Saturday, August 3, 2013

Today's Teamster News 08.03.13

Teamsters, other unions strike deal with Pennsylvania Convention Center  Daily News   ...Trade union members who went on strike early yesterday morning at the Pennsylvania Convention Center over proposed changes to work rules reached an agreement with the center's officials last night that put them back on the job...
Support for Teamsters Local 542 Strikers Grows as Families Joint Picket Line  CBS/El Centro, CA   ... Despite the 106 degree heat, 60 paramedics and EMTs in Imperial County continue to walk the picket line 24/7 as they fight for a pay raise and better health benefits...
Members of Congress Join Mayor Emanuel, Gov. Quinn to Support Striking Teamster Funeral Directors  IBT   ...Three members of Congress have joined Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and more than a dozen state legislators in support of striking Teamster-represented funeral directors...
BLET, SMART Advance Rail Crew Size Legislation  BLET   ...The Transportation Division of the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation International Association (SMART) and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET/IBT) have jointly announced that legislation requiring at least two crew members on all freight trains in the U.S. has been filed in Congress...
Paratransit to hire new personnel to replace striking Teamsters  Lake County Record-Bee   ...Paratransit Services personnel confirmed that they are hiring new permanent employees to replace workers who are currently on strike. About 25 Paratransit Services employees and Teamsters began the strike on Monday and has forced Lake Transit to reduce its services...
Study: Record Number 21 Million Young Adults Living With Parents  CBSDC   ...A new study from Pew Research finds that 36 percent of Millennials – young adults ages 18 to 31 – are living at their parents’ homes, the highest number in four decades. A record 21.6 million young adults were still living at home last year...
Flawed FBI Records Threaten Work Opportunities For Hundreds of Thousands of Job Seekers  National Employment Law Project   ...—A record 16.9 million FBI criminal background checks were run for employment or licensing purposes in 2012, a six-fold increase since 9/11. But serious flaws in the FBI records are jeopardizing work opportunities for hundreds of thousands of job seekers every year...
Swaps Probe Finds Banks Rigged Rate at Expense of Retirees  Bloomberg   ...U.S. investigators uncovered evidence that banks reaped millions of dollars in trading profits at the expense of companies and pension funds by manipulating a benchmark for interest-rate derivatives...
Banks Replacing Enron in Energy Incite Congress as Abuses Abound  Bloomberg   ...The U.S. government permitted Wall Street firms to expand in the energy industry a decade ago, when the collapse of Enron Corp. and its army of traders left a void in the market. The results aren’t pretty...
The Rule of Law in the Financial System (opinion)  Credit Slips   ...we cannot and will not see sufficient and durable financial regulatory reform without political reform...
Michigan Leads Nation in Massive Corporate Tax Breaks (The Untold Story of Detroit's Decline)  The Real News   ...Michigan leads the country with 29 mega corporate tax breaks, costing the state more than $7 billion and accounting for 12 percent of the megadeals nationwide...
Detroit automakers have right to object to Japan's currency manipulation (opinion)  Detroit Free Press   ...Last week, on the same day Japan finally jostled its way into the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade talks with the U.S. and 10 other nations, petitions signed by more than 80,000 autoworkers were sent to U.S. Congress members, urging that Japan be forced to stop rigging its currency to subsidize exports and keep out imports...
New labor movement emerges in Scott Walker’s Wisconsin  Salon   ...The legal protections that Walker took away were the fruits of decades of rank-and-file organizing, community partnership and direct action. What started in Wisconsin — which became the first state to recognize public sector unions in 1959 — is, after 2011, starting again...
What We Don’t Know about Foreclosure Practices May Still Hurt Us   The Gilmer Mirror   ...We already know that federal regulators have undermined accountability for the abuses by mortgage servicing companies. In another disturbing development, the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) are refusing to turn over information to members of Congress that could help them prevent such abuses from happening again...
IMF pressures Spain to weaken labor laws  CBS News   ...Currently, 26.3 percent of the nation's workforce is unemployed, down from an all-time high of 27.2 in the first quarter of 2013.The IMF called on Madrid to give more flexibility to employers when it comes to hiring and firing by reducing the legal requirements for temporary and permanent workers...
Greece: Anti-austerity protesters take campaign to Acropolis site in Athens  Associated Press   ...Greek civil servants protesting mass staff cuts took their campaign to the gates of the ancient Acropolis on Friday, after the government announced that 500 workers at the culture ministry would be suspended next month...
DOT Proposes to Cut ‘Burdensome’ Trucking Paperwork  Journal of Commerce   ...U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx has announced a proposal to eliminate a “burdensome” daily paperwork requirement for professional truck drivers, in order to reduce costs to the industry by an estimated $1.7 billion...
Is Oregon's mileage tax the future for the rest of us?  San Gabriel Valley Tribune   ...Two years from now, thousands of Oregon drivers could get a taste of what the future may hold for the rest of us: They will pay taxes not on the amount of gasoline their cars burn, but on the number of miles they drive...
Study: Wal-Mart Could Cost Taxpayers Millions Per Year in Employee Subsidies  CBS D.C.   ...While the fate of six Wal-Mart stores planned for D.C. remains unclear, a 2013 study says the company could cost taxpayers millions of dollars per year because of publicly funded benefit programs many of its 1.3 million U.S. employees are eligible for...
Michigan tells South Dakota Internet lender of cease-and-desist move over high interest rates  Associated Press   ...Michigan regulators say that Western Sky Financial charges interest rates of more than 340 percent. Michigan’s Department of Insurance and Financial Services said that it has given notice of its intention to issue a cease-and-desist order to the company that also charges loan fees of as much as 70 percent of the loan amount, 14 times the legal limit...
North Carolina’s Moral Mondays Keep Up Morale for the Long Haul  In These Times   ...On July 29, North Carolinians kicked off Raleigh’s last "Moral Monday" protest of 2013 before going on tour to organize other regions of the state. Despite reports that the movement had ended, organizers stressed the fight was far from over...
7-Eleven Sued for Representing Itself as Franchisor  Blue MauMau   ...Amid the other negative press, including litigation against franchisee and human trafficking, a lawsuit filed in the New Jersey federal court on Wednesday against 7-Eleven, Inc. and its Japanese entities accuses the franchisor of fraudulent business practices and abuses, related to misclassifying employees as independent contractors...
Motorola's New Smartphone: Made in the U.S.A., but Not for Much Pay  The Atlantic   ...Factory workers assembling the Moto X will make as little as $9-an-hour, if the help wanted ads are to be believed...
California to get America's fastest high-speed rail line  Gizmag   ...When people grumble about how they think the US isn’t as technologically advanced as it should be, they like to bring up bullet trains – Europe and Asia have them, so why doesn’t America? Well, it’s getting one...
Pennsylvania Will Extend Voter-ID Ban Through Next Election  Bloomberg News   ...Pennsylvania agreed to let a court order barring enforcement of the state’s voter-identification law continue through the November elections...
Illinois legislative leaders sue governor over pay veto  Reuters   ...The leaders of the Illinois House of Representatives and Senate filed a lawsuit challenging Governor Pat Quinn's veto of lawmakers' pay during a legislative impasse over pension reform...