Thursday, December 5, 2013

Today's Teamster News 12.05.13

Teamsters, firefighters drop proposals to help Leamington  Windsor Star   ...Unionized employees with the Town of Leamington have overwhelmingly ratified new collective agreements after withdrawing virtually all of their proposals in the wake of last month’s announcement that the town’s Heinz plant would close next summer...
Allegheny court employees union files unfair labor practice lawsuit  Pittsburgh Tribune-Review   ...Teamsters Local 249, which represents more than 550 court employees, filed an unfair labor practice charge on Tuesday alleging Allegheny County withheld annual payments that act as Christmas bonuses to some of the county's lowest paid workers...
Conservative group ALEC pushes stealth tax on homeowners who install solar panels  The Guardian   ...An alliance of corporations and conservative activists is mobilising to penalise homeowners who install their own solar panels – casting them as “freeriders” – in a sweeping new offensive against renewable energy, the Guardian has learned...
It’s not just fast-food workers who are underpaid  Reuters   ...While conventional fast-food companies like McDonald’s are receiving the bulk of public opprobrium for paying their workers a less-than-living wage, the reality is that what are perceived as more upscale businesses are not doing much better by many of their employees...
Austerity is Americanizing European labor markets  Salon   ...Workers throughout Europe are losing their rights as their nations race to reduce the costs of labor...
Thousands of children unvaccinated, aid organisation warns  EnetEnglish   ...Thousands of children in Greece have been left unvaccinated because they and their parents have no health insurance, the Greek section of an international humanitarian aid organisation has said....
Austerity has eroded human rights, Council of Europe study says  Enet English   ..."Many governments in Europe imposing austerity measures have forgotten about their human rights obligations, especially the social and economic rights of the most vulnerable, the need to ensure access to justice, and the right to equal treatment," said the Council of Europe's human rights commissioner, at the launch of the research paper, entitled Safeguarding human rights in times of economic crisis...
Right-to-work battle brewing  Canadian  HR Reporter   ...The right-to-work movement that started south of the border is trying to march north. Whether it successfully clears customs and establishes a foothold could hinge, in large part, on the outcome of the next Ontario election…
12 Corporate Espionage Tactics Used Against Leading Progressive Groups, Activists and Whistleblowers  AlterNet   ...Corporate spies for Dow, Kraft and others have tried to discredit, shame and infiltrate civic groups using an array of dirty tricks...
Tax breaks for CEOs pay for million-dollar salaries  The Guardian   ...CEOs' salaries are ballooning thanks to tax breaks that turn bonuses into government subsidies for corporate America...
Wal-Mart pays legal fees in bribery probe  Reuters   ...Wal-Mart Stores is paying for lawyers to represent more than 30 of its executives involved in a foreign corruption investigation, according to people familiar with the matter...
NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show  Washington Post   ...The National Security Agency is gathering nearly 5 billion records a day on the whereabouts of cellphones around the world, according to top-secret documents and interviews with U.S. intelligence officials, enabling the agency to track the movements of individuals — and map their relationships — in ways that would have been previously unimaginable...
2 Million Stolen Facebook, Yahoo And Google Passwords Posted Online  Huffington Post   ...More than 2 million passwords for sites including Facebook, Yahoo, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google have been stolen and posted online, BCC reports...
Whistle-blower tries to shed light on private-equity transaction fees  Crain's New York Business   ...In the past 10 years, private-equity firms have collected $2 billion in transaction fees, which essentially are bonuses the firms take for conducting their business of buying, managing and selling companies...
Exclusive: Corporate cronyism under fire, faces existential threat  Salon   ...In Indiana, a private toll road operator refused to let state troopers shut down a toll road due to a snowstorm. In Florida, the Palm Beach Post found that three out of six private prisons saved taxpayers no money. In Chicago, a 75-year contract signed in 2009 restricts the government from adding bicycle lanes or sidewalk space because of the potential impact on private parking meter profits...
Truck with radioactive load stolen
  Associated Press   ...A cargo truck hauling used medical equipment with extremely dangerous radioactive material was stolen from a gas station in central Mexico, and authorities have put out an alert in six central states and the capital to find it...