Teamsters
Dutchess County LOOP Strike Averted As Negotiations Continue Daily Freeman ...The potential strike by the union representing Dutchess County LOOP bus drivers, mechanics, office employees and bus washers has apparently been averted. Teamsters Local 445 Business Agent Jerry Ebert said ... the company said it would resume negotiations, resulting in the union calling off its threat to strike.....
City Of Monroe Reports On Feb. 1 Snow Removal Efforts Monroe News ..."I am proud to report that all 15 Teamster personnel, both of our 2 supervisors, and our Superintendent of Public Services, Bill Walters, have all already been involved in our efforts today to combat the winter storm...
Leslie Marshall Show Features Teamsters Fight At Allegiant Air teamster.org …Teamsters Local 1224 President Daniel Wells talks with Leslie Marshall about the more than 500 Teamster Allegiant Air pilots and their fight for a fair contract...
Sysco Offers To Sell 11 Facilities To Win Merger Approval New York Times ...Sysco said on Monday that it had agreed to divest 11 distribution centers in a bid to obtain the blessing of regulators including the Federal Trade Commission. Sysco will sell the centers for an undisclosed sum to Performance Food Group, which will be its nearest rival after the deal for US Foods closes...
Trade
TPP negotiators agree on copyrights protection NHK World News …Negotiators of the Trans Pacific Partnership free trade pact say they are a step closer to reaching a deal on copyright duration in principle. The plan is for copyrights to last for 70 years...
Let's Take Apart The Corporate Case For Fast Track Trade Authority Economy In Crisis …an argument that TPP and similar agreements will “expand trade” masks what the bulk of these agreements are really about, which is getting governments off the backs of the giant corporations and protecting their profits from competition and democratic regulation...
Syriza-Led Greek Parliament ‘Will Never Ratify TTIP’ EurActiv ...After making its voice heard in the debate over sanctions on Russia, the new government in Athens is now making its opposition known to the EU-US trade deal, TTIP...
State Battles
Legislation is detrimental to Missouri workers (opinion) St. Louis Post Dispatch …Missouri House Speaker John Diehl wants to make so-called worker freedom a key emphasis for the Legislature by passing right-to-work and “paycheck protection” bills. This legislation has nothing to do with workers’ rights or workers’ protection. Actually, these bills attack both. They undermine the ability of workers to have a voice and to organize opposition to the out-of-state, well-heeled efforts of extremists and the 1 percent...
Right To Work bill introduced in Senate The InterMountain.com …Proposed legislation would make West Virginia a Right To Work state...
Scott Walker To Cut $300 Million From Universities, Spend $500 Million On A Pro Basketball Stadium Think Progress ...Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R) will unveil a budget Tuesday night that aims to slash hundreds of millions of dollars from the state’s public universities over the next two years....
War on Workers
U.S. workers strike for second day at nine refineries; one to shut Reuters …Union workers were on strike for a second day on Monday at nine U.S. refineries and chemical plants as they sought a new national contract with oil companies covering laborers at 63 plants...
Croatia just canceled the debts of its poorest citizens Washington Post …the government scheme aims to help some of the 317,000 Croatians whose bank accounts have been blocked due to their debts. Given that Croatia is a relatively small Mediterranean country of only 4.4 million inhabitants, the number of indebted citizens is significant and has become a major economic burden for the country…
World Bank Declines Child Labor Investigation World Bulletin ...The World Banks internal watchdog has decided to pursue and investiage the link between the banks' loans and the Uzbek government-organised forced labour. The request by human rights campaigners to investigate the use of forced labour and child labour was declined, even though it has acknowledged that farms benfitting from its assistance might be forcing both adults and children against their will...
The Mental And Physical Toll Of Student Loans The Atlantic ...“Cumulative student loans were significantly and inversely associated with better psychological functioning,” according to the results. That means, generally speaking, student-loan debt was not great for the mental health of study participants...
Portland strippers head to Salem to lobby for better work conditions Associated Press …Tired of watching well-meaning strangers impose their own visions for improving the plight of the dancer, some of Portland's seasoned strippers are working directly with state lawmakers and professional lobbyists...
Uber Opening Robotics Research Facility In Pittsburgh To Build Self-Driving Cars Tech Crunch …Driver-on-demand service Uber is building a robotics research lab in Pittsburgh, PA to “kickstart autonomous taxi fleet development,” sources close to the decision have confirmed to TechCrunch. They say the company has hired talent from Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute, including lead engineering and commercialization experts...
The New Face of the Koch Campaign The Daily Beast …A father of two was sentenced to 55 years in jail for selling pot. The Koch brothers want to help set him free and make him the face of their new campaign for criminal justice reform...
Worker Dies On The Job At Chattanooga's Wrigley Plant News Channel 9 …A worker died while on the job at Chattanooga's Wrigley Plant in Tuesday's early morning hours…This is the second time someone has died on site of the Wrigley Plant…
Cops: Social Worker Killed to Cover Up Embezzlement Newser …In a case that Philadelphia police say has left them "angry and confounded," a social worker allegedly gunned down a colleague in broad daylight after she discovered that he had embezzled tens of thousands of dollars from an after-school outreach program...
Miscellaneous
Keystone XL Pipeline Bill House Vote Eyed For Next Week International Business Times ...The House can either vote on the Senate version of the bill as is or write its own bill, pass that and then go into a conference committee with Senate leaders to hash out compromise legislation. A compromise bill might take too long, especially because eight agencies have a Monday deadline to weigh in on Keystone, according to Politico...
Showing posts with label keystone xl. Show all posts
Showing posts with label keystone xl. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
Saturday, January 24, 2015
Today's Teamster News 01.24.15
Trade
The Trans-Pacific Partnership won't deliver jobs or curb China's power (opinion) Los Angeles Times ...U.S. leaders promised [previous free-trade] deals would create high-paying jobs, reduce the trade deficit, increase GDP and raise living standards. But none of this came true...
Trans-Pacific Partnership Deal Isn't Secret, Says US Official, But Access To Text Is Highly Restricted International Business Times ...[U.S. Trade Representative] Michael From an and Roberto Carvalho de Azevêdo, the director-general of the World Trade Organization, were asked at the World Economic Forum why the TPP is being kept secret by the U.S. at the same time the European Union has just published the full text of a separate proposed trade agreement with the United State….
Bipartisan push to stop currency cheats could derail TPP Washington Post …The latest news is that lawmakers will ask for any agreement to include a provision to stop foreign countries from manipulating their currencies at the expense of U.S. manufacturers...
America's Losing the Currency War (opinion) Bloomberg … Now the ball is in Japan's court again, and the U.S. is "just sitting here watching, being the one country whose currency is rallying because everyone else is trying to devalue."...
State Battles
Workers fight anti-worker local right-to-work laws in Kentucky TeamsterNation ...You can bet it isn't Kentucky workers who are passing right-to-work laws in six counties so far this year. The workers are fighting them...
Republicans vote to end Pay Equity Commission Fox31 Denver … Senate Republicans again reminded their Democratic colleagues what it’s like being in the minority as they voted Wednesday afternoon to do away with the Pay Equity Commission, arguing that it’s a feckless body that hasn’t accomplished much. Democrats …are already returning to their oft-used narrative that the GOP is hostile to women by scrapping a body charged with rooting out gender discrimination in the workplace...
AN ACT CONCERNING LARGE RETAIL STORES AND EMPLOYMENT OF WORKERS DURING THE HOLIDAY SEASON. Connecticut General Assembly ...To require retail stores of five thousand square feet or more to close on certain holidays unless employees are given the option not to work holidays without penalty...
Rauner pulls plug on Quinn's last-minute moves Chicago Tribune ...Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner has pulled the plug on Democratic predecessor Pat Quinn’s attempt to raise the minimum wage for state contractors, require the governor to release more details about his tax returns and stop Illinois State Police from detaining people based on their immigration status...
Prevailing wage emerges as unions' next big battle CNHI …The labor movement may be facing another high-stakes fight as sentiment grows to roll back the prevailing wage for workers on public projects. [in Indiana]...
“Right to Work” Is the Wrong Answer for Wisconsin’s Economy Economic Policy Institute ...What RTW laws do is to make it illegal for a group of unionized workers to negotiate a contract that requires each employee who enjoys the benefit of the contract to pay his or her share of the costs of negotiating and policing it...
War on Workers
Labor at a Crossroads: In Defense of Members-Only Unionism (opinion) American Prospect ...Allowing members-only unions would protect the rights of those who wish to bargain collectively even if they fail to surmount all the legal hurdles necessary to establish the union as the representative of all employees in the workplace. The decision of the United Auto Workers union to engage in members-only bargaining at the VW plant in Chattanooga is a potentially revolutionary experiment with a new approach to union representation...
Why the Energy Selloff Is So Dangerous to the U.S. Economy Wall Street on Parade ... Oil-related companies in the U.S. now account for between 35 to 40 percent of all capital spending. Announcements of sharp cutbacks in capital spending and job reductions by these companies create big ripples, forcing related companies to trim their own budgets, revenue assumptions, and payrolls accordingly...
Buying a Nominee National Journal ...The coming presidential contest is ushering in an epochal shift: the arrival of candidate-specific nonprofits, personalized vehicles for a politician's supporters to raise and spend unlimited cash—completely clandestinely. It is poised to yield a campaign season more dominated by secret money than any election since Watergate...
Bob Dylan wants billionaire ‘job creators’ to start actually creating some jobs Raw Story … “People have to create jobs, and these big billionaires are the ones who can do it. We don’t see that happening. We see crime and inner cities exploding with people who have nothing to do, turning to drink and drugs. They could all have work created for them by all these hotshot billionaires. For sure that would create lot of happiness.”...
Wells Fargo, JPMorgan loan officers took cash kickbacks CNN Money ...Regulators said more than 100 loan officers at Wells Fargo (WFC) locations in Maryland and Virginia steered thousands of loans to Genuine Title, which went out of business last year, in exchange for cash...
Number of NC workers killed on the job nearly doubled last year Charlotte News & Observer ...Forty-four people died in work-related accidents last year, up from 23 in 2013. It was the highest number of worker deaths since 2011, when 53 died, according to the Labor Department...
Worker killed in steel factory accident Boston Globe …the worker was struck by a piece of steel as it was swinging on a crane inside the warehouse...
Miscellaneous
Senate Sets Final Vote For Keystone XL After Long, Tense Night Of Amendment Voting ThinkProgress ...The Senate was in session until midnight Thursday night, debating and voting on fifteen amendments to a bill that would approve the construction of the controversial Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. At the end of it all, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell filed for cloture, a procedural move that effectively sets up a final vote on Keystone for next week...
Federal Court Order: Explosive DOT-111 "Bomb Train" Oil Tank Cars Can Continue to Roll DeSmogBlog …A U.S. federal court has ordered a halt in proceedings until May in a case centering around oil-by-rail tankers pitting the Sierra Club and ForestEthics against the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). As a result, potentially explosive DOT-111 oil tank cars, dubbed “bomb trains” by activists, can continue to roll through towns and cities across the U.S. indefinitely...
The Trans-Pacific Partnership won't deliver jobs or curb China's power (opinion) Los Angeles Times ...U.S. leaders promised [previous free-trade] deals would create high-paying jobs, reduce the trade deficit, increase GDP and raise living standards. But none of this came true...
Trans-Pacific Partnership Deal Isn't Secret, Says US Official, But Access To Text Is Highly Restricted International Business Times ...[U.S. Trade Representative] Michael From an and Roberto Carvalho de Azevêdo, the director-general of the World Trade Organization, were asked at the World Economic Forum why the TPP is being kept secret by the U.S. at the same time the European Union has just published the full text of a separate proposed trade agreement with the United State….
Bipartisan push to stop currency cheats could derail TPP Washington Post …The latest news is that lawmakers will ask for any agreement to include a provision to stop foreign countries from manipulating their currencies at the expense of U.S. manufacturers...
America's Losing the Currency War (opinion) Bloomberg … Now the ball is in Japan's court again, and the U.S. is "just sitting here watching, being the one country whose currency is rallying because everyone else is trying to devalue."...
State Battles
Workers fight anti-worker local right-to-work laws in Kentucky TeamsterNation ...You can bet it isn't Kentucky workers who are passing right-to-work laws in six counties so far this year. The workers are fighting them...
Republicans vote to end Pay Equity Commission Fox31 Denver … Senate Republicans again reminded their Democratic colleagues what it’s like being in the minority as they voted Wednesday afternoon to do away with the Pay Equity Commission, arguing that it’s a feckless body that hasn’t accomplished much. Democrats …are already returning to their oft-used narrative that the GOP is hostile to women by scrapping a body charged with rooting out gender discrimination in the workplace...
AN ACT CONCERNING LARGE RETAIL STORES AND EMPLOYMENT OF WORKERS DURING THE HOLIDAY SEASON. Connecticut General Assembly ...To require retail stores of five thousand square feet or more to close on certain holidays unless employees are given the option not to work holidays without penalty...
Rauner pulls plug on Quinn's last-minute moves Chicago Tribune ...Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner has pulled the plug on Democratic predecessor Pat Quinn’s attempt to raise the minimum wage for state contractors, require the governor to release more details about his tax returns and stop Illinois State Police from detaining people based on their immigration status...
Prevailing wage emerges as unions' next big battle CNHI …The labor movement may be facing another high-stakes fight as sentiment grows to roll back the prevailing wage for workers on public projects. [in Indiana]...
“Right to Work” Is the Wrong Answer for Wisconsin’s Economy Economic Policy Institute ...What RTW laws do is to make it illegal for a group of unionized workers to negotiate a contract that requires each employee who enjoys the benefit of the contract to pay his or her share of the costs of negotiating and policing it...
War on Workers
Labor at a Crossroads: In Defense of Members-Only Unionism (opinion) American Prospect ...Allowing members-only unions would protect the rights of those who wish to bargain collectively even if they fail to surmount all the legal hurdles necessary to establish the union as the representative of all employees in the workplace. The decision of the United Auto Workers union to engage in members-only bargaining at the VW plant in Chattanooga is a potentially revolutionary experiment with a new approach to union representation...
Why the Energy Selloff Is So Dangerous to the U.S. Economy Wall Street on Parade ... Oil-related companies in the U.S. now account for between 35 to 40 percent of all capital spending. Announcements of sharp cutbacks in capital spending and job reductions by these companies create big ripples, forcing related companies to trim their own budgets, revenue assumptions, and payrolls accordingly...
Buying a Nominee National Journal ...The coming presidential contest is ushering in an epochal shift: the arrival of candidate-specific nonprofits, personalized vehicles for a politician's supporters to raise and spend unlimited cash—completely clandestinely. It is poised to yield a campaign season more dominated by secret money than any election since Watergate...
Bob Dylan wants billionaire ‘job creators’ to start actually creating some jobs Raw Story … “People have to create jobs, and these big billionaires are the ones who can do it. We don’t see that happening. We see crime and inner cities exploding with people who have nothing to do, turning to drink and drugs. They could all have work created for them by all these hotshot billionaires. For sure that would create lot of happiness.”...
Wells Fargo, JPMorgan loan officers took cash kickbacks CNN Money ...Regulators said more than 100 loan officers at Wells Fargo (WFC) locations in Maryland and Virginia steered thousands of loans to Genuine Title, which went out of business last year, in exchange for cash...
Number of NC workers killed on the job nearly doubled last year Charlotte News & Observer ...Forty-four people died in work-related accidents last year, up from 23 in 2013. It was the highest number of worker deaths since 2011, when 53 died, according to the Labor Department...
Worker killed in steel factory accident Boston Globe …the worker was struck by a piece of steel as it was swinging on a crane inside the warehouse...
Miscellaneous
Senate Sets Final Vote For Keystone XL After Long, Tense Night Of Amendment Voting ThinkProgress ...The Senate was in session until midnight Thursday night, debating and voting on fifteen amendments to a bill that would approve the construction of the controversial Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. At the end of it all, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell filed for cloture, a procedural move that effectively sets up a final vote on Keystone for next week...
Federal Court Order: Explosive DOT-111 "Bomb Train" Oil Tank Cars Can Continue to Roll DeSmogBlog …A U.S. federal court has ordered a halt in proceedings until May in a case centering around oil-by-rail tankers pitting the Sierra Club and ForestEthics against the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). As a result, potentially explosive DOT-111 oil tank cars, dubbed “bomb trains” by activists, can continue to roll through towns and cities across the U.S. indefinitely...
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Today's Teamster News 12.16.14
Teamster News
What the Cromnibus Law Means for Multiemployer Pension Plans International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans ...The law states that plans in "critical and declining status" can temporarily or permanently suspend current and future benefits...
Congress Rolls Back Trucker Rest Requirements CBS12 …Fatigue is often a major factor in many crashes. So why are federal lawmakers saying its okay for big rig haulers to drive more and sleep less?...
CRomnibus Heads to Oval Office U.S. News and World Report ...the bill now heads to the Oval Office for approval...
Maine Senator Is Again Friend to Trucking as Rule Eased Bloomberg ...Susan Collins...got a rider attached to the spending bill approved over the weekend so truckers will no longer have to get two nights sleep in a row before starting a work week. Suspending year-old federal regulations means truckers will be allowed to work as many as 82 hours over eight days -- upending what safety advocates said was a key component of a 15-year effort to reduce deaths caused by drowsy long-haul drivers...
Two N.Y. State Senators Oppose Horse-Carriage Ban, Warn Of 'Real Battle' New York Daily News ...Two Democratic state senators are the latest to come out in opposition to Mayor de Blasio’s push to ban horse carriages in the city. Sens. Diane Savino, chairwoman of the Senate Labor Committee, and Jose Peralta, the panel’s ranking minority party member, have drafted a letter to de Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito vehemently opposing to the Council bill on the mayor’s plan...
Entergy,Teamsters Union Agree On Contract For Indian Point Security Workers Daily Voice ... Entergy and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 456 have agreed on a new contract for the union’s approximately 186 security workers at the Indian Point Energy Center in Buchanan...
Keystone XL pipeline may no longer make economic sense, experts say Los Angeles Times ...plunging oil prices have analysts questioning whether the plan to link Canadian tar sands with Gulf Coast refineries still makes economic sense...
Trade
Hatch says trade an area where GOP, Obama can work together The Hill ...Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who is expected to take the helm of the Senate Finance Committee, said passing trade promotion authority (TPA) is not only an avenue to completing two massive trade deals — the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) — but is a place where Republicans can work with President Obama...
New Trade Agreements will Take Center Stage in 2015. So Will Bad Arguments Made on their Behalf. Economic Policy Institute ...while these trade-induced losses (which I estimated to be roughly $1,800 annually for a full-time worker without a college degree) do not explain all, or even the majority, of the rise in inequality over the past generation, they’re not trivial...
State Battles
Right-to-work would trim union clout, but broader economic impact unclear Wisconsin State Journal ...“We’re not purporting to prove that right-to-work produces superior economic performance,” Greer said. The more important argument, he said, is that workers should have the freedom to choose whether to pay union dues or not...
Florida senators relaunch bill to overhaul local pension plans Tampa Bay Times ...The measure would allow cities with faltering pension funds to use additional insurance premium tax revenues to shore up their accounts...
Public money for schools buys private property Detroit Free Press ...National Heritage Academies, Michigan's largest charter management company, has an unusual arrangement with its schools. The for-profit company — and not the schools — owns the contents of its school buildings, even though those desks, computers, books and supplies may have been purchased with taxpayer money...
What the Cromnibus Law Means for Multiemployer Pension Plans International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans ...The law states that plans in "critical and declining status" can temporarily or permanently suspend current and future benefits...
Congress Rolls Back Trucker Rest Requirements CBS12 …Fatigue is often a major factor in many crashes. So why are federal lawmakers saying its okay for big rig haulers to drive more and sleep less?...
CRomnibus Heads to Oval Office U.S. News and World Report ...the bill now heads to the Oval Office for approval...
Maine Senator Is Again Friend to Trucking as Rule Eased Bloomberg ...Susan Collins...got a rider attached to the spending bill approved over the weekend so truckers will no longer have to get two nights sleep in a row before starting a work week. Suspending year-old federal regulations means truckers will be allowed to work as many as 82 hours over eight days -- upending what safety advocates said was a key component of a 15-year effort to reduce deaths caused by drowsy long-haul drivers...
Two N.Y. State Senators Oppose Horse-Carriage Ban, Warn Of 'Real Battle' New York Daily News ...Two Democratic state senators are the latest to come out in opposition to Mayor de Blasio’s push to ban horse carriages in the city. Sens. Diane Savino, chairwoman of the Senate Labor Committee, and Jose Peralta, the panel’s ranking minority party member, have drafted a letter to de Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito vehemently opposing to the Council bill on the mayor’s plan...
Entergy,Teamsters Union Agree On Contract For Indian Point Security Workers Daily Voice ... Entergy and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 456 have agreed on a new contract for the union’s approximately 186 security workers at the Indian Point Energy Center in Buchanan...
Keystone XL pipeline may no longer make economic sense, experts say Los Angeles Times ...plunging oil prices have analysts questioning whether the plan to link Canadian tar sands with Gulf Coast refineries still makes economic sense...
Trade
Hatch says trade an area where GOP, Obama can work together The Hill ...Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who is expected to take the helm of the Senate Finance Committee, said passing trade promotion authority (TPA) is not only an avenue to completing two massive trade deals — the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) — but is a place where Republicans can work with President Obama...
New Trade Agreements will Take Center Stage in 2015. So Will Bad Arguments Made on their Behalf. Economic Policy Institute ...while these trade-induced losses (which I estimated to be roughly $1,800 annually for a full-time worker without a college degree) do not explain all, or even the majority, of the rise in inequality over the past generation, they’re not trivial...
State Battles
Right-to-work would trim union clout, but broader economic impact unclear Wisconsin State Journal ...“We’re not purporting to prove that right-to-work produces superior economic performance,” Greer said. The more important argument, he said, is that workers should have the freedom to choose whether to pay union dues or not...
Florida senators relaunch bill to overhaul local pension plans Tampa Bay Times ...The measure would allow cities with faltering pension funds to use additional insurance premium tax revenues to shore up their accounts...
Public money for schools buys private property Detroit Free Press ...National Heritage Academies, Michigan's largest charter management company, has an unusual arrangement with its schools. The for-profit company — and not the schools — owns the contents of its school buildings, even though those desks, computers, books and supplies may have been purchased with taxpayer money...
Kansas Governor Proposes Using Pension Money to Cover Budget Gaps Created By His Tax Cuts International Business Times ...In 2012, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback signed a landmark bill that delivered big tax cuts to high income earners and businesses. Less than two years after that tax cut, the state's income tax revenues plummeted by a quarter-billion dollars -- and now Brownback is pushing to use money for public employees’ pensions to instead cover the state's ensuing budget shortfalls...
Inside The Koch-Backed History Lessons North Carolina Wants To Teach High School Students ThinkProgress ...Public high school students in North Carolina will be taught from a lesson plans and worksheets prepared by a organization closely tied to the billionaire Koch brothers, if the state’s Department of Public Instruction gets its way...
W.Va. Minimum Wage Rising In 2015 And 2016 WSAZ ...Back in April, Governor Earl Ray Tomblin signed a bill raising minimum wage by 75 cents, which means it will soon rise to $8 an hour. The raise goes into effect January 1st. As part of the bill, minimum wage will go up another 75 cents in 2016...
Councilors Put Off Vote On Mayor’s Plan To Raise Portland’s Minimum Wage Portland Press Herald ...The Portland City Council’s Finance Committee listened to more than two hours of testimony Thursday on a measure that would raise the city’s minimum wage to a level above the state minimum, but postponed making a final recommendation until next year...
War on Workers
Pension Bill Seen as Model for Further Cuts Wall Street Journal ...A measure included in Congress’s mammoth spending bill permits benefit cuts for retirees in one type of pension plan, a big shift that lawmakers and others believe could set a precedent for other troubled retirement programs...
Kevin Yoder MIA After Tucking Wall Street Bailout Into Government Spending Bill Huffington Post ...For all the anger among progressives about a Wall Street bailout provision that made its way into the just-passed $1.1 trillion government spending bill, there's been little attention on the person who put it in there. Meet Congressman Kevin Yoder (R-Kansas). Yoder, a second-term congressman whose largest contributors are in the finance industry, introduced the provision last summer. It was literally written by Citigroup executives...
U.S. taxpayers help fund oil-train boom amid safety concerns Reuters ...States and the federal government have handed out tens of millions in public dollars to rail companies and government agencies to expand crude oil rail transportation across the country, a Reuters analysis has found...
Strikes across Belgium cause transport chaos BBC News ...The widespread industrial action is the latest in a series of strikes protesting against the new centre-right coalition's austerity policies. The government plans to save €11bn (£8.7bn) in the next five years. The 24-hour strike is the largest to have taken place in Belgium for many years. It has forced government offices and schools to close, and the country's ports have been blockaded...
Wealth inequality has widened along racial, ethnic lines since end of Great Recession Pew Research Center …The wealth of white households was 13 times the median wealth of black households in 2013, compared with eight times the wealth in 2010, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of data from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances. Likewise, the wealth of white households is now more than 10 times the wealth of Hispanic households, compared with nine times the wealth in 2010...
The Devalued American Worker Washington Post ...Green once held a middle-class job. Now, to make enough money to send his children to college, he works the equivalent of two full-time jobs: one maintaining highways for the state of North Carolina and one ushering fans and collecting trash for a variety of sports teams around Winston-Salem...
It's Going To Get A Little Easier For Workers To Unionize Huffington Post ...Federal officials unveiled new rules on Friday that will streamline and simplify the union election process, a reform long sought by labor unions and fiercely opposed by businesses...
Uber Backtracks After Jacking Up Prices During Sydney Hostage Crisis Washington Post ...After an armed gunman took patrons of a Sydney chocolate shop hostage during rush hour Monday morning, the transportation company Uber quadrupled its fares for panic-stricken customers fleeing the central business district...
MLGW worker dies after explosion WREG.com …A crew was trying to repair a gas line on the 4600 block of Winter Park Drive when there was a spark and an explosion…
Miscellaneous
The Supreme Court just made it easier for police to search your car Vox ...The Supreme Court ruled Monday that police officers can sometimes conduct a search and seizure of a car even if that search is the result of an unlawful stop...
Councilors Put Off Vote On Mayor’s Plan To Raise Portland’s Minimum Wage Portland Press Herald ...The Portland City Council’s Finance Committee listened to more than two hours of testimony Thursday on a measure that would raise the city’s minimum wage to a level above the state minimum, but postponed making a final recommendation until next year...
War on Workers
Pension Bill Seen as Model for Further Cuts Wall Street Journal ...A measure included in Congress’s mammoth spending bill permits benefit cuts for retirees in one type of pension plan, a big shift that lawmakers and others believe could set a precedent for other troubled retirement programs...
Kevin Yoder MIA After Tucking Wall Street Bailout Into Government Spending Bill Huffington Post ...For all the anger among progressives about a Wall Street bailout provision that made its way into the just-passed $1.1 trillion government spending bill, there's been little attention on the person who put it in there. Meet Congressman Kevin Yoder (R-Kansas). Yoder, a second-term congressman whose largest contributors are in the finance industry, introduced the provision last summer. It was literally written by Citigroup executives...
U.S. taxpayers help fund oil-train boom amid safety concerns Reuters ...States and the federal government have handed out tens of millions in public dollars to rail companies and government agencies to expand crude oil rail transportation across the country, a Reuters analysis has found...
Strikes across Belgium cause transport chaos BBC News ...The widespread industrial action is the latest in a series of strikes protesting against the new centre-right coalition's austerity policies. The government plans to save €11bn (£8.7bn) in the next five years. The 24-hour strike is the largest to have taken place in Belgium for many years. It has forced government offices and schools to close, and the country's ports have been blockaded...
Wealth inequality has widened along racial, ethnic lines since end of Great Recession Pew Research Center …The wealth of white households was 13 times the median wealth of black households in 2013, compared with eight times the wealth in 2010, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of data from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances. Likewise, the wealth of white households is now more than 10 times the wealth of Hispanic households, compared with nine times the wealth in 2010...
The Devalued American Worker Washington Post ...Green once held a middle-class job. Now, to make enough money to send his children to college, he works the equivalent of two full-time jobs: one maintaining highways for the state of North Carolina and one ushering fans and collecting trash for a variety of sports teams around Winston-Salem...
It's Going To Get A Little Easier For Workers To Unionize Huffington Post ...Federal officials unveiled new rules on Friday that will streamline and simplify the union election process, a reform long sought by labor unions and fiercely opposed by businesses...
Uber Backtracks After Jacking Up Prices During Sydney Hostage Crisis Washington Post ...After an armed gunman took patrons of a Sydney chocolate shop hostage during rush hour Monday morning, the transportation company Uber quadrupled its fares for panic-stricken customers fleeing the central business district...
MLGW worker dies after explosion WREG.com …A crew was trying to repair a gas line on the 4600 block of Winter Park Drive when there was a spark and an explosion…
Miscellaneous
The Supreme Court just made it easier for police to search your car Vox ...The Supreme Court ruled Monday that police officers can sometimes conduct a search and seizure of a car even if that search is the result of an unlawful stop...
Monday, December 15, 2014
Today's Teamster News 12.15.14
Teamsters
Teamsters Denounce Senate Passage Of Omnibus Spending Bill teamster.org …"With the passage of the omnibus spending bill by the Senate, we have witnessed the latest attack by corporate interests on working families...
Trade
Call for release of Trans-Pacific Partnership text ComputerWorld ...Forty-eight non-government organisations have issued a call for the release of the draft text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement...
State Battles
Early federal sentencing recommendation for McDonnell: At least 10 years in prison Washington Post ...The federal agency that will play a pivotal role in guiding the sentence of former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell has recommended that the onetime Republican rising star spend at least 10 years and a month in prison, according to several people familiar with the matter...
War on Workers
Cromnibus Pension Provisions Gut Forty Years of Policy, Allow Existing Pensions to Be Slashed naked capitalism …[The] measure included in Congress’s mammoth spending bill permits benefit cuts for retirees in one type of pension plan, a big shift that lawmakers and others believe could set a precedent for other troubled retirement programs. Lawmakers and experts, while divided over the merits of the change, largely agreed that it could well be the first of many...
Study: For every $1 corporations spend on elections, they get $760 from government Ring of Fire …From 2007 to 2012, 200 American corporations spent about $5.8 billion on federal lobbying and campaign contributions, but that number is mere chump change when compared to what those same corporations got in return — about $4.4 trillion in federal business and support, according to a study by the Sunlight Foundation...
What's Complicated About a Government That Works to Benefit Rich People? Center for Economic Policy and Research ...we have had a government committed to redistributing income upward for the last three decades...
Congress Again Rewards Tax Dodgers with a Tax Cut Economic Policy Institute ...If a $1 budget reduction yields a $10.60 reduction in enforcement collections, then the $191 million reduction in the IRS enforcement budget could prove to be a $2 billion tax cut for tax cheats. There appears to be a disconnect between what Congress enacts and what the American public wants...
Transport strike likely to shut down much of Belgium Agence France-Press ...Belgium risks coming to a virtual standstill tomorrow as the biggest national strike for years grounds all flights, halts public transport and severs international train links in a protest over the new government's austerity policies...
Smoke killed Thanksgiving Tower workers trapped in deep tank, officials say Dallas Morning News ...Three workers killed in a Thanksgiving Tower fire died of smoke inhalation while trapped in a “dilapidated” 35-foot-deep chiller tank, authorities said Friday. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration and Dallas Fire-Rescue are investigating Thursday’s blaze. A city official said it appeared that the workers did not follow proper safety procedures, nor did they have the proper permit to do work with a torch, although officials still haven’t confirmed what started the fire...
Miscellaneous
Will cheap oil kill Keystone? Politico Pro …The same collapse in oil prices that is pumping dollars into motorists’ wallets also risks undermining the case for building the 1,179-mile pipeline in two crucial ways: It’s squeezing the western Canadian oil industry that has looked to Keystone as its most promising route to the Gulf Coast...
Dancing around data The Hill …A recent Pew study found that ninety-one percent of Americans say that they have “lost control” over how their personal information is collected or used by companies...
Teamsters Denounce Senate Passage Of Omnibus Spending Bill teamster.org …"With the passage of the omnibus spending bill by the Senate, we have witnessed the latest attack by corporate interests on working families...
Trade
Call for release of Trans-Pacific Partnership text ComputerWorld ...Forty-eight non-government organisations have issued a call for the release of the draft text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement...
State Battles
Early federal sentencing recommendation for McDonnell: At least 10 years in prison Washington Post ...The federal agency that will play a pivotal role in guiding the sentence of former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell has recommended that the onetime Republican rising star spend at least 10 years and a month in prison, according to several people familiar with the matter...
War on Workers
Cromnibus Pension Provisions Gut Forty Years of Policy, Allow Existing Pensions to Be Slashed naked capitalism …[The] measure included in Congress’s mammoth spending bill permits benefit cuts for retirees in one type of pension plan, a big shift that lawmakers and others believe could set a precedent for other troubled retirement programs. Lawmakers and experts, while divided over the merits of the change, largely agreed that it could well be the first of many...
Study: For every $1 corporations spend on elections, they get $760 from government Ring of Fire …From 2007 to 2012, 200 American corporations spent about $5.8 billion on federal lobbying and campaign contributions, but that number is mere chump change when compared to what those same corporations got in return — about $4.4 trillion in federal business and support, according to a study by the Sunlight Foundation...
What's Complicated About a Government That Works to Benefit Rich People? Center for Economic Policy and Research ...we have had a government committed to redistributing income upward for the last three decades...
Congress Again Rewards Tax Dodgers with a Tax Cut Economic Policy Institute ...If a $1 budget reduction yields a $10.60 reduction in enforcement collections, then the $191 million reduction in the IRS enforcement budget could prove to be a $2 billion tax cut for tax cheats. There appears to be a disconnect between what Congress enacts and what the American public wants...
Transport strike likely to shut down much of Belgium Agence France-Press ...Belgium risks coming to a virtual standstill tomorrow as the biggest national strike for years grounds all flights, halts public transport and severs international train links in a protest over the new government's austerity policies...
Smoke killed Thanksgiving Tower workers trapped in deep tank, officials say Dallas Morning News ...Three workers killed in a Thanksgiving Tower fire died of smoke inhalation while trapped in a “dilapidated” 35-foot-deep chiller tank, authorities said Friday. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration and Dallas Fire-Rescue are investigating Thursday’s blaze. A city official said it appeared that the workers did not follow proper safety procedures, nor did they have the proper permit to do work with a torch, although officials still haven’t confirmed what started the fire...
Miscellaneous
Will cheap oil kill Keystone? Politico Pro …The same collapse in oil prices that is pumping dollars into motorists’ wallets also risks undermining the case for building the 1,179-mile pipeline in two crucial ways: It’s squeezing the western Canadian oil industry that has looked to Keystone as its most promising route to the Gulf Coast...
Dancing around data The Hill …A recent Pew study found that ninety-one percent of Americans say that they have “lost control” over how their personal information is collected or used by companies...
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
Today's Teamster News 11.04.14
Teamster News
Sysco Drivers In Missouri Vote To Join Teamsters Local 41 teamster.org ...Sysco drivers voted to join Teamsters Local 41 in Kansas City, Mo. There are 43 drivers in the bargaining unit and the vote count announced today was 25-14...
Hoffa Makes Final GOTV Push At Worksites Around Detroit teamster.org ...Teamster General President Jim Hoffa pounded the pavement today across the Detroit metro area, encouraging hundreds of members to exercise their right to vote in tomorrow's election...
Deadly Driving Fleet Owner ...What's so hard about coming up with a rational set of training standards for new commercial truck drivers? Apparently the task is so difficult that the Dept. of Transportation has failed to respond to two specific demands from Congress to up the requirements for obtaining a truck driving license for more than 20 years. It has taken so long that the Teamsters and a few safety interest groups have now turned to the courts for a remedy...
Sysco Doesn't See US Foods Deal Closing This Year Market Watch ...Sysco Corp. said Monday that it doesn't expect its pending acquisition of US Foods to close before the first quarter of next year...
Trade
Corporations Aren't People And They Aren't Nation States, Either (opinion) Huffington Post ...Despite what some politicians say, corporations aren't people. But, even worse, when it comes to the world's biggest trade deals, corporations are actually treated like nation states. Thankfully, a major storm is brewing that could put a crack in this fundamental pillar of the existing free trade regime...
State Battles
SKW = Scott Walker Crooks & Liars ...prosecutors have stated that Walker is at the center of another "criminal scheme". This secondary investigation is about the illegal collaboration between Walker's campaign and dark money groups. Walker hasn't denied doing this...
David Perdue: 'Sure, We Closed Plants All The Time' Daily Kos ...Said Perdue: “Sure, we closed down plants all the time. I mean, but it was never in direct relationship to things going on offshore.”...
Even Without Voter ID Laws, Minority Voters Face More Hurdles To Casting Ballots Mother Jones ...Nationally, African Americans waited about twice as long to vote in the 2012 election as white people (23 minutes on average versus 12 minutes); Hispanics waited 19 minutes. White people who live in neighborhoods whose residents are less than 5 percent minority had the shortest of all wait times, just 7 minutes...
Kansas Tax Cuts Fail Again, As New Revenue Numbers Plague Sam Brownback But Help Paul Davis (opinion) Kansas City Star ..the Brownback tax-cut “experiment” is not working and Kansas voters need to oust him at the polls on Tuesday. The tax cuts are bleeding the state of needed funds to pay for high-quality public services to the people of Kansas. If the revenue problems continue, the next governor is going to have to cut services to the people — and certainly halt proposed bigger tax reductions in their tracks...
Holder sends poll watchers to 18 states The Hill ...The Department of Justice plans to send federal monitors to 18 states to watch for discrimination against voters. Monitors will head to Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin...
War on Workers
JP Morgan Under Criminal Investigation for Foreign Exchange Trading Abuses naked capitalism ...J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. said the Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation of its foreign-exchange-related matters and bumped up a figure measuring the bank’s potential legal costs by $1.3 billion, according to a regulatory filing that the bank released Monday...
The New York Fed Has Contracted JPMorgan to Hold Over $1.7 Trillion of its QE Bonds Despite Two Felony Counts and Serial Charges of Crimes Wall Street on Parade ...During the period in which JPMorgan has been the trusted custodian of a major part of the assets of the U.S. central bank, it has been repeatedly charged with serial crimes...
More Protests, Concern Over Growth Of Oil Trains In Washington NBC News ...Thursday's meeting was moved to the Red Lion Hotel on Evergreen Park Drive after it became clear that there wouldn't be enough room to hold it at the Department of Ecology offices in Lacey, said Lisa Copeland, the agency's communications manager. A meeting was held in Spokane earlier this week, a city also seeing growing train traffic...
Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to Senate Filibuster Rule Wall Street Journal ...The Supreme Court on Monday declined to review whether the Senate’s filibuster rule violates the Constitution, denying without comment an appeal filed by a public interest group and four House Democrats...
Uber Charges Man $539 For 18-Mile Trip yahoo.com ...Many Halloween partiers opted to pay a driver instead of risking the cost of a DUI, but a Denver man who used Uber the popular car service paid a much, much higher price than he ever thought possible...
Worker killed in Marshall power line accident Charleston Gazette ...One worker was killed and another seriously hurt in an electric power line accident Monday afternoon in Marshall County, authorities said...
Charlotte-based worker killed by falling tape measure wsoctv.com ... A man delivering sheet rock to a construction site in New Jersey was killed Monday when a tape measure fell 50 stories and hit him on the head, authorities said...
Miscellaneous
Voting Information League of Women Voters ...Click on the link and enter your address for personalized voting information including the address of your polling place, hours you can vote and voter registration information...
Waiting For Keystone Al-Jazeera America ...Baker, a city a few miles from the North Dakota border, home to a little less than 2,000 residents, makes clear why: It’s bustling thanks to the ancillary effects of the oil industry, mainly drilling in eastern Montana and western North Dakota. Hotels are full, real estate prices are high, and the population is slowly growing...
NSA Phone Program Faces Key Court Test The Hill ...Along with other high-profile court cases challenging the constitutionality of the NSA’s spying, civil liberties advocates are sensing that the wind is at their backs, even as Congress has failed to push legislation past the finish line...
Sysco Drivers In Missouri Vote To Join Teamsters Local 41 teamster.org ...Sysco drivers voted to join Teamsters Local 41 in Kansas City, Mo. There are 43 drivers in the bargaining unit and the vote count announced today was 25-14...
Hoffa Makes Final GOTV Push At Worksites Around Detroit teamster.org ...Teamster General President Jim Hoffa pounded the pavement today across the Detroit metro area, encouraging hundreds of members to exercise their right to vote in tomorrow's election...
Deadly Driving Fleet Owner ...What's so hard about coming up with a rational set of training standards for new commercial truck drivers? Apparently the task is so difficult that the Dept. of Transportation has failed to respond to two specific demands from Congress to up the requirements for obtaining a truck driving license for more than 20 years. It has taken so long that the Teamsters and a few safety interest groups have now turned to the courts for a remedy...
Sysco Doesn't See US Foods Deal Closing This Year Market Watch ...Sysco Corp. said Monday that it doesn't expect its pending acquisition of US Foods to close before the first quarter of next year...
Trade
Corporations Aren't People And They Aren't Nation States, Either (opinion) Huffington Post ...Despite what some politicians say, corporations aren't people. But, even worse, when it comes to the world's biggest trade deals, corporations are actually treated like nation states. Thankfully, a major storm is brewing that could put a crack in this fundamental pillar of the existing free trade regime...
State Battles
SKW = Scott Walker Crooks & Liars ...prosecutors have stated that Walker is at the center of another "criminal scheme". This secondary investigation is about the illegal collaboration between Walker's campaign and dark money groups. Walker hasn't denied doing this...
David Perdue: 'Sure, We Closed Plants All The Time' Daily Kos ...Said Perdue: “Sure, we closed down plants all the time. I mean, but it was never in direct relationship to things going on offshore.”...
Even Without Voter ID Laws, Minority Voters Face More Hurdles To Casting Ballots Mother Jones ...Nationally, African Americans waited about twice as long to vote in the 2012 election as white people (23 minutes on average versus 12 minutes); Hispanics waited 19 minutes. White people who live in neighborhoods whose residents are less than 5 percent minority had the shortest of all wait times, just 7 minutes...
Kansas Tax Cuts Fail Again, As New Revenue Numbers Plague Sam Brownback But Help Paul Davis (opinion) Kansas City Star ..the Brownback tax-cut “experiment” is not working and Kansas voters need to oust him at the polls on Tuesday. The tax cuts are bleeding the state of needed funds to pay for high-quality public services to the people of Kansas. If the revenue problems continue, the next governor is going to have to cut services to the people — and certainly halt proposed bigger tax reductions in their tracks...
Holder sends poll watchers to 18 states The Hill ...The Department of Justice plans to send federal monitors to 18 states to watch for discrimination against voters. Monitors will head to Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin...
War on Workers
JP Morgan Under Criminal Investigation for Foreign Exchange Trading Abuses naked capitalism ...J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. said the Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation of its foreign-exchange-related matters and bumped up a figure measuring the bank’s potential legal costs by $1.3 billion, according to a regulatory filing that the bank released Monday...
The New York Fed Has Contracted JPMorgan to Hold Over $1.7 Trillion of its QE Bonds Despite Two Felony Counts and Serial Charges of Crimes Wall Street on Parade ...During the period in which JPMorgan has been the trusted custodian of a major part of the assets of the U.S. central bank, it has been repeatedly charged with serial crimes...
More Protests, Concern Over Growth Of Oil Trains In Washington NBC News ...Thursday's meeting was moved to the Red Lion Hotel on Evergreen Park Drive after it became clear that there wouldn't be enough room to hold it at the Department of Ecology offices in Lacey, said Lisa Copeland, the agency's communications manager. A meeting was held in Spokane earlier this week, a city also seeing growing train traffic...
Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to Senate Filibuster Rule Wall Street Journal ...The Supreme Court on Monday declined to review whether the Senate’s filibuster rule violates the Constitution, denying without comment an appeal filed by a public interest group and four House Democrats...
Uber Charges Man $539 For 18-Mile Trip yahoo.com ...Many Halloween partiers opted to pay a driver instead of risking the cost of a DUI, but a Denver man who used Uber the popular car service paid a much, much higher price than he ever thought possible...
Worker killed in Marshall power line accident Charleston Gazette ...One worker was killed and another seriously hurt in an electric power line accident Monday afternoon in Marshall County, authorities said...
Charlotte-based worker killed by falling tape measure wsoctv.com ... A man delivering sheet rock to a construction site in New Jersey was killed Monday when a tape measure fell 50 stories and hit him on the head, authorities said...
Miscellaneous
Voting Information League of Women Voters ...Click on the link and enter your address for personalized voting information including the address of your polling place, hours you can vote and voter registration information...
Waiting For Keystone Al-Jazeera America ...Baker, a city a few miles from the North Dakota border, home to a little less than 2,000 residents, makes clear why: It’s bustling thanks to the ancillary effects of the oil industry, mainly drilling in eastern Montana and western North Dakota. Hotels are full, real estate prices are high, and the population is slowly growing...
NSA Phone Program Faces Key Court Test The Hill ...Along with other high-profile court cases challenging the constitutionality of the NSA’s spying, civil liberties advocates are sensing that the wind is at their backs, even as Congress has failed to push legislation past the finish line...
Friday, October 31, 2014
Today's Teamster News 10.31.14
Teamster News
Data On Cross-Border Program Insufficient, FMCSA Committee Says; Mex Carriers Continue Operation Overdrive ...A Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration advisory committee approved Oct. 28 a report critical of several elements of the U.S.-Mexico cross-border pilot program, which ended earlier this month...
Utilizing The Union Vote In The 2014 Midterms MSNBC ...Ed Schultz and Teamsters General President James P. Hoffa discuss labor’s major role in the 2014 midterms...
Trade
The TTIP: A Very Scary Proposal Huffington Post ...though the agreement would have huge impacts on everything from the food we eat to the energy we use, the European Commission and Office of the U.S. Trade Representative are negotiating the TTIP in complete secret...
Japan Can’t Ratify The TPP This Year The Diplomat ...The largest remaining sticking point for successfully concluding the agreement still remains Japan’s protection of its sensitive agriculture and automotive industries, both of which have powerful political lobbies that even the dominant LDP must heed....
State Battles
Hedge fund billionaire, unions trade blows in Phoenix pension fight Reuters ...A push to reform Phoenix's retirement system has become the latest front in a battle between union-backed groups and a Texas hedge fund billionaire over the future of America's public pensions. Hundreds of thousands of dollars, much of it anonymous out-of-state money, has been flowing to backers of a November 4 ballot initiative in Phoenix that aims to end traditional public pension plans for the city's new hires...
Donald Trump's WI Club for Growth donation among those detailed in new records The Cap Times ...Court documents from a John Doe investigation into potentially illegal coordination between the Walker campaign and groups supporting him indicate that Walker's campaign had made the Club for Growth the de facto campaign engine for Walker's 2012 effort to fend off a recall. Walker himself, according to an April 28, 2011, email from campaign consultant Kate Doner, was "encouraging all to invest in the Wisconsin Club for Growth."...
Union power on the ballot Politico ...The result has been a campaign that echoes the same “Main Street vs. Wall Street” divide that has roiled the Democratic Party in recent years. But, as always in California, there’s a twist: The race has also become a referendum on the power of the California Teachers Association...
War on Workers
Bare-Knuckled Advice From Veteran Lobbyist: ‘Win Ugly or Lose Pretty’ New York Times ...“I get up every morning and I try to figure out how to screw with the labor unions — that’s my offense,” Mr. Berman said in his speech to the Western Energy Alliance. “I am just trying to figure out how I am going to reduce their brand...”
State Ecology Expects Full House For Meeting On Oil-By-Rail Safety Thursday Evening In Olympia The Olympian ...environmentalists want to see the state require more disclosure of oil shipments besides those from Bakken and boost tug-escort requirements for oil tankers on the Columbia River. She said there already is worry about risks from current levels of shipments of volatile Bakken crude oil primarily from North Dakota in the wake of the 2013 disaster in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, that killed 47 people...
Efforts to compromise with Maine nurse stall Associated Press ...Insisting she is perfectly healthy, nurse Kaci Hickox again defied the state's Ebola quarantine Thursday by taking a bike ride with her boyfriend, and Maine health authorities struggled to reach a compromise that would limit her contact with others...
Newest Legal Laborers In Bolivia: Children Wall Street Journal ...Newly Re-Elected President Morales Bucks World Trend in Legislating the Right for 10-Year-Olds to Work...
Name released of construction worker killed in Highway 68 crash KSBW.com ...A 50-year-old Salinas man is accused of hitting and killing a utility worker on Highway 68 Thursday morning while driving 90 miles per hour in a construction zone...
The Constitutional Right of Scabby the Rat Atlantic ..."Scabby the Rat," a giant inflatable rodent famous for blocking city sidewalks, is here to stay. The monstrous animal and the popular union protest tool is protected by the First Amendment, a New York district judge ruled this week...
Miscellaneous
Union-Made In America Halloween Candy Shopping List AFL-CIO ...If you want your Halloween to be all treats and no tricks, make sure all your candy is union-made in America. The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor's resource site, Labor 411, has an extensive list of union-made candies. Here are some highlights, featuring sweets made by the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) and the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW)...
Poll: Voters Support Keystone XL Pipeline 60-30 Argus Leader ...The Keystone XL pipeline has landslide support from South Dakota voters, an Argus Leader-KELO-TV poll says. A statewide survey shows 60 percent backing for the project, with 30 percent opposed and 10 percent undecided...
Congress Still Has No Idea How Much The NSA Spies On Americans The Atlantic ...even the most diligent, knowledgeable members of the Senate Intelligence Committee consistently lack basic information that's plainly needed for adequate oversight. No one who assesses the relevant evidence can credibly deny this...
Data On Cross-Border Program Insufficient, FMCSA Committee Says; Mex Carriers Continue Operation Overdrive ...A Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration advisory committee approved Oct. 28 a report critical of several elements of the U.S.-Mexico cross-border pilot program, which ended earlier this month...
Utilizing The Union Vote In The 2014 Midterms MSNBC ...Ed Schultz and Teamsters General President James P. Hoffa discuss labor’s major role in the 2014 midterms...
Trade
The TTIP: A Very Scary Proposal Huffington Post ...though the agreement would have huge impacts on everything from the food we eat to the energy we use, the European Commission and Office of the U.S. Trade Representative are negotiating the TTIP in complete secret...
Japan Can’t Ratify The TPP This Year The Diplomat ...The largest remaining sticking point for successfully concluding the agreement still remains Japan’s protection of its sensitive agriculture and automotive industries, both of which have powerful political lobbies that even the dominant LDP must heed....
State Battles
Hedge fund billionaire, unions trade blows in Phoenix pension fight Reuters ...A push to reform Phoenix's retirement system has become the latest front in a battle between union-backed groups and a Texas hedge fund billionaire over the future of America's public pensions. Hundreds of thousands of dollars, much of it anonymous out-of-state money, has been flowing to backers of a November 4 ballot initiative in Phoenix that aims to end traditional public pension plans for the city's new hires...
Donald Trump's WI Club for Growth donation among those detailed in new records The Cap Times ...Court documents from a John Doe investigation into potentially illegal coordination between the Walker campaign and groups supporting him indicate that Walker's campaign had made the Club for Growth the de facto campaign engine for Walker's 2012 effort to fend off a recall. Walker himself, according to an April 28, 2011, email from campaign consultant Kate Doner, was "encouraging all to invest in the Wisconsin Club for Growth."...
Union power on the ballot Politico ...The result has been a campaign that echoes the same “Main Street vs. Wall Street” divide that has roiled the Democratic Party in recent years. But, as always in California, there’s a twist: The race has also become a referendum on the power of the California Teachers Association...
War on Workers
Bare-Knuckled Advice From Veteran Lobbyist: ‘Win Ugly or Lose Pretty’ New York Times ...“I get up every morning and I try to figure out how to screw with the labor unions — that’s my offense,” Mr. Berman said in his speech to the Western Energy Alliance. “I am just trying to figure out how I am going to reduce their brand...”
State Ecology Expects Full House For Meeting On Oil-By-Rail Safety Thursday Evening In Olympia The Olympian ...environmentalists want to see the state require more disclosure of oil shipments besides those from Bakken and boost tug-escort requirements for oil tankers on the Columbia River. She said there already is worry about risks from current levels of shipments of volatile Bakken crude oil primarily from North Dakota in the wake of the 2013 disaster in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, that killed 47 people...
Efforts to compromise with Maine nurse stall Associated Press ...Insisting she is perfectly healthy, nurse Kaci Hickox again defied the state's Ebola quarantine Thursday by taking a bike ride with her boyfriend, and Maine health authorities struggled to reach a compromise that would limit her contact with others...
Newest Legal Laborers In Bolivia: Children Wall Street Journal ...Newly Re-Elected President Morales Bucks World Trend in Legislating the Right for 10-Year-Olds to Work...
Name released of construction worker killed in Highway 68 crash KSBW.com ...A 50-year-old Salinas man is accused of hitting and killing a utility worker on Highway 68 Thursday morning while driving 90 miles per hour in a construction zone...
The Constitutional Right of Scabby the Rat Atlantic ..."Scabby the Rat," a giant inflatable rodent famous for blocking city sidewalks, is here to stay. The monstrous animal and the popular union protest tool is protected by the First Amendment, a New York district judge ruled this week...
Miscellaneous
Union-Made In America Halloween Candy Shopping List AFL-CIO ...If you want your Halloween to be all treats and no tricks, make sure all your candy is union-made in America. The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor's resource site, Labor 411, has an extensive list of union-made candies. Here are some highlights, featuring sweets made by the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) and the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW)...
Poll: Voters Support Keystone XL Pipeline 60-30 Argus Leader ...The Keystone XL pipeline has landslide support from South Dakota voters, an Argus Leader-KELO-TV poll says. A statewide survey shows 60 percent backing for the project, with 30 percent opposed and 10 percent undecided...
Congress Still Has No Idea How Much The NSA Spies On Americans The Atlantic ...even the most diligent, knowledgeable members of the Senate Intelligence Committee consistently lack basic information that's plainly needed for adequate oversight. No one who assesses the relevant evidence can credibly deny this...
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
Today's Teamster News 10.07.14
Teamster News
Saputo Dairy Workers Overwhelmingly Choose Teamsters teamster.org ...Workers at the Saputo Inc. (TSE: SAP) cheese production facility in Lena, Wisc., have voted overwhelmingly, 367 to 79, in favor of representation by Teamsters Local 662 in Green Bay, Wisc. There are 459 production, maintenance and warehouse workers...
Teamsters, St. Louis Community Hold Teach-In On Republic Services’ Nuclear Waste Landfill on Fire Teamsters ...On Saturday, Teamsters gathered with St. Louis-area residents, union members, elected officials, faith leaders, environmental experts and attorneys about Republic Service’s [NYSE: RSG] West Lake Landfill. West Lake is a Superfund site in Bridgeton, Mo. that contains 8,700 tons of buried uncontained radioactive nuclear wastes adjacent to an underground landfill fire...
Teamsters Local 922, D.C. Taxi Drivers to Hold A Second Caravan for Fairness teamster.org ...Taxi Companies, UberX, Lyft, and others should follow the same regulations, rather than the proposed two-tiered system that gives a competitive advantage to private vehicles for-hire and keeps the public vehicles for-hire strictly controlled...
Teamsters Urge Zuckerberg, Loop Trans. To Recognize Facebook Bus Drivers' Union teamster.org ...Rome Aloise, International Vice President and President of Teamsters Local 853 in San Leandro, Calif., wrote a letter to Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg last week on behalf of bus drivers who transport Facebook employees from San Francisco, Palo Alto and other areas to the Facebook campus. The drivers, employees of Loop Transportation, are seeking union representation and a contract...
BLET delegates back two-person train crews on final day of Third National Convention teamster.org ...“The single employee train crew issue is one of the most important questions facing rail labor, and specifically the BLET,” the resolution reads...
PCC tries to impress a formerly unhappy customer philly.com ...When her organization last came to Philadelphia, in 2009, six unions worked in the building. In May, two of the six did not sign a customer satisfaction agreement by a deadline set by management. Those two unions - the carpenters and the Teamsters - no longer work in the building, although they are contesting that move with the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board...
Trade
Food fight The Economist ...This week Koji Tsuruoka, Japan’s chief negotiator on the TPP, blasted the media in general, which, he said, pays far too much attention to American spin doctors when reporting on the trade agreement, negotiations for which are conducted in secret...
Find out what TTIP is and how it will affect you On the Wight ...Growing numbers of Islanders have become aware of the threat to public services, food safety and wages posed by an international trade treaty being cobbled together behind closed doors by EU governments – including Britain...
Make No Mistake, the TTIP is a Move in the Wrong Direction Global Economic Intersection ...This week has witnessed the seventh round of talks between EU and US negotiators seeking to hammer out a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). These have been mired in controversy over the supposed impact that the agreement will have on the ability of countries to regulate in the public interest...
State Battles
Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback’s Tax Cuts Cause Another Revenue Hit (opinion) Kansas City Star ... the lower income tax rates that took effect in January 2013 haven’t brought a dramatic surge in revenue from the bonanza of new jobs Kansas was supposed to enjoy....
Secretly kissing up to Kochs pays off for Doug Ducey Arizona Republic ...Fresh off a primary in which dark-money attacks were launched against any Republican who stood in Ducey's way, we now learn that Ducey has been cozying up to America's premier princes of dark money...
Scott Walker Could Win Thanks to Wisconsin's Voter ID Law New Republic ...It’s hard to say how many people might be disenfranchised by the law, but in such a tight election, where Republican incumbent Scott Walker is neck-and-neck with Democrat Mary Burke, it doesn’t take many votes to swing the results...
Perdue ‘proud’ of outsourcing past, blames Washington for jobs lost Atlanta Journal-Constitution ...U.S. Senate candidate David Perdue, … a former CEO for Dollar General and Republican nominee to replace retiring Sen. Saxby Chambliss, was stung by his own words last week in an article (that) ... quoted Perdue from a 2005 deposition where he said he “spent most of my career” outsourcing...
War on Workers
The Good News and Bad News About 5.9 Percent Unemployment truth-out ...there is a real danger that the political power of the financial sector will force (Federal Reserve chair Janet) Yellen to start slowing the economy and stopping job growth long before workers gain any bargaining power...
FedEx Drivers Win Kansas Top Court Ruling On Employment Bloomberg ...FedEx Corp. (FDX) drivers in Kansas, in the lead case among 21 consolidated lawsuits over unpaid expenses and overtime, won a ruling by the Kansas Supreme Court that they’re employees and not independent contractors...
Hours Of Service Rules Back As Top Concern In Annual Trucking Industry Survey The Trucker ...Operational impacts being experienced across the supply chain from the changes to the Hours-of-Service (HOS) rules that went into effect in 2013 once again propelled the HOS rules to the top of the list in ATRI’s annual survey of more than 4,000 trucking industry stakeholders...
Exclusive: Hundreds Of Devices Hidden Inside New York City Phone Booths Buzzfeed ...Beacons can push you ads — and help track your every move. Update: Hours after BuzzFeed News exposed the devices, the city ordered the removal of the devices...
Mexico federal agents disarm city's entire police force after student attacks DW ...Mexican federal agents have disarmed all police in the city of Iguala and taken over security. Local officers are alleged to have conspired with a criminal gang to kill 43 missing students, with a mass grave discovered...
Housing Rights Group Says HUD Program Helps Wall Street, Hurts Homeowners truth-out ...They contest that the program has deepened the pain of homeowners and tenants by handing their fates over to hedge funds and investment groups that often have no interest in pursuing loan modifications or other options that would allow residents to remain in their homes...
Michigan judge rules Kalamazoo county has right to take woman's house over one missed tax payment Daily Kos ... Deborah Calley maintains that she was unaware she owed any back taxes and of the ten certified letters sent by the county, only one was sent to her home, the other nine were sent to banks. She steadfastly maintains she never received a single notice. She's also been willing from the get-go to pay the $2,000 debt, but the county has rejected her offers, preferring to sell her mortgage-free home...
Miscellaneous
Keystone Pipeline Opponents Causing Environmental Disaster (opinion) New York Post ...Despite dangers and lawsuits, governments continue to drag their feet on building pipelines or on cracking down on rail practices. By so doing, they merely increase the likelihood of another tragedy. Every day thousands of old tanker cars carry oil along America’s 140,000 miles of track, and another disaster looms...
More Oil Trains Heading To N.J. NorthJersey ... The new rail facility at Bayway is cementing New Jersey’s reputation as a major transportation corridor for crude oil even as the burgeoning “crude by rail” industry faces increasing concerns about safety following a series of explosive derailments in the past year...
Saputo Dairy Workers Overwhelmingly Choose Teamsters teamster.org ...Workers at the Saputo Inc. (TSE: SAP) cheese production facility in Lena, Wisc., have voted overwhelmingly, 367 to 79, in favor of representation by Teamsters Local 662 in Green Bay, Wisc. There are 459 production, maintenance and warehouse workers...
Teamsters, St. Louis Community Hold Teach-In On Republic Services’ Nuclear Waste Landfill on Fire Teamsters ...On Saturday, Teamsters gathered with St. Louis-area residents, union members, elected officials, faith leaders, environmental experts and attorneys about Republic Service’s [NYSE: RSG] West Lake Landfill. West Lake is a Superfund site in Bridgeton, Mo. that contains 8,700 tons of buried uncontained radioactive nuclear wastes adjacent to an underground landfill fire...
Teamsters Local 922, D.C. Taxi Drivers to Hold A Second Caravan for Fairness teamster.org ...Taxi Companies, UberX, Lyft, and others should follow the same regulations, rather than the proposed two-tiered system that gives a competitive advantage to private vehicles for-hire and keeps the public vehicles for-hire strictly controlled...
Teamsters Urge Zuckerberg, Loop Trans. To Recognize Facebook Bus Drivers' Union teamster.org ...Rome Aloise, International Vice President and President of Teamsters Local 853 in San Leandro, Calif., wrote a letter to Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg last week on behalf of bus drivers who transport Facebook employees from San Francisco, Palo Alto and other areas to the Facebook campus. The drivers, employees of Loop Transportation, are seeking union representation and a contract...
BLET delegates back two-person train crews on final day of Third National Convention teamster.org ...“The single employee train crew issue is one of the most important questions facing rail labor, and specifically the BLET,” the resolution reads...
PCC tries to impress a formerly unhappy customer philly.com ...When her organization last came to Philadelphia, in 2009, six unions worked in the building. In May, two of the six did not sign a customer satisfaction agreement by a deadline set by management. Those two unions - the carpenters and the Teamsters - no longer work in the building, although they are contesting that move with the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board...
Trade
Food fight The Economist ...This week Koji Tsuruoka, Japan’s chief negotiator on the TPP, blasted the media in general, which, he said, pays far too much attention to American spin doctors when reporting on the trade agreement, negotiations for which are conducted in secret...
Find out what TTIP is and how it will affect you On the Wight ...Growing numbers of Islanders have become aware of the threat to public services, food safety and wages posed by an international trade treaty being cobbled together behind closed doors by EU governments – including Britain...
Make No Mistake, the TTIP is a Move in the Wrong Direction Global Economic Intersection ...This week has witnessed the seventh round of talks between EU and US negotiators seeking to hammer out a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). These have been mired in controversy over the supposed impact that the agreement will have on the ability of countries to regulate in the public interest...
State Battles
Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback’s Tax Cuts Cause Another Revenue Hit (opinion) Kansas City Star ... the lower income tax rates that took effect in January 2013 haven’t brought a dramatic surge in revenue from the bonanza of new jobs Kansas was supposed to enjoy....
Secretly kissing up to Kochs pays off for Doug Ducey Arizona Republic ...Fresh off a primary in which dark-money attacks were launched against any Republican who stood in Ducey's way, we now learn that Ducey has been cozying up to America's premier princes of dark money...
Scott Walker Could Win Thanks to Wisconsin's Voter ID Law New Republic ...It’s hard to say how many people might be disenfranchised by the law, but in such a tight election, where Republican incumbent Scott Walker is neck-and-neck with Democrat Mary Burke, it doesn’t take many votes to swing the results...
Perdue ‘proud’ of outsourcing past, blames Washington for jobs lost Atlanta Journal-Constitution ...U.S. Senate candidate David Perdue, … a former CEO for Dollar General and Republican nominee to replace retiring Sen. Saxby Chambliss, was stung by his own words last week in an article (that) ... quoted Perdue from a 2005 deposition where he said he “spent most of my career” outsourcing...
War on Workers
The Good News and Bad News About 5.9 Percent Unemployment truth-out ...there is a real danger that the political power of the financial sector will force (Federal Reserve chair Janet) Yellen to start slowing the economy and stopping job growth long before workers gain any bargaining power...
FedEx Drivers Win Kansas Top Court Ruling On Employment Bloomberg ...FedEx Corp. (FDX) drivers in Kansas, in the lead case among 21 consolidated lawsuits over unpaid expenses and overtime, won a ruling by the Kansas Supreme Court that they’re employees and not independent contractors...
Hours Of Service Rules Back As Top Concern In Annual Trucking Industry Survey The Trucker ...Operational impacts being experienced across the supply chain from the changes to the Hours-of-Service (HOS) rules that went into effect in 2013 once again propelled the HOS rules to the top of the list in ATRI’s annual survey of more than 4,000 trucking industry stakeholders...
Exclusive: Hundreds Of Devices Hidden Inside New York City Phone Booths Buzzfeed ...Beacons can push you ads — and help track your every move. Update: Hours after BuzzFeed News exposed the devices, the city ordered the removal of the devices...
Mexico federal agents disarm city's entire police force after student attacks DW ...Mexican federal agents have disarmed all police in the city of Iguala and taken over security. Local officers are alleged to have conspired with a criminal gang to kill 43 missing students, with a mass grave discovered...
Housing Rights Group Says HUD Program Helps Wall Street, Hurts Homeowners truth-out ...They contest that the program has deepened the pain of homeowners and tenants by handing their fates over to hedge funds and investment groups that often have no interest in pursuing loan modifications or other options that would allow residents to remain in their homes...
Michigan judge rules Kalamazoo county has right to take woman's house over one missed tax payment Daily Kos ... Deborah Calley maintains that she was unaware she owed any back taxes and of the ten certified letters sent by the county, only one was sent to her home, the other nine were sent to banks. She steadfastly maintains she never received a single notice. She's also been willing from the get-go to pay the $2,000 debt, but the county has rejected her offers, preferring to sell her mortgage-free home...
Miscellaneous
Keystone Pipeline Opponents Causing Environmental Disaster (opinion) New York Post ...Despite dangers and lawsuits, governments continue to drag their feet on building pipelines or on cracking down on rail practices. By so doing, they merely increase the likelihood of another tragedy. Every day thousands of old tanker cars carry oil along America’s 140,000 miles of track, and another disaster looms...
More Oil Trains Heading To N.J. NorthJersey ... The new rail facility at Bayway is cementing New Jersey’s reputation as a major transportation corridor for crude oil even as the burgeoning “crude by rail” industry faces increasing concerns about safety following a series of explosive derailments in the past year...
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Today's Teamster News 09.17.14
Teamster News
Security Guard Killed On Set Of TNT’s ‘Falling Skies’ Deadline ...A Teamsters security guard was killed Monday night on the set of TNT’s sci-fi drama Falling Skies when he was struck by an unattended truck that rolled down a hill and pinned him against a tree. ..
American Airlines, US Airways Passenger Service Agents Vote To Join Teamsters-CWA Association teamster.org ...The joint effort to organize passenger service agents was led by Communication Workers of America (CWA) which will represent about 7,500 new members; 1,300 new members will be represented by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters...
American Airlines, US Airways Workers Vote Overwhelmingly To Join Union Huffington Post ...In a combined union election, airline employees voted on whether to join CWA-IBT, a joint union of the Communications Workers of America and the Teamsters. An overwhelming 86 percent voted in favor of unionizing...
Bus drivers to school board: “We cannot promise labor peace” Santa Rosa Press Gazette ...Members of Teamsters Local 991 held a practice protest Thursday morning at the Santa Rosa County School District’s Professional Development Center...
Mobile Mini Workers in Kansas City Vote Unanimously to Join Teamsters Local 541 teamster.org ...Local 541 is welcoming its new members at Mobile Mini in Kansas City, MO who voted unanimously for Teamster representation on September 10. There are four workers, plus temporary labor, included in the bargaining unit. “This is the first Mobile Mini unit that has been organized in the whole country that we know of,” said Local 541 Vice President and Business Representative Danny Gercone...
Con-way Freight Workers Vote To Organize In Laredo DC Velocity ...Con-way Freight workers in Laredo, Texas, agreed on Friday to unionize under the Teamsters union, the first time in the company's 31 years of operation that it will have to work with a bargaining unit...
Trade
Hoffa: TPA Might Move in Lame Duck Politico ...“The danger is, once the elections are over then they go into a smoke-filled room and pass an agreement which gives the president fast track,” Hoffa said at a press conference late Monday marking the start of a trade summit being held today in conjunction with Public Service International, a union representing public sector workers...
Public services unions open new trade agreements to public debate PSI ...Public services unions worldwide are determined to open to public scrutiy a new wave of global trade agreements, which are now being discussed behind closed doors...
Teamsters, Global Public Sector Trade Unions Warn Of Consequences Of Trade Policies teamster.org ...Meeting with global leaders of public sector unions, Teamsters General President James P. Hoffa and officials from Public Services International (PSI) discussed the growing concerns about the effects of public service trade policies as part of a public trade policy summit held today at Teamsters headquarters...
Teamsters, PSI Sound Alarm For Public Workers About Trade Deals teamster.org ...Three proposed trade deals could lead to millions of public sector workers losing their jobs worldwide if large corporations are allowed to impose their agenda, officials with the Teamsters and Public Services International (PSI) said today...
European Commission Denies EU Public Right To Express Views On TAFTA/TTIP And CETA TechDirt ...Since the European Commission refuses to take into account the public's views directly, people have turned to another mechanism to make their voices heard: a special kind of EU-wide petition called a European Citizens' Initiative (ECI). If sufficient signatures are obtained from around the EU, the European Commission is obliged to respond, but the bar to make that happen is set quite high...
State Battles
Walker Shrugs and Declares, "There are Plenty of Jobs Out There" Uppity Wisconsin ...The problem, though-- according to Walker-- isn't that enough jobs have been created, but that there aren't enough workers out there that can pass a drug test...
Electoral Chaos In Wisconsin (opinion) New York Times ...voter ID laws don’t stop fraud. They stop otherwise-eligible voters from coming to the polls. Richard Posner, a federal appellate judge who sits on the same court as the judges on the ruling panel, made just this point when he said last fall that he was mistaken to have approved a voter ID law in Indiana seven years ago...
State reports increase in 2013 workplace deaths Associated Press ...The Indiana Department of Labor reports the number of workplace deaths in Indiana was up in 2013, but it was still the third-lowest number of fatalities recorded in the past 22 years...
Keystone XL Operator Seeks South Dakota Approval Bismarck Tribune ...The operator of the long-delayed Keystone XL crude oil pipeline on Monday formally asked South Dakota's utility regulators to recertify the portion of the project that runs through the state...
Early voting schedule expanded by Secretary of State Jon Husted while court decision under appeal cleveland.com ...Secretary of State Jon Husted has set new early, in-person voting hours for all 88 Ohio counties to comply with a federal court judge's order that he continues to appeal...
Google Refuses to Respond to Letter Questioning ALEC Ties The Progressive ...The Center for Media and Democracy/Progressive Inc. (CMD) has joined more than 50 watchdog, advocacy, and labor groups in sending a letter to Google asking it to cut its ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Google has not responded, telling the trade publication Ars Technica, "we aren't going to be commenting on this letter" and refusing to respond to repeated requests for comment made by the International Business Times...
ALEC Exodus Continues As Four More Companies Leave Lobby Common Cause ...Raytheon, Sempra Energy, Southern California Edison, and Illinois Tool Works all recently told Walden Asset Management that they no longer fund or have any involvement with ALEC...
War On Workers
500 truck drivers set to sue Walmart UNI Global Union News ...A federal district ruled on 10 September that over 500 current and former Walmart truck drivers in California can proceed with a class action lawsuit against the company it claims has violated state wage and hour laws...
Walmart's New Uniforms Made In Jordan, Despite 'Buy American' Campaign And Jordan Labor Controversy International Business Times ...The garment’s place of origin raised plenty of eyebrows due to the giant retailer’s recent pledge to buy more U.S.-made goods, as well as the slate of workers’ rights violations at Walmart suppliers in Jordan...
Lawmaker Assails Foreign Donations to Think Tanks New York Times ...Prominent Washington think tanks that routinely provide Congress with policy advice should refrain from taking foreign government donations, particularly from nations like Qatar that have been associated with financing extremist groups, a senior House lawmaker wrote this week in a letter to the president of the Brookings Institution...
Taxi unions to take on Uber app itfglobal.org ...Taxi worker unions meeting in Belgium today pledged to take action to prevent potentially unsafe competition by non-regulated freelance companies using app technologies...
New Jersey Loses 4th Casino As Trump Plaza Closes ABC News ...Theresa Volpe, a cocktail server at the Plaza for 26 years, is looking for a new job — along with about 8,000 others suddenly cut loose by Atlantic City's casinos since January. An unemployment assistance session will be held Wednesday at Boardwalk Hall...
Paycheck Fairness Act Blocked Again By Senate GOP Huffington Post ...The Paycheck Fairness Act would ban employers from retaliating against employees who share salary information with each other, impose harsher penalties for pay discrimination and require employers to be able to show that wage gaps between men and women are based on factors other than gender...
Narco Cash Flowed Through Citi, Deutsche Bank, BofA, Court Papers Say 100 Reporters ...A Colombian cocaine cartel allegedly laundered millions of dollars in drug money through the international banking giants Citibank, Deutsche Bank and Bank of America, federal court papers reveal...
Chevron Draining Natural Gas After Worker Death Washington Times ...Authorities said that a Chevron Corp. subsidiary was still releasing natural gas Sunday from a pipeline off the Louisiana coast where a Saturday incident killed a maintenance worker...
Franchise Owners Flock To DC In Defense Of McDonald’s The Hill ...Fast food restaurateurs, hotel operators and other franchise owners from around the country are descending upon Washington on Tuesday to register their opposition to a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) finding they say threatens to undermine their business model...
A Hedge Fund Wants to Cut Jobs at Olive Garden, but Everyone Is More Worried About Losing Breadsticks Slog The Stranger ...The document is full of proposals to cut labor costs, including a call to modify "the front-of-the-house service to rely more on tipped servers, less on higher-salaried or higher-wage bussers and food runners," effectively moving payroll costs onto the customers, in addition to the company's attempts to train the customers to do the server's job themselves via tabletop tablet...
Miscellaneous
Why Tesla's Legal Breakthrough in Massachusetts Could Be a Big Deal Bloomberg ...Tesla (TSLA) appears to have finally blown by the last roadblock in its straight-to-consumers sales model in Massachusetts. The state’s supreme court on Monday rejected a legal challenge by the Massachusetts State Automobile Dealers Association that sought to shutter Tesla’s showroom just west of Boston...
Security Guard Killed On Set Of TNT’s ‘Falling Skies’ Deadline ...A Teamsters security guard was killed Monday night on the set of TNT’s sci-fi drama Falling Skies when he was struck by an unattended truck that rolled down a hill and pinned him against a tree. ..
American Airlines, US Airways Passenger Service Agents Vote To Join Teamsters-CWA Association teamster.org ...The joint effort to organize passenger service agents was led by Communication Workers of America (CWA) which will represent about 7,500 new members; 1,300 new members will be represented by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters...
American Airlines, US Airways Workers Vote Overwhelmingly To Join Union Huffington Post ...In a combined union election, airline employees voted on whether to join CWA-IBT, a joint union of the Communications Workers of America and the Teamsters. An overwhelming 86 percent voted in favor of unionizing...
Bus drivers to school board: “We cannot promise labor peace” Santa Rosa Press Gazette ...Members of Teamsters Local 991 held a practice protest Thursday morning at the Santa Rosa County School District’s Professional Development Center...
Mobile Mini Workers in Kansas City Vote Unanimously to Join Teamsters Local 541 teamster.org ...Local 541 is welcoming its new members at Mobile Mini in Kansas City, MO who voted unanimously for Teamster representation on September 10. There are four workers, plus temporary labor, included in the bargaining unit. “This is the first Mobile Mini unit that has been organized in the whole country that we know of,” said Local 541 Vice President and Business Representative Danny Gercone...
Con-way Freight Workers Vote To Organize In Laredo DC Velocity ...Con-way Freight workers in Laredo, Texas, agreed on Friday to unionize under the Teamsters union, the first time in the company's 31 years of operation that it will have to work with a bargaining unit...
Trade
Hoffa: TPA Might Move in Lame Duck Politico ...“The danger is, once the elections are over then they go into a smoke-filled room and pass an agreement which gives the president fast track,” Hoffa said at a press conference late Monday marking the start of a trade summit being held today in conjunction with Public Service International, a union representing public sector workers...
Public services unions open new trade agreements to public debate PSI ...Public services unions worldwide are determined to open to public scrutiy a new wave of global trade agreements, which are now being discussed behind closed doors...
Teamsters, Global Public Sector Trade Unions Warn Of Consequences Of Trade Policies teamster.org ...Meeting with global leaders of public sector unions, Teamsters General President James P. Hoffa and officials from Public Services International (PSI) discussed the growing concerns about the effects of public service trade policies as part of a public trade policy summit held today at Teamsters headquarters...
Teamsters, PSI Sound Alarm For Public Workers About Trade Deals teamster.org ...Three proposed trade deals could lead to millions of public sector workers losing their jobs worldwide if large corporations are allowed to impose their agenda, officials with the Teamsters and Public Services International (PSI) said today...
European Commission Denies EU Public Right To Express Views On TAFTA/TTIP And CETA TechDirt ...Since the European Commission refuses to take into account the public's views directly, people have turned to another mechanism to make their voices heard: a special kind of EU-wide petition called a European Citizens' Initiative (ECI). If sufficient signatures are obtained from around the EU, the European Commission is obliged to respond, but the bar to make that happen is set quite high...
State Battles
Walker Shrugs and Declares, "There are Plenty of Jobs Out There" Uppity Wisconsin ...The problem, though-- according to Walker-- isn't that enough jobs have been created, but that there aren't enough workers out there that can pass a drug test...
Electoral Chaos In Wisconsin (opinion) New York Times ...voter ID laws don’t stop fraud. They stop otherwise-eligible voters from coming to the polls. Richard Posner, a federal appellate judge who sits on the same court as the judges on the ruling panel, made just this point when he said last fall that he was mistaken to have approved a voter ID law in Indiana seven years ago...
State reports increase in 2013 workplace deaths Associated Press ...The Indiana Department of Labor reports the number of workplace deaths in Indiana was up in 2013, but it was still the third-lowest number of fatalities recorded in the past 22 years...
Keystone XL Operator Seeks South Dakota Approval Bismarck Tribune ...The operator of the long-delayed Keystone XL crude oil pipeline on Monday formally asked South Dakota's utility regulators to recertify the portion of the project that runs through the state...
Early voting schedule expanded by Secretary of State Jon Husted while court decision under appeal cleveland.com ...Secretary of State Jon Husted has set new early, in-person voting hours for all 88 Ohio counties to comply with a federal court judge's order that he continues to appeal...
Google Refuses to Respond to Letter Questioning ALEC Ties The Progressive ...The Center for Media and Democracy/Progressive Inc. (CMD) has joined more than 50 watchdog, advocacy, and labor groups in sending a letter to Google asking it to cut its ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Google has not responded, telling the trade publication Ars Technica, "we aren't going to be commenting on this letter" and refusing to respond to repeated requests for comment made by the International Business Times...
ALEC Exodus Continues As Four More Companies Leave Lobby Common Cause ...Raytheon, Sempra Energy, Southern California Edison, and Illinois Tool Works all recently told Walden Asset Management that they no longer fund or have any involvement with ALEC...
War On Workers
500 truck drivers set to sue Walmart UNI Global Union News ...A federal district ruled on 10 September that over 500 current and former Walmart truck drivers in California can proceed with a class action lawsuit against the company it claims has violated state wage and hour laws...
Walmart's New Uniforms Made In Jordan, Despite 'Buy American' Campaign And Jordan Labor Controversy International Business Times ...The garment’s place of origin raised plenty of eyebrows due to the giant retailer’s recent pledge to buy more U.S.-made goods, as well as the slate of workers’ rights violations at Walmart suppliers in Jordan...
Lawmaker Assails Foreign Donations to Think Tanks New York Times ...Prominent Washington think tanks that routinely provide Congress with policy advice should refrain from taking foreign government donations, particularly from nations like Qatar that have been associated with financing extremist groups, a senior House lawmaker wrote this week in a letter to the president of the Brookings Institution...
Taxi unions to take on Uber app itfglobal.org ...Taxi worker unions meeting in Belgium today pledged to take action to prevent potentially unsafe competition by non-regulated freelance companies using app technologies...
New Jersey Loses 4th Casino As Trump Plaza Closes ABC News ...Theresa Volpe, a cocktail server at the Plaza for 26 years, is looking for a new job — along with about 8,000 others suddenly cut loose by Atlantic City's casinos since January. An unemployment assistance session will be held Wednesday at Boardwalk Hall...
Paycheck Fairness Act Blocked Again By Senate GOP Huffington Post ...The Paycheck Fairness Act would ban employers from retaliating against employees who share salary information with each other, impose harsher penalties for pay discrimination and require employers to be able to show that wage gaps between men and women are based on factors other than gender...
Narco Cash Flowed Through Citi, Deutsche Bank, BofA, Court Papers Say 100 Reporters ...A Colombian cocaine cartel allegedly laundered millions of dollars in drug money through the international banking giants Citibank, Deutsche Bank and Bank of America, federal court papers reveal...
Chevron Draining Natural Gas After Worker Death Washington Times ...Authorities said that a Chevron Corp. subsidiary was still releasing natural gas Sunday from a pipeline off the Louisiana coast where a Saturday incident killed a maintenance worker...
Franchise Owners Flock To DC In Defense Of McDonald’s The Hill ...Fast food restaurateurs, hotel operators and other franchise owners from around the country are descending upon Washington on Tuesday to register their opposition to a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) finding they say threatens to undermine their business model...
A Hedge Fund Wants to Cut Jobs at Olive Garden, but Everyone Is More Worried About Losing Breadsticks Slog The Stranger ...The document is full of proposals to cut labor costs, including a call to modify "the front-of-the-house service to rely more on tipped servers, less on higher-salaried or higher-wage bussers and food runners," effectively moving payroll costs onto the customers, in addition to the company's attempts to train the customers to do the server's job themselves via tabletop tablet...
Miscellaneous
Why Tesla's Legal Breakthrough in Massachusetts Could Be a Big Deal Bloomberg ...Tesla (TSLA) appears to have finally blown by the last roadblock in its straight-to-consumers sales model in Massachusetts. The state’s supreme court on Monday rejected a legal challenge by the Massachusetts State Automobile Dealers Association that sought to shutter Tesla’s showroom just west of Boston...
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Today's Teamster News 09.09.14
Teamster News
Vote On County Pay Raises In The Offing St. Petersburg Tribune ...The Teamsters has asked for a $15 per hour minimum. Sholtes said the request has nothing to do with a national movement among fast-food workers for a $15 minimum wage. The union used data from the living wage calculator, which sets the minimum hourly wage at $15 to support two adults and $9.63 for one adult...
EVSC board votes to accept Teamsters contract 14 News ...Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corporation board members voted Monday night to accept the contracts of several employee groups, including the Teamsters Union. Members of Teamsters Local 215 includes custodians, bus drivers, bus aids, and secretaries...
Teamsters Port Division Assisting Truck Drivers Fired By TTSI teamster.org ...On Wednesday evening, Sept. 3, 2014, at least thirty-three (33) port truck drivers who participated in recent unfair labor practice strikes and filed “wage and hour” claims with the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE) were fired by their employer, Total Transportation Services Inc. (TTSI), when they refused to acquiesce to the company’s illegal demand to withdraw their claims for wage theft as misclassified “independent contractors.”...
Trade
The Transatlantic Trade And Investment Partnership: Getting The Criticism Right The Journal ...As an investment agreement, the TTIP is probably bad for everyone whose name does not end in Ltd, Plc, or something similar...
China’s Runaway Steel Industry Trade Reform ...production capacity for China’s steel industry has grown by an astonishing 200 million tons since late 2012, to 1.1 billion tons today. (By contrast, the entire U.S. steel industry produced only 87 million tons in 2013.) Yet first half domestic consumption of steel stands at 376.1 million tons, up an anemic 0.4 percent over the same period last year. Steel exports are growing but at the expense of “increasing trade conflicts and constant trade remedy investigations.”...
State Battles
The shortfall that wouldn't die Uppity Wisconsin ...Today's news that the budget shortfall is nearly 2 billion dollars and apparently rising leads one to believe that maybe too little cash is sticking in Madison. Other recent news makes it clear that the administration has been helping put more cash in the pockets of some taxpayers (and out-of-staters) than others...
As lawyers prep for John Doe hearing, legal tab tops $672,000 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ...The cost to taxpayers for defending the state against lawsuits over an investigation into Gov. Scott Walker and his allies has quickly escalated to more than $672,000...
Voter ID On Trial in Texas (opinion) New York Times ...Laws like these used to be blocked by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which required that the federal government preapprove any voting rules enacted by states and localities with a history of discriminatory voting practices. But in a destructive ruling last year, the Supreme Court struck down Section 5 as unconstitutional. Only hours after that ruling, Texas resurrected its voter-ID law, which had been stopped by Section 5...
Ruling In Nebraska Could Have Big Overall Impact On Keystone XL Nebraska Radio Network ...A ruling by the state Supreme Court on the law that authorized the Keystone XL route through Nebraska could have ramifications well beyond this state. Attorney General Jon Bruning is confident the Supreme Court will uphold the law that set the route...
War On Workers
The Fast Food Strikes Have Been A Stunning Success For Organized Labor Slate ...at this early date, it’s more useful to think of them as the spearhead of a broader living wage movement that has also seen retail workers at stores such as Walmart protest for better pay. Framed that way, the effort has been startlingly effective. For the cost of a few Super Bowl ads, the SEIU and some dedicated fast food workers have managed to completely rewire how the public and politicians thinks about wages...
STILL 1.4 Million Fewer Full-Time Jobs Than in 2008 naked capitalism ...It’s still 1.4 million below 2008? In 2008, the economy was in full collapse mode. The Fed has expanded its balance sheet by $3.7 trillion since August 2008 and there are fewer full-time jobs now than then? Remind me again what that $3.7 trillion has bought!...
Koch 101 Slate ...The Koch brothers are paying millions to inject libertarian ideas into high school curriculums...
Koch Industries adopts new public posture to neutralize opponents, recast image Washington Post ...Koch Industries, which produces goods ranging from Angel Soft toilet paper to iPhone parts, is adopting a more visible strategy to neutralize critics on the left and promote a warm, patriotic image of its multinational empire...
Evidence Says That Students Do Better In Schools With Strong Teachers’ Unions Addicting Info ... Collective bargaining provides a legal, structured process in which local unions and management can develop reforms, such as peer review or performance-based pay...
Senate moves forward with amendment to the Constitution on elections The Hill ...The Senate on Monday advanced a constitutional amendment meant to reverse two recent Supreme Court decisions on campaign spending...
Some Uber Drivers Say Company’s Promise Of Big Pay Day Doesn’t Match Reality Washington Post ...The lure of taking home 80 percent of the fares he collected as a driver for Uber was a sweet incentive for Demek Dagnachew to sign up with the ride-sharing service in April. But soon after he started ferrying passengers around the District in his 2012 Toyota Camry, he said he noticed his earnings didn’t quite reflect the 80/20 split he’d been promised...
Sources: Taj To File For Bankruptcy, Close In November CBS News ...A source confirms to CBS 3 Eyewitness News that the Taj Mahal has already begun the process for bankruptcy and layoff notices could go out to workers next week. As of August, the casino hotel had more than 2,800 employees...
State Consultant Says Bridgeton Landfill Fire Spreading North St. Louis Post Dispatch ...The consultant hired by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources says the “subsurface fire” at the Bridgeton Landfill is expanding and moving closer to the radioactive West Lake Landfill...
Miscellaneous
Exclusive: Safety concerns dog Boeing 787 Aljazeera ...Using a concealed camera, the worker films inside the Boeing South Carolina plant, recording his discussions with colleagues. He randomly asks 15 of his co-workers who assemble the 787 "Dreamliner" if they would fly on the plane. Ten say they would not...
Vote On County Pay Raises In The Offing St. Petersburg Tribune ...The Teamsters has asked for a $15 per hour minimum. Sholtes said the request has nothing to do with a national movement among fast-food workers for a $15 minimum wage. The union used data from the living wage calculator, which sets the minimum hourly wage at $15 to support two adults and $9.63 for one adult...
EVSC board votes to accept Teamsters contract 14 News ...Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corporation board members voted Monday night to accept the contracts of several employee groups, including the Teamsters Union. Members of Teamsters Local 215 includes custodians, bus drivers, bus aids, and secretaries...
Teamsters Port Division Assisting Truck Drivers Fired By TTSI teamster.org ...On Wednesday evening, Sept. 3, 2014, at least thirty-three (33) port truck drivers who participated in recent unfair labor practice strikes and filed “wage and hour” claims with the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE) were fired by their employer, Total Transportation Services Inc. (TTSI), when they refused to acquiesce to the company’s illegal demand to withdraw their claims for wage theft as misclassified “independent contractors.”...
Trade
The Transatlantic Trade And Investment Partnership: Getting The Criticism Right The Journal ...As an investment agreement, the TTIP is probably bad for everyone whose name does not end in Ltd, Plc, or something similar...
China’s Runaway Steel Industry Trade Reform ...production capacity for China’s steel industry has grown by an astonishing 200 million tons since late 2012, to 1.1 billion tons today. (By contrast, the entire U.S. steel industry produced only 87 million tons in 2013.) Yet first half domestic consumption of steel stands at 376.1 million tons, up an anemic 0.4 percent over the same period last year. Steel exports are growing but at the expense of “increasing trade conflicts and constant trade remedy investigations.”...
State Battles
The shortfall that wouldn't die Uppity Wisconsin ...Today's news that the budget shortfall is nearly 2 billion dollars and apparently rising leads one to believe that maybe too little cash is sticking in Madison. Other recent news makes it clear that the administration has been helping put more cash in the pockets of some taxpayers (and out-of-staters) than others...
As lawyers prep for John Doe hearing, legal tab tops $672,000 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ...The cost to taxpayers for defending the state against lawsuits over an investigation into Gov. Scott Walker and his allies has quickly escalated to more than $672,000...
Voter ID On Trial in Texas (opinion) New York Times ...Laws like these used to be blocked by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which required that the federal government preapprove any voting rules enacted by states and localities with a history of discriminatory voting practices. But in a destructive ruling last year, the Supreme Court struck down Section 5 as unconstitutional. Only hours after that ruling, Texas resurrected its voter-ID law, which had been stopped by Section 5...
Ruling In Nebraska Could Have Big Overall Impact On Keystone XL Nebraska Radio Network ...A ruling by the state Supreme Court on the law that authorized the Keystone XL route through Nebraska could have ramifications well beyond this state. Attorney General Jon Bruning is confident the Supreme Court will uphold the law that set the route...
War On Workers
The Fast Food Strikes Have Been A Stunning Success For Organized Labor Slate ...at this early date, it’s more useful to think of them as the spearhead of a broader living wage movement that has also seen retail workers at stores such as Walmart protest for better pay. Framed that way, the effort has been startlingly effective. For the cost of a few Super Bowl ads, the SEIU and some dedicated fast food workers have managed to completely rewire how the public and politicians thinks about wages...
STILL 1.4 Million Fewer Full-Time Jobs Than in 2008 naked capitalism ...It’s still 1.4 million below 2008? In 2008, the economy was in full collapse mode. The Fed has expanded its balance sheet by $3.7 trillion since August 2008 and there are fewer full-time jobs now than then? Remind me again what that $3.7 trillion has bought!...
Koch 101 Slate ...The Koch brothers are paying millions to inject libertarian ideas into high school curriculums...
Koch Industries adopts new public posture to neutralize opponents, recast image Washington Post ...Koch Industries, which produces goods ranging from Angel Soft toilet paper to iPhone parts, is adopting a more visible strategy to neutralize critics on the left and promote a warm, patriotic image of its multinational empire...
Evidence Says That Students Do Better In Schools With Strong Teachers’ Unions Addicting Info ... Collective bargaining provides a legal, structured process in which local unions and management can develop reforms, such as peer review or performance-based pay...
Senate moves forward with amendment to the Constitution on elections The Hill ...The Senate on Monday advanced a constitutional amendment meant to reverse two recent Supreme Court decisions on campaign spending...
Some Uber Drivers Say Company’s Promise Of Big Pay Day Doesn’t Match Reality Washington Post ...The lure of taking home 80 percent of the fares he collected as a driver for Uber was a sweet incentive for Demek Dagnachew to sign up with the ride-sharing service in April. But soon after he started ferrying passengers around the District in his 2012 Toyota Camry, he said he noticed his earnings didn’t quite reflect the 80/20 split he’d been promised...
Sources: Taj To File For Bankruptcy, Close In November CBS News ...A source confirms to CBS 3 Eyewitness News that the Taj Mahal has already begun the process for bankruptcy and layoff notices could go out to workers next week. As of August, the casino hotel had more than 2,800 employees...
State Consultant Says Bridgeton Landfill Fire Spreading North St. Louis Post Dispatch ...The consultant hired by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources says the “subsurface fire” at the Bridgeton Landfill is expanding and moving closer to the radioactive West Lake Landfill...
Miscellaneous
Exclusive: Safety concerns dog Boeing 787 Aljazeera ...Using a concealed camera, the worker films inside the Boeing South Carolina plant, recording his discussions with colleagues. He randomly asks 15 of his co-workers who assemble the 787 "Dreamliner" if they would fly on the plane. Ten say they would not...
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Today's Teamster News 09.04.14
Teamsters
Unions press for complete rejection of Norwegian Air US flight bid The Hill ...Emboldened by a decision on Tuesday by the Department of Transportation (DOT) to dismiss an attempt by Norwegian Airlines to expedite approval of its bid to gain access to airports in the U.S., labor groups in Washington are pushing the agency now to completely reject the Scandinavian company's request...
Trade
U.S. Sets Steep Preliminary Duties On Chinese Steel Wire Rod Imports Reuters ...The U.S. Department of Commerce on Tuesday set preliminary duties of up to 110 percent on imports of carbon and alloy steel wire rod from China after ruling the products were being sold below cost in the U.S. market...
Dear President Clinton: How’s that China free market thing working out? Trade Reform ...They could use state-owned enterprises, other industrial subsidies, value added taxes, indigenous innovation requirements, currency manipulation as part of a Chinese Communist Party industrial strategy that was going to penetrate the U.S. consumer market at all costs...
Get Rid Of Provisions In Pact That Will Hit Public Health, TPP Negotiators Told The Sun Daily ...Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has called on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiating countries to struck off provisions in the free trade agreement that will severely impact public health of millions of people in Asia...
State Battles
Emanuel To Sign Order Raising Minimum Wage Chicago Contract Workers ABC News ...Mayor Rahm Emanuel is expected to sign an executive order that will require Chicago contractors and subcontractors to pay employees at least $13 an hour...
Why Walker should be held to jobs promise (opinion) Post Crescent ...Of the 65 promises Walker made, none has received more attention than the promise he made to create 250,000 new jobs for Wisconsin in his first term. Walker has created a little over 100,000 jobs in the state, with only four months remaining in his term. PolitiFact has mercifully ruled the promise as "stalled." Even Walker admits he's not going to hit the number he said he would...
California Bill Would Enable Uber, Lyft Drivers To Finally Get Insurance KQED ...AB2293, the ride-service insurance bill that passed the California Legislature last week, could pave the way for drivers for companies like Lyft and Uber to finally get coverage for both personal and commercial use of their vehicles...
Uber Unrest: Drivers In Los Angeles Protest The Slashing Of Rates Salon.com ...Over 50 Los Angeles based Uber drivers gathered in a North Hollywood parking lot, on Tuesday, to protest the ride-sharing app’s declining rates. While one driver, Aya Valilar, states that she still loves the app, she concedes that in her year-and-a-half working as an Uber driver, she’s seen rates slashed four times...
War On Workers
Protesters arrested after blocking BNSF oil train JournalStar.com ...The protest by about a dozen demonstrators blocked some railroad tracks from 6 a.m. local time until about 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday….A sign on the tripod said: "Cut Oil Trains Not Conductors," an apparent reference to a deal negotiated by BNSF and a union to allow the railroad to run some freight trains with only an engineer on board...
Unemployment Trickles Down to Poorer Workers, Study Finds Wall Street Journal ...Unemployment “trickles down” to America’s poorest and most vulnerable because, during recessions, higher-income workers with more education take jobs that are below their qualification level, according to new research...
Apple, Google resume talks with tech workers in hiring lawsuit: filing Reuters ...Plaintiffs accused Apple, Google, Intel (INTC.O) and Adobe (ADBE.O) of conspiring to avoid poaching each other's employees. Last month, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California rejected a proposed $324.5 million settlement in the class action case, saying it was too low...
US household food security fails to improve Aljazeera America ...More U.S. households are having a hard time putting food on the table than before the recession. But there is a sliver of hope: The numbers are not going up...
Scott Brown: It's Not My Job To Create Jobs (VIDEO) Talking Points Memo ...Former Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), now a U.S. Senate candidate in New Hampshire, said that his job isn't to create jobs. That's for other Americans...
Volkswagen Union Could Signal Change For Tennessee Chattanooga Times Free Press ...Eric DeLacy ... is among more than 700 workers who have joined a new local union started in March by the United Auto Workers...
Charles Koch Complains He And His Brother Are 'In Front Of The Firing Squad' Huffington Post ...It isn't easy being a politically connected billionaire. At a private political strategy summit earlier this year, Charles Koch lamented that he and his brother David were being unfairly persecuted...
Miscellaneous
Keystone XL: Six Years And Still Waiting Townhall ...September 19th will mark the sixth anniversary of when TransCanada first applied for a presidential permit to build the Keystone XL Pipeline. Hurt the most are the people whose job it is to build and operate the pipeline...
Tesla chooses Nevada for battery factory: Sources CNBC ...Tesla has finally decided that it will build its $5 billion lithium-ion battery plant—dubbed the gigafactory—in Nevada, sources say...
From Russia With Love: JPMorgan Hack May Be Warning, Says Former NSA Chief Bloomberg ...Hackers who stole gigabytes of data from JPMorgan Chase & Co. may have been trying to send a message that U.S. financial institutions can be disrupted, the former director of the National Security Agency said...
Unions press for complete rejection of Norwegian Air US flight bid The Hill ...Emboldened by a decision on Tuesday by the Department of Transportation (DOT) to dismiss an attempt by Norwegian Airlines to expedite approval of its bid to gain access to airports in the U.S., labor groups in Washington are pushing the agency now to completely reject the Scandinavian company's request...
Trade
U.S. Sets Steep Preliminary Duties On Chinese Steel Wire Rod Imports Reuters ...The U.S. Department of Commerce on Tuesday set preliminary duties of up to 110 percent on imports of carbon and alloy steel wire rod from China after ruling the products were being sold below cost in the U.S. market...
Dear President Clinton: How’s that China free market thing working out? Trade Reform ...They could use state-owned enterprises, other industrial subsidies, value added taxes, indigenous innovation requirements, currency manipulation as part of a Chinese Communist Party industrial strategy that was going to penetrate the U.S. consumer market at all costs...
Get Rid Of Provisions In Pact That Will Hit Public Health, TPP Negotiators Told The Sun Daily ...Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has called on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiating countries to struck off provisions in the free trade agreement that will severely impact public health of millions of people in Asia...
State Battles
Emanuel To Sign Order Raising Minimum Wage Chicago Contract Workers ABC News ...Mayor Rahm Emanuel is expected to sign an executive order that will require Chicago contractors and subcontractors to pay employees at least $13 an hour...
Why Walker should be held to jobs promise (opinion) Post Crescent ...Of the 65 promises Walker made, none has received more attention than the promise he made to create 250,000 new jobs for Wisconsin in his first term. Walker has created a little over 100,000 jobs in the state, with only four months remaining in his term. PolitiFact has mercifully ruled the promise as "stalled." Even Walker admits he's not going to hit the number he said he would...
California Bill Would Enable Uber, Lyft Drivers To Finally Get Insurance KQED ...AB2293, the ride-service insurance bill that passed the California Legislature last week, could pave the way for drivers for companies like Lyft and Uber to finally get coverage for both personal and commercial use of their vehicles...
Uber Unrest: Drivers In Los Angeles Protest The Slashing Of Rates Salon.com ...Over 50 Los Angeles based Uber drivers gathered in a North Hollywood parking lot, on Tuesday, to protest the ride-sharing app’s declining rates. While one driver, Aya Valilar, states that she still loves the app, she concedes that in her year-and-a-half working as an Uber driver, she’s seen rates slashed four times...
War On Workers
Protesters arrested after blocking BNSF oil train JournalStar.com ...The protest by about a dozen demonstrators blocked some railroad tracks from 6 a.m. local time until about 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday….A sign on the tripod said: "Cut Oil Trains Not Conductors," an apparent reference to a deal negotiated by BNSF and a union to allow the railroad to run some freight trains with only an engineer on board...
Unemployment Trickles Down to Poorer Workers, Study Finds Wall Street Journal ...Unemployment “trickles down” to America’s poorest and most vulnerable because, during recessions, higher-income workers with more education take jobs that are below their qualification level, according to new research...
Apple, Google resume talks with tech workers in hiring lawsuit: filing Reuters ...Plaintiffs accused Apple, Google, Intel (INTC.O) and Adobe (ADBE.O) of conspiring to avoid poaching each other's employees. Last month, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California rejected a proposed $324.5 million settlement in the class action case, saying it was too low...
US household food security fails to improve Aljazeera America ...More U.S. households are having a hard time putting food on the table than before the recession. But there is a sliver of hope: The numbers are not going up...
Scott Brown: It's Not My Job To Create Jobs (VIDEO) Talking Points Memo ...Former Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), now a U.S. Senate candidate in New Hampshire, said that his job isn't to create jobs. That's for other Americans...
Volkswagen Union Could Signal Change For Tennessee Chattanooga Times Free Press ...Eric DeLacy ... is among more than 700 workers who have joined a new local union started in March by the United Auto Workers...
Charles Koch Complains He And His Brother Are 'In Front Of The Firing Squad' Huffington Post ...It isn't easy being a politically connected billionaire. At a private political strategy summit earlier this year, Charles Koch lamented that he and his brother David were being unfairly persecuted...
Miscellaneous
Keystone XL: Six Years And Still Waiting Townhall ...September 19th will mark the sixth anniversary of when TransCanada first applied for a presidential permit to build the Keystone XL Pipeline. Hurt the most are the people whose job it is to build and operate the pipeline...
Tesla chooses Nevada for battery factory: Sources CNBC ...Tesla has finally decided that it will build its $5 billion lithium-ion battery plant—dubbed the gigafactory—in Nevada, sources say...
From Russia With Love: JPMorgan Hack May Be Warning, Says Former NSA Chief Bloomberg ...Hackers who stole gigabytes of data from JPMorgan Chase & Co. may have been trying to send a message that U.S. financial institutions can be disrupted, the former director of the National Security Agency said...
Saturday, March 8, 2014
Today's Teamster News 03.08.14
Teamster News
Teamsters Local 856 Welcomes Mt. Diablo School District Workers teamster.org ...Five hundred Mount Diablo Unified School District workers in the maintenance and operations unit have chosen to join Teamsters Local 856, San Bruno, Calif., in an overwhelming vote today...
Teamsters Helping Teamsters driveupstandards.org ...Nance Prendota, a Teamsters Local 777 school bus driver for Illinois Central School Bus in Aurora, Ill., woke up to a house fire in mid-January that destroyed everything in its path...
Teamster bus drivers at CCTA could strike Monday WPTZ News 5 ...Teamsters Local 597, based in South Barre, Vermont, has threatened taking action on Monday if settlement is not reached...
De Blasio Whipped by Horse Lobby Daily Beast ...NYC’s new mayor is determined to get rid of Central Park’s horse-drawn carriages this year. The fact that the animal rights lobby savaged his campaign opponent is pure coincidence, his supporters say...
Members of the Teamsters and NJSAP Coalition teamsterair.org ...Minimal progress and unjustifiable demands have motivated the NetJets Association of Shared Aircraft Pilots (NJASAP) and International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) Local 284 Executive Boards to formally launch the NetJets Unions Coalition (NUC)...
Teamsters Local 700 Endorses Best Candidates for Working Families Teamsters Local 700 ...Teamsters Local 700, based in Park Ridge, Illinois, announced endorsements in the March 18 primary elections...
Trade
U.S. readies for more 'extremely tough' trade talks with Japan Reuters ...The United States is finding talks with Japan on opening its agricultural market "extremely tough", a senior U.S. trade official said on Friday, as the two countries prepared for another round of bilateral negotiations...
It wasn't all weather: What's behind the weak manufacturing jobs report. manufacture this ...the Department of Labor announced that America's manufacturing sector added a mere 6,000 jobs in February, with significant downward revisions for January. Additionally, the U.S. Commerce Department reported that America's trade deficit with China rose substantially in January...
A Trade Pact No One Should Want Counterpunch ...We’ve heard a lot on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, but what will the Trans-Atlantic Partnership do? (Nothing good, that’s for sure.)...
Counterpoint: Don't repeat NAFTA mistakes (Opinion) Star-Tribune ...Amid secrecy and the model of broken promises, don’t ram through the TPP deal...
State Battles
Focusing on Win-Wins for Iowa Workers and Employers Iowa Senate Democrats ...This week the Senate passed a compromise version of wage theft legislation (Senate File 2295). It targets shady Iowa businesses which compete unfairly and cheat workers by shorting paychecks, confiscating tips, misclassifying workers, unauthorized paycheck deductions; and refusing to pay overtime...
Assembly passes child care, family leave bills WGRZ.com ...The (New York) state Assembly on Wednesday passed a package of bills that aim to increase access to childcare and establish paid family leave...
West Virginia Senate passes legislation to help accommodate pregnant workers Associated Press ...The West Virginia Senate has passed legislation to help accommodate pregnant women in the workplace....
Tennessee Republicans single out unions with anti-picketing bill DailyKos ..Spurred by the fact that Tennessee added 31,000 union members last year, state Rep. Jeremy Durham has introduced a bill that would create a new "mass picketing" misdemeanor specifically aimed at labor activists...
Trampling on our First Amendment Rights Michigan AFL-CIO ...The State House is contemplating the passage of HB 4643, a bill sponsored by Representative Tom McMillin (R). HB 4643 will result in civil fines of up to $10,000 per day for picketing that is deemed illegal; creating a huge chilling effect on your First Amendment rights...
War on Workers
A vast hidden surveillance network runs across America, powered by the repo industry Beta Boston ... the most significant impact of Sousa’s business is far bigger than locating cars whose owners have defaulted on loans: It is the growing database of snapshots showing where Americans were at specific times, information that everyone from private detectives to insurers are willing to pay for...
Shocking Stat: 70% of Americans Not in the Labor Force Are Under 55 Years Old AlterNet ...Infograph shows majority of 5.8 million 'missing' workers have given up the search because there simply aren’t any jobs...
Chicago May Be The Next City To Demand Paid Sick Days For ALL Workers Huffington Post ...Chicago employers would be required to offer paid sick leave to all workers under a proposal introduced by City Councilmen Wednesday...
Container truck drivers reach tentative deal at Vancouver port arineLink ...Container truck drivers at Canada's largest port reached a new deal on Thursday, narrowly avoiding an expanded job action that would have seen some 400 unionized drivers join about 1,200 non-unionized drivers who walked off the job last week...
America's New Servant Class AlterNet ...Income inequality is creating a boom in the servant industry. Welcome to the world of Downton Abbey...
BP chief executive's pay triples in 2013 The Guardian ...The pay of Bob Dudley, BP's chief executive, tripled last year despite the legal threats still hanging over the company from the Deepwater Horizon disaster...
Boeing freezing nonunion workers' pensions in 2016 Associated Press ...Boeing Co. said Thursday it is freezing the traditional defined-benefit pensions for 68,000 nonunion employees - including managers and executives - starting in 2016...
United Airlines dumps Newark Airport union jobs for janitorial contractor that will pay lower wages Daily News ...The airline has tossed out a janitorial contractor that pays its workers $9 an hour and will replace it with a company that's expected to pay $8.25 an hour. The cold-hearted move will affect nearly 270 workers...
Miscellaneous
Who Has The Right to Track You? In These Times ...As states begin to rein in mass surveillance, corporations argue that they have a right to collect data...
Staples to close 225 North American stores BBC News ...US office supplier Staples said it will close 225 stores in North America, more than 10% of its presence, as shoppers move online and its sales slump...
Disney cuts 700 employees from its video game division Raw Story ...Walt Disney Company on Thursday confirmed that it is cutting about a quarter of the workers at its money-losing video game division...
US economy hampered by severe winter weather, Fed says The Guardian ...Federal Reserve's 'beige book' report notes that consumer spending lessened because of cold, snow and storms in winter...
How corporate America is losing the debate on taxes Washington Post ...If there is one clear loser in President Obama's budget this year, it's U.S. multinationals. Designed to plug some major leaks in the tax code, the 2015 budget proposes a total of more than $276 billion in higher taxes on overseas earnings for U.S. multinationals over the next decade, about $120 billion more than last year's budget...
New Post-ABC News poll: Keystone XL project overwhelmingly favored by Americans Washington Post ...Americans support the idea of constructing the Keystone XL oil pipeline between Canada and the United States by a nearly 3 to 1 margin, with 65 percent saying it should be approved and 22 percent opposed, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll...
Education Advocates Launch Campaign to Combat Student Debt US News ...The America that invested in and created opportunity is disappearing, Sen. Elizabeth Warren said...
Teamsters Local 856 Welcomes Mt. Diablo School District Workers teamster.org ...Five hundred Mount Diablo Unified School District workers in the maintenance and operations unit have chosen to join Teamsters Local 856, San Bruno, Calif., in an overwhelming vote today...
Teamsters Helping Teamsters driveupstandards.org ...Nance Prendota, a Teamsters Local 777 school bus driver for Illinois Central School Bus in Aurora, Ill., woke up to a house fire in mid-January that destroyed everything in its path...
Teamster bus drivers at CCTA could strike Monday WPTZ News 5 ...Teamsters Local 597, based in South Barre, Vermont, has threatened taking action on Monday if settlement is not reached...
De Blasio Whipped by Horse Lobby Daily Beast ...NYC’s new mayor is determined to get rid of Central Park’s horse-drawn carriages this year. The fact that the animal rights lobby savaged his campaign opponent is pure coincidence, his supporters say...
Members of the Teamsters and NJSAP Coalition teamsterair.org ...Minimal progress and unjustifiable demands have motivated the NetJets Association of Shared Aircraft Pilots (NJASAP) and International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) Local 284 Executive Boards to formally launch the NetJets Unions Coalition (NUC)...
Teamsters Local 700 Endorses Best Candidates for Working Families Teamsters Local 700 ...Teamsters Local 700, based in Park Ridge, Illinois, announced endorsements in the March 18 primary elections...
Trade
U.S. readies for more 'extremely tough' trade talks with Japan Reuters ...The United States is finding talks with Japan on opening its agricultural market "extremely tough", a senior U.S. trade official said on Friday, as the two countries prepared for another round of bilateral negotiations...
It wasn't all weather: What's behind the weak manufacturing jobs report. manufacture this ...the Department of Labor announced that America's manufacturing sector added a mere 6,000 jobs in February, with significant downward revisions for January. Additionally, the U.S. Commerce Department reported that America's trade deficit with China rose substantially in January...
A Trade Pact No One Should Want Counterpunch ...We’ve heard a lot on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, but what will the Trans-Atlantic Partnership do? (Nothing good, that’s for sure.)...
Counterpoint: Don't repeat NAFTA mistakes (Opinion) Star-Tribune ...Amid secrecy and the model of broken promises, don’t ram through the TPP deal...
State Battles
Focusing on Win-Wins for Iowa Workers and Employers Iowa Senate Democrats ...This week the Senate passed a compromise version of wage theft legislation (Senate File 2295). It targets shady Iowa businesses which compete unfairly and cheat workers by shorting paychecks, confiscating tips, misclassifying workers, unauthorized paycheck deductions; and refusing to pay overtime...
Assembly passes child care, family leave bills WGRZ.com ...The (New York) state Assembly on Wednesday passed a package of bills that aim to increase access to childcare and establish paid family leave...
West Virginia Senate passes legislation to help accommodate pregnant workers Associated Press ...The West Virginia Senate has passed legislation to help accommodate pregnant women in the workplace....
Tennessee Republicans single out unions with anti-picketing bill DailyKos ..Spurred by the fact that Tennessee added 31,000 union members last year, state Rep. Jeremy Durham has introduced a bill that would create a new "mass picketing" misdemeanor specifically aimed at labor activists...
Trampling on our First Amendment Rights Michigan AFL-CIO ...The State House is contemplating the passage of HB 4643, a bill sponsored by Representative Tom McMillin (R). HB 4643 will result in civil fines of up to $10,000 per day for picketing that is deemed illegal; creating a huge chilling effect on your First Amendment rights...
War on Workers
A vast hidden surveillance network runs across America, powered by the repo industry Beta Boston ... the most significant impact of Sousa’s business is far bigger than locating cars whose owners have defaulted on loans: It is the growing database of snapshots showing where Americans were at specific times, information that everyone from private detectives to insurers are willing to pay for...
Shocking Stat: 70% of Americans Not in the Labor Force Are Under 55 Years Old AlterNet ...Infograph shows majority of 5.8 million 'missing' workers have given up the search because there simply aren’t any jobs...
Chicago May Be The Next City To Demand Paid Sick Days For ALL Workers Huffington Post ...Chicago employers would be required to offer paid sick leave to all workers under a proposal introduced by City Councilmen Wednesday...
Container truck drivers reach tentative deal at Vancouver port arineLink ...Container truck drivers at Canada's largest port reached a new deal on Thursday, narrowly avoiding an expanded job action that would have seen some 400 unionized drivers join about 1,200 non-unionized drivers who walked off the job last week...
America's New Servant Class AlterNet ...Income inequality is creating a boom in the servant industry. Welcome to the world of Downton Abbey...
BP chief executive's pay triples in 2013 The Guardian ...The pay of Bob Dudley, BP's chief executive, tripled last year despite the legal threats still hanging over the company from the Deepwater Horizon disaster...
Boeing freezing nonunion workers' pensions in 2016 Associated Press ...Boeing Co. said Thursday it is freezing the traditional defined-benefit pensions for 68,000 nonunion employees - including managers and executives - starting in 2016...
United Airlines dumps Newark Airport union jobs for janitorial contractor that will pay lower wages Daily News ...The airline has tossed out a janitorial contractor that pays its workers $9 an hour and will replace it with a company that's expected to pay $8.25 an hour. The cold-hearted move will affect nearly 270 workers...
Miscellaneous
Who Has The Right to Track You? In These Times ...As states begin to rein in mass surveillance, corporations argue that they have a right to collect data...
Staples to close 225 North American stores BBC News ...US office supplier Staples said it will close 225 stores in North America, more than 10% of its presence, as shoppers move online and its sales slump...
Disney cuts 700 employees from its video game division Raw Story ...Walt Disney Company on Thursday confirmed that it is cutting about a quarter of the workers at its money-losing video game division...
US economy hampered by severe winter weather, Fed says The Guardian ...Federal Reserve's 'beige book' report notes that consumer spending lessened because of cold, snow and storms in winter...
How corporate America is losing the debate on taxes Washington Post ...If there is one clear loser in President Obama's budget this year, it's U.S. multinationals. Designed to plug some major leaks in the tax code, the 2015 budget proposes a total of more than $276 billion in higher taxes on overseas earnings for U.S. multinationals over the next decade, about $120 billion more than last year's budget...
New Post-ABC News poll: Keystone XL project overwhelmingly favored by Americans Washington Post ...Americans support the idea of constructing the Keystone XL oil pipeline between Canada and the United States by a nearly 3 to 1 margin, with 65 percent saying it should be approved and 22 percent opposed, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll...
Education Advocates Launch Campaign to Combat Student Debt US News ...The America that invested in and created opportunity is disappearing, Sen. Elizabeth Warren said...
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