TEAMSTERS
Hoffa: Central States Shouldn't Cut Pensions Teamster.org ...Michigan workers and retirees should be allowed to live comfortably in their golden years. But increasingly, nest eggs that everyday people contributed to are being threatened. And retirement security is being taken away. The latest example is the Central States Pension Fund which serves hundreds of thousands of Teamsters in the Midwest, including thousands of Michiganians. Trustees with the pension plan filed a petition with the U.S. Treasury Department late last month that would cut the pensions...
Teamsters to Albertsons' Miller: Delay warehouse closing Supermarket News ...Teamsters representing workers at the two Safeway distribution centers slated for closure have appealed to the company’s CEO for an extension. As reported in SN, the centers, operated by C&S Wholesale Grocers for Safeway, are scheduled to close Dec. 5, with work outsourced to other C&S facilities...
Some UberX drivers plan weekend protests San Francisco Chronicle ...Some disgruntled UberX drivers and ex-drivers plan to refrain from working this weekend, terming their action a strike — although technically only employees can stage a strike. Uber drivers are independent contractors, a point currently being litigated in court in California. “It’s time to stand up for Uber driver’s rights,” said organizer Abe Husein, who said he drove part-time for Uber for five months in Kansas City, Mo., until he was deactivated in August...
GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
The Trans-Pacific Partnership May be Dead on Arrival Huffington Post ...News that U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had joined the entire rest of the democratic field in opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership may well sound the death knell for the agreement. It also raises a few interesting possibilities about where things go next. First though, on Clinton's "come to Jesus" moment: yes, it's politics...
The Moral Case Against the TPP (opinion) The Nation ... The TPP must be stopped—not simply because it could put jobs on the line. It needs to be stopped because it rewrites all the rules in favor of big corporations, allowing them to circumvent regulations for the public good—even as its backers claim they’re doing the opposite. The pope knows it. Obama must know it. Even Hillary Clinton, if you can believe it, says she knows it now. And if the texts are ever released, we’ll know it for sure, too...
Malmström tries a new tack on TTIP Politico ...European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström on Wednesday unveiled a new strategy which she called a direct response to growing opposition to an EU-U.S. trade deal, promising more transparency, increased protection for consumers, and a reformed investor dispute court. “We’ve listened to the debate,” said Malmström...
Rising Rates of Male Suicide Across Eurozone Connected to Austerity Measures Newsweek ...New research suggests that men of all ages committed suicide in increasing numbers in the eurozone's poorest countries as a direct result of austerity measures brought in across Europe following the 2009 recession. A study published in Social Science and Medicine is the first to examine the direct impact of fiscal austerity on suicide rates in the group of countries most affected by the eurozone crisis...
Manifesto Offers Vision of 'Joyful' Europe to Supplant Austerity's Misery Common Dreams ...Calling for a "European Europe, which can fulfill its mission to bring peace, freedom, justice, and solidarity to the world," a group of German economists, academics, policy advisers, and Social Democrats has issued a 12-point manifesto that rejects austerity, German hegemony, and right-wing extremism within the EU...
The Secret Weapon for Cutting Costs at Chinese Factories? Interns The Nation ... Rural migrants have filled manufacturing labor demands, but conscripted interns now form a major surplus army of labor, enabling manufacturers to capture a vulnerable youth workforce that’s increasingly striving for a life beyond factory drudgery. Though less publicized than Asia’s notorious garment sweatshops, advocates say the exploitation of contingent student workers follows similar practices of predatory capitalism as “development”...
South Africa Workers agree to end coal strike BD Live ...Just more than a week of strike action in the coal sector came to an end on Tuesday after the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) agreed in principle to a three-year wage deal with producers. No agreement had yet been signed, but management would communicate with workers for a return to work, probably on Wednesday morning, NUM chief negotiator for the sector Peter Bailey said outside the Chamber of Mines head office in Johannesburg...
STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
To Fix National Poverty Crisis, Study Shows Even $15 Wage Won't Do the Job Common Dreams ...There are few states in the U.S. where a $15 hourly wage is enough for workers to make ends meet, and a true livable wage would amount to no less than $16.87 an hour, a new report published Tuesday has found. Even making $15 an hour, which is roughly double the current federal minimum wage, would force a single adult to cut back on essentials like food or medicine in 35 states and Washington, D.C., according to the report...
Despite Increases, Mass. Workers Argue Minimum Wage Still Not High Enough WBUR ...The $9 per hour wage Theresa Pennington earns working at a Dunkin’ Donuts in Lowell is not enough to be able to afford an apartment of her own. Instead, she said, she lives with friends, but that means she is not able to keep custody of her 5-year-old daughter. “The fast food industry is one of the fastest growing in America and more and more of the workers look like me,” Pennington said. “We are not teenagers looking for pocket change"...
Florida minimum wage debate still going on The Ledger ...Raising the minimum wage is a national and statewide discussion. This month, 18 Florida Democrats tried living on $17 a day for five days in an effort to bring attention to the possibility of increasing the state's minimum wage to $15 an hour, as called for in a bill co-sponsored by state Sen. Dwight Bullard and state Rep. Victor Torres Jr...
Minneapolis' largest businesses add to push against workplace changes Star Tribune ...On Tuesday, 80 members of the Minnesota Business Partnership — a group that includes the leaders of Target, U.S. Bancorp, Xcel Energy and Mayo Clinic, among other major employers — convened a phone-conference strategy session. The goal: Defeat a set of proposals to guarantee more predictable schedules and paid sick leave...
Fight for 15 Activists Spend Columbus Day Rallying Against “Racist” Donald Trump In These Times ...The Fight for 15-organized protest, coinciding with Columbus Day, saw demonstrators toting a Donald Trump piñata march to the billionaire mogul’s hotel with a mariachi band in tow. Featuring Trump’s signature combover and its mouth contorted into a trumpet player’s puckered embouchure, the GOP frontrunner’s papier mâché doppelganger was filled with the names of people who had signed onto a statement opposing his rhetoric and policies...
U.S. LABOR
Are those detested two-tiered UAW contracts finally on the way out? LA Times ...One artifact of the auto industry's near-death experience during the Great Recession is the two-tier contract, in which workers hired after a certain date are saddled with permanently lower wages and benefits than their older peers. The United Auto Workers are poised to reach an agreement with Fiat Chrysler that could spell the end to the gap...
Fiat Chrysler Said to Double Use of Temp Workers in UAW Contract Bloomberg ...Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV can double its use of lower-paid temporary staffers under a new labor agreement being voted on by the United Auto Workers union, said two people familiar with the matter. Savings from that concession helps offset big raises given to almost half of the company’s unionized U.S. hourly employees...
What Democrats Missed When They Debated Paid Family Leave Think Progress ...Paid family leave was a big topic of discussion at the first Democratic presidential debate on Tuesday evening. But while all the candidates who were asked about the issue support a mandated family leave policy, they failed to mention the vital need to make sure new fathers have access to and take paid time off when their children arrive...
Is Campaign Cash From Police Unions Watering Down Democrats' Reform Efforts? Truthout ...At every turn, police unions and law enforcement lobbying groups have staunchly opposed measures aimed at policing reform. They have been the first and loudest voices to defend the perpetrators of each new incident of police murder and brutality caught on camera - no matter how heinous. Most recently, in California, unions called on Gov. Jerry Brown to veto a recently passed bill that aims to curb racial profiling...
SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
The Immigration Issues That Democratic Presidential Candidates Should Tackle Think Progress ...On Tuesday night, when Democratic presidential candidates take the stage for their first debate, they likely won’t touch the topic of immigration in the same blistering way as their Republican opponents have. There probably won’t be mentions of undocumented immigrants as potential criminals, “anchor babies,” and poor English language speakers. Instead, Democratic candidates will likely call for legal status (or citizenship) for the country’s 11.3 million undocumented immigrants...
Bernie and Hillary Duel as Democrats Debate Common Dreams ...The debate featured memorable back-and-forths on key issues as the two current frontrunners, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, discussed such issues as the role that "casino capitalism" has played in wrecking the middle class, the importance of fighting climate change, the scourge of gun violence that grips the country, the failures of U.S. foreign policy in recent years, pervasive racial disparities throughout the criminal justice system, and others...
Why Debt-Free College Is A Big Issue for 2016 Democratic Candidates The Atlantic ...As Democratic presidential hopefuls assembled in Las Vegas Tuesday night for their first formal debate, one topic that has received little airtime during the Republican face-offs garnered far more attention: the high cost of attaining a college degree. Three of the five Democratic candidates have released detailed proposals that seek to reduce dramatically the amount of debt students might accrue on their way to a college degree...
Democrats express strong support for 'Black Lives Matter' movement Mashable ..."Black lives matter," Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said. "We need to combat institutional racism from top to bottom." Black lives matter activists have interrupted Sanders rallies several times during his campaign, and he has since broadened his frequent speeches on economic inequality to include talk of racial inequality...
Showing posts with label poverty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poverty. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Today's Teamster News 08.12.15
Teamsters
Hoffa: CEO Pay Rule Will Help Close Wage Gap Detroit News ...Those in favor of corporate disclosure won a hard-fought victory at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last week when the agency finally decided to move ahead with a portion of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law that requires companies to report the pay gap between CEOs and rank-and-file workers...
Sun Tran Worker Strike Now In Sixth Day, Still Going Strong WTTU ...On day six of the Sun Tran worker strike, the mood at Ronstadt Transit Center in downtown, Tucson was unity and solidarity...
Nearly 30 percent Of Loudoun County’s Commuter Bus Drivers May Strike Loudoun Times Mirror ...Nearly 30 percent of the county's public transit bus drivers may go on strike if their Teamsters union and Loudoun's commuter bus contractor, Transdev, can't reach a deal on a new collective bargaining agreement...
City Council Skips Closed Session Over For Police Contract Negotiations Chicago Tribune ...Teamsters Local 700 represents 10,000 public employees across the state of Illinois, including more than 5,000 law enforcement members, according to the union's website. Forty police officers and personnel from the Park Ridge Police Department voted to join the union in May 2014. After briefly reviewing a bargaining agreement for a three-year contract with the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police, which represents seven police sergeants in Park Ridge, city councilors decided to forgo an option to take the discussion into closed session, with some alderman stating that they failed to see the advantage in keeping the talks a secret...
Global Labor & Trade
Will Trans-Pacific Trade Deal Go Up In Smoke Over Anti-Tobacco Proposal? Politico ...Big Tobacco is pushing back against a strict anti-smoking provision in the massive Trans-Pacific trade deal — and it has enlisted the support of the most powerful Republican in the Senate...
The Ripple Effects Of China's Weakening Currency The Atlantic ...China devalued its currency for the second straight day, sending markets across the region sharply lower and raising fresh concerns about the health of the world’s second-largest economy...
TPP Protesters Descend On Parliament Radio New Zealand ...The group said it was conducting a nationwide search for the full text of the TPP trade deal, and started with the ministry's Auckland headquarters. Several members of the group went into the offices, equipped with giant magnifying glasses, to demand the Government release the full TPP text by the end of the month...
State & Living Wage Battles
Long Beach City Council Votes To Study Minimum Wage Hike KPCC ...The Long Beach City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to commission a study of the impact of raising the city's minimum wage - to even higher than the wage hike coming to Los Angeles...
New York State Officials Recover More Than $18.1 Million In Wages For Short-Changed Workers New York Daily News ...During the first six months of 2015, the state Labor Department recovered more than $18.1 million for nearly 19,000 workers who were not paid the proper minimum wage, overtime or fringe benefits, officials reported. The recoveries represented a 6% increase from the same time period in 2014 and put the state on pace to surpass last year’s record of $30.2 million...
More N.J. Public Employee Unions Join Lawsuit Against Christie Over Pay Freeze NJ.com ...The state's largest state workers union and three others have joined a lawsuit against the Christie administration over its decision to freeze wages for state employees...
Railroads Face Big Fines For Failure To Meet Federal Safety Deadline Truthout ...The Federal Railroad Administration plans to impose big penalties on railroads that fail to meet a year-end deadline to install a new collision avoidance system, including more than 70 percent of the nation's commuter railroads...
Scott Walker Signs Arena Deal, Handing $400 Million To Billionaire NBA Owners Huffington Post ...Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) signed legislation Wednesday that commits hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money to a new arena for the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks, a move that could complicate the Republican presidential candidate’s efforts to paint himself as the most ardent small-government conservative in a crowded field...
U.S. Labor
Single Mothers ‘Most Likely’ To Benefit From Paid Overtime Expansion Al Jazeera America ...A proposal to extend overtime pay eligibility to millions of workers would have its biggest impact on single mothers and women of color, according to a study published Tuesday by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) and the advocacy group MomsRising...
Uber Drivers Could Earn Thousands In Benefits As Full-Time Employees Forbes ...According to a new analysis, Uber drivers in six major U.S. cities would receive paid holidays and health care benefits worth an average of $5,500 annually...
America Is Working Itself To Death: How “9 To 5″ Became “24/7″ Salon.com ...The reality is, Americans don’t just work more than they have in the past, they work more than most of the industrialized world. It’s not exactly breaking news that we spend more hours at the office — or on the assembly line or behind the coffee counter — than our European peers. A 2004 study from the National Bureau of Economic Research found Americans work “50 percent more than do the Germans, French, and Italians.” More recent data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found that in 2014, Americans outworked several expected other countries, among them Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Finland, Switzerland and Austria, all countries that (coincidentally, I’m so sure) rank higher than us on the most recent World Happiness survey...
Social Justice & Other News
Black Poverty Differs From White Poverty Washington Post ...The poverty that poor African Americans experience is often different from the poverty of poor whites. It's more isolating and concentrated. It extends out the door of a family's home and occupies the entire neighborhood around it, touching the streets, the schools, the grocery stores. A poor black family, in short, is much more likely than a poor white one to live in a neighborhood where many other families are poor, too, creating what sociologists call the "double burden" of poverty. The difference is stark in most major metropolitan areas, according to new data analyzed by Rutgers University's Paul Jargowsky in a new report for the Century Foundation...
Teachers Union Lawsuit Over State Evaluation System May Go To Trial Santa Fe New Mexican ...State District Judge Francis Mathew of Santa Fe cleared the way Tuesday for a trial on whether New Mexico’s system of evaluating teachers should remain in place...
St. Louis County Police File Charges Against 3 Journalists One Year After Ferguson Protests Think Progress ...St. Louis County police are suddenly levying an onslaught of charges against journalists who covered the Ferguson protests last year, accusing them of minor offenses days before the statute of limitations is up. This week alone, three journalists have been charged for interfering with on-duty officers — a full year after their arrests. The recent developments follow an ongoing trend of criminalizing journalists for doing their jobs...
Teaching People Not To Be Corrupt Could Save Millions Of Lives Think Progress ...Corruption takes a particularly heavy toll in developing countries which lack the political and economic infrastructure to effectively regulate businesses. “In developing countries, corruption is a killer,” said David McNair of the advocacy organization ONE. “Up to 3.6 million lives could be saved if we end the web of secrecy that helps the criminal and corrupt. When governments are deprived of their own resources to invest in the essentials — like nurses and teachers — the human cost is devastating.”...
Black Activists Know Feds Are Monitoring Them, Yet Refuse to Be Intimidated Alternet ...When Erika Totten returned to protesting in the DC area after taking a few months off last winter, law enforcement officers were waiting to greet her...
Amnesty International Is Finally On The Right Side Of The Sex Work Struggle The Nation ...“We really hope that those who have opposed Amnesty’s position in the past will reconsider their position and look at the evidence that criminalization of sex work is a key factor in our vulnerability to violence and abuse,” Stevenson told me. “We hope that this evidence-based decision by Amnesty will help other progressive organizations take a position to support sex workers’ rights.”...
Don’t Blame Citizens United For Donald Trump; Blame 1976’s Buckley v. Valeo Decision The Intercept ...If you don’t think it’s fair that billionaires like Donald Trump can run their own self-funded campaigns for president, don’t blame the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision. Blame the 1976 case Buckley v. Valeo instead. Citizens United lets billionaires give unlimited money to Super PACs trying to elect other people, but billionaires have been able to give as much money as they wanted to their own campaigns since Buckley...
The Pentagon's Half-Billion Dollar Drone Boondoggle The Intercept ...Rivalry between the Army and Air Force over Predator drones may have cost the Pentagon over $500 million in wasteful spending, according to a report released under the Freedom of Information Act. The report, which the Pentagon’s Inspector General completed in 2010, is not available on the Defense Department’s public website, which instructs people to request it through the Freedom of Information Act. The Pentagon released a copy of the report to The Intercept this week, nearly five years after it was originally requested...
Hoffa: CEO Pay Rule Will Help Close Wage Gap Detroit News ...Those in favor of corporate disclosure won a hard-fought victory at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last week when the agency finally decided to move ahead with a portion of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law that requires companies to report the pay gap between CEOs and rank-and-file workers...
Sun Tran Worker Strike Now In Sixth Day, Still Going Strong WTTU ...On day six of the Sun Tran worker strike, the mood at Ronstadt Transit Center in downtown, Tucson was unity and solidarity...
Nearly 30 percent Of Loudoun County’s Commuter Bus Drivers May Strike Loudoun Times Mirror ...Nearly 30 percent of the county's public transit bus drivers may go on strike if their Teamsters union and Loudoun's commuter bus contractor, Transdev, can't reach a deal on a new collective bargaining agreement...
City Council Skips Closed Session Over For Police Contract Negotiations Chicago Tribune ...Teamsters Local 700 represents 10,000 public employees across the state of Illinois, including more than 5,000 law enforcement members, according to the union's website. Forty police officers and personnel from the Park Ridge Police Department voted to join the union in May 2014. After briefly reviewing a bargaining agreement for a three-year contract with the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police, which represents seven police sergeants in Park Ridge, city councilors decided to forgo an option to take the discussion into closed session, with some alderman stating that they failed to see the advantage in keeping the talks a secret...
Global Labor & Trade
Will Trans-Pacific Trade Deal Go Up In Smoke Over Anti-Tobacco Proposal? Politico ...Big Tobacco is pushing back against a strict anti-smoking provision in the massive Trans-Pacific trade deal — and it has enlisted the support of the most powerful Republican in the Senate...
The Ripple Effects Of China's Weakening Currency The Atlantic ...China devalued its currency for the second straight day, sending markets across the region sharply lower and raising fresh concerns about the health of the world’s second-largest economy...
TPP Protesters Descend On Parliament Radio New Zealand ...The group said it was conducting a nationwide search for the full text of the TPP trade deal, and started with the ministry's Auckland headquarters. Several members of the group went into the offices, equipped with giant magnifying glasses, to demand the Government release the full TPP text by the end of the month...
State & Living Wage Battles
Long Beach City Council Votes To Study Minimum Wage Hike KPCC ...The Long Beach City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to commission a study of the impact of raising the city's minimum wage - to even higher than the wage hike coming to Los Angeles...
New York State Officials Recover More Than $18.1 Million In Wages For Short-Changed Workers New York Daily News ...During the first six months of 2015, the state Labor Department recovered more than $18.1 million for nearly 19,000 workers who were not paid the proper minimum wage, overtime or fringe benefits, officials reported. The recoveries represented a 6% increase from the same time period in 2014 and put the state on pace to surpass last year’s record of $30.2 million...
More N.J. Public Employee Unions Join Lawsuit Against Christie Over Pay Freeze NJ.com ...The state's largest state workers union and three others have joined a lawsuit against the Christie administration over its decision to freeze wages for state employees...
Railroads Face Big Fines For Failure To Meet Federal Safety Deadline Truthout ...The Federal Railroad Administration plans to impose big penalties on railroads that fail to meet a year-end deadline to install a new collision avoidance system, including more than 70 percent of the nation's commuter railroads...
Scott Walker Signs Arena Deal, Handing $400 Million To Billionaire NBA Owners Huffington Post ...Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) signed legislation Wednesday that commits hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money to a new arena for the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks, a move that could complicate the Republican presidential candidate’s efforts to paint himself as the most ardent small-government conservative in a crowded field...
U.S. Labor
Single Mothers ‘Most Likely’ To Benefit From Paid Overtime Expansion Al Jazeera America ...A proposal to extend overtime pay eligibility to millions of workers would have its biggest impact on single mothers and women of color, according to a study published Tuesday by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) and the advocacy group MomsRising...
Uber Drivers Could Earn Thousands In Benefits As Full-Time Employees Forbes ...According to a new analysis, Uber drivers in six major U.S. cities would receive paid holidays and health care benefits worth an average of $5,500 annually...
America Is Working Itself To Death: How “9 To 5″ Became “24/7″ Salon.com ...The reality is, Americans don’t just work more than they have in the past, they work more than most of the industrialized world. It’s not exactly breaking news that we spend more hours at the office — or on the assembly line or behind the coffee counter — than our European peers. A 2004 study from the National Bureau of Economic Research found Americans work “50 percent more than do the Germans, French, and Italians.” More recent data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found that in 2014, Americans outworked several expected other countries, among them Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Finland, Switzerland and Austria, all countries that (coincidentally, I’m so sure) rank higher than us on the most recent World Happiness survey...
Social Justice & Other News
Black Poverty Differs From White Poverty Washington Post ...The poverty that poor African Americans experience is often different from the poverty of poor whites. It's more isolating and concentrated. It extends out the door of a family's home and occupies the entire neighborhood around it, touching the streets, the schools, the grocery stores. A poor black family, in short, is much more likely than a poor white one to live in a neighborhood where many other families are poor, too, creating what sociologists call the "double burden" of poverty. The difference is stark in most major metropolitan areas, according to new data analyzed by Rutgers University's Paul Jargowsky in a new report for the Century Foundation...
Teachers Union Lawsuit Over State Evaluation System May Go To Trial Santa Fe New Mexican ...State District Judge Francis Mathew of Santa Fe cleared the way Tuesday for a trial on whether New Mexico’s system of evaluating teachers should remain in place...
St. Louis County Police File Charges Against 3 Journalists One Year After Ferguson Protests Think Progress ...St. Louis County police are suddenly levying an onslaught of charges against journalists who covered the Ferguson protests last year, accusing them of minor offenses days before the statute of limitations is up. This week alone, three journalists have been charged for interfering with on-duty officers — a full year after their arrests. The recent developments follow an ongoing trend of criminalizing journalists for doing their jobs...
Teaching People Not To Be Corrupt Could Save Millions Of Lives Think Progress ...Corruption takes a particularly heavy toll in developing countries which lack the political and economic infrastructure to effectively regulate businesses. “In developing countries, corruption is a killer,” said David McNair of the advocacy organization ONE. “Up to 3.6 million lives could be saved if we end the web of secrecy that helps the criminal and corrupt. When governments are deprived of their own resources to invest in the essentials — like nurses and teachers — the human cost is devastating.”...
Black Activists Know Feds Are Monitoring Them, Yet Refuse to Be Intimidated Alternet ...When Erika Totten returned to protesting in the DC area after taking a few months off last winter, law enforcement officers were waiting to greet her...
Amnesty International Is Finally On The Right Side Of The Sex Work Struggle The Nation ...“We really hope that those who have opposed Amnesty’s position in the past will reconsider their position and look at the evidence that criminalization of sex work is a key factor in our vulnerability to violence and abuse,” Stevenson told me. “We hope that this evidence-based decision by Amnesty will help other progressive organizations take a position to support sex workers’ rights.”...
Don’t Blame Citizens United For Donald Trump; Blame 1976’s Buckley v. Valeo Decision The Intercept ...If you don’t think it’s fair that billionaires like Donald Trump can run their own self-funded campaigns for president, don’t blame the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision. Blame the 1976 case Buckley v. Valeo instead. Citizens United lets billionaires give unlimited money to Super PACs trying to elect other people, but billionaires have been able to give as much money as they wanted to their own campaigns since Buckley...
The Pentagon's Half-Billion Dollar Drone Boondoggle The Intercept ...Rivalry between the Army and Air Force over Predator drones may have cost the Pentagon over $500 million in wasteful spending, according to a report released under the Freedom of Information Act. The report, which the Pentagon’s Inspector General completed in 2010, is not available on the Defense Department’s public website, which instructs people to request it through the Freedom of Information Act. The Pentagon released a copy of the report to The Intercept this week, nearly five years after it was originally requested...
Tuesday, August 11, 2015
Today's Teamster News 08.11.15
Teamsters
Teamsters, Bauer's Drivers Rally For Labor Harmony in San Francisco Teamster.org ...Teamsters and drivers for Bauer’s Intelligent Transportation held an action this morning in San Francisco to call on the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) to adopt a resolution ensuring labor harmony...
Tech-Shuttle Company Is Accused Of Thwarting Efforts To Unionize Its Drivers Mother Jones ..."The drivers need and deserve better wages, better benefits, and more respect," says Doug Bloch, the political director for the Northern California chapter of the Teamsters, which is holding a protest in San Francisco's Mission District today to call attention to Bauer's alleged union-busting tactics. "What Bauer's did is an insult to these workers."...
Global Labor & Trade
Japan Anxious At Lull, U.S. 'Giving Up', In Pan-Pacific Trade Talks Reuters ...Japan has expressed concern about a loss of momentum in talks on a pan-Pacific trade pact after participants failed to agree to meet again this month to try to clinch a deal that would cover 40 percent of the global economy...
China Devalues Yuan After Poor Economic Data Huffington Post ...China devalued its currency on Tuesday after a run of poor economic data, a move it billed as a free-market reform but which some suspect could be the beginning of a longer-term slide in the exchange rate...
After Marathon Talks, Greece And International Lenders Clinch Multi-Billion Euro Bailout Deal Huffington Post ...Greece and its international lenders reached a multi-billion euro bailout agreement on Tuesday after talking through the night, officials said, potentially saving the country from financial ruin...
Bounty On Its Head: Wikileaks Raising €100K Reward For Secret Text Of TTIP Common Dreams ...The full text of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Agreement (TTIP) now has a bounty on its head. Launched publicly on Tuesday, the media outlet Wikileaks announced its creation of a crowd-sourcing effort that aims to raise a €100,000 reward for the full text of the the TTIP, the corporate-friendly trade pact currently being negotiated in secret by the United States and member countries of the European Union...
Despite Majority Opposition, Japan About To Hit 'Go' On Nuclear Restart Common Dreams ...Despite widespread public opposition and lingering safety concerns, Japan on Tuesday will switch on a nuclear reactor for the first time since the 2011 Fukushima disaster...
Hundreds Of Peace Corps Vets Demand US Stop Funding Ethnic Cleansing Common Dreams ...Over 500 former Peace Corps volunteers are calling on the U.S. government to withhold military aid and stop funding the Dominican Republic's ethnic cleansing of people of Haitian descent, adding theirs to the cacophony of voices—from Pope Francis to United Nations experts to thousands marching in Port-au-Prince—speaking out against the mass-scale human rights violations...
State & Living Wage Battles
Daily Oil Trains Could Threaten Lives In The Bay Area San Francisco Chronicle ...If oil giant Phillips 66 has its way, an oil train disaster and increased air pollution may be coming to a Bay Area town near you. Phillips 66 is proposing an oil transport station to refine Canadian tars sands in San Luis Obispo. If the project is approved by the San Luis Obispo planning commission and board of supervisors, Phillips 66 will have a contract for 500 oil train trips a year that could go right down the spine of the Bay Area...
Wis. Residents Upset About Sand, Oil Train Delays Winona Daily News ...Neighbors living near railroad tracks in Wisconsin are becoming increasingly concerned about long train blockages since an increase in sand and oil shipments have caused them to grow into a frequent and dangerous disruption...
Florida Lawmakers Pushing For Higher Minimum Wage WFSU ...As workers across the country push for higher minimum wage, two Florida lawmakers are joining the fight. They’ve filed a bill that would raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 per hour. But earning a living wage is about more than a person’s hourly pay...
Study Reveals The True Scope Of Voter Disenfranchisement In Texas Think Progress ...A Texas law, which closely resembles similar laws erecting obstacles to the franchise in other states, does far more to keep voters from casting a ballot than previously thought, according to a study conducted by researchers at Rice University and the University of Houston...
Silicon Valley’s Skyrocketing Housing Costs Shut Teachers Out Alternet ...Skyrocketing housing prices in Silicon Valley, the red-hot center of tech entrepreneurship and one of the most highly educated enclaves in the world, are making it hard for teachers to call the area home...
Election Rights Advocates Allege New Voter ID Violations In Ohio WLWT ...The advocates say the laws allow absentee ballots to be rejected for mistakes such as the wrong birth month even though the voter supplied the correction information when requesting the ballot...
U.S. Labor
Unpredictable Work Hours, Chaotic Life New York Times ...The tyranny of erratic work schedules is obvious to employees who don’t know what their schedules will be tomorrow or have to call in to see if there is work. And the effects have been well documented in articles and oral histories. Increasingly, the anecdotal evidence is being confirmed by research...
Social Justice & Other News
Huffington Post, Washington Post Reporters Charged For Doing Journalism In Ferguson Huffington Post ...Reporters from The Huffington Post and Washington Post have been charged with trespassing and interfering with a police officer’s performance, a chilling setback for press freedom coming nearly a year after their arrests in Ferguson, Missouri...
Jerry Brown Nixes 'Alien' From California Labor Law Huffington Post ...California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signed legislation Monday removing the word "alien" in reference to undocumented immigrants from the state's labor code. The measure, which will take effect Jan. 1, seeks to modernize the language used in California state law. Brown signed the legislation, SB 432, along with two other bills updating immigration policy on Monday...
Twitter Activists Slam St. Louis County Officials For Ferguson Response With #WhichEmergency Hashtag Salon.com ...Shortly after St. Louis County officials declared a state of emergency last night in response to protesters marking the anniversary of the death of Michael Brown, activists on Twitter did something odd, agreeing with county officials and tweeting that there is, in fact, a state of emergency in St. Louis County — just not the one the officials had declared...
Here's How Much Water Golf Courses, Ski Resorts, And Pools Are Using In California Mother Jones ...Of the thirsty nonagricultural businesses, golf takes the lead: The average Palm Springs golf course uses the same amount of water in one day that a family of four does in five years. The 123 golf courses in the Palm Springs area use nearly a quarter of the region's groundwater...
Water Rationing In Puerto Rico Hits The Poor, Leaves Resorts Untouched Think Progress ...As the commonwealth’s reservoirs drop to their lowest levels in decades, the government has declared a state of emergency, and implemented strict rationing. Hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans now have had tap water only every third day, and that tightened this past weekend, giving families water only two days a week...
Heavily-Armed Oath Keepers Showed Up To Ferguson Last Night Mother Jones ...As demonstrators gathered in Ferguson to continue commemorating the one year anniversary of the fatal shooting of Michael Brown on Monday, five heavily-armed men belonging to a vigilante group called the Oath Keepers were spotted patrolling the streets. According to reports, the Oath Keepers said they were on the scene to provide voluntary protection to a journalist working for the site InfoWars, the conspiracy mill run by noted lunatic Alex Jones...
Racialized Poverty In America Has Nearly Doubled In 21st Century Common Dreams ...Discriminatory housing, zoning, and other policy choices are driving the dramatic rise of racialized poverty and segregation across the United States, with the number of people residing in low-income "ghettos, barrios, and slums" nearly doubling in the 21st century alone, a new report finds...
Teamsters, Bauer's Drivers Rally For Labor Harmony in San Francisco Teamster.org ...Teamsters and drivers for Bauer’s Intelligent Transportation held an action this morning in San Francisco to call on the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) to adopt a resolution ensuring labor harmony...
Tech-Shuttle Company Is Accused Of Thwarting Efforts To Unionize Its Drivers Mother Jones ..."The drivers need and deserve better wages, better benefits, and more respect," says Doug Bloch, the political director for the Northern California chapter of the Teamsters, which is holding a protest in San Francisco's Mission District today to call attention to Bauer's alleged union-busting tactics. "What Bauer's did is an insult to these workers."...
Global Labor & Trade
Japan Anxious At Lull, U.S. 'Giving Up', In Pan-Pacific Trade Talks Reuters ...Japan has expressed concern about a loss of momentum in talks on a pan-Pacific trade pact after participants failed to agree to meet again this month to try to clinch a deal that would cover 40 percent of the global economy...
China Devalues Yuan After Poor Economic Data Huffington Post ...China devalued its currency on Tuesday after a run of poor economic data, a move it billed as a free-market reform but which some suspect could be the beginning of a longer-term slide in the exchange rate...
After Marathon Talks, Greece And International Lenders Clinch Multi-Billion Euro Bailout Deal Huffington Post ...Greece and its international lenders reached a multi-billion euro bailout agreement on Tuesday after talking through the night, officials said, potentially saving the country from financial ruin...
Bounty On Its Head: Wikileaks Raising €100K Reward For Secret Text Of TTIP Common Dreams ...The full text of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Agreement (TTIP) now has a bounty on its head. Launched publicly on Tuesday, the media outlet Wikileaks announced its creation of a crowd-sourcing effort that aims to raise a €100,000 reward for the full text of the the TTIP, the corporate-friendly trade pact currently being negotiated in secret by the United States and member countries of the European Union...
Despite Majority Opposition, Japan About To Hit 'Go' On Nuclear Restart Common Dreams ...Despite widespread public opposition and lingering safety concerns, Japan on Tuesday will switch on a nuclear reactor for the first time since the 2011 Fukushima disaster...
Hundreds Of Peace Corps Vets Demand US Stop Funding Ethnic Cleansing Common Dreams ...Over 500 former Peace Corps volunteers are calling on the U.S. government to withhold military aid and stop funding the Dominican Republic's ethnic cleansing of people of Haitian descent, adding theirs to the cacophony of voices—from Pope Francis to United Nations experts to thousands marching in Port-au-Prince—speaking out against the mass-scale human rights violations...
State & Living Wage Battles
Daily Oil Trains Could Threaten Lives In The Bay Area San Francisco Chronicle ...If oil giant Phillips 66 has its way, an oil train disaster and increased air pollution may be coming to a Bay Area town near you. Phillips 66 is proposing an oil transport station to refine Canadian tars sands in San Luis Obispo. If the project is approved by the San Luis Obispo planning commission and board of supervisors, Phillips 66 will have a contract for 500 oil train trips a year that could go right down the spine of the Bay Area...
Wis. Residents Upset About Sand, Oil Train Delays Winona Daily News ...Neighbors living near railroad tracks in Wisconsin are becoming increasingly concerned about long train blockages since an increase in sand and oil shipments have caused them to grow into a frequent and dangerous disruption...
Florida Lawmakers Pushing For Higher Minimum Wage WFSU ...As workers across the country push for higher minimum wage, two Florida lawmakers are joining the fight. They’ve filed a bill that would raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 per hour. But earning a living wage is about more than a person’s hourly pay...
Study Reveals The True Scope Of Voter Disenfranchisement In Texas Think Progress ...A Texas law, which closely resembles similar laws erecting obstacles to the franchise in other states, does far more to keep voters from casting a ballot than previously thought, according to a study conducted by researchers at Rice University and the University of Houston...
Silicon Valley’s Skyrocketing Housing Costs Shut Teachers Out Alternet ...Skyrocketing housing prices in Silicon Valley, the red-hot center of tech entrepreneurship and one of the most highly educated enclaves in the world, are making it hard for teachers to call the area home...
Election Rights Advocates Allege New Voter ID Violations In Ohio WLWT ...The advocates say the laws allow absentee ballots to be rejected for mistakes such as the wrong birth month even though the voter supplied the correction information when requesting the ballot...
U.S. Labor
Unpredictable Work Hours, Chaotic Life New York Times ...The tyranny of erratic work schedules is obvious to employees who don’t know what their schedules will be tomorrow or have to call in to see if there is work. And the effects have been well documented in articles and oral histories. Increasingly, the anecdotal evidence is being confirmed by research...
Social Justice & Other News
Huffington Post, Washington Post Reporters Charged For Doing Journalism In Ferguson Huffington Post ...Reporters from The Huffington Post and Washington Post have been charged with trespassing and interfering with a police officer’s performance, a chilling setback for press freedom coming nearly a year after their arrests in Ferguson, Missouri...
Jerry Brown Nixes 'Alien' From California Labor Law Huffington Post ...California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signed legislation Monday removing the word "alien" in reference to undocumented immigrants from the state's labor code. The measure, which will take effect Jan. 1, seeks to modernize the language used in California state law. Brown signed the legislation, SB 432, along with two other bills updating immigration policy on Monday...
Twitter Activists Slam St. Louis County Officials For Ferguson Response With #WhichEmergency Hashtag Salon.com ...Shortly after St. Louis County officials declared a state of emergency last night in response to protesters marking the anniversary of the death of Michael Brown, activists on Twitter did something odd, agreeing with county officials and tweeting that there is, in fact, a state of emergency in St. Louis County — just not the one the officials had declared...
Here's How Much Water Golf Courses, Ski Resorts, And Pools Are Using In California Mother Jones ...Of the thirsty nonagricultural businesses, golf takes the lead: The average Palm Springs golf course uses the same amount of water in one day that a family of four does in five years. The 123 golf courses in the Palm Springs area use nearly a quarter of the region's groundwater...
Water Rationing In Puerto Rico Hits The Poor, Leaves Resorts Untouched Think Progress ...As the commonwealth’s reservoirs drop to their lowest levels in decades, the government has declared a state of emergency, and implemented strict rationing. Hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans now have had tap water only every third day, and that tightened this past weekend, giving families water only two days a week...
Heavily-Armed Oath Keepers Showed Up To Ferguson Last Night Mother Jones ...As demonstrators gathered in Ferguson to continue commemorating the one year anniversary of the fatal shooting of Michael Brown on Monday, five heavily-armed men belonging to a vigilante group called the Oath Keepers were spotted patrolling the streets. According to reports, the Oath Keepers said they were on the scene to provide voluntary protection to a journalist working for the site InfoWars, the conspiracy mill run by noted lunatic Alex Jones...
Racialized Poverty In America Has Nearly Doubled In 21st Century Common Dreams ...Discriminatory housing, zoning, and other policy choices are driving the dramatic rise of racialized poverty and segregation across the United States, with the number of people residing in low-income "ghettos, barrios, and slums" nearly doubling in the 21st century alone, a new report finds...
Sunday, December 7, 2014
Today's Teamster News 12.07.14
Teamsters
Berlin Metals, Teamsters reach new contract NWI.com ...The Berlin Metals steel service center in Hammond reached a new five-year agreement with Teamsters Union Local 142, which represents its warehouse workers...
EYE ON CLALLAM: County to consider pact with Teamsters at Tuesday meeting in Port Angeles PeninsulaDailyNews.com ...Clallam County has been bargaining a new contract with the union for more than 20 months...
Trade
TPP market access gains for U.S. dairy must be a priority Ohio Country Journal ...“It is crucial for the U.S. to prioritize delivery of benefits to our dairy industry, not other TPP countries,” said Tom Suber, USDEC president...
Europeans fear American 'Frankenfood' in trade deal UPI ..."Hormone-boosted beef. Chlorine-washed chicken. Genetically altered vegetables. This is what they want for us," French organic farmer Jean Cabaret tells the Washington Post. "In France, food is about pleasure, about taste. But in the United States, they put anything in their mouths. No, this must be stopped."...
The European Citizens Initiative to stop the TTIP pressenza …“We are an alliance of nearly 300 European organisations running a self-organised European Citizens’ Initiative against TTIP and CETA. We believe that these two trade and investment agreements must be stopped because they pose a threat to democracy, the rule of law, the environment, health, public services as well as consumer and labour rights...
State Battles
Arizona county mulls not hiring smokers Associated Press ... The proposal would also impose a 30 percent health-insurance surcharge on employees who smoke or consume other tobacco products...
War on Workers
The poor used to have the most opportunity in America. Now the rich do. Washington Post ... It seems almost impossible now, but the income of the poorest households -- the bottom 10 percent of them -- grew the fastest in JFK-era America, with the top 1 percent a little bit behind...
As college costs rise, more food pantries sprout on campus Kansas City Star ...Emporia is among the latest colleges in Kansas and Missouri to start a food pantry for cash-strapped students. Washburn University in Topeka also opened a pantry last month, Pittsburg State opened one in October and the University of Missouri-Kansas City student activities office is working on opening a food pantry in March...
Why Poor People Stay Poor Slate …It’s amazing what things that are absolute crises for me are simple annoyances for people with money. Anything can make you lose your apartment, because any unexpected problem that pops up, like they do, can set off that Rube Goldberg device...
Judge: Give NSA unlimited access to digital data PC World ...The U.S. National Security Agency should have an unlimited ability to collect digital information in the name of protecting the country against terrorism and other threats, an influential federal judge said during a debate on privacy. “I think privacy is actually overvalued,” Judge Richard Posner, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, said...
Mother-of-six dies suddenly just four weeks after giving birth: Fast food worker collapsed outside her workplace and never recovered Daily Mail ...A kind mother-of-six has died suddenly at the age of 43, just four weeks after giving birth to her sixth child...
Worker dies after being electrocuted KHOU.com …A worker died Saturday while working on trimming trees near a power line...
Berlin Metals, Teamsters reach new contract NWI.com ...The Berlin Metals steel service center in Hammond reached a new five-year agreement with Teamsters Union Local 142, which represents its warehouse workers...
EYE ON CLALLAM: County to consider pact with Teamsters at Tuesday meeting in Port Angeles PeninsulaDailyNews.com ...Clallam County has been bargaining a new contract with the union for more than 20 months...
Trade
TPP market access gains for U.S. dairy must be a priority Ohio Country Journal ...“It is crucial for the U.S. to prioritize delivery of benefits to our dairy industry, not other TPP countries,” said Tom Suber, USDEC president...
Europeans fear American 'Frankenfood' in trade deal UPI ..."Hormone-boosted beef. Chlorine-washed chicken. Genetically altered vegetables. This is what they want for us," French organic farmer Jean Cabaret tells the Washington Post. "In France, food is about pleasure, about taste. But in the United States, they put anything in their mouths. No, this must be stopped."...
The European Citizens Initiative to stop the TTIP pressenza …“We are an alliance of nearly 300 European organisations running a self-organised European Citizens’ Initiative against TTIP and CETA. We believe that these two trade and investment agreements must be stopped because they pose a threat to democracy, the rule of law, the environment, health, public services as well as consumer and labour rights...
State Battles
Arizona county mulls not hiring smokers Associated Press ... The proposal would also impose a 30 percent health-insurance surcharge on employees who smoke or consume other tobacco products...
War on Workers
The poor used to have the most opportunity in America. Now the rich do. Washington Post ... It seems almost impossible now, but the income of the poorest households -- the bottom 10 percent of them -- grew the fastest in JFK-era America, with the top 1 percent a little bit behind...
As college costs rise, more food pantries sprout on campus Kansas City Star ...Emporia is among the latest colleges in Kansas and Missouri to start a food pantry for cash-strapped students. Washburn University in Topeka also opened a pantry last month, Pittsburg State opened one in October and the University of Missouri-Kansas City student activities office is working on opening a food pantry in March...
Why Poor People Stay Poor Slate …It’s amazing what things that are absolute crises for me are simple annoyances for people with money. Anything can make you lose your apartment, because any unexpected problem that pops up, like they do, can set off that Rube Goldberg device...
Judge: Give NSA unlimited access to digital data PC World ...The U.S. National Security Agency should have an unlimited ability to collect digital information in the name of protecting the country against terrorism and other threats, an influential federal judge said during a debate on privacy. “I think privacy is actually overvalued,” Judge Richard Posner, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, said...
Mother-of-six dies suddenly just four weeks after giving birth: Fast food worker collapsed outside her workplace and never recovered Daily Mail ...A kind mother-of-six has died suddenly at the age of 43, just four weeks after giving birth to her sixth child...
Worker dies after being electrocuted KHOU.com …A worker died Saturday while working on trimming trees near a power line...
Sunday, November 30, 2014
Today's Teamster News 11.30.14
Trade
“Arrogant” UK public didn’t “buy in” enough secret expertise to understand TTIP? (opinion) beliefnet ...Given the concerns about the privatisation of the NHS that have been raised by activists, I, like many other members of the public, believe the deal is far too important to be based on closed-doors decisions...
War on Workers
Child poverty in the U.S. is among the worst in the developed world Washington Post ...Nearly one third of U.S. children live in households with an income below 60 percent of the national median income in 2008 - about $31,000 annually...
'Being homeless is better than working for Amazon' Guardian ... ISS is the temp agency that provides warehouse labor for Amazon and they are at the center of the SCOTUS case Integrity Staffing Solutions vs. Busk. ISS could simply deactivate a worker’s badge and they would suddenly be out of work. They treated us like beggars because we needed their jobs...
Working for Walmart Is Even Worse Than You Think Alternet ...A lot of people were doing the work of three to four people...
Walmart Workers Rally For Higher Wages At Stores Across The Country ThinkProgress ...As Americans rushed to take advantage of jaw dropping deals this Black Friday, thousands of Walmart employees and labor union members protested at 1,000 stores across the country for higher wages and consistent full-time work. At least 11 Walmart workers and supporters were arrested for blocking traffic outside a Walmart in Chicago...
Uber faces a class action lawsuit over use of credit reports during background checks Pando Daily ...Uber’s legal problems are piling up. The company is fighting for regulatory clearance to operate in numerous jurisdictions, including, most recently, Nevada. At the same time, it’s being sued by the National Federation of the Blind for discrimination against blind people and service dogs. Another lawsuit accuses the company of charging bogus surcharges and tolls to passengers traveling to and from Boston’s Logan Airport...
Miscellaneous
Just Plane Ugly (opinion) New York Times ...Immediately following news coverage of a flight that had to be diverted when two passengers scuffled over a Knee Defender’s use, sales of the device reportedly increased...
Inside OPEC room, Naimi declares price war on U.S. shale oil Reuters ...Saudi Arabia's oil minister told fellow OPEC members they must combat the U.S. shale oil boom, arguing against cutting crude output in order to depress prices and undermine the profitability of North American producers...
Black Friday Online Sales Up 8.5% Over Last Year, 20% Of Sales Came From iOS techcrunch ...Amazon was up 25.9% year-over-year, outpacing e-commerce as a whole, but eBay grew just 3.0% over Thanksgiving Day 2013...
Despair: More People Shopped on Black Friday than Voted in Midterms Mediaite ...The number of Black Friday participants comes from the National Retail Federation, which predicted 140.1 million would go shopping this weekend — a slight dip from the 140.3 million who went out last year. According to data collected by the United States Election Project, only 76.9 million people turned out to vote in the 2014 midterm elections — the lowest turnout since World War II, when the population of America was less than 150 million people...
“Arrogant” UK public didn’t “buy in” enough secret expertise to understand TTIP? (opinion) beliefnet ...Given the concerns about the privatisation of the NHS that have been raised by activists, I, like many other members of the public, believe the deal is far too important to be based on closed-doors decisions...
War on Workers
Child poverty in the U.S. is among the worst in the developed world Washington Post ...Nearly one third of U.S. children live in households with an income below 60 percent of the national median income in 2008 - about $31,000 annually...
'Being homeless is better than working for Amazon' Guardian ... ISS is the temp agency that provides warehouse labor for Amazon and they are at the center of the SCOTUS case Integrity Staffing Solutions vs. Busk. ISS could simply deactivate a worker’s badge and they would suddenly be out of work. They treated us like beggars because we needed their jobs...
Working for Walmart Is Even Worse Than You Think Alternet ...A lot of people were doing the work of three to four people...
Walmart Workers Rally For Higher Wages At Stores Across The Country ThinkProgress ...As Americans rushed to take advantage of jaw dropping deals this Black Friday, thousands of Walmart employees and labor union members protested at 1,000 stores across the country for higher wages and consistent full-time work. At least 11 Walmart workers and supporters were arrested for blocking traffic outside a Walmart in Chicago...
Uber faces a class action lawsuit over use of credit reports during background checks Pando Daily ...Uber’s legal problems are piling up. The company is fighting for regulatory clearance to operate in numerous jurisdictions, including, most recently, Nevada. At the same time, it’s being sued by the National Federation of the Blind for discrimination against blind people and service dogs. Another lawsuit accuses the company of charging bogus surcharges and tolls to passengers traveling to and from Boston’s Logan Airport...
Miscellaneous
Just Plane Ugly (opinion) New York Times ...Immediately following news coverage of a flight that had to be diverted when two passengers scuffled over a Knee Defender’s use, sales of the device reportedly increased...
Inside OPEC room, Naimi declares price war on U.S. shale oil Reuters ...Saudi Arabia's oil minister told fellow OPEC members they must combat the U.S. shale oil boom, arguing against cutting crude output in order to depress prices and undermine the profitability of North American producers...
Black Friday Online Sales Up 8.5% Over Last Year, 20% Of Sales Came From iOS techcrunch ...Amazon was up 25.9% year-over-year, outpacing e-commerce as a whole, but eBay grew just 3.0% over Thanksgiving Day 2013...
Despair: More People Shopped on Black Friday than Voted in Midterms Mediaite ...The number of Black Friday participants comes from the National Retail Federation, which predicted 140.1 million would go shopping this weekend — a slight dip from the 140.3 million who went out last year. According to data collected by the United States Election Project, only 76.9 million people turned out to vote in the 2014 midterm elections — the lowest turnout since World War II, when the population of America was less than 150 million people...
Monday, August 25, 2014
Today's Teamster News 08.25.14
Trade
Cambodian rat meat: A growing export market BBC News ...A unique harvest is under way in the rice fields of Cambodia where tens of thousands of wild rats are being trapped alive each day to feed a growing export market for the meat of rural rodents...
Steel Institute, Others Visit South Carolina to Address Currency Manipulation Trade Reform ...unfair currency policies hurt American job creation and economic growth – impacting the more than 3,000 steel jobs in South Carolina...
State Battles
Troubled New York Hedge Fund Billionaire Sent Scott Walker $1 Million Political Environment ...The firm’s founder, Steven A. Cohen, has so far escaped criminal charges. But the firm that bore his initials agreed in November to plead guilty to an array of insider trading allegations and to pay overall penalties totaling $1.8 billion...
War on Workers
The US Is One Of The Last Developed Countries Where It Can Still Take Days For Money To Show Up In Your Bank Account Business Insider ...while regulators and some financial institutions are finally recognizing this should no longer be the case, it will likely take years for any reforms to take effect...
Study: Overtime rules could benefit 6M The Hill ...Regulations now under construction at the Labor Department could expand the sphere of workers eligible for overtime pay by more than 6 million, according to a new study from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI)...
No to Walmart-Style Classrooms Making Change at Walmart ...the Walton family, who owns Walmart, is also trying to spread the Walmart business model to our classrooms...
Dollar stores in battle to double down on the poor Reuters ... Family Dollar Stores,, which operates about 8,200 stores in mainly urban sections of the U.S., is the target of an $9 billion cash takeover offer from rival Dollar General and an $8.5 billion cash and stock offer from Dollar Tree. Both competitors are betting not only on the health of the deep discount retail sector but also on the intractability of poverty in America...
Burger King the Latest to Jump on the Corporate Tax Inversion Bandwagon naked capitalism ...Burger King Worldwide Inc. is in talks to buy Canadian coffee-and-doughnut chain Tim Hortons Inc., a deal that would be structured as a so-called tax inversion and move the hamburger seller’s base to Canada...
Robots Able to Pick Peppers, Test Soil, and Prune Plants Aim To Replace Farm Workers Singularity Hub ...Farm robots are increasingly capable of autonomously performing complex tasks including plowing, plant and soil surveillance, and even the harvesting of fruit and vegetables...
Cambodian rat meat: A growing export market BBC News ...A unique harvest is under way in the rice fields of Cambodia where tens of thousands of wild rats are being trapped alive each day to feed a growing export market for the meat of rural rodents...
Steel Institute, Others Visit South Carolina to Address Currency Manipulation Trade Reform ...unfair currency policies hurt American job creation and economic growth – impacting the more than 3,000 steel jobs in South Carolina...
State Battles
Troubled New York Hedge Fund Billionaire Sent Scott Walker $1 Million Political Environment ...The firm’s founder, Steven A. Cohen, has so far escaped criminal charges. But the firm that bore his initials agreed in November to plead guilty to an array of insider trading allegations and to pay overall penalties totaling $1.8 billion...
War on Workers
The US Is One Of The Last Developed Countries Where It Can Still Take Days For Money To Show Up In Your Bank Account Business Insider ...while regulators and some financial institutions are finally recognizing this should no longer be the case, it will likely take years for any reforms to take effect...
Study: Overtime rules could benefit 6M The Hill ...Regulations now under construction at the Labor Department could expand the sphere of workers eligible for overtime pay by more than 6 million, according to a new study from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI)...
No to Walmart-Style Classrooms Making Change at Walmart ...the Walton family, who owns Walmart, is also trying to spread the Walmart business model to our classrooms...
Dollar stores in battle to double down on the poor Reuters ... Family Dollar Stores,, which operates about 8,200 stores in mainly urban sections of the U.S., is the target of an $9 billion cash takeover offer from rival Dollar General and an $8.5 billion cash and stock offer from Dollar Tree. Both competitors are betting not only on the health of the deep discount retail sector but also on the intractability of poverty in America...
Burger King the Latest to Jump on the Corporate Tax Inversion Bandwagon naked capitalism ...Burger King Worldwide Inc. is in talks to buy Canadian coffee-and-doughnut chain Tim Hortons Inc., a deal that would be structured as a so-called tax inversion and move the hamburger seller’s base to Canada...
Robots Able to Pick Peppers, Test Soil, and Prune Plants Aim To Replace Farm Workers Singularity Hub ...Farm robots are increasingly capable of autonomously performing complex tasks including plowing, plant and soil surveillance, and even the harvesting of fruit and vegetables...
Monday, August 18, 2014
Today's Teamster News 08.18.14
Trade
What Happens in Geneva ... The Mammoth Global Trade Agreement You’ve Never Heard Of In These Times ...our governments are negotiating further deregulation of the financial sector, solely in the interests of large financial corporations,” says Daniel Bertossa, senior policy and advocacy officer at Public Services International (PSI), a global public-sector union federation based in France...
US trade officials say it’s their way or the highway on TPP CIO ...Certification means that the US can refuse to bring an agreement with a country into force until the country has altered its laws to satisfy the US understanding of its obligations under the agreement...
War on Workers
What the NLRB Announcement on McDonald's Means AFL-CIO ...Historically McDonald's has claimed it has no authority over wages or complaints of workers' rights violations at its franchise locations because that is up to the individual owners, but the NLRB general counsel determined McDonald's could be liable as a joint employer in these kinds of situations...
Seeking New Start, Finding Steep Cost New York Times ...Millions of unemployed Americans like Mr. DeGrella have trained for new careers as part of the Workforce Investment Act, a $3.1 billion federal program that, in an unusual act of bipartisanship, was reauthorized by Congress last month with little public discussion about its effectiveness. Like Mr. DeGrella, many have not found the promised new career...
Report Says I.R.S. Inaction May Have Increased Fraud Risk New York Times ...A government investigator said Thursday that the Internal Revenue Service failed to do background checks on some private contractors who handled confidential information, exposing more than a million taxpayers to a risk of fraud and identity theft...
Ferguson Unrest Shows Poverty Grows Fastest in Suburbs Bloomberg ...In Ferguson, Missouri, a community of 21,000 where the poverty rate doubled since 2000, the dynamic has bred animosity over racial segregation and economic inequality...
Across Asia's borders, labor activists team up to press wage claims Reuters ...Negotiations over pay and working conditions have typically remained within national borders, but activists are now bringing more muscle to the table and putting more pressure on employers and governments by using shared experiences in nearby markets...
Miscellaneous
Transporting Bakken crude by rail a volatile situation Chronicle Times ...As federal regulators continue investigating why tank cars on three trains carrying North Dakota crude oil have exploded in the past year, energy experts say part of the problem might be that some producers are deliberately leaving too much propane in their product, making the oil riskier to transport by rail...
Bank Overseer PwC Faces Penalty and Sidelining of Regulatory Consulting Unit New York Times ...The giant consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers occupies a position of trust on Wall Street, acting as a shadow regulator of sorts that promises the government an impartial look inside the world’s biggest banks. But the firm — hired and paid by the banks it examines — has now landed in the regulatory spotlight for obscuring some of the same misconduct it was supposed to unearth...
What Happens in Geneva ... The Mammoth Global Trade Agreement You’ve Never Heard Of In These Times ...our governments are negotiating further deregulation of the financial sector, solely in the interests of large financial corporations,” says Daniel Bertossa, senior policy and advocacy officer at Public Services International (PSI), a global public-sector union federation based in France...
US trade officials say it’s their way or the highway on TPP CIO ...Certification means that the US can refuse to bring an agreement with a country into force until the country has altered its laws to satisfy the US understanding of its obligations under the agreement...
War on Workers
What the NLRB Announcement on McDonald's Means AFL-CIO ...Historically McDonald's has claimed it has no authority over wages or complaints of workers' rights violations at its franchise locations because that is up to the individual owners, but the NLRB general counsel determined McDonald's could be liable as a joint employer in these kinds of situations...
Seeking New Start, Finding Steep Cost New York Times ...Millions of unemployed Americans like Mr. DeGrella have trained for new careers as part of the Workforce Investment Act, a $3.1 billion federal program that, in an unusual act of bipartisanship, was reauthorized by Congress last month with little public discussion about its effectiveness. Like Mr. DeGrella, many have not found the promised new career...
Report Says I.R.S. Inaction May Have Increased Fraud Risk New York Times ...A government investigator said Thursday that the Internal Revenue Service failed to do background checks on some private contractors who handled confidential information, exposing more than a million taxpayers to a risk of fraud and identity theft...
Ferguson Unrest Shows Poverty Grows Fastest in Suburbs Bloomberg ...In Ferguson, Missouri, a community of 21,000 where the poverty rate doubled since 2000, the dynamic has bred animosity over racial segregation and economic inequality...
Across Asia's borders, labor activists team up to press wage claims Reuters ...Negotiations over pay and working conditions have typically remained within national borders, but activists are now bringing more muscle to the table and putting more pressure on employers and governments by using shared experiences in nearby markets...
Miscellaneous
Transporting Bakken crude by rail a volatile situation Chronicle Times ...As federal regulators continue investigating why tank cars on three trains carrying North Dakota crude oil have exploded in the past year, energy experts say part of the problem might be that some producers are deliberately leaving too much propane in their product, making the oil riskier to transport by rail...
Bank Overseer PwC Faces Penalty and Sidelining of Regulatory Consulting Unit New York Times ...The giant consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers occupies a position of trust on Wall Street, acting as a shadow regulator of sorts that promises the government an impartial look inside the world’s biggest banks. But the firm — hired and paid by the banks it examines — has now landed in the regulatory spotlight for obscuring some of the same misconduct it was supposed to unearth...
Sunday, August 10, 2014
Today's Teamster News 08.10.14
Teamsters
Unions That Used to Strike Jacobin ...In early July, 120 mostly poor and immigrant port truckers set up picket lines at three trucking companies in LA-Long Beach Harbor, extending their longstanding campaign to unionize. … Following the rules of their own contract, the union told its members to cross the truckers’ pickets and return to their jobs. This action was in line with the ILWU’s informal pact with the PMA to maintain the flow of work after their contract had run out, and it snuffed out any potential the embryonic solidarity of the longshore workers and port truckers might have had to shift the balance of power between themselves and their employers...
Teamsters Boycotting Hollywood Trucking Firm Quixote Variety ...A branch of the Intl. Brotherhood of Teamsters has launched a boycott of the non-union Quixote Studios, one of Hollywood’s largest operators of truck and trailer fleets...
Teamsters, prominent Hollywood vendor in high-profile standoff Los Angeles Times ...“We're trying to bring production back to California, but we want it to be union production and that's what we're trying to do,” Dayan said. “We're trying to organize the unorganized and to help those individuals maintain a middle-class livelihood. That's what we do...”
Trade
End in Sight for U.S.-Japan TPP Talks On Agriculture Market Access, Oe Says Bloomberg BNA ...Oe said that during two days of intensive, substantive negotiations, the areas where compromises are to be made have been clearly identified but that those compromises remain to be realized...
War on Workers
Flipping Schools: The Hidden Forces Behind New Jersey Education Reform truthout ...Real estate concerns and facilities funding increasingly drive neighborhood school closings and the expansion of privately managed charter schools. By allocating millions of dollars in little-known bonds exclusively to charters while imposing austerity on public facilities, the state has quietly stacked the deck for charters, leaving neighborhood schools to molder in decline...
Bare shelves for Market Basket as employees and shoppers unite in profit-sharing fight PBS Newshour ...The owners of a successful New England grocery store chain are in a family feud over whether company profits should go to shareholders or to employees, some of whom have abandoned their shifts and hit the streets...
How rural poverty is changing: Your fate is increasingly tied to your town Washington Post ... If your hometown went south, you probably did with it, unless you managed to get out and had the wherewithal to not come back...
“A Financial Casino Would Be a Step Up From What We Have” naked capitalism ...casinos are well aware of the fact that the house can lose and they monitor gamblers intensively to make sure that no one is engaging is sleight of hand. Thus if we treated our banking system like the financial casino that it has become, we’d be much better off than we are now...
A Corporate Tax Break That’s Closer to Home New York Times ...the Internal Revenue Service, officials have recently opened the window to another (corporate tax break). They did so in a ruling disclosed late last month by Windstream Holdings, a telecommunications company based in Little Rock, Ark. The ruling allows Windstream to spin off its copper and fiber network into a real estate investment trust, or REIT. That sounds pretty ho-hum until you realize it means that Windstream won’t have to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes...
Unions That Used to Strike Jacobin ...In early July, 120 mostly poor and immigrant port truckers set up picket lines at three trucking companies in LA-Long Beach Harbor, extending their longstanding campaign to unionize. … Following the rules of their own contract, the union told its members to cross the truckers’ pickets and return to their jobs. This action was in line with the ILWU’s informal pact with the PMA to maintain the flow of work after their contract had run out, and it snuffed out any potential the embryonic solidarity of the longshore workers and port truckers might have had to shift the balance of power between themselves and their employers...
Teamsters Boycotting Hollywood Trucking Firm Quixote Variety ...A branch of the Intl. Brotherhood of Teamsters has launched a boycott of the non-union Quixote Studios, one of Hollywood’s largest operators of truck and trailer fleets...
Teamsters, prominent Hollywood vendor in high-profile standoff Los Angeles Times ...“We're trying to bring production back to California, but we want it to be union production and that's what we're trying to do,” Dayan said. “We're trying to organize the unorganized and to help those individuals maintain a middle-class livelihood. That's what we do...”
Trade
End in Sight for U.S.-Japan TPP Talks On Agriculture Market Access, Oe Says Bloomberg BNA ...Oe said that during two days of intensive, substantive negotiations, the areas where compromises are to be made have been clearly identified but that those compromises remain to be realized...
War on Workers
Flipping Schools: The Hidden Forces Behind New Jersey Education Reform truthout ...Real estate concerns and facilities funding increasingly drive neighborhood school closings and the expansion of privately managed charter schools. By allocating millions of dollars in little-known bonds exclusively to charters while imposing austerity on public facilities, the state has quietly stacked the deck for charters, leaving neighborhood schools to molder in decline...
Bare shelves for Market Basket as employees and shoppers unite in profit-sharing fight PBS Newshour ...The owners of a successful New England grocery store chain are in a family feud over whether company profits should go to shareholders or to employees, some of whom have abandoned their shifts and hit the streets...
How rural poverty is changing: Your fate is increasingly tied to your town Washington Post ... If your hometown went south, you probably did with it, unless you managed to get out and had the wherewithal to not come back...
“A Financial Casino Would Be a Step Up From What We Have” naked capitalism ...casinos are well aware of the fact that the house can lose and they monitor gamblers intensively to make sure that no one is engaging is sleight of hand. Thus if we treated our banking system like the financial casino that it has become, we’d be much better off than we are now...
A Corporate Tax Break That’s Closer to Home New York Times ...the Internal Revenue Service, officials have recently opened the window to another (corporate tax break). They did so in a ruling disclosed late last month by Windstream Holdings, a telecommunications company based in Little Rock, Ark. The ruling allows Windstream to spin off its copper and fiber network into a real estate investment trust, or REIT. That sounds pretty ho-hum until you realize it means that Windstream won’t have to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes...
Friday, July 4, 2014
Today's Teamster News 07.04.14
Teamster News
Hinckley Springs Workers Go Out On Strike Des Plaines Valley News ...Union representatives and local employees said that negotiations with ownership, DS Services of America Inc., broke down June 25. Employees said that the company refused to negotiate with the union and have indicated that they want members to take a pay cut while taking on more responsibilities. That has union members angry...
Mike's Hard Lemonade Is Too Sour, Say Ohio Teamsters teamster.org ...At Columbus’ Independence Day celebration, “Red, White and Boom,” Teamsters who work at Heidelberg Distributing gave information to the public today about anti-worker behavior by the company, which is the distributor of Mike’s Hard Lemonade products in Ohio...
Teamsters Local 988 Welcomes Houston Laundry Drivers into Union teamster.org ...Laundry drivers at Angelica Linen voted 9-5 yesterday in favor of union representation with Teamsters Local 988 in Houston, Texas. There are 14 drivers in the new bargaining unit...
Trade
Trans Pacific Partnership Meeting Switched From Vancouver To Ottawa, Ducking Critics BoingBoing ...What could make the secretive Trans Pacific Partnership process even less legit? Moving it at the last minute, under cover of darkness, from Vancouver to Ottawa, in order to avoid critics of the treaty and how it is being negotiated...
State Battles
Governor Patrick Signs Domestic Workers Bill Of Rights Into Law Boston Globe ...Governor Patrick signed into law a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights on Wednesday, making Massachusetts the fourth state in the country to provide protections for nannies and housekeepers that most employees at companies take for granted...
Realtors asked for budget provision expanding foreign ownership of state land The Cap Times ...Wisconsin Realtors look to be next in line to benefit from Gov. Scott Walker’s “Wisconsin is open for business” vow. While there has been no shortage of speculation behind what is driving Walker’s proposal to loosen restrictions on land purchases by buyers from outside the U.S., Thomas Larson, vice president of legal and public affairs with the Wisconsin Realtors Association, takes some of the credit...
New Delaware Law Will Ensure Employers Can't Force Workers To Have Unsafe Pregnancies Think Progress ...On Monday, the Delaware House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill that would protect pregnant workers from discrimination after the Senate had previously done the same...
States That Raised Their Minimum Wage Are Experiencing Faster Job Growth Think Progress ...Think a higher minimum wage is a job killer? Think again: The states that raised their minimum wages on January 1 have seen higher employment growth since then than the states that kept theirs at the same rate...
War On Workers
32 states lag U.S. in job recovery Associated Press ...Even though economists declared the recession over in June 2009, Illinois is still down 184,000 jobs from pre-recession levels. New Jersey is down 147,000. Both states were hurt by layoffs at factories. Florida is down 170,000 in the aftermath of its real estate market collapse...
June Full-Time Jobs Plunge By Over Half A Million, Part-Time Jobs Surge By 800K, Most Since 1993 zero hedge ...Is this the reason for the blowout, on the surface, payroll number? In June the BLS reports that the number of full-time jobs tumbled by 523K to 118.2 million while part-time jobs soared by 799K to over 28 million!...
How the South is becoming a solid band of poverty: One in three live in poor neighborhoods Daily Mail ...The number of Americans living in poor neighborhoods has skyrocketed in the last decade - and nowhere is the trend more prominent than in the South, where more than 30percent of the population is concentrated in an area with high poverty...
The War On Workers (opinion) New York Times ...All of Illinois’s in-home care providers benefit from union representation. Until Monday, all were required to pay a modest fee for those services. But now workers can “free ride.”...
Once Again, The Roberts Court Rules Against American Workers The Hill ...In both the public and private sectors, non-member employees who pay fair-share fees enjoy a well-established and longstanding right to opt out of paying for a union's political activities. Rather, this case was simply a partisan effort by anti-union forces to destroy the collective rights of public employees...
Miscellaneous
If you read Boing Boing, the NSA considers you a target for deep surveillance Boing Boing ...In a shocking story on the German site Tagesschau (Google translate), Lena Kampf, Jacob Appelbaum and John Goetz report on the rules used by the NSA to decide who is a "target" for surveillance...
Hinckley Springs Workers Go Out On Strike Des Plaines Valley News ...Union representatives and local employees said that negotiations with ownership, DS Services of America Inc., broke down June 25. Employees said that the company refused to negotiate with the union and have indicated that they want members to take a pay cut while taking on more responsibilities. That has union members angry...
Mike's Hard Lemonade Is Too Sour, Say Ohio Teamsters teamster.org ...At Columbus’ Independence Day celebration, “Red, White and Boom,” Teamsters who work at Heidelberg Distributing gave information to the public today about anti-worker behavior by the company, which is the distributor of Mike’s Hard Lemonade products in Ohio...
Teamsters Local 988 Welcomes Houston Laundry Drivers into Union teamster.org ...Laundry drivers at Angelica Linen voted 9-5 yesterday in favor of union representation with Teamsters Local 988 in Houston, Texas. There are 14 drivers in the new bargaining unit...
Trade
Trans Pacific Partnership Meeting Switched From Vancouver To Ottawa, Ducking Critics BoingBoing ...What could make the secretive Trans Pacific Partnership process even less legit? Moving it at the last minute, under cover of darkness, from Vancouver to Ottawa, in order to avoid critics of the treaty and how it is being negotiated...
State Battles
Governor Patrick Signs Domestic Workers Bill Of Rights Into Law Boston Globe ...Governor Patrick signed into law a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights on Wednesday, making Massachusetts the fourth state in the country to provide protections for nannies and housekeepers that most employees at companies take for granted...
Realtors asked for budget provision expanding foreign ownership of state land The Cap Times ...Wisconsin Realtors look to be next in line to benefit from Gov. Scott Walker’s “Wisconsin is open for business” vow. While there has been no shortage of speculation behind what is driving Walker’s proposal to loosen restrictions on land purchases by buyers from outside the U.S., Thomas Larson, vice president of legal and public affairs with the Wisconsin Realtors Association, takes some of the credit...
New Delaware Law Will Ensure Employers Can't Force Workers To Have Unsafe Pregnancies Think Progress ...On Monday, the Delaware House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill that would protect pregnant workers from discrimination after the Senate had previously done the same...
States That Raised Their Minimum Wage Are Experiencing Faster Job Growth Think Progress ...Think a higher minimum wage is a job killer? Think again: The states that raised their minimum wages on January 1 have seen higher employment growth since then than the states that kept theirs at the same rate...
War On Workers
32 states lag U.S. in job recovery Associated Press ...Even though economists declared the recession over in June 2009, Illinois is still down 184,000 jobs from pre-recession levels. New Jersey is down 147,000. Both states were hurt by layoffs at factories. Florida is down 170,000 in the aftermath of its real estate market collapse...
June Full-Time Jobs Plunge By Over Half A Million, Part-Time Jobs Surge By 800K, Most Since 1993 zero hedge ...Is this the reason for the blowout, on the surface, payroll number? In June the BLS reports that the number of full-time jobs tumbled by 523K to 118.2 million while part-time jobs soared by 799K to over 28 million!...
How the South is becoming a solid band of poverty: One in three live in poor neighborhoods Daily Mail ...The number of Americans living in poor neighborhoods has skyrocketed in the last decade - and nowhere is the trend more prominent than in the South, where more than 30percent of the population is concentrated in an area with high poverty...
The War On Workers (opinion) New York Times ...All of Illinois’s in-home care providers benefit from union representation. Until Monday, all were required to pay a modest fee for those services. But now workers can “free ride.”...
Once Again, The Roberts Court Rules Against American Workers The Hill ...In both the public and private sectors, non-member employees who pay fair-share fees enjoy a well-established and longstanding right to opt out of paying for a union's political activities. Rather, this case was simply a partisan effort by anti-union forces to destroy the collective rights of public employees...
Miscellaneous
If you read Boing Boing, the NSA considers you a target for deep surveillance Boing Boing ...In a shocking story on the German site Tagesschau (Google translate), Lena Kampf, Jacob Appelbaum and John Goetz report on the rules used by the NSA to decide who is a "target" for surveillance...
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Today's Teamster News 06.17.14
Teamster News
EVSC School Board extends 'final offer' to Teamsters Local 215 employee groups Evansville Courier & Press ...The Evansville Vanderburgh School Board voted Monday night to extend their original contract offer to employee groups represented by Teamsters Local 215 — bus drivers, bus aides, custodians, special education assistants and secretaries — after those members who voted on it earlier this month overwhelmingly rejected it; and then made a counter-offer...
Trade
Bipartisan Group of 150+ Members of Congress Urge Commerce Department to Act on Dumping of Steel Pipe Trade Reform ...the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) praised a bipartisan group of more than 150 Members of Congress for signing a letter to U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker urging a thorough investigation of the dumping of Oil Country Tubular Goods (OCTG) steel pipe in the U.S. market by South Korea...
State Battles
San Francisco Leads The Way With $15 Minimum Wage Ballot Measure Los Angeles Times ...Unlike in Seattle, San Francisco employers would have to comply regardless of their companies' size and receive no credit for sick or healthcare pay they already provide. Workers who receive tips are included....
Who In Maine Benefits From A $10.10 Minimum Wage? Bangor Daily News ...112,000 workers in Maine, 20.2% of workers, would benefit from an increase in the minimum wage to $10.10...
Low-Income Restaurant Workers Want Gov. Cuomo And State Labor Dept. To Help Them Wage War Against Wage Theft New York Daily News ...it is estimated that low-income workers are robbed of more than $1 billion every year. Yet the law puts no resources toward enforcement, which means that in the rare instances workers win their wage theft complaints, they seldom collect...
War On Workers
Hell on Wheels: Are bad trucking laws partially to blame for Tracy Morgan's accident? The New Republic ...Two days before Kevin Roper crashed his Walmart big rig into Tracy Morgan’s limousine, critically injuring the comedian and killing his colleague James McNair, the Senate Appropriations Committee quietly loosened the laws governing truckers’ hours on the road...
Kochs launch new super PAC for midterm fight Politico ...The new group aims to spend more than $15 million in the 2014 midterm campaigns — part of a much larger spending effort expected to total $290 million...
Cantor Shocker and New Survey Put Anger at Wall Street at Center of Political Debate Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research ...A 64 percent majority believes "the stock market is rigged for insiders and people who know how to manipulate the system..."
The coming 'tsunami of debt' and financial crisis in America (opinion) The Guardian ...the debt held by American households is rising ominously. And unless our economic policies change, that debt balloon, powered by radical income inequality, is going to become the next bust...
Without Highway Bill, 700,000 Jobs at Risk AFL-CIO Now ...If Congress doesn’t act soon, more than 700,000 middle class jobs building the nation’s highways, bridges and transit systems will be at risk. While the legislation authorizing the spending for those vital projects doesn’t expire until Sept. 30, the Highway Trust Fund that helps states pay for transportation construction and upkeep is running out of money and layoffs could begin later next month...
EVSC School Board extends 'final offer' to Teamsters Local 215 employee groups Evansville Courier & Press ...The Evansville Vanderburgh School Board voted Monday night to extend their original contract offer to employee groups represented by Teamsters Local 215 — bus drivers, bus aides, custodians, special education assistants and secretaries — after those members who voted on it earlier this month overwhelmingly rejected it; and then made a counter-offer...
Trade
Bipartisan Group of 150+ Members of Congress Urge Commerce Department to Act on Dumping of Steel Pipe Trade Reform ...the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) praised a bipartisan group of more than 150 Members of Congress for signing a letter to U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker urging a thorough investigation of the dumping of Oil Country Tubular Goods (OCTG) steel pipe in the U.S. market by South Korea...
State Battles
San Francisco Leads The Way With $15 Minimum Wage Ballot Measure Los Angeles Times ...Unlike in Seattle, San Francisco employers would have to comply regardless of their companies' size and receive no credit for sick or healthcare pay they already provide. Workers who receive tips are included....
Who In Maine Benefits From A $10.10 Minimum Wage? Bangor Daily News ...112,000 workers in Maine, 20.2% of workers, would benefit from an increase in the minimum wage to $10.10...
Low-Income Restaurant Workers Want Gov. Cuomo And State Labor Dept. To Help Them Wage War Against Wage Theft New York Daily News ...it is estimated that low-income workers are robbed of more than $1 billion every year. Yet the law puts no resources toward enforcement, which means that in the rare instances workers win their wage theft complaints, they seldom collect...
War On Workers
Hell on Wheels: Are bad trucking laws partially to blame for Tracy Morgan's accident? The New Republic ...Two days before Kevin Roper crashed his Walmart big rig into Tracy Morgan’s limousine, critically injuring the comedian and killing his colleague James McNair, the Senate Appropriations Committee quietly loosened the laws governing truckers’ hours on the road...
Kochs launch new super PAC for midterm fight Politico ...The new group aims to spend more than $15 million in the 2014 midterm campaigns — part of a much larger spending effort expected to total $290 million...
Cantor Shocker and New Survey Put Anger at Wall Street at Center of Political Debate Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research ...A 64 percent majority believes "the stock market is rigged for insiders and people who know how to manipulate the system..."
The coming 'tsunami of debt' and financial crisis in America (opinion) The Guardian ...the debt held by American households is rising ominously. And unless our economic policies change, that debt balloon, powered by radical income inequality, is going to become the next bust...
Without Highway Bill, 700,000 Jobs at Risk AFL-CIO Now ...If Congress doesn’t act soon, more than 700,000 middle class jobs building the nation’s highways, bridges and transit systems will be at risk. While the legislation authorizing the spending for those vital projects doesn’t expire until Sept. 30, the Highway Trust Fund that helps states pay for transportation construction and upkeep is running out of money and layoffs could begin later next month...
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Today's Teamster News 06.04.14
Teamster News
Union Workers Approve Close Out Agreement With Rite-Aid West Virginia Metro News ...The Rite-Aid distribution center in Poca is going to stay open about 18 months longer than originally announced following a new deal between the company and Teamsters union...
Teamsters push to oust Rob Walton as Walmart board chairman, support Walmart strikers TeamsterNation ...The Teamsters Union is calling for an independent board chairmanat Walmart because of the company's labor violations and theongoing investigation into corruption and bribery in Mexico, China, Brazil and India...
Nearly 99 percent of BLET members authorize strike Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen ...An overwhelming 98.84 percent majority of BLET members working for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) have voted to authorize a strike when a mandatory 30-day cooling off period under the Railway Labor Act comes to an end in less than two weeks...
UPS In Wyoming Valley To Add Jobs, Convert Vehicles To Natural Gas Wilkes-Barre Times Leader ...Cartwright was at the facility off Armstrong Road to meet with UPS officials and employees to talk about several issues, including the company's "labor friendly" relationship with the Teamsters Union. More than 400,000 UPS workers nationwide are union members...
OnTrac Line Haul Drivers Ratify First-Ever Teamster Contract teamster.org ...line haul drivers ratified the first-ever Teamster contract at OnTrac, the largest regional package delivery company in America. The drivers are members of Teamsters Local Union 63 in Covina, Calif. and had been negotiating a first contract for more than a year...
Trade
NMPF, USDEC Threaten To Withdraw Support For Trans-Pacific Partnership Ag Web ...The majority of U.S. dairy farmer cooperatives and dairy processing companies, all of which are members of the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) or the U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC), today threatened to withdraw support from the pending Trans-Pacific trade agreement...
Walmart's 'Made in USA' push exposes strains of manufacturing rebirth Reuters ...When Walmart pledged last year to buy an extra $250 billion in U.S.-made goods over the next decade, it appeared to be just what was needed to help move America's putative manufacturing renaissance from rhetoric to reality. But suppliers trying to reshore production as part of the initiative by the world's largest retailer are running into practical problems as they try to restart long-idled corners of U.S. manufacturing...
State Battles
Seattle To Enact $15 Minimum Wage Washington Post ...The Seattle City Council voted unanimously Monday to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, equaling the highest minimum wage in the nation...
Scott Walker's Dark Money Troubles The Progressive ...The week after Governor Scott Walker's opponent Mary Burke pulled even with Walker in the polls, the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity dumped $900,000 into a major TV ad buy in Wisconsin, aimed at persuading Wisconsinites that things are going better in the state than they may think...
War On Workers
After Crash Killing 47, Oil-by-Rail on Trial in Canada, Maine truthout ...The explosive growth of oil by rail traffic in the United States and Canada and the failure to do anything about safety except tinker around the edges of the matter all but guarantee that the string of oil train crashes that followed the Lac Mégantic tragedy will continue...
Allure of Homeownership Slumps Amid Worries of Continued Crisis Wall Street Journal ...While home prices have stopped falling, the vast majority of Americans still believe the housing crisis isn’t over, according to a wide-ranging survey on housing attitudes released Tuesday...
Walmart Workers Are Going On Strike To Speak Out. Why Walmart Should Listen Christian Science Monitor ...The current struggle of low-wage workers across America echoes the civil rights struggle of the 1960s. Today, as then, a group of Americans is denied the dignity of decent wages and working conditions...
1 in 5 Children Live in Poverty in U.S. CNS News ...One in five children under age 18, or 21.3%, are living in poverty in the United States, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau...
Low Retail Wages Disproportionately Hurt Women MSNBC ...Women earn disproportionately low wages across the entire retail industry, according to a new report from the left-leaning think tank Demos...
D.C. Council To Vote On Wage Theft Bill Tuesday ABC News ...The D.C. Council is set to vote on a bill that would enhance penalties for employers who pay their employees illegal wages or less than what they've agreed to pay...
Miscellaneous
Income From Work Is Shrinking. Here Is Where Most Americans Are Getting More Of Their Income Now Vox ...Americans' income from work is substantially smaller than it used to be. The Washington Post's Lydia DePillis today highlights a Wells Fargo report that Americans' non-labor income is growing while their income from jobs is diminishing...
Could A 6-Cent Tax Sour Us On Soda And Sugary Drinks? PBS ...A new study published in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics concludes that a tax on sodas and other sugary beverages could be the way to go. Specifically, the authors argue that taxing by the calorie would prompt consumers to cut back...
Union Workers Approve Close Out Agreement With Rite-Aid West Virginia Metro News ...The Rite-Aid distribution center in Poca is going to stay open about 18 months longer than originally announced following a new deal between the company and Teamsters union...
Teamsters push to oust Rob Walton as Walmart board chairman, support Walmart strikers TeamsterNation ...The Teamsters Union is calling for an independent board chairmanat Walmart because of the company's labor violations and theongoing investigation into corruption and bribery in Mexico, China, Brazil and India...
Nearly 99 percent of BLET members authorize strike Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen ...An overwhelming 98.84 percent majority of BLET members working for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) have voted to authorize a strike when a mandatory 30-day cooling off period under the Railway Labor Act comes to an end in less than two weeks...
UPS In Wyoming Valley To Add Jobs, Convert Vehicles To Natural Gas Wilkes-Barre Times Leader ...Cartwright was at the facility off Armstrong Road to meet with UPS officials and employees to talk about several issues, including the company's "labor friendly" relationship with the Teamsters Union. More than 400,000 UPS workers nationwide are union members...
OnTrac Line Haul Drivers Ratify First-Ever Teamster Contract teamster.org ...line haul drivers ratified the first-ever Teamster contract at OnTrac, the largest regional package delivery company in America. The drivers are members of Teamsters Local Union 63 in Covina, Calif. and had been negotiating a first contract for more than a year...
Trade
NMPF, USDEC Threaten To Withdraw Support For Trans-Pacific Partnership Ag Web ...The majority of U.S. dairy farmer cooperatives and dairy processing companies, all of which are members of the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) or the U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC), today threatened to withdraw support from the pending Trans-Pacific trade agreement...
Walmart's 'Made in USA' push exposes strains of manufacturing rebirth Reuters ...When Walmart pledged last year to buy an extra $250 billion in U.S.-made goods over the next decade, it appeared to be just what was needed to help move America's putative manufacturing renaissance from rhetoric to reality. But suppliers trying to reshore production as part of the initiative by the world's largest retailer are running into practical problems as they try to restart long-idled corners of U.S. manufacturing...
State Battles
Seattle To Enact $15 Minimum Wage Washington Post ...The Seattle City Council voted unanimously Monday to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, equaling the highest minimum wage in the nation...
Scott Walker's Dark Money Troubles The Progressive ...The week after Governor Scott Walker's opponent Mary Burke pulled even with Walker in the polls, the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity dumped $900,000 into a major TV ad buy in Wisconsin, aimed at persuading Wisconsinites that things are going better in the state than they may think...
War On Workers
After Crash Killing 47, Oil-by-Rail on Trial in Canada, Maine truthout ...The explosive growth of oil by rail traffic in the United States and Canada and the failure to do anything about safety except tinker around the edges of the matter all but guarantee that the string of oil train crashes that followed the Lac Mégantic tragedy will continue...
Allure of Homeownership Slumps Amid Worries of Continued Crisis Wall Street Journal ...While home prices have stopped falling, the vast majority of Americans still believe the housing crisis isn’t over, according to a wide-ranging survey on housing attitudes released Tuesday...
Walmart Workers Are Going On Strike To Speak Out. Why Walmart Should Listen Christian Science Monitor ...The current struggle of low-wage workers across America echoes the civil rights struggle of the 1960s. Today, as then, a group of Americans is denied the dignity of decent wages and working conditions...
1 in 5 Children Live in Poverty in U.S. CNS News ...One in five children under age 18, or 21.3%, are living in poverty in the United States, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau...
Low Retail Wages Disproportionately Hurt Women MSNBC ...Women earn disproportionately low wages across the entire retail industry, according to a new report from the left-leaning think tank Demos...
D.C. Council To Vote On Wage Theft Bill Tuesday ABC News ...The D.C. Council is set to vote on a bill that would enhance penalties for employers who pay their employees illegal wages or less than what they've agreed to pay...
Miscellaneous
Income From Work Is Shrinking. Here Is Where Most Americans Are Getting More Of Their Income Now Vox ...Americans' income from work is substantially smaller than it used to be. The Washington Post's Lydia DePillis today highlights a Wells Fargo report that Americans' non-labor income is growing while their income from jobs is diminishing...
Could A 6-Cent Tax Sour Us On Soda And Sugary Drinks? PBS ...A new study published in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics concludes that a tax on sodas and other sugary beverages could be the way to go. Specifically, the authors argue that taxing by the calorie would prompt consumers to cut back...
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Today's Teamster News 05.20.14
Teamster News
Park Ridge Police Department Chooses Teamsters Representation teamster.org ...Teamsters Local 700’s law enforcement membership continues to expand as 40 members with the Park Ridge Police Department join the Teamsters...
Seattle Transportation Network Drivers Vote To Form Association With Teamsters teamster.org ...Uber and UberX drivers met in Tukwila, Wash., to begin the process of forming an association which will work with Teamsters Local 117 yesterday...
Trade
Dog Illnesses and Deaths Linked to Imported Pet Treats From China Alternet ...the USDA will soon allow U.S. chickens to be sent to China for processing before being shipped back to the states for human consumption...
Trans-Pacific Partnership: Another Trade Liberalization Scam Truthout ...The gathering pressure for Congress to "fast track" the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) demonstrates yet again that trade liberalization is one of the few aspects of economic policy about which there is agreement across the mainstream of the political spectrum...
Steelworkers to D.C.: Enforce our trade laws Trade Reform ...About 200 steel industry supporters and steel workers gathered at Civic Park Friday to protest the recent flood of imported steel from South Korea because it jeopardizes jobs within the city’s largest employer. The United Steelworkers Local 1899 in Granite City, which represents most of the 2,500 employees at U.S. Steel’s plant in Granite City, organized the rally because the South Korean steel imported into this country is sold below market value, making it difficult for U.S. steel mills to compete...
State Battles
More states, cities raising minimum wage USA Today ...The fast-food walkouts Thursday are part of a broader nationwide effort to raise the minimum wage for millions of low-income workers, a campaign that's notching growing success in states and cities across the USA...
Connecticut Public Retirement Plan Passes, More or Less The Baseline Scenario ...a proposal in Connecticut (would) create a new tax-preferred retirement plan that would, by default, include almost all workers who don’t currently have access to an employment-based plan (like a 401(k)). That proposal took some major steps forward when it was included in an end-of-session bill that was passed by the Connecticut legislature...the bill authorizes a feasibility study and implementation plan for the new retirement option...
War On Workers
Congratulations To The Class Of 2014, Most Indebted Ever Wall Street Journal ...As college graduates in the Class of 2014 prepare to shift their tassels and accept their diplomas, they leave school with one discouraging distinction: They're the most indebted class ever...
Credit Suisse pleads guilty to criminal charges in US tax evasion settlement The Guardian ...Credit Suisse Group has pleaded guilty to criminal charges that it helped Americans evade taxes, becoming the first bank in more than a decade to admit to a crime in the US. It will now pay a long-expected fine of $2.5bn (£1.5bn)...
It's Time to Break Up With Sallie Mae! Jobs With Justice ...Despite mounting evidence showing how Sallie Mae has been ripping off federal student loan borrowers for years, it's still possible the Department of Education will renew its multimillion-dollar contract with the shady company next month...
NSA Collects All Phone Calls from One of World’s Most Secretive Tax Havens, But Doesn’t Track That empty wheel ...NSA/DEA don’t appear to be using this facility to track money launderers...
Turkey Erupts Over Mining Tragedy; Many Blame Privatization In These Times ...Protesters, numbering in the thousands in some major cities, continued to spill into the streets throughout the week holding placards that read, "This is not an accident, it's a massacre.” In Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, police intervened with tear gas and water cannons...
Occupy Wall Street Protester Cecily McMillan Sentenced To Three Months In Jail Huffington Post ...A New York City judge sentenced Occupy Wall Street protester Cecily McMillan on Monday to three months in jail and five years probation...
Miscellaneous
U.S. Charges Five Chinese Military Hackers for Cyber Espionage Against U.S. Corporations and a Labor Organization for Commercial Advantage US Department of Justice ...A grand jury in the Western District of Pennsylvania (WDPA) indicted five Chinese military hackers for computer hacking, economic espionage and other offenses directed at six American victims in the U.S. nuclear power, metals and solar products industries...
Park Ridge Police Department Chooses Teamsters Representation teamster.org ...Teamsters Local 700’s law enforcement membership continues to expand as 40 members with the Park Ridge Police Department join the Teamsters...
Seattle Transportation Network Drivers Vote To Form Association With Teamsters teamster.org ...Uber and UberX drivers met in Tukwila, Wash., to begin the process of forming an association which will work with Teamsters Local 117 yesterday...
Trade
Dog Illnesses and Deaths Linked to Imported Pet Treats From China Alternet ...the USDA will soon allow U.S. chickens to be sent to China for processing before being shipped back to the states for human consumption...
Trans-Pacific Partnership: Another Trade Liberalization Scam Truthout ...The gathering pressure for Congress to "fast track" the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) demonstrates yet again that trade liberalization is one of the few aspects of economic policy about which there is agreement across the mainstream of the political spectrum...
Steelworkers to D.C.: Enforce our trade laws Trade Reform ...About 200 steel industry supporters and steel workers gathered at Civic Park Friday to protest the recent flood of imported steel from South Korea because it jeopardizes jobs within the city’s largest employer. The United Steelworkers Local 1899 in Granite City, which represents most of the 2,500 employees at U.S. Steel’s plant in Granite City, organized the rally because the South Korean steel imported into this country is sold below market value, making it difficult for U.S. steel mills to compete...
State Battles
More states, cities raising minimum wage USA Today ...The fast-food walkouts Thursday are part of a broader nationwide effort to raise the minimum wage for millions of low-income workers, a campaign that's notching growing success in states and cities across the USA...
Connecticut Public Retirement Plan Passes, More or Less The Baseline Scenario ...a proposal in Connecticut (would) create a new tax-preferred retirement plan that would, by default, include almost all workers who don’t currently have access to an employment-based plan (like a 401(k)). That proposal took some major steps forward when it was included in an end-of-session bill that was passed by the Connecticut legislature...the bill authorizes a feasibility study and implementation plan for the new retirement option...
War On Workers
Congratulations To The Class Of 2014, Most Indebted Ever Wall Street Journal ...As college graduates in the Class of 2014 prepare to shift their tassels and accept their diplomas, they leave school with one discouraging distinction: They're the most indebted class ever...
Credit Suisse pleads guilty to criminal charges in US tax evasion settlement The Guardian ...Credit Suisse Group has pleaded guilty to criminal charges that it helped Americans evade taxes, becoming the first bank in more than a decade to admit to a crime in the US. It will now pay a long-expected fine of $2.5bn (£1.5bn)...
It's Time to Break Up With Sallie Mae! Jobs With Justice ...Despite mounting evidence showing how Sallie Mae has been ripping off federal student loan borrowers for years, it's still possible the Department of Education will renew its multimillion-dollar contract with the shady company next month...
NSA Collects All Phone Calls from One of World’s Most Secretive Tax Havens, But Doesn’t Track That empty wheel ...NSA/DEA don’t appear to be using this facility to track money launderers...
Turkey Erupts Over Mining Tragedy; Many Blame Privatization In These Times ...Protesters, numbering in the thousands in some major cities, continued to spill into the streets throughout the week holding placards that read, "This is not an accident, it's a massacre.” In Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, police intervened with tear gas and water cannons...
Occupy Wall Street Protester Cecily McMillan Sentenced To Three Months In Jail Huffington Post ...A New York City judge sentenced Occupy Wall Street protester Cecily McMillan on Monday to three months in jail and five years probation...
Miscellaneous
U.S. Charges Five Chinese Military Hackers for Cyber Espionage Against U.S. Corporations and a Labor Organization for Commercial Advantage US Department of Justice ...A grand jury in the Western District of Pennsylvania (WDPA) indicted five Chinese military hackers for computer hacking, economic espionage and other offenses directed at six American victims in the U.S. nuclear power, metals and solar products industries...
Monday, March 31, 2014
Today's Teamster News 03.31.14
Teamster News
CCTA strike heads into third week, board to explore options WPTZ News 5 ...negotiations between management and the Teamsters Union is the top priority, but there are other options to explore. They include legal remedies, such as asking for a judge to step in and file an injunction requiring union members work during the negotiations...
CCTA offers proposal to drivers Vermont Digger ...On Friday, March 28, CCTA and the Union engaged in negotiations for over 17 hours. The negotiations resulted in CCTA delivering another complete written compromise contract proposal to the Union...
Trade
Cokie Roberts Picked a Fight With Alan Grayson on the TransPacific Partnership. Guess Who Won? naked capitalism ...“Fast Track” legislation simply is a ploy to jam the resulting surrender to multinational corporations through Congress, without hearings, without mark-ups, without amendments and even without significant debate...
State Battles
Raising the Minimum Wage Does not ‘Kill Jobs’ – Preliminary Evidence from 2014 Center for Economic Policy and Research ...At the beginning of 2014, thirteen states increased their minimum wage…. Goldman Sachs compared the employment change … They concluded that … the group of states that had hikes at the start of 2014 in fact performed better than states without hikes...
Right-to-work takes away employer choice (opinion) St. Louis Post Dispatch ... A good wage creates a consumer that with a disposable income that can purchase a good or service from local businesses investing in the local community...
Voters May Decide 'Right to Work' Issue; Controversy Builds Ozarks First ...Sen. Eric Burlison, a Republican representing Springfield, says the "Right to Work" bill he introduced may ultimately be decided by Missouri voters...
New G.O.P. Bid to Limit Voting in Swing States New York Times ...Pivotal swing states under Republican control are embracing significant new electoral restrictions on registering and voting that go beyond the voter identification requirements that have caused fierce partisan brawls...
The War on Workers
80 percent of U.S. adults face near-poverty, unemployment, survey finds (old) Associated Press ...Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream...
A Nation of Takers? (opinion) New York Times ...Here are five public welfare programs that are wasteful and turning us into a nation of “takers.” First, welfare subsidies for private planes...
The New Billionaire Political Bosses Robert Reich ...So far in the 2014 election cycle, “Americans for Prosperity,” the Koch brother’s political front group, has aired more than 17,000 broadcast TV commercials, compared with only 2,100 aired by Republican Party groups...
United Autoworkers membership grows slightly Associated Press ...The United Auto Workers said its membership grew by nearly 9,000 people last year, the union said in a filing with Department of Labor, the fourth-straight year that the union has rebuilt...
Plutocracy without end: Why the 1 percent always defeats the middle class (opinion) Salon ...Plutocracy shocks us every day with its viciousness, but that doesn’t mean God will strike it down. The middle-class model worked much better for about ninety-nine percent of the population, but that doesn’t make it some kind of dialectic inevitability...
Waves of Nationwide Actions Planned at Key Historic Moment Alternet ...The #WaveOfAction extends from the day Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated to Independence Day. The campaign will begin with candlelight vigils around the world at the time of MLK’s assassination, which was 7:05 pm EST on April 4...
California Farmers Short of Labor, and Patience New York Times ...the powerful Western Growers Association, a group based in Irvine, Calif., that represents hundreds of farmers in California and Arizona, says many of its members may withhold contributions from Republicans in congressional races because of the party’s stance against a comprehensive immigration overhaul...
Miscellaneous
Adelson Wooed by Republican Presidential Prospects at Vegas Meet Bloomberg ...Three Republican governors eyeing the White House, including embattled New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, were in Las Vegas yesterday to court Sheldon Adelson, a billionaire casino owner who could give any of their eventual campaigns a major financial boost...
CCTA strike heads into third week, board to explore options WPTZ News 5 ...negotiations between management and the Teamsters Union is the top priority, but there are other options to explore. They include legal remedies, such as asking for a judge to step in and file an injunction requiring union members work during the negotiations...
CCTA offers proposal to drivers Vermont Digger ...On Friday, March 28, CCTA and the Union engaged in negotiations for over 17 hours. The negotiations resulted in CCTA delivering another complete written compromise contract proposal to the Union...
Trade
Cokie Roberts Picked a Fight With Alan Grayson on the TransPacific Partnership. Guess Who Won? naked capitalism ...“Fast Track” legislation simply is a ploy to jam the resulting surrender to multinational corporations through Congress, without hearings, without mark-ups, without amendments and even without significant debate...
State Battles
Raising the Minimum Wage Does not ‘Kill Jobs’ – Preliminary Evidence from 2014 Center for Economic Policy and Research ...At the beginning of 2014, thirteen states increased their minimum wage…. Goldman Sachs compared the employment change … They concluded that … the group of states that had hikes at the start of 2014 in fact performed better than states without hikes...
Right-to-work takes away employer choice (opinion) St. Louis Post Dispatch ... A good wage creates a consumer that with a disposable income that can purchase a good or service from local businesses investing in the local community...
Voters May Decide 'Right to Work' Issue; Controversy Builds Ozarks First ...Sen. Eric Burlison, a Republican representing Springfield, says the "Right to Work" bill he introduced may ultimately be decided by Missouri voters...
New G.O.P. Bid to Limit Voting in Swing States New York Times ...Pivotal swing states under Republican control are embracing significant new electoral restrictions on registering and voting that go beyond the voter identification requirements that have caused fierce partisan brawls...
The War on Workers
80 percent of U.S. adults face near-poverty, unemployment, survey finds (old) Associated Press ...Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream...
A Nation of Takers? (opinion) New York Times ...Here are five public welfare programs that are wasteful and turning us into a nation of “takers.” First, welfare subsidies for private planes...
The New Billionaire Political Bosses Robert Reich ...So far in the 2014 election cycle, “Americans for Prosperity,” the Koch brother’s political front group, has aired more than 17,000 broadcast TV commercials, compared with only 2,100 aired by Republican Party groups...
United Autoworkers membership grows slightly Associated Press ...The United Auto Workers said its membership grew by nearly 9,000 people last year, the union said in a filing with Department of Labor, the fourth-straight year that the union has rebuilt...
Plutocracy without end: Why the 1 percent always defeats the middle class (opinion) Salon ...Plutocracy shocks us every day with its viciousness, but that doesn’t mean God will strike it down. The middle-class model worked much better for about ninety-nine percent of the population, but that doesn’t make it some kind of dialectic inevitability...
Waves of Nationwide Actions Planned at Key Historic Moment Alternet ...The #WaveOfAction extends from the day Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated to Independence Day. The campaign will begin with candlelight vigils around the world at the time of MLK’s assassination, which was 7:05 pm EST on April 4...
California Farmers Short of Labor, and Patience New York Times ...the powerful Western Growers Association, a group based in Irvine, Calif., that represents hundreds of farmers in California and Arizona, says many of its members may withhold contributions from Republicans in congressional races because of the party’s stance against a comprehensive immigration overhaul...
Miscellaneous
Adelson Wooed by Republican Presidential Prospects at Vegas Meet Bloomberg ...Three Republican governors eyeing the White House, including embattled New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, were in Las Vegas yesterday to court Sheldon Adelson, a billionaire casino owner who could give any of their eventual campaigns a major financial boost...
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