Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Today's Teamster News 12.09.14

Teamster News
Horse carriage ban introduced in City Council, sparks dueling rallies  New York Daily News   ...Supporters and opponents of banning the city’s horse drawn carriages battled at dueling rallies Monday as the bill was finally introduced in the City Council - and more Council members came out against the controversial ban. A dozen unions joined horse carriage drivers on the City Hall steps to blast the proposal they say will kill the livelihoods of 300 drivers...
City Councilman Who Previously Agreed To Support Ban On Horse Carriages Flips Sides  New York Daily News   ...A city councilman who was endorsed by the animal rights group NYCLASS and agreed to back a ban on horse-drawn carriages under certain conditions has come out against Mayor de Blasio’s bill to outlaw the carriage industry...
Horse Nonsense From City Hall (opinion)  New York Times   ...Why wipe out a well-loved, well-regulated, law-abiding part of the tourist economy? So many tough questions. One simple answer: Dump the bill. Keep the horses...
Franklin Park Public Works Employees Ratify First Teamsters Contract  teamster.org   …Public works employees in the Village of Franklin Park, Ill., ratified their first Teamsters contract after unanimously voting to join the Teamsters...
Cook DuPage Transport Puts Paratransit Services, Teamsters Local 727 Members at Risk  teamster.org   ...Paratransit services in Cook and DuPage counties are in danger of being suspended due to a possible work stoppage because of Cook DuPage Transport’s bad faith bargaining for a first contract...
Trade
Activists In Washington Protest Against TPP  Public Citizen   ...An hour of loud chanting and noisemakers ensured that chief negotiators involved in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks on Tuesday were aware of growing US public opposition to the TPP and the dim prospects that US President Barack Obama will obtain Fast Track trade authority, Public Citizen said...
TPP Negotiators Come to DC and are Met By People Telling Them ‘Fast Track’ Is Dead and Make the TPP Text Public  Popular Resistance   ...On Monday morning members of Popular Resistance held a ‘Sit-in to End the Secrecy’ on the front steps of the USTR office . As Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiators and USTR staff arrived for their first day of meetings this week, demonstrators demanded that they stop hiding the text of the trade agreement and instead make it available to the public telling them “secret negotiations are anti-democratic.”...
House Democrats vow to block Obama on Asia trade pact  Washington Post   ...House Democrats from the nation's manufacturing heartland are vowing to fight President Obama's push for a major trade deal in the Asia Pacific, saying the pact will harm U.S. jobs and charging that the administration has not been transparent with Congress in its negotiations...
Obama Ready To Defy Base In Order To Advance Trans-Pacific Partnership  MintPress News   ...In a speech before CEOs of major U.S. corporations, Obama indicates he's ready to go head-to-head with Democrats, labor unions, and environmentalists on trade deals...
Growing Trans-Pacific Trade Deficits Set the Stage for Growing Trade-Related Job Displacement  Economic Policy Institute   ...The United States has a large and growing trade deficit with the 11 other countries in the proposed TPP. This deficit has increased from $110.3 billion in 1997 to an estimated $261.7 billion in 2014, as shown in the figure below. With trade deficits already on the rise, it makes no sense to sign a deal that would exacerbate them further...
Hardship On Mexico's Farms, A Bounty For U.S. Tables  Los Angeles Times   ...for thousands of farm laborers south of the border, the export boom is a story of exploitation and extreme hardship...
United States To Investigate Potential Steel Dumping  NWI Times   ...The U.S. International Trade Commission voted 6-0 last week to investigate an estimated $601 million in annual Korean and Turkish imports of carbon and alloy welded API line pipe, which is used in oil and gas pipelines. The agency will look into whether the steel products are being sold at less than fair value, if it's hurting domestic steelmakers and if duties should be imposed...
State Battles
Our view: Right-to-work not the right priority (opinion)  LaCrosse Tribune   ...It’s apparently so important that Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald announced Thursday that he will put the issue on the fast track and a bill addressing the issue will be brought forth in the Assembly...
More than 3,800 state workers paid under federal poverty level  Richmond Times-Dispatch   ...The jobs of the state employees in the poverty zone include hospital food service workers and housekeepers, school security officers, mental health workers, deputy sheriffs, corrections workers, secretaries, researchers and associate professors. In some respects, their plight is not surprising, given the number of state workers who are dependent on federal assistance. That number has increased more than 150 percent — from 892 in 2011 to 2,287 in 2013, according to statistics compiled by the state Department of Human Resources Management...
NC education department used Koch-funded group for proposed history lessons  Charlotte News Observer   ...State high school social studies teachers would be encouraged to use curriculum materials prepared by an institute funded by the conservative Koch family, under a proposal the Department of Public Instruction presented...
ALEC Fumes: Transparency Threatens Corporate Free Speech!  Center for Media and Democracy   ...After spending hundreds of millions of undisclosed funds on state and federal elections, the corporate members of the American Legislative Exchange Council are demanding that state legislators preserve their "right" to anonymously spend money on politics and curry favor with elected officials, and to thwart shareholder efforts to hold the corporations they own accountable...
More Corporations Flee as ALEC Rolls Out Its Legislative Agenda   Center for Media and Democracy   ...Only nine funders of the American Legislative Exchange Council's annual winter meeting in Washington, DC, are listed on ALEC's conference brochure this year...
Economist: Jobs Regained In Kansas Not The Same Ones Lost In Recession  Wichita Eagle   ...it has gained back only 600 of approximately 29,000 manufacturing jobs it lost, said Tyler Tenbrink, a senior labor economist with the Department of Labor...
War on Workers
Judge Calls Cablevision’s Raises an Anti-Union Act  New York Times   ...A judge with the National Labor Relations Board has ruled that Cablevision’s chief executive officer, James L. Dolan, gave raises illegally to company technicians in the Bronx to improperly sway them to vote against unionizing...
Oil Falls to 5-Year Low, and Energy Companies Start to Retrench  New York Times   ...The price of crude oil continued to collapse on Monday, plunging to a five-year low, as oil giants began to scale back their drilling ambitions and pare the ranks of their workers...
Inside the Koch data mine  Politico   ...The Koch brothers and their allies are pumping tens of millions of dollars into a data company that’s developing detailed, state-of-the-art profiles of 250 million Americans, giving the brothers’ political operation all the earmarks of a national party...
Worker dies in accident at Henderson plastics factory  KVVU-TV   ...Initial reports indicate a large object fell on the victim. The death is being investigated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration...
Worker dies from injuries in Boeing accident  Associated Press   ...A worker for a Boeing supplier has died, weeks after sustaining injuries while working on a passenger seat inside a Boeing 777 passenger jet...
Mexico Identifies Remains Of 1 Of 43 Missing Students  Time   ...Officials have identified the remains of one of 43 missing Mexican students whose disappearance in September sparked worldwide outrage over the country’s drug violence and corruption...