Koch money flows to Texas pol who opposes worker safety measures in fertilizer plants

Five months after a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, blew up, killed 15 people and injured 160, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott received a $25,000 check from Chase Koch. 

Abbott is running for governor. Koch is the son of one of the Koch brothers that owns Koch Industries. We're not sure which brother, as they are extremely secretive about their family. 

Chase Koch is also the head of Koch Industries' fertilizer division. That $25,000 was followed by another $50,000 -- insurance to make sure Texas continues to be wary of regulations. The state is doing little to promote safer chemical plants. The EPA isn't doing much, either. 

Yesterday, the Dallas Morning News reported, 

Abbott, who has since been criticized for allowing Texas chemical facilities to keep secret the contents of their plants, received more than $75,000 from Koch interests after the April 2013 explosion at the West Fertilizer Co. storage and distribution facility, campaign finance records filed with the state showed. 

The West accident focused public attention on the storage of potentially dangerous chemicals across Texas and regulatory gaps in prevention, data-gathering, enforcement and disclosure to prevent explosions in the future. In addition to the 15 deaths, scores of people were injured, and homes and businesses were leveled. 

The issue has re-emerged for Abbott in his run for governor. The Republican nominee recently declared that records on what chemicals the facilities stored could remain hidden, citing state laws meant to deter potential terrorist threats. 

The campaign of his Democratic opponent, Wendy Davis, has charged Abbott with protecting campaign donors. On Tuesday, Abbott struggled to explain how Texans might learn of dangerous chemicals in their midst. 

“You know where they are if you drive around,” Abbott told reporters at an event in Austin. “You can ask every facility whether or not they have chemicals or not. You can ask them if they do and they can tell you, ‘Well, we do have chemicals or we don’t have chemicals.’ And if they do, they tell which ones they have.”

You will not be surprised to know a Koch subsidiary owns a gypsum plant in Sweetwater, Texas, that stores at least 10,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate or ammonium-related material. You will not be surprised at the Kochs' hypocrisy in supporting a candidate who wants government to keep vital information from its citizens and saying they're in favor of a 'free market.'

The Teamsters are fighting for better workplace protections for chemical plant workers. The West tragedy should have lit a fire under regulators to prevent that kind of disaster from happening again. 

Woo-hoo! Another Teamster organizing victory in North Carolina!

Welcome to our 26 new brothers and sisters who just voted to join Teamsters Local 391 in Greensboro, N.C. They are warehouse workers at Vistar, a unit of PFG Foods, Inc.

Local 391 already represents truck drivers at Vistar, and the warehouse workers wanted a voice as well.

Jeff Meadows, an 11-year employee, said the company waged a vicious anti-union campaign against the workers.

We all held together. This campaign all boiled down to fairness. We just want to be treated fairly and equally.

Tony Scott, Local 391 vice president and business agent, said:

From the beginning these workers wanted a voice—they wanted Teamster representation. These workers are to be commended for standing up and standing strong for what they believe in for themselves and for their families.

Scott said it was a team effort from start to finish. He thanked his organizing committee, Vistar driver shop steward Russell Strickland, the Vistar drivers, and YRC shop steward and Barry Hardy, president of the Central Labor Council for Local 391, Barry Hardy.

Local 391 President Mike McGaha congratulated the new Teamsters and said he looked forward to negotiating a strong first contract.

Tell Congress: Oppose trade agreements that undo 'Buy American'

To see a larger version of this map, click here.

Your tax dollars are spent by the federal government to buy goods and services. Don't you want those goods and services to be produced in America?

The Trans-Pacific Partnership currently being negotiated would forbid the U.S. government from preferring U.S. companies over foreign competitors.

Seventy House members and many senators said they oppose TPP measures that could weaken Buy American policies. They said in a statement the TPP’s rules “could result in large sums of U.S. tax dollars being invested to strengthen other countries’ manufacturing sectors, rather than our own.”

In May, The U.S. House of Representatives voted to block talks for trade agreements that void Buy American rules. The Senate has yet to pass a similar bill, but you can write your senators here to tell them to support initiatives that cut off funding for trade talks that undo 'Buy American.'

The TPP 'could result in the offshoring hundreds of millions in tax dollars now recycled into the U.S. economy under the Buy American procurement program, which started in 1933,' according to a new study by Public Citizen.

The amount of money at stake is enormous. For example,

• Each Texas taxpayer provides an estimated $2,645 annually in support of federal procurement, resulting in a statewide total of approximately $48.7 billion.
• Each year, taxpayers in California finance approximately $65.2 billion in federal procurement, or an estimated $2,280 per California taxpayer.
• Annual U.S. government procurement is funded with approximately $11.7 billion contributed by Washington state, which translates to $2,132 per taxpayer on average.

Public Citizen also points out the TPP would let companies owned by China in Vietnam undercut U.S. businesses to get contracts with the U.S. government. How can U.S. businesses compete with companies that pay an average minimum wage of 52 cents an hour?

Today's Teamster News 07.02.14

Teamster News
RTC Bus Driver Contract Extended To July 31  Reno Gazette-Journal   ...A contract extension until July 31 for Washoe County public transit employees was agreed to today by their labor union and MV Transportation, which operates the transit system for the Regional Transportation Commission of Washoe County...
Labor Board Rules In Favor Of Union  Bennington Banner   ...Nearly a month after a single challenged ballot left the notion of Green Mountain Express bus driver joining the Teamsters Union hanging, the National Labor Relations Board has ruled in the union’s favor...
'Longmire' Crew Member's Death Is Suspected to Be Caused by Too-Long Working Hours  AceShowBiz   ...A crew member of A&E's crime drama series "Longmire" named Gary Tuck, 48, died early morning on Saturday, June 28, in a car accident. Gary's truck rolled over on a highway in an area known as Stanley, N. M. when he was on his way home from the drama's set around 4:30 A.M. Gary was a member of Teamsters Local 492...
NYCLASS Furious That Bill de Blasio Hasn’t Banned Horse Carriages Yet  New York Observer   ...Mr. de Blasio and his advisers have been shying away from banning the Central Park-based carriages, sources say, and are not pressuring the City Council to pass a bill after promising last year the carriages would be history when he took office...
Trade
Plan a Made-in-the-USA July 4th Celebration  manufacture this   ...Display your stars and stripes with a Made in the USA flag (you’d be surprised – not all flags are!)...
State Battles
Private Contractor For Michigan Prisons Repeatedly Failed To Give Inmates Enough Food  Think Progress   ...Less than a year after Michigan shifted responsibility for feeding its prisoners to a private contract with international food services conglomerate Aramark, the state Department of Corrections (DOC) is warning the company that it may yank the contract if chronic food shortages and security violations don’t cease...
The Minimum Wage Will Increase Tomorrow In D.C.  Washington City Paper   ...Beginning tomorrow, the minimum wage will jump to $9.50 per hour from today's $8.25...
California Minimum Wage Rising To $9 Per Hour Tuesday  KCRA   ...California's minimum wage will rise to $9 an hour when a new law takes effect on Tuesday and provides workers with the first such increase since 2008. That amount will increase again to $10 an hour starting on Jan. 1, 2016, under AB10, which Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law last fall...
Gov. Scott Walker to blame for poor job growth (opinion)  Milwaukee Journal Sentinel   ...The 2011-'12 reductions of 10% in real per student K-12 spending were the fourth-largest in the nation. Cuts in higher education spending, the reduction in the purchasing power of state employees through Act 10 and foregone federal dollars in Walker's rejection of high-speed rail and Medicaid investments all helped dampen aggregate demand in the state (compared to other states) and throw sand in the gears of Wisconsin's job creation machinery...
Dead Last in Jobs in the Midwest  Wisconsin State AFL-CIO   ...You know what doesn’t create jobs?  Rejecting high-speed rail projects, failing to expand Medicaid for the poor, focusing on voter disenfranchisement laws instead of job growth policies, taking money out of local economies with austerity policies such as Act 10, tax cuts for the rich and a lack of accountability and transparency in the WEDC, the jobs agency created by Gov. Walker that has been plagued by scandals...
Whistling Past the Intellectual Graveyard  Econbrowser   ...After three years of an experiment in ALEC-Laffernomics, Kansas lags the US economy significantly...
War On Workers
America Ranks 36th in Feeling Free to Choose What to Do With Your Life  firedoglake   ...many of the first world countries where people are more satisfied with their freedom of choice are the Scandinavian countries with very large social safety nets. Despite the Republican claim that a “government takeover” of health care would destroy our freedom, those countries with far more government involvement in health care feel freer...
Why is Washington still protecting the secret political power of corporations? (opinion)  Guardian   ...Regulators at the SEC could illuminate the future of campaign donations. But they aren't interested in disclosing the truth – even though voters are...
Profiteering on Banker Deaths: Regulator Says Public Has No Right to Details  Wall Street on Parade   ... JPMorgan held $17.9 billion in Bank-Owned Life Insurance (BOLI) assets, a dark corner of the insurance market that allows banks to take out life insurance policies on their workers, secretly pocket the death benefits, and receive generous tax perks subsidized by the U.S. taxpayer...
Miscellaneous
Court Gave NSA Broad Leeway In Surveillance, Documents Show  Washington Post   ...Virtually no foreign government is off-limits for the National Security Agency, which has been authorized to intercept information “concerning” all but four countries, according to top-secret documents...
Here Are 4 Lawsuits That Could Inflict More Damage On Unions After Harris V. Quinn  Mother Jones   ...It's possible that one of these cases could do further damage to the labor movement—with the potential to wipe out the precedent set in 1977's Abood v. Detroit Board of Education decision. (In Abood, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of public-employee unions collecting fair-share fees from non-members to pay the costs of collective bargaining.)...

Corporate pay to play -- on the Supreme Court

Anti-worker billionaires have treated Supreme Court justices to lavish vacations, trips on private jets and high-paying jobs for a wife. Then the justices voted to suppress voters' rights, empower corporations, gut campaign finance laws and weaken labor unions.

Coincidence? We think not.

If you think corruption is foreign to Supreme Court justices, just remember those distinguished black robes cover men and women who are not just lawyers and not just politicians, but lawyers and politicians.

Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia have both lent their names to Koch brother fund-raisers, despite the Judicial Code of Conduct that says federal judges may not...

...personally participate in fund-raising activities, solicit funds for any organization, or use or permit the use of the prestige of judicial office for that purpose.

But lending their names to the fund-raisers got them vacations at expensive resorts where the Kochs advanced their anti-worker agenda, according to the Center for Media and Democracy. In addition,

Justice Thomas has also accepted gifts of travel on the private jets of billionaire Harlan Crow, and he has not been fully forthcoming about the income and political activities of his wife, Ginny Thomas, who launched a group, Liberty Central, to take advantage of the Supreme Court's controversial ruling in the case that struck down election rules, "Citizens United," before the decision in the case was even issued publicly in 2010. And Justice Samuel Alito... has headlined fundraising events for right-wing organizations, such as the American Spectator magazine.

Thomas, arguably the most compromised of the justices, took an expensive four-day vacation paid for by the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. Never heard of it? Funded by the Koch brothers, it is responsible in part for the increasingly anti-worker decisions of federal judges.

The Planet POV blog describes the Federalist Society as an elite conspiracy to undermine judges' neutrality. It's an organization of lawyers, law students, judges, professors and anyone else who is willing to claim some sort of intellectual credentials. The organization was founded in 1982 to promote the interest of big business under the guise of 'conservatism.'

The entrenched plutocrats who support the Federalist Society endow professorships, fund conferences and pay for training institutes to explain to judges how to check off their wish list, which includes corporate deregulation, voter suppression and elimination of campaign finance laws. The Federalist Society's influence is insidious, as it has been a channel for young lawyers to get Supreme Court clerkships and prestigious legal jobs since the Reagan administration.

Here's one final indication of the ethical lapses of the corporate wing of the Supreme Court: In 2004, Scalia went duck hunting with Vice President Dick Cheney, but insisted on hearing a challenge to Cheney's energy task force. Imagine if Elana Kagan had taken a vacation with Michelle Obama -- you'd be hearing about that more than Benghazi.

Enjoy Teamster-made beer and ice cream this Fourth of July!

Celebrate America's independence with products that are not only made in America, but made by Teamsters.

Going food shopping? Support your brothers and sisters who work at Costco if there's one near you. Many Costcos are represented by Teamsters. The company pays all of its employees an average of $17 an hour; CEO Jim Sinegal believes paying workers well is good business.

Make those jimmies red, white and
blue for the 4th!

The summer's top cookout event demands beer, and Teamsters make (and deliver) a lot of it. Teamsters make such refreshing brews as Labatt's Blue, Beck's, Coors Light, Molson Ice, Miller Lite and the King of Beers, Budweiser. Our brothers and sisters also brew up tasty beverages at smaller breweries, Dundee Craft Beer and Genesee Brewery. Remember, when you buy Teamster beers you're supporting good union jobs!

Ice cream is another requirement for the Fourth of July, and tens of thousands of Teamsters work for American dairies. If you live on the West Coast, look for Darigold dairy products or Tillamook cheese and ice cream for that July 4th picnic. Tillamook makes a grilled ice cream sandwich that makes us hungry just to look at. Alta Dena is another Teamster-represented dairy in California and Arizona that makes about a dozen different ice cream products.

Teamsters who live along the East Coast from Pennsylvania to Florida are probably more familiar with WAWA, a convenience store chain that started as a dairy and is a Teamster-represented employer.  WAWA makes premier ice cream from classic Vanilla or Chocolate to Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup or Mint Chocolate Chip.

Another Teamster employer, Dean Foods, has more than 50 brands, including Country Fresh ice cream in Wisconsin and Michigan; Berkeley Farms ice cream in California; Country Love, Broughton and Ben & Jerry's in Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia and Virginia. Click here to find out what Dean products are near you.

Teamster employer Prairie Farms sells dairy products in 14 Midwestern states, including Prairie Farms ice cream, sherbet and frozen yogurt.  Kemps Dairy in Wisconsin and Minnesota makes a wide variety of ice cream, including Green Bay Packer Salted Caramel Frozen Tundra Twist!

Our brothers and sisters at other unions also make delicious items for that 4th of July barbecue. Check out the AFL-CIO's shopping list for more ideas here.

Note: Not every Teamster-represented beer and ice cream is mentioned here. There are so many!

Today's Teamster News 07.01.14

Teamster News
Union Representing RTC Workers Authorizes Strike  Reno Gazette-Journal   ...A labor union local representing Washoe County public transit system employees voted overwhelmingly Sunday to authorize a strike, but a contract extension until July 31 is possible, the union said...
Horizon Air Aircraft Technicians, Fleet Service Agents Ratify New Six-Year Contract  Aviation Pros   ...Horizon Air's aircraft technicians and fleet service agents have ratified a new six-year contract, the airline and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) announced today...
Contract Between EVSC and Teamsters Expires at Midnight  Tristatehomepage.com   ...For months, the school system and local union have been working on a new contract. But no agreements were reached. The contract applies to a union made up of bus drivers, custodians, secretaries, and others...
Medford Residents Win Teamster Scholarships  Medford Transcript   ...Medford residents Olivia Stewart and Tristan Whalen were recently awarded $2,000 scholarships each by Teamsters Local 25...
What Happens If Uber Drivers Start Organizing Too?  BuzzFeed   ...More than 1,000 D.C. cabbies on Wednesday drove through the streets and refused to pick up passengers in protest of popular ridesharing apps like Uber and Lyft — companies they say are unfairly breaking the law and taking away their business. Their protest is just the latest in cities in the United States and worldwide, as Uber in particular continues its massive expansion from boutique service to a major company, valued at just over $18 billion this year...
Trade
Japan, U.S. resume bilateral TPP talks before Ottawa meeting  Mainichi   ...Japan and the United States on Monday resumed bilateral talks on a Pacific free trade pact in Tokyo, aiming to bridge remaining differences as far as possible before officials from all 12 negotiating members gather in Canada later this week...
State Battles
Michigan's minimum-wage bill could render your vote null and void (opinion)  Michigan Radio   ...Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville, R-Monroe, believes in democracy, except when he doesn’t. In the past, Richardville has staunchly supported Michigan voters’ decisions to outlaw gay marriage and affirmative action. But he doesn’t want to allow voters to vote to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour...
AFT Pennsylvania Position Payroll Deduction/Paycheck Deception  AFT Pennsylvania   ...Legislation prohibiting payroll deduction would wipe out collective bargaining rights that public employees have held for decades. It deprives teachers, nurses, college professors, school bus drivers and other public employees of their right to negotiate payroll deductions for union dues and voluntary political contributions to their union political action committees...
War On Workers
Ruling Against Union Fees Contains Damage to Labor  New York Times   ...The Supreme Court dealt a limited blow to organized labor on Monday by ruling that some government employees did not have to pay any fees to the unions representing them. But the court declined to strike down a decades-old precedent that required many public sector workers to pay union fees...
SCOTUS Ruling Doesn’t Gut Public Unions, But Creates New Challenges for Care Workers  The Next New Deal   ...The decision in Harris v. Quinn blocks the right-wing assault against one of the most important pillars of progressive infrastructure, public employee unions, but will add to the challenge of raising wages and benefits in the surging low-wage workforce...
Corporations Are People, And They Have More Rights Than You  Huffington Post   ... the Supreme Court endorsed corporate personhood -- holding that business firms have rights to religious freedom under federal law. Not only do corporations have rights, their rights are stronger than yours...
A Grieving Father Pulls a Thread That Unravels Illegal Bank Deals  New York Times   ...A bus bombing two decades ago — and a New Jersey father’s quest for justice — inadvertently set off a chain of events that led American prosecutors to accuse some of the world’s biggest banks of transferring money for nations like Iran. On Monday, that crackdown culminated with the guilty plea of BNP Paribas, which admitted to doing billions of dollars in deals with Iran ...
The Implications of Flat or Declining Real Wages for Inequality  Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta   ...what we thought had been a decade of essentially flat real wages (since 2002) has actually been a decade of declining real wages...
For Tipped Workers, A Different Minimum Wage Battle  NPR   ...according to a White House report, tipped workers are more than twice as likely as other workers to experience poverty...
Facebook's massive psychology experiment likely illegal  BoingBoing   ...there's a federal law that prohibits universities from conducting this kind of experiment without explicit, separate consent (none of this burying-consent-in-the-fine-print bullshit). Two of the three researchers who worked on this were working for federally funded universities with institutional review boards, and the project received federal funds...
Wyden Releases Details of Backdoor Searches of Americans’ Communications  Ron Wyden   ...When the FBI says it conducts a substantial number of searches and it has no idea of what the number is, it shows how flawed this system is and the consequences of inadequate oversight. This huge gap in oversight is a problem now, and will only grow as global communications systems become more interconnected...
Rio’s Maracanã Stadium is Privatized  The Rio Times   ...Taking into account the R$304 million of taxpayer money spent on renovations for the 2007 Pan-American games, this brings the total amount spent by the state on Maracanã to about R$1.4 billion, compared to the R$775.6 million it will have received (or not had to spend) after 35 years...
Miscellaneous
Americans Losing Confidence in All Branches of U.S. Gov't  Gallup   ...Americans' confidence in all three branches of the U.S. government has fallen, reaching record lows for the Supreme Court (30%) and Congress (7%), and a six-year low for the presidency (29%)...