TEAMSTERS
Teamsters Ratify National Agreement With First Student Teamster.org ...After several months of negotiations and a month-long balloting process, the Teamsters have ratified the second national agreement with the largest private provider of school bus transportation in North America, First Student, Inc. The agreement, ratified by 89 percent of the votes cast, improves working conditions and on-the-job protections for more than 20,000 Teamsters who work at First Student nationwide...
BLET members ratify new contract with CP Rail-U.S. (Soo Line) BLET ...Members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) ratified a new collective bargaining agreement with the Canadian Pacific-U.S. Railway (Soo Line) on October 9, 2015. The 5-year deal governs rates of pay, work rules and health and welfare benefits for nearly 400 locomotive engineers...
Teamsters OK to proceed with action to force arbitration with Rush Medical Center for newly unionized patient care techs Cook County Record ...On Oct. 19, U.S. District Judge Virginia M. Kendall denied Rush’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by Local 743 International Brotherhood of Teamsters in its dispute with the hospital over whether wages, hours and other employment conditions for Rush’s patient care technicians (PCTs) should be decided in arbitration under a longstanding collective bargaining agreement between the hospital and its other unionized workers...
20 salad workers hospitalized in chemical spill The Californian ...A toxic stew of chemicals spilled at a Taylor Farms processing plant last week, sending 20 workers to the hospital with symptoms ranging from nosebleeds to vomiting and fainting. Doug Bloch of Teamsters Council 7 says all of the workers returned to work the following day, except for one pregnant woman, who took unpaid leave. “It’s déjà vu,” said Bloch of the latest incident...
Still No Contract for EVSC, Teamsters TriState Homepage ...EVSC and Teamsters haven't met to negotiate a new contract in more than a month. Both sides say they're willing to resolve their issues, but can't say when it will happen. EVSC superintendent Dr. David Smith says the board is prepared to sign contracts. Officials with Teamsters Local 215 say they want the same, but they're not going away until they get a fair deal...
Coca-Cola Forklift Operator Receives $5,000 in Back Pay Local 727 ...A Teamsters Local 727-represented member at Coca-Cola Niles received more than $5,000 in back pay after he was wrongfully denied workers’ compensation. Arel Cervantes, a third-shift forklift operator, requested light duty following an injury, but the company unjustly refused his request and he was forced to continue doing his normal duties. The union filed a grievance and worked swiftly to resolve the issue...
GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
Workers Covered By Union Contracts Dropped Worldwide After Financial Crisis: International Labor Organization IBTimes ...The share of workers covered by union contracts has fallen worldwide since the Great Recession. Across a sample of 48 nations -- including the United States and countries in Europe, South America and Asia -- collective bargaining coverage dropped 4.6 percent from 2008 to 2013, according to research from the International Labor Organization (ILO), a United Nations agency that sets and monitors global labor standards...
Pharma flap imperils president’s trade deal The Hill ...The most important trade deal of Barack Obama’s presidency could hinge on a single provision that’s reigniting a years-old debate on monopoly rights for drugmakers. The exact details of the pharmaceutical provision, which involves a class of drugs called biologics, won’t be made public until later this month. Still, it’s already threatening to drag out — and possibly derail — the approval process for a deal reached by a dozen nations...
Commerce Secretary Pritzker touts Trans-Pacific Partnership for Oregon OregonLive ...The Obama administration brought its argument for the Trans-Pacific Partnership to Oregon on Tuesday, and not for the first time. In May, it was President Obama's visit to Nike to deliver a forceful argument for TPP, which was approved last month by the United States and 11 other countries. On Tuesday, Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker participated in a conference call with reporters to stump for the pact...
EU to offer new TTIP proposals in Miami Politico ...In a sign that the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership talks will make progress in Miami this week, the European Union will propose a labor and environment chapter and product-specific rules of origin for most industrial sectors, EU trade officials said ahead of the round. But don’t expect the focus of the negotiations to shift very far from discussions over goods market access...
EU Trade Deals with US and Canada Blasted as 'Attacking Public Services' Common Dreams ...As EU and U.S. negotiators start the 11th round of TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) talks in Miami on Monday, a European watchdog group is sounding the alarm over the negative impacts such "trade" deals could have on citizens' rights to basic services like water, energy, education, and healthcare...
Spain eases spending constraints as 'reward' following years of austerity The Local ...Spain's lower house has approved a 2016 budget designed to ease some spending restrictions after years of austerity, ahead of legislative elections due on December 20th. The budget passed on Tuesday provides for increases of 9.3 percent for education, 3.6 percent for health and 7.6 percent for culture, as well as a rise of 0.25 percent in state pensions and a one-percent boost in pay for civil servants...
Madrid metro workers call strikes during rush hours on Thursday The Local ...Madrid’s metro could grind to a halt on Thursday as workers have called several hours of strikes during the busiest hours of the day. Three workers unions called the strikes in protest at the "lack of personnel" and the "pitiful" service offered by the capital’s transport service with complaints including long waiting times and overcrowded carriages...
‘I Was a Garment Worker and I Know Exploitation’ Solidarity Center ...The “Made in Jordan” label is familiar to U.S. consumers shopping for shirts, jeans and other clothes. Mervat Jumhawi, a Jordanian union organizer, is actively ensuring the largely migrant workforce that cuts and sews these garments does so in safe conditions, receives fair wages and is treated with respect on the job. “I was a garment worker and I know what exploitation is, I knows what that means,” says Jumhawi...
Mexican Farmers Accuse Mining Companies of Shady Tactics in Chiapas Truthout ...Mexico's government gave the green light for titanium mining to occur below 500 of the 530 hectares that make up the Los Cacaos community. Villatoro and his neighbors in Los Cacaos express acute fears about the potential environmental effects. He believes that local leaders "were tricked into signing off on the exploration process" by the mining company...
STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
Scott Walker Is Ready To Turn Back The Clock On Ethics And Campaign Finance In Wisconsin Think Progress ...“This is the week from hell.” “It’s a complete nightmare.” “It’s ugly. It’s not a pretty picture.” That’s how government watchdogs described to ThinkProgress the series of votes the Wisconsin state legislature has lined up this week on bills designed to deregulate state campaign finance law, dissolve the state ethics and elections board, and take away a key tool prosecutors use to investigate political crimes...
Pa. Bill Would Limit Prevailing Wage Rule For Some Roadwork Law360 ...A Pennsylvania state lawmaker introduced a bill on Monday that would exempt workers on road maintenance projects from prevailing wage requirements. While certain maintenance projects are already exempt from the state’s prevailing wage requirements, the measure introduced by Rep. Cris Dush, R-Indiana, would expand the exemptions to include work performed on dirt, gravel, and low-volume road maintenance projects...
Half of food workers go to work sick because they have to, survey finds KPCC ...Fifty-one percent of food workers — who do everything from grow and process food to cook and serve it — said they "always" or "frequently" go to work when they're sick, according to the results of a survey released Monday. An additional 38 percent said they go to work sick "sometimes." Four states — California, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Oregon — have passed legislation to provide paid sick leave, in addition to a number of cities across the country...
Congratulations Tennessee: You’ve Got the Most Regressive Tax System in America The Atlantic ...According to a study by economists at the Federal Reserve, Tennessee, Mississippi, and West Virginia have structured their tax codes so that middle and lower-income families pay a bigger share of their incomes than wealthy families do. Many economists, including Thomas Piketty, believe that such systems can make inequality worse. Tennessee has taken this strategy the furthest: The state has the most regressive tax system in the country, according to the study...
Will Colorado Become the First State to Implement Single-Payer Health Care? Truthout ...The fight for a statewide single-payer health-care system has shifted from the Green Mountains to the Rocky Mountains: Colorado citizens are about to put single-payer up for a statewide ballot referendum in the 2016 election. If voters approve, the state constitution will be amended to create a statewide, publicly financed, universal system for the first time in US history...
Minneapolis leaders rally support for Seattle's minimum wage champion Star Tribune ...Two Minneapolis City Council members and a long list of local labor organizers are throwing their support behind a candidate running for city office -- in Seattle. Council Members Alondra Cano and Cam Gordon are among the co-hosts of a fundraiser supporting Kshama Sawant, a current member of the Seattle City Council who led the successful effort to raise that city's minimum wage...
U.S. LABOR
Signs of support for UAW-FCA contract voting Detroit Free Press ...Substantial dissatisfactoin among UAW remains to the proposed agreement with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles but workers and other sources say the intensity of opposition is subsiding. The yes votes by the two workers are in line with what others have been telling the Free Press in recent days — while there are still vocal opponents, many who rejected the first contract are prepared to accept this one...
CSU faculty to vote on major strike over contract KCRA ...Faculty members at the California State University's 23 campuses started voting Monday on whether to permit their labor union to call a strike over stalled salary negotiations. The strike authorization vote being held online and in person is at least the fourth that the California Faculty Association has held in eight years. Balloting is scheduled to run through Oct. 28...
NLRB delivers response to FedEx challenge of 'micro union' test Reuters ...The National Labor Relations Board on Tuesday defended its standard for approving the formation of so-called micro unions made up of distinct groups of employees from a challenge by FedEx Freight Inc, which says the board violated federal law in unilaterally creating new policy. In a brief submitted to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the NLRB said its 2011 decision in Specialty Healthcare, merely clarified existing law...
Verizon Makes Over $1 Billion In Profits Per Month And Demands Concessions From Workers NH Labor News ...In response to today’s Verizon earnings report, the Communications Workers of America, which along with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, represents 39,000 Verizon workers, issued the following statement: "Yet again, Verizon’s quarterly report shows the strength of the company’s bottom line. But despite another almost $1.5 billion dollars a month in profits, the company turns its back on its workers"...
Is Nevada’s Labor Movement Ready to Forgive Democrats? National Journal ...Last year, as the Republican wave crested across the country, labor organizers seeking to rally union members in Nevada foresaw a rout. The evidence was in their door-to-door efforts to excite the faithful: Some workers slammed their doors. Others tore up campaign literature and threw it in the organizers’ faces. Still others simply asked, “Why?” It was a stark display of a dispirited movement that has been the backbone of the Democratic Party in this swing state for decades...
SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
San Francisco Votes to Keep Shielding Immigrants From Deportation Officials New York Times ...The Board of Supervisors upheld San Francisco’s status as a sanctuary for immigrants on Tuesday, unanimously passing a resolution that called on local law enforcement not to notify the federal authorities when unauthorized immigrants are released from custody. The city had been under pressure from critics of its policies on immigrants...
Google Tests Drone Delivery As Feds Move For More Regulation Think Progress ...Google was spotted conducting more delivery drone tests Monday in an effort to beat competitor Amazon. But regulators are close behind, moving to require drone operators to register unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) with the Department of Transportation much like drivers do with their cars. The Federal Aviation Administration has been working on guidelines for commercial use...
Rural Alabama Judge Gives Penniless Defendants the Option to Give Blood or Go to Jail Slate ...A rural Alabama judge is facing criticism, and an ethics complaint, for telling a courtroom full of defendants, many indigent, that if they could not pay their fines or court fees, they could donate blood. Otherwise they would be sent to jail. The Southern Poverty Law Center released a recording of Perry County Circuit Judge Marvin Wiggins spelling out his policy to his courtroom last month...
Showing posts with label verizon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label verizon. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Thursday, September 3, 2015
Corporations don't join in on growing love of unions
There is renewed energy in the labor movement. Polls show American support of unions is growing, the data shows union members are paid more than non-union workers, and more and more there is a belief that corporations are taking advantage of employees in an effort to pocket even more profits.
Big business is getting wise to these changing winds as well. And they're doing all they can to clamp down on it before they lose control. In some instances, that means even creating their own fake unions so they can trick workers into accepting lower salaries. The New York Times details one such case in the carnival industry:
Big business is getting wise to these changing winds as well. And they're doing all they can to clamp down on it before they lose control. In some instances, that means even creating their own fake unions so they can trick workers into accepting lower salaries. The New York Times details one such case in the carnival industry:[W]hen a new union signed contracts with dozens of companies that operate at fairs and carnivals, it seemed that a group of workers long considered exploited had found a new ally.
Labor advocates, however, have since charged that the new union was really a stalking-horse for industry, not a champion for laborers, many of whom come from Mexico. And instead of demanding that companies pay the carnival workers more, the advocates say the union deals assured the employers they would not have to do so.
Several officers of the union, the Association of Mobile Entertainment Workers, also had close ties, it turned out, to two businessmen — one in Texas, the other in Mexico — who have long supplied carnivals and fairs with itinerant Mexican workers.
Other more established companies are putting the screws to workers the old fashion way -- by not giving an inch. The Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the Electrical Workers (IBEW) went into early September in continuing contract talks with Verizon – talks, IBEW said, that featured absolutely no change in the firm’s wide-ranging giveback demands. The talks cover more than 40,000 Verizon workers up and down the East Coast. Verizon makes some $12 million in profits a day.
In response, the unions took to the streets to show mass solidarity for their bargaining teams, with rallies all over the Northeast and mid-Atlantic states. And they enlisted political support, from New York state lawmakers and the mayors of Salisbury, Md., and Yonkers, N.Y. In Albany, N.Y., CWA members demanded the New York Public Service Commission – which regulates telecom firms – get involved and pressure Verizon to bargain in good faith.
Taken together, it is further proof that while the public may increasingly have the back of workers, companies are not joining in. It's part of the reason the Teamsters are pushing forward with our new "Let's Get America Working" platform that not only calls for greater investment, but an increased focus on worker rights as well.
Everyday Americans trying to make ends meet won't be bullied by big business.
- Press Associates contributed to this report.
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...
Friday, July 31, 2015
Today's Teamster News 07.31.15
Teamsters
Apple, Yahoo shuttle drivers set to vote on union USA Today ...Unions continue to make inroads into Silicon Valley. Shuttle drivers for Apple, eBay, Yahoo, Zynga and several other Silicon Valley firms are set to vote Saturday on a package for improved wages and benefits. The 160 drivers, most of them employed by Compass Transportation of San Jose, shuttle employees to and from those tech firms, as well as Amtrak, Evernote and Genentech. The drivers sought representation from Teamsters Local 853...
Garda Canada Security Corporation and Teamsters Local 362 reach a new collective agreement Government of Canada ...Today, the Honourable Dr. K. Kellie Leitch, Minister of Labour and Minister of Status of Women, congratulated Garda Canada Security Corporation and Teamsters Local 362 on the renewal of their collective agreement. The agreement was reached with assistance from the Labour Program’s Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS). The FMCS provides dispute resolution and dispute prevention assistance to trade unions and employers under the jurisdiction of the Canada Labour Code...
Port Truckers Testify Before Tidelands and Harbor Committee Over Misclassification, Wage Theft Long Beach Post ...Stakeholders from the Port of Long Beach (POLB), trucking companies and drivers testified before the Tidelands and Harbor Committee last night to address the misclassification. The idea that the businesses can flourish while paying their drivers as employees was illustrated by Kevin Baddeley, president of Shippers Transport Express (STE) based out of Carson. He said that since converting to an employee model in January and negotiating a union contract with the Teamsters Union shortly after, STE has been stable and its customers happy...
Time running out for Sun Tran negotiations with union KVOA ...Sun Tran and the employees’ union, Teamsters Local 104, are still negotiating to avoid a bus strike in Tucson. Their contract expires Friday at midnight. Union members, who are mostly bus drivers, are expected to vote on a new deal Saturday. If the union rejects the contract, a strike may follow. Signs at bus stations warn riders about the negotiations...
Global Labor & Trade
Pacific trade negotiators chase elusive final deal in tough talks Reuters ...Pacific Rim trade ministers neared the final spurt of negotiations on an ambitious free trade pact on Thursday, but differences over farm exports and monopoly periods for next-generation drugs kept them short of an elusive final deal. Ministers from the 12 countries negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which would cut trade barriers and set common standards for 40 percent of the world economy, are meeting in Hawaii to try to hammer out a deal...
Canada Under Pressure as Pacific Trade Talks Slow Over Dairy Bloomberg ...Negotiations on a landmark free-trade pact among 12 Pacific nations stumbled as pressure mounted on Canada to soften its stance on limiting dairy imports. After months of demands from nations including the U.S., Australia and New Zealand to open its dairy markets as part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Canada outlined a proposal during talks in Hawaii that other nations rejected as inadequate, according to two people briefed on the negotiations...
Trade deal threatens affordable healthcare for millions, experts say Aljazeera ...Public health groups on Thursday warned that “absurd” patent and data protection clauses pushed by U.S. lawmakers during the final negotiations of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in Maui, Hawaii could hike prices for life-saving drugs and stifle innovation. Doctors Without Border (MSF) and the Generic Pharmaceutical Association are most concerned with measures such as the extension of intellectual property rights on drug patents and increased damages for the infringement of patents...
Trade Negotiators Reach Environmental Accord New York Times ...Trade negotiators from the United States and 11 other Pacific nations reached agreement late Thursday on broad environmental protections for some of the most sensitive, diverse and threatened ecosystems on earth, closing one of the most contentious chapters of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. As negotiators struggled to complete the largest regional trade agreement, they pointed to the environmental accord as a clear achievement. It will be controversial. Some environmental groups, like the Sierra Club, insist that it lacks the binding enforcement measures...
Patent Protection for Drugs Puts Pressure on U.S. in Trade Talks New York Times ...With 12 nations pressing to conclude the largest regional trade accord ever, United States officials find themselves squeezed between activists pressing to secure access to low-cost pharmaceuticals and Republicans who say Congress will reject a deal without strong patent protections for the drug industry. Negotiators gathered this week in Maui hoping the long-sought accord might be finished by Friday. But dozens of issues remain unresolved on the Trans-Pacific Partnership...
Group Seeks to Expose Cozy Ties Between US Trade Rep and Wall Street Common Dreams ...Citing his cozy ties to Wall Street banks, a group dedicated to exposing corruption and corporate influence in Washington, D.C. has submitted an official Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for all correspondence between U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman and the 10 largest U.S. financial institutions. Rootstrikers, the grassroots organization behind the FOIA request, has said that because corporate giveaways like the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) pose a threat to robust financial regulation in general, "Americans deserve to know"...
Pacific Rim free trade deal comes with high price Aljazeera ...On the tropical shores of the island of Maui in Hawaii, 12 Pacific Rim countries are negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement behind closed doors. The current meeting in Hawaii between the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Singapore, Peru, and Vietnam is the latest and possibly final round of negotiations that have been grinding along and evolving for seven years. the deal has drawn critics from various spheres. Among the loudest are analysts concerned by how the deal will affect the availability and price of medicine...
WikiLeaks says US spied on Japanese government, companies Associated Press ...WikiLeaks says US spied on Japanese government, companies. The documents include what appear to be five U.S. National Security Agency reports, four of which are marked top-secret, that provide intelligence on Japanese positions on international trade and climate change. Three of the apparent NSA reports deal with climate change, and the other two with agricultural trade issues, including U.S. cherry exports to Japan...
Youth unemployment in Italy exceeds 44 percent, 38yr high RT ...Youth unemployment has increased to 44.2 percent in June, according to the Italian national statistics office. It’s the highest level since 1977 and about twice the eurozone average. The overall unemployment also increased in June, according to the data published Friday. The upsetting numbers come as the Italian Prime Minister is pursuing economic reforms that the government hopes will make the eurozone's third largest economy dominant in Europe and the world within 20-30 years...
Greek bailout talks shift into higher gear CBS ...Greece's talks with its international creditors on a third bailout worth 85 billion euros ($93 billion) shifted into a higher gear on Friday, with lead negotiators from the European Union and International Monetary Fund meeting key ministers in Athens. The talks with Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos and Economy Minister Giorgos Stathakis follow preparatory meetings in the Greek capital this week between lower-level officials on reforming the tax system and labor market regulations...
London’s National Gallery Labor Strike Escalates Artforum ...The entire group of union workers currently employed at the National Gallery in London are set to renew their strike this August, according to Sarah Cascone at Artnet. This comes after several other recent periods of labor dispute at the venerable British institution, all over the management’s plans to privatize visitor services at the museum. The Public and Commercial Services Union, which represents the workers who will be participating, has told the museum of its intentions to strike...
State & Living Wage Battles
Pennsylvania Employers Steal Tens Of Millions Of Dollars From Their Workers In Any Given Week Think Progress ...Pennsylvania’s low-wage workers lose between $19 million and $32 million to wage theft in any given week, potentially costing the state’s economy as much as a billion dollars in lost potential consumer spending each year, according to a new analysis by law students from Temple University. The economic analysis is premised on a 2009 study of Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles workers’ experiences of wage theft in various industries...
Michigan Supreme Court Upholds Right-to-Work Law, Takes Workers Back to the Gilded Age Truthout ...Republican lawmakers passed the measure in December 2012, making it illegal to require workers to pay union dues or service fees as a condition of employment. Shortly thereafter, public sector employees filed a lawsuit saying they were exempt from the law because their workplaces came under the jurisdiction of the Michigan Civil Service Commission, not private sector employment law. On Wednesday, July 29, the high court, in a 4-3 ruling, rejected the workers' plea. With that, the court completed the transformation of this longtime labor stronghold into an anti-labor regime, reminiscent of the Gilded Age US...
Kansas City Minimum Wage Hike? $15 Hourly Pay Proposed By Missouri Activists International Business Times ...Kansas City, Missouri, may see an initiative to increase the city's minimum wage on its November ballot. A group of civil rights organizations has demanded that their petition go to a vote to raise base hourly pay in the city to $15. In turn, business organizations have condemned the move as "job killing" and want to see wages stay at the state-mandated $7.65 per hour...
N.C. attorneys rest their case in federal voting rights trial Journal Now ...Attorneys representing North Carolina and Gov. Pat McCrory rested their case this morning after calling six witnesses in a federal trial over the state’s controversial election law. Several groups, including the N.C. NAACP and the U.S. Department of Justice, are suing the state and McCrory over House Bill 589, which became law in 2013. House Bill 589 eliminated same-day voter registration, reduced the days of early voting from 17 to 10, got rid of out-of-precinct provisional voting and abolished preregistration of 16- and 17-year-olds...
California's Drought and the Politics of Inequality (opinion) Truthout ...California Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in April, mandating urban centers to reduce water usage by 25 percent. Walking around working-class neighborhoods, one can't help but notice brown lawns and dying plants, which shows how seriously people are taking the task of water conservation. What's striking is who's willing to conserve - and who isn't. Forty-eight percent of wealthier homeowners with incomes above $100,000 a year say it would be "difficult" to conserve water...
Pittsburgh's paid sick leave bill headed to council for vote Monday Post-Gazette ...Pittsburgh City Councilman Corey O’Connor, with broad support from his colleagues, is looking to push through legislation Monday that would require businesses to provide paid sick leave to their employees before the council breaks for its August recess. If it clears that final vote, the bill, put forward July 6, will have gone from introduction to passage in less than a month...
U.S. Labor
Court backs labor board on election rule The Hill ...A federal court has upheld federal regulations designed to speed up union elections, dealing a blow to business groups who oppose the rule. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) should be allowed to expedite the process by which employees unionize, Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled for the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C...
NLRB to Rule on Northwestern Football Players’ Bid to Unionize Wall Street Journal ...The National Labor Relations Board is expected to decide in coming weeks whether to give labor unions a foothold in college sports, a decision that could have a widespread impact on college athletics. The five-member board of the federal labor agency is weighing whether Northwestern University’s scholarship football players are school employees, as an agency regional director ruled last year, and can therefore unionize...
Verizon strike on pension, health care possible APP.com ...Time is ticking down as negotiations between Verizon and its employees’ unions continue. The contract between Verizon and its union workforce, members of the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, expires at midnight Saturday. Both sides are “very apart on the issues,” said Candice Johnson, a CWA spokeswoman...
UAW, Ford kick off contract talks as auto business booms NWI.com ...The United Auto Workers union has kicked off contract talks with Ford, which is one of the Calumet Region's largest employers, with about 5,000 local workers. The UAW, which made deep concessions during the darkest days of the Great Recession, hopes to end a two-tier pay system in which younger workers are paid less than more veteran employees doing the same job...
Hundreds of United Steelworkers members rally downtown WPXI ...Hundred of United Steelworkers members and their allies rallied Thursday at the headquarters of Allegheny Technologies Inc. in downtown Pittsburgh. According to a release from the USW, the union is trying to reach agreement on a new contract for more than 2,200 members who work for ATI, a specialty metals and components supplier for the aerospace and defense, medical and industrial industries. Their old contract expired June 30...
Frontier Communications and Communications Workers of America Reach Agreement in Texas and Missouri MarketWatch ...Frontier Communications Corporation FTR, and the Communications Workers of America District 6 (CWA) are pleased to announce the signing of an agreement that will benefit CWA-represented employees in Texas and Missouri and Frontier’s future customers in Texas. The agreement is an important step forward in the process to complete Frontier’s planned acquisition of Verizon’s wireline business and assets in Texas, California and Florida...
Companies have found something to give their workers instead of raises Washington Post ...Once a staple of the American workplace, the annual raise is turning into a relic of the pre-crisis economy as companies turn to creative — and cheaper — ways to compensate their employees. More businesses are upping their spending on benefits such as one-time bonuses, health care and paid time off, according to recent survey data. Many are rolling out perks such as free gym membership, commuting subsidies, even pet health insurance...
‘She’s Not A Felon, She’s A Human Being': Obama Under Pressure To Ban The Box Before Leaving Office (opinion) Think Progress ...If you’ve ever applied for a job, you’ve probably seen the box. Hiring forms commonly require applicants to indicate if they’ve ever been convicted of a crime. That little check-box produces some grand societal failures: An estimated 60 to 75 percent of Americans released from prison cannot find work throughout their first year back home...
Bernie Sanders Lobbies for A.F.L.-C.I.O. Endorsement New York Times ...Citing his long legislative record and improving performance in opinion polls, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont told leaders of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. gathered here on Wednesday that he was best equipped to advance the rights and benefits of organized labor. Although he did not mention his rivals by name, Mr. Sanders, who was one of several candidates to address the organization’s executive council, said he told the group that no one had as clear a regard for the labor movement as he did...
Courting Unions, Hillary Clinton Says She Didn't Work on Trans-Pacific Partnership Bloomberg ...Hillary Clinton appeared to take another step away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership on Thursday, telling reporters that she didn’t work on the controversial trade deal while serving as President Barack Obama’s secretary of state. The Democratic presidential front-runner, who advocated for a multi-lateral Asia trade agreement as a member of Obama's administration but has pointedly refused to endorse the results as a candidate to succeed her old boss, walked a careful semantic line following a private meeting with the AFL-CIO executive council...
U.S. employment costs post smallest gain on record in second-quarter Reuters ...U.S. labor costs in the second quarter recorded their smallest increase in 33 years amid tepid gains in the private sector, but it likely was a temporary setback against the backdrop of diminishing labor market slack. The unexpectedly smaller rise reported by the Labor Department on Friday will probably not dampen speculation that the Federal Reserve is set to raise interest rates later this year...
Apple, Yahoo shuttle drivers set to vote on union USA Today ...Unions continue to make inroads into Silicon Valley. Shuttle drivers for Apple, eBay, Yahoo, Zynga and several other Silicon Valley firms are set to vote Saturday on a package for improved wages and benefits. The 160 drivers, most of them employed by Compass Transportation of San Jose, shuttle employees to and from those tech firms, as well as Amtrak, Evernote and Genentech. The drivers sought representation from Teamsters Local 853...
Garda Canada Security Corporation and Teamsters Local 362 reach a new collective agreement Government of Canada ...Today, the Honourable Dr. K. Kellie Leitch, Minister of Labour and Minister of Status of Women, congratulated Garda Canada Security Corporation and Teamsters Local 362 on the renewal of their collective agreement. The agreement was reached with assistance from the Labour Program’s Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS). The FMCS provides dispute resolution and dispute prevention assistance to trade unions and employers under the jurisdiction of the Canada Labour Code...
Port Truckers Testify Before Tidelands and Harbor Committee Over Misclassification, Wage Theft Long Beach Post ...Stakeholders from the Port of Long Beach (POLB), trucking companies and drivers testified before the Tidelands and Harbor Committee last night to address the misclassification. The idea that the businesses can flourish while paying their drivers as employees was illustrated by Kevin Baddeley, president of Shippers Transport Express (STE) based out of Carson. He said that since converting to an employee model in January and negotiating a union contract with the Teamsters Union shortly after, STE has been stable and its customers happy...
Time running out for Sun Tran negotiations with union KVOA ...Sun Tran and the employees’ union, Teamsters Local 104, are still negotiating to avoid a bus strike in Tucson. Their contract expires Friday at midnight. Union members, who are mostly bus drivers, are expected to vote on a new deal Saturday. If the union rejects the contract, a strike may follow. Signs at bus stations warn riders about the negotiations...
Global Labor & Trade
Pacific trade negotiators chase elusive final deal in tough talks Reuters ...Pacific Rim trade ministers neared the final spurt of negotiations on an ambitious free trade pact on Thursday, but differences over farm exports and monopoly periods for next-generation drugs kept them short of an elusive final deal. Ministers from the 12 countries negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which would cut trade barriers and set common standards for 40 percent of the world economy, are meeting in Hawaii to try to hammer out a deal...
Canada Under Pressure as Pacific Trade Talks Slow Over Dairy Bloomberg ...Negotiations on a landmark free-trade pact among 12 Pacific nations stumbled as pressure mounted on Canada to soften its stance on limiting dairy imports. After months of demands from nations including the U.S., Australia and New Zealand to open its dairy markets as part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Canada outlined a proposal during talks in Hawaii that other nations rejected as inadequate, according to two people briefed on the negotiations...
Trade deal threatens affordable healthcare for millions, experts say Aljazeera ...Public health groups on Thursday warned that “absurd” patent and data protection clauses pushed by U.S. lawmakers during the final negotiations of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in Maui, Hawaii could hike prices for life-saving drugs and stifle innovation. Doctors Without Border (MSF) and the Generic Pharmaceutical Association are most concerned with measures such as the extension of intellectual property rights on drug patents and increased damages for the infringement of patents...
Trade Negotiators Reach Environmental Accord New York Times ...Trade negotiators from the United States and 11 other Pacific nations reached agreement late Thursday on broad environmental protections for some of the most sensitive, diverse and threatened ecosystems on earth, closing one of the most contentious chapters of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. As negotiators struggled to complete the largest regional trade agreement, they pointed to the environmental accord as a clear achievement. It will be controversial. Some environmental groups, like the Sierra Club, insist that it lacks the binding enforcement measures...
Patent Protection for Drugs Puts Pressure on U.S. in Trade Talks New York Times ...With 12 nations pressing to conclude the largest regional trade accord ever, United States officials find themselves squeezed between activists pressing to secure access to low-cost pharmaceuticals and Republicans who say Congress will reject a deal without strong patent protections for the drug industry. Negotiators gathered this week in Maui hoping the long-sought accord might be finished by Friday. But dozens of issues remain unresolved on the Trans-Pacific Partnership...
Group Seeks to Expose Cozy Ties Between US Trade Rep and Wall Street Common Dreams ...Citing his cozy ties to Wall Street banks, a group dedicated to exposing corruption and corporate influence in Washington, D.C. has submitted an official Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for all correspondence between U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman and the 10 largest U.S. financial institutions. Rootstrikers, the grassroots organization behind the FOIA request, has said that because corporate giveaways like the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) pose a threat to robust financial regulation in general, "Americans deserve to know"...
Pacific Rim free trade deal comes with high price Aljazeera ...On the tropical shores of the island of Maui in Hawaii, 12 Pacific Rim countries are negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement behind closed doors. The current meeting in Hawaii between the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Singapore, Peru, and Vietnam is the latest and possibly final round of negotiations that have been grinding along and evolving for seven years. the deal has drawn critics from various spheres. Among the loudest are analysts concerned by how the deal will affect the availability and price of medicine...
WikiLeaks says US spied on Japanese government, companies Associated Press ...WikiLeaks says US spied on Japanese government, companies. The documents include what appear to be five U.S. National Security Agency reports, four of which are marked top-secret, that provide intelligence on Japanese positions on international trade and climate change. Three of the apparent NSA reports deal with climate change, and the other two with agricultural trade issues, including U.S. cherry exports to Japan...
Youth unemployment in Italy exceeds 44 percent, 38yr high RT ...Youth unemployment has increased to 44.2 percent in June, according to the Italian national statistics office. It’s the highest level since 1977 and about twice the eurozone average. The overall unemployment also increased in June, according to the data published Friday. The upsetting numbers come as the Italian Prime Minister is pursuing economic reforms that the government hopes will make the eurozone's third largest economy dominant in Europe and the world within 20-30 years...
Greek bailout talks shift into higher gear CBS ...Greece's talks with its international creditors on a third bailout worth 85 billion euros ($93 billion) shifted into a higher gear on Friday, with lead negotiators from the European Union and International Monetary Fund meeting key ministers in Athens. The talks with Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos and Economy Minister Giorgos Stathakis follow preparatory meetings in the Greek capital this week between lower-level officials on reforming the tax system and labor market regulations...
London’s National Gallery Labor Strike Escalates Artforum ...The entire group of union workers currently employed at the National Gallery in London are set to renew their strike this August, according to Sarah Cascone at Artnet. This comes after several other recent periods of labor dispute at the venerable British institution, all over the management’s plans to privatize visitor services at the museum. The Public and Commercial Services Union, which represents the workers who will be participating, has told the museum of its intentions to strike...
State & Living Wage Battles
Pennsylvania Employers Steal Tens Of Millions Of Dollars From Their Workers In Any Given Week Think Progress ...Pennsylvania’s low-wage workers lose between $19 million and $32 million to wage theft in any given week, potentially costing the state’s economy as much as a billion dollars in lost potential consumer spending each year, according to a new analysis by law students from Temple University. The economic analysis is premised on a 2009 study of Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles workers’ experiences of wage theft in various industries...
Michigan Supreme Court Upholds Right-to-Work Law, Takes Workers Back to the Gilded Age Truthout ...Republican lawmakers passed the measure in December 2012, making it illegal to require workers to pay union dues or service fees as a condition of employment. Shortly thereafter, public sector employees filed a lawsuit saying they were exempt from the law because their workplaces came under the jurisdiction of the Michigan Civil Service Commission, not private sector employment law. On Wednesday, July 29, the high court, in a 4-3 ruling, rejected the workers' plea. With that, the court completed the transformation of this longtime labor stronghold into an anti-labor regime, reminiscent of the Gilded Age US...
Kansas City Minimum Wage Hike? $15 Hourly Pay Proposed By Missouri Activists International Business Times ...Kansas City, Missouri, may see an initiative to increase the city's minimum wage on its November ballot. A group of civil rights organizations has demanded that their petition go to a vote to raise base hourly pay in the city to $15. In turn, business organizations have condemned the move as "job killing" and want to see wages stay at the state-mandated $7.65 per hour...
N.C. attorneys rest their case in federal voting rights trial Journal Now ...Attorneys representing North Carolina and Gov. Pat McCrory rested their case this morning after calling six witnesses in a federal trial over the state’s controversial election law. Several groups, including the N.C. NAACP and the U.S. Department of Justice, are suing the state and McCrory over House Bill 589, which became law in 2013. House Bill 589 eliminated same-day voter registration, reduced the days of early voting from 17 to 10, got rid of out-of-precinct provisional voting and abolished preregistration of 16- and 17-year-olds...
California's Drought and the Politics of Inequality (opinion) Truthout ...California Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in April, mandating urban centers to reduce water usage by 25 percent. Walking around working-class neighborhoods, one can't help but notice brown lawns and dying plants, which shows how seriously people are taking the task of water conservation. What's striking is who's willing to conserve - and who isn't. Forty-eight percent of wealthier homeowners with incomes above $100,000 a year say it would be "difficult" to conserve water...
Pittsburgh's paid sick leave bill headed to council for vote Monday Post-Gazette ...Pittsburgh City Councilman Corey O’Connor, with broad support from his colleagues, is looking to push through legislation Monday that would require businesses to provide paid sick leave to their employees before the council breaks for its August recess. If it clears that final vote, the bill, put forward July 6, will have gone from introduction to passage in less than a month...
U.S. Labor
Court backs labor board on election rule The Hill ...A federal court has upheld federal regulations designed to speed up union elections, dealing a blow to business groups who oppose the rule. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) should be allowed to expedite the process by which employees unionize, Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled for the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C...
NLRB to Rule on Northwestern Football Players’ Bid to Unionize Wall Street Journal ...The National Labor Relations Board is expected to decide in coming weeks whether to give labor unions a foothold in college sports, a decision that could have a widespread impact on college athletics. The five-member board of the federal labor agency is weighing whether Northwestern University’s scholarship football players are school employees, as an agency regional director ruled last year, and can therefore unionize...
Verizon strike on pension, health care possible APP.com ...Time is ticking down as negotiations between Verizon and its employees’ unions continue. The contract between Verizon and its union workforce, members of the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, expires at midnight Saturday. Both sides are “very apart on the issues,” said Candice Johnson, a CWA spokeswoman...
UAW, Ford kick off contract talks as auto business booms NWI.com ...The United Auto Workers union has kicked off contract talks with Ford, which is one of the Calumet Region's largest employers, with about 5,000 local workers. The UAW, which made deep concessions during the darkest days of the Great Recession, hopes to end a two-tier pay system in which younger workers are paid less than more veteran employees doing the same job...
Hundreds of United Steelworkers members rally downtown WPXI ...Hundred of United Steelworkers members and their allies rallied Thursday at the headquarters of Allegheny Technologies Inc. in downtown Pittsburgh. According to a release from the USW, the union is trying to reach agreement on a new contract for more than 2,200 members who work for ATI, a specialty metals and components supplier for the aerospace and defense, medical and industrial industries. Their old contract expired June 30...
Frontier Communications and Communications Workers of America Reach Agreement in Texas and Missouri MarketWatch ...Frontier Communications Corporation FTR, and the Communications Workers of America District 6 (CWA) are pleased to announce the signing of an agreement that will benefit CWA-represented employees in Texas and Missouri and Frontier’s future customers in Texas. The agreement is an important step forward in the process to complete Frontier’s planned acquisition of Verizon’s wireline business and assets in Texas, California and Florida...
Companies have found something to give their workers instead of raises Washington Post ...Once a staple of the American workplace, the annual raise is turning into a relic of the pre-crisis economy as companies turn to creative — and cheaper — ways to compensate their employees. More businesses are upping their spending on benefits such as one-time bonuses, health care and paid time off, according to recent survey data. Many are rolling out perks such as free gym membership, commuting subsidies, even pet health insurance...
‘She’s Not A Felon, She’s A Human Being': Obama Under Pressure To Ban The Box Before Leaving Office (opinion) Think Progress ...If you’ve ever applied for a job, you’ve probably seen the box. Hiring forms commonly require applicants to indicate if they’ve ever been convicted of a crime. That little check-box produces some grand societal failures: An estimated 60 to 75 percent of Americans released from prison cannot find work throughout their first year back home...
Bernie Sanders Lobbies for A.F.L.-C.I.O. Endorsement New York Times ...Citing his long legislative record and improving performance in opinion polls, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont told leaders of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. gathered here on Wednesday that he was best equipped to advance the rights and benefits of organized labor. Although he did not mention his rivals by name, Mr. Sanders, who was one of several candidates to address the organization’s executive council, said he told the group that no one had as clear a regard for the labor movement as he did...
Courting Unions, Hillary Clinton Says She Didn't Work on Trans-Pacific Partnership Bloomberg ...Hillary Clinton appeared to take another step away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership on Thursday, telling reporters that she didn’t work on the controversial trade deal while serving as President Barack Obama’s secretary of state. The Democratic presidential front-runner, who advocated for a multi-lateral Asia trade agreement as a member of Obama's administration but has pointedly refused to endorse the results as a candidate to succeed her old boss, walked a careful semantic line following a private meeting with the AFL-CIO executive council...
U.S. employment costs post smallest gain on record in second-quarter Reuters ...U.S. labor costs in the second quarter recorded their smallest increase in 33 years amid tepid gains in the private sector, but it likely was a temporary setback against the backdrop of diminishing labor market slack. The unexpectedly smaller rise reported by the Labor Department on Friday will probably not dampen speculation that the Federal Reserve is set to raise interest rates later this year...
To get a fair share, sharing-economy workers must unionize (opinion) Aljazeera ...Uber’s disruption of the cab industry has been welcomed by nearly everyone except those who rely on the cab industry for their livelihoods. It’s arguably made on-demand car rides easier, cleaner, safer, more accessible and, in some cases, even cheaper. The high prices of regulated taxi medallions have kept a small number of bosses in control, while drivers pay high gate fees in order to access their cars and wages. Uber is right that the traditional system is not well suited to drivers’ or customers’ needs. But the new boss is not so different from the old boss...
Social Justice & Other News
U.S. austerity was even worse than we thought, data suggest Washington Post ...The economy of the years between 2011 and 2014 was even more mediocre than previously recognized, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. State and local governments spent less than the bureau realized throughout the interval, as did the federal government last year. When government spends less, its public employees, contractors and suppliers are all stretched. They have less to live on, and less money to spend in the rest of the economy...
Court Rules Police Need a Warrant to Access Location Data From Your Cellphone Slate ...In an order released Thursday by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Judge Lucy Koh found that Fourth Amendment protections extend to location data generated by cellphones. Ruling against the federal government, Koh affirmed that law enforcement agencies must seek a warrant before acquiring historical location data produced by a cellphone...
Will Prosecutors Charge Officers Who Lied to Protect Ray Tensing After He Fatally Shot Sam Dubose? Democracy Now ...Former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing has been released on a $1 million bail after pleading not guilty to the murder of Sam Dubose. Tensing, who is white, fatally shot the 43-year-old African-American man on July 19 after stopping him for not having a front license plate. Two additional officers, Phillip Kidd and David Lindenschmidt, have been placed on administrative leave...
Protesters Forcibly Removed by Police As Arctic Drilling Ship Escapes Blockade Common Dreams ...Ending a nearly two-day standoff, Greenpeace activists who had successfully blocked passage of a Shell Oil drilling vessel were dramatically removed from their positions on the St. Johns Bridge in Portland, Oregon on Thurdsay evening as a special team of law enforcement officers cut them away to allow passage of the ship...
House takes off for August vacation before looking at highway, transit bill NY Daily News ...Congress is hitting the road without fixing our highways. House members took off for their extended August vacation before taking a look at the Senate’s newly passed long-term transportation bill, adding one more touchy issue for lawmakers to grapple with in a busy fall session. The long-overdue bill passed the Senate on Thursday with heavy bipartisan support, getting 65 votes for the $350 billion package, which would make changes to highway, transit, railroad and auto safety programs for six years...
Trump's immigration plan would cost hundreds of billions of dollars CNN ...According to a 2009 Government Accountability Office report, the average cost of fencing per mile is around $2.8 million to $3.9 million for the easiest-to-install and least expensive urban fencing. "You don't necessarily get a lot of bang for your buck," said Tom Wong, an assistant professor of Political Science at University of California, San Diego. Rosenblum and Wong explained that a wall would primarily just slow the process of crossing the border, especially in more rural areas...
UN Report Card Gives US 'Failing Grade' on Human Rights Common Dreams ...A United Nations committee of independent monitors this week released a damning assessment of human rights in the United States, showing an overall dismal performance on issues from Guantanamo Bay detentions to mass surveillance to accountability for past atrocities—earning what the U.S. Human Rights Network called a "failing grade." The findings prompted immediate condemnation from human rights and social justice organizations based in the U.S., including the Dream Defenders, who joined a civil society delegation to Geneva last year to urge the repeal of "Stand Your Ground" laws...
Social Justice & Other News
U.S. austerity was even worse than we thought, data suggest Washington Post ...The economy of the years between 2011 and 2014 was even more mediocre than previously recognized, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. State and local governments spent less than the bureau realized throughout the interval, as did the federal government last year. When government spends less, its public employees, contractors and suppliers are all stretched. They have less to live on, and less money to spend in the rest of the economy...
Court Rules Police Need a Warrant to Access Location Data From Your Cellphone Slate ...In an order released Thursday by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Judge Lucy Koh found that Fourth Amendment protections extend to location data generated by cellphones. Ruling against the federal government, Koh affirmed that law enforcement agencies must seek a warrant before acquiring historical location data produced by a cellphone...
Will Prosecutors Charge Officers Who Lied to Protect Ray Tensing After He Fatally Shot Sam Dubose? Democracy Now ...Former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing has been released on a $1 million bail after pleading not guilty to the murder of Sam Dubose. Tensing, who is white, fatally shot the 43-year-old African-American man on July 19 after stopping him for not having a front license plate. Two additional officers, Phillip Kidd and David Lindenschmidt, have been placed on administrative leave...
Protesters Forcibly Removed by Police As Arctic Drilling Ship Escapes Blockade Common Dreams ...Ending a nearly two-day standoff, Greenpeace activists who had successfully blocked passage of a Shell Oil drilling vessel were dramatically removed from their positions on the St. Johns Bridge in Portland, Oregon on Thurdsay evening as a special team of law enforcement officers cut them away to allow passage of the ship...
House takes off for August vacation before looking at highway, transit bill NY Daily News ...Congress is hitting the road without fixing our highways. House members took off for their extended August vacation before taking a look at the Senate’s newly passed long-term transportation bill, adding one more touchy issue for lawmakers to grapple with in a busy fall session. The long-overdue bill passed the Senate on Thursday with heavy bipartisan support, getting 65 votes for the $350 billion package, which would make changes to highway, transit, railroad and auto safety programs for six years...
Trump's immigration plan would cost hundreds of billions of dollars CNN ...According to a 2009 Government Accountability Office report, the average cost of fencing per mile is around $2.8 million to $3.9 million for the easiest-to-install and least expensive urban fencing. "You don't necessarily get a lot of bang for your buck," said Tom Wong, an assistant professor of Political Science at University of California, San Diego. Rosenblum and Wong explained that a wall would primarily just slow the process of crossing the border, especially in more rural areas...
UN Report Card Gives US 'Failing Grade' on Human Rights Common Dreams ...A United Nations committee of independent monitors this week released a damning assessment of human rights in the United States, showing an overall dismal performance on issues from Guantanamo Bay detentions to mass surveillance to accountability for past atrocities—earning what the U.S. Human Rights Network called a "failing grade." The findings prompted immediate condemnation from human rights and social justice organizations based in the U.S., including the Dream Defenders, who joined a civil society delegation to Geneva last year to urge the repeal of "Stand Your Ground" laws...
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Today's Teamster News 07.29.15
Teamsters
Shuttle Drivers for Apple, eBay, Yahoo, Zynga, Genentech, Amtrak and Evernote Set to Vote on Proposal for First Contract Teamster.org ...Teamsters Local Union 853 announced today that shuttle drivers employed by Compass Transportation/Transdev will vote on a union proposal for a first contract that includes industry-leading wages and benefits on Aug. 1. The drivers transport employees from Apple, eBay, Yahoo, Zynga, Genentech, Amtrak and Evernote from home to work and back each day...
Port truckers’ cause receives support from Long Beach Councilwoman Suja Lowenthal Press-Telegram ...Long Beach Councilwoman Suja Lowenthal asserted during a public meeting that port truckers are working in conditions of “modern day indentured servitude.” The majority of truckers work on an independent basis. The Teamsters union and other labor groups are advocating for drivers to be classified as employees, and thus able to join unions...
Teamsters strike concrete industry after contract talks stall Labor Tribune ...Close to 80 members of Teamsters Local 50 in St. Clair County went on strike on July 17 against seven concrete companies after joint contract talks dragged on for a year and a half. The dispute affects the seven concrete providers in the Metro-East that negotiate as a group. Teamsters members deliver the concrete to construction sites, which may be shut down as a result of the strike...
EVSC and Teamsters: Can the Two Strike a Deal? (video) Tristate Homepage ...The EVSC and Teamsters local 215 negotiators are going back to the table to try an reach a contract agreement. Close 700 EVSC employees represented by the Teamsters have been without a contract since the end of June. Teamster local 215 President Chuck Whobrey is on Eyewitness News First to talk about what's next and if both sides can come to terms. Whobrey talks grievance protocol, union dues, the bitter talks in the past and if the two sides can strike a deal before the school bell rings...
Global Labor & Trade
Canada ramps up TPP talks with U.S. on allowing more dairy imports Globe and Mail ...Canada has begun discussions with the United States on allowing more foreign dairy products into the Canadian market – among the thorniest issues for Ottawa at the Pacific Rim trade talks, which have entered their final stretch this week in Hawaii. Sources familiar with the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks say Canada has yet to specify exactly what volume of dairy shipments it would allow into its heavily protected market, but the talks are ongoing...
Secret TPP Talks Continue at a Luxury Hotel in Hawaii as the Deal Grows More Controversial EFF ...Trade ministers are meeting behind closed-doors at the Westin Resort and Spa in Maui this week to finalize the terms of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). This is the first formal round of talks since the U.S. passed the controversial Fast Track trade legislation in June, which has given U.S. negotiators a renewed sense of determination as they continue to push the TPP's corporate-driven mandate. The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) seeks to wrap up talks by the end of the week...
European Mining Dispute Illustrates Risks of Corporate-Friendly Trade Deals Common Dreams ...Offering a stark warning of how corporate-friendly trade pacts like the TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) put both democracy and the environment at risk, a Canadian company is seeking damages from Romania after being blocked from creating an open-pit gold mine over citizen concerns. Gabriel Resources Ltd. announced last week that it had filed a request for arbitration with the World Bank's International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes, a body not unlike the secret tribunals that critics like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) have warned against...
Shuttle Drivers for Apple, eBay, Yahoo, Zynga, Genentech, Amtrak and Evernote Set to Vote on Proposal for First Contract Teamster.org ...Teamsters Local Union 853 announced today that shuttle drivers employed by Compass Transportation/Transdev will vote on a union proposal for a first contract that includes industry-leading wages and benefits on Aug. 1. The drivers transport employees from Apple, eBay, Yahoo, Zynga, Genentech, Amtrak and Evernote from home to work and back each day...
Port truckers’ cause receives support from Long Beach Councilwoman Suja Lowenthal Press-Telegram ...Long Beach Councilwoman Suja Lowenthal asserted during a public meeting that port truckers are working in conditions of “modern day indentured servitude.” The majority of truckers work on an independent basis. The Teamsters union and other labor groups are advocating for drivers to be classified as employees, and thus able to join unions...
Teamsters strike concrete industry after contract talks stall Labor Tribune ...Close to 80 members of Teamsters Local 50 in St. Clair County went on strike on July 17 against seven concrete companies after joint contract talks dragged on for a year and a half. The dispute affects the seven concrete providers in the Metro-East that negotiate as a group. Teamsters members deliver the concrete to construction sites, which may be shut down as a result of the strike...
EVSC and Teamsters: Can the Two Strike a Deal? (video) Tristate Homepage ...The EVSC and Teamsters local 215 negotiators are going back to the table to try an reach a contract agreement. Close 700 EVSC employees represented by the Teamsters have been without a contract since the end of June. Teamster local 215 President Chuck Whobrey is on Eyewitness News First to talk about what's next and if both sides can come to terms. Whobrey talks grievance protocol, union dues, the bitter talks in the past and if the two sides can strike a deal before the school bell rings...
Global Labor & Trade
Canada ramps up TPP talks with U.S. on allowing more dairy imports Globe and Mail ...Canada has begun discussions with the United States on allowing more foreign dairy products into the Canadian market – among the thorniest issues for Ottawa at the Pacific Rim trade talks, which have entered their final stretch this week in Hawaii. Sources familiar with the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks say Canada has yet to specify exactly what volume of dairy shipments it would allow into its heavily protected market, but the talks are ongoing...
Secret TPP Talks Continue at a Luxury Hotel in Hawaii as the Deal Grows More Controversial EFF ...Trade ministers are meeting behind closed-doors at the Westin Resort and Spa in Maui this week to finalize the terms of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). This is the first formal round of talks since the U.S. passed the controversial Fast Track trade legislation in June, which has given U.S. negotiators a renewed sense of determination as they continue to push the TPP's corporate-driven mandate. The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) seeks to wrap up talks by the end of the week...
European Mining Dispute Illustrates Risks of Corporate-Friendly Trade Deals Common Dreams ...Offering a stark warning of how corporate-friendly trade pacts like the TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) put both democracy and the environment at risk, a Canadian company is seeking damages from Romania after being blocked from creating an open-pit gold mine over citizen concerns. Gabriel Resources Ltd. announced last week that it had filed a request for arbitration with the World Bank's International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes, a body not unlike the secret tribunals that critics like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) have warned against...
Lives at stake if Trans Pacific Partnership means meds price rise AJP.com ...As trade ministers meet in Hawaii on 28-31 July in an effort to finalise the Trans Pacific Partnership, the Public Health Association of Australia and other stakeholders say that lives are at stake. “Future access to medicines for almost 800 million people hangs in the balance this week,” says Michael Moore, CEO of the PHAA. Médecins sans Frontières last week said that the TPP could be the most harmful trade deal ever for access to medicines...
Australian minister says dairy key to TPP success Politico ...Australian Trade Minister Andrew Robb said Monday that it was up to the United States, Japan, Canada and Mexico to bolster the chances of reaching a high-quality Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement by striking a deal on sensitive dairy market access issues. “We’re on the cusp [of a TPP deal], but if the leadership is not shown by the big countries, it will lead to serious slippage where people are taking things off the table and we get a very second-best outcome,” Robb told POLITICO...
Tsipras Says Greece Won ‘Crucial’ Commitment for Debt Relief Bloomberg ...Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras expressed confidence that Greece’s creditors will grant debt relief and blamed their intractability for worsening the country’s economic plight. “The Greek people were prisoners, who after they escaped prison were immediately arrested and returned to an even smaller cell,” Tsipras, who turned 41 on Tuesday, told an Athens radio station. “What’s crucial is that we got a commitment for debt relief, which will take place after the first review of the program, in November”...
CAFTA’s Decade of Empty Promises Haunts the TPP (opinion) Eyes on Trade ...Ten years ago, after a flurry of backroom deal-making, Congress passed the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). In the dead of night. By a single vote. Exactly one decade later, today trade ministers are gathering in Hawaii to try to conclude deadline-missing negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) – a sweeping deal that would expand the CAFTA model of trade across the Pacific...
Ambassador Froman, Don’t Let the Trans-Pacific Partnership Restrict Access to Affordable Medicine (opinion) AARP ...AARP continues to voice its serious concerns about the current draft of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a massive trade agreement that will affect millions of people here in the U.S. and abroad and could set an unfortunate precedent for future trade agreements. The draft agreement contains provisions that add to the profits of the brand-name pharmaceutical industry at the expense of patients and older Americans...
American Unionists Join Chinese Uniqlo Workers’ Campaign for End to Alleged Abuse In These Times ...As protesters handed out flyers to pedestrians walking outside of a Manhattan Uniqlo store on July 15, the chant of “From China to the USA / Worker solidarity!” rang out on 34th Street. The action, organized by Workers United (WU), an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), was taken in solidarity with the workers at China’s Shenzhen Artigas Clothing and Leatherware factory, a major contract supplier for Uniqlo, the popular clothing retailer owned by Japan’s Fast Retailing Co...
Trafficking Report Boosts Uzbekistan Ranking Solidarity Center ...The U.S. State Department boosted the ranking of Uzbekistan in its Trafficking in Persons report, while keeping Turkmenistan at a higher ranking than human rights activists believe is warranted. Earlier this year, the Solidarity Center was among 30 global unions, business associations and nonprofit networks urging the U.S. State Department to ensure its Trafficking in Persons report accurately reflect the serious, ongoing and government-sponsored forced labor in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan...
State & Living Wage Battles
New York leaders call for Puerto Rico debt relief Aljazeera ...With a $73 billion debt burden that Gov. Alejandro García Padilla recently called incontrovertible, Puerto Rico is now being giving advice by hedge funds: improve tax collection and cut education spending to reduce mounting debt. A new report released Monday, which The Guardian says was commissioned by 34 hedge funds, says that Puerto Rico has room to increase revenues by improving tax compliance rates. Puerto Rico's current sales tax compliance is 56 percent, compared with an 83 percent average on the U.S. mainland...
Missouri Rejects Lawmakers’ Attempt To Block Immigrants From Receiving Scholarships Think Progress ...Some good news came to undocumented immigrants in Missouri this week, when officials ruled that language in a state appropriations bill could not prevent students from receiving state scholarship funds for college. The Missouri Department of Higher Education defended undocumented students’ access to Missouri’s A+ Scholarships even though state legislators made a small word change in a general assembly appropriations bill to stop funds from going to “unlawfully present” to “unlawful immigration status”...
Rally in Orlando celebrates New York's $15 minimum wage victory Orlando Weekly ...Workers and activists rallied on the front steps of Orlando's City Hall Thursday, July 23, joining organizers across Florida who showed support for the $15 minimum wage increase in New York. On Wednesday, a wage panel appointed by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo recommended the minimum wage be raised for employees of fast-food chain restaurants to $15 an hour. Raises will happen in yearly increments, and by the end of 2018, all workers in New York City should be paid $15, according to the New York Times...
Prevailing wage repeal would hurt the Michigan economy (opinion) Detroit News ...A comparison of prevailing wage and non-prevailing wage states shows that any savings from lower wages are immediately offset by lower worksite productivity and far more spending on fuels, materials, equipment and other services, a direct result of the fact that prevailing wage states rely more on home grown talent and higher skilled professionals to get the job done right the first time...
U.S. Labor
Verizon workers in Del. prepare for possible strike Delaware Online ...About 600 Verizon workers in Delaware are bracing for a likely strike when their current labor contract with the telecommunications giant expires Saturday. "With four days to go, we still haven't developed much traction," said Jim Ryan, president of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 13101 in Newark. "At this point, considerable movement will be needed if we're going to get a deal done by the end of the contract"...
Republicans fire new salvo at labor unions The Hill ...Republicans on Monday renewed their push for legislation that they say would help prevent workers from being forced into union membership. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) on Monday introduced the Employee Rights Act, a bill that would create new requirements for workers to organize a union and make it easier for them to disband it. The bill would also restrict political donations made by unions...
Tracy tomato grower, UFW renew contract Recordnet ...Tracy-based Pacific Triple E, a tomato growing and shipping company, and the United Farm Workers signed Tuesday a new three-year contract giving the company’s 450 field workers improved wages and benefits. “They‘re being paid the best rate in the state and the U.S.,” said Armando Elenes, UFW national vice president. Elenes said tomato pickers, who are paid on a piece rate so their actual pay varies by performance, should average $19.84 an hour under the new pact, compared to the $18.15 average under the previous three-year contract...
Ford's huge quarter a boost to UAW Detroit Free Press ...Huge profits reported by Ford on Tuesday likely will amplify the UAW’s chorus of “it’s our time” as Detroit’s automakers start talks with the union. Ford’s $2.6 billion best-ever pretax quarterly profit in North America between April and July came on the heels of General Motors’ $2.8 billion. Fiat Chrysler will weigh in Thursday with what are expected to be significant profits from its North American business. Four years ago as talks began with the union, Chrysler, then reporting as a stand-alone company, lost $370 million in the second quarter...
Politico’s Mike Elk presses Bernie Sanders on Politico unionization Washington Post ...Presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) took questions from reporters during an appearance today at an event of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers at the Washington Hilton. “Workers have the constitutional right to associate in unions. That right is being abused day and night; that has got to change,” he said in response to a question...
Tryin’ to Make a Dollar Out of 64 Cents Ebony ...Today is Black Women’s Pay Equity Day, an important milestone for the 16.6 million Black working women in America. It marks how far into the year African-American women must work to earn what a White man earned last year. That’s right—it has taken Black women 209 days into 2015 to make what White men made by the end of 2014. An African-American woman earns just 64 cents on the dollar earned by a White man...
The Koch Brothers are About to Destroy Veterans' Health Care and No One Knows About It Daily Kos ...The war on workers' rights has shifted to a new and unlikely battleground this week: the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. And for the more than 350,000 employees and the veterans they serve, the stakes could not be higher. Along comes Representative Jeff Miller and Senator Marco Rubio who saw an opportunity in the waitlist scandal; not an opportunity to improve access to care for veterans, but an opportunity to chip away at the basic rights to due process that protect all VA employees from discrimination and wrongful firing...
Key Senate Dem pushes case for paid sick leave The Hill ...A key Senate Democrat said supporters of a paid sick leave bill are increasing the pressure on Republicans to take up the measure. Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), the No. 4 Democrat in the Senate, said that roughly two in five private sector workers –some 43 million in all – don't have paid sick leave. That means, Murray said, that too many workers are currently forced to decide between going to work while sick or with a sick child at home, or missing a much-needed paycheck...
Pittsburgh region sees fewer new jobs than normal in adjusted rate Post-Gazette ...The latest job news for the Pittsburgh area looked better before it was seasonally adjusted. In raw numbers, employers in the region added 6,700 jobs between May and June. But when those numbers were adjusted to take into account the usual fluctuations of seasonal employment, fewer jobs were added than normal — 1,200 fewer...
Social Justice & Other News
Senate Will Take Up House 3-Month Highway Funding Bill Huffington Post ...Senate leaders said Tuesday they would take up legislation the House plans to move this week that would extend funding for the nation's highways, bridges and roads for another three months. The stop-gap bill comes days before the Highway Trust Fund runs out of money, and after weeks of Senate and House Republicans talking past each other on how to best deal with the encroaching deadline...
Clinton Calls Out SEC for Dodging Rule on CEO Pay Mother Jones ...With Bernie Sanders nipping at her heels in the presidential primary, Hillary Clinton is doing all she can to let liberal financial wonks know she's on their side. The Democratic front-runner laid out her vision Friday for getting Wall Street to focus on long-term growth rather than just what she termed "quarterly capitalism"—business deals aimed at quick stock gains. Slipped in among the big-picture reforms was a shout-out to an obscure, seemingly minor provision of Wall Street reform...
America's infrastructure crisis: One step forward, two steps back Yahoo ...The Empire State stepped up and stepped forward with Gov. Andrew Cuomo announcing plans for a $4 billion project to redesign LaGuardia Airport. Gov. Cuomo was joined at the event by Vice President Joe Biden, who once famously said: "If I took you and blindfolded you and took you to LaGuardia Airport in New York, you'd think, 'I must be in some third-world country.'" "Third World" might be a stretch, but America's infrastructure certainly isn't first class. The American Society for Civil Engineers (ASCE) gave the U.S. a D+ in its 2013 report on the state of U.S. infrastructure...
One In Eight Americans Burdened By Student Loan Debt, Including 700,000 Seniors Alternet ...It will not be news to 41 million Americans that this nation is in the middle of a student debt crisis. That's the number of people burdened by student loan payments. But many people, including many student debt holders, may be surprised to learn that people can be pursued for student debt even into their elder years. In fact, the government is withholding Social Security payments for some retirees, because their student loans have not been fully repaid...
Aging Pipes Are Poisoning America's Tap Water The Atlantic ...While Flint’s government and its financial struggles certainly have a role to play in the city’s water woes, the city may actually be a canary in the coal mine, signaling more problems to come across the country. “Flint is an extreme case, but nationally, there’s been a lack of investment in water infrastructure,” said Eric Scorsone, an economist at Michigan State University who has followed the case of Flint. “This is a common problem nationally— infrastructure maintenance has not kept up”...
At Least 5 Black Women Found Dead In Jail Since Mid-July Think Progress ...The mayor has since explained that Turner’s medical history included hypertension and bariatric surgery. No official cause of death has been determined. But her death follows at least four other deaths of black women in police custody since July 13, shining an even brighter spotlight on the plight of black women in the criminal justice system and fueling the Black Lives Matter movement. On that date, Sandra Bland was found hanging in her cell, three days after she was violently stopped for failing to signal a lane change...
Here's What Sandra Bland's Death Says About Our Broken Bail System Mother Jones ...This system, in which people either stay locked up or pay money to a private company to get out, is almost entirely unique to the United States. There is nothing to suggest that Sandra Bland was a danger to the community, so why was she kept in jail? Proponents of our current bail system would say that by requiring a cash bond, the court gave her a financial incentive to appear for court. But a handful of states have outlawed commercial bail, and they are doing just fine...
Australian minister says dairy key to TPP success Politico ...Australian Trade Minister Andrew Robb said Monday that it was up to the United States, Japan, Canada and Mexico to bolster the chances of reaching a high-quality Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement by striking a deal on sensitive dairy market access issues. “We’re on the cusp [of a TPP deal], but if the leadership is not shown by the big countries, it will lead to serious slippage where people are taking things off the table and we get a very second-best outcome,” Robb told POLITICO...
Tsipras Says Greece Won ‘Crucial’ Commitment for Debt Relief Bloomberg ...Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras expressed confidence that Greece’s creditors will grant debt relief and blamed their intractability for worsening the country’s economic plight. “The Greek people were prisoners, who after they escaped prison were immediately arrested and returned to an even smaller cell,” Tsipras, who turned 41 on Tuesday, told an Athens radio station. “What’s crucial is that we got a commitment for debt relief, which will take place after the first review of the program, in November”...
CAFTA’s Decade of Empty Promises Haunts the TPP (opinion) Eyes on Trade ...Ten years ago, after a flurry of backroom deal-making, Congress passed the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). In the dead of night. By a single vote. Exactly one decade later, today trade ministers are gathering in Hawaii to try to conclude deadline-missing negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) – a sweeping deal that would expand the CAFTA model of trade across the Pacific...
Ambassador Froman, Don’t Let the Trans-Pacific Partnership Restrict Access to Affordable Medicine (opinion) AARP ...AARP continues to voice its serious concerns about the current draft of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a massive trade agreement that will affect millions of people here in the U.S. and abroad and could set an unfortunate precedent for future trade agreements. The draft agreement contains provisions that add to the profits of the brand-name pharmaceutical industry at the expense of patients and older Americans...
American Unionists Join Chinese Uniqlo Workers’ Campaign for End to Alleged Abuse In These Times ...As protesters handed out flyers to pedestrians walking outside of a Manhattan Uniqlo store on July 15, the chant of “From China to the USA / Worker solidarity!” rang out on 34th Street. The action, organized by Workers United (WU), an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), was taken in solidarity with the workers at China’s Shenzhen Artigas Clothing and Leatherware factory, a major contract supplier for Uniqlo, the popular clothing retailer owned by Japan’s Fast Retailing Co...
Trafficking Report Boosts Uzbekistan Ranking Solidarity Center ...The U.S. State Department boosted the ranking of Uzbekistan in its Trafficking in Persons report, while keeping Turkmenistan at a higher ranking than human rights activists believe is warranted. Earlier this year, the Solidarity Center was among 30 global unions, business associations and nonprofit networks urging the U.S. State Department to ensure its Trafficking in Persons report accurately reflect the serious, ongoing and government-sponsored forced labor in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan...
State & Living Wage Battles
New York leaders call for Puerto Rico debt relief Aljazeera ...With a $73 billion debt burden that Gov. Alejandro García Padilla recently called incontrovertible, Puerto Rico is now being giving advice by hedge funds: improve tax collection and cut education spending to reduce mounting debt. A new report released Monday, which The Guardian says was commissioned by 34 hedge funds, says that Puerto Rico has room to increase revenues by improving tax compliance rates. Puerto Rico's current sales tax compliance is 56 percent, compared with an 83 percent average on the U.S. mainland...
Missouri Rejects Lawmakers’ Attempt To Block Immigrants From Receiving Scholarships Think Progress ...Some good news came to undocumented immigrants in Missouri this week, when officials ruled that language in a state appropriations bill could not prevent students from receiving state scholarship funds for college. The Missouri Department of Higher Education defended undocumented students’ access to Missouri’s A+ Scholarships even though state legislators made a small word change in a general assembly appropriations bill to stop funds from going to “unlawfully present” to “unlawful immigration status”...
Rally in Orlando celebrates New York's $15 minimum wage victory Orlando Weekly ...Workers and activists rallied on the front steps of Orlando's City Hall Thursday, July 23, joining organizers across Florida who showed support for the $15 minimum wage increase in New York. On Wednesday, a wage panel appointed by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo recommended the minimum wage be raised for employees of fast-food chain restaurants to $15 an hour. Raises will happen in yearly increments, and by the end of 2018, all workers in New York City should be paid $15, according to the New York Times...
Prevailing wage repeal would hurt the Michigan economy (opinion) Detroit News ...A comparison of prevailing wage and non-prevailing wage states shows that any savings from lower wages are immediately offset by lower worksite productivity and far more spending on fuels, materials, equipment and other services, a direct result of the fact that prevailing wage states rely more on home grown talent and higher skilled professionals to get the job done right the first time...
U.S. Labor
Verizon workers in Del. prepare for possible strike Delaware Online ...About 600 Verizon workers in Delaware are bracing for a likely strike when their current labor contract with the telecommunications giant expires Saturday. "With four days to go, we still haven't developed much traction," said Jim Ryan, president of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 13101 in Newark. "At this point, considerable movement will be needed if we're going to get a deal done by the end of the contract"...
Republicans fire new salvo at labor unions The Hill ...Republicans on Monday renewed their push for legislation that they say would help prevent workers from being forced into union membership. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) on Monday introduced the Employee Rights Act, a bill that would create new requirements for workers to organize a union and make it easier for them to disband it. The bill would also restrict political donations made by unions...
Tracy tomato grower, UFW renew contract Recordnet ...Tracy-based Pacific Triple E, a tomato growing and shipping company, and the United Farm Workers signed Tuesday a new three-year contract giving the company’s 450 field workers improved wages and benefits. “They‘re being paid the best rate in the state and the U.S.,” said Armando Elenes, UFW national vice president. Elenes said tomato pickers, who are paid on a piece rate so their actual pay varies by performance, should average $19.84 an hour under the new pact, compared to the $18.15 average under the previous three-year contract...
Ford's huge quarter a boost to UAW Detroit Free Press ...Huge profits reported by Ford on Tuesday likely will amplify the UAW’s chorus of “it’s our time” as Detroit’s automakers start talks with the union. Ford’s $2.6 billion best-ever pretax quarterly profit in North America between April and July came on the heels of General Motors’ $2.8 billion. Fiat Chrysler will weigh in Thursday with what are expected to be significant profits from its North American business. Four years ago as talks began with the union, Chrysler, then reporting as a stand-alone company, lost $370 million in the second quarter...
Politico’s Mike Elk presses Bernie Sanders on Politico unionization Washington Post ...Presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) took questions from reporters during an appearance today at an event of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers at the Washington Hilton. “Workers have the constitutional right to associate in unions. That right is being abused day and night; that has got to change,” he said in response to a question...
Tryin’ to Make a Dollar Out of 64 Cents Ebony ...Today is Black Women’s Pay Equity Day, an important milestone for the 16.6 million Black working women in America. It marks how far into the year African-American women must work to earn what a White man earned last year. That’s right—it has taken Black women 209 days into 2015 to make what White men made by the end of 2014. An African-American woman earns just 64 cents on the dollar earned by a White man...
The Koch Brothers are About to Destroy Veterans' Health Care and No One Knows About It Daily Kos ...The war on workers' rights has shifted to a new and unlikely battleground this week: the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. And for the more than 350,000 employees and the veterans they serve, the stakes could not be higher. Along comes Representative Jeff Miller and Senator Marco Rubio who saw an opportunity in the waitlist scandal; not an opportunity to improve access to care for veterans, but an opportunity to chip away at the basic rights to due process that protect all VA employees from discrimination and wrongful firing...
Key Senate Dem pushes case for paid sick leave The Hill ...A key Senate Democrat said supporters of a paid sick leave bill are increasing the pressure on Republicans to take up the measure. Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), the No. 4 Democrat in the Senate, said that roughly two in five private sector workers –some 43 million in all – don't have paid sick leave. That means, Murray said, that too many workers are currently forced to decide between going to work while sick or with a sick child at home, or missing a much-needed paycheck...
Pittsburgh region sees fewer new jobs than normal in adjusted rate Post-Gazette ...The latest job news for the Pittsburgh area looked better before it was seasonally adjusted. In raw numbers, employers in the region added 6,700 jobs between May and June. But when those numbers were adjusted to take into account the usual fluctuations of seasonal employment, fewer jobs were added than normal — 1,200 fewer...
Social Justice & Other News
Senate Will Take Up House 3-Month Highway Funding Bill Huffington Post ...Senate leaders said Tuesday they would take up legislation the House plans to move this week that would extend funding for the nation's highways, bridges and roads for another three months. The stop-gap bill comes days before the Highway Trust Fund runs out of money, and after weeks of Senate and House Republicans talking past each other on how to best deal with the encroaching deadline...
Clinton Calls Out SEC for Dodging Rule on CEO Pay Mother Jones ...With Bernie Sanders nipping at her heels in the presidential primary, Hillary Clinton is doing all she can to let liberal financial wonks know she's on their side. The Democratic front-runner laid out her vision Friday for getting Wall Street to focus on long-term growth rather than just what she termed "quarterly capitalism"—business deals aimed at quick stock gains. Slipped in among the big-picture reforms was a shout-out to an obscure, seemingly minor provision of Wall Street reform...
America's infrastructure crisis: One step forward, two steps back Yahoo ...The Empire State stepped up and stepped forward with Gov. Andrew Cuomo announcing plans for a $4 billion project to redesign LaGuardia Airport. Gov. Cuomo was joined at the event by Vice President Joe Biden, who once famously said: "If I took you and blindfolded you and took you to LaGuardia Airport in New York, you'd think, 'I must be in some third-world country.'" "Third World" might be a stretch, but America's infrastructure certainly isn't first class. The American Society for Civil Engineers (ASCE) gave the U.S. a D+ in its 2013 report on the state of U.S. infrastructure...
One In Eight Americans Burdened By Student Loan Debt, Including 700,000 Seniors Alternet ...It will not be news to 41 million Americans that this nation is in the middle of a student debt crisis. That's the number of people burdened by student loan payments. But many people, including many student debt holders, may be surprised to learn that people can be pursued for student debt even into their elder years. In fact, the government is withholding Social Security payments for some retirees, because their student loans have not been fully repaid...
Aging Pipes Are Poisoning America's Tap Water The Atlantic ...While Flint’s government and its financial struggles certainly have a role to play in the city’s water woes, the city may actually be a canary in the coal mine, signaling more problems to come across the country. “Flint is an extreme case, but nationally, there’s been a lack of investment in water infrastructure,” said Eric Scorsone, an economist at Michigan State University who has followed the case of Flint. “This is a common problem nationally— infrastructure maintenance has not kept up”...
At Least 5 Black Women Found Dead In Jail Since Mid-July Think Progress ...The mayor has since explained that Turner’s medical history included hypertension and bariatric surgery. No official cause of death has been determined. But her death follows at least four other deaths of black women in police custody since July 13, shining an even brighter spotlight on the plight of black women in the criminal justice system and fueling the Black Lives Matter movement. On that date, Sandra Bland was found hanging in her cell, three days after she was violently stopped for failing to signal a lane change...
Here's What Sandra Bland's Death Says About Our Broken Bail System Mother Jones ...This system, in which people either stay locked up or pay money to a private company to get out, is almost entirely unique to the United States. There is nothing to suggest that Sandra Bland was a danger to the community, so why was she kept in jail? Proponents of our current bail system would say that by requiring a cash bond, the court gave her a financial incentive to appear for court. But a handful of states have outlawed commercial bail, and they are doing just fine...
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...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)