Today's Teamster News 04.23.11

YRC reports progress in financial restructuring negotiations  Kansas City Star   ...John Lamar, YRC's chief restructuring officer, said in a brief statement the company has been working closely with JP Morgan...the steering committee, the company’s pension funds and the Teamsters National Freight Industry Negotiating Committee...
Marathon County Supreme Court race recount is set for Wednesday  Wausau Daily Herald   ...The campaigns agreed in court to a hand recount in precincts across 31 counties where electronic machines' memory cartridges are full...
Voters to get opportunity to sign repeal petitions  Toledo Blade   ...opponents of a new law weakening the collective bargaining rights of public employees will ask voters to begin exercising direct democracy Saturday by signing repeal petitions...
Builders of New Homes Seeing No Sign of Recovery  New York Times   ...
The recession hurt a lot of industries, but it knocked the residential construction market to the mat and has kept it there...
Young workers face a dire labor market without a safety net  EPI   ...The unemployment rate for high school graduates under age 25 who were not enrolled in school was 22.5%, compared with 9.3% for college graduates of the same age...
9/11 First Responders To Be Run Through FBI Terrorism Watch List Before Getting Health Care Benefits  TalkingPointsMemo   ...a provision in the James Zadroga 9/11 Health And Compensation law...requires them to be run through the FBI's terrorism watch list...
Minn. GOP House Speaker Backs Off Calling Voting A 'Privilege,' Not A Right  TalkingPointsMemo   ...Kurt Zellers (R), who is strongly pushing for passage of a voter ID law, has now backed away from comments he made in a radio appearance on Wednesday...

Zadroga bill is finally law; India, China to pay for it



Teamsters working at Ground Zero.

 President Obama signed the bill into law on Sunday. It's named after James Zadroga, a NYPD officer who died of illnesses related to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Thousands of first responders and cleanup workers got seriously ill working at Ground Zero after the attacks.


Reports Reuters:

The five-year, $4.3 billion measure will provide medical treatment for emergency responders sickened by toxic dust inhaled at the World Trade Center site...It also includes a health program for responders sickened by the toxic debris and establishes a victims' ... fund.

Best of all, the workers' medical costs are paid for by a small tax on goods and services sourced from contractors in countries like India, China and Thailand. Another source of funds: a steep fee hike on work visas from 2014 to 2021.

dnaindia.com reports Indian officials are angry.

Commerce minister Anand Sharma slammed the bill as “retrograde” after it passed Congress at the close of the session on December 22.

TeamsterNation doubts that any Teamster tears will be shed because of that. Or this:

The H-1B visa program that catapults Indians into Silicon Valley and Wall Street is on track to leaving thousands of spots unfilled for the first time since 2003.

Today's Teamster News 12.23.10

Teamsters Hail Passage of Zadroga 9/11 Bill  IBT   ...Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa commended Congress today for passing the James Zadroga 9/11 bill to monitor and treat workers who got sick because of their work at Ground Zero...
Teamsters Back MP's Bid to Get Double Tractor-Trailers off Ontario Highways  Globe and Mail   ...The Teamsters believe the huge, long trucks can be dangerous and even contribute to road rage...
Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning  New York Times   ...Prichard did something that pension experts say they have never seen before: it stopped sending monthly pension checks to its 150 retired workers, breaking a state law requiring it to pay its promised retirement benefits in full...
In a Sign of Foreclosure Flaws, Suits Claim Break-Ins by Banks  New York Times   ...lawsuits detailing bank break-ins...house keep surfacing....

Bus drivers, monitors vote to strike  Mid-Hudson News   ...School bus drivers and monitors who are members of Teamsters Local 445 headquartered in Newburgh have voted almost unanimously to strike against several area school districts...
Teamsters warn about VWR project in Visalia  Visalia Times-Delta  Doug Bloch, political director of San Francisco-based Teamsters Joint Council No. 7 (said)  "We ask that the city of Visalia find out more about a facility of this size, and how it affects the environment, worker safety and air quality"...

YRC gets break on lending agreements  Kansas City Star
Holiday delivers UPS b usiest day  Associated Press   ...Its 24 million shipments is 9 percent higher than 2009 and 2007...

Hooray! Zadroga 9/11 bill passes




Teamsters working at Ground Zero.

 Fantastic news today! Congress passed the Zadroga bill to monitor and care for 9/11 workers who got sick from toxic dust at the World Trade Center. The bill now goes to President Obama to sign into law.

Here's the Teamsters statement about the bill:

Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa commended Congress today for passing the James Zadroga 9/11 bill to monitor and treat workers who got sick because of their work at Ground Zero.


Many firefighters, police officers and construction workers developed respiratory and other illnesses from exposure to World Trade Center dust. The bill is named after James Zadroga, a New York Police Department officer who died of respiratory illness similar to those of many Ground Zero workers.

“This is the very least that the American people can do to honor the sacrifice and courage that these heroes made after the 9/11 attacks,” Hoffa said. “Teamsters are among those suffering heart and lung problems because of their tireless work at Ground Zero. Some have lost wages, and some have lost their health benefits. I am so pleased that Congress is doing the right thing for these brave patriots.”
The James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act will pay for tens of thousands of people who were exposed to the air around Ground Zero.

Is there enough time left for the Zadroga bill?

Teamsters working at Ground Zero.

Cross your fingers. The bill to care for sick 9/11 first responders might still pass. Several Republican senators indicated they might vote for the bill. If they vote to break their own party's filibuster (not the same thing as voting for the bill), the Zadroga Act would become law.

But the clock is ticking. There isn't much time left before this Congress goes home for good, and the Senate still has other business to deal with. Some Republicans may decide to stall the Zadroga bill. Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn told Politico on Monday night he might block it. Reports Politico,

New York Democrats hoping for quick action on a bill to give health care compensation to Ground Zero workers are about to run into Tom Coburn. The Oklahoma Republican and physician -- known in the Senate as "Dr. No" for his penchant in blocking bills -- told POLITICO Monday night he wouldn't allow the bill to move quickly, saying he has problems with parts of the bill and the process Democrats are employing. Other Republicans like Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) said he had concerns with the measure and said it should instead move through the committee process.

Enzi and Arizona Sen. John Kyl are claiming the bill needs more time. They're full of crap. As ThinkProgress notes,

...the Senate and House version of the bill have been available to Kyl and anyone else to read since 2009, and there was in fact a Senate hearing on it in June, even though he insists it never happened. Meanwhile, changes to bill have been made at the GOP’s behest...

If the Zadroga Act doesn't pass this year, it may never pass.  According to Jay Newton-Small at Time,

If the Zadroga bill does not pass now, it is unlikely to make it through a GOP-controlled House and an expanded Republican minority in the Senate next year. Despite the fact that the bill's been bouncing around for the last two years, Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the No. 2 Senate Republican, over the weekend called for more time to look at the bill. One GOP leadership aide told me today that the bill's odds were still dim, and even a Democratic leadership aide conceded that “time is the only thing that could stop it, it seems.” As the sick and dying first responders know all too well, time is of the essence.

Stay tuned.

Today's Teamster News 12.21.10

UPS Deliveries Up this Holiday Season  WNEP  ...After 22 years of holiday deliveries, UPS driver Ed Best has a strategy for getting through the most challenging week of the year...
A Busy Week For Post Office, Shipping Companies  Hartford Courant   ...United Parcel Service said it is projecting that Wednesday will be its busiest day, as last-minute packages are shipped... 
$2tn debt crisis threatens to bring down 100 US cities  The Guardian   ...Overdrawn American cities could face financial collapse in 2011, defaulting on hundreds of billions of dollars of borrowings and derailing the US economic recovery...
60 Minutes' one-sided, GOP-friendly report on state budgets  Media Matters   ...CBS adopts the Republican framing that deficits are all about spending -- frequently with loaded phrasing like "gold-plated retirement and health care packages." ...
Conservatives growing uncomfortable with GOP blockade of 9/11 health bill The Washington Post   ... it's going to get increasingly hard for GOP Senators to maintain their opposition...
The Effect of Falling Home Prices on Small Business Borrowing  Cleveland Fed    ...Because small business owners may rely heavily on the value of their homes to finance their businesses (through mortgages or home equity lines), the fall in housing prices might be one of the causes of their difficulty...
One-in-Three Working Families Considered ‘Low Income’  Wall Street Journal   ...  More than 22 million children were part of low-income families last year...

New hope for Zadroga 9/11 bill

Teamsters working at Ground Zero.

It looked all but hopeless as Congress winds down for the year, but it turns out there's still a chance the Zadroga Act will become law.

The bill would pay for monitoring and treating the 9/11 first responders who suffer health problems -- like terminal cancer, pulmonary fibrosis and heart disease. It's named after a NYPD officer who died of respiratory disease attributed to working at Ground Zero.

Devlin Barrett at the Wall Street Journal reports,

New York lawmakers said Sunday they have crafted a scaled-down version of a health-care bill for sick Ground Zero workers that should garner enough Republican support to pass...Supporters of the bill believe that the smaller price tag—the overall cost was cut to $6.2 billion from $7.4 billion—combined with a different method of paying for the legislation, will be enough to win yes votes from Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Mark Kirk of Illinois and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska...

New York political leaders are holding a press conference right now to urge Congress to pass the bill.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has lobbied against the bill because it's paid for by eliminating a tax loophole for foreign corporations. According to Think Progress,

The Chamber fought to help kill the 9/11 compensation bill because it was funded by ending a special tax loophole exploited by foreign corporations doing business in the United States...In September, the Chamber sent a letter officially opposing the 9/11 first responders bill, called the “James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010.” The Chamber warned that ending the tax loophole would “damage U.S. relationships with major trading partners” and “aggravate already unsettled financial markets.” A lobbying disclosure filed with the Senate confirms the Chamber contacted lawmakers to help kill the bill. In typical fashion, the Chamber has not revealed which of its foreign members had asked them to kill the 9/11 bill.

One more thing: If you haven't seen the tremendous video of Jon Stewart and four 9/11 first responders reacting to the Senate filibuster of the bill, you must. Watch it here.

Today's Teamster News 12.19.10

Maine FedEx drivers sue over employment status  Bangor Daily News   ...A group of eight people who worked as delivery drivers for FedEx affiliates in Maine have filed a class-action lawsuit, saying they were misclassified...
Justices Offer Receptive Ear to Business Interests  New York Times   ...the percentage of business cases on the Supreme Court docket has grown in the Roberts years, as has the percentage of cases won by business interests...
McWeasel Blasts 9/11 Health Bill  Political Animal  ... the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been quietly lobbying against it because it's financed by closing tax loopholes for foreign businesses that do business in the United States...
13 Products Most Likely To Made By Child Or Forced Labor (PHOTOS)  Huffington Post  ...There are some 128 goods among the products that most commonly use child labor...
Bodyguard business is booming Los Angeles Times   ...demand for bodyguards has soared in lockstep with increasing global unrest spurred by wars and economic turmoil...

Video: 9/11 1st responders reax to shameful Senators



Teamsters working at Ground Zero.

 Four 9/11 first responders suffering cancer, lung and heart disease reacted to the Senate Republicans who filibustered a bill to pay for their health care. Jon Stewart brought the men to The Daily Show studios and taped their response to Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell crying over a friend's retirement. 

They were (unsurprisingly) disgusted by McConnell's tears over his lunch buddy. And John Devlin, a heavy equipment operator, was not impressed by  Arizona's Sen. John Kyl, who said it would be disrespectful to work over the holidays (which would prevent the bill from passing). Devlin said,

It was an honor to work through Christmas on that 9/11 to give that closure to those people standing on the other side of the gate every morning showing us their pictures of their loved ones.

Watch the video here -- it's heartbreaking and infuriating all at the same time.

Republicans in the U.S. Senate are filibustering a bill to compensate the 9/11 first responders who suffer health problems -- like terminal cancer, pulmonary fibrosis and heart disease. The James Zadroga bill would provide $7.4 billion over 10 years to pay for monitoring and treatment. It's named after a NYPD officer who died of respiratory disease attributed to working at Ground Zero.

The New York Daily News reported that first responders had a positive meeting with Maine Sen. Susan Collins about letting the bill come to the floor for a vote. They were optimistic, but we wouldn't advise them to hold their breath.

If you're interested, there's a Facebook page called "I Won't Forget Republicans Sold Out 911 Responders to help the Richest 2%."

IL Sen who pledged to vote yes on 9/11 bill, voted no

Teamsters removing debris from Ground Zero.

This is why people hate Washington. Mark Kirk, a Republican congressman from Illinois, ran this year for U.S. Senator. He promised -- got that? PROMISED -- he would vote for the James Zadroga Act, which pays to treat workers (including Teamsters) injured by the toxic dust at Ground Zero.

You know what happens next. Kirk didn't vote for the bill. Steve Benen at Political Animal writes,

Apparently, the problem wasn't with the legislation itself, but rather, with Kirk's priorities -- he helped block the 9/11 health bill because he's blocking everything until Republicans secure the tax cuts they want for the wealthy. Just so we're clear here, Mark Kirk promised to support legislation to provide health care to 9/11 rescue workers, and then went back on his word, and wouldn't even give the bill an up-or-down vote, because he thinks tax breaks for millionaires are more important.

New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg sounded disgusted. He said in a statement

The attacks of 9/11 were attacks on America, and we have a collective responsibility to care for the heroes, from all 50 states, who answered the call of duty, saved lives and helped our nation recover.

Today's Teamster News 12.10.10

UPS Expands Photo ID Rule for Retail Shipping as Bombs Spur Security Boost  Bloomberg News
Truckers Cruising on Highway to Recovery  The Bedford Report   ...Even the much-maligned trucking company YRC Worldwide has begun to show signs of stabilizing...
Republicans Block U.S. Health Aid for 9/11 Workers  New York TImes
New York gets share of rejected rail funds  Albany Times-Union   ... The nearly $1.2 billion in federal funds for high-speed rail projects that newly elected governors in Ohio and Wisconsin rejected has been redirected to other states...
New Republican lawmakers are hiring lobbyists, despite campaign rhetoric  Washington Post   ...Tea party favorite Rand Paul (Ky.) has hired anti-union lobbyist Douglas Stafford...
What Does the "Take This Job and Shove It" Indicator Say About the Economy?  Mish's Global Economic Analysis   ... an increasing number of people are quitting their jobs, a sign of an upturn in consumer confidence and the economy...
What is Wrong with Cutting Taxes?  Baseline Scenario   ...we cannot afford to blithely increase our national debt...
Veteran highway department barn closed over air quality concerns  Star-Gazette   ...Local Teamsters President John Farwell said he had concerns about the health of the workers...
Teamsters Lend a Hand  Mississauga News   ...Teamsters Local 938 Retirees' Club donated $1,000 and hundreds of toys... 

Senate rejects bill to aid 9/11 workers



Teamsters working on Ground Zero.

 Republicans in the Senate this afternoon blocked a bill to provide health care for 9/11 workers who got sick from working at Ground Zero. The vote was 57-42, with all Republicans voting against the bill, which needed 60 votes to move forward.


The New York Times reports

The Senate action created huge uncertainty over the future of the bill. Its proponents were working on Thursday to have the legislation inserted into a large tax-cut bill that Republicans and Democrats are trying to pass before Congress ends it current session later this month.

The bill was named after James Zadroga, an NYPD officer who responded on 9/11 and later died of a respiratory disease caused by exposure at Ground Zero. The Teamsters, who have members who worked on the pile, strongly support the bill. 

Today's Teamster News 09/16/10

Elizabeth Warren To Be Appointed to Help Create Consumer Finance Protection Bureau ABC News ...Warren ... proposed ... "a new regulatory body to protect consumers who use credit cards, home mortgages, car loans, and a host of other products..."

Wayne County Fights Fear of Unions Detroit Free Press ...Bill Black, executive director of Teamsters Joint Council No. 43, (was) ... part of the team selling Wayne County as a swell place to do business.

States cutting benefits for public-sector retirees Bloomberg News ...Since 2008, New Jersey and at least 19 other states from Wyoming to Rhode Island have rolled back pension benefits or seriously considered doing do...

UC workers protest plan to shore up pension funds Associated Press ...University of California workers (represented by the Teamsters) are protesting a plan to increase the share of their paychecks set aside for their pensions...

Concern about Personal Financial Situation Highest in Five Years Business Wire ...Seventy-five percent of workers and 61 percent of retirees are very concerned about their long-term financial future...

FedEx Profit Doubles, But It's Laying Off 1,700 Workers Associated Press ...FedEx Corp. ... strength in international shipments are driving profits, but said it will cut 1,700 jobs in an attempt to fix its money-losing U.S. trucking business.

Dozens of 9/11 responders make plea in Washington D.C. to push for Zadroga Act with Mayor Bloomberg Daily News ...Ex-paramedic Freddy Noboa traveled 1,100 miles with his 41 medications to Washington Wednesday, hoping to get Congress to finally pass a 9/11 health bill.