Today's Teamster News 10.14.14

Teamsters
Schneiderman gets Teamsters endorsement  Albany Times-Union   ...State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman picked up the endorsement of the state Teamsters union Monday...Schneiderman’s campaign on Monday rolled out the backing of the Teamsters Joint Council 16, a union known for its electoral efforts...
Teamsters ratify contract giving Pasco County employees raises  Tampa Tribune   ...The vote was nearly unanimous — 97 percent — clearing the way for employees to get their raises in the first paycheck of the fiscal year....Teamsters Local 79 represents more than half of the county’s 2,000 workers...
Facebook Shuttle Drivers Demand a Union—And Some Sleep  In These Times   ...the company’s shuttle bus drivers are looking to unionize with the Teamsters, seeking reasonable work hours and a living wage...
Trade
Mexico lifts dollar restrictions after drug cartels target US businesses to launder profits  Fox News   ...A Mexican law to severely limit the amount of dollars that banks can accept in cash has led drug cartels to bring money back to the U.S. to be deposited in American banks and wired back in pesos under the guise of international trade...
Demonstrations over missing Mexico students turn violent  Washington Post   ...Hundreds of students and teachers smashed windows and set fires inside a state capital building in southern Mexico on Monday, as fury erupted over the disappearance of 43 young people believed abducted by local police linked to a drug cartel...
Shock China coal tariff decision throws Australian free trade talks into turmoil  Sydney Morning News   ...The crucial final stages of free trade talks between Canberra and Beijing have been thrown into turmoil following China's shock decision to impose harsh new tariffs on Australian coal supplies...
State Battles
Will Voters Punish or Reward Scott Walker for His Out-of-Touch Views on the Minimum Wage? (opinion)  Express Milwaukee  ...Although a majority of Wisconsinites support a higher minimum wage, Walker is standing on the side of employers who don’t pay adequate wages...
The Big Lie Behind Voter ID Laws  New York Times   ...There is virtually no in-person voter fraud; the purpose of these laws is to suppress voting...
War on Workers
Americans Face Post-foreclosure Hell As Wages Garnished, Assets Seized  Reuters   ...Many thousands of Americans who lost their homes in the housing bust, but have since begun to rebuild their finances, are suddenly facing a new foreclosure nightmare: debt collectors are chasing them down for the money they still owe by freezing their bank accounts, garnishing their wages and seizing their assets...
How 14 People Made More Money Than the Entire Food Stamp Budget for 50 Million People  Alternet   ...For the second year in a row, America's richest 14 individuals  made more from their annual investments than the  $80 billion provided for  people in need of food. Nearly half of the food-deprived are children...
Invisible Hands: The Businessmen’s Campaign to Dismantle the Post Office  Angry Bear   ...The plans are clear: eliminate the layoff protections in union contracts; cut the career workforce by nearly half while tripling the number of non-career workers; reduce service standards for first-class mail; do away with Saturday delivery; give management control of workers’ benefit plans; consolidate over 250 processing plants; and close 15,000 post offices...
Car Wash Worker in Newark Killed in Crossfire of Shooting  WABC-TV   ...Witnesses tell Eyewitness News that Zoungo Sou-Oud was hard at work at the car wash, when a spray of bullets from across the street shattered what had been a peaceful Sunday afternoon...
Texas Health Worker Tests Positive For Ebola  Huffington Post   ...A Texas health worker has contracted Ebola after treating a Liberian who died of the disease at a Dallas hospital last week, raising concern about how U.S. medical guidelines aimed at stopping the spread of the disease were breached...

Another great win for the Teamsters in New York City!

Teamsters and artists during last year's actions

New York City workers scored a victory this week as the Frieze Art Fair agreed to hire Teamsters and IATSE members after protests erupted last year over Frieze's use of non-union labor -- on city-owned property. 

ArtFCity explains what happened:

For a week during the month of May, the British company descends on Randall’s Island and rolls out a tent, under which wealthy dealers and collectors come from the world over to trade money for art. The residents of Randall’s Island don’t reap much monetary benefit from this form of art tourism—and the city’s labor force doesn’t either. Over the years, Frieze exhibition organizers have been accused of hiring event staff and art handlers from as far away as Wisconsin in order to avoid hiring New Yorkers, particularly union workers. All that’s about to change. After months of meetings with local union leaders, Frieze New York has decided to commit to union labor.

Many people worked to bring the London-based art fair together with the unions.  Teamsters Joint Council 16 is grateful to the Randall's Island Park Alliance for getting Frieze and the Teamsters together. They're thankful for the involvement of Melissa Mark-Viverito, speaker of the New York City Council and former chair of the Parks department.

Teamsters Joint Council 16 President George Miranda called it 'a great win.' The New York Observer reported:

Frieze has agreed to incorporate partial union labor in the upcoming fair, running May 9 through 12 on Randall’s Island, and to only use union labor for the 2015 edition of the fair. 

“It was a great win,” said George Miranda, president of Teamsters Joint Council 16, who chaired the talks. “We’re satisfied with it. Our goal all along was to make sure it was 100 percent union labor, and that’s what we accomplished.”

New York City Teamsters are also very appreciative of the Arts & Labor group, which stood in solidarity with union members from the get-go. Arts & Labor put out a statement on the agreement:

Our tactics have included a series of direct actions both inside and outside the fair, a letter writing campaign, and the raising of awareness via social media. We also want to acknowledge the vital support of artists Suzanne Lacy and Andrea Bowers, curator Nato Thompson, and many others. We thank everyone who put their reputation on the line to create room for discussion when there was none and who created a platform for workers to speak up. We celebrate this victory as a step in the right direction toward a more just art industry and see it as an effective demonstration of the impact of solidarity networks.

Crain's New York Business reported the news about the deal yesterday with a tremendous headline:

After protests, Teamsters take over an art fair

Art in America also gave a shout-out to Lacy, Bowers and Thompson. 

NYC Teamsters make splash with campaign to fix commercial waste industry

Teamsters JC 16 President George Miranda and Teamster brothers and sisters

New York City welcomed the news yesterday of the Teamsters' new coalition to reform the commercial waste industry, an alliance that includes small businesses fed up with shakedowns and environmentalists fed up with fighting air pollution.

Sean Campbell, president of Teamsters Local 813, told a news conference yesterday what union members are fed up with. The Epoch Times reported on his remarks:

Growing up, jobs in the sanitation industry were good paying jobs with good pension plans. Now the majority of private owners pay very low wages and little in benefits. Many break the most basic health and safety regulations.

At the same news conference, Teamsters International Vice President George Miranda (and Teamsters Joint Council 16 president) called on the city to work with unions and community groups to tackle commercial waste in New York City.

It's time we open a new phase of recycling with New York's commercial carters.

Errol Louis with Bettina Damiani of Good Jobs
New York, which endorsed the coalition's report.

New York City's beloved Daily News columnist Errol Louis wholeheartedly endorsed the plan by what he called "an unlikely environmental activists and neighborhood groups." Louis explained what's wrong with New York's commercial waste industry:

...the commercial trash removal system has been an environmental and economic scandal for decades. In 1996, prosecutors indicted dozens of carting company executives, accusing them of running the garbage firms as branches of the Genovese and Gambino crime organizations. The mayor at the time, Rudy Giuliani, created a government agency, the Trade Waste Commission (now called the Business Integrity Commission), to weed out the crooks. 

But Rudy didn’t kill the beast. This year, federal prosecutors arrested 30 waste haulers, calling them members of the Gambino, Genovese and Luchese crime families and accusing them of racketeering — everything from loansharking to shaking down legitimate businesses and dividing up the New York area into territories controlled by different mobsters. 

To make matters worse, according to Transform Don’t Trash, a large number of commercial waste companies compete in the same neighborhoods, with multiple diesel-powered trucks running up and down the same streets, spewing soot and leaving potholes and chewed-up pavement in their wake. A lack of oversight leaves low-level waste workers badly underpaid and exposed to poisons, disease and accidents, making trash collection and removal one of the 10 deadliest occupations in America. 

And most of the garbage finally arrives in low-income, outer-borough neighborhoods. Manhattan, which generates 41% of the city’s commercial waste, has only 2% of the city’s solid waste transfer stations and 3% of the recycling facilities, according to the coalition.

NYC Teamsters begin campaign to create good commercial waste jobs

Teamsters Joint Council 16 President George Miranda with Sean Campbell,
president of Teamsters Local 813.

(Updates to add photo)

New York City Teamsters and their allies have high hopes for a campaign launched today to increase good jobs, recycling and justice in the commercial waste industry. New Yorkers are paying attention.

This morning the New York Daily News reported the Alliance for a Greater New York (ALIGN)  is recommending the city adopt a franchise system involving competitive bidding, a reduced number of companies and higher environmental and labor standards.

What the newspaper missed was the creation of a strong new alliance -- Transform Don't Trash NYC -- to make that happen. The campaign to tackle the problems of New York City's commercial waste industry involves the Teamsters, ALIGN, environmental justice and community advocacy groups.

A month away from Election Day, mayoral and city council candidates would do well to listen to their message.

Teamsters Joint Council 16 President George Miranda said at a City Hall news conference today:

Today is the day we make New York City a better place to live and work.

Miranda told the press wages are falling in New York's commercial waste industry, with new hires in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Staten Island earning just below $20,000 a year:

This industry has become a "Wild West." Unsafe and sometimes illegal operators are driving a race to the bottom in wages and health and safety.

The news conference followed the release of a study showing the city could recycle and compost more than 90 percent of commercial waste, but the current rate is much lower than that.

"This stinks," wrote Daily News reporters Daniel Beekman and Stephen Rex Brown:

...of the 3.2 million tons of commercial waste generated each year, 2 million tons are buried in landfills or burned in incinerators. 

The Alliance for a Greater New York, which wrote the report released Wednesday, blames a dysfunctional commercial waste industry that reeks of inefficiency.

Eddie Bautista, executive director of the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, said  it's time to stop burying low-income communities of color under mountains of commercial waste.

The time has come for New York City to stop burying communities -- as well as burying potential recycling jobs. ... the next mayor can really jumpstart a commercial recycling program that both increases long-neglected recycling work opportunities, while continuing to decrease our carbon footprint.

Teamsters Joint Council 16 includes Teamsters Local 831, which represents New York City sanitation workers.

Woot! NY lawmakers vote to crack down on trucking co. cheats

Here's a real Teamster victory: Both chambers of the New York state Legislatures passed a bill today that cracks down on trucking companies that misclassify their employers. Bad actors like FedEx Ground would pay stiff fines for treating their employees as contractors.

Great work, Joint Council 16!

The joint council's president, George Miranda, told Crain's New York Business:

This was a tough fight and it took us two years, but it was worth it in the end. We delivered better pay, better benefits and better working conditions for thousands of truckers, and that's how you spell victory when you're a Teamster.

The bill intends to correct the situation in New York where close to 30,000 truck drivers in New york are misclassified as independent contractors. That's $6.3 million in unpaid unemployment insurance taxes every year.

Crain's tells us:

...trucking companies suspect the Teamsters will try to organize them, perhaps with the bill as a selling point. The Teamsters said they were interested in the issue, in part, because companies that employ Teamsters in the air freight industry were having trouble competing with rivals such as UPS and FedEx that the union believed were misclassifying workers. 

The law would force companies to provide currently misclassified employees with benefits such as unemployment insurance and workers compensation, and would subject trucking companies that misclassify employees to penalties.

A similar bill passed the New Jersey Legislature and is sitting on Gov. Chris Christie's desk for his signature.  Let's hope both Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo sign these important pieces of legislation!