Monday, December 2, 2013

Today's Teamster News 12.02.13

 Commuter train derailment kills 4 in NYC  USA Today   ...A commuter train heading into the city derailed in the Bronx on Sunday, killing four people and injuring more than 60 as rail cars tumbled to within inches of the Hudson and Harlem rivers...
Amazon Reveals It Wants To Deploy Delivery Drones. No Joke.  Huffington Post   ...Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos revealed the giant online store is developing a drone-based delivery service called Prime Air. According to Bezos, Prime Air would be able to get customers their products only a half-hour after they click the "buy" button. His "optimistic" estimate to "60 Minutes" was that Prime Air will be available to customers within 4 to 5 years...
Hardships pile up as Ikea-vs.-Teamsters dispute drags on at Richmond store  The Province   ...For the union, the main issue in the dispute initially was a two-tier wage system for long-term and newer employees demanded by the company in its first offer. In its second, mediated offer, Ikea revised the two-tier system by offering lump-sum payments and a complex system of percentage pay hikes based on what the union calls unrealistic sales targets...
Wage Strikes Planned at Fast-Food Outlets  New York Times   ...Seeking to increase pressure on McDonald’s, Wendy’s and other fast-food restaurants, organizers of a movement demanding a $15-an-hour wage for fast-food workers say they will sponsor one-day strikes in 100 cities on Thursday and protest activities in 100 additional cities...
How Walmart Shortchanges Employees Who Work Thanksgiving  ThinkProgress   ...the company calculates holiday pay differently from other retailers and manipulates staff schedules so they’re paid less on Thanksgiving than the retailer implies...
Black Friday Weekend Spending Drop Pressures U.S. Stores  Bloomberg   ...The first spending decline on a Black Friday weekend since 2009 reinforced projections for a lackluster holiday, increasing chances retailers will extend the deep discounts already hurting their profit margins...
Germany, Austerity’s Champion, Faces Some Big Repair Bills  New York Times   ... Its infrastructure — roads, bridges, train tracks, waterways and the like — is aging in a way that experts say could undermine its economic growth for years to come. As it has been preaching austerity to its neighbors, Germany itself has kept a tight rein on spending at home...
Peter Buffett: Big Philanthropy and Philanthro-Feudalism  truthout   ..."Poverty, hunger, the environment, education, health - all those things are symptoms of a larger problem of nobody really wanting to get in there and blow some things up," Buffett says...