Woo-hoo! Sotheby's 10-month lockout is over!

10 months of picketing outside of the auction house.

Great news for the 42 Teamsters art handlers who've been locked out of their jobs for 10 long months. The art handlers ratified a settlement with Sotheby's auction house yesterday. Crain's New York Business has the scoop:

The three-year deal, reached in the last week, boosts wages 1% in each year, lifts the starting salary to $18.50 an hour, and maintains the workers' benefits, according to Jason Ide, president of Teamsters Local 814, which represents the 42 workers. Sotheby's had sought to permanently replace some of the union art handlers with temporary nonunion workers, but the deal protects the positions as union jobs, Mr. Ide said.  

"The most important thing is these guys are going back to work," Mr. Ide said. "They love being art handlers. They got into this line of work because they care about art and taking care of it." 

Sotheby's got added flexibility on overtime and staffing issues, Mr. Ide said.

Props to the art handlers who spent thousands of hours on the picket line. They made history with their creative and energetic direct actions -- taking over the Whitney Museum's board room, embarrassing Sotheby's board members and challenging executives' pay. They inspired many, many working people with their fight to preserve good, middle-class jobs for the next generation.

You may ask why Sotheby's finally managed to come to an agreement with the Teamsters after all the bad press, the embarrassing videos, the disrupted auctions, the rallies around the world.

The answer: Management finally got rid of Jackson Lewis, the notorious union-busting law firm that failed last year to help a German company destroy American jobs. A deal was in the works immediately after Sotheby’s let them go and replaced them with another firm. Reports Crain's:

A breakthrough in the 10-month standoff came last month when Sotheby's replaced its law firm, Jackson Lewis, with Proskauer, Mr. Ide said. Bob Batterman, the Proskauer attorney who represented the National Football League during its lockout of players last year, appears to have been a key figure in the negotiations. He was not immediately available for comment. 

"Ever since that change happened, they wanted to bargain," Mr. Ide said. "We had a breakthrough. We weren't hearing, 'Take it or leave it,' but, 'Let's work towards a resolution.' "

And now, as Joint Council 16 President George Miranda said,

...we begin the job of rebuilding the relationship with Sotheby's, which had always been a good place to work.

Today's Teamster News 06.01.12

38th consecutive night demo peaceful but illegal  Montreal Gazette   ...it began just hours after talks between the government and student associations collapsed. The nighttime demonstration drew a crowd of several thousand and got off to its usual start at 8 p.m. with the sound of pots and pans echoing through Place Émilie-Gamelin...
Federal Officials Shut Down 26 Bus Operators  New York Times   ...Citing imminent safety hazards, federal officials ordered 26 companies on Thursday to stop operating many of the inexpensive buses that pick up passengers at curbsides all over Manhattan’s Chinatown and haul them to other cities up and down the East Coast...
Justice Department Demands Florida Stop Purging Voter Rolls  Talking Points Memo   ...The Justice Department sent a letter to Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner Thursday evening demanding the state cease purging its voting rolls because the process it is using has not been cleared under the Voting Rights Act, TPM has learned...
Walker's office stonewalled DA inquiry, record shows  Milwaukee Journal Sentinel   ...Milwaukee County prosecutors opened the secret John Doe criminal investigation more than two years ago after being stonewalled by Gov. Scott Walker's office when he was county executive, according to a newly released record...
Fla. prison health care privatization challenged  Associated Press   ...Lawyers for public employee unions and a pair of nurses urged a judge Wednesday to block a plan for privatizing health care in Florida's prisons...
CP Rail Workers Return to Jobs as Strike Law Passes  Bloomberg Businessweek   ...Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd.’s (CP) striking Teamsters workers are returning to their jobs today after Parliament passed a bill to end the weeklong labor action that snarled industry supply chains and seaport traffic...
The Lockout Is Over: Sotheby’s Finally Resolves Dispute With Its Union Art Handlers  Blouin Art Info   ...All the union-sympathizing auction lovers out there can rejoice — after a 10-month-long lockout of the union art handlers at Sotheby’s New York, the auction house management finally came to an agreement with the Teamsters Local 814, which represents 42 art handlers, according to Crain’s New York...

Today's Teamster News 05.09.12

Tom Barrett wins Wisconsin recall primary  Politico   ...Madison union leader Mahlon Mitchell won the nomination for lieutenant governor with 51 percent...AFSCME Wisconsin issued a statement saying it would “wholeheartedly support” Barrett in the recall election against Walker...
Bank Lobbyists Coordinated “Tea Party” Challenge To Senator Lugar To Punish Him For Voting Against Wall Street  Republic Report   ...Lugar was among the few Republican senators up for reelection in 2012 to vote against the banks...
Unemployment Rate Without Government Cuts: 7.1%  Wall Street Journal   ...One reason the unemployment rate may have remained persistently high: The sharp cuts in state and local government spending in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, and the layoffs those cuts wrought...
Portugal scraps four public holidays in austerity drive  BBC News   ...Portugal has already cut public sector wages and raised taxes to reduce its budget deficit and deal with its economic crisis...
Allied Waste locks out union employees  Evansville Courier & Press   ...Employees from other parts of the company are poised to continue covering local routes, so customers should see little if any disruption in their service, the company has said...
Teamsters Union Pickets Outside Sotheby's Auction House  NY1 News   ..."I think we're being heard, but it's just a matter of Sotheby's just being stubborn and saying 'We don't really care,' which is not fair," said Sotheby's worker James Parker...

Feds to seize stolen statue from Sotheby's. What a surprise, no ethics at the auction house.

Cambodian union members leafleting about the stolen statue in Phnom Penh.

Sotheby's said it was high class, but that was just a lie. The auction house tried to fence a statue looted from Cambodia's killing fields and got caught red-handed.

Providing further evidence of Sotheby's amorality and arrogance, federal agents are prepared to seize from the auction house the 10th-century statue of a Khmer warrior.

According to the New York Times,

Federal agents in New York on Wednesday moved to seize a thousand-year-old Cambodian statue from Sotheby’s, alleging in a civil complaint that Sotheby’s had put the 10th-century figure of a mythological warrior up for auction despite knowing that it had been stolen from a temple.

This of course does not surprise us one little bit. Only a company with no moral compass and insatiable greed could throw 42 of its own employees out on the street with no paycheck for eight months and no health care for four. Though Sotheby's CEO Bill Ruprecht earns millions, he is determined to pay only poverty wages to the company's art handlers.

Sotheby's hypocrisy extends to its board members. Diana Taylor and Danny Meyer both tout their charitable activities and yet stand aside and allow Ruprecht to impoverish Sotheby's workers. One wonders whether they want more business for their charities or if they're just ethically blind.

Real world confronts art world

What's disgusting? A wealthy, profitable company locking out 42 art handlers for eight months.

Today's Teamster News 03.21.12

‘Right to Work’ Bills Face Uncertain Future in an Election Year  New York Times   ...After costly, bruising political showdowns with union forces last year in Wisconsin and Ohio, Republicans in some state legislatures are facing a tugging match within their party — between passionate conservative members like Mr. Thompson, a freshman who was among hundreds of legislators swept into statehouses in 2010 who want to push forward, and a more moderate bloc not sure it is wise to take on labor so directly now...
Job seekers getting asked for Facebook passwords  Indy Star   ...In their efforts to vet applicants, some companies and government agencies are going beyond merely glancing at a person's social networking profiles and instead asking to log in as the user to have a look around. "It's akin to requiring someone's house keys," said Orin Kerr, a George Washington University law professor and former federal prosecutor who calls it "an egregious privacy violation."...
Behind the brewing voter ID war  Washington Post   ...Democrats counter that fraud is used as an excuse to suppress turnout among elderly, poor and minority voters who may have more difficulty obtaining proper ID. (Evidence of widespread fraud is scant.)...
State plans emergency appeal after judge removes Flint emergency manager, restores mayor and city council  MLive   ...the state plans to file the appeal as soon as it receives the ruling, made today by Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina, who said the state violated the law when the financial review team recommended Brown's appointment because it didn't meet before the public...
Occupy Atlanta   ...Under intense, bi-partisan pressure from Georgians across the state, members of the House Industrial Relations Committee decided to postpone today’s 2:00 p.m. vote on SB 469, the bill that seeks to criminalize peaceful protest and silence working families...
Teamsters Call for Independent Board Nominating Process to Address Governance Concerns and Restore Confidence  IBT   ...The board's inaction ensnared Sotheby's into the seemingly endless cycle of news coverage regarding the investigations of James Murdoch and News Corp. since July 2011...

Today's Teamster News 02.29.12

Why banks are reluctant to foreclose on expensive homes  Reuters   ...if a rich person owes a bank somewhere north of a million dollars, the bank is likely to be quite aggressive in attempting to get all of the money it’s owed, rather than simply letting the borrower walk away from their house...
70 Cities Nationwide Stand up to Corporate Greed and ALEC National Day of Action to Resist the Selling Out of the 99%  The Paramus Post   ...On February 29th, concerned citizens, students, and occupiers in over seventy cities across the nation, including Occupy Wall Street (NYC), are standing up to the corporations and legislators involved in American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)...
Michigan Workers Fight Emergency Managers, Plan Constitutional Amendment to Protect Union Rights  Alternet   ...Michigan’s top union leaders are meeting behind closed doors to decide whether to take on the huge fight it would require to amend the state constitution to block right to work, with a ballot initiative this November...
Union seeks restraining order on right-to-work law  Associated Press   ...A federal judge will hear arguments next week on a union's request for a temporary restraining order to stop Indiana from enforcing its new right-to-work law...
Senate reports says Beijing is cheating its way to the top in green technology exports  Manufacture This   ...Senate reports says Beijing is cheating its way to the top in green technology exports...
ATA Trucking index declined in January  Calculated Risk   ...“Last month I said I was surprised by the size of the gain in December. Today, I’m not surprised that tonnage fell on a seasonally adjusted basis in January simply due to the fact that December was so strong,” ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello said...
Crashing the Biennial: Locked-Out Sotheby's Workers Take Their Fight to the Whitney  ArtInfo   ...a group of artists and others involved with Occupy Wall Street will take Teamsters as their dates to the Whitney Biennial's official kickoff party. And not just any Teamsters: specifically, Sotheby's union art handlers, who have been locked out of their jobs since August...

Goodish news on the Sotheby's front, and an awesome story...



That Upper East Side picket line.

 ...This is a terrific story about a retired teacher who took the proceeds from an auction sale and donated them to the locked out Teamsters. From ArtInfo:

Sotheby’s union art handlers have been picketing outside the auction house’s Upper East Side flagship for months. It wasn't long before people in the neighborhood began to walk by without paying much attention. One day last fall, Merry Tucker, a retired teacher, was heading to Sotheby’s offices to consign two pieces of Georgian 18th-century silver she had inherited from her mother. Rather than walk right by the Teamsters, she took a pamphlet and read up on the cause. After the sale, she decided to give a portion of the $5,000 she made to the workers, who have been locked out of their jobs since August in a protracted contract dispute.

“I thought, I never did anything to earn this money,” Tucker told us. “My mother stipulated that a lot of her estate go to charity, and when I learned about the workers’ situation I felt a lot of sympathy for them.” Tucker, who said she is appreciative of her own union-obtained health care, was particularly motivated to give after learning that the art handlers’ health insurance expired January 1. (Workers earn unemployment benefits plus an additional $200 a month from their union during the lockout. However, as of the New Year, they are no longer entitled to health care without a contract.) "I was afraid to let them [the union] release my name until I got the money from Sotheby's," Tucker said, "but the check just came."

Meanwhile, negotiations are taking a "slightly better tone," according to Julian Tysh. But the art handlers are standing firm on against Sotheby's attempt to slowly dissolve the union.

Stay strong, brothers!

How Sotheby's Stole Christmas (video)

Sign the petition here.

Today's Teamster News 12.15.11

Enough Signatures Gathered, Walker To Be Recalled!  New Dog Democrat   ... The word has spread that over 550,000  signatures have been gathered to recall Scott Walker! This means the movement is passing its first milestone. Now they must gather more signatures to pad its victory in case some are thrown out by the Secretary of State...
Obama, Dems drop millionaire surtax to pay for payroll tax cut  CNN   ...In what would be a major concession, President Obama and Senate Democrats will drop their insistence that a surtax on millionaires pay for extending the payroll tax cut...
Sotheby's Handles Lockout, Costs Rise $2.4 Million, Ruprecht Given Bonus  Bloomberg   ...The temps and enhanced security since the lockout began helped account for a $2.4 million jump in “other compensation” expenses in the first nine months of the year...
The ALEC-Koch pipeline to Wisconsin Legislators and the Mining Bill  Badger Democracy   ...The Mining Bill released by Assembly Republicans late last week is clearly a case of Legislative patronage to a corporate sponsor – in this case, Gogebic Taconite Mining, LLC. Not surprising, but more disturbing, are the covert links to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), Koch Industries, and closer to home, Hamilton Consulting in Madison...
Oklahoma to bring back state prison labor program; communities get help with maintenance work  Associated Press   ...the program will involve about 40 inmates who would be paid about $2 a day to do landscaping and cleanup tasks, the Tulsa World ...  reported...
Inmates provide cost saving labor  Rome News-Tribune   ...66 work inside the prison, and another 28 have other prison details. That’s the majority, but the rest work in areas throughout the county, including public works, animal control and the Rome-Floyd Parks and Recreation Authority...
Marriage Rate In America Drops Drastically  Huffington Post   ...it's important, at least for men, to be financially able to provide for a family before they get married. It may [also] be that some couples feel they don't have the financial wherewithal to have a wedding yet...

Canada Teamsters picket Sotheby's auction in Toronto

Teamsters on Monday disrupted a Sotheby's auction in Toronto, bringing to six the number of major cities where the auction house's reputation for reckless greed has been spotlighted. Teamsters and our union brothers and sisters picketed the union-busting pawn shop for the rich in New York, London, Geneva, Sydney and now Toronto.

Sotheby's, which wants to turn good union jobs into crap Walmart jobs, didn't have any comment on the picket. But sometimes auctioned art speaks louder than words. Sotheby's auctioned off a painting called "Country Club" -- depicting two ladies lunching -- for $1,095,000, even as it deprived 43 art handlers of their paychecks. The .1 percent vs. the 99 percent.

Here's what Teamsters Canada had to say about the protest:

Sotheby’s has demanded pay cuts and the right to terminate the employees’ pension fund. The company also wants to replace experienced unionized handlers with temporary, unskilled employees. These demands come on the heels of record profits and changes to Sotheby’s board of directors, which NewsCorp’s James Murdoch joined last year. In 2010, the company earned $774 million and it recently nearly doubled the salary of its CEO.

Protesters held banners and distributed leaflets at the auction that read, “Sotheby’s Creates Misery” and “Stop The War On Art Workers.”

“Sotheby’s attack on workers is unconscionable when the company is earning record profits. Sotheby’s even hired the union-hostile law firm Jackson Lewis to attempt to starve the workers into agreeing to their demands,” said Randy Doner, President of Joint Council 52 of the Teamsters Union.

“I want to thank our Canadian brothers and sisters for their solidarity. My colleagues and I have families to feed, and we need this support as we fight for our jobs,” said Dorian Malloy, Jr., a seven-year art handler at Sotheby’s. “While Sotheby’s and the rest of the top 1 percent of Americans enjoy the majority of America’s wealth, those of us in the bottom 99 percent need to stick together and stand up to these abuses.”

The Globe and Mail describes the protest:

Clients at Sotheby’s Monday evening sale of Canadian art were met outside Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum by about 50 protesters who had set up an information picket line in support of locked-out art handlers at Sotheby’s in New York City.

With about seven police officers watching, the pickets, from local unions and labour organizations as well as a trio of handlers from New York, did nothing to impede visitors from entering the ROM...

We especially like this comment from our sister Kelly Leigh Andrews:

Now they did it. They got the Canadian Teamsters involved. They are so in trouble.

And here are some more photos of the action.

Today's Teamster News 11.21.11

U.S. Sovereignty Usurped by WTO’s COOL Decision  Trade Reform   ...a panel of three foreign diplomats seated by the United Nation’s World Trade Organization (WTO) issued a decision regarding complaints filed against the United States’ country-of-origin labeling (COOL) law that informs U.S. consumers as to the origins of their food...
How Occupy Wall Street Can Restore Clout of the 99%: Scott Turow  Bloomberg   ...I have an unusual suggestion for how they should next deploy their considerable energies: work across the nation for a constitutional amendment requiring Congress to regulate the expenditure of private money on elections...
What the Labor Movement Can Learn From an Art Auction  truthout   ...Occupy Wall Street has clearly injected a new set of more innovative tactics into labor's arsenal here in New York City...
Santorum: Labor Unions Are Force For Good…If You’re Iranian  Talking Points Memo   ...At a campaign stop here yesterday, Rick Santorum proposed offering federal government support for labor unions, which he said created a social good. In Iran...
How municipalities used the tools  LaCrosse Tribune   ...Onalaska Mayor Mike Giese was not impressed with the effectiveness of the “tools” Gov. Scott Walker’s budget repair bill gave the city to deal with cuts in state payments to the city, nor with the general approach Walker took in balancing the state budget...
Study supporting tax measure is flawed  Columbia Tribune   ...In a study that is being used to support overhauling Missouri’s state tax system, conservative economics guru Arthur Laffer mixes state and local taxes and misuses technical terms to create rankings for every state...

Teamsters, OWS stand up to Sotheby's 1%



Assemblyman Micah Kellner and Local 210 prez George Miranda

Rally Girl reports from the Upper East Side, where Occupy Wall Streeters are joining Teamsters from Local 814 in a rally at Sotheby's:

Teamsters from LU 282, 210, 553, 812, 805, 111 and 522 are picketing outside Sotheby's.

The crowd is energized and chanting, "No contract, no work, no peace," "When I say union, you say power," and "One day longer, one day stronger."

Jason Ide, Local 814 president, said #ows adopted them because they're protesting the #sothebys economy. Sotheby's is the 1 percent who are ruining the economy.

Join Sotheby's Teamster art handlers, the community and allies at the rally. It's at 1334 York Avenue. NY, NY and it's happening right now.

Today's Teamster News 10.18.11

Budget cuts claim hundreds of thousands of county, city jobs  USA Today   ...Local governments, once a steady source of employment in tough economic times, are shedding jobs in unprecedented numbers, and heavy payroll losses are expected to persist into next year...
Lincoln Center, Sotheby's Targeted in Tuesday Marches  NBC News   ...The events at Sotheby's and at Lincoln Center were already planned before the Occupy Wall Street protests, but organizers say the Wall Street protesters will help infuse new energy...
New Yorkers Back Wall St. Protesters 3 - 1, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; Stay As Long As You Want, Even Republicans Say  Quinnipiac University   ...By a 67 - 23 percent margin, New York City voters agree with the views of the Wall Street protesters and say 87 - 10 percent that it is "okay that they are protesting,"...
Occupy Wall Street To NYC: Drop The Charges Against 800 Protesters Or We Will March To Court For Every Trial  Business Insider   ...There's been around 800 Occupy Wall Street protestors arrested since the movement began, and all of them are ready to head to court...
Northside grandma in SB 5 ad wants apology  Cincinnati Enquirer   ...Marlene Quinn is waiting for an apology she doesn’t expect to get. She wants it from Building A Better Ohio. But she wants people to know she has already voted against Issue 2...
Chafee Joins Christie as Rhode Island Seeks to Cut Pension Costs  Bloomberg   ...Chafee, 58, elected in November after he lost a U.S. Senate seat in 2006, wants to overhaul the state’s $7.4 billion pension because it has only about half the assets needed over the coming decades, according to state data...

Occupy Wall Street Occupies Danny Meyer (video)

Watch this awesome video of Wall Street Occupiers disrupting a fancy New York eatery owned by Sotheby's board member Danny Meyer.

Meyer is on the board of Sotheby's, which threw 43 Teamsters out of work because they wouldn't accept a 10 percent pay cut. You know the rest of the story -- record profit and a CEO who takes home millions every year.

The OWSers have been solid with the locked-out art workers from Teamsters Local 814. They've already disrupted two auctions -- which takes some spine. More direct actions are planned.

Please share this video far and wide -- it'll drive Sotheby's crazy.

Occupy Wall Street statement on Danny Meyer restaurant disruption

We received a press release from Occupy Wall Street activists explaining their action:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Michael London, 917-572-8684
Thursday, October 13

PRESS RELEASE
#OCCUPYWALLSTREET Disrupts Dinner Rush at Gramercy Tavern and Union Square Café

OWS Pushes Sotheby’s Board Member To Take Action on Teamster Lockout

As part of their ongoing campaign against Sotheby’s auction house, Occupy Wall Street labor activists on Thursday evening took aim at New York restaurateur Danny Meyer. Meyer sits on Sotheby’s board of directors. The dinner rush disturbances were coordinated at two of Meyers’ posh downtown establishments. Protesters informed diners about violations at the restaurants themselves, and about Sotheby’s ongoing attacks on the professional art handlers of Teamster’s Local 814. The Sotheby’s workers were locked out of their jobs on 1 August for refusing to accept wage cuts, caps on overtime and replacement by temporary workers.

The activists created a commotion while others hand flyers to shocked diners. The flyer described health violations at Meyer’s restaurants and stated, “What’s Gross at Gramercy Tavern (or Union Café) and other Danny Meyer restaurants? Diners for good jobs and clean kitchens.”

The disruption was the latest in a series of solidarity efforts by Occupy Wall Street activists. On Tuesday, they disrupted an auction at the auctioneer’s Upper East Side establishment for the second time in three weeks. Sotheby’s enjoyed record profit in the last quarter and offers no explanation for why it is attacking its workers.

“Danny Meyer’s restaurants are all part of the Sotheby’s economy, where wealthy millionaires cut corners to make a few more bucks,” said activist Harrison Magee, a labor activist affiliated with OWS. “Not because they need to, but because others are doing it and they think they can get away with it.”

“This is about the 1 percent trying to squeeze even more out of the 99 percent,” said Steve Kindred, an OWS labor activist. “This isn’t about left and right, it’s about top and bottom.

#OCCUPYWALLSTREET has released the following statement about the situation at Sotheby’s:

#OCCUPYWALLSTREET supporters are appalled at the persistent attack on workers rights. We support the right of the workers to collectively bargain. Sotheby’s wants all new hires to have no collective bargaining rights, no health benefits and no job security. After locking out their unionized work force, Sotheby’s continues to operate using scabs and a non-union subcontractor. Sotheby’s art auctions epitomize the disconnect of the extremely wealthy from the rest of us.

The 43 locked-out workers, all members of Teamsters Local 814, were locked out of their jobs by the company’s management on August 1, in the midst of contract negotiations. Among its demands, Sotheby’s, which just had its most profitable year ever in its 267 years of business and whose CEO, Bill Ruprecht is paid approximately $60,000 a day.

###

Thanks, OWS!

Sotheby's Teamsters handbill B'way stars

Mayor Dinkins

When it comes to celebrity handbilling, Teamsters Local 814 kicks butt.

Our Sotheby's Teamster brothers were on Broadway last night. So were the stars. They came for the opening of "The Mountaintop," a play about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Almost every celebrity accepted a handbill about Sotheby's lock-out of Teamster art handlers.

Phylicia Rashad and Debbie Allen took flyers. So did former Mayor David Dinkins and his wife Joyce. Spike Lee. S. Epatha Merkerson. Magic Johnson and his wife Cookie. Julius "Dr. J" Irving and his wife Dorys. Tisha Campbell. Gayle King. Ben Vereen. Ahmad Rashad.

Gabourey Sidibe promised to read it. Spike Lee read the whole thing in front of the Teamsters.

Debbie Allen and Phylicia Rashad

"Come on, bounce pass," said one of our brothers before handing Magic Johnson the flyer.

We missed a few -- Alicia Keys and Al Roker. But we got most of them. 

The play is about Dr. King's last night in Memphis. Those of us in the labor movement know that he was in Memphis supporting the sanitation workers' strike for collective bargaining rights.

Michael Sovern not only sits on the board of the Schubert Theatre, he's chairman of the board of Sotheby's -- which of course is trying to take away workers' collective bargaining rights.

The handbill said,

The Schubert Theatres and its board member Michael Sovern are celebrating the opening of “The Mountaintop” tonight. It’s ironic that Sovern is also the Chairman of the Board of Sotheby’s Auction House. Despite record-breaking profits, Sotheby’s has locked out all of its professional and skilled art handlers, most of whom are black or Latino.

Sotheby’s nearly doubled its CEO’s pay, yet it seeks to destroy good New York jobs by permanently replacing these mostly minority professional art handlers with inexperienced, outsourced workers.

Read more about Sotheby's here.

Today's Teamster News 10.14.11

Teamsters file wage-and-hour complaint for prison guards  Tallahassee.com  ...Three prison officers and a leader of the Teamsters Union on Thursday accused Florida's prison system of cheating employees out of up to 200 hours of wages per year and asked the U.S. Department of Labor to make the Department of Corrections let the officers clock them in before going through long daily security checks...
First Mexican Trucking Permit Delayed on Safety Concerns  Transport Topics   ...The Department of Transportation is delaying the first permit for a Mexican trucking company to start cross-border operations, citing safety questions raised in public comments...
Teamsters and UK Unions Protest Sotheby's in London  IBT   ...More than 100 Teamster members and representatives from several global labor unions, including Unite the Union, the Trades Union Congress, the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, the Public and Commercial Services Union and the International Transport Workers' Federation, protested outside Sotheby's Contemporary Art Day Auction this evening...
Occupy Wall Street Stays in Park  Wall Street Journal   ...The real-estate company that owns the small park at the center of the Occupy Wall Street movement has postponed a planned cleaning of the site, a New York City deputy mayor announced early Friday morning...
Teamsters Union Sues Erie County over Holding Center  WGRZ   ...The suit alleges that the county has not hired enough staff for the correctional facilities to "provide care, custody, and control for all prisoners and to perform all other necessary facility functions..."
SB5 opponents, proponents argue over TV ad  Wooster Daily Record   ...opponents of Senate Bill 5 lashed out at proponents of the issue over a television advertisement released by the latter in recent days...

Another Sotheby's director dinged

Update: Corrects Michael Sovern's title to chairman of the board sted CEO.

It was supposed to be a grand evening, the opening at the Schubert Theater of a Broadway play called "The Mountaintop," about Martin Luther King Jr.

Only MLK would have been out on the sidewalk with the Teamsters protesters, passing out handbills asking the Schubert and its board to end the lockout at Sotheby’s Auction House.

Schubert Organization board member Michael Sovern is Sotheby's chairman of the board.

The protesters distributed handbills that read “Michael Sovern: Stop the Discrimination” and “America cannot become a better nation when a company like Sotheby’s sends workers into poverty and unemployment lines.”

The play celebrates Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speech supporting the right of African-American workers in Memphis to improve their jobs and their lives. Meanwhile, the theater’s board condones the destruction of good New York jobs. You gotta wonder.

New York City is getting to be a tough town for Sotheby's socialites. Tonight, Occupy Wall Street labor activists disrupted at least one -- possibly two -- restaurants owned by another Sotheby director, Danny Meyer.

That's because they spread suffering (sorry) among Teamsters Local 814 art handlers who've been out of work for months.

BREAKING: OWS disrupts Sotheby director's fancy restaurant

Occupy Wall Street labor activists tonight told a packed dining room at the Union Square Cafe that the owner is a union buster. Danny Meyer, who owns the Union Square and other fancy restaurants, sits on the board of Sotheby's.

The OWSers have really stuck their necks out to show solidarity with our Local 814 Teamsters brothers who've been locked out by Sotheby's.

We understand there were about a half-dozen activists at the restaurant. Our sources tell us what happened:

The dining room was jam packed. One of the activists sitting at the bar began clinking his glass. The dining room fell quiet. He stood up and announced that Danny Meyer is a union buster. He said "We'll be back and we won't let it rest."

Then we handed out handbills that said, "Live Mice, Live Roaches," and pointed out that Danny Meyer restaurants have racked up numerous health violations in the last 16 months.

We made a tactical retreat, but people followed us out. They wanted to talk to us.

According to toprestaurants.com,

Union Square Cafe is one of New York's best-loved restaurants. The food is inventive and delicious, the service never misses a beat, and the wine list is exceptional.

We hear there's a video. Can't wait to see it.