Sunday, March 16, 2014

Today's Teamster News 03.16.14

Teamster News
Food contracts cycle underway again for Southern Calif. Teamsters, UFCW  People's World   ...A historic core industry of the two major unions in Southern California, retail food, has begun its every-five-years-or-so cycle of bare-knuckle contract negotiations. First up, and going on right now, is the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) negotiations. Next, in September 2015, the Teamsters' own food employers agreement for drivers and warehouse workers expires...
Trade
U.S.-Korea Trade Deal Resulted in Growing Trade Deficits and Nearly 60,000 Lost Jobs  Economic Policy Institute   ...Overall, the U.S. trade deficit with Korea has increased $8.7 billion, or 59.6%, costing nearly 60,000 U.S. jobs. Most of the nearly 60,000 jobs lost were in manufacturing...
Foreign textile firms invest in Vietnam to take advantage of TPP  Thanh Nien  ...Many large foreign firms have entered Vietnam's garment and textile sector with an eye on export opportunities the Trans-Pacific Partnership is expected to bring...
How Big Pharma (and others) began lobbying on the Trans-Pacific Partnership before you ever heard of it  Sunlight Foundation   ...In 2009, four years before the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was a widely-debated trade deal, few would have noticed a new issue popping up in a handful of lobbying reports. That year, 28 organizations filed 59 lobbying reports mentioning the then far-off trade agreement. Almost half of those organizations were pharmaceutical companies or associations...
The War on Workers
Nasa-funded study: industrial civilisation headed for 'irreversible collapse'?  The Guardian   ...A new study sponsored by Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center has highlighted the prospect that global industrial civilisation could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution...
The “Paid-What-You’re-Worth” Myth  Robert Reich   ...Fifty years ago, when General Motors was the largest employer in America, the typical GM worker got paid $35 an hour in today’s dollars. Today, America’s largest employer is Walmart, and the typical Walmart workers earns $8.80 an hour...
National Coalition To Broadcast Networks: Viewers "Deserve To Know What's At Stake" If Minimum Wage Stays Low   Media Matters   ...A recently released Media Matters report found that over the past year, evening news programs on ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS have been largely silent about the burden that low minimum wages place on the financial security of public safety net programs...
Harry Reid says Kochs blocking Ukraine aid  Politico   ...Democratic leaders alleged on Thursday that GOP House and Senate leaders want to trade a delay in IRS rules changes affecting the political activities of nonprofits for passage of a broad Ukraine aid package including controversial International Monetary Fund reforms. Those IRS rules could affect the Koch-backed Super PAC Americans for Prosperity, which is running millions of dollars of attack ads against incumbent Democratic senators...
Miscellaneous
5 Compelling Reasons Never to Retire  Daily Finance   ...retirees were 51 percent more likely to die than those of their same age who continued to work...