Monday, February 23, 2015

Today's Teamster News 02.23.15

Teamsters
Facebook shuttle drivers ratify new Teamsters contract: WSJ  Reuters   … Loop Transportation, the contractor that employs the drivers and negotiated with Teamsters Local 853, cautioned that the agreement was not finalized and must be approved by Facebook...
Canadian Pacific and Teamsters Canada Rail Conference agree to binding arbitration   Transport Intelligence   …Canadian Pacific and the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference have agreed to enter into binding arbitration to put an end to the work stoppage by CP's locomotive engineers and conductors...
Trade
Obama to make TPP free trade sales pitch to American people  Big News Network   …US President Barack Obama on Saturday began a major sales pitch to the US public to bring them round to the merits of free trade deals, an area in which he faces stiff resistance from many in his own Democratic party...
Europeans Want TTIP Trade-Deal, though Obama Blocks Making Its Terms Public  RINF Alternative News   …TTIP is a secretly negotiated trade deal between the U.S. and the EU, and all indications are that it will replace each nation’s drug-safety, product-safety, food-safety, environmental, and worker-protection, regulations and laws, placing them into the hands of panels composed of appointees of large international corporations, no longer in the hands of publicly elected officials, no longer in the hands of elected politicians, who need to face voters periodically in order to stay in power...
State Battles
Wisconsin Could Be Right-To-Work In A Matter Of Days  Huffington Post   …It's been more than two decades since Gov. Scott Walker (R) first pushed right-to-work legislation as a state lawmaker in Wisconsin. Now, all these years later, the famously anti-union governor may finally be getting his wish -- whether he likes it or not...
Second fight over union rights comes to Wisconsin as right-to-work debate looms  Associated Press   …The first step is a public hearing Tuesday before the state Senate's Labor Committee before the Senate takes it up for debate on Wednesday...
War on Workers
Trend in Temp Workers may not be Temporary  Economic Populist   …America's third largest job creator is a temp agency called Kelly Services, which provided employment to 555,000 employees in 2014...
Ex-Im critics pounce after bank yanks data  The Hill   …Critics of the Export-Import Bank are seething over the removal from a government Web site of previously public data earlier they say helps them detect cronyism…
Amid controversy, oil trains quietly rerouted through Virginia towns  Reuters   …CSX Corp is temporarily rerouting up to five oil trains through this small riverside town to bypass the site of an explosive oil train derailment that occurred 90 miles north in Mount Carbon, West Virginia, on Monday...
Rent walkouts point to strains in U.S. farm economy  Reuters   …Across the U.S. Midwest, the plunge in grain prices to near four-year lows is pitting landowners determined to sustain rental incomes against farmer tenants worried about making rent payments because their revenues are squeezed...
Will America's Shale Boomtowns Bust? A Report From the Heart of North Dakota's Fracking Country  Fortune   …After reaching a 12-month high of $108 last summer, U.S. benchmark petroleum prices have dramatically declined, to a price now hovering near $50 per barrel. That has shaken global markets and energy companies alike, causing oil producers to slash their capital expenditure budgets and announce layoffs...
Worker dies in Canton's second fatal snow-related fall in 5 days  WCVB   …A worker fell 40 feet to his death Sunday while checking the roof of a building for snow removal...