Teamsters Reach Tentative Agreement With Air Canada teamster.org …Today, the Teamsters Union announced a tentative agreement with U.S.-based Air Canada Teamster represented employees that improves wages, benefits and job protections for the entire group...
Shuttle bus drivers for Apple, Yahoo and other tech giants to vote on unionization Contra Costa Times Drivers employed by Compass Transportation -- which has contracts with Amtrak, Apple, eBay, Genentech, Yahoo and Zynga -- will decide whether to join the Teamsters union on Feb. 27 in an election overseen by the National Labor Relations Board, said Rome Aloise, international vice president and secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 853... Clatsop Enterprise Zone Would Offer Tax Breaks For New Investment Daily Astorian ...The council also approved a new three-year contract between the city and the Chauffeurs, Teamsters and Helpers Local 58 that includes 2.5 percent annual pay raises retroactive to last July...
New Pipeline Raises Concerns Near Landfill KSDK ...A new waste pipeline running from the troubled Bridgeton landfill is almost complete. The pipe is raising concerns that radioactive material might be pumped beneath some north St. Louis County neighborhoods...
CASA Elects Board Members La Prensa ...Mark Sobczak has been a member of the Teamsters Union for 35 years and served as the Teamsters Vice President. He is currently the Commissioner of Resources for the City of Toledo. He has served as a member of the Toledo-Lucas County Visitors and Convention Bureau, the Great Lakes Historical Society, and the Citizen Advisory Panel for the Toledo Refining Company...
Trade
Trade Minister Andrew Robb says Trans-Pacific Partnership deal could be struck within weeks ABC Rural …"The chief US trade negotiator Mike Froman, I know from personal contact with the congressmen over there, he's been keeping them abreast the whole way through. Again, there's always uncertainties, but I do feel there's every prospect that the Congress will pass it...
What the Corporate Media Aren't Telling You About the TPP truthout …during the 17 month period between August 2013 and February 2015, only one nightly network news show, PBS Newshour, mentioned the trade deal - and they only mentioned it just eight times. ABC, CBS, and NBC didn't mention the TPP once...
Why The Trans-Pacific Partnership Is Bad For Workers, And For Democracy (opinion) Huffington Post ... Economists vary widely in their assessments of the TPP, but there's general agreement across ideological stripes that tariffs are already low. In fact, some reports claim that only five of the 29 draft chapters in the agreement actually relate to lowering tariffs. The protest-worthy part of the deal regards the NBTs [non-tariff barriers to trade]--the reduction of regulatory measures, and "freeing" of market activity, in the name of standardizing rules and lowering costs...
State Battles
Right-to-work bill for construction unions passes House committee The St. Louis American …On Wednesday, February 4, a Missouri House of Representatives committee passed a so-called “right to work” bill for the building trades, sponsored by state Rep. Courtney Curtis – a black Democrat representing part of North St. Louis County, including Ferguson. All of the bill’s supporters were Republicans in the 8-4 vote...
Lexington Council Votes To Consider Raising Minimum Wage, 'Right-To-Work' Ordinance Lexington Herald Leader ...The Urban County Council could begin discussions as early as March on raising the minimum wage in Lexington and on passing an ordinance that would allow people to work in union shops without paying dues...
“Right to Work” Is the Wrong Answer for New Mexico’s Economy Economic Policy Institute …What RTW laws do is make it illegal for an employer and employee organization to negotiate a contract that requires every employee benefiting from the contract to pay his or her fair share of the costs of negotiating and enforcing that contract...
Martinez: Let's Stick To The Facts About "Right To Work" (opinion) KRWG …When I think of all the issues we face here in our state in building a healthy economy I am appalled that the Governor will be attacking our working families...
Senate committee passes bill repealing prevailing wage over labor’s objections MetroNews …A state Senate committee has passed legislation eliminating prevailing wage in West Virginia. The Senate Government Organization Committee room was packed and overflowing into the hallway Tuesday as lawmakers debated SB 361...
Missouri speaker bans lobbyist-funded meals in House committees Kansas City Star …The move shuts down a practice that has been a fixture of House committee hearings for years. And it happened amid renewed debate in both the state House and Senate over legislative ethics...
Mayor Bill De Blasio To Push For Major Minimum Wage Hike In New York City Huffington Post ...New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) announced Tuesday that he will push to have the city’s hourly minimum wage jump to $13 by next year -- a steep increase from the $8.75 an hour that the city’s lowest-paid workers currently earn...
Walker’s Wisconsin Budget Has A National Message New York Times ...Mr. Walker’s proposal calls for cutting about $300 million, or 13 percent, in state funds from the University of Wisconsin System, which includes 13 four-year universities and enrolls some 180,000 students. Mr. Walker’s plan would also take the unusual step of removing the university system from direct state control to a “quasi-governmental” authority that could act autonomously on issues of personnel, procurement, capital projects and tuition...
How Koch-Republican Governors Rob Pensions And Slash Wages Politicususa … In states like Kansas, and New Jersey, as just two examples, Republicans created revenue shortfalls due to substantial tax cuts for the rich and to fund the tax cuts refuse to make regular payments into the public employee pension funds. Underfunding, or not funding at all, pension funds is a deliberate plot to create ‘pension fund crises’ that gives Republicans a reason to cut retiree benefits under the guise of keeping the retirement fund solvent. It is worth noting again and again, taxpayers do not pay for public employees’ pensions, and the lack of a pension funds’ solvency is not because employees are not paying their fair share...
War on Workers
Wall Street Pays Bankers to Work in Government And It Doesn't Want Anyone to Know New Republic …itigroup is one of three Wall Street banks attempting to keep hidden their practice of paying executives multimillion-dollar awards for entering government service. In letters delivered to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over the last month, Citi, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley seek exemption from a shareholder proposal, filed by the AFL-CIO labor coalition, which would force them to identify all executives eligible for these financial rewards, and the specific dollar amounts at stake…
Unemployment Has Changed. Unemployment Benefits Haven’t. FiveThirtyEight ...Nearly 3 million Americans have been out of work for more than six months, the traditional definition of long-term unemployment. That’s down from a peak of 6.8 million in 2010, but as a share of total joblessness, long-term unemployment remains higher today than at the peak of any previous recession. Moreover, the problem appears to be at least partially structural: The amount of time the typical person remains out of work has been trending upward for decades...
Robot Cars Won’t Rescue Uber From Its Clash With Drivers (opinion) Wired ...Uber released a survey recently that found most of its drivers were happy, but enough of them are unhappy enough to sue. At least until robot cars hit the roads en masse, Uber will have to figure out a way to keep the drivers on which its business depends. Or else the courts will...
Worker Killed In Backhoe Accident At Texarkana Jobsite Tyler Morning Telegraph ...A construction worker has been killed in a backhoe accident at a jobsite in Northeast Texas...
Miscellaneous
Metro-North Service Resumes Amid Investigation Into Deadly Collision ABC News …Metro-North train service resumed this morning at the site of Tuesday’s deadly collision between an SUV and passenger train, an accident that killed the SUV’s driver and five passengers...
Extreme cold, ice reveal faults in U.S. northeast mass transit Reuters …Wicked winter weather gripping the northeastern United States exposed weaknesses in mass transit systems from Boston to New York, with commuters stranded on icy train platforms amid delays stretching into Tuesday...
