in fees than the original amount they borrowed, a report by a federal watchdog has found...
Walmart Admits Profits Depend Heavily On Corporate Welfare  ZeroHedge   ...It appears that Walmart has admitted the potentially severe adverse impact a reduction in food stamp payments could have on its bottom line...
Hundreds of Students & Faculty Occupy College Campus to Fight Cuts to Public Higher Ed  Real News   ...hundreds of students, faculty, and supporters rallied at University of Southern Maine against the announced layoffs of 20 full-time faculty members...
Miscellaneous
Labor unions saved Ford in our 'darkest' hour: Bill Ford  CNBC   ...the UAW helped the entire industry "get back on its feet..."
US Seniors Shafted By Inflation That Is 170 Percent In Excess Of Savings' Interest  Truthout   ...Lost in the coverage of America's tale of two economies (the 1% who have received 95 percent of the financial gains since they busted the economy in 2008 -- and the rest of us), is that seniors are especially hard hit by the disparity between so-called savings account interest and inflation...
A Government Computer Glitch Forced Thousands Of Families To Go Hungry  Huffington Post   ...Thousands in North Carolina had enough to worry about before a computer glitch began to fray the basic part of the social safety net..
Caterpillar To Cooperate With Tax Investigation  GateHouse Media Illinois   ...Caterpillar Inc. plans to cooperate with a U.S. Senate investigative panel looking into whether the company may have improperly avoided U.S. taxes by moving profits outside the country...
A Massive Chemical Plant Is Poised To Wipe This Louisiana Town Off The Map  Mother Jones   ...SASOL's proposed facility may spell the end for a 224-year-old community founded by freed slaves...

Another murdered Colombian trade unionist – brought to you by “free” trade

Oscar López Triviño

Meet Oscar López Triviño. He’s the latest victim of so-called free trade.

On November 9 Oscar was shot dead by paramilitaries in the Colombian city of Bugalagrande. Why? Because Oscar was a union member.

Several days before his murder, Oscar’s union, SINALTRAINAL, had launched a hunger strike in front of a Nestlé factory where Oscar worked for more than 25 years. The company withdrew from negotiations several months ago and was trying to dump the union. Nestlé workers were demanding the company respect various agreements with the union.

Any worker action, especially a strike, can be a deadly one in Colombia, the most dangerous country in the world to be a union member.

The day before Oscar was killed, members of his union received death threats from paramilitaries. Amnesty International reports:

On 8 November, the paramilitary group Los Urabeños sent a death threat by SMS to the phones of José Onofre Esquivel Luna and Álvaro Varela Pérez, who are both leaders of the Bugalagrande branch of SINALTRAINAL and work for Nestlé. The death threat read: “Guerrilla fighters son-of-a-bitch you continue to mess with Nestlé [,] no more forgiveness [,] we will cut you up [,] death to all communists of SINALTRAINAL.”  

This is what life is like for union members under the reign of a trade deal in a country that is notorious for anti-union violence.

Armed corporate goons like Los Urabeños have been responsible for the murders of 11 other union members in Colombia this year alone. A recent report by US Reps. George Miller and Jim McGovern concluded that threats, assaults and disappearances are on the rise. Last year 22 union members were murdered in Colombia. None of the murderers have been brought to justice.

Since its inception in 1982, SINALTRAINAL alone has seen more than 20 of its members killed by right-wing death squads. Among slain SINALTRAINAL members, 13 worked for Nestlé. The company has of course denied any connections to paramilitary violence.

Oscar’s death is a tragic reminder of what can happen when governments enact trade deals to enrich corporations while providing no say or protections for workers – especially in a country like Colombia.

Yet that’s what is happening again with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), an anti-worker trade deal being negotiated behind closed doors by Pacific Rim countries. Among those countries is Vietnam, a country that is rife with labor abuses including sweatshop conditions, poverty wages and child slavery.

If conditions in Colombia tell us anything, it’s that without public pressure the TPP will not only allow labor rights violations to continue in places like Vietnam, it will make them worse.

Fortunately, members of Congress are waking up to the fact that trade deals that are not fully vetted hurt workers and the environment. More than 190 members of the House are on record opposing fast-track authorization for the TPP. That means they want a full debate on the entire agreement, not the quick up-or-down vote that has allowed bad deals like the US-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement to be ratified.

Jim Hoffa wrote in the Huffington Post this week:

Fast track is an attack on democracy. Americans have been kept out of the loop on how the TPP will affect their everyday lives. The last thing we need is for politicians to fast-track a Pacific trade deal through Congress that allows them to build in secret provisions that help their campaign contributors, but hurt working- and middle-class families. 

The death of union members like Oscar in Colombia is every reason for bringing the TPP into the light of day. In the meantime, workers need to hold governments accountable when they allow unionists to be assassinated with impunity. Nestlé workers in Colombia should enjoy the same rights that Nestlé Teamsters enjoy here in the U.S.!

You can sign the petition here to tell the Colombian government to bring Oscar’s murderers to justice and provide security to other SINALTRAINAL members who remain at risk.

¡Oscar presente!

Today's Teamster News 07.25.13

Labor and Human Rights Coalition, including Teamsters, Call for Suspension of Trade Discussion with Vietnam  IBT   ...Yesterday, a coalition of labor and human rights leaders called on negotiations with Vietnam around the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) to be suspended until the country can prove it has met basic labor, environmental and human right standards...
SCI is a Bad Neighbor, Forcing Teamsters Out on Strike   IBT   ...SCI, a $3.5 billion corporation which operates 16 funeral homes in the Chicagoland area, forced its Local 727 Teamsters out on an unfair labor practices strike on July 2. Visit http://www.integrityinillinois.com/ for updates on their fight for fairness. View the video here...
The Teamsters donate $40,000 to the victims of Lac-Mégantic  Canada Newswire   ...Teamsters Canada has collected $40,000 from its locals throughout the country and it will be donated to help out the victims of the Lac-Mégantic rail tragedy...
Teamster nursing staff at ECRMC in contract negotiations with hospital  Imperial Valley Press   ...El Centro Regional Medical Center’s nursing staff has presented the hospital with a financial proposal as part of its first contract with the hospital as an organized labor group, a representative from Teamsters Local 542 confirmed...
BLET wants feds to mandate 2-member train crews  Associated Press   ...Most railroads in the U.S. use at least two crew members to operate freight trains. But there's no federal rule to prevent them from using one employee as did a Maine-based railroad whose train, while unattended, careened into a Canadian town, causing an explosion and fire that killed 47 people…
Some CPD officers seek to join Teamsters Local 142   Chesterton Tribune   ...Within the next 30 to 60 days, full-time employees of the Chesterton (Indiana) Police Department -- both sworn officers and civilians -- could put unionization to the vote...
Teamsters Support Vance-Cooks for U.S. Public Printer  IBT   ...George Tedeschi, on behalf of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, has written Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) in support of the nomination of Davita Vance-Cooks as U.S. Public Printer...
Fired Walmart Workers Arrested in Protest at Yahoo Headquarters  The Nation   ...Five activists were arrested at Yahoo! headquarters Monday afternoon in a protest over the firing of eleven Walmart employees who this month went on strike...
Wal-Mart Workers Launch Surprise Strike Over Safety Issues  Mint Press News   ...At least 30 non-union Wal-Mart warehouse workers in California launched a surprise two-day strike this morning to protest alleged retaliation for exposing safety risks...
Wisconsin Capitol Protest Leads To Two Dozen Arrests As Police Crack Down On Anti-GOP Demonstration  Huffington Post   ...Police made numerous arrests inside the Wisconsin's Capitol building on Wednesday, more than two years after tens of thousands of Wisconsinites filled the rotunda in Madison to protest Gov. Scott Walker's (R) budget...
Chicago Teachers Protest Layoffs, Chanting ‘Emanuel Has Got To Go!’  In These Times   ...Bravo and Johnson were among several hundred teachers, parents and community members marching outside the Chicago Board of Education Wednesday morning, protesting the layoffs of more than 2,100 teachers and staff in the past week and other public school cuts...
Detroit firefighters protest outside of bankruptcy hearing  Detroit News   ...A group of about 40 Detroit firefighters joined protesters gathered outside the downtown federal courthouse Wednesday, to fight against expected cuts to pensions and the potential loss of public safety positions, as lawyers gathered inside for the first hearing in the historic bankruptcy case...
Congress Tells Detroit to Forget Financial Bailout  Bloomberg   ...Lawmakers in Congress are dismissing the possibility of a federal bailout for Detroit, the largest U.S. city to declare bankruptcy....
Hundreds protest Pittsburgh’s most notorious low-wage employers  WPXI-TV   ...Hundreds of protestors joined together Wednesday to call on Pittsburgh’s most notorious low wage employers...
North Carolina Senate Passes the Most Draconian Voter Suppression Bill Ever  Politicususa   ...This bill makes registering hard and voting harder – with the added bonus of longer voting lines.  To add insult to the pretense that this is about preserving election integrity, they are making it easier for thugs like True the Vote and the Voter Integrity Project to intimidate voters and for outside groups to help Art Pope buy the government...
OSHA To Require Flight Department Hazmat Training  Aviation International News   ...New regulations from the OSHA mandate the training of thousands of airline workers by December 1 to educate them on how to identify and protect themselves from hazardous chemicals used in the workplace...
Are Shrinking Unions Making Workers Poorer?  The Atlantic   ...Here's what we know: Union membership has been nearly cut in half over the past thirty years. During that time, income inequality grew, with the top one percent of wealthiest Americans seeing especially big gains in their pre- and post-tax income. And although the economy has grown, wages have not…
Worker Centers Offer a Backdoor Approach to Union Organizing  Wall Street Journal   ...Juan Campis was sweating in the 90-plus degree heat as he whipped a white towel across a gleaming black Chevy TrailBlazer at a carwash here in Bronx, N.Y.—one of six in the city that was unionized in recent months with help from two nonprofit community groups…
3 Months After Texas Fertilizer Explosion, Workplace Safety Still Ignored   Mint Press News ...Long after the explosion of a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, killed 15 people, workplace safety violations continue to plague workers across the U.S...
New Illinois law to fight misclassification of workers  WREX13   ...A bill addressing the misclassification of construction workers as independent contractors has been signed into law by Governor Pat Quinn., meant to fight employers who missclassify their workers in an attempt to avoid paying state employment taxes, unemployment insurance, worker's compensation, and overtime...
Senate passes student loan interest rate compromise  Politico   ...A hard fought deal to keep student loan interest rates down cleared the Senate Wednesday on a 81-18 vote, despite strong opposition from liberal Democrats who believe it would make skyrocketing student debt even worse in the long run...