Don't miss CBS Early Show today

Just a quick heads up: Catch CBS's Early Show this morning at 7:40. It's a segment on misclassification that highlights the port trucking industry. One of our guys from Shippers/SSA Marine who is fighting to be a Teamster is featured.

Whoa! NYC mayor galpal trashes working people

This woman actually wants to run for the millionaire's club U.S. Senate from New York after making it clear how desperately she wants to trash people who, you know, "work" for a living. In this video, Diana Taylor, Mayor Michael Bloomberg's galpal, venomously states her opposition to returning Teamsters to their middle-class jobs after Sotheby's threw them out of work. Marie Antoinette looks like a piker in comparison.

Great campaign slogan: "I'll go to the mat to take away paychecks from hardworking American taxpayers."

Diana Taylor is on the board of the company that evicted Occupy Wall Street from Zuccotti Park AND on the board of Sotheby's. She's clearly acting out her boyfriend's grudge against Occupy Wall Street, who've been working in solidarity with the Sotheby's art handlers from Teamsters Local 814.

Does this women expect ANYONE to vote for her who isn't among the .1 percent?

Teamsters marching for jobs in NYC; 'It's our time'

Our Teamster brothers and sisters in New York are marching for jobs and economic fairness right now. The "March for the 99%" starts at Herald Square downtown and ends at Union Square. We expect there are plenty of  "Stop the War on Workers" signs from Joint Council 16 among the thousands of signs. In fact, we can see the corner of one in this picture of the marchers assembling.

The march is sponsored by the New York Central Labor Council and Occupy Wall Street. If you've been wondering what happened to the Occupy movement after so many camps have been dismantled, well, you may not have noticed the Occupy Phoenix protest of a Benedict Arnold Koch brothers front group in Arizona yesterday, or Occupy DC at the British Embassy, or Occupy Chicago at the British consulate. As The Associated Press reports,

The overnight police raids in Philadelphia and Los Angeles that dismantled two of the nation's biggest Occupy Wall Street encampments leave just a few major "occupations" still going on around the U.S. But activists are already changing tactics and warning of a winter of discontent, with rallies and marches every week.

The camps may bloom again in the spring, organizers said, and next summer could bring huge demonstrations at the Republican and Democratic conventions, when the whole world is watching. But for now they are promoting dozens of smaller actions, such as picketing the president in New York and staging sit-ins at homes marked for foreclosure.

The March of the 99% is pretty big -- we hear tens of thousands of people are there. We learn from Twitter that CUNY students are there en masse, along with SEIU 1199, UAW, teachers, laborers. Also from Twittter:

@elizbruce: Bagpipes, protesters, and #unions, OH MY! #OWS NYC #Labormarch

@JoshHarkinson: My office off Broadway is surrounded by police barricades, cop cars, and helicopters for the #OWS & labor march kicking off at Herald Square

@steffikeith: #OWS union march effective because half these guys look like they would hang in same bar as the cops

@elizbruce: Can hear the chants from the 19th Fl. of the #Flatiron, "What do we want?" "JOBS!" "When do we want it?" "NOW!" #OWS #Labormarch

@mgouldwartofski: "We are the union. The mighty, mighty union." Labor's March of the 99% has made it to Union Sq, tens of thousands strong. #OWS #WorkersPower

Here's the invitation for the March of the 99% on Occupy Wall Street's Facebook Page:

Good Morning: The wealthy elite aka the 1% ask you to stay home today. They want to stay at work late, if you have a job that is. If not, they ask that you watch television, go shopping, or spend time on the computer, alone. Do not question anything. They do not want you to join with thousands of other people who just like you, are feeling then pressure of an economy and government controlled by them. The 1% are asking, no demanding, stay inside. Do not join the growing movement. No, not today.

We say, Disobey. See you in the streets today. It is our time.

Austerity here and abroad sparks pickets, strikes

Yesterday at the British Embassy.

Just to recap yesterday's happenings:  2 million people joined the biggest general strike in the UK in 30 years, while U.S. union members picketed here in sympathy. "Austerity," in a word, explains why. The Tory government wants Britain's public service workers to take the blame for the global financial crisis by working harder for less money -- a refrain familiar to American ears.

In Washington at noon, the British Embassy was picketed by several hundred union members and Occupiers. Teamsters Local 639 President Tommy Ratliff, who was there, said,

It's going to continue to happen to public workers and private workers. 14 million people are out of work -- where will it end?  It's just corporate greed. It's the difference between the 1 percent and the 99 percent.

Similar pickets were held at British consulates in Chicago, New York, Orlando, San Francisco and Los Angeles. National Nurses United at Daily Kos wrote,

The United Steel Workers, Teamsters, AFT, ATU, SEIU, AFL central labor councils, Unite-Here, and members of Occupy DC and Occupy Chicago, were among labor and community activists joining the solidarity actions.

The historic British strike was called by the workers to protest brutal cuts to their pensions and retirement benefits.

As nurses and other union members and activists said in the support rallies in the U.S., American workers face similar fights.

KTVU in San Francisco showed Teamsters picketing in front of the British consulate in San Francisco:

...and nurses joining teamsters in san francisco today in a gesture of support in great britain. organizers say as many as two million people didn't go to work today in the uk. workers there are angry over pay freezes and proposed pension hikes.

We also understand Teamsters picketed the British consulate in New York.

You probably won't read much about Britain's general strike here. After all, we can't imagine why the US media would be interested in workers' response to government austerity. So we turn to the Globe and Mail for an account of the action:

The streets are absolutely teeming with children, the parks filled with parents working their BlackBerries while watching their kids, and the international airports nearly vacant, their passport desks staffed with well-known senior government officials in good suits.

It’s a general strike, British-style: On Wednesday, more than half the country’s public employees have walked off the job to protest the deep cuts to public-sector pay and pensions being imposed by Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative-Liberal coalition government in a major cost-cutting drive.

In practice, it means that most kids didn’t go to school today – 58 per cent of public primary and secondary schools are closed completely, and only 13 per cent are fully staffed. Hospitals are only taking emergency cases, as most nurses are on strike.

In fact, the school where Mr. Cameron and one of his top cabinet minister, Michael Gove, send their children, St. Mary Abbots Primary School in Kensington, was largely shut down, with only two classes open.

British workers struck as a new report predicted that their average income will fall 7.4 percent in the next three years. As

As the peerless blogger Atrios wrote,

Deliberately make the poor and middle class poorer, the rich richer, and then not understand when there are riots.

Or Occupations.

A big NH thank you!

The video says it all. Look for your Teamster brothers and sisters in the crowd.

Even more solidarity from US Foods Teamsters

Bridgeport solidarity, Nov. 3.

Not one Teamster crossed a US Foods picket line extended again to Swedesboro and Bridgeport, N.J., last night. Since Oct. 30, more than 2,000 Teamsters have participated in a rolling sympathy strike for two Teamster brothers abused by US Foods management. Teamster solidarity is even more remarkable in light of a new report that US Foods is consolidating its power at the top of the food-distribution chain.
Technomics reports,

Even as the overall economy languished, the largest U.S. foodservice distribution companies managed to grow and solidify their position at the top of the industry.

Apparently CD&R and KKR -- the fast-buck artists that have been plundering US Foods for the past four years -- think they can push around their workers. At the heart of the strike is one custodial worker, Mike "Scrapper" Vagasky, a Local 722 member who was punished for participating in contract negotiations. The other custodial worker is on disability.

Bill Knight at the Daily Review Atlas gets the lesson of the US Foods strike:

...a determined few can stand up for themselves; with their union brothers and sisters they can stand up to the rich and powerful; they can use traditional tactics, exemplified by the solidarity of sympathy strikes; and they also can be creative, resorting to actions such as “rolling strikes” – short work stoppages here and there where a common employer operates.

Determined Teamsters in Swedesboro, Nov. 3.

According to the Teamsters press release,

Teamsters from Locals 628 in Philadelphia and 169 in Elkins Park, Penn. once again refused to cross picket lines at US Foods distribution facilities in Swedesboro and Bridgeport, N.J. yesterday evening.

The sympathy picket lines, which were established by members of Locals 1414 in Philadelphia and 676 in Collingswood, N.J....

Picket line extensions and sympathy pickets have spread to 12 US Foods facilities across the country during the past month. More than 2,000 Teamsters have honored picket lines in Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, Minnesota, New York, New Jersey, Washington, Colorado and Maryland.

Here's what John Williams, Teamsters warehouse division director, said:

Our members who work at US Foods care about this company and its customers, but they are not willing to cross lawful picket lines. Our members, like the rest of the 99 percent in America, are tired of being bullied and having their rights under federal labor law violated while the private equity firms and other Wall Street bankers in the top one percent destroy their livelihood.

Props to all our Teamster brothers and sisters who walk and who honor the US Foods picket lines. And props to all who helped Scrapper make ends meet. There's still time. Go to this Facebook page to help a fellow Teamster out.

Find out more about the strike at http://www.usfoodsworkers.org/. Show your solidarity with US Foods workers by "Liking" their Facebook page at USfoods Workersunited. See photos of the actions around the country here. And follow the strike on twitter at #USFoodsWorkers.

Today's Teamsters News 12.01.11

Unions survive anti-labor push in New Hampshire  Los Angeles Times   ...Legislators in New Hampshire voted to sustain Gov. John Lynch's veto of a right-to-work bill in New Hampshire that would have prevented unions from collecting dues from non-members. It was a victory for unions in a Republican-dominated state...
Strikes over public sector pensions hit services across UK as 2 million walk out  The Guardian   ...Trade unions and the government have traded blows over the impact of the biggest outbreak of industrial unrest in three decades, as up to 2 million public sector workers went on strike, forcing the closure of 62% of state schools in England and the cancellation of 6,000 hospital operations...
Right-to-work debate brings standing-room-only crowd to UE  Evansville Courier   ...Speaking against right-to-work legislation were Rep. Gail Riecken, D-Evansville, and Teamsters Local 215 President Chuck Whobrey...
Doggett pushes bill to extend unemployment benefits  Austin American-Statesman   ...Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa said in a statement Wednesday ... "It's time for Congress to get to work and help American workers who are going through serious hardship through no fault of their own..."
Labor board looks to advance quick election rule  Reuters   ..."This is a common-sense rule that makes sure workers have the basic right to vote for or against a union," Hoffa said...
A Banker Speaks, With Regret (opinion)  New York Times   ... 28 percent of all American mortgages are “underwater,” ... That means that more is owed than the home is worth...