Today's Teamster News 03.09.14

Teamster News
Pasco, Teamsters close to deal Special magistrate sides with union on OT  Tampa Tribune   ...After more than three years, Pasco County and the Teamsters Local 79 may be close to approving their first contract following the second pro-union ruling by a special magistrate...
Bus drivers, company seek to stave off strike  WPTZ News5   ...The Teamsters Union representing almost 70 Vermont bus drivers is still sequestered in one final negotiating session with the Chittenden County Transportation Authority in hopes of avoiding a strike...
MUA OKs Teamsters Pact  Cape May County Herald   ...Commissioners voted to ratify a new contract with its employees of Teamsters Local 331. The contract provides salary increases of 1.5 percent for 2013 and 2014, and 2 percent for 2015 and 2016...
Pa. Turnpike Must Use Teamsters For Mowing, Court Says  Law 360   ...The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court on Friday affirmed an arbitrator’s ruling that the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission had violated a collective bargaining agreement with the Teamsters by hiring a subcontractor to cut grass, but it overturned a punitive damages award...
Teamsters file grievance over road work by Mahoning County inmates  Youngstown Vindicator   ...their use of day-reporting sheriff’s inmates to help fill the potholes should have been discussed in advance with Teamsters Local 377, which has filed a grievance concerning the use of free labor by the inmates...
Trade
In the Real World the Trade Deficit Is More Important Than the Budget Deficit  Center for Economic and Policy Research   ...The trade deficit matters hugely to the economy and to ordinary workers, there is no excuse for not giving it a substantial amount of coverage...
The War on Workers
'They're Not Dead Yet': Planning The Demise Of Labor Unions At CPAC  Huffington Post   ...Norquist didn't dwell on his Tennessee victory, instead steering the discussion toward a larger picture: how the right can fundamentally weaken unions through state legislation. That includes collective bargaining rollbacks like the monumental one carried out by Gov. Scott Walker (R) in Wisconsin in 2011, as well as right-to-work laws like those recently passed in Michigan and Indiana...
Which Side Is Your Pension On?  Jacobin   ... The corporate control of finance is not simply due to the weakness of regulations on the system. Instead, active state intervention since World War II has pushed labor’s finance into the hands of corporate fiduciaries...
Auto Regulators Dismissed Defect Tied to 13 Deaths  New York Times   ...Federal safety regulators received more than 260 complaints over the last 11 years about General Motors vehicles that suddenly turned off while being driven, but they declined to investigate the problem, which G.M. now says is linked to 13 deaths and requires the recall of more than 1.6 million cars worldwide....
Miscellaneous
London’s Laundry Business  New York Times   ...Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, gets it: you pay them, you own them. Mr. Putin was absolutely certain that Britain’s managers — shuttling through the revolving door between cabinet posts and financial boards — would never give up their fees and commissions from the oligarchs’ billions. He was right...
The Fat Drug  New York Times   ...decades of agricultural research has shown that antibiotics seem to flip a switch in young animals’ bodies, helping them pack on pounds...But what if that meat is us? Recently, a group of medical investigators have begun to wonder whether antibiotics might cause the same growth promotion in humans...
Facebook to Buy Drone Company Titan Aerospace for $60 Million  NBC News   ...Facebook is supposedly interested in Titan because its solar-powered drones — which can reportedly stay airborne for five years — can help Facebook achieve its goal of providing Internet access around the world...

Today's Teamster News 09.25.13

Teamsters, Horizon Air Reach Tentative Agreement  Wall Street Journal   ...Horizon Air and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters today jointly announced a tentative agreement on a proposed five-year contract extension covering the airline's 280 aircraft technicians, fleet service agents and other fleet support positions...
CN Rail contract talks with Teamsters snagged on health, safety  Reuters   ...Contract negotiations between Canadian National Railway and the Teamsters Union appear to have stalled as CN demands changes that union officials say could jeopardize the health and safety of workers...
U.S. Income Inequality Higher Than Roman Empire's Levels: Study  Huffington Post   ...the top one percent of earners in Ancient Rome controlled 16 percent of the society's wealth. By comparison, the top one percent of American earners control 40 percent of the country's wealth...
Banks find appalling new way to cheat homeowners  Salon   ...servicers like Nationstar often failed to inform homeowners about the change in servicing rights when they are transferred, meaning that the homeowner kept paying the wrong servicer. This is a clever way to facilitate late fees; just don’t tell the customer where to send their money...
Workers Set Factories Ablaze in Call for Decent Wage for Producing Globe's 'Cheap' Clothing  Common Dreams   ...Bangladesh swept by a third day of protests that leaves nearly 150 injured...
Bangladesh Garment Protests Enter Fourth Day  Bloomberg   ...Shipping Minister Shajahan Khan met last night with factory owners and labor leaders in an effort to end demonstrations that forced about 400 of the country’s 5,000 garment factories to close yesterday...
Greeks public sector workers strike as lenders check reform progress  Reuters   ...Greek public sector workers went on strike for the second time in a week on Tuesday, shutting schools and leaving hospitals with skeleton staff, as inspectors from Greece's foreign lenders checked if the country was meeting its bailout targets...
U.S. Trade Body Urges India to Play Fair   Time   ...An American manufacturing representative body is protesting against perceived discriminatory trade practices initiated by New Delhi ahead of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to the U.S on Friday...
Unifor Talking Right To Work  Blackburn News   ...The president of Unifor Local 444 in Ontario, Canada says his union is ready to fight Right To Work legislation. Dino Chiodo calls it “work for less” legislation, because that’s what he believes it will leave his members doing if it’s ever imposed on a provincial or federal level...
Walmart Cut Employee Hours So Drastically They Can't Keep Shelves Stocked, Losing Customers Think Progress   ...Amid plunging sales and massive strikes, even Walmart has conceded it can’t run a business on a skeleton crew...
Government Shutdown Deadline In One Week  Associated Press   ...With a week left to hammer out a deal to avoid a government shutdown, some lawmakers seem resigned – if not rushing – to that end...
Robert Reich: We Can Save the Economy If We Get Serious About Taxing the Rich  AlterNet   ...New documentary "Inequality for All," starring Reich explains how to fix America's income inequality...
Nowhere to Hide: The Government's Massive Intrusion Into Our Lives  Tom Dispatch   ...The NSA isn’t the only government agency exploiting technology to make privacy obsolete...
Smithfield shareholders approve Shuanghui deal  Associated Press   ...Shareholders of Smithfield Foods Inc. on Tuesday approved a plan to sell the world’s largest pork producer and processor to a Chinese company...
Bank Of America To Pay $2.18 Million In Racial Discrimination Case  Reuters   ...Bank of America Corp was ordered to pay $2.18 million to 1,147 black job applicants over racial discrimination in hiring that kept qualified candidates from getting jobs, said the U.S. Department of Labor...
How America’s 401(k) Revolution Rewarded the Rich and Turned the Rest of Us Into Big Losers AlterNet   ...It was a bad idea from the get-go, but new research shows that America’s 401(k) revolution has left us even worse off than we thought. Here’s a look at how we got into this mess, and where it will take us if we don’t wise up...
N.J. bank fined $8.2 million over federal money-laundering violations  Star-Ledger   ...Saddle River Valley Bank, a former community bank in Bergen County that once was controlled by private equity magnate J. Christopher Flowers, has agreed to pay $8.2 million to settle federal claims that it broke U.S. anti-money laundering laws...
Union Push for I.P.O. Forces Filing at Chrysler  New York Times   ...Chrysler filed for a public stock offering on Monday, acting only under pressure from its second-largest shareholder, a trust set up to provide medical coverage for 115,000 retired autoworkers and their relatives...

Today's Teamster News 05.29.13

Working moms are now main breadwinners in a record 40 percent of US households with children  Associated Press   ...While most are headed by single mothers, a growing number are families with married mothers who bring in more income than their husbands...
Chance at a Union Job Draws 800 Job Applicants in Queens, N.Y.  AFL-CIO   ...a union elevator mechanic job prompted nearly 1,000 young workers to haul out tents and mattresses and weather the great outdoors of Long Island City at the chance to be considered...
Feds investigate Md. train derailment, explosion  Associated Press   ...In the third serious derailment this month, a dozen or so rail cars — at least one carrying hazardous materials — went off the tracks around 2 p.m. Tuesday in Rosedale, Md., a suburb east of Baltimore. Several rail cars caught fire, sending a plume of black and gray smoke into the air that could be seen for miles, and an explosion rattled homes at least a half-mile away...
'Lost generation' fears for Europe's youth as unemployment soars across eurozone and leaves more than 19million without jobs  Daily Mail   ...In Greece, 58 per cent of under-25s are unemployed, along with 56 per cent in Spain and 38 per cent in Portugal and Italy. In the eurozone as a whole it is 24 per cent. In the UK it is 21 per cent...
Citi settles U.S. suit over $3.5 billion in mortgage securities  Reuters   ...Citigroup Inc (C.N) has reached a settlement with a federal agency that had accused the bank of misleading Fannie Mae (FNMA.OB) and Freddie Mac (FMCC.OB) into buying $3.5 billion of mortgage-backed securities...
US tax inspector targets Caribbean bank  The Guardian   ...A Caribbean bank formerly co-owned by Barclays has been targeted by US tax authorities seeking information on suspected American tax evaders...
US prosecutes '$6 bn money-laundering hub'  BBC News   ...The Liberty Reserve digital money service that was shut down laundered more than $6 billion in criminal cash, US authorities have said...
Wal-Mart pleads guilty in environmental case involving pesticides sent to Missouri contractor   Kansas City Star  ...Retailer Wal-Mart resolved years of hazardous-waste complaints Tuesday with criminal guilty pleas in Missouri and California and the settlement of a civil lawsuit filed by federal environmental authorities...
Elders Should Exercise Caution Before Turning to Payday Loans   Rocky Mount Telegram   ...An increasing number of cash-strapped elders are turning to payday loans—a highly-risky source of short-term financing—to cover their day-to-day expenses...
Appeals court says union groups may revise lawsuit  Associated Press   ...Union groups are getting a chance to revise their lawsuit and add new defendants in a challenge to two Idaho laws targeting organized labor...
Women still on the lower salary rungs in Wyoming state government  Star-Tribune   ...Women working in Wyoming’s state government hold relatively few high-paid jobs — including management positions — compared to men, a state-issued report found...
American Airlines Mechanics File for Election to Become Teamsters  IBT   ...American Airlines mechanics and related workers filed for an election today with the National Mediation Board (NMB) as part of a months-long effort to become Teamsters...
Local 117 Members Attend National Police Week  Teamsters Local 117   ...Two Local 117 Police Officers, Roger Gale of the City of Pacific and Willie Bergin from the University of Washington, attended National Police Week in Washington D.C. from May 12-18...
Collective Bargaining TLA Slated for June 18-21  IBT   ...The IBT Training and Development Department is conducting a Teamsters Leadership Academy on Collective Bargaining, June18-21, 2013, hosted by Joint Council 40 in Mars, Pennsylvania...
Advanced Business Agents’ Seminar Scheduled July 29-31  IBT   ...The IBT Training and Development Department will conduct an Advanced Business Agents seminar July 29-31, 2013 at Teamsters Joint Council 25 in Chicago...

Wall Street's dirty secrets exposed

Sen. Elizabeth Warren knows the big banks' dirty secrets and she's just getting started exposing them. Here's a transcript of the March 7 Senate Banking Committee hearing where she grills regulators for being soft on money laundering (thanks to the Big Picture blog). The big takeaway from the hearing was her comment:

...if you’re caught with an ounce of cocaine, the chances are good you’re going to go to jail. If it happens repeatedly you may go to jail for the rest of your life. But evidently, if you launder nearly a billion dollars for drug cartels and violate our international sanctions, your company pays a fine and you go home and sleep in your own bed at night.

Here's the hearing transcript:

WARREN: Thank you Mr. Chairman, and thank you all three for being here today. As Senator Reed just pointed out, the United States government takes money laundering very seriously for a very good reason. And it puts very strong penalties in place. In addition to monetary penalties, it’s possible to shut down a bank that’s been involved in money laundering. Individuals can be banned from ever participating in financial services again. And people can be sent to prison.

Now in December, HSBC admitted to money laundering. To laundering $881 million that we know of for Mexican and Colombian drug cartels. And also admitted to violating our sanctions for Iran, Libya, Cuba, Burma, the Sudan. And they didn’t do it just one time. It wasn’t like a mistake. They did it over and over and over again across a period of years. And they were caught doing it. Warned not to do it. And kept right on doing it. And evidently making profits doing it.

Now HSBC paid a fine, but no one individual went to trial. No individual was banned from banking. And there was no hearing to consider shutting down HSBC’s activities here in the United States. So what I’d like is, you’re the experts on money laundering. I’d like your opinion. What does it take? How many billions of dollars do you have to launder for drug lords and how many economic sanctions do you have to violate before someone will consider shutting down a financial institution like this? Mr. Cohen, can we start with you?

COHEN: Certainly Senator. No question the activity that was the subject of the enforcement action against HSBC was egregious. Both in the money laundering that was going on at HSBC and the sanctions violations. For our part, we imposed on HSBC the largest penalties that we had ever imposed on any financial institution. We looked at the facts, and determined that the appropriate response there was a very, very significant penalty against the institution.

 WARREN: But let me just move you along here on the point Mr. Cohen. My question is, given that this is what you did, what does it take to get you to move towards even a hearing? Even considering shutting down banking operations for money laundering?

COHEN: Senator, we at the Treasury Department under OFAC and (ph) authority, we don’t have the authority to shut down a financial institution.

WARREN: I understand that. I’m asking, in your opinion, you are the ones who are supposed to be the experts on money laundering. You work with everyone else, including the Department of Justice. In your opinion, how many billions of dollars do you have to launder for drug lords, before somebody says, we’re shutting you down?

COHEN: Well I think the authority to pull a license, pull the charter, is authority that is committed to the supervisors, to the OCC, the (ph) of the supervisor may be. We take these issues extraordinarily seriously. We aggressively prosecute and impose penalties against the institutions to the full extent of our authority. And as I said earlier, one of the issues that we’re looking at -

WARREN: I’m not hearing your, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt. And I just need to move this along. But I’m not hearing your opinion on this. You’re supposed to be, Treasury is supposed to be, one of the, you are the leaders in how we understand and work together to stop money laundering. And I’m asking, what does it take, even to say, here’s where the line is. We’re going to draw a line here, and if you cross that line, you’re at risk for having your bank closed?

COHEN: So Senator, we’re mindful of what our authorities are, mindful of what the Supervisor’s authorities are. We will, and have, and will continue to exercise our authorities to the full extent of the law. The question of pulling a bank’s license is a question for the regulators.

WARREN: So you have no opinion on that? You sit in Treasury and you try to enforce these laws, and I’ve read all of your testimony. You tell me how vigorously you want to enforce these laws. But you have no opinion on when it is that a bank should be shut down for money laundering? Not even an opinion?

COHEN: Of course we have views on -

     WARREN: That’s what I asked you for. Your views.

     COHEN: But I’m not going to get into some hypothetical line drawing exercise.

     WARREN: Well it’s somewhere beyond $881 million of drug money.

COHEN: Well Senator the actions, and I’m sure the regulators can address this issue. The actions that we took in the HSBC case, we thought were appropriate in that instance.

WARREN: Governor Powell, perhaps you can help me out here?

POWELL: Sure. So the authority to shut down an institution or hold a hearing about it, I believe is triggered by a criminal conviction. And that is not something, we don’t do criminal investigation. We don’t do trials or anything like that. We do civil enforcement. And in the case of HSBC we, we gave essentially the statutory maximum -

WARREN: So -

POWELL: Civil money penalties. And we gave very stringent cease and desist orders. And we did what we have the legal authority to do.

WARREN: I appreciate that Mr. Powell. So you’re saying you have no advice to the Justice Department on whether or not this was an appropriate case for a criminal action?

POWELL: So the way it works is, the Justice Department has total authority.

WARREN: I understand that.

POWELL: This is the heart of what they do. It’s the heart of their jurisdiction to decide who gets prosecuted and for what. It’s not our jurisdiction. They don’t do monetary policy. They don’t give us advice on that. We cooperate with them and we, we discuss with them. We collaborate with them, and we did on HSBC. They ask us specific questions, how does this statute apply? What would happen if we did this? We answer those questions. That’s what we do.

     WARREN: So what you’re saying to me is you are responsible for these banks, and again, I read your testimony and you talk about the importance of vigorous enforcement here. But you’re telling me you have no view when it’s appropriate to consider even a hearing to raise the question of whether or not these banks should have to close their operations when they engage in money laundering for drug cartels?

POWELL: I’ll tell you exactly when it’s appropriate. It’s appropriate where there’s a criminal conviction.

WARREN: And so you have no view on it, until after the Justice Department has done it?

POWELL: Again we, the Justice Department makes that decision. We play our role in that. We have a constant dialogue with them around, not just, essentially many, a broad range of violations that take place. We always have the Justice Department involved. But when they, when they make these decisions, they make them themselves.

WARREN: I understand that I’m over my time. And I’ll just say here, if you’re caught with an ounce of cocaine, the chances are good you’re going to go to jail. If it happens repeatedly you may go to jail for the rest of your life. But evidently, if you launder nearly a billion dollars for drug cartels and violate our international sanctions, your company pays a fine and you go home and sleep in your own bed at night. Every single individual associated with this. I just, I think that’s fundamentally wrong.






http://aattp.org/attention-bankers-elizabeth-warren-knows-your-dirty-secrets-and-shes-just-getting-started/

Today's Teamster News 07.18.12

Made In America’ Policies Hugely Popular, Survey Shows  ABC News   ...Unlike many of the job proposals both candidates are pushing, “Buy America” policies that encourage the government to buy products that are made in the U.S. whenever possible are hugely popular across party lines, according to a national survey commissioned by the Alliance for American Manufacturing and the United Steelworkers...
HSBC Promises Clean-Up Amid Laundering Probe  Bloomberg   ...HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA) executives apologized for opening their U.S. affiliate to a river of Mexican drug lords’ cash, and the U.S. regulator that failed to stem the flow vowed to prevent a repeat...
New Balance: Don’t tread on Asia tariffs  Boston Herald   ...New Balance is lobbying to preserve a U.S. tariff on shoe imports from Vietnam, saying its removal would jeopardize domestic shoe manufacturing operations that employ 4,000 people across the country...
What's Romney Hiding in His Tax Returns?  Bloomberg   ...As George Will and many others have noted, there must be something truly damaging in Romney’s pre-2010 tax returns for him to willingly endure the criticism and scrutiny that has accompanied his refusal to release them—a refusal he reiterated on Friday, even as the issue, and the matter of his departure date from Bain Capital, has engulfed the campaign... 
Report on states predicts erosion of basic services  Associated Press   ...U.S. states face long-term budget burdens that are already limiting their ability to pay for basic services such as police, local schools and transportation, a report says...
Second judge rejects state voter ID law  Milwaukee Journal Sentinel   ... A second judge has declared Wisconsin's voter ID law unconstitutional, further guaranteeing that the ID requirement will not be in place for elections this fall...

Fear and loathing in Las Vegas over banking secrets of the rich and famous

Three days ago, a former Swiss banker handed over two computer disks that describe potential tax evasion by 2,000 rich people and corporations. Rudolf Elmer gave the disks to Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, at a press conference in London. He did it, he said, to “educate society” about an unfair secret banking system that serves people who want to launder money.

Assange said the names will be verified by WikiLeaks and released to the public in as few as two weeks.

That has created the fear and the loathing -- and lots of work for Vegas bookmakers who are taking bets on which celebrities, politicians and business executives will be exposed. FT Alphaville writes that bookmaker.com listed the following odds for the following celebrities on Wednesday:

Nicholas Cage +400 20%

Oprah Winfrey +250 28%
President Obama +600 14%
Wesley Snipes +200 33%
Mike Tyson +800 11%
Scott Disick +500 16%
Donald Trump +350 22%
John Edwards +400 20%
Two or more of these celebrities +100 50%

* The +/- indicates the return on the wager. The percentage is the likelihood that response will occur. For example: betting on the candidate least likely to win would earn the most amount of money, should that happen.

Meanwhile, Elmer will face trial in Switzerland for breaking Swiss laws on banking secrecy.

Why did he do it?

According to The Guardian,

he is one of a small band of employees and executives seeking to blow the whistle on what they see as unprofessional, immoral and even potentially criminal activity by powerful international financial institutions.

Elmer characterizes the people he's exposing as

"high net worth individuals", multinational conglomerates and financial institutions – hedge funds". They are said to be "using secrecy as a screen to hide behind in order to avoid paying tax". They come from the US, Britain, Germany, Austria and Asia – "from all over". Clients include "business people, politicians, people who have made their living in the arts and multinational conglomerates – from both sides of the Atlantic". Elmer says: "Well-known pillars of society will hold investment portfolios and may include houses, trading companies, artwork, yachts, jewellery, horses, and so on."

TeamsterNation can't wait to find out.