Friday, March 28, 2014

Today's Teamster News 03.28.14

Teamster News
Council Votes To Encourage End To CCTA Strike  WPTZ   ...The Burlington City Council has voted to encourage management with the Chittenden County Transportation Authority and the bus drivers' union, represented by the Teamsters, to end the nearly two-week strike as soon as possible...
Victory at Pasco County, Florida for Teamsters Local 79  teamster.org   ...More than 1,100 Pasco County, Florida public employees will soon be voting on a first Teamster contract now that Local 79, Tampa and the county have agreed on a tentative contract. According to the local union, such issues as seniority, break time, overtime pay, holidays, uniforms and more are addressed in the contract...
Teamsters: The Deadline To Apply For A James R. Hoffa Scholarship Is March 31  teamster.org   ...The Fund will award $800,000 in scholarships this year to children and financially dependent grandchildren of Teamster members...
A Brief Glimpse of Human Rights Advances In The Teamsters  teamster.org   ...Women and minorities have always been active in the labor movement. Much of the crit­ical legislation that has been passed over the years started as grassroots movements from within one or more of these groups, even though they frequently did not receive credit or recognition for their efforts. View the full post, here...
March Madness: Brought to You by the Teamsters  Counterpunch   ...This (NLRB) ruling (which applies only to private colleges and universities, and not public institutions) ... gives college basketball players the right to unionize as well.  Just think about that.  March Madness, brought to you by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters!  Is this a great country, or what?...
Trade
U.S. Steelmakers Accuse South Korea Of Dumping  Independent Business Journal   ...U.S. Steel Corp., the largest U.S. producer of the metal by volume, said South Korea is dumping steel pipes and tubes in the U.S...
NAFTA at 20  AFL-CIO   ...NAFTA pushed small Mexican farmers off their lands, increasing the flow of desperate undocumented migrants...
State Battles
Still No Wage Agreement In Annapolis  Baltimore Sun ...The standoff in Annapolis over raising the minimum wage intensified Tuesday...
Missouri Union Members Rally Against Right To Work
  Associated Press   ...About a thousand Missouri union members rallied at the state Capitol to combat legislation that would prohibit labor contracts from requiring that all employees pay union fees...
Minnesota Unions Come To Dakotas' Aid
  Twin Cities Daily Planet   ...With more than 20,000 job openings and the nation's lowest unemployment rate, North Dakota is desperately seeking skilled workers to build infrastructure that keeps pace with its oil boom. Despite the conservative state's laws unfriendly to organized labor, six Minnesota-based trade unions are stepping up to help...
Mississippi Senate Gives Final Approval To 3 Anti-Union Bills
  Associated Press   ...Bills that aim to restrict union organizing and picketing practices in Mississippi, as well as limit governments' abilities to pressure employers to use unionized workers, are on their way to Gov. Phil Bryant...
Hidden Cameras Catch Lobbyists, AZ Lawmakers Wining And Dining  CBS 5 News   ...CBS 5 Investigates rolled hidden cameras during a membership drive for one of the country's most secretive and controversial organizations. Lobbyists and state lawmakers mingled over steaks and drinks in a private room at the Valley's exclusive Donovan's Steakhouse, an event put on by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)...
Wisconsin GOP Heads Off Criminal Probe Into Corporate Election Spending By Trying To Make It Legal  ThinkProgress   ...Wisconsin’s State Senate Majority Leader, who is reportedly under investigation for his role in a possibly illegal campaign finance scheme, has come up with a novel way to shut down the criminal probe: changing the state law to legalize the activity in question...
War on Workers
The 67 People As Wealthy As The World's Poorest 3.5 Billion  Forbes   ...Each of the 67 is on average worth the same as 52 million people from the bottom of the world’s wealth  pyramid...
Northwestern Football Players Win First Round In Union Battle  Huffington Post ...Football players at Northwestern University have cleared the first major hurdle in their closely watched unionization effort, with an official of the National Labor Relations Board determining that the players are employees and thus eligible to vote in a union election...
GOP States Are The Most Dependent On Government  Huffington Post ...If we learned nothing else during the 2012 election, it is that some of us are makers, hard-working folk solely responsible for America's prosperity, and others are takers, who want the federal government to pay for luxuries like food and health care...
Feds Tally Rollovers Of Payday Loans  The Columbus Dispatch ...About half of all payday loans are made to people who extend the loans so many times that they end up paying more in fees than the original amount they borrowed, a report by a federal watchdog has found...
Walmart Admits Profits Depend Heavily On Corporate Welfare
  ZeroHedge   ...It appears that Walmart has admitted the potentially severe adverse impact a reduction in food stamp payments could have on its bottom line...
Hundreds of Students & Faculty Occupy College Campus to Fight Cuts to Public Higher Ed  Real News   ...hundreds of students, faculty, and supporters rallied at University of Southern Maine against the announced layoffs of 20 full-time faculty members...
Miscellaneous
Labor unions saved Ford in our 'darkest' hour: Bill Ford  CNBC   ...the UAW helped the entire industry "get back on its feet..."
US Seniors Shafted By Inflation That Is 170 Percent In Excess Of Savings' Interest  Truthout   ...Lost in the coverage of America's tale of two economies (the 1% who have received 95 percent of the financial gains since they busted the economy in 2008 -- and the rest of us), is that seniors are especially hard hit by the disparity between so-called savings account interest and inflation...
A Government Computer Glitch Forced Thousands Of Families To Go Hungry  Huffington Post   ...Thousands in North Carolina had enough to worry about before a computer glitch began to fray the basic part of the social safety net..
Caterpillar To Cooperate With Tax Investigation
  GateHouse Media Illinois   ...Caterpillar Inc. plans to cooperate with a U.S. Senate investigative panel looking into whether the company may have improperly avoided U.S. taxes by moving profits outside the country...
A Massive Chemical Plant Is Poised To Wipe This Louisiana Town Off The Map
  Mother Jones   ...SASOL's proposed facility may spell the end for a 224-year-old community founded by freed slaves...