Teamsters
EVSC, Teamsters to resume negotiations Monday Courier & Press ...After three weeks of standstill in discussions, the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp. and Teamsters Local 215 negotiating teams have agreed to meet next week for collective bargaining sessions. Local 215 President Chuck Whobrey said meetings are scheduled for Monday and Tuesday...
Teamsters Join Battle Against HOS Changes, Truck Size Provisions Trucking News ...The Teamsters Union this week stood with Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), representatives for highway safety advocates and law enforcement and families of highway accident victims to denounce a series of provisions it claims would threaten the safety of the driving public. This week, the Senate will follow the House and mark up the FY 2016 transportation appropriations bill...
Teamsters at Fleischmann's Plant Make Vinegar for the World Local 727 ...Vinegar is Bob Maza’s unofficial family business. Maza followed in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps as an operator at Fleischmann’s Vinegar Co., beginning at age 17. “My dad got me the job. I started there right out of high school in 1972, and I’ve been there ever since,” said Maza, a Teamsters Local 727 steward...
The war against bad trade deals continues TeamsterNation ...The battle now turns to the TPP. Americans have not yet seen the text of this lengthy and complex agreement and even elected officials have limited access to the document. Teamsters and other advocates plan on keeping up the pressure to build real and enforceable labor and environmental standards...
Global Labor & Trade
Congress renews 'fast track' trade authority USA Today ...The Republican-controlled Congress delivered a significant second-term victory for President Obama, sending to his desk a six-year renewal of trade promotion authority intended to advance one of the largest trade pacts in history later this year. Trade promotion authority, more commonly referred to as "fast track" or TPA, reestablishes an expedited legislative process for presidents to submit trade deals to Congress that can only be approved or rejected, not amended...
Senate approves fast-track, sending trade bill to White House The Hill ...The Senate voted Wednesday to approve fast-track authority, securing a big second-term legislative win for President Obama after a months-long struggle. The 60-38 Senate vote capped weeks of fighting over the trade bill, which pitted Obama against most of his party — including Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)...
Fast-Track’s Passage Sets Up Round Two on Obama’s Trade Agenda Wall Street Journal ...The White House and Republican leaders notched a significant victory Wednesday with the Senate’s passage of divisive trade legislation, but the win kicks off a grueling, monthslong process to complete a Pacific trade pact that still faces domestic opposition and must win final congressional approval. President Barack Obama is expected to sign the fast-track legislation within days, clearing a negotiating roadblock that prevented officials from moving ahead on the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership...
Here’s how much corporations paid the Senate to fast-track passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Raw Story ...The US Senate passed Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) — the fast-tracking bill — by a 65-33 margin on 14 May. Last Thursday, the Senate voted 62-38 to bring the debate on TPA to a close. Those impressive majorities follow months of behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing by the world’s most well-heeled multinational corporations with just a handful of holdouts.
Even in Chicago, Democrats Sprint Away From Obama on Trade National Journal ...Even in Obama's home base, trade has driven a deep rift between the president and his fellow Democrats. At the same time, the labor movement has ramped up pressure on lawmakers to vote against fast-track, which they say will cost American jobs and slash wages. And Chicago-area Democrats locked in primaries that could be decided by a spare few thousand votes can ill afford to get on the wrong side of labor on a litmus-test issue...
Pay deal averts rail strike threat BBC ...The threat of a UK national rail strike has been averted after Network Rail agreed a two-year pay deal with unions. Members of the RMT, TSSA and Unite unions have voted to accept the offer. The deal includes a 2% pay rise this year and a pay increase in line with RPI inflation next year...
Greece 'Shoved Over Red Line' as IMF Pushes Even Harsher Cuts Common Dreams ...More austerity, more cuts, or no deal. That's the message the International Monetary Fund threw back at the Greek government after negotiators on Wednesday rejected the latest reform proposals submitted by the Syriza government. According to reporting on the ground, there were a "flurry of proposals, counter-proposals, leaks and verbal attacks" in Brussels as Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras continued to try to hash out an acceptable bail-out...
China Workers Contracted by Uniqlo Strike Over Plant Closure ABC News ...More than 300 Chinese workers at a garment factory that supplies international brands such as Uniqlo have been protesting for about two weeks what they say is a unilateral decision by the management to close down. The strike is one of more than 1,000 collective actions since January by Chinese workers, who are increasingly turning to group actions in fighting for their rights...
State & Living Wage Battles
Dispute over union fees could return to Supreme Court Sacramento Bee ...Powerful public-sector unions are facing another high-profile legal challenge that they say could wipe away millions from their bank accounts and make it tougher for them to survive. A group of California schoolteachers, backed by a conservative group, has asked the Supreme Court to rule that unions representing government workers can't collect fees from those who choose not to join...
Scott Walker Reveals Extreme Views On Equal Pay Think Progress ...He likened the push for equal pay laws to seeking to make more people reliant on government. “For [Obama and Clinton], your measure of success in government is how many people are dependent on the government.”
But what Walker implies he’d rather do to address the wage gap — give women more education and qualifications — won’t do the trick...
Debate ramping up ahead of vote on right-to-work veto Joplin Globe ...While it never received support from a number of House and Senate Republicans from districts near the state’s urban cores, right-to-work received unanimous support from the Republicans who represent Southwest Missouri. The bill was passed out of a committee chaired by Lant, R-Pineville, who said in a recent interview that he is pushing the effort to override Nixon’s veto...
NAACP head says state ‘blinked’ on voter ID Winston-Salem Journal ...A noisy protest staged last week by the state NAACP at the N.C. Legislative Building in Raleigh forced legislators to pass the law that modifies the voter ID law, the Rev. William Barber, the president of the N.C. chapter of the NAACP, said Wednesday. “They blinked,” Barber said. “They had to go back and fix what was clearly voter suppression”...
De Blasio refused offer linking minimum wage to pension deal Capital New York ...Mayor Bill de Blasio was offered a deal to raise the minimum wage for New York City in exchange for supporting a police pension proposal, but he rejected the offer, multiple sources told Capital. The deal, offered by the Republican-controlled State Senate, would have established an $11.50-an-hour minimum wage for New York City, the sources familiar with the talks said...
Lawmakers Unanimously Approve Country’s Most Robust Paid Sick Leave Law Think Progress ...The Montgomery County, Maryland council voted unanimously to pass a paid sick leave bill on Tuesday, making the town the 23rd place in the country to enact such a requirement. The law is one of the most robust to be passed at the city or state level so far. “The Montgomery County paid sick days laws is one of the strongest yet, and it should serve as a model for the state of Maryland and the nation,” said Charly Carter, director of Maryland Working Families...
U.S. Labor
Someone Has to Sort Your Recycling, and It’s a Disgusting and Dangerous Job The Nation ...The industries that pride themselves on being friends of the earth are often hostile to workers, according to new research on the safety conditions in recycling plants. Published by the Massachusetts Council for Occupational Safety and Health (MassCOSH), National COSH, and other advocacy groups, the analysis of the industry shows that, despite the green sector’s clean, progressive image, workers remain imperiled by old-school industrial hazards...
Marathon refinery workers in Texas to end strike July 6 The Courier ...Unionized workers at Marathon Petroleum Corp.’s Galveston Bay refinery in Texas will go back to work July 6 following nearly five months of striking. They ratified a contract with the company on Tuesday. About 1,200 workers at the refinery in Texas City, Texas, walked off the job Feb. 1...
Verizon and its unions off to tough start to contract talks Times Union ...Verizon and the unions that represent 38,000 of its workers in the Northeast, including about 1,000 in the Capital Region, have gotten off to an acrimonious start to their contract negotiations. After Verizon publicized it had offered employees wage increases, which included a $1,000 cash payment in the final year of a proposed three-year agreement, union officials accused the company of trying to surgarcoat what was really a bad deal...
AT&T, CWA begin negotiations for 27,000 Southeast employees Fierce Telecom ...AT&T has begun contract negotiations with 27,000 employees in its Southeast territory represented by the Communications Workers of America (CWA). The Southeast region, which was formerly BellSouth, has wireline employees in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Both parties met yesterday with both presenting their own position statements on the negotiation process...
School bus company underpaid workers in NY state more than $290K, Cuomo says; Poughkeepsie employees affected Daily Freeman ...More than $290,000 in wages have been returned to 462 workers at Durham School Services locations across New York as the result if an investigation by the state Department of Labor’s Division of Worker Protection, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Monday. The labor department launched an investigation after Service Employees International Union Local 200 raised concerns about possible pay violations at the Durham location in Syracuse...
Miscellaneous
Federal Judge Halts Sysco-US Foods Merger Wall Street Journal ...A federal judge on Tuesday issued a preliminary injunction blocking Sysco Corp.’s planned acquisition of US Foods Inc., a ruling that could kill a deal to combine the nation’s two largest food distributors. The decision handed a high-profile victory to the Federal Trade Commission, which filed a lawsuit in February chanllenging the transaction on anti-trust grounds...
Obamacare upheld by US supreme court as conservative justices rescue law The Guardian ...Chief justice John Roberts has come to the rescue of Barack Obama’s healthcare reforms for a second time as the US supreme court struck down a Republican-led challenge to Obamacare that could have gutted the legislation and stripped millions of Americans of their health insurance. The decision in the high stakes case of King v Burwell all but guarantees that Obamacare will survive...
U.S. to Reduce Long Stays for Families at Immigration Centers New York Times ...In a sharp change of policy, Homeland Security officials announced plans Wednesday to end the long-term detention of mothers with children caught crossing the border illegally by allowing most of them to be released quickly on bond. The changes by Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson expanded policies he ordered last month that were designed to shorten family detention but that had only limited effect...
Deadly American Extremism: More White Than Muslim The Atlantic ...It’s an accident of fate that Dzokhar Tsarnaev’s formal sentencing for the Boston Marathon bombing is happening just now, as the U.S. continues to reel from the Charleston massacre. Jihadists have killed 26 people, versus 48 by what New America calls “right-wing extremists.” In that way, Dylann Roof is far more representative of political violence in 21st century America than Dzokhar Tsarnaev could ever be...
Showing posts with label HOS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label HOS. Show all posts
Thursday, June 25, 2015
Monday, January 19, 2015
Today's Teamster News 01.19.15
Trade
TPP negotiations to resume in late January 2015 Vietnamnet …The next round of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations will take place in New York in late January, taking up outstanding issues that were not solved at the previous talks in Washington in December 2014...
American Manufacturing Just Can’t Compete Economy in Crisis … “Free trade,” as it is practiced by China, Japan, Mexico and some others, translates to unrestricted access to buy, sell, undercut, or put out of business any company we own (which has been happening at an accelerated rate)...
War on Workers
Six Days on Fumes: A Trucker's Search for Starbucks and Sleep Bloomberg …[Tracy] Livingston is among the nation’s 2 million truckers, who endure back-to-back 14-hour days to deliver everything from aluminum cans to clothing to Christmas cookies. They practice an occupation that kills more of its practitioners than any other, with 525 dying on the road last year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Truckers pushed to their physical limits contribute to accidents in which almost 4,000 Americans die each year...
Paid Leave is Vital to Families’ Economic Security Economic Policy Institute …Mandatory paid sick time would mean that the many employers that already provide paid sick days would have a level playing field with their competitors, and all employers would be able to more easily maintain healthy workplaces. While any new labor standard generates concerns about the business climate and job creation, the evidence from jurisdictions that require paid sick days has all been positive...
The Key to $10 Billion in U.S. Human Smuggling: Big Banks Bloomberg ...Major banks, including Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo, have been used as financial conduits for the smuggling industry, according to evidence in a federal criminal case against a gang of 15 human smugglers and warrants from prosecutors in Arizona, Maryland and Texas...
Richest 1% to own more than rest of world, Oxfam says BBC News …The charity's research shows that the share of the world's wealth owned by the richest 1% increased from 44% in 2009 to 48% last year. On current trends, Oxfam says it expects the wealthiest 1% to own more than 50% of the world's wealth by 2016...
Five Causes of Wage Stagnation in the United States AFL-CIO … "Since the late 1970s, wages for the bottom 70 percent of earners have been essentially stagnant, and between 2009 and 2013, real wages fell for the entire bottom 90 percent of the wage distribution."...
The Van Hollen Plan Takes on Soaring CEO Pay: A Debate We Need to Have Next New Deal …The CEO-Employee Paycheck Fairness Act stops corporations from claiming tax deductions for “performance pay” for executives – e.g. stock options and stock grants – “unless their workers are getting paycheck increases that reflect increases in worker productivity and the cost of living.”...
Miscellaneous
Icezilla: Ice storm leads to hundreds of accidents from Philly to New York and Connecticut CNN ...After crashing into at least 20 cars piled up on Interstate 76, one person was killed after getting out of a car and being hit by an oncoming vehicle, authorities said...
TPP negotiations to resume in late January 2015 Vietnamnet …The next round of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations will take place in New York in late January, taking up outstanding issues that were not solved at the previous talks in Washington in December 2014...
American Manufacturing Just Can’t Compete Economy in Crisis … “Free trade,” as it is practiced by China, Japan, Mexico and some others, translates to unrestricted access to buy, sell, undercut, or put out of business any company we own (which has been happening at an accelerated rate)...
War on Workers
Six Days on Fumes: A Trucker's Search for Starbucks and Sleep Bloomberg …[Tracy] Livingston is among the nation’s 2 million truckers, who endure back-to-back 14-hour days to deliver everything from aluminum cans to clothing to Christmas cookies. They practice an occupation that kills more of its practitioners than any other, with 525 dying on the road last year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Truckers pushed to their physical limits contribute to accidents in which almost 4,000 Americans die each year...
Paid Leave is Vital to Families’ Economic Security Economic Policy Institute …Mandatory paid sick time would mean that the many employers that already provide paid sick days would have a level playing field with their competitors, and all employers would be able to more easily maintain healthy workplaces. While any new labor standard generates concerns about the business climate and job creation, the evidence from jurisdictions that require paid sick days has all been positive...
The Key to $10 Billion in U.S. Human Smuggling: Big Banks Bloomberg ...Major banks, including Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo, have been used as financial conduits for the smuggling industry, according to evidence in a federal criminal case against a gang of 15 human smugglers and warrants from prosecutors in Arizona, Maryland and Texas...
Richest 1% to own more than rest of world, Oxfam says BBC News …The charity's research shows that the share of the world's wealth owned by the richest 1% increased from 44% in 2009 to 48% last year. On current trends, Oxfam says it expects the wealthiest 1% to own more than 50% of the world's wealth by 2016...
Five Causes of Wage Stagnation in the United States AFL-CIO … "Since the late 1970s, wages for the bottom 70 percent of earners have been essentially stagnant, and between 2009 and 2013, real wages fell for the entire bottom 90 percent of the wage distribution."...
The Van Hollen Plan Takes on Soaring CEO Pay: A Debate We Need to Have Next New Deal …The CEO-Employee Paycheck Fairness Act stops corporations from claiming tax deductions for “performance pay” for executives – e.g. stock options and stock grants – “unless their workers are getting paycheck increases that reflect increases in worker productivity and the cost of living.”...
Miscellaneous
Icezilla: Ice storm leads to hundreds of accidents from Philly to New York and Connecticut CNN ...After crashing into at least 20 cars piled up on Interstate 76, one person was killed after getting out of a car and being hit by an oncoming vehicle, authorities said...
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
The CRomnibus fiasco, or how the many end up giving to the few
The hideous CRomnibus bill is now awaiting President Obama's signature over the Teamsters' strident opposition.
The CRomnibus bill would allow already-earned pension benefits to be cut, extend the hours a truck driver may work to 82 a week, lets Wall Street gamble with taxpayer-insured funds and lets rich people spend more money on political campaigns.
If you want to tell President Obama to veto the CRomnibus, you can email him at www.whitehouse.gov/contact. (The White House comments line has been shut down.)
David Cay Johnston points out how the CRomnibus is yet another example of Congress taking from the many and giving to the few. Unlike most journalists, Johnston focuses on the possible pension cuts rather than the Wall Street giveaway. Writes Johnston in National Memo.
The CRomnibus bill would allow already-earned pension benefits to be cut, extend the hours a truck driver may work to 82 a week, lets Wall Street gamble with taxpayer-insured funds and lets rich people spend more money on political campaigns.
If you want to tell President Obama to veto the CRomnibus, you can email him at www.whitehouse.gov/contact. (The White House comments line has been shut down.)
David Cay Johnston points out how the CRomnibus is yet another example of Congress taking from the many and giving to the few. Unlike most journalists, Johnston focuses on the possible pension cuts rather than the Wall Street giveaway. Writes Johnston in National Memo.
In what could have been a scene in the Hunger Games movies, the big banks and our elected leaders joined together to steal from blue-collar workers.
For the first time in 40 years, since the Employee Retirement Income Security Act was adopted in 1974 to ensure workers would collect pay they deferred into pension plans for their old age, Congress decided that benefits already earned can be taken away.Johnston calls out the elitism of the mainstream media in ignoring the pension debacle:
This historic shift got one sentence in The New York Times: “It allows certain multi-employer pension plans to shore up their finances by cutting retirees’ benefits.”...
That this provision got almost no news coverage shows just how much our leading news organizations cater to economic elites favored by advertisers, and how the current generation of reporters at the best news organizations comes heavily from the upper economic tiers of American society.
Reporters and editors whose parents were coal miners, truck drivers and clerks have given way to those with degrees from elite schools, some with trust funds that insulate them from the realities of American life for the vast majority. With that shift comes a predicable change in perspective, from “there is plenty that needs fixing” to “the world generally seems quite just.”
In the late 1990s I suggested a story about how a family gets by on two grand a month. A prosperous colleague at The Times said, “No one in New York City lives on $25,000.” When I offered to take my colleague to the subway stop at 74th St. and Roosevelt Ave. in Queens, saying we could easily find such people on the streets, the reply shifted to this: “Oh, those people. Nobody cares about those people.”Please remember to send that email and ask President Obama to veto the CRomnibus.
Today's Teamster News 12.16.14
Teamster News
What the Cromnibus Law Means for Multiemployer Pension Plans International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans ...The law states that plans in "critical and declining status" can temporarily or permanently suspend current and future benefits...
Congress Rolls Back Trucker Rest Requirements CBS12 …Fatigue is often a major factor in many crashes. So why are federal lawmakers saying its okay for big rig haulers to drive more and sleep less?...
CRomnibus Heads to Oval Office U.S. News and World Report ...the bill now heads to the Oval Office for approval...
Maine Senator Is Again Friend to Trucking as Rule Eased Bloomberg ...Susan Collins...got a rider attached to the spending bill approved over the weekend so truckers will no longer have to get two nights sleep in a row before starting a work week. Suspending year-old federal regulations means truckers will be allowed to work as many as 82 hours over eight days -- upending what safety advocates said was a key component of a 15-year effort to reduce deaths caused by drowsy long-haul drivers...
Two N.Y. State Senators Oppose Horse-Carriage Ban, Warn Of 'Real Battle' New York Daily News ...Two Democratic state senators are the latest to come out in opposition to Mayor de Blasio’s push to ban horse carriages in the city. Sens. Diane Savino, chairwoman of the Senate Labor Committee, and Jose Peralta, the panel’s ranking minority party member, have drafted a letter to de Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito vehemently opposing to the Council bill on the mayor’s plan...
Entergy,Teamsters Union Agree On Contract For Indian Point Security Workers Daily Voice ... Entergy and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 456 have agreed on a new contract for the union’s approximately 186 security workers at the Indian Point Energy Center in Buchanan...
Keystone XL pipeline may no longer make economic sense, experts say Los Angeles Times ...plunging oil prices have analysts questioning whether the plan to link Canadian tar sands with Gulf Coast refineries still makes economic sense...
Trade
Hatch says trade an area where GOP, Obama can work together The Hill ...Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who is expected to take the helm of the Senate Finance Committee, said passing trade promotion authority (TPA) is not only an avenue to completing two massive trade deals — the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) — but is a place where Republicans can work with President Obama...
New Trade Agreements will Take Center Stage in 2015. So Will Bad Arguments Made on their Behalf. Economic Policy Institute ...while these trade-induced losses (which I estimated to be roughly $1,800 annually for a full-time worker without a college degree) do not explain all, or even the majority, of the rise in inequality over the past generation, they’re not trivial...
State Battles
Right-to-work would trim union clout, but broader economic impact unclear Wisconsin State Journal ...“We’re not purporting to prove that right-to-work produces superior economic performance,” Greer said. The more important argument, he said, is that workers should have the freedom to choose whether to pay union dues or not...
Florida senators relaunch bill to overhaul local pension plans Tampa Bay Times ...The measure would allow cities with faltering pension funds to use additional insurance premium tax revenues to shore up their accounts...
Public money for schools buys private property Detroit Free Press ...National Heritage Academies, Michigan's largest charter management company, has an unusual arrangement with its schools. The for-profit company — and not the schools — owns the contents of its school buildings, even though those desks, computers, books and supplies may have been purchased with taxpayer money...
What the Cromnibus Law Means for Multiemployer Pension Plans International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans ...The law states that plans in "critical and declining status" can temporarily or permanently suspend current and future benefits...
Congress Rolls Back Trucker Rest Requirements CBS12 …Fatigue is often a major factor in many crashes. So why are federal lawmakers saying its okay for big rig haulers to drive more and sleep less?...
CRomnibus Heads to Oval Office U.S. News and World Report ...the bill now heads to the Oval Office for approval...
Maine Senator Is Again Friend to Trucking as Rule Eased Bloomberg ...Susan Collins...got a rider attached to the spending bill approved over the weekend so truckers will no longer have to get two nights sleep in a row before starting a work week. Suspending year-old federal regulations means truckers will be allowed to work as many as 82 hours over eight days -- upending what safety advocates said was a key component of a 15-year effort to reduce deaths caused by drowsy long-haul drivers...
Two N.Y. State Senators Oppose Horse-Carriage Ban, Warn Of 'Real Battle' New York Daily News ...Two Democratic state senators are the latest to come out in opposition to Mayor de Blasio’s push to ban horse carriages in the city. Sens. Diane Savino, chairwoman of the Senate Labor Committee, and Jose Peralta, the panel’s ranking minority party member, have drafted a letter to de Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito vehemently opposing to the Council bill on the mayor’s plan...
Entergy,Teamsters Union Agree On Contract For Indian Point Security Workers Daily Voice ... Entergy and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 456 have agreed on a new contract for the union’s approximately 186 security workers at the Indian Point Energy Center in Buchanan...
Keystone XL pipeline may no longer make economic sense, experts say Los Angeles Times ...plunging oil prices have analysts questioning whether the plan to link Canadian tar sands with Gulf Coast refineries still makes economic sense...
Trade
Hatch says trade an area where GOP, Obama can work together The Hill ...Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who is expected to take the helm of the Senate Finance Committee, said passing trade promotion authority (TPA) is not only an avenue to completing two massive trade deals — the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) — but is a place where Republicans can work with President Obama...
New Trade Agreements will Take Center Stage in 2015. So Will Bad Arguments Made on their Behalf. Economic Policy Institute ...while these trade-induced losses (which I estimated to be roughly $1,800 annually for a full-time worker without a college degree) do not explain all, or even the majority, of the rise in inequality over the past generation, they’re not trivial...
State Battles
Right-to-work would trim union clout, but broader economic impact unclear Wisconsin State Journal ...“We’re not purporting to prove that right-to-work produces superior economic performance,” Greer said. The more important argument, he said, is that workers should have the freedom to choose whether to pay union dues or not...
Florida senators relaunch bill to overhaul local pension plans Tampa Bay Times ...The measure would allow cities with faltering pension funds to use additional insurance premium tax revenues to shore up their accounts...
Public money for schools buys private property Detroit Free Press ...National Heritage Academies, Michigan's largest charter management company, has an unusual arrangement with its schools. The for-profit company — and not the schools — owns the contents of its school buildings, even though those desks, computers, books and supplies may have been purchased with taxpayer money...
Kansas Governor Proposes Using Pension Money to Cover Budget Gaps Created By His Tax Cuts International Business Times ...In 2012, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback signed a landmark bill that delivered big tax cuts to high income earners and businesses. Less than two years after that tax cut, the state's income tax revenues plummeted by a quarter-billion dollars -- and now Brownback is pushing to use money for public employees’ pensions to instead cover the state's ensuing budget shortfalls...
Inside The Koch-Backed History Lessons North Carolina Wants To Teach High School Students ThinkProgress ...Public high school students in North Carolina will be taught from a lesson plans and worksheets prepared by a organization closely tied to the billionaire Koch brothers, if the state’s Department of Public Instruction gets its way...
W.Va. Minimum Wage Rising In 2015 And 2016 WSAZ ...Back in April, Governor Earl Ray Tomblin signed a bill raising minimum wage by 75 cents, which means it will soon rise to $8 an hour. The raise goes into effect January 1st. As part of the bill, minimum wage will go up another 75 cents in 2016...
Councilors Put Off Vote On Mayor’s Plan To Raise Portland’s Minimum Wage Portland Press Herald ...The Portland City Council’s Finance Committee listened to more than two hours of testimony Thursday on a measure that would raise the city’s minimum wage to a level above the state minimum, but postponed making a final recommendation until next year...
War on Workers
Pension Bill Seen as Model for Further Cuts Wall Street Journal ...A measure included in Congress’s mammoth spending bill permits benefit cuts for retirees in one type of pension plan, a big shift that lawmakers and others believe could set a precedent for other troubled retirement programs...
Kevin Yoder MIA After Tucking Wall Street Bailout Into Government Spending Bill Huffington Post ...For all the anger among progressives about a Wall Street bailout provision that made its way into the just-passed $1.1 trillion government spending bill, there's been little attention on the person who put it in there. Meet Congressman Kevin Yoder (R-Kansas). Yoder, a second-term congressman whose largest contributors are in the finance industry, introduced the provision last summer. It was literally written by Citigroup executives...
U.S. taxpayers help fund oil-train boom amid safety concerns Reuters ...States and the federal government have handed out tens of millions in public dollars to rail companies and government agencies to expand crude oil rail transportation across the country, a Reuters analysis has found...
Strikes across Belgium cause transport chaos BBC News ...The widespread industrial action is the latest in a series of strikes protesting against the new centre-right coalition's austerity policies. The government plans to save €11bn (£8.7bn) in the next five years. The 24-hour strike is the largest to have taken place in Belgium for many years. It has forced government offices and schools to close, and the country's ports have been blockaded...
Wealth inequality has widened along racial, ethnic lines since end of Great Recession Pew Research Center …The wealth of white households was 13 times the median wealth of black households in 2013, compared with eight times the wealth in 2010, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of data from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances. Likewise, the wealth of white households is now more than 10 times the wealth of Hispanic households, compared with nine times the wealth in 2010...
The Devalued American Worker Washington Post ...Green once held a middle-class job. Now, to make enough money to send his children to college, he works the equivalent of two full-time jobs: one maintaining highways for the state of North Carolina and one ushering fans and collecting trash for a variety of sports teams around Winston-Salem...
It's Going To Get A Little Easier For Workers To Unionize Huffington Post ...Federal officials unveiled new rules on Friday that will streamline and simplify the union election process, a reform long sought by labor unions and fiercely opposed by businesses...
Uber Backtracks After Jacking Up Prices During Sydney Hostage Crisis Washington Post ...After an armed gunman took patrons of a Sydney chocolate shop hostage during rush hour Monday morning, the transportation company Uber quadrupled its fares for panic-stricken customers fleeing the central business district...
MLGW worker dies after explosion WREG.com …A crew was trying to repair a gas line on the 4600 block of Winter Park Drive when there was a spark and an explosion…
Miscellaneous
The Supreme Court just made it easier for police to search your car Vox ...The Supreme Court ruled Monday that police officers can sometimes conduct a search and seizure of a car even if that search is the result of an unlawful stop...
Councilors Put Off Vote On Mayor’s Plan To Raise Portland’s Minimum Wage Portland Press Herald ...The Portland City Council’s Finance Committee listened to more than two hours of testimony Thursday on a measure that would raise the city’s minimum wage to a level above the state minimum, but postponed making a final recommendation until next year...
War on Workers
Pension Bill Seen as Model for Further Cuts Wall Street Journal ...A measure included in Congress’s mammoth spending bill permits benefit cuts for retirees in one type of pension plan, a big shift that lawmakers and others believe could set a precedent for other troubled retirement programs...
Kevin Yoder MIA After Tucking Wall Street Bailout Into Government Spending Bill Huffington Post ...For all the anger among progressives about a Wall Street bailout provision that made its way into the just-passed $1.1 trillion government spending bill, there's been little attention on the person who put it in there. Meet Congressman Kevin Yoder (R-Kansas). Yoder, a second-term congressman whose largest contributors are in the finance industry, introduced the provision last summer. It was literally written by Citigroup executives...
U.S. taxpayers help fund oil-train boom amid safety concerns Reuters ...States and the federal government have handed out tens of millions in public dollars to rail companies and government agencies to expand crude oil rail transportation across the country, a Reuters analysis has found...
Strikes across Belgium cause transport chaos BBC News ...The widespread industrial action is the latest in a series of strikes protesting against the new centre-right coalition's austerity policies. The government plans to save €11bn (£8.7bn) in the next five years. The 24-hour strike is the largest to have taken place in Belgium for many years. It has forced government offices and schools to close, and the country's ports have been blockaded...
Wealth inequality has widened along racial, ethnic lines since end of Great Recession Pew Research Center …The wealth of white households was 13 times the median wealth of black households in 2013, compared with eight times the wealth in 2010, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of data from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances. Likewise, the wealth of white households is now more than 10 times the wealth of Hispanic households, compared with nine times the wealth in 2010...
The Devalued American Worker Washington Post ...Green once held a middle-class job. Now, to make enough money to send his children to college, he works the equivalent of two full-time jobs: one maintaining highways for the state of North Carolina and one ushering fans and collecting trash for a variety of sports teams around Winston-Salem...
It's Going To Get A Little Easier For Workers To Unionize Huffington Post ...Federal officials unveiled new rules on Friday that will streamline and simplify the union election process, a reform long sought by labor unions and fiercely opposed by businesses...
Uber Backtracks After Jacking Up Prices During Sydney Hostage Crisis Washington Post ...After an armed gunman took patrons of a Sydney chocolate shop hostage during rush hour Monday morning, the transportation company Uber quadrupled its fares for panic-stricken customers fleeing the central business district...
MLGW worker dies after explosion WREG.com …A crew was trying to repair a gas line on the 4600 block of Winter Park Drive when there was a spark and an explosion…
Miscellaneous
The Supreme Court just made it easier for police to search your car Vox ...The Supreme Court ruled Monday that police officers can sometimes conduct a search and seizure of a car even if that search is the result of an unlawful stop...
Saturday, December 13, 2014
Today's Teamster News 12.13.14
Teamster News
While Cromnibus Waits, Teamsters Object to Pension Plan Roll Call ...the Senate might not be able to hold its final vote on the measure until Monday...Teamsters Object. With the fiscal 2015 spending bill on track for action, the Teamsters union is weighing in with a last-ditch effort to get lawmakers to reject the measure. A statement from Teamsters President Jim Hoffa pointed to pension changes in the measure, which the union said would result “in an untold number of retirees losing a substantial percentage of their fixed income should reductions be required.” The Teamsters are also objecting to the controversial hours of service rules in the bill...
34-Hour Restart Changes: House Passes Spending Bill; Eyes On Senate Commercial Carrier Journal ...First, it removes the requirement that drivers’ 34-hour restarts include two 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. periods. Second, it removes the one-per-week limit of the restart’s use. It also requires FMCSA to produce a study to show how the restart provisions improve safety. The stay of enforcement of the rules will end after Sept. 30, 2015, and after FMCSA provides its report justifying the rules...
Reid Announces Weekend Votes After Blockade (Updated) Roll Call ...Reid also said that absent an agreement, the Senate would vote at 1 a.m. Sunday to limit debate on the cromnibus spending package...
CRomnibus Disaster Signals a Sad New Normal in D.C. The Fiscal Times ...Under the bill, trustees would be enabled to cut pension benefits to current retirees, reversing a 40-year bond with workers who earned their retirement packages...
Sysco Poised To Complete $8.2B Merger With US Foods New York Post ...Sysco is poised to complete the $8.2 billion merger with its closest rival, US Foods, but at a much stiffer price than expected, The Post has learned. America’s biggest food-service provider, Sysco is selling assets worth $5 billion to Performance Food Group (owned by Steve Schwarzman-led Blackstone Group) to win regulatory approval, two sources said. That is equal to roughly one-quarter of US Foods’ revenue...
Congressman Urges Cooperation Between Teamsters And Giant Eagle Distributor WFMJ ...Representative Ryan as sent letters pleading with the Tamarkin Company and Teamsters Local 377 to “quickly and efficiently negotiate a fair resolution to the ongoing labor dispute. The result of an impasse is simply not in the best interests of the workers, the company or this community,” writes Ryan...
State AFL-CIO opposes Bill de Blasio's horse carriage ban New York Daily News ... A resolution passed Friday by the state AFL-CIO says New York City's carriage industry provides 300 good middle-class jobs. The major statewide labor coalition is the latest of several union groups to vow to fight the mayor's proposal...
Trade
Growing U.S. trade deficit with China cost 3.2 million jobs between 2001 and 2013, with job losses in every state Economic Policy Institute ...a growing U.S. goods trade deficit with China has the United States piling up foreign debt, losing export capacity, and losing jobs, especially in the vital but under-siege manufacturing sector...
Obama 'more optimistic' about Pacific trade deal The Hill ...President Obama said Thursday he believes the odds for striking a Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement are "significantly higher than 50-50" in a meeting Thursday with his export council...
State Battles
Warren County Votes To Become Right To Work County WBKO ...Fiscal Court approved a right to work ordinance on the first reading Thursday morning with a vote of 5-1, democrat Tommy Hunt was the lone magistrate against it...
Jury still out on Michigan's growth, lack of since becoming right-to-work state WNEM.com …Woods said right-to-work isn't creating jobs in Michigan. "Michigan still ranks in the top 10 states in unemployment rate at 7.1 percent," she said...
Rex Sinquefield’s million-dollar donation heralds new craziness in Missouri Kansas City Star ...many Missouri Republicans are very nervous about Sinquefield’s ostentatious bankrolling of his personal slate of candidates for the 2016 statewide ticket...
NJ AFL-CIO supports ‘Buy America’ bills PolitickerNJ ...Urgently needed legislation that will give American-made products and U.S. workers a fair shake in the domestic marketplace cleared another legislative hurdle on Thursday, December 11, when it was released by the Assembly Budget Committee...
GOP may seek last push for Pa. action TribLive ...[Pennsylvania] Lawmakers could make a final push to privatize state liquor stores, reform the public pension system and end government collection of union dues from paychecks — proposals Wolf opposes...
The Koch Wall Street Crusade To Rob Pensions Is Underway PoliticusUSA ...despite sending his state into an economic tailspin after squandering a budget surplus and cutting services to provide unimaginable tax cuts for the rich, Kansas governor Sam Brownback is robbing employee pensions to cover the state’s devastating budget shortfalls...
Koch brothers group files suit against Calif. AG, refuses to disclose donors Legal Newsline ...nonprofit group founded by the Koch brothers is challenging California Attorney General Kamala Harris’ threat to take its state tax-exempt status unless it discloses the identities of its donors...
War on Workers
Ruling Lets Work Email Be Used To Organize Unions New York Times ...Calling that ruling “clearly incorrect,” the current majority noted how technology had transformed daily habits. “The workplace is ‘uniquely appropriate’ and ‘the natural gathering place’ for such communications,” the board wrote, “and the use of email as a common form of workplace communication has expanded dramatically in recent years.”...
The Vanishing Male Worker: How America Fell Behind New York Times ...Working, in America, is in decline. The share of prime-age men — those 25 to 54 years old — who are not working has more than tripled since the late 1960s, to 16 percent. More recently, since the turn of the century, the share of women without paying jobs has been rising, too. The United States, which had one of the highest employment rates among developed nations as recently as 2000, has fallen toward the bottom of the list...
Wage Theft Costing Workers Millions of Dollars RH Reality Check ...The lost wages in those two states represent $20 million in lost income per week in New York and $29 million in lost income per week in California...
Construction Worker Killed After Roof Collapsed WGTU ...A 51-year-old West Branch man was killed after falling through the roof of a building...
Miscellaneous
Verizon's New, Encrypted Calling App Comes Pre-Hacked For The NSA Bloomberg Businessweek ...Verizon is the latest big company to enter the post-Snowden market for secure communication, and it's doing so with an encryption standard that comes with a way for law enforcement to access ostensibly secure phone conversations...
While Cromnibus Waits, Teamsters Object to Pension Plan Roll Call ...the Senate might not be able to hold its final vote on the measure until Monday...Teamsters Object. With the fiscal 2015 spending bill on track for action, the Teamsters union is weighing in with a last-ditch effort to get lawmakers to reject the measure. A statement from Teamsters President Jim Hoffa pointed to pension changes in the measure, which the union said would result “in an untold number of retirees losing a substantial percentage of their fixed income should reductions be required.” The Teamsters are also objecting to the controversial hours of service rules in the bill...
34-Hour Restart Changes: House Passes Spending Bill; Eyes On Senate Commercial Carrier Journal ...First, it removes the requirement that drivers’ 34-hour restarts include two 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. periods. Second, it removes the one-per-week limit of the restart’s use. It also requires FMCSA to produce a study to show how the restart provisions improve safety. The stay of enforcement of the rules will end after Sept. 30, 2015, and after FMCSA provides its report justifying the rules...
Reid Announces Weekend Votes After Blockade (Updated) Roll Call ...Reid also said that absent an agreement, the Senate would vote at 1 a.m. Sunday to limit debate on the cromnibus spending package...
CRomnibus Disaster Signals a Sad New Normal in D.C. The Fiscal Times ...Under the bill, trustees would be enabled to cut pension benefits to current retirees, reversing a 40-year bond with workers who earned their retirement packages...
Sysco Poised To Complete $8.2B Merger With US Foods New York Post ...Sysco is poised to complete the $8.2 billion merger with its closest rival, US Foods, but at a much stiffer price than expected, The Post has learned. America’s biggest food-service provider, Sysco is selling assets worth $5 billion to Performance Food Group (owned by Steve Schwarzman-led Blackstone Group) to win regulatory approval, two sources said. That is equal to roughly one-quarter of US Foods’ revenue...
Congressman Urges Cooperation Between Teamsters And Giant Eagle Distributor WFMJ ...Representative Ryan as sent letters pleading with the Tamarkin Company and Teamsters Local 377 to “quickly and efficiently negotiate a fair resolution to the ongoing labor dispute. The result of an impasse is simply not in the best interests of the workers, the company or this community,” writes Ryan...
State AFL-CIO opposes Bill de Blasio's horse carriage ban New York Daily News ... A resolution passed Friday by the state AFL-CIO says New York City's carriage industry provides 300 good middle-class jobs. The major statewide labor coalition is the latest of several union groups to vow to fight the mayor's proposal...
Trade
Growing U.S. trade deficit with China cost 3.2 million jobs between 2001 and 2013, with job losses in every state Economic Policy Institute ...a growing U.S. goods trade deficit with China has the United States piling up foreign debt, losing export capacity, and losing jobs, especially in the vital but under-siege manufacturing sector...
Obama 'more optimistic' about Pacific trade deal The Hill ...President Obama said Thursday he believes the odds for striking a Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement are "significantly higher than 50-50" in a meeting Thursday with his export council...
State Battles
Warren County Votes To Become Right To Work County WBKO ...Fiscal Court approved a right to work ordinance on the first reading Thursday morning with a vote of 5-1, democrat Tommy Hunt was the lone magistrate against it...
Jury still out on Michigan's growth, lack of since becoming right-to-work state WNEM.com …Woods said right-to-work isn't creating jobs in Michigan. "Michigan still ranks in the top 10 states in unemployment rate at 7.1 percent," she said...
Rex Sinquefield’s million-dollar donation heralds new craziness in Missouri Kansas City Star ...many Missouri Republicans are very nervous about Sinquefield’s ostentatious bankrolling of his personal slate of candidates for the 2016 statewide ticket...
NJ AFL-CIO supports ‘Buy America’ bills PolitickerNJ ...Urgently needed legislation that will give American-made products and U.S. workers a fair shake in the domestic marketplace cleared another legislative hurdle on Thursday, December 11, when it was released by the Assembly Budget Committee...
GOP may seek last push for Pa. action TribLive ...[Pennsylvania] Lawmakers could make a final push to privatize state liquor stores, reform the public pension system and end government collection of union dues from paychecks — proposals Wolf opposes...
The Koch Wall Street Crusade To Rob Pensions Is Underway PoliticusUSA ...despite sending his state into an economic tailspin after squandering a budget surplus and cutting services to provide unimaginable tax cuts for the rich, Kansas governor Sam Brownback is robbing employee pensions to cover the state’s devastating budget shortfalls...
Koch brothers group files suit against Calif. AG, refuses to disclose donors Legal Newsline ...nonprofit group founded by the Koch brothers is challenging California Attorney General Kamala Harris’ threat to take its state tax-exempt status unless it discloses the identities of its donors...
War on Workers
Ruling Lets Work Email Be Used To Organize Unions New York Times ...Calling that ruling “clearly incorrect,” the current majority noted how technology had transformed daily habits. “The workplace is ‘uniquely appropriate’ and ‘the natural gathering place’ for such communications,” the board wrote, “and the use of email as a common form of workplace communication has expanded dramatically in recent years.”...
The Vanishing Male Worker: How America Fell Behind New York Times ...Working, in America, is in decline. The share of prime-age men — those 25 to 54 years old — who are not working has more than tripled since the late 1960s, to 16 percent. More recently, since the turn of the century, the share of women without paying jobs has been rising, too. The United States, which had one of the highest employment rates among developed nations as recently as 2000, has fallen toward the bottom of the list...
Wage Theft Costing Workers Millions of Dollars RH Reality Check ...The lost wages in those two states represent $20 million in lost income per week in New York and $29 million in lost income per week in California...
Construction Worker Killed After Roof Collapsed WGTU ...A 51-year-old West Branch man was killed after falling through the roof of a building...
Miscellaneous
Verizon's New, Encrypted Calling App Comes Pre-Hacked For The NSA Bloomberg Businessweek ...Verizon is the latest big company to enter the post-Snowden market for secure communication, and it's doing so with an encryption standard that comes with a way for law enforcement to access ostensibly secure phone conversations...
Friday, December 12, 2014
Will Senate stand with workers or Wall St. and powerful interests in CRomnibus vote?
The U.S. Senate is poised to pass a spending bill that will make life harder for working people, empowers the wealthy and lets Wall Street gamble with taxpayer-insured money.
It's called the #CRomnibus, and it's horrible.
The House of Representatives passed the bill last night. Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa called out the political cowardice of the members of Congress who voted for it.
It's called the #CRomnibus, and it's horrible.
The House of Representatives passed the bill last night. Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa called out the political cowardice of the members of Congress who voted for it.
I am sure that arms were twisted and promises and threats were made in equal measure to pass a spending bill that is rife with provisions that will only prove damaging to the constituents these officials pledged to represent...
In one sweep of the pen, pension policies that have protected millions of workers for decades could be irrevocably changed resulting in an untold number of retirees losing a substantial percentage of their fixed income should reductions be required. And who benefits? UPS - a $100 billion, Fortune 50 company that is trying to squirm out of an obligation it agreed to when it withdrew from the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund.
How did so many pension funds reach this critical stage? The government allowed banks to make risky investments with money from pension funds –the same type of financial gambles that a provision in this spending bill will allow to be made again.
And while our pension funds are being put at risk by these provisions, trucking companies are pulling the strings of their puppets in Congress to roll back hours of service rules so they can force drivers to work 80 hours a week with insufficient rest.David Dayen at The Fiscal Times calls it a disaster and lists the many, many ways it harms working people:
...the CRomnibus boosts special interests at the expense of ordinary people in a host of other ways...
It cuts $60 million from the EPA and a whopping $346 million, about 3 percent, from the IRS, at a time when the agency’s workload will increase with Obamacare. The IRS cuts signal to wealthy earners that they can freely engage in tax avoidance, with little expectation of an audit...
Under the bill, trustees would be enabled to cut pension benefits to current retirees, reversing a 40-year bond with workers who earned their retirement packages. Voters in the District of Columbia who approved legalized marijuana will see their initiative vaporized, with local government prohibited from taxing or regulating the drug’s sale. Trucking companies can make roads less safe by giving their employees 82-hour work weeks without sufficient rest breaks. Pell grants for college students will be cut, with the money diverted to private student loan contractors who have actively harmed borrowers. Government financiers of overseas projects will be prevented from stopping funding for coal-fired power plants. Blue Cross and Blue Shield will be allowed to count “quality improvement” measures toward their mandatory health spending under Obamacare’s “medical loss ratio” provision, a windfall saving them millions of dollars.
I’m not done. The bill eliminates a bipartisan measure to end “backdoor” searches by the NSA of Americans’ private communications. It blocks the EPA from regulating certain water sources for farmers. It adds an exception to allow the U.S. to continue to fund Egypt’s military leadership. In a giveaway to potato growers, it reduces nutrition standards in school lunches and the Women, Infant and Children food aid program. It halts the listing of new endangered species. It stops the regulation of lead in hunting ammunition or fishing equipment. It limits contributions to the Green Climate Fund to compensate poor countries ravaged by climate change.You can help try to stop the disaster from happening. Call your senators at 1-888-979-9806 or follow this link: http://teamster.org/protectpensions. Call NOW!
Thursday, December 11, 2014
CRomnibus stalled! Keep those calls and emails coming.
The Teamsters Union is urging members to call and write their representatives in Congress with a message: Vote NO on the spending bill that would slash pensions and put tired truckers on the road while empowering Wall Street and the wealthy.
It's working. The bill, nicknamed the CRomnibus, is stalled despite the threat of a government shutdown at midnight Friday if it doesn't pass. (Congress could instead just pass a bill to continue funding at current levels.)
The bill includes provisions that would cut multiemployer pension benefits for people who've already earned them. It would change the hours-of-service rule to let truck drivers work 82 hours a week instead of the current 70. On top of that, it would undo financial reforms and let big banks gamble with money insured by taxpayers. It would also raise the amount of money very rich people can give to political candidates by a factor of 10.
The Hill reported "Funding bill struggles for votes; Short-term measure an option."
Click on this link to make a call: http://teamster.org/protectpensions
It will only take a few minutes to do both.
It's working. The bill, nicknamed the CRomnibus, is stalled despite the threat of a government shutdown at midnight Friday if it doesn't pass. (Congress could instead just pass a bill to continue funding at current levels.)
The bill includes provisions that would cut multiemployer pension benefits for people who've already earned them. It would change the hours-of-service rule to let truck drivers work 82 hours a week instead of the current 70. On top of that, it would undo financial reforms and let big banks gamble with money insured by taxpayers. It would also raise the amount of money very rich people can give to political candidates by a factor of 10.
The Hill reported "Funding bill struggles for votes; Short-term measure an option."
A $1.1 trillion bill to keep the government open appeared to be teetering Thursday after House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) announced her opposition and the package narrowly survived a procedural vote.
The House went into recess shortly after 2 p.m. after the debate on the bill had concluded, something that could signal GOP leaders aren’t sure they have the votes necessary to pass the bill...
Pelosi in a floor speech Thursday afternoon harshly criticized the language on Wall Street and a separate provision allowing wealthy political contributors to greatly increase their annual donations to political committees.
“It will not have my support,” Pelosi said. “This is a moral hazard. We're being asked to vote for a moral hazard.”If you haven't yet, please email your representatives in Congress and tell them to vote no on the CRomnibus. Just click on this link to send an email: http://ibt.io/cromnibus
Click on this link to make a call: http://teamster.org/protectpensions
It will only take a few minutes to do both.
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Breaking: Congress to consider spending bill that slashes pensions, raises hours of service. Help stop it!
Last night, Congress released the text of an omnibus spending bill to fund the government for fiscal year 2015. The bill would keep the government open on the backs of hardworking Americans and retirees.
At the last minute, a pension amendment was added that threatens the retirement security of thousands of retirees. The amendment will not even get a separate vote because of procedural manipulation.
The Teamsters have always opposed pension cuts. Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa wrote to every member of Congress pointing out that the bill will 'slash the pensions of thousands of retirees who worked years for a pension that they thought would provide them financial security in their retirement years. That promise is now busted.'
Hoffa added: "And a last minute $2 billion bailout to a $100 billion Fortune 50 company for breaking its promise to employees is outrageous and only adds to the list of special interest provisions in this bill."
Not only that, the omnibus bill endangers drivers' lives by rolling back Hours-of-Service regulations. It would let truck drivers work up to 82 hours a week.
This omnibus bill threatens pensions and increases the hours Teamsters have to work. It lets the wealthy put even more money into politics so that we will continue to see legislation that benefits the wealthy and not hardworking Americans.
1. Call your congressional representatives at 1-888-979-9806. Tell whoever answers to vote NO on the omnibus bill because it cuts pensions and makes truck drivers work longer. Or you can leave a message.
2. Send an email to your congressional representatives. Click on this link http://ibt.io/cromnibus and follow the instructions.
Both actions will only take a few minutes and they will make a big difference!
Thank you for all you do.
At the last minute, a pension amendment was added that threatens the retirement security of thousands of retirees. The amendment will not even get a separate vote because of procedural manipulation.
The Teamsters have always opposed pension cuts. Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa wrote to every member of Congress pointing out that the bill will 'slash the pensions of thousands of retirees who worked years for a pension that they thought would provide them financial security in their retirement years. That promise is now busted.'
Hoffa added: "And a last minute $2 billion bailout to a $100 billion Fortune 50 company for breaking its promise to employees is outrageous and only adds to the list of special interest provisions in this bill."
Not only that, the omnibus bill endangers drivers' lives by rolling back Hours-of-Service regulations. It would let truck drivers work up to 82 hours a week.
This omnibus bill threatens pensions and increases the hours Teamsters have to work. It lets the wealthy put even more money into politics so that we will continue to see legislation that benefits the wealthy and not hardworking Americans.
1. Call your congressional representatives at 1-888-979-9806. Tell whoever answers to vote NO on the omnibus bill because it cuts pensions and makes truck drivers work longer. Or you can leave a message.
2. Send an email to your congressional representatives. Click on this link http://ibt.io/cromnibus and follow the instructions.
Both actions will only take a few minutes and they will make a big difference!
Thank you for all you do.
Today's Teamster News 12.10.14
Teamster News
Teamsters Denounce Inclusion of Pension Reform Bill to Omnibus Spending Bill teamster.org ...“Today we have seen the ugly side of political backroom dealings as thousands of retirees may have their pensions threatened by proposed legislation that reportedly includes massive benefit cuts...
Friday deadline looms in behind-the-scenes battle over truck safety TeamsterNation ...More people will die if Congress weakens truck safety to make the trucking industry happy. And Congress may just do that as it races to meet the Dec. 12 deadline to pass a budget bill. Teamsters are joined with safety advocates to fight an effort to let truck drivers work 82 hours a week...
More Drowsy, Overworked Truck Drivers New York Times ...the rider that Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, is pushing on behalf of trucking interests. This atrocious giveaway would suspend existing Department of Transportation truck safety regulations put in place in 2012 following a lengthy, transparent and data-driven process to make sure truck drivers get sufficient rest when operating on the nation’s highways...
Booker fights to keep sleep rules for truckers Newark Star Ledger ...A giant spending bill needed to fund the U.S. government past Thursday also could suspend rules governing when truckers can be behind the wheel, an effort drawing from opposition from U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and others...
Teamsters Urge Facebook To Boost Pay For Shuttle Drivers USA Today ...In a letter obtained by USA TODAY, Teamsters official Rome Aloise called on Zuckerberg to amend Facebook's contract with Loop Transportation, the contractor who employs the drivers, to allow for improved wages...
Hoffa To Congress: Stop Bailout For UPS, Protect Retiree Benefits teamster.org ...International Brotherhood of Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa today wrote a letter that was sent to the Congressional leadership and circulated to all members of Congress, expressing strong opposition to proposed legislation that would result in a $2 billion bailout of United Parcel Service (UPS)...
Teamsters At Las Vegas Hotel Ratify First Contract teamster.org ...The workers ratified their five-year contract by a vote of 23 to 3 on December 8, 2014. The group includes warehouse workers, groundskeepers and valets. The Cromwell, the only boutique hotel on the Strip, was built as the Barbary Coast Hotel & Casino and was later know as Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall and Saloon...
Leslie Marshall Show Features Teamsters Fight At NetJets teamster.org ...More than 600 Teamster members are currently in a fight for fair wages and benefits from NetJets, an airline for the global super-rich. Paul Alves, a Teamsters Airline Division representative, talks with Leslie Marshall about that fight and what it means for Teamsters who work hard, transporting multi-millionaires and billionaires and their pampered pets...
Ed O’Neill: An Interview With a Modern Family Man and Union Guy Capital and Main ...So, I’ve always been, in my heart of hearts, a teamster, a union guy...
Trade
Americans Protest Against TPP, Too Free Malaysia Today ...An hour of noisy protests ensured that chief negotiators involved in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks today were aware of growing US public opposition to the trade agreement and the dim prospects that US President Barack Obama will obtain Fast Track trade authority, Public Citizen said...
Got a T-Shirt? Chances Are Child Labor Was Involved AFL-CIO Blog ...Cotton production involves the most child labor and forced labor in the world, according to the 2014 “List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor” by the U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs...
State Battles
WMC agenda includes right-to-work, tax breaks for the rich, unfettered frac sand mining The Capital Times …The state's biggest business lobby has laid out its legislative agenda for tax breaks, union busting and frac sand mining, and Republican lawmakers are lining up to carry it out...
Kentucky’s right to work movement changing battlefields (opinion) The Courier-Journal ...Republicans failed to capture control of Kentucky’s state House of Representatives in November’s election, putting the conservative goal of passing a statewide right-to-work law out of reach for at least another two years...
UAW certified to represent VW workers in Tennessee Detroit Free Press …An accounting firm has certified that the UAW represents more than 45% of Volkswagen workers, giving the union the ability to meet with the automaker's management on a regular basis….
Senate Panel Approves Atlantic City Financial Rescue Plan Press of Atlantic City ...A New Jersey Senate committee Monday approved a rescue plan designed to fix Atlantic City’s fiscal crisis by providing a stable source of casino payments to support the declining tax base...
$15 Minimum Wage Could Be On Tacoma Ballot In 2015 News Tribune ...Tacoma could be the state’s latest battleground for a $15 minimum wage...
Florida Minimum Wage To Top $8 As Debate Grows Florida Today ...The automatic increase of 12 cents an hour, recalculated by law each year based on the federal Consumer Price Index, will increase the state minimum wage to $8.05 in January, up from $7.93. Voters in 2004 approved a constitutional amendment aimed at annual minimum-wage hikes...
War on Workers
Supreme Court: Amazon need not pay workers for security check time cnet …The justices say theft prevention screening isn't integral to warehouse employees' jobs, so Amazon doesn't have to provide compensation...
The Battle Over Working Time: A Countermovement Against Neoliberalism American Prospect ...Fast Food workers, taxi drivers, port truckers, Wal-Mart employees, car washers, Fed Ex freight truck drivers and many health-care workers are all organizing unions...
Big Job Gains and Rising Pay in Labor Data New York Times …employers added 321,000 jobs in November, a much stronger number than economists had predicted and the 10th consecutive month of net job gains above 200,000. Even more significant was that the improving job market finally delivered a sharp jump in average hourly earnings for ordinary workers that was double the anticipated 0.2 percent increase…
Wages Are Finally Rising, But America Still Needs A Big Raise Washington Post ...Increased productivity, in other words, has gone to increased profits instead of increased wages. The result, as you can see, is a big gap between how much workers are making now and how much they would have been making if wages had grown the 4 percent-a-year that they should have...
Miscellaneous
US Court Extends NSA Surveillance Rules In Current Form Computer World ...A U.S. secret court has extended the authorization of the National Security Agency to continue surveillance of phone records in its current form after a reform bill ran into difficulties in the Senate...
Teamsters Denounce Inclusion of Pension Reform Bill to Omnibus Spending Bill teamster.org ...“Today we have seen the ugly side of political backroom dealings as thousands of retirees may have their pensions threatened by proposed legislation that reportedly includes massive benefit cuts...
Friday deadline looms in behind-the-scenes battle over truck safety TeamsterNation ...More people will die if Congress weakens truck safety to make the trucking industry happy. And Congress may just do that as it races to meet the Dec. 12 deadline to pass a budget bill. Teamsters are joined with safety advocates to fight an effort to let truck drivers work 82 hours a week...
More Drowsy, Overworked Truck Drivers New York Times ...the rider that Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, is pushing on behalf of trucking interests. This atrocious giveaway would suspend existing Department of Transportation truck safety regulations put in place in 2012 following a lengthy, transparent and data-driven process to make sure truck drivers get sufficient rest when operating on the nation’s highways...
Booker fights to keep sleep rules for truckers Newark Star Ledger ...A giant spending bill needed to fund the U.S. government past Thursday also could suspend rules governing when truckers can be behind the wheel, an effort drawing from opposition from U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and others...
Teamsters Urge Facebook To Boost Pay For Shuttle Drivers USA Today ...In a letter obtained by USA TODAY, Teamsters official Rome Aloise called on Zuckerberg to amend Facebook's contract with Loop Transportation, the contractor who employs the drivers, to allow for improved wages...
Hoffa To Congress: Stop Bailout For UPS, Protect Retiree Benefits teamster.org ...International Brotherhood of Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa today wrote a letter that was sent to the Congressional leadership and circulated to all members of Congress, expressing strong opposition to proposed legislation that would result in a $2 billion bailout of United Parcel Service (UPS)...
Teamsters At Las Vegas Hotel Ratify First Contract teamster.org ...The workers ratified their five-year contract by a vote of 23 to 3 on December 8, 2014. The group includes warehouse workers, groundskeepers and valets. The Cromwell, the only boutique hotel on the Strip, was built as the Barbary Coast Hotel & Casino and was later know as Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall and Saloon...
Leslie Marshall Show Features Teamsters Fight At NetJets teamster.org ...More than 600 Teamster members are currently in a fight for fair wages and benefits from NetJets, an airline for the global super-rich. Paul Alves, a Teamsters Airline Division representative, talks with Leslie Marshall about that fight and what it means for Teamsters who work hard, transporting multi-millionaires and billionaires and their pampered pets...
Ed O’Neill: An Interview With a Modern Family Man and Union Guy Capital and Main ...So, I’ve always been, in my heart of hearts, a teamster, a union guy...
Trade
Americans Protest Against TPP, Too Free Malaysia Today ...An hour of noisy protests ensured that chief negotiators involved in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks today were aware of growing US public opposition to the trade agreement and the dim prospects that US President Barack Obama will obtain Fast Track trade authority, Public Citizen said...
Got a T-Shirt? Chances Are Child Labor Was Involved AFL-CIO Blog ...Cotton production involves the most child labor and forced labor in the world, according to the 2014 “List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor” by the U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs...
State Battles
WMC agenda includes right-to-work, tax breaks for the rich, unfettered frac sand mining The Capital Times …The state's biggest business lobby has laid out its legislative agenda for tax breaks, union busting and frac sand mining, and Republican lawmakers are lining up to carry it out...
Kentucky’s right to work movement changing battlefields (opinion) The Courier-Journal ...Republicans failed to capture control of Kentucky’s state House of Representatives in November’s election, putting the conservative goal of passing a statewide right-to-work law out of reach for at least another two years...
UAW certified to represent VW workers in Tennessee Detroit Free Press …An accounting firm has certified that the UAW represents more than 45% of Volkswagen workers, giving the union the ability to meet with the automaker's management on a regular basis….
Senate Panel Approves Atlantic City Financial Rescue Plan Press of Atlantic City ...A New Jersey Senate committee Monday approved a rescue plan designed to fix Atlantic City’s fiscal crisis by providing a stable source of casino payments to support the declining tax base...
$15 Minimum Wage Could Be On Tacoma Ballot In 2015 News Tribune ...Tacoma could be the state’s latest battleground for a $15 minimum wage...
Florida Minimum Wage To Top $8 As Debate Grows Florida Today ...The automatic increase of 12 cents an hour, recalculated by law each year based on the federal Consumer Price Index, will increase the state minimum wage to $8.05 in January, up from $7.93. Voters in 2004 approved a constitutional amendment aimed at annual minimum-wage hikes...
War on Workers
Supreme Court: Amazon need not pay workers for security check time cnet …The justices say theft prevention screening isn't integral to warehouse employees' jobs, so Amazon doesn't have to provide compensation...
The Battle Over Working Time: A Countermovement Against Neoliberalism American Prospect ...Fast Food workers, taxi drivers, port truckers, Wal-Mart employees, car washers, Fed Ex freight truck drivers and many health-care workers are all organizing unions...
Big Job Gains and Rising Pay in Labor Data New York Times …employers added 321,000 jobs in November, a much stronger number than economists had predicted and the 10th consecutive month of net job gains above 200,000. Even more significant was that the improving job market finally delivered a sharp jump in average hourly earnings for ordinary workers that was double the anticipated 0.2 percent increase…
Wages Are Finally Rising, But America Still Needs A Big Raise Washington Post ...Increased productivity, in other words, has gone to increased profits instead of increased wages. The result, as you can see, is a big gap between how much workers are making now and how much they would have been making if wages had grown the 4 percent-a-year that they should have...
Miscellaneous
US Court Extends NSA Surveillance Rules In Current Form Computer World ...A U.S. secret court has extended the authorization of the National Security Agency to continue surveillance of phone records in its current form after a reform bill ran into difficulties in the Senate...
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
Friday deadline looms in behind-the-scenes battle over truck safety
More people will die if Congress weakens truck safety to make the trucking industry happy. And Congress may just do that as it races to meet the Dec. 12 deadline to pass a budget bill.
Teamsters are joined with safety advocates to fight an effort to let truck drivers work 82 hours a week. Fred McLuckie, director of Federal Legislation and Regulation, said at a press conference yesterday:
And stay tuned.
Teamsters are joined with safety advocates to fight an effort to let truck drivers work 82 hours a week. Fred McLuckie, director of Federal Legislation and Regulation, said at a press conference yesterday:
We’re standing here trying to stop a proposal that can put truck drivers on the road for more than 80 hours a week. That’s twice the normal 40-hour work week!
And we’re already asking drivers to reset their clock after only 34-hours of rest. That’s 12 hours short of a weekend. How many of us would want to, or be ready, to go back to work for the week on Sunday afternoon? That’s essentially what we ask truck drivers to do, week in and week out, and they’re already working 60-70 hours a week.The New York Times denounced the push to endanger drivers in a stinging editorial:
As Congress scrambles this week to reach a year-end budget deal, powerful special interests and their lawmaker-enablers on Capitol Hill are busy inserting favored provisions in the omnibus spending bill with scant regard for potential public harms.
An egregious case in point is the rider that Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, is pushing on behalf of trucking interests. This atrocious giveaway would suspend existing Department of Transportation truck safety regulations put in place in 2012 following a lengthy, transparent and data-driven process to make sure truck drivers get sufficient rest when operating on the nation’s highways.
Unless Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid acts quickly to block inclusion of the Collins rider in the final bill, the maximum allowable work limits for truck drivers would rise from an average of 70 hours per week to over 82. That would rashly put lives at risk for the sake of boosting industry profits.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx warned against the Collins rider on the DOT website,
This rider will have the effect of once again allowing a segment of the trucking industry to operate an average of as many as 82 hours per week. The best science tells us that’s unsafe and will put lives at risk. Our responsibility to the traveling public requires us to warn Congress of these risks and urge reconsideration.U.S. Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Ralph Blumenthal (D-Conn.) are leading the fight in the Senate to keep the current safety rules. Read about it here.
And stay tuned.
Saturday, December 6, 2014
Today's Teamster News 12.06.14
Teamster News
Judge Rules Against Sequim Labor Lawsuit Peninsula Daily News ...A Clallam County Superior Court judge has spiked — again — an attempt to change the city of Sequim’s process for labor negotiations with its employees. Judge Erik Rohrer on Thursday granted the city’s and Teamsters Local 589’s motions for summary judgment and denied an opposing motion by Susan Brautigam...
Bankruptcy Court Ruling Helps Anti-Union Grocer Slash Benefits And Pensions For 1,100 Workers In These Times ...Members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey are angry over the loss and apprehensive about their futures, union leaders say. Their new employer, C&S Wholesale Grocers, has a reputation of buying up unionized companies, shifting the work of handling retail food products to non-union distribution centers and then getting rid of the union members altogether...
Council To Introduce Horse Ban Next Week Capital New York ...Council members Danny Dromm and Ydanis Rodriguez will officially introduce legislation on Monday to ban horse carriages in the city. According to a copy of the Council’s stated meeting agenda for December 8, the bill will be introduced “by the request of the mayor” through the Council’s transportation committee...
Trade
US Government Study Predicts TPP Trade Agreement Will Produce Practically No Extra Growth For Anyone TechDirt ...nearly a half of the increased trade that TTIP might bring according to this forecast would consist of swapping cars across the Atlantic...
It's Not a Free Trade Deal and Michael Froman Wants to Take Food Choices Away from Individuals Center for Economic and Policy Research ...the TTIP is not a "free trade" agreement as asserted in the article. The increased protections in the pact, in the form of stronger patent and copyright protections, are likely to do more to raise prices and block trade than any tariff reductions that are included...
Report: More Evidence Samsung Supplier Using Child Labor In China Tech In Asia ...American nonprofit group China Labor Watch announced yesterday that it has collected additional evidence that child and student workers were employed “under exploitative working conditions” at the factory of Samsung supplier HEG Technology. That evidence includes interviews with children below China’s legal working age who say they worked ten-hour days with a single day of rest each week for the Samsung supplier...
State Battles
Metro Council Panel Delays Minimum Wage Vote Louisville Courier Journal ...A vote on raising the minimum wage in Louisville was delayed Thursday by a Metro Council committee after a Republican request for a study of the possible effects, angering supporters...
War on Workers
Senate considering lowering truck safety standards for special interests TeamsterNation …Sen. Susan Collins of Maine wants the government to allow bigger, heavier trucks and to eliminate the mandatory two days rest for drivers. The Teamsters and allies are doing all they can to prevent that from happening...
DOT secretary against longer hours for truck drivers The Hill ...Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx is urging Senate and House Appropriations committee members to reject an amendment that would allow semi-truck drivers to drive for longer hours...
Workers hit the streets across US in growing minimum wage fight AlJazeera America …Fast-food workers and other low-wage employees in nearly 200 cities across the country took part in a strike and protests Thursday, demanding a base wage of $15 per hour and the right to form unions in the latest in a series of day-long labor actions coordinated through a nationwide coalition of workers’ groups...
Hypereducated and on Welfare Elle ...a good education may not keep you from hovering near the poverty line. The number of people with graduate degrees receiving food assistance or other forms of federal aid nearly tripled between 2007 and 2010, according to the U.S. Census…
Temporary Work is Bad for Your Cognitive Health naked capitalism ...The findings of this study on the effects of temporary work on individuals’ skills has important ramifications for the US ... The first is that workers are harmed by this practice, and not just via stress or having uncertain income. But second is that employers over time also suffer by degrading the capabilities of the labor pool...
Does The Media Care About Labor Anymore? Politico ...With the middle class still down in the dumps, the beat’s more important than ever...
Uber launches in Portland, Oregon despite being completely illegal there The Verge ...Uber has a remarkably rich history of upsetting local city transportation officials by setting up shop before laws and regulations have been ironed out...
Michigan Road Worker, 21, Killed When Struck By Pickup, Flying 75 Feet MLive ...A 21-year-old road construction worker was killed when a pickup struck him and sent him flying more than 75 feet through the air, the Huron County Sheriff's Department reports...
Worker in Vehicle Collision at CNRL Site Canada Journal …A worker has been killed in a collision at the Horizon Oil Sands mine north of Fort McMurray early Friday morning, the third workplace fatality in northern Alberta this week...
Miscellaneous
China Just Passed U.S. as World's Largest Economy Economic Populist ..."For the first time since Ulysses S. Grant was president, America is not the leading economic power on the planet ...
How the NSA Hacks Cellphone Networks Worldwide The Intercept …the NSA plans to secretly introduce new flaws into communication systems so that they can be tapped into—a controversial tactic that security experts say could be exposing the general population to criminal hackers...
U.S. Adds 321,000 Jobs In November; Unemployment Rate Remains At 5.8% Huffington Post ...U.S. employers added a whopping 321,000 jobs in November, the biggest burst of hiring in nearly three years and the latest sign that the United States is outperforming other economies throughout the developed world...
Judge Rules Against Sequim Labor Lawsuit Peninsula Daily News ...A Clallam County Superior Court judge has spiked — again — an attempt to change the city of Sequim’s process for labor negotiations with its employees. Judge Erik Rohrer on Thursday granted the city’s and Teamsters Local 589’s motions for summary judgment and denied an opposing motion by Susan Brautigam...
Bankruptcy Court Ruling Helps Anti-Union Grocer Slash Benefits And Pensions For 1,100 Workers In These Times ...Members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey are angry over the loss and apprehensive about their futures, union leaders say. Their new employer, C&S Wholesale Grocers, has a reputation of buying up unionized companies, shifting the work of handling retail food products to non-union distribution centers and then getting rid of the union members altogether...
Council To Introduce Horse Ban Next Week Capital New York ...Council members Danny Dromm and Ydanis Rodriguez will officially introduce legislation on Monday to ban horse carriages in the city. According to a copy of the Council’s stated meeting agenda for December 8, the bill will be introduced “by the request of the mayor” through the Council’s transportation committee...
Trade
US Government Study Predicts TPP Trade Agreement Will Produce Practically No Extra Growth For Anyone TechDirt ...nearly a half of the increased trade that TTIP might bring according to this forecast would consist of swapping cars across the Atlantic...
It's Not a Free Trade Deal and Michael Froman Wants to Take Food Choices Away from Individuals Center for Economic and Policy Research ...the TTIP is not a "free trade" agreement as asserted in the article. The increased protections in the pact, in the form of stronger patent and copyright protections, are likely to do more to raise prices and block trade than any tariff reductions that are included...
Report: More Evidence Samsung Supplier Using Child Labor In China Tech In Asia ...American nonprofit group China Labor Watch announced yesterday that it has collected additional evidence that child and student workers were employed “under exploitative working conditions” at the factory of Samsung supplier HEG Technology. That evidence includes interviews with children below China’s legal working age who say they worked ten-hour days with a single day of rest each week for the Samsung supplier...
State Battles
Metro Council Panel Delays Minimum Wage Vote Louisville Courier Journal ...A vote on raising the minimum wage in Louisville was delayed Thursday by a Metro Council committee after a Republican request for a study of the possible effects, angering supporters...
War on Workers
Senate considering lowering truck safety standards for special interests TeamsterNation …Sen. Susan Collins of Maine wants the government to allow bigger, heavier trucks and to eliminate the mandatory two days rest for drivers. The Teamsters and allies are doing all they can to prevent that from happening...
DOT secretary against longer hours for truck drivers The Hill ...Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx is urging Senate and House Appropriations committee members to reject an amendment that would allow semi-truck drivers to drive for longer hours...
Workers hit the streets across US in growing minimum wage fight AlJazeera America …Fast-food workers and other low-wage employees in nearly 200 cities across the country took part in a strike and protests Thursday, demanding a base wage of $15 per hour and the right to form unions in the latest in a series of day-long labor actions coordinated through a nationwide coalition of workers’ groups...
Hypereducated and on Welfare Elle ...a good education may not keep you from hovering near the poverty line. The number of people with graduate degrees receiving food assistance or other forms of federal aid nearly tripled between 2007 and 2010, according to the U.S. Census…
Temporary Work is Bad for Your Cognitive Health naked capitalism ...The findings of this study on the effects of temporary work on individuals’ skills has important ramifications for the US ... The first is that workers are harmed by this practice, and not just via stress or having uncertain income. But second is that employers over time also suffer by degrading the capabilities of the labor pool...
Does The Media Care About Labor Anymore? Politico ...With the middle class still down in the dumps, the beat’s more important than ever...
Uber launches in Portland, Oregon despite being completely illegal there The Verge ...Uber has a remarkably rich history of upsetting local city transportation officials by setting up shop before laws and regulations have been ironed out...
Michigan Road Worker, 21, Killed When Struck By Pickup, Flying 75 Feet MLive ...A 21-year-old road construction worker was killed when a pickup struck him and sent him flying more than 75 feet through the air, the Huron County Sheriff's Department reports...
Worker in Vehicle Collision at CNRL Site Canada Journal …A worker has been killed in a collision at the Horizon Oil Sands mine north of Fort McMurray early Friday morning, the third workplace fatality in northern Alberta this week...
Miscellaneous
China Just Passed U.S. as World's Largest Economy Economic Populist ..."For the first time since Ulysses S. Grant was president, America is not the leading economic power on the planet ...
How the NSA Hacks Cellphone Networks Worldwide The Intercept …the NSA plans to secretly introduce new flaws into communication systems so that they can be tapped into—a controversial tactic that security experts say could be exposing the general population to criminal hackers...
U.S. Adds 321,000 Jobs In November; Unemployment Rate Remains At 5.8% Huffington Post ...U.S. employers added a whopping 321,000 jobs in November, the biggest burst of hiring in nearly three years and the latest sign that the United States is outperforming other economies throughout the developed world...
Friday, October 17, 2014
Today's Teamster News 10.17.14
Teamster News
Ebola outbreak: CDC, Frontier Airlines hunt passengers who flew with nurse Fox News ...Amber Joy Vinson, 29, a nurse at Texas Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas who cared earlier this month for the first U.S. patient to die of the virus, flew on two Frontier Airlines flights between Dallas and Cleveland. Two days after she returned to work, she became the third confirmed case of Ebola in the United States. [Teamsters represent Frontier pilots]..
Airline notifying more passengers of Ebola Associated Press ...Frontier Airlines is expanding the circle of passengers being notified that they flew with a nurse who later tested positive for Ebola, or flew on a later flight using the same plane...
Hoffa Hits The Road To GOTV In Philadelphia teamster.org ...Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa visited more than 150 members employed by Penn Auto Team today, urging them to get out and vote on Nov. 4...
No Golden Gate Bus Strike Tomorrow PR Newswire ...Teamsters 856 and 665 members working for the Golden Gate Highway & Transportation District will not be holding a bus service strike tomorrow in order to allow for the membership to vote on the District's latest offer...
Connelly returns to talk health insurance in Foster Township The Bradford Era ...Connelly said the supervisors would have to begin with non-union employees, asking them to pay copays and deductibles. Then when it’s time to bargain with the Teamsters union, officials could say other workers are paying those...
Safety groups, congressmen say new poll proves public doesn’t want truckers’ hours increased; ‘misleading’ says ATA The Trucker ...Safety advocacy groups, The Teamsters Union, a couple of Democratic congressmen and a research group today disclosed a new public opinion poll they said shows “dramatically” and overwhelmingly that the general public would be opposed to truckers being able to increase their work week from 70 to 82 hours...
Ambulance Workers Unionize The Spectrum ...Citing a lack of facilities available to the company's 20-plus paramedics and Emergency Medical Technicians working in the St. George area, as well as pay starting as low as $11 per hour for paramedics, employees approached the Utah Teamsters about organizing earlier this year, said Spencer Hogue, secretary treasurer and business agent with the Teamsters Local 222 in Salt Lake City. Employees voted to join in September, and the union has already initiated negotiations with Gold Cross management about improving work conditions, Hogue said...
New Concerns About The Bridgeton Landfill Fire CBS News ...It’s not what they know, but what they don’t know about where the Bridgeton Landfill fire is. That’s why Pattonville Fire Department Assistant Chief Matt LaVanchy says the state Department of Natural Resources is sending a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, asking for more information on where the fire is in relation to buried nuclear waste...
Trade
Trade Talk Documents Suggest Access to Medicines May Become Harder Wall Street Journal ...As the latest round of talks for the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement begins in Australia next week, negotiators will be discussing revisions in a key document that consumer advocacy groups say would strengthen patent rights for drug makers at the expense of patients in poor countries...
Latest Intellectual Property Chapter Of TPP Agreement Leaked: Would Be A Disaster For Public Health TechDirt ...A bunch of countries are pushing for the right to cancel a patent if it "is used in a manner determined to be anti-competitive," but of course, the US and Japan are completely against such a thing...
State Battles
Pa. Senate Defeats Union Dues Measure Pittsburgh Post Gazette ...A controversial proposal that would have ended automatic dues deductions and political contributions from unionized public school employees was defeated in the state Senate Wednesday...
Arkansas Voter ID Law Struck Down Politico ...Arkansas’ highest court on Wednesday struck down a state law that requires voters to show photo identification before casting a ballot, ruling the requirement unconstitutional just days before early voting begins for the Nov. 4 election...
Minnesota Unemployment Rate Drops To 4.1 Percent 610KDAL ...The unemployment rate of 4.1 percent is the lowest Minnesota jobless rate in eight years. The U-S unemployment rate was at 5.9 percent in September...
War on Workers
US hospital worker who may have handled Ebola samples quarantined on cruise ship MyFox8 ...A Texas hospital health worker who may have handled Thomas Eric Duncan’s fluid samples has been quarantined on a cruise ship in Belize — another reminder of the widespread fears of the deadly virus...
Private Prisons Face Suits, Federal Probes Clarion Ledger ...Florida-based GEO got the boot in Mississippi after a federal judge in 2012 called the Walnut Grove Correctional Facility "a cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts and conditions. In Idaho, the FBI is investigating the Tennessee-based Corrections Corporation of America after allegations emerged that records were falsified to cover up staff shortages at the Idaho Correctional Center, that gangs ruled and that violence was so rampant it was called "Gladiator School."...
Worker killed in accident at candy plant in Va. Associated Press ...a worker died Wednesday from injuries suffered in what appeared to be an industrial accident at Helms Candy Co. Police identified the worker as 50-year-old Gary Bowers of Washington County, Virginia. Police say Bowers was employed by At Work Personnel, a temporary employment agency...
Tomorrow’s Taxi Commission Hearing Could Limit How Uber And Lyft Operate In New York City BuzzFeed ...The Taxi and Limousine Commission will be holding a public hearing on Thursday morning to discuss a proposed change to its rules that could place new restrictions on app-based car services like Lyft and Uber operate in New York City...
Miscellaneous
Bill that would stop Tesla direct sales in Michigan reaches Snyder's desk Crain's Detroit Business ...Legislation that would prevent Tesla Motors Inc. from directly selling its electric vehicles in Michigan has cleared the state’s legislative chambers and is awaiting the signature of Gov. Rick Snyder...
Ebola outbreak: CDC, Frontier Airlines hunt passengers who flew with nurse Fox News ...Amber Joy Vinson, 29, a nurse at Texas Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas who cared earlier this month for the first U.S. patient to die of the virus, flew on two Frontier Airlines flights between Dallas and Cleveland. Two days after she returned to work, she became the third confirmed case of Ebola in the United States. [Teamsters represent Frontier pilots]..
Airline notifying more passengers of Ebola Associated Press ...Frontier Airlines is expanding the circle of passengers being notified that they flew with a nurse who later tested positive for Ebola, or flew on a later flight using the same plane...
Hoffa Hits The Road To GOTV In Philadelphia teamster.org ...Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa visited more than 150 members employed by Penn Auto Team today, urging them to get out and vote on Nov. 4...
No Golden Gate Bus Strike Tomorrow PR Newswire ...Teamsters 856 and 665 members working for the Golden Gate Highway & Transportation District will not be holding a bus service strike tomorrow in order to allow for the membership to vote on the District's latest offer...
Connelly returns to talk health insurance in Foster Township The Bradford Era ...Connelly said the supervisors would have to begin with non-union employees, asking them to pay copays and deductibles. Then when it’s time to bargain with the Teamsters union, officials could say other workers are paying those...
Safety groups, congressmen say new poll proves public doesn’t want truckers’ hours increased; ‘misleading’ says ATA The Trucker ...Safety advocacy groups, The Teamsters Union, a couple of Democratic congressmen and a research group today disclosed a new public opinion poll they said shows “dramatically” and overwhelmingly that the general public would be opposed to truckers being able to increase their work week from 70 to 82 hours...
Ambulance Workers Unionize The Spectrum ...Citing a lack of facilities available to the company's 20-plus paramedics and Emergency Medical Technicians working in the St. George area, as well as pay starting as low as $11 per hour for paramedics, employees approached the Utah Teamsters about organizing earlier this year, said Spencer Hogue, secretary treasurer and business agent with the Teamsters Local 222 in Salt Lake City. Employees voted to join in September, and the union has already initiated negotiations with Gold Cross management about improving work conditions, Hogue said...
New Concerns About The Bridgeton Landfill Fire CBS News ...It’s not what they know, but what they don’t know about where the Bridgeton Landfill fire is. That’s why Pattonville Fire Department Assistant Chief Matt LaVanchy says the state Department of Natural Resources is sending a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, asking for more information on where the fire is in relation to buried nuclear waste...
Trade
Trade Talk Documents Suggest Access to Medicines May Become Harder Wall Street Journal ...As the latest round of talks for the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement begins in Australia next week, negotiators will be discussing revisions in a key document that consumer advocacy groups say would strengthen patent rights for drug makers at the expense of patients in poor countries...
Latest Intellectual Property Chapter Of TPP Agreement Leaked: Would Be A Disaster For Public Health TechDirt ...A bunch of countries are pushing for the right to cancel a patent if it "is used in a manner determined to be anti-competitive," but of course, the US and Japan are completely against such a thing...
State Battles
Pa. Senate Defeats Union Dues Measure Pittsburgh Post Gazette ...A controversial proposal that would have ended automatic dues deductions and political contributions from unionized public school employees was defeated in the state Senate Wednesday...
Arkansas Voter ID Law Struck Down Politico ...Arkansas’ highest court on Wednesday struck down a state law that requires voters to show photo identification before casting a ballot, ruling the requirement unconstitutional just days before early voting begins for the Nov. 4 election...
Minnesota Unemployment Rate Drops To 4.1 Percent 610KDAL ...The unemployment rate of 4.1 percent is the lowest Minnesota jobless rate in eight years. The U-S unemployment rate was at 5.9 percent in September...
War on Workers
US hospital worker who may have handled Ebola samples quarantined on cruise ship MyFox8 ...A Texas hospital health worker who may have handled Thomas Eric Duncan’s fluid samples has been quarantined on a cruise ship in Belize — another reminder of the widespread fears of the deadly virus...
Private Prisons Face Suits, Federal Probes Clarion Ledger ...Florida-based GEO got the boot in Mississippi after a federal judge in 2012 called the Walnut Grove Correctional Facility "a cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts and conditions. In Idaho, the FBI is investigating the Tennessee-based Corrections Corporation of America after allegations emerged that records were falsified to cover up staff shortages at the Idaho Correctional Center, that gangs ruled and that violence was so rampant it was called "Gladiator School."...
Worker killed in accident at candy plant in Va. Associated Press ...a worker died Wednesday from injuries suffered in what appeared to be an industrial accident at Helms Candy Co. Police identified the worker as 50-year-old Gary Bowers of Washington County, Virginia. Police say Bowers was employed by At Work Personnel, a temporary employment agency...
Tomorrow’s Taxi Commission Hearing Could Limit How Uber And Lyft Operate In New York City BuzzFeed ...The Taxi and Limousine Commission will be holding a public hearing on Thursday morning to discuss a proposed change to its rules that could place new restrictions on app-based car services like Lyft and Uber operate in New York City...
Miscellaneous
Bill that would stop Tesla direct sales in Michigan reaches Snyder's desk Crain's Detroit Business ...Legislation that would prevent Tesla Motors Inc. from directly selling its electric vehicles in Michigan has cleared the state’s legislative chambers and is awaiting the signature of Gov. Rick Snyder...
Wednesday, October 8, 2014
Today's Teamster News 10.08.14
Teamster News
Teamsters Warehouse Workers Face a Bankruptcy Court Designed to Protect Bosses, Not Workers In These Times ...The Keene, New Hampshire-based C&S Wholesale Grocers’s actions could prove to be an immediate threat to the livelihoods of about 1,100 Teamster members in the Mid-Atlantic region, the latest in a series of damaging anti-union maneuvers by the company. The action also highlights the growing market power of C&S, a low-profile company that has quietly grown into the nation’s largest warehousing corporation...
Investors, activists press eBay, others to break up with ALEC Reuters ...Civic groups such as Common Cause and the Environmental Defense Fund and unions including the International Brotherhood of Teamsters wrote to the e-commerce company's management asking it to reconsider involvement in ALEC because of what they called its "extreme agenda."...
Trade
TTIP Could Weaken Chemical Rules, Environmental Groups Say Wall Street Journal ...environmental groups worry the chemical industry will use these procedures to delay or block new restrictions or bans on chemicals that pose a threat to people or the environment...
TPP Talks Slated For Oct. 25 As Nations Scramble For Deal law360 ...The Australian government announced Thursday that it will host a meeting of Trans-Pacific Partnership trade ministers this month to tackle outstanding provisions on intellectual property, agricultural market access, state-owned enterprises and other areas as negotiators race to close major parts of the pact by year's end...
State Battles
Walker administration denies complaint seeking to raise minimum wage Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel ...Gov. Scott Walker's administration has denied a complaint by a labor group seeking to force an increase in Wisconsin's minimum wage...The state law requires that Wisconsin's minimum wage "shall not be less than a living wage."...
Rochester Borough Says No To Police Outsourcing Insurance News ...After comments about sacrificing safety for potential savings, officials decided Tuesday to halt a conversation with the township about contracting out police services...
City To Ponder Raise For Contractor Workers News Journal ...Wilmington City Council will take action next month on an ordinance that will require employees of city contractors to get paid at least $10.10 an hour...
War On Workers
Freight Train Drivers Report Falling Asleep On The Job CBC ...Train operators in Canada’s burgeoning freight rail industry report falling asleep at the controls and coming to work exhausted at an alarmingly high rate, according to an ongoing CBC News investigation into rail safety...
43 Missing Students, a Mass Grave and a Suspect: Mexico’s Police New York Times ...they are among 43 students reported missing after deadly clashes with the police on Sept. 26, when at least six student protesters and bystanders were killed in the restive, rural state of Guerrero, one of the poorest in the country and long afflicted by political, social and criminal upheaval...
Las Vegas Schools Groan From Growing Pains New York Times ...Schools in this suddenly robust community are so packed these days that 13 of them stay open 12 months a year. Children go to classes and eat lunch in cramped, windowless trailers, bustling with restless students. Thousands more take online classes at home, and school district administrators, desperate for space, are looking to abandoned strip malls for classrooms...
The Great Wage Slowdown Of The 21st Century New York Times ...The typical American family makes less than the typical family did 15 years ago, a statement that hadn’t previously been true since the Great Depression...
American Agriculture's Child Labor Problem KCET ...Fourteen hour days with no pay, very little food, routinely beaten and whipped by overseers before being locked away in cramped quarters every night. The fact that U.S. companies were reaping the benefits of this slave labor was outrageous. But what's more disturbing is the fact that child labor exploitation isn't only occurring outside of America. It happens here, too. And it's not entirely illegal...
Construction worker dies on the job KCCI News ...Authorities say a construction worker has died after he was pinned under a piece of equipment in northwest Iowa...
Tualatin worker dies after being struck by large metal plates, state agency says Oregon Live ...A 27-year-old man hit by large metal plates while working at a Tualatin manufacturing business Monday morning has died, according to the Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division...
Is Your Dentist Ripping You Off? Mother Jones ...more and more young dentists are taking jobs with chains, many of which set revenue quotas for practitioners. This has created some legal backlash: In 2012, for example, 11 patients sued (PDF) a 450-office chain called Aspen Dental, claiming that its model turns dentists into salespeople...
Microsoft’s Windows 10 has permission to watch your every move Tech Worm ...“Microsoft collects information about you, your devices, applications and networks, and your use of those devices, applications and networks. Examples of data we collect include your name, email address, preferences and interests; browsing, search and file history; phone call and SMS data; device configuration and sensor data; and application usage.”...
Government Set Up A Fake Facebook Page In This Woman’s Name Buzzfeed ...A DEA agent commandeered a woman’s identity, created a phony Facebook account in her name, and posted racy photos he found on her seized cell phone. The government said he had the right to do that...
Teamsters Warehouse Workers Face a Bankruptcy Court Designed to Protect Bosses, Not Workers In These Times ...The Keene, New Hampshire-based C&S Wholesale Grocers’s actions could prove to be an immediate threat to the livelihoods of about 1,100 Teamster members in the Mid-Atlantic region, the latest in a series of damaging anti-union maneuvers by the company. The action also highlights the growing market power of C&S, a low-profile company that has quietly grown into the nation’s largest warehousing corporation...
Investors, activists press eBay, others to break up with ALEC Reuters ...Civic groups such as Common Cause and the Environmental Defense Fund and unions including the International Brotherhood of Teamsters wrote to the e-commerce company's management asking it to reconsider involvement in ALEC because of what they called its "extreme agenda."...
Trade
TTIP Could Weaken Chemical Rules, Environmental Groups Say Wall Street Journal ...environmental groups worry the chemical industry will use these procedures to delay or block new restrictions or bans on chemicals that pose a threat to people or the environment...
TPP Talks Slated For Oct. 25 As Nations Scramble For Deal law360 ...The Australian government announced Thursday that it will host a meeting of Trans-Pacific Partnership trade ministers this month to tackle outstanding provisions on intellectual property, agricultural market access, state-owned enterprises and other areas as negotiators race to close major parts of the pact by year's end...
State Battles
Walker administration denies complaint seeking to raise minimum wage Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel ...Gov. Scott Walker's administration has denied a complaint by a labor group seeking to force an increase in Wisconsin's minimum wage...The state law requires that Wisconsin's minimum wage "shall not be less than a living wage."...
Rochester Borough Says No To Police Outsourcing Insurance News ...After comments about sacrificing safety for potential savings, officials decided Tuesday to halt a conversation with the township about contracting out police services...
City To Ponder Raise For Contractor Workers News Journal ...Wilmington City Council will take action next month on an ordinance that will require employees of city contractors to get paid at least $10.10 an hour...
War On Workers
Freight Train Drivers Report Falling Asleep On The Job CBC ...Train operators in Canada’s burgeoning freight rail industry report falling asleep at the controls and coming to work exhausted at an alarmingly high rate, according to an ongoing CBC News investigation into rail safety...
43 Missing Students, a Mass Grave and a Suspect: Mexico’s Police New York Times ...they are among 43 students reported missing after deadly clashes with the police on Sept. 26, when at least six student protesters and bystanders were killed in the restive, rural state of Guerrero, one of the poorest in the country and long afflicted by political, social and criminal upheaval...
Las Vegas Schools Groan From Growing Pains New York Times ...Schools in this suddenly robust community are so packed these days that 13 of them stay open 12 months a year. Children go to classes and eat lunch in cramped, windowless trailers, bustling with restless students. Thousands more take online classes at home, and school district administrators, desperate for space, are looking to abandoned strip malls for classrooms...
The Great Wage Slowdown Of The 21st Century New York Times ...The typical American family makes less than the typical family did 15 years ago, a statement that hadn’t previously been true since the Great Depression...
American Agriculture's Child Labor Problem KCET ...Fourteen hour days with no pay, very little food, routinely beaten and whipped by overseers before being locked away in cramped quarters every night. The fact that U.S. companies were reaping the benefits of this slave labor was outrageous. But what's more disturbing is the fact that child labor exploitation isn't only occurring outside of America. It happens here, too. And it's not entirely illegal...
Construction worker dies on the job KCCI News ...Authorities say a construction worker has died after he was pinned under a piece of equipment in northwest Iowa...
Tualatin worker dies after being struck by large metal plates, state agency says Oregon Live ...A 27-year-old man hit by large metal plates while working at a Tualatin manufacturing business Monday morning has died, according to the Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division...
Is Your Dentist Ripping You Off? Mother Jones ...more and more young dentists are taking jobs with chains, many of which set revenue quotas for practitioners. This has created some legal backlash: In 2012, for example, 11 patients sued (PDF) a 450-office chain called Aspen Dental, claiming that its model turns dentists into salespeople...
Microsoft’s Windows 10 has permission to watch your every move Tech Worm ...“Microsoft collects information about you, your devices, applications and networks, and your use of those devices, applications and networks. Examples of data we collect include your name, email address, preferences and interests; browsing, search and file history; phone call and SMS data; device configuration and sensor data; and application usage.”...
Government Set Up A Fake Facebook Page In This Woman’s Name Buzzfeed ...A DEA agent commandeered a woman’s identity, created a phony Facebook account in her name, and posted racy photos he found on her seized cell phone. The government said he had the right to do that...
Friday, September 12, 2014
Today's Teamster News 09.12.14
Teamster News
Possible Teamster strike could hit Fred Meyer Puget Sound Business Journal ...According to the union, contract talks between its 400 warehouse workers and Fred Meyer broke off last night, with no more talks scheduled. The contract expired on July 12...
Bargaining Between Teamsters And Fred Meyer Breaks Off In Seattle teamster.org ...Key issues in bargaining are health care and Fred Meyer’s insistence on language that would allow the company to outsource the workers’ jobs to a third-party subcontractor...
The Link Between Tracy Morgan's Tragic Accident And Trucker Pay Think Progress ...International Brotherhood of Teamsters Legislative Director Fred McLuckie explained in an interview. “In a lot of cases compensation isn’t that good, it’s fairly low, so they need their hours behind the wheel to make a living,” he said...
City Council Wavers On De Blasio's Horse-Carriage Ban Wall Street Journal ...Demos Demopoulos, secretary-treasurer for Teamsters Local 553, the union that represents the drivers, said the job losses would be severe. "It's 300 hundred people, 300 families will lose their livelihoods," he said...
The Teamsters of New York Are Speaking Out About Climate Change Huffington Post ... Drought, rising sea levels, and superstorms like Hurricane Sandy have shown us that climate change is here, and the people hit hardest are workers...
Trade
TISA, the newest bad trade deal, threatens US public and commercial services workers TeamsterNation ... TISA is a mega-deal involving many countries. It could lower wages and working conditions for workers who provide services, such as locomotive engineers, airline pilots, bus drivers, truck drivers and warehouse workers. Worse, the TISA could take away their jobs...
Millions (including 67 Teamster affiliates) tell Sen. Wyden to say 'no' to Fast Track TeamsterNation ... Congress should not rubber stamp trade deals negotiated in secret, a key U.S. senator was told today in a letter signed by 600 organizations (including 67 Teamsters affiliates and the IBT, of course) representing tens of millions of Americans...
Chances Of A TPP Agreement By Year’s End Fading The Diplomat ...As negotiations stand right now there is little chance of the TPP being finalized by the end of the year, and quite possibly for much longer...
US Military Bans 'Made In China' American Flags Business Insider ...California Rep. Mike Thompson, a Vietnam War veteran and Purple Heart recipient, wrote the legislation that requires any flag purchased by the Defense Department to be 100-percent made in America...
State Battles
Atlanta Taxi Drivers File Lawsuit Against Uber WXIA ...A group of Atlanta taxi drivers is lashing out in a lawsuit naming specific Uber drivers and the company as a whole...
Maine Hard Hit As Stagnant Wages Leave Average Workers Behind (opinion) Portland Press Herald ...The recovery, though, is not universal, not yet. Even if the overall signs trend positive, the average worker, particularly here in Maine, is being left behind...
N.J. Rating Cut by S&P as Christie Gets Record Downgrade Bloomberg ...New Jersey had its credit rating cut one step by Standard & Poor’s, handing Chris Christie his eighth downgrade, the most ever for a Garden State governor...
Michigan's 'Foreclosure King' Is Trying to Win a Seat in Congress New Republic ...The ad dubbed Trott the “foreclosure king,” and criticized him for evicting 101-year-old Texana Hollis, throwing her out into rainy streets at night and tossing her medication in a dumpster...
Executive behind voter fraud billboards sought Scott Walker advice Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ..."As we've seen throughout the criminal investigation of Scott Walker's administration and campaign, he is front and center and directing the operations," Ross said. "The email shows Scott Walker was involved from the start in the voter intimidation billboard effort financed by his campaign co-chair..."
War On Workers
Senate Republicans Quash Citizens United Amendment Progress Illinois ...Republicans in the Senate stopped a constitutional amendment on Thursday that would have effectively overturned the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United decision on political spending...
Conservatives want taxpayers to subsidize low-wage employers The Hill ...The EITC is a tax-payer financed subsidy that enables some employers to pay wages so low that workers are forced into poverty. In fact, the EITC helps employers who pay low wages in another way as well. The supplement to workers’ pay acts as an incentive for more workers to be willing to take low wage jobs. That increases the labor supply and drives down the wages of low-paid workers...
House collapse that killed 19-year-old worker involved underpinning Toronto Star ...The house was undergoing a type of basement renovation called “underpinning” that has caused other downtown houses to tumble down in recent years...
Switching Sides East Bay Express ...California Deputy Attorney General Benjamin Diehl's job was to prosecute banks for defrauding the public. Now he works for them...
Some Retail Workers Find Better Deals With Unions New York Times ...So what makes this Macy’s store so different? Its employees are represented by a union, which has insisted on stability in scheduling for its members. (Union workers enjoy similar scheduling arrangements at the Bloomingdale’s, H&M and Modell’s Sporting Goods stores in Manhattan.)...
Walmart Imposes New Employee Dress Code, Suggests Where To Shop For It Al Jazeera America ...Effective September 29, Walmart retail workers, or sales "associates," will have to put some of their meager hourly pay toward new clothes...
Chipotle Workers Shut Down Store Over 'Borderline Sweatshop Conditions' Huffington Post ...A Chipotle near Pennsylvania State University shut down on Wednesday after managers reportedly quit over brutal work hours and understaffing. A sign posted on the door to the eatery said that most employees resigned in protest of their "borderline sweatshop conditions." Below the message read: “People over profits.”...
U.S. threatened massive fine to force Yahoo to release data Washington Post ...The U.S. government threatened to fine Yahoo $250,000 a day in 2008 if it failed to comply with a broad demand to hand over user communications — a request the company believed was unconstitutional — according to court documents unsealed Thursday that illuminate how federal officials forced American tech companies to participate in the National Security Agency’s controversial PRISM program...
Possible Teamster strike could hit Fred Meyer Puget Sound Business Journal ...According to the union, contract talks between its 400 warehouse workers and Fred Meyer broke off last night, with no more talks scheduled. The contract expired on July 12...
Bargaining Between Teamsters And Fred Meyer Breaks Off In Seattle teamster.org ...Key issues in bargaining are health care and Fred Meyer’s insistence on language that would allow the company to outsource the workers’ jobs to a third-party subcontractor...
The Link Between Tracy Morgan's Tragic Accident And Trucker Pay Think Progress ...International Brotherhood of Teamsters Legislative Director Fred McLuckie explained in an interview. “In a lot of cases compensation isn’t that good, it’s fairly low, so they need their hours behind the wheel to make a living,” he said...
City Council Wavers On De Blasio's Horse-Carriage Ban Wall Street Journal ...Demos Demopoulos, secretary-treasurer for Teamsters Local 553, the union that represents the drivers, said the job losses would be severe. "It's 300 hundred people, 300 families will lose their livelihoods," he said...
The Teamsters of New York Are Speaking Out About Climate Change Huffington Post ... Drought, rising sea levels, and superstorms like Hurricane Sandy have shown us that climate change is here, and the people hit hardest are workers...
Trade
TISA, the newest bad trade deal, threatens US public and commercial services workers TeamsterNation ... TISA is a mega-deal involving many countries. It could lower wages and working conditions for workers who provide services, such as locomotive engineers, airline pilots, bus drivers, truck drivers and warehouse workers. Worse, the TISA could take away their jobs...
Millions (including 67 Teamster affiliates) tell Sen. Wyden to say 'no' to Fast Track TeamsterNation ... Congress should not rubber stamp trade deals negotiated in secret, a key U.S. senator was told today in a letter signed by 600 organizations (including 67 Teamsters affiliates and the IBT, of course) representing tens of millions of Americans...
Chances Of A TPP Agreement By Year’s End Fading The Diplomat ...As negotiations stand right now there is little chance of the TPP being finalized by the end of the year, and quite possibly for much longer...
US Military Bans 'Made In China' American Flags Business Insider ...California Rep. Mike Thompson, a Vietnam War veteran and Purple Heart recipient, wrote the legislation that requires any flag purchased by the Defense Department to be 100-percent made in America...
State Battles
Atlanta Taxi Drivers File Lawsuit Against Uber WXIA ...A group of Atlanta taxi drivers is lashing out in a lawsuit naming specific Uber drivers and the company as a whole...
Maine Hard Hit As Stagnant Wages Leave Average Workers Behind (opinion) Portland Press Herald ...The recovery, though, is not universal, not yet. Even if the overall signs trend positive, the average worker, particularly here in Maine, is being left behind...
N.J. Rating Cut by S&P as Christie Gets Record Downgrade Bloomberg ...New Jersey had its credit rating cut one step by Standard & Poor’s, handing Chris Christie his eighth downgrade, the most ever for a Garden State governor...
Michigan's 'Foreclosure King' Is Trying to Win a Seat in Congress New Republic ...The ad dubbed Trott the “foreclosure king,” and criticized him for evicting 101-year-old Texana Hollis, throwing her out into rainy streets at night and tossing her medication in a dumpster...
Executive behind voter fraud billboards sought Scott Walker advice Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ..."As we've seen throughout the criminal investigation of Scott Walker's administration and campaign, he is front and center and directing the operations," Ross said. "The email shows Scott Walker was involved from the start in the voter intimidation billboard effort financed by his campaign co-chair..."
War On Workers
Senate Republicans Quash Citizens United Amendment Progress Illinois ...Republicans in the Senate stopped a constitutional amendment on Thursday that would have effectively overturned the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United decision on political spending...
Conservatives want taxpayers to subsidize low-wage employers The Hill ...The EITC is a tax-payer financed subsidy that enables some employers to pay wages so low that workers are forced into poverty. In fact, the EITC helps employers who pay low wages in another way as well. The supplement to workers’ pay acts as an incentive for more workers to be willing to take low wage jobs. That increases the labor supply and drives down the wages of low-paid workers...
House collapse that killed 19-year-old worker involved underpinning Toronto Star ...The house was undergoing a type of basement renovation called “underpinning” that has caused other downtown houses to tumble down in recent years...
Switching Sides East Bay Express ...California Deputy Attorney General Benjamin Diehl's job was to prosecute banks for defrauding the public. Now he works for them...
Some Retail Workers Find Better Deals With Unions New York Times ...So what makes this Macy’s store so different? Its employees are represented by a union, which has insisted on stability in scheduling for its members. (Union workers enjoy similar scheduling arrangements at the Bloomingdale’s, H&M and Modell’s Sporting Goods stores in Manhattan.)...
Walmart Imposes New Employee Dress Code, Suggests Where To Shop For It Al Jazeera America ...Effective September 29, Walmart retail workers, or sales "associates," will have to put some of their meager hourly pay toward new clothes...
Chipotle Workers Shut Down Store Over 'Borderline Sweatshop Conditions' Huffington Post ...A Chipotle near Pennsylvania State University shut down on Wednesday after managers reportedly quit over brutal work hours and understaffing. A sign posted on the door to the eatery said that most employees resigned in protest of their "borderline sweatshop conditions." Below the message read: “People over profits.”...
U.S. threatened massive fine to force Yahoo to release data Washington Post ...The U.S. government threatened to fine Yahoo $250,000 a day in 2008 if it failed to comply with a broad demand to hand over user communications — a request the company believed was unconstitutional — according to court documents unsealed Thursday that illuminate how federal officials forced American tech companies to participate in the National Security Agency’s controversial PRISM program...
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