Thursday, September 12, 2013

Today's Teamster News 09.12.13

Teamsters at Sunsweet Overwhelmingly Ratify Contract  teamster.org   ...Teamsters who work at the world’s largest dried fruit processing plant are now at work, under a strong contract that resulted from their solidarity...
Teamsters General President: Is Michigan Next In Expressing Outrage Over Trade?   Teamster.org   ...Michigan in the last month has seen its fair share of low-wage workers walk off the job to protest pay and working conditions. But those demonstrations pale in comparison to what is going on a continent away in Colombia. And U.S. policymakers should take notice...
Township Council Talks Teamster Contract  Brick Patch   ...The Township Council of Brick, New Jersey, has introduced an ordinance related to Teamsters Local 469 salaries, after months of negotiations...
Rick Smith Show: NJ Governor Turns Back On Workers  Rick Smith Show   ...Labor radio host Rick Smith interviews Fred Potter, International Vice President and Director of the Teamsters Port Division, about New Jersey Governor Christie’s veto of pro-worker legislation...
Commercial Drivers: Pipeline CSA Training To Be Held In Atlanta, Sept. 29  teamster.org   ...The Teamsters National Pipeline Training Fund in collaboration with Teamsters Local 528 and 728 will sponsor a Compliance, Safety and Accountability training program on September 29 for all commercial drivers...
Detroit trash-hauling gets 10 bidders; city to review proposals  Detroit Free Press   ...Detroit city officials will begin reviewing proposals this week to privatize trash collection, an initiative emergency manager Kevyn Orr says will save about $15 million annually and improve services to residents...
Gleason to Lead Legal Team at Teamsters Local 1224  Teamsters Local 1224    …The Airline Professionals Association (APA), Teamsters Local 1224 announced the addition of a new member to lead its legal team at Teamsters Local 1224. Edward Gleason joins Teamsters Local 1224 as Chief Counsel...
Pay Gap Between 1 Percent And Everybody Else Reaches Widest Point Since 1920s  Associated Press   ...The gulf between the richest 1 percent and the rest of America is the widest it's been since the Roaring '20s...
Government Policy Gave Us Inequality, not the Market  Center for Economic and Policy Research   ... we have a totally corrupt system of corporate governance in which CEOs select and pay off directors to look the other way as they pilfer the company by taking outlandish pay packages. Governments write the rules of corporate governance, not markets...
How the 1 percent won the recovery, in one table  Washington Post   ...While only 49 percent of the decline in incomes during the recession was born by the top 1 percent (whose income share fell to 18.1 percent due to the recession), 95 percent of income gains since the recovery started have gone to them...
Exclusive: The Koch brothers' secret bank  Politico   ...It raised $256 million in the year after its creation in November 2011, the document shows. And it made grants of $236 million — meaning a totally unknown group was the largest sugar daddy for conservative groups in the last election, second in total spending only to Karl Rove’s American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, which together spent about $300 million...
Polish unionists march to demand labor security  Associated Press   ...Thousands of Polish labor union members marched through Warsaw in the rain Wednesday, sounding sirens, throwing smoke grenades and blowing whistles in a protest against government labor policy and pension system reform and to demand higher pay...
How Cigarette Companies Use Free Trade Deals To Sell To Women And Kids  Quartz   ...Global trade negotiations in Washington this week will determine how cigarette companies will be able to market their products in developing nations—and potentially, overturn smoking restrictions around the world...
Walmart’s sales are down: What does that say about the economy?  Salon   ...For the first time in quite a long time, things may not be looking too great for our favorite mega retailer, Walmart. NBC News reports that Walmart has experienced a decrease in sales as well as a “cautious outlook for the rest of the year.” Wal-Mart blamed this drop on essentially everything under the sun except people not wanting to shop at their stores...
Sallie Mae Becomes 50th Corporation To Dump ALEC  Think Progress   ...After months of protests by student groups, SLM Corporation (the student loan company commonly known as Sallie Mae) acknowledged Saturday that it has dropped its membership in the conservative, corporate-backed American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)...
Deval Patrick backtracks on tech tax  Boston Globe   ...Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick abruptly changed course Tuesday and said he no longer supports a controversial new tax on computer software services that has triggered a fierce backlash from the state’s technology community and spawned numerous attempts to repeal it...
Biz Journal Ranks Govs by Job Growth in Office: Walker 40th / Would Have 51K More Jobs if WI Kept Pace with US Average  Uppity Wisconsin   ...every Democratic governor in the country ranks ahead of Walker in job growth...
WI Senate Fast-Tracks Bill to Close Forest to Benefit Out-of-State  Mining Firm  Center for Media and Democracy   ...A controversial out-of-state mining company is closer to gaining control over a 3,600-acre swath of publicly available forest near where it is planning a massive open-pit iron ore mine in Northern Wisconsin...