Teamsters
Port Truck Drivers At Pac 9 Begin Strike Teamster.org ...Port truck drivers at Pac 9 in Los Angeles/Long Beach began a strike today to protest against their continued misclassification as independent contractors. While on strike they will continue their legal fight to recoup stolen wages and many will support their families by working at one of four Teamster companies - Eco Flow Transportation, Shippers Transport Express, Toll Group or Horizon Lines...
Local 727 Protects Wages, Working Conditions for Arlington OTB Members Local 272 ...Teamsters Local 727-represented Arlington Racecourse OTB workers ratified a new one-year agreement that protects their wages, benefits and working conditions. The agreement also includes an economic re-opener in the event that gaming legislation is passed. “The state’s horseracing industry is facing obstacles, but we were able to preserve our members’ jobs and secure fair wages and working conditions,” said John Coli Jr., President of Local 727...
Employee Misclassification Hearings Begin in Georgia Teamster.org ...Today in Savannah, Georgia, the site of one of the nation's largest ports, a public hearing will be conducted to hear cases of employee misclassification - 2,000 of which have been brought by port truck drivers misclassified as independent contractors. “We’re the lowest paid in the industry. Everybody else got a future in it but the driver. It’s time for a change and that’s why we’re raising our voices tomorrow.” John Jackson, Savannah, port driver...
Contract Truck Drivers Strike Indefinitely Against Pacific 9 Transportation In LA CBS ...Port truck drivers went on strike Tuesday to improve conditions for themselves, their families and all drivers. Workers declared their intent to not return to Pac 9 until they are properly classified as employees and provided safe trucks to drive, officials said. In fact, several workers have already joined a new Teamster company. “Pac 9 drivers have courageously withstood retaliation and mistreatment by their employer for over two years,” said Fred Potter, Teamsters Port Division Director...
Port truck drivers plan sixth strike against company LA Times ...Drivers at a trucking company serving the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports plan to walk away from their jobs Tuesday in an ongoing struggle to be deemed employees, a union representative said. The picket lines, scheduled to go up around the company’s truck yard and port terminals at 6 a.m. Tuesday, will mark the sixth strike against the company in nearly two years, Teamsters Union spokeswoman Barbara Maynard said...
Global Labor & Trade
Thousands of Garment Factory Workers Across Cambodia Are Fainting on the Job In These Times ...At the end of June, nearly 350 workers fainted in garment factories across Cambodia, with more than 100 collapsing on one day alone. These developments are part of a much wider pattern in the country: In 2011, there were 2,071 incidents of workers fainting, in 2012 there were 2,100. Last spring, nearly 120 workers fainted at two textile factories that make products for Puma and Adidas. From July of last year on, there were 733 fainting incidents across 14 different factories...
Work moves ahead on TPP trade pact, but nations still divided over deal Pew Research Center ...Trade ministers from the U.S. and 11 other nations from both sides of the Pacific will meet in Hawaii next Tuesday to attempt to finalize what would be the world’s largest regional trade and investment agreement: the Trans-Pacific Partnership. But while the pact has general public support in most of the countries involved, there are also deep partisan divisions in some of them over the issue. This partisanship suggests that TPP, one of President Barack Obama’s principal foreign economic policy legacies, is not yet a done deal...
US, Malaysia show least support for Trans-Pacific partnership - poll Turkish Weekly ...Americans and Malaysians show least support for the US-promoted Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal among all participants, with 38 percent of citizens backing the potential agreement, Pew Research Center poll, issued on Tuesday, found. “The weakest support is in the US and in Malaysia (38%),” the poll read. The TPP is set to become the largest free trade deal, involving 12 countries from the Asia-Pacific region...
Ottawa says it won’t be 'bullied' by U.S. over TPP dairy negotiations Globe & Mail ...The Canadian government says it will not be bullied as the United States ratchets up pressure on Canada’s heavily protected dairy sector ahead of what could be the final round of talks for a Pacific Rim trade deal spanning 12 countries. More than 20 members of U.S. Congress have written a letter to the Canadian government accusing it of being “unwilling to seriously engage in market access discussions regarding dairy”...
Company v Country: Investigating the booming and lucrative business of multinational companies suing governments (radio) BBC ...The strangely-named investor state dispute settlement (ISDS) system is built into thousands of treaties between countries around the world. It is a key part of negotiations for a new trade and investment treaty between the US and the EU. Yet on both sides of the Atlantic, resistance is mounting. Michael Robinson digs into the ISDS mechanism to find out if the fears are justified. Are these little-known lawsuits threatening the democratic process?...
Trade debate masks America’s competitive disadvantage (opinion) PBS ...The Trans-Pacific Partnership may be out of the headlines momentarily, but it continues to be as contentious as ever. the debate fails to include the real issue: the ability of the United States as a country to compete in the world economy. A winning strategy for the U.S. today requires much more than cooperation between government and business. We need a highly skilled work force, which in turn means a world-class education system and access for all. We need to repair and improve our infrastructure...
Austerity-hit Ireland debates how to spend extra €1.5bn Financial Times ...For two days last week, politicians, civil society activists and business leaders gathered at Dublin Castle to discuss something rare in austerity-ravaged Ireland — how to spend an extra €1.5bn. The sum represents the “fiscal space” the government says it has to cut taxes and increase spending in the 2016 budget...
Greece's debt crisis explained, in mythological terms LA Times ...Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras successfully persuaded his fellow Greeks to reject austerity measures in a recent referendum, but it was a "Pyrrhic victory" since he now faces an even more devastated economy and deeper austerity cuts. Against his own party's ideals, Tsipras has now committed himself to more "draconian" budget cuts, with Greece forced to carry out the "Sisyphean task" of ever-increasing austerity...
State & Living Wage Battles
National push for $15 minimum wage hits home for U.S. Senate workers Washington Post ...Baker is among a group of federal contract workers who are joining with union-backed advocates to call on lawmakers to do more to protect an increasingly privatized federal workforce, where low wages and minimal benefits often clash with the rhetoric espoused by elected leaders. “We work for them every day,” Baker said. “They have a clean environment; they’ve got good food to eat. They say, ‘Thank you very much’ and ‘Good work.’ But that’s not enough. I need more so I can pay my bills -- $15 and a union”...
North Carolina Just Relaxed Its Voter ID Law, But Will Voters Get The Memo? Huffington Post ...Voting rights advocates were at least somewhat pleased when the North Carolina General Assembly unexpectedly voted in June to modify the state's strict requirement that voters present government-issued photo ID at the polls. But now, they're concerned that the state won't adequately educate people about the softened ID law before it goes into effect next year...
L.A. County supervisors agree to boost minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020 LA Times ...Organized labor won an important victory Tuesday when the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to increase the minimum wage to $15, but it now faces a more daunting political challenge: convincing other local governments to join the movement. The widely anticipated move by the nation’s largest local government applies to unincorporated areas and hundreds of thousands of employees, mirroring a similar action by the city of Los Angeles...
New York fast food workers’ $15 wage vote on Wednesday KFOR ...New York’s fast food workers could soon get paid a lot more. On Wednesday, the wage board is set to vote on New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s proposal to raise the state’s minimum wage for fast food workers to $15 an hour. The meeting will be held in New York City at 2.30 pm. New York’s minimum wage for all workers has risen from $7.25 to $8.75 an hour in the last two years. By the end of this year, it will be $9...
If you want a living wage, be prepared to go on strike for it (opinion) The Guardian ...Is the best way to achieve higher wages really legislation? Many think so. Across the country, working people are eagerly waiting to feel the effects of new laws that raise the minimum wage. Seattle will see an increase to $15 by 2021, and Los Angeles will see the same increase by 2020. But this strategy detracts from the only power dynamic that can actually overturn economic inequality: class struggle...
How the American South Drives the Low-Wage Economy American Prospect ...Today, as the auto and aerospace manufacturers of Europe and East Asia open low-wage assembly plants in Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina, and Mississippi, the South has assumed a comparable role once more. Indeed, the South today shares more features with its antebellum ancestor than it has in a very long time. White Southern elites and their powerful allies among non-Southern business interests seek to expand to the rest of the nation the South’s subjugation of workers and its suppression of the voting rights of those who might oppose their policies...
U.S. Labor
1,000 NYC airport workers set to strike starting Wednesday Associated Press ...More than 1,000 subcontracted airport security officers, baggage handlers and wheelchair attendants at the city's two major airports plan to strike starting Wednesday night, according to a union that seeks to represent them. Officials with Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union said picketing would begin at Kennedy Airport at 10 p.m. Wednesday and at LaGuardia at 6 a.m. Thursday...
UAW Donates $50,000 in Memory of the Charleston 9 AFL-CIO ...Members of the UAW on Thursday announced a $50,000 donation to the Rev. Clementa Pinckney fund in honor of the Charleston 9 who were tragically murdered on June 17. “UAW members often speak of bridging the gap to lift up our communities. Through our long history of civil rights advocacy, economic justice advocacy and economic fairness advocacy, the very ideals that we have come to learn were so near and dear to those who lost their lives June 17 at the Emanuel AME Church,” said UAW President Dennis Williams...
Legislators told trucking companies deliberately misclassify workers Savannah Now ...Two independent truckers choked up separately as they testified before a legislative committee Tuesday about the toll they say comes from companies misclassifying workers as independent contractors instead of employees. The emotional moments came in the middle and end of a daylong hearing by a subcommittee of the Senate Insurance and Labor Committee assigned to study worker classification...
Unemployment Rates a Mixed Bag Associated Press ...Unemployment rates fell last month in 21 U.S. states and were unchanged in 17, as widespread job growth and a shrinking workforce reduce the ranks of those out of work. The Labor Department said Tuesday that unemployment rates rose in 12 states. Employers added jobs in 31 states and cut them in 17, with little change in the remaining two states. The figures reflect steady hiring nationwide. Employers added 223,000 jobs in June, and the U.S. unemployment rate fell to 5.3 percent from 5.5 percent...
Time Is Political Jacobin ...A recent survey of New York City retail workers found that only 17 percent of workers had a regular work schedule. Retail workers reported that in order to get more hours or more desirable shifts they sometimes had to compete with coworkers to sell a certain amount, or sign up the most people for store credit cards. In this way, they were battling with each other just for the ability to work and earn more...
Miscellaneous
Obama Administration Announces New Rules Protecting Military Families From Predatory Lenders Think Progress ...America’s armed forces personnel will no longer be exposed to exploitative payday loans after the Department of Defense (DOD) put new, long-delayed rules into place on Tuesday. The news marks a victory for an idea that had seemed at risk of being killed just months ago by lawmakers friendly to the lending industry...
Five Years Later, the Unfulfilled Promise of Dodd-Frank Common Dreams ...With several key promises of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act still unfulfilled, "Americans cannot be comforted that Wall Street will not wreak havoc again," according to a new report from the watchdog group Public Citizen. "Five years after President Barack Obama signed this legislation, Dodd-Frank remains largely incomplete," said Bartlett Naylor, Public Citizen’s financial policy advocate and author of the report...
6 insidious ways the one percent is ripping you off Salon ...In the wake of the financial crisis, there was a momentof hope that predatory businesses would no longer be able to pick at our bones like vultures. Instead, we’ve seen Dodd-Frank weakened and stalled, and the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau stymied at every turn. In the latest round, Republicans are thwarting the confirmation of Richard Cordray to lead the Bureau. Meanwhile, we continue to get fleeced...
“I Will Light You Up!” Disturbing Dashcam Footage Shows the Traffic Stop That Led to Sandra Bland’s Arrest. Slate ...Tuesday afternoon saw the release of extraordinary dashcam footage of the traffic stop that led to Bland’s arrest. In the video, you can see Bland’s car making a lane change right before the officer who was driving behind her, who has been identified as Texas Department of Public Safety trooper Brian Encinia, pulls her over. “You seem very irritated,” he says to her, while standing next to the driver’s side window...
Why the Black Lives Matter Protest at Netroots Nation Was Long Overdue (opinion) The Nation ...The action kicked off a necessary conversation about the Democratic candidates’ reluctance to address racism directly, the problem with saying “all lives matter,” and why economic populism devoid of a race and gender analysis will neither satisfy nor mobilize a sizeable chunk of progressive voters. These activists have changed the tone for the 2016 election season, putting Democrats on notice that they cannot expect the support of black voters—particularly young black voters—without speaking directly and meaningfully to issues of race and state power currently gripping the country...
Showing posts with label scheduling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label scheduling. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Wednesday, July 1, 2015
Today's Teamster News 07.01.15
Teamsters
Danafilms Workers Join Teamsters Local 170 Teamster.org ...Production workers at Danafilms, a plastic film manufacturer in Westborough, Mass., voted to join Teamsters Local 170 in an election held in April. Ballots impounded after the vote were counted yesterday, resulting in a 23-13 count in favor of representation. There are 44 workers in the bargaining unit...
EVSC, Teamsters haven't reached agreements, current contracts expire at midnight Courier & Press ...The midnight deadline to reach an agreement was not met between the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp. and Teamsters Local 215 negotiating teams, meaning the school corporation's contracts with secretaries, special education assistants, bus aides, custodians and bus drivers are expired...
EVSC, Teamsters Still Deadlocked on Contract Tristate ...The Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corporation and Teamsters Local 215 remain deadlocked on contract negotiations as the eleventh-hour approaches. The talks have started and stalled for months, and at midnight Wednesday the contract will expire, leaving an uncertain future for nearly 700 employees and their union representation...
Global Labor & Trade
Australian politicians slam TPP for ‘excessive secrecy’ RT ...Australian lawmakers have slammed the country’s deal-making process as one lacking transparency and oversight. They’ve particularly criticized the currently negotiated Trans-Pacific Partnership for its “excessive secrecy.” The report, entitled the “Blind Agreement,” was a joint party report from the Labor, Liberal and Green parties...
Secret TPP Negotiations Denounced as “Undemocratic” in Peru TeleSUR ...On Tuesday, a group of Peruvian members of Congress and analysts denounced the secret negotiations of the US led Trans-Pacific Partnership Treaty – or TPP – as undemocratic and an attempt by elites to force decisions on Peru. Together with 11 other countries, Peru has been negotiating TPP in secret, a trade agreement which could become the largest on the planet...
How the Trans-Pacific Partnership Will Hand Corporations the Reins to Our Government In These Times ...critics argue that within the hundreds of pages of esoteric provisions, the deal—like similar ones before it—includes a glaring double standard: It provides legal rights to corporations and investors that it does not extend to unions, public interest groups and individuals. Recently leaked drafts of the agreement show the pact includes the kind of “Investor-State Dispute Settlement” (ISDS) provisions written into most major trade deals...
Administration objects to Israeli-linked provision in trade bill Politico ...A day after President Barack Obama signed a key trade bill, his administration publicly stated its objection to a provision of the measure that critics say appears to legitimize Israeli settlements in Palestinian-claimed territories. The amendment to the trade law instructs U.S. trade negotiators to try to discourage foreign governments, especially in Europe, from signing on to the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement...
Austerity ‘condemns’ children to poverty – report to UN RT ...Young people in the UK risk falling deeper into poverty if the government continues to make cuts to welfare programs, Britain’s four children’s commissioners have said. In a report for the United Nations, the commissioners say austerity policies have already pushed 2.3 million children into poverty with the figure set to hit 4.7 million by 2020...
Tube strike: RMT and TSSA union workers vote to go on strike BBC ...More London Underground workers have voted to strike in a dispute over the new all-night Tube service. Members of the RMT and TSSA unions backed industrial action following a similar vote by drivers. Workers in these unions will now join a planned 24-hour walkout by members of the drivers' union Aslef, which begins at 21:30 BST on 8 July...
GM Korea workers vote in favor of strike over pay, output Reuters ...General Motors Co employees in South Korea voted on Wednesday in favour of a strike over wages and production volumes, prompted by uncertainty over the U.S. auto maker's output plans as its labor costs in the country rise. South Korea's National Labor Relations Commission is expected to meet on July 6 to decide whether to order a 10-day arbitration period, according to the company and the workers' union...
Greece debt crisis: Tsipras in new bailout 'concessions' BBC ...Greece's Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has offered new concessions to the country's creditors. A letter to creditors sent by Mr Tsipras says he was prepared to accept most conditions that were on the table before talks collapsed and he called a referendum. On Tuesday, eurozone finance ministers refused to extend the previous bailout...
State & Living Wage Battles
Paid Sick Leave Law Gives California Employees More Time Off CBS ...Paid sick days are no longer an option for California employers as a new law takes effect this week. Baristas Kyla Wiegand and Eduard Andrusyak are part-time employees at Chocolate Fish Coffee Roasters in East Sacramento. But come Wednesday, a new benefit is brewing at work—paid sick leave...
A Chris Christie presidency would be 'very disturbing', New Jerseyans warn The Guardian ...As he prepares to unveil his presidential campaign on Tuesday, Chris Christie is promising American voters that he will tell it to them straight – New Jersey-style. New Jersey has a straight message for American voters, too: run away. Criticism of Christie in his home state, where a Monmouth University poll last month tracked his favorability rating at a record low of 35%, is not confined to teachers. In a blistering editorial published at the weekend, the Newark Star-Ledger warned, bluntly: “He lies”...
Inside The Push To End A State’s ‘Ugly Policy’ Targeting Poor Mothers Think Progress ...In most states, when a family in need has a new child, their welfare benefits increase to cover the extra costs that come with a new family member. But 16 other states operate differently, limiting benefits after a certain number of children. There’s no evidence that these limits have the desired result — in fact, people on welfare have the same sized families as those who don’t enroll, and there is strong evidence that these caps increase poverty...
The Curious Case of Puerto Rico, And Why Default Poses A Risk To The U.S. Huffington Post ...U.S. lawmakers have no firm plan to help more than 3 million American citizens living 1,000 miles off the coast of Florida under a government staring down the barrel of a $73 billion debt crisis. Those U.S. citizens live in the territory of Puerto Rico. Thousands of them are fleeing each month to the U.S. mainland in the search of economic opportunity, compounding the island’s financial crisis...
West Virginia's prevailing wage set to temporarily expire WOWKTV ...West Virginia's prevailing wage is set expire Tuesday at midnight, as WorkForce West Virginia and economists with West Virginia University and Marshall University continue to work on a new calculation method. During the 2015 regular legislative session, state lawmakers passed a bill to change the way prevailing wage is calculated...
Minimum Wage Increase Takes Effect in Chicago NBC ...Minimum wage employees in Chicago will begin earning $10 an hour Wednesday as the first part of a yearly incremental minimum wage increase takes effect in the city. The $1.75 hourly bump is part of a plan aimed at raising the minimum wage in the city to $13 an hour by 2019...
Starting today, the D.C. minimum wage jumps to $10.50 Washington Post ...D.C.’s minimum-wage workers will get a city-mandated increase in their paychecks beginning Wednesday, when their hourly wage bumps from $9.50 to $10.50. The hike is part of legislation signed into law in January 2014 that brought the District’s minimum wage from $8.25 to an eventual $11.50 per hour in 2016...
Minimum wage ordinance upheld by judge Courier-Journal ...Louisville workers can expect a pay raise starting July 1 after a Jefferson County Circuit judge on Monday upheld an ordinance raising the city's minimum wage to $9 an hour over the next three years. In a four-page ruling, Circuit Judge Judith McDonald-Burkman said state law establishes a floor for wages that does not expressly authorize or forbid a local government from raising workers' pay rates...
U.S. Labor
Obama and labor reconcile, sort of, on overtime Politico ...What a difference a day makes. Last week, President Barack Obama was a traitor to progressive groups and unions for pushing his trade agenda through Congress. This week, he’s their hero for putting forward a regulation to expand overtime, which would give an estimated 5 million Americans a raise...
The Rise Of Anti-Union Rhetoric In The 2016 Race Think Progress ...This week, the Supreme Court agreed to take a case that could spell doom for public sector unions, with the potential to make the entire country so-called “right-to-work” territory. If that effort fails, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has vowed to make every state a “right-to-work” state if elected president. But while Walker may be the loudest and proudest union buster in the 2016 race, his fellow candidates are also striving to prove their anti-labor bona fides...
Supreme Court will hear case on public sector union fees Aljazeera ...A case that will soon be heard before the Supreme Court has the potential to institute a de facto right-to-work regime across the entire public sector. The Court said on Tuesday it would soon hear arguments in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association (CTA), a case concerning government employee unions' ability to gather fees from non-members...
With New Overtime Rule, President Obama May Have Given an Estimated 5 Million Workers a Raise In These Times ...President Obama’s administration took another promised step on Tuesday towards raising the living standards of American workers, and Republicans and business groups are not likely to be able to stop it. Using the administration’s power to update workplace rules regarding premium pay for overtime work, the Department of Labor on Tuesday began taking steps that could bring higher pay or more leisure time to an estimated 5 million middle-income workers by next year...
Santa Clara County, SEIU Reach 11th Hour Deal to Avoid Strike San Jose Inside ...Hours before thousands of workers planned to walk off the job, Santa Clara County's largest employee union reached a tentative four-year agreement after 72 straight hours of bargaining. The 11th hour deal reached at 4:30am today came in time for Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 521 to call off the 6am strike...
USW Offers to Remain at Work at ATI While Continuing to Bargain for a New Agreement PR Newswire ...Late Tuesday evening, the United Steelworkers (USW) offered to continue working following the expiration of the current labor agreement with Allegheny Technologies Incorporated (ATI), and to continue negotiations for a fair agreement. While the differences between the parties are quite significant, the USW believes the company should depart from its current, nonsense course of hiring temporary replacement workers and security goons...
Milwaukee County bus drivers strike, scrambling commute St. Louis Post-Dispatch ..Hundreds of Milwaukee County union bus drivers went on strike early Wednesday, leaving tens of thousands of commuters scrambling to make alternative plans to get to work and elsewhere. The roughly 750 drivers walked off the job at 3 a.m. Amalgamated Transit Union Local 998 leaders said the strike would last until Saturday...
Victoria’s Secret Is Getting Rid Of On-Call Scheduling In Stores Buzzfeed ...Victoria’s Secret is ending the use of on-call scheduling in its stores, employees were told yesterday — a major reversal of a policy that wreaked havoc on the lives of tens of thousands of retail workers across the country.
The chain told employees it would no longer use the controversial scheduling practice, which requires staff to be available for shifts that can be cancelled at the last minute...
GOP's New Attack on Social Security's Disability Benefits: Exaggerate Number Of Claims Alternet ...Congressional Republicans are trying to block a routine reallocation of funds to the SSDI Trust Fund, insisting that they will only allow reallocation if “reforms” to SSDI are implemented. The intellectual underpinning for their demands is that there is an unfolding fiscal crisis caused by workers who are able to earn a living but are instead choosing to claim disability benefits. However, a closer look at the evidence shows that SSDI benefits have become, if anything, less generous...
Miscellaneous
Ruling Against "Three Strikes" Sentencing Law Opens Door to Reform Truthout ...Friday's Supreme Court decision in Johnson v. United States highlights the complicated nature of sentencing provisions that result in lengthy prison terms, a leading cause of mass incarceration. The ruling struck down a sentencing provision that lengthened prison terms for certain federal prisoners and potentially impacts the lives of thousands of people who have received enhanced federal sentences...
White Racism, NIMBYism, And The Surprise Supreme Court Ruling That Could Finally Desegregate Cities Think Progress ...The people who fight housing discrimination and residential segregation in America were bracing for a defeat last Thursday when the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruled on Texas Department of Housing v. Inclusive Communities Project. But instead of gutting a decades old legal theory known as “disparate impact,” as court watchers had predicted, Justice Anthony Kennedy penned a strong defense of the anti-racism tool on behalf of a 5-4 majority...
High Court's Ruling, Say Critics, Endorses 'Torturing People to Death' Common Dreams ...In the most closely-watched death penalty case in years, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled 5-4 (pdf) that Oklahoma can use the controversial and experimental execution drug midazolam that was behind the last year's horrific killing of 38-year-old man Clayton Lockett—who writhed and groaned for 43 minutes before ultimately succumbing to a heart attack...
U.S. and Cuba to Re-Establish Diplomatic Ties, Reopen Embassies After 50 Years Slate ...The gradual warming of relations between the U.S. and Cuba continued on Tuesday with the news that the two will formally restore diplomatic relations and reopen embassies. The final agreement is expected to be announced on Wednesday and the U.S. embassy is Havana should be up and running in July. U.S. diplomatic ties with Cuba were severed in 1961 following Castro’s ascent to power during the Cuban revolution...
US police killings headed for 1,100 this year, with black Americans twice as likely to die The Guardian ...Police in the United States are killing people at a rate that would result in 1,100 fatalities by the end of this year, according to a Guardian investigation, which recorded an average of three people killed per day during the first half of 2015. The Counted, a project working to report and crowdsource names and a series of other data on every death caused by law enforcement in the US this year, found that 547 people had been killed by the end of June...
Danafilms Workers Join Teamsters Local 170 Teamster.org ...Production workers at Danafilms, a plastic film manufacturer in Westborough, Mass., voted to join Teamsters Local 170 in an election held in April. Ballots impounded after the vote were counted yesterday, resulting in a 23-13 count in favor of representation. There are 44 workers in the bargaining unit...
EVSC, Teamsters haven't reached agreements, current contracts expire at midnight Courier & Press ...The midnight deadline to reach an agreement was not met between the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp. and Teamsters Local 215 negotiating teams, meaning the school corporation's contracts with secretaries, special education assistants, bus aides, custodians and bus drivers are expired...
EVSC, Teamsters Still Deadlocked on Contract Tristate ...The Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corporation and Teamsters Local 215 remain deadlocked on contract negotiations as the eleventh-hour approaches. The talks have started and stalled for months, and at midnight Wednesday the contract will expire, leaving an uncertain future for nearly 700 employees and their union representation...
Global Labor & Trade
Australian politicians slam TPP for ‘excessive secrecy’ RT ...Australian lawmakers have slammed the country’s deal-making process as one lacking transparency and oversight. They’ve particularly criticized the currently negotiated Trans-Pacific Partnership for its “excessive secrecy.” The report, entitled the “Blind Agreement,” was a joint party report from the Labor, Liberal and Green parties...
Secret TPP Negotiations Denounced as “Undemocratic” in Peru TeleSUR ...On Tuesday, a group of Peruvian members of Congress and analysts denounced the secret negotiations of the US led Trans-Pacific Partnership Treaty – or TPP – as undemocratic and an attempt by elites to force decisions on Peru. Together with 11 other countries, Peru has been negotiating TPP in secret, a trade agreement which could become the largest on the planet...
How the Trans-Pacific Partnership Will Hand Corporations the Reins to Our Government In These Times ...critics argue that within the hundreds of pages of esoteric provisions, the deal—like similar ones before it—includes a glaring double standard: It provides legal rights to corporations and investors that it does not extend to unions, public interest groups and individuals. Recently leaked drafts of the agreement show the pact includes the kind of “Investor-State Dispute Settlement” (ISDS) provisions written into most major trade deals...
Administration objects to Israeli-linked provision in trade bill Politico ...A day after President Barack Obama signed a key trade bill, his administration publicly stated its objection to a provision of the measure that critics say appears to legitimize Israeli settlements in Palestinian-claimed territories. The amendment to the trade law instructs U.S. trade negotiators to try to discourage foreign governments, especially in Europe, from signing on to the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement...
Austerity ‘condemns’ children to poverty – report to UN RT ...Young people in the UK risk falling deeper into poverty if the government continues to make cuts to welfare programs, Britain’s four children’s commissioners have said. In a report for the United Nations, the commissioners say austerity policies have already pushed 2.3 million children into poverty with the figure set to hit 4.7 million by 2020...
Tube strike: RMT and TSSA union workers vote to go on strike BBC ...More London Underground workers have voted to strike in a dispute over the new all-night Tube service. Members of the RMT and TSSA unions backed industrial action following a similar vote by drivers. Workers in these unions will now join a planned 24-hour walkout by members of the drivers' union Aslef, which begins at 21:30 BST on 8 July...
GM Korea workers vote in favor of strike over pay, output Reuters ...General Motors Co employees in South Korea voted on Wednesday in favour of a strike over wages and production volumes, prompted by uncertainty over the U.S. auto maker's output plans as its labor costs in the country rise. South Korea's National Labor Relations Commission is expected to meet on July 6 to decide whether to order a 10-day arbitration period, according to the company and the workers' union...
Greece debt crisis: Tsipras in new bailout 'concessions' BBC ...Greece's Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has offered new concessions to the country's creditors. A letter to creditors sent by Mr Tsipras says he was prepared to accept most conditions that were on the table before talks collapsed and he called a referendum. On Tuesday, eurozone finance ministers refused to extend the previous bailout...
State & Living Wage Battles
Paid Sick Leave Law Gives California Employees More Time Off CBS ...Paid sick days are no longer an option for California employers as a new law takes effect this week. Baristas Kyla Wiegand and Eduard Andrusyak are part-time employees at Chocolate Fish Coffee Roasters in East Sacramento. But come Wednesday, a new benefit is brewing at work—paid sick leave...
A Chris Christie presidency would be 'very disturbing', New Jerseyans warn The Guardian ...As he prepares to unveil his presidential campaign on Tuesday, Chris Christie is promising American voters that he will tell it to them straight – New Jersey-style. New Jersey has a straight message for American voters, too: run away. Criticism of Christie in his home state, where a Monmouth University poll last month tracked his favorability rating at a record low of 35%, is not confined to teachers. In a blistering editorial published at the weekend, the Newark Star-Ledger warned, bluntly: “He lies”...
Inside The Push To End A State’s ‘Ugly Policy’ Targeting Poor Mothers Think Progress ...In most states, when a family in need has a new child, their welfare benefits increase to cover the extra costs that come with a new family member. But 16 other states operate differently, limiting benefits after a certain number of children. There’s no evidence that these limits have the desired result — in fact, people on welfare have the same sized families as those who don’t enroll, and there is strong evidence that these caps increase poverty...
The Curious Case of Puerto Rico, And Why Default Poses A Risk To The U.S. Huffington Post ...U.S. lawmakers have no firm plan to help more than 3 million American citizens living 1,000 miles off the coast of Florida under a government staring down the barrel of a $73 billion debt crisis. Those U.S. citizens live in the territory of Puerto Rico. Thousands of them are fleeing each month to the U.S. mainland in the search of economic opportunity, compounding the island’s financial crisis...
West Virginia's prevailing wage set to temporarily expire WOWKTV ...West Virginia's prevailing wage is set expire Tuesday at midnight, as WorkForce West Virginia and economists with West Virginia University and Marshall University continue to work on a new calculation method. During the 2015 regular legislative session, state lawmakers passed a bill to change the way prevailing wage is calculated...
Minimum Wage Increase Takes Effect in Chicago NBC ...Minimum wage employees in Chicago will begin earning $10 an hour Wednesday as the first part of a yearly incremental minimum wage increase takes effect in the city. The $1.75 hourly bump is part of a plan aimed at raising the minimum wage in the city to $13 an hour by 2019...
Starting today, the D.C. minimum wage jumps to $10.50 Washington Post ...D.C.’s minimum-wage workers will get a city-mandated increase in their paychecks beginning Wednesday, when their hourly wage bumps from $9.50 to $10.50. The hike is part of legislation signed into law in January 2014 that brought the District’s minimum wage from $8.25 to an eventual $11.50 per hour in 2016...
Minimum wage ordinance upheld by judge Courier-Journal ...Louisville workers can expect a pay raise starting July 1 after a Jefferson County Circuit judge on Monday upheld an ordinance raising the city's minimum wage to $9 an hour over the next three years. In a four-page ruling, Circuit Judge Judith McDonald-Burkman said state law establishes a floor for wages that does not expressly authorize or forbid a local government from raising workers' pay rates...
U.S. Labor
Obama and labor reconcile, sort of, on overtime Politico ...What a difference a day makes. Last week, President Barack Obama was a traitor to progressive groups and unions for pushing his trade agenda through Congress. This week, he’s their hero for putting forward a regulation to expand overtime, which would give an estimated 5 million Americans a raise...
The Rise Of Anti-Union Rhetoric In The 2016 Race Think Progress ...This week, the Supreme Court agreed to take a case that could spell doom for public sector unions, with the potential to make the entire country so-called “right-to-work” territory. If that effort fails, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has vowed to make every state a “right-to-work” state if elected president. But while Walker may be the loudest and proudest union buster in the 2016 race, his fellow candidates are also striving to prove their anti-labor bona fides...
Supreme Court will hear case on public sector union fees Aljazeera ...A case that will soon be heard before the Supreme Court has the potential to institute a de facto right-to-work regime across the entire public sector. The Court said on Tuesday it would soon hear arguments in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association (CTA), a case concerning government employee unions' ability to gather fees from non-members...
With New Overtime Rule, President Obama May Have Given an Estimated 5 Million Workers a Raise In These Times ...President Obama’s administration took another promised step on Tuesday towards raising the living standards of American workers, and Republicans and business groups are not likely to be able to stop it. Using the administration’s power to update workplace rules regarding premium pay for overtime work, the Department of Labor on Tuesday began taking steps that could bring higher pay or more leisure time to an estimated 5 million middle-income workers by next year...
Santa Clara County, SEIU Reach 11th Hour Deal to Avoid Strike San Jose Inside ...Hours before thousands of workers planned to walk off the job, Santa Clara County's largest employee union reached a tentative four-year agreement after 72 straight hours of bargaining. The 11th hour deal reached at 4:30am today came in time for Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 521 to call off the 6am strike...
USW Offers to Remain at Work at ATI While Continuing to Bargain for a New Agreement PR Newswire ...Late Tuesday evening, the United Steelworkers (USW) offered to continue working following the expiration of the current labor agreement with Allegheny Technologies Incorporated (ATI), and to continue negotiations for a fair agreement. While the differences between the parties are quite significant, the USW believes the company should depart from its current, nonsense course of hiring temporary replacement workers and security goons...
Milwaukee County bus drivers strike, scrambling commute St. Louis Post-Dispatch ..Hundreds of Milwaukee County union bus drivers went on strike early Wednesday, leaving tens of thousands of commuters scrambling to make alternative plans to get to work and elsewhere. The roughly 750 drivers walked off the job at 3 a.m. Amalgamated Transit Union Local 998 leaders said the strike would last until Saturday...
Victoria’s Secret Is Getting Rid Of On-Call Scheduling In Stores Buzzfeed ...Victoria’s Secret is ending the use of on-call scheduling in its stores, employees were told yesterday — a major reversal of a policy that wreaked havoc on the lives of tens of thousands of retail workers across the country.
The chain told employees it would no longer use the controversial scheduling practice, which requires staff to be available for shifts that can be cancelled at the last minute...
GOP's New Attack on Social Security's Disability Benefits: Exaggerate Number Of Claims Alternet ...Congressional Republicans are trying to block a routine reallocation of funds to the SSDI Trust Fund, insisting that they will only allow reallocation if “reforms” to SSDI are implemented. The intellectual underpinning for their demands is that there is an unfolding fiscal crisis caused by workers who are able to earn a living but are instead choosing to claim disability benefits. However, a closer look at the evidence shows that SSDI benefits have become, if anything, less generous...
Miscellaneous
Ruling Against "Three Strikes" Sentencing Law Opens Door to Reform Truthout ...Friday's Supreme Court decision in Johnson v. United States highlights the complicated nature of sentencing provisions that result in lengthy prison terms, a leading cause of mass incarceration. The ruling struck down a sentencing provision that lengthened prison terms for certain federal prisoners and potentially impacts the lives of thousands of people who have received enhanced federal sentences...
White Racism, NIMBYism, And The Surprise Supreme Court Ruling That Could Finally Desegregate Cities Think Progress ...The people who fight housing discrimination and residential segregation in America were bracing for a defeat last Thursday when the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruled on Texas Department of Housing v. Inclusive Communities Project. But instead of gutting a decades old legal theory known as “disparate impact,” as court watchers had predicted, Justice Anthony Kennedy penned a strong defense of the anti-racism tool on behalf of a 5-4 majority...
High Court's Ruling, Say Critics, Endorses 'Torturing People to Death' Common Dreams ...In the most closely-watched death penalty case in years, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled 5-4 (pdf) that Oklahoma can use the controversial and experimental execution drug midazolam that was behind the last year's horrific killing of 38-year-old man Clayton Lockett—who writhed and groaned for 43 minutes before ultimately succumbing to a heart attack...
U.S. and Cuba to Re-Establish Diplomatic Ties, Reopen Embassies After 50 Years Slate ...The gradual warming of relations between the U.S. and Cuba continued on Tuesday with the news that the two will formally restore diplomatic relations and reopen embassies. The final agreement is expected to be announced on Wednesday and the U.S. embassy is Havana should be up and running in July. U.S. diplomatic ties with Cuba were severed in 1961 following Castro’s ascent to power during the Cuban revolution...
US police killings headed for 1,100 this year, with black Americans twice as likely to die The Guardian ...Police in the United States are killing people at a rate that would result in 1,100 fatalities by the end of this year, according to a Guardian investigation, which recorded an average of three people killed per day during the first half of 2015. The Counted, a project working to report and crowdsource names and a series of other data on every death caused by law enforcement in the US this year, found that 547 people had been killed by the end of June...
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
Today's Teamster News 06.09.15
Teamsters
Local 200 Welcomes Super Aggregate Drivers Teamster.org ...On Saturday May 30, 2015 truck drivers from Super Aggregate voted to become members of Teamsters Local 200 in Milwaukee.
“In an environment of a right to work state there are still employers that see the benefit of a Unionized workforce and employees that know the benefits of being a Teamster,” said Teamsters Local 200 Secretary-Treasurer Tom Millonzi...
In Memoriam: Walter Shea Teamster.org ...The International Brotherhood of Teamsters is saddened to announce the passing of Walter Shea, a longtime Teamster leader and former International Vice President. Shea had a rich life within the union and kept busy with political appointments. He was not only an International Vice President from 1982 to 1992, he served as an Executive Assistant to four General Presidents of the Teamsters Union...
Teamsters, US car-haulers start national contract talks JOC ...The Teamsters union and U.S. car-hauling trucking companies are preparing to negotiate a new multi-year contract at a time when the automotive business, and car-hauling, is booming. The union and management group exchanged proposals last week and will start negotiations on the National Master Automobile Transporters Agreement June 10, the Teamsters said...
L.A.-Based Location Managers Reach 3-Year Deal With Producers Variety ...The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and Teamsters Local 399 have reached a tentative agreement on a successor contract covering location managers. The tentative deal — which covers several hundred members in the Los Angeles area — was reached two weeks after Hollywood Teamsters and four other Basic Crafts Unions reached a tentative agreement with producers on a three-year successor deal...
Disney World characters complain after park warns not to reveal identities The Guardian ...The union representing actors who portray Mickey, Goofy and other characters at Walt Disney World filed a complaint on Friday with a national labor board, challenging a policy that it says prevents the performers from revealing which animated figures they portray. Teamsters Local 385 filed the charge with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging Disney was committing an unfair labor practice...
NLRB Says Federal Labor Law Doesn't Apply To Indian-Owned Casino Protected by Treaty Bloomberg ...The National Labor Relations Board ruled June 4 that the Chickasaw Nation's tribal sovereignty blocks the board from asserting jurisdiction over unfair labor practice charges against a tribe-controlled casino. International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 886 alleged that the WinStar World Casino in Thackerville, Okla., violated the National Labor Relations Act by telling workers they weren't protected by the federal labor law...
Global Labor & Trade
Week ahead: House trade fight heats up The Hill ...The fight over fast-track trade authority is coming to a head, with a House vote possible as early as Thursday. President Obama and Republican leaders are edging closer to securing the votes needed to pass trade promotion authority. The legislation would help Obama close the deal on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a 12-nation economic pact...
Obama's Trade Quest In Congress Trails Him Across Atlantic Associated Press ...President Barack Obama's politically fraught trade quest in Washington trailed him across the Atlantic Sunday, as he met with world leaders anxiously watching a debate on Capitol Hill that could impact the status of economic pacts with the Asia-Pacific and Europe. The leaders spent more than an hour privately discussing trade issues as they opened a two-day meeting of the Group of Seven leading industrial nations...
Labor runs ads slamming Rep. Kathleen Rice for backing trade bill Politico ...Big Labor is taking aim at another Democrat for supporting a contentious trade bill. The AFL-CIO has made a six-figure ad buy in New York against Rep. Kathleen Rice, slamming the freshman lawmaker for pledging to vote for legislation giving President Barack Obama the power to “fast track” trade deals through Congress. Rice initially said she opposed the controversial measure, but over the weekend, she announced she would support the bill...
Will TPP Kill the Post Office? Huffington Post ...As if we needed yet another reason for the public to see the text of TPP before Congress pre approves it with fast track, here is a question: Does the TPP contain provisions that corporations can use to force us to privatize "public" things like our Post Office, public schools, public roads etc., so they can replace them with profit-making enterprises that provide a return only to the wealthy few?...
Peru’s story haunts the TPP The Hill ...From the tragic massacre on “Devil’s Curve” six years ago to the surge in illegal logging to growing violence and threats against environmental defenders to the recent rollback of environmental and labor protections to the ISDS attacks on our environmental policies, Peru’s story suggests that it is time to rethink how we approach trade agreements before “Fast Tracking” more of the same via the TPP...
10 Reasons the TPP Is Not a 'Progressive' Trade Agreement (opinion) Huffington Post ...One must seriously question what President Obama and his corporate allies believe to be the definition of "progressive." History shows the very opposite of progress when it comes to these democratic sovereignty-shredding and job-exporting corporate-driven trade treaties -- unless progress is referring to fulfilling the deepest wishes of runaway global corporations...
Local 200 Welcomes Super Aggregate Drivers Teamster.org ...On Saturday May 30, 2015 truck drivers from Super Aggregate voted to become members of Teamsters Local 200 in Milwaukee.
“In an environment of a right to work state there are still employers that see the benefit of a Unionized workforce and employees that know the benefits of being a Teamster,” said Teamsters Local 200 Secretary-Treasurer Tom Millonzi...
In Memoriam: Walter Shea Teamster.org ...The International Brotherhood of Teamsters is saddened to announce the passing of Walter Shea, a longtime Teamster leader and former International Vice President. Shea had a rich life within the union and kept busy with political appointments. He was not only an International Vice President from 1982 to 1992, he served as an Executive Assistant to four General Presidents of the Teamsters Union...
Teamsters, US car-haulers start national contract talks JOC ...The Teamsters union and U.S. car-hauling trucking companies are preparing to negotiate a new multi-year contract at a time when the automotive business, and car-hauling, is booming. The union and management group exchanged proposals last week and will start negotiations on the National Master Automobile Transporters Agreement June 10, the Teamsters said...
L.A.-Based Location Managers Reach 3-Year Deal With Producers Variety ...The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and Teamsters Local 399 have reached a tentative agreement on a successor contract covering location managers. The tentative deal — which covers several hundred members in the Los Angeles area — was reached two weeks after Hollywood Teamsters and four other Basic Crafts Unions reached a tentative agreement with producers on a three-year successor deal...
Disney World characters complain after park warns not to reveal identities The Guardian ...The union representing actors who portray Mickey, Goofy and other characters at Walt Disney World filed a complaint on Friday with a national labor board, challenging a policy that it says prevents the performers from revealing which animated figures they portray. Teamsters Local 385 filed the charge with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging Disney was committing an unfair labor practice...
NLRB Says Federal Labor Law Doesn't Apply To Indian-Owned Casino Protected by Treaty Bloomberg ...The National Labor Relations Board ruled June 4 that the Chickasaw Nation's tribal sovereignty blocks the board from asserting jurisdiction over unfair labor practice charges against a tribe-controlled casino. International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 886 alleged that the WinStar World Casino in Thackerville, Okla., violated the National Labor Relations Act by telling workers they weren't protected by the federal labor law...
Global Labor & Trade
Week ahead: House trade fight heats up The Hill ...The fight over fast-track trade authority is coming to a head, with a House vote possible as early as Thursday. President Obama and Republican leaders are edging closer to securing the votes needed to pass trade promotion authority. The legislation would help Obama close the deal on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a 12-nation economic pact...
Obama's Trade Quest In Congress Trails Him Across Atlantic Associated Press ...President Barack Obama's politically fraught trade quest in Washington trailed him across the Atlantic Sunday, as he met with world leaders anxiously watching a debate on Capitol Hill that could impact the status of economic pacts with the Asia-Pacific and Europe. The leaders spent more than an hour privately discussing trade issues as they opened a two-day meeting of the Group of Seven leading industrial nations...
Labor runs ads slamming Rep. Kathleen Rice for backing trade bill Politico ...Big Labor is taking aim at another Democrat for supporting a contentious trade bill. The AFL-CIO has made a six-figure ad buy in New York against Rep. Kathleen Rice, slamming the freshman lawmaker for pledging to vote for legislation giving President Barack Obama the power to “fast track” trade deals through Congress. Rice initially said she opposed the controversial measure, but over the weekend, she announced she would support the bill...
Will TPP Kill the Post Office? Huffington Post ...As if we needed yet another reason for the public to see the text of TPP before Congress pre approves it with fast track, here is a question: Does the TPP contain provisions that corporations can use to force us to privatize "public" things like our Post Office, public schools, public roads etc., so they can replace them with profit-making enterprises that provide a return only to the wealthy few?...
Peru’s story haunts the TPP The Hill ...From the tragic massacre on “Devil’s Curve” six years ago to the surge in illegal logging to growing violence and threats against environmental defenders to the recent rollback of environmental and labor protections to the ISDS attacks on our environmental policies, Peru’s story suggests that it is time to rethink how we approach trade agreements before “Fast Tracking” more of the same via the TPP...
10 Reasons the TPP Is Not a 'Progressive' Trade Agreement (opinion) Huffington Post ...One must seriously question what President Obama and his corporate allies believe to be the definition of "progressive." History shows the very opposite of progress when it comes to these democratic sovereignty-shredding and job-exporting corporate-driven trade treaties -- unless progress is referring to fulfilling the deepest wishes of runaway global corporations...
Sherritt Workers in Madagascar Mull Strike Action Over Job Cuts Bloomberg ...Workers at Sherritt International Corp.’s Ambatovy nickel project in Madagascar may go on strike after job cuts at the mine, a labor-union official said. The company, based in Toronto, said on June 4 the joint venture cut about 12 percent of its workforce, resulting in about 1,100 employees and contractors having their employment contracts suspended or being demobilized...
German Child Care Workers’ Strike Brings Debate on Priorities New York Times ...The strike by child care workers is the latest in a series of work actions that is putting Germany on track to have the most days lost to labor action in nearly a decade. By economists’ calculations, 350,000 work days have been lost in 2015 — a record that would seem more likely in France than in Germany. The number of days missed because of walkouts is already more than twice the number for all of 2014, according to the Cologne Institute for Economic Research...
State & Living Wage Battles
Lawmakers kill bill requiring predictable work hours Sacramento Business Journal ...Legislation that would have penalized large food and retail employers for making late changes to employee work schedules was held in the Assembly on Thursday and is finished for the year. Assemblyman David Chiu said in a statement that he would bring back Assembly Bill 357 next year...
Kentucky Governor Raises Minimum Wage With Executive Order New York Times ...Gov. Steven L. Beshear of Kentucky signed an executive order on Monday raising the hourly minimum wage for certain state employees to $10.10. The change, which angered state Republicans and drew praise from the governor’s fellow Democrats, affects almost 800 employees, including those making the current hourly minimum of $7.25...
Oregon Democrats to propose minimum wage increase this week Oregon Live ...emocrats will put forth a long-anticipated proposal this week to raise Oregon's minimum wage, House Speaker Tina Kotek said Monday. Kotek, D-Portland, told reporters she plans to introduce a bill that would incrementally raise the minimum wage over the next few years. She declined to provide specifics, including how high the new minimum wage would be under the proposal...
Prevailing wage calculation riles lawmakers Bluefield Daily Telegraph ...Prevailing wage once again raised lawmakers’ hackles, on Monday, as the method to calculate the wage developed by Workforce West Virginia was roundly criticized by Republicans on the Joint Committee on Government and Finance. Democrats on the committee said it was a matter of sour grapes since the method may not give Republicans the result they wanted - lower prevailing wages on public projects...
Barack Obama poised to hike wages for millions Politico ...The Obama administration is on the verge of possibly doubling the salary levels that would require employers to pay overtime in the most ambitious government intervention on wages in a decade. And it doesn’t need Congress’s permission. As early as this week, the Labor Department could propose a rule that would raise the current overtime threshold — $23,660 – to as much as $52,000...
Proposal for $15 minimum wage qualifies for Tacoma ballot Seattle Times ...An initiative to raise Tacoma’s minimum wage to $15 an hour has qualified for the November ballot. The Pierce County auditor’s staff has verified that petitions submitted by the 15 Now group contained 3,231 valid signatures of registered Tacoma voters, The News Tribune newspaper reported...
U.S. Labor
Federal contract workers strike outside U.S. courthouse in downtown Dallas Dallas Morning News ...A group of federal contract workers who handle security inside the Earle Cabell courthouse in downtown Dallas are on strike, complaining of unfair labor practices that have led to inflexible work schedules. The strike by the Local 293 branch of the United Government Security Officers of America (UGSOA) union began with a picket line outside the federal courthouse on May 26...
Verizon’s Biggest Union Claims Carrier Isn’t Fixing Broken Landlines Wall Street Journal ...Verizon Communications Inc.’s largest union says the company is refusing to fix broken landlines. The Communications Workers of America, which represents about 35,000 Verizon employees, says Verizon isn’t repairing copper lines in some areas in the Northeast. Instead, the union says, the carrier is steering customers to buy a wireless home phone service called Voice Link...
Black-White Unemployment Gap Widens In U.S. Chicago Defender ...he Black unemployment rate last month was nearly twice the national average and more than double the unemployment rate for Whites, according to jobs figures released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The statistics show the unemployment rate for Blacks at 10.2 percent in May, up from 9.6 percent in April. The unemployment rate for Whites has been at 4.7 percent since February...
Miscellaneous
Obama administration stops work on immigrant program Washington Post ...A series of legal setbacks have halted the government’s intensive preparations to move forward with President Obama’s executive actions shielding millions of illegal immigrants from deportation, even as community organizations continue a rapid push to get ready for the programs, according to U.S. officials and immigrant advocacy groups...
Community Condemns Pool Prejudice in McKinney, Texas Common Dreams ...More than a thousand outraged community members took to the streets of McKinney, Texas on Monday night, two days after a local police officer assaulted a number of black and brown teenagers attending a pool party. Unlike other recent acts of police violence in Baltimore and Ferguson, this occurred at a private pool, in a gated community within an affluent suburb of Dallas, Texas—raising particular questions about wealth and race...
GM Has Not Paid for Its Crimes Truthout ...Last year, GM officials reluctantly estimated that faulty ignition switches could be linked to some 13 deaths from crashes involving several of their smaller car models. A year later, that number has reached 104, according to an announcement by the company compensation fund on May 18 - leaving family members of those killed and injured in crashes involving GM cars to ask just how many more deaths were the result of corporate negligence...
Student Debt Strikers Call Fed's Loan Forgiveness Plan a Bureaucratic Sham Common Dreams ...Despite a new announcement by the U.S. Department of Education that it will begin a process of debt-forgiveness for students cheated into high-priced loans by predatory for-profit colleges, one of the groups most responsible for lobbying to have the debts erased is reacting bitterly, saying the plan is more complicated than it needs to be and that those already victimized by one government-backed scheme should not be put through the ringer for a second time...
German Child Care Workers’ Strike Brings Debate on Priorities New York Times ...The strike by child care workers is the latest in a series of work actions that is putting Germany on track to have the most days lost to labor action in nearly a decade. By economists’ calculations, 350,000 work days have been lost in 2015 — a record that would seem more likely in France than in Germany. The number of days missed because of walkouts is already more than twice the number for all of 2014, according to the Cologne Institute for Economic Research...
State & Living Wage Battles
Lawmakers kill bill requiring predictable work hours Sacramento Business Journal ...Legislation that would have penalized large food and retail employers for making late changes to employee work schedules was held in the Assembly on Thursday and is finished for the year. Assemblyman David Chiu said in a statement that he would bring back Assembly Bill 357 next year...
Kentucky Governor Raises Minimum Wage With Executive Order New York Times ...Gov. Steven L. Beshear of Kentucky signed an executive order on Monday raising the hourly minimum wage for certain state employees to $10.10. The change, which angered state Republicans and drew praise from the governor’s fellow Democrats, affects almost 800 employees, including those making the current hourly minimum of $7.25...
Oregon Democrats to propose minimum wage increase this week Oregon Live ...emocrats will put forth a long-anticipated proposal this week to raise Oregon's minimum wage, House Speaker Tina Kotek said Monday. Kotek, D-Portland, told reporters she plans to introduce a bill that would incrementally raise the minimum wage over the next few years. She declined to provide specifics, including how high the new minimum wage would be under the proposal...
Prevailing wage calculation riles lawmakers Bluefield Daily Telegraph ...Prevailing wage once again raised lawmakers’ hackles, on Monday, as the method to calculate the wage developed by Workforce West Virginia was roundly criticized by Republicans on the Joint Committee on Government and Finance. Democrats on the committee said it was a matter of sour grapes since the method may not give Republicans the result they wanted - lower prevailing wages on public projects...
Barack Obama poised to hike wages for millions Politico ...The Obama administration is on the verge of possibly doubling the salary levels that would require employers to pay overtime in the most ambitious government intervention on wages in a decade. And it doesn’t need Congress’s permission. As early as this week, the Labor Department could propose a rule that would raise the current overtime threshold — $23,660 – to as much as $52,000...
Proposal for $15 minimum wage qualifies for Tacoma ballot Seattle Times ...An initiative to raise Tacoma’s minimum wage to $15 an hour has qualified for the November ballot. The Pierce County auditor’s staff has verified that petitions submitted by the 15 Now group contained 3,231 valid signatures of registered Tacoma voters, The News Tribune newspaper reported...
States Confront Wide Budget Gaps Even After Years of Recovery New York Times ...Though the national economy is in its sixth year of recovery from the recession, many states are still facing major funding gaps that have locked legislatures in protracted battles with governors. In some states, lawmakers have gone into overtime with unresolved budgets...
Speakers cite burdens of new voter ID law Charlotte Observer ...The N.C. General Assembly in 2013 passed the law, requiring voters to present certain types of photo ID issued by the government or by a federally recognized tribe in order to vote. It takes effect in January 2016 and has been challenged in state and federal courts. One speaker, Mary Riordan, said her last name has changed three times since she’s been eligible to vote, and she didn’t always submit proof of the change to the Board of Elections in a timely manner...
Speakers cite burdens of new voter ID law Charlotte Observer ...The N.C. General Assembly in 2013 passed the law, requiring voters to present certain types of photo ID issued by the government or by a federally recognized tribe in order to vote. It takes effect in January 2016 and has been challenged in state and federal courts. One speaker, Mary Riordan, said her last name has changed three times since she’s been eligible to vote, and she didn’t always submit proof of the change to the Board of Elections in a timely manner...
U.S. Labor
Federal contract workers strike outside U.S. courthouse in downtown Dallas Dallas Morning News ...A group of federal contract workers who handle security inside the Earle Cabell courthouse in downtown Dallas are on strike, complaining of unfair labor practices that have led to inflexible work schedules. The strike by the Local 293 branch of the United Government Security Officers of America (UGSOA) union began with a picket line outside the federal courthouse on May 26...
Verizon’s Biggest Union Claims Carrier Isn’t Fixing Broken Landlines Wall Street Journal ...Verizon Communications Inc.’s largest union says the company is refusing to fix broken landlines. The Communications Workers of America, which represents about 35,000 Verizon employees, says Verizon isn’t repairing copper lines in some areas in the Northeast. Instead, the union says, the carrier is steering customers to buy a wireless home phone service called Voice Link...
Black-White Unemployment Gap Widens In U.S. Chicago Defender ...he Black unemployment rate last month was nearly twice the national average and more than double the unemployment rate for Whites, according to jobs figures released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The statistics show the unemployment rate for Blacks at 10.2 percent in May, up from 9.6 percent in April. The unemployment rate for Whites has been at 4.7 percent since February...
Miscellaneous
Obama administration stops work on immigrant program Washington Post ...A series of legal setbacks have halted the government’s intensive preparations to move forward with President Obama’s executive actions shielding millions of illegal immigrants from deportation, even as community organizations continue a rapid push to get ready for the programs, according to U.S. officials and immigrant advocacy groups...
Community Condemns Pool Prejudice in McKinney, Texas Common Dreams ...More than a thousand outraged community members took to the streets of McKinney, Texas on Monday night, two days after a local police officer assaulted a number of black and brown teenagers attending a pool party. Unlike other recent acts of police violence in Baltimore and Ferguson, this occurred at a private pool, in a gated community within an affluent suburb of Dallas, Texas—raising particular questions about wealth and race...
GM Has Not Paid for Its Crimes Truthout ...Last year, GM officials reluctantly estimated that faulty ignition switches could be linked to some 13 deaths from crashes involving several of their smaller car models. A year later, that number has reached 104, according to an announcement by the company compensation fund on May 18 - leaving family members of those killed and injured in crashes involving GM cars to ask just how many more deaths were the result of corporate negligence...
Student Debt Strikers Call Fed's Loan Forgiveness Plan a Bureaucratic Sham Common Dreams ...Despite a new announcement by the U.S. Department of Education that it will begin a process of debt-forgiveness for students cheated into high-priced loans by predatory for-profit colleges, one of the groups most responsible for lobbying to have the debts erased is reacting bitterly, saying the plan is more complicated than it needs to be and that those already victimized by one government-backed scheme should not be put through the ringer for a second time...
Friday, July 25, 2014
Today's Teamster News 07.25.14
Teamster News
Union Official: GET Board Rejects Offer, Strike To Continue KBFX ...Union drivers, mechanics and other support staff went on strike July 15, unhappy with pay and the part-time status of more than half of their GET drivers. The union was asking for a 4 percent wage increase every year over a three-year deal...
Latino Express Bus Drivers Still Fighting For Rights In Chicago teamster.org ...For more than three years, Teamsters Local 777 has continued to fight for approximately 100 school bus drivers in Chicago who want nothing more than fair working conditions...
Teamsters Grievance Prompts Cook County Sheriff to Conduct Manpower Study teamster.org ... Teamsters Local 700, Cook County's largest public employee union, has learned the Sheriff's Office has enlisted college-age interns to oversee a critical new study on manpower shortages facing the department...
Trade
Administration Plans Orwellian Statistics Fudge to Make Offshored Production Look Like US Made naked capitalism ...If the factoryless goods proposal were to be implemented, the value of U.S. brand-name products made outside of the United States and imported here would be counted as manufacturing “services” imports, not imported goods...
State Battles
Seattle Minimum Wage Referendum Effort Fails Daily Caller ...Forward Seattle, a group which represents local businesses in Seattle, announced Wednesday that they failed to collect enough signatures to subject the city’s $15 minimum wage to a November vote...
Recent Report Points To Job Growth Despite Minimum Wage Increase Oakland Press ...New data released by the Department of Labor points toward job growth in states that have raised the minimum wage, something still being debated in Michigan...
Republican lawmakers push 'paycheck protection' in Pa. Pocono Record ...Republican supporters of so-called "paycheck protection" legislation moved bills in both houses last week that would prevent government employee unions, such as the Service Employees International Union and the Pennsylvania State Education Association from deducting union dues and political contributions from members' checks...
Davis And State Dems Planning To Monitor For Voter Suppression, Discrimination Texas Public Radio ...Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis and the Texas Democratic Party are launching a voter protection program to monitor voter suppression and discrimination on Election Day...
Christie: Public workers' benefits must be cut Asbury Park Press ...It was the first time Gov. Chris Christie had come to any event in Republican-red Ocean County where the protesters outnumbered his supporters. And these were not just ordinary protesters — they were police officers and firefighters in the hundreds from all over New Jersey, outraged that Christie on Tuesday had come to use a municipal park their fraternal brothers and sisters had built for local children...
War On Workers
The Pay-For-Performance Myth Bloomberg Businessweek ...The trend line—the average of how much a CEO’s ranking is affected by stock performance—shows that a CEO’s income ranking is only 1 percent based on the company’s stock return. That means that 99 percent of the ranking has nothing to do with performance at all. (The size and profitability of companies didn’t affect the random patterns.)...
Obama Seeks to Close Loophole That Firms Use to Shield Profits Abroad New York Times ...President Obama on Thursday called for Congress to strip away tax advantages that have encouraged a rush of mergers and acquisitions that give companies an overseas base while they maintain their presence in the United States...
IMF Cuts US and Global Growth Forecasts for 2014 Associated Press ...The International Monetary Fund foresees the global economy expanding less than it had previously forecast, slowed by weaker growth in the United States, Russia and developing economies...
Koch High: How The Koch Brothers Are Buying Their Way Into The Minds Of Public School Students Huffington Post ...The official mission of Youth Entrepreneurs is to provide kids with "business and entrepreneurial education and experiences that help them prosper and become contributing members of society." The underlying goal of the program, however, is to impart Koch's radical free-market ideology to teenagers. In the last school year, the class reached more than 1,000 students across Kansas and Missouri...
Norfolk Southern sues to block disclosure of crude oil shipments McClatchy ...A major hauler of crude oil by rail has sued the state of Maryland to stop the public release of information about the shipments, according to court documents...
Stability Is Good For Employees And Bosses (opinion) New York Times ...Unpredictable, unstable work hours, over which workers may have little control, make it difficult for any employee, at any level of income, to combine or schedule caregiving for family members, education, participation in civic and religious organizations or another job...
Volatile Schedules Exacerbate Inequality (opinion) New York Times ...Across the economy, workers are either employed for too few hours or far too many in an ever-changing workweek that demands 24/7 availability, without guarantees of equal treatment or employee input...
Road Construction Worker Killed In Reno County KAKE ...The Kansas Highway Patrol says a construction worker died after being hit by a trash truck in Reno County...
Miscellaneous
Walmart U.S. CEO Bill Simon Is Out Huffington Post ...Walmart’s U.S. chief Bill Simon is leaving the company after a rough four years. The 54-year-old will be replaced by Greg Foran, 53, Walmart’s current president and CEO in Asia...
Union Official: GET Board Rejects Offer, Strike To Continue KBFX ...Union drivers, mechanics and other support staff went on strike July 15, unhappy with pay and the part-time status of more than half of their GET drivers. The union was asking for a 4 percent wage increase every year over a three-year deal...
Latino Express Bus Drivers Still Fighting For Rights In Chicago teamster.org ...For more than three years, Teamsters Local 777 has continued to fight for approximately 100 school bus drivers in Chicago who want nothing more than fair working conditions...
Teamsters Grievance Prompts Cook County Sheriff to Conduct Manpower Study teamster.org ... Teamsters Local 700, Cook County's largest public employee union, has learned the Sheriff's Office has enlisted college-age interns to oversee a critical new study on manpower shortages facing the department...
Trade
Administration Plans Orwellian Statistics Fudge to Make Offshored Production Look Like US Made naked capitalism ...If the factoryless goods proposal were to be implemented, the value of U.S. brand-name products made outside of the United States and imported here would be counted as manufacturing “services” imports, not imported goods...
State Battles
Seattle Minimum Wage Referendum Effort Fails Daily Caller ...Forward Seattle, a group which represents local businesses in Seattle, announced Wednesday that they failed to collect enough signatures to subject the city’s $15 minimum wage to a November vote...
Recent Report Points To Job Growth Despite Minimum Wage Increase Oakland Press ...New data released by the Department of Labor points toward job growth in states that have raised the minimum wage, something still being debated in Michigan...
Republican lawmakers push 'paycheck protection' in Pa. Pocono Record ...Republican supporters of so-called "paycheck protection" legislation moved bills in both houses last week that would prevent government employee unions, such as the Service Employees International Union and the Pennsylvania State Education Association from deducting union dues and political contributions from members' checks...
Davis And State Dems Planning To Monitor For Voter Suppression, Discrimination Texas Public Radio ...Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis and the Texas Democratic Party are launching a voter protection program to monitor voter suppression and discrimination on Election Day...
Christie: Public workers' benefits must be cut Asbury Park Press ...It was the first time Gov. Chris Christie had come to any event in Republican-red Ocean County where the protesters outnumbered his supporters. And these were not just ordinary protesters — they were police officers and firefighters in the hundreds from all over New Jersey, outraged that Christie on Tuesday had come to use a municipal park their fraternal brothers and sisters had built for local children...
War On Workers
The Pay-For-Performance Myth Bloomberg Businessweek ...The trend line—the average of how much a CEO’s ranking is affected by stock performance—shows that a CEO’s income ranking is only 1 percent based on the company’s stock return. That means that 99 percent of the ranking has nothing to do with performance at all. (The size and profitability of companies didn’t affect the random patterns.)...
Obama Seeks to Close Loophole That Firms Use to Shield Profits Abroad New York Times ...President Obama on Thursday called for Congress to strip away tax advantages that have encouraged a rush of mergers and acquisitions that give companies an overseas base while they maintain their presence in the United States...
IMF Cuts US and Global Growth Forecasts for 2014 Associated Press ...The International Monetary Fund foresees the global economy expanding less than it had previously forecast, slowed by weaker growth in the United States, Russia and developing economies...
Koch High: How The Koch Brothers Are Buying Their Way Into The Minds Of Public School Students Huffington Post ...The official mission of Youth Entrepreneurs is to provide kids with "business and entrepreneurial education and experiences that help them prosper and become contributing members of society." The underlying goal of the program, however, is to impart Koch's radical free-market ideology to teenagers. In the last school year, the class reached more than 1,000 students across Kansas and Missouri...
Norfolk Southern sues to block disclosure of crude oil shipments McClatchy ...A major hauler of crude oil by rail has sued the state of Maryland to stop the public release of information about the shipments, according to court documents...
Stability Is Good For Employees And Bosses (opinion) New York Times ...Unpredictable, unstable work hours, over which workers may have little control, make it difficult for any employee, at any level of income, to combine or schedule caregiving for family members, education, participation in civic and religious organizations or another job...
Volatile Schedules Exacerbate Inequality (opinion) New York Times ...Across the economy, workers are either employed for too few hours or far too many in an ever-changing workweek that demands 24/7 availability, without guarantees of equal treatment or employee input...
Road Construction Worker Killed In Reno County KAKE ...The Kansas Highway Patrol says a construction worker died after being hit by a trash truck in Reno County...
Miscellaneous
Walmart U.S. CEO Bill Simon Is Out Huffington Post ...Walmart’s U.S. chief Bill Simon is leaving the company after a rough four years. The 54-year-old will be replaced by Greg Foran, 53, Walmart’s current president and CEO in Asia...
Monday, October 29, 2012
Today's Teamster News 10.29.12
The American Economy On Purgatory Mountain Economic Populist ... It's not taxes, small government or big government, or even the deficit. The real problem are jobs going offshore, companies treating workers as disposable and the never ending race to the bottom on wages, global labor arbitrage...
A Part-Time Life, as Hours Shrink and Shift New York Times ...the Bureau of Labor Statistics has found that the retail and wholesale sector, with a total of 18.6 million jobs, has cut a million full-time jobs since 2006, while adding more than 500,000 part-time jobs...
EU Bureaucracy has Lost Control of Italy; Social Mood Turns Black Mish's Global Trend Economic Analysis ...Northern Italy has been fermenting with protests and is becoming radical. The paradox is that the rich part of the country is collapsing under the Euro and the EU driven austerity, crushed by competition from Germany, competition from Asia and other emerging region with weaker currencies and improving technology and skills and by high commodity and energy costs...
‘Anti-Business’ Obama Is Best President For Corporate Profits Since 1900 ThinkProgress ...Even if corporate profits under Obama are compared to the 2008 peak — in order to erase the effect of the financial crisis — “average annual corporate profit growth under President Obama is 6.8%,” or nearly three times as large as it was under President Reagan...
Romney Auto Bailout Ad Tells Four Myths In 30 Seconds ThinkProgress ...Romney claimed he read a news story that said Chrysler was planning to “moving all production to China.” The Bloomberg News piece he referenced, though, made it clear that Fiat, the Italian company that now owns Chrysler, was opening new factories in China to make Jeeps for Chinese consumers. No American plants will be closed, and no American jobs will be lost...
New tools aid door-to-door push for votes Boston Globe ...A Teamster and UPS driver, Cote said he has been inundated with union literature urging him to vote for Obama. The Teamsters have their own microtargeting effort; the union president, Jimmy Hoffa Jr., who supports Obama, can be heard in a message on Cote’s answering machine. Cote is sympathetic to concerns that union interests could be undermined by a Romney presidency...
A Part-Time Life, as Hours Shrink and Shift New York Times ...the Bureau of Labor Statistics has found that the retail and wholesale sector, with a total of 18.6 million jobs, has cut a million full-time jobs since 2006, while adding more than 500,000 part-time jobs...
EU Bureaucracy has Lost Control of Italy; Social Mood Turns Black Mish's Global Trend Economic Analysis ...Northern Italy has been fermenting with protests and is becoming radical. The paradox is that the rich part of the country is collapsing under the Euro and the EU driven austerity, crushed by competition from Germany, competition from Asia and other emerging region with weaker currencies and improving technology and skills and by high commodity and energy costs...
‘Anti-Business’ Obama Is Best President For Corporate Profits Since 1900 ThinkProgress ...Even if corporate profits under Obama are compared to the 2008 peak — in order to erase the effect of the financial crisis — “average annual corporate profit growth under President Obama is 6.8%,” or nearly three times as large as it was under President Reagan...
Romney Auto Bailout Ad Tells Four Myths In 30 Seconds ThinkProgress ...Romney claimed he read a news story that said Chrysler was planning to “moving all production to China.” The Bloomberg News piece he referenced, though, made it clear that Fiat, the Italian company that now owns Chrysler, was opening new factories in China to make Jeeps for Chinese consumers. No American plants will be closed, and no American jobs will be lost...
New tools aid door-to-door push for votes Boston Globe ...A Teamster and UPS driver, Cote said he has been inundated with union literature urging him to vote for Obama. The Teamsters have their own microtargeting effort; the union president, Jimmy Hoffa Jr., who supports Obama, can be heard in a message on Cote’s answering machine. Cote is sympathetic to concerns that union interests could be undermined by a Romney presidency...
Monday, October 22, 2012
A&F: Chaotic hours for cashiers, underwear rules for flight crews
A&F, like other retailers, won't give employees regular work schedules. Workers have to be on call for their shifts, which can be as short as two hours. Bintou Kamara, a 22-year-old A&F cashier, told ABC News:
She said that part-time workers at her location on Fifth Avenue had to call two hours before their shifts were to begin to inquire whether they were needed at work.
"Most of the time, you have to wait and sit there," said Kamara, a member of Retail Action Project.Wal-Mart employees aren't the only ones fighting back against chaotic schedules. Last week, Abercrombie & Fitch retail employees protested their schedules in Manhattan along with workers for Best Buy and other retailers.
Retail Action Project surveyed 400 retail workers in New York and found almost 60 percent are part-time or temporary. Fewer than 20 percent have a steady schedule. Seven in 10 found out their schedules a week ahead of time.
Minority Survival blog explains how employers keep workers hungry for hours:
Some fast food outlets and retail stores offer only part-time shifts, keeping their low-paid workers starving for additional work hours in order to make ends meet. That way, someone is always available and willing to come in to work at a moment’s notice if another worker can’t make it in.
At the same time, they require workers to always be available by shifting their work schedules around every week, making it difficult for them to have another part-time job to earn money.
They also don’t do lay-offs. Rather, they just reduce the hours available to someone until that person only works 4 hours a week, then eventually quits on their own and can’t file for unemployment.And about that underwear...
Bloomberg News reported that flight attendants on the corporate jet had to follow a strict dress code:
The flight crew uniform included Abercrombie jeans, polo shirts, flip-flops, sweatshirts and a winter coat, with some items applying just to males: a belt, hat, gloves, boxer briefs and a “spritz” of the retailer’s cologne. The coats were only to be worn when the temperature fell to 50 degrees or lower, with the collar flipped, and the flip-flops were mandatory in flight and when meeting passengers. Men were not allowed to wear jewelry except for watches and wedding rings.The dress code, part of the "Aircraft Standards Manual," came to light as part of an age discrimination lawsuit filed by a former pilot.
Sounds as if these folks could use a union.
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