Teamsters
Hoffa To Members: A New Day For Our Great Union teamster.org ...Today, the United States of America represented by the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York entered into an agreement with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters whereby in consideration of its terms and conditions the United States of America upon order from the court will dismiss its action against the International Brotherhood of Teamsters sounding in provisions of the Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, 18 U.S.C. Section 1964 and will thereby extinguish the consent order of March 14, 1989...
Hoffa: Obama Should Bend On Keystone Pipeline Detroit News ...It is time for Obama to change his positions on trade and the pipeline. To do otherwise risks hobbling thousands of middle-class workers just trying to support their families and potentially taking the shine off his admirable job-growth legacy. No one wants that to happen...
Teamsters Seek To Organize More Tech-Shuttle Drivers Wall Street Journal ...The union hopes to make Facebook and Loop a model for the other companies. It is pressuring the brand-name companies, even though they don’t employ the bus drivers, in the hope that they will support unionization and agree to pay more to the bus operators, so that they in turn can raise wages. The union says the drivers now make $18 to $20 per hour, but typically are forced to work separate morning and evening shifts that extend their workday to 12 hours or more...
Trade
Japan and US Resume TPP Talks Today MarketPulse ...The fresh round of bilateral negotiations come after the Trans-Pacific Partnership countries failed to see major progress at their leaders’ summit held in November in Beijing, with Japan and the United States, the largest economies in the framework, struggling to fill gaps over the contentious issues...
Espey: US deserves better transparency from TPP (opinion) The Des Moines Register …The American people and those we elect to represent us deserve more than the thin promise of job creation and increased economic activity. If the TPP is so good for America and our economy, then its backers would have no need to hide behind a curtain like the Wizard of Oz, pulling whatever lever is within reach...
Idea For Tackling Inequality #27,653: Stop Subsidizing It (opinion) Huffington Post ...It isn't hard to identify these policies. A trade policy that is intended to put U.S. manufacturing workers in direct competition with low-paid workers in countries like Mexico and China has the predicted and actual effect of lowering their wages. It also lowers the wages of non-college educated workers more generally, as displaced manufacturing workers crowd into other sectors of the economy...
State Battles
Michigan Supreme Court Presses Both Sides On Right-To-Work Detroit Free Press ...Considering if the state's right-to-work law applies to state workers, Michigan Supreme Court justices this morning pressed attorneys for both sides to establish whether collective bargaining is a working condition or merely a process to establish those conditions...
Hardin Fiscal Court approves right-to-work ordinance The News-Enterprise …Hardin County became the fifth Kentucky county to join the right-to-work movement with adoption of a local ordinance Tuesday afternoon...
Legislative Preview Santa Fe Reporter …While we’re already bracing for important debates on spending for education, increasing the state’s minimum wage, economic development, hemp farming, right-to-work and other issues, New Mexicans can also expect some lightweight fare and doomed-to-failure ideas to surface...
Right-to-work booster Diane Hendricks gave $1 million to Wisconsin Republicans in 2014 The Cap Times …Now with some GOP legislators pushing a right-to-work bill in the upcoming session, a watchdog group is reporting that Hendricks donated $1 million to the Republican Party of Wisconsin in advance of the 2014 election...
Evenly Divided 7th Circuit Rejects En Banc Review of Indiana's Right to Work Act The National Law Review …The even split means the three-judge panel’s decision from September, 2014 upholding the statute under the United States Constitution stands...
War on Workers
Want To Be Happy? Join A Union (opinion) New York Times ...The study authors, Patrick Flavin, an assistant professor at Baylor University, and Gregory Shufeldt, an assistant professor at the University of Arkansas, Little Rock, used data from five different years between the early 1980s and mid-2000s, conducted in the United States, of the World Values Survey, a research project focusing on people’s beliefs. As they write in the report, they found that “union members are more satisfied with their lives than those who are not members and that the substantive effect of union membership on life satisfaction is large and rivals other common predictors of quality of life.”...
First Step in Republican Campaign Against Bank Reform: HR 37 Passed in House naked capitalism …Dodd-Frank supporters fear Republicans will try to tack Wednesday’s bill and others on to larger pieces of legislation that it will be harder for the president to reject...
How Expanding the 1964 Civil Rights Act Can Save America's Dying Labor Movement Alternet …In July 2014, U.S. Representatives Keith Ellison and John Lewis, stalwarts for civil rights and labor, introduced the Employee Empowerment Act to extend civil rights remedies to labor organizers, and reinforce the connection between civil rights and worker rights...
Rep. Chris Van Hollen's Bold Attack on Inequality Huffington Post …Another potential revenue raiser would disallow corporations from deducting bonuses above $1 million if they're cutting the jobs and pay of their workforce. Note that the plan doesn't restrict "performance pay" above $1 million. It just says you can't deduct it from your taxes unless you're also providing raises to employees (or more directly sharing profits)...
More Evidence That Public Beats Private in Education truthout …except for the debilitating effects of poverty, our public school system may be the best in the world. The most recent data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reveal that the U.S. ranked high, relative to other OECD countries, in reading, math, and science (especially in reading, and in all areas better in 4th grade than in 8th grade)…
Why Wages Won't Rise (opinion) Huffington Post ...The growing use of outsourcing abroad and of labor-replacing technologies, the large reserve of hidden unemployed, the mounting economic insecurities, and the demise of labor unions have been actively pursued by corporations and encouraged by Wall Street. Payrolls are the single biggest cost of business. Lower payrolls mean higher profits...
Worker Dies After Fall At Citgo Corpus Christi Refinery Yahoo News ...A worker has died from injuries sustained in a fall on Monday night at Citgo Petroleum Corp's Corpus Christi, Texas, refinery, said sources familiar with the plant's operations...
Miscellaneous
Yep, Gasoline Lead Explains the Crime Decline in Canada Too Mother Jones …Canada saw a substantial decrease in violent crime that started about 20 years after lead emissions began to drop, which is exactly what you'd expect...
U.S. Racks Up Smallest Deficit Since 2007 Wall Street Journal ...The U.S. last year racked up its smallest budget deficit since 2007, marking an economic shift of fortunes as President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans prepare to face off over legislative priorities this year...
