Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Today's Teamster News 11.04.14

Teamster News
Sysco Drivers In Missouri Vote To Join Teamsters Local 41  teamster.org   ...Sysco drivers voted to join Teamsters Local 41 in Kansas City, Mo. There are 43 drivers in the bargaining unit and the vote count announced today was 25-14...
Hoffa Makes Final GOTV Push At Worksites Around Detroit  teamster.org   ...Teamster General President Jim Hoffa pounded the pavement today across the Detroit metro area, encouraging hundreds of members to exercise their right to vote in tomorrow's election...
Deadly Driving  Fleet Owner   ...What's so hard about coming up with a rational set of training standards for new commercial truck drivers? Apparently the task is so difficult that the Dept. of Transportation has failed to respond to two specific demands from Congress to up the requirements for obtaining a truck driving license for more than 20 years. It has taken so long that the Teamsters and a few safety interest groups have now turned to the courts for a remedy...
Sysco Doesn't See US Foods Deal Closing This Year  Market Watch   ...Sysco Corp. said Monday that it doesn't expect its pending acquisition of US Foods to close before the first quarter of next year...
Trade
Corporations Aren't People And They Aren't Nation States, Either (opinion)  Huffington Post   ...Despite what some politicians say, corporations aren't people. But, even worse, when it comes to the world's biggest trade deals, corporations are actually treated like nation states. Thankfully, a major storm is brewing that could put a crack in this fundamental pillar of the existing free trade regime...
State Battles
SKW = Scott Walker  Crooks & Liars   ...prosecutors have stated that Walker is at the center of another "criminal scheme". This secondary investigation is about the illegal collaboration between Walker's campaign and dark money groups. Walker hasn't denied doing this...
David Perdue: 'Sure, We Closed Plants All The Time'  Daily Kos   ...Said Perdue: “Sure, we closed down plants all the time. I mean, but it was never in direct relationship to things going on offshore.”...
Even Without Voter ID Laws, Minority Voters Face More Hurdles To Casting Ballots  Mother Jones   ...Nationally, African Americans waited about twice as long to vote in the 2012 election as white people (23 minutes on average versus 12 minutes); Hispanics waited 19 minutes. White people who live in neighborhoods whose residents are less than 5 percent minority had the shortest of all wait times, just 7 minutes...
Kansas Tax Cuts Fail Again, As New Revenue Numbers Plague Sam Brownback But Help Paul Davis (opinion)  Kansas City Star   ..the Brownback tax-cut “experiment” is not working and Kansas voters need to oust him at the polls on Tuesday. The tax cuts are bleeding the state of needed funds to pay for high-quality public services to the people of Kansas. If the revenue problems continue, the next governor is going to have to cut services to the people — and certainly halt proposed bigger tax reductions in their tracks...
Holder sends poll watchers to 18 states  The Hill   ...The Department of Justice plans to send federal monitors to 18 states to watch for discrimination against voters. Monitors will head to Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin...
War on Workers
JP Morgan Under Criminal Investigation for Foreign Exchange Trading Abuses   naked capitalism   ...J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. said the Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation of its foreign-exchange-related matters and bumped up a figure measuring the bank’s potential legal costs by $1.3 billion, according to a regulatory filing that the bank released Monday...
The New York Fed Has Contracted JPMorgan to Hold Over $1.7 Trillion of its QE Bonds Despite Two Felony Counts and Serial Charges of Crimes  Wall Street on Parade   ...During the period in which JPMorgan has been the trusted custodian of a major part of the assets of the U.S. central bank, it has been repeatedly charged with serial crimes...
More Protests, Concern Over Growth Of Oil Trains In Washington  NBC News   ...Thursday's meeting was moved to the Red Lion Hotel on Evergreen Park Drive after it became clear that there wouldn't be enough room to hold it at the Department of Ecology offices in Lacey, said Lisa Copeland, the agency's communications manager. A meeting was held in Spokane earlier this week, a city also seeing growing train traffic...
Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to Senate Filibuster Rule  Wall Street Journal   ...The Supreme Court on Monday declined to review whether the Senate’s filibuster rule violates the Constitution, denying without comment an appeal filed by a public interest group and four House Democrats...
Uber Charges Man $539 For 18-Mile Trip  yahoo.com   ...Many Halloween partiers opted to pay a driver instead of risking the cost of a DUI, but a Denver man who used Uber the popular car service paid a much, much higher price than he ever thought possible...
Worker killed in Marshall power line accident  Charleston Gazette   ...One worker was killed and another seriously hurt in an electric power line accident Monday afternoon in Marshall County, authorities said...
Charlotte-based worker killed by falling tape measure  wsoctv.com   ... A man delivering sheet rock to a construction site in New Jersey was killed Monday when a tape measure fell 50 stories and hit him on the head, authorities said...
Miscellaneous
Voting Information  League of Women Voters   ...Click on the link and enter your address for personalized voting information including the address of your polling place, hours you can vote and voter registration information...
Waiting For Keystone  Al-Jazeera America   ...Baker, a city a few miles from the North Dakota border, home to a little less than 2,000 residents, makes clear why: It’s bustling thanks to the ancillary effects of the oil industry, mainly drilling in eastern Montana and western North Dakota. Hotels are full, real estate prices are high, and the population is slowly growing...
NSA Phone Program Faces Key Court Test  The Hill   ...Along with other high-profile court cases challenging the constitutionality of the NSA’s spying, civil liberties advocates are sensing that the wind is at their backs, even as Congress has failed to push legislation past the finish line...