Showing posts with label Baltimore. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Baltimore. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Today's Teamster News 04.29.15

Teamsters
Hoffa Statement on Repealing Health Benefits Tax   Teamster.org  ...“Rep. Courtney’s bill stands up for working Americans. The health care excise tax set to take effect in 2018 is an onerous charge that will hit many middle-class families hard in the pocketbook, all because their health insurance is considered too good. It is unconscionable that some hardworking Americans will have to pay a 40 percent penalty on benefits they’ve fought hard to receive"...
Atlanta Sysco Workers Reinstated, Receive Full Back Pay  Teamster.org  ...Fourteen union activists terminated by Sysco during a Teamster organizing campaign in Atlanta, Ga. will be returned to their jobs with full back pay after the company issued unconditional offers to return to work on Monday, April 27. Additionally, two workers unfairly disciplined will also have their records cleared...
Teamsters at Coca-Cola Ratify Contracts Covering 1,400 Workers  Teamster.org  ...Coca-Cola workers in Southern California have ratified two contracts covering about 1,400 Teamsters that increase wages and pension benefits. One contract covers bottling and warehouse workers represented by Local 896 in Los Angeles, and the second contract covers warehouse and truck drivers represented by Local 848 in Glendora, Local 952 in Orange and Local 986 in South El Monte...
Alleging Millions in Wage Theft, West Coast Port Truckers Strike  In These Times  ...The union states that independent contractor misclassification makes truckers ineligible for unionization and victims of wage theft, stemming from lack unemployment benefits, employer-provided health-care and hourly or overtime pay. Despite working under much of the same rules and conditions as full-time employees, port truckers operating as independent contractors have truck leasing fees and expenses related to gas and maintenance deducted from their paychecks...
Railroad unions urge tougher rules on tracks  Philly.com  ..."The key to reducing track-caused derailments is maintaining the tracks to a higher safety standard," said Freddie N. Simpson, president of the Maintenance of Way Brotherhood, the union that represents about 35,000 workers who inspect and maintain railroads. Unfortunately, the railroads' own statistics speak for themselves, and track-caused derailments - including those involving highly volatile crude oil - continue to be a threat to the nation"...

Global Labor & Trade
Which Countries Get the Best Deals Out Of the Trans-Pacific Partnership?  National Journal   ...The chart below breaks down just how the proposed partnership would impact the countries involved, based on estimates from the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Vietnam is in the best position of the 12 nations, poised to see a $46 billion bump in GDP by 2025, an additional 13.6 percent of the baseline GDP projected for that year without the TPP...
Business group launches six-figure ad blitz for Obama's trade agenda  The Hill  ...The Trade Benefits America Coalition — which is backed by the Business Roundtable — will begin airing the ads on national cable networks and in targeted media markets across the country this week. The ad — dubbed "One Thing" — urges lawmakers to pass trade promotion authority (TPA)...
Labor Makes Trade a Line in the Sand for 2016. But What If Hillary Clinton Crosses It?  National Journal  ...One of America's most influential labor organizations is trying to ensure that the political candidates it would support will oppose free-trade deals. But if Hillary Clinton comes out in support of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, labor doesn't have many other options...
New York City Joins Growing Numbers of Cities Opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership  CWA-Union  ...On the heels of Mayor Bill de Blasio criticizing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as a “raw deal” and "huge mistake,” the New York City Council voted to pass a resolution declaring the city a “TPP-free zone” and urging Congress to reject “Fast Track” legislation for the trade deal...
Obama to meet New Democrat Coalition  Politico   ...President Barack Obama will meet with moderate Democrats to discuss his economic agenda, a meeting that will likely include discussion of a contentious trade bill Congress is set to consider. The four dozen members of the New Democrat Coalition were invited to a Thursday afternoon meeting at the White House...
New Front Opens in ‘Fast-Track’ Trade Fight  Roll Call   ...Sen. Rob Portman intends to bring an amendment to the floor as part of the “fast-track” debate that would make it a “principal negotiating objective” under TPA to create enforceable rules to combat unfair currency practices. It was voted down at the committee level, 11-15...
A progressive’s lament about the Trans-Pacific Partnership  (opinion) Washington Post   ...It has come to this. To sell his trade treaty — specifically the fast-track trade authority that would grease the skids for passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP), President Obama is mobilizing a coalition anchored by corporate lobbies, the Chamber of Commerce and Republican congressional leadership. He is opposed by the majority of Democratic legislators, the labor movement and a broad array of mainstream environmental, consumer and citizen organizations...

State & Living Wage Battles
Wisconsin rep. introduces bill for $15 minimum wage  Wisconsin Gazette  ...Wisconsin state Rep. Melissa Sargent, D-Madison, on April 28 introduced a measure to raise the state's minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020. Sargent’s bill comes less than two weeks after workers around on the country protested in solidarity for a minimum wage increase to $15...
Aldermen voice opposition to right-to-work zones  Chicago Tribune   ...Union officials lodged their opposition Tuesday to Gov. Bruce Rauner's proposed right-to-work zones as part of Mayor Rahm Emanuel's effort to send a message to state lawmakers that City Hall opposes the idea...
Judge sides with Red Robin servers in minimum wage lawsuit  Morning Call   ...In a first-of-its-kind decision on Pennsylvania's Minimum Wage Act, the judge ruled the degree to which a restaurant worker interacts directly with customers is key to determining whether he or she is eligible to share tips. The decision scuttles Red Robin franchise owner Lehigh Valley Restaurant Group's preliminary bid to dismiss the case...
Court raises tough questions on Texas voter ID law  Dallas News  ...The U.S. Justice Department and others oppose the law as an unconstitutional burden on minority voters. The state of Texas says the law was aimed at preventing fraud. The state is appealing a federal district judge’s ruling in October that struck down the law...
Legal fight continues over Wisconsin's voter ID law  Wisconsin Gazette  ...With two special elections looming next month and one to fill a vacancy in the state Senate coming later this year, opponents of Wisconsin's new voter identification law want a federal court to expand the number of IDs that voters can show at the polls...

U.S. Labor
SEIU caregivers implore supervisors for 'livable wage'  The Californian   ...County-employed caregivers provide in-home services to about 5,000 elderly and disabled patients. The service maintains the clients' dignity, rather than forcing them to live in a health-care facility, said David Werlin, the northern California director for United Long Term Care Workers. ULTCW is under the Service Employees International Union...
Richard Trumka, A.F.L.-C.I.O. Chief, Warns Candidates on Inequality  New York Times  ...Richard Trumka, the president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., vowed Tuesday that organized labor would no longer accept “cautious half-measures” from presidential candidates about how to address economic fairness, an implicit but unmistakable attempt to nudge Hillary Rodham Clinton toward embracing a liberal agenda during her presidential run...
UAW reports 55 percent membership at VW plant in Tennessee   U-T San Diego   ...The filing comes as the UAW works toward gaining collective bargaining rights at its first foreign-owned plant in the South. And the union's case for recognition could be bolstered by leadership shakeup at the German automaker that has left a former union chief, Berthold Huber, as the interim chairman of the world's No. 2 automaker...
Profits Are Up, But Wages Are Stagnant. This Senator Has A Plan.  Think Progress   ...Last week, Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) sent a letter to the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) about the growing trend of companies giving money to investors through stock buybacks, rather than investing in workers or equipment. Workers’ wages are currently growing at the slowest pace since the 1960s, despite healthy corporate profits and increasing productivity...

Miscellaneous
The Economic Devastation Fueling The Anger In Baltimore  Think Progress  ...The protesters’ anger was fueled, at least in large part, by the Baltimore police department’s long history of ugly violence against the city’s residents and a pattern of officers facing few, if any, repercussions. But the protests also take place in the context of a city that has been ravaged economically, most recently by the foreclosure crisis and predatory lending...
Service Sector Surges, Manufacturers Learn to Do More With Less  US News & World Report  ...The report shows service sector employment reached a peak last month at 121.6 million workers, nearly 10 times the amount of people employed in manufacturing jobs. Service employment includes a relatively broad swath of the domestic workforce that includes most retail, information technology and health care industries, among others...
Apartheid Games: Baltimore, Urban America, and Camden Yards  The Nation  ...All of these cities were at one time synonymous with industry and multiracial labor power. Now they have boarded up factories—or factories that have been transformed into postmodern coffee shops or bars—and baseball stadiums. A publicly funded stadium is not the root cause of what plagues our cities, but it’s a flashing, blaring sign of a set of economic priorities that like sports has created a country that defines people as winners or losers...

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Today's Teamster News 04.28.15

Teamsters
Hoffa: Latest Trade Push is a War on Workers  Huffington Post  ...President Obama in an interview last week downplayed the impact of unfair trade on the U.S. workforce, arguing that many manufacturing jobs are low paying. But I disagree with the president. This nation's manufacturing base provides a pathway to prosperity for many Americans, especially those who work union jobs...
Port Truck Drivers on Strike at Ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach   Teamster.org  ...Primary picket lines are now up company yards in the greater Los Angeles area and in San Diego, and truckers and their supporters are picketing company trucks at marine terminals, rail yards, and customer warehouses as far away as the US/Mexico border...
Port truck drivers strike against four companies  LA Times  ...Picket lines went up outside the trucking yards of Pacific 9 Transportation, Intermodal Bridge Transport, Pacer Cartage and Harbor Rail Transport, said Barb Maynard, a spokeswoman for the Teamsters union, which is supporting the truckers. Maynard estimated the number of drivers striking at several hundred...
Port’s Short-Haul Truck Drivers Walking Picket Lines  Times of San Diego   ...Port truck drivers walked picket lines at an Otay Mesa freight drayage company Monday morning as they and their counterparts in Los Angeles and Long Beach went on strike against the short-haul transport companies for which they work. Drivers working at ports in San Diego, Los Angeles and Long Beach voted Saturday to strike following a recent ruling that the drivers are misclassified as “independent contractors”...
Flexjet Pilots Sue Luxury Jet Airline For Union Busting  Teamster.org  ... group of jet pilots filed a lawsuit Friday against airline Flexjet, LLC and OneSky, its Cleveland-based parent company, claiming they were illegally harassed and terminated for speaking out in favor of unionization and better working conditions. The pilots are seeking representation from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Airline Division, which represents over 80,000 workers in the aviation industry...
Shareholders Rein In Golden Parachutes   Forbes  ...Louis Malizia, assistant director of the Teamsters Capital Strategies department at the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said his initial assumption following the financial crisis was that golden parachutes would be stigmatized by the public before fading away...

Global Labor & Trade
12-country TPP talks end without a breakthrough  Japan Times   ...Chief negotiators from 12 countries aiming to forge a Pacific free trade initiative finished four days of talks on Sunday, a Japanese official said, apparently without making major progress. The trade officials from the United States, Japan and 10 other countries gathered in a Washington suburb with intellectual property, including data on new drugs, and reform of state-owned entities as their main issues...
Trade Fight Galvanizing the Left  Roll Call   ...If they can’t stop the TPA bill, the nearly 70 voting House members in the Congressional Progressive Caucus are determined to make such a ruckus that the party’s 2016 candidates — presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton in particular — realize Obama’s middle-of-the-road approach to trade, or any major policy area, is not acceptable...
Obama shifts his pitch for the Trans-Pacific Partnership   Washington Post  ...The sharp shift in the way Obama is now presenting the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a 12-nation trade deal in the Asia-Pacific region, illustrates his biggest challenge as he tries to wrap up a late-term policy victory over fierce opposition from fellow Democrats...
Elizabeth Warren Tells Obama To Put Up Or Shut Up On Trade   Huffington Post   ...On Saturday, Warren and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) responded with a letter essentially telling Obama to put up or shut up. If the deal is so great, Warren and Brown wrote, the administration should make the full negotiation texts public before Congress votes on a "fast track" bill that would strip the legislative branch of its authority to amend it...
2,009 Organizations Call on Congress to Oppose Fast Track Authority for the TPP  Citizens Trade  ...An unprecedentedly united movement of labor, environmental, family farm, consumer, faith, Internet freedom and other organizations escalated their campaign to defeat Fast Track trade authority for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) today with a joint 2,009-group letter urging Congress to oppose it...
Trans Pacific Partnership is bad deal for senior citizens  (opinion) The Hill  ...Prescription drug prices in the United States are the highest in the world and last year they increased by 13 percent. If Congress enacts the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal in its current form, it could increase those expenses for seniors and all Americans dramatically...
Currency provisions essential in Asian trade pact  (opinion) Detriot Free Press   ...While the economy is growing stronger every day, many people in Michigan still don't feel the success at home or in their pocketbooks, which is why it's imperative we promote policies to help hardworking families get ahead. And a bad trade deal jeopardizes all the shared progress we've made...

State & Living Wage Battles
Mayors to Rauner: 'Follow our lead, don't cripple our progress'  Chicago Sun-Times  ...A group of suburban mayors is pushing back against Gov. Bruce Rauner’s proposal to cut in half the amount of state money that goes to municipalities, saying their residents are asked to pay the price for the state’s lack of fiscal discipline...
Bernie Sanders and other senators urge ‘living wage’ for Senate workers  MarketWatch  ... A group of nine senators is pushing for Senate contract workers to be paid a “living wage” following reports of workers barely getting by. Roll Call writes that the senators, including Vermont independent Bernie Sanders, wrote Monday to the Senate Rules and Administration Committee: "The U.S. Congress should be working to improve the economic security of middle class families across the country"...
State Senate shelves minimum wage measure  Oneida Daily Dispatch   ...A proposal to let cities in New York state set their own minimum wages was shelved by lawmakers in the state Senate on Monday — dealing a setback to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and others who want the state to relinquish its total control of the wage...
Prevailing wage reform proposed in Pa. House  Herald-Mail Media  ...Pa. Rep. Jesse Topper is pushing for prevailing-wage reform that would allow school districts to pay market rates for construction, rather than adjusted rates determined by the Pennsylvania Secretary of Labor & Industry...
Florida Passes Law That Bans Discriminating Against Pregnant Women In Public  Think Progress  ...Last week, the Florida legislature passed a bill banning discrimination against pregnant women at work as well as in public places like restaurants or hotels. The bill amends the state’s Civil Rights Act by adding pregnancy to race, sex, and physical disability as protected classes...
City considers minimum wage increase   Minnesota Daily   ...The Minneapolis City Council approved a resolution earlier this month to create a group to research the possible effects of raising the city’s minimum wage. The group will investigate the economic impact of raising wages and consider concerns from both workers and businesses. It will give recommendations to city officials before the year ends...

U.S. Labor
UAW to protest proposal to close DHHS offices  Lansing State Journal  ...The United Auto Workers Local 6000 will on Tuesday begin demonstrating against a proposal to close Michigan Department of Health & Human Services offices around the state...
Union files NLRB charge against Lyondell Basell for impasse   Reuters  ...The United Steelworkers union filed a charge with the U.S. National Labor Relations Board against Lyondell Basell Industries for declaring an impasse in negotiations with striking Houston refinery workers, the union said on Monday. Lyondell declared the impasse on April 14 following the rejection of its "last, best and final" contract offer by striking workers...
Manufacturer cuts hundreds of N.C. jobs as operations move overseas  Charlotte Business Journal   ...The company will eliminate 143 positions in Lenoir and 82 jobs in Greensboro, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN notice, filed with the N.C. Department of Commerce. Avery Dennison is ending manufacturing operations in both locations and moving production to Juarez, Mexico, and to Honduras...

Miscellaneous
Connecting Baltimore Riots to Lead Poisoning, Wealth Disparity  Mediaite   ...Quoting Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s statement that “a riot is the language of the unheard,” Dyson suggested it would be difficult to condemn this riot without also mentioning the broad context for why a local community would destroy itself. “What we don’t have commentary about is the theft of capital from these urban post-industrial conditions”...
Why Millions of Americans Feel Like They Have No Power Over Their Lives  Alternet  ...Companies are treating workers as disposable cogs because most working people have no choice. They need work and must take what they can get. Although jobs are coming back from the depths of the Great Recession, the portion of the labor force actually working remains lower than it’s been in over thirty years...

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

How Baltimore's beverage tax cost Baltimore jobs

 They can't say we didn't warn them. Back in April, the Teamsters said that a 2-cent tax on every beverage container would kill jobs. The city went ahead and imposed the tax. Now 77 good-paying Teamster jobs are gone. According to The Baltimore Sun,

The last cans and 2-liter bottles of Pepsi-Cola, Diet Pepsi, Mountain Dew and other sodas ran through the production line Monday morning. Executives at Pepsi Beverages Co. told workers in meetings later in the day that production would be halted for good. Pepsi officials said they would work out details regarding the layoffs, including potential severance, with the local Teamsters union.


The company will continue most other functions at the plant on Union Avenue in Hampden. An additional 318 workers with positions in sales and in the warehouse will keep their jobs. Pepsi will continue making soda in other parts of the state and the Baltimore plant will get beverages from those facilities as well as others in the Mid-Atlantic region to distribute.
This is exactly what the Teamsters said would happen last spring. Local 570 secretary-treasurer Sean Cedenio issued a statement saying the tax would hurt beverage workers and their families. He said,
We are very concerned for our members who work for beverage distributors. We’re already seeing a shortage of work for our members. During these challenging economic times, the last thing we should be doing is causing jobs to be cut.


This time, there's no satisfaction in saying "I told you so."