Teamsters
Shining the Light on Corporate Tax Breaks teamster.org ..."We need a more accurate accounting of tax abatements over the long term to “effectively bargain with our members’ governmental employers and to advocate for sound public policies that benefit our members working in the construction of infrastructure,” Hoffa said...
Tim Hortons can’t cut more than 20 per cent of HQ staff: Ottawa The Star ...Industry Canada says Burger King has agreed to keep 80 per cent of corporate jobs in takeover...“This round of layoffs should serve as a warning to Tim Hortons’ franchisees who depend on support from the company to grow their businesses, taxpayers who expect corporations to pay their fair share, and consumers who expect Tim Hortons to be a community leader in Canada,” said a group of union leaders from Unifor, Teamsters and SEIU Healthcare in a statement Wednesday...
Trade
Trans Pacific Pact is Almost Ready, Says US Trade Official Even As Protests Rock New York International Business Times …negotiators working on the TPP held parleys in New York City on Monday at an undisclosed location. But braving all secrecy, hundreds of protesters from drawn trade, labour, environmental, health, anti-GMO, food justice, anti-fracking, animal activists protested in the blizzard, against the trade agreement for its reported "fast tracking" by Trade Promotion Authority, according to Oped News...
Rep. Cooper must oppose Fast Track, defend TN economy (opinion) The Tennessean ...Rep. Cooper was one of just a handful of Democrats in the House of Representatives to not stand up against an undemocratic 1970s-era procedure known as Fast Track that has been used to railroad the most controversial and damaging of U.S. “trade” deals through Congress...
10 Tall Tales on Trade Global Trade Watch ...Here’s a rundown of the top 10 fibs and half-truths that Froman uttered before the Senate Finance Committee and House Ways and Means Committee yesterday in his sales pitch for the administration’s bid to expand the NAFTA “trade” pact model by Fast-Tracking through Congress the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)...
State Battles
Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner Previews 'Right-To-Work Zones' As First-Year Priority Peoria Journal Star ...Gov. Bruce Rauner said Tuesday he wants to prioritize creating "right-to-work zones" in economically depressed areas where local officials could decide whether union fees would be voluntary for local workers...
Logan County Gives First Nod To Right-To-Work Ordinance Bowling Green Daily News ...Logan County Fiscal Court approved the first reading of a right-to-work ordinance today. The ordinance passed unanimously on the first reading, Logan County Judge-Executive Logan Chick said in a phone interview. A final reading of the ordinance is scheduled for Feb. 24...
'Right To Work' Not Dead WSAU ...The controversial right-to-work legislation might not be on a fast track in Wisconsin, but it’s also not a dead issue. That’s according to state Senate majority leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau). “It’s still out there. I think it’s still something that deserves debate. The votes are probably there in the Assembly, which is odd that there’s so much focus on the Senate I guess, but that’s fine. I’m not counting noses, I’ve said all along. I’m still talking to members about how they feel about the issue.”...
New Kansas Job Figures Reveal Another Failure For Sam Brownback’s Tax Cuts (opinion) Kansas City Star ...The final Kansas job figures are in for 2014, and Gov. Sam Brownback’s costly income tax cut “experiment” has laid another egg. Total nonfarm employment climbed only 1,700 people in December, according to Tuesday’s release of figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Overall, that means Kansas added a meager 12,800 jobs from December 2013 to December 2014, or barely more than 1,000 a month. That’s a puny growth rate of .9 percent, one of the lowest in the BLS data for 2014...
Senate Republicans Ready For A Fight On Right To Work Bill Charleston Daily Mail ...Five Republican lawmakers, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch Carmichael, R-Jackson, introduced Senate Bill 337 on Tuesday. The bill, known as “Creating Workplace Freedom Act,” would make West Virginia the 25th state in the country to adopt a right to work law. The Mountain State would be the first in the nation since 2012 when Michigan and Indiana became right to work states, if the bill is enacted...
House Panel Kills Minimum Wage Proposal WTOP ...A Republican-led House committee has killed a proposal to raise Virginia’s minimum wage...
Washington State House Weighs Minimum Wage Hike KING5 ...Washington state's minimum wage, already the highest statewide wage in the country, would get a boost to $12 an hour over the next four years if lawmakers pass a bill under consideration by the state House...
War on Workers
Gains From Economic Recovery Still Limited to Top One Percent New York Times ... the economic recovery so far has only boosted the incomes of the rich, and it has yielded no improvement for the bottom 99 percent of the distribution. After adjusting for inflation, the average income for the richest 1 percent (excluding capital gains) has risen from $871,100 in 2009 to $968,000 over 2012 and 2013. By contrast, for the remaining 99 percent, average incomes fell by a few dollars from $44,000 to $43,900...
Here's How Much You Have To Earn To Be In The 1 Percent In Each State Huffington Post ...What does it take to make it into the 1 percent of earners? In Arkansas, you'd need to pull in $228,298 a year. In Connecticut, the threshold is $677,608...
Mexican authorities pronounce 43 missing students dead but parents reject murder theory The Independent ...The 43 students abducted by police in Mexico have been officially declared dead for the first time, despite the fact that remains of only one person have been identified. Parents accuse the government of trying to close an investigation that has implicated security forces, the army and a mayor in a case that shocked the world...
Oil Train Spills Hit Record Level In 2014 NBC News ...By volume, that's dramatically less crude than trains spilled in 2013, when major derailments in Alabama and North Dakota leached a record 1.4 million gallons -- more than was lost in the prior 40 years combined. But by frequency of spills, 2014 set a new high with 141 "unintentional releases," according to data from the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). By comparison, between 1975 and 2012, U.S. railroads averaged just 25 spills a year...
On-Demand Workers: ‘We Are Not Robots’ Wall Street Journal ...Current and former workers for Uber, Amazon Inc.’s Mechanical Turk and Handybook, better known as Handy, say on-demand work platforms give them little control over the terms of their labor, and complain that the contracts they’re required to accept force them to shoulder personal and financial risk without the returns or advantages they’d hoped for...
Worker dies on Taiwan film lot to be used for Scorsese movie Associated Perss …A worker was killed in an accident Thursday at a Taiwanese film lot during preparations for the shooting of a new Martin Scorsese movie, media reports said...
Miscellaneous
Scott Walker’s “Our American Revival” PAC Uses Foreign Stock Videos In Debut Ad Buzzfeed …Republican Gov. Scott Walker announced Tuesday the creation of a political action committee to help him raise money as he mulls a presidential run. The PAC, “Our American Revival,” debuted with this video…Several of the videos ... come from foreign-based photographers and appear to have been purchased through stock image sites...
