Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Today's Teamster News 03.11.14

Teamster News
Teamster bus strike off for now as drivers must vote on new CCTA offer  Burlington Free Press   ...The proposed Monday strike by members of Teamsters Local 597 has been averted — at least temporarily — while the bus drivers consider the latest offer from management...
Teamsters Union starts negotiations with Cedar Falls schools  Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier   ...Teamsters Local 238, which represents 45 Cedar Falls (Iowa) school district custodial and maintenance staff members, has begun negotiations with the school district...
Driving Horses Remains Passion for Teamster School Bus Worker  teamstersjc25.com   ...Local 777's 'Real Teamster' moonlights with high-end carriage company...
Trade
Lives at stake in TPP trade deal  Asia Times   ...If you or some family members or friends suffer from cancer, hepatitis, AIDS, asthma or other serious ailments, it's worth your while to follow the negotiations on the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement and other similar bilateral trade agreements. It's really a matter of life and death. For the TPPA can cut off the potential supply of cheaper generic medicines that can save lives...
State Battles
Missouri Democrats Solidly Against 'Right To Work,' Less So Regarding 'Right To Farm'  St. Louis Public Radio   ...The banners, the stickers and the rhetoric at this weekend’s Democrat Days made one thing clear: When it comes to “right to work,’’ Missouri Democratic activists and politicians are solidly against it...
WI GOP Marches in Lockstep with ALEC Agenda, Voting Records Show  Center for Media and Democracy   ...Sixty-one legislators, all Republicans, voted with the ALEC agenda 100 percent of the time, according to Stampen's analysis. This amounts to 46 percent of Wisconsin's 132 lawmakers...
Vermont Votes for Public Banking  The Nation   ...The bill would create a “10 Percent for Vermont” program that would “deposit 10 percent of Vermont’s unrestricted revenues in the VEDA bank and allow VEDA to leverage this money, in the same way that private banks do now, to fund…unfunded capital needs”...
Oregon labor supporters savor win as governor drops Right to Work ballot initiative Beverly Hills Courier   ...Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber has struck a blow to the controversial Right to Work movement by reaching a deal that drops an upcoming ballot initiative...
Union calls on Illinois to pay back wages
  The Southern Illinoisan ...AFSCME is calling on Illinois lawmakers to make room in next year’s budget for back pay owed to more than 24,000 state employees who didn’t receive pay wage increases due them from July 2011 to July 2013 because no money was appropriated...
SC wants to require food stamp recipients to work or be looking  WCBD TV 2   ...South Carolina will ask for permission from the federal government to require food stamp recipients to work or be looking for work. The state is scrapping a proposal to ban food stamps from being used to buy junk food...
Volkswagen sides with UAW on appeal  Times Free Press   ...The United Auto Workers and Volkswagen Group of America have filed their opposition to two groups supporting some Chattanooga VW workers who want to intervene in the union's appeal for a new election at the plant...
War on Workers
A Modern Day ‘Harvest of Shame’  Pro Publica   ...temp work has grown nine times faster than private-sector employment as a whole. Overall, nearly one-sixth of the total job growth since the recession ended has been in the temp sector...
U.S. network to scan workers with secret clearances  Associated Press   ...U.S. intelligence officials are planning a sweeping system of electronic monitoring that would tap into government,  financial and other databases to scan the behavior of many of the 5 million federal employees with secret clearances, current and former officials told The Associated Press...
Chicagoans Want the Koch Brothers to Stop Polluting The City  VICE News   ...“The piles of petcoke that have been growing along the Calumet River are getting wafted into our homes and onto our children,” nearby resident Olga Bautista told VICE News when we visited the area...
Wal-Mart’s newest big lie: Another misleading ad campaign from a job-killing behemoth  Salon   ...The majority shareholders of the company are members of the Walton family who inherited the stock and have a combined wealth of nearly $145 billion – more than the combined wealth of 42 percent of American families...
MORGAN STANLEY: The Economy's Slow Growth Is Now Permanent  Business Insider   ...drops in productivity and Labor Force Participation mean a new, slower growth track than what we're used to...
McDonald's Worker Claims Manager Told Her to "Put a Bullet" in Her Head  5 NBC Chicago   ...Workers rallied at Chicago’s Rock N’ Roll McDonald’s Saturday afternoon to "call to an end to verbal abuse in McDonald's"...
California Farmworkers Often Forced To Live in Squalor, Says Report  In These Times   ...For California’s farmworkers, toiling all day in the brutal, sun-scorched fields is hard enough; the homes they return to each night are often in even worse conditions...
1,500 Bangladesh factories to be inspected
  Associated Press   ...About 1,500 factories in Bangladesh are on track to be inspected by the end of August as part of a safety pact signed by more than 150 clothing brands and 20 countries, according to organizers of the pact...
Miscellaneous
No consensus on how to notify data breach victims
  Associated Press   ...The data breach at Target Corp. that exposed millions of credit card numbers has focused attention on the patchwork of state consumer notification laws and renewed a push for a single national standard...
US Plans to Speed Poultry Slaughtering, Cut Inspections
  Inter Press Service   ...The U.S. government is in the final stages of weighing approval for an overhaul of regulations governing the country’s poultry industry that would see processing speeds increase substantially even while responsibility for oversight would be largely given over to plant employees...
CPAC Presidential Straw Poll Picks Guy Who Thinks Whites-Only Lunch Counters Should Be Legal  Think Progress   ...With 31 percent of the vote, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) won the closely watched Conservative Political Action Conference presidential straw poll this weekend, dwarfing second place finisher Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) 11 percent of the vote...