TEAMSTERS
Teamster Pilots at Republic Airways Approve New Three-Year Contract Teamster.org ...The International Brotherhood of Teamsters Airline Division and Republic Airways Holdings Inc. announced today that pilots represented by Teamsters Local 357 voted to ratify a new three-year agreement. Results of the vote, which were tabulated today, were 1,363 votes in favor of the agreement to 421 votes against, with 1,784, or 90 percent of eligible pilots, participating in the vote...
Head of Teamsters, Jim Hoffa, stands with striking truckers in Long Beach Press-Telegram ...Teamster President Jim Hoffa joined striking port truck drivers Tuesday in Long Beach, saying the misclassification of these workers must end. “You have the support of the 1.4 million Teamster members,” Hoffa said. “We will bring justice to port truck drivers and warehouse workers nationwide.” The truck drivers who ferry goods to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach walked off the job Monday...
Teamsters ramp up drayage, warehouse worker organizing effort in LA-Long Beach JOC ...The Teamsters union Tuesday stepped up its organizing efforts in Southern California, targeting another drayage company in Los Angeles-Long Beach, and announcing a partnership with a warehouse worker advocacy organization. The latter signals a move by the Teamsters to organize what could potentially be thousands of workers in the warehouse and distribution industry...
Labor friction escalates between California port truckers, shippers Reuters ...Long-simmering labor tensions between Southern California port truckers and shipping companies they accuse of wage theft escalated on Tuesday as a group of drivers demanded recognition as full-fledged employees and petitioned to join the Teamsters union. The action, according to the Teamsters, was taken by at least 50 drivers who work for New Jersey-based Intermodal Bridge Transport (IBT)...
New Third Shift Creates Jobs, Better Working Conditions for Pepsi Members Local 727 ...The addition of a third shift at the PepsiCo warehouse in Chicago’s Canaryville neighborhood means more union jobs and better working conditions for the location’s Teamsters Local 727 members. Starting Nov. 1, seven new third-shift production department machine operators and four additional workers will be on the job, along with the nearly 150 members already working at the warehouse...
Union, recycling advocates promote plan to revamp city’s sanitation setup City & State ...Teamsters Local 813, which represents commercial sanitation workers and is part of Transform Don’t Trash, would like to see labor peace agreements tied to licenses. Such accords typically prevent workers from striking or boycotting and give unions more leverage in attempting to organize. But Local 813’s support has raised questions about why it takes a push from organized labor to get the government to supervise the sector...
GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
U.S. officials to work with Congress on Pacific trade pact timing Reuters ...U.S. officials said on Tuesday they will work with Congress to find a window for lawmakers to consider a sweeping Pacific trade pact and warned that rejecting the deal would raise questions about America's leadership in the region. U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said he was confident of winning political support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal sealed with 11 trading partners earlier this month...
Bank Provisions in Pacific Trade Pact Draw Fire Wall Street Journal ...The sweeping Pacific trade agreement completed this month gives banks an added international legal protection that congressional critics warn could lead to more challenges to Wall Street regulations. U.S. officials play down the new protection for financial firms, saying the Trans-Pacific Partnership also contains several new legal provisions that limit the ability of banks to challenge American financial rules...
Indonesia 'not ready' to join TPP Nation Multimedia ...Indonesia President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's intention to push for membership of the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal signals a reversal in Indonesia's protectionist traditions, and some experts have warned that the country had yet to carefully calculate the implications of this change, arguing that the decision might put Southeast Asia's largest economy in an inferior position in relation to other members of the TPP and the world more broadly...
Joseph Stiglitz: Under TPP, Polluters Could Sue U.S. for Setting Carbon Emissions Limits Democracy Now ...Nobel Prize-winning economist and Columbia University professor Joseph Stiglitz warns about the dangers of the TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. "Under these provisions, corporations can sue the government, including the American government, by the way, so it’s all the governments in the TPP that can be sued for the loss of profits as a result of the regulations that restrict their ability to emit carbon emissions...
Canadians split on support of TPP deal, poll suggests Vancouver Sun ...Almost one month after Canada and 11 other nations reached the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement in Atlanta, Canadians remain sharply divided on whether such a deal is good or bad for the public at-large. That is the finding of a EKOS poll commissioned by the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, the results of which were released Today (Wednesday). The poll found almost an equal number of respondents supporting the TPP (41 per cent) and those who oppose the deal (38 per cent)...
Bundestag president calls TTIP undemocratic The Local ...The President (speaker) of the Bundestag, Norbert Lammert, has threatened to vote against the US-EU TTIP free trade agreement when it comes to a vote before the German parliament, saying that the deal lacks transparency and democratic legitimacy. ammert, who belongs to Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), said that he considers it "out of the question"...
STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
Prevailing wage petition falls short with duplicate signatures WNEM ...petition to repeal Michigan's prevailing wage law is being challenged, after claims that thousands of signatures were duplicated. It's a new twist in the GOP-led effort to go around Gov. Rick Snyder, and repeal a law the governor supports. John Purich is an attorney for a group wanting keep the state's prevailing wage law intact. "This one is not going to make it," Purich said...
In Minneapolis, a Strong ‘Fair Scheduling’ Law for Workers Runs Into a Corporate Roadblock In These Times ...Less than a year after San Francisco passed a first-of-its-kind fair scheduling ordinance for retail employers, progressive activists in Minneapolis began pushing for an even stronger scheduling ordinance of their own—along with paid sick leave, wage theft protections, and the possibility of a $15 minimum wage. But the campaign, dubbed the Working Families Agenda, ran into a roadblock earlier this month...
Sacramento City Council passes minimum wage increase KCRA ...The Sacramento City Council approved increasing minimum wage to $12.50 per hour by 2020 during its meeting Tuesday night. The ordinance, based on recommendations by the 2015 Task Force on Income Inequality, passed 6 to 3. In California, the current minimum wage is $9 per hour and will increase to $10...
Jersey City set to expand paid sick leave mandate NJ.com ...More small businesses would have to adhere to the city's paid sick time mandate under a measure set for adoption by the City Council tomorrow. The changes would require employers with fewer than 10 employees to provide workers with up to 24 hours of paid sick time and up to 16 hours of unpaid sick time annually. Previously, those businesses only had to provide unpaid time...
U.S. LABOR
UAW voting on GM contract starts Friday Detroit Free Press ...As UAW leaders brief local officials from more than 40 General Motors locations Wednesday afternoon, at least one local has decided its members will vote Friday on the four-year agreement. Details of the proposed contract will be shared Wednesday afternoon by UAW President Dennis Williams, Cindy Estrada, vice president of the union's General Motors department, and members of the bargaining committee...
Verizon gets call from Bernie Sanders to reach agreement with CWA union Fierce Telecom ...Verizon is facing yet another call to come to an agreement with the Communications Workers of America (CWA) from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Sanders, a Democratic presidential candidate, met with Verizon union employees during a demonstration near at Verizon Wireless store in New York's Times Square...
Final Major Budget Deal Of The Obama-Boehner Era Forces GOP To Release Social Security Hostages Think Progress ...The budget deal struck between Republican congressional leaders and the White House on Monday night would negate a previous GOP ploy to stage a crisis in Social Security funding next year. The deal will prevent a benefits cut by transferring funds from the main Social Security trust to the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) trust, which would otherwise run short of funding next year and be forced to cut payments to beneficiaries by 20 percent...
Lacking Federal Protection, Rural LGBTQ Workers Falling Through the Cracks Common Dreams ...Despite having won federal recognition of the right to marry a partner of their choosing, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people continue to face the possibility of being fired or harassed at work because of their identity or sexual preference. As much as 70 percent of the United States, geographically speaking, lacks any employment protections for LGBT workers...
The Pay Gap Will Ensure That CEOs Enjoy Luxurious Retirement While Workers Keep Struggling Think Progress ...The pay gap between what CEOs make and what they pay their workers is pretty well known. A new report released on Wednesday illuminates a different gap: that between what CEOs have stashed away for retirement and what their workers have been able to amass. The report from the Center for Effective Government and the Institute for Policy Studies looks at the retirement accounts among CEOs...
SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
Texas Sheriff Faces Lawsuit Over Federal Immigration Holds ABC ...A Texas sheriff who faced criticism from Gov. Greg Abbott for not complying with federal immigration holds is being sued by people who say they were detained for unconstitutionally long periods. The lawsuit was filed the same day Abbott made public a letter to Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez threatening to penalize the county over her revised policy to no longer honor all federal immigration detention holds...
'Codifying' Government Surveillance, Senate Passes CISA Common Dreams ...The U.S. Senate on Tuesday passed the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) without any of the proposed amendments that would have strengthened user protections. The bill passed 74-21. Rights groups immediately called for President Barack Obama to veto the bill and vowed to keep pressure up.
Tensions Rise as Climate Negotiations Resume in Bonn Truth-Out ...The last round of negotiations before the much-anticipated Paris Conference kicked off on Monday in Bonn. With only five official negotiating days left before Paris, those involved in the talks have plenty of work ahead of them before agreeing on what will hopefully be a legally-binding agreement next December...
Obama: Police Are 'Scapegoats' for Broader Failures of Society The Atlantic ...President Obama’s speech to the International Association of Chiefs of Police in Chicago was always going to require some careful political balancing. he conversation was fairly soft. It was classic Obama: Admitting that every side had something to offer, steering a moderate path, and calling on all sides to step up and compromise...
National Outrage as Videos of Brutal Police Assault on Black Student Go Viral Common Dreams ...A brutal attack by a male officer on a black, female high school student in Columbia, South Carolina on Monday has spurred widespread outrage after a number of cell phone videos of the incident went viral. In the videos, Spring Valley High School resource officer Ben Fields, who is white, is shown briefly reproaching the student, who refuses to get up from her desk, before he puts his arm around her neck...
Showing posts with label solid waste. Show all posts
Showing posts with label solid waste. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
Monday, September 28, 2015
Today's Teamster News 09.28.15
Teamsters
Waste Workers at Five Locations Join Teamsters Across the Country Teamsters.org ...More than 200 waste workers at five locations, in California, Washington state, Oregon and Ohio, recently took action to become Teamsters. The workers are employed at the two largest waste companies, Waste Management and Republic Services, and at Recology. “Waste workers across the country are seeking protections on the job and the workers at Waste Management, Republic Services and at Recology have taken the bold step by forming their union," said Ron Herrera, Director of the Teamsters Solid Waste, Recycling and Related Industries Division...
Tri-City Goodwill votes to join Teamsters Tri-City Herald ...The two dozen employees at seven Goodwill Industries of the Columbia stores in the Tri-Cities, Walla Walla and Wenatchee are joining Teamsters Local 839 after a vote last week. In a news release, the union said employees spoke out against low wages, substandard benefits and unsafe working conditions. Workers approached the Teamsters about representing them, said Russell Shjerven, secretary-treasurer for the union...
'Firm' school bus strike deadline to be set this week, union says Newsday ...A labor dispute between a private school bus firm and its workers over pay, working conditions and benefits remains unresolved, leaving open the possibility of a strike for about 35 districts in Nassau and Suffolk. The conflict is between Ronkonkoma-based Baumann and Sons Buses Inc. and Teamsters Local 1205. If the union strikes, it could affect 15,000 students. The contract expired June 30...
Bus drivers transporting eBay workers will get pay raise SF Gate ...Bus drivers who transport eBay employees are getting a huge wage increase as part of the company’s deal with vendor Compass Transportation. EBay said drivers of large shuttles will now make $26.40 per hour and drivers of smaller vans will make $23.10 per hour. The drivers’ previous wage was between $17 and $20 per hour. Compass continues to negotiate a contract with the drivers, organized by the Teamsters...
Hoffa Backs Bipartisan House Push To Address Currency Manipulation Teamster.org ...Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa in response to a letter signed today by 158 House members, both Republican and Democrat, calling on the White House to include enforceable provisions against currency manipulation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP): "At a time when partisan gridlock has largely shut down Capitol Hill, it is telling to see all these lawmakers come together to raise serious questions about how currency manipulation negatively affects U.S. trade"...
Global Labor & Trade
U.S., Pacific Partners Seek to Conclude Trade Pact in Atlanta Wall Street Journal ...Senior officials from the U.S., Japan, and 10 other countries around the Pacific will meet [this] week in Atlanta in another attempt to finish a wide-ranging trade agreement designed to lower border barriers and boost economic growth. The previous high-level negotiations, two months ago on Hawaii’s island of Maui, ended without a deal, with the talks souring over the dairy trade, automotive manufacturing and intellectual-property protection for drugs...
Presidential politics complicate trade talks Politico ...If negotiators had completed the pact two months ago in Maui as hoped, President Barack Obama could have submitted the legacy-burnishing deal to Congress as early as December, setting the stage for approval before Iowa and New Hampshire hold their presidential nomination contests in early February. Instead, the largest trade deal in history is facing the potential for increasing pushback from the left, with Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton coming under intense pressure from progressives to reject the deal...
Pacific trade deal close, but doubts linger: Chile trade head Reuters ...The conditions are now present to finalize a Pacific trade deal, although talks would likely still go down to the wire, Chile's head of international trade told Reuters on Thursday. The United States has called negotiators from the 12 nations discussing the Trans-Pacific Partnership to a meeting in Atlanta [this] week in a bid to finish the pact that will cover 40 percent of the world economy...
Trans-Pacific Partnership could include big dairy concession CBC ...Canada is preparing to open the border to more American milk, without getting reciprocal access for Canadian dairy farmers in the United States, CBC News has learned. Trade Minister Ed Fast will leave the campaign trail to join his counterparts in Atlanta on Wednesday, intent on concluding the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade talks. Chief negotiators from the 12 Pacific Rim member countries meet starting Saturday...
Canada's auto sector 'nervous' about TPP talks CTV News ...As negotiations for a Trans-Pacific Partnership continue, the Conservative government is being accused of sending mixed messages on what the deal will mean for the auto sector. But speaking to CTV’s Question Period, Trade Minister Ed Fast assured a worried auto sector that the government is keeping its interests in mind at the TPP negotiating table. In the past, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper has said the auto sector may not "necessarily like everything" in the TPP deal...
Nearly 160 House lawmakers warn Obama on currency provision The Hill ... Bipartisan group of lawmakers is leading the call in the House for the Obama administration to include enforceable provisions against currency manipulation in a sweeping Asia-Pacific agreement. As talks continue heading into this weekend on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Reps. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Dave Brat (R-Va.) warned in a call with reporters on Friday that the 12-nation pact faces failure in the House without provisions to crack down on currency manipulation...
Obama reaches out to Mexico, but not Canada, in push to wrap up TPP deal Globe and Mail ...U.S. President Barack Obama is reaching out to his Mexican counterpart, Enrique Pena Nieto, as Washington launches a charm offensive to close a massive Pacific Rim trade deal [this] week. There’s rising concern, meanwhile, in Canada’s 80,000-job auto-parts manufacturing sector that the Trans-Pacific Partnership could seriously harm the industry...
Bunnings workers continue to strike at stores across New Zealand Stuff.co.nz ...Bunnings workers continued striking at locations across New Zealand on Saturday with protests planned for 17 stores across the country. Organisers said their main gripe was the introduction of a new roster that would mean workers' shifts could be chopped and changed with just two weeks notice. First Union organiser Dave Cooney, on-site at the Manukau protest, said there had been great support from the public...
2 More Honduran Union Leaders Threatened, Harassed Solidarity Center ...Another union leader in Honduras has received death threats and a second union leader was arrested in the department of Colon during a peaceful rally protesting government corruption, according to the Honduras-based nonprofit ACI-Participa. Earlier this year, one Honduran union leader was murdered and another disappeared and is presumed dead. The latest incidents bring to nine the number of attacks on union leaders in 2015...
State & Living Wage Battles
Minimum wage will top list as Oregon lawmakers gather at Capitol this week Oregon Live ...Legislators will gather in Salem this week for the first time since the 2015 session ended, offering a preview of issues they may tackle in 2016. Topics at the top of the list? The state economy and the minimum wage. Oregon Employment Department economists will brief lawmakers Monday on job growth and the minimum wage...
Florida lawmakers living on $17 a day this week to demonstrate minimum wage Sun Sentinel ...At least 18 Florida lawmakers plan to live on a minimum wage this week to draw attention to efforts to increase the state's minimum wage to $15 an hour. Starting Monday, the lawmakers will live for five days on $17 per day. That figure represents what a minimum wage worker has after the costs of taxes, childcare and housing are deducted from an $8.05-an-hour paycheck...
Legal challenge to N.C.'s voter ID law to go forward next year INDY ...This week, a Superior Court judge denied North Carolina's motion to dismiss a pending voter ID lawsuit. State lawyers attempted to argue that the case—brought by plaintiffs that include the League of Women Voters of N.C. and the A. Philip Randolph Institute—should be dismissed after lawmakers approved an amendment to their mammoth voter law in May...
Construction workers fight to keep Prevailing Wage Law WLNS ...It’s a discussion that has been ongoing for months, deals with the state’s 50-year-old Prevailing Wage Law. On Monday Construction Association members will be holding an event to discuss why repealing the Prevailing Wage Law would be bad for the state. The current law requires workers on state financed construction projects to be paid prevailing union-scale wages...
Two halves of California have wide gap in health costs SacBee ...When it comes to health care costs, it’s clear: Where you live matters. And in California, the gap is especially sharp between the north and south. Take, for instance, common procedures like a cesarean section or a total knee replacement. The total average price tag for a typical C-section in the four-county Sacramento area is $28,828; in east Los Angeles County, it’s $17,567, according to a health care comparison tool unveiled last week...
U.S. Labor
Detroit workers deal another blow to FCA-UAW contract Detroit Free Press ...Workers at Fiat Chrysler's Jefferson North Assembly Plant have resoundingly rejected a four-year tentative agreement between the UAW and the automaker, further jeopardizing chances of approval nationwide. At UAW Local 7, whose workers make the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Dodge Durango at the Detroit assembly plant, 66% of the production workers who cast ballots voted against the contract and 77% of skilled trades workers voted against the deal...
Even the Wall Street Journal Smells a Rat in A&P Supermarkets Bankruptcy In These Times ...Workers at the bankrupt A&P grocery chain have been complaining for weeks that corporate executives have been looting the failing company, but nobody seemed to be paying much attention until Wall Street’s favorite newspaper came out with a story backing up the workers’ charges. Wall Street Journal reporter Peg Brickley uncovered part of the truth September 18, with a dispatch that revealed A&P “paid out $9.4 million in bonuses and other extra payments to insiders"...
Uber Is Using Fine Print To Control Its Drivers. But They Might Not Get Away With It. Think Progress ....Disgruntled Uber drivers are taking their beef with the taxi-killing startup to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in hopes of restoring hundreds of thousands of drivers’ ability to participate in suits against the company. The legal team who won class status for a lawsuit against Uber earlier this month are hoping that the NLRB will invalidate mandatory binding arbitration clauses in the company’s contracts...
ThinkProgress Staffers Unionize With Writers Guild Huffington Post ...The editorial staff of the progressive news site ThinkProgress has joined the Writers Guild of America, East, making it the latest in a string of Web-based publications to unionize. The union said in a statement late Wednesday that management at the site had chosen to voluntarily recognize the employees' decision, allowing them to forgo a secret-ballot election...
SEIU prepares for potential strike after Mercy Health Muskegon RN unit rejects contract with hospital MLive ...The state's largest healthcare union is preparing for a potential strike over a contract dispute affecting workers at a Mercy Health Muskegon nursing unit. SEIU Healthcare Michigan, which represents nurses, hospital staff, nursing home employees and homecare workers, said Friday that it plans to notify hospital system administrators of a pending strike vote. Marge Robinson, the organization's president, said the alert comes after RN workers at the Mercy Campus on Thursday overwhelmingly rejected a contract...
The Long, Strange Tale of a California Farm’s Attempts To Break Its Workers’ Union In These Times ...The strategy by one of the nation's largest growers to shed its obligation to sign a contract with the United Farm Workers was dealt a key setback last week. An administrative law judge not only threw out what union organizers say was one of the dirtiest decertification elections in recent labor history, but did so because California growers had given tens of thousands of dollars to set the union-busting scheme in motion...
Hundreds mark anniversary of farmworkers' labor movement SCPR ...Hundreds of people flocked to Delano over the weekend to mark the 50th anniversary of the Delano grape strike, when grape pickers on Sept. 8, 1965 walked out to protest years of substandard pay and poor working conditions. That walkout, led by Cesar Chavez, sparked an international boycott and eventually led to the creation of the United Farm Workers...
Social Justice & Other News
When America Was 'Great,' Taxes Were High, Unions Were Strong, and Government Was Big The Atlantic ...Trump’s supporters might not appreciate what an economic return to the ’50s—even a ’50s lacking overt discrimination against women and political, racial, and sexual minorities—would entail. The ’50 were, as Stiglitz puts it, “a time of war-induced solidarity when the government kept the playing field level.” In other words, they were a time of Big Government. And Big Labor: As Alternet reports, “By 1953, more than one out of three American workers were members of private sector unions. That means there was a union member in nearly every family”...
Asians to surpass Hispanics as largest group of US immigrants by 2065: study The Guardian ...In a major shift in immigration patterns, Asians will surge past Hispanics to become the largest group of immigrants heading to the US by 2065, according to estimates in a new study. An increase in Asian and Hispanic immigration also will drive US population growth, with foreign-born residents expected to make up 18% of the country’s projected 441 million people in 50 years, the Pew Research Center said...
Elizabeth Warren Delivers Stirring Defense Of ‘Black Lives Matter’ Think Progress ...Senator Elizabeth Warren offered a full-throated endorsement of the Black Lives Matter movement at a speech today at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute. Warren called the activists protesting police brutality around the country the “new generation of civil rights leaders.” She painted them as a direct extension of civil rights heros like Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis. She dismissed critics who claim Black Lives Matter activists are responsible for instigating violence...
Shell Just Scrapped Its Arctic Drilling Plans for "the Forseeable Future" Mother Jones ...After years of botched attempts, mountains of red tape, billions of dollars, and countless face-offs with protestors, Royal Dutch Shell announced today that it is pulling the plug on all oil and gas exploration in the Arctic ocean "for the forseeable future." From the press release: "Shell has found indications of oil and gas in the Burger J well, but these are not sufficient to warrant further exploration"...
Waste Workers at Five Locations Join Teamsters Across the Country Teamsters.org ...More than 200 waste workers at five locations, in California, Washington state, Oregon and Ohio, recently took action to become Teamsters. The workers are employed at the two largest waste companies, Waste Management and Republic Services, and at Recology. “Waste workers across the country are seeking protections on the job and the workers at Waste Management, Republic Services and at Recology have taken the bold step by forming their union," said Ron Herrera, Director of the Teamsters Solid Waste, Recycling and Related Industries Division...
Tri-City Goodwill votes to join Teamsters Tri-City Herald ...The two dozen employees at seven Goodwill Industries of the Columbia stores in the Tri-Cities, Walla Walla and Wenatchee are joining Teamsters Local 839 after a vote last week. In a news release, the union said employees spoke out against low wages, substandard benefits and unsafe working conditions. Workers approached the Teamsters about representing them, said Russell Shjerven, secretary-treasurer for the union...
'Firm' school bus strike deadline to be set this week, union says Newsday ...A labor dispute between a private school bus firm and its workers over pay, working conditions and benefits remains unresolved, leaving open the possibility of a strike for about 35 districts in Nassau and Suffolk. The conflict is between Ronkonkoma-based Baumann and Sons Buses Inc. and Teamsters Local 1205. If the union strikes, it could affect 15,000 students. The contract expired June 30...
Bus drivers transporting eBay workers will get pay raise SF Gate ...Bus drivers who transport eBay employees are getting a huge wage increase as part of the company’s deal with vendor Compass Transportation. EBay said drivers of large shuttles will now make $26.40 per hour and drivers of smaller vans will make $23.10 per hour. The drivers’ previous wage was between $17 and $20 per hour. Compass continues to negotiate a contract with the drivers, organized by the Teamsters...
Hoffa Backs Bipartisan House Push To Address Currency Manipulation Teamster.org ...Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa in response to a letter signed today by 158 House members, both Republican and Democrat, calling on the White House to include enforceable provisions against currency manipulation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP): "At a time when partisan gridlock has largely shut down Capitol Hill, it is telling to see all these lawmakers come together to raise serious questions about how currency manipulation negatively affects U.S. trade"...
Global Labor & Trade
U.S., Pacific Partners Seek to Conclude Trade Pact in Atlanta Wall Street Journal ...Senior officials from the U.S., Japan, and 10 other countries around the Pacific will meet [this] week in Atlanta in another attempt to finish a wide-ranging trade agreement designed to lower border barriers and boost economic growth. The previous high-level negotiations, two months ago on Hawaii’s island of Maui, ended without a deal, with the talks souring over the dairy trade, automotive manufacturing and intellectual-property protection for drugs...
Presidential politics complicate trade talks Politico ...If negotiators had completed the pact two months ago in Maui as hoped, President Barack Obama could have submitted the legacy-burnishing deal to Congress as early as December, setting the stage for approval before Iowa and New Hampshire hold their presidential nomination contests in early February. Instead, the largest trade deal in history is facing the potential for increasing pushback from the left, with Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton coming under intense pressure from progressives to reject the deal...
Pacific trade deal close, but doubts linger: Chile trade head Reuters ...The conditions are now present to finalize a Pacific trade deal, although talks would likely still go down to the wire, Chile's head of international trade told Reuters on Thursday. The United States has called negotiators from the 12 nations discussing the Trans-Pacific Partnership to a meeting in Atlanta [this] week in a bid to finish the pact that will cover 40 percent of the world economy...
Trans-Pacific Partnership could include big dairy concession CBC ...Canada is preparing to open the border to more American milk, without getting reciprocal access for Canadian dairy farmers in the United States, CBC News has learned. Trade Minister Ed Fast will leave the campaign trail to join his counterparts in Atlanta on Wednesday, intent on concluding the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade talks. Chief negotiators from the 12 Pacific Rim member countries meet starting Saturday...
Canada's auto sector 'nervous' about TPP talks CTV News ...As negotiations for a Trans-Pacific Partnership continue, the Conservative government is being accused of sending mixed messages on what the deal will mean for the auto sector. But speaking to CTV’s Question Period, Trade Minister Ed Fast assured a worried auto sector that the government is keeping its interests in mind at the TPP negotiating table. In the past, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper has said the auto sector may not "necessarily like everything" in the TPP deal...
Nearly 160 House lawmakers warn Obama on currency provision The Hill ... Bipartisan group of lawmakers is leading the call in the House for the Obama administration to include enforceable provisions against currency manipulation in a sweeping Asia-Pacific agreement. As talks continue heading into this weekend on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Reps. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Dave Brat (R-Va.) warned in a call with reporters on Friday that the 12-nation pact faces failure in the House without provisions to crack down on currency manipulation...
Obama reaches out to Mexico, but not Canada, in push to wrap up TPP deal Globe and Mail ...U.S. President Barack Obama is reaching out to his Mexican counterpart, Enrique Pena Nieto, as Washington launches a charm offensive to close a massive Pacific Rim trade deal [this] week. There’s rising concern, meanwhile, in Canada’s 80,000-job auto-parts manufacturing sector that the Trans-Pacific Partnership could seriously harm the industry...
Bunnings workers continue to strike at stores across New Zealand Stuff.co.nz ...Bunnings workers continued striking at locations across New Zealand on Saturday with protests planned for 17 stores across the country. Organisers said their main gripe was the introduction of a new roster that would mean workers' shifts could be chopped and changed with just two weeks notice. First Union organiser Dave Cooney, on-site at the Manukau protest, said there had been great support from the public...
2 More Honduran Union Leaders Threatened, Harassed Solidarity Center ...Another union leader in Honduras has received death threats and a second union leader was arrested in the department of Colon during a peaceful rally protesting government corruption, according to the Honduras-based nonprofit ACI-Participa. Earlier this year, one Honduran union leader was murdered and another disappeared and is presumed dead. The latest incidents bring to nine the number of attacks on union leaders in 2015...
State & Living Wage Battles
Minimum wage will top list as Oregon lawmakers gather at Capitol this week Oregon Live ...Legislators will gather in Salem this week for the first time since the 2015 session ended, offering a preview of issues they may tackle in 2016. Topics at the top of the list? The state economy and the minimum wage. Oregon Employment Department economists will brief lawmakers Monday on job growth and the minimum wage...
Florida lawmakers living on $17 a day this week to demonstrate minimum wage Sun Sentinel ...At least 18 Florida lawmakers plan to live on a minimum wage this week to draw attention to efforts to increase the state's minimum wage to $15 an hour. Starting Monday, the lawmakers will live for five days on $17 per day. That figure represents what a minimum wage worker has after the costs of taxes, childcare and housing are deducted from an $8.05-an-hour paycheck...
Legal challenge to N.C.'s voter ID law to go forward next year INDY ...This week, a Superior Court judge denied North Carolina's motion to dismiss a pending voter ID lawsuit. State lawyers attempted to argue that the case—brought by plaintiffs that include the League of Women Voters of N.C. and the A. Philip Randolph Institute—should be dismissed after lawmakers approved an amendment to their mammoth voter law in May...
Construction workers fight to keep Prevailing Wage Law WLNS ...It’s a discussion that has been ongoing for months, deals with the state’s 50-year-old Prevailing Wage Law. On Monday Construction Association members will be holding an event to discuss why repealing the Prevailing Wage Law would be bad for the state. The current law requires workers on state financed construction projects to be paid prevailing union-scale wages...
Two halves of California have wide gap in health costs SacBee ...When it comes to health care costs, it’s clear: Where you live matters. And in California, the gap is especially sharp between the north and south. Take, for instance, common procedures like a cesarean section or a total knee replacement. The total average price tag for a typical C-section in the four-county Sacramento area is $28,828; in east Los Angeles County, it’s $17,567, according to a health care comparison tool unveiled last week...
U.S. Labor
Detroit workers deal another blow to FCA-UAW contract Detroit Free Press ...Workers at Fiat Chrysler's Jefferson North Assembly Plant have resoundingly rejected a four-year tentative agreement between the UAW and the automaker, further jeopardizing chances of approval nationwide. At UAW Local 7, whose workers make the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Dodge Durango at the Detroit assembly plant, 66% of the production workers who cast ballots voted against the contract and 77% of skilled trades workers voted against the deal...
Even the Wall Street Journal Smells a Rat in A&P Supermarkets Bankruptcy In These Times ...Workers at the bankrupt A&P grocery chain have been complaining for weeks that corporate executives have been looting the failing company, but nobody seemed to be paying much attention until Wall Street’s favorite newspaper came out with a story backing up the workers’ charges. Wall Street Journal reporter Peg Brickley uncovered part of the truth September 18, with a dispatch that revealed A&P “paid out $9.4 million in bonuses and other extra payments to insiders"...
Uber Is Using Fine Print To Control Its Drivers. But They Might Not Get Away With It. Think Progress ....Disgruntled Uber drivers are taking their beef with the taxi-killing startup to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in hopes of restoring hundreds of thousands of drivers’ ability to participate in suits against the company. The legal team who won class status for a lawsuit against Uber earlier this month are hoping that the NLRB will invalidate mandatory binding arbitration clauses in the company’s contracts...
ThinkProgress Staffers Unionize With Writers Guild Huffington Post ...The editorial staff of the progressive news site ThinkProgress has joined the Writers Guild of America, East, making it the latest in a string of Web-based publications to unionize. The union said in a statement late Wednesday that management at the site had chosen to voluntarily recognize the employees' decision, allowing them to forgo a secret-ballot election...
SEIU prepares for potential strike after Mercy Health Muskegon RN unit rejects contract with hospital MLive ...The state's largest healthcare union is preparing for a potential strike over a contract dispute affecting workers at a Mercy Health Muskegon nursing unit. SEIU Healthcare Michigan, which represents nurses, hospital staff, nursing home employees and homecare workers, said Friday that it plans to notify hospital system administrators of a pending strike vote. Marge Robinson, the organization's president, said the alert comes after RN workers at the Mercy Campus on Thursday overwhelmingly rejected a contract...
The Long, Strange Tale of a California Farm’s Attempts To Break Its Workers’ Union In These Times ...The strategy by one of the nation's largest growers to shed its obligation to sign a contract with the United Farm Workers was dealt a key setback last week. An administrative law judge not only threw out what union organizers say was one of the dirtiest decertification elections in recent labor history, but did so because California growers had given tens of thousands of dollars to set the union-busting scheme in motion...
Hundreds mark anniversary of farmworkers' labor movement SCPR ...Hundreds of people flocked to Delano over the weekend to mark the 50th anniversary of the Delano grape strike, when grape pickers on Sept. 8, 1965 walked out to protest years of substandard pay and poor working conditions. That walkout, led by Cesar Chavez, sparked an international boycott and eventually led to the creation of the United Farm Workers...
Social Justice & Other News
When America Was 'Great,' Taxes Were High, Unions Were Strong, and Government Was Big The Atlantic ...Trump’s supporters might not appreciate what an economic return to the ’50s—even a ’50s lacking overt discrimination against women and political, racial, and sexual minorities—would entail. The ’50 were, as Stiglitz puts it, “a time of war-induced solidarity when the government kept the playing field level.” In other words, they were a time of Big Government. And Big Labor: As Alternet reports, “By 1953, more than one out of three American workers were members of private sector unions. That means there was a union member in nearly every family”...
Asians to surpass Hispanics as largest group of US immigrants by 2065: study The Guardian ...In a major shift in immigration patterns, Asians will surge past Hispanics to become the largest group of immigrants heading to the US by 2065, according to estimates in a new study. An increase in Asian and Hispanic immigration also will drive US population growth, with foreign-born residents expected to make up 18% of the country’s projected 441 million people in 50 years, the Pew Research Center said...
Elizabeth Warren Delivers Stirring Defense Of ‘Black Lives Matter’ Think Progress ...Senator Elizabeth Warren offered a full-throated endorsement of the Black Lives Matter movement at a speech today at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute. Warren called the activists protesting police brutality around the country the “new generation of civil rights leaders.” She painted them as a direct extension of civil rights heros like Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis. She dismissed critics who claim Black Lives Matter activists are responsible for instigating violence...
Shell Just Scrapped Its Arctic Drilling Plans for "the Forseeable Future" Mother Jones ...After years of botched attempts, mountains of red tape, billions of dollars, and countless face-offs with protestors, Royal Dutch Shell announced today that it is pulling the plug on all oil and gas exploration in the Arctic ocean "for the forseeable future." From the press release: "Shell has found indications of oil and gas in the Burger J well, but these are not sufficient to warrant further exploration"...
Friday, August 7, 2015
Today's Teamster News 08.07.15
Teamsters
Houston Waste Workers Vote Overwhelmingly to Ratify First Contract Teamster.org ...Workers at WCA Waste Corporation of America in Houston, who voted to join the Teamsters in November, have ratified a first contract that improves wages and health care, among other gains. The workers are the only private waste company employees in Texas who have a union contract. “The organizing win, and now this first contract, represent huge victories for these employees,” said Robert Mele, President of Teamsters Local 988 in Houston....
Teamsters and UNITE HERE Announce Initiative to Organize UFC Fighters PR Newswire ...Today, two of the largest unions in the "fight capital" of the world launched an initiative to organize MMA fighters in the Ultimate Fighting Championships (UFC), the largest promoter of professional MMA events. "We have been surprised to learn how poorly these professional fighters are treated in the UFC. We want to help them to improve conditions for themselves and raise standards for the sport," said Chris Griswold, Secretary-Treasurer of Teamsters Local 986...
Teamsters 272 Speaks Out After Garage Attendant Member is Mistreated by Customer Labor Press ...Maximo is a Midtown parking attendant, and member of Teamsters Local 272, who received some unexpected attention after a video featuring him went viral recently. A customer, unhappy with the amount she owed for parking, berated Maximo with an anti-immigrant tirade. She called him “garbage” and an “idiot,” repeatedly telling him “learn how to speak English.” Local 272 Secretary-Treasurer and Business Manager Matthew Bruccoleri has a message for customers who vent their frustrations at ordinary workers...
Unionized Tucson bus workers strike after rejecting contract AZ Central ...Unionized drivers and mechanics at Tucson’s bus system went on strike early Thursday after rejecting a labor contract, a company official said. The strike against Sun Tran began at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, a spokeswoman said. The strike came after a contract extension expired at midnight. That extension had been agreed to after Teamsters Local 104’s members last week rejected an offer...
Unions gunning for MMA fighters Review Journal ...Ultimate Fighting Championship star Ronda Rousey as a Teamster? UFC's Las Vegas nemesis, Culinary Workers Union Local 226, is joining Teamsters Local 986 of South El Monte, Calif. for an "initiative" Thursday to organize UFC's 574 MMA fighters. It's the latest jab at UFC by the culinary union, which wants to bring workers at Las Vegas-based Station Casinos into Local 226. Teamsters Local 986 and Culinary Local 226 have several joint organizing projects in Las Vegas, including the Station Casinos organizing campaign...
Global Labor & Trade
Negotiators hope to wrap up Trans-Pacific Partnership talks this month LA Times ...After a disappointing round of talks ended last week in Hawaii without resolution, negotiators of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership are hoping to meet later this month to try again to wrap up one of the world's biggest free-trade agreements. Between now and then, negotiators have their work cut out for them: They need to iron out tough issues on the length of drug patents, so-called rules of origin for autos and, perhaps most intractable of all, market access for dairy goods — something particularly important for California, America's biggest dairy-producing state...
Kerry confident of concluding TPP trade pact this year Reuters ...U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry expressed confidence on Friday that an ambitious Pacific trade pact could be completed this year and said a recent nuclear deal with Iran proved hurdles in international agreements could be overcome. Kerry said many challenges remained in thrashing out a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), particularly on issues of autos and dairy, but the United States would do everything in its power to make it happen...
Trans-Pacific Partnership: Are Free Trade Agreements Like TPP Really A Tool For Fixing Labor Rights Abuses? International Business Times ...As President Barack Obama pushes to make the massive Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact a capstone of his global trade legacy, he is promoting the deal at home as a way to counter China's commercial influence in the Asia-Pacific region while also holding trade partners to tighter human rights agreements than Chinese dealmakers would. But experts say the president is exaggerating the extent to which trade pacts can force countries to address labor issues and human rights concerns...
New TPP Leaks Reveal US 'Pandering to Big Drug Companies,' Threatening Innovators Common Dream ...New leaks of the negotiating text of the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement reveal that the Obama administration is pushing forth radical proposals that critics say will threaten to harm consumers and innovators while rewarding big drug companies and "extremist copyright" policies. Negotiators for the 12-nation trade pact failed last week to reach a final agreement at their meeting in Maui
Trade deficit widens 7% in June as imports jump USA Today ...The U.S. trade deficit increased in June as solid consumer spending pulled in more imports, while the strong dollar restrained exports. The Commerce Department said Wednesday the trade gap jumped 7% to $43.8 billion in June, up from $40.9 billion in May. Imports increased 1.2% to $232.4 billion, while exports edged lower to $188.6 billion from $188.7 billion...
Greece's tax revenues collapse as debt crisis continues The Guardian ...Fresh evidence of the dramatic impact of the Greek debt crisis on the health of the country’s finances has emerged, with official figures showing tax revenues collapsing. As talks continued over a proposed €86bn third bailout of the stricken state, the Greek treasury said tax revenues were 8.5% lower in the first six months of 2015 than the same period a year earlier. The bank shutdown that brought much economic activity to a halt began on 28 June...
How smuggled workers power 'Made in China' Reuters ...The smuggling of illegal workers from Vietnam across the 1,400-km (840-mile) border into China is growing. Labor brokers estimate that tens of thousands work at factories in the Pearl River Delta, which abuts Hong Kong. Workers from other Southeast Asian nations are joining them. Visits by Reuters to a half-dozen factory towns in southern China revealed the employment of illegal workers from Vietnam is widespread, and authorities often turn a blind eye to their presence...
Congressional cracks appear in Brazil austerity plan FT ...Brazil’s president Dilma Rousseff faced a fresh setback to her efforts to restore the country’s sinking public finances on Thursday after a rebellious congress voted for wage rises for key civil servants. The move, which sent the real to a fresh 12-year low and local bond yields to a record high, came as Ms Rousseff’s approval ratings fell to their lowest level and two small parties defected from her ruling coalition, further threatening her hold over congress...
London Underground services resume after 24-hour Tube strike BBC News ...London Underground services have resumed after a 24-hour strike shut down the entire network. The industrial action by four unions began on Wednesday evening as part of a dispute over the Night Tube, which is due to start next month. The unions are unhappy at conditions offered to drivers who will be working on the new service...
State & Living Wage Battles
WorkForce Still Working to Recalculate Prevailing Wage WV Public ...he prevailing wage in West Virginia expired on July 1 of this year after a political battle between lawmakers and the executive branch, but WorkForce West Virginia says they’re still working to recalculate the wage. The prevailing wage is the hourly rate workers are paid on construction projects that are paid for with state dollars...
Report Finds Confusion Over Voter ID Law Kept People From The Polls, Too Houston Press ...The Texas Voter law, requiring voters to have a photo ID, may have kept some people from the polls in November 2014's general election—but mere confusion about the law may have kept away voters, too. According to a new report released by public policy researchers at Rice University's Baker Institute and the University of Houston's Hobby Center, 13 percent of a sample of 400 nonvoters in U.S. Congressional District 23 said in a survey that they did not vote in part because they did not possess the proper photo ID...
Could Scott Walker's Legal Victory Expand PAC Superpowers? Truthout ...A Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling on Gov. Scott Walker's campaign practices clears the way for state candidates to work more closely with legally independent political groups and their enormous war chests. The big unanswered question is how ripples from the case might spread beyond the state's borders. The ruling could spark attempts to overturn laws in other states that restrict such coordination...
Unintended Consequence of Wal-Mart’s Raise: Unhappy Workers Bloomberg ...When Wal-Mart Stores Inc. chief Doug McMillon announced plans to boost store workers’ minimum wage earlier this year, he said the move was intended to improve morale and retain employees. Yet for some of the hundreds of thousands of workers getting no raise, the policy is having the opposite effect. If Wal-Mart and other retailers don’t also adjust pay for veteran hourly workers, they could face rising dissent, said David Cooper, an economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute...
Dunkin Donut CEO Who Makes $4,887 an Hour Outraged at $15 Minimum Wage In These Times ...This week, the New York Wage Board recommended that the state's fast food workers should make $15 per hour, which has been the rallying cry for the labor movement across the country. The New York move was seen as a victory for workers in this industry, who are among the lowest-paid in the country. Within a day, corporate America was on the attack, to stop the spread of this burgeoning national movement...
Health care workers plead with Hillary Clinton for higher minimum wage CNN ...Hillary Clinton visited a technical college in Los Angeles on Thursday to hear the emotional stories, and needs, of home health-care workers represented by the Service Employees International Union. What she heard: Raise our wages. Throughout Clinton's appearance at the Los Angeles Trade Technical College, home health-care workers from across the country told Clinton what a pay bump would mean...
This bank just hiked its minimum wage to $15 CNN ...Amalgamated Bank announced Thursday that it will raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour. The change will affect all employees, take effect immediately, and be retroactive to July 1. Amalgamated encouraged other financial institutions to "join the 'Fight for 15.'" "We're fortunate enough to be part of the wealthiest industry in America, so I'd hope others in the financial industry will follow," Amalgamated Bank CEO Keith Mestrich told CNNMoney...
U.S. Labor
Verizon Gets Upper Hand With Labor Unions in Wireless Shift Bloomberg ...Verizon Communications Inc., deadlocked in labor talks over pension benefits and health care that caused a strike in 2011, has gained bargaining power this time around after shedding operations that employ older unionized workers. The Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, representing about 39,000 Verizon employees, are in the weakest position they’ve ever been. That’s because the phone giant has refocused on wireless, where it sees more growth and employees are nonunionized...
UAW leader says union will 'negotiate smart' with Ford Detroit Free Press ...The UAW knows Ford is earning record profits in North America, but does not plan to use that as an opportunity to extract unreasonable raises in contract discussions this year. UAW Vice President Jimmy Settles said Thursday the union needs to remember that the companies that employ union members must be able to remain healthy for years to come...
Labor Dept. to unveil worker protection rule The Hill ...The Obama administration will unveil a long awaited proposal Thursday to lower workplace exposure to beryllium, a widely used metal that’s known to cause a deadly lung disease. The proposed rule would lower the Occupational Health and Safety Administration's (OSHA) current eight-hour permissible exposure limit for beryllium from 2.0 micrograms per cubic meter of air to 0.2 micrograms per cubic meter...
Amnesty International’s Long-Due Support for Sex Workers Rights The Nation ...Amnesty International, after two years of consultation with members and human rights advocates around the world, is meeting with the international board over the next few days in Dublin to “adopt a policy that seeks attainment of the highest possible protection of the human rights of sex workers.” The foundation of this proposal—that countries “review and repeal laws that make those who sell sex vulnerable to human rights violations”—has been mischaracterized as legalizing prostitution...
Unemployment Rate Steady As Economy Adds 215,000 Jobs NPR ...The U.S. economy added 215,000 jobs last month, just shy of the number forecast by economists. The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 5.3 percent. Wages were up slightly and the number of long-term unemployed remained the same as June. The consensus forecast had been for 220,000 new jobs. The gains occurred in retail trade, health care, professional and technical services, and financial activities...
The Racial Gaps in America's Recovery The Atlantic ...According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’s latest report, the unemployment rate in July was 5.3 percent, which is encouragingly low compared to the height of the recession, when it reached 10 percent. It’s also tantalizingly close to the 5.0 to 5.2 percent range that Federal Reserve policymakers say will signal the country’s return to full employment. What’s lost in that marquee number, though, is that this progress has been incredibly uneven, and minorities continue to struggle disproportionately...
Social Justice & Other News
First Republican Debate of 2016 Presidential Race Kicks Off on Fox News with Roger Ailes Favorites Democracy Now ...Ten leading Republican presidential candidates faced off in the first debate of the 2016 presidential election Thursday night. Fox News invited 10 candidates to take part: Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, John Kasich, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Donald Trump and Scott Walker. Some analysts described the debate as the Roger Ailes primary since the head of Fox News had so much say into who participated in the prime-time event...
Immigration issues dominate opening GOP presidential debate MSNBC ...Immigration issues dominated the first Republican presidential debate of the season, pitting GOP candidates against one another in addressing the millions of undocumented immigrants with firm roots in the United States. Looming over the debate was real estate mogul and billionaire Donald Trump, who basked in his center podium placement on the debate stage, defying odds by leading national polls. Trump claimed credit for making immigration a major campaign issue...
"Oppressed People Are Everywhere": A Year After Ferguson, a Conversation With One of the Protests' Organizers Mother Jones ...In the year since the Ferguson protests, police treatment of African Americans has come under intense scrutiny. Numerous police killings of unarmed black men in New York, Baltimore, North Charleston, and elsewhere have drawn national attention. And across the country, activists and community leaders have demanded accountability from officers and reforms from lawmakers. These efforts already have had some results. Still, police are on track to kill more people this year than last year...
Jon Stewart’s Humble, Remarkable Farewell The Atlantic ...After nearly 17 years as the star, Jon Stewart tried his best to make his final night at The Daily Show about anyone but himself—and he almost succeeded. On Thursday, Stewart wheeled out a parade of current and former correspondents, aired taped goodbyes from longtime rivals, and paid tribute to the show’s behind-the-scenes crew with a lengthy, faux-single-shot segment...
Trump's Narcissism Obscures His Outrage The Atlantic ...Saying that Donald Trump performed poorly in last night’s debate is stating the obvious. By any sane standard he’s been performing poorly since he entered the race. Yet he’s leading in the polls. Still, last night Trump didn’t even do obnoxious well. The reason, I suspect, is that to debate effectively, even if you’re a goon, you must talk about something other than yourself...
Paul Krugman: Donald Trump’s “know-nothingism” makes one pine for a “return to normal GOP hypocrisy” Salon ...The New York Times’ Paul Krugman used his Friday column to analyze the appeal of the candidates who participated in last night’s GOP debate — in particular, he analyzed the way in which Donald Trump’s obvious absurdity calls attention to the fundamental unseriousness of the candidates with whom he shared the stage. The conventions of political reporting and commentary, Krugman argued, prevents people from saying “the obvious — namely, that one of our two major political parties has gone off the deep end”...
Rick Santorum Vows To Cut Back Every Anti-Poverty Program To End The Culture Of Handouts Think Progress ...At the early Republican debate on Thursday evening among the candidates who didn’t get a slot in primetime, the hosts and candidates took time to talk about their concern that the country has a culture of dependency thanks to anti-poverty programs. Santorum responded by describing his plan to engineer a manufacturing rebound and thus create more jobs through a flat tax. But then he brought up his plans for anti-poverty programs...
Houston Waste Workers Vote Overwhelmingly to Ratify First Contract Teamster.org ...Workers at WCA Waste Corporation of America in Houston, who voted to join the Teamsters in November, have ratified a first contract that improves wages and health care, among other gains. The workers are the only private waste company employees in Texas who have a union contract. “The organizing win, and now this first contract, represent huge victories for these employees,” said Robert Mele, President of Teamsters Local 988 in Houston....
Teamsters and UNITE HERE Announce Initiative to Organize UFC Fighters PR Newswire ...Today, two of the largest unions in the "fight capital" of the world launched an initiative to organize MMA fighters in the Ultimate Fighting Championships (UFC), the largest promoter of professional MMA events. "We have been surprised to learn how poorly these professional fighters are treated in the UFC. We want to help them to improve conditions for themselves and raise standards for the sport," said Chris Griswold, Secretary-Treasurer of Teamsters Local 986...
Teamsters 272 Speaks Out After Garage Attendant Member is Mistreated by Customer Labor Press ...Maximo is a Midtown parking attendant, and member of Teamsters Local 272, who received some unexpected attention after a video featuring him went viral recently. A customer, unhappy with the amount she owed for parking, berated Maximo with an anti-immigrant tirade. She called him “garbage” and an “idiot,” repeatedly telling him “learn how to speak English.” Local 272 Secretary-Treasurer and Business Manager Matthew Bruccoleri has a message for customers who vent their frustrations at ordinary workers...
Unionized Tucson bus workers strike after rejecting contract AZ Central ...Unionized drivers and mechanics at Tucson’s bus system went on strike early Thursday after rejecting a labor contract, a company official said. The strike against Sun Tran began at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, a spokeswoman said. The strike came after a contract extension expired at midnight. That extension had been agreed to after Teamsters Local 104’s members last week rejected an offer...
Unions gunning for MMA fighters Review Journal ...Ultimate Fighting Championship star Ronda Rousey as a Teamster? UFC's Las Vegas nemesis, Culinary Workers Union Local 226, is joining Teamsters Local 986 of South El Monte, Calif. for an "initiative" Thursday to organize UFC's 574 MMA fighters. It's the latest jab at UFC by the culinary union, which wants to bring workers at Las Vegas-based Station Casinos into Local 226. Teamsters Local 986 and Culinary Local 226 have several joint organizing projects in Las Vegas, including the Station Casinos organizing campaign...
Global Labor & Trade
Negotiators hope to wrap up Trans-Pacific Partnership talks this month LA Times ...After a disappointing round of talks ended last week in Hawaii without resolution, negotiators of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership are hoping to meet later this month to try again to wrap up one of the world's biggest free-trade agreements. Between now and then, negotiators have their work cut out for them: They need to iron out tough issues on the length of drug patents, so-called rules of origin for autos and, perhaps most intractable of all, market access for dairy goods — something particularly important for California, America's biggest dairy-producing state...
Kerry confident of concluding TPP trade pact this year Reuters ...U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry expressed confidence on Friday that an ambitious Pacific trade pact could be completed this year and said a recent nuclear deal with Iran proved hurdles in international agreements could be overcome. Kerry said many challenges remained in thrashing out a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), particularly on issues of autos and dairy, but the United States would do everything in its power to make it happen...
Trans-Pacific Partnership: Are Free Trade Agreements Like TPP Really A Tool For Fixing Labor Rights Abuses? International Business Times ...As President Barack Obama pushes to make the massive Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact a capstone of his global trade legacy, he is promoting the deal at home as a way to counter China's commercial influence in the Asia-Pacific region while also holding trade partners to tighter human rights agreements than Chinese dealmakers would. But experts say the president is exaggerating the extent to which trade pacts can force countries to address labor issues and human rights concerns...
New TPP Leaks Reveal US 'Pandering to Big Drug Companies,' Threatening Innovators Common Dream ...New leaks of the negotiating text of the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement reveal that the Obama administration is pushing forth radical proposals that critics say will threaten to harm consumers and innovators while rewarding big drug companies and "extremist copyright" policies. Negotiators for the 12-nation trade pact failed last week to reach a final agreement at their meeting in Maui
Trade deficit widens 7% in June as imports jump USA Today ...The U.S. trade deficit increased in June as solid consumer spending pulled in more imports, while the strong dollar restrained exports. The Commerce Department said Wednesday the trade gap jumped 7% to $43.8 billion in June, up from $40.9 billion in May. Imports increased 1.2% to $232.4 billion, while exports edged lower to $188.6 billion from $188.7 billion...
Greece's tax revenues collapse as debt crisis continues The Guardian ...Fresh evidence of the dramatic impact of the Greek debt crisis on the health of the country’s finances has emerged, with official figures showing tax revenues collapsing. As talks continued over a proposed €86bn third bailout of the stricken state, the Greek treasury said tax revenues were 8.5% lower in the first six months of 2015 than the same period a year earlier. The bank shutdown that brought much economic activity to a halt began on 28 June...
How smuggled workers power 'Made in China' Reuters ...The smuggling of illegal workers from Vietnam across the 1,400-km (840-mile) border into China is growing. Labor brokers estimate that tens of thousands work at factories in the Pearl River Delta, which abuts Hong Kong. Workers from other Southeast Asian nations are joining them. Visits by Reuters to a half-dozen factory towns in southern China revealed the employment of illegal workers from Vietnam is widespread, and authorities often turn a blind eye to their presence...
Congressional cracks appear in Brazil austerity plan FT ...Brazil’s president Dilma Rousseff faced a fresh setback to her efforts to restore the country’s sinking public finances on Thursday after a rebellious congress voted for wage rises for key civil servants. The move, which sent the real to a fresh 12-year low and local bond yields to a record high, came as Ms Rousseff’s approval ratings fell to their lowest level and two small parties defected from her ruling coalition, further threatening her hold over congress...
London Underground services resume after 24-hour Tube strike BBC News ...London Underground services have resumed after a 24-hour strike shut down the entire network. The industrial action by four unions began on Wednesday evening as part of a dispute over the Night Tube, which is due to start next month. The unions are unhappy at conditions offered to drivers who will be working on the new service...
State & Living Wage Battles
WorkForce Still Working to Recalculate Prevailing Wage WV Public ...he prevailing wage in West Virginia expired on July 1 of this year after a political battle between lawmakers and the executive branch, but WorkForce West Virginia says they’re still working to recalculate the wage. The prevailing wage is the hourly rate workers are paid on construction projects that are paid for with state dollars...
Report Finds Confusion Over Voter ID Law Kept People From The Polls, Too Houston Press ...The Texas Voter law, requiring voters to have a photo ID, may have kept some people from the polls in November 2014's general election—but mere confusion about the law may have kept away voters, too. According to a new report released by public policy researchers at Rice University's Baker Institute and the University of Houston's Hobby Center, 13 percent of a sample of 400 nonvoters in U.S. Congressional District 23 said in a survey that they did not vote in part because they did not possess the proper photo ID...
Could Scott Walker's Legal Victory Expand PAC Superpowers? Truthout ...A Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling on Gov. Scott Walker's campaign practices clears the way for state candidates to work more closely with legally independent political groups and their enormous war chests. The big unanswered question is how ripples from the case might spread beyond the state's borders. The ruling could spark attempts to overturn laws in other states that restrict such coordination...
Unintended Consequence of Wal-Mart’s Raise: Unhappy Workers Bloomberg ...When Wal-Mart Stores Inc. chief Doug McMillon announced plans to boost store workers’ minimum wage earlier this year, he said the move was intended to improve morale and retain employees. Yet for some of the hundreds of thousands of workers getting no raise, the policy is having the opposite effect. If Wal-Mart and other retailers don’t also adjust pay for veteran hourly workers, they could face rising dissent, said David Cooper, an economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute...
Dunkin Donut CEO Who Makes $4,887 an Hour Outraged at $15 Minimum Wage In These Times ...This week, the New York Wage Board recommended that the state's fast food workers should make $15 per hour, which has been the rallying cry for the labor movement across the country. The New York move was seen as a victory for workers in this industry, who are among the lowest-paid in the country. Within a day, corporate America was on the attack, to stop the spread of this burgeoning national movement...
Health care workers plead with Hillary Clinton for higher minimum wage CNN ...Hillary Clinton visited a technical college in Los Angeles on Thursday to hear the emotional stories, and needs, of home health-care workers represented by the Service Employees International Union. What she heard: Raise our wages. Throughout Clinton's appearance at the Los Angeles Trade Technical College, home health-care workers from across the country told Clinton what a pay bump would mean...
This bank just hiked its minimum wage to $15 CNN ...Amalgamated Bank announced Thursday that it will raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour. The change will affect all employees, take effect immediately, and be retroactive to July 1. Amalgamated encouraged other financial institutions to "join the 'Fight for 15.'" "We're fortunate enough to be part of the wealthiest industry in America, so I'd hope others in the financial industry will follow," Amalgamated Bank CEO Keith Mestrich told CNNMoney...
U.S. Labor
Verizon Gets Upper Hand With Labor Unions in Wireless Shift Bloomberg ...Verizon Communications Inc., deadlocked in labor talks over pension benefits and health care that caused a strike in 2011, has gained bargaining power this time around after shedding operations that employ older unionized workers. The Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, representing about 39,000 Verizon employees, are in the weakest position they’ve ever been. That’s because the phone giant has refocused on wireless, where it sees more growth and employees are nonunionized...
UAW leader says union will 'negotiate smart' with Ford Detroit Free Press ...The UAW knows Ford is earning record profits in North America, but does not plan to use that as an opportunity to extract unreasonable raises in contract discussions this year. UAW Vice President Jimmy Settles said Thursday the union needs to remember that the companies that employ union members must be able to remain healthy for years to come...
Labor Dept. to unveil worker protection rule The Hill ...The Obama administration will unveil a long awaited proposal Thursday to lower workplace exposure to beryllium, a widely used metal that’s known to cause a deadly lung disease. The proposed rule would lower the Occupational Health and Safety Administration's (OSHA) current eight-hour permissible exposure limit for beryllium from 2.0 micrograms per cubic meter of air to 0.2 micrograms per cubic meter...
Amnesty International’s Long-Due Support for Sex Workers Rights The Nation ...Amnesty International, after two years of consultation with members and human rights advocates around the world, is meeting with the international board over the next few days in Dublin to “adopt a policy that seeks attainment of the highest possible protection of the human rights of sex workers.” The foundation of this proposal—that countries “review and repeal laws that make those who sell sex vulnerable to human rights violations”—has been mischaracterized as legalizing prostitution...
Unemployment Rate Steady As Economy Adds 215,000 Jobs NPR ...The U.S. economy added 215,000 jobs last month, just shy of the number forecast by economists. The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 5.3 percent. Wages were up slightly and the number of long-term unemployed remained the same as June. The consensus forecast had been for 220,000 new jobs. The gains occurred in retail trade, health care, professional and technical services, and financial activities...
The Racial Gaps in America's Recovery The Atlantic ...According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’s latest report, the unemployment rate in July was 5.3 percent, which is encouragingly low compared to the height of the recession, when it reached 10 percent. It’s also tantalizingly close to the 5.0 to 5.2 percent range that Federal Reserve policymakers say will signal the country’s return to full employment. What’s lost in that marquee number, though, is that this progress has been incredibly uneven, and minorities continue to struggle disproportionately...
Social Justice & Other News
First Republican Debate of 2016 Presidential Race Kicks Off on Fox News with Roger Ailes Favorites Democracy Now ...Ten leading Republican presidential candidates faced off in the first debate of the 2016 presidential election Thursday night. Fox News invited 10 candidates to take part: Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, John Kasich, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Donald Trump and Scott Walker. Some analysts described the debate as the Roger Ailes primary since the head of Fox News had so much say into who participated in the prime-time event...
Immigration issues dominate opening GOP presidential debate MSNBC ...Immigration issues dominated the first Republican presidential debate of the season, pitting GOP candidates against one another in addressing the millions of undocumented immigrants with firm roots in the United States. Looming over the debate was real estate mogul and billionaire Donald Trump, who basked in his center podium placement on the debate stage, defying odds by leading national polls. Trump claimed credit for making immigration a major campaign issue...
"Oppressed People Are Everywhere": A Year After Ferguson, a Conversation With One of the Protests' Organizers Mother Jones ...In the year since the Ferguson protests, police treatment of African Americans has come under intense scrutiny. Numerous police killings of unarmed black men in New York, Baltimore, North Charleston, and elsewhere have drawn national attention. And across the country, activists and community leaders have demanded accountability from officers and reforms from lawmakers. These efforts already have had some results. Still, police are on track to kill more people this year than last year...
Jon Stewart’s Humble, Remarkable Farewell The Atlantic ...After nearly 17 years as the star, Jon Stewart tried his best to make his final night at The Daily Show about anyone but himself—and he almost succeeded. On Thursday, Stewart wheeled out a parade of current and former correspondents, aired taped goodbyes from longtime rivals, and paid tribute to the show’s behind-the-scenes crew with a lengthy, faux-single-shot segment...
Trump's Narcissism Obscures His Outrage The Atlantic ...Saying that Donald Trump performed poorly in last night’s debate is stating the obvious. By any sane standard he’s been performing poorly since he entered the race. Yet he’s leading in the polls. Still, last night Trump didn’t even do obnoxious well. The reason, I suspect, is that to debate effectively, even if you’re a goon, you must talk about something other than yourself...
Paul Krugman: Donald Trump’s “know-nothingism” makes one pine for a “return to normal GOP hypocrisy” Salon ...The New York Times’ Paul Krugman used his Friday column to analyze the appeal of the candidates who participated in last night’s GOP debate — in particular, he analyzed the way in which Donald Trump’s obvious absurdity calls attention to the fundamental unseriousness of the candidates with whom he shared the stage. The conventions of political reporting and commentary, Krugman argued, prevents people from saying “the obvious — namely, that one of our two major political parties has gone off the deep end”...
Rick Santorum Vows To Cut Back Every Anti-Poverty Program To End The Culture Of Handouts Think Progress ...At the early Republican debate on Thursday evening among the candidates who didn’t get a slot in primetime, the hosts and candidates took time to talk about their concern that the country has a culture of dependency thanks to anti-poverty programs. Santorum responded by describing his plan to engineer a manufacturing rebound and thus create more jobs through a flat tax. But then he brought up his plans for anti-poverty programs...
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Today's Teamster News 07.28.15
Teamsters
Hoffa Statement on New State Department Report That Upgrades Malaysia on Trafficking List Teamster.org ...Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa in response to a new State Department document that improves the Malaysian government’s standing in its annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report: "The welfare of workers is at risk, and we must continue to push Malaysia to improve its anti-trafficking efforts rather than paving the way for it to participate in TPP"...
Google Express Workers File for Representation by Teamsters Union Teamster.org ...Teamsters Local Union 853 announced today that workers at Palo Alto-based Google Express Services filed for a representation election. The more than 140 warehouse and shipping workers sought out the Teamsters for help with improving working conditions, treatment on the job and compensation...
Workers at Google Express Bay Area Warehouse Take Step to Unionize Wall Street Journal ...A group of 140 warehouse workers at a Google Express facility in the San Francisco Bay-area have taken the first step toward unionizing. In a statement Monday, Local 853 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters said workers who fill and ship orders at the Palo Alto, Calif., warehouse—all of whom were brought on by staffing agency Adecco—had filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board...
Google's Low-Wage Contract Workers Are Poised to Unionize Mother Jones ...Labor organizers with the Teamsters union announced Monday that they're holding an election to unionize workers for Google Express, the shopping service that delivers everything from toothpaste to televisions purchased by online consumers. The union is seeking to represent about 140 Google Express warehouse workers employed by Adecco, a temp agency that provides much of the delivery service's Bay Area staff...
Teamsters picket on behalf of Gold Cross employees Good 4 Utah ...Gold Cross employees joined together Monday to picket at the Gold Cross corporate office in Salt Lake City. Gold Cross paramedics say they've been negotiating with the company for 10 months, but the company has refused to budge. The paramedics say they won't strike because that could hurt the citizens. The Teamsters Union has filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board...
EVSC Board, Teamsters plan to resume collective bargaining Courier & Press ...Evansville Vanderburgh School Board President Mike Duckworth said the seven-member board is ready to resume collective bargaining negotiations with Teamsters Local 215. After an executive session “training” on Saturday, where all board members were present, Duckworth said the members discussed many issues that are currently on the table with Local 215...
Global Labor & Trade
US human trafficking report under fire as Cuba and Malaysia are upgraded The Guardian ...The United States is facing criticism after it removed Cuba and Malaysia from the US State Department’s list of the countries categorically failing to respond to widespread human trafficking. Malaysia was also given an upgrade to the tier 2 watch list after a year on tier 3. It comes as President Obama works to smooth the way for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a huge US-led free trade deal with Malaysia and 11 other countries across south-east Asia...
Key Shift on Malaysia Before Trans-Pacific Partnership Deal New York Times ...With the Obama administration pushing to conclude a vast Asian trade pact, the State Department on Monday upgraded its assessment of Malaysia’s efforts to combat human trafficking, a move that could ease the country’s inclusion in the trade deal. Though the human trafficking report from the State Department is released annually, this year it carries added weight because of the administration’s desire to make final the Trans-Pacific Partnership...
Feds face blowback over Malaysia human trafficking upgrade The Hill ...The State Department’s upgrade of Malaysia’s human trafficking status is setting up another clash between Congress and the White House on global trade. The Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report released Monday gave Malaysia a boost to the Tier 2 Watch List from Tier 3, the lowest level, a move that could further complicate congressional approval of a massive Trans-Pacific trade pact...
Issues Mount as Negotiators Gather to Wrap Up Trans-Pacific Trade Pact New York Times ...The top trade negotiators of the United States and 11 other Pacific nations are gathering this week at a luxury resort in Maui for one last push to complete the largest regional trade accord in history, roping together 40 percent of the world’s economic output. But even though it is billed as the “final round” of Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, trade representatives from the United States, Japan and Pacific nations from Canada and Chile to Australia and Vietnam have high hurdles to clear...
Canadian dairy farmers head to Maui in last ditch effort against TPP Global and Mail ...Led by the United States, a group of 12 countries including Japan, Canada, Chile and Malaysia are trying to create a Pacific Rim trading bloc with North American-calibre commercial rules – a counterweight to Chinese influence in the region. The price of entry for Canada to a Trans-Pacific Partnership deal is expected to include opening up this country’s heavily sheltered dairy and poultry sectors to further foreign competition...
US Decision on People Trafficking in Malaysia “Manipulated” ITUC-CSI.org ...The unwarranted upgrade is presumed to be result of political interference by the administration to ensure that Malaysia remains eligible to participate in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), which has been under negotiation since 2008. The recently adopted Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) provides that Tier 3 countries cannot be parties to trade agreements with the United States. The status upgrade comes just two months after the discovery in Malaysia of mass graves containing 139 bodies of migrant workers...
Up to 6,000 Zimbabwe Workers Fired After Court Ruling Solidarity Center ...Up to 6,000 workers have been terminated over the past week in Zimbabwe, following a Supreme Court decision stating that companies can now unilaterally end workers’ contracts at any time, without offering them layoff benefits, by giving them three months’ notice. The mass job cuts “are part of a scramble by companies to fire workers without benefits as they capitalize on last Friday’s Supreme Court ruling,” according to one news source...
Greece Moves Forward In Bailout Talks As Government Comes Under Fire Huffington Post ...Greece pushed ahead with talks on a new rescue loan Tuesday, but its government came under increasing pressure over claims it had a top-secret plan to prepare for a euro exit that involved accessing citizens' personal tax data. Emissaries from Greece's international creditors held a second day of preparatory talks with Greek officials, ahead of higher-level negotiations later this week on the country's new multi-billion euro lifeline...
State & Living Wage Battles
Minnesota's minimum wage rises to $9 per hour Saturday Star Tribune ...Minnesota will vault past Illinois, Michigan and South Dakota this week to gain the highest minimum wage in the Midwestern region at $9 an hour, which also will rank among the most-generous state wage floors in the country. The $1-per-hour bump takes effect Saturday for some 288,000 of Minnesota’s lowest-paid workers...
Repealing prevailing wage law would create work force shortage, says Saginaw's Herb Spence MLive ...At least one Saginaw business owner is not happy about the prospect that Michigan's prevailing wage law could be repealed. Those pushing for a repeal of the law, which mandates union-scale wages on state-funded construction projects, argue eliminating the prevailing wage would provide significant savings. Herb Spence III, the owner of Spence Brothers, said he thinks removing the law would hurt Michigan's construction industry and the state's economy in general...
Florida bill would more than double minimum wage to $15 Bay News 9 ...Florida Democrats have filed legislation to more than double the state's minimum wage to $15 an hour, an eye-popping figure they hope will spark an outpouring of activism aimed at pressuring the Republican-controlled Legislature to act. The legislation, SB 6, is sponsored by Sen. Dwight Bullard (D-Miami), who for years has tried unsuccessfully to raise Florida's minimum wage of $8.05...
Legal maneuvers continue in redistricting cases News 4 Jax ...As a Leon County judge finalized the dates for a hearing on a third draft of Florida's congressional districts, a key lawmaker Monday refused to rule out the possibility of continuing the legal fight over the map, this time in federal court. Meanwhile, attorneys for the Legislature and critics of the 2012 redistricting process declined to discuss whether settlement talks were underway in a separate case dealing with a state Senate map that opponents also say was tainted by political considerations...
Hedge funds tell Puerto Rico: lay off teachers and close schools to pay us back The Guardian ...Billionaire hedge fund managers have called on Puerto Rico to lay off teachers and close schools so that the island can pay them back the billions it owes. The hedge funds called for Puerto Rico to avoid financial default – and repay its debts – by collecting more taxes, selling $4bn worth of public buildings and drastically cutting public spending, particularly on education. The group of 34 hedge funds hired former International Monetary Fund (IMF) economists to come up with a solution to Puerto Rico’s debt crisis...
U.S. Labor
Down to the wire: Verizon strike looms Aug. 1 CBS ...With a contract deadline of midnight August 1, Verizon (VZ) and representatives of its 39,000-member union work force have four business days to reach a deal and avert a strike, which would hit consumers from Massachusetts to Virginia. The bargaining units involved serve the telecom provider's legacy landline and FiOS Internet and cable operations. Back in 2011, the same bargaining units went on a strike that lasted for two weeks...
Steelworkers, Asarco file NLRB charges Arizona Daily Star ...Unions representing workers at Tucson-based copper producer Asarco LLC have filed charges of unfair labor practices against the company with the National Labor Relations Board, as they continue working without a contract. The company in turn has filed NLRB charges against the unions, according to a member update posted on the website of the United Steelworkers, the lead union in the negotiations...
500 Lehigh Valley Verizon workers ready to strike Morning Call ... At least 500 Verizon union workers in the Lehigh Valley and Berks County could strike this weekend if a new labor deal is not reached. Ed Mooney, international vice president for Communications Workers of America District 2-13 in Philadelphia, said Monday the affected workers are technicians and customer-support employees in Verizon's wireline unit, which provides traditional phone services to homes and businesses, as well as high-speed FiOS Internet and television...
Zero Waste Remains a Dirty Business The Nation ...In an age of global warming, two global capitals, Los Angeles and New York, are going “zero waste.” Following a nationwide trend, the cities have launched new plans to aggressively reform their waste-management and recycling systems to nearly eliminate dumping in landfills. A policy analysis by the advocacy group LAANE and its associated national coalition Partnership for Working Families, lays out a “blueprint” for zero waste in cities. But according to LAANE, many municipal governments are modernizing their waste systems using regressive labor standards...
USW: Concessions at heart of U.S. Steel contract offer Chicago Tribune ...The United Steelworkers union said the concessions U.S. Steel has asked for would erode decades of contractual improvements and benefits. United Steelworkers said it has received an outline of an initial new contract proposal from U.S. Steel that includes dozens of demands for concessions. The union said the concessions would erode decades of contractual improvements and benefits won for members and their families...
AFSCME raises concerns about National Guard use Herald & Review ...A former top commander of the Illinois National Guard voiced concern Monday about a possible plan to use soldiers to help operate state government if there is a labor strike. State Rep. David Harris, an Arlington Heights Republican who served as adjutant general from 1999 to 2003, said he would advise Gov. Bruce Rauner against such a move...
Defending Backpage, Sex Workers Say Removing Online Ads Does Them More Harm Truthout ...Sex workers across the country have rallied in defense of the website, taking to social media and launching petitions to demand that Healey stop her "attack" on the website, and that Visa and MasterCard reinstate their credit services. Advocates argue that cutting web services like Backpage will not stop trafficking. In fact, it has the opposite effect of driving sex workers who can't afford more expensive web services out into the streets and sometimes, into the hands of traffickers...
Univ. of California Academic Workers’ Union Calls on AFL-CIO To Terminate Police Union’s Membership In These Times ...United Auto Workers Local 2865, the union representing 13,000 teaching assistants and other student workers throughout the University of California, called on the AFL-CIO to end its affiliation with the International Union of Police Associations (IUPA). The resolution came in the wake of a letter written by the UAW’s Black Interests Coordinating Committee (BICC). The group formed in December 2014 in response to the acquittals of police officers in the deaths of Mike Brown and Eric Garner...
Social Justice & Other News
Immigrants' attorneys say they were 'locked out' of detention centers after raising concerns LA Times ...Pro bono attorneys working at the country’s two largest immigrant family detention centers in Texas said Monday that they have been "locked out" after they raised concerns last week that officials were forcing the immigrant mothers they represent to sign legal papers without consulting them. The complaint comes as the Congressional Progressive Caucus and members of the House Judiciary Committee are preparing to hold a forum on family detention...
The Majority Of GOP Voters Want Mass Deportation, But It’ll Cost Them Think Progress ...Sixty-three percent of Republican voters would support deporting the population of 11 million undocumented immigrants, according to a new CNN/ORC poll. The center-right organization American Action Forum (AAF) found that it would cost between $400 billion and $600 billion to apprehend, detain, legally process, and transport every undocumented immigrant back to their countries of origin. A a Center of American Progress report found that it would cost an average of about $10,070 to deport each individual...
Between the World and Me: Black American Motherhood (opinion) The Atlantic ...There was a time when some of us believed our daughters were safe. “At least you have girls,” a white colleague said to me after Trayvon Martin was murdered. Her flippant comment ignited a rage mingled with guilt and shame I felt at having soothed myself with the same thought. This was before Renisha McBride, Sandra Bland, before all of the videos, before the writers, witnesses, and recorders in this Age of Ferguson, as I like to call it, left us no place to hide...
Sandra Bland Laid to Rest; First Black Judge in Waller County Demands Sheriff Resign over Her Death Democracy Now ...Hundreds gathered Saturday to remember Sandra Bland at the suburban Chicago church she attended for decades before moving to Waller County, Texas, where she was set to begin a new job but was then discovered dead in her jail cell after a traffic stop escalated into an arrest. Illinois Senator Dick Durbin and Congressman Bill Foster have sent letters to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch calling for a federal investigation into Bland’s death...
For-Profit Prison Accused of Subjecting Juveniles to 'Disgraceful' Conditions Common Dreams ...A for-profit British private security firm whose human rights abuses have been documented around the world, from Israel to South Africa to the United Kingdom, stands accused by a grand jury of operating a horrific juvenile detention center in Florida where conditions are so poor, and hygiene so bad, that the prison "should cease to exist." The firm G4S operates the Highlands Youth Academy in Avon Park, Florida, where young men and boys from 16 to 19 years old are incarcerated. A riot at the prison two years ago prompted the investigation...
Hoffa Statement on New State Department Report That Upgrades Malaysia on Trafficking List Teamster.org ...Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa in response to a new State Department document that improves the Malaysian government’s standing in its annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report: "The welfare of workers is at risk, and we must continue to push Malaysia to improve its anti-trafficking efforts rather than paving the way for it to participate in TPP"...
Google Express Workers File for Representation by Teamsters Union Teamster.org ...Teamsters Local Union 853 announced today that workers at Palo Alto-based Google Express Services filed for a representation election. The more than 140 warehouse and shipping workers sought out the Teamsters for help with improving working conditions, treatment on the job and compensation...
Workers at Google Express Bay Area Warehouse Take Step to Unionize Wall Street Journal ...A group of 140 warehouse workers at a Google Express facility in the San Francisco Bay-area have taken the first step toward unionizing. In a statement Monday, Local 853 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters said workers who fill and ship orders at the Palo Alto, Calif., warehouse—all of whom were brought on by staffing agency Adecco—had filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board...
Google's Low-Wage Contract Workers Are Poised to Unionize Mother Jones ...Labor organizers with the Teamsters union announced Monday that they're holding an election to unionize workers for Google Express, the shopping service that delivers everything from toothpaste to televisions purchased by online consumers. The union is seeking to represent about 140 Google Express warehouse workers employed by Adecco, a temp agency that provides much of the delivery service's Bay Area staff...
Teamsters picket on behalf of Gold Cross employees Good 4 Utah ...Gold Cross employees joined together Monday to picket at the Gold Cross corporate office in Salt Lake City. Gold Cross paramedics say they've been negotiating with the company for 10 months, but the company has refused to budge. The paramedics say they won't strike because that could hurt the citizens. The Teamsters Union has filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board...
EVSC Board, Teamsters plan to resume collective bargaining Courier & Press ...Evansville Vanderburgh School Board President Mike Duckworth said the seven-member board is ready to resume collective bargaining negotiations with Teamsters Local 215. After an executive session “training” on Saturday, where all board members were present, Duckworth said the members discussed many issues that are currently on the table with Local 215...
Global Labor & Trade
US human trafficking report under fire as Cuba and Malaysia are upgraded The Guardian ...The United States is facing criticism after it removed Cuba and Malaysia from the US State Department’s list of the countries categorically failing to respond to widespread human trafficking. Malaysia was also given an upgrade to the tier 2 watch list after a year on tier 3. It comes as President Obama works to smooth the way for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a huge US-led free trade deal with Malaysia and 11 other countries across south-east Asia...
Key Shift on Malaysia Before Trans-Pacific Partnership Deal New York Times ...With the Obama administration pushing to conclude a vast Asian trade pact, the State Department on Monday upgraded its assessment of Malaysia’s efforts to combat human trafficking, a move that could ease the country’s inclusion in the trade deal. Though the human trafficking report from the State Department is released annually, this year it carries added weight because of the administration’s desire to make final the Trans-Pacific Partnership...
Feds face blowback over Malaysia human trafficking upgrade The Hill ...The State Department’s upgrade of Malaysia’s human trafficking status is setting up another clash between Congress and the White House on global trade. The Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report released Monday gave Malaysia a boost to the Tier 2 Watch List from Tier 3, the lowest level, a move that could further complicate congressional approval of a massive Trans-Pacific trade pact...
Issues Mount as Negotiators Gather to Wrap Up Trans-Pacific Trade Pact New York Times ...The top trade negotiators of the United States and 11 other Pacific nations are gathering this week at a luxury resort in Maui for one last push to complete the largest regional trade accord in history, roping together 40 percent of the world’s economic output. But even though it is billed as the “final round” of Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, trade representatives from the United States, Japan and Pacific nations from Canada and Chile to Australia and Vietnam have high hurdles to clear...
Canadian dairy farmers head to Maui in last ditch effort against TPP Global and Mail ...Led by the United States, a group of 12 countries including Japan, Canada, Chile and Malaysia are trying to create a Pacific Rim trading bloc with North American-calibre commercial rules – a counterweight to Chinese influence in the region. The price of entry for Canada to a Trans-Pacific Partnership deal is expected to include opening up this country’s heavily sheltered dairy and poultry sectors to further foreign competition...
US Decision on People Trafficking in Malaysia “Manipulated” ITUC-CSI.org ...The unwarranted upgrade is presumed to be result of political interference by the administration to ensure that Malaysia remains eligible to participate in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), which has been under negotiation since 2008. The recently adopted Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) provides that Tier 3 countries cannot be parties to trade agreements with the United States. The status upgrade comes just two months after the discovery in Malaysia of mass graves containing 139 bodies of migrant workers...
Up to 6,000 Zimbabwe Workers Fired After Court Ruling Solidarity Center ...Up to 6,000 workers have been terminated over the past week in Zimbabwe, following a Supreme Court decision stating that companies can now unilaterally end workers’ contracts at any time, without offering them layoff benefits, by giving them three months’ notice. The mass job cuts “are part of a scramble by companies to fire workers without benefits as they capitalize on last Friday’s Supreme Court ruling,” according to one news source...
Greece Moves Forward In Bailout Talks As Government Comes Under Fire Huffington Post ...Greece pushed ahead with talks on a new rescue loan Tuesday, but its government came under increasing pressure over claims it had a top-secret plan to prepare for a euro exit that involved accessing citizens' personal tax data. Emissaries from Greece's international creditors held a second day of preparatory talks with Greek officials, ahead of higher-level negotiations later this week on the country's new multi-billion euro lifeline...
State & Living Wage Battles
Minnesota's minimum wage rises to $9 per hour Saturday Star Tribune ...Minnesota will vault past Illinois, Michigan and South Dakota this week to gain the highest minimum wage in the Midwestern region at $9 an hour, which also will rank among the most-generous state wage floors in the country. The $1-per-hour bump takes effect Saturday for some 288,000 of Minnesota’s lowest-paid workers...
Repealing prevailing wage law would create work force shortage, says Saginaw's Herb Spence MLive ...At least one Saginaw business owner is not happy about the prospect that Michigan's prevailing wage law could be repealed. Those pushing for a repeal of the law, which mandates union-scale wages on state-funded construction projects, argue eliminating the prevailing wage would provide significant savings. Herb Spence III, the owner of Spence Brothers, said he thinks removing the law would hurt Michigan's construction industry and the state's economy in general...
Florida bill would more than double minimum wage to $15 Bay News 9 ...Florida Democrats have filed legislation to more than double the state's minimum wage to $15 an hour, an eye-popping figure they hope will spark an outpouring of activism aimed at pressuring the Republican-controlled Legislature to act. The legislation, SB 6, is sponsored by Sen. Dwight Bullard (D-Miami), who for years has tried unsuccessfully to raise Florida's minimum wage of $8.05...
Legal maneuvers continue in redistricting cases News 4 Jax ...As a Leon County judge finalized the dates for a hearing on a third draft of Florida's congressional districts, a key lawmaker Monday refused to rule out the possibility of continuing the legal fight over the map, this time in federal court. Meanwhile, attorneys for the Legislature and critics of the 2012 redistricting process declined to discuss whether settlement talks were underway in a separate case dealing with a state Senate map that opponents also say was tainted by political considerations...
Hedge funds tell Puerto Rico: lay off teachers and close schools to pay us back The Guardian ...Billionaire hedge fund managers have called on Puerto Rico to lay off teachers and close schools so that the island can pay them back the billions it owes. The hedge funds called for Puerto Rico to avoid financial default – and repay its debts – by collecting more taxes, selling $4bn worth of public buildings and drastically cutting public spending, particularly on education. The group of 34 hedge funds hired former International Monetary Fund (IMF) economists to come up with a solution to Puerto Rico’s debt crisis...
U.S. Labor
Down to the wire: Verizon strike looms Aug. 1 CBS ...With a contract deadline of midnight August 1, Verizon (VZ) and representatives of its 39,000-member union work force have four business days to reach a deal and avert a strike, which would hit consumers from Massachusetts to Virginia. The bargaining units involved serve the telecom provider's legacy landline and FiOS Internet and cable operations. Back in 2011, the same bargaining units went on a strike that lasted for two weeks...
Steelworkers, Asarco file NLRB charges Arizona Daily Star ...Unions representing workers at Tucson-based copper producer Asarco LLC have filed charges of unfair labor practices against the company with the National Labor Relations Board, as they continue working without a contract. The company in turn has filed NLRB charges against the unions, according to a member update posted on the website of the United Steelworkers, the lead union in the negotiations...
500 Lehigh Valley Verizon workers ready to strike Morning Call ... At least 500 Verizon union workers in the Lehigh Valley and Berks County could strike this weekend if a new labor deal is not reached. Ed Mooney, international vice president for Communications Workers of America District 2-13 in Philadelphia, said Monday the affected workers are technicians and customer-support employees in Verizon's wireline unit, which provides traditional phone services to homes and businesses, as well as high-speed FiOS Internet and television...
Zero Waste Remains a Dirty Business The Nation ...In an age of global warming, two global capitals, Los Angeles and New York, are going “zero waste.” Following a nationwide trend, the cities have launched new plans to aggressively reform their waste-management and recycling systems to nearly eliminate dumping in landfills. A policy analysis by the advocacy group LAANE and its associated national coalition Partnership for Working Families, lays out a “blueprint” for zero waste in cities. But according to LAANE, many municipal governments are modernizing their waste systems using regressive labor standards...
USW: Concessions at heart of U.S. Steel contract offer Chicago Tribune ...The United Steelworkers union said the concessions U.S. Steel has asked for would erode decades of contractual improvements and benefits. United Steelworkers said it has received an outline of an initial new contract proposal from U.S. Steel that includes dozens of demands for concessions. The union said the concessions would erode decades of contractual improvements and benefits won for members and their families...
AFSCME raises concerns about National Guard use Herald & Review ...A former top commander of the Illinois National Guard voiced concern Monday about a possible plan to use soldiers to help operate state government if there is a labor strike. State Rep. David Harris, an Arlington Heights Republican who served as adjutant general from 1999 to 2003, said he would advise Gov. Bruce Rauner against such a move...
Defending Backpage, Sex Workers Say Removing Online Ads Does Them More Harm Truthout ...Sex workers across the country have rallied in defense of the website, taking to social media and launching petitions to demand that Healey stop her "attack" on the website, and that Visa and MasterCard reinstate their credit services. Advocates argue that cutting web services like Backpage will not stop trafficking. In fact, it has the opposite effect of driving sex workers who can't afford more expensive web services out into the streets and sometimes, into the hands of traffickers...
Univ. of California Academic Workers’ Union Calls on AFL-CIO To Terminate Police Union’s Membership In These Times ...United Auto Workers Local 2865, the union representing 13,000 teaching assistants and other student workers throughout the University of California, called on the AFL-CIO to end its affiliation with the International Union of Police Associations (IUPA). The resolution came in the wake of a letter written by the UAW’s Black Interests Coordinating Committee (BICC). The group formed in December 2014 in response to the acquittals of police officers in the deaths of Mike Brown and Eric Garner...
Social Justice & Other News
Immigrants' attorneys say they were 'locked out' of detention centers after raising concerns LA Times ...Pro bono attorneys working at the country’s two largest immigrant family detention centers in Texas said Monday that they have been "locked out" after they raised concerns last week that officials were forcing the immigrant mothers they represent to sign legal papers without consulting them. The complaint comes as the Congressional Progressive Caucus and members of the House Judiciary Committee are preparing to hold a forum on family detention...
The Majority Of GOP Voters Want Mass Deportation, But It’ll Cost Them Think Progress ...Sixty-three percent of Republican voters would support deporting the population of 11 million undocumented immigrants, according to a new CNN/ORC poll. The center-right organization American Action Forum (AAF) found that it would cost between $400 billion and $600 billion to apprehend, detain, legally process, and transport every undocumented immigrant back to their countries of origin. A a Center of American Progress report found that it would cost an average of about $10,070 to deport each individual...
Between the World and Me: Black American Motherhood (opinion) The Atlantic ...There was a time when some of us believed our daughters were safe. “At least you have girls,” a white colleague said to me after Trayvon Martin was murdered. Her flippant comment ignited a rage mingled with guilt and shame I felt at having soothed myself with the same thought. This was before Renisha McBride, Sandra Bland, before all of the videos, before the writers, witnesses, and recorders in this Age of Ferguson, as I like to call it, left us no place to hide...
Sandra Bland Laid to Rest; First Black Judge in Waller County Demands Sheriff Resign over Her Death Democracy Now ...Hundreds gathered Saturday to remember Sandra Bland at the suburban Chicago church she attended for decades before moving to Waller County, Texas, where she was set to begin a new job but was then discovered dead in her jail cell after a traffic stop escalated into an arrest. Illinois Senator Dick Durbin and Congressman Bill Foster have sent letters to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch calling for a federal investigation into Bland’s death...
For-Profit Prison Accused of Subjecting Juveniles to 'Disgraceful' Conditions Common Dreams ...A for-profit British private security firm whose human rights abuses have been documented around the world, from Israel to South Africa to the United Kingdom, stands accused by a grand jury of operating a horrific juvenile detention center in Florida where conditions are so poor, and hygiene so bad, that the prison "should cease to exist." The firm G4S operates the Highlands Youth Academy in Avon Park, Florida, where young men and boys from 16 to 19 years old are incarcerated. A riot at the prison two years ago prompted the investigation...
Thursday, June 25, 2015
Today's Teamster News 06.25.15
Teamsters
EVSC, Teamsters to resume negotiations Monday Courier & Press ...After three weeks of standstill in discussions, the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp. and Teamsters Local 215 negotiating teams have agreed to meet next week for collective bargaining sessions. Local 215 President Chuck Whobrey said meetings are scheduled for Monday and Tuesday...
Teamsters Join Battle Against HOS Changes, Truck Size Provisions Trucking News ...The Teamsters Union this week stood with Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), representatives for highway safety advocates and law enforcement and families of highway accident victims to denounce a series of provisions it claims would threaten the safety of the driving public. This week, the Senate will follow the House and mark up the FY 2016 transportation appropriations bill...
Teamsters at Fleischmann's Plant Make Vinegar for the World Local 727 ...Vinegar is Bob Maza’s unofficial family business. Maza followed in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps as an operator at Fleischmann’s Vinegar Co., beginning at age 17. “My dad got me the job. I started there right out of high school in 1972, and I’ve been there ever since,” said Maza, a Teamsters Local 727 steward...
The war against bad trade deals continues TeamsterNation ...The battle now turns to the TPP. Americans have not yet seen the text of this lengthy and complex agreement and even elected officials have limited access to the document. Teamsters and other advocates plan on keeping up the pressure to build real and enforceable labor and environmental standards...
Global Labor & Trade
Congress renews 'fast track' trade authority USA Today ...The Republican-controlled Congress delivered a significant second-term victory for President Obama, sending to his desk a six-year renewal of trade promotion authority intended to advance one of the largest trade pacts in history later this year. Trade promotion authority, more commonly referred to as "fast track" or TPA, reestablishes an expedited legislative process for presidents to submit trade deals to Congress that can only be approved or rejected, not amended...
Senate approves fast-track, sending trade bill to White House The Hill ...The Senate voted Wednesday to approve fast-track authority, securing a big second-term legislative win for President Obama after a months-long struggle. The 60-38 Senate vote capped weeks of fighting over the trade bill, which pitted Obama against most of his party — including Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)...
Fast-Track’s Passage Sets Up Round Two on Obama’s Trade Agenda Wall Street Journal ...The White House and Republican leaders notched a significant victory Wednesday with the Senate’s passage of divisive trade legislation, but the win kicks off a grueling, monthslong process to complete a Pacific trade pact that still faces domestic opposition and must win final congressional approval. President Barack Obama is expected to sign the fast-track legislation within days, clearing a negotiating roadblock that prevented officials from moving ahead on the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership...
Here’s how much corporations paid the Senate to fast-track passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Raw Story ...The US Senate passed Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) — the fast-tracking bill — by a 65-33 margin on 14 May. Last Thursday, the Senate voted 62-38 to bring the debate on TPA to a close. Those impressive majorities follow months of behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing by the world’s most well-heeled multinational corporations with just a handful of holdouts.
Even in Chicago, Democrats Sprint Away From Obama on Trade National Journal ...Even in Obama's home base, trade has driven a deep rift between the president and his fellow Democrats. At the same time, the labor movement has ramped up pressure on lawmakers to vote against fast-track, which they say will cost American jobs and slash wages. And Chicago-area Democrats locked in primaries that could be decided by a spare few thousand votes can ill afford to get on the wrong side of labor on a litmus-test issue...
Pay deal averts rail strike threat BBC ...The threat of a UK national rail strike has been averted after Network Rail agreed a two-year pay deal with unions. Members of the RMT, TSSA and Unite unions have voted to accept the offer. The deal includes a 2% pay rise this year and a pay increase in line with RPI inflation next year...
Greece 'Shoved Over Red Line' as IMF Pushes Even Harsher Cuts Common Dreams ...More austerity, more cuts, or no deal. That's the message the International Monetary Fund threw back at the Greek government after negotiators on Wednesday rejected the latest reform proposals submitted by the Syriza government. According to reporting on the ground, there were a "flurry of proposals, counter-proposals, leaks and verbal attacks" in Brussels as Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras continued to try to hash out an acceptable bail-out...
China Workers Contracted by Uniqlo Strike Over Plant Closure ABC News ...More than 300 Chinese workers at a garment factory that supplies international brands such as Uniqlo have been protesting for about two weeks what they say is a unilateral decision by the management to close down. The strike is one of more than 1,000 collective actions since January by Chinese workers, who are increasingly turning to group actions in fighting for their rights...
State & Living Wage Battles
Dispute over union fees could return to Supreme Court Sacramento Bee ...Powerful public-sector unions are facing another high-profile legal challenge that they say could wipe away millions from their bank accounts and make it tougher for them to survive. A group of California schoolteachers, backed by a conservative group, has asked the Supreme Court to rule that unions representing government workers can't collect fees from those who choose not to join...
Scott Walker Reveals Extreme Views On Equal Pay Think Progress ...He likened the push for equal pay laws to seeking to make more people reliant on government. “For [Obama and Clinton], your measure of success in government is how many people are dependent on the government.”
But what Walker implies he’d rather do to address the wage gap — give women more education and qualifications — won’t do the trick...
Debate ramping up ahead of vote on right-to-work veto Joplin Globe ...While it never received support from a number of House and Senate Republicans from districts near the state’s urban cores, right-to-work received unanimous support from the Republicans who represent Southwest Missouri. The bill was passed out of a committee chaired by Lant, R-Pineville, who said in a recent interview that he is pushing the effort to override Nixon’s veto...
NAACP head says state ‘blinked’ on voter ID Winston-Salem Journal ...A noisy protest staged last week by the state NAACP at the N.C. Legislative Building in Raleigh forced legislators to pass the law that modifies the voter ID law, the Rev. William Barber, the president of the N.C. chapter of the NAACP, said Wednesday. “They blinked,” Barber said. “They had to go back and fix what was clearly voter suppression”...
De Blasio refused offer linking minimum wage to pension deal Capital New York ...Mayor Bill de Blasio was offered a deal to raise the minimum wage for New York City in exchange for supporting a police pension proposal, but he rejected the offer, multiple sources told Capital. The deal, offered by the Republican-controlled State Senate, would have established an $11.50-an-hour minimum wage for New York City, the sources familiar with the talks said...
Lawmakers Unanimously Approve Country’s Most Robust Paid Sick Leave Law Think Progress ...The Montgomery County, Maryland council voted unanimously to pass a paid sick leave bill on Tuesday, making the town the 23rd place in the country to enact such a requirement. The law is one of the most robust to be passed at the city or state level so far. “The Montgomery County paid sick days laws is one of the strongest yet, and it should serve as a model for the state of Maryland and the nation,” said Charly Carter, director of Maryland Working Families...
U.S. Labor
Someone Has to Sort Your Recycling, and It’s a Disgusting and Dangerous Job The Nation ...The industries that pride themselves on being friends of the earth are often hostile to workers, according to new research on the safety conditions in recycling plants. Published by the Massachusetts Council for Occupational Safety and Health (MassCOSH), National COSH, and other advocacy groups, the analysis of the industry shows that, despite the green sector’s clean, progressive image, workers remain imperiled by old-school industrial hazards...
Marathon refinery workers in Texas to end strike July 6 The Courier ...Unionized workers at Marathon Petroleum Corp.’s Galveston Bay refinery in Texas will go back to work July 6 following nearly five months of striking. They ratified a contract with the company on Tuesday. About 1,200 workers at the refinery in Texas City, Texas, walked off the job Feb. 1...
Verizon and its unions off to tough start to contract talks Times Union ...Verizon and the unions that represent 38,000 of its workers in the Northeast, including about 1,000 in the Capital Region, have gotten off to an acrimonious start to their contract negotiations. After Verizon publicized it had offered employees wage increases, which included a $1,000 cash payment in the final year of a proposed three-year agreement, union officials accused the company of trying to surgarcoat what was really a bad deal...
AT&T, CWA begin negotiations for 27,000 Southeast employees Fierce Telecom ...AT&T has begun contract negotiations with 27,000 employees in its Southeast territory represented by the Communications Workers of America (CWA). The Southeast region, which was formerly BellSouth, has wireline employees in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Both parties met yesterday with both presenting their own position statements on the negotiation process...
School bus company underpaid workers in NY state more than $290K, Cuomo says; Poughkeepsie employees affected Daily Freeman ...More than $290,000 in wages have been returned to 462 workers at Durham School Services locations across New York as the result if an investigation by the state Department of Labor’s Division of Worker Protection, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Monday. The labor department launched an investigation after Service Employees International Union Local 200 raised concerns about possible pay violations at the Durham location in Syracuse...
Miscellaneous
Federal Judge Halts Sysco-US Foods Merger Wall Street Journal ...A federal judge on Tuesday issued a preliminary injunction blocking Sysco Corp.’s planned acquisition of US Foods Inc., a ruling that could kill a deal to combine the nation’s two largest food distributors. The decision handed a high-profile victory to the Federal Trade Commission, which filed a lawsuit in February chanllenging the transaction on anti-trust grounds...
Obamacare upheld by US supreme court as conservative justices rescue law The Guardian ...Chief justice John Roberts has come to the rescue of Barack Obama’s healthcare reforms for a second time as the US supreme court struck down a Republican-led challenge to Obamacare that could have gutted the legislation and stripped millions of Americans of their health insurance. The decision in the high stakes case of King v Burwell all but guarantees that Obamacare will survive...
U.S. to Reduce Long Stays for Families at Immigration Centers New York Times ...In a sharp change of policy, Homeland Security officials announced plans Wednesday to end the long-term detention of mothers with children caught crossing the border illegally by allowing most of them to be released quickly on bond. The changes by Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson expanded policies he ordered last month that were designed to shorten family detention but that had only limited effect...
Deadly American Extremism: More White Than Muslim The Atlantic ...It’s an accident of fate that Dzokhar Tsarnaev’s formal sentencing for the Boston Marathon bombing is happening just now, as the U.S. continues to reel from the Charleston massacre. Jihadists have killed 26 people, versus 48 by what New America calls “right-wing extremists.” In that way, Dylann Roof is far more representative of political violence in 21st century America than Dzokhar Tsarnaev could ever be...
EVSC, Teamsters to resume negotiations Monday Courier & Press ...After three weeks of standstill in discussions, the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp. and Teamsters Local 215 negotiating teams have agreed to meet next week for collective bargaining sessions. Local 215 President Chuck Whobrey said meetings are scheduled for Monday and Tuesday...
Teamsters Join Battle Against HOS Changes, Truck Size Provisions Trucking News ...The Teamsters Union this week stood with Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), representatives for highway safety advocates and law enforcement and families of highway accident victims to denounce a series of provisions it claims would threaten the safety of the driving public. This week, the Senate will follow the House and mark up the FY 2016 transportation appropriations bill...
Teamsters at Fleischmann's Plant Make Vinegar for the World Local 727 ...Vinegar is Bob Maza’s unofficial family business. Maza followed in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps as an operator at Fleischmann’s Vinegar Co., beginning at age 17. “My dad got me the job. I started there right out of high school in 1972, and I’ve been there ever since,” said Maza, a Teamsters Local 727 steward...
The war against bad trade deals continues TeamsterNation ...The battle now turns to the TPP. Americans have not yet seen the text of this lengthy and complex agreement and even elected officials have limited access to the document. Teamsters and other advocates plan on keeping up the pressure to build real and enforceable labor and environmental standards...
Global Labor & Trade
Congress renews 'fast track' trade authority USA Today ...The Republican-controlled Congress delivered a significant second-term victory for President Obama, sending to his desk a six-year renewal of trade promotion authority intended to advance one of the largest trade pacts in history later this year. Trade promotion authority, more commonly referred to as "fast track" or TPA, reestablishes an expedited legislative process for presidents to submit trade deals to Congress that can only be approved or rejected, not amended...
Senate approves fast-track, sending trade bill to White House The Hill ...The Senate voted Wednesday to approve fast-track authority, securing a big second-term legislative win for President Obama after a months-long struggle. The 60-38 Senate vote capped weeks of fighting over the trade bill, which pitted Obama against most of his party — including Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)...
Fast-Track’s Passage Sets Up Round Two on Obama’s Trade Agenda Wall Street Journal ...The White House and Republican leaders notched a significant victory Wednesday with the Senate’s passage of divisive trade legislation, but the win kicks off a grueling, monthslong process to complete a Pacific trade pact that still faces domestic opposition and must win final congressional approval. President Barack Obama is expected to sign the fast-track legislation within days, clearing a negotiating roadblock that prevented officials from moving ahead on the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership...
Here’s how much corporations paid the Senate to fast-track passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Raw Story ...The US Senate passed Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) — the fast-tracking bill — by a 65-33 margin on 14 May. Last Thursday, the Senate voted 62-38 to bring the debate on TPA to a close. Those impressive majorities follow months of behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing by the world’s most well-heeled multinational corporations with just a handful of holdouts.
Even in Chicago, Democrats Sprint Away From Obama on Trade National Journal ...Even in Obama's home base, trade has driven a deep rift between the president and his fellow Democrats. At the same time, the labor movement has ramped up pressure on lawmakers to vote against fast-track, which they say will cost American jobs and slash wages. And Chicago-area Democrats locked in primaries that could be decided by a spare few thousand votes can ill afford to get on the wrong side of labor on a litmus-test issue...
Pay deal averts rail strike threat BBC ...The threat of a UK national rail strike has been averted after Network Rail agreed a two-year pay deal with unions. Members of the RMT, TSSA and Unite unions have voted to accept the offer. The deal includes a 2% pay rise this year and a pay increase in line with RPI inflation next year...
Greece 'Shoved Over Red Line' as IMF Pushes Even Harsher Cuts Common Dreams ...More austerity, more cuts, or no deal. That's the message the International Monetary Fund threw back at the Greek government after negotiators on Wednesday rejected the latest reform proposals submitted by the Syriza government. According to reporting on the ground, there were a "flurry of proposals, counter-proposals, leaks and verbal attacks" in Brussels as Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras continued to try to hash out an acceptable bail-out...
China Workers Contracted by Uniqlo Strike Over Plant Closure ABC News ...More than 300 Chinese workers at a garment factory that supplies international brands such as Uniqlo have been protesting for about two weeks what they say is a unilateral decision by the management to close down. The strike is one of more than 1,000 collective actions since January by Chinese workers, who are increasingly turning to group actions in fighting for their rights...
State & Living Wage Battles
Dispute over union fees could return to Supreme Court Sacramento Bee ...Powerful public-sector unions are facing another high-profile legal challenge that they say could wipe away millions from their bank accounts and make it tougher for them to survive. A group of California schoolteachers, backed by a conservative group, has asked the Supreme Court to rule that unions representing government workers can't collect fees from those who choose not to join...
Scott Walker Reveals Extreme Views On Equal Pay Think Progress ...He likened the push for equal pay laws to seeking to make more people reliant on government. “For [Obama and Clinton], your measure of success in government is how many people are dependent on the government.”
But what Walker implies he’d rather do to address the wage gap — give women more education and qualifications — won’t do the trick...
Debate ramping up ahead of vote on right-to-work veto Joplin Globe ...While it never received support from a number of House and Senate Republicans from districts near the state’s urban cores, right-to-work received unanimous support from the Republicans who represent Southwest Missouri. The bill was passed out of a committee chaired by Lant, R-Pineville, who said in a recent interview that he is pushing the effort to override Nixon’s veto...
NAACP head says state ‘blinked’ on voter ID Winston-Salem Journal ...A noisy protest staged last week by the state NAACP at the N.C. Legislative Building in Raleigh forced legislators to pass the law that modifies the voter ID law, the Rev. William Barber, the president of the N.C. chapter of the NAACP, said Wednesday. “They blinked,” Barber said. “They had to go back and fix what was clearly voter suppression”...
De Blasio refused offer linking minimum wage to pension deal Capital New York ...Mayor Bill de Blasio was offered a deal to raise the minimum wage for New York City in exchange for supporting a police pension proposal, but he rejected the offer, multiple sources told Capital. The deal, offered by the Republican-controlled State Senate, would have established an $11.50-an-hour minimum wage for New York City, the sources familiar with the talks said...
Lawmakers Unanimously Approve Country’s Most Robust Paid Sick Leave Law Think Progress ...The Montgomery County, Maryland council voted unanimously to pass a paid sick leave bill on Tuesday, making the town the 23rd place in the country to enact such a requirement. The law is one of the most robust to be passed at the city or state level so far. “The Montgomery County paid sick days laws is one of the strongest yet, and it should serve as a model for the state of Maryland and the nation,” said Charly Carter, director of Maryland Working Families...
U.S. Labor
Someone Has to Sort Your Recycling, and It’s a Disgusting and Dangerous Job The Nation ...The industries that pride themselves on being friends of the earth are often hostile to workers, according to new research on the safety conditions in recycling plants. Published by the Massachusetts Council for Occupational Safety and Health (MassCOSH), National COSH, and other advocacy groups, the analysis of the industry shows that, despite the green sector’s clean, progressive image, workers remain imperiled by old-school industrial hazards...
Marathon refinery workers in Texas to end strike July 6 The Courier ...Unionized workers at Marathon Petroleum Corp.’s Galveston Bay refinery in Texas will go back to work July 6 following nearly five months of striking. They ratified a contract with the company on Tuesday. About 1,200 workers at the refinery in Texas City, Texas, walked off the job Feb. 1...
Verizon and its unions off to tough start to contract talks Times Union ...Verizon and the unions that represent 38,000 of its workers in the Northeast, including about 1,000 in the Capital Region, have gotten off to an acrimonious start to their contract negotiations. After Verizon publicized it had offered employees wage increases, which included a $1,000 cash payment in the final year of a proposed three-year agreement, union officials accused the company of trying to surgarcoat what was really a bad deal...
AT&T, CWA begin negotiations for 27,000 Southeast employees Fierce Telecom ...AT&T has begun contract negotiations with 27,000 employees in its Southeast territory represented by the Communications Workers of America (CWA). The Southeast region, which was formerly BellSouth, has wireline employees in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Both parties met yesterday with both presenting their own position statements on the negotiation process...
School bus company underpaid workers in NY state more than $290K, Cuomo says; Poughkeepsie employees affected Daily Freeman ...More than $290,000 in wages have been returned to 462 workers at Durham School Services locations across New York as the result if an investigation by the state Department of Labor’s Division of Worker Protection, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Monday. The labor department launched an investigation after Service Employees International Union Local 200 raised concerns about possible pay violations at the Durham location in Syracuse...
Miscellaneous
Federal Judge Halts Sysco-US Foods Merger Wall Street Journal ...A federal judge on Tuesday issued a preliminary injunction blocking Sysco Corp.’s planned acquisition of US Foods Inc., a ruling that could kill a deal to combine the nation’s two largest food distributors. The decision handed a high-profile victory to the Federal Trade Commission, which filed a lawsuit in February chanllenging the transaction on anti-trust grounds...
Obamacare upheld by US supreme court as conservative justices rescue law The Guardian ...Chief justice John Roberts has come to the rescue of Barack Obama’s healthcare reforms for a second time as the US supreme court struck down a Republican-led challenge to Obamacare that could have gutted the legislation and stripped millions of Americans of their health insurance. The decision in the high stakes case of King v Burwell all but guarantees that Obamacare will survive...
U.S. to Reduce Long Stays for Families at Immigration Centers New York Times ...In a sharp change of policy, Homeland Security officials announced plans Wednesday to end the long-term detention of mothers with children caught crossing the border illegally by allowing most of them to be released quickly on bond. The changes by Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson expanded policies he ordered last month that were designed to shorten family detention but that had only limited effect...
Deadly American Extremism: More White Than Muslim The Atlantic ...It’s an accident of fate that Dzokhar Tsarnaev’s formal sentencing for the Boston Marathon bombing is happening just now, as the U.S. continues to reel from the Charleston massacre. Jihadists have killed 26 people, versus 48 by what New America calls “right-wing extremists.” In that way, Dylann Roof is far more representative of political violence in 21st century America than Dzokhar Tsarnaev could ever be...
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Today's Teamster News 09.12.13
Teamsters at Sunsweet Overwhelmingly Ratify Contract teamster.org ...Teamsters who work at the world’s largest dried fruit processing plant are now at work, under a strong contract that resulted from their solidarity...
Teamsters General President: Is Michigan Next In Expressing Outrage Over Trade? Teamster.org ...Michigan in the last month has seen its fair share of low-wage workers walk off the job to protest pay and working conditions. But those demonstrations pale in comparison to what is going on a continent away in Colombia. And U.S. policymakers should take notice...
Township Council Talks Teamster Contract Brick Patch ...The Township Council of Brick, New Jersey, has introduced an ordinance related to Teamsters Local 469 salaries, after months of negotiations...
Rick Smith Show: NJ Governor Turns Back On Workers Rick Smith Show ...Labor radio host Rick Smith interviews Fred Potter, International Vice President and Director of the Teamsters Port Division, about New Jersey Governor Christie’s veto of pro-worker legislation...
Commercial Drivers: Pipeline CSA Training To Be Held In Atlanta, Sept. 29 teamster.org ...The Teamsters National Pipeline Training Fund in collaboration with Teamsters Local 528 and 728 will sponsor a Compliance, Safety and Accountability training program on September 29 for all commercial drivers...
Detroit trash-hauling gets 10 bidders; city to review proposals Detroit Free Press ...Detroit city officials will begin reviewing proposals this week to privatize trash collection, an initiative emergency manager Kevyn Orr says will save about $15 million annually and improve services to residents...
Gleason to Lead Legal Team at Teamsters Local 1224 Teamsters Local 1224 …The Airline Professionals Association (APA), Teamsters Local 1224 announced the addition of a new member to lead its legal team at Teamsters Local 1224. Edward Gleason joins Teamsters Local 1224 as Chief Counsel...
Pay Gap Between 1 Percent And Everybody Else Reaches Widest Point Since 1920s Associated Press ...The gulf between the richest 1 percent and the rest of America is the widest it's been since the Roaring '20s...
Government Policy Gave Us Inequality, not the Market Center for Economic and Policy Research ... we have a totally corrupt system of corporate governance in which CEOs select and pay off directors to look the other way as they pilfer the company by taking outlandish pay packages. Governments write the rules of corporate governance, not markets...
How the 1 percent won the recovery, in one table Washington Post ...While only 49 percent of the decline in incomes during the recession was born by the top 1 percent (whose income share fell to 18.1 percent due to the recession), 95 percent of income gains since the recovery started have gone to them...
Exclusive: The Koch brothers' secret bank Politico ...It raised $256 million in the year after its creation in November 2011, the document shows. And it made grants of $236 million — meaning a totally unknown group was the largest sugar daddy for conservative groups in the last election, second in total spending only to Karl Rove’s American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, which together spent about $300 million...
Polish unionists march to demand labor security Associated Press ...Thousands of Polish labor union members marched through Warsaw in the rain Wednesday, sounding sirens, throwing smoke grenades and blowing whistles in a protest against government labor policy and pension system reform and to demand higher pay...
How Cigarette Companies Use Free Trade Deals To Sell To Women And Kids Quartz ...Global trade negotiations in Washington this week will determine how cigarette companies will be able to market their products in developing nations—and potentially, overturn smoking restrictions around the world...
Walmart’s sales are down: What does that say about the economy? Salon ...For the first time in quite a long time, things may not be looking too great for our favorite mega retailer, Walmart. NBC News reports that Walmart has experienced a decrease in sales as well as a “cautious outlook for the rest of the year.” Wal-Mart blamed this drop on essentially everything under the sun except people not wanting to shop at their stores...
Sallie Mae Becomes 50th Corporation To Dump ALEC Think Progress ...After months of protests by student groups, SLM Corporation (the student loan company commonly known as Sallie Mae) acknowledged Saturday that it has dropped its membership in the conservative, corporate-backed American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)...
Deval Patrick backtracks on tech tax Boston Globe ...Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick abruptly changed course Tuesday and said he no longer supports a controversial new tax on computer software services that has triggered a fierce backlash from the state’s technology community and spawned numerous attempts to repeal it...
Biz Journal Ranks Govs by Job Growth in Office: Walker 40th / Would Have 51K More Jobs if WI Kept Pace with US Average Uppity Wisconsin ...every Democratic governor in the country ranks ahead of Walker in job growth...
WI Senate Fast-Tracks Bill to Close Forest to Benefit Out-of-State Mining Firm Center for Media and Democracy ...A controversial out-of-state mining company is closer to gaining control over a 3,600-acre swath of publicly available forest near where it is planning a massive open-pit iron ore mine in Northern Wisconsin...
Teamsters General President: Is Michigan Next In Expressing Outrage Over Trade? Teamster.org ...Michigan in the last month has seen its fair share of low-wage workers walk off the job to protest pay and working conditions. But those demonstrations pale in comparison to what is going on a continent away in Colombia. And U.S. policymakers should take notice...
Township Council Talks Teamster Contract Brick Patch ...The Township Council of Brick, New Jersey, has introduced an ordinance related to Teamsters Local 469 salaries, after months of negotiations...
Rick Smith Show: NJ Governor Turns Back On Workers Rick Smith Show ...Labor radio host Rick Smith interviews Fred Potter, International Vice President and Director of the Teamsters Port Division, about New Jersey Governor Christie’s veto of pro-worker legislation...
Commercial Drivers: Pipeline CSA Training To Be Held In Atlanta, Sept. 29 teamster.org ...The Teamsters National Pipeline Training Fund in collaboration with Teamsters Local 528 and 728 will sponsor a Compliance, Safety and Accountability training program on September 29 for all commercial drivers...
Detroit trash-hauling gets 10 bidders; city to review proposals Detroit Free Press ...Detroit city officials will begin reviewing proposals this week to privatize trash collection, an initiative emergency manager Kevyn Orr says will save about $15 million annually and improve services to residents...
Gleason to Lead Legal Team at Teamsters Local 1224 Teamsters Local 1224 …The Airline Professionals Association (APA), Teamsters Local 1224 announced the addition of a new member to lead its legal team at Teamsters Local 1224. Edward Gleason joins Teamsters Local 1224 as Chief Counsel...
Pay Gap Between 1 Percent And Everybody Else Reaches Widest Point Since 1920s Associated Press ...The gulf between the richest 1 percent and the rest of America is the widest it's been since the Roaring '20s...
Government Policy Gave Us Inequality, not the Market Center for Economic and Policy Research ... we have a totally corrupt system of corporate governance in which CEOs select and pay off directors to look the other way as they pilfer the company by taking outlandish pay packages. Governments write the rules of corporate governance, not markets...
How the 1 percent won the recovery, in one table Washington Post ...While only 49 percent of the decline in incomes during the recession was born by the top 1 percent (whose income share fell to 18.1 percent due to the recession), 95 percent of income gains since the recovery started have gone to them...
Exclusive: The Koch brothers' secret bank Politico ...It raised $256 million in the year after its creation in November 2011, the document shows. And it made grants of $236 million — meaning a totally unknown group was the largest sugar daddy for conservative groups in the last election, second in total spending only to Karl Rove’s American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, which together spent about $300 million...
Polish unionists march to demand labor security Associated Press ...Thousands of Polish labor union members marched through Warsaw in the rain Wednesday, sounding sirens, throwing smoke grenades and blowing whistles in a protest against government labor policy and pension system reform and to demand higher pay...
How Cigarette Companies Use Free Trade Deals To Sell To Women And Kids Quartz ...Global trade negotiations in Washington this week will determine how cigarette companies will be able to market their products in developing nations—and potentially, overturn smoking restrictions around the world...
Walmart’s sales are down: What does that say about the economy? Salon ...For the first time in quite a long time, things may not be looking too great for our favorite mega retailer, Walmart. NBC News reports that Walmart has experienced a decrease in sales as well as a “cautious outlook for the rest of the year.” Wal-Mart blamed this drop on essentially everything under the sun except people not wanting to shop at their stores...
Sallie Mae Becomes 50th Corporation To Dump ALEC Think Progress ...After months of protests by student groups, SLM Corporation (the student loan company commonly known as Sallie Mae) acknowledged Saturday that it has dropped its membership in the conservative, corporate-backed American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)...
Deval Patrick backtracks on tech tax Boston Globe ...Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick abruptly changed course Tuesday and said he no longer supports a controversial new tax on computer software services that has triggered a fierce backlash from the state’s technology community and spawned numerous attempts to repeal it...
Biz Journal Ranks Govs by Job Growth in Office: Walker 40th / Would Have 51K More Jobs if WI Kept Pace with US Average Uppity Wisconsin ...every Democratic governor in the country ranks ahead of Walker in job growth...
WI Senate Fast-Tracks Bill to Close Forest to Benefit Out-of-State Mining Firm Center for Media and Democracy ...A controversial out-of-state mining company is closer to gaining control over a 3,600-acre swath of publicly available forest near where it is planning a massive open-pit iron ore mine in Northern Wisconsin...
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