Teamster News
Teamsters, Consumers And Community Protest UNFI Shareholders Meeting teamster.org ... Teamsters, organic food consumers, supply chain workers and community leaders protested the unsustainable practices of United Natural Foods, Inc. (NYSE: UNFI) and its retail partner Whole Foods Market at UNFI’s annual shareholders meeting today. The protestors informed UNFI shareholders and put management on notice that continued worker abuse and intimidation will not be tolerated...
BLET/Teamsters, Smart-TD And Four Other Rail Unions Bargain Together teamster.org ...Top leaders of the Transportation Division of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART–TD) and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) announced today that their organizations will be participating with four other rail unions in coordinated bargaining in the upcoming round of national negotiations...
Some Labor Unions Reluctant To Back ’24 Olympics Effort Boston Globe ...The International Olympic Committee wants assurances that there is broad public support in the city that would host the Games. And the support of [Teamsters] Local 25’s 11,000-person army of truck drivers, parking lot attendants, and others could play a crucial role...
St. Louis County Council Cites 'Growing Consensus' On West Lake Landfill Dangers St. Louis Post Dispatch ...The St. Louis County Council says there is “growing consensus” that the radioactively contaminated West Lake Landfill in Bridgeton “presents an active danger to the community,” and it’s putting new pressure on federal regulators to take action...
Trade
New TISA Leak: US on Collision Course With EU Over Global Data Flows techdirt …Like TPP and TAFTA/TTIP, TISA is being negotiated in strict secrecy, but earlier this year the financial services annex leaked, giving us the first glimpse of the kind of bad ideas that were being worked on. Now, another leak has surfaced, which reveals the US's proposals to free up data flows online...
GPhA Expresses Concern Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement Negotiations Could Hinder Access and Competition to Generic Drugs First Word Pharma ...GPhA and its member companies are concerned about any effort to include provisions in the TPP agreement that would hinder competition and access to the safe and affordable medicines that the generic pharmaceutical industry provides to patients in the United States and abroad...
State Battles
How ALEC helped undermine public unions Washington Post ... the success of ALEC-derived labor bills resulted in lower public union density beginning three to four years after those bills became law. On average, state public-sector union density fell by about three percentage points per year, or nearly 10 percent of the current level of public-sector union density in the country as a whole...
Missouri’s Minimum Wage Rises In 2015, No Change In Kansas Kansas City Star ...Missouri is among 29 states that have, or will have as of Jan. 1, state minimums that are higher than the current federal rate of $7.25 an hour...
Unions, retirees sue to block Chicago pension changes Reuters …Chicago public employee unions and others on Tuesday opened a new front in the battle over pension cuts for public workers, suing to block a law aimed at shoring up funding for two of the city's public pension systems…
Los Angeles hotel groups sue city over minimum wage ordinance Washington Post …The American Hotel & Lodging Association and the Asian American Hotel Owner Association filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the city of Los Angeles over an ordinance that raises minimum wage for hotel workers to $15.37...
State high court to take up Doe cases centered on Walker's campaign Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ... Four of the justices have benefited from political spending by the Wisconsin Club for Growth, one of the groups at the center of the investigation. Some legal experts have argued that at least some of those justices should not hear the cases because of actual or perceived biases from that political help...
War on Workers
How the NLRB may expand responsibility for labor violations Reuters ...The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is expected to rule soon on if, and how, companies can be held responsible for labor violations carried out by their contractors or franchisees - a move that could have far-reaching implications for businesses...
Metro-North Faces Historic Fine For Retaliating Against Worker Who Reported Injury Hartford Courant ...In fining the railroad $260,000 plus legal fees, the U.S. Department of Labor said it found a culture of intimidation, in which supervisors actively tried to discourage workers from filing injury reports and punished workers who did. In November, the National Transportation Safety Board, following a string of accidents, including fatalities, said Metro-North failed to maintain effective safety programs...
100 defects found during state crude oil rail inspections Albany Times Union ...The latest round of the state’s targeted crude oil tank car and rail inspections showed 100 track and train car defects, including eight that require immediate action, the governor’s office announced Monday...
More than 60 million households rely on low-wage workers The Hill ...The research shows that most low-wage workers are frequently the primary breadwinners in their families and they are not, as commonly thought, teenagers with few skills still living with their parents, according to the report by Oxfam America and the Economic Policy Institute...
For Low-Wage Americans, The Holiday Season Is A Time To Work Huffington Post ...More than 30 percent of Americans were living in poverty for at least two months from 2009 to 2011 -- a 4.5 percent increase from the period 2005 to 2007...
Americans Are Trading Sleep For Work, And It’s Literally Killing Us Washington Post ...This isn't a particularly healthy way to live -- insufficient sleep is associated with obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, and a host of other physical ailments. Drowsy driving causes around 80,000 automobile accidents every year, 1,000 of which are typically fatal...
Child Labor: Number Of Children Involved Is Shrinking Every Year Christian Science Monitor ...While there are fewer children involved in child labor every year, the rate at which child labor is decreasing is slowing down at both the global and regional levels...
Worker Killed In Mesa Industrial Accident Arizona Republic ...One person was killed in an industrial accident at a plant in west Mesa on Wednesday morning, according to a Mesa fire spokesman...
Construction Worker Killed In Caldwell Parish Crash KNOE ...A Cadillac ATS, driven by 42-year-old Jan Williams of Columbia, was traveling north on US 165 in the outside travel lane when she attempted to move into the inside lane but struck the rear of Chevrolet pickup and all three construction workers...
