Teamsters
Teamsters: Port Truck Drivers At Pacer Cartage, Harbor Rail Transport Return To Work teamster.org ...On Friday, port truck drivers from the Pacer Cartage and Harbor Rail Transport in Long Beach, Calif., who had struck to protest wage theft caused by their misclassificaton as "independent contractors", took down their picket lines and made an unconditional offer to return to work after both companies pledged to continue talks...
Trade
Trading Up? Politico ...A separate Pew Research poll found that similar shares of both Republicans and Democrats are more or less in agreement that trade destroys jobs (54 percent in the GOP say so, and 50 percent of Democrats) and lowers wages (44 percent in the GOP and 49 percent of Democrats). Moreover, one of the TPP’s main goals is to spur foreign investment. On that score, Republicans are more wary than Democrats: 75 percent in the GOP think foreign companies buying U.S. companies is bad for the country, compared with 66 percent of Democrats...
Mládek: TTIP could become US election football Prague Post ...The talks on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), an extensive agreement between the European Union and the United States, should be completed by the end of next year, Czech Industry and Trade Minister Jan Mládek said. Then the complicated talks might fall victim to the campaign ahead of the presidential election in the United States...
State Battles
A Dozen Greedy, Inhumane and Cruel Policies That Top Corporate Lobbyists Will Push In 2015 Center for Media and Democracy ...ALEC seeks to kill minimum wage increases, ban union organizing, deprive poor people of Medicaid-delivered health care, block shareholder advocacy, stop e-cigarette regulations, sabotage new rules for ride-share companies, lower medical training standards for dental assistants, and more, according to a legislative blueprint that will be discussed at an upcoming States & Nation Policy Summit in Washington, DC....
War on Workers
Amazing Black Friday Deals, Brought to You by the American Taxpayer Economic Policy Institute ...Nearly one in three retail workers or their families (31.5 percent) receives support from at least one means-tested public assistance program—such as food stamps (SNAP), the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), or Medicaid4—compared with less than one in four (22.2 percent) workers or their families in all other industries. Public assistance to families of workers in retail can be conservatively estimated to top $13.4 billion each year...
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Wal-Mart workers plan Black Friday protests for higher pay Los Angeles Times ...Organizers say rallies and marches will occur at 1,600 Wal-Mart locations on the day after Thanksgiving in what they say will be the largest protests ever against the nation's biggest retailer...
Malled: The Hollowing Out of an American Institution. 'We Surrender' Bloomberg ...Steeplegate is one of about 300 U.S. malls facing a choice between re-invention and oblivion. Most are middle-market shopping centers being squeezed between big-box chains catering to low-income Americans and luxury malls lavishing white-glove service on One Percenters...
Yes, bankers lie more than the rest of us. Wall Street reforms aren’t likely to change that culture. Washington Post ... the group who were primed to think of themselves as bankers tended to lie significantly more — they misrepresented their results about 16 percent of the time and more than a quarter of the “bankers” group cheated...
Teeth and Bones: Mass Abduction Reveals a Decaying Mexican State der Spiegel ...More than 100,000 people have been killed in the ongoing drug war since 2006 with upwards of 25,000 more listed as missing. The bloodletting, the mass graves, the beheadings and the arrests of drug bosses have become so normal that they hardly manage to make it onto the front pages anymore...
