Today's Teamster News 12.01.15

TEAMSTERS
Teamsters at Coca-Cola Refreshments Authorize Unfair Labor Practice Strike  Teamster.org  ...More than 225 Coca-Cola Refreshments workers represented by Teamsters Local 727 voted Sun., Nov. 29, to authorize an unfair labor practice strike against the beverage industry behemoth. The Teamsters voted by a 10-to-1 margin to authorize the strike after Local 727 filed numerous unfair labor practice charges against the company in a fight for a new contract...
Coca-Cola workers authorize strike at plants in Niles, Alsip  Chicago Tribune  ...Workers at two Chicago-area Coca-Cola plants have voted to authorize a strike against the beverage giant to protest unfair labor practices in the final days of negotiations for a new three-year contract. Members of Teamsters Local 727 could head to the picket line as early as Wednesday morning after their contract with Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Refreshments expires at midnight Tuesday...
Portland’s General Distributors Inc., at Odds with Teamsters Union  Brewbound  ...A federal mediator is slated to oversee negotiations this Wednesday between Portland, Oregon’s Teamsters Local 162 and General Distributors, Inc (GDI), a beer wholesaler responsible for getting brands like Corona, Coors, Sierra Nevada and a number of craft products to market. The strike left some local craft brewers without a route to market as replacement workers struggled to distribute beer in time for the Thanksgiving holiday...

GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
More Than 30 Trade Unionists Have Been Killed in Honduras Since 2009  The Nation  ...Honduras’s products and people are entangled in a social crisis driving international pressure for an independent investigation into our Central American “trade partner’s” Banana Republic–style anti-labor tactics. Several trade unionists have reportedly faced death threats in recent months amid rising labor and political tumult...
Truckers to picket container company, but inks contract with six others  Vancouver Sun  ...Container truck drivers put strike plans into gear Sunday to pressure a company they allege is shorting its drivers on retroactive pay. The truckers planned to picket Harbour Link’s main yard in Delta early Monday to spur it into honouring the terms of the deal that ended last year’s one-month port strike, said Gavin McGarrigle, Unifor’s B.C. area director...
Furnace workers of imitation jewellery units on strike  Times of India  ...Around 500 furnace workers of the city's famed imitation jewellery business have gone on a strike to demand better wages. This is the first time that the imitation jewellery market of Rajkot, one of the biggest in India, has witnessed a strike...
Big Oil, TTIP and the Scramble for Europe  Counterpunch  ...If sanctioned, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) would be the biggest trade deal ever seen. Yet the public continue to be kept in the dark about it. Large corporations have been granted privileged access to officials and have been allowed to shape the talks agenda from the outset. Throughout the process, organisations representing the public and civil society have been sidelined...
Domestic Manufacturers Launch New Anti-TPP Currency Ad Blitz on Capitol Hill  American Economic Alert  ...The U.S. Business and Industry Council (USBIC) announced today the start of a media campaign to highlight the lack of enforceable currency provisions in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).  The group, which represents domestic manufacturers, many seriously hurt by currency cheating, has initiated a series of print ads appearing in major media serving Capitol Hill...
Wisconsin lawmakers split — not on party lines — on Trans-Pacific Partnership  Wisconsin State Journal  ...The Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal seven years in the making before it was unveiled this month, has quickly moved into the sights of some on Capitol Hill — including a vocal cadre of Wisconsin Democrats. The partnership is a proposed free-trade agreement between the U.S. and 11 other nations bordering the Pacific Ocean. After being negotiated in secret, the deal was finalized last month...
Portugal divided by austerity  FT.com  ...The real-life repercussions of the austerity debate that has gripped the west in the wake of the global financial crisis are experienced daily in Portuguese homes, hospitals, schools, job centres, companies and cafés, with almost every aspect of people’s lives having been affected by severe cuts and tough reforms. For the past four years the country has been held up by EU commissioners and international creditors as a model of how to behave in the face of a sovereign debt crisis...
2 arrested at anti-austerity march CBC News  ...Two people were arrested following a protest Monday night that turned violent and involved rocks being thrown at police cars and officers. The anti-austerity and anti-capitalist march, organized by students at Cégep du Vieux-Montréal, began at 8 p.m. at Philipps Square. No itinerary was given to police, and the march was declared illegal. Police say mischief was reported shortly after the march began...
Economist Has Convincing Theory on How Extreme Inequality Creates Extremist Violence  Common Dreams  ...Influential French economist Thomas Piketty is raising important questions this week after positing a theory that the rise of the Islamic State (or ISIS) can be attributed, at least in part, to extreme regional inequality in the Middle East fueled largely by oil wealth. Piketty argues in a column published Le Monde last week and translated by the Washington Post on Monday that the concentration of wealth in the hands of just a few petro-monarchies has made the region the "most unequal on the planet"...

STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
Ohio House panel to hear testimony on right-to-work bill  WOWK  ...A state legislative panel in Ohio plans to hear testimony on a proposal that would bar private employers from requiring workers to join or pay dues to a labor organization. Such right-to-work laws have been enacted in 25 states. Ohio's bill is slated to get its first hearing Tuesday afternoon before the House Commerce and Labor Committee. Right-to-work proposals have not gained traction in the Ohio Legislature...
A Wealthy Governor and His Friends Are Remaking Illinois  New York Times  ...The rich families remaking Illinois are among a small group around the country who have channeled their extraordinary wealth into political power, taking advantage of regulatory, legal and cultural shifts that have carved new paths for infusing money into campaigns. Economic winners in an age of rising inequality, operating largely out of public view, they are reshaping government with fortunes so large as to defy the ordinary financial scale of politics...
Tennessee seeks to dismiss voter ID lawsuit  The Tennessean  ...A lawsuit that contends age discrimination was written into Tennessee's voter identification law because it does not allow use of student IDs has stalled as a federal judge considers whether it is a valid case. Lawyers for a group of students and those for the state disagree on how to interpret the 44-year-old constitutional amendment...

Del. lawmaker calls for $15 / hour minimum wage  Delaware 105.9  ...Delaware's minimum wage would rise to $15.05 an hour by 2023, under an amendment to legislation filed in the General Assembly. State Senator Robert Marshall, D- Wilmington West, cites the increasing numbers of people with low-wage jobs as well as a rising rate of poverty as the reasons for his measure. The minimum wage increase would be phased in on June 1st of each year...
How One City Is Making Sure Bosses Comply With Wage Theft and Paid Sick Leave Laws  In These Times  ...Over the past five years, Seattle has implemented sweeping labor laws, instituting paid sick leave, discouraging discrimination against those with prison records, incrementally raising the minimum wage to $15 by 2017 and strengthening wage-theft protections. But these new laws can’t enforce themselves...
Bangor’s minimum wage debate could be decided in two weeks  Bangor  ...The City Council could finally bring closure to the months-long debate over whether the city should raise the local minimum wage during a meeting in two weeks. Councilors and city officials met Monday night for a workshop to hash through some of the concerns that have made this an issue of contention for months...

U.S. LABOR
American Passenger-Service Workers Approve 5-Year Contract  Bloomberg   ...American Airlines Group Inc. said a union representing 14,500 reservation agents and airport passenger-service workers approved a five-year contract that included “significant” pay raises. The agreement provides an average initial increase of 30 percent, 2 percent raises at the end of the first and second years and 2.5 percent in each of the following two years, according to a statement on the Communications Workers of America website...
Health care remains sticking point in USW contract talks  NWI.com  ...Negotiations with steelmakers broke off for the Thanksgiving holiday but resumed Monday. The United Steelworkers union is fighting efforts by ArcelorMittal and U.S. Steel to slash health care insurance benefits, which the union says could cost steelworkers and retirees as much as $6,300 more a year in out-of-pocket expenses. Steelworkers would suffer an effective pay cut as a result...
Kohler Strike Continues, Union Seeking Donations  WHBL  ...United Auto Workers Local 833 have now spent two full weeks on the picket line after they and the Kohler Company failed to reach an agreement on a new contract earlier this month. With the strike now entering its third week, the union is focusing some attention on helping its members get through the impact of being on strike...
NLRB strikes down two more companies' class action waivers  Reuters  ...The U.S. National Labor Relations Board last week continued to expand its rule prohibiting class and collective action waivers in employment agreements, upholding rulings by two administrative judges who struck down such provisions, including one that was voluntary. The board rejected a bid by California grocery store chain Bristol Farms to approve a proposed settlement with an NLRB regional director that would have allowed its workers to opt out of signing the waivers...
SEIU claims court victory on health insurance  Capitol Fax  ...The St. Clair County Circuit Court has ruled in favor of SEIU Healthcare Illinois, which was granted a temporary restraining order against Gov. Bruce Rauner and Comptroller Leslie Munger. The ruling issued late Wednesday protects health insurance for nearly 5,000 low-wage home healthcare workers in Illinois. The home healthcare workers serve adults with disabilities in Illinois’ Home Services Program...
Stronger Together: Envoy Agents Vote for CWA Representation  CWA-union.org  ...Nearly 5,000 Envoy Air agents (formerly American Eagle) joined together and overwhelmingly voted for representation by the Communications Workers of America in an election conducted by the National Mediation Board. The agents work at 102 stations nationwide and have a broad range of responsibilities for passenger service and fleet service work. Envoy is owned by American Airlines Group...
Collective Action Stops Retaliation Against Cal Cartage Warehouse Workers  Labor Press  ...Warehouse Workers at California Cartage in the Los Angeles port neighborhood of Wilmington faced retaliation from their employer after temporary workers joined direct hires in a pair of three-day strikes in September and October. The strikers were calling for 15$ an hour minimum wage, a safe work environment, a lunch area free of rats and cockroaches and an end to wage theft...
Robert Reich: Why the High-Tech 'Sharing Economy' Is All About Impoverishing Workers  Alternet  ...The so-called “share economy” includes independent contractors, temporary workers, the self-employed, part-timers, freelancers, and free agents. Most file 1099s rather than W2s, for tax purposes. It’s estimated that in five years over 40 percent of the American labor force will be in such uncertain work; in a decade, most of us. This trend shifts all economic risks onto workers.

SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
Behind Hillary Clinton’s $250 Billion Infrastructure Plan  Think Progress  ...Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton announced on Monday her plan to spend $250 billion over five years to improve the nation’s infrastructure. The plan — which includes proposals to improve roads and bridges, transit systems, energy systems, and electric grids — is the first phase of Clinton’s month-long focus on jobs. In March, Senate Republicans defeated a Democratic amendment to the proposed 2016 budget which was offered by Sen. Bernie Sanders and called for $478 billion in new spending. Sanders has proposed a $1 trillion infrastructure investment plan...
Hillary Clinton's Modest Infrastructure Proposal  The Atlantic  ...It’s hard to call a plan that spends $275 billion in taxpayer dollars over five years “modest” and keep a straight face. But that may be the best way to describe the proposal Hillary Clinton unveiled on Monday to upgrade the nation’s ailing infrastructure. The reaction from advocates of more robust infrastructure spending has been less than enthusiastic, a nod to the fact that the size of the Clinton plan falls well short of what studies have shown the country needs...
Why Do Former Goldman Sachs Bankers Keep Landing Top Slots at the Federal Reserve?  The Nation  ...During the last year, three vacancies have opened up to head regional Federal Reserve banks around the country. One by one, all three of the spots have gone to former insiders from Goldman Sachs. First, Goldman Sachs trustee Patrick Harker essentially picked himself to lead the Philadelphia Fed, stepping down as chair of the Philadelphia Fed Board of Directors to allow for his own selection...
White Collar Whistleblower Sentenced To Prison While The Criminals He Exposed Are Free  Think Progress  ...Over the holiday weekend, the man who’s done more to expose the financial crimes of the rich and powerful than almost anyone else in the 21st century was sentenced to five years in a Swiss prison. The harsh punishment to protect bank secrecy comes amid a comparatively lax pursuit of justice for in cases where the public has been wronged by banking industry actors...
Defying the 'Shock Doctrine' in Paris as Thousands March Despite Protest Ban  Common Dreams  ...It was people power versus "shock doctrine" on the streets of Paris on Sunday as thousands dared to defy the French government's ban on protests during the much-anticipated global climate summit. An estimated 10,000 demonstrators linked arms in a human chain along the 3 kilometer cancelled march route—joining the millions worldwide who took to the streets to demand that the assembled world leaders commit to bold action to confront the growing threat of climate change...
Two Expert Reports Slam Cleveland Cops for "Reckless" Killing of Tamir Rice  Mother Jones  ...On Saturday, attorneys for the family of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old boy who was shot to death by a Cleveland cop last November, released two new reports concluding that the actions of the two officers involved, Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback, were "reckless" and "objectively unreasonable" by legal and professional standards. The reports were authored by Roger Clark, a former Los Angeles County deputy sheriff, and by Jeffrey Noble, a former deputy police chief for Irvine, California...

Today's Teamster News 10.30.15

TEAMSTERS
Florida Teamsters Endorse Patrick Murphy for Senate  Teamster.org   ...Teamsters are proudly endorsing Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Fla.) in his election campaign for U.S. Senate in Florida.
Murphy has been a strong advocate for workers in the U.S. House of Representatives for Florida’s 18th congressional district since 2013...
Port Truck Strike Spreads to Warehouses  Capital & Main  ...While drivers with port trucking companies have been organizing and striking repeatedly over the last few years, they have recently begun coordinating with warehouse workers to increase pressure on the logistics industry. The Teamsters have entered into a partnership with the Warehouse Worker Resource Center, a nonprofit advocacy group for warehouse workers, and have prioritized organizing the thousands of workers in the warehouse and distribution industry...
Misclassified Port Truck Drivers Strike Gold Point Transportation  Teamster.org  ...Misclassified “independent contractor” port drivers employed by Gold Point Transportation, which is owned by 3Plus Logistics Co., which also owns Harbor Express, Inc., which has been the subject of wage theft claims by its drivers, went on strike yesterday to protest unfair labor practices including misclassification and wage theft. They are picketing at the company yard as well as at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach...
Union Works Swiftly to Secure First Contract at Standard Coffee  Local 727  ...After only three negotiation meetings with management, Teamsters Local 727 representatives have secured an agreement on a strong first contract for Standard Coffee members. The majority of the contract matches or exceeds the provisions in the contracts for Hinckley Springs inside and outside workers, which Teamsters Local 727 also represents. Standard Coffee is a division of Hinckley Springs...

GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
Several green groups outline demands for Pacific trade pact  The Hill  ...More than a dozen environmental and conservation groups on Thursday laid out eight pages of demands that they say lawmakers must use to judge the strength of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement. The groups, led by the Sierra Club, are sending a letter to members of Congress well in advance of an expected vote on the sweeping Asia-Pacific deal that was completed nearly a month ago with 11 other nations...
Anti-trade Democrats say Obama’s Pacific Rim trade pact is for the dogs  Washington Post  ...No one on Capitol Hill has been more dogged in opposing President Obama's Pacific Rim trade pact than Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and her small band of fiercely anti-trade House Democrats. On Thursday, they trotted out a new partner in their fight: Roxy, a 2-year-old bloodhound that they put on the trail to sniff out the elusive text of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)...
USTR releases TPA-mandated transparency plan  Politico  ...The Obama administration outlined for Congress this week its plan to tackle the thorny issue of transparency in future trade negotiations. The trade consultation and engagement guidelines transmitted by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative are a requirement of the fast track trade promotion authority law, required to be released 120 days after the legislation was enacted...
U.S. wary of EU proposal for investment court in trade pact  Reuters  ...The United States is wary of a European Union proposal for a new court system to settle investment disputes as part of the world's biggest free-trade agreement, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said. The proposals come after concerns that U.S. multinationals could use private arbitration rules in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) to challenge European food and environmental laws...
Trans-Pacific Partnership divides auto parts industry  CBC  ...As the auto parts sector awaits the appointment of a new trade minister, the industry is split over the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the trade deal that Canada signed and will soon have to ratify. New revelations from the still secret deal show that Canada agreed to phase out its 6.1 per cent tariff on imports of Japanese vehicles over a five-year period...
Brazil's Lula Urges Workers' Party to Back Austerity  Voice of America  ...Former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva urged the ruling Workers' Party on Thursday to back fiscal austerity measures in Congress, endorsing the efforts of Finance Minister Joaquim Levy to plug a gaping deficit. Members of Lula's leftist party have opposed moves by Lula's protégée, President Dilma Rousseff, to cut public spending...
Home of Uzbek Labor Rights Activist Burned  Solidarity Center  ...Uzbek labor rights activist Dimitry Tikhonov says his home office has been burned and all the equipment and documentation he collected on Uzbekistan’s use of forced labor in the country’s cotton harvests has been destroyed. No other room in his home was touched by the fire, he says. In late September, Tikhonov was arrested and beaten by police as he took photos of some 20 busloads of teachers and school employees forced into the cotton fields...

STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
Voter ID Laws and the Ghosts of Jim Crow  Huffington Post  ...The basic contours of the public discourse on voter ID laws are fairly clear. In-person voting fraud is rare. As Judge Richard Posner has concluded, restrictive voter ID laws are mainly the product of Republican legislatures targeting Democratic-leaning constituencies. Chief among those Democratic constituencies are African Americans and Latinos...
Massachusetts Immigration Reform 2015: Statewide 'Sanctuary City' Policy Pushed By Lawmakers, Has Bipartisan Opposition  IBTimes  ...Massachusetts, which advocates for “sanctuary cities,” the controversial policy instructing local police officers not to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement agents, may soon push for a statewide shielding of undocumented immigrants. Emboldened by a handful of existing sanctuary cities, at least two dozen state lawmakers have backed a proposal that would make the commonwealth a safe haven...
Study: 42 percent of Minneapolis workers don't have paid sick time  Star Tribune  ...About 123,000 Minneapolis workers don't have access to paid sick leave, according to a new analysis from the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Women's Policy Research. The report, released Thursday, says that number amounts to about 42 percent of Minneapolis residents ages 18 and older...
Portland 'clearly needs' a higher minimum wage, City Club says  Oregon Live  ...Portland needs a higher minimum wage, and state lawmakers should overturn a law that prevents cities from setting higher minimums, according to a City Club of Portland report released Thursday. Nine members of the civic group began studying the contentious issue in April...

U.S. LABOR
Janitorial workers reach 11th hour deal with managment association to avert strike  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette  ...A Pittsburgh union representing 1,000 commercial office cleaners reached an agreement Thursday with its management association, averting a strike just two days before the current contract was set to expire. Members of the 32BJ local, a part of the Service Employees International Union, voted to strike if the sides failed to reach a deal...
UAW-GM deal would improve newer workers' health plan  Detroit Free Press  ...UAW negotiators bargained significantly better health care coverage for about 11,000 General Motors workers hired since October 2007 and the automaker will pay for most of it. But if a majority of 52,700 workers ratify the tentative agreement reached last weekend...
House Panel Advances Bill to Clarify Joint Employer Standard   Littler  ...Following a series of congressional hearings on the National Labor Relations Board's Browning-Ferris decision, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce voted on Wednesday to advance a bill that would effectively reverse the Board's action in that case. The Committee voted 21-15 along party lines to send the Protecting Local Business Opportunity Act (H.R. 3459) to the House floor...
Macy’s Will Make Employees Work On Thanksgiving Day  Think Progress  ...Macy’s announced on Thursday that its doors will be open this holiday season, starting at 6 p.m. Thanksgiving evening. Sales will continue through Black Friday and the weekend in over 700 of its retail stores nationwide.
Macy’s, along with 12 other major retailers like Target, Best Buy, and JCPenny, made employees come in to work on Thanksgiving Day in last year...

SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
Why 4 Boys In South Carolina Have Been Shackled In Solitary Confinement For 6 Weeks  Think Progress  ...A thirty minute drive from Spring Valley High School, where Officer Ben Fields slammed and dragged a teenage girl out of her desk, several young boys have been shackled and locked in solitary confinement for close to six weeks with little to no human contact.
On September 19, corrections officers at the Broad River Road Complex, a detention center for kids aged 12 to 18 in Columbia, South Carolina, confronted a group of boys who were roughhousing...
Seething With Anger, Probe Demanded into Exxon's Unparalleled Climate Crime  Common Dreams  ...A broad coalition of community groups along with prominent leaders from the nation's top civil rights, environmental, and indigeneous people's movements on Friday sent a joint letter to the U.S. Department of Justice demanding a federal investigation into allegations that oil giant ExxonMobil knew about the role fossil fuels played in driving climate change since the 1970s but concealed that information—and later sought to discredit those issuing warnings—in order to protect its own financial interests...
Ted Cruz’s Tax Plan Hands The 1 Percent A Massive Break  Think Progress  ...On Thursday evening, Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) released a tax plan that calls for a flat tax of 10 percent that would end up with a benefit for the wealthiest 1 percent that dwarfs what everyone else would get. Corporations also get a big windfall. While they would lose all of the loopholes they use to lower their on-paper tax rate of 35 percent to about 19 percent, they would still see it drop further to a 16 percent “Business Flat Tax”...

Today's Teamster News 04.22.15

Teamsters
Teamsters Protest Sysco At IFDA Lobbying Meeting   Market Watch   ...Teamsters protested Sysco Corporation [NYSE: SYY] outside the International Foodservice Distributors Association's (IFDA) Washington Insight Conference on Capitol Hill today. Sysco is a member of the IFDA and is the largest foodservice distributor in America. "We are here today because of Sysco's pattern of threatening workers, food producers and even its competitors," said Steve Vairma, Director of the Teamsters Warehouse Division...
Teamsters Decry Sysco’s Bullying at Rally in Washington, D.C.   Teamster.org   ...More than 70 Teamsters took part in a raucous rally Tuesday, April 21 to blast Sysco’s bullying of workers, its labor law violations and other misdeeds. The Teamsters Union is calling out Sysco as a corporate bully during this week’s International Food Distributors Association meeting. That’s where Sysco, US Foods and other Teamster broadline foodservice employers are holding their annual “Washington Insight” conference...
Court Victory Vindicates BLET Position On Two-Person Train Crews   Teamster.org   ...In a major legal victory to protect two-person train crews, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has ruled in favor of Brotherhood Locomotive Engineer and Trainmen’s (BLET) position that the Wheeling & Lake Erie’s (WLE) use of managers in place of Union conductors is a major dispute under the Railway Labor Act. The ruling, which occurred yesterday, vindicates BLET’s decision to strike over the issue more than 18 months ago...
Teamsters Applaud Report By Members Of Parliament On Conditions At National Express Group PLC  Teamster.org   ...A report released today by two Members of United Kingdom’s Parliament reveals serious labor rights violations at National Express Group PLC operations in the United States. The report’s recommendations support a Teamster-sponsored shareholder resolution that will be voted on at the company’s annual general meeting of shareholders on May 6 in London...

Global Labor & Trade
Business, Labor Back In Trenches On Trade  The Hill   ...Trumka and Donohue will meet Tuesday at the Senate Finance Committee to discuss Obama’s push for “fast-track” trade promotion authority (TPA) at a crucial moment in the all-out battle for votes on legislation now before Congress. The bill would limit Congress to an up-or-down vote on major trade deals — including the sweeping 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership — being negotiated by the Obama administration...
Some Senate Democrats Look Ready to Buck Harry Reid on Trade   National Journal  ... Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid's statement Tuesday that he is a "hell no" on legislation that would give the White House more leverage to negotiate trade deals is reflective of many Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee. But while it is likely that most of the committee's 12 Democrats will still be opposed to a new trade authority, there are signs that just enough Democrats might be open to the bill...
Low Wages, Trade Deals Luring Auto Plants and Jobs to Mexico   New York Times  ...Mexico has become the most attractive place in North America to build new automobile factories, a shift that has siphoned jobs from the U.S. and Canada, yet helped keep car and truck prices in check for consumers. Audi also sells the Q5 in the U.S., where tariffs on cars built in Mexico were dropped under the North American Free Trade Agreement...
San Francisco Opposes TPP Fast Track in New Resolution   EFF.org   ...The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has unanimously voted in favor of a resolution today urging the district's congressional representatives to oppose Fast Track legislation for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement. Supervisor John Avalos put forth the resolution, which expresses concerns about the secret trade agreement's provisions...
Why the Pittsburgh City Council may speak out against a Trans-Pacific trade deal  Pittsburgh Business Times  ...Pittsburgh elected officials are warning "fast track approval" of the Trans-Pacific Partnership may harm Pittsburgh's economy. On Tuesday, District 4 City Councilwoman NataliaRudiak introduced a Will of Council asking President Barack Obama to pursue a more fully transparent and inclusive legislative process surrounding TPP, which is being negotiated behind closed doors with the U.S. and 11 Pacific Rim nations...
Rana Plaza 2 Years Later: Garment Workers Under Seige  Solidarity Center  ...In the initial months after the Rana Plaza collapse on April 24, 2013, a preventable catastrophe that killed more than 1,130 Bangladesh garment workers and injured thousands more, global outrage spurred much-needed changes. "After the Rana Plaza and Tazreen disasters, it had become easier to form unions," says Aleya Akter, president of the Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers Federation (BGIWF). But since November 2014, the government is more frequently rejecting registrations...
A Look At The Fast-Track Bill Shows It's The Wrong Thing To Do (opinion)  Huffington Post   ...We don't yet know what is in the TPP, because it is still secret and will remain so until shortly before the fast-track process requires Congress to vote. The president says to trust him, telling us that it will be great and "progressive" and create lots of jobs and expand the economy. Great. But the history on our trade deals -- especially those passed using fast track -- has been very bad...
Fast Tracking Democracy to Hell: Why the Trans-Pacific Partnership Is a Rotten Deal  (opinion) Alternet   ...Concealing potentially job-killing trade schemes from the American public thwarts democracy. Rushing unpopular legislation through Congress before American citizens have an opportunity to review it and tell their elected representatives how they feel about it obstructs democracy. No trade treaty, no matter how great free traders cross-their-hearts-and-hope-to-die it will be, is worth damning Americans’ cherished democracy...
Exporting Jobs, Importing Inequality (opinion)  U.S. News & World Report   ...America’s middle class is being ripped apart by failed trade policy. Look at what was once the proud heartland of our country’s manufacturing sector, and you’ll see the aftermath of terrible trade deals: lost jobs, stagnant wages, shuttered factories and devastated communities. It’s a tragedy, and after 20 years of a broken system, it’s time we tried something new...

State & Living Wage Battles
Supreme Court Revives Challenge To North Carolina Redistricting  Wall Street Journal   ...The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday revived a challenge to North Carolina’s election map, which civil rights groups complain illegally concentrates black voters in a handful of districts...
County Board Supports Right to Work Initiative  XFM  ...The Effingham County Board Monday voted 7-2 to endorse The Turnaround Agenda promoted by Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner, including a provision to create Right to Work zones. One of the largest crowds ever seen at a County Board was on hand for the vote, made up primarily of union workers, although there was a contingent of supporters of the initiative...
Birmingham City Council endorses campaign to increase minimum wage as legislators move to restrict local authority to do so   AL.com  ...The council this afternoon unanimously passed a resolution asking the Legislature to increase the state minimum wage to $10 an hour. The nonbinding resolution comes at the same time the state House of Representatives consider a bill to restrict the ability of local governments to set their own minimum wage rules...
LePage Seeks To Quash Local Efforts To Raise Minimum Wage  Bangor Daily News   ...Gov. Paul LePage is promoting a bill to thwart municipal officials in two of Maine’s largest communities from raising the minimum wage for employers within their city limits...
Obama aide takes Philly's side in sick-leave fight  Philly.com  ...Philadelphia's law, which requires businesses with 10 or more employees to provide at least an hour of paid sick leave for every 40 hours worked, takes effect next month. Last week the Republican-dominated state Senate passed legislation that would effectively preempt local governments from having mandatory sick-leave laws...

U.S. Labor
America’s “Flexible” Economy Is Making Workers’ Lives Hell  Salon.com   ...Employers assign workers tentative shifts, and then notify them a half-hour or ten minutes before the shift is scheduled to begin whether they’re actually needed. Some even require workers to check in by phone, email, or text shortly before the shift starts. Just-in-time scheduling is another part of America’s new “flexible” economy – along with the move to independent contractors and the growing reliance on “share economy” businesses, like Uber...
Wal-Mart closures draw NLRB filing  Arkansas Online  ...A complaint by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, acting on behalf of OUR Walmart, is seeking reinstatement of employees to their former stores or transfer to other locations without loss of pay until repairs are complete. The filing alleges the closings were a result of labor protests...
AFSCME Protests IDOC Accusations  WSIU.org  ...Governor Bruce Rauner pledged his support for the Illinois Department of Corrections when he was elected. But, members of AFSCME say they are waiting to see that support materialize. Union members held an informational picket Monday outside the Vienna Correctional Center...
Memphis reaches agreement with a portion of AFSCME, avoids impasse  Commercial Appeal   ...City of Memphis officials reached a two-year agreement on Tuesday with the main bargaining unit of AFSCME, making it the only labor group negotiating with the city that will not go into impasse. The agreement keeps in place current contract language but allows for a “wage reopening” after one year, said union president Janice Chalmers...
At Home And Abroad, The Labor Movement Comes Roaring Back (opinion)  Moyers & Company   ...At a time when multi-national corporations are 50 of the world’s largest 100 economies, this movement has had to be both intensely local and expansively global. Less than three years ago, the grassroots campaign for a living wage began in scattered Thanksgiving protests by New York City fast food workers and Los Angeles Wal-Mart associates. This year’s protests are the largest and most global labor actions ever mounted...

Miscellaneous
It's Time to Invest in the United States' Rail System   (opinion)  Truthout.org  ...It's time to make infrastructure sexy again, and we can start by fixing the United States' rail systems. Believe it or not, there was a time in the US when riding a train was luxurious. There were classy dining cars, moonlit rides across the countryside...
The richest 0.01 percent of Americans gave 42 percent of political donations in 2012  Daily Kos   ...Forget the top one percent, the top 0.01 percent of Americans gave nearly 42 percent of all political donation dollars in the 2012 election cycle. Just over 30,000 individuals contributed nearly half of all money. It should come as no surprise that policymakers look after the ultra-wealthy instead of the rest of us...
Caterpillar’s CEO Just Got A Big Raise, And It Explains What’s Wrong With American Capitalism   Think Progress   ...Heavy machinery manufacturer Caterpillar gave its CEO a 14 percent raise last year, in a $17.1 million package of cash, stock, and other compensation that is hard to justify in light of the famed brand’s actual performance. Caterpillar is hardly unique in finding creative ways to justify paying CEOs. The rules for performance pay are broken across all industries...

Teamsters, organic consumers protest UNFI and Whole Foods at Natural Products Expo West

Sergio Acosta came to Expo West 2015 because
he was fired by UNFI for organizing a union.

UNFI, America’s largest organic and natural foods wholesaler, claims to be a values-driven corporation. Teamsters know otherwise. They came to a natural foods conference in Anaheim, Calif., to tell attendees about how UNFI bullies its workers.

Here's the story they told at the National Products Expo West: UNFI intimidated, fired and threatened immigrant workers trying to organize a union in Moreno Valley, Calif., breaking federal laws that protect workers' rights.  The corporation even made death threats against workers, according to a 2012 report by the International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF). UNFI violated workers' rights in Auburn, Wash., when it threatened to replace them permanently, according to the ILRF.

Presently, UNFI still refuses to recognize the union formed by UNFI drivers in Moreno Valley. The Teamsters Union was federally certified last November as the drivers’ union after UNFI managed to delay the counting of the ballots for over a year.

In Anaheim, protesters also targeted Whole Foods because UNFI is its dominant supplier. “If values matter, like Whole Foods advertises, then it should live by them,” said Randy Korgan, Organizing Director for Teamsters Local 63 in Covina, Calif. Korgan explained,

Whenever a group of workers at a UNFI warehouse or truck yard attempts to form a union, UNFI management brutalizes them with a barrage of tactics based on contempt and fear, solely for the purpose of intimidating their own workers. 

Teamsters have a message for UNFI.

Sergio Acosta is a warehouse worker who was fired by UNFI when he tried to organize a union with his co-workers. He came to Expo West and talked to hundreds of people. Said Acosta:

Many people are showing their support here at Expo West. They agree that if Whole Foods and UNFI want to start living their professed values, UNFI needs to stop firing workers like me, stop the death threats against immigrant workers like they did in Moreno Valley and start recognizing the workers’ union.

This airplane banner flew over the Anaheim Convention Center.

Protesters handed out leaflets describing UNFI’s community and worker abuses. They held banners that read, “UNFI: Stop the Bullying” and “UNFI is Unsustainable.”

Unveiling a banner at Expo West.

Marc Moran, organizer at Teamsters Joint Council 42 in Pomona, Calif., said the workers' stories about UNFI's behavior sparked similar complaints from small retailers and organic foods producers. Said Moran in a statement released by the Teamsters,

We came to Natural Products Expo West to inform the businesses and organizations in this industry about UNFI’s unconscionable behavior. What’s amazing is how many buyers, restaurant owners and organic producers told us they also feel bullied by UNFI and Whole Foods’ abuse of dominant market power.

Small retailers and producers were unwilling to share their stories publicly for fear of retaliation from UNFI and Whole Foods.

Steve Vairma, Teamsters Warehouse Division Director, said it's time for UNFI to stop the bullying and intimidation. Said Vairma,

Over the years UNFI has tried to undermine workers who have asserted their rights protected by United States law, even where the Teamsters have been certified as the workers’ union through federally supervised elections. UNFI wants to destroy its workers’ fundamental rights to join together to improve their working conditions.

Today's Teamster News 03.06.15

Teamsters
Teamsters at ProJo File Federal Complaint Against Newspaper’s Owner GateHouse  GoLocalProv   …The labor union representing Providence Journal employees who work as inserters for the paper have filed federal charges against new owner GateHouse Media.  Business Agent Matthew Maini with the Teamsters Local 251, which represents the nearly 60 inserters in the Journal's production side, said that the charges were recently made with the federal government's National Labor Relations Board against the new owners…
Giant Eagle: Distribution center not staying in Austintown  WKBN   …As of Thursday, Giant Eagle is still planning to close its Tamarkin Distribution Center in Austintown, putting 200 jobs in jeopardy. Thursday, the Mahoning County Commissioners said they want Giant Eagle and the Teamsters union to hammer out a new agreement…
CP Rail will use management to maintain 100 per cent capacity in event of another strike: Harrison  Calgary Herald   …Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd.’s practice of training managers to drive and load trains means the company will be able to operate without a hitch in the event of a future rail strike, said CEO Hunter Harrison on Wednesday...
Trade
Anti-Fast-Track Momentum Builds  Huffington Post   …Opponents of fast track and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) are gaining momentum. In spite of a virtual media blackout, public awareness of the coming trade deal is increasing...
State Battles
Wisconsin close to becoming 25th right-to-work state  Associated Press   …With Wisconsin positioned to become the third Midwestern state in as many years to enact a right-to-work law, proponents are touting job growth in Indiana as reason for optimism while detractors say union membership slides in Michigan signal potential problems...
Effort to 'blast' right-to-work out of committee, onto Senate floor falls flat  The Taos News   …Republicans tried but failed Thursday to move the bill they call "right-to-work" straight to the full New Mexico Senate, saying they did not want it bottled up in committees controlled by Democrats...
War on Workers
BNSF oil train derails in rural Illinois; two cars aflame  Reuters   …A BNSF Railway [BNISF.UL] train loaded with crude oil derailed and caught fire on Thursday afternoon in a rural area south of Galena, Illinois, according to local officials and the company...
Energy Price Plunge Hits Jobs  Boston Globe   …Plunging oil prices have led to consumer friendly prices at the pump, but the trend is proving to be a double edged sword. Jobs in energy related fields are getting whacked..
Contractor cited after 31-year-old worker dies in cave-in in Birmingham  al.com   …If the general contractor who employed 31-year-old LeDonte McCruter had followed national labor rules, McCruter wouldn't have died in a cave-in in August, the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission said Thursday...
Worker killed at Ace Pole recalled as ‘family’ The Blackshear Times   …“They were loading logs into the kiln to be kiln-dried and the victim was somehow caught and crushed between some logs,” said Bennett...
Miscellaneous
Ringling Bros. Eliminating Elephant Acts  Associated Press   …Animal rights groups took credit for generating the public concern that forced the company to announce its pachyderm retirement plan on Thursday. But Ringling Bros.' owners described it as the bittersweet result of years of internal family discussions...

Teamsters protest Sprouts Farmers Market in Bakersfield, Calif.

Protesting Sprouts in Bakersfield, Calif.

Teamsters protested Sprouts Farmers Market at its Bakersfield, Calif., grand opening yesterday because the company is supplied by UNFI, which violates health codes and abuses communities and workers.

Teamsters were joined at the protest by grocery distribution workers and community leaders. They distributed balloons and leaflets that read, “Sprouts: Unhealthy for our Community,” and fly swatters that read, “Shop & Swat at Sprouts.”

Marc Moran, an organizer at Teamsters Joint Council 42 in Pomona, Calif., said:

UNFI and Sprouts both claim to be values-driven organizations. Both companies have benefited from consumers’ shift toward food and groceries that are perceived to be ethically sourced in a sustainable manner. We are here today to inform the public about UNFI’s unconscionable behavior.

UNFI has $6 billion in revenue and is America’s largest organic and natural foods wholesaler. Sprouts Farmers Market was taken public by private equity firm Apollo Global Management, which is still a major direct holder of Sprouts.

In Moreno Valley, Calif., UNFI broke federal laws that protect workers’ rights when it intimidated, threatened and fired workers. In November 2014, the federal government certified the Teamsters Union as the drivers’ union in Moreno Valley after UNFI managed to delay the ballot counting for over a year on a technicality. Yet, UNFI still refuses to recognize the workers’ union.

Another view of the protest against Sprouts.

Steve Vairma, Teamsters Warehouse Division Director, said:

It’s time for UNFI to stop the bullying and stop the intimidation. Over the years, UNFI has tried to undermine workers who have asserted their rights protected by United States law, even where the Teamsters have been certified as the workers’ union through federally supervised elections. UNFI wants to destroy its workers’ fundamental rights to join together to improve their working conditions.

Randy Korgan, Organizing Director for Teamsters Local 63 in Covina, Calif., described how UNFI intimidates workers:

Whenever a group of workers at a UNFI warehouse or truck yard attempt to form a union, UNFI management brutalizes them with a barrage of tactics based on contempt and fear, solely for the purpose of intimidating their own workers. It's time Sprouts took a stand to stop this illegal bullying behavior in their supply chain. We expect that Sprouts, with its claim to be values-driven, would tell its suppliers to treat the local workers and local community with respect.

Across America, UNFI has taken massive tax subsidies while local school systems struggle. UNFI recently built a warehouse in this manner in Hudson Valley, N.Y. The company took 15 years’ worth of tax breaks, even though the community has experienced major cuts in the local school district’s education budget and has seen property taxes rise.

Organic consumers also worry that UNFI, with its acquisition of Sacramento, Calif.-based Tony’s Fine Foods, is veering away from a professed commitment to organic food – possibly straying toward factory farming and undermining the further growth of sustainable farming and food consumption.

Teamsters, BMW put past behind them, relocate successfully to new warehouse

Bob Lennox with BMW Teamsters

We told you recently how BMW opened a brand-new warehouse near the old one where Teamsters Local 495 fought to save 70 members’ jobs a couple of years ago -- and won.

But there's more to the story than that! The Teamsters and BMW put their animosity behind them and completed the daunting task of moving to the new parts distribution center.

Without any interruption of service, Local 495 Teamsters moved the facility from Ontario, Calif., to the new 326,000 square foot building in Redlands, Calif.

Moving the warehouse, with 63,000 parts – ranging from a simple screw to a complex engine – required careful planning, long hours and hard work.  Seventy skilled Teamsters worked 10 hours a day, six days a week, for five months.

They provided uninterrupted service to 90 BMW dealers by stocking both the Ontario and Redlands facilities.  The entire operation was shifted by December 1, and then the former facility was emptied.  The new distribution center is supplying parts to dealerships in Southern California, Southern Nevada, Arizona and Hawaii.

Secretary-Treasurer Bob Lennox, at the formal ribbon-cutting ceremony in mid-January this year, said, 

This is world-class service for a world-class company. 

His sentiments were echoed by Scott Schlomer, the National Parts Distribution Center Manager, who called it, 

...a great partnership.  We couldn’t have succeeded in moving from Ontario without their help and cooperation of Local 495 members.

The mutual management-union praise was another step that erases past traces of a dispute several years ago.  Then, management had announced that the plant and all Teamster jobs would be outsourced to a non-union third party.

Lennox responded with an aggressive effort that included public demonstrations and handbilling at BMW Auto Dealerships throughout the western states.  After a presentation by Lennox and BMW shop Steward Albert Bautista at the 2011 IBT Unity Conference, Teamster delegates expanded the campaign, spreading it to dealerships in major cities throughout the U.S.

An informational campaign targeted potential car buyers, asking them to reconsider their purchase until BMW reconsidered its anti-worker tactics.  With the support of the IBT, the effort that began in Southern California counties quickly spread to San Diego, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Phoenix, Denver and Chicago.

Teamsters unity and power was on full display as the IBT Strategic Campaign Department coordinated U.S. campaign operations and raised the bar as the IBT Global Strategies Team joined the battle.   Enlisting international support, port workers in 20 countries and carried out demonstrations in a powerful display of global solidarity.  Unite the Union in the U.K. also directly intervened on behalf of Local 495’s 70 members. 

With mounting pressure in the US and throughout Europe, BMW agreed to settle the dispute.

Said Lennox, 

We have come a long ways since 2011. Today our members and management work closely together to provide outstanding support to our BMW dealers and their customers.

Top officials with BMW of North America, Redlands mayor, Teamster officials and BMW dealers were on hand for the formal opening of the new facility in Redlands.

The move was a shining example of union and management cooperation.  Shop Steward Albert Bautista and Rosendo Cardenas reported that the members are providing quality work and were proud of their achievement.  They reported that the Teamsters, to accomplish the move, had loaded, transferred and unloaded 11 trailers a day – 300 in all.  

Great work, brothers and sisters!

Today's Teamster News 05.05.14

Trade
Block the Trans Pacific Partnership (opinion)  Quad City Times   ...For anyone not familiar with TPP, it is yet another bad trade deal that does not take human rights, consumer rights, worker rights and environmental standards into adequate consideration...
Pacific partners should push back against TPP until U.S. shows respect for financial reforms  The Japan Times   ...One big risk that may be a deal breaker is U.S. insistence that TPP partners surrender their right to regulate global finance...
State Battles
With Unlimited Financial Campaign Contributions, One Robber Baron Can Control a State  Truthout   ...If you want to see how just one Wall Street robber baron can squash democracy for the sake of greed and privatization, just look to the Missouri legislature…."Sinquefield and his wife spent more than $28 million in disclosed donations in state elections since 2007, plus nearly $2 million more in disclosed donations in federal elections since 2006, for a total of at least $30 million..."
War on Workers
Recovery Has Created Far More Low-Wage Jobs Than Better-Paid Ones  New York Times   ...The deep recession wiped out primarily high-wage and middle-wage jobs. Yet the strongest employment growth during the sluggish recovery has been in low-wage work, at places like strip malls and fast-food restaurants...
Homeless and working for Amazon: the trap of the seasonal job cycle  Guardian   ...Since Amazon opened its warehouse in Jeffersonville, one homeless shelter, Haven House, has been a home to between two and six of its employees at all times...
Deride and Conquer: Dismantling the USPS  Truthout   ...Since the 1970s, the right has patiently tried to wrest control of the US Postal Service from the government using a three-step strategy characterized by: a) ideologically legitimizing its effort through scholarship cooked up in Koch-funded think tanks like Cato and the American Enterprise Institute; b) politically codifying it in generic, legal templates drawn up in legislative boiler rooms like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and c) economically executing their plan by forcing USPS to operate in a commercial arena where it would be squeezed on one side by government constraints, and, on the other, forced to compete with global private carriers like FedEx and UPS not subject to the same legislative mandates...
LEAKED: Docs obtained by Pando show how a Wall Street giant is guaranteed huge fees from taxpayers on risky pension investments  Pando   ...An increasing number of those pension funds are being stealthily diverted into high-fee, high-risk “alternative investments” that deliver spectacular rewards for the Wall Street firms paid to manage them – but not such great returns for pensioners and taxpayers...
Jobless Benefits Are Disappearing Much Faster Than Jobs Are Appearing  Five Thirty Eight   ...Fewer Americans are receiving unemployment benefits than any time in nearly six years. And yet there are 2 million more people unemployed than there were back then...
Too Big to Jail Continues: DOJ May Charge Two Banks with Criminal Acts, But Not Hold Them Criminally Accountable  Truthout   ...The Department of Justice might make an agreement with banks in which they would plead guilty to criminal activity without, it appears, holding them criminally responsible beyond fines and perhaps some temporary restrictions...
U.S. Firms With Irish Addresses Get Tax Breaks Derided as ‘Blarney’  Bloomberg   ...The technique these companies use to lower their tax bills -- shifting legal addresses to low-tax Switzerland, Ireland, and Bermuda -- was in the spotlight last week. Pfizer Inc., the largest U.S. drugmaker, said it’s seeking a British address, a move that might save more than $1 billion a year in U.S. taxes...
Miscellaneous
Circus Audience Initially Thought Accident Was Part of the Act  ABC News   ...Authorities are trying to determine what caused a support frame to collapse during an aerial hair-hanging stunt during a circus performance Sunday, sending eight acrobats crashing to the ground and injuring 11...The incident happened about 45 minutes into a performance of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus' legends show … in Providence, R.I...

Today's Teamster News 03.04.14

Teamster News
Government report: Too few pilots or too little pay?  Associated Press   ...The nation's regional airlines are having trouble hiring enough pilots, the government says, suggesting one reason may be that they simply don't pay enough. A pool of qualified pilots is available, but it's unclear whether they are willing to work for low entry-level wages, the Government Accountability Office said in a report released Friday...
Trade
Lies Our Political Elites Tell Us As They Rip Us Off  Down With Tyranny!   ...the last mega-trade deal corporate elites and their political handmaidens ... sold the American people, NAFTA, was a beautifully-packaged barrel of lies. Froman is uncomfortable and highly defensive when confronted with the analogy...
Obama’s trade chief undeterred by opposition  Politico   ...The Obama administration is confident it will win support in Congress for a big Asia-Pacific trade deal despite opposition from many Democrats that has stalled legislation needed for approval of the agreement, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said...
State Battles
Report: Privatizing government work reaps lavish profits for some  Tallahassee.com   ...there’s George Zoley of the GEO Group, which runs prisons all over the world. GEO has four of Florida’s six privately run prisons and is a mainstay of the state Republican Party and Gov. Rick Scott’s re-election campaign fund. CMD said Zoley took in $22 million in compensation between 2008 and 2012...
E-mails show Wisconsin Gov. Walker as hands-on tactician fixated on public image  Washington Post   ...An analysis by the Democratic super PAC American Bridge found that Walker was copied on 960 e-mails sent to the private e-mail addresses of public employees during work hours...
WI ALEC Leader in Hot Water over Allegations of Sexual Harassment  Center for Media and Democracy   ...Assembly Majority Leader Bill Kramer, a stalwart of the American Legislative Exchange Council, has been accused of sexually harassing two women while in Washington, D.C. last week for a Wisconsin GOP fundraiser...
Wisconsin income gap widening faster than nation as a whole  The Cap Times   ...Inflation-adjusted income for the bottom 99 percent of Wisconsin residents has actually fallen by 0.4 percent since 1979 while incomes for the upper 1 percent more than doubled over the period...
How ALEC helped Duke Energy block stricter coal ash rules  Facing South   ...ALEC has been involved in efforts to block stricter regulation of coal ash, which is in the spotlight again following Duke Energy's massive spill into the Dan River from a coal ash pit at one of its North Carolina plants. It has carried out this work with the financial backing of Duke, which belonged to ALEC during the height of the group's work to block federal coal ash oversight...
Kasich’s policies hurt local governments  The Columbus Dispatch   ...Beginning in 2011, we have experienced a 50 percent reduction — more than $11 million annually — in local-government funding from the state, primarily due to Kasich’s aggressive income-tax cuts...
The War on Workers
Citi Affiliate’s Troubles Multiply as Money-Laundering Subpoenas Follow Fraud  New York Times   ...A headache is growing for Citigroup as a banking affiliate involved in money transfers across the Mexican border has become ensnared in a criminal investigation...
Amazon workers look for justice from a business-friendly Supreme Court  Salon   ...Temporary workers at Amazon warehouses can spend as long as 30 minutes waiting to get through security checks. Since the security checks are designed as a theft-prevention measure, reasonable people might consider them a part of the regular Amazon warehouse workday. Integrity Solutions Staffing, an Amazon contractor, disagrees...
Miscellaneous
Why Russia No Longer Fears the West  Politico Magazine   ...Putin’s inner circle no longer fear the European establishment. They once imagined them all in MI6. Now they know better. They have seen firsthand how obsequious Western aristocrats and corporate tycoons suddenly turn when their billions come into play. They now view them as hypocrites—the same European elites who help them hide their fortunes...
The Pattern of Job Creation and Destruction by Firm Age and Size  Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta   ...he rate of job creation and destruction tends to decline with firm age. Younger firms of all sizes tend to have higher job-creation (and job-destruction) rates than their older counterparts...

Don't let Walmart warehouse workers freeze to death

From our friends at Warehouse Workers for Justice: 

Walmart warehouse workers in Hammond, Ind., face extreme cold, snow, and icy conditions inside the warehouse because thecompany refuses to properly maintain the facility.

"It shouldn't come to someone dying before we get heat in the warehouse" said Dion Stammis, a warehouse worker.

On the coldest day in 30 years workers threatened to walk off the job and forced the warehouse to shut down for a day. But workers are now back in the frigid conditions. A worker suffering frostbite was rushed to the ER in the middle of his shift.

Warehouse Workers Organizing Committee members have told Walmart's warehouse operator, LINC, they want heat, warm up breaks, and immediate repairs to broken dock doors and aprons which are letting in the snow and ice.

Tell LINC and Walmart to heat the warehouse and not retaliate against workers standing up for their rights! Click here: http://tinyurl.com/lkxy3qd

Today's Teamster News 12.31.13

Northern Tier shuts crude distillation unit -union Reuters ...Chris Riley, the business agent for Teamsters Local 120, which represents workers at the 89,500-barrel-per-day (bpd) plant in St. Paul, Minnesota, said a maintenance problem prompted the shutdown of the larger of two crude units for six to seven days. The unit shutdown at Northern Tier's only refinery came as a Dec. 31 contract expiration loomed. The union was considering a strike...
Train Derailment Causes Fiery Destruction In Casselton, ND Associated Press ...Authorities urged residents to evacuate a small North Dakota town Monday night after a mile-long train carrying crude oil derailed outside of town, shaking residents with a series of explosions that sent flames and black smoke skyward...
Fired Walmart Warehouse Workers Win $50,000 in Back Pay In These Times ... Last Monday, just days after a Walmart contractor agreed to pay out $4.7 million for alleged wage theft to more than 500 warehouse workers in southern California, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) secured a settlement over illegal retaliation against employees at the retail giant's distribution center in Elwood, Ill...
Clothing Brands Sidestep Blame for Safety Lapses New York Times ... four brands agreed last week to help finance a landmark $40 million compensation fund for the victims. But many other brands, including Mango, have so far refused to contribute to the fund…
Out of jobs, out of benefits, out of luck (Opinion. Note the author.) CNN ...People who can't work still must eat. Americans in distress have a claim on the rest of the nation. Extend unemployment insurance. Sustain food stamps. While we're looking for a new deal, at least quit deluding ourselves that the old deal is still operable. It's not...
I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on (opinion) The Guardian ... "How many soldiers have you seen die on the side of a road in Afghanistan because our ever-so-accurate UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] were unable to detect an IED [improvised explosive device] that awaited their convoy?"...
Younger military veterans are angered by budget cuts to their pension benefits Washington Post ...The plan to trim pension increases for working-age military retirees such as Preston is by far the most controversial provision in a bipartisan budget deal approved by Congress and signed last week by President Obama...
Nafta at 20 (.pdf) Public Citizen ...One Million U.S. Jobs Lost, Mass Displacement and Instability in Mexico, Record Income Inequality, Scores of Corporate Attacks on Environmental and Health Laws...
Moguls Rent South Dakota Addresses to Shelter Wealth Forever Bloomberg ...South Dakota’s sudden popularity illustrates how, at a time of rising U.S. economic inequality, the wealthiest Americans are embracing ever more creative ways to reduce taxes legally...
Ikea Isn't Only Furnishing Your Bedroom, It's Watching You There truthout ...Ikea has been able to access personal records including bank account information, driving records, vehicle registrations and property records. It has used these in vetting job applicants and in building cases against employees accused of wrongdoing...
South Korea's railway workers end three-week strike Straits Times ...Thousands of South Korean railway workers agreed on Monday to end a three-week partial strike after lawmakers promised to reflect their opinions in the government's controversial plan to reorganise railway services...
Greek prison system collapsing, labeled 'inhuman' Associated Press ...The crisis is playing out as Greece goes through a dramatic economic meltdown. As a result, prison populations are surging even as funds for guards and facilities are shrinking, a toxic mix that police and justice officials warn could explode in violence at any time...

Today's Teamster News 12.19.13

Teamsters: Protesters Slam UNFI & Whole Foods For Destroying Environment At Taxpayers' & Workers' Expense  teamster.org   ... Dozens of educators, consumers, and labor and environmental activists gathered today to protest the unsustainable practices of organic food distributor United Natural Foods Inc. (UNFI) and retail partner Whole Foods Market (WFM) at UNFI’s annual shareholder meeting...
Teamsters Donating Toys to Hershey Ronald McDonald House  teamster.org   ...Teamsters Local Union 776 in Harrisburg, Pa. will be donating more than $7,500 in toys to the Ronald McDonald House in Hershey...
Union to represent low-wage food workers at two Smithsonian museums  Washington Post   ...After a series of one-day strikes, marches and demonstrations, about 220 food-service workers at two Smithsonian Institution museums will be represented by a union in contract negotiations for the first time, organizers said Monday...
Amazon May Get Its First Labor Union in the U.S.  Bloomberg   ...For the first time, employees in a U.S. Amazon facility have successfully petitioned the National Labor Relations Board to hold union elections...
Temporary Work, Lasting Harm  ProPublica   ...in five states, representing more than a fifth of the U.S. population, temps face a significantly greater risk of getting injured on the job than permanent employees...
Jamie Dimon’s perp walk: Why it could be this year’s Christmas miracle  Salon   ...JPMorgan's CEO just violated a federal statute carrying a prison sentence. But will the punishment fit the crime?...
How America Created a Low-Wage Work Swamp  Salon   ...The U.S. now has the highest proportion of low-wage workers in the developed world...
W.H. to nominate Sen. Max Baucus as next ambassador to China  Politico ...Sen. Max Baucus, the veteran Montana Democrat who has served in the Senate since 1978, is expected to be nominated by the White House to serve as the next U.S. ambassador to China...
Rep. Jack Kingston Proposes That Poor Students Sweep Floors In Exchange For Lunch  Huffington Post   ...Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) wants kids to learn early in life that there's no such thing as a free lunch. To make sure they absorb that lesson, he's proposing that low-income children do some manual labor in exchange for their subsidized meals...
The Government Is Quietly Giving Way More Housing Aid To Rich People Than Poor People  Business Insider   ...In 2012, the federal government gave out $240 billion in housing aid. Income data is not available for all of it, but of what is available, more than half went to those with incomes greater than $100,000 ($81.6 billion). Only $40 billion went to those with incomes less than $50,000...
Delta Air Lines will not allow cellphone calls on flights  The Guardian   ...Right now, federal rules prohibit voice calls on planes. But the government is indicating that it might loosen those rules. If that happens, it could be up to airlines to set their own policies...
Koch brothers' foundation backed rosy May report on Wisconsin economy  Milwaukee Journal Sentinel   ..."Despite the effort to distance itself, it is quite clear that Koch-controlled funds help directly underwrite ALEC's 'Rich States, Poor States' report with its discredited rankings of state economic policies..."
Walker hopes John Doe investigation will conclude soon  Channel 3000   ...Gov. Scott Walker says he hopes an ongoing secret investigation that reportedly is looking into activities by his campaign and conservative groups ends soon...
Wisconsin National Guard unveils new unmanned aircraft facility  Wisconsin Department of Military Affairs   ...Leaders from the Wisconsin Army National Guard and Wisconsin Air National Guard, along with political representatives and community leaders, were on hand Dec. 6 for the official ribbon-cutting ceremony for a tactical unmanned aerial system (TUAS) facility...
OUTRAGEOUS: Texas Police Can Now Obtain Search Warrants Based On ‘Prediction Of A Future Crime’  Alternet   ...Last week, an appeals court in Texas ruled that police may obtain a search warrant based on the prediction of a future crime, heightening public fears that we may be heading toward a ‘predictive policing’ era in which we see police powers rapidly growing at the cost of our constitutional rights...