Teamsters protest in Mo. Capitol against right to work

Another battle is raging in the state of Missouri against a right-to-work-for-less legislative attack on unions. And Teamsters are on the front line with other union members fighting for American workers.

On Monday, workers and union leaders stormed the Missouri Capitol as state lawmakers heard testimony on the proposed bill to make the "Show-Me-State" the 26th "right to work" state in the country.

The bill's sponsor, Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Springfield), had this to say in response to opposition to his anti-union project:

Opposition will say that people make less money in states that provide right to work. The truth is, we’ve always made less money.

Way to set the bar low for workers, Burlison. There's no denying that wages are lower in right-to-work states. So ALEC-aligned politicians in the Missouri statehouse want to remind folks that (non-union) Missouri workers have always suffered low-wages -- and apparently they want those wages to fall even more, for union and non-union workers alike.

The right-to-work bill passed the Missouri House earlier in the session and the state Senate is taking up the measure today.

Hundreds of workers, including Teamsters from Local 618 and others, are making their voices heard against the latest corporate assault on working families. Missourians have packed the gallery and overflow room of the Capitol while the Senate debates the bill.

We've seen a lot of anti-worker schemes come out of ALEC's bag of tricks in recent years. But "right to work" still appears to be the preferred weapon against workers and their unions.

By preventing unions from collecting dues for representation, unions are drained of resources and less equipped to fight on behalf of workers. While most member-based organizations outside the labor movement require members to pay dues in order to keep the organization running, "right to work" laws strip unions of the their ability to do the same.

Fortunately, every time these laws rear their heads in states across the country, workers and their families can be counted on to rise up against them - just like our Teamster brothers and sisters are doing right now in Missouri.

What happens in Missouri matters to all workers today. Keep up the fight!

Today's Teamster News 08.08.14

Teamster News
Teamsters Fully Ratify AEI Contract  teamster.org   ...The contract, which runs through Dec. 31, 2016, covers about 800 Teamsters across the U.S. employed by AEI, the domestic air freight forwarding arm of DHL Global Forwarding...
Wegmans: Teamsters fund dispute going to court  Rochester Democrat & Chronicle   ...Wegmans Food Markets has gone to federal court to resolve a dispute over workers' compensation payments to Teamsters-represented employees that the company says could cost it millions of dollars...
Trade
Pressure on Canada to Open Poultry Markets for Trade Talks with US  The Poultry Site   ...A powerful group of US members of Congress says the White House should cut Canada out of a major global trade deal unless it opens up its protected dairy and poultry markets...
U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman Announces U.S. Victory in Challenge to China’s Rare Earth Export Restraints  Office of the USTR   ...U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman today announced that the World Trade Organization (WTO) Appellate Body found China’s export restraints on rare earths, tungsten, and molybdenum, which are used as key components in a multitude of U.S-made products for critical American manufacturing sectors, including hybrid car batteries, wind turbines, and energy-efficient lighting, to be inconsistent with China’s WTO obligations...
TTIP: Have We Lost Our Democratic Privileges?  The London Economic   ...As the European Commission and the US are busy negotiating a free trade agreement, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), campaigners say they are increasingly worried citizens are losing their democratic privileges. While corporations are looking forward to an improved trade and regulatory cooperation between the US and EU, the opposition -which includes Pan-European civil society groups – is concerned that regulatory convergence will grind down hard-won social and environmental standards...
State Battles
Daniel Golden: Media go too easy on Scott Walker (opinion)  The Cap Times   ..."Wrong Way Walker" has achieved the impossible and launched Wisconsin on an economic death spiral...
Disney World, Union Strike Deal To Raise Minimum Wage  The Ledger   ...The world's most popular vacation resort recently struck an agreement with its largest union group. Last week, Walt Disney World and the Service Trades Council signed off on a 5½-year pact that will raise the minimum hourly pay for the union group's full-time workers to $10 by 2016...
Anchorage Assembly Repeals, Replaces City Labor Law  KTUU   ...The Anchorage Assembly voted 7-4 Tuesday night to repeal controversial ordinance AO37, Mayor Dan Sullivan's overhaul of how the city interacts with municipal workers....
Latest Blow To Gov. Brownback: Kansas Debt Downgrade  Wall Street Journal   ...Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback is more stumbling than storming into the general election. On Tuesday night, results from the GOP primary showed 37% of those voting cast their ballots for a Republican political newcomer over Mr. Brownback. Then Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services on Wednesday morning dropped Kansas’s credit rating by one notch, blaming the downgrade on a sharp slide in state revenues that followed deep tax cuts Mr. Brownback championed...
War On Workers
Part-Time Market Basket Workers Have Hours Cut  Boston Globe   ...Thousands of part-time workers at Market Basket stores have had their hours cut by half or more this week, as the cost of the unusual protest movement hits home for the employees seeking the reinstatement of ousted boss Arthur T. Demoulas...
Plot Thickens as 900 Writers Battle Amazon  New York Times   ...This latest uproar in Amazon’s three-month public battle with Hachette comes at a vulnerable moment for the Internet giant, which is rapidly transforming itself into an empire...
U.S. Labor Force: Where Have All the Workers Gone?  IMF Direct   ...The equivalent of 7.5 million workers have been lost from the U.S. labor force...
Fed Study Finds 2 million in "Forced Retirement", 52% Cannot Afford an Unexpected $400 Expense  Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis   ...Almost half of respondents had not planned financially for retirement, with 24 percent saying they had given only a little thought to financial planning for their retirement and another 25 percent saying they had done no planning at all...
The Federal Reserve Is Telling Us The Economy Is Pitiful  Huffington Post   ...Just 30 percent of survey respondents described themselves as better off than they were in 2008, with 34 percent saying they were doing about the same and 34 percent saying they were worse off...
Worker Killed When Crate Falls From Truck In The Bronx  CBS News   ...A construction worker was killed Tuesday when a heavy crate fell on him as he unloaded a truck near the Throgs Neck Bridge in in the Bronx...
Cornering the Zero-Day Market  Cryptome   ...“The CIA and the big corporations were, in my experience, in step with each other. Later I realized that they may argue about details of strategy - a small war here or there. However, both are vigorously committed to supporting the system.”...
What If Walmart's CEO Took A Pay Cut For His Workers?  Vox   ...The compensation packages of all 500 of the biggest corporations' CEOs are worth enough to boost all full-time minimum wage workers' annual pay by nearly $5,000...
Miscellaneous
Really Big Number Spent on High Speed Rail  Center for Economic and Policy Research   ... the federal government has spent roughly $550 billion on transportation over the last six years, so spending on high speed rail would be roughly 2.0 percent of total transportation spending...

Today's Teamster News 07.29.14

Teamster News
AEI Teamsters Overwhelmingly Approve National Agreement  teamster.org   ...Teamsters working at AEI/Danzas across the country overwhelmingly approved the new tentative National Master Agreement. Likewise, all but two of the supplements were approved by the affected membership...
Avis Shuttle Drivers Join Teamsters Local 839  teamster.org   ...The unit of 12 drivers came together to win the same benefits enjoyed by their Teamster coworkers who are Avis customer service staff and car washers...
Trade
With TTIP Consumer Protection Will Be A Privilege Of The Rich  RT   ...For some time now civil society and environmental organizations have been raising concerns over whether genetically-modified food will be labeled appropriately; whether antibiotics will be allowed in our food; or, whether chlorine-rinsed chicken will find its way onto Europe’s domestic market. Surprise! Surprise! Nowhere does the document address these...
State Battles
U.S. Labor Dept: Wisconsin Again Ranked #1 in Workers Lost Due To Outsourcing  Uppity Wisconsin   ...For the third year in a row, Wisconsin takes home the dubious crown of the nation's biggest per-capita outsourcer...
A Look At Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback's Economic Claims  McClatchy DC   ...A casual listener - or voter - might conclude that Brownback faced a $500 million budget shortfall in June 2011, six months after he took office. He did not...
ALEC Agenda in Dallas: Evisceration of Medicaid, School Privatization and Expansion of Gas Exports  Center for Media and Democracy   ...Also at this year's meeting, ALEC's task forces will consider bills to make it virtually impossible to enroll in Medicaid, expand charter schools to further bankrupt traditional public schools, expand exports of "natural gas" from fracking, and undermine the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Clean Air and Clean Water Act regulations...
Another Ohio City To Layoff Fire Fighters. Thanks John Kasich!  Plunderbund   ...Butler County has lost $31.6 million in local government funding thanks to Governor John Kasich’s budgets.  Warren County lost $15.2 million.   In Middletown, these cuts left the city struggling to find enough funding to pay for proper police and fire protection...
Thousands of disabled workers in Pa. paid far below minimum wage  Daily Times   ...About 13,000 disabled Pennsylvanians are earning an average of $2.40 an hour in a legal use of subminimum wages...
Unions gaining power in Mass.  Boston Globe   ...Among the victories unions are savoring: the highest minimum wage in the nation, new workplace protections for state employees, a bill of rights for housekeepers and other domestic workers, limits on nurse-to-patient ratios in intensive care units, and, nearing passage, a $1 billion expansion of the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center...
Unions ready to fight Christie pension system plan  ABC 27   ...the Democrats who control the Legislature and their union allies say they aren't interested in hearing proposals from Christie after he unilaterally cut the state's contributions to pension funds for the last two fiscal years...
Monsanto Ordered To Pay $93 Million For Poisoning People  Axis Of Logic   ...The West Virginia State Supreme Court finalized a big blow to the biotech giant Monsanto this month, finishing a settlement causing Monsanto to pay $93 million to the tiny town of Nitro, West Virginia for poisoning citizens with Agent Orange chemicals...
Right to work makes city look cheap, ruthless (opinion)   Fort Wayne Journal Gazette   ...I would rather that my city employees are well paid, that they can come to address issues and concerns as required and that they’re professionals we pay to do a job for us...
Right To Work Not Decreasing Union Membership  Indiana Public Radio   ...Two years after Indiana became a right-to-work state, the membership decline unions feared hasn‘t happened. Unionization slipped from one in nine Hoosier workers in 2011 to one out of 11 in 2012, when right-to-work took effect. But union membership had been sliding for years before that, and in the first full year of right-to-work, membership actually rebounded by two-tenths of a percent...
Seattle City Council Appeals To Bezos Over Subcontracted Amazon Security  Bloomberg Businessweek   ...Seattle’s nine city council members declared themselves “deeply concerned” over alleged mistreatment of subcontracted security workers who patrol the company’s headquarters there...
War On Workers
This Congressman Wants To Give You The Right To Sue Union Busters  Huffington Post   ...If your boss tramples on your right to organize in the workplace, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) believes you should be able to sue for damages in federal court...
Fast-Food Workers Intensify Fight For $15 An Hour  New York Times   ...In its most recent strike in mid-May, workers walked out at restaurants in 150 cities nationwide, with solidarity protests held in 30 countries. The focus increasingly includes unionizing; the movement’s motto has become “$15 and a union.”...
Market Basket Workers Violated Some Workers' Rights Lawsuit Says  Boston Globe   ...The management team of the much-loved supermarket president, whose recent firing has inspired a massive uprising of employees demanding his return, violated the law by locking in workers overnight and requiring them to take unpaid breaks, according to two former employees who are suing the company...
Obama Could Curb Corporate 'Inversions' On His Own: Ex-U.S. Official  Reuters   ...By invoking a 1969 tax law, Obama could bypass congressional gridlock and restrict foreign tax-domiciled U.S companies from using inter-company loans and interest deductions to cut their U.S. tax bills, said Stephen Shay, former deputy assistant Treasury secretary for international tax affairs in the Obama administration...
Miscellaneous
FAA Proposes to Fine Southwest Airlines $12M  Associated Press   ...The Federal Aviation Administration said Monday it is proposing a $12 million civil fine against Southwest Airlines for failing to comply with safety regulations related to repairs on Boeing 737 jetliners...

Today's Teamster News June 15, 2014

Teamsters
Obama signs order; SEPTA Regional Rails to roll Sunday  Philly.com   ...President Obama signed an executive order Saturday evening, appointing an emergency board to mediate the SEPTA labor dispute, thus averting a lengthy strike. All 13 SEPTA Regional Rail lines should be back to normal operating schedules Sunday morning...
Trade
Obama’s Free Trade Strategy Falters in Asia  Inter Press Service  ...Obama’s latest trip to Asia, however, underlined the inability of Washington to balance its economic and geopolitical initiatives in the region. While Obama managed to strike new strategic agreements with leading Southeast Asian countries, namely Malaysia and the Philippines, and strengthen bilateral military alliances with Japan and South Korea, there was, in turn, no concrete development vis-à-vis the ongoing TPP negotiations...
State Battles
Mayor vetoes collective bargaining ordinance  WANE   ...(Fort Wayne) Mayor Tom Henry has vetoed the ordinance passed by the City Council that would have ended collective bargaining for non-public safety union employees...
International Human Rights Violations in Detroit  On the Commons   ...The water department has decreed that it will turn the water off to all 150,000 residences that are behind on their bills   by the end of the summer although it has made no such threat to the many corporations and other institutions that are in arrears on their bills as well...
War on Workers
Recession linked to more than 10,000 suicides  CBS News   ...New research suggests that the economic downturn could be linked with more than 10,000 suicides across North America and Europe. The study found that between 2008 and 2010, rates of suicide surged in the European Union, Canada and the United States…
A Three-Pronged Attack on Organized Labor  Huffington Post   ...The claim that companies leave the U.S. to avoid paying union wages is false. It's an outright lie disseminated by free market fundamentalists, and anyone who believes it is a dupe. The reason companies leave is to avoid paying an American wage...
Who actually earns the minimum wage?  CBS News   ...While more than a quarter of all low-wage workers were teenagers back in 1979, today only about one in 10 are teens ... almost 37 percent of these employees on low wages, defined as less than $10.10 per hour, are between 35 to 64 years old...
Senior NSA Executive: NSA Started Spying On Journalists in 2002 … In Order to Make Sure They Didn’t Report On Mass Surveillance  Washington's Blog   ...Senior NSA executive Thomas Drake tells Washington’s Blog that the spying on reporters started12 years ago – in 2002 – and has been fairly systematic...
Miscellaneous
As Iraq fighting rages, gas prices climb  CBS Money Watch   ...A rising tide of violence in Iraq is driving up prices at the pump...
Wait Times at the VA  Angry Bear   ...the VA is well beyond the typical private healthcare system in providing “evidence-based protocols of care — not inadvertently ordering up dangerous combinations of drugs, or performing unnecessary surgeries and tests just to make a buck and treating the whole patient and not just one part at a time...”

Today's Teamster News 06.04.14

Teamster News
Union Workers Approve Close Out Agreement With Rite-Aid  West Virginia Metro News   ...The Rite-Aid distribution center in Poca is going to stay open about 18 months longer than originally announced following a new deal between the company and Teamsters union...
Teamsters push to oust Rob Walton as Walmart board chairman, support Walmart strikers  TeamsterNation   ...The Teamsters Union is calling for an independent board chairmanat Walmart because of the company's labor violations and theongoing investigation into corruption and bribery in Mexico, China, Brazil and India...
Nearly 99 percent of BLET members authorize strike  Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen   ...An overwhelming 98.84 percent majority of BLET members working for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) have voted to authorize a strike when a mandatory 30-day cooling off period under the Railway Labor Act comes to an end in less than two weeks...
UPS In Wyoming Valley To Add Jobs, Convert Vehicles To Natural Gas  Wilkes-Barre Times Leader   ...Cartwright was at the facility off Armstrong Road to meet with UPS officials and employees to talk about several issues, including the company's "labor friendly" relationship with the Teamsters Union. More than 400,000 UPS workers nationwide are union members...
OnTrac Line Haul Drivers Ratify First-Ever Teamster Contract  teamster.org   ...line haul drivers ratified the first-ever Teamster contract at OnTrac, the largest regional package delivery company in America. The drivers are members of Teamsters Local Union 63 in Covina, Calif. and had been negotiating a first contract for more than a year...
Trade
NMPF, USDEC Threaten To Withdraw Support For Trans-Pacific Partnership  Ag Web   ...The majority of U.S. dairy farmer cooperatives and dairy processing companies, all of which are members of the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) or the U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC), today threatened to withdraw support from the pending Trans-Pacific trade agreement...
Walmart's 'Made in USA' push exposes strains of manufacturing rebirth  Reuters   ...When Walmart pledged last year to buy an extra $250 billion in U.S.-made goods over the next decade, it appeared to be just what was needed to help move America's putative manufacturing renaissance from rhetoric to reality. But suppliers trying to reshore production as part of the initiative by the world's largest retailer are running into practical problems as they try to restart long-idled corners of U.S. manufacturing...
State Battles
Seattle To Enact $15 Minimum Wage  Washington Post   ...The Seattle City Council voted unanimously Monday to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, equaling the highest minimum wage in the nation...
Scott Walker's Dark Money Troubles  The Progressive   ...The week after Governor Scott Walker's opponent Mary Burke pulled even with Walker in the polls, the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity dumped $900,000 into a major TV ad buy in Wisconsin, aimed at persuading Wisconsinites that things are going better in the state than they may think...
War On Workers
After Crash Killing 47, Oil-by-Rail on Trial in Canada, Maine  truthout   ...The explosive growth of oil by rail traffic in the United States and Canada and the failure to do anything about safety except tinker around the edges of the matter all but guarantee that the string of oil train crashes that followed the Lac Mégantic tragedy will continue...
Allure of Homeownership Slumps Amid Worries of Continued Crisis  Wall Street Journal   ...While home prices have stopped falling, the vast majority of Americans still believe the housing crisis isn’t over, according to a wide-ranging survey on housing attitudes released Tuesday...
Walmart Workers Are Going On Strike To Speak Out. Why Walmart Should Listen  Christian Science Monitor   ...The current struggle of low-wage workers across America echoes the civil rights struggle of the 1960s. Today, as then, a group of Americans is denied the dignity of decent wages and working conditions...
1 in 5 Children Live in Poverty in U.S.  CNS News   ...One in five children under age 18, or 21.3%, are living in poverty in the United States, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau...
Low Retail Wages Disproportionately Hurt Women  MSNBC   ...Women earn disproportionately low wages across the entire retail industry, according to a new report from the left-leaning think tank Demos...
D.C. Council To Vote On Wage Theft Bill Tuesday  ABC News   ...The D.C. Council is set to vote on a bill that would enhance penalties for employers who pay their employees illegal wages or less than what they've agreed to pay...
Miscellaneous
Income From Work Is Shrinking. Here Is Where Most Americans Are Getting More Of Their Income Now  Vox   ...Americans' income from work is substantially smaller than it used to be. The Washington Post's Lydia DePillis today highlights a Wells Fargo report that Americans' non-labor income is growing while their income from jobs is diminishing...
Could A 6-Cent Tax Sour Us On Soda And Sugary Drinks?  PBS   ...A new study published in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics concludes that a tax on sodas and other sugary beverages could be the way to go. Specifically, the authors argue that taxing by the calorie would prompt consumers to cut back...

Today's Teamster News 03.09.14

Teamster News
Pasco, Teamsters close to deal Special magistrate sides with union on OT  Tampa Tribune   ...After more than three years, Pasco County and the Teamsters Local 79 may be close to approving their first contract following the second pro-union ruling by a special magistrate...
Bus drivers, company seek to stave off strike  WPTZ News5   ...The Teamsters Union representing almost 70 Vermont bus drivers is still sequestered in one final negotiating session with the Chittenden County Transportation Authority in hopes of avoiding a strike...
MUA OKs Teamsters Pact  Cape May County Herald   ...Commissioners voted to ratify a new contract with its employees of Teamsters Local 331. The contract provides salary increases of 1.5 percent for 2013 and 2014, and 2 percent for 2015 and 2016...
Pa. Turnpike Must Use Teamsters For Mowing, Court Says  Law 360   ...The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court on Friday affirmed an arbitrator’s ruling that the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission had violated a collective bargaining agreement with the Teamsters by hiring a subcontractor to cut grass, but it overturned a punitive damages award...
Teamsters file grievance over road work by Mahoning County inmates  Youngstown Vindicator   ...their use of day-reporting sheriff’s inmates to help fill the potholes should have been discussed in advance with Teamsters Local 377, which has filed a grievance concerning the use of free labor by the inmates...
Trade
In the Real World the Trade Deficit Is More Important Than the Budget Deficit  Center for Economic and Policy Research   ...The trade deficit matters hugely to the economy and to ordinary workers, there is no excuse for not giving it a substantial amount of coverage...
The War on Workers
'They're Not Dead Yet': Planning The Demise Of Labor Unions At CPAC  Huffington Post   ...Norquist didn't dwell on his Tennessee victory, instead steering the discussion toward a larger picture: how the right can fundamentally weaken unions through state legislation. That includes collective bargaining rollbacks like the monumental one carried out by Gov. Scott Walker (R) in Wisconsin in 2011, as well as right-to-work laws like those recently passed in Michigan and Indiana...
Which Side Is Your Pension On?  Jacobin   ... The corporate control of finance is not simply due to the weakness of regulations on the system. Instead, active state intervention since World War II has pushed labor’s finance into the hands of corporate fiduciaries...
Auto Regulators Dismissed Defect Tied to 13 Deaths  New York Times   ...Federal safety regulators received more than 260 complaints over the last 11 years about General Motors vehicles that suddenly turned off while being driven, but they declined to investigate the problem, which G.M. now says is linked to 13 deaths and requires the recall of more than 1.6 million cars worldwide....
Miscellaneous
London’s Laundry Business  New York Times   ...Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, gets it: you pay them, you own them. Mr. Putin was absolutely certain that Britain’s managers — shuttling through the revolving door between cabinet posts and financial boards — would never give up their fees and commissions from the oligarchs’ billions. He was right...
The Fat Drug  New York Times   ...decades of agricultural research has shown that antibiotics seem to flip a switch in young animals’ bodies, helping them pack on pounds...But what if that meat is us? Recently, a group of medical investigators have begun to wonder whether antibiotics might cause the same growth promotion in humans...
Facebook to Buy Drone Company Titan Aerospace for $60 Million  NBC News   ...Facebook is supposedly interested in Titan because its solar-powered drones — which can reportedly stay airborne for five years — can help Facebook achieve its goal of providing Internet access around the world...

Welcome to the new Fox "Blame the Workers" reality show

Fox TV's newest reality show sinks to a new level: forcing workers to fire each other for viewer entertainment.

Although increased employee control in the workplace is wonderful, the premise of the show is not. The point of “Does Someone Have to Go?” is that workers are to blame for all of the problems, all of the time.

From the Fox show description:

Almost every office across the country has some level of dysfunction, which often can be attributed to just a few select individuals – those co-workers who might be viewed as anything from lazy to incompetent to quite simply having a toxic personality that poisons the entire workplace. The difficult part for the employees is that, most of the time, the boss isn’t even aware of how bad the problem is, and the only person who can do anything about it IS the boss. That is, until now!

Remember, it’s not your management’s fault that work sucks, or the economy’s that sales may be dropping. It’s yours. A review from Time Magazine says:

In other words, if something’s wrong where you work, the problem isn’t management—God forbid—it’s you, or one of your shiftless coworkers. So go find a scapegoat! To help in that pursuit, the show prods sores by having employees badmouth each other in private interviews—which it then shares publicly—and revealing every participating worker’s salary. It’s the crabs-in-a-barrel philosophy of management: whip up ill will, stir up resentment, and then set the employees out to pull down people who have risen slightly higher from the bottom.

This isn’t the first time a TV show has gone hail-corporate (Undercover Boss, anyone?) But the particularly odious way FOX scripted this show – lower-wage workers beg co-workers for their jobs, as nepotism runs rampant in the office – shows how little respect the company has for working people.

In the real world, respect is one of the most important workplace requirements, more important than health benefits or work/life balance, yet 84% of people in the workplace report being put down at work in the last 5 years.

At the end of the day, these cage-matched employees deserve better – and so do you.

Does the 0.1% finally realize how badly they screwed up?

Ooops.

Does the super-elite finally realize that lowering living standards for working families was a huge mistake?

The Naked Capitalist thinks maybe they do. Linking to a Guardian piece titled "Denial, panic and doubt in Davos," she writes,

The 0.1% may be recognizing how badly they’ve screwed up.

The Guardian was reporting on the grim mood at the annual gathering of the global power elite during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. There is a "nagging concern" that business conditions won't improve any time soon, according to a survey of the attendees by the PWC consulting firm. The Guardian notes that austerity is killing jobs and commerce in Europe, India struggles with inflation, U.S. radicals are trying to cut Social Security and Medicare and Japan may trigger a currency war.

The Guardian notes the prospect of a double-dip global recession:

This also comes as no surprise. Businesses will only invest if they perceive growing demand for their goods and services. But the dilemma for the CEOs gathered in Davos is that the policies they have championed in the past – fiscal austerity, weaker trade unions, aggressive cost cutting – have hammered consumer spending. In the past, spending could be supported by rising household debt, but the banks don't want to lend and consumers don't want to borrow. 

This is a recipe for continued economic torpor. Three things would help: fixing the banks, a reining back of austerity and a new social compact to ensure that productivity gains are once again shared by capital and labour.

Fixing the banks was actually raised at Davos by hedge fund manager Paul Singer.

We just hate, hate, hate to side with him, but he was right to chastise JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. Singer complained big banks like JPMorgan don't come clean about their risky investments.

(We don't like Singer for a lot of reasons. One, his hedge fund got $12.9 billion from U.S. taxpayers to keep alive a company it owned, Delphi, as part of the auto bailout. Then he moved the company to China. Plus he funds the vast right-wing conspiracy.)

The Financial Times reports on the Singer-Dimon exchange:

Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, clashed with a leading hedge fund investor over whether big banks are too opaque during the opening session of the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. 

Unbowed after a year in which severe problems of risk management at JPMorgan were revealed, Mr Dimon rebuffed criticism from Paul Singer, head of Elliott Capital Management, that banks made “completely opaque” disclosures. 

Mr Singer said the unfathomable nature of banks’ public accounts made it impossible to know which were “actually risky or sound”.

Singer is right. It's especially outrageous for Dimon of all people to defend current risk-management practices. His bank is being investigated for its failure to control risk in a deal (called "London Whale") that went spectacularly awry. JPMorgan originally reported it would lose $2 billion from the transaction, but the final size of the loss is expected to be much, much bigger. From the beginning, Dimon misrepresented the size of the loss as soon as the press got wind of it.

The global elite has more than a few reasons to be worried.

Today's Teamster News 10.01.12

A Glimpse of the Oligarchy’s View of the Future for US Workers  firedoglake   ...That’s the future: jobs at about $13-18 an hour are competitive with Chinese labor, considering other costs, so that’s what we get...
Thousands march in Paris against 'austerity'  France 24   ...Chanting "resistance", demonstrators took to the streets of Paris on Sunday to protest against austerity policies and Europe’s new budget treaty, in the first major demonstration since President François Hollande took power four months ago...
Paul Ryan To Fox News: ‘I Don’t Have The Time’ To Explain How We Will Pay For Our Tax Plan  ThinkProgress   ...For much of the general election, the Romney campaign has avoided any discussion of specifics, especially when it comes to the tax plan that he and Paul Ryan have put forward...
Riverside County GOP registration surge raises questions of fraud  Los Angeles Times   ...At least 133 residents of a state Senate district there have filed formal complaints with the state, saying they were added to GOP rolls without their knowledge...
Dan Carpenter: Testing teacher unions (opinion)  Indianapolis Star   ...There is a road map to take over public education. Corporate America sees a whole new opportunity to make a profit...
Citations Issued for Spontaneous Event at Wisconsin Capitol  Wisconsin Citizens Media Cooperative   ...The recent Wisconsin Capitol crackdown under the leadership of Chief David Erwin has resulted in another round of citations making their way to citizens’ homes via Certified mail...

The Greatest Generation did it with collective bargaining

It's time to return to the values embraced by The Greatest Generation.

The Greatest Generation fought two world wars, beat back communism, built the interstate highway system, put a man on the moon and created the most powerful manufacturing economy the world has ever seen.

The Greatest Generation bargained collectively for a fair share of the prosperity it created. That's why America led the world during the postwar era. That's why the words "Made in America"meant something then.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who constantly attacks collective bargaining, would undermine everything the Greatest Generation accomplished. And yet he praised the Greatest Generation at the Republican National Convention last night.

Steve Cooper at We Party Patriots shared another politician's response to Christie. Elizabeth Warren, candidate for U.S. Senate from Massachusetts, sent an email to her followers that said:

Let’s talk about what really made the Greatest Generation so great. 

Coming out of the Great Depression, America was at a crossroads. The future of our economy — and our democracy — was at stake. 

We made a decision together as a country: To invest in ourselves, in our kids, and in our future. For nearly half a century, that’s just what we did. 

And it worked. For nearly 50 years, as our country got richer, our families got richer — and as our families got richer, our country got richer. 

And then about 30 years ago, our country moved in a different direction. New leadership attacked wages. They attacked pensions. They attacked health care. They attacked unions. 

And now we find ourselves in a very different world from the one our parents and grandparents built. We are now in a world in which the rich skim more off the top in taxes and special deals, and they leave less and less for our schools, for roads and bridges, for medical and scientific research — less to build a future.

Don't mourn. Organize!

Unlike Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, working families don’t have the luxury of big money to keep their jobs. And now that Walker has held on to office in Wisconsin, his right-wing allies want to use the governor’s victory as proof that attacking workers is somehow an effective way to run the state and the country.

But $30.5 million is a cheap argument.

Here’s a good breakdown of all the money that went into Tuesday’s election.

As Mother Jones’s Andy Kroll wrote:

Walker crushed his Democratic opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, in the political money wars. The governor raised $30.5 million while Barrett pulled in $3.9 million.

The dark-money-peddling Republican Governors Association itself spent $9.4 million to keep Walker in office.

Walker can also thank the Supreme Court for his win, writes the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent:

...one way of thinking about tonight’s results is that they say at least as much about Citizens United, and the ways it has empowered opponents of organized labor, as they do about the very real decline in union power. An analysis by the Center for Public Integrity found that Walker outraised his vanquished opponent Tom Barrett by nearly eight to one, and that outside groups supporting Walker vastly outspent unions, thanks to Citizens United.

When the U.S. Supreme removed limits to campaign contributions in the Citizens United case, it told Corporate America that money equals speech. This unleashed the power of the super-rich and their political spokespersons like Walker. Now they can trample on “one person, one vote” democracy.

And in case anyone thinks Tuesday’s recall shows that waging war on American workers is sound economic policy for the middle class, Professor Colin Gordon at the Economic Policy Institute points to a very different historical precedent:

By most estimates, declining unionization accounted for about a third of the increase in inequality in the 1980s and 1990s…In 1979, union stalwarts in the northeast and Rust Belt combined high rates of union coverage and relatively low rates of inequality, while just the opposite held true for the southern “right to work” states.

While Wisconsin reminds us that workers may be easily outgunned in the electoral arena, it also reminds us that we are strongest on our own turf: in the workplace and on the streets.

This video posted today by out brothers and sisters at the Transport Workers Union shows us the meaning of Wisconsin – the inspiration, the hope and the struggle that continues.

UAW prez's rock 'em, sock 'em speech

Here's UAW President Bob King at the Teamsters convention this week in Las Vegas. It's 17 minutes long, but it's worth it. Some favorite lines:

It's not just a war on unions or union workers. There is a war on all workers in the middle class in America...

There is not a democracy that exists today without a strong middle class, and the only thing that ever built a middle class is unions and the institution of collective bargaining...

I am not willing to accept a young man giving his life to protect our freedom and coming back to America and not being guaranteed a job...

The Teamsters and the UAW, together we built the middle class. We built the middle class by having big dreams. We do not dream big enough today...

It is not about a single election. We've got to win in 2012. We can win in 2012, but then we've got to keep alive a social justice movement that will march on Washington if the Democrats don't do what they're supposed to do...

Wingnut ME gov takes labor mural down

Three mural panels, "The Strike," "Frances Perkins," "Rosie the Riveter."

Frances Perkins was there when the first body hit the ground. One hundred years ago this week, 146 workers died in the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire in New York City. Perkins dedicated the rest of her life to advocating for workplace safety, becoming the first female cabinet member and U.S. Labor Secretary.

Her name will now be taken down from the Maine Department of Labor offices. That's because Perkins was biased against business owners, at least according to Paul LePage, Maine's new wackadoodle governor.

LePage has also ordered a 36-foot mural depicting Maine’s labor history to be removed from the lobby of the Department of Labor. Rooms named after prominent labor leaders will be renamed. It’s a perfect symbol of corporate-owned politicians tearing down the historic achievements of hardworking people. It's a blatant insult to working families, past and present.

If you haven’t eaten recently, here’s the email directive from Laura Boyett, corporate stooge acting Commissioner of the Department of Labor, posted to the Maine blog Dirigo Blue:

We have received feedback that the administration building is not perceived as equally receptive to both businesses and workers – primarily because of the nature of the mural in the lobby and the names of our conference rooms. Whether or not the perception is valid is not really at issue and therefore, not open to debate.

The mural was erected in 2008 and features 11 panels depicting important moments in labor history, including the state’s 1937 shoe mill strike in Auburn and Lewiston, the 1986 paper mill workers’ strike in Jay and “Rosie the Riveter.”

Judy Taylor, the artist who created the mural, told the Sun Journal she has only heard good things about the mural from visitors to the DOL, and is devastated to see it come down. She said:

There was never any intention to be pro-labor or anti-labor. It was a pure depiction of the facts.

All of this happens just as wingnut LePage pushes tax hikes for workers and tax cuts for millionaires. He proposes massive cuts to government programs that benefit working people.  He wants to raise the retirement age for state government workers and teachers, freeze their cost-of-living adjustments and require that they contribute more into their retirement pension funds. Only one state worker's pension will be unchanged: Le Page's. He threatens to veto any budget that has changes. He’s also said, “We’re going after right to work.”

As for the Frances Perkins room, acting Labor Commissioner Boyett had a fit of whimsy and proposes a contest: 

I will be seeking a new home for the mural and we will be renaming the conference rooms in our administrative office at Commerce Drive in Augusta. However, I'd like your help in coming up with new names for the conference rooms. I'm holding a 'renaming contest' and will select from your suggestions.

(It's okay to name a street "Commerce" but not okay to name a Labor Department room after Frances Perkins? Anybody home there in Maine?)

You can participate in the contest here by suggesting names such  as "Handouts to Corporate Polluters" and "Right to Work for Less."

Video: Billionaires' war against workers

Watch this great speech by Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders about the war against workers. He stood on the Senate floor yesterday and told the other senators (most of whom are millionaires),

If we don’t begin to stand together and start representing those families, there will not be a middle class in this country.

Sanders said a war is being waged by some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in this country against the working families of the United States of America.

Against the disappearing and shrinking middle class of our country…many of the nation’s billionaires are on the warpath. They want more, more, more. Their greed has no end. … (They have) very little concern for this country or the people of this country that gets in the way of the accumulation of more wealth or more power.

Wall Street's greed caused our recession, he said, and after we bailed them out, the CEO’s today are earning more money than they did before the bailout.

When we were in school we used to read the textbooks which talked about the banana republics in Latin America. We used to read the books about countries in which a handful of people owned and contolled most of the wealth of those countries. Well guess what, that’s exactly what’s happening in the United States today.

It's great stuff. Watch it.