Tuesday, December 10, 2013

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...