Teamster News
Teamsters, Human Rights Groups Decry Inaction By Salvadoran Government On Gilberto Soto Murder teamster.org ...A full-page ad scheduled for publication in tomorrow’s edition of El Salvador’s largest daily newspaper denounces the government for its continued inaction on the 10th anniversary of the assassination of Gilberto Soto, a representative of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Soto was killed while visiting El Salvador to establish fraternal relations with transport workers there and throughout Central America...
Rep. Marcy Kaptur celebrates victory at Teamsters Hall NBC24.com ...Rep. Kaptur arrived at the Teamsters Hall around 10 p.m. to thunderous applause from the crowd of about 100 that were assembled...
Voting No On 1 To Repeal AO 37 Will Save Anchorage Millions (opinion) Alaska Dispatch News ...Each year, Anchorage receives millions of dollars in federal grants that finance much of our public transit system. Since 2007, Anchorage has been awarded over $31 million in federal transit grants. If AO 37 remains law, Anchorage will lose eligibility for that funding, but will not lose the expense of replacing buses and maintaining bus stops...
ArcBest Sees Increase In Third-Quarter Revenue, Production Levels Fort Smith Times Record ...McReynolds said the new labor deal between ABF Freight and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters ratified last October is “tracking as expected” and the savings of $55 million to $65 million would be realized...
Sysco Keeps Planning For US Foods Merger Amid Delay Houston Chronicle ...The Teamsters Union is worried that jobs will be cut in regions where Sysco and US Foods overlap. The group represents more 7,600 Sysco warehouse workers and drivers and 4,000 US Foods warehouse workers. It said in its October newsletter that 2,500 jobs are at stake...
Trade
Agribusiness: TPP Won’t Be Decided This Month WHO ...U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman says the final agreement on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will not be made at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit this month in Beijing...
State Battles
Republican Scott Walker wins Wisconsin governor race Capital Gazette ...Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker has won re-election, Reuters/Ipsos projected on Tuesday, prevailing in a tough fight against Democratic challenger Mary Burke...
Gov. Paul LePage wins a second term; Michaud concedes Bangor Daily News ...Paul LePage, the outspoken former businessman who rode a Republican wave into the governor’s mansion and late-night talk show jokes in 2010, has won re-election in Maine...
Kasich, GOP roll in Ohio election Newark Advocate ...Gov. John Kasich led a Republican statewide trouncing of Democrats Tuesday night, assuring Kasich's spot in the discussion about GOP presidential candidates...
Wolf Ousts Corbett in Pa. Governor's Race NBCDFW.com ...Democrat Tom Wolf, who gave $10 million of his own money to underwrite an early TV ad campaign that endeared the businessman and first-time candidate to voters, unseated Gov. Tom Corbett on Tuesday, sending the unpopular incumbent to a historic defeat...
Republican Gov. Rick Scott Defeats Democrat Charlie Crist in Florida Wall Street Journal ...Republican Gov. Rick Scott of Florida won re-election Tuesday, fending off a vigorous challenge from Democrat Charlie Crist and providing the GOP a boost in a key swing state ahead of the 2016 presidential election...
GOP Gov. Rick Snyder Defeats Democrat Mark Schauer in Michigan Wall Street Journal ...Michigan Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, who acknowledged voters’ discontent with the state’s economy recovery, locked up his re-election Tuesday on a promise to help place workers in better-paying jobs...
Brownback Wins in Kansas, Keeping Alive Tax-Cut Crusade Bloomberg ...Kansas Governor Sam Brownback won a second term, surviving a backlash to an anti-tax crusade that pitted him against fellow Republicans and tested voters’ patience for the Tea Party agenda...
California Voters Deal Blow To Prisons, Drug War Huffington Post ...Nonviolent felonies like shoplifting and drug possession will be downgraded to misdemeanors under the ballot measure, Proposition 47. As many as 10,000 people could be eligible for early release from state prisons, and it's expected that courts will annually dispense around 40,000 fewer felony convictions...
War on Workers
Riding Wave of Discontent, G.O.P. Takes Senate New York Times ...Propelled by economic dissatisfaction and anger toward the president, Republicans grabbed Democratic Senate seats in North Carolina, Colorado, Iowa, West Virginia, Arkansas, Montana and South Dakota to gain their first Senate majority since 2006...
To Angry Voters, Washington Comes Out the Biggest Loser New York Times ...Optimism about the future was in short supply in this a-pox-on-all-your-houses climate. And the sense of pessimism appears greater than in the last big election: Nearly two-thirds of voters say the nation is on the wrong track, up from a little over half in 2012...
Construction Worker Killed In Turnpike Crash WMTW ...A worker has been killed in an accident at a construction site on the Maine Turnpike in York, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration...
Uber And Its Shady Partners Are Pushing Drivers Into Subprime Loans ValleyWag ...Instead of mortgages, this time a bubble has formed around auto loans, and reliably ruthless Uber is in the thick of it. Two "partners" in Uber's vehicle financing program are under federal investigation, but Uber hasn't slowed its aggressive marketing campaign to get drivers with bad credit to sign up for loans...
Chipotle Faces Wage Theft Allegations From Workers Franchise Herald ...Chipotle employees from Colorado and Minnesota are alleging that the company often makes workers continue their services "off the clock" without pay. Several of these employees wrote official court statements explaining that they had to continue to clean up their restaurant locations despite the time keeping system clocking them out at 12:30 a.m...
Judge Orders Joseph Esposito To Sit For Deposition After Ebola, ISIS Excuses Were Deemed ‘Not Satisfactory’ New York Daily News ...City lawyers contended that Emergency Management Commissioner Joseph Esposito was too busy to be deposed for an Occupy Wall Street-related civil suit last week because of the Ebola crisis....Esposito, 64, was slated to answer questions under oath last week for a suit brought by a woman who says she was wrongly arrested during the Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011...
Miscellaneous
NSA Chief Bet Money On AT&T As It Spied On You Daily Beast ...At the same time Gen. Keith Alexander was running the National Security Agency, the United States’ biggest spying outfit, he was also trading stocks in an obscure technology company that had a sweetheart deal with one of the NSA’s most important sources of intelligence—the global phone and Internet giant AT&T...
Showing posts with label MI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MI. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
Saturday, November 1, 2014
Today's Teamster News 11.01.14
Teamster News
FedEx Freight Workers In New Jersey Vote To Join Teamsters Local 701 teamster.org ...A group of 113 drivers at FedEx Freight’s South Brunswick, N.J., terminal voted today to join Teamsters Local 701. The vote was 66 to 42...
Teamsters Local 988 Laundry Drivers Ratify Contract teamster.org ...Laundry drivers and members of Teamsters Local 988 in Houston have voted unanimously to ratify a two-year contract with Angelica Textile...
The Ballot Box Is The Great Equalizer For Workers (opinion) Huffington Post ...There are real consequences for workers if they don't make it to the ballot box,...
NYC Carriage Horses Clip-Clop Away While De Blasio Stalls Bloomberg Businessweek ...New York Mayor Bill de Blasio assured animal-rights activists during his run for City Hall that he would rid Central Park of horse-drawn carriages, which he called inhumane….Now, 10 months into his term, tourists still pay $50 for a 20-minute trot through the park, while at City Hall, a draft for legislation has yet to be written and no one is saying why....
Nicholas Lanzilli Secures Additional Endorsements Medford Transcript ...I am honored to receive additional endorsements by a number of respected groups in the area. ...Teamsters Local 25...
Teamsters Trumpet Unemployment Payout To LA-LB Port Truck Driver Journal of Commerce ...A Los Angeles-Long Beach port truck driver who said she was misclassified as an independent contractor was awarded a check for $9,000 in unemployment benefits by the California Employment Development Department this week, giving Teamsters fuel in their campaign to organize local drayage drivers...
Unfinished Construction Has Protesters Marching Near The West Lake Landfill Fox 2 St. Louis ...Unfinished construction work along St. Charles Rock Road has demonstrators raising public health concerns...
Trade
TTIP Debate Suffering From Lack Of Transparency The Parliament Magazine ...The transatlantic trade and investment partnership (TTIP), currently being negotiated between the EU and the US, is by far the most controversial agreement the EU has ever negotiated. Since the start of discussions, opposition has been growing among the civilian population and certain political parties, despite the fact that the final content of the project cannot be discussed in detail, even one year on...
State Battles
McConnell victory could make Kentucky right-to-work Politico ... “Should the Kentucky House go Republican,” writes Labor & Employment’s Mike Elk, “state Senate Majority Leader Damon Thayer has already said that his first priority will be to pass a right-to-work bill.” Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear would likely veto, but to no avail: In Kentucky, all it takes to override a gubernatorial veto is a simple majority of both houses...
Mark Schauer will ax the 'retirement tax' - and Republicans will help him Michigan Live ...If Mark Schauer is elected governor, you can probably kiss the reviled "retirement tax" and other tax hikes goodbye...
All about absentees? Michigan Democratic Party push appears to be paying off in early returns Michigan Live ...One out of every three or four residents who vote in Michigan's general election could do so via absentee ballot before the polls even open on Tuesday, and early indications suggest the trend may benefit Democrats...
Ohio May Disenfranchise Voters For Technical Errors ThinkProgress ...election officials in Ohio can throw out legitimate absentee and provisional ballots that have small errors — such as leaving out a middle name — and in many cases they don’t have to give the voter a chance to fix the problem...
Closing Argument: Kochs Fight To Save Candidate Cronies In Critical Election RealKochFacts ...learn more about Republican candidates who share the Koch agenda and are being propped up by the secretive billionaires in North Carolina, Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, Kentucky, Michigan, Oregon,Wisconsin, and Florida...
Midterms 2014: Candidates With Ties To Pension Business May Gain Control Of State Pension Funds International Business Times ...government ethics experts express concern that governors drawn from the ranks of companies that manage pension money could bring an inherent conflict of interest: Their duty to do right by taxpayers and retirees could be pitted against their personal financial interests and their loyalties to longtime Wall Street associates...
“Indescribably insane”: A public school system from hell Salon ...The needs of [Philadelphia] children are secondary, however, to a right-wing governor in Tom Corbett who remains fixated on breaking the district in order to crush the teachers union and divert money to unproven experiments like vouchers and privately run charters. If the city’s children are left uneducated and impoverished among the smoldering wreckage of a broken school system, so be it...
San Francisco To Raise Minimum Wage To $11.05 Per Hour Reuters ...San Francisco will raise the city's minimum wage to $11.05 per hour from the start of next year, up from $10.74 currently, the mayor's office said on Thursday...
Kansas tax cuts fail again, as new revenue numbers plague Sam Brownback but help Paul Davis Kansas City Star ...In October, individual income tax receipts were almost $27 million below what the state had estimated it would take in, or a jarring 15 percent off expectations. Why does that matter? Because this is the tax that Brownback and the Legislature cut in 2012. The promise then was that more jobs would flood Kansas, eventually pumping back up income tax collections. That’s not working — at all...
More Than 750 people Turn Out For Meeting On Oil-Train Study Seattle Times ...State officials are proposing more funding and more regulatory authority to step up oversight of the surging numbers of oil trains carrying crude through Washington, and to better prepare for any possible spills...
Donors get special access to GOP governors as potential 2016 contenders Washington Post ...One key to the [Republican Governors' Association] fundraising prowess is the exclusive donor access effort, called the Executive Roundtable program, which gives wealthy contributors up-close access to governors at quarterly policy seminars. The initiative has helped create a permanent network of high-net-worth donors who augment the group’s funding from corporation...
War on Workers
Judge in Maine Eases Restrictions on Nurse New York Times ...In a victory for a nurse who treated Ebola patients in West Africa, a judge in Maine on Friday rejected arguments by the state that her movements should be firmly restricted, praising her “compassion” even as he acknowledged the public’s fears about the virus...
Casino Closings Take Toll On Atlantic City Travel Press of Atlantic City ...Fewer cars, buses, airport passengers and rail riders are heading to Atlantic City following the shutdown of three casinos in recent weeks, the latest travel figures show...
Police: Construction worker killed by dump truck DelawareOnLine ...State troopers and emergency crews are on the scene of a fatality in Lewes where a construction worker was hit by a dump truck, police said...
Lafayette construction worker dies on the job KLFY ...Scott Police responded to a 911 call just before 9 a.m. Tuesday regarding a Scott Materials employee that was fatally injured on the job...
Miscellaneous
Starbucks to deliver coffee to your desk starting in 2015 Los Angeles Times ...The delivery service will be available through Starbucks Corp.’s mobile app, which currently lets customers pay at the store through their phone, Schultz said...
Lack of mechanics threatens U.S. Air Force target date for F-35 Reuters ...The U.S. Air Force may miss its target of August 2016 to start using the Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jet in combat if Congress blocks the service's plan to retire its A-10 tank-killer aircraft, a top U.S. general said...
FedEx Freight Workers In New Jersey Vote To Join Teamsters Local 701 teamster.org ...A group of 113 drivers at FedEx Freight’s South Brunswick, N.J., terminal voted today to join Teamsters Local 701. The vote was 66 to 42...
Teamsters Local 988 Laundry Drivers Ratify Contract teamster.org ...Laundry drivers and members of Teamsters Local 988 in Houston have voted unanimously to ratify a two-year contract with Angelica Textile...
The Ballot Box Is The Great Equalizer For Workers (opinion) Huffington Post ...There are real consequences for workers if they don't make it to the ballot box,...
NYC Carriage Horses Clip-Clop Away While De Blasio Stalls Bloomberg Businessweek ...New York Mayor Bill de Blasio assured animal-rights activists during his run for City Hall that he would rid Central Park of horse-drawn carriages, which he called inhumane….Now, 10 months into his term, tourists still pay $50 for a 20-minute trot through the park, while at City Hall, a draft for legislation has yet to be written and no one is saying why....
Nicholas Lanzilli Secures Additional Endorsements Medford Transcript ...I am honored to receive additional endorsements by a number of respected groups in the area. ...Teamsters Local 25...
Teamsters Trumpet Unemployment Payout To LA-LB Port Truck Driver Journal of Commerce ...A Los Angeles-Long Beach port truck driver who said she was misclassified as an independent contractor was awarded a check for $9,000 in unemployment benefits by the California Employment Development Department this week, giving Teamsters fuel in their campaign to organize local drayage drivers...
Unfinished Construction Has Protesters Marching Near The West Lake Landfill Fox 2 St. Louis ...Unfinished construction work along St. Charles Rock Road has demonstrators raising public health concerns...
Trade
TTIP Debate Suffering From Lack Of Transparency The Parliament Magazine ...The transatlantic trade and investment partnership (TTIP), currently being negotiated between the EU and the US, is by far the most controversial agreement the EU has ever negotiated. Since the start of discussions, opposition has been growing among the civilian population and certain political parties, despite the fact that the final content of the project cannot be discussed in detail, even one year on...
State Battles
McConnell victory could make Kentucky right-to-work Politico ... “Should the Kentucky House go Republican,” writes Labor & Employment’s Mike Elk, “state Senate Majority Leader Damon Thayer has already said that his first priority will be to pass a right-to-work bill.” Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear would likely veto, but to no avail: In Kentucky, all it takes to override a gubernatorial veto is a simple majority of both houses...
Mark Schauer will ax the 'retirement tax' - and Republicans will help him Michigan Live ...If Mark Schauer is elected governor, you can probably kiss the reviled "retirement tax" and other tax hikes goodbye...
All about absentees? Michigan Democratic Party push appears to be paying off in early returns Michigan Live ...One out of every three or four residents who vote in Michigan's general election could do so via absentee ballot before the polls even open on Tuesday, and early indications suggest the trend may benefit Democrats...
Ohio May Disenfranchise Voters For Technical Errors ThinkProgress ...election officials in Ohio can throw out legitimate absentee and provisional ballots that have small errors — such as leaving out a middle name — and in many cases they don’t have to give the voter a chance to fix the problem...
Closing Argument: Kochs Fight To Save Candidate Cronies In Critical Election RealKochFacts ...learn more about Republican candidates who share the Koch agenda and are being propped up by the secretive billionaires in North Carolina, Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, Kentucky, Michigan, Oregon,Wisconsin, and Florida...
Midterms 2014: Candidates With Ties To Pension Business May Gain Control Of State Pension Funds International Business Times ...government ethics experts express concern that governors drawn from the ranks of companies that manage pension money could bring an inherent conflict of interest: Their duty to do right by taxpayers and retirees could be pitted against their personal financial interests and their loyalties to longtime Wall Street associates...
“Indescribably insane”: A public school system from hell Salon ...The needs of [Philadelphia] children are secondary, however, to a right-wing governor in Tom Corbett who remains fixated on breaking the district in order to crush the teachers union and divert money to unproven experiments like vouchers and privately run charters. If the city’s children are left uneducated and impoverished among the smoldering wreckage of a broken school system, so be it...
San Francisco To Raise Minimum Wage To $11.05 Per Hour Reuters ...San Francisco will raise the city's minimum wage to $11.05 per hour from the start of next year, up from $10.74 currently, the mayor's office said on Thursday...
Kansas tax cuts fail again, as new revenue numbers plague Sam Brownback but help Paul Davis Kansas City Star ...In October, individual income tax receipts were almost $27 million below what the state had estimated it would take in, or a jarring 15 percent off expectations. Why does that matter? Because this is the tax that Brownback and the Legislature cut in 2012. The promise then was that more jobs would flood Kansas, eventually pumping back up income tax collections. That’s not working — at all...
More Than 750 people Turn Out For Meeting On Oil-Train Study Seattle Times ...State officials are proposing more funding and more regulatory authority to step up oversight of the surging numbers of oil trains carrying crude through Washington, and to better prepare for any possible spills...
Donors get special access to GOP governors as potential 2016 contenders Washington Post ...One key to the [Republican Governors' Association] fundraising prowess is the exclusive donor access effort, called the Executive Roundtable program, which gives wealthy contributors up-close access to governors at quarterly policy seminars. The initiative has helped create a permanent network of high-net-worth donors who augment the group’s funding from corporation...
War on Workers
Judge in Maine Eases Restrictions on Nurse New York Times ...In a victory for a nurse who treated Ebola patients in West Africa, a judge in Maine on Friday rejected arguments by the state that her movements should be firmly restricted, praising her “compassion” even as he acknowledged the public’s fears about the virus...
Casino Closings Take Toll On Atlantic City Travel Press of Atlantic City ...Fewer cars, buses, airport passengers and rail riders are heading to Atlantic City following the shutdown of three casinos in recent weeks, the latest travel figures show...
Police: Construction worker killed by dump truck DelawareOnLine ...State troopers and emergency crews are on the scene of a fatality in Lewes where a construction worker was hit by a dump truck, police said...
Lafayette construction worker dies on the job KLFY ...Scott Police responded to a 911 call just before 9 a.m. Tuesday regarding a Scott Materials employee that was fatally injured on the job...
Miscellaneous
Starbucks to deliver coffee to your desk starting in 2015 Los Angeles Times ...The delivery service will be available through Starbucks Corp.’s mobile app, which currently lets customers pay at the store through their phone, Schultz said...
Lack of mechanics threatens U.S. Air Force target date for F-35 Reuters ...The U.S. Air Force may miss its target of August 2016 to start using the Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jet in combat if Congress blocks the service's plan to retire its A-10 tank-killer aircraft, a top U.S. general said...
Monday, October 20, 2014
Today's Teamster News 10.20.14
Teamsters
Ikea and union to start mediation Vancouver Sun ...Mediation is set to begin Monday between Ikea and the Teamsters’ Union Local 213, which represents employees at the company’s store in Richmond...
Coakley, Baker rally supporters as election looms Boston Globe ...At a cavernous union hall in Charlestown Sunday morning, her voice resonating off the walls, Democrat Martha Coakley exhorted members of Teamsters Local 25 to get out the vote for her...
Casino question could be a jackpot Boston Herald ...“Obviously Question 3 (the repeal initiative) is a big question for organized labor and also for the economy of Massachusetts,” Teamsters Local 25 President Sean O’Brien said yesterday at a raucous Charlestown rally of hundreds of union members for Democratic candidate Martha Coakley...
Trade
The TPP Would Enroll More Online Spies Public Citizen ... the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) includes draft rules that would increase significantly the role of online service providers in keeping an eye on their users, under the pretext of combatting copyright piracy. Even if you are not an infringer, your Internet service provider (ISP) will be watching you, just in case...
Jack Lew Sees No Evil: Treasury Fails To Name China as a Currency Manipulator for the 12th Time Economic Policy Institute ...China purchased $681 billion in total foreign exchange reserves between December 2012 and June 2014, and more than $2 trillion since this Administration took office. Currency manipulation by China and approximately 20 other countries has increased the U.S. trade deficit by $200 to $500 billion. Elimination of currency manipulation would create 2.3 million to 5.8 million U.S. jobs, without raising public spending at all (indeed, reducing the trade deficit through currency re-alignment would reduce the federal budget deficit)...
TPP proposal is a bad deal (LTE) News and Sentinel ...I do not want my children to wonder where they are going to work because manufacturing will be done in third world countries for pennies on the dollar...
State Battles
Snyder, Schauer spar over fairness of tax rewrite Lansing State Journal ...Democrat Mark Schauer is centering his populist message against Republican Gov. Rick Snyder around a 3-year-old tax overhaul that lowered the burden on business but raised it on individuals...
Letters: State worse under Walker (LTE) Post-Crescent ...the state’s median income has dropped from $54,210 in 2009 to $51,647 in 2013 and that the percentage of children living in poverty has risen from 13.3 percent in 2008 to 18.4 percent in 2013...
War on Workers
The Social Security office of judges who hear appeals for disability benefits is 990,399 cases behind Washington Post ...What’s left now is an office that costs taxpayers billions and still forces applicants to wait more than a year — often, without a paycheck — before delivering an answer about their benefits...
Poor kids who do everything right don’t do better than rich kids who do everything wrong Washington Post ...rich high school dropouts remain in the top about as much as poor college grads stay stuck in the bottom — 14 versus 16 percent, respectively. Not only that, but these low-income strivers are just as likely to end up in the bottom as these wealthy ne'er-do-wells...
Ebola fear, monitoring eases for some in Dallas Associated Press ...Ebola fears began to ease for some Monday as a monitoring period passed for those who had close contact with a victim of the disease and after a cruise ship scare ended with the boat returning to port and a lab worker on board testing negative for the virus...
Harold Meyerson: How workers lost the power struggle — and their pay raises (opinion) Washington Post ...The distribution of income is a function not just of global forces but also of social and institutional power. And over the past four decades, U.S. workers have suffered a loss of power that may exceed even their loss of income...
Behind Private Equity’s Curtain New York Times ...public employees are relying on their pensions for financial security. Private equity firms are relying on their pensions, too. Over the last 10 years, pension funds have piled into private equity buyout funds. But in exchange for what they hope will be hefty returns, many pension funds have signed onto a kind of omerta, or code of silence, about the terms of the funds’ investments...
Ikea and union to start mediation Vancouver Sun ...Mediation is set to begin Monday between Ikea and the Teamsters’ Union Local 213, which represents employees at the company’s store in Richmond...
Coakley, Baker rally supporters as election looms Boston Globe ...At a cavernous union hall in Charlestown Sunday morning, her voice resonating off the walls, Democrat Martha Coakley exhorted members of Teamsters Local 25 to get out the vote for her...
Casino question could be a jackpot Boston Herald ...“Obviously Question 3 (the repeal initiative) is a big question for organized labor and also for the economy of Massachusetts,” Teamsters Local 25 President Sean O’Brien said yesterday at a raucous Charlestown rally of hundreds of union members for Democratic candidate Martha Coakley...
Trade
The TPP Would Enroll More Online Spies Public Citizen ... the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) includes draft rules that would increase significantly the role of online service providers in keeping an eye on their users, under the pretext of combatting copyright piracy. Even if you are not an infringer, your Internet service provider (ISP) will be watching you, just in case...
Jack Lew Sees No Evil: Treasury Fails To Name China as a Currency Manipulator for the 12th Time Economic Policy Institute ...China purchased $681 billion in total foreign exchange reserves between December 2012 and June 2014, and more than $2 trillion since this Administration took office. Currency manipulation by China and approximately 20 other countries has increased the U.S. trade deficit by $200 to $500 billion. Elimination of currency manipulation would create 2.3 million to 5.8 million U.S. jobs, without raising public spending at all (indeed, reducing the trade deficit through currency re-alignment would reduce the federal budget deficit)...
TPP proposal is a bad deal (LTE) News and Sentinel ...I do not want my children to wonder where they are going to work because manufacturing will be done in third world countries for pennies on the dollar...
State Battles
Snyder, Schauer spar over fairness of tax rewrite Lansing State Journal ...Democrat Mark Schauer is centering his populist message against Republican Gov. Rick Snyder around a 3-year-old tax overhaul that lowered the burden on business but raised it on individuals...
Letters: State worse under Walker (LTE) Post-Crescent ...the state’s median income has dropped from $54,210 in 2009 to $51,647 in 2013 and that the percentage of children living in poverty has risen from 13.3 percent in 2008 to 18.4 percent in 2013...
War on Workers
The Social Security office of judges who hear appeals for disability benefits is 990,399 cases behind Washington Post ...What’s left now is an office that costs taxpayers billions and still forces applicants to wait more than a year — often, without a paycheck — before delivering an answer about their benefits...
Poor kids who do everything right don’t do better than rich kids who do everything wrong Washington Post ...rich high school dropouts remain in the top about as much as poor college grads stay stuck in the bottom — 14 versus 16 percent, respectively. Not only that, but these low-income strivers are just as likely to end up in the bottom as these wealthy ne'er-do-wells...
Ebola fear, monitoring eases for some in Dallas Associated Press ...Ebola fears began to ease for some Monday as a monitoring period passed for those who had close contact with a victim of the disease and after a cruise ship scare ended with the boat returning to port and a lab worker on board testing negative for the virus...
Harold Meyerson: How workers lost the power struggle — and their pay raises (opinion) Washington Post ...The distribution of income is a function not just of global forces but also of social and institutional power. And over the past four decades, U.S. workers have suffered a loss of power that may exceed even their loss of income...
Behind Private Equity’s Curtain New York Times ...public employees are relying on their pensions for financial security. Private equity firms are relying on their pensions, too. Over the last 10 years, pension funds have piled into private equity buyout funds. But in exchange for what they hope will be hefty returns, many pension funds have signed onto a kind of omerta, or code of silence, about the terms of the funds’ investments...
Saturday, October 4, 2014
Today's Teamster News 10.04.14
Teamster News
Passavant Workers Take Strike Vote New Castle News ...Members of Teamsters Local 538 voted Thursday to give a 10-day strike notice to Passavant Health and Retirement Center in Zelienople. Betty Fischer, Teamsters Local 538 secretary/treasurer, said the vote was “overwhelming.”...
Environmental Activist To Address Bridgeton Landfill Concerns St. Louis Public Radio ...Environmental activist Lois Gibbs will be in St. Louis this weekend for a “teach-in” to address problems at the adjoining Bridgeton and West Lake landfills, located in Bridgeton a few miles from Lambert Airport...
Rev. Brian Jordan Blesses Horses With Holy Water, Praises City's Carriage Industry New York Daily News ...The veteran clergyman, an ardent supporter of the industry, delivered some kind words for the carriage horse owners as well. “These horses are cared for like children,” said Jordan, wearing cargo shorts and running shoes beneath his robe.
Assembly's Gary Pretlow: Veterinarians Say Carriage Horses 'Healthy, Happy, Well-Fed' New York Daily News ...State Assemblyman Gary Pretlow says the city's horse carriage industry should live on -- doctor's orders. The Westchester County Democrat, who sponsored legislation this spring to save the jobs of the drivers, is upping the ante by sending the City Council and mayor's office a testimonial from the state Veterinary Medical Society in support of keeping the horses on the job...
35 Port Truck Drivers Fired After Strike AFL-CIO ...The drivers, supported by the Teamsters, are some of the lowest paid workers in our communities. Because of their misclassification as “independent contractors,” some even take home negative paychecks. The 35 port drivers were fired from Total Transportation Services (TTSI). They include Jose Rosales, a port driver for over 10 years, husband and father of three children...
Trade
TTIP - Four Letters That Spell Rising Poverty (opinion) Huffington Post ...Cheap labour may be good for investors and shareholders, but at the societal level at which governments operate, it creates a whole new set of problems...
Trade Deals Worsen Immigration Pressures (opinion) Baltimore Sun ...These trade agreements failed to achieve the promised increases in employment and wages and actually caused so much economic disruption and hardship in those countries that pressures for workers to emigrate actually increased instead of decreasing...
State Battles
New Temp Worker Bill Could Have Large Impact Monterey Herald ...A bill that used Taylor Farms as its rallying cry is likely to have a major affect across the state. Gov. Jerry Brown signed the "Temp Worker Protection Bill" on Sunday, which holds businesses liable when subcontractors violate wage or safety laws...
GOP Candidate Busted For Potential Voter Fraud! The Story Of Leslie Rutledge Salon.com ...Leslie Rutledge, the Republican candidate for Attorney General in Arkansas, has been discovered to have been registered to vote in multiple states in addition to Arkansas, and even voted by absentee ballot in Arkansas’ general election in November of 2008 –after she had registered to vote in Washington D.C. in July of the same year...
Christie defends Koch Brothers, calls questions about anonymous donors 'silliness' in Arizona NJ.com ...Questioning the lack of transparency about who has been funneling millions of dollars in negative campaign ads into the Arizona governor's race is "silliness" and "sophistry," Gov. Chris Christie said Thursday night while stumping for Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug Ducey...
Early voting hours unlikely to change before Election Day cleveland.com ... the statewide early, in-person voting hours set Monday by Secretary of State Jon Husted will hold throughout Election Day on Nov. 4. That schedule includes early, in-person voting on the two Saturdays prior to Election Day, Sunday before Election Day and Monday before Election Day...
Michigan Legislature Approves Anti-Human Trafficking Bills Associated Press ...The bills now headed to Gov. Rick Snyder would let victims clear their criminal records. Minors under age 18 suspected of prostitution would be presumed to be trafficking victims, and “Johns” soliciting sex from minors would face stiffer criminal penalties...
Club for Growth won't disclose source of money for local ad buy Columbia Daily Tribune ...the Tribune reported Thursday that the ads were purchased with funds from the Missouri Club for Growth PAC, a political fund that has received $3.6 million, more than 99 percent of its funding in the past three years, from wealthy conservative activist Rex Sinquefield...
U.S. Supreme Court is asked to block Wisconsin's voter ID law Associated Press ...Opponents of Wisconsin's photo ID requirement for voters took their case to the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday, seeking an emergency halt to the state's implementation of the law before the fast approaching Nov. 4 election...
Group sues state over campaign coordination Associated Press ...A conservative group and ally of Gov. Scott Walker filed a federal lawsuit Thursday asking that a Wisconsin law limiting coordination between third-party organizations and political candidates be declared unconstitutional...
War On Workers
The Missing Trio in Today's Jobs Report Bloomberg ...At 3 million, the number of long-term unemployed hardly budged. Youth unemployment rose somewhat to 20 percent, giving up half the gains of the prior month. And joblessness among those lacking a college education is still too high...
‘We Can’t Haul’: Rebounding Economy Reveals Shortage Of Truck Drivers Bangor Daily News ...In 1980, Vieth said, the average trucker earned four times the wage of a food service worker. But the $40,940 the average truck driver makes today is just 1.8 times that of food service workers...
Labor Participation Rate Drops To 36 Year Low; Record 92.6 Million Americans Not In Labor Force zero hedge ...while according to the Household Survey, 232,000 people found jobs, what is more disturbing is that the people not in the labor force, rose to a new record high, increasing by 315,000 to 92.6 million!...
Hackers’ Attack Cracked 10 Companies in Major Assault New York Times ...The breadth of the attacks — and the lack of clarity about whether it was an effort to steal from accounts or to demonstrate that the hackers could penetrate even the best-protected American financial institutions — has left Washington intelligence officials and policy makers far more concerned than they have let on publicly...
Huh? Walmart Foundation Battles Hunger As Walmart Workers Turn to Food Stamps Inside Philanthropy ...Last month, the foundation launched a new campaign, "Fight Hunger, Spark Change," that asks people to vote for which local food banks it should donate funds to. All this is ironic to say the least, given the food security challenges of Walmart's own huge labor force, many of whom don't earn much more than the minimum wage...
EXCLUSIVE AUDIO: How the Koch Brothers Are Molding the Next Scott Walkers The Nation ...Walker has, since his 2010 gubernatorial run, been a top recipient of campaign contributions from the Kochs, and a beneficiary of the “independent” campaigns of Koch-fueled groups such as Americans for Prosperity...
Koch-backed group plans direct attacks in Senate races USA Today ...Americans for Prosperity's decision to move to pointed attacks is significant because it shifts the group into more direct political activity — something tax-exempt organizations are required to limit. It also means the group must disclose its election-related activity — though not its donors — to federal regulators...
Worker Dies Valdosta Today ...Officials say that 61-year old Isabel Gomez died after a piece of heavy equipment fell and crushed him. Sheriff Andy Hester of Turner County reports that Gomez and his brother were working on a fork lift...
Worker dies after truck with gravel tips over WOKV ...the man was unloading gravel from a truck which had an apparatus raised up. That caused the truck to get unsteady and ultimately tip on to the man who was crouched next to it working...
High-Speed Trader Accused Of Commodity Market ‘Spoofing’ Bloomberg News ...A high-frequency trader was indicted for “spoofing” -- placing and immediate canceling orders as a way to manipulate commodities markets -- in what the U.S. Justice Department says is the first criminal case of its kind...
Man Shoots Down Drone, Lawyers Scratch Their Heads Popular Science ...A man in New Jersey fired a shotgun at his neighbor's drone, and as the quadcopter crashed to the ground, the incident raised new legal challenges about when and if it’s okay to shoot a robot...
Miscellaneous
Passavant Workers Take Strike Vote New Castle News ...Members of Teamsters Local 538 voted Thursday to give a 10-day strike notice to Passavant Health and Retirement Center in Zelienople. Betty Fischer, Teamsters Local 538 secretary/treasurer, said the vote was “overwhelming.”...
Environmental Activist To Address Bridgeton Landfill Concerns St. Louis Public Radio ...Environmental activist Lois Gibbs will be in St. Louis this weekend for a “teach-in” to address problems at the adjoining Bridgeton and West Lake landfills, located in Bridgeton a few miles from Lambert Airport...
Rev. Brian Jordan Blesses Horses With Holy Water, Praises City's Carriage Industry New York Daily News ...The veteran clergyman, an ardent supporter of the industry, delivered some kind words for the carriage horse owners as well. “These horses are cared for like children,” said Jordan, wearing cargo shorts and running shoes beneath his robe.
Assembly's Gary Pretlow: Veterinarians Say Carriage Horses 'Healthy, Happy, Well-Fed' New York Daily News ...State Assemblyman Gary Pretlow says the city's horse carriage industry should live on -- doctor's orders. The Westchester County Democrat, who sponsored legislation this spring to save the jobs of the drivers, is upping the ante by sending the City Council and mayor's office a testimonial from the state Veterinary Medical Society in support of keeping the horses on the job...
35 Port Truck Drivers Fired After Strike AFL-CIO ...The drivers, supported by the Teamsters, are some of the lowest paid workers in our communities. Because of their misclassification as “independent contractors,” some even take home negative paychecks. The 35 port drivers were fired from Total Transportation Services (TTSI). They include Jose Rosales, a port driver for over 10 years, husband and father of three children...
Trade
TTIP - Four Letters That Spell Rising Poverty (opinion) Huffington Post ...Cheap labour may be good for investors and shareholders, but at the societal level at which governments operate, it creates a whole new set of problems...
Trade Deals Worsen Immigration Pressures (opinion) Baltimore Sun ...These trade agreements failed to achieve the promised increases in employment and wages and actually caused so much economic disruption and hardship in those countries that pressures for workers to emigrate actually increased instead of decreasing...
State Battles
New Temp Worker Bill Could Have Large Impact Monterey Herald ...A bill that used Taylor Farms as its rallying cry is likely to have a major affect across the state. Gov. Jerry Brown signed the "Temp Worker Protection Bill" on Sunday, which holds businesses liable when subcontractors violate wage or safety laws...
GOP Candidate Busted For Potential Voter Fraud! The Story Of Leslie Rutledge Salon.com ...Leslie Rutledge, the Republican candidate for Attorney General in Arkansas, has been discovered to have been registered to vote in multiple states in addition to Arkansas, and even voted by absentee ballot in Arkansas’ general election in November of 2008 –after she had registered to vote in Washington D.C. in July of the same year...
Christie defends Koch Brothers, calls questions about anonymous donors 'silliness' in Arizona NJ.com ...Questioning the lack of transparency about who has been funneling millions of dollars in negative campaign ads into the Arizona governor's race is "silliness" and "sophistry," Gov. Chris Christie said Thursday night while stumping for Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug Ducey...
Early voting hours unlikely to change before Election Day cleveland.com ... the statewide early, in-person voting hours set Monday by Secretary of State Jon Husted will hold throughout Election Day on Nov. 4. That schedule includes early, in-person voting on the two Saturdays prior to Election Day, Sunday before Election Day and Monday before Election Day...
Michigan Legislature Approves Anti-Human Trafficking Bills Associated Press ...The bills now headed to Gov. Rick Snyder would let victims clear their criminal records. Minors under age 18 suspected of prostitution would be presumed to be trafficking victims, and “Johns” soliciting sex from minors would face stiffer criminal penalties...
Club for Growth won't disclose source of money for local ad buy Columbia Daily Tribune ...the Tribune reported Thursday that the ads were purchased with funds from the Missouri Club for Growth PAC, a political fund that has received $3.6 million, more than 99 percent of its funding in the past three years, from wealthy conservative activist Rex Sinquefield...
U.S. Supreme Court is asked to block Wisconsin's voter ID law Associated Press ...Opponents of Wisconsin's photo ID requirement for voters took their case to the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday, seeking an emergency halt to the state's implementation of the law before the fast approaching Nov. 4 election...
Group sues state over campaign coordination Associated Press ...A conservative group and ally of Gov. Scott Walker filed a federal lawsuit Thursday asking that a Wisconsin law limiting coordination between third-party organizations and political candidates be declared unconstitutional...
War On Workers
The Missing Trio in Today's Jobs Report Bloomberg ...At 3 million, the number of long-term unemployed hardly budged. Youth unemployment rose somewhat to 20 percent, giving up half the gains of the prior month. And joblessness among those lacking a college education is still too high...
‘We Can’t Haul’: Rebounding Economy Reveals Shortage Of Truck Drivers Bangor Daily News ...In 1980, Vieth said, the average trucker earned four times the wage of a food service worker. But the $40,940 the average truck driver makes today is just 1.8 times that of food service workers...
Labor Participation Rate Drops To 36 Year Low; Record 92.6 Million Americans Not In Labor Force zero hedge ...while according to the Household Survey, 232,000 people found jobs, what is more disturbing is that the people not in the labor force, rose to a new record high, increasing by 315,000 to 92.6 million!...
Hackers’ Attack Cracked 10 Companies in Major Assault New York Times ...The breadth of the attacks — and the lack of clarity about whether it was an effort to steal from accounts or to demonstrate that the hackers could penetrate even the best-protected American financial institutions — has left Washington intelligence officials and policy makers far more concerned than they have let on publicly...
Huh? Walmart Foundation Battles Hunger As Walmart Workers Turn to Food Stamps Inside Philanthropy ...Last month, the foundation launched a new campaign, "Fight Hunger, Spark Change," that asks people to vote for which local food banks it should donate funds to. All this is ironic to say the least, given the food security challenges of Walmart's own huge labor force, many of whom don't earn much more than the minimum wage...
EXCLUSIVE AUDIO: How the Koch Brothers Are Molding the Next Scott Walkers The Nation ...Walker has, since his 2010 gubernatorial run, been a top recipient of campaign contributions from the Kochs, and a beneficiary of the “independent” campaigns of Koch-fueled groups such as Americans for Prosperity...
Koch-backed group plans direct attacks in Senate races USA Today ...Americans for Prosperity's decision to move to pointed attacks is significant because it shifts the group into more direct political activity — something tax-exempt organizations are required to limit. It also means the group must disclose its election-related activity — though not its donors — to federal regulators...
Worker Dies Valdosta Today ...Officials say that 61-year old Isabel Gomez died after a piece of heavy equipment fell and crushed him. Sheriff Andy Hester of Turner County reports that Gomez and his brother were working on a fork lift...
Worker dies after truck with gravel tips over WOKV ...the man was unloading gravel from a truck which had an apparatus raised up. That caused the truck to get unsteady and ultimately tip on to the man who was crouched next to it working...
High-Speed Trader Accused Of Commodity Market ‘Spoofing’ Bloomberg News ...A high-frequency trader was indicted for “spoofing” -- placing and immediate canceling orders as a way to manipulate commodities markets -- in what the U.S. Justice Department says is the first criminal case of its kind...
Man Shoots Down Drone, Lawyers Scratch Their Heads Popular Science ...A man in New Jersey fired a shotgun at his neighbor's drone, and as the quadcopter crashed to the ground, the incident raised new legal challenges about when and if it’s okay to shoot a robot...
Miscellaneous
Monday, September 22, 2014
Teamsters register members to vote so the billionaires don't call all the shots
Tomorrow is National Voter Registration Day, but for many Teamster locals EVERY day is voter registration day.
This year there are 36 governors up for election, and if you don't think that matters think again. Four years ago a crew of ALEC-backed candidates became governors and they applied ALEC economics to their states. The results have been disastrous.
Scott Walker was elected governor in Wisconsin and public service workers lost their collective bargaining rights. Now, Wisconsin faces a $1.8 billion budget deficit and the state is 33rd in the country in job creation. Last month, Wisconsin lost 4,300 jobs.
Same story in Kansas, where Sam Brownback slashed taxes for corporations and raised them for working-class families. The state's job growth is anemic and it faces hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue shortfalls. The New York Times reported,
In Michigan, Gov. Rick Snyder sneaked right-to-work past voters behind closed doors in a lame-duck session, after saying he wouldn't. Gov. Mitch Daniels did the same thing in Indiana.
In Florida, Gov. Rick Scott tried to privatize many of the state's prisons, and it was only the hard work of Teamster corrections officers that prevented that from happening.
Still think it doesn't matter if you vote? Fine, don't. Let the billionaires call the shots. But if you do think it matters and you haven't registered, click on this link: http://ibt.io/vote
It will take you to a web page where you can register online.
This year there are 36 governors up for election, and if you don't think that matters think again. Four years ago a crew of ALEC-backed candidates became governors and they applied ALEC economics to their states. The results have been disastrous.
 |
| Teamster Local 769's secretary-treasurer, Josh Zivalich |
Same story in Kansas, where Sam Brownback slashed taxes for corporations and raised them for working-class families. The state's job growth is anemic and it faces hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue shortfalls. The New York Times reported,
Mr. Brownback’s proudly conservative policies have turned out to be so divisive and his tax cuts have generated such a drop in state revenue that they have caused even many Republicans to revolt.In Ohio, John Kasich tried to do what Walker did in Wisconsin with SB5. It was only after a massive effort by Ohio Teamsters and other union members that SB5 was repealed.
In Michigan, Gov. Rick Snyder sneaked right-to-work past voters behind closed doors in a lame-duck session, after saying he wouldn't. Gov. Mitch Daniels did the same thing in Indiana.
In Florida, Gov. Rick Scott tried to privatize many of the state's prisons, and it was only the hard work of Teamster corrections officers that prevented that from happening.
Still think it doesn't matter if you vote? Fine, don't. Let the billionaires call the shots. But if you do think it matters and you haven't registered, click on this link: http://ibt.io/vote
It will take you to a web page where you can register online.
Thursday, September 18, 2014
More trouble from privatized prison food contracts
A Michigan state prisoner is suing Aramark for serving rotten food just days after the state fined the company $200,000 for serving rotten food.
MLive reports today,
On the menu - Meatballs, gravy, noodles, bread, cooked carrots and cake or a cookie - didn't match what was on the plate, which contained a green and spoiled hamburger patty, cold gravy, cold noodles with a vinegar odor, raw carrots, moldy bread and a green orange in place of dessert, the lawsuit claims. The milk was warm and past its expiration date.Even as that news broke, Progress Michigan suggested Gov. Rick Snyder was pressuring the Department of Corrections NOT to fine Aramark and then covering up his actions.
Progress Michigan released an email chain between the head of the MDOC, Daniel Heyns and Gov. Rick Snyder’s chief of staff, Dennis Muchmore, that showed the Snyder administration had pressured the department to cancel a $98,000 fine against out-of-state corporation, Aramark,Progress Michigan sued the Department of Corrections,
...alleging that the department may have illegally redacted at least 16 emails in whole or in part that were part of a Freedom of Information Act request...
“The Department of Corrections has shown that they cannot be trusted to follow FOIA law when it comes to redactions,” said Lonnie Scott, executive director of Progress Michigan. “We believe information has been illegally withheld and will fight for the release of that information.”
The FOIA request to MDOC was part of a broader effort by Progress Michigan and other Progress Now affiliates to hold executive offices around the country accountable through public records requests.Aramark has been fined twice by Ohio for prison food problems. The Associated Press reported in July,
The state on Wednesday announced a second fine against the private vendor - Philadelphia-based Aramark - that took over the job of feeding inmates last year as the company defended its operations before a prisons oversight committee.
The $130,200 fine against Aramark Correctional Services covered continued staffing shortages, unacceptable food substitutions and shortages and sanitation issues, including maggots observed in food service operations at five prisons this month and last, according to Ohio’s July 23 letter to the company.
Today's Teamster News 09.18.14
Teamster News
For the First Time in North America, Teamsters Successfully Organize Workers at FedEx Freight teamster.org ...In a historic first, dock associates at FedEx Freight in Surrey, British Columbia have joined Teamsters Local 31. Read Teamsters Canada press release, here. It’s a North American first for these workers at FedEx. Before this victory, the only unionized FedEx employees were the company’s U.S.-based pilots...
Oxford schools reach contract with Teamsters Daily Local News ...The Oxford Area School District has reached a contract agreement with its service and support staff who are members of Teamsters’ Local 384...
Teamsters Endorse McClain For County Prosecutor Chinook Observer ...Teamsters Joint Council No. 28, representing local teamsters throughout Washington, Idaho and Alaska have endorsed Mark McClain for Pacific County prosecutor...
Coroner IDs Security Guard Killed On Set Of TNT’s ‘Falling Skies’ Deadline Hollywood ...The Teamsters security guard killed Monday in Vancouver on the set of the TNT sci-fi drama Falling Skies has been identified as Amrik Singh Gill, 59, of Delta, BC. Gill was crushed to death when an unattended five-ton truck rolled down a hill and pinned him against a tree...
Trade
U.S. launches antidumping, countervailing duty probe against China’s boltless steel shelving Trade Reform ...The investigations are in response to a request from Edsal Manufacturing Company based in the state of Illinois. The company alleged that the products from China were sold below the fair value of the products in the U.S. market with dumping margin of 40 percent to 211 percent, and Chinese producers and exporters also received improper government subsidies...
As President’s Export Council Meets, No Chance to Meet Obama’s Export Doubling Goal; Export Growth Falls Under Free Trade Agreements Public Citizen ...Obama’s efforts to push more-of-the-same trade policies has been sidelined by the dismal outcomes of his 2011 U.S.-Korea FTA, with the U.S. goods trade deficit with Korea up 50 percent and U.S. exports to Korea down 5 percent in the first two years of the pact...
Business groups keep passage of fast-track high on list of priorities The Hill ...Business Roundtable and the National Association of Manufacturers are among the slew of groups that are aggressively pushing for action on fast-track authority before this Congress closes up shop for the year...
State Battles
State says 25 voter applications of 85,000 “confirmed” forgeries Atlanta Journal Constitution ...The New Georgia Project brought bins holding copies of more than 51,000 unprocessed voter applications to the state Capitol on Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2014. Secretary of State Brian Kemp has put the group under investigation for alleged voter registration fraud, but group leaders said it was a “witch hunt” to intimidate their efforts...
Why Rick Scott Is Facing a Tea Party Revolt in Florida Mother Jones ...Scott soon discovered that governing like a tea partier made him one of the nation's most unpopular governors...
A dark-money cloud obscures issues that matter in Michigan MLive.com ...through Labor Day, the campaigns for governor and U.S. Senate had spent a total of nearly $30 million on advertising, mostly TV. In both cases, much of the spending is “dark money,” money for so-called issue-based advertising, in which the identity of those paying for the ads can legally be unreported and therefore effectively secret...
Portland Mayor Won’t Push For Higher Minimum Wage For Tipped Workers; Council Could See Proposal Next Month Bangor Daily News ...Mayor Michael Brennan last week said a proposed ordinance to raise the minimum wage in the city might be vetted next week by a City Council committee, and could go before the full council for consideration next month...
Virginia Sues 13 Big Banks, Claiming Mortgage Securities Fraud Washington Post ...Virginia Attorney General Mark R. Herring on Tuesday announced a $1.15 billion lawsuit against 13 of the nation’s biggest banks, accusing them of misleading a state retirement fund about the quality of bonds made up of residential mortgages...
Absentee Ballot Mailings Halted In Push To Restart Voter ID Law Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ...Local clerks and state elections officials are putting their absentee ballot mailings on hold as they hustle to reinstate Wisconsin's photo ID requirement for voters in the wake of Friday's federal appeals court decision...
New Rules Coming For Uber, Lyft Memphis Flyer ...New rules for Lyft and Uber are on the way as the Memphis City Council began formalizing them Tuesday but taxi companies protested that the rules did not go far enough to level the playing field...
War On Workers
Five Years Of Recovery Haven’t Boosted The Median Household Income FiveThirtyEight ...The income of the median U.S. household was $51,900 in 2013, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday. That’s essentially unchanged from 2012, after adjusting for inflation, and is 8 percent lower than in 2007, before the recession began...
Drowning In Debt, Younger Workers Feeling Disillusioned With American Dream CBS Detroit ...“Their unemployment levels are double that of the average, they’re drowning under debt whether it’s credit card debt – just to survive or the debt they accumulated trying to get a college degree and now can’t find a job to pay it off,” said Shuler...
Multinational Companies Court Lower-Income Consumers New York Times ...For years, multinational companies had little interest in lower-end consumers, figuring no money was to be made. Now, they are increasingly attractive to all types of industries, from consumer product makers to technology businesses...
Child Laborers. In America. In 2014. Politico Magazine ...Lax federal labor laws allow kids as young as 12 to work in tobacco fields, despite mounting evidence that they can contract acute nicotine poisoning from handling tobacco leaves. Even some tobacco growers and companies take the position that U.S. laws and regulations aren’t strong enough...
Worker Killed After Being Electrocuted Under NW OKC House Newson6.com ...One person was killed after being accidentally electrocuted while working under a home in northwest Oklahoma City, Wednesday morning...
For the First Time in North America, Teamsters Successfully Organize Workers at FedEx Freight teamster.org ...In a historic first, dock associates at FedEx Freight in Surrey, British Columbia have joined Teamsters Local 31. Read Teamsters Canada press release, here. It’s a North American first for these workers at FedEx. Before this victory, the only unionized FedEx employees were the company’s U.S.-based pilots...
Oxford schools reach contract with Teamsters Daily Local News ...The Oxford Area School District has reached a contract agreement with its service and support staff who are members of Teamsters’ Local 384...
Teamsters Endorse McClain For County Prosecutor Chinook Observer ...Teamsters Joint Council No. 28, representing local teamsters throughout Washington, Idaho and Alaska have endorsed Mark McClain for Pacific County prosecutor...
Coroner IDs Security Guard Killed On Set Of TNT’s ‘Falling Skies’ Deadline Hollywood ...The Teamsters security guard killed Monday in Vancouver on the set of the TNT sci-fi drama Falling Skies has been identified as Amrik Singh Gill, 59, of Delta, BC. Gill was crushed to death when an unattended five-ton truck rolled down a hill and pinned him against a tree...
Trade
U.S. launches antidumping, countervailing duty probe against China’s boltless steel shelving Trade Reform ...The investigations are in response to a request from Edsal Manufacturing Company based in the state of Illinois. The company alleged that the products from China were sold below the fair value of the products in the U.S. market with dumping margin of 40 percent to 211 percent, and Chinese producers and exporters also received improper government subsidies...
As President’s Export Council Meets, No Chance to Meet Obama’s Export Doubling Goal; Export Growth Falls Under Free Trade Agreements Public Citizen ...Obama’s efforts to push more-of-the-same trade policies has been sidelined by the dismal outcomes of his 2011 U.S.-Korea FTA, with the U.S. goods trade deficit with Korea up 50 percent and U.S. exports to Korea down 5 percent in the first two years of the pact...
Business groups keep passage of fast-track high on list of priorities The Hill ...Business Roundtable and the National Association of Manufacturers are among the slew of groups that are aggressively pushing for action on fast-track authority before this Congress closes up shop for the year...
State Battles
State says 25 voter applications of 85,000 “confirmed” forgeries Atlanta Journal Constitution ...The New Georgia Project brought bins holding copies of more than 51,000 unprocessed voter applications to the state Capitol on Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2014. Secretary of State Brian Kemp has put the group under investigation for alleged voter registration fraud, but group leaders said it was a “witch hunt” to intimidate their efforts...
Why Rick Scott Is Facing a Tea Party Revolt in Florida Mother Jones ...Scott soon discovered that governing like a tea partier made him one of the nation's most unpopular governors...
A dark-money cloud obscures issues that matter in Michigan MLive.com ...through Labor Day, the campaigns for governor and U.S. Senate had spent a total of nearly $30 million on advertising, mostly TV. In both cases, much of the spending is “dark money,” money for so-called issue-based advertising, in which the identity of those paying for the ads can legally be unreported and therefore effectively secret...
Portland Mayor Won’t Push For Higher Minimum Wage For Tipped Workers; Council Could See Proposal Next Month Bangor Daily News ...Mayor Michael Brennan last week said a proposed ordinance to raise the minimum wage in the city might be vetted next week by a City Council committee, and could go before the full council for consideration next month...
Virginia Sues 13 Big Banks, Claiming Mortgage Securities Fraud Washington Post ...Virginia Attorney General Mark R. Herring on Tuesday announced a $1.15 billion lawsuit against 13 of the nation’s biggest banks, accusing them of misleading a state retirement fund about the quality of bonds made up of residential mortgages...
Absentee Ballot Mailings Halted In Push To Restart Voter ID Law Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ...Local clerks and state elections officials are putting their absentee ballot mailings on hold as they hustle to reinstate Wisconsin's photo ID requirement for voters in the wake of Friday's federal appeals court decision...
New Rules Coming For Uber, Lyft Memphis Flyer ...New rules for Lyft and Uber are on the way as the Memphis City Council began formalizing them Tuesday but taxi companies protested that the rules did not go far enough to level the playing field...
War On Workers
Five Years Of Recovery Haven’t Boosted The Median Household Income FiveThirtyEight ...The income of the median U.S. household was $51,900 in 2013, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday. That’s essentially unchanged from 2012, after adjusting for inflation, and is 8 percent lower than in 2007, before the recession began...
Drowning In Debt, Younger Workers Feeling Disillusioned With American Dream CBS Detroit ...“Their unemployment levels are double that of the average, they’re drowning under debt whether it’s credit card debt – just to survive or the debt they accumulated trying to get a college degree and now can’t find a job to pay it off,” said Shuler...
Multinational Companies Court Lower-Income Consumers New York Times ...For years, multinational companies had little interest in lower-end consumers, figuring no money was to be made. Now, they are increasingly attractive to all types of industries, from consumer product makers to technology businesses...
Child Laborers. In America. In 2014. Politico Magazine ...Lax federal labor laws allow kids as young as 12 to work in tobacco fields, despite mounting evidence that they can contract acute nicotine poisoning from handling tobacco leaves. Even some tobacco growers and companies take the position that U.S. laws and regulations aren’t strong enough...
Worker Killed After Being Electrocuted Under NW OKC House Newson6.com ...One person was killed after being accidentally electrocuted while working under a home in northwest Oklahoma City, Wednesday morning...
Sunday, September 14, 2014
Today's Teamster News 09.14.14
Trade
Vietnam Rights Still Obstacle to TPP Membership Voice of America ...Vietnam is still facing challenges in its bid to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), despite optimism following 10 days of multi-national trade talks in Hanoi...
Chinese firms closing gap on US tech giants like Google South China Morning Post ...No Chinese company has wide international brand recognition, but e-commerce giant Alibaba may change that. Its initial public offering in New York on Friday, tipped to be the largest ever in the United States, has understandably gained global attention. If, as expected, US$21 billion is raised, the previous record flotation by Facebook and Visa will have been bested and its valuation could be almost as much as Amazon's. The listing will be a watershed moment for China's technology firms...
State Battles
Who’s Wrecking Michigan’s Public Education? Democracy Tree ...Judging by their actions, Republican lawmakers must think that the problem is too much money spent on education, given their unrelenting efforts to divert resources away from the School Aid Fund...
Ohio Has Lost 4,648 State Union Jobs Since John Kasich Took Office Plunderbund ...Some of these losses came when the Kasich administration privatized Ohio’s prison food service. Kasich pitched the idea as a way to save the state money, but the contract with Aramark to provide meals to Ohio’s inmates has ended up causing nothing but problems as the company’s low-paid, poorly-trained workers have failed to show up for work, been caught having sex with the inmates and, again and again, can’t keep maggots out of the food...
“Job Destruction” Rising Under Kasich, Top Economic Analyst Finds Plunderbund ...“July was the 21st consecutive month when Ohio’s job growth was below the USA national average,” Zeller, who resides in Cleveland, told ONB. “Ohio’s year over year job growth rate for July was 1.00%. The USA job growth for July was 1.92%. This was not just a one month fluke for July. It is a continual problem that has been ongoing for 21 straight months...
War on Workers
FedEx worker dies after being pinned by his delivery vehicle Kansas City Star ...the worker was outside of his delivery vehicle at a residence when it rolled and struck him. Authorities arrived and found the worker pinned between the vehicle and a house...
State Police Officer Dies in Pennsylvania Ambush New York Times ...Law enforcement officers from three states were searching on Saturday for a suspect or suspects who ambushed two troopers at a state police barracks in northeastern Pennsylvania, killing one and wounding the other...
7 women working tirelessly to attack equal rights for women Salon ...Here is a list of nine women who have made a career out of opposing women’s struggle for social, political and economic equality...
Student Loan Debt Burdens More Than Just Young People New York Times ...the number of aging Americans with outstanding student loans had almost tripled from about 700,000 in 2005, whether from long-ago loans for their own educations or more recent borrowing to pay for college degrees for family members...
Young Households Are Losing Ground in Income, Despite Education New York Times ...the median family headed by someone under 35 years of age earned $35,509 in 2013 dollars. Adjusted for inflation, that is 6 percent less than similar families reported in the first such survey, in 1989...
Miscellaneous
Spy court renews NSA metadata program The Hill ...With a surveillance reform bill stuck in the Senate, the federal court overseeing spy agencies on Friday reauthorized the National Security Agency’s controversial bulk collection of Americans' phone records...
France is a mess, and Europe is worried Salon ...Despite the pharaonic scale of the building work for the new railroad, the French economy has run out of steam...
Trying to Hit the Brake on Texting While Driving New York Times ...A chemical engineer who built a company that made motors and docking stations for NASA, Mr. Tibbitts, 57, spent the last five years coming up with a novel way to block incoming and outgoing texts and to prevent phone calls from reaching a driver...
Vietnam Rights Still Obstacle to TPP Membership Voice of America ...Vietnam is still facing challenges in its bid to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), despite optimism following 10 days of multi-national trade talks in Hanoi...
Chinese firms closing gap on US tech giants like Google South China Morning Post ...No Chinese company has wide international brand recognition, but e-commerce giant Alibaba may change that. Its initial public offering in New York on Friday, tipped to be the largest ever in the United States, has understandably gained global attention. If, as expected, US$21 billion is raised, the previous record flotation by Facebook and Visa will have been bested and its valuation could be almost as much as Amazon's. The listing will be a watershed moment for China's technology firms...
State Battles
Who’s Wrecking Michigan’s Public Education? Democracy Tree ...Judging by their actions, Republican lawmakers must think that the problem is too much money spent on education, given their unrelenting efforts to divert resources away from the School Aid Fund...
Ohio Has Lost 4,648 State Union Jobs Since John Kasich Took Office Plunderbund ...Some of these losses came when the Kasich administration privatized Ohio’s prison food service. Kasich pitched the idea as a way to save the state money, but the contract with Aramark to provide meals to Ohio’s inmates has ended up causing nothing but problems as the company’s low-paid, poorly-trained workers have failed to show up for work, been caught having sex with the inmates and, again and again, can’t keep maggots out of the food...
“Job Destruction” Rising Under Kasich, Top Economic Analyst Finds Plunderbund ...“July was the 21st consecutive month when Ohio’s job growth was below the USA national average,” Zeller, who resides in Cleveland, told ONB. “Ohio’s year over year job growth rate for July was 1.00%. The USA job growth for July was 1.92%. This was not just a one month fluke for July. It is a continual problem that has been ongoing for 21 straight months...
War on Workers
FedEx worker dies after being pinned by his delivery vehicle Kansas City Star ...the worker was outside of his delivery vehicle at a residence when it rolled and struck him. Authorities arrived and found the worker pinned between the vehicle and a house...
State Police Officer Dies in Pennsylvania Ambush New York Times ...Law enforcement officers from three states were searching on Saturday for a suspect or suspects who ambushed two troopers at a state police barracks in northeastern Pennsylvania, killing one and wounding the other...
7 women working tirelessly to attack equal rights for women Salon ...Here is a list of nine women who have made a career out of opposing women’s struggle for social, political and economic equality...
Student Loan Debt Burdens More Than Just Young People New York Times ...the number of aging Americans with outstanding student loans had almost tripled from about 700,000 in 2005, whether from long-ago loans for their own educations or more recent borrowing to pay for college degrees for family members...
Young Households Are Losing Ground in Income, Despite Education New York Times ...the median family headed by someone under 35 years of age earned $35,509 in 2013 dollars. Adjusted for inflation, that is 6 percent less than similar families reported in the first such survey, in 1989...
Miscellaneous
Spy court renews NSA metadata program The Hill ...With a surveillance reform bill stuck in the Senate, the federal court overseeing spy agencies on Friday reauthorized the National Security Agency’s controversial bulk collection of Americans' phone records...
France is a mess, and Europe is worried Salon ...Despite the pharaonic scale of the building work for the new railroad, the French economy has run out of steam...
Trying to Hit the Brake on Texting While Driving New York Times ...A chemical engineer who built a company that made motors and docking stations for NASA, Mr. Tibbitts, 57, spent the last five years coming up with a novel way to block incoming and outgoing texts and to prevent phone calls from reaching a driver...
Sunday, August 31, 2014
Today's Teamster News 08.31.14
Teamsters
Wage Watch: Court ruling could upend FedEx's business model Fortune ...In a ruling with the potential to upend the logistics industry, a three-judge panel on Wednesday decided that FedEx Ground and FedEx Home Delivery drivers are employees of the company and not independent contractors, as FedEx had characterized them...
Trade
Top TPP negotiators to meet in Hanoi for 10-day trade talks Japan Times ...Top trade negotiators from 12 countries will hold 10-day talks in Hanoi from Monday, aiming to clinch a broad accord on a proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership pact by the end of November...
Wake up America Champions Trade Reform ...Post World War II we had about 19 million people employed directly in manufacturing – a sector where producers work. That was roughly 10% of the population. Today there are about 330 million people living in the United States. About 3.5% of the population makes the stuff we consume. ..
Wage Watch: Court ruling could upend FedEx's business model Fortune ...In a ruling with the potential to upend the logistics industry, a three-judge panel on Wednesday decided that FedEx Ground and FedEx Home Delivery drivers are employees of the company and not independent contractors, as FedEx had characterized them...
Trade
Top TPP negotiators to meet in Hanoi for 10-day trade talks Japan Times ...Top trade negotiators from 12 countries will hold 10-day talks in Hanoi from Monday, aiming to clinch a broad accord on a proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership pact by the end of November...
Wake up America Champions Trade Reform ...Post World War II we had about 19 million people employed directly in manufacturing – a sector where producers work. That was roughly 10% of the population. Today there are about 330 million people living in the United States. About 3.5% of the population makes the stuff we consume. ..
State Battles
John Ketzenberger: Right to work and unions The Star Press ...The Indiana Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a case Sept. 4 from Lake County that found the right-to-work law unconstitutional. Another Lake County judge ruled the law unconstitutional in July. Both decisions hinge on the "particular services" clause of the state Constitution, which states "no person's particular services shall be demanded without just compensation."...
Who's Getting a Raise? Minimum Wage Hikes Gain Steam in States, Cities NBC News ...“Because Congress hasn’t acted, states and cities are doing it instead; $10.10 is the new starting point...”
Michigan hourly minimum wage rises to $8.15 on Labor Day Oakland Press ...It’s scheduled to increase regularly over the next few years before topping out Jan. 1, 2018 at $9.25...
War on Workers
Private equity's giant collusion case is over, as Carlyle folds Fortune ...The plaintiffs had argued that Carlyle and its co-defendants had conspired to not bid against each other on eight large “take-private” buyouts that occurred prior to the financial crisis...
Skydiving event in memory of worker killed in propeller accident Journal-News ...Sarah Rhoads, 24, of Miamisburg, died after being critically injured when she accidentally walked into an operating airplane propeller this past June...
More Jobs That Pay Decent Wages: How To Fight Poverty In The United States IMF ...nearly 40 percent of American adults will spend at least one year in poverty by the time they reach 60. During 1968–2000, the risk was less than 20 percent. More devastatingly, 1 in 5 children currently live in poverty and, during their childhood, roughly 1 in 3 Americans will spend at least one year living below the poverty line...
The Unprecedented Failure to Regulate Citigroup Continues Wall Street on Parade ...Wall Street’s self-regulator, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), charged Citigroup with cheating its customers out of fair prices on preferred stock trades — 22,000 times. Citigroup was fined a meager $1.85 million, ordered to pay $638,000 in restitution, allowed to neither deny or admit the charges, and sent on its merry way to loot the next unwary investor...
John Ketzenberger: Right to work and unions The Star Press ...The Indiana Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a case Sept. 4 from Lake County that found the right-to-work law unconstitutional. Another Lake County judge ruled the law unconstitutional in July. Both decisions hinge on the "particular services" clause of the state Constitution, which states "no person's particular services shall be demanded without just compensation."...
Who's Getting a Raise? Minimum Wage Hikes Gain Steam in States, Cities NBC News ...“Because Congress hasn’t acted, states and cities are doing it instead; $10.10 is the new starting point...”
Michigan hourly minimum wage rises to $8.15 on Labor Day Oakland Press ...It’s scheduled to increase regularly over the next few years before topping out Jan. 1, 2018 at $9.25...
War on Workers
Private equity's giant collusion case is over, as Carlyle folds Fortune ...The plaintiffs had argued that Carlyle and its co-defendants had conspired to not bid against each other on eight large “take-private” buyouts that occurred prior to the financial crisis...
Skydiving event in memory of worker killed in propeller accident Journal-News ...Sarah Rhoads, 24, of Miamisburg, died after being critically injured when she accidentally walked into an operating airplane propeller this past June...
More Jobs That Pay Decent Wages: How To Fight Poverty In The United States IMF ...nearly 40 percent of American adults will spend at least one year in poverty by the time they reach 60. During 1968–2000, the risk was less than 20 percent. More devastatingly, 1 in 5 children currently live in poverty and, during their childhood, roughly 1 in 3 Americans will spend at least one year living below the poverty line...
The Unprecedented Failure to Regulate Citigroup Continues Wall Street on Parade ...Wall Street’s self-regulator, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), charged Citigroup with cheating its customers out of fair prices on preferred stock trades — 22,000 times. Citigroup was fined a meager $1.85 million, ordered to pay $638,000 in restitution, allowed to neither deny or admit the charges, and sent on its merry way to loot the next unwary investor...
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Today's Teamster News 07.15.14
Teamster News
Avalon Teamsters stage 6-hour demonstration over wages, benefits CantonRep.com ...About 20 members of Teamsters Local 92 employed by Avalon Foodservice walked off the job for about six hours Monday in what a union official called a “pre-strike” demonstration over wages and health insurance...
A federal agency is about to answer the question: Who do you actually work for? Washington Post ...the NLRB has granted an appeal from the Teamsters, which attempted to hold an election for all employees of a recycling plant in Milpitas, Calif. -- not just the staffing agency that controls the bulk of the payroll -- after a regional panel found in favor of Browning-Ferris Industries...
Trade
Carmakers Are Central Voice in U.S.-Europe Trade Talks New York Times ...European and American automakers are some of the biggest corporate proponents of a new trans-Atlantic trade pact, even as some other industries oppose disrupting the status quo. Negotiations for that pact, which have struggled to gain momentum for more than a year, resumed Monday in Brussels...
Manufacturing groups press for broad tariff elimination The Hill ...More than a dozen manufacturing groups on Friday urged the Obama administration to press for the elimination of all tariffs as part of the Asia-Pacific trade deal negotiations...
What's next in the OCTG trade case? manufacture this ...It's not over yet. Those tariffs that Commerce announced? Now they go over to the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), which will have to confirm them. That means the petitioners in the Commerce case (U.S. Steel and other domestic OCTG makers) will have to prove injury or the threat of injury to their industry...
State Battles
Prison food supplier has Michigan officials at wit's end Detroit Free Press ...Maggots in the kitchen and on the chow line. Workers caught smuggling contraband or engaging in sex acts with inmates. Food shortages and angry prisoners. Those are among the problems that have plagued Michigan prisons since December when the state — in a move aimed at saving more than $12 million a year — switched from using state workers to feed prisoners to a private contractor, Aramark Correctional Services of Philadelphia...
Kansas’ Ruinous Tax Cuts (opinion) New York Times ...The 2012 cuts were among the largest ever enacted by a state, reducing the top tax bracket by 25 percent and eliminating all taxes on business profits that are reported on individual income returns…Kansas, in fact, was one of only five states to lose employment over the last six months, while the rest of the country was improving. It has been below the national average in job gains for the three and half years Mr. Brownback has been in office. Average earnings in the state are down since 2012, and so is net growth in the number of registered businesses...
War On Workers
U.S. Drug Firms Seek Inversion Deals to Evade Taxes New York Times ...By buying a smaller overseas competitor and reincorporating abroad — a maneuver called inversion — health care companies are extricating themselves from the American tax regimen...
Workers Struggle In Hamptons Playground For Rich USA Today ...Southampton, with its privet hedges, pristine beaches and some estates costing tens of millions, also is where 40% of children get free or reduced school lunches, where a food pantry serves up to 400 clients a month and where some doctors and nurses share homes owned by the local hospital because they can't afford to buy or rent...
United Airlines Opens Door For Raises For Low-Wage Airport Workers Newark Star-Ledger ...With raises at stake for 3,700 low-paid cabin cleaners, baggage handlers and other airport workers in Newark, United Airlines acknowledged that its contractors are typically bound to follow local laws or rules governing the airports where they work...
Avalon Teamsters stage 6-hour demonstration over wages, benefits CantonRep.com ...About 20 members of Teamsters Local 92 employed by Avalon Foodservice walked off the job for about six hours Monday in what a union official called a “pre-strike” demonstration over wages and health insurance...
A federal agency is about to answer the question: Who do you actually work for? Washington Post ...the NLRB has granted an appeal from the Teamsters, which attempted to hold an election for all employees of a recycling plant in Milpitas, Calif. -- not just the staffing agency that controls the bulk of the payroll -- after a regional panel found in favor of Browning-Ferris Industries...
Trade
Carmakers Are Central Voice in U.S.-Europe Trade Talks New York Times ...European and American automakers are some of the biggest corporate proponents of a new trans-Atlantic trade pact, even as some other industries oppose disrupting the status quo. Negotiations for that pact, which have struggled to gain momentum for more than a year, resumed Monday in Brussels...
Manufacturing groups press for broad tariff elimination The Hill ...More than a dozen manufacturing groups on Friday urged the Obama administration to press for the elimination of all tariffs as part of the Asia-Pacific trade deal negotiations...
What's next in the OCTG trade case? manufacture this ...It's not over yet. Those tariffs that Commerce announced? Now they go over to the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), which will have to confirm them. That means the petitioners in the Commerce case (U.S. Steel and other domestic OCTG makers) will have to prove injury or the threat of injury to their industry...
State Battles
Prison food supplier has Michigan officials at wit's end Detroit Free Press ...Maggots in the kitchen and on the chow line. Workers caught smuggling contraband or engaging in sex acts with inmates. Food shortages and angry prisoners. Those are among the problems that have plagued Michigan prisons since December when the state — in a move aimed at saving more than $12 million a year — switched from using state workers to feed prisoners to a private contractor, Aramark Correctional Services of Philadelphia...
Kansas’ Ruinous Tax Cuts (opinion) New York Times ...The 2012 cuts were among the largest ever enacted by a state, reducing the top tax bracket by 25 percent and eliminating all taxes on business profits that are reported on individual income returns…Kansas, in fact, was one of only five states to lose employment over the last six months, while the rest of the country was improving. It has been below the national average in job gains for the three and half years Mr. Brownback has been in office. Average earnings in the state are down since 2012, and so is net growth in the number of registered businesses...
War On Workers
U.S. Drug Firms Seek Inversion Deals to Evade Taxes New York Times ...By buying a smaller overseas competitor and reincorporating abroad — a maneuver called inversion — health care companies are extricating themselves from the American tax regimen...
Workers Struggle In Hamptons Playground For Rich USA Today ...Southampton, with its privet hedges, pristine beaches and some estates costing tens of millions, also is where 40% of children get free or reduced school lunches, where a food pantry serves up to 400 clients a month and where some doctors and nurses share homes owned by the local hospital because they can't afford to buy or rent...
United Airlines Opens Door For Raises For Low-Wage Airport Workers Newark Star-Ledger ...With raises at stake for 3,700 low-paid cabin cleaners, baggage handlers and other airport workers in Newark, United Airlines acknowledged that its contractors are typically bound to follow local laws or rules governing the airports where they work...
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Today's Teamster News 07.01.14
Teamster News
Union Representing RTC Workers Authorizes Strike Reno Gazette-Journal ...A labor union local representing Washoe County public transit system employees voted overwhelmingly Sunday to authorize a strike, but a contract extension until July 31 is possible, the union said...
Horizon Air Aircraft Technicians, Fleet Service Agents Ratify New Six-Year Contract Aviation Pros ...Horizon Air's aircraft technicians and fleet service agents have ratified a new six-year contract, the airline and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) announced today...
Contract Between EVSC and Teamsters Expires at Midnight Tristatehomepage.com ...For months, the school system and local union have been working on a new contract. But no agreements were reached. The contract applies to a union made up of bus drivers, custodians, secretaries, and others...
Medford Residents Win Teamster Scholarships Medford Transcript ...Medford residents Olivia Stewart and Tristan Whalen were recently awarded $2,000 scholarships each by Teamsters Local 25...
What Happens If Uber Drivers Start Organizing Too? BuzzFeed ...More than 1,000 D.C. cabbies on Wednesday drove through the streets and refused to pick up passengers in protest of popular ridesharing apps like Uber and Lyft — companies they say are unfairly breaking the law and taking away their business. Their protest is just the latest in cities in the United States and worldwide, as Uber in particular continues its massive expansion from boutique service to a major company, valued at just over $18 billion this year...
Trade
Japan, U.S. resume bilateral TPP talks before Ottawa meeting Mainichi ...Japan and the United States on Monday resumed bilateral talks on a Pacific free trade pact in Tokyo, aiming to bridge remaining differences as far as possible before officials from all 12 negotiating members gather in Canada later this week...
State Battles
Michigan's minimum-wage bill could render your vote null and void (opinion) Michigan Radio ...Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville, R-Monroe, believes in democracy, except when he doesn’t. In the past, Richardville has staunchly supported Michigan voters’ decisions to outlaw gay marriage and affirmative action. But he doesn’t want to allow voters to vote to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour...
AFT Pennsylvania Position Payroll Deduction/Paycheck Deception AFT Pennsylvania ...Legislation prohibiting payroll deduction would wipe out collective bargaining rights that public employees have held for decades. It deprives teachers, nurses, college professors, school bus drivers and other public employees of their right to negotiate payroll deductions for union dues and voluntary political contributions to their union political action committees...
War On Workers
Ruling Against Union Fees Contains Damage to Labor New York Times ...The Supreme Court dealt a limited blow to organized labor on Monday by ruling that some government employees did not have to pay any fees to the unions representing them. But the court declined to strike down a decades-old precedent that required many public sector workers to pay union fees...
SCOTUS Ruling Doesn’t Gut Public Unions, But Creates New Challenges for Care Workers The Next New Deal ...The decision in Harris v. Quinn blocks the right-wing assault against one of the most important pillars of progressive infrastructure, public employee unions, but will add to the challenge of raising wages and benefits in the surging low-wage workforce...
Corporations Are People, And They Have More Rights Than You Huffington Post ... the Supreme Court endorsed corporate personhood -- holding that business firms have rights to religious freedom under federal law. Not only do corporations have rights, their rights are stronger than yours...
A Grieving Father Pulls a Thread That Unravels Illegal Bank Deals New York Times ...A bus bombing two decades ago — and a New Jersey father’s quest for justice — inadvertently set off a chain of events that led American prosecutors to accuse some of the world’s biggest banks of transferring money for nations like Iran. On Monday, that crackdown culminated with the guilty plea of BNP Paribas, which admitted to doing billions of dollars in deals with Iran ...
The Implications of Flat or Declining Real Wages for Inequality Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta ...what we thought had been a decade of essentially flat real wages (since 2002) has actually been a decade of declining real wages...
For Tipped Workers, A Different Minimum Wage Battle NPR ...according to a White House report, tipped workers are more than twice as likely as other workers to experience poverty...
Facebook's massive psychology experiment likely illegal BoingBoing ...there's a federal law that prohibits universities from conducting this kind of experiment without explicit, separate consent (none of this burying-consent-in-the-fine-print bullshit). Two of the three researchers who worked on this were working for federally funded universities with institutional review boards, and the project received federal funds...
Wyden Releases Details of Backdoor Searches of Americans’ Communications Ron Wyden ...When the FBI says it conducts a substantial number of searches and it has no idea of what the number is, it shows how flawed this system is and the consequences of inadequate oversight. This huge gap in oversight is a problem now, and will only grow as global communications systems become more interconnected...
Rio’s Maracanã Stadium is Privatized The Rio Times ...Taking into account the R$304 million of taxpayer money spent on renovations for the 2007 Pan-American games, this brings the total amount spent by the state on Maracanã to about R$1.4 billion, compared to the R$775.6 million it will have received (or not had to spend) after 35 years...
Miscellaneous
Americans Losing Confidence in All Branches of U.S. Gov't Gallup ...Americans' confidence in all three branches of the U.S. government has fallen, reaching record lows for the Supreme Court (30%) and Congress (7%), and a six-year low for the presidency (29%)...
Union Representing RTC Workers Authorizes Strike Reno Gazette-Journal ...A labor union local representing Washoe County public transit system employees voted overwhelmingly Sunday to authorize a strike, but a contract extension until July 31 is possible, the union said...
Horizon Air Aircraft Technicians, Fleet Service Agents Ratify New Six-Year Contract Aviation Pros ...Horizon Air's aircraft technicians and fleet service agents have ratified a new six-year contract, the airline and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) announced today...
Contract Between EVSC and Teamsters Expires at Midnight Tristatehomepage.com ...For months, the school system and local union have been working on a new contract. But no agreements were reached. The contract applies to a union made up of bus drivers, custodians, secretaries, and others...
Medford Residents Win Teamster Scholarships Medford Transcript ...Medford residents Olivia Stewart and Tristan Whalen were recently awarded $2,000 scholarships each by Teamsters Local 25...
What Happens If Uber Drivers Start Organizing Too? BuzzFeed ...More than 1,000 D.C. cabbies on Wednesday drove through the streets and refused to pick up passengers in protest of popular ridesharing apps like Uber and Lyft — companies they say are unfairly breaking the law and taking away their business. Their protest is just the latest in cities in the United States and worldwide, as Uber in particular continues its massive expansion from boutique service to a major company, valued at just over $18 billion this year...
Trade
Japan, U.S. resume bilateral TPP talks before Ottawa meeting Mainichi ...Japan and the United States on Monday resumed bilateral talks on a Pacific free trade pact in Tokyo, aiming to bridge remaining differences as far as possible before officials from all 12 negotiating members gather in Canada later this week...
State Battles
Michigan's minimum-wage bill could render your vote null and void (opinion) Michigan Radio ...Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville, R-Monroe, believes in democracy, except when he doesn’t. In the past, Richardville has staunchly supported Michigan voters’ decisions to outlaw gay marriage and affirmative action. But he doesn’t want to allow voters to vote to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour...
AFT Pennsylvania Position Payroll Deduction/Paycheck Deception AFT Pennsylvania ...Legislation prohibiting payroll deduction would wipe out collective bargaining rights that public employees have held for decades. It deprives teachers, nurses, college professors, school bus drivers and other public employees of their right to negotiate payroll deductions for union dues and voluntary political contributions to their union political action committees...
War On Workers
Ruling Against Union Fees Contains Damage to Labor New York Times ...The Supreme Court dealt a limited blow to organized labor on Monday by ruling that some government employees did not have to pay any fees to the unions representing them. But the court declined to strike down a decades-old precedent that required many public sector workers to pay union fees...
SCOTUS Ruling Doesn’t Gut Public Unions, But Creates New Challenges for Care Workers The Next New Deal ...The decision in Harris v. Quinn blocks the right-wing assault against one of the most important pillars of progressive infrastructure, public employee unions, but will add to the challenge of raising wages and benefits in the surging low-wage workforce...
Corporations Are People, And They Have More Rights Than You Huffington Post ... the Supreme Court endorsed corporate personhood -- holding that business firms have rights to religious freedom under federal law. Not only do corporations have rights, their rights are stronger than yours...
A Grieving Father Pulls a Thread That Unravels Illegal Bank Deals New York Times ...A bus bombing two decades ago — and a New Jersey father’s quest for justice — inadvertently set off a chain of events that led American prosecutors to accuse some of the world’s biggest banks of transferring money for nations like Iran. On Monday, that crackdown culminated with the guilty plea of BNP Paribas, which admitted to doing billions of dollars in deals with Iran ...
The Implications of Flat or Declining Real Wages for Inequality Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta ...what we thought had been a decade of essentially flat real wages (since 2002) has actually been a decade of declining real wages...
For Tipped Workers, A Different Minimum Wage Battle NPR ...according to a White House report, tipped workers are more than twice as likely as other workers to experience poverty...
Facebook's massive psychology experiment likely illegal BoingBoing ...there's a federal law that prohibits universities from conducting this kind of experiment without explicit, separate consent (none of this burying-consent-in-the-fine-print bullshit). Two of the three researchers who worked on this were working for federally funded universities with institutional review boards, and the project received federal funds...
Wyden Releases Details of Backdoor Searches of Americans’ Communications Ron Wyden ...When the FBI says it conducts a substantial number of searches and it has no idea of what the number is, it shows how flawed this system is and the consequences of inadequate oversight. This huge gap in oversight is a problem now, and will only grow as global communications systems become more interconnected...
Rio’s Maracanã Stadium is Privatized The Rio Times ...Taking into account the R$304 million of taxpayer money spent on renovations for the 2007 Pan-American games, this brings the total amount spent by the state on Maracanã to about R$1.4 billion, compared to the R$775.6 million it will have received (or not had to spend) after 35 years...
Miscellaneous
Americans Losing Confidence in All Branches of U.S. Gov't Gallup ...Americans' confidence in all three branches of the U.S. government has fallen, reaching record lows for the Supreme Court (30%) and Congress (7%), and a six-year low for the presidency (29%)...
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Today's Teamster News 06.12.14
Teamster News
Teamsters: THUD Amendments Will Weaken Highway Safety Standards TheTrucker.com ...Teamsters General President James P. Hoffa Monday denounced two potential floor amendments to the Transportation Housing and Urban Development (THUD) FY ’15 Appropriations bill that the Teamsters say will weaken highway safety standards by putting fatigued drivers on the road in bigger, heavier trucks...
Teamsters come out against hours changes, ATA still supportive Overdrive ...The Teamsters Union has voiced its opposition to recent Congressional action to roll back the 2013 changes to federal hours-of-service restart provisions, but American Trucking Associations head Bill Graves is holding strong on the group’s support for suspending the changes...
Official Statement of the Teamsters Union on the Worldwide Taxi Drivers' Protests Against Uber teamster.org ..."I express our solidarity with today’s protests by taxi drivers in city after city across Europe. The drivers are calling for fairness and asking that if the private sedan services are allowed to operate that they do so on a level playing field. Uber is currently operating without having to comply with the same rules and regulations that taxi drivers do..."
Teamsters Local 142 Wants To Bid On Chesterton Police Officers' Health Care Chesterton Tribune ...The officers of the Chesterton Police Department and their brothers in Teamsters Local 142 filled the meeting room of the town hall on Monday night, to hear a union attorney accuse the Town Council of fiduciary irresponsibility. At issue: the Teamsters is interested in bidding its healthcare plan to CPD officers...
Teamsters Against HoS Restart Charges Truck News ...The accident involving a Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. driver and comedian Tracy Morgan’s entourage has yet another industry organization weighing in about potential hours of service changes. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters sent an open letter to the US House of Representatives saying any steps to “delay, revise or replace the current hours of service 34-hour restart provision” or allow increases in truck size and weight, “especially they size of double trailers from the current 28-ft. to 33-ft.” should be opposed...
Coral Gables Employees To Get One Time Bonus Miami Herald ...The Coral Gables City Commission approved a two-year contract with the city’s general employees union Tuesday that includes a one-time bonus and lower pension contributions from employees during the first year...
Trade
Comment: Shrouded in secrecy, opposition to TPP mounts SBS ...They want to reassure us that we don’t need to worry about spiralling drug costs or curtailed internet freedom, but they’re not willing to let us see the text of the deal to back up their claims...
Livestock Groups Show Concern for TPP During D.C. Hearing Farm Futures ...Japan's TPP requests to exempt certain "sensitive" products – including pork and beef, dairy, sugar, wheat and barley, and rice and starch – from tariff elimination has big impacts on future trade deals and the ag industry's ability to benefit from the agreement, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association said during a hearing before the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee...
Anger by US farmers threatens ambitious Pacific trade pact Reuters ...U.S. farmers are in an uproar over signs Japan will maintain some barriers to agricultural exports under a Pacific trade pact, which threatens to unravel a deal that is central to U.S. efforts to retain economic and security influence in the region...
State Battles
Repeal the pension tax on Michigan seniors Detroit News ...a retired couple born after 1952 with more than $50,000 in income, including $48,000 in pension benefits, paid $1,930 more in taxes than they would have if pensions weren’t taxed...
New Jersey's soaring subsidy program doing little to boost struggling economy The Guardian ...Study says New Jersey badly trailing other states' economic recovery despite corporate credits rising sevenfold under Christie...
Council Votes Again To End Collective Bargaining Fort Wayne Journal Gazette ...City Council members again voted along party lines Tuesday to end collective bargaining for all city workers except police and firefighters...
San Francisco Voters Will Weigh In On A $15 Minimum Wage Think Progress ...A question on San Francisco’s November ballot will ask city residents whether they want to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by July 2018...
Why that ruling against teacher tenure won't help your schoolchildren (opinion) Los Angeles Times ... one should be "suspicious of wealthy and powerful individuals and groups whose advocacy for children leads to 'reforms' that won’t cost a cent, but will weaken labor."...
Numbers put lie to state growth strategy (opinion) Journal Gazette ...Light taxation and regulation haven’t raised living standard (in Indiana)...
War On Workers
Walmart Associate: 'Give The Workers Dignity And Respect We Deserve' WBUR ...Charmaine Givens-Thomas ... is a sales associate who has worked at Walmart for eight years. She makes $23,000 a year and has trouble paying rent and putting food on the table. She says Walmart should pay its employees a living wage...
Cantor’s Loss a Triumph for Anti-Corporate Right-Wing Populism naked capitalism ...conservative economics professor David Brat succeeded in channeling a strain of right-wing populism to target Cantor, and plausibly so, as a corporate stooge and progenitor of crony capitalism...
Clauses That Hurt Workers New York Times ...Many businesses have long required that executives and other important employees agree not to work for a competitor for a year or two after they leave. Now some employers are unfairly imposing that requirement on all kinds of workers, including lower-wage employees like camp counselors, interns and yoga instructors...
Here's Why Amazon Is More Brutal Than Walmart Time ...The recent dustup between Amazon and publisher Hachette reminds us that retail is a brutal business — tough on employees, really hard on suppliers. Walmart, the largest physical retailer, and Amazon, the largest retailer online, illustrate the pain produced in the effort to make consumers’ prices as low as possible...
Miscellaneous
Occupy Wall Street Protesters Win Lawsuit Over Arrests Washington Post ...New York City has agreed to pay nearly $600,000 to settle allegations that police wrongfully arrested a group of Occupy Wall Street protesters, marking what their lawyers Tuesday called the largest settlement to date in a single Occupy-related civil rights case...
Teamsters: THUD Amendments Will Weaken Highway Safety Standards TheTrucker.com ...Teamsters General President James P. Hoffa Monday denounced two potential floor amendments to the Transportation Housing and Urban Development (THUD) FY ’15 Appropriations bill that the Teamsters say will weaken highway safety standards by putting fatigued drivers on the road in bigger, heavier trucks...
Teamsters come out against hours changes, ATA still supportive Overdrive ...The Teamsters Union has voiced its opposition to recent Congressional action to roll back the 2013 changes to federal hours-of-service restart provisions, but American Trucking Associations head Bill Graves is holding strong on the group’s support for suspending the changes...
Official Statement of the Teamsters Union on the Worldwide Taxi Drivers' Protests Against Uber teamster.org ..."I express our solidarity with today’s protests by taxi drivers in city after city across Europe. The drivers are calling for fairness and asking that if the private sedan services are allowed to operate that they do so on a level playing field. Uber is currently operating without having to comply with the same rules and regulations that taxi drivers do..."
Teamsters Local 142 Wants To Bid On Chesterton Police Officers' Health Care Chesterton Tribune ...The officers of the Chesterton Police Department and their brothers in Teamsters Local 142 filled the meeting room of the town hall on Monday night, to hear a union attorney accuse the Town Council of fiduciary irresponsibility. At issue: the Teamsters is interested in bidding its healthcare plan to CPD officers...
Teamsters Against HoS Restart Charges Truck News ...The accident involving a Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. driver and comedian Tracy Morgan’s entourage has yet another industry organization weighing in about potential hours of service changes. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters sent an open letter to the US House of Representatives saying any steps to “delay, revise or replace the current hours of service 34-hour restart provision” or allow increases in truck size and weight, “especially they size of double trailers from the current 28-ft. to 33-ft.” should be opposed...
Coral Gables Employees To Get One Time Bonus Miami Herald ...The Coral Gables City Commission approved a two-year contract with the city’s general employees union Tuesday that includes a one-time bonus and lower pension contributions from employees during the first year...
Trade
Comment: Shrouded in secrecy, opposition to TPP mounts SBS ...They want to reassure us that we don’t need to worry about spiralling drug costs or curtailed internet freedom, but they’re not willing to let us see the text of the deal to back up their claims...
Livestock Groups Show Concern for TPP During D.C. Hearing Farm Futures ...Japan's TPP requests to exempt certain "sensitive" products – including pork and beef, dairy, sugar, wheat and barley, and rice and starch – from tariff elimination has big impacts on future trade deals and the ag industry's ability to benefit from the agreement, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association said during a hearing before the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee...
Anger by US farmers threatens ambitious Pacific trade pact Reuters ...U.S. farmers are in an uproar over signs Japan will maintain some barriers to agricultural exports under a Pacific trade pact, which threatens to unravel a deal that is central to U.S. efforts to retain economic and security influence in the region...
State Battles
Repeal the pension tax on Michigan seniors Detroit News ...a retired couple born after 1952 with more than $50,000 in income, including $48,000 in pension benefits, paid $1,930 more in taxes than they would have if pensions weren’t taxed...
New Jersey's soaring subsidy program doing little to boost struggling economy The Guardian ...Study says New Jersey badly trailing other states' economic recovery despite corporate credits rising sevenfold under Christie...
Council Votes Again To End Collective Bargaining Fort Wayne Journal Gazette ...City Council members again voted along party lines Tuesday to end collective bargaining for all city workers except police and firefighters...
San Francisco Voters Will Weigh In On A $15 Minimum Wage Think Progress ...A question on San Francisco’s November ballot will ask city residents whether they want to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by July 2018...
Why that ruling against teacher tenure won't help your schoolchildren (opinion) Los Angeles Times ... one should be "suspicious of wealthy and powerful individuals and groups whose advocacy for children leads to 'reforms' that won’t cost a cent, but will weaken labor."...
Numbers put lie to state growth strategy (opinion) Journal Gazette ...Light taxation and regulation haven’t raised living standard (in Indiana)...
War On Workers
Walmart Associate: 'Give The Workers Dignity And Respect We Deserve' WBUR ...Charmaine Givens-Thomas ... is a sales associate who has worked at Walmart for eight years. She makes $23,000 a year and has trouble paying rent and putting food on the table. She says Walmart should pay its employees a living wage...
Cantor’s Loss a Triumph for Anti-Corporate Right-Wing Populism naked capitalism ...conservative economics professor David Brat succeeded in channeling a strain of right-wing populism to target Cantor, and plausibly so, as a corporate stooge and progenitor of crony capitalism...
Clauses That Hurt Workers New York Times ...Many businesses have long required that executives and other important employees agree not to work for a competitor for a year or two after they leave. Now some employers are unfairly imposing that requirement on all kinds of workers, including lower-wage employees like camp counselors, interns and yoga instructors...
Here's Why Amazon Is More Brutal Than Walmart Time ...The recent dustup between Amazon and publisher Hachette reminds us that retail is a brutal business — tough on employees, really hard on suppliers. Walmart, the largest physical retailer, and Amazon, the largest retailer online, illustrate the pain produced in the effort to make consumers’ prices as low as possible...
Miscellaneous
Occupy Wall Street Protesters Win Lawsuit Over Arrests Washington Post ...New York City has agreed to pay nearly $600,000 to settle allegations that police wrongfully arrested a group of Occupy Wall Street protesters, marking what their lawyers Tuesday called the largest settlement to date in a single Occupy-related civil rights case...
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Today's Teamster News 05.28.14
Teamster News
Teamsters Hope To Keep ABF In Little Rock Memphis Business Journal ...The president of the Teamsters local in North Little Rock, Tim Nichols, says he will meet with Gov. Mike Beebe this week in hopes of preventing ABF from moving to Memphis...
Bus Company Workers To Vote On Joining Union WAMC ...Employees of the Green Mountain Express bus company in Vermont have scheduled a vote on whether to join the Teamsters union. William Kelly, trustee organizer for Teamsters Local 597, tells the Bennington Banner that 23 people at Green Mountain Express are eligible to vote Wednesday...
Pekin City Council approves Teamsters pact Pekin Daily Times ...The Pekin City Council on Tuesday approved a three-year contract with the Teamsters, Chauffeurs & Helpers Local 697...
Hollywood Teamsters Back Patric Verrone For State Senate Deadline Hollywood ...Hollywood Teamsters Local 399 stood behind former WGA West President Patric Verrone when he led the 2007-08 Writers Guild strike, and it’s supporting him again in his run for the California Legislature...
Trade
European Milk Board opposes TTIP Dairy Herd Management ...A dairy farmer group representing organizations in 14 E.U. countries is not happy with current trade talks that would align European and U.S. trade and investment...
TTIP: The Lobby plague is coming Access ...The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is a free trade agreement currently being negotiated between the United States and the European Union, aiming at increasing trade and (dangerously) seeking “regulatory coherence.” If adopted, TTIP would become the world’s largest free trade and investment agreement, opening both markets for exchange in goods, services, investment, and public procurement. While the negotiations are being held in secret on both sides of the Atlantic, a large number of concerns arose in Europe on the actual benefits of such a trade agreement and its potential impact on EU legislation on digital rights as well as environmental protection, public health, agriculture, consumer rights, and labour standards...
TPP: Bad for global health (opinion) OakPark.com ...On April 8, Oak Park Township approved putting a referendum measure on the November ballot that would declare Oak Park a "TPP-Free Zone."...
State Battles
Will The Supreme Court Kill Public-Employee Unions? Mother Jones ...Forget Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and his fellow union-bashing governors. Forget the partisan attacks on organized labor. The gravest threat to public-employee unions--which represent cops, firefighters, prison guards, teachers, nurses and other state workers, is a Supreme Court case named Harris v. Quinn...
Michigan's Snyder signs bill raising minimum wage Associated Press ...Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder signed legislation Tuesday to raise the state's minimum wage by 25 percent gradually over the next four years to $9.25 an hour, as Republicans controlling the state government moved to head off a November ballot measure that could have raised pay even more.
Federal Judge Who Halted Walker Dark Money Criminal Probe Attended Koch-Backed Judicial Junkets Center for Media and Democracy ...The federal judge who ordered a halt to Wisconsin's "John Doe" criminal investigation into spending during the 2011 and 2012 recall elections has regularly attended all-expenses paid "judicial junkets" funded by the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, and other ideological and corporate interests...
States Consider Bills To Crack Down On Workplace Bullies NPR ...Bullying is a behavioral problem often associated with children in grade school, but according to a recent Zogby poll, more than a quarter of American workers say they've experienced abusive conduct at work...
War On Workers
Median CEO Pay Passes The $10 Million Mark For The First Time Think Progress ...The median CEO pay package hit $10.5 million last year, according to the Associated Press, cracking eight figures for the first time since the wire service began calculating the statistic...
Workers At This Giant Retailer Are Really Happy With Their Pay Think Progress ...In an analysis of employee feedback shared on Glassdoor over the past year, just one retailer comes in the top 25 for top marks on pay and benefits: Costco...
The Ripple Effects Of Rising Student Debt New York Times ...What are the roads not taken because students must take out loans for college? A collection of studies show that the burden of student debt may very well cause people to make different decisions than they would otherwise--affecting not just individual lives, but also the entire economy...
Miscellaneous
Europe's Secret Success New York Times ...Europe's financial and macroeconomic woes have overshadowed its remarkable, unheralded longer-term success in an area where it used to lag: job creation. What? You haven't heard about it? Well, that's not too surprising...
7 States Running Out Of Water Huffington Post ...In seven states, drought conditions were so severe that each had more than half it's land area in severe drought. Severe drought is characterized by crop loss, frequent water shortages and mandatory water use restrictions...
Teamsters Hope To Keep ABF In Little Rock Memphis Business Journal ...The president of the Teamsters local in North Little Rock, Tim Nichols, says he will meet with Gov. Mike Beebe this week in hopes of preventing ABF from moving to Memphis...
Bus Company Workers To Vote On Joining Union WAMC ...Employees of the Green Mountain Express bus company in Vermont have scheduled a vote on whether to join the Teamsters union. William Kelly, trustee organizer for Teamsters Local 597, tells the Bennington Banner that 23 people at Green Mountain Express are eligible to vote Wednesday...
Pekin City Council approves Teamsters pact Pekin Daily Times ...The Pekin City Council on Tuesday approved a three-year contract with the Teamsters, Chauffeurs & Helpers Local 697...
Hollywood Teamsters Back Patric Verrone For State Senate Deadline Hollywood ...Hollywood Teamsters Local 399 stood behind former WGA West President Patric Verrone when he led the 2007-08 Writers Guild strike, and it’s supporting him again in his run for the California Legislature...
Trade
European Milk Board opposes TTIP Dairy Herd Management ...A dairy farmer group representing organizations in 14 E.U. countries is not happy with current trade talks that would align European and U.S. trade and investment...
TTIP: The Lobby plague is coming Access ...The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is a free trade agreement currently being negotiated between the United States and the European Union, aiming at increasing trade and (dangerously) seeking “regulatory coherence.” If adopted, TTIP would become the world’s largest free trade and investment agreement, opening both markets for exchange in goods, services, investment, and public procurement. While the negotiations are being held in secret on both sides of the Atlantic, a large number of concerns arose in Europe on the actual benefits of such a trade agreement and its potential impact on EU legislation on digital rights as well as environmental protection, public health, agriculture, consumer rights, and labour standards...
TPP: Bad for global health (opinion) OakPark.com ...On April 8, Oak Park Township approved putting a referendum measure on the November ballot that would declare Oak Park a "TPP-Free Zone."...
State Battles
Will The Supreme Court Kill Public-Employee Unions? Mother Jones ...Forget Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and his fellow union-bashing governors. Forget the partisan attacks on organized labor. The gravest threat to public-employee unions--which represent cops, firefighters, prison guards, teachers, nurses and other state workers, is a Supreme Court case named Harris v. Quinn...
Michigan's Snyder signs bill raising minimum wage Associated Press ...Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder signed legislation Tuesday to raise the state's minimum wage by 25 percent gradually over the next four years to $9.25 an hour, as Republicans controlling the state government moved to head off a November ballot measure that could have raised pay even more.
Federal Judge Who Halted Walker Dark Money Criminal Probe Attended Koch-Backed Judicial Junkets Center for Media and Democracy ...The federal judge who ordered a halt to Wisconsin's "John Doe" criminal investigation into spending during the 2011 and 2012 recall elections has regularly attended all-expenses paid "judicial junkets" funded by the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, and other ideological and corporate interests...
States Consider Bills To Crack Down On Workplace Bullies NPR ...Bullying is a behavioral problem often associated with children in grade school, but according to a recent Zogby poll, more than a quarter of American workers say they've experienced abusive conduct at work...
War On Workers
Median CEO Pay Passes The $10 Million Mark For The First Time Think Progress ...The median CEO pay package hit $10.5 million last year, according to the Associated Press, cracking eight figures for the first time since the wire service began calculating the statistic...
Workers At This Giant Retailer Are Really Happy With Their Pay Think Progress ...In an analysis of employee feedback shared on Glassdoor over the past year, just one retailer comes in the top 25 for top marks on pay and benefits: Costco...
The Ripple Effects Of Rising Student Debt New York Times ...What are the roads not taken because students must take out loans for college? A collection of studies show that the burden of student debt may very well cause people to make different decisions than they would otherwise--affecting not just individual lives, but also the entire economy...
Miscellaneous
Europe's Secret Success New York Times ...Europe's financial and macroeconomic woes have overshadowed its remarkable, unheralded longer-term success in an area where it used to lag: job creation. What? You haven't heard about it? Well, that's not too surprising...
7 States Running Out Of Water Huffington Post ...In seven states, drought conditions were so severe that each had more than half it's land area in severe drought. Severe drought is characterized by crop loss, frequent water shortages and mandatory water use restrictions...
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