3 questions about Detroit's bankruptcy

Three good questions about Detroit's bankruptcy in Salon:

1. Why are Detroit officials simultaneously moving to cut municipal workers’ pensions while spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a new professional hockey stadium? 

2. Why are municipal employees being blamed for Detroit’s woes when data prove they had little to do with the city’s fiscal problems? (Because Detroit’s bankruptcy was caused by a severe decline in revenue and made worse by complicated Wall Street deal.) 

3. If Michigan is so strapped for cash, why is Gov. Snyder almost doubling the salaries of his top officials?

Today's Teamster News 12.13.13

Funeral Giant SCI Refuses Interest Arbitration  teamster.org   ...SCI, which operates under the Dignity Memorial brand name, rejected the arbitration deal after turning down an unconditional offer to return to work made by Teamsters Local 727 in September. The lockout affects 59 funeral directors and livery drivers at 16 Dignity Memorial funeral homes...
Teamsters Announce Formation Of Pennsylvania Law Enforcement Association  Teamsters Pennsylvania Conference   ...The association will represent the more than 2,000 law enforcement officers working in over 100 Pennsylvania borough and county departments who already belong to the Teamsters Union...
Teamsters Rally for Justice, Fair Election at Ohio Bottle Manufacturer  teamster.org   ...Teamsters Local 377 Secretary-Treasurer Sam Cook talks about the fight for a fair and free election for workers who manufacture aluminum bottles at EXAL Corp. in Youngstown, Ohio--a fight that the Teamsters recently took all the way to Canada...
Canadian IKEA Employees in Sweden to Appeal to Kamprad  Sveriges Television   ...300 workers at an IKEA store in Canada have been without a job for seven months during a protracted conflict between the union and the employer. The company has lost its Swedish values, they say, and now they visit Sweden to meet IKEA's founder Ingvar Kamprad...
House Passes Budget Bill to Increase Spending, Reverse Some Automatic Cuts  Time   ...Although Democrats are upset that unemployment benefits will not be extended in the deal, the agreement drafted by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Washington) drew  bipartisan support in a fiercely divided Congress...
The Top 10 Threats of the Trans-Atlantic “Trade” Deal To U.S. Consumers  Public Citizen   ...A “trade” deal only in name, TAFTA, which corporate proponents have tried to rebrand as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), would require the United States and EU to conform domestic food and product safety standards, financial regulations, climate policies, data privacy protections and other non-trade policies to TAFTA rules – rules being negotiated in secret...
Iceland Sends Four Bank Bosses to the Slammer  truthdig   ...The onetime CEO of Iceland’s Kaupthing bank, one Hreidar Mar Sigurdsson, is going to jail for five and a half years for his part in his firm’s downfall—which also helped his country’s economy bottom out in 2008. He’ll be in good company. Three other former high-level Kaupthing execs, including ousted board Chairman Sigurdur Einarsson, will join Sigurdsson for shorter stints in prison for aiding in the cover-up of a sham deal with a Qatari financier that sank the firm late that year...
Ford to hire 11,000 workers in US and Asia in 2014  BBC News   ...About 5,000 workers will be hired in the US and 6,000 in Asia, where Ford is opening two plants in China next year...
Feds To Examine NY commuter rail line for 2 months  Associated Press   ...Federal experts will spend the next two months examining safety compliance and safety culture at a commuter railroad that operated a train that derailed and killed four people this month...
Grass-roots economic protests spread across Italy  Associated Press   ...Students are marching through cities and towns, small business owners are blocking highway entrances and demonstrators have even tried to close the border with France. Their singular aim: To send all the politicians home in hopes of ending the country's malaise...
Orr: Detroit pensions still at risk in bankruptcy  Associated Press   ...Orr, appointed by the governor last spring to run Detroit, said he "absolutely" supports a campaign to tap foundations and wealthy people to prevent the possible sale of city-owned art and preserve pensions. But he warned that the "expectations of the retiree community should be sober..."
Group’s conservative funding questioned  Nashua Telegraph   ...A left-leaning interest group charged that the Concord-based, Josiah Bartlett Center was secretly bankrolled by national conservatives and promoting a national corporate agenda...

Today's Teamster News 12.12.13

Teamsters Join Delegation Calling On IKEA To End Lockout  teamster.org   ...A representative from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters joined a delegation in Sweden this week to ask IKEA to end the abuse of its workers and stop the lockout...
Hoffa: Detroit Bankruptcy Doesn't Change Pension Obligations  Detroit News   ...Mayor-elect Mike Duggan and the City Council, elected by Detroit residents, should be put in charge of crafting a plan that will protect pensioners and give them both security and certainty going forward...
It's Time to End the Secrecy Surrounding TPP Huffington Post   ...The Teamsters, other unions and fair trade advocates have for years criticized a proposed Pacific Rim trade deal for its lack of transparency...
Study: Labor violations don't stop government contracts  Associated Press   ...The study from Democratic leaders on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee found that nearly 30 percent of companies hit with the highest penalties for federal labor law violations from 2007 to 2012 were also federal contractors...
Airline Deregulation: How Ideology Triumphed Over Evidence in the U.S. Airline Industry  Alternet   ...any rational cost-benefit analysis must conclude that deregulation has been a failed experiment...
Cellphone data spying: It's not just the NSA  USA Today   ...Local police are increasingly able to scoop up large amounts of cellphone data using new technologies, including cell tower dumps and secret mobile devices known as Stingrays...
Pensions Become Less Certain For Government Workers  Northeast Indiana Public Radio   ...The budget agreement announced Tuesday — if it passes — would raise revenue by making employees contribute more toward their pensions...
Americans Say Dream Fading as Income Gap Hurts Chances  Bloomberg   ...By almost two to one -- 64 percent to 33 percent -- Americans say the U.S. no longer offers everyone an equal chance to get ahead...
16-Year-Old Drunk Driver Who Killed Four Escapes Jail — Because He Is Rich  Alternet   ...Couch's attorney argued his parents were responsible for the teen’s actions because they had raised him to believe that wealth and privilege could shield him from consequences.  ... Apparently the judge bought that argument...
Billions of Tax Dollars Later, No New Jobs for New York  taxanalysts.com   ...Over nine years, the state of New York gave businesses roughly $10 billion, or almost $1,400 from each household, in a jobs program that eliminated 175,000 jobs at an average cost of $57,000. And that's just state-level subsidies, not those from industrial development agencies...
Pensions Aren't the Source of Detroit's Woes  Portside   ...Since 2008, Detroit has reduced its spending by more than $400 million. In the same period, city revenues have fallen by nearly $260 million, with a steep decline after 2011.  … And yet there is one expense that has, so far, been spared: service fees on derivatives that were sold to the city by banks backed by UBS and Bank of America. In fact, these fees are the only significant increase in spending over the past five years...
Far-Right Lobby Group ALEC Brags That All Politicians in Two State Legislatures Are Members  Alternet   ...Iowa has 150 in each column, and South Dakota has 105 in each column...

Today's Teamster News 12.11.13

Teamsters Call On Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan To Stop Abuse Of U.S. Workers  teamster.org  ...Teamsters rallied outside the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (Teachers’) offices today, publicly calling on Teachers’ to stop worker and human rights abuses at EXAL Corp., an aluminum bottle manufacturer in Youngstown, Ohio. EXAL is owned and actively managed by the Canadian pension plan...
Another Missed TPP Deadline Calls Pact's Agenda Into Question  teamster.org   ..."We cannot rely on unconfirmed leaks to find out what is in this deal," said James P. Hoffa, General President of the Teamsters...
Walmart Contractor Agrees To $4.7 Million Settlement Over Wage Theft Allegations  Huffington Post   ...A group of warehouse workers accused Schneider Logistics, which operates a major Walmart distribution center in Mira Loma, Calif., of failing to pay them for overtime and illegally deducting wages from their paychecks, among other claims. Schneider will not admit fault under the settlement, but it will dish out millions of dollars to as many as 568 workers who handled Walmart goods at the warehouse...
Supreme Court drops case on employer-union ‘neutrality agreements’  Washington Post   ...The case was about “neutrality agreements.” In such accommodations, an employer might remain neutral during a union organizing campaign and even grant access to company grounds or lists of employees. In return, the union might agree to give up the right to strike or throw its support behind a matter important to the company...
Look at the stats: America resembles a poor country  Salon   ...Three decades of trickledown economics; the monopolization, privatization and deregulation of industry; and the destruction of labor protection has resulted in 50 million Americans living in abject poverty, while 400 individuals own more than one-half of the nation’s wealth...
Ron Formisano: Attacking labor movement is same as attacking middle class (opinion)  Lexington Herald-Leader   ...Unions in their heyday from the 1940s through the 1960s contributed greatly to building the middle class, but an unfortunate amnesia and anti-union propaganda has obscured that history for too many, even though Gallup reported that 54 percent of adults 18 and older now approve of organized labor...
World's leading authors: state surveillance of personal data is theft  The Guardian   ...More than 500 of the world's leading authors, including five Nobel prize winners, have condemned the scale of state surveillance revealed by the whistleblower Edward Snowden and warned that spy agencies are undermining democracy and must be curbed by a new international charter...
U.S. job openings reach 5-year high, a hopeful sign  Associated Press   ...U.S. employers advertised the most job openings in more than five years in October, and the number of people quitting also reached a five-year high...
Volkswagen Tied to Another Anti-Union Group  In These Times   ...Volkswagen America supports a second group engaged in anti-UAW activity in Chattanooga: the Chattanooga Regional Manufacturer Association (CRMA). The local industry group boasts VW as a member, and the CEO of Volkswagen America’s Chattanooga Operation, Frank Fischer, sits on its board of directors...
Worker Deaths Raise Questions at an Apple Contractor in China  New York Times   ...Labor rights activists say Pegatron has failed to explain at least five deaths. They say workers interviewed by China Labor Watch, a nonprofit group that monitors working conditions, have complained about long working hours and harsh working conditions at Pegatron, including some of the same pressures that in previous years led to safety problems at Foxconn Technology, Apple’s biggest contract supplier in China...
New bipartisan plan to 'only' cut food stamp benefits for 1.7 million  Daily Kos   ...Congressional Democrats reportedly think they've found just the food stamp cut—one that they can sell as a not completely heartless "administrative fix" yet will satisfy enough Republicans to pass a farm bill...
Despite warnings, Pentagon kept ties to controversial helicopter firms  Reuters   ...After almost four years of allegations that two related helicopter companies in Lithuania and Russia were doing substandard work and should be banned from new contracts, the Pentagon continued to give them business...
NTSB: Upgrade likely could have prevented NY crash  Associated Press   ...The National Transportation Safety Board said a tool called positive train control would have required the engineer to slow the train to an appropriate speed. If he had failed to do so, the technology would have stopped the train, "likely preventing the derailment," the board said...
Chicago’s ‘Smart Card’ Debacle and Privatisation  The Nation   ... under the old system, rich investors didn’t get a piece of the action. Under this one, they most decidedly do...

Top 10 Things That ALEC Wishes Never Happened

The corporate dating service for state lawmakers known as ALEC must be pretty upset with the attention it got this weekend. Here are 10 reasons why:

1. Local Newspapers Hold Their Local Legislators Accountable. The editorial boards ofThe Patriot News (Harrisburg, PA) and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch helps expose ALEC and its proposed oath for state lawmakers. 

· The Patriot News, Controversial ALEC is a group legislators should think twice about joining
· St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Lawmakers should only take one loyalty oath, and it shouldn't be to ALEC 

2. ALEC Responds and Fails. Bill Meierling, ALEC’s director of public affairs, gives a laughable response to recent criticism with a Letter to the Editor in The Washington Post.  

3. The New York Times Calls Out ALEC’s Corporate Influence. Alex Hertel-Fernandez takes on ALEC in a New York Times blog: “ALEC has tremendous influence in state legislatures. Here’s why.” 

4. ALEC Makes It On TV. MSNBC covered the ALEC controversies over the weekend with Lee Fang of The Nation and Dana Milbank of The Washington Post. This was one of three stories MSNBC aired on ALEC in the last week.
· MSNBC: ALEC & ‘Stand Your Ground’ backlash
· MSNBC Maddow: Leak: Right-wing group loses big over gun law
· MSNBC: Is ALEC Falling on Hard Times? Interview w Dana Milbank (WaPo) & Lee Fang (The Nation) 

5. College Students Take On ALEC. The campus papers of the University of WI-Madison and the University of MN-Twin Cities help expose ALEC:
· The Badger Herald, One third Wisconsin legislators involved in ALEC
· Minnesota Daily, Tackling the ALEC problem 

6. Huffington Post Publishes New Exposé On ALEC and Health Care. Read the Center for Public Integrity’s Wendell Potter’s piece: “Big Corporations Abandoning Conservative Group That Pushes Changes in State Laws” 

7. ALEC’s Anti-Education Agenda Exposed. The Huffington Post helps exposes ALEC’s link to APSCU and attacks on public education: “For-profit College Group, Linked to ALEC, Keeps Working to Harm Students and Taxpayers” 

8. AFL-CIO: SPN’s Top 12 Ways To Kill Working Families in 2014. The AFL-CIO names the top 12 ways SPN “stink tanks” could assault the rights of working families in 2014. 

9. New Video Pokes Fun At ALEC Oath and Corporate Influence. Alliance for Better Utah released an animated video of an ALEC legislator taking an oath to ALEC. 

10. Documents Reveal ALEC Created SPN. Steve Horn of De Smog Blog publishes new research that shows ALEC was actually behind the creation of the State Policy Network (SPN).

Today's Teamster News 12.10.13

Teamsters Call On Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan To Stop Worker Abuse  Teamsters Canada   ...The demonstrators will publicly call on Teachers' to stop worker and human rights abuses at EXAL Corp., an aluminum bottle manufacturer in Youngstown, Ohio. EXAL is owned and actively managed by the Canadian pension plan...
Use of Phones on Planes Would Be More Than Just Annoying  teamster.org   ...President James P. Hoffa wrote to the head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) last week asking the agency not to move forward with proposed changes that would allow passengers to speak on cell phones while in flight...
Sysco to buy rival US Foods Inc and become largest American distributor  The Guardian   ...Shareholders of US Foods, owned by affiliates of private equity firms Clayton, Dubilier & Rice and KKR & Co, will own about 13% of Sysco after the closing of the deal, which will create a company with revenue of $65bn...
Get a clue, McDonald’s: Chain tells workers how much to tip their pool cleaners, dog walkers, and masseuses  Salon   ...“In total, the tips add up to hundreds, if not more than a thousand dollars of gift suggestions for McDonald’s workers, many of whom earn just above minimum wage...”
A Record Number of Americans Can’t Afford Their Rent  ThinkProgress   ... low-income renters who make $15,000 or less would have to find housing that costs less than $375 a month, yet the median monthly cost for housing that was built in the last four years is more than $1,000...
More Than Three-Quarters of Workers Missing from the Labor Force Are Under Age 55  Economic Policy Institute   ...even if all of the missing workers age 55 and over are early retirees who will never reenter the labor force no matter how strong job opportunities are (a very strong assumption), that still leaves 4.3 million missing workers under the age of 55 who are likely to re-enter the labor force when job opportunities strengthen...
TPP Trade Pact Misses Deadline as More Talks Planned for January  Bloomberg   ...The TPP, which would link an area with about $28 trillion in annual economic output, has been bogged down by differences over issues from agricultural tariffs to intellectual property. Leaders from the U.S. to Malaysia and Japan face opposition to the deal from lawmakers at home, an obstacle that will have to be overcome once the agreement itself is finalized...
NAFTA’s Impact on U.S. Workers  Economic Policy Institute   ...NAFTA was the template for rules of the emerging global economy, in which the benefits would flow to capital and the costs to labor...
Eight bodies, some dismembered, found on Mexican highway  Reuters   ...Mexican authorities found the bodies of eight kidnap victims, some dismembered, on a highway in the troubled southern state of Guerrero where government troops have been deployed to stem violence, officials said on Monday...
Meet the 20 Percent: Wealthy Social Liberals Standing Against Efforts to Fight Income Inequality  Alternet   ...The "20 percent" don’t want their taxes raised in an effort to reduce inequality...
Let's get this straight: AIG execs got bailout bonuses, but pensioners get cuts (opinion)  The Guardian   ...No one has accused city workers in Chicago or Detroit of bringing down the economy, but they could face pension cuts...
Unionization Yields Significant Gains in Pay and Benefits for Women Workers  Center for Economic Policy Research   ...Unionized women workers on average make 12.9 percent more than their non-union counterparts, are 36.8 percent more likely to have employer-provided health insurance and 53.4 percent more likely to have participated in an employer-sponsored retirement plan...
“They’re getting away with murder”: East Coast takes Midwest to task over air pollution  Salon   ...The governors of eight Northeastern states petitioned the EPA to crack down on coal burning in the Midwest...
Detroit Bankruptcy Bankrupts Democracy  The Nation   ...The voters of Michigan sent a clear signal last fall. They rejected emergency-manager authoritarianism. Unfortunately, a federal bankruptcy judge has sided with a governor who could not win an election in Detroit and an approach that Detroit voters rejected...
Bad deals with Wall Street are costing the city as much as $1 billion a year: report  New York Daily News   ..."New York City could be saving $1 billion annually just by changing the way it does business with Wall Street," one of the report's authors, Connie Razza, director of strategic research initiatives at the Center for Popular Democracy, told the Daily News...

Today's Teamster News 12.09.13

Hampton O'Hare Housekeepers Ratify Contract with Annual Raises  Teamsters Local 727   ...Teamsters Local 727 representatives secured significant annual wage increases for the 18-member bargaining unit...
Teansters at Darigold Overwhelmingly Approve New Contract  Teamsters Local 117   ...Teamster production workers and lab technicians, employed by Darigold, have overwhelmingly ratified a new labor agreement that provides wage increases, health care protections, and retirement security for 220 workers and their families...
My week as one of Amazon's HUMAN drones: Revealed, what it's REALLY like to work in online warehouse and Santa's grotto it ain't  Daily Mail   ...Shops employ 47 people for every $10 million (£6 million) in sales, according to research done by a company called ILSR. Amazon employs only 14 people per $10 million of revenue.
Listen Up, Budget Cutters. Austerity Can Lead to Blood on the Streets, Even in America  Alternet   ... economic shocks alone are not enough to cause people to flip out. It’s the way governments respond to them that sets the stage for blood in the streets...
Report: Most people in poverty have jobs  Salon   ...A new report in the U.K. decimates the tired right-wing myth that poor people are in poverty because they don’t work...
California business group uses “job killer” list to help Wal-Mart  Salon   ...Bills deemed hurtful to businesses have a tendency to go nowhere in the state Legislature...
Unemployment IS Down: When Good News Really Isn’t  truthdig   ...for every person who found a job between September and November, three other people stopped looking...
Obama Trade Deal Faces Backlash Over New Corporate Political Powers  Huffington Post   ...The Obama administration appears to have almost no international support for controversial new trade standards that would grant radical new political powers to corporations, increase the cost of prescription medications and restrict bank regulation, according to two internal memos obtained by The Huffington Post...
Don’t Believe the Spin from ALEC  Center for Media and Democracy   ...This year, ALEC began stamping the materials it gives to legislators with a “disclaimer” asserting that the documents are not subject to any state’s open records/freedom of information laws, despite the laws in many states that have long required lawmakers to disclose communications from outside groups and constituents...
Don’t Be Evil? Google Funding a Slew of Right-Wing Groups  Bill Moyers   ...Google, the tech giant supposedly guided by its “don’t be evil” motto, has been funding a growing list of groups advancing the agenda of the Koch brothers...
NSA spying hurts business of large U.S. hardware makers  USA Today   ...in China … IBM, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and, most notably, Cisco Systems have reported substantial drops in sales since the NSA surveillance program came to light...
Hell on Wings - Cellphones Don't Belong on Planes (opinion)  truthout   ...Cardiologist Sarah Speck, who runs the heart program at Seattle's Swedish Hospital, tells me that "we need our downtime." She says the stress of workplace demands, exacerbated by constant connectivity, is "the new tobacco" in American society, leading to earlier onset of heart disease, which she is now seeing in patients in their 40s...
Busted and Bankrupt Detroit Can Now Wipe Out Worker Pensions  Economic Populist   ...While the damage has been building by ineffective, hoodwinked and even obviously corrupt city officials, the deal which broke Detroit's financial back was with, you guessed it, the banks.  Specifically interest rate swaps along with derivative based loans is what did the city in and guess who originated these loans?  Bank of America, UBS and Merrill Lynch...