Teamsters register members to vote so the billionaires don't call all the shots

Tomorrow is National Voter Registration Day, but for many Teamster locals EVERY day is voter registration day.

This year there are 36 governors up for election, and if you don't think that matters think again. Four years ago a crew of ALEC-backed candidates became governors and they applied ALEC economics to their states. The results have been disastrous.

Teamster Local 769's secretary-treasurer, Josh Zivalich

Scott Walker was elected governor in Wisconsin and public service workers lost their collective bargaining rights. Now, Wisconsin faces a $1.8 billion budget deficit and the state is 33rd in the country in job creation. Last month, Wisconsin lost 4,300 jobs.

Same story in Kansas, where Sam Brownback slashed taxes for corporations and raised them for working-class families. The state's job growth is anemic and it faces hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue shortfalls. The New York Times reported,

Mr. Brownback’s proudly conservative policies have turned out to be so divisive and his tax cuts have generated such a drop in state revenue that they have caused even many Republicans to revolt.

In Ohio, John Kasich tried to do what Walker did in Wisconsin with SB5. It was only after a massive effort by Ohio Teamsters and other union members that SB5 was repealed.

In Michigan, Gov. Rick Snyder sneaked right-to-work past voters behind closed doors in a lame-duck session, after saying he wouldn't. Gov. Mitch Daniels did the same thing in Indiana.

In Florida, Gov. Rick Scott tried to privatize many of the state's prisons, and it was only the hard work of Teamster corrections officers that prevented that from happening.

Still think it doesn't matter if you vote? Fine, don't. Let the billionaires call the shots. But if you do think it matters and you haven't registered, click on this link: http://ibt.io/vote

It will take you to a web page where you can register online.

Another privatization scandal (in Michigan) where no one gets punished much

In politics, it looks bad if one person wastes thousands of dollars taxpayer money on personal luxuries. But it's okay if a company loots the state treasury for millions of dollars. Or maybe they have to pay a little fine.

That's exactly what's happening in Michigan. Michigan Radio reports Gov. Rick Snyder's housing authority director took a stretch limo across Nebraska for $1,200 of the taxpayers money. Snyder fired the guy within 24 hours of the revelations.

Guess what happened to Aramark, a privatized prison food company, after maggots were found in prisoners' food and employees were fired for inappropriate behavior?

Here's Michigan Radio again:

The governor didn’t move nearly so quickly when it came to the Aramark Correctional Services abuses. For weeks, there have been stories about maggots on the chow line and scores of Aramark employees fired or suspended for inappropriate behavior.  

Many people expected that the governor would cancel Aramark’s $145 million contract with the state. But that didn’t happen. Instead, on the same day his housing director was sent packing, he announced he was sticking with Aramark. 

The governor did assess the private food service company a $200,000 fine, and said they would be obligated to change their training and staffing procedures, whatever that means.

That didn’t please the head of the corrections workers’ union, who called the fine a mere “slap on the wrist.”  

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mark Schauer said prison food service shouldn’t be privatized in the first place; he would turn it back to the state.

It's always best to engage in corruption that costs taxpayers millions. The small stuff will get you in trouble, but not when your plunder reaches into the seven and eight figures.

John Oliver takes down prison privatization

Here's John Oliver's funny take on a subject that's depressing as hell: prison privatization.

For the record, Teamsters have long (and successfully) fought prison privatization. Private prisons don't save taxpayers money -- and let's face it, justice is not a function of the private sector.

Watch and enjoy.

Today's Teamster News 05.12.14

Teamster News
Like father like son: Jimmy Hoffa Jr's union takes on UK bus giant National Express  The Independent   ...The president of America's Teamsters union, Jimmy Hoffa junior, last night urged National Express to open talks over labour practices at its Durham School Services business that runs some of the yellow US-style school buses...
Teamsters end strike at PepsiCo plant  Indianapolis Star   ...The agreement gives raises of $1.95 an hour over five years, boosting the average hourly wage to $21.50, said Jeff Combs, a representative for Teamsters Local 135. The contract covers drivers, mechanics and warehouse workers...
Trade
TPP negotiators begin talks in Vietnam in bid to conclude a deal  Global Post   ...Countries involved in negotiations for an ambitious Pacific free trade agreement began talks in Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City on Monday, aiming to strike a deal in time for a ministerial meeting set to be held in Singapore on May 19-20...
State Battles
Mich. unions cite safety as lawmakers consider more privatization  Corrections One   ...Unions are asking lawmakers to consider safety as more privatization is being considered…contracts acknowledged early problems with food privatization and nursing aides at the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans…
War on Workers
Massive International Worker Strike Has the Food Industry Terrified  Jezebel   ...Fast food workers are planning the largest international worker strike to date, and a bevy of news stories from this week show just how scared the food industry actually is of the rising tide of worker organization...
‘Robin Hood’ wins: EU to levy Financial Transactions Tax from 2016  RT   ...Eleven EU member states will be imposing a ‘Robin Hood’ tax on financial transactions, after it was proposed in 2011 to counter financial crises...
Report: The Big Money in Tax Breaks Continues  truthout   ...over a trillion dollars a year in lost revenue – more than 1.6 times the 2013 budget deficit – goes largely unnoticed...
UberX Drivers Protest Outside Uber Headquarters  Time   ...Nearly 100 disgruntled UberX drivers gathered outside Uber’s headquarters in San Francisco on Thursday to demand better pay and treatment from one of the sharing economy’s most visible companies...
How Finance Gutted Manufacturing  Boston Review   ...Since the 1980s, financial market pressures have driven companies to hive off activities that sustained manufacturing...
US failed to inspect thousands of at-risk oil and gas wells, report finds  The Guardian   ...The government has failed to inspect thousands of oil and gas wells it considers potentially high risks for water contamination and other environmental damage, congressional investigators say...
Making Ends Meet at Walmart  New York Times   ...While the company’s malaise is clearly laid out in financial tables — numbers don’t lie, after all — when it comes to figuring the performance pay of top executives, let’s just say the numbers can be made to fib...

Another prison privatization nightmare in Ohio

In the latest prison privatization nightmare, Ohio officials banned employees of a private food-service contractor from prisons for violating security, smuggling contraband and relationships with inmates ('unspecified,' but we can guess).

We've brought to you plenty of other prison privatization nightmares here, here and here. On Saturday, The Columbus Dispatch brought us this new one. The State of Ohio gave Aramark a $110 million contract to feed state inmates, replacing state employees who belong to the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association.

Since then, according to the Dispatch:

The vendor that feeds state prison inmates was fined $142,100 yesterday for contract violations that include failing to hire enough workers to prepare and serve meals... 

The Ohio Civil Service Employees Association said prison employees have logged “thousands of incidents,” including poor food quality and small portions since Aramark took over prison kitchens. 

The union is taking the state to arbitration beginning next week over what it contends was the improper privatization of food service. The move cost 17 union employees their jobs; the remainder moved to other prison positions... 

Forty-four (Aramark employees) were removed because of “inmate relationships” and 16 were banished due to security violations or bringing contraband — tobacco, lighters, marijuana and cellphones — into prison. 

Another state document shows that an Aramark employee was fired in December after admitting she had sex with a Lebanon Correctional Institution inmate. 

Aramark has fired at least 192 of its prison kitchen employees since it took over food-service operations on Sept. 8, records indicate. 

Aramark’s contract requires it to provide a minimum of 414 workers. The company had 387 employees working in the 26 state prisons as of April 4, partially prompting yesterday’s $142,100 fine.

Charming.

Today's Teamster News 04.14.14

Teamsters
Teamsters’ opposition to growler sales could stall Sunday booze bill  Minnesota Public Radio   ...Teamsters Union political director Ed Reynoso said the union started lobbying against Sunday growler sales after he learned a company that distributes alcohol and employs members of the union suggested the law would allow them to reopen their labor contracts because of it...
Keep the Carriage Horses (opinion)  New York Times   ...Let the carriages and the horses alone. Let this small business survive. Side with the drivers and do not add fleets of new cars, electric or not, into the streets and parks...
Darden gets sued over bylaw changes  Orlando Sentinel   ...A Teamsters fund that invests in Darden Restaurants stock has sued the company over recent changes to its bylaws. Darden last month added language allowing it to delay its annual shareholder meeting and making it tougher for unhappy investors to push for changes…
Trade
Vietnam Releases Dissidents Amid U.S. Trade Talks  Time   ...Vietnam has granted early release to two more high profile dissidents. The unusual moves come as the country is negotiating a free trade deal with the United States. Washington has said that it would be hard to get the deal past Congress unless Vietnam made some meaningful steps toward improving its human rights record...
US-Japan deadlock points to no April TPP deal for Obama  Financial Times   ...An impasse between the US and Japan over import tariffs means Barack Obama’s visit to Tokyo this month looks unlikely to yield the prize that some had hoped for: the key to uniting a dozen Pacific Rim economies in one trade zone...
State Battles
11 Missouri lawmakers in right-to-work spotlight  Associated Press   ...That's the number of Republicans who didn't vote last week when the chamber gave initial approval to a proposed ballot measure that would ask voters to prohibit union fees from being a condition of employment...
The War on Workers
You Know What Doesn’t Work So Well? Private Prisons  Working America   ...The myth put forth by private prison corporations like Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and the GEO Group that private prisons are cheaper than public prisons is shattered by a new report from In the Public Interest, thus undercutting the primary rationale for prison privatization efforts across the country...
Pay for Performance? It Depends on the Measuring Stick  New York Times   ...The median compensation for C.E.O.s at the 100 largest companies that have filed so far was $13.9 million, according to the Equilar 100 C.E.O. Pay Study, conducted by Equilar, an executive compensation data firm. That’s up 9 percent from 2012...
Jamie Dimon to JPMorgan Shareholders: Don’t Believe Your Lying Eyes  Wall Street on Parade   ...Out of total deposits of $1.3 trillion, Dimon says that a mere $19 billion of credit was extended to U.S. small businesses last year. And yet, that’s a key U.S. engine of job growth. In contrast, the bank “provided $274 billion of credit to consumers,” raising the concern that the weak job market and stagnating wages are forcing more households into deeper debt...
Charles Koch’s public message represents rhetorical spin at its flimsiest (opinion)  Kansas City Star   ...Koch’s analysis is that he and his brother ought to be free to run their vast pipeline, fossil-fuels and other businesses without restraint. What he declines to recognize is the idea that government can serve to protect citizens from the wanton, unregulated forces of corporate actions that spew toxic materials into our air and water, limit the economic power of American people and otherwise endanger our daily lives...
Miscellaneous
Google, once disdainful of lobbying, now a master of Washington influence  Washington Post   ...Google — once a lobbying weakling — has come to master a new method of operating in modern-day Washington, where spending on traditional lobbying is rivaled by other, less visible forms of influence. That system includes financing sympathetic research at universities and think tanks, investing in nonprofit advocacy groups across the political spectrum and funding pro-business coalitions cast as public-interest projects...

Today's Teamster News 04.01.14

Teamster News
CCTA Management and Drivers Still Make No Deal  Burlington Free Press   ...After another marathon negotiation session, no deal was reached between Chittenden County Transportation Authority management and the Teamsters Local 597 bus drivers' union, the two sides said Saturday...
City of Chicago Member wins Primary Election for Cook County Board  Local 700   ...Teamsters Local 700 member Luis Arroyo, Jr. will soon transition from a motor truck driver for the City of Chicago to a democratic nominee for the Cook County Board of Commissioners...
Tom O’Donnell Replaces Leo Reed As Director Of Teamsters  Deadline Hollywood   ...Tom O’Donnell, the current president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 817 in New York, has been named director of the Teamsters Motion Picture and Theatrical Trades Division, replacing the venerable Leo Reed, who left the post in January after 25 years at the helm...
Teamsters: Lack of county pay raises hurts services  Topeka Capital Journal   ...Shawnee County’s ability to provide quality services is suffering because the county commission isn’t giving employees pay raises, Teamsters Union members said at Monday’s commission meeting...
Trade
Trans-Pacific Partnership: Geopolitics, Not Growth  The National Interest   ...If you have to pick a winner, it’s Vietnam by a significant margin. By 2025, Vietnam would stand to gain nearly $96 billion or 28 percent of its GDP. This is largely due to exports increasing an estimated 37 percent...
Why do a majority of Americans oppose fast-tracking the TPP?  The New American   ...A recent poll reveals a majority of Americans oppose giving President Obama an end run around the constitution by fast tracking the Trans Pacific Partnership...
State Battles
Right to Work Vote in Missouri House Could Have Narrow Margin  St. Louis Post-Dispatch   ...One business priority touted by Republican Leadership has been slow to move out of the Missouri House this session. Right-to-work legislation has stalled partly because of divisions within the Republican Party and concerns the issue could endanger Republicans in swing districts...
Employee misclassification affects Illinois workers' compensation benefits  Digital Journal   ...The independent contractor versus employee classification may affect whether you will qualify for workers' compensation benefits following an on-the-job injury...
New York state joins NYC in suing FedEx for shipping untaxed cigarettes  Reuters   ...New York State joined New York City in suing package delivery company FedEx Corp for allegedly violating state and federal laws by illegally delivering contraband cigarettes to people's homes...
New York Times suggests Wisconsin voting changes are part of larger GOP swing-state effort  Cap Times ...A story this weekend notes that laws like the new one to reduce voting hours in Wisconsin are also being passed in other states where the electorate swings between Republicans and Democrats...
'Paycheck protection' lets some workers get free benefits (Opinion)  Patriot News   ...The Paycheck Protection Act would destroy the current system of union dues and fair share payments for public employees and put in its place an unfair one...
Detroit: bankrupt city readies for divisive $450m Red Wings arena  The Guardian   ...Billionaire Mike Illitch to build new hockey stadium but critics question use of $284.5m of public money...
Arizona GOP gives private prison company $1 million to house inmates who don’t exist  Raw Story   ...Lobbyists for the private prison company GEO Group convinced lawmakers to include almost $1 million extra in funding despite the fact that the Arizona Department of Corrections claimed the money wasn’t needed...
War on Workers
U.S. Regulators Say Oil Industry Withholding Data on Rail Crashes  Oil Price   ...Federal regulators said on March 28 that the oil industry was withholding key information related to the series of train derailments and explosions involving transporting crude oil...
Chemical industry-funded senators want to hide chemical industry funding of studies  Raw Story   ...OSHA chief David Michaels wants to update guidelines for working with silica dust, a significant hazard for construction workers and others exposed to the industrial byproduct that can cause lung cancer and other deadly diseases...
Walmart Realizes It’s Losing Billions Of Dollars By Denying Workers More Hours  ThinkProgress   ...Walmart will begin adding worker hours this year as part of an effort to address complaints about empty shelves at the company’s understaffed stores. Fixing the chain’s stocking problems could be worth $3 billion per year, a tacit acknowledgment that Walmart’s notorious efforts to wring productivity out of skeleton crews have hurt its bottom line...
Walmart Has A Lower Hiring Rate Than Harvard Admissions Rates  Crooks and Liars   ...It’s hard to find oneself among the freshman class at America’s top universities–and it should be! However, you may find it surprising to know that it is actually tougher to find a job at Walmart than it is to attend one of these schools...
Payday loans, overdraft fees can drain finances  Post and Courier   ...A new federal report has detailed reasons why payday lending is a financial horror that traps people in a cycle of high-interest debt...
Miscellaneous
New Alabama food truck regulations prevent local churches from feeding the homeless  The Raw Story   ...Food truck regulations that went into effect on January 1, 2014 are preventing churches in Birmingham, Alabama from feeding the homeless...

How Wall Street plunders the poor through the courts

Here's a story that shows exactly how Wall Street uses the government to loot what little money poor people have. 

No, it isn't charging fees for low-wage workers to use bank debit cards they receive instead of wages. It's something more nefarious. 

Wall Street investors bought a private probation company that charges poor people fees to collect their traffic fines. If they don't pay, the probation company uses the courts to put the debtor in jail. 

Debtors prisons are unconstitutional. The Supreme Court ruled in 1983 that it's a violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment to jail a probationer for failure to pay a fine without inquiring first into that person’s ability to pay. But the Constitution doesn't stop Wall Street.

Anyhoo, here's the story: A poor woman in her 50s named Debra Ford went to jail in Harpersville, Ala., because she couldn't pay her traffic fines. 

She was pulled aside because her taillight was out. She didn't have a license either, because she hadn't been able to pay a previous traffic fine and her license was revoked. The officer handed her tickets that amounted to $745 for driving without a license or proof of insurance.

Debra Ford then became victim of an extortion racket run by the Harpersville Municipal Court and a private probation company called Judicial Corrections Services. JCS  collects fines and court costs, skimming off some for itself in the form of a monthly fee. 

Debra Ford couldn't pay JCS's monthly fee or her traffic fines, so she went to jail for seven weeks. She was charged $31 a day for her stay in jail. After 43 days in jail, her debt rose to $2,736. 

You really have to ask: Is that what this country has come to? Debtors' prisons?

Well, yeah. The ACLU and the Brennan Center recently reported America’s jails are increasingly becoming debtors’ prisons as higher fees are levied on individuals who wind upin jail because they can’t pay their bills or fines imposed by judges. 

Fortunately, an Alabama Circuit Court Judge seized control of the Harpersville Municipal Court. Judge Hub Harrington erased Ford's debts and those of 929 other poor people who'd been looted by the court. 

Unfortunately, JCS is running its court-assisted extortion racket in 479 courts across the country, looting as much as $1 million from contracts with larger courts. 

Worse, as The Nation reports, 

...a prison healthcare corporation called Correctional Healthcare Companies bought JCS, allowing its new parent company to expand into the supervision and enforcement industry. And six months after Judge Harrington’s ruling, GTCR, a Chicago-based private equity firm, bought Correctional Healthcare Companies, including its wholly owned subsidiary JCS. It was a sign that the finance world believed criminal justice would remain good business.

Today's Teamster News 02.08.13

Register Now for the JRHMSF Golf and Poker Tournaments   teamster.org   ...Sign up for the James R. Hoffa Memorial Scholarship Fund's 12th Annual "Drive for Education" Invitational Golf Tournament  and 8th Annual "All In For Education" Texas Hold 'Em Poker Tournament in early May. The proceeds benefit children and financially dependent grandchildren of Teamster members...
Private Prisons Are a Net Loser for the Public  teamster.org   ...Governments, pressed by the corporate class, have in recent years increasingly looked for ways to outsource duties and services that could provide them with income. The growth in private prisons, as a result, has soared...
Black History Month: T.A. Stowers and the Early Teamsters Union   teamster.org  ...In August 2014, it will have been 112 years since a joint convention of the Team Drivers’ International Union and the Teamsters’ National Union was held in Niagara Falls, NY. At that convention in 1903, history was made for a number of reasons...
The Heated Politics of Free Trade Bring No Smoke, Plenty of Fire  National Journal   ...Biden, Madigan, and Schneiderman …  joined 39 other states’ attorneys general in a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman protesting emerging provisions in the Trans-Pacific trade pact that they fear would exempt U.S. tobacco companies from complying with state tobacco laws and regulations...
Local Lawmakers Weigh In on Right to Work Bills  The Missourian   ...A House bill seeks to have a public vote on whether Missouri should become a right to work state...
Evidence Mounting that Walker Campaign Is at Center of Criminal Probe  Center for Media and Democracy   ...Newly-unsealed court documents and media leaks add to a growing body of evidence that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s campaign is at the center of a wide-ranging secret probe into campaign finance violations during the state's contentious 2011 and 2012 recall elections...
Kasich floats ‘deregulation’ for schools  Columbus Dispatch   ...He could seek to ease licensing requirements for teachers to make it easier for business professionals to come into classrooms and teach, or establish some sort of formal tie between the state Board of Education and the business community so that business leaders could have a more-direct influence on curriculum...
More than a dozen communities in California could run out of water in months  AFP   ...California’s State Water Project announced for the first time in its 54-year history that it cannot deliver anything beyond the bare minimum to maintain public health and safety...
Weak Job Growth, but Declining Unemployment Give Mixed Picture in January  Center for Economic and Policy Research   ...The establishment survey showed the economy created just 113,000 jobs in January. Coupled with the 75,000 increase reported for December, this is the weakest two-month stretch since December, 2010-January 2011...
Payroll Data Shows a Lag in Wages, Not Just Hiring  New York Times   ...Wages are stuck, and barely rose at all in 2013. They were up 1.9 percent last year, or a mere 0.4 percent after accounting for inflation. Not only was that increase even smaller than the one recorded in 2012, it was half the normal rate of wage gains in the two decades before the last recession...
Chart of the Day #2: The Madness of Austerity  Mother Jones   ...If public sector employment had been growing normally during this period, we'd have about a million more jobs than we do now and the unemployment rate would probably be below 6 percent...
U.S. consumer credit posts biggest jump in 10 months  Reuters   ...U.S. consumer credit in December grew by the most in nearly a year due to a sharp increase in credit card usage...
I'm a Member of the American 'Used-to-Haves'  Huffington Post   ...I used to have a house. I used to go on vacations. I used to shop at department stores, get my hair done and even enjoy pedicures. Now, I don't. I'm a member of the American "Used-to-Haves."...
Privacy Activists' Nuclear Option: Suing Oakland Over Spy Center's Nuclear Weapons Contractors  truthout   ...The $10.9 million surveillance center is being built in stages and funded primarily through a Department of Homeland Security grant. The center will integrate the Oakland Police Department's license-plate scanners and gunshot detectors as well as social media feeds, mapping systems, feeds from hundreds of public and private cameras all over the city and other monitoring technologies into a centralized hub...
Brave Domino's Workers Successfully Win Back Stolen Wages  ThinkProgress ...NYC Domino's workers win $1.3 million in settlement over withholding pay...
Union: IBM cuts coming again to New York  Burlington Free Press   ...An IBM employees’ union is warning workers to expect more job cuts in Vermont and New York later this month...
Ford steps up criticism of currency manipulation  Detroit News   ...Ford Motor Co. stepped up its campaign to convince the Obama administration to include provisions to block currency manipulation in a proposed 12-nation free trade agreement...
Rio fare protesters seize main station and let commuters travel free  The Guardian   ...After street protests, station invasions and turnstile vandalism, Rio de Janeiro’s free public transport movement finally got what it wanted for a few hours on Thursday night with a takeover of the city’s main train and bus hub...
Poverty Wages Unraveling Cambodia’s Garment Industry  Inter Press Service   ...Cambodia’s garment industry is regularly plagued with strikes and protests. But when armed security forces opened fire on striking workers in the capital city of Phnom Penh on Jan. 3, killing five and injuring dozens, it suddenly became clear that there is no end in sight for the crisis...
Democratic groups counter Kochs’ Senate push  Politico ...A collection of Democratic-aligned groups are launching a coordinated push in 2014 Senate races to counter heavy spending from the powerfully funded conservative organization Americans for Prosperity, Democratic strategists said Thursday evening...
Federal Lawsuit Filed Against FEC Seeks to Shed Light on Karl Rove's "Dark Money" Donors  truthout   ...The votes by the three Republican FEC Commissioners effectively quashed any further official investigation into the allegations that Rove's group violated the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA) when it spent the majority of its money during the 2010 election cycle on electioneering, but failed to register as a "political committee" with the FEC, as required by law...

Today's Teamster News 01.04.14

Mayor De Blasio’s Horse Policy Is a Pile of Manure (opinion) Daily Beast   ...Bill de Blasio’s first priority as New York City’s leader is to ban horse-drawn carriages in Central Park. Are you kidding?...
US economy losing 'up to a $1bn a week' after jobless benefits cut  The Guardian   ...The US economy is losing up to a billion dollars a week because of the “fiscally irresponsible” decision to end long-term unemployment benefits, a Harvard economist said on Friday...
Worrisome Spike in Student Loan Write-Offs  American Banker   ...Between January and August of last year, lenders wrote off $13.6 billion in student loan debt, a 46 percent increase from the same period of 2012 and the highest amount for this period in any of the last eight years, according to the data from Equifax (See chart 2)...
Beanie Baby Billionaire Seeks to Avoid Jail for Tax Crime  Bloomberg   ...H. Ty Warner, the billionaire creator of Beanie Baby plush toys, asked a judge to give him probation, not prison, for evading taxes on secret Swiss accounts that held as much as $107 million...
Is the NSA Spying on Congress?  Sen. Bernie Sanders   ...U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today asked the National Security Agency director whether the agency has monitored the phone calls, emails and Internet traffic of members of Congress and other elected officials...
Secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership Revealed  Eugene Weekly   ...The TPP talks about a trade deal will govern 40 percent of U.S. imports and exports as well as affect copyrights, pharmaceuticals and more. They are being conducted in secret, and only a few portions of the agreement and memos about it have been leaked...
The secret trade deal that threatens Maine’s frail economy  Portland Phoenix   ...Dozens of shoe factories once employed 30,000 workers in Maine, making it the top shoe-producing state. What’s left of that workforce — several hundred New Balance employees — could soon be gone too, thanks to a massive free trade agreement that’s expected to eliminate a series of tariffs on imported footwear. And jobs may not be all the state has to lose...
Idaho to take over privately-run state prison  Associated Press   ...Idaho's governor says the corrections department will take over operation of the largest privately-run prison in the state after more than a decade of mismanagement and other problems at the facility. Nashville, Tenn.-based Corrections Corporation of America has contracted with the state to run the prison since it was built in 1997...
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin GOP Senator, Fights For A Seven-Day Workweek  Huffington Post   ...Wisconsin state Sen. Glenn Grothman (R) is attempting to roll back one of the state's progressive labor laws, arguing that workers should be allowed to work without a day off if they so choose...
Video shows businesses lobbying Rebecca Kleefisch for more tax breaks in closed-door meeting  Wisconsin State Journal   ...A recently released video of the Dec. 9 session at Beloit College shows Kleefisch and state Revenue Department Secretary Rick Chandler extolling state efforts to reduce taxes since Republicans took over state government in 2011, and saying they wanted private-sector ideas for another round of cuts...
Pot sales exceed $1 million on first day  9News.com   ...Pot shops did record sales compared to the "medical marijuana days" on Wednesday when recreational marijuana opened. Pot shop owners across Colorado believe they collectively made more than $1 million statewide...
Fun with Numbers  Sheila Kennedy   ...the folks who opposed Right to Work were right when they characterized the measure as “Right to Work for Less.”...

26 outsourcing horror stories

Want higher costs, shoddier service and abused citizens? Just outsource your government services to the private sector.

In the Public Interest, an offshoot of AFSCME, just published a report that provides 26 examples of privatization horror stories.  Gawker picked up on some of them:

• Los Angeles County continually renewed its $3 million year contract with a firm called Wings of Refuge to place foster children, despite numerous reports of kids going to abusive homes where they were beaten and locked away for days on end.
• Indiana hired IBM to run its food stamp and Medicaid programs, then bungled it and dumped thousands of residents from the rolls—including an elderly nun who was denied food stamps because she missed a recertification interview while hospitalized for cancer.
• School-cafeteria workers in New Jersey saw their hourly wages cut by $4 to $6 an hour after their jobs were privatized. "[W]e use our personal sick days just to get paid so we can pay rent for the next month," one told investigators.
• Two-thirds of Florida's privatized prisons failed to meet the legal requirement to run at least 7 percent more cheaply than state-run jails. Half of the private jails were actually more expensive to run. But the state never set up a mechanism for punishing them.
• 65 percent of private prisons require the states and cities they work with to meet inmate quotas, forcing governments to find inmates to keep the jails up to a profitable capacity.
• Northwest Missouri State University forked over tons of taxpayer cash to contract out most of its food, vending, and bookstore services. Rather than open up the contract to bidders, it took contractors at higher rates who were willing to donate to the university's athletic stadium fund.

Read the rest here.

Today's Teamster News 11.15.13

Teamsters Support Walmart Strikers   teamster.org   ...Teamsters are out front supporting Walmart worker protests in the run-up to the nationwide strike planned for Friday, Nov. 29, or Black Friday. Walmart workers want respect, a living wage and the right to form a union...
Teamsters Support 'SAFE SKIES ACT Of 2013  teamster.org   ...The Teamsters Union applauds today’s re-introduction of the ‘Safe Skies Act of 2013’ by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA). The bill would bring air cargo and supplemental pilots under the same safety regulations as air passenger pilots, standardizing rules within the industry...
Teamsters Condemn Cab Commission's Denying Driver Time To Speak At Public Meeting  DCist   ...At yesterday's extremely chaotic D.C. Taxicab Commission meeting, which was attended by over one hundred city cabbies, a driver without copies of his testimony for the commissioners was told he could not speak...
Maine Teamsters Endorse Michaud For Governor, Jackson For Congress  Teamsters Local 340   ...Teamsters Local 340 in South Portland, Maine announced that its executive board unanimously voted to endorse both Rep. Mike Michaud (D-2nd District) in his run for governor and State Senator Troy Jackson who is running for the 2nd Congressional District seat being vacated by Michaud...
Hoffa: Lawmakers Increasingly Realize Fast Track Is a Fraud  Huffington Post   ...The Teamsters for years have been an outspoken critic of fast-track trade authorization which allows bad proposed trade agreements to move through Congress on just a quick up-or-down vote. And in the last week, we were joined by 185 House lawmakers who feel the same way...
The more you know about the odious Trans-Pacific Partnership, the less you’ll like it  The Guardian   ...That is why it's been negotiated in secret meetings dominated by governments and corporations...
US trade deficit widened 8% in September  Associated Press   ...imports increased to the highest level in 10 months while exports slipped. The wider gap suggests growth was somewhat slower over the summer than previously estimated...
US mobility for young adults falls to 50-year low  Associated Press   ...Among adults ages 25-29, just 4.9 million, or 23.3 percent, moved in the 12 months ending March 2013. That's down from 24.6 percent in the same period the year before. It was the lowest level since at least 1963. The peak of 36.7 percent came in 1965, during the nation's youth counterculture movement...
Facebook and Microsoft help fund rightwing lobby network, report finds  The Guardian   ...State Policy Network rejects climate change, opposes workers' rights – and is backed by some top US tech and telecoms firms...
Koch-backed nonprofit spent record cash in 2012  Center for Public Integrity   ...Americans for Prosperity — the main political arm of billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch — spent a staggering $122 million last year as it unsuccessfully attempted to defeat President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats, according to a Center for Public Integrity review of documents filed in Colorado...
How McDonald's And Walmart Became Welfare Queens  Bloomberg   ...It seems that welfare queens are back in the news these days. This time, they are even bigger, richer and less deserving of taxpayer support...
An example of how the banking cartels control countries  the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens   ...The biggest private banks created a complex financial environment with complex financial destructive "tools" which governments are unable to manage. Governments are forced to turn to the same banks for "advising services" while they are flooded with former bank executives placed in key positions. This explains why the biggest private banks receive bailout packages of billions at the expense of taxpayers, loading governments with more debt...
Justices grill lawyers over neutrality agreements between employers and unions  Washington Post   ...Supreme Court justices seemed reluctant Wednesday to disallow a type of agreement between employers and unions that has become increasingly important to the labor movement as it tries to grow its ranks...
Poverty Is America's #1 Education Problem (opinion)  AlterNet   ...Teachers' unions are not the reason America's schools are in trouble...
Troubled Youth Prison Company Wins Even More Contracts  Huffington Post   ...Despite voluminous evidence that inmates have suffered violence, sexual abuse and neglect inside the facilities of a private juvenile prison operator, the state of Florida has in recent weeks awarded fresh contracts to the company...
Lockheed to cut 4,000 jobs as U.S. government spending wanes  Reuters   ...Defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp said on Thursday it plans to cut 4,000 jobs, or more than 3 percent of its worldwide workforce, to cope with declines in U.S. spending...
Swiss voters likely to reject salary cap bill for executives  Raw Story   ...Swiss voters look set to reject a law to rein in executive pay in a looming referendum, with a poll released Wednesday showing only around a third back the plan...
German union's incoming boss warns VW about avoiding unions  Reuters   ...The incoming leader of an influential German union warned Volkswagen AG on Wednesday about trying to avoid unions in Tennessee, where the German automaker has an assembly plant...
Giant, Safeway workers authorize possible strike   Washington Post   ...Unionized employees at Washington area Safeway and Giant Food stores voted Wednesday to authorize a strike against the grocery chains if the two parties fail to agree on a new contract...
Any proposal to ban BART workers from striking is not a simple matter (opinion)  San Francisco Examiner   ...The California Supreme Court has gone back and forth on whether public-sector employees, such as these BART workers last month, are allowed to walk off the job...
Boeing machinists soundly reject labor deal Reuters   ...Boeing machinists soundly rejected an eight-year labor contract extension on Wednesday that would have let them build the company's newest jetliner in Washington, a historic decision that could forever alter the course of Boeing's 97-year presence in the state...

Today's Teamster News 10.29.13

Nearly 50% Of All Home Sales Now Cash, As Institutional Investor Activity Hits New High  Forbes   ...Nearly half of all home purchases in the month of September were paid for in cold hard cash, as tight lending conditions continue edge out traditional buyers and investors continue to scoop up inventory...
Billionaires: Decline of the West, Rise of the Rest  Triple Crisis   ...Gone are the days when U.S. billionaires accounted for over 40 percent of the list, with Western Europe and Japan making up most of the rest. Today, the Asia-Pacific region hosts 386 billionaires, 20 more than all of Europe and Russia combined...
Strikes Surge as Killings of Colombian Union Leaders Fall  Portside   ...Strikes, demonstrations and protests are at a record pace in Colombia this year as workers seek a bigger share of wealth generated by the country’s expanding economy...
American workers will be the losers in Trans Pacific trade deal (opinion)  The Buffalo News   ...negotiations with Vietnam, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and four other countries must be hush-hush, otherwise too many Americans would learn what their future wages, food safety standards and fate of their cities and towns would be...
29 Uncomfortable Truths About Soaring Poverty In America  zero hedge   ...Did you know that the number of Americans on welfare is higher than the number of Americans that have full-time jobs?  Did you know that 1.2 million public school students in the U.S. are currently homeless?  Anyone that uses the term "economic recovery" to describe what is happening in the United States today is being deeply insulting to the nearly 150 million Americans that are considered to be either "poor" or "low income" at this point...
Ratio of Job Seekers to Job Openings Slips Below 3-to-1 for First Time in Nearly Five Years, but Is Still as High as in Worst Month of Early 2000s Downturn  Economic Policy Institute   ... for nearly two out of every three job seekers, there simply were no jobs...
Growing Up Poor Changes Young Brains  MedPageToday   ..."Exposure to early life adversity should be considered no less toxic than exposure to lead, alcohol, or cocaine, and, as such, it merits similar attention from public health authorities..."
‘Riots always begin typically the same way’: food stamp shutdown looms Friday  Salon   ...The nationwide cut “is equivalent to about 16 meals a month for a family of three,” according to a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis using the USDA’s “Thrifty Food Plan.” CBPP called the roughly $5 billion annual cut to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program “unprecedented” in “depth and breadth...”
As Europe erupts over US spying, NSA chief says government must stop media  The Guardian   ...both Germany and France exploded with anger over new revelations about pervasive NSA surveillance on their population and democratically elected leaders...
Profit, politics, pain: Private prisons — an eight-month Post investigation  Palm Beach Post   ...Sweetheart deals stuff private prisons with the cheapest, least troublesome prisoners, leaving Florida public prisons with the sickest and most violent inmates. State law guarantees companies are paid as if their prisons are 90 percent full, even if they aren’t, and even if it means emptying parts of public prisons to pack them...
UPDATED: Walker Recall Violates The Law -- The Law of Large Numbers  Voices Newspaper Blog   ...By the end of the week of Scott Walker's June 5th recall election, VOICES published a report that expressed concerns about the results which included the following strange occurrences...
Teamsters Local 264 elects new leader  The Buffalo News   ...Brian Dickman won election this month as president/principal executive officer for the Cheektowaga-based local...

Today's Teamster News 10.25.13

Washington Taxi Drivers Form Association With Teamsters Union  teamster.org   ...Cab drivers in the nation’s capital are joining together with the Teamsters Union to announce the formation of the new Washington, D.C. Taxi Operators Association…
Hernando County, Teamsters agree on employee contract  Hernando Today   ...A strong, new contract for about 400 government employees has been approved by the county in Florida and unanimously ratified by the workers, who are represented by Teamsters Local 79…
Gettysburg police union files for arbitration over 2013 wages  Hanover Evening Sun   ...Teamsters Local 776 has filed for arbitration over 2013 wages on behalf of the police officers who work for the Gettysburg Borough...
US trade union leaders in Dublin to talk about ‘devastating impacts of austerity’  The Journal.ie   ...A number of American trade union leaders , including Teamsters, are in Dublin this week as part of the 1913 Lockout centenary celebrations and to talk about what they view as the “devastating impact” of austerity policies...
Multinational Meatpacker Trying to Gut Food Labeling  Trade Reform   ...Tyson ... will cease and desist buying fed cattle from Canada until the courts overturn the country of origin labeling (COOL) rule implemented by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on May 23, 2013.
“Tyson is flexing its muscle to demonstrate to our U.S. courts that it alone can literally devastate livestock producers in the U.S., Canada and elsewhere if it doesn’t get its way...”
Apple finally begins assembling in the USA  manufacture this   ...Apple previously announced that it would make its new computer in the U.S., reportedly in Texas...
4 Things You Need to Know About the Plot to Sell Off Your Pensions to Wall Street  AlterNet   ...“reformers” have changed the law to prevent retirees from even seeing how much of their money is being handed over to hedge fund billionaires....
Many Americans don't expect to ever retire  USA TODAY   ...In a sign of just how bleak retirement prospects have gotten, more than a third of Americans say they will have to work until they literally can't anymore...
Who Buys the Spies? The Hidden Corporate Cash Behind America’s Out-of-Control National Surveillance State  Next New Deal   ... In sharp contrast to endlessly repeated claims that big business was deeply suspicious of the President, our statistical results show that a large and powerful bloc of  “industries of the future” – telecommunications, high tech, computers, and software – showed essentially equal or higher percentages of support for the President in 2012 than they did for Romney...
Unions score court victory, but it's unclear whether it will stick  Associated Press   ...Wisconsin union leaders scored a win when a Madison judge ordered state labor relations officials to stop enforcing portions of Gov. Scott Walker's collective bargaining restrictions...but it could be a hollow victory...
Strike authorization vote due by LA County workers  Associated Press   ...Tens of thousands of Los Angeles County employees are voting this week on whether to authorize a strike that involves 55,000 workers…
Large companies find ways to a zero tax rate  USA Today   ...Despite widespread groans about the recent disclosure that Apple is finding ways to cut its federal tax bill, an analysis shows the computer giant is one of scores of corporations largely dodging the taxman...
Corporations Reap Billions from Mass Incarceration  The Real News   ...A new video series called Prison Profiteers exposes the corporations that profit from the nation's incarceration system, including medical companies, bail companies, phone companies, and even police departments...
JPMorgan May Face Federal Sanctions Over Madoff Ties  Reuters   ...JPMorgan Chase & Co. may be forced to make a deal with federal authorities to avoid criminal prosecution over its handling of accounts of imprisoned swindler Bernie Madoff…
Texas Judge Almost Blocked from Voting Due to New Strict Voter I.D. Law  ThinkProgress   ...Judge Sandra Watts cautions same could happen to lots of women...

Today's Teamster News 10.22.13

Chicago Teamsters Hispanic Caucus Awards Scholarships   Teamsters Joint Council 25 … The Chicago Teamsters Hispanic Caucus awarded $6,000 in academic scholarships on Oct. 16 to a dozen Illinois Teamsters and the sons and daughters of active Teamster members...
Chester Upland approves deal with Teamsters  Delaware County Daily Times   ...Chester Upland School District (Pennsylvania) approved a one-month contract extension with the district’s custodial and maintenance employees, who represented by Teamsters Local 312...
BART Strike Has Commuters Facing Gridlock  Associated Press   …San Francisco Bay Area commuters started the new work week on Monday with gridlocked roadways and long lines for buses and ferries as a major transit strike entered its fourth day, while investigators are searching for clues to a train crash that killed two workers...
ILA Halts Strike at Baltimore  Journal of Commerce   ...International Longshoremen’s Association workers agreed Friday to return to work for 90 days while negotiators work on a local contract that triggered a three-day strike at the Port of Baltimore. An arbitrator ruled that ILA Local 333’s walkout over a local contract violated the no-strike clause in the union’s coastwide master contract…
AFL-CIO To Democrats: We'll Work To End Your Career If You Cut Social Security Or Medicare  Huffington Post   ..."We will never forget. We will never forgive. And we will never stop working to end your career..."
McDowell County, USA Has Close to Haiti's Life Expectancy: Welcome to Third World America  Alternet   ...Many Americans, especially in the South, can look forward to dying far younger than their counterparts in Japan, Australia, New Zealand and much of Europe...
Suicide Rate Climbs by 30 Percent in Kansas as Government Slashes Mental Health Budgets  The Nation   ...the recession may have pushed already troubled people over the edge. Being unable to find a job or settling for one with lower pay or prestige could add “that final weight to a whole chain of events...”
JP Morgan to Pay $13 Billion in Fines, NYT Says, but Still No Criminal Charges Against Top Wall Street Execs  Buzzflash   ...Neither has there been any serious DOJ attempt -- as BuzzFlash has repeatedly written commentaries about over the past few years -- to hold the Wall Street execs criminally accountable for acts of fraud with a devastating financial impact that almost crashed the US economy. Our prisons are filled with burglars, check kiters, income tax evaders and others who are pikers compared to the masters of the universe who run Wall Street...
BofA Said to Face Three More U.S. Probes of Mortgage-Bond Sales  Bloomberg   ...Bank of America Corp., sued by U.S. attorneys in August over an $850 million mortgage bond, faces three additional Justice Department civil probes over mortgage-backed securities, according to two people with direct knowledge of the situation...
SEC Files Charges in Magnetar Deal  Pro Publica   ...Magnetar worked with investment banks to build CDOs that the hedge fund also bet against.  Magnetar would buy the riskiest part of the CDO, which gave it influence in picking which bonds would be included in the CDO. In turn, the hedge fund pushed riskier bonds that would make the investment more likely to fail...
Nissan under mounting pressure as United Auto Workers union targets Mississippi plant  Raw Story   ...The United Auto Workers is ratcheting up pressure on Nissan in the hopes it may finally succeed at organizing the Japanese automaker’s plant in the typically anti-union southern US state of Mississippi...
Privatization Benefits the 1%: Public Services Benefit Everyone  Truth-Out   ...Private systems are focused on making profits for a few well-positioned people. Public systems, when sufficiently supported by taxes, work for everyone in a generally equitable manner. The following are six specific reasons why privatization simply doesn't work...
How Taxpayers Get Punished by Private Prison “Lockup Quotas"   Demos   ...In the Public Interest (ITPI) recently released a shocking study on the alarming frequency of state private prison contracts that contain “occupancy quotas” that guarantee for-profit prison companies a steady stream of revenue even if prison populations decline...
More U.S. students borrowing for college  CBS News   ...The number of U.S. students who borrow money for college continues to climb, while the number of graduates who are paying off these loans is slipping...
Smithfield Foods Acquisition: A Lot of Bacon for China  Journal of Commerce   ...Chinese consumers soon could be in line for a lot more U.S. pork in mainland grocery stores. Shareholders in Smithfield Foods voted Sept. 24 to approve the company’s $4.7 billion purchase by Shuanghui International Holdings, the largest acquisition of a U.S. company by a Chinese business...
How dare you filthy peasants know…  Fire Dog Lake   ...Pretty much, oh 99 percent, of the country knows that the pay ratio of corporate CEOs to their workers is obscene. But to the CEOs the real obscenity is that people know just how obscene...
Secret probe spreads to five Wisconsin counties  Milwaukee Journal Sentinel   ...Sources familiar with the probe told the Journal Sentinel that it was scrutinizing a wide variety of state-related issues, including the recall races. Sources suggested the probe is looking at a current legislative leader and the governor's contest...
Judge holds employment commissioners in contempt in Act 10 ruling  Milwaukee Journal Sentinel   ...Monday's ruling by Circuit Judge Juan Colás will give teachers and local government workers the ability to immediately enter labor negotiations with their bosses; likely result in the cancellation of union recertification elections set for November; and grant official state recognition of a Kenosha teachers union that had been decertified...
Pennsylvania inmates on work detail declared public workers  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette   ...A jail inmate on a work detail can be considered a public employee, Commonwealth Court has ruled in a decision that could open the door to liability against a government entity for injuries that may stem from such work assignments...

Today's Teamster News 10.05.13

Wegmans, Teamsters to talk  Democrat & Chronicle   ...Following Lt. Gov. Robert Duffy’s plea for resolution, Wegmans Food Markets and Teamsters Local 118 representatives have agreed to return to negotiations October 11...
Sikorsky union rep prepares workers for furloughs  San Francisco Chronicle   ...Rocco Calo is angry, but even as head of Teamsters Local 1150 that represents employees at Sikorsky Aircraft, he cannot do anything to prevent the furlough of 2,000 workers from the expansive plant that manufactures helicopters for the U.S. military...
Labour dispute drags on at Richmond Ikea  Canadian Labour Reporter   ...There is no end in sight for the labour dispute between the Richmond, B.C., Ikea and its union, Teamsters Local 213. The two parties even disagree on what to call the dispute — the union refers to the past 70 days as a lockout while the company is calling it a strike...
The Loss of U.S. Pre-eminence (opinion)  New York Times   ...The United States won its global predominance in a short period … Now the groundwork has been laid for its decline with political polarization, a longstanding tax revolt and a well-orchestrated campaign to undermine the legitimacy of the federal government...
Government Close Down - Another Grand Betrayal in the Works?   The Real News   ...is the outcome here not that (Obama)  gives up on health care, but he gives another important concession somewhere else, and then everybody calls it a victory--Obama saved health care, but the Republicans actually get some other big cut ... in the social safety net…?
Washington’s Z-Burger Shuts Down Shutdown Special  Wall Street Journal   ...The chain Z-Burger, which has been offering free burgers to furloughed workers, said it has ended the  promotion, citing overwhelming demand in the first three days of the government shutdown. Peter Tabibian, Z-Burger’s owner, said the chain gave out 15,840 hamburgers during the promotion, the equivalent of more than $88,000 at retail prices...
"A Corporate Trojan Horse": Obama Pushes Secretive TPP Trade Pact, Would Rewrite Swath of U.S. Laws  Democracy Now   ...While the text of the treaty has been largely negotiated behind closed doors and, until June, kept secret from Congress, more than 600 corporate advisers reportedly have access to the measure, including employees of Halliburton and Monsanto...
Obama Cancels Trip to Asia Trade Summit as Elected, Labor and Business Leaders Detail TPP Trade Pact Problems  Public Citizen   ...President Obama has now announced that due to the government shutdown, he will not be attending the summit next week in Indonesia that his administration had (mis)identified as a deadline for concluding the long-lingering negotiations for the sprawling Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) "trade" pact...
Why are Nurses at Vanderbilt Medical Center Cleaning Bathrooms? Health care's Fight Between Labor and Capital  Portside   ...Hospital budget cuts became viscerally visible earlier this month when Vanderbilt Medical Center announced that nurses must now perform housekeeping duties - cleaning patients' rooms and bathrooms...
Adobe Hacked: Cyber-Thieves Accessed Credit Card Information Of Nearly 3 Million Customers   Associated Press   ...Adobe Systems Inc. said a cyber attack on its systems has exposed credit-card information of 2.9 million customers. The maker of Photoshop and other software said Thursday that the attacker accessed Adobe customer IDs and passwords on its systems...
CFPB Pledges To Enforce Consumer Protection Laws Over Mandatory Payroll Cards  MintPress News   ...Mandatory payroll cards force employees to consent to a bank fee structure as a condition of employment, ranging from $1.75 to $7. In other words, making the workers pay to be paid. And the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau wants to put a stop to that type of abuse…
Michigan turns down idea of prison privatization  WIN 98.5 News   ...It’s hard to say yet what it could mean for the future of prisons in the state, but the Michigan Department of Management and Budget on Thursday declined to put prisoners in a privately run correctional facility after bids came in at nearly $6 million over the state's current cost...
Illinois Says Banks to Improve Loan-Modification Process  Bloomberg News   ...Bank of America Corp. and the four other biggest U.S. mortgage servicers will put in place new procedures to improve the process for borrowers to seek loan modifications, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said...
As Missouri Lt. Gov. digs in on Right to Work policy, unions mobilize to fight  PR News   ...With state lawmakers in Missouri back in session, the Show-Me state is once again front and center in the controversial Right to Work battle...
MBTA, union sue over arbitrator's pay award  Associated Press   ...Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority management and the union representing some workers have filed dueling lawsuits in a dispute over an arbitrator's award that would increase workers' salaries by an average of more than 10 percent...
Government Shutdown Reduces OSHA Inspection Force by More Than 90 Percent  Bloomberg News   ...The Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration furloughed more than 90 percent of its inspectors as a result of the Oct. 1 shutdown of the federal government, leaving the agency with only enough personnel to respond to the most serious workplace emergencies...

Private prisons’ profit scheme: lockup quotas and “low-crime taxes”

It would be a good thing if crime levels dropped to historic lows, right? Well, not if your business model relies on high incarceration rates. A new report from In The Public Interest (ITPI) explains how prison industry giants like Corrections Corporation of America are making big profits by locking states into contractual occupancy quotas and “low-crime taxes”:

65 percent of the private prison contracts ITPI received and analyzed included occupancy guarantees in the form of quotas or required payments for empty prison cells (a “low-crime tax”). These quotas and low-crime taxes put taxpayers on the hook for guaranteeing profits for private prison corporations.

Arizona, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Virginia are locked in contracts with the highest occupancy guarantee requirements, with all quotas requiring between 95% and 100% occupancy. Though crime has dropped by a third in the past decade, an occupancy requirement covering three for-profit prisons has forced taxpayers in Colorado to pay an additional $2 million.

When the big house is big business, low crime hurts the bottom line, so private prison corporations have cooked up all kinds of schemes to keep their jails full. The ITPI report, titled “Criminal: How Lockup Quotas and 'Low-Crime Taxes' Guarantee Profits for Private Prison Corporations,” says three private prisons in Arizona are administered by contracts that require 100 percent capacity. That's right – the state is obligated by the corporation to keep these prisons full or pay a fee for unused beds.

Hmm, do you think this kind of system would encourage or discourage criminalization? Well, it doesn’t matter – as long as corporate profits are high.

That’s why CCA pitched the idea to dozens of states last year:

In 2012, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the largest for-profit private prison company in the country, sent a letter to 48 state governors offering to buy their public prisons. CCA offered to buy and operate a state’s prison in exchange for a 20-year contract, which would include a 90 percent occupancy rate guarantee for the entire term. Essentially, the state would have to guarantee that its prison would be 90 percent filled for the next 20 years (a quota), or pay the company for unused prison beds if the number of inmates dipped below 90 percent capacity at any point during the contract term (a “low-crime tax” that essentially penalizes taxpayers when prison incarceration rates fall).

When policymakers received the 2012 CCA letter, some worried the terms of CCA’s offer would encourage criminal justice officials to seek harsher sentences to maintain the occupancy rates required by a contract inserting occupancy guarantee provisions into prison privatization contracts.

Ya think! And even as they work to force states to keep their prisons full, private prison companies push for more draconian sentencing laws. Andy Kroll writes in Mother Jones:

Private prison companies have supported and helped write "three-strike" and "truth-in-sentencing" laws that drive up prison populations. Their livelihoods depend on towns, cities, and states sending more people to prison and keeping them there.

Occupancy quotas protect the private companies from changes in the prison population and fluctuations in the crime rate. Meanwhile, they put taxpayers on the hook for reduced incarceration rates – all in the name of sustaining an industry that thrives on throwing people behind bars.

Michele Deitch, a criminal justice expert at the University of Texas, told Huffington Post:

It's really shortsighted public policy to do anything that ties the hands of the state. If there are these incentives to keep the private prisons full, then it is reducing the likelihood that states will adopt strategies to reduce prison costs by keeping more people out. When the beds are there, you don't want to leave them empty.

We’ve reported a lot on the horrible safety record and criminal mismanagement of privately-run prisons. These contracts show once again why privatized prisons are such a bad idea.

Unlike state-run prisons, which are actually accountable to taxpayers and not driven by profit, private prison companies are the worst offenders when it comes to poor safety standards, including low staffing and other violations. They’re not in the business of keeping communities safe. They’re in the business of big business – by locking up more and more people and doing it on the cheap.

And that’s why private prison corporations like to claim that privatization saves money. But occupancy guarantees prove they do just the opposite. When the prison companies cut corners, the savings go to private profits, not taxpayers who pay more for prisons that are less safe.

Taxpayer-funded ALEC trip for Kansas lawmakers

Kansas lawmakers who advocate small government are taking a taxpayer-funded ALEC trip Aug. 7-9 in Chicago. There they'll be wined, dined, flattered, enriched financially and handed a draft bill to empower corporations at democracy's expense.

Tim Carpenter at the Topeka Capital-Journal broke the story five days ago:

More than two-dozen Kansas legislators, including top Republican leaders of the House and Senate, plan to participate at the national convention in Chicago of an organization dedicated to layering a corporate agenda into politics at state Capitols, officials said Friday. 

House Speaker Ray Merrick, R-Stilwell, and Senate President Susan Wagle, R-Wichita, are national board members of the conservative, Republican-oriented American Legislative Exchange Council and scheduled to lead the Kansas delegation from Aug. 7-9. 

State policy allows a subsidy of registration fees for each legislator in attendance, which would be a minimum of $475. Other travel, hotel and meal costs can be covered by taxpayers only if the lawmaker serves in a leadership role in ALEC, said Jeff Russell, director of Legislative Administrative Services.

Oh, the irony.

The Hutchinson News calls it "comically ironic."  

And in a scathing editorial, The Hutchinson News excoriates the Kansas hypocrites:

...a group of self proclaimed budget hawks apparently missed the memo that government spending is the root of all evil, and that even the smallest government expenditure is a misuse of hard-earned taxpayer dollars. 

According to the legislative administrative service, in fiscal year 2012 legislators received $150,666 for convention-related travel expenses. In fiscal year 2013, lawmakers received total reimbursement of $119,528 for such travel – and the upcoming year totals more than $4,875 so far, with the filing deadline not ending until June 30, 2014. 

Kansas lawmakers are certainly free to attend whatever conferences they think will help them become better legislators. But it’s a special type of hypocrisy when a group of legislators who brand themselves as budget watchdogs and small government conservatives eagerly line up for a taxpayer handout to help pay for a voluntary networking weekend in Chicago.

ALEC isn't really about small government. ALEC just wants one thing to be small: constraints on corporate plunder of the public trough. No one should be surprised that self-serving hypocrites are taking part in the looting by taking a taxpayer-funded ALEC trip.

ALEC's stench has wafted all the way across the Atlantic, where the Irish blog Vestibule caught wind of these taxpayer-funded ALEC trips. Vestibule wrote a hilarious send-up of these ALEC "conferences" a few years ago, which we will share with you below:

Now, imagine if you will that you are a Republican lawmaker in a state whose legislature is controlled by your party.  You are approached by persons you admire, with an invitation to attend a conference under the aegis of ALEC.  And let us situate that gathering at some plush and exclusive enclave- Palm Springs, for example. 

There you and your spouse will be met and looked after (families are distinctly welcome)  by business leaders whose names ring with the reassurance of real power- Fortune 500 executives and their staffs. 

You will socialise- play golf on exquisitely maintained courses, dine on the most blissful fare, and exchange neatly patented views with the very men and women who concocted them. You will be flattered and cajoled.  You will be welcomed into circles you have always aspired to enter- assuming you were not born there, a condition of privilege discreetly enjoyed by many state office-holders.  Finally, you will be showered with political support in the form of crucial campaign donations and endorsements. 

And really, all you have to do is attend a two-hour meeting with friendly representatives of, let's say, the commercial prison industry. 

At this meeting you will be presented with a handsome, well-written, entirely serviceable piece of legislation.  It may contain the word "reform" in its title.  (Again, think Humpty Dumpty)
The matter at hand could involve a perfectly reasonable tightening of immigration law.  Or the justified imposition of harsher, more restrictive criminal sentences.  The bill may mandate the laudable establishment of profit-making industries in a state penitentiary system, or the withdrawal of wasteful educational services to undeserving prisoners. 

But whatever the avowed goal of the prefabricated legislation, you may be sure its passage will result in enhanced revenue and power for those companies which drafted the law.

Spot on.