Showing posts with label OCTG. Show all posts
Showing posts with label OCTG. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Today's Teamster News 07.15.14

Teamster News
Avalon Teamsters stage 6-hour demonstration over wages, benefits  CantonRep.com   ...About 20 members of Teamsters Local 92 employed by Avalon Foodservice walked off the job for about six hours Monday in what a union official called a “pre-strike” demonstration over wages and health insurance...
A federal agency is about to answer the question: Who do you actually work for?  Washington Post   ...the NLRB has granted an appeal from the Teamsters, which attempted to hold an election for all employees of a recycling plant in Milpitas, Calif. -- not just the staffing agency that controls the bulk of the payroll -- after a regional panel found in favor of Browning-Ferris Industries...
Trade
Carmakers Are Central Voice in U.S.-Europe Trade Talks  New York Times   ...European and American automakers are some of the biggest corporate proponents of a new trans-Atlantic trade pact, even as some other industries oppose disrupting the status quo. Negotiations for that pact, which have struggled to gain momentum for more than a year, resumed Monday in Brussels...
Manufacturing groups press for broad tariff elimination  The Hill   ...More than a dozen manufacturing groups on Friday urged the Obama administration to press for the elimination of all tariffs as part of the Asia-Pacific trade deal negotiations...
What's next in the OCTG trade case?  manufacture this   ...It's not over yet. Those tariffs that Commerce announced? Now they go over to the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), which will have to confirm them. That means the petitioners in the Commerce case (U.S. Steel and other domestic OCTG makers) will have to prove injury or the threat of injury to their industry...
State Battles
Prison food supplier has Michigan officials at wit's end  Detroit Free Press   ...Maggots in the kitchen and on the chow line. Workers caught smuggling contraband or engaging in sex acts with inmates. Food shortages and angry prisoners. Those are among the problems that have plagued Michigan prisons since December when the state — in a move aimed at saving more than $12 million a year — switched from using state workers to feed prisoners to a private contractor, Aramark Correctional Services of Philadelphia...
Kansas’ Ruinous Tax Cuts (opinion)  New York Times   ...The 2012 cuts were among the largest ever enacted by a state, reducing the top tax bracket by 25 percent and eliminating all taxes on business profits that are reported on individual income returns…Kansas, in fact, was one of only five states to lose employment over the last six months, while the rest of the country was improving. It has been below the national average in job gains for the three and half years Mr. Brownback has been in office. Average earnings in the state are down since 2012, and so is net growth in the number of registered businesses...
War On Workers
U.S. Drug Firms Seek Inversion Deals to Evade Taxes  New York Times   ...By buying a smaller overseas competitor and reincorporating abroad — a maneuver called inversion — health care companies are extricating themselves from the American tax regimen...
Workers Struggle In Hamptons Playground For Rich  USA Today   ...Southampton, with its privet hedges, pristine beaches and some estates costing tens of millions, also is where 40% of children get free or reduced school lunches, where a food pantry serves up to 400 clients a month and where some doctors and nurses share homes owned by the local hospital because they can't afford to buy or rent...
United Airlines Opens Door For Raises For Low-Wage Airport Workers  Newark Star-Ledger   ...With raises at stake for 3,700 low-paid cabin cleaners, baggage handlers and other airport workers in Newark, United Airlines acknowledged that its contractors are typically bound to follow local laws or rules governing the airports where they work...


Saturday, July 12, 2014

Today's Teamster News 07.12.14

Teamster News
Teamsters Take Their Case To City Of LA — And A Shipper  Journal of Commerce  ...Justice for Port Truckers, which is affiliated with the Teamsters, continued to picket the headquarters and truck yards of three companies they are attempting to organize — Green Fleet Systems, Pac-9 Transportation and Total Transportation Services...
Picketing Truckers Raise Tensions At LA Port Amid Dockworker Talks  NPR   ...Labor tensions are high at the largest port complex in the country — Los Angeles and Long Beach — which handles nearly half of all the cargo coming into the United States. Short-haul truck drivers are striking...
Chicago Company Counts the Minutes Workers Spend on the Toilet   Lakeview Patch   ...The workers, who build faucet stations that go into high schools, university labs and healthcare facilities, say they are allowed only 6 minutes per day for toilet breaks, according to Teamsters Local 743, and anyone who exceeds their allotted toilet time is reprimanded...
Teamsters Local 8 Announces Tentative Contract With Penn State  teamster.org   ...Penn State University employees have reached a tentative contract agreement with the university which will continue to give the 2,500 members of Teamsters Local 8 economic and job stability, the union announced today...
Trade
Steel Institute Pleased With Commerce Determination on OCTG  Steel Works   ... “Imports from these countries have surged in the past few years, and we are pleased that the Commerce Department has reversed its preliminary determination with respect to Korea and taken this critical step to find that imports from all nine investigated countries are benefitting from unfair trade practices.   It is critical that the U.S. government continue to aggressively and strictly enforce our trade laws to ensure that relief is provided to steelmakers and the nearly one million workers directly or indirectly supported by the steel industry...
China’s Food Safety Issues Worse Than You Thought  Food Safety News   ...Shuanghui International, China’s biggest meat products company (which purchased Smithfield Foods last year for $4.7 billion), has been plagued by constant reports here in this country of meat infested with maggots, customers succumbing to food poisoning, and random testing that shows illegal levels of bacteria and illegal additives such as clenbuterol in their meat...
Protesters Cry Foul At Secrecy Around Trans-Pacific Partnership Talks  PostMedia   ...Protesters gathered outside the Delta Hotel in Ottawa Thursday morning where trade talks are underway among Trans-Pacific Partnership members. Protesters held signs that said, “secret deal being negotiated here” and “stop the TPP,” while the Raging Grannies, an Ottawa-based satirical singing group, performed outside the hotel...
TTIP Is An Affront To Democracy  New Internationalist   ...Prime minister David Cameron ... is busy pushing for a deal that will hand the sovereignty of his country, and others, to multinational companies...
State Battles
UAW, VW reach agreement  Associated Press   ...United Auto Workers leaders said Thursday they have reached a consensus with Volkswagen and expect the German automaker to recognize the union if they sign up enough workers at a new local for the company’s assembly plant in Tennessee...
Judge Rules G.O.P. Illegally Redrew Florida Districts  New York Times   ...In a sharply worded decision, a Florida judge ruled late Thursday that Republicans illegally redrew the state’s congressional districts, saying they “made a mockery” of an amendment meant to inject fairness into a process that has long been politically tainted...
North Carolina Will Determine the Future of the Voting Rights Act  The Nation   ...Now, as a result of North Carolina’s new voting restrictions—widely regarded as the most onerous in the country—the 93-year-old activist could be disenfranchised by the state’s voter ID requirement because the name on her driver’s license does not match the name on her voter registration card...
Former Scott Walker aide exceeds top of pay scale with new job  Milwaukee Journal Sentinel   ...A former top aide to Gov. Scott Walker who was recently transferred into a new state job received $3,400 a year more than the top pay listed in an advertisement for the position, state records show...
War On Workers
Gallup Slams Lid On Hopes For US Economy  Wolf Street   ...Gallup found that “the increasing cost of essential items is further constraining family budgets already hit hard by the Great Recession and still reeling from a stagnant economy.” Hence, the less essential the expense, the more it got cut...
Worker dies after construction accident in Mesa  AZFamily.com   ...Mesa Fire Capt. Bob Tribbensee said some equipment fell on the worker, who was then treated by paramedics and transported to a hospital. The worker died at the hospital...
Worker killed in ceiling collapse at Haltom City building  Fort Worth Star Telegram   ...One worker was killed and two others were slightly injured Thursday morning when a ceiling collapsed inside a vacant building that was being remodeled, officials said...
Indiana Steelmaker Fined Over Worker’s Sinkhole Death  Claims Journal   ...he owner of a northwestern Indiana steel mill has agreed to pay a $7,000 fine over what state inspectors determined was a serious safety violation in a worker’s death...
New Bank Leak Shows How Rich Exploit Tax Haven Loopholes  ICIJ   ...Names range from vacuum cleaner tycoon James Dyson to Hollywood actor Mel Gibson. Today The Guardian identifies party donors who over the years have paid more than £8m to the governing Conservative party...
Shaving New York: Lyft receives cease-and-desist on eve of expansion  Pando Daily   ...Lyft’s expansion to New York has been delayed by a cease-and-desist letter from the city’s district attorney, who says the company has “thumbed its nose” at regulators who have warned it that its mustachioed ride service can’t operate in the city...
Why Small Biz Owners Back A Higher Minimum Wage  CBS News   ...Sixty-one percent of small-business owners with employees say they support increasing the baseline wage in three stages over two-and-a-half years and adjusting it after that to keep pace with increases in the cost of living. That's a finding in a new study from the American Sustainable Business Council and Business for a Fair Minimum Wage...
Miscellaneous
Amazon Marches Forward On Drones, Asks FAA For Permission To Test Prime Air  Salon.com   ... The company officially requested permission from the Federal Aviation Administration to test its drones outside in the Seattle area...
10 Supreme Court Rulings—Before Hobby Lobby—That Turned Corporations Into People  Mother Jones   ...A line of Supreme Court rulings stretching back 200 years has blurred the distinction between flesh-and-blood citizens and the businesses they own...