Today's Teamster News 11.17.15

TEAMSTERS
EVSC ratifies agreement with Teamsters  14 News  ...The EVSC school board ratified its agreement with Teamsters Local 215 on Monday. EVSC union members have been working under a tentative agreement with the school corporation. The contracts are for non-teaching positions, like custodians and other support staff. The board president calls it "a fair agreement"...
Uber Drivers, Taxis to Rally at Seattle City Hall  Local 117  ...Drivers will rally at City Hall on Wednesday, November 18 at 11 A.M. to highlight unfair working conditions in Seattle’s for-hire transportation industry and to demand fair pay, a level playing field, dignity, and respect. At the event, drivers will address a variety of issues such as public safety, driver safety, insurance regulations, deactivation, and low pay...
Teamster vote Nov. 23-24 at Threshold Enterprises  Santa Cruz Sentinel  ...Elena Cruz, 46, said she gets up at 3:30 a.m. so she can drive from her home in Castroville to Santa Cruz to start her 5 a.m. shift at Threshold Enterprises. She works in shipping and packaging for the privately held nutritional supplement-maker. She came to the Sentinel with two co-workers to explain why they support the union, which is negotiating a new contract to replace one for 600 workers that expired Sept. 16 and facing a decertification election on Nov. 23 and 24...

GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
Obama’s trade deal is in trouble  The Hill  ...President Obama’s trade deal with 11 other Pacific Rim countries is in deep trouble with Congress. Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) haven’t decided whether they’re going to support the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) — even after they helped the president win fast-track authority in a bruising interparty fight that was meant to ease its passage...
Anti-TPP Protesters in Washington, DC Call on Congress to Reject TPP Trade Deal  Sputnik News  ...The US Congress must not approve the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement and should start new trade talks on a deal that would raise working, environmental and human rights standards, US advocacy group PopularResistance.org Co-Director Margaret Flowers told Sputnik....
Putin questions U.S.-led TPP trade pact arrangements  Japan Times  ...Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized on Tuesday the way the U.S.-backed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal is being arranged, saying the “clandestine talks” do not promote stability in the Asia-Pacific region. His comments were published on the Kremlin website just before this week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum...
The TPP's Children's Table: Labor Rights and Currency   Truthout  ...The TPP has two classes of issues. On the one hand, there are the issues that really matter to the drafters of the deal. These are issues like protection of patents and copyrights and other forms of investment. That is the story of the adult table. The children's table is for issues that are of concern to labor rights, human rights and environmental rights activists...
More labour strikes in South African fruit industry  Fresh Plaza  ...More than 1500 workers, all members of FAWU employed by the Du Toit Agri Pty Ltd Group in Ceres, Prince Alfred Hamlet and Humansdorp in the Eastern Cape went on a strike Thursday, 12 November in demand of a wage increase and better working conditions. The company is said to be the leading packing and exporter of fruit and vegetables in the country. Last week a strike involving 2,000 banana workers at organic producer Umbhaba Banana Estates Farms, took place...
How the Paris Attacks Are Changing the EU’s Debate on Refugees  The Atlantic  ...The revelation that one of the suicide bombers who carried out Friday’s attacks on Paris entered Europe last month through the Greek island of Leros has complicated the increasingly fragile European plan to handle an historic migrant and refugee crisis. More than 700,000 people have entered Europe this year from the Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere...

STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
Lawmakers feel new influence to raise the minimum wage  Statesman Journal  ...Oregon lawmakers are under renewed pressure to raise the state's $9.25 minimum wage. If lawmakers won't, several coalition groups have said, the issue will be decided by Oregon voters on the 2016 ballot. Monday afternoon, protesters at the Senate Interim Committee On Workforce and General Government broke into chants of "Fifteen now" and "Black lives matter"...
Voter photo ID, ethics reform among top priorities for Missouri Senate Republicans  Missourinet  ...State Senate Republicans have caucused and the filing of bills will begin December 1. The man who can decide what does and doesn’t reach the Senate floor in the 2016 session said he can’t rank legislative priorities, but Mike Kehoe (R-Jefferson City) told Missourinet there are some issues that stand out. Voter photo ID will be proposed again...
Legislation cut California’s workers’ compensation medical costs  SacBee  ...Three years ago, Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature enacted a major overhaul of the system that compensates workers for job-related injuries and illnesses. Senate Bill 863, backed by employers and labor unions, affected many specific aspects of the system but was aimed largely at reducing medical costs and redirecting savings into cash benefit increases for disabled workers...
'Poverty Pay' Leads Walmart Employees to Skip Lunch or Steal it From Co-Workers  Alternet  ...Walmart employees are so poor that they are skipping lunch, sharing it or, in some cases, stealing it from their coworkers, some of the company’s workers claimed on Thursday while announcing a fast in protest of the company’s wages. Starting Friday morning, over 100 Walmart associates who are members of Our Walmart, a workers organization, and about a 1,000 supporters will begin a fast to shine light on what they describe as Walmart’s “poverty pay”...

U.S. LABOR
General Motors and UAW Union Delay Ratifying New Contract  Fortune  ...Disagreement between production workers and skilled trades workers at General Motors plants has pushed back the formal ratification of the United Auto Workers’ four-year labor agreement with the car company. The so-called Big Three automakers—Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, GM, and Ford—have all entered negotiations with the UAW...
Ford UAW workers voting on new contract today  WDRB ...Ford's 9,000 UAW members in Louisville are voting on a new contract today. The new contract will set wages and working conditions for Ford workers, and includes a number of pay increases, including an $8,500 signing bonus for each UAW member. If passed, it also comes with more than a billion dollars in upgrades to Louisville's two Ford plants...
Metro, Transit Union At Odds Over Contract  WVXU  ...The Amalgamated Transit Union Local 627 is encouraging members to attend Tuesday morning's Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority (SORTA) board meeting to speak out about the current contract situation. In a letter, the president of the union representing Metro employees told members their health insurance rates will dramatically increase next month despite the lack of a new contract...

Union of Sonoma County government employees plans strike Tuesday  Press Democrat  ...The largest group of unionized Sonoma County government employees is set to go out on a one-day strike Tuesday, protesting what it contends is a stingy contract offer from the county, bad faith in negotiating at the bargaining table and other issues it says amount to unfair labor practices...
8 in 10 Hotel Workers Have Been Harassed at Work  The Nation  ...As part of UNITE HERE!’s Housekeeper’s Global Week of Action campaign, the hospitality workers of Long Beach, California, rallied on Thursday to push the City Council to adopt a set of labor standards that would limit their workloads and strengthen protection from assault...
Kohler workers reject offer, OK first union strike at company since 1983  Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel  ...Union workers went on strike at Kohler Co. on Sunday after overwhelmingly rejecting what the firm had called its "last, best and final offer." Ninety-four percent voted down the Kohler proposal, Tim Tayloe, president of UAW Local 833, told cheering workers after the ballots were tallied...

SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
For-profit educator to pay $95.5M over recruitment tactics  CBS News  ...Federal officials on Monday said they reached a $95.5 million settlement with the nation's second-largest for profit educator, accused of running a high-pressure boiler room where admissions personnel were paid based purely on the number of students they enrolled. The civil settlement with Education Management Corporation, the biggest yet involving false claims to the Department of Education, stems from a case first brought by whistleblowers...
The GOP’s devious Wall Street welfare plan: Why the future of the economy hangs in the balance  Salon  ...This is a consequential week for the future of financial regulation. Republicans have pulled out a successful playbook: stick as many riders onto two must-pass bills as possible, holding them hostage to conservative ideology. The bills include a long-term reauthorization of the Highway Trust Fund, which expires shortly, and a package of appropriations bills to keep the government funded...
Predictable and Deplorable: Over Half of US Governors Vow to Slam Door on Refugees  Common Dreams  ...In what appears to be a textbook case of xenophobia and political fearmongering in the wake of a tragedy, more than a dozen U.S. governors have declared their states off-limits to Syrian refugees in the days following Friday's terror attacks in Paris. In a statement Monday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the country's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization, decried the rolling announcements as "un-American"...
Here We Go Again? Muslim Americans Brace for a Backlash After Paris  The Nation  ...When news of the Paris attacks spread, Muslim, Arab, and South Asian activists in the United States began a process that has become all too familiar in the 14 years after 9/11. In the midst of expressing their grief, Muslim, Arab, and South Asian advocates are also placed in the position of having to monitor for a backlash against their own communities...
Number of people killed by US police in 2015 at 1,000 after Oakland shooting  The Guardian  ...The number of people killed by law enforcement in the US this year has reached 1,000 after officers in Oakland, California, shot dead a man who allegedly pointed a replica gun at them. Authorities said several officers opened fire on the man on Sunday evening when he walked toward them as they towed away cars that had been used to perform so-called “sideshow” stunts in east Oakland...

Today's Teamster News 09.18.15

Teamsters
Hoffa Statement of Support of Bipartisan Effort to Repeal Excise Tax on High-Quality Health Plans  Teamster.org  ...Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa in response to the announcement of the introduction of a bipartisan companion bill in the Senate to HR 2050 which would repeal an excise tax set to be charged on those enrolled in high-quality health care plans: “The Teamsters support this bipartisan effort to repeal the destructive excise tax that is set to take effect in 2018"...
No deal after latest talks between Baumann & Sons Buses, Acme Buses and Teamsters Local 1205  Newsday  ...Talks continued early Friday morning between a Long Island school bus contractor and its workers to end a labor dispute and head off a strike that could leave 15,000 students scrambling for other forms of transportation. As of 2:30 a.m. Friday, negotiators for Teamsters Local 1205 and Ronkonkoma-based Baumann & Sons Buses Inc. still remained locked in discussions at the union's Farmingdale headquarters...
Teamsters Protest as Treasury Debates Allowing Pension Cuts for 1.5 Million Retirees  In These Times  ...About 300 angry Teamsters descended on Washington, D.C., September 10, demanding federal action to protect the pensions of union members threatened with benefit cuts. The retired Teamsters are among a group of as many as 1.5 million retirees from a long list of different labor unions nationwide that could see their pensions slashed under a new law quietly approved late last year...
Cleveland Bakers and Teamsters Pension Fund takes on Wall Street bank traders  Cleveland Business  ...The Cleveland Bakers and Teamsters Pension Fund is among plaintiffs in a lawsuit alleging that banks that deal in government securities rigged trading to boost their own profits. “The same analytical technique that uncovered cheating in currency markets and the Libor rates benchmark — resulting in about $20 billion of fines — suggests the dealers who control the U.S. Treasury market rigged bond auctions for years,” Bloomberg reports in describing a lawsuit...
EVSC Board and Teamsters disagree over form, will meet Friday  Courier & Press  ...After about a three-week hiatus, the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp. and Teamsters Local 215 negotiation teams will meet again Friday to continue working toward a collective bargaining agreement, as well as a new wage authorization form. Earlier this month, the EVSC ceased deducting union dues and representation fees for Local 215 employees...

Global Labor & Trade
Finland Anti-Austerity Strike Shuts Down Public Transport, Flights As Recession Pits Labor Unions Against Government  International Business Times  ...One of the biggest strikes in Finland's history closed down ports, canceled or delayed flights and disrupted other transportation Friday, amid protests against the government's latest proposed austerity measures. With the Nordic country in a recession for the past three years and on track for a fourth, the leading center-right coalition there has tried to implement cutbacks that include limiting overtime and benefits...
Canada must be part of Pacific pact, automakers might suffer: PM  Reuters  ...Canada must sign up to a proposed 12-nation Pacific trade pact, even though the country's auto makers might not be happy with some of the conditions, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on Thursday. Trade ministers failed to clinch the Trans-Pacific Partnership at a meeting in late July amid disagreements over sectors such as autos and dairy...
Harper Says Trans-Pacific Trade Deal Will End ‘Successfully’  Bloomberg  ...Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he’s confident a Pacific trade deal that would stretch from Chile to Japan will be reached. Clinching a deal on the Trans-Pacific Partnership will form the “basis of the global trade network in the Asia Pacific for the generation to come,” Harper said Thursday in a leadership debate for the Oct. 19 Canadian federal election...
Japan has little room left to compromise on TPP deal: Amari   Fiscal Times  ...Trade ministers from the 12 nations negotiating a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) are expected to hold another meeting soon to clinch a deal, after failing to do so in Hawaii last month. The TPP would cover 40 percent of the global economy. "This is our last chance," Amari told a regular news conference. "If we don't have an agreement, a deal may be delayed for years given various uncertainties...
Obama sure of deal as ministers plan end-Sept talks on TPP  Today  ...Twelve Pacific Rim countries will hold a ministerial meeting later this month in Atlanta in the United States as they look to conclude years of negotiations on creating one of the world’s biggest free trade zones, negotiation sources said yesterday. US President Barack Obama on Wednesday raised hopes that the 12 countries could conclude the sweeping free trade agreement “in the next several weeks”...
Will TTIP be an ‘economic NATO’?  Politico  ...Back in 2012, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hailed a proposed transatlantic free trade pact as a job-creating, growth-boosting “economic NATO” that would forge new ties between old allies. Three years later, hopeful presidential candidate Hillary Clinton appears less enthusiastic. “Can you make it go away?” was the only-half-joking response of her campaign chairman, John Podesta, to a recent question on the trade deal now being negotiated between the United States and European Union....
Europe starts putting up walls   The Economist  ...Hungary declared an emergency, sealed its border with Serbia with barbed-wire fences and began arresting those trying to cross. Police fired tear gas at them; 20 officers and many refugees were hurt. Growing numbers of refugees are now trapped on the Serbian side and have started evading the barrier by marching into Romania and Croatia. Hungary responded by saying it will extend the fence to its Romanian border. The cascade of events is likely to continue...
Migrant Domestic Workers Network a First in Jordan  Solidarity Center   ...Domestic workers in Jordan are set to celebrate the official formation of a worker rights network that includes migrant workers from Bangladesh, Indonesia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka. The September 19 launch is a first in Jordan and a rare move in the Arab region, where more than 2.4 million migrant domestic workers often toil 12–20 hour days, six or seven days a week cleaning homes, preparing meals and caring for children and the elderly...

State & Living Wage Battles
Poll: Wide support among N.Y. voters for $15 minimum wage  CBS  ...A new poll finds that New York voters support raising the state's minimum wage to $15 per hour. The poll released Friday by Quinnipiac University found 62 percent of voters supporting a phased-in increase. Thirty-five percent of the respondents opposed the idea. Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo is calling on the state Legislature to approve a $15 minimum wage...
9th Circuit rejects state's appeal, says anti-union law passed in 2011 was invalid  Spokesman-Review  ...The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals today upheld a federal district court ruling that an anti-union law passed by the Idaho Legislature in 2011 was invalid, as it was pre-empted by the federal National Labor Relations Act. The law, which was immediately enjoined and never took effect, banned “job targeting” or “market recovery” programs, in which unions use funds they collect from workers to subsidize bids by union contractors on jobs...
Archbishop Takes Aim At ‘Right-To-Work’ Laws  CBS  ...Without mentioning Gov. Bruce Rauner by name, Chicago’s Roman Catholic Archbishop is raising concerns about moves to restrict labor unions. Blase Cupich made his remarks Thursday at the plumbers union hall on the West Side, before a union-heavy audience. He declared a society with a healthy labor movement is a better place than one where powerful economic interests have their way and the voices of workers are diminished...
California Activists Call for Fracking Ban  Truthout  ...The California Legislature approved an amended version of Senate Bill 350, a measure that legislative leaders and Governor Jerry Brown touted as "landmark climate legislation." In response, anti-fracking activists pointed out the contradiction between Brown's strong support of extreme oil extraction methods and his constant grandstanding about "clean energy" - and called on Brown to use his executive power to ban the environmentally destructive practice of fracking in California...
OUR Walmart Relaunches Its Campaign To Beat the World Retail Giant  In These Times  ...After four years as a growing, thriving voice of workers at Walmart, the Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart) re-launched itself on Thursday. Originally a legally independent, non-union worker organization that the United Food and Commercial Workers founded and funded, OUR Walmart will now have a different, still to-be-defined tie to the UFCW...
Paid Sick Leave, More Overtime Proposed For Mpls. Workers  CBS  ...Workers in Minneapolis could soon have more flexible schedules and more paid leave. One of the councilmembers behind a proposed ordinance says if it goes through, big changes could start early next year. The proposal would allow workers to know their schedules ahead of time and earn overtime if they work more than eight hours a day...

U.S. Labor
UFCW sees 'difficulty' with Key Food over A&P stores  Supermarket News  ...New York locals of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union were scheduled to meet today with officials of Key Food Stores for “the first time in a while” to talk about the A&P units the retailer intends to buy, a union spokesman told SN. He said the union has had “a bunch of difficulty” with Key Food in the past because of the retailer’s desire to cut back the number of full-time jobs in favor of more part-timers at the 17 stores it said it intends to buy...
UAW-FCA agreement reportedly includes $5.3 billion U.S. production investment  MLive  ...As part of a tentative agreement with the UAW, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is shifting some of its production from Mexico to the U.S. - and vice versa. That's according to multiple reports, such as one in the Detroit Free Press that says FCA plans to commit $5.3 billion to U.S. auto plants over the next four years. That will also reportedly help retain thousands of American jobs...
Target pharmacy workers form union, first in company's history  Reuters  ...A group of pharmacy workers within Target Corp's store in Brooklyn, New York, have won a vote to form a microunion, making it the first unionized store at the retailer since its inception in 1902. Earlier on Wednesday, Reuters was first to report that a group of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians won an initial ballot, 7-2, to form the union, according to a filing on the National Labor Relations Board website and union officials...
Another Shot Fired in the Great Immigration vs. Wages War  Mother Jones  ...Does illegal immigration suppress the wages of native-born workers? The evidence suggests that it doesn't—or not much, anyway. One of the data points supporting this is a study done by David Card of the effect of the 1980 Mariel boatlift on workers in Miami. Even though Miami experienced a huge spike in immigrants during the boatlift, Card found no significant impact on wages...
The Fed Keeps Interest Rates Near Zero  The Atlantic  ...The U.S. Federal Reserve has decided not to raise interest rates at its September Federal Open Market Committee meeting. The committee’s two-day meeting concluded with Fed officials voting to keep interest rates near zero. The U.S. job market has been putting in solid numbers in recent months, data that Fed watchers believed might convince the Fed to hike rates...

Social Justice & Other News
Trump: 'We're Gonna Be Looking Into' How We Can Get Rid of All the Muslims  Common Dreams  ...In a week that has already seen collective outrage in response to the treatment of a Muslim teenager in Texas who was handcuffed and arrested simply for bringing a homemade clock to school, the pervasiveness of Islamaphobic sentiment was on display once again overnight after Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump fielded a question in New Hampshire about what he planned to do "about getting rid of" all the nation's Muslims...
The Beginning of Trump’s End?  Slate  ...This debate might mark the beginning of the end for Trump, who struggled to tackle substantive questions on foreign policy, his advisers, and what he’d actually do as president of the United States. More importantly, he faced a confident Carly Fiorina, who slammed and tweaked Trump on his obvious ignorance of key issues. “I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said,” Fiorina said about his remarks on her appearance...
Bernie Sanders Unveils Ambitious Plan To End Private Prisons  Think Progress  ...Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is officially taking on the country’s private prison industry. By introducing a bill that would ban government contracts with private prisons, the presidential contender is quickly becoming the loudest advocate for criminal justice reform among his competitors. The Justice is Not For Sale Act, co-sponsored by Reps. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ), Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Bobby L. Rush (D-IL), would prohibit the federal government from entering contracts with private prison corporations within two years of the bill’s enactment...
America's Need for a Third Reconstruction  The Atlantic  ...Ta-Nehisi Coates mournfully excavates how the carceral state is deeply entangled in the racial DNA of the United States, and convincingly demonstrates that, for all the talk of a Kumbaya moment in penal reform between the left and the right, the carceral state remains largely intact with barely a nick. Four decades ago, the U.S. had many similar structural problems found today, but it did not have such an expansive penal system...
Climate Expert James Hansen: The Planet May Become Ungovernable  Alternet  ...The repercussions of climate disruption are still not being acknowledged fully, warned climatologist Dr. James Hansen. Hansen — formerly NASA’s head climate scientist, now adjunct professor at Columbia University — is probably best known for bringing definitive evidence of global warming to Congress in testimony in 1988...
The recession hasn’t changed a damn thing: Wall Street is still making off like bandits  Salon.com  ...Just a few years after the financial crisis, a new report tells an important story: Federal prosecution of white-collar crime has hit a 20-year low. The analysis by Syracuse University shows a more than 36 percent decline in such prosecutions since the middle of the Clinton administration, when the decline began...

Preying on Puerto Rico: how hedge funds & bad trade deals led to bankruptcy

Puerto Rican anti-austerity protesters rally in Manhattan, July 13 

This week America experienced the biggest municipal default in its history. This is no Detroit. The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, with a population of almost 4 million, ran out of money and missed a payment on its $72 billion debt.

The crisis has been likened to that of Greece as creditors call for — you guessed it — austerity, austerity and more austerity to settle the debt. For an island already suffering more than 12 percent unemployment (higher than any state), budget cuts would promise more pain.

With three thousand of our brothers and sisters belonging to Teamsters Local 901 in San Juan, Puerto Rico's debt crisis hits close to home. And the sources of the problem are all too familiar.

An exodus of workers caused by corporate-backed trade deals are among the culprits, as Think Progress explains:

Depending who you ask in Puerto Rico, the debt crisis was caused by neo-colonial and imperialist policies from the U.S., the Puerto Rican government’s wasteful overspending and corruption, or the cadre of hedge funds that are currently profiting from the island’s woes. Add to that toxic mix a series of free-trade agreements that triggered mass outsourcing, and a population in rapid decline due to out-migration, and you arrive where we are today, with the government on the hook for tens of billions of dollars.

Beyond anti-worker trade policies, the corporate greed behind Puerto Rico's problems has another ugly face: hedge funds. Circling the island like vultures over the carcass they helped kill, hedge funds with fingerprints all over the debt disaster want extreme austerity imposed on the U.S. territory.

According to the organization Hedge Clippers, it's companies with names like BlueMountain Capital Management and Stone Lion Capital Partners that are at the heart of the crisis:

Several groups of hedge funds have bought up large chunks of Puerto Rican debt at discounts and have also pushed the island to borrow at extremely favorable terms for creditors. At the same time, they are also using the island as a tax haven. Known as “vulture funds,” these investors have followed a similar game plan in other debt crises, in countries such as Greece and Argentina. The spoils they ultimately seek are not just bond payments, but structural reforms and privatization schemes that give them extraordinary wealth and power.

A report commissioned by these funds recommends cutting the minimum wage, laying off teachers, selling off public assets and slashing workers' retirement benefits.

What makes Puerto Rico more vulnerable is that, unlike Detroit, it's not protected by Chapter 9 bankruptcy laws. Bills recently introduced in Congress — where Puerto Rico has no voting representation — would give the island Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection and disarm creditors. That legislation doesn't appear likely to pass and the White House has already said no to a bailout like the one so quickly given to the Wall Street vultures in 2008.

But Puerto Rico is not Greece. Yes, the austerity being pushed by creditors would almost certainly mean a vicious cycle of economic despair in Greek fashion, and Puerto Rico cannot turn to the IMF for help. But as economist Paul Krugman points out, the human impact of the crisis has been far less severe because Puerto Rico has so far been shielded from austerity. Even as its economy sank, the U.S. government continued to uphold the commonwealth's safety net in the form of Social Security, Medicare and other programs. Cutting welfare won't solve the crisis, however. Because, as Krugman explains, out-migration brought on by outsourced jobs (caused by bad trade deals) is central to the economic problems on the island.

Many activists in Puerto Rico are calling for debt forgiveness. Others are more visceral, saying the hedge fund millionaires who caused so much of the mess can shove it.

Martha Quiñones Dominguez, an economics professor at the University of Puerto Rico, says what's needed is an independent audit to see which creditors' claims are valid and which aren't. The island needs to raise taxes on corporations and the rich, she said, as well as invest in sustainable development to cut down on dependency and imports.

While corporate powers are pursuing another mammoth trade deal in the Pacific, similar trade regimes have bankrupted another economy in the Caribbean.

As for the hedge funds plotting against Puerto Rican workers and families, these are the same forces pushing austerity and privatization on the U.S. mainland. If they succeed in Puerto Rico, they will be more powerful than they already are — and more dangerous.  

Big banks need to be shown who's boss

Wall Street's continuing war against workers seems endless. Just when you think it can't get any worse, it does. And even when big players in the financial world get caught for wrongdoing, the penalties never seem to make a difference.

The latest example came last week when the Justice Department announced that five major banks -- Citicorp, JP Morgan Chase, Barclays, The Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS -- were pleading guilty to felony charges and agreeing to pay more than $5 billion to settle charges they had worked together to manipulate international interest and foreign currency exchange rates.

Yet despite the "brazen" activity by the banks, as Attorney General Loretta Lynch put it herself, no one ultimately will spend a day in jail for engaging in these illegal activities. That, said former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich, is simply outrageous:

America used to have antitrust laws that permanently stopped corporations from monopolizing markets, and often broke up the biggest culprits.

No longer. Now, giant corporations are taking over the economy – and they’re busily weakening antitrust enforcement. 

The result has been higher prices for the many, and higher profits for the few. It’s a hidden upward redistribution from the majority of Americans to corporate executives and wealthy shareholders.

The bad behavior of banks is nothing new for hardworking Americans, who have taken the brunt of the financial world's malfeasance. They've seen Wall Street fritter away their pensions and retirement investments and jeopardize their future. Financial institutions teamed up with big business last December to push through a federal spending bill that attacked workers' pensions and put their retirements at risk.

The same Wall Street banks that rake in hundreds of millions of dollars managing pension funds lobbied to reduce pension benefits for the people whose sweat created those funds. Congress did the bankers' bidding and reduced benefits, but the banks get to keep making millions on the backs of the very pensioners whose benefits were cut. That is unfair, unjust and plain un-American.

It's well past time for the big banks to face the consequences of their actions with punishments that have real teeth. Penalties need to be higher than any bank would pay just as part of the cost of doing business.

It's also time that financial institutions pay their fair share of taxes instead of receiving breaks while workers pick up the tab. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) previously put forward a Wall Street speculation tax proposal that would charge a fee on large financial institutions for the sale of credit default swaps, derivatives, options, future and large amounts of stock. It's an idea with merit.

Banks have continually abused the benefits given to them. It's only fair that people get treated the same as the powerful. That's what's going to get America working again.

Today's Teamster News 05.08.15

Teamsters
Teamsters Support Alaska Airlines Contract Workers Fight for $15, Union  Teamster.org   ...The Teamsters Airline Division has pledged its support of contract workers at Alaska Airlines who are fighting for fair wages and union representation. The contract workers picketed outside airports across country today in an effort to raise public awareness of their fight...
Fired Workers Win Back Their Jobs  Times News Weekly   ...Allan Henry, an organizer for the Teamsters, said that after speaking out against Five Star Carting and their working conditions, Bush and Darden were told to sign papers deeming them terminated before they could receive their paychecks. “Now they both have their jobs back, but this is the type of working conditions and the type of retaliation these workers are dealing in this industry,” Henry said...
Strike At McMahon Distributeur Pharmaceutique Inc’s Montreal DC  Materials Management & Distribution   ...Unionized employees, represented by the Teamsters Québec, local 1999, are on strike at McMahon Distributeur pharmaceutique inc’s Montreal DC. The union rejected the company’s offer after several months of bargaining...
De Blasio Administration To Begin Horse-Carriage Outreach  Capital New York   ...The de Blasio administration began its outreach on Monday to horse-carriage drivers and others who would be affected by legislation to abolish the industry...

Global Labor & Trade
Costa Rica Announces Plan To Eradicate Child Labor By 2020  Tico Times   ...During an event Monday morning, Costa Rica announced an initiative to get more than 40,000 children out of the workforce. The multi-pronged approach builds off previous efforts to reduce child labor and aims to eliminate the practice altogether by 2020...
TTIP Talks Dubbed Secretive And Undemocratic  Sputnik   ...As the EU Foreign Affairs Council re-starts discussions on Thursday on the trade and investment partnership with the United States (TTIP), a senior UN official has dubbed the talks undemocratic and secretive. The controversial TTIP agreement has been pushed through by US President Barack Obama, who has called for the negotiations for the world's biggest trade agreement to be speeded up. As the talks get underway in Brussels on May 7, the Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, Alfred de Zayas, expressed deep concerns over the talks...
TPP, TTIP And TISA: How The Media Misrepresent Obama’s “Fast Track” “Secret” International Trade Deals  Centre for Research on Globalization   ...Both conservative and liberal ‘news’ media misrepresent U.S. President Barack Obama’s proposed international trade-deals as if they were about only such things as lowering tariffs and reducing national trade-protectionism — which are relatively minor surface-features of these huge proposed treaties: TTIP with Europe, TPP with Asia, and TISA (Trade in Services Agreement)...
Obama's Scheduled Visit To Nike Has Trade Deal Skeptics Scratching Their Heads  Huffington Post   ...Nike, which is regarded as a pioneer in overseas outsourcing, has a long and checkered labor history in Vietnam. The footwear and apparel giant was pilloried for alleged sweatshop conditions in its contracted factories in Vietnam back in the 1990s, bruising its public image. By most accounts, Nike has helped make significant safety improvements in factories through its own monitoring programs since then, but wages in Vietnam are still extremely low, and the government has a poor track record of enforcing labor laws there...

State & Living Wage Battles
Pennsylvania Senate OKs Public Employee Collective Bargaining Bills  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette   ...Republicans on Wednesday gave Senate approval to two bills that they said would increase transparency in collective bargaining for public employees, but which Democrats equated to union-busting...
Wisconsin GOP’s Latest Attack On Food Stamp Recipients Would Cost The State Millions  Think Progress   ...Wisconsin would have to spend millions of dollars to realize a Republican scheme to restrict how poor people shop for food, state fiscal analysts revealed Wednesday...
For Women In This State, Getting Pregnant Will No Longer Mean Losing A Job  Think Progress   ...On Tuesday, the New York State legislature passed a bill aimed at shielding pregnant women from workplace discrimination, which the governor has said he will sign...
Racist History Of ‘Right To Work’ Shows Threat To Black, Latino Workers  Chicago Reporter   ...Rauner may be a true believer in trickle-down ideology, but for major right-to-work supporters like the corporate-sponsored American Legislative Exchange Council (which pioneered the county-level approach Rauner is now taking), it’s all about removing unions as a political check on the power of corporations. But that will have real costs for working families in Illinois.  And the costs will be highest for blacks and Latinos...
Why The FEC Won’t Crack Down On Campaign Finance Violations In 2016  Think Progress   ...Though the election is more than a year away, several candidates and soon-to-be candidates have already been accused of campaign finance violations. But the head of the government’s main agency for investigating the claims and enforcing the laws on the books has publicly admitted that few violators will be brought to justice this election cycle...
Effort To Repeal Prevailing Wage Law Fails In Committee  Milwaukee Journal Sentinel   ...A bill to repeal the state's (Wisconsin) prevailing wage failed in committee Thursday, when Republican Sen. Howard Marklein joined the panel's two Democrats to block the measure...
Pence Signs Bill Repealing Indiana Construction Wage Law  Indianapolis Business Journal   ...Local boards will no longer set minimum wages for public construction projects in Indiana under a law signed Wednesday by Gov. Mike Pence. The bill will eliminate the boards that set what is known as the common construction wage that workers must be paid on most state or local government projects...
Senate Votes To Block Union Dues Deduction For Some Public Employees  Houston Chronicle   ...Senate Bill 1968 would allow the payroll deductions to continue for police, fire and emergency-services employees -- groups that generally vote Republican in most parts of Texas -- but would not allow them for other unions, such as those for teachers, construction trades and other unions...

U.S. Labor
The 40-Hour Work Week Is A Thing Of The Past  Wall Street Journal   ...The phrase “nine to five” is becoming an anachronism. About half of all managers work more than 40 hours a week, according to a new survey from tax and consulting firm EY, and 39% report that their hours have increased in the past five years. Little wonder, then, that one-third of workers say it’s getting more difficult to balance work and life...
U.S. Productivity Falls 1.9% In First Quarter  Wall Street Journal   ...U.S. worker productivity fell in the opening months of 2015, extending a poor track record since the recession and underscoring longer-term risks to American workers’ wages...
Making The Economy Work For The Many, Not The Few -- Step 1: Raise The Minimum Wage (opinion)  Huffington Post   ...If the minimum wage in 1968 had simply kept up with inflation it would be more than $10 today. If it also kept up with the added productivity of American workers since then, it would be more than $21 an hour. Some opponents say minimum wage workers are teenagers seeking some extra pocket money. Wrong. Half are 35 or older, and many are key breadwinners for their families. And don't believe scaremongers who say a $15 minimum will cause employers to cut employment. More money in people's pockets means more demand for goods and services, which means more jobs not fewer jobs...
U.S. Employers Add Solid 223,000 Jobs, Unemployment Rate Falls To 7-Year Low  Huffington Post   ...U.S. employers added 223,000 jobs in April, a solid gain that suggests that the economy may be recovering after stumbling at the start of the year. The Labor Department said Friday that the unemployment rate dipped to 5.4 percent from 5.5 percent in March. That is the lowest rate since May 2008, six months into the Great Recession...

Miscellaneous
Oil Train Erupts In Flames In North Dakota  Wall Street Journal   ...A BNSF Railway Co. train carrying crude oil derailed Wednesday morning in rural North Dakota, erupting into flames and sending billows of black smoke into the air...
What Will Happen To American Jobs, Incomes, And Wealth A Decade From Now? (opinion)  Huffington Post   ...We are now faced not just with labor-replacing technologies but with knowledge-replacing technologies. The combination of advanced sensors, voice recognition, artificial intelligence, big data, text-mining, and pattern-recognition algorithms, is generating smart robots capable of quickly learning human actions, and even learning from one another. A revolution in life sciences is also underway, allowing drugs to be tailored to a patient's particular condition and genome...
Break Up Big Banks (opinion)  Huffington Post   ...We don't hear it discussed much in the media, but the reality is that the middle class of this country, once the envy of the world, is collapsing, 45 million Americans are living in poverty, and the gap between the rich and everyone else is growing wider and wider...
Wall Street Had Five Years To Prove They Can Control Their Computers. They Failed.  Think Progress   ...Regulators have struggled to explain the 2010 flash crash, first blaming it on legitimate trades made by a Kansas-based firm and then charging one individual trader with intentionally creating the crash from his parents’ basement. It’s not clear that either explanation is correct, though, and that very inability to convincingly diagnose what happened that day underscores how loose human control over digitized trading strategies has become...
Trucking Company Shows Facebook Road To Future  New York Times   ...Frustrated by Swift Transportation’s co-founder and chief executive, Jerry Moyes, the company’s shareholders will be voting at Friday’s annual meeting whether to eliminate a dual-share structure that grants him control. Owners of Facebook and other similarly feudalistic frameworks one day may find themselves similarly frustrated...

Today's Teamsters News 05.07.15

Teamsters
Michigan Sysco Workers to Cast Ballots Amid Employer's Vicious Anti-Union Campaign  Teamster.org  ...Grand Rapids, Mich., Sysco workers will vote on Teamsters Local 406 representation Thursday after a months-long anti-union campaign waged by their employer, accused of multiple federal law violations during union organizing campaigns around the U.S...
Hoffa Statement On Reid Delaying Fast Track  Teamster.org  ...Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa in response to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid announcing he will not allow the chamber to quickly push fast track trade legislation through when it has a time-sensitive transportation funding bill on its plate: “Sen. Reid knows what America’s priorities should be. This Congress needs to figure out how to properly fund the nation’s transportation network"...
Teamsters’ Proposal At Funeral Services Company SCI Recommended By Leading Proxy Voting Advisor, ISS  Teamster.org  ...The country’s leading proxy voting advisor, ISS, recommends shareholders of Service Corporation of America vote for an equity retention proposal sponsored by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters at the company’s annual meeting on May 13...
Teamsters Join Community Leaders, Shareholders in Calling for Independent Monitoring Program at National Express AGM  Teamster.org  ...Today, the Teamsters Union and other institutional shareholders, along with community, faith and global labor representatives spoke at the National Express Group Annual General Meeting in London. They spoke in support of an independent monitoring program at the company’s U.S. school bus subsidiary, Durham School Services...
NAACP Leader, Member of Parliament Meet to Discuss Human Rights Concerns at National Express Group  Teamster.org   ...Doreen Lawrence, Baroness of Clarendon and a member of Britain’s House of Lords, met today with Dot Scott, president of the Charleston, S.C., chapter of the NAACP, on issues concerning civil rights, human rights and workplace conditions at Durham School Services in the United States. Durham is the school bus subsidiary of United Kingdom-based National Express Group PLC  and the second-largest school bus transportation company in the U.S...
Victory for Dispatchers and Mechanics of Keolis Transit   Teamsters Local 769  ...Today, May 6, 2015, the Dispatchers and Mechanics of Keolis Transit America Inc. in Fort Lauderdale, Florida unanimous voted “YES” to join our Brothers and Sisters at Teamsters Local 769. The election was conducted by the National Labor relation Board. There are 76 Bus Drivers in the bargaining unit...

Global Labor & Trade
Dem candidates slam Obama trade agenda  The Hill  ...Democratic Senate hopefuls are running hard against President Obama’s trade agenda. Swing-state Democrats are sounding the alarm that Obama’s free trade proposals, backed by their GOP opponents, would ship U.S. manufacturing jobs overseas and lead to greater unemployment at home...
Obama and Nike: Is company a model on trade - or a cautionary tale?  Oregon Live  ..."Nike is built on manufacturing shoes in countries with cheap labor costs," said Jason Stanford, spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based Coalition to Stop Fast Track, an anti-free trade group backed by labor unions and many other groups. "They're a big reason the shoe industry all looks like Nike now," with almost all of its products made overseas, he added...
Wall Street Titans Who Crashed Global Economy in 2008 Go Big for TPP  Common Dreams  ...Even as millions and millions of Americans continue to stand firmly in opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, those backing the TPP, including President Obama and a large majority of the Republican caucus, still have two dedicated demographic groups pledging their allegiance to the cause and arguing the so-called "free trade agreement (FTA)" would be good for average workers and the economy overall: billionaires and Wall Street titans...
Is free trade more important than ending forced labor?  The Hill   ...The proposed amendments are no-brainers. Why would the United States allow or improve commerce with a country that allows forced labor to be part of its economy? Why would the United States want to reward countries that fail so significantly to value human dignity? And why would the United States want to allow the importing of goods produced by children or those in bondage?...
German rail strike begins to slow Europe’s powerhouse  Financial Times  ...The strike has paralysed commuter services and disrupted commercial deliveries, raising fears about the power of small but influential unions to slam the brakes on industry in Europe’s biggest economy. The action by the train drivers’ union is due to last until Sunday morning...
China’s Manufacturing Hub Faces Labor Shortage and Higher Wages  Bloomberg  ...Salaries are rising, driven by improving productivity levels as manufacturers become more sophisticated and producers move up the value chain, the survey found. China’s policy makers are seeking to engineer a transition away from reliance on investment and cheap exports toward higher-end production, innovation, services and increased household consumption...

State & Living Wage Battles
New Jersey’s High Court Hears Christie’s Last Ditch Effort To Avoid Pension Payouts He Promised  Think Progress   ...When Christie failed to make the billions of dollars in payments he promised to 800,000 of the state’s working and retired public sector employees, more than a dozen of the state’s public worker unions filed suit. A lower court sided with the unions, ordering the state to pay an additional $1.6 billion into the pension funds this year. So the governor appealed the order to the state’s Supreme Court, which heard arguments this week...
These Are the American Workers Earning Less Than $15 per Hour  In These Times  ...According to the report, 42 percent of U.S. workers earn less than $15 an hour. More than half of African-Americans and 60 percent of Latinos make less than this figure. And 46.6 percent of those earning less than $15 are older than 35...
Labor Committee rejects Maine right-to-work bill  Main Sun Journal   ...he latest effort to make Maine a right-to-work state stumbled Wednesday, when lawmakers on the Legislature’s Labor Committee narrowly rejected a bill that would have allowed employees who benefit from collective bargaining to opt out of paying unions for those services...
Effort to repeal prevailing wage law likely to fail in committee today  Journal Sentinel  ...In March, Republican lawmakers passed right-to-work legislation to ban requirements that workers pay union fees, winning approval from Gov. Scott Walker even though he had said for years that it wasn't a priority for him. Now conservatives are targeting the prevailing wage, which sets pay for laborers on public works jobs such as bridges and highways...
New York governor proposes Wage Board to raise minimum wage  Yahoo News   ...New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Wednesday he would create a so-called Wage Board, a move apparently designed to allow him to raise the minimum wage without the approval of state lawmakers...
California city plans $16 minimum wage by 2019, highest in the U.S.  Reuters  ...Emmeryville, a small city in the San Francisco Bay Area, has given initial approval to the nation's highest minimum wage by setting baseline pay at $16 an hour in 2019, with gradual increases leading up to that level...

U.S. Labor
Chicago Therapists and Clients Protest Unexpected Closure of Major Mental Health Clinic  In These Times  ...Yesterday, around 100 people—including C4 staff and patients, activists with the Mental Health Movement, Arise Chicago and SEIU Local 73 members—rallied outside C4’s headquarters on Clark Street in the Uptown neighborhood. They called for a way to keep the clinics open—or at the very least, transparency in the crafting of a transition plan for over 300 staff who will lose their jobs...
Could Yale Graduate Students Be the Next to Unionize?  The Nation   ...Yale graduate students ramped up their organizing campaign on Tuesday as hundreds marched to deliver their union’s demands to the provost, calling for recognition and respect as part of the campus workforce. The action marks the latest push by the Graduate Employees and Students Organization (GESO-UNITE HERE) for official recognition...
AT&T workers in Dayton on grievance strike  Dayton Daily News  ...Around 300 AT&T workers in Dayton market walked out Wednesday from their jobs in a grievance strike, union officials with the Communications Workers of America Local 4322 said. The union, which represents call center, installation and repair technicians, has been in contract negotiations for several months with AT&T...

Miscellaneous
Transportation Emerges as Crucial to Escaping Poverty  New York Times  ...In a large, continuing study of upward mobility based at Harvard, commuting time has emerged as the single strongest factor in the odds of escaping poverty. The longer an average commute in a given county, the worse the chances of low-income families there moving up the ladder...
NSA phone data collection 'illegal', US court rules  BBC  ...A lower court judge erred in dismissing a lawsuit challenging the program's constitutionality, the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals said.
The ruling overturns a 2013 decision which said the programme was constitutional...

Today's Teamster News 03.28.15

Teamsters
Hoffa: TPP Investor Language Will Leave Taxpayers On The Hook  Huffington Post   ...Language included in the Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) chapter of the TPP would grant new rights to companies to challenge limitations and exceptions to copyrights, patents and other intellectual property. That means corporations could sue the U.S. or other countries included in the deal if they didn't like their laws. Such challenges would be handled by an unaccountable international arbitration forum. And taxpayers would end up paying the tab if the private sector wins...
Hoffa Addresses First Graduates Of Military Job Training Program  teamster.org   ...Today, Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa took part in a ceremony recognizing the first graduates of a program that helps active military personnel transition to a career in transportation. The ceremony was held at the Army’s new Industrial Training Complex (ITC) in Fort Sill, Okla. A ribbon-cutting ceremony was also held to inaugurate the ITC...
Highway Chief Denies Any Wrongdoing In Legal Action Against Town  Hudson Register Star   ...It has been alleged the Hillsdale Highway Department has not fulfilled legal obligations to their local Teamsters union, a union official wrote in a letter to the town supervisor. The town board recently mediated the dispute at their March 17 board meeting...
Union organizers question wages at McKesson warehouse  Des Moines Register   ...Two Teamsters union organizers questioned Friday whether drug distributor McKesson Corp. would pay fair wages at a new warehouse in northern Iowa. "We as a local (union) and your brothers and sisters in Minnesota are concerned about the jobs being shipped down here at a discounted rate, to be honest with you," Troy Gustafson of Teamsters Local 120 told the Iowa Economic Development Authority Board Friday...
From the ranks of Microsoft’s permatemps  Washington Post   ...In Silicon Valley, contract workers are beginning to organize. Google and Facebook shuttle bus drivers have joined the Teamsters union...
Trade
Now We Know Why Huge TPP Trade Deal Is Kept Secret From the Public  Huffington Post   ...if corporations feel they have been denied "expected" profits by a government regulation, ISDS lets them circumvent a country's courts and go to an international corporate tribunal with their grievance. But if labor organizers are murdered, workers and their families have nowhere to go...
Trade Show: Today In What The Hell Is Going On With The TPP?  Esquire   ... It seems that in their desire to bless us all with the benefits of "free" trade, the negotiators have managed to outsource not only all the manufacturing jobs that are worth a damn, but also the job of domestic environmental spoilage...
State Battles
Plain Talk: Scott Walker a textbook case of why we don't trust politicians (opinion)  The Cap Times   ...Worse, though, is that Walker not only underhandedly cloaks his amibitions, he lies about them, too...
Mandatory Sick Leave Moves Forward In Capitol  Statesman Journal   ...Nearly every Oregon employee could have at least 40 hours of paid sick leave in the near future if the Oregon Legislature succeeds in passing one of two bills currently under discussion in the Capitol...
Minimum Wage, Equal Pay Bills Fail In House Subcommittee  Memphis Business Journal   ...A group of Democratic sponsored bills, including two to raise the state’s minimum wage and another to allow female employees recourse to sue over pay discrimination, failed in a Tennessee House subcommittee Wednesday. Votes on each piece of legislation were divided on party lines...
Buffalo Lawmaker Seeking Further Minimum Wage Hike  Buffalo Business First   ...The proposal would increase the state’s minimum wage to $10.50 now with staggered incremental increases leading to $15 in 2018. After three years of increases, the state’s minimum wage is set to reach $9 on Dec. 31, 2015. The current minimum wage in New York is set at $8.75. Panepinto said that number translates to $18,000 per year...
War on Workers
Metro workers say safety culture doesn’t exist  Washington Post   ...Metro train and bus operators, mechanics and other employees have lined up to criticize the agency’s safety culture nearly three months after a deadly smoke incident left one person dead and spurred new questions about the system’s management and training...
Amazon demands employees sign 18-month non-compete agreement to get a three-month-long job  Pando   ...The agreements last for up to 18 months. Seasonal workers can be employed by Amazon for as few as three. That’s a hell of a trade-off, especially considering that the non-compete agreements prevent Amazon’s employees from working “at any company where they ‘directly or indirectly’ support any good or service that competes with those they helped support at Amazon”...
Exclusive: Upset by Warren, U.S. banks debate halting some campaign donations  Reuters   ...Big Wall Street banks are so upset with U.S. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren's call for them to be broken up that some have discussed withholding campaign donations to Senate Democrats in symbolic protest, sources familiar with the discussions said...
Wall Street isn’t happy with us  ElizabethWarren.com   ... They want a showy way to tell Democrats across the country to be scared of speaking out, to be timid about standing up, and to stay away from fighting for what’s right. Ok, they have taken their shot, but it will not work...
Middle Class Jobs Are Still Lagging  FiveThirtyEight   ...This U-shaped recovery – faster growth at the top and bottom, slower in the middle – isn’t a new phenomenon. What’s unclear is how long it will last. Mid-tier jobs are often the last to rebound in a recovery. It’s possible that with job growth now picking up, the pattern will begin to reverse, or perhaps has even begun to do so already...
Raleigh Scaffolding Collapse Kills 3 Construction Workers  Raleigh News and Observer   ...Three construction workers were killed and another seriously injured late Monday morning when an exterior lift system tore from the side of an office building under construction in downtown Raleigh...
Oil Trains Put US On Target For More Derailments, Warn Experts  Fox News   ...Activists call them “bomb trains,” and they’re likely rolling through a town near you. The oil boom in North Dakota and Alberta, Canada, has put a record number of train cars on tracks carrying hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude oil each day all across the U.S. Several accidents have already happened, and local leaders say it is a matter of time until more occur...
Miscellaneous
NSA Doesn’t Need To Spy On Your Calls To Learn Your Secrets  Wired   ...Collecting metadata on people means putting them under surveillance...
The Shut-In Economy  Medium   ...the on-demand world isn’t about sharing at all. It’s about being served. This is an economy of shut-ins...

Minnesota congressman makes another try at a financial transaction tax

Not a pretty picture.

Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., is reintroducing a bill tomorrow that would impose a sales tax on Wall Street speculative trading. He calls it 'The Inclusive Prosperity Act.' You might know it as the Robin Hood Tax. Ellison said it would create hundreds of billions of dollars a year for communities in need. The bill would also discourage the high-frequency trading that rigs the system in favor of insiders and against small investors.

Ellison introduced the same bill last year on April 4, the anniversary of Martin Luther King's assassination. Rallies in 24 cities were held around the country that day to remind people that King died while fighting for the cause of economic justice. 

Back then, Ellison said,

A lot of people in Washington like to talk about reducing the debt and deficits. Well if you really care about reducing the deficit, how about asking Wall Street speculators to pay their fair share? This bill will add a tax of a fraction of a percent on transactions made by the same Wall Street firms and stock traders who crashed our economy in 2008. This tax alone will generate up to $300 billion a year in revenue, stabilizing the deficit and allowing us to invest in the things that matter—education, roads and bridges, and health care for our seniors and veterans.

Granted, Ellison has less of a chance of passing the bill this year than last because Republicans now hold more seats in Congress.  But he deserves props for keeping the debate alive as more people recognize inequality in the United States is destroying both our economy and our democracy.

John Nichols at The Nation pointed out earlier this year that Ellison has helped persuade more centrist Democrats that a financial transaction tax -- albeit a small one -- is a good idea. In January, Maryland Democrat Chris Van Hollen presented an 'action plan' that framed his party's message in the new Congress.

Wrote Nichols,

The “action plan” calls for a 0.1 percent tax on transactions by high-volume traders—Wall Street’s “high rollers”—that would yield an anticipated $800 billion in fresh revenues over a decade. Reductions in tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans would yield another $400 billion. The combined $1.2 billion windfall would, according to a Washington Post review of the plan, help to fund “a ‘paycheck bonus’ of $1,000 for individuals and $2,000 for married couples, a bonus of $250 for people who save at least $500 a year and reduced ‘marriage penalties’ for couples.” 

While the numbers may sound big, what Van Hollen has proposed is a modest plan that only begins to explore the potential of a financial transactions tax. The 0.1 percent tax on trades is far below what unions and activist groups have proposed. For instance, Ellison’s 2013 proposal called for a 0.5 percent tax rate on stock trades, along with a 0.1 percent tax rate on bonds and a 0.005 percent tax rate on derivatives or other investments.

Financial transaction taxes are working in London, China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Russia. They can work here too. Let's keep Ellison's idea alive.

Today's Teamster News 01.28.15

Teamsters
Robert Morales  IBT   ...We are saddened to report the death of Robert Morales, who passed away on January 26, 2015...
Credentialing Crunch  American Legion   ...Starting this winter, the Teamsters – with logistical support and backing from The American Legion – will begin offering civilian CDL training to enlisted military truck drivers. The training-to-placement program will set up shop on military bases and offer drivers the opportunity to earn their civilian CDLs before they are discharged...
Turbulance Ahead At Allegiant Air As Pilots Prepare For Strike  Global Travel Industry News   ...The International Brotherhood of Teamsters will host a call to update Allegiant Travel Company investors, industry analysts, customers and press regarding the current status of contract negotiations for Allegiant Air pilots, their recent strike authorization vote and the union's request for a proffer of arbitration from the National Mediation Board...
Teamsters Protest Labatt Beer At NHL All-Star Game  teamster.org   ...At the National Hockey League’s All-Star Game on Sunday, Teamsters who work at Heidelberg Distributing provided information to fans about anti-worker behavior by the company, which distributes Labatt Beer products in Ohio...
Leaked Memo: YRC Seeks To Outsource Unprofitable Runs  Kansas City Business Journal   ...A Dec. 18, 2014, memo obtained by the Kansas City Business Journal, details a change-of-operations request to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters that would allow the company to increase its use of interline carriers — third-party transportation providers — in areas currently served by YRC Worldwide Inc. employees...
Trade
TTIP Is Sputtering, But Other 'Trade' Deals Threaten Our Sovereignty  Ecologist   ...So far the talks have achieved little in terms of reaching agreement for specific market sectors. And they are facing increasing scepticism because of TTIP's plans to deregulate goods and services like health through 'harmonisation' of EU and US standards - something that in practice usually means levelling down...
Anti-Trade Deal Protesters Hijack Senate TPP Hearing  RT   ...Protesters opposed to a major, multi-national trade deal being negotiated in secret by a dozen countries – including the United States – hijacked a US Senate hearing early Tuesday to speak out against the proposal. Capitol Police removed no fewer than three demonstrators Tuesday morning during testimony delivered before the Senate Committee on Finance by US Trade Representative Michael Froman concerning the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP...
State Battles
Ky. attorney talks right-to-work  Politico   ...The conservative push to pass right-to-work ordinances at the county level has as its ultimate aim passage of right-to-work at the state level, according to Warren County, Kentucky’s public attorney...
Union says it won’t stand by as GOP attacks collective bargaining  Las Vegas Sun   ...Republicans are attacking working families with their proposals to upend collective bargaining in Nevada, Danny Thompson, executive vice treasurer of the Nevada AFL-CIO, said at a press conference this morning...
War on Workers
Middle Class Shrinks Further As More Fall Out Instead Of Climbing Up  New York Times   ...In the late 1960s, more than half of the households in the United States were squarely in the middle, earning, in today’s dollars, $35,000 to $100,000 a year. Few people noticed or cared as the size of that group began to fall, because the shift was primarily caused by more Americans climbing the economic ladder into upper-income brackets. But since 2000, the middle-class share of households has continued to narrow, the main reason being that more people have fallen to the bottom...
This Map Reveals Just How Unequal The So-Called Recovery Is  Huffington Post   ...In 39 U.S. states, the top 1 percent of earners gobbled up at least half of all of the income gains between 2009 and 2012. And in 17 of those states, the top earners got every bit of the income growth in those years...
Wall Street's Threat To The American Middle Class (opinion)  Huffington Post   ...Presidential aspirants in both parties are talking about saving the middle class. But the middle class can't be saved unless Wall Street is tamed. The Street's excesses pose a continuing danger to average Americans. And its ongoing use of confidential corporate information is defrauding millions of middle-class investors. Yet most presidential aspirants don't want to talk about taming the Street because Wall Street is one of their largest sources of campaign money...
Miscellaneous
CBO: Deficit To Narrow, Then Widen In ’18  Wall Street Journal   ...Existing budget restraints and stronger economic growth will chip away at the federal deficit into 2017 before the gap begins to widen again, the Congressional Budget Office said, providing ammunition for both parties ahead of the White House’s first budget proposal to the Republican-controlled Congress...

Tax breaks for workers instead of CEO bonuses? Sounds like a plan

Here's a plan to get behind: Fix the U.S. tax code so it rewards people who work instead of CEOs who loot their companies.

The U.S. tax code is truly a disaster. It lets billionaire Warren Buffet pay a lower rate of taxes than his secretary. It gives corporations tax breaks for giving their  shipping jobs overseas and giving CEO's huge bonuses. Between 2007 and 2010, U.S. corporations claimed $66 billion in tax deductions because they gave bonuses to their CEOs and top executives.

No wonder the gap between rich and poor is getting so great in the United States. Of the developed countries, only Chile is more unequal. Mexico, Estonia, Brazil, Slovenia and Greece are just some of the countries where people are more equal than they are in the United States.

Congressional Democrats have some good ideas to change the tax code to reward workers instead of people who are already wealthy.

Here's one: The CEO Paycheck Fairness Act. It says corporations cannot continue to take unlimited tax deductions for their CEO and executive bonuses unless they're giving their workers raises for increasing productivity -- and to keep up with the cost of living.

The legislation would let corporations deduct up to $1 million for executive salaries -- but not if they cut workers pay or lay people off. It's very simple. No raises for workers, no tax breaks for corporate bonuses.

As U.S. Rep. Chris Van Hollen, a House Democrat, said earlier this week,

If the tax code can be used to provide preferences for corporate jets and for racehorses, surely we can use the tax code to incentivize corporations to give their employees pay raises or invest in apprenticeship programs that result in better skills and bigger paychecks. 

It's such a good idea that Congressional Republicans are blocking it already. House Speaker John Boehner's flack tweeted:

The last thing we need is a new trillion-dollar tax hike added to the current broken tax code.

What he's referring to is the Robin Hood tax that the Democrats would use to pay for workers' tax breaks. The Robin Hood tax would not affect workers themselves. It would affect high-rollers on Wall Street.

The Robin Hood tax is a teensy little tax on Wall Street's speculative financial transactions. It would raise

Our brothers and sisters at National Nurses United are solidly behind the Robin Hood tax. So are Nobel Prize-winning economists, former US Vice Presidents, founders of Microsoft, Ronald Reagan’s Budget Director, the UN’s Secretary General and the Archbishop of Capetown.
Here's how they explain it:

This small tax of less than ½ of 1% on Wall Street transactions can generate hundreds of billions of dollars each year in the US alone. 

Enough to protect American schools, housing, local governments and hospitals. Enough to pay for lifesaving AIDS medicines. Enough to support people and communities around the world – and deal with the climate challenges we're facing. 

It won't affect ordinary Americans, their personal savings, or every day consumer activity, such as ATMs or debit cards. It's easy to enforce and tough to evade. 

This is a tax on Wall Street, which created the greatest economic crisis in our nation, and globally, since the Great Depression. The same people who have returned to record profits and bonuses while ordinary Americans, the 99%, continue to pay the price of their crisis.

There's another advantage to the Robin Hood tax: It will discourage high-speed trading, which contributes to the instability of the financial system.

Sounds like a plan. A good one.