TEAMSTERS
Teamster Silicon Valley Drivers Vote Overwhelmingly in Favor of Contract Teamster.org ...Shuttle drivers for seven major Silicon Valley companies voted by an overwhelming 95 percent today to approve a first contract that provides for industry-leading wages and benefits. The nearly 200 drivers, who are members of Teamsters Local 853 in San Leandro, Calif., work for Compass Transportation, contractor to Apple, eBay, PayPal, Yahoo, Evernote, Genentech and Amtrak...
Labor deal for more Silicon Valley tech shuttle drivers USA Today ...Shuttle drivers for Apple, Yahoo, eBay and several other Silicon Valley companies overwhelmingly voted Sunday to accept a contract that will increase wages and benefits and give them their first paid Thanksgiving holiday. The drivers for those companies, as well as Amtrak, Evernote, Genentech and Paypal, voted to unionize with Teamsters Local 853 in San Leandro, Calif., back in February...
Teamsters, Employer Group Reconvene for Carhaul Negotiations Teamster.org ...The Teamsters National Automobile Transporters Negotiating Committee (TNATINC) met this week with the National Automobile Transporters Labor Division to begin negotiating a revised national carhaul contract. This week’s negotiations come after carhaulers voted to reject the national agreement and two supplemental agreements earlier this year...
Local 727 Reaches Tentative Agreement on New 4-Year Reyes/Great Lakes Coca-Cola Contract Local 727 ...Teamsters Local 727 reached tentative agreement on a new four-year contract for 600 members at Reyes/Great Lakes Coca-Cola. Final negotiations stretched late into the night on Nov. 19 as the Bargaining Committee hammered out final details for strong wage increases, important benefits and fortified rights for drivers, bulk, merchandisers, laborers and all other Reyes Teamsters...
BMWED To Conduct Research On Occupational Risk Reduction Teamster.org ...The Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes' (BMWED) President Freddie N. Simpson, with the full support of the BMWED National Division Officers, has approved a Brotherhood-wide research study to address the long-standing absence of high quality data reflecting the nature, frequency, severity and socio-economic consequences of occupational risk and its impact on BMWED members. BMWED members are a division of the Teamsters Rail Conference...
Teamsters Join with Business, Community to Host N.Y. Job Fair Teamster.org ...Sunset Park is home to some of the last sections of working waterfront in the city, and a job fair held Tuesday night aims to employ neighborhood residents in some of the good jobs on the waterfront. Manhattan Beer Distributors partnered with Teamsters Local 812, City Council Member Carlos Menchaca, and community organization UPROSE...
GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
The Maquiladora Workers of Juárez Find Their Voice The Nation ... After more than a decade of silence, maquiladora workers in Ciudad Juárez have found their voice. The city, just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, is now the center of a growing rebellion of laborers in the border factories. At the gates to four plants, including a huge 5,000-worker Foxconn complex, they have set up encampments, or plantons, demanding recognition of independent unions, and protesting firings and reprisals...
Lufthansa cabin crew to strike Thursday, Friday Globe and Mail ...Lufthansa cabin crew have been called to another round of strikes starting Thursday and Friday, the head of trade union UFO, Nicoley Baublies, told Reuters on Monday. The cabin crew union staged a week of strikes earlier this month, costing the company tens of millions of euros and forcing the cancellation of about 4,700 flights...
U.S. trade czar confident of 2016 Congress vote on TPP STL Today ...U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said on Thursday he expected Congress to vote on a 12-nation Pacific Rim free-trade deal early next year. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which aims to liberalize trade for 40 percent of the global economy, must be ratified by U.S. Congress but opposition from many Democrats and some Republicans could mean a vote is unlikely before President Barack Obama leaves office...
Obama promotes TPP, says it is 'more than just a trade pact' The Sun Daily ...United States President Barack Obama, in his strong bid to promote the TPP to Asean member countries, said it is more than just a trade pact as it will build cooperation among nations. Acknowledging that the debates on TPP in many countries and skepticism on previously failed trade deals, Obama admitted that TPP deal is a “tough sell”...
As Obama heads to Malaysia, human trafficking stance questioned Reuters ...U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Malaysia on Friday for a Southeast Asia leaders’ summit comes amid allegations by U.S. lawmakers and rights groups that his administration ignored Malaysia’s abuse of trafficking victims such as Baser to secure the country’s help sealing a high-profile trade deal and strengthen ties to offset China’s growing political clout...
EFF Joins Broad Coalition of Groups to Protest the TPP in Washington D.C. (opinion) EFF ...Contained within these 6,000-plus pages of the completed TPP text are a series of provisions that empower multinational corporations and private interest groups at the expense of the public interest. Civil society groups represent diverse concerns, so while we may disagree on our specific concerns about the TPP, we commonly recognize that this is a toxic, undemocratic deal that must be stopped at all costs...
Trade laws undo local progress on food systems (opinion) IATP.org ...Careful examination of the recently released text for the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is already revealing new risks for our food system. Those findings also tell us what to watch out for in the other big pending trade deal—the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the European Union...
Greek economy stagnates under austerity and capital controls ABC ...This is the reality in Greece these days, as the latest austerity cuts a swathe through consumer spending and capital controls — measures to limit withdrawals from banks — stagnate the already downtrodden Greek economy. In what is now a damaging consumer cycle, the damaging of cuts to pensions means grandparents have less money in their wallets and no longer spend up as the dote on their grandchildren — sometimes with handcrafted shoes from France and Italy...
Bangladesh: ‘An Effective Union Can Ensure Fire Safety’ Solidarity Center ...Bilkish Begum says she and other workers at a garment factory in Bangladesh could not discuss implementing fire safety measures with their employer—even after the deadly blaze at Tazreen Fashions factory killed 112 workers three years ago next week. Only when they formed a union, which provides workers with protection against retaliation for seeking to improve their workplace conditions, could they take steps to help ensure their safety...
STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
Louisiana votes for Medicaid expansion Daily Kos ...The monumental David Vitter loss in Louisiana Saturday promises to be a big win for Louisiana. While it was Vitter's past scandals that dominated the election, it's Democratic Governor-elect John Bel Edwards' main policy promise that's the big news, and likely means health care for some 242,000 Louisiana residents in the coming year...
Advocates Dispute Dire Predictions of $15 Minimum Wage Study Public News Service ...A report released this week by a business group predicting dire consequences if the minimum wage is raised to $15 an hour doesn't reflect reality, fair-wage advocates say. According to the report by the Long Island Association, more than 23,000 Long Island jobs would be lost. Advocates for raising the wage say businesses would benefit from the increased spending...
Exposing North Carolina's shell game of electoral apartheid Daily Kos ...This fall, Daily Kos community member Bill Busa exposed North Carolina's sneaky new voter suppression tool in which county boards of elections in the state closed almost one-third of the state’s early voting polling places in 2014, replacing them with polls at new locations. The result of moving those early voting locations: African American voters found themselves 350,000 miles farther away from their nearest early voting sites...
Strangers Raise Money For Walmart Worker Fired For Picking Up Cans Think Progress ...When a parking lot attendant dared to recycle trash he picked up outside an upstate New York Walmart, the store fired him. Now generous strangers are trying to help cushion his sudden fall. Thomas Smith, 52, had been earning $9 an hour at an upstate New York Walmart for less than three months when his manager terminated him over the cans...
California cities embracing higher minimum wage SGV Tribune ...Surrounded by city and union officials at a Labor Day rally in South Los Angeles last year, Mayor Eric Garcetti proposed raising the city’s minimum wage to $13.25 per hour by the end of the decade — a plan he said would significantly help low-income workers in Los Angeles while placing minimal burden on employers. Nine months later, Garcetti signed an ordinance that is more progressive than he proposed — a citywide wage hike to $15 an hour by 2021...
U.S. LABOR
UAW reaches end of winding road with Detroit automakers Detroit Free Press ...Detroit’s once-every-four-years ritual of UAW negotiations and ratification is finally over. The final two companies: General Motors and Ford, ratified their agreements late Friday after months of grueling talks. There are as many opinions about who won and who came up short as the 140,000 workers whose pay and benefits for the next four years were set in the contracts...
Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, The Case To Push Right To Work Nationally NH Labor News ...The Supreme Court is about to hear a case, Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association that could overturn a nearly forty-year decision that allows unions to negotiate “fair-share” fees for non-union members who benefit from the union’s contract. “We are disappointed that at a time when big corporations and the wealthy few are rewriting the rules in their favor, the Supreme Court has chosen to take a case that threatens the fundamental promise of America"...
CWA accuses Alcatel-Lucent of stealing Lucent retirees' health care funds Fierce Telecom ...The Communications Workers of America (CWA) union has filed a request with the U.S. District Court in New Jersey to get a temporary restraining order against Alcatel-Lucent over claims that the French company plans to use money for retirees' health care to cover its own pension funding obligations. Under the proposed plan, CWA said that Alcatel-Lucent will move 20,000 retirees and an additional $1.2 billion...
Verizon workers rally for contract Godanriver.com ...Verizon workers across the East Coast, including Danville, rallied over contract negotiations Thursday evening. A small group of regional workers gathered at the 141 Trade St. garage where most of the technicians that service Verizon lines in Danville base their operation. The previous contract expired on Aug. 1. Verizon employees have been working without a contract since then...
The U.S. Is Beaten By 27 Other Countries When It Comes To Women’s Equality Think Progress ...While the world has made progress closing the gap between women and men in health, education, economic participation, and political empowerment over the last decade, the United States is not keeping up. The World Economic Forum (WEF) just released its 2015 Global Gender Gap report, which showed that the gap has dropped by 4 percent in the last ten years...
Heat kills California farmworkers, but the state won't always admit it Daily Kos ...Agricultural workers have fewer job protections than most other workers even as they do physically grueling labor for low pay. It’s a vicious circle—most of the people who work in the fields come from vulnerable groups, and the low wages and lack of protections keep them vulnerable. California’s heat is one significant source of illness and even death for farmworkers. But you might not know that from the state’s official statistics...
When Temp Workers Die While Being Taken to the Job, Who’s Responsible? In These Times ...Since the Great Recession, the temporary staffing industry has boomed, and temp employment has accounted for significant portions of rebounding job growth. Temps—who are employed by agencies and whose labor is simply rented out by third-party businesses—have become seen as some of America’s most vulnerable workers. Labor advocates say that, in treating workers as replaceable units of labor, the temp industry can overlook workers’ most basic human needs...
SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
As Many Americans Have Criminal Records as College Diplomas Truthout ...The number of Americans with a criminal history has risen sharply over the past three decades. Today, nearly one-third of the adult working age population has a criminal record. In fact, so many Americans have a criminal record that counting them all is nearly impossible...
How Prison Reform Could Turn the Prison-Industrial Complex Into the Treatment-Industrial Complex The Nation ... many of the dollars expected to be “saved” from shuttering prisons may simply be funneled into privatized “alternatives to incarceration” like parole programs and halfway houses. These operations are often run by the household names of the prison business—they’re simply moving from behind bars to the so-called “treatment-industrial complex”...
Wall Street's Reprieve Expires The Atlantic ...Financial-regulation legislation—or efforts to stop it—ranks among the trickiest political knots that the White House and Congress have to unravel if they want to keep with their October budget compromise and fund the government. Democrats and Republicans in Congress—though not in the country at large—still line up on opposite sides of the fence...
Trump Supporters Punch, Kick Black Lives Matter Protester at Rally Slate ...Several people taking part in a rally for Donald Trump in Birmingham, Alabama pushed down, kicked, and punched a black protester. At least six Trump supporters shoved and tackled the protester, while one man punched the demonstrator and a woman kicked him while he was on the ground, according to CNN. One even attempted to choke the protester...
France Asks UN to Back 'Merciless' Military Response to Paris Attacks Common Dreams ...Just days after French President François Hollande vowed a "merciless" response to the Paris attacks, his government on Thursday submitted a resolution for the United Nations Security Council to "take all necessary measures" against ISIS. The French proposal, which could face a vote as early as Friday, competes with a separate one re-submitted by Russia this week...
Showing posts with label Medicaid. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Medicaid. Show all posts
Monday, November 23, 2015
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Today's Teamster News 11.10.15
TEAMSTERS
School safety agents make more than 400 weapon, drug seizures over 4 months Daily News ...Safety agents recovered weapons, drugs and other contraband in and around city schools on 355 occasions from July 1 to Nov. 1, records show. Teamsters Local 237 President Gregory Floyd, whose union represents the school safety agents, said the alarming cases show how badly they are needed. “These stats prove there is danger every day for our agents and our children,” said Floyd, whose union includes 5,000 active agents...
GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
Brazil's Petrobras, union strike talks fail, risk of fuel shortage rises Reuters ...Brazil's Petrobras and unions failed to reach an agreement on Monday over worker demands that the state-run oil company reverse budget cuts and cancel assets sales aimed at trimming its massive debt, union and company officials said. The week-old strike, already the biggest in 20 years, now risks an impasse that could hurt domestic fuel supplies and further hobble a company already under financial pressure and the fallout from a corruption scandal...
Obama’s last battle with Congress looms over Pacific trade deal Washington Post ...What could be President Obama’s final grand battle with Congress kicked off this week with the release of a sprawling Pacific Rim trade agreement, setting up the latest skirmish in a two-decade string of trade showdowns on Capitol Hill. Initial lawmaker reaction to the Trans-Pacific Partnership has been sharp from its likely opponents, who declared it “worse than we thought”...
Warren steps up criticism of the Pacific Rim trade deal Boston Globe ...Senator Elizabeth Warren said Thursday that she is prepared to do everything within her power to stop the historic Pacific Rim trade pact negotiated last month if it hurts American workers. Warren, in an interview with the Globe, criticized the Obama administration for dragging its feet in posting details of the deal, which went up online early Thursday morning -- five weeks after a deal was announced...
Trade pact backers hit 2 big hurdles: Donald and Hillary Politico ...Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are railing against the Trans-Pacific Partnership in the Democratic primary. On the right, GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump is ripping the trade deal as a “disaster” negotiated by “incompetent people.” President Barack Obama’s herculean task of shepherding the landmark Trans-Pacific Partnership through Capitol Hill is about to run into one major hurdle: 2016 presidential politics...
TPP is too flawed for a simple ‘yes’ vote (opinion) Boston Globe ...Congress should vote “no’’ on the current TPP, while simultaneously endorsing its trade provisions as well as continuing the work with our counterparts on the other chapters. The current drafts on investor rights, the environment, labor, and intellectual property make extravagant concessions to powerful corporate interests...
TPP is about many things, but free trade? Not so much (opinion) Globe and Mail ...Because we’re debating the future framework of the global economy, it would be nice if the debate over the TPP went beyond the old free-traders-versus-protectionists charade. At the very least, we should look under the hood and be suspicious of anyone trying to sell us the TPP as a “free-trade agreement”...
Portugal braces for fall of govt amid austerity backlash Washington Post ...Portugal’s new government faced what were likely to be its final hours in power Tuesday as anti-austerity forces in Parliament prepared to force its resignation. The showdown came less than two weeks after the center-right government was sworn in...
Greece and Creditors at Loggerheads Again; Troika Wants More Foreclosures Naked Capitalism ...European creditors want to extract more blood from a stone, in this case Greece. Greece and its lenders are again at odds over the latest "bailout" funds, which is €2 billion that was scheduled to be approved for release. But a precondition for getting more dough was that Greece show enough "progress," as in either have implemented or have committed to a sufficiently large number of "reforms"...
STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
Fast-food workers strike, seeking $15 wage, political muscle USA Today ...Fast-food workers demanding a $15 an hour wage walked out in dozens cities at 6 a.m. Tuesday, kicking off a year-long campaign to muster the political power of 64 million low-wage workers in next year's presidential election. The protests, which will take place in 270 cities, mark the workers' largest show of force in the three years since they launched a series of rallies to call for higher pay and the right to unionize...
'Come Get My Vote': Low-Wage Workers Rise Up in Advance of 2016 Election Common Dreams ...One year out from the 2016 presidential election, fast-food and other low-wage workers are striking on Tuesday in hundreds of cities across the U.S., demanding a livable wage, the right to form a union, and attention to their cause from those seeking elected office. Under the banner 'Come Get My Vote,' workers will walk off the job in 270 cities from Detroit to Denver, while close to 500 cities will host rallies...
Missouri labor unions spending big to fend off ‘right to work’ Kansas City Star ...Organized labor in Missouri is gearing up for another right-to-work fight in 2016. It’s been nearly two months since a handful of Republicans joined with Democrats to kill legislation that would would have made it illegal to force a worker to become a union member or to pay dues to a labor organization as a condition of employment...
Kentucky warily waits to see what Matt Bevin will do to 400,000 Medicaid enrollees Daily Kos ...Kentucky is feeling the first waves of panic now that tea party Republican Matt Bevin is about to become governor and implement his plans for undoing Kynect, the state's Obamacare program. While it's not entirely clear what those plans are now, since he's backtracked on his original full-on repeal position, he's still making it a top priority...
Who Stands with Workers? (opinion) Huffington Post ...Senate cafeteria workers serve food to the most august politicians, to their staffers, their Gucci-shoed lobbyists and to Senate visitors. Yet they don't earn close to a living wage. Those who work full time still live in poverty. Over the past months, these workers have walked out on the job, risking the work they need in order to demand decent wages and the right to organize...
Seattle's Experiment With Campaign Funding The Atlantic ...When people talk up the idea of the public financing of elections, they are usually referring to a system that goes something like this: Candidates must first raise money from individuals, and then the government will chip in matching funds or a pre-set amount that campaigns can spend on their race. In Seattle, however, voters just approved a system that flips that approach on its head...
U.S. LABOR
Capitol Workers to Strike Ahead of GOP Debate Roll Call ...Hours before a Republican primary debate, workers in the U.S. Capitol are going on strike and calling on the GOP senators running for president to help the workers who serve them. Senate food-service workers and some cleaning staff are set to walk off their jobs Tuesday morning to call for higher wages and a union. The event is set for Tuesday to highlight GOP presidential contenders who, in the opinion of the striking workers, have been silent on the Capitol workers’ low wages...
UAW listens to skilled-trades gripes; GM pact on hold USA Today ...The UAW is trying to untangle a knot holding up formal ratification of a new labor contract with General Motors as skilled-trades workers vented in meetings Monday over a variety of issues they say the contract doesn’t solve. Production workers, who account for a large majority of the UAW’s 52,700 members at GM (GM), approved the pact by a 58%-42% margin. But nearly 60% of skilled trades — the electricians, millwrights, pipefitters and diemakers — voted no...
Farm union begins awareness drive to alert workers to back pay they’re owed Fresno Bee ...Union workers will begin an awareness drive to get millions of dollars in back pay paid to farm workers that a new law says are owed wages that went unpaid for rest periods and “unproductive time,” United Farm Workers of America said. The drive begins Tuesday in Monterey, Sonoma, Madera, Fresno, Kern and Ventura counties, and is aimed at workers owed money under a law that officially goes into effect Jan. 1, 2016...
Bernie Sanders To Join Low-Wage Workers On Strike From U.S. Capitol Buildings Think Progress ...Workers who serve food at the United States Capitol went on strike Tuesday morning to protest their low wages and call attention to retaliatory actions they say their employer has taken against workers who want to unionize. Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) plans to join the strikers outside a Senate office building for a press conference around mid-morning...
SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
Black Student Revolt Against Racism Ousts 2 Top Officials at University of Missouri Democracy Now ...A revolt by African-American students at the University of Missouri has forced two top officials to resign. On Monday, President Tim Wolfe and Columbia campus chancellor Bowen Loftin announced they will step down in the face of protests over their handling of racism on campus. African-American students have staged weeks of demonstrations against what they called a lax response to bigotry and vandalism...
Climate Crisis Poised to Push 100 Million into Extreme Poverty Common Dreams ...Adding urgency to the call for bold emissions cuts and a radical rethinking of the global economy, a new report from the World Bank warns that human-caused climate change could push more than 100 million people into extreme poverty within just 15 years. Entitled Shock Waves: Managing the Impacts of Climate Change on Poverty, the World Bank's study differs from previous efforts by looking at the poverty impacts of climate change...
Appeals court rules against Obama’s immigration plan Washington Post ...A federal appeals court on Monday ruled against President Obama’s plan to shield up to 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation, dealing another blow to the administration’s effort to remake immigration laws and likely setting up a final battle in the Supreme Court next year...
“A life sentence to poverty”: How our laws deny ex-offenders a true second chance Salon ...President Barack Obama has always supported criminal justice reform, broadly speaking. Recently, though, the president has moved criminal justice reform issues to the front-and-center of his public agenda. This summer, for example, he became the first sitting president to visit a federal prison. Soon after, he held a (remarkably worthwhile) discussion on reform at the White House, too...
Michigan City Tells Residents To Pay Up Or They’ll Shut Off Water — Again Think Progress ...Months after a county judge ordered Flint, Michigan to cease shutting off water pipes and revise customers’ bills, the city is once again sending out letters warning customers to pay or go dry.
The city sent out more than 1,800 shutoff notices since last week, representing about 60 percent of all customers billed in September...
School safety agents make more than 400 weapon, drug seizures over 4 months Daily News ...Safety agents recovered weapons, drugs and other contraband in and around city schools on 355 occasions from July 1 to Nov. 1, records show. Teamsters Local 237 President Gregory Floyd, whose union represents the school safety agents, said the alarming cases show how badly they are needed. “These stats prove there is danger every day for our agents and our children,” said Floyd, whose union includes 5,000 active agents...
GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
Brazil's Petrobras, union strike talks fail, risk of fuel shortage rises Reuters ...Brazil's Petrobras and unions failed to reach an agreement on Monday over worker demands that the state-run oil company reverse budget cuts and cancel assets sales aimed at trimming its massive debt, union and company officials said. The week-old strike, already the biggest in 20 years, now risks an impasse that could hurt domestic fuel supplies and further hobble a company already under financial pressure and the fallout from a corruption scandal...
Obama’s last battle with Congress looms over Pacific trade deal Washington Post ...What could be President Obama’s final grand battle with Congress kicked off this week with the release of a sprawling Pacific Rim trade agreement, setting up the latest skirmish in a two-decade string of trade showdowns on Capitol Hill. Initial lawmaker reaction to the Trans-Pacific Partnership has been sharp from its likely opponents, who declared it “worse than we thought”...
Warren steps up criticism of the Pacific Rim trade deal Boston Globe ...Senator Elizabeth Warren said Thursday that she is prepared to do everything within her power to stop the historic Pacific Rim trade pact negotiated last month if it hurts American workers. Warren, in an interview with the Globe, criticized the Obama administration for dragging its feet in posting details of the deal, which went up online early Thursday morning -- five weeks after a deal was announced...
Trade pact backers hit 2 big hurdles: Donald and Hillary Politico ...Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are railing against the Trans-Pacific Partnership in the Democratic primary. On the right, GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump is ripping the trade deal as a “disaster” negotiated by “incompetent people.” President Barack Obama’s herculean task of shepherding the landmark Trans-Pacific Partnership through Capitol Hill is about to run into one major hurdle: 2016 presidential politics...
TPP is too flawed for a simple ‘yes’ vote (opinion) Boston Globe ...Congress should vote “no’’ on the current TPP, while simultaneously endorsing its trade provisions as well as continuing the work with our counterparts on the other chapters. The current drafts on investor rights, the environment, labor, and intellectual property make extravagant concessions to powerful corporate interests...
TPP is about many things, but free trade? Not so much (opinion) Globe and Mail ...Because we’re debating the future framework of the global economy, it would be nice if the debate over the TPP went beyond the old free-traders-versus-protectionists charade. At the very least, we should look under the hood and be suspicious of anyone trying to sell us the TPP as a “free-trade agreement”...
Portugal braces for fall of govt amid austerity backlash Washington Post ...Portugal’s new government faced what were likely to be its final hours in power Tuesday as anti-austerity forces in Parliament prepared to force its resignation. The showdown came less than two weeks after the center-right government was sworn in...
Greece and Creditors at Loggerheads Again; Troika Wants More Foreclosures Naked Capitalism ...European creditors want to extract more blood from a stone, in this case Greece. Greece and its lenders are again at odds over the latest "bailout" funds, which is €2 billion that was scheduled to be approved for release. But a precondition for getting more dough was that Greece show enough "progress," as in either have implemented or have committed to a sufficiently large number of "reforms"...
STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
Fast-food workers strike, seeking $15 wage, political muscle USA Today ...Fast-food workers demanding a $15 an hour wage walked out in dozens cities at 6 a.m. Tuesday, kicking off a year-long campaign to muster the political power of 64 million low-wage workers in next year's presidential election. The protests, which will take place in 270 cities, mark the workers' largest show of force in the three years since they launched a series of rallies to call for higher pay and the right to unionize...
'Come Get My Vote': Low-Wage Workers Rise Up in Advance of 2016 Election Common Dreams ...One year out from the 2016 presidential election, fast-food and other low-wage workers are striking on Tuesday in hundreds of cities across the U.S., demanding a livable wage, the right to form a union, and attention to their cause from those seeking elected office. Under the banner 'Come Get My Vote,' workers will walk off the job in 270 cities from Detroit to Denver, while close to 500 cities will host rallies...
Missouri labor unions spending big to fend off ‘right to work’ Kansas City Star ...Organized labor in Missouri is gearing up for another right-to-work fight in 2016. It’s been nearly two months since a handful of Republicans joined with Democrats to kill legislation that would would have made it illegal to force a worker to become a union member or to pay dues to a labor organization as a condition of employment...
Kentucky warily waits to see what Matt Bevin will do to 400,000 Medicaid enrollees Daily Kos ...Kentucky is feeling the first waves of panic now that tea party Republican Matt Bevin is about to become governor and implement his plans for undoing Kynect, the state's Obamacare program. While it's not entirely clear what those plans are now, since he's backtracked on his original full-on repeal position, he's still making it a top priority...
Who Stands with Workers? (opinion) Huffington Post ...Senate cafeteria workers serve food to the most august politicians, to their staffers, their Gucci-shoed lobbyists and to Senate visitors. Yet they don't earn close to a living wage. Those who work full time still live in poverty. Over the past months, these workers have walked out on the job, risking the work they need in order to demand decent wages and the right to organize...
Seattle's Experiment With Campaign Funding The Atlantic ...When people talk up the idea of the public financing of elections, they are usually referring to a system that goes something like this: Candidates must first raise money from individuals, and then the government will chip in matching funds or a pre-set amount that campaigns can spend on their race. In Seattle, however, voters just approved a system that flips that approach on its head...
U.S. LABOR
Capitol Workers to Strike Ahead of GOP Debate Roll Call ...Hours before a Republican primary debate, workers in the U.S. Capitol are going on strike and calling on the GOP senators running for president to help the workers who serve them. Senate food-service workers and some cleaning staff are set to walk off their jobs Tuesday morning to call for higher wages and a union. The event is set for Tuesday to highlight GOP presidential contenders who, in the opinion of the striking workers, have been silent on the Capitol workers’ low wages...
UAW listens to skilled-trades gripes; GM pact on hold USA Today ...The UAW is trying to untangle a knot holding up formal ratification of a new labor contract with General Motors as skilled-trades workers vented in meetings Monday over a variety of issues they say the contract doesn’t solve. Production workers, who account for a large majority of the UAW’s 52,700 members at GM (GM), approved the pact by a 58%-42% margin. But nearly 60% of skilled trades — the electricians, millwrights, pipefitters and diemakers — voted no...
Farm union begins awareness drive to alert workers to back pay they’re owed Fresno Bee ...Union workers will begin an awareness drive to get millions of dollars in back pay paid to farm workers that a new law says are owed wages that went unpaid for rest periods and “unproductive time,” United Farm Workers of America said. The drive begins Tuesday in Monterey, Sonoma, Madera, Fresno, Kern and Ventura counties, and is aimed at workers owed money under a law that officially goes into effect Jan. 1, 2016...
Bernie Sanders To Join Low-Wage Workers On Strike From U.S. Capitol Buildings Think Progress ...Workers who serve food at the United States Capitol went on strike Tuesday morning to protest their low wages and call attention to retaliatory actions they say their employer has taken against workers who want to unionize. Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) plans to join the strikers outside a Senate office building for a press conference around mid-morning...
SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
Black Student Revolt Against Racism Ousts 2 Top Officials at University of Missouri Democracy Now ...A revolt by African-American students at the University of Missouri has forced two top officials to resign. On Monday, President Tim Wolfe and Columbia campus chancellor Bowen Loftin announced they will step down in the face of protests over their handling of racism on campus. African-American students have staged weeks of demonstrations against what they called a lax response to bigotry and vandalism...
Climate Crisis Poised to Push 100 Million into Extreme Poverty Common Dreams ...Adding urgency to the call for bold emissions cuts and a radical rethinking of the global economy, a new report from the World Bank warns that human-caused climate change could push more than 100 million people into extreme poverty within just 15 years. Entitled Shock Waves: Managing the Impacts of Climate Change on Poverty, the World Bank's study differs from previous efforts by looking at the poverty impacts of climate change...
Appeals court rules against Obama’s immigration plan Washington Post ...A federal appeals court on Monday ruled against President Obama’s plan to shield up to 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation, dealing another blow to the administration’s effort to remake immigration laws and likely setting up a final battle in the Supreme Court next year...
“A life sentence to poverty”: How our laws deny ex-offenders a true second chance Salon ...President Barack Obama has always supported criminal justice reform, broadly speaking. Recently, though, the president has moved criminal justice reform issues to the front-and-center of his public agenda. This summer, for example, he became the first sitting president to visit a federal prison. Soon after, he held a (remarkably worthwhile) discussion on reform at the White House, too...
Michigan City Tells Residents To Pay Up Or They’ll Shut Off Water — Again Think Progress ...Months after a county judge ordered Flint, Michigan to cease shutting off water pipes and revise customers’ bills, the city is once again sending out letters warning customers to pay or go dry.
The city sent out more than 1,800 shutoff notices since last week, representing about 60 percent of all customers billed in September...
Thursday, May 28, 2015
Today's Teamster News 05.28.15
Teamsters
American Red Cross Workers Choose Teamsters Union Teamster.org ...American Red Cross workers who collect blood throughout the state of Kansas have voted overwhelmingly, 64-13, to join Teamsters Local 795 in Wichita, Kan. There are 91 workers in the bargaining unit.
Stephanie Daniels, a three-year Collection Technician II at Red Cross, helped lead organizing efforts...
Edgewood Center Employees Vote to Become Teamsters Teamster.org ...After a hard-fought 11-month campaign, direct care staff at Edgewood Center for Children and Families in San Francisco finally got the news they’ve been waiting for — they are officially Teamsters. “It feels so incredible to finally be able to call ourselves Teamsters,” said Residential Counselor Ashley Nims...
A Foolish Attempt to Weaken Truck Safety New York Times ...Public interest groups such as Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety; the Teamsters, which represents truck drivers; and the Obama administration have objected to the trucking provisions in the House bill. And with good reason. In 2013, the latest year for which data is available, 3,964 people died in accidents involving large trucks...
Global Labor & Trade
How The White House And Paul Ryan Are Making Sure Forced Labor Remains Part Of Their Trade Deal Huff Post ...The House of Representatives will quickly get down to unfinished business once it returns from the holiday recess: defending trading partners that engage in slavery. The House, according to sources familiar with trade deal negotiations, plans to strip Senate language from fast-track legislation that would ban countries that are the worst human-trafficking and forced-labor offenders from being part of big trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership...
Here’s how much corporations paid US senators to fast-track the TPP bill The Guardian ...Out of the total $1,148,971 given, an average of $17,676.48 was donated to each of the 65 “yea” votes. The average Republican member received $19,673.28 from corporate TPP supporters. The average Democrat received $9,689.23 from those same donors. The amounts given rise dramatically when looking at how much each senator running for re-election received...
State Department Officials Pass Through Revolving Door, Lobby for Passage of TPP The Intercept ...While Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is refusing to reveal her position on the massive Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, other former State Department officials are actively supporting the agreement. They’re just not bothering to reveal their conflicts of interest...
Obama’s Asia trade deal faces mounting opposition in House Washington Times ...After a victory in the Senate, President Obama’s push for a huge free-trade deal with Asia faces a higher hurdle in the House, where an unusual coalition of conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats oppose granting him more executive power. While Republican lawmakers have been fighting Mr. Obama’s “power grab” for years, even some members of the president’s own party are now using the argument about executive overreaching to defy his request for special trade-promotion authority...
Why Is The U.S. Desperate To OK Slavery In Malaysia? Huff Post ...Observers are left with a deeper question: Why, in the year 2015, is the White House teaming up with Republican leaders essentially to defend the practice of slavery? Understanding this is key to understanding why President Barack Obama has been pushing so aggressively for a trade deal that so many of his allies insist will harm American workers...
Democrats recount labor's pressure tactics Politico ...The real fight over the trade agenda has always been in the House, and that’s where organized labor has been focusing for months. The aggressive effort has left even members who’ll be voting labor’s way bruised, and others who’ll be supporting President Barack Obama anxious enough that many won’t discuss their experiences publicly, instead dispatching staffers to speak on their behalf...
Secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership is more treaty than trade deal (opinion) The Hill ...The latest draft of the TPP comes out to around 1,000 pages, making public review a challenge even without the severe time constraints fast-track would impose. In reality the deal is more treaty than tariff reduction measure and should not even be eligible for fast-tracking. This deal needs to be fully reviewed as a treaty, debated and voted on by the U.S. Senate in full sunlight, with a two-thirds vote requirement to ratify...
Pro-TPP arguments show desperation (opinion) Aljazeera America ...In the last few weeks, TPP advocates have repeatedly tripped up, getting their facts wrong and their logic twisted. This hit parade of failed arguments should be sufficient to convince any fence sitters that this deal is not worth doing. After all, if you have a good product, you don’t have to make up nonsense to sell it...
Cameron Sets Up Battle With Labor Unions Over Strike Laws Bloomberg ...U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron set himself on a collision course with labor unions as his government announced legislation limiting the right to strike. Ballots for strike action will only be valid if more than half of eligible workers take part...
State & Living Wage Battles
New Jersey Workers Are Making Paid Sick Leave A Big Question For Christie On The Campaign Trail Think Progress ...Members of NJWF organized a protest outside a New York City fundraiser for the likely presidential contender’s super PAC, the latest in a series of demonstrations the group has held at Christie fundraisers in cities which already have paid sick leave legislation. “We need to pass a statewide bill that will cover the 1.2 million workers who regularly have to choose between their livelihood and their heath and the health of their family”...
Scott Walker Dumped as Chair of the Jobs Agency He Created Truthout ...Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker won his election in 2010 on a promise to create 250,000 new jobs. To lead the effort, Walker created his flagship Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) in 2011 and named himself Chairman. Now, as allegations of cronyism and corruption engulf WEDC, the Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee has removed Walker...
Scott Walker is a giant fraud: Reagan worship, bizarre religious beliefs, and the real story of his long crusade for 2016 Salon ...In 2011, Walker blamed teachers, snow-plow drivers and other public workers for the budgetary problems caused by the Great Recession, cutting their benefits to “repair” state finances. Four years later, Wisconsin has an almost identical budget deficit. His response to the current budget crisis is to force public schools and the University of Wisconsin system to shoulder the brunt of the cost...
Minimum wage hike to $9.60 gets R.I. Senate panel approval Providence Journal ...Rhode Island moved another step closer to a fourth increase in its minimum wage in four years Wednesday.
The Senate Labor Committee unanimously approved an amended bill that would raise the minimum wage from $9 an hour to $9.60 an hour on Jan. 1, 2016. There was no committee discussion...
Florida Senate offers Medicaid compromise, Rick Scott and the Kochs reject it Daily Kos ...Florida's Senate President Andy Gardner offered a compromise Tuesday to try to get the state's legislature out of a budget impasse. That impasse could be resolved, the Senate has maintained, by accepting Medicaid expansion under Obamacare. So, to try to get a recalcitrant House and Gov. Rick Scott to agree, Gardner modified the Senate proposal. That was quickly rejected by Scott and House Speaker Steve Crisafulli...
GOP lawmakers advance prevailing wage repeal Journal-Sentinel ...s Assembly Republicans moved a bill repealing Wisconsin's prevailing wage law out of committee Wednesday, Gov. Scott Walker made clear he supports ending or overhauling the 84-year-old policy that sets a minimum wage for construction workers building publicly funded projects...
Don’t Like Minimum Wage Increases? Be Mad at the Top Earners TIME ...Some argue that increasing the federal minimum wage would be bad for the economy, would cause layoffs, and would kill small businesses. These arguments have been disproven not only by time and experience, but also by longitudinal research studies, according to the Department of Labor...
U.S. Labor
UAW Rival at VW Represented by 'Union Avoidance' Expert ABC News ...The rival group to the United Auto Workers union at the Volkswagen plant in Tennessee brands itself as local, independent and free of outside influence or political agenda. But the American Council of Employees won't divulge how it is funded, and the lawyer who recently filed the group's overdue disclosures with the U.S. Department of Labor touts his expertise in "union avoidance"...
10 reasons Wal-Mart is the worst company in America Salon ...The retail giant’s famous anti-union policies are nothing new and appear to be getting worse all the time. As further proof of this, a new Walmart training video leaked online has illustrated the specific propaganda the company feeds their employees to prevent them from organizing...
UFW co-founder Dolores Huerta's story to be featured at Smithsonian Bakersfield Californian ...The accolades keep coming for Bakersfield resident Dolores Huerta, a pillar of the agricultural labor movement of the 1960s ande '70s. She'll be featured starting this summer at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. The story of the modern agricultural workers' movement and Huerta's colorful life are deeply intertwined...
Negotiations continue between UAW, Ford Lima Ohio ...nited Automobile Workers Local 1219 and Ford Motor Co. Lima Engine Plant are currently negotiating the next contract, though national discussions have not yet started. The first meeting between local UAW representatives and Ford was April 28, said Mike Felix, plant manager at the Lima Engine Plant...
Miscellaneous
Dems Back Debt-Free College as Issue Moves Into Election Spotlight Common Dreams ...Nine additional Democratic senators on Wednesday came out in support of a resolution calling for debt-free public college, bringing to 20 the total number of Senate Dems who support the measure, introduced only a month ago by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). The resolution calls on federal and state governments, along with higher education institutions, to work in concert to lower tuition costs, increase financial aid, and reduce the burden of existing student debt...
Given Rampant White-Collar Crime, FIFA Raid Raises Questions About DOJ Priorities Common Dreams ...While the early morning raid and arrest of several high-ranking officials with the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) captivated the international news circuit Wednesday morning, many observers were left wondering: With so many corrupt bankers, politicians, and other one-percenters still free to walk the streets here in the United States, why has the U.S. Department of Justice set its sights on FIFA?...
American Red Cross Workers Choose Teamsters Union Teamster.org ...American Red Cross workers who collect blood throughout the state of Kansas have voted overwhelmingly, 64-13, to join Teamsters Local 795 in Wichita, Kan. There are 91 workers in the bargaining unit.
Stephanie Daniels, a three-year Collection Technician II at Red Cross, helped lead organizing efforts...
Edgewood Center Employees Vote to Become Teamsters Teamster.org ...After a hard-fought 11-month campaign, direct care staff at Edgewood Center for Children and Families in San Francisco finally got the news they’ve been waiting for — they are officially Teamsters. “It feels so incredible to finally be able to call ourselves Teamsters,” said Residential Counselor Ashley Nims...
A Foolish Attempt to Weaken Truck Safety New York Times ...Public interest groups such as Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety; the Teamsters, which represents truck drivers; and the Obama administration have objected to the trucking provisions in the House bill. And with good reason. In 2013, the latest year for which data is available, 3,964 people died in accidents involving large trucks...
Global Labor & Trade
How The White House And Paul Ryan Are Making Sure Forced Labor Remains Part Of Their Trade Deal Huff Post ...The House of Representatives will quickly get down to unfinished business once it returns from the holiday recess: defending trading partners that engage in slavery. The House, according to sources familiar with trade deal negotiations, plans to strip Senate language from fast-track legislation that would ban countries that are the worst human-trafficking and forced-labor offenders from being part of big trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership...
Here’s how much corporations paid US senators to fast-track the TPP bill The Guardian ...Out of the total $1,148,971 given, an average of $17,676.48 was donated to each of the 65 “yea” votes. The average Republican member received $19,673.28 from corporate TPP supporters. The average Democrat received $9,689.23 from those same donors. The amounts given rise dramatically when looking at how much each senator running for re-election received...
State Department Officials Pass Through Revolving Door, Lobby for Passage of TPP The Intercept ...While Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is refusing to reveal her position on the massive Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, other former State Department officials are actively supporting the agreement. They’re just not bothering to reveal their conflicts of interest...
Obama’s Asia trade deal faces mounting opposition in House Washington Times ...After a victory in the Senate, President Obama’s push for a huge free-trade deal with Asia faces a higher hurdle in the House, where an unusual coalition of conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats oppose granting him more executive power. While Republican lawmakers have been fighting Mr. Obama’s “power grab” for years, even some members of the president’s own party are now using the argument about executive overreaching to defy his request for special trade-promotion authority...
Why Is The U.S. Desperate To OK Slavery In Malaysia? Huff Post ...Observers are left with a deeper question: Why, in the year 2015, is the White House teaming up with Republican leaders essentially to defend the practice of slavery? Understanding this is key to understanding why President Barack Obama has been pushing so aggressively for a trade deal that so many of his allies insist will harm American workers...
Democrats recount labor's pressure tactics Politico ...The real fight over the trade agenda has always been in the House, and that’s where organized labor has been focusing for months. The aggressive effort has left even members who’ll be voting labor’s way bruised, and others who’ll be supporting President Barack Obama anxious enough that many won’t discuss their experiences publicly, instead dispatching staffers to speak on their behalf...
Secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership is more treaty than trade deal (opinion) The Hill ...The latest draft of the TPP comes out to around 1,000 pages, making public review a challenge even without the severe time constraints fast-track would impose. In reality the deal is more treaty than tariff reduction measure and should not even be eligible for fast-tracking. This deal needs to be fully reviewed as a treaty, debated and voted on by the U.S. Senate in full sunlight, with a two-thirds vote requirement to ratify...
Pro-TPP arguments show desperation (opinion) Aljazeera America ...In the last few weeks, TPP advocates have repeatedly tripped up, getting their facts wrong and their logic twisted. This hit parade of failed arguments should be sufficient to convince any fence sitters that this deal is not worth doing. After all, if you have a good product, you don’t have to make up nonsense to sell it...
Cameron Sets Up Battle With Labor Unions Over Strike Laws Bloomberg ...U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron set himself on a collision course with labor unions as his government announced legislation limiting the right to strike. Ballots for strike action will only be valid if more than half of eligible workers take part...
State & Living Wage Battles
New Jersey Workers Are Making Paid Sick Leave A Big Question For Christie On The Campaign Trail Think Progress ...Members of NJWF organized a protest outside a New York City fundraiser for the likely presidential contender’s super PAC, the latest in a series of demonstrations the group has held at Christie fundraisers in cities which already have paid sick leave legislation. “We need to pass a statewide bill that will cover the 1.2 million workers who regularly have to choose between their livelihood and their heath and the health of their family”...
Scott Walker Dumped as Chair of the Jobs Agency He Created Truthout ...Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker won his election in 2010 on a promise to create 250,000 new jobs. To lead the effort, Walker created his flagship Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) in 2011 and named himself Chairman. Now, as allegations of cronyism and corruption engulf WEDC, the Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee has removed Walker...
Scott Walker is a giant fraud: Reagan worship, bizarre religious beliefs, and the real story of his long crusade for 2016 Salon ...In 2011, Walker blamed teachers, snow-plow drivers and other public workers for the budgetary problems caused by the Great Recession, cutting their benefits to “repair” state finances. Four years later, Wisconsin has an almost identical budget deficit. His response to the current budget crisis is to force public schools and the University of Wisconsin system to shoulder the brunt of the cost...
Minimum wage hike to $9.60 gets R.I. Senate panel approval Providence Journal ...Rhode Island moved another step closer to a fourth increase in its minimum wage in four years Wednesday.
The Senate Labor Committee unanimously approved an amended bill that would raise the minimum wage from $9 an hour to $9.60 an hour on Jan. 1, 2016. There was no committee discussion...
Florida Senate offers Medicaid compromise, Rick Scott and the Kochs reject it Daily Kos ...Florida's Senate President Andy Gardner offered a compromise Tuesday to try to get the state's legislature out of a budget impasse. That impasse could be resolved, the Senate has maintained, by accepting Medicaid expansion under Obamacare. So, to try to get a recalcitrant House and Gov. Rick Scott to agree, Gardner modified the Senate proposal. That was quickly rejected by Scott and House Speaker Steve Crisafulli...
GOP lawmakers advance prevailing wage repeal Journal-Sentinel ...s Assembly Republicans moved a bill repealing Wisconsin's prevailing wage law out of committee Wednesday, Gov. Scott Walker made clear he supports ending or overhauling the 84-year-old policy that sets a minimum wage for construction workers building publicly funded projects...
Don’t Like Minimum Wage Increases? Be Mad at the Top Earners TIME ...Some argue that increasing the federal minimum wage would be bad for the economy, would cause layoffs, and would kill small businesses. These arguments have been disproven not only by time and experience, but also by longitudinal research studies, according to the Department of Labor...
U.S. Labor
UAW Rival at VW Represented by 'Union Avoidance' Expert ABC News ...The rival group to the United Auto Workers union at the Volkswagen plant in Tennessee brands itself as local, independent and free of outside influence or political agenda. But the American Council of Employees won't divulge how it is funded, and the lawyer who recently filed the group's overdue disclosures with the U.S. Department of Labor touts his expertise in "union avoidance"...
10 reasons Wal-Mart is the worst company in America Salon ...The retail giant’s famous anti-union policies are nothing new and appear to be getting worse all the time. As further proof of this, a new Walmart training video leaked online has illustrated the specific propaganda the company feeds their employees to prevent them from organizing...
UFW co-founder Dolores Huerta's story to be featured at Smithsonian Bakersfield Californian ...The accolades keep coming for Bakersfield resident Dolores Huerta, a pillar of the agricultural labor movement of the 1960s ande '70s. She'll be featured starting this summer at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. The story of the modern agricultural workers' movement and Huerta's colorful life are deeply intertwined...
Negotiations continue between UAW, Ford Lima Ohio ...nited Automobile Workers Local 1219 and Ford Motor Co. Lima Engine Plant are currently negotiating the next contract, though national discussions have not yet started. The first meeting between local UAW representatives and Ford was April 28, said Mike Felix, plant manager at the Lima Engine Plant...
Miscellaneous
Dems Back Debt-Free College as Issue Moves Into Election Spotlight Common Dreams ...Nine additional Democratic senators on Wednesday came out in support of a resolution calling for debt-free public college, bringing to 20 the total number of Senate Dems who support the measure, introduced only a month ago by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). The resolution calls on federal and state governments, along with higher education institutions, to work in concert to lower tuition costs, increase financial aid, and reduce the burden of existing student debt...
Given Rampant White-Collar Crime, FIFA Raid Raises Questions About DOJ Priorities Common Dreams ...While the early morning raid and arrest of several high-ranking officials with the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) captivated the international news circuit Wednesday morning, many observers were left wondering: With so many corrupt bankers, politicians, and other one-percenters still free to walk the streets here in the United States, why has the U.S. Department of Justice set its sights on FIFA?...
Friday, August 22, 2014
Today's Teamster News 08.22.14
Teamster News
What the Hell Went on Between Boston’s Teamsters and the ‘Top Chef’ Crew? Boston Globe ...Teamsters Local 25 have released a statement about the Deadline Hollywood story and vehemently disagree with the details offered by the unnamed “Top Chef” crew members...
Teamsters Ratify Contracts At Stroehmann, Grocery Haulers Inc. teamster.org ...Teamsters Local 264 members at Stroehmann Bakeries and Grocery Haulers Inc. (GHI) in Olean, N.Y., have voted overwhelmingly to ratify contracts providing for significant workplace improvements...
Local 135 Strikes Against Trucking Company Kokomo Tribune ...Members of Teamsters Local Union 135 went on strike Wednesday morning against Diamond Trucking Inc. after new contract negotiations broke down Tuesday night...
Carpenters Locked Out Of Pa. Convention Center Since May Seek End To Dispute CBS News ...Carpenters who claim they’ve been locked out of the Pennsylvania Convention Center were back out on the street on Wednesday protesting management’s refusal to put them back to work...
Protest-Stalled Ship At Port Of Oakland Finally Unloaded, Sails Away Contra Costa Times ...During the protest, the Teamsters had issued a statement calling on longshore workers to "immediately unload the ship" and said their issue was not the Gaza conflict, but the impact the protests have on local jobs...
Sodexo Workers Overwhelmingly Ratify First Teamster Contract With Local 633 IBT ...Seventy (70) Teamster members employed by Sodexo, Inc., who provide cafeteria services, have overwhelmingly ratified their first ever Teamster contract...
Trade
TPP: The “Trade” Deal that Could Inflate Your Healthcare Bill Public Citizen ...Leaked draft TPP texts… contain expansive rules that would constrain the ability of the U.S. government to reduce medicine prices...
Trade Data Pours Cold Water on "Rising Star" Outlook for American Manufacturing manufacture this ...The U.S. trade deficit in manufactures surged by $21.6 billion, or 19%, in the second quarter, compared with 2013, following an 8% increase in the first quarter. In the opposite direction, the Chinese surplus increased in the second quarter by $20.0 billion, or 9%...
State Battles
Scott Walker’s Offshoring Flip-Flop In These Times ...Mr. Right-to-Work is trying to divert attention from his administration’s abysmal record on jobs and labor in a state still mired in the effects of the Great Recession...
War On Workers
Prayers For Atlantic City As Closings, Layoffs Loom Philadelphia Inquirer ...Gaming analysts and industry experts have said Atlantic City has too many casinos and not enough gambling demand to sustain them all. After the three casinos fold, the resort will be left with eight...
Microsoft Leaves ALEC: Horsetrading & The Price to Pay firedoglake ...President Obama may soon decide on executive action regarding “a rule allowing spouses of H-1B visa holders, now barred from working in the U.S., to get jobs.” The H-1B high skill guestworker visa allows employers to hire non-citizens for skilled work often in fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics...
One Paragraph Cuts Through The Hype Of Robots Taking Your Job Business Insider ...people have tended to overestimate, historically, the effect of technology on labor. And while robots are good at performing some repetitive tasks, jobs that require judgment are not so easily replaced by robots (these include jobs at the low and high end)...
How the Largest Worker Owned Co-op in the US Lifts People Out of Poverty YES! Magazine ...New York City is going—in a big way—for worker-owned cooperatives. Inspired by the model of CHCA and prodded by a new network of co-op members and enthusiasts, Mayor Bill de Blasio and the New York City Council allocated $1.2 million to support worker cooperatives in 2015’s budget...
There Are Zero States Where The Percentage Of People Employed Has Gone Up Since The Recession Washington Post ...From 2007 to 2014, the employment rate among 25- to 54-year-olds has declined in the United States by 3.5 percent, and no state reported employment gains during that time, according to data released by the Pew Charitable Trust on Tuesday...
Miscellaneous
Health Care Data Breaches Have Hit 30M Patients And Counting Washington Post ...the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' database of major breach reports (those affecting 500 people or more) has tracked 944 incidents affecting personal information from about 30.1 million people...
Home and Jobs Data Suggests Momentum Reuters ...Sales of existing homes in the United States rose in July to a 10-month high, and the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell last week, signaling strength in the economy early in the third quarter...
What the Hell Went on Between Boston’s Teamsters and the ‘Top Chef’ Crew? Boston Globe ...Teamsters Local 25 have released a statement about the Deadline Hollywood story and vehemently disagree with the details offered by the unnamed “Top Chef” crew members...
Teamsters Ratify Contracts At Stroehmann, Grocery Haulers Inc. teamster.org ...Teamsters Local 264 members at Stroehmann Bakeries and Grocery Haulers Inc. (GHI) in Olean, N.Y., have voted overwhelmingly to ratify contracts providing for significant workplace improvements...
Local 135 Strikes Against Trucking Company Kokomo Tribune ...Members of Teamsters Local Union 135 went on strike Wednesday morning against Diamond Trucking Inc. after new contract negotiations broke down Tuesday night...
Carpenters Locked Out Of Pa. Convention Center Since May Seek End To Dispute CBS News ...Carpenters who claim they’ve been locked out of the Pennsylvania Convention Center were back out on the street on Wednesday protesting management’s refusal to put them back to work...
Protest-Stalled Ship At Port Of Oakland Finally Unloaded, Sails Away Contra Costa Times ...During the protest, the Teamsters had issued a statement calling on longshore workers to "immediately unload the ship" and said their issue was not the Gaza conflict, but the impact the protests have on local jobs...
Sodexo Workers Overwhelmingly Ratify First Teamster Contract With Local 633 IBT ...Seventy (70) Teamster members employed by Sodexo, Inc., who provide cafeteria services, have overwhelmingly ratified their first ever Teamster contract...
Trade
TPP: The “Trade” Deal that Could Inflate Your Healthcare Bill Public Citizen ...Leaked draft TPP texts… contain expansive rules that would constrain the ability of the U.S. government to reduce medicine prices...
Trade Data Pours Cold Water on "Rising Star" Outlook for American Manufacturing manufacture this ...The U.S. trade deficit in manufactures surged by $21.6 billion, or 19%, in the second quarter, compared with 2013, following an 8% increase in the first quarter. In the opposite direction, the Chinese surplus increased in the second quarter by $20.0 billion, or 9%...
State Battles
Scott Walker’s Offshoring Flip-Flop In These Times ...Mr. Right-to-Work is trying to divert attention from his administration’s abysmal record on jobs and labor in a state still mired in the effects of the Great Recession...
War On Workers
Prayers For Atlantic City As Closings, Layoffs Loom Philadelphia Inquirer ...Gaming analysts and industry experts have said Atlantic City has too many casinos and not enough gambling demand to sustain them all. After the three casinos fold, the resort will be left with eight...
Microsoft Leaves ALEC: Horsetrading & The Price to Pay firedoglake ...President Obama may soon decide on executive action regarding “a rule allowing spouses of H-1B visa holders, now barred from working in the U.S., to get jobs.” The H-1B high skill guestworker visa allows employers to hire non-citizens for skilled work often in fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics...
One Paragraph Cuts Through The Hype Of Robots Taking Your Job Business Insider ...people have tended to overestimate, historically, the effect of technology on labor. And while robots are good at performing some repetitive tasks, jobs that require judgment are not so easily replaced by robots (these include jobs at the low and high end)...
How the Largest Worker Owned Co-op in the US Lifts People Out of Poverty YES! Magazine ...New York City is going—in a big way—for worker-owned cooperatives. Inspired by the model of CHCA and prodded by a new network of co-op members and enthusiasts, Mayor Bill de Blasio and the New York City Council allocated $1.2 million to support worker cooperatives in 2015’s budget...
There Are Zero States Where The Percentage Of People Employed Has Gone Up Since The Recession Washington Post ...From 2007 to 2014, the employment rate among 25- to 54-year-olds has declined in the United States by 3.5 percent, and no state reported employment gains during that time, according to data released by the Pew Charitable Trust on Tuesday...
Miscellaneous
Health Care Data Breaches Have Hit 30M Patients And Counting Washington Post ...the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' database of major breach reports (those affecting 500 people or more) has tracked 944 incidents affecting personal information from about 30.1 million people...
Home and Jobs Data Suggests Momentum Reuters ...Sales of existing homes in the United States rose in July to a 10-month high, and the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell last week, signaling strength in the economy early in the third quarter...
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Today's Teamster News 06.10.14
Teamster News
Teamsters Demand Crackdown On Cheap Korean Steel Imports Digital Journal ...Teamsters General President James P. Hoffa and top leaders with the union's railway conference are calling on the Department of Commerce to fully weigh the concerns of the U.S. steel industry as it continues its anti-dumping probe looking at cheap imports being brought into this country by South Korea and eight other nations...
Fourth Cumberland County Union On Way? Court Related Employees Seek Membership The Sentinel ...Non-professional, court-related Cumberland County employees could receive union representation for the first time thanks to a National Labor Relations Board petition filed by Teamsters Local 776 on May 14, Chief Clerk Larry Thomas confirmed...
Hoffa Calls On House Of Representatives To Protect Highway Safety teamster.org ...“The tragic accident that claimed the life of comedian James McNair and injured many others including actor Tracy Morgan, could have been prevented had Walmart’s driver been properly rested rather than reportedly going 24 hours without a break,” Hoffa said. “...We must ensure that hours of service rules provide enough rest for drivers so cumulative fatigue doesn’t put the driving public at risk.”...
Trade
Japan Holding Up Free Trade Talks 13WHOtv.com ...a major hold up in the talks are Japan’s proposal to maintain tariffs on sensitive products like beef, dairy, wheat, rice, and pork...
State Battles
Grocery workers in California see wages shrink SFGate.com ...A new look at California's $98 billion grocery industry shows it is a microcosm of the state's wealth inequality gap. While a private-equity firm is buying Safeway for $9 billion, 1 in 3 grocery workers is on some form of public assistance. While grocery chains are cash machines for investors, nearly 1 in 5 workers has cut back on meals because he or she couldn't afford to buy food...
War On Workers
Prosecutor: Trucker in Morgan crash lacked sleep Associated Press ...The Wal-Mart truck driver from Georgia accused of triggering a crash in New Jersey that critically injured Tracy Morgan and killed another comedian had not slept for more than 24 hours, a criminal complaint said...
Regular shoppers cite Walmart's low pay and poor treatment of workers as reasons to stay away Daily Kos ...Walmart's reputation is suffering among consumers, with 28 percent saying they have an unfavorable view of Walmart, compared to just 13 percent unfavorable for Target and just six percent unfavorable for Costco. Walmart's low wages and bad treatment of its workers are registering on shoppers...
Wal-Mart's Image Problem Under Scrutiny At Annual Shareholder Meeting Al Jazeera America ...Walmart workers speaking at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in Bentonville, Arkansas, on Friday said the megastore’s staffing problems and poor pay were hurting the company’s image and contributing to lagging sales. Their statement comes after a week of rallies across the country by labor activists, union representatives and workers in cities such as Chicago; Dayton, Ohio; and Baton Rouge, Louisiana...
What’s the Source of Soaring Corporate Profits? Stagnant Wages Washington's Blog ...once capital can no longer make profits selling goods and services and wage-earners can no longer afford to buy goods and services, the system disintegrates...
Court probes Wells’ foreclosure steps again New York Post ...How exactly do the note endorsement processes described in Wells Fargo’s controversial Home Mortgage Foreclosure Attorney Procedure Manual work? On March 12, The Post broke the news of this manual and allegations in court papers by attorney Linda Tirelli that the document provides detailed procedures to fabricate foreclosure papers on demand. Wells Fargo denied the allegations...
Tipped Into Poverty New York Times ...When Senate Republicans recently blocked a vote to raise the federal minimum wage, they snubbed the estimated 27.8 million people who would earn more if the measure became law. The hardest hit are the roughly 3.3 million Americans who work for tips...
The US Chamber Of Secrets Moyers & Company ...The US Chamber of Commerce’s stated mission is “representing the interests of more than 3 million businesses of all sizes, sectors and regions,” but watchdog groups say the US Chamber represents the interests of a select few big industry groups that want to crush worker organizing...
The Job Market's Five-Year Recovery In 10 Charts FiveThirtyEight ...Six-and-a-half years after the Great Recession began — and five years after it officially ended the U.S. has finally surpassed its precrisis employment peak. But the job market is far from fully healed...
Miscellaneous
Student Debt Relief To Expand Wall Street Journal ...An expansion of a federal program designed to reduce payments for student-loan recipients is expected to be announced Monday by President Barack Obama, the latest push by Democrats to address concerns about rising student debt...
How Much Did Snowden Take? Not Even The NSA Really Knows Newsweek ...It was just over a year ago this week that former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden leaked a trove of secret National Security Agency documents detailing the agency’s massive online spy program. What and how much Snowden took remains a mystery...
Teamsters Demand Crackdown On Cheap Korean Steel Imports Digital Journal ...Teamsters General President James P. Hoffa and top leaders with the union's railway conference are calling on the Department of Commerce to fully weigh the concerns of the U.S. steel industry as it continues its anti-dumping probe looking at cheap imports being brought into this country by South Korea and eight other nations...
Fourth Cumberland County Union On Way? Court Related Employees Seek Membership The Sentinel ...Non-professional, court-related Cumberland County employees could receive union representation for the first time thanks to a National Labor Relations Board petition filed by Teamsters Local 776 on May 14, Chief Clerk Larry Thomas confirmed...
Hoffa Calls On House Of Representatives To Protect Highway Safety teamster.org ...“The tragic accident that claimed the life of comedian James McNair and injured many others including actor Tracy Morgan, could have been prevented had Walmart’s driver been properly rested rather than reportedly going 24 hours without a break,” Hoffa said. “...We must ensure that hours of service rules provide enough rest for drivers so cumulative fatigue doesn’t put the driving public at risk.”...
Trade
Japan Holding Up Free Trade Talks 13WHOtv.com ...a major hold up in the talks are Japan’s proposal to maintain tariffs on sensitive products like beef, dairy, wheat, rice, and pork...
State Battles
Grocery workers in California see wages shrink SFGate.com ...A new look at California's $98 billion grocery industry shows it is a microcosm of the state's wealth inequality gap. While a private-equity firm is buying Safeway for $9 billion, 1 in 3 grocery workers is on some form of public assistance. While grocery chains are cash machines for investors, nearly 1 in 5 workers has cut back on meals because he or she couldn't afford to buy food...
War On Workers
Prosecutor: Trucker in Morgan crash lacked sleep Associated Press ...The Wal-Mart truck driver from Georgia accused of triggering a crash in New Jersey that critically injured Tracy Morgan and killed another comedian had not slept for more than 24 hours, a criminal complaint said...
Regular shoppers cite Walmart's low pay and poor treatment of workers as reasons to stay away Daily Kos ...Walmart's reputation is suffering among consumers, with 28 percent saying they have an unfavorable view of Walmart, compared to just 13 percent unfavorable for Target and just six percent unfavorable for Costco. Walmart's low wages and bad treatment of its workers are registering on shoppers...
Wal-Mart's Image Problem Under Scrutiny At Annual Shareholder Meeting Al Jazeera America ...Walmart workers speaking at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in Bentonville, Arkansas, on Friday said the megastore’s staffing problems and poor pay were hurting the company’s image and contributing to lagging sales. Their statement comes after a week of rallies across the country by labor activists, union representatives and workers in cities such as Chicago; Dayton, Ohio; and Baton Rouge, Louisiana...
What’s the Source of Soaring Corporate Profits? Stagnant Wages Washington's Blog ...once capital can no longer make profits selling goods and services and wage-earners can no longer afford to buy goods and services, the system disintegrates...
Court probes Wells’ foreclosure steps again New York Post ...How exactly do the note endorsement processes described in Wells Fargo’s controversial Home Mortgage Foreclosure Attorney Procedure Manual work? On March 12, The Post broke the news of this manual and allegations in court papers by attorney Linda Tirelli that the document provides detailed procedures to fabricate foreclosure papers on demand. Wells Fargo denied the allegations...
Tipped Into Poverty New York Times ...When Senate Republicans recently blocked a vote to raise the federal minimum wage, they snubbed the estimated 27.8 million people who would earn more if the measure became law. The hardest hit are the roughly 3.3 million Americans who work for tips...
The US Chamber Of Secrets Moyers & Company ...The US Chamber of Commerce’s stated mission is “representing the interests of more than 3 million businesses of all sizes, sectors and regions,” but watchdog groups say the US Chamber represents the interests of a select few big industry groups that want to crush worker organizing...
The Job Market's Five-Year Recovery In 10 Charts FiveThirtyEight ...Six-and-a-half years after the Great Recession began — and five years after it officially ended the U.S. has finally surpassed its precrisis employment peak. But the job market is far from fully healed...
Miscellaneous
Student Debt Relief To Expand Wall Street Journal ...An expansion of a federal program designed to reduce payments for student-loan recipients is expected to be announced Monday by President Barack Obama, the latest push by Democrats to address concerns about rising student debt...
How Much Did Snowden Take? Not Even The NSA Really Knows Newsweek ...It was just over a year ago this week that former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden leaked a trove of secret National Security Agency documents detailing the agency’s massive online spy program. What and how much Snowden took remains a mystery...
Sunday, October 20, 2013
Today's Teamster News 10.20.13
Teamsters to protest Saturday at Skechers’ headquarters in Manhattan Beach Daily Breeze ...The march, scheduled to start at noon, will end at the Skechers home office on Manhattan Avenue. Skechers is a client of Green Fleet Systems, a Carson-based trucking firm with which the Teamsters is involved in a labor dispute. The union is trying to organize drivers at the company to form a union...
Countdown to grocery workers' strike Sky Valley Chronicle ...Tens of thousands of Puget Sound area union grocery workers, members of Local 21 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, might be on the sidelines come Monday...
Study Finds Unions Lower Poverty, Which is Bad News for Anti-Union Texas GOP Burnt Orange Report ...A study published in the August issue of the American Sociological Review found that states with more unions had fewer working poor...
JPMorgan Said To Reach Record $13 Billion U.S. Settlement Bloomberg ...JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s record $13 billion deal to end U.S. probes of its mortgage-bond sales would free the nation’s largest bank from mounting civil disputes with the government while leaving a criminal inquiry unresolved...
Families With Kids Go Homeless as U.S. Rents Exceed Pay: Economy Bloomberg ...For households with children, rising housing costs, elevated unemployment and stagnant earnings are increasingly placing rent beyond reach. The housing slump made matters worse as former homeowners turned into renters, increasing competition for available apartments...
Train derailment fire will have to burn itself out before residents can go home CTV News ...Jim Phelan, Parkland County fire chief, says no further explosions are expected from the 13 cars carrying oil and liquefied petroleum gas on a freight train operated by Canadian National Railway, but the evacuation order for about 100 people must stay in place...
A Nation Brought to the Verge of Ruin (opinion) Counterpunch ...“The United States, despite its formally democratic character, is firmly in the hands of a moneyed oligarchy, probably the most powerful ruling class in history...”
The latest from the Oregon Medicaid Experiment: Impacts on labor force and public program participation The Incidental Economist ...Medicaid had no detectable effect on labor market participation, earnings, or the probability of having income above the poverty level...
In U.S., Perceived Need for Third Party Reaches New High Gallup ...Amid the government shutdown, 60% of Americans say the Democratic and Republicans parties do such a poor job of representing the American people that a third major party is needed...
Modern-Day Slavery: India’s Other Shame The Diplomat ...Of the estimated 29.8 million people living in modern slavery worldwide, nearly half are in India...
Countdown to grocery workers' strike Sky Valley Chronicle ...Tens of thousands of Puget Sound area union grocery workers, members of Local 21 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, might be on the sidelines come Monday...
Study Finds Unions Lower Poverty, Which is Bad News for Anti-Union Texas GOP Burnt Orange Report ...A study published in the August issue of the American Sociological Review found that states with more unions had fewer working poor...
JPMorgan Said To Reach Record $13 Billion U.S. Settlement Bloomberg ...JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s record $13 billion deal to end U.S. probes of its mortgage-bond sales would free the nation’s largest bank from mounting civil disputes with the government while leaving a criminal inquiry unresolved...
Families With Kids Go Homeless as U.S. Rents Exceed Pay: Economy Bloomberg ...For households with children, rising housing costs, elevated unemployment and stagnant earnings are increasingly placing rent beyond reach. The housing slump made matters worse as former homeowners turned into renters, increasing competition for available apartments...
Train derailment fire will have to burn itself out before residents can go home CTV News ...Jim Phelan, Parkland County fire chief, says no further explosions are expected from the 13 cars carrying oil and liquefied petroleum gas on a freight train operated by Canadian National Railway, but the evacuation order for about 100 people must stay in place...
A Nation Brought to the Verge of Ruin (opinion) Counterpunch ...“The United States, despite its formally democratic character, is firmly in the hands of a moneyed oligarchy, probably the most powerful ruling class in history...”
The latest from the Oregon Medicaid Experiment: Impacts on labor force and public program participation The Incidental Economist ...Medicaid had no detectable effect on labor market participation, earnings, or the probability of having income above the poverty level...
In U.S., Perceived Need for Third Party Reaches New High Gallup ...Amid the government shutdown, 60% of Americans say the Democratic and Republicans parties do such a poor job of representing the American people that a third major party is needed...
Modern-Day Slavery: India’s Other Shame The Diplomat ...Of the estimated 29.8 million people living in modern slavery worldwide, nearly half are in India...
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Today's Teamster News 09.19.13
Teamsters Praise SEC For Proposed Rule On Corporate Pay teamster.org ...The International Brotherhood of Teamsters today applauded the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announcement of a new proposed rule requiring corporations to disclose the ratio between chief executive and worker pay...
Ballots for Seven UPS Supplements/Riders Mailed September 18 teamster.org ...Ballots for UPS Teamsters covered under the following supplements and riders were mailed yesterday, September 18...
Cardinal Health’s Political Spending Target of Teamsters’ Shareholder Proposal Columbia Business First ...Cardinal Health Inc. is the latest public company fielding a shareholder proposal for more reporting on corporate political contributions in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision...
Darigold Walks Out of Federal Mediation teamster.org ...Darigold walked out of federal mediation late Monday night setting the stage for a potential lockout or strike at the company’s production facilities in Issaquah and Seattle...|
Jack Cooper Set To Buy Allied Holdings Automotive Logistics ...North American vehicle hauler Jack Cooper is to acquire the business of bankrupt rival Allied System Holdings following a successful bid confirmed this week...
Jack Cooper Purchase Clears Another Hurdle; Next Step Is Anti-Trust Review teamster.org ...On Tuesday, September 17, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher S. Sontchi approved the sale of most of Allied Systems Holdings assets to Jack Cooper Transport...
Marquez union supporters press on despite setbacks Hanford Sentinel ...Workers will have another shot at supporting the Teamsters in an election on Oct. 4 despite the company’s decision earlier this month to no longer recognize the union...
Government Hands More Than $1 Trillion to Wealthy While Deficit Is $642 Billion truthout ...All tax breaks for individuals will exceed $1 trillion this year, with about 17% of the biggest individual tax breaks going to the top 1% of earners...
China's second richest man has tendons in hand severed after labourer begged for job and was turned down Daily Mail ...He sought out Mr Zong near his home after seeing him help impoverished migrant workers on a television programme and asked the self-made billionaire for a job...
Women Waiting Tables Provide Most of Female Gains in U.S. Bloomberg ...the gains have been largely in lower-paying industries such as waitresses, in-home health care, food preparation and housekeeping. About 60 percent of the increase in employment for women from 2009 to 2012 was in jobs that pay less than $10.10 an hour, compared with 20 percent for men...
Young People's Unhappiness Comes from Our Broken Economic System -- And They Shouldn't Shut Up About It Alternet ...realities are quite harsh — making around $25,000 a year while trying to afford rent and food while paying back their more than $20,000 student loans...
Missouri treasurer wants to ban 'pension advances' St. Louis Post-Dispatch ...Missouri State Treasurer Clint Zweifel wants the state to ban “pension advance” offers aimed at state retirees. He says they're bad deals...
Expand Medicaid to help senior citizens St. Louis Post-Dispatch (opinion) ...In the editorial “Do no harm" (Sept. 3), the editorial board highlights some of the hardships facing Missouri if we don’t pass Medicaid expansion. The editorial does not specifically mention the especially large burdens of our senior citizens...
Commerce secretary touts opportunities in Mexico, Pacific trade pact Los Angeles Times ...Recently installed U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker said trade opportunities with Mexico will expand as economic and security conditions improve in America's southern neighbor...
Will the Supreme Court Stop Cops From Reading Your Text Messages? Mother Jones ...In many states, police can rifle through your smartphone—even if you've just been arrested for not putting on your seat belt...
Millions Living Above The Poverty Line Also Struggle To Get By Huffington Post ...For nearly 30 years, Elena Keating made a career helping low-income Americans find and keep affordable housing. Now, she's the one struggling and one of millions in this country just scraping by after being out of a job for the past nine months...
Unemployment Gap Between Rich And Poor Widens To A 10-Year Extreme MintPress News ...Unemployment gaps between the wealthiest and the poorest Americans have reached their highest level since government officials began tracking the statistic a decade ago...
Workers win wage battle against Victoria’s Secret Finance Post ...Victoria’s Secret has apparently had several secrets. Low wages and few hours for part-time workers were among them. However, some employees have taken the secrets public and the result was an increase in wages...
JPMorgan Chase Is Said to Admit Fault in Settlement of Trade Loss New York Times ...JPMorgan Chase has agreed to pay about $800 million to a host of government agencies in Washington and London — and make a groundbreaking admission of wrongdoing — to settle allegations stemming from a multibillion-dollar trading loss...
Nationwide protests against neonazi murder Enet English ...Police fired fired tear gas and deployed water canon at a number of the protests after some protesters set dumpsters on fire and started hurling projectiles at police lines...
In New York, Having a Job, or 2, Doesn’t Mean Having a Home New York Times ...With New York City’s homeless population in shelters at a record high of 50,000, a growing number of New Yorkers punch out of work and then sign in to a shelter, city officials and advocates for the homeless say...
Wisconsin: Judge rules state can't enforce parts of Walker law Milwaukee Journal Sentinel...A Dane County judge ruled Tuesday the state cannot enforce key provisions of a law limiting collective bargaining against local government unions...
Ballots for Seven UPS Supplements/Riders Mailed September 18 teamster.org ...Ballots for UPS Teamsters covered under the following supplements and riders were mailed yesterday, September 18...
Cardinal Health’s Political Spending Target of Teamsters’ Shareholder Proposal Columbia Business First ...Cardinal Health Inc. is the latest public company fielding a shareholder proposal for more reporting on corporate political contributions in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision...
Darigold Walks Out of Federal Mediation teamster.org ...Darigold walked out of federal mediation late Monday night setting the stage for a potential lockout or strike at the company’s production facilities in Issaquah and Seattle...|
Jack Cooper Set To Buy Allied Holdings Automotive Logistics ...North American vehicle hauler Jack Cooper is to acquire the business of bankrupt rival Allied System Holdings following a successful bid confirmed this week...
Jack Cooper Purchase Clears Another Hurdle; Next Step Is Anti-Trust Review teamster.org ...On Tuesday, September 17, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher S. Sontchi approved the sale of most of Allied Systems Holdings assets to Jack Cooper Transport...
Marquez union supporters press on despite setbacks Hanford Sentinel ...Workers will have another shot at supporting the Teamsters in an election on Oct. 4 despite the company’s decision earlier this month to no longer recognize the union...
Government Hands More Than $1 Trillion to Wealthy While Deficit Is $642 Billion truthout ...All tax breaks for individuals will exceed $1 trillion this year, with about 17% of the biggest individual tax breaks going to the top 1% of earners...
China's second richest man has tendons in hand severed after labourer begged for job and was turned down Daily Mail ...He sought out Mr Zong near his home after seeing him help impoverished migrant workers on a television programme and asked the self-made billionaire for a job...
Women Waiting Tables Provide Most of Female Gains in U.S. Bloomberg ...the gains have been largely in lower-paying industries such as waitresses, in-home health care, food preparation and housekeeping. About 60 percent of the increase in employment for women from 2009 to 2012 was in jobs that pay less than $10.10 an hour, compared with 20 percent for men...
Young People's Unhappiness Comes from Our Broken Economic System -- And They Shouldn't Shut Up About It Alternet ...realities are quite harsh — making around $25,000 a year while trying to afford rent and food while paying back their more than $20,000 student loans...
Missouri treasurer wants to ban 'pension advances' St. Louis Post-Dispatch ...Missouri State Treasurer Clint Zweifel wants the state to ban “pension advance” offers aimed at state retirees. He says they're bad deals...
Expand Medicaid to help senior citizens St. Louis Post-Dispatch (opinion) ...In the editorial “Do no harm" (Sept. 3), the editorial board highlights some of the hardships facing Missouri if we don’t pass Medicaid expansion. The editorial does not specifically mention the especially large burdens of our senior citizens...
Commerce secretary touts opportunities in Mexico, Pacific trade pact Los Angeles Times ...Recently installed U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker said trade opportunities with Mexico will expand as economic and security conditions improve in America's southern neighbor...
Will the Supreme Court Stop Cops From Reading Your Text Messages? Mother Jones ...In many states, police can rifle through your smartphone—even if you've just been arrested for not putting on your seat belt...
Millions Living Above The Poverty Line Also Struggle To Get By Huffington Post ...For nearly 30 years, Elena Keating made a career helping low-income Americans find and keep affordable housing. Now, she's the one struggling and one of millions in this country just scraping by after being out of a job for the past nine months...
Unemployment Gap Between Rich And Poor Widens To A 10-Year Extreme MintPress News ...Unemployment gaps between the wealthiest and the poorest Americans have reached their highest level since government officials began tracking the statistic a decade ago...
Workers win wage battle against Victoria’s Secret Finance Post ...Victoria’s Secret has apparently had several secrets. Low wages and few hours for part-time workers were among them. However, some employees have taken the secrets public and the result was an increase in wages...
JPMorgan Chase Is Said to Admit Fault in Settlement of Trade Loss New York Times ...JPMorgan Chase has agreed to pay about $800 million to a host of government agencies in Washington and London — and make a groundbreaking admission of wrongdoing — to settle allegations stemming from a multibillion-dollar trading loss...
Nationwide protests against neonazi murder Enet English ...Police fired fired tear gas and deployed water canon at a number of the protests after some protesters set dumpsters on fire and started hurling projectiles at police lines...
In New York, Having a Job, or 2, Doesn’t Mean Having a Home New York Times ...With New York City’s homeless population in shelters at a record high of 50,000, a growing number of New Yorkers punch out of work and then sign in to a shelter, city officials and advocates for the homeless say...
Wisconsin: Judge rules state can't enforce parts of Walker law Milwaukee Journal Sentinel...A Dane County judge ruled Tuesday the state cannot enforce key provisions of a law limiting collective bargaining against local government unions...
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Moral Monday protests gain momentum in North Carolina
Two Moral Monday events drew more than 500 people who protested
North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory and his
legislative allies for curbing voting rights, slashing education spending and
refusing federal dollars to expand Medicaid. The rallies held yesterday marked the 18th week since late April that North Carolinians gathered to protest the state government’s actions. About 925 people were arrested during
the demonstrations for nonviolent civil disobedience.
Meanwhile, about 300 people gathered in the small town of Wentworth in north-central North
Carolina. to protest education and Medicaid cuts. The event was held in the
district of Senate leader Phil Berger.
McCrory says the changes will help everyone in the state, the numbers just don’t bear this out. In fact, they show the state spent $100 million less on public schools, cut taxes only on out-of-state corporations and the wealth and made benefit cuts that hurt low-income citizens, not help them.
 |
| Students took the lead on the march around the governor's mansion. |
At a youth-led demonstration in Raleigh, some 250 people marched around the governor’s
mansion to demand a roll back on the
voter suppression and education cuts enacted in July. Some also carried
three children’s coffins to honor the memory of four little African-American
girls killed in a Birmingham, Ala. church bombing 50 years ago yesterday during
the height of the civil rights movement in the South.
College students from around the area came to the protest to
show they are concerned about the state’s future. They held signs reading “We
will fight for our future,” “Reinvest in public education,” and “Take your
hands off our voting rights.” Dylan Su-Chun Mott, a member of the University of
North Carolina’s Student Power group, said students need to stand up and be heard:[The UNC-system Board of Governors] is trying to tell us that the only thing we are in school for is to get jobs. … More importantly, we are learning to be fully participatory citizens in this, our great democracy.
Rev. Nelson Johnson of Greensboro’s Beloved Community Center
said that Berger and other elected officials have forgotten the main purpose of
government:
Mr. Berger, government and our democracy is supposed to work for the people and not against the people.Week after week, North Carolina residents are pushing back on an agenda crafted by state budget director Art Pope, a multimillionaire who helped underwrite the campaigns of Gov. McCrory and his cronies in the Legislature. It is largely modeled on the pro-corporate, anti-worker platform of the American Legislative Exchange Council.
McCrory says the changes will help everyone in the state, the numbers just don’t bear this out. In fact, they show the state spent $100 million less on public schools, cut taxes only on out-of-state corporations and the wealth and made benefit cuts that hurt low-income citizens, not help them.
Monday, September 9, 2013
Today's Teamster News 09.09.13
Left With Nothing Washington Post ...This man owed $134 in property taxes. The District sold the lien to an investor who foreclosed on his $197,000 house and sold it...
Welfare Doesn’t Pay Much, But it’s More Than Minimum Wage in 35 States care2.com ...many of the “benefits” the authors tout as welfare are housing, medical and food subsidies that are often used by families who work at minimum wage but still need state or federal support because their pay is so low...
SEC considers rule comparing CEO pay with workers CNN Money ...Last year, Oracle (ORCL, Fortune 500) CEO Lawrence Ellison made $96.1 million, Exxon Mobil (XOM, Fortune 500)'s R. W. Tillerson made $40.2 million and Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500)'s Michael Duke made $20.7 million. Soon, the SEC might require those companies to say how those salaries compare with the folks who work for them...
Charts from BLS Employment Report Show Bad Jobs Continue to Rule in 2013 Economic Populist ...Probably the worse news of this report is July was revised down by 58,000 jobs to show only a 104,000 payroll gain and June was also revised down by 16,000 to 172,000 jobs added for that month. Additionally the types of jobs gained are mostly low paying ones...
Why business needs a stronger labor movement MSNBC ...Capital’s current hogging of corporate income is doing very little to create actual prosperity, except for stockholders—and eventually it won’t create prosperity even for them...
The Missing Pieces in the Criminal Probe of JPMorgan’s Energy Trading Wall Street on Parade ... if FERC’s investigation was obstructed, if it was unable to obtain all the documents and information it needed, how was it able to craft a reasonable settlement on behalf of ripped-off electricity ratepayers and the taxpayers who have footed the bill for this stonewalled investigation for two years?...
Study: “Beginning of the Longest Period of Economic Decline in American History” Before It's News ...It’s no secret that the middle class is dying a slow and horrible death, which will ultimately lead to impoverishment of the majority of our population. As of right now 100 million Americans are already living at or near poverty – and this is supposed to be an economic recovery!...
Texas Helpless to Prevent Another Fertilizer Plant Explosion care2.com ...Given that about 150 Texas businesses similarly house massive amounts of highly explosive fertilizer, Texas fire departments have taken it upon themselves to help prevent a similar disaster from happening again. However, some businesses are refusing to consent to an inspection and — unfortunately — the law is on the businesses’ side...
Wisconsin’s Biggest Use Tax is Hidden in Governor Walker’s Budget. Wessels Elder Law ...For every dollar someone uses in Medicaid when they are in a nursing home, they will have to pay it back when they die, or when their spouse dies...
Charter schools propped up by state funding – how much is your school district losing? Plunderbund ...99% of Ohio’s school districts lose students to charter schools and of those that do, 95% lose more money per pupil than they actually receive from the state...
Moral Monday demonstrations slated in Jacksonville JDNews.com ...Members of the Onslow County Democratic Party will gather outside Jacksonville City Hall from 5 to 6 p.m. Sept. 9 and subsequent Mondays to October...
Uneven Progress: What the Economic Recovery Has Meant for California’s Workers Labor's Edge ...Even after three years of job growth, California has about 600,000 fewer jobs than it did prior to the recession, and unemployment remains high in many parts of the state...
Welfare Doesn’t Pay Much, But it’s More Than Minimum Wage in 35 States care2.com ...many of the “benefits” the authors tout as welfare are housing, medical and food subsidies that are often used by families who work at minimum wage but still need state or federal support because their pay is so low...
SEC considers rule comparing CEO pay with workers CNN Money ...Last year, Oracle (ORCL, Fortune 500) CEO Lawrence Ellison made $96.1 million, Exxon Mobil (XOM, Fortune 500)'s R. W. Tillerson made $40.2 million and Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500)'s Michael Duke made $20.7 million. Soon, the SEC might require those companies to say how those salaries compare with the folks who work for them...
Charts from BLS Employment Report Show Bad Jobs Continue to Rule in 2013 Economic Populist ...Probably the worse news of this report is July was revised down by 58,000 jobs to show only a 104,000 payroll gain and June was also revised down by 16,000 to 172,000 jobs added for that month. Additionally the types of jobs gained are mostly low paying ones...
Why business needs a stronger labor movement MSNBC ...Capital’s current hogging of corporate income is doing very little to create actual prosperity, except for stockholders—and eventually it won’t create prosperity even for them...
The Missing Pieces in the Criminal Probe of JPMorgan’s Energy Trading Wall Street on Parade ... if FERC’s investigation was obstructed, if it was unable to obtain all the documents and information it needed, how was it able to craft a reasonable settlement on behalf of ripped-off electricity ratepayers and the taxpayers who have footed the bill for this stonewalled investigation for two years?...
Study: “Beginning of the Longest Period of Economic Decline in American History” Before It's News ...It’s no secret that the middle class is dying a slow and horrible death, which will ultimately lead to impoverishment of the majority of our population. As of right now 100 million Americans are already living at or near poverty – and this is supposed to be an economic recovery!...
Texas Helpless to Prevent Another Fertilizer Plant Explosion care2.com ...Given that about 150 Texas businesses similarly house massive amounts of highly explosive fertilizer, Texas fire departments have taken it upon themselves to help prevent a similar disaster from happening again. However, some businesses are refusing to consent to an inspection and — unfortunately — the law is on the businesses’ side...
Wisconsin’s Biggest Use Tax is Hidden in Governor Walker’s Budget. Wessels Elder Law ...For every dollar someone uses in Medicaid when they are in a nursing home, they will have to pay it back when they die, or when their spouse dies...
Charter schools propped up by state funding – how much is your school district losing? Plunderbund ...99% of Ohio’s school districts lose students to charter schools and of those that do, 95% lose more money per pupil than they actually receive from the state...
Moral Monday demonstrations slated in Jacksonville JDNews.com ...Members of the Onslow County Democratic Party will gather outside Jacksonville City Hall from 5 to 6 p.m. Sept. 9 and subsequent Mondays to October...
Uneven Progress: What the Economic Recovery Has Meant for California’s Workers Labor's Edge ...Even after three years of job growth, California has about 600,000 fewer jobs than it did prior to the recession, and unemployment remains high in many parts of the state...
Friday, May 24, 2013
Today's Teamster News 05.24.13
Average CEO Salary Reached A New Record High Of $9.7 Million In 2012 Alternet ...The average CEO salary broke records in 2011 at $9.6 million — and now, that record high has been topped by 2012 salaries, which averaged out to $9.7 million...
Passenger Trains Bump Along With Fixes Outrunning Funding Bloomberg ...U.S. investigators looking into the May 17 Connecticut commuter-rail crash haven’t yet found a clear cause. The fact a broken rail became the most immediate suspect speaks to years of deferred maintenance that have left trouble spots throughout a Washington-Boston network that carries more than 700,000 people a day and dates to the 1800s...
Passenger Trains Bump Along With Fixes Outrunning Funding Bloomberg ...U.S. investigators looking into the May 17 Connecticut commuter-rail crash haven’t yet found a clear cause. The fact a broken rail became the most immediate suspect speaks to years of deferred maintenance that have left trouble spots throughout a Washington-Boston network that carries more than 700,000 people a day and dates to the 1800s...
Bridge Collapses in Washington State, Dumping at Least 2 Cars In River Gawker ...The Interstate 5 bridge spanning the Skagit River in Washington state collapsed Thursday evening. Several cars fell into the water, though authorities aren't sure how many or if there were any casualties...
Tighter U.S. Rule on Imported Meat May Cost $192 Million Bloomberg ...Canada vowed to escalate a dispute with the U.S. over plans to impose stricter country-of-origin labeling rules for meat that are opposed by industry groups on both sides of the border...
The Powerful People Arguing for U.S.-China Free Trade Bloomberg News ...Recommending that the U.S. and China work toward a free-trade deal is a bit like stepping into a prize fight and asking the boxers to settle their differences peacefully...
Marcus Hedger, Wrongfully Fired Worker, Loses His Home With NLRB In Limbo Huffington Post ...In the past three years, Marcus Hedger has lost a good-paying manufacturing job and a nice home in Antioch, Ill. Thanks to the dysfunction on Capitol Hill, there's no telling when he'll get either of them back...
Wal-Mart Hires Former Bush Aide as Chief Image Maker New York Times ...To continue burnishing its image, Wal-Mart has replaced a former Clinton White House aide with a former Bush White House staff member...
Petition urges Tribune not to sell Sun to 'union-bashing' Koch brothers Baltimore Business-Journal ...It remains unclear who might emerge as a buyer for the Baltimore Sun, but about 6,500 Maryland residents know whose hands they don't want the Sun to end up in...
Scott Walker's Austerity Plan: Turning Wisconsin Into the New Greece (opinion) Huffington Post ...It's now become clear that austerity -- and the attack on unions that always comes with it -- was not only bad medicine, it was close to toxic...
Washington state joins 9 other states in passing password protection law Examiner ...Washington state became the latest one to join these ranks when Governor Jay Inslee signed a bill that would make it illegal for employers or potential employer to ask for the password to your Facebook or any other social media account...
Louisiana Senate passes amended Equal Pay for Women Act Times-Picayune...Female state workers should be paid as much as their male colleagues, Louisiana lawmakers declared...
Oregon House votes to extend foreclosure mediation Associated Press ...The Oregon House has voted to extend a requirement that some mortgage lenders meet with struggling borrowers and a professional mediator before initiating foreclosure proceedings...
Missouri Unemployment Bill Prompted by Federal Rules CBS News-KMOX ...Awaiting action from Gov. Jay Nixon are proposed changes for the unemployment compensation program. The changes are designed to avoid a several hundred million dollar price tag and make it harder for workers to receive jobless benefits...
Teamsters Roll Up Their Sleeves in Wake of Oklahoma Tragedy IBT ...Teamsters are inundating Oklahoma locals with offers to help them recover from one of the most violent tornadoes in history. The twister that ripped through the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore killed at least 24 people and damaged as many as 13,000 homes in a 17-mile swath...
Durham School Bus Workers Speak Out About Safety, Wage Theft Concerns IBT ...School bus drivers and attendants with Durham School Services who transport students attending Baltimore City Public Schools joined with Teamsters, political and other community leaders at a rally today to demand respect and safe working conditions...
Apply Now for Chicago Teamsters Hispanic Caucus Scholarships Teamsters Local 727 ...Applications are now available for the 2013-2014 Chicago Teamsters Hispanic Caucus Scholarship. Active adult Teamster members and the children, grandchildren and spouses of active Teamsters are eligible for the academic awards...
Tighter U.S. Rule on Imported Meat May Cost $192 Million Bloomberg ...Canada vowed to escalate a dispute with the U.S. over plans to impose stricter country-of-origin labeling rules for meat that are opposed by industry groups on both sides of the border...
The Powerful People Arguing for U.S.-China Free Trade Bloomberg News ...Recommending that the U.S. and China work toward a free-trade deal is a bit like stepping into a prize fight and asking the boxers to settle their differences peacefully...
Marcus Hedger, Wrongfully Fired Worker, Loses His Home With NLRB In Limbo Huffington Post ...In the past three years, Marcus Hedger has lost a good-paying manufacturing job and a nice home in Antioch, Ill. Thanks to the dysfunction on Capitol Hill, there's no telling when he'll get either of them back...
Wal-Mart Hires Former Bush Aide as Chief Image Maker New York Times ...To continue burnishing its image, Wal-Mart has replaced a former Clinton White House aide with a former Bush White House staff member...
Petition urges Tribune not to sell Sun to 'union-bashing' Koch brothers Baltimore Business-Journal ...It remains unclear who might emerge as a buyer for the Baltimore Sun, but about 6,500 Maryland residents know whose hands they don't want the Sun to end up in...
Scott Walker's Austerity Plan: Turning Wisconsin Into the New Greece (opinion) Huffington Post ...It's now become clear that austerity -- and the attack on unions that always comes with it -- was not only bad medicine, it was close to toxic...
Washington state joins 9 other states in passing password protection law Examiner ...Washington state became the latest one to join these ranks when Governor Jay Inslee signed a bill that would make it illegal for employers or potential employer to ask for the password to your Facebook or any other social media account...
Louisiana Senate passes amended Equal Pay for Women Act Times-Picayune...Female state workers should be paid as much as their male colleagues, Louisiana lawmakers declared...
Oregon House votes to extend foreclosure mediation Associated Press ...The Oregon House has voted to extend a requirement that some mortgage lenders meet with struggling borrowers and a professional mediator before initiating foreclosure proceedings...
Missouri Unemployment Bill Prompted by Federal Rules CBS News-KMOX ...Awaiting action from Gov. Jay Nixon are proposed changes for the unemployment compensation program. The changes are designed to avoid a several hundred million dollar price tag and make it harder for workers to receive jobless benefits...
Teamsters Roll Up Their Sleeves in Wake of Oklahoma Tragedy IBT ...Teamsters are inundating Oklahoma locals with offers to help them recover from one of the most violent tornadoes in history. The twister that ripped through the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore killed at least 24 people and damaged as many as 13,000 homes in a 17-mile swath...
Durham School Bus Workers Speak Out About Safety, Wage Theft Concerns IBT ...School bus drivers and attendants with Durham School Services who transport students attending Baltimore City Public Schools joined with Teamsters, political and other community leaders at a rally today to demand respect and safe working conditions...
Apply Now for Chicago Teamsters Hispanic Caucus Scholarships Teamsters Local 727 ...Applications are now available for the 2013-2014 Chicago Teamsters Hispanic Caucus Scholarship. Active adult Teamster members and the children, grandchildren and spouses of active Teamsters are eligible for the academic awards...
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Middle-class wealth fell 47% from 2007-10
(UPDATE: Adds final graf with phone number to call Congress.)
We have a news flash for the editors of the Tampa Bay Times and likeminded people calling for cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, aka "shared sacrifice." Here it is: The middle class has sacrificed quite enough already, thank you.
The Atlantic reports:
Between 2007 and 2010, the median net worth of U.S. households fell by 47 percent, reaching its lowest level in more than forty years, adjusted for inflation. In other words, middle class wealth virtually evaporated in this country. A good chunk of the population got sucked through a financial wormhole back to the sixties.
Such are the findings of Edward Wolff, an economist at New York University who has produced a paper documenting the Chernobyl-like meltdown of asset values during the recession, and its impact on wealth inequality. To some degree, his work confirms what we've already more or less known; home prices, 401Ks, and the like were demolished during in the recession, and we've been reckoning with the consequences since.So peddle your "shared sacrifice" apples elsewhere.
P.S. To all you hard-working Americans out there: Call 888-979-9806 TODAY and tell your Representative to make no cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, but end tax breaks for the wealthiest 2 percent.
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