Teamsters
Hoffa: No Time To Waste In Letting Public, Lawmakers Know About Fast Track Huffington Post ...congressional leaders want to move on fast track, and soon. That means those standing up for the interests of hardworking Americans must step up their efforts. After all, not everyone is aware of the consequences that a quick up-or-down vote on the 12-nation Pacific Rim trade deal will bring. It will devastate not only wage earners, but their families as well...
Teamsters Score Second Drayage Victory Journal of Commerce ...The Teamsters are gaining more traction in their attempt to unionize Southern California drayage truckers after drivers at an SSA Marine subsidiary chose a union local as their exclusive bargaining representative...
Open For Business Journal of Commerce ...The U.S. Department of Transportation’s decision to finally open the border to Mexican trucking companies — a stipulation of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement stymied by opponents for two decades — resolves none of the political controversy over allowing Mexican trucks on U.S. highways and still faces severe political backlash from critics, including the Teamsters union...
Trade
Protests As Trans-Pacific Partnership Talks Resume In New York Today Crooks & Liars ...Negotiators working on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) convened today in New York City. Even the location was kept secret until the last possible minute, but hundreds of trade, labor, environmental, health, communities of color, anti-GMO and food justice, anti-fracking, animal and other activists still showed up in the big blizzard to protest the secret trade agreement and "fast track" trade promotion authority (TPA)...
U.S. says final contours of Pacific trade pact coming into focus Reuters …The final form of an ambitious Pacific trade pact is coming into focus, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said on Tuesday as he urged Congress get behind the U.S. trade agenda...
The TPP Will Sink the Middle Class Thom Hartmann …we now know that the TPP would give big pharmaceutical companies virtual monopoly patent power, let corporations sue countries in international courts over regulations that those corporations don’t like, and gut environmental and financial rules.
The One Power Democrats Don’t Want Obama To Have The Hill ...Democrats and some Republicans are adamant that trade promotion authority (TPA) would give Obama’s trade team too much control over negotiations, and are making their opposition known in a barrage of press conferences on Capitol Hill...
State Battles
Gov. Mike Pence's state-run news outlet will compete with media Indianapolis Star …Gov. Mike Pence is starting a state-run taxpayer-funded news outlet that will make pre-written news stories available to Indiana media, as well as sometimes break news about his administration, according to documents obtained by The Indianapolis Star...
Right To Work Support In Legislature Backing Down Badger Herald ...Right-to-work legislation, which looks to limit unions’ governing power, is losing pull as a priority issue in Wisconsin’s Legislature this session. Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, said in a statement this month he no longer expects right-to-work legislation to be brought up any time soon, a dramatic shift from his earlier statements that he intended to make the movement a priority this session...
Dropkick Murphys ‘literally hate' Scott Walker for using their song at Iowa convention New York Daily News ...The Dropkick Murphys have no problem dropping the hate word when it comes to politicians using their music at events especially when Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker entered the Iowa Freedom Summit to the song ‘I’m Shipping Up to Boston.’...
Kentucky: A New Frontier for Right-to-Work Laws? The National Law Review ... this appears to be the first time efforts by smaller units of “state government” (i.e., counties) have been undertaken on this front. While the NLRA allows “states” to pass and implement right-to-work laws, it is not clear if smaller units of local government can pass these laws or not...
Michigan Union Membership Dropped Significantly In 2014, First Full Year Under Right-To-Work Law MLive ...Overall, 14.5 percent of wage and salary workers in Michigan were members of a union in 2014, down from 16.3 percent in 2013, according to federal statistics released Friday...
Wage theft rampant in Colorado The Durango Herald ...From telemarketers to tortilla manufacturers, workers in myriad industries have suffered from employers failing to pay them wages they are owed, a Rocky Mountain PBS I-News investigation has found...
Oregon Strippers Prepare to Fight For Workplace Protection Laws Willamette Week ...Nude dancers who want more rights and better workplace protections are pushing forward with bills to create new rules for Oregon strip clubs. A coalition of dancers, social workers and other advocates have drafted two bills they hope will get a hearing in Salem when lawmakers reconvene in February...
Will Sandoval Use The Bill To Achieve Collective Bargaining Reform? Las Vegas Review Journal ...Assemblyman Randy Kirner, R-Reno, is requesting the most comprehensive measure ...It would clarify the rules that exclude supervisors from collective bargaining, prohibit using government funds to pay employees engaged in union activities, require employees to seek union deductions before they would be collected by a government entity and make agreements retroactive to the date of the expiration of the previous contract. It also would require a final contract offer to be made public...
Possible Ballot Measure Could Be Bargaining Chip In Minimum-Wage Debate Seattle Times ...Democrats in Olympia are making one thing clear about a new proposal to raise the minimum wage: If it doesn’t pass this year, be ready for a ballot initiative...
War on Workers
Koch Brothers’ Budget of $889 Million for 2016 Is on Par With Both Parties’ Spending New York Times …The political network overseen by the conservative billionaires Charles G. and David H. Koch plans to spend close to $900 million on the 2016 campaign, an unparalleled effort by coordinated outside groups to shape a presidential election that is already on track to be the most expensive in history...
The State Of The Unions: Membership Is Up, But Density Still Drops Washington Post ...What's interesting about this is that union membership actually went up last year, with 41,000 new union members in the private sector and 8,000 in public. But the number of people working increased much more than that. The long-term trend has been that union membership in the public sector -- meaning government employees -- has grown, while private sector membership has dropped...
As inequality soars, the nervous super rich are already planning their escapes Guardian ...“I know hedge fund managers all over the world who are buying airstrips and farms in places like New Zealand because they think they need a getaway,” he said...
Woman, age 30, killed during robbery at Sunhouse store Sunday night myhorrynews.com ...On Sunday night at around 10 p.m., a female clerk was shot and killed at the Sunhouse on Cultra Road between Highway 701 and Highway 501 in Conway, Horry County Deputy Coroner Tony Hendrick has confirmed...
State Patrol: Army veteran, ER worker killed when a driver ran a stop sign BringMeTheNews …A 47-year-old emergency room manager and Gulf War veteran was killed after police say he was broadsided by a car that ran through a stop sign...
Miscellaneous
Regulators Advance Plans For Truck Driver Training Journal of Commerce ...The amount of time future truck drivers must spend in training and how rigorous a program they must complete will be determined not by federal fiat but through negotiations. Federal regulators are proceeding with a negotiated rule-making on minimum national truck driver training standards, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said in December...
FOIA Documents Reveal Massive DEA Program to Record American’s Whereabouts With License Plate Readers ACLU …The Drug Enforcement Administration has initiated a massive national license plate reader program with major civil liberties concerns but disclosed very few details, according to new DEA documents obtained by the ACLU through the Freedom of Information Act...
