Trade
The Trans-Pacific Partnership won't deliver jobs or curb China's power (opinion) Los Angeles Times ...U.S. leaders promised [previous free-trade] deals would create high-paying jobs, reduce the trade deficit, increase GDP and raise living standards. But none of this came true...
Trans-Pacific Partnership Deal Isn't Secret, Says US Official, But Access To Text Is Highly Restricted International Business Times ...[U.S. Trade Representative] Michael From an and Roberto Carvalho de Azevêdo, the director-general of the World Trade Organization, were asked at the World Economic Forum why the TPP is being kept secret by the U.S. at the same time the European Union has just published the full text of a separate proposed trade agreement with the United State….
Bipartisan push to stop currency cheats could derail TPP Washington Post …The latest news is that lawmakers will ask for any agreement to include a provision to stop foreign countries from manipulating their currencies at the expense of U.S. manufacturers...
America's Losing the Currency War (opinion) Bloomberg … Now the ball is in Japan's court again, and the U.S. is "just sitting here watching, being the one country whose currency is rallying because everyone else is trying to devalue."...
State Battles
Workers fight anti-worker local right-to-work laws in Kentucky TeamsterNation ...You can bet it isn't Kentucky workers who are passing right-to-work laws in six counties so far this year. The workers are fighting them...
Republicans vote to end Pay Equity Commission Fox31 Denver … Senate Republicans again reminded their Democratic colleagues what it’s like being in the minority as they voted Wednesday afternoon to do away with the Pay Equity Commission, arguing that it’s a feckless body that hasn’t accomplished much. Democrats …are already returning to their oft-used narrative that the GOP is hostile to women by scrapping a body charged with rooting out gender discrimination in the workplace...
AN ACT CONCERNING LARGE RETAIL STORES AND EMPLOYMENT OF WORKERS DURING THE HOLIDAY SEASON. Connecticut General Assembly ...To require retail stores of five thousand square feet or more to close on certain holidays unless employees are given the option not to work holidays without penalty...
Rauner pulls plug on Quinn's last-minute moves Chicago Tribune ...Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner has pulled the plug on Democratic predecessor Pat Quinn’s attempt to raise the minimum wage for state contractors, require the governor to release more details about his tax returns and stop Illinois State Police from detaining people based on their immigration status...
Prevailing wage emerges as unions' next big battle CNHI …The labor movement may be facing another high-stakes fight as sentiment grows to roll back the prevailing wage for workers on public projects. [in Indiana]...
“Right to Work” Is the Wrong Answer for Wisconsin’s Economy Economic Policy Institute ...What RTW laws do is to make it illegal for a group of unionized workers to negotiate a contract that requires each employee who enjoys the benefit of the contract to pay his or her share of the costs of negotiating and policing it...
War on Workers
Labor at a Crossroads: In Defense of Members-Only Unionism (opinion) American Prospect ...Allowing members-only unions would protect the rights of those who wish to bargain collectively even if they fail to surmount all the legal hurdles necessary to establish the union as the representative of all employees in the workplace. The decision of the United Auto Workers union to engage in members-only bargaining at the VW plant in Chattanooga is a potentially revolutionary experiment with a new approach to union representation...
Why the Energy Selloff Is So Dangerous to the U.S. Economy Wall Street on Parade ... Oil-related companies in the U.S. now account for between 35 to 40 percent of all capital spending. Announcements of sharp cutbacks in capital spending and job reductions by these companies create big ripples, forcing related companies to trim their own budgets, revenue assumptions, and payrolls accordingly...
Buying a Nominee National Journal ...The coming presidential contest is ushering in an epochal shift: the arrival of candidate-specific nonprofits, personalized vehicles for a politician's supporters to raise and spend unlimited cash—completely clandestinely. It is poised to yield a campaign season more dominated by secret money than any election since Watergate...
Bob Dylan wants billionaire ‘job creators’ to start actually creating some jobs Raw Story … “People have to create jobs, and these big billionaires are the ones who can do it. We don’t see that happening. We see crime and inner cities exploding with people who have nothing to do, turning to drink and drugs. They could all have work created for them by all these hotshot billionaires. For sure that would create lot of happiness.”...
Wells Fargo, JPMorgan loan officers took cash kickbacks CNN Money ...Regulators said more than 100 loan officers at Wells Fargo (WFC) locations in Maryland and Virginia steered thousands of loans to Genuine Title, which went out of business last year, in exchange for cash...
Number of NC workers killed on the job nearly doubled last year Charlotte News & Observer ...Forty-four people died in work-related accidents last year, up from 23 in 2013. It was the highest number of worker deaths since 2011, when 53 died, according to the Labor Department...
Worker killed in steel factory accident Boston Globe …the worker was struck by a piece of steel as it was swinging on a crane inside the warehouse...
Miscellaneous
Senate Sets Final Vote For Keystone XL After Long, Tense Night Of Amendment Voting ThinkProgress ...The Senate was in session until midnight Thursday night, debating and voting on fifteen amendments to a bill that would approve the construction of the controversial Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. At the end of it all, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell filed for cloture, a procedural move that effectively sets up a final vote on Keystone for next week...
Federal Court Order: Explosive DOT-111 "Bomb Train" Oil Tank Cars Can Continue to Roll DeSmogBlog …A U.S. federal court has ordered a halt in proceedings until May in a case centering around oil-by-rail tankers pitting the Sierra Club and ForestEthics against the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). As a result, potentially explosive DOT-111 oil tank cars, dubbed “bomb trains” by activists, can continue to roll through towns and cities across the U.S. indefinitely...
Showing posts with label bank criminality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bank criminality. Show all posts
Saturday, January 24, 2015
Sunday, November 23, 2014
Today's Teamster News 11.23.14
Teamsters
Teamsters: Port Truck Drivers At Pacer Cartage, Harbor Rail Transport Return To Work teamster.org ...On Friday, port truck drivers from the Pacer Cartage and Harbor Rail Transport in Long Beach, Calif., who had struck to protest wage theft caused by their misclassificaton as "independent contractors", took down their picket lines and made an unconditional offer to return to work after both companies pledged to continue talks...
Trade
Trading Up? Politico ...A separate Pew Research poll found that similar shares of both Republicans and Democrats are more or less in agreement that trade destroys jobs (54 percent in the GOP say so, and 50 percent of Democrats) and lowers wages (44 percent in the GOP and 49 percent of Democrats). Moreover, one of the TPP’s main goals is to spur foreign investment. On that score, Republicans are more wary than Democrats: 75 percent in the GOP think foreign companies buying U.S. companies is bad for the country, compared with 66 percent of Democrats...
Mládek: TTIP could become US election football Prague Post ...The talks on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), an extensive agreement between the European Union and the United States, should be completed by the end of next year, Czech Industry and Trade Minister Jan Mládek said. Then the complicated talks might fall victim to the campaign ahead of the presidential election in the United States...
State Battles
A Dozen Greedy, Inhumane and Cruel Policies That Top Corporate Lobbyists Will Push In 2015 Center for Media and Democracy ...ALEC seeks to kill minimum wage increases, ban union organizing, deprive poor people of Medicaid-delivered health care, block shareholder advocacy, stop e-cigarette regulations, sabotage new rules for ride-share companies, lower medical training standards for dental assistants, and more, according to a legislative blueprint that will be discussed at an upcoming States & Nation Policy Summit in Washington, DC....
War on Workers
Amazing Black Friday Deals, Brought to You by the American Taxpayer Economic Policy Institute ...Nearly one in three retail workers or their families (31.5 percent) receives support from at least one means-tested public assistance program—such as food stamps (SNAP), the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), or Medicaid4—compared with less than one in four (22.2 percent) workers or their families in all other industries. Public assistance to families of workers in retail can be conservatively estimated to top $13.4 billion each year...
...
Wal-Mart workers plan Black Friday protests for higher pay Los Angeles Times ...Organizers say rallies and marches will occur at 1,600 Wal-Mart locations on the day after Thanksgiving in what they say will be the largest protests ever against the nation's biggest retailer...
Malled: The Hollowing Out of an American Institution. 'We Surrender' Bloomberg ...Steeplegate is one of about 300 U.S. malls facing a choice between re-invention and oblivion. Most are middle-market shopping centers being squeezed between big-box chains catering to low-income Americans and luxury malls lavishing white-glove service on One Percenters...
Yes, bankers lie more than the rest of us. Wall Street reforms aren’t likely to change that culture. Washington Post ... the group who were primed to think of themselves as bankers tended to lie significantly more — they misrepresented their results about 16 percent of the time and more than a quarter of the “bankers” group cheated...
Teeth and Bones: Mass Abduction Reveals a Decaying Mexican State der Spiegel ...More than 100,000 people have been killed in the ongoing drug war since 2006 with upwards of 25,000 more listed as missing. The bloodletting, the mass graves, the beheadings and the arrests of drug bosses have become so normal that they hardly manage to make it onto the front pages anymore...
Teamsters: Port Truck Drivers At Pacer Cartage, Harbor Rail Transport Return To Work teamster.org ...On Friday, port truck drivers from the Pacer Cartage and Harbor Rail Transport in Long Beach, Calif., who had struck to protest wage theft caused by their misclassificaton as "independent contractors", took down their picket lines and made an unconditional offer to return to work after both companies pledged to continue talks...
Trade
Trading Up? Politico ...A separate Pew Research poll found that similar shares of both Republicans and Democrats are more or less in agreement that trade destroys jobs (54 percent in the GOP say so, and 50 percent of Democrats) and lowers wages (44 percent in the GOP and 49 percent of Democrats). Moreover, one of the TPP’s main goals is to spur foreign investment. On that score, Republicans are more wary than Democrats: 75 percent in the GOP think foreign companies buying U.S. companies is bad for the country, compared with 66 percent of Democrats...
Mládek: TTIP could become US election football Prague Post ...The talks on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), an extensive agreement between the European Union and the United States, should be completed by the end of next year, Czech Industry and Trade Minister Jan Mládek said. Then the complicated talks might fall victim to the campaign ahead of the presidential election in the United States...
State Battles
A Dozen Greedy, Inhumane and Cruel Policies That Top Corporate Lobbyists Will Push In 2015 Center for Media and Democracy ...ALEC seeks to kill minimum wage increases, ban union organizing, deprive poor people of Medicaid-delivered health care, block shareholder advocacy, stop e-cigarette regulations, sabotage new rules for ride-share companies, lower medical training standards for dental assistants, and more, according to a legislative blueprint that will be discussed at an upcoming States & Nation Policy Summit in Washington, DC....
War on Workers
Amazing Black Friday Deals, Brought to You by the American Taxpayer Economic Policy Institute ...Nearly one in three retail workers or their families (31.5 percent) receives support from at least one means-tested public assistance program—such as food stamps (SNAP), the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), or Medicaid4—compared with less than one in four (22.2 percent) workers or their families in all other industries. Public assistance to families of workers in retail can be conservatively estimated to top $13.4 billion each year...
...
Wal-Mart workers plan Black Friday protests for higher pay Los Angeles Times ...Organizers say rallies and marches will occur at 1,600 Wal-Mart locations on the day after Thanksgiving in what they say will be the largest protests ever against the nation's biggest retailer...
Malled: The Hollowing Out of an American Institution. 'We Surrender' Bloomberg ...Steeplegate is one of about 300 U.S. malls facing a choice between re-invention and oblivion. Most are middle-market shopping centers being squeezed between big-box chains catering to low-income Americans and luxury malls lavishing white-glove service on One Percenters...
Yes, bankers lie more than the rest of us. Wall Street reforms aren’t likely to change that culture. Washington Post ... the group who were primed to think of themselves as bankers tended to lie significantly more — they misrepresented their results about 16 percent of the time and more than a quarter of the “bankers” group cheated...
Teeth and Bones: Mass Abduction Reveals a Decaying Mexican State der Spiegel ...More than 100,000 people have been killed in the ongoing drug war since 2006 with upwards of 25,000 more listed as missing. The bloodletting, the mass graves, the beheadings and the arrests of drug bosses have become so normal that they hardly manage to make it onto the front pages anymore...
Saturday, September 27, 2014
Today's Teamster News 09.27.14
Teamsters
Hospitality union, Teamsters, quietly negotiating contract with Harrah's after employees unionize NOLA.com ...A pair of labor unions have for the last six months been quietly negotiating a contract with Harrah's Hotel and Casino that, when inked, would double the size of organized labor's tiny footprint in the New Orleans tourism economy...
Local 653 Secures Two Contracts For Workers At Reinhart Food, Bridgewater Public Works teamster.org ...Teamsters Local 653 continued its tradition of strong representation this week, securing first contracts for members at two employers – recently organized Reinhart Food Service and East Bridgewater Department of Public Works...
Why the Garbage Man Might Dislike Your Dog New York Times ...“I’ve had people, while I’m picking up the bags, they walk up and let the dog pee on the bag,” a trash collector named Kevin said as he paused before a townhouse on Charles Street in the West Village...
Trade
Glum outlook for reaching TPP agreement in Nov. The Japan News ...The forecast looks cloudy for reaching a broad agreement in November among countries participating in the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade negotiations, as Japan and the United States remain divided over specifics on sensitive issues...
Congress' Smackdown of Fast Track: Sweet 16 Bday Huffington Post ...Sixteen years ago today, 171 Democrats and 71 GOP Representatives united to vote down then-President Bill Clinton's request for Fast Track authority. As President Barack Obama now seeks to revive the extreme Nixon-era trade procedure, the 1998 Fast Track smackdown is worth remembering...
State Battles
ALEC Can't Hold On To Its Tech Giants Anymore New Republic ...With Yahoo becoming the latest company to cut ties with the American Legislative Exchange Council in a matter of days, it's official: ALEC has lost favor with tech giants. ALEC is the right-wing organization that writes model legislation on everything from unions to regulations and tries to push it at the state level...
International Paper Leaves ALEC Common Cause ...Spokesperson Tom Ryan told Common Cause on Friday that “we no longer have a membership with ALEC” and confirmed the company also no longer funds ALEC...
Scott Walker’s deficit, distortions, damage to state (opinion) The Cap Times ...Walker, who brags about closing a large budget deficit, can no longer cover up the fact his own budget manipulations will create an enormous $1.8 billion budget deficit for whoever is governor in January...
Conservative PAC Grow Missouri Asks St. Louis Journalists To Write for its Blog Romenesko ...Grow Missouri is a conservative political action committee funded by billionaire Rex Sinquefield – described as “the Show Me State’s version of the Koch brothers.” Apparently not knowing the ethics rules for journalists, a rep for Grow Missouri has asked St. Louis reporters – including one who covers Grow Missouri for the Post-Dispatch – to contribute to the PAC’s blog...
Los Angeles hotel workers win $15 minimum wage after city council vote The Guardian ...The city council voted on Wednesday night to establish a minimum hourly wage of $15.37 for employees of hotels with more than 125 rooms, a decision expected to boost campaigns for better wages in other industries and cities...
War on Workers
Amazon's new Baltimore warehouse has outdoor cages for smokers Baltimore Business Journal ...Jennings described security at Amazon warehouses as more stringent than airport screenings, saying the company is highly focused on maintaining strict inventory control. But the company also wants its employees to be happy, so it includes features such as the smoking cages in warehouses...
It happens: Seniors with student debt - and smaller Social Security checks Reuters ...The GAO found that 706,000 of households headed by those aged 65 or older have outstanding student debts. That’s just 3 percent of all households, but the debt they hold has ballooned from $2.8 billion in 2005 to about $18.2 billion last year. Some 27 percent of those loans are in default...
1 in 4 Americans 25-54 Not Working The Weekly Standard ...workplace participation overall is near a four-decade low...
Hyatt to pay ousted workers $1m in boycott-ending deal Boston Globe ...Hyatt Hotels Corp. has agreed to pay $1 million to 98 Boston-area housekeepers who were fired five years ago and replaced by lower-paid, outsourced workers...
Warren Calls for Hearings on New York Fed Allegations Bloomberg ...Carmen Segarra, a former New York Fed bank examiner who was fired in 2012, ...described how she felt that her Fed colleagues were afraid of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and handled it with kid gloves...
How Eric Holder Failed the Economy (opinion) Bloomberg ...Of 21 separate actions against major financial companies from 2009 through May 2014, only eight were accompanied by charges against individuals, and none of them were high-level executives….more than 1,000 people were charged after the savings-and-loan bust of the 1980s, and more than 100 company officers and directors served prison terms...
Oil field worker dies in mishap Amarillo Globe-News ...a man’s leg got caught in a ditch-digging machine. Responders provided emergency medical services on the man, but he died at the scene as a result of the injuries...
Police: Woman beheaded at Oklahoma workplace Associated Press ...A man fired from an Oklahoma food processing plant beheaded a woman with a knife and was attacking another worker when he was shot and wounded by a company official, police said Friday...
Chicago-area air traffic center fire grounds 1,750 flights Reuters ...The fire was set by a longtime employee of Harris Corp, which provides equipment and technical support for the Federal Aviation Administration facility in Chicago and many others, U.S. government officials said...
LIBRE Initiative criticized for its ties to the Koch brothers VOXXI ...The LIBRE Initiative bills itself as a non-profit group that pushes a message of economic freedom and limited government among the Latino community. But lately, the group has been taking a lot of heat for collecting millions of dollars from Charles and David Koch...
Hospitality union, Teamsters, quietly negotiating contract with Harrah's after employees unionize NOLA.com ...A pair of labor unions have for the last six months been quietly negotiating a contract with Harrah's Hotel and Casino that, when inked, would double the size of organized labor's tiny footprint in the New Orleans tourism economy...
Local 653 Secures Two Contracts For Workers At Reinhart Food, Bridgewater Public Works teamster.org ...Teamsters Local 653 continued its tradition of strong representation this week, securing first contracts for members at two employers – recently organized Reinhart Food Service and East Bridgewater Department of Public Works...
Why the Garbage Man Might Dislike Your Dog New York Times ...“I’ve had people, while I’m picking up the bags, they walk up and let the dog pee on the bag,” a trash collector named Kevin said as he paused before a townhouse on Charles Street in the West Village...
Trade
Glum outlook for reaching TPP agreement in Nov. The Japan News ...The forecast looks cloudy for reaching a broad agreement in November among countries participating in the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade negotiations, as Japan and the United States remain divided over specifics on sensitive issues...
Congress' Smackdown of Fast Track: Sweet 16 Bday Huffington Post ...Sixteen years ago today, 171 Democrats and 71 GOP Representatives united to vote down then-President Bill Clinton's request for Fast Track authority. As President Barack Obama now seeks to revive the extreme Nixon-era trade procedure, the 1998 Fast Track smackdown is worth remembering...
State Battles
ALEC Can't Hold On To Its Tech Giants Anymore New Republic ...With Yahoo becoming the latest company to cut ties with the American Legislative Exchange Council in a matter of days, it's official: ALEC has lost favor with tech giants. ALEC is the right-wing organization that writes model legislation on everything from unions to regulations and tries to push it at the state level...
International Paper Leaves ALEC Common Cause ...Spokesperson Tom Ryan told Common Cause on Friday that “we no longer have a membership with ALEC” and confirmed the company also no longer funds ALEC...
Scott Walker’s deficit, distortions, damage to state (opinion) The Cap Times ...Walker, who brags about closing a large budget deficit, can no longer cover up the fact his own budget manipulations will create an enormous $1.8 billion budget deficit for whoever is governor in January...
Conservative PAC Grow Missouri Asks St. Louis Journalists To Write for its Blog Romenesko ...Grow Missouri is a conservative political action committee funded by billionaire Rex Sinquefield – described as “the Show Me State’s version of the Koch brothers.” Apparently not knowing the ethics rules for journalists, a rep for Grow Missouri has asked St. Louis reporters – including one who covers Grow Missouri for the Post-Dispatch – to contribute to the PAC’s blog...
Los Angeles hotel workers win $15 minimum wage after city council vote The Guardian ...The city council voted on Wednesday night to establish a minimum hourly wage of $15.37 for employees of hotels with more than 125 rooms, a decision expected to boost campaigns for better wages in other industries and cities...
War on Workers
Amazon's new Baltimore warehouse has outdoor cages for smokers Baltimore Business Journal ...Jennings described security at Amazon warehouses as more stringent than airport screenings, saying the company is highly focused on maintaining strict inventory control. But the company also wants its employees to be happy, so it includes features such as the smoking cages in warehouses...
It happens: Seniors with student debt - and smaller Social Security checks Reuters ...The GAO found that 706,000 of households headed by those aged 65 or older have outstanding student debts. That’s just 3 percent of all households, but the debt they hold has ballooned from $2.8 billion in 2005 to about $18.2 billion last year. Some 27 percent of those loans are in default...
1 in 4 Americans 25-54 Not Working The Weekly Standard ...workplace participation overall is near a four-decade low...
Hyatt to pay ousted workers $1m in boycott-ending deal Boston Globe ...Hyatt Hotels Corp. has agreed to pay $1 million to 98 Boston-area housekeepers who were fired five years ago and replaced by lower-paid, outsourced workers...
Warren Calls for Hearings on New York Fed Allegations Bloomberg ...Carmen Segarra, a former New York Fed bank examiner who was fired in 2012, ...described how she felt that her Fed colleagues were afraid of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and handled it with kid gloves...
How Eric Holder Failed the Economy (opinion) Bloomberg ...Of 21 separate actions against major financial companies from 2009 through May 2014, only eight were accompanied by charges against individuals, and none of them were high-level executives….more than 1,000 people were charged after the savings-and-loan bust of the 1980s, and more than 100 company officers and directors served prison terms...
Oil field worker dies in mishap Amarillo Globe-News ...a man’s leg got caught in a ditch-digging machine. Responders provided emergency medical services on the man, but he died at the scene as a result of the injuries...
Police: Woman beheaded at Oklahoma workplace Associated Press ...A man fired from an Oklahoma food processing plant beheaded a woman with a knife and was attacking another worker when he was shot and wounded by a company official, police said Friday...
Chicago-area air traffic center fire grounds 1,750 flights Reuters ...The fire was set by a longtime employee of Harris Corp, which provides equipment and technical support for the Federal Aviation Administration facility in Chicago and many others, U.S. government officials said...
LIBRE Initiative criticized for its ties to the Koch brothers VOXXI ...The LIBRE Initiative bills itself as a non-profit group that pushes a message of economic freedom and limited government among the Latino community. But lately, the group has been taking a lot of heat for collecting millions of dollars from Charles and David Koch...
Sunday, September 21, 2014
Today's Teamster News 09.21.14
Teamsters
Carpenters, Teamsters protest 'unfair lockout' at Pa. Convention Center Philly.com ...Hundreds of workers staged a rally Saturday morning to protest what they claim is an “unfair lockout” barring members of two unions from working at the Pennsylvania Convention Center...
International Teamsters Union Announces Strike Support for Warehouse Workers at Fred Meyer Teamsters Local 117 ...The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) has officially sanctioned strike benefits for 388 warehouse workers employed at the Fred Meyer distribution center in Puyallup and an additional 4,318 Teamsters who could become involved in connection with a potential work stoppage at the facility. Fred Meyer is a subsidiary of Kroger, Inc., a $100 billion company and the second-largest grocery retailer in the country...
BC Labour Relations Board: IKEA is bargaining in bad faith All About Work ...The negotiations between IKEA and the Teamsters have stalled because of disputes over a number of bargaining items, including the union’s demand that, when the dispute is resolved, the returning workers not have to work with employees who crossed the picket line during the lockout...
Trade
Japan, U.S. plan agenda for ministerial TPP talks Japan Times ...Working-level officials of Japan and the United States held a teleconference Saturday to narrow down trade topics for a bilateral ministerial meeting next week on the Trans-Pacific Partnership pact...
State Battles
'Wisconsin Poll Watcher Militia' plans to confront Scott Walker recall petition signers at polls Chippewa FallS Herald ...A self-described militia group claims to be checking names on the 2012 Scott Walker recall petition and plans to confront those found to have outstanding warrants or tax defaults at the polls on Nov. 4...
War on Workers
Wage Theft Is A Crime, Unions Are the Crime Busters cognitive dissidence ...In Seattle, one such contractor, Dathan Williams, was just convicted and sentenced to jail for wage theft. Williams would hire undocumented people and pay them just a fraction of what he was supposed to pay them. If they complained, he'd threaten to call ICE on them and have them deported…Williams was only caught because the unions gathered the information about Williams' crimes and presented them to the district attorney, as well as the crimes of other contractors…
Financial Criminals Have Been Fined Billions, but They Rarely Pay The Atlantic ...There’s still $97 billion out there in penalties that the Justice Department has failed to recover, and between September 2012 and September 2013, the department collected only 22 percent of penalties doled out. One particularly demoralizing figure was that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission had collected about a tenth of a percent of the $3.7 billion owed to wronged investors...
Walmart Fined For Fake 'Sugar Tax' On Coca-Cola Sales Forbes ...Walmart advertised a sale on Coca-Cola soft drinks but actually charged customers across New York State more than the advertised sale price...
Yes, Roosters Fought Inside a Walmart. No, the Company Says, It Wasn't a Cockfight Bloomberg ... a Mexican soft drink company staged the event at a store in the city of Boca del Rio on Sept. 15. Photos of brawling roosters in a store aisle—surrounded by shoppers—quickly made it on to social media...
In Checking Accounts, the Less You Have, the More You May Pay New York Times ...for someone who overdraws 12 times a year, uses an out-of-network A.T.M. once a month and averages an end-of-month balance of $50…the average annual cost of a checking account … was $499.02...the average annual cost for customers whose monthly balance never drops below $5,000 and who use only their own bank’s A.T.M. machines was just $17.85...
Ex-Employees Say Home Depot Left Data Vulnerable New York Times ... The biggest data breach in retailing history had compromised 56 million of its customers’ credit cards. The data has popped up on black markets and, by one estimate, could be used to make $3 billion in illegal purchases...
Worker dies in fall off roof on Long Island Associated Press ...Suffolk County police say 57-year-old Lech Chrostowski was working on the roof of a building when he fell 20 feet to the ground...
Oilfield Worker Lost in New Mexico Flooding Dies Associated Press ...One oil field worker was killed and 40 more were stranded in flood waters as the remnants of Hurricane Odile moved through southeastern New Mexico on Friday, authorities said...
Police Officer Dies in Bronx Crash New York Times ...A New York City police officer died early Sunday morning after the van in which he was riding crashed into a median on the Bruckner Expressway in the Bronx, the department said...
Carpenters, Teamsters protest 'unfair lockout' at Pa. Convention Center Philly.com ...Hundreds of workers staged a rally Saturday morning to protest what they claim is an “unfair lockout” barring members of two unions from working at the Pennsylvania Convention Center...
International Teamsters Union Announces Strike Support for Warehouse Workers at Fred Meyer Teamsters Local 117 ...The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) has officially sanctioned strike benefits for 388 warehouse workers employed at the Fred Meyer distribution center in Puyallup and an additional 4,318 Teamsters who could become involved in connection with a potential work stoppage at the facility. Fred Meyer is a subsidiary of Kroger, Inc., a $100 billion company and the second-largest grocery retailer in the country...
BC Labour Relations Board: IKEA is bargaining in bad faith All About Work ...The negotiations between IKEA and the Teamsters have stalled because of disputes over a number of bargaining items, including the union’s demand that, when the dispute is resolved, the returning workers not have to work with employees who crossed the picket line during the lockout...
Trade
Japan, U.S. plan agenda for ministerial TPP talks Japan Times ...Working-level officials of Japan and the United States held a teleconference Saturday to narrow down trade topics for a bilateral ministerial meeting next week on the Trans-Pacific Partnership pact...
State Battles
'Wisconsin Poll Watcher Militia' plans to confront Scott Walker recall petition signers at polls Chippewa FallS Herald ...A self-described militia group claims to be checking names on the 2012 Scott Walker recall petition and plans to confront those found to have outstanding warrants or tax defaults at the polls on Nov. 4...
War on Workers
Wage Theft Is A Crime, Unions Are the Crime Busters cognitive dissidence ...In Seattle, one such contractor, Dathan Williams, was just convicted and sentenced to jail for wage theft. Williams would hire undocumented people and pay them just a fraction of what he was supposed to pay them. If they complained, he'd threaten to call ICE on them and have them deported…Williams was only caught because the unions gathered the information about Williams' crimes and presented them to the district attorney, as well as the crimes of other contractors…
Financial Criminals Have Been Fined Billions, but They Rarely Pay The Atlantic ...There’s still $97 billion out there in penalties that the Justice Department has failed to recover, and between September 2012 and September 2013, the department collected only 22 percent of penalties doled out. One particularly demoralizing figure was that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission had collected about a tenth of a percent of the $3.7 billion owed to wronged investors...
Walmart Fined For Fake 'Sugar Tax' On Coca-Cola Sales Forbes ...Walmart advertised a sale on Coca-Cola soft drinks but actually charged customers across New York State more than the advertised sale price...
Yes, Roosters Fought Inside a Walmart. No, the Company Says, It Wasn't a Cockfight Bloomberg ... a Mexican soft drink company staged the event at a store in the city of Boca del Rio on Sept. 15. Photos of brawling roosters in a store aisle—surrounded by shoppers—quickly made it on to social media...
In Checking Accounts, the Less You Have, the More You May Pay New York Times ...for someone who overdraws 12 times a year, uses an out-of-network A.T.M. once a month and averages an end-of-month balance of $50…the average annual cost of a checking account … was $499.02...the average annual cost for customers whose monthly balance never drops below $5,000 and who use only their own bank’s A.T.M. machines was just $17.85...
Ex-Employees Say Home Depot Left Data Vulnerable New York Times ... The biggest data breach in retailing history had compromised 56 million of its customers’ credit cards. The data has popped up on black markets and, by one estimate, could be used to make $3 billion in illegal purchases...
Worker dies in fall off roof on Long Island Associated Press ...Suffolk County police say 57-year-old Lech Chrostowski was working on the roof of a building when he fell 20 feet to the ground...
Oilfield Worker Lost in New Mexico Flooding Dies Associated Press ...One oil field worker was killed and 40 more were stranded in flood waters as the remnants of Hurricane Odile moved through southeastern New Mexico on Friday, authorities said...
Police Officer Dies in Bronx Crash New York Times ...A New York City police officer died early Sunday morning after the van in which he was riding crashed into a median on the Bruckner Expressway in the Bronx, the department said...
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Today's Teamster News 09.17.14
Teamster News
Security Guard Killed On Set Of TNT’s ‘Falling Skies’ Deadline ...A Teamsters security guard was killed Monday night on the set of TNT’s sci-fi drama Falling Skies when he was struck by an unattended truck that rolled down a hill and pinned him against a tree. ..
American Airlines, US Airways Passenger Service Agents Vote To Join Teamsters-CWA Association teamster.org ...The joint effort to organize passenger service agents was led by Communication Workers of America (CWA) which will represent about 7,500 new members; 1,300 new members will be represented by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters...
American Airlines, US Airways Workers Vote Overwhelmingly To Join Union Huffington Post ...In a combined union election, airline employees voted on whether to join CWA-IBT, a joint union of the Communications Workers of America and the Teamsters. An overwhelming 86 percent voted in favor of unionizing...
Bus drivers to school board: “We cannot promise labor peace” Santa Rosa Press Gazette ...Members of Teamsters Local 991 held a practice protest Thursday morning at the Santa Rosa County School District’s Professional Development Center...
Mobile Mini Workers in Kansas City Vote Unanimously to Join Teamsters Local 541 teamster.org ...Local 541 is welcoming its new members at Mobile Mini in Kansas City, MO who voted unanimously for Teamster representation on September 10. There are four workers, plus temporary labor, included in the bargaining unit. “This is the first Mobile Mini unit that has been organized in the whole country that we know of,” said Local 541 Vice President and Business Representative Danny Gercone...
Con-way Freight Workers Vote To Organize In Laredo DC Velocity ...Con-way Freight workers in Laredo, Texas, agreed on Friday to unionize under the Teamsters union, the first time in the company's 31 years of operation that it will have to work with a bargaining unit...
Trade
Hoffa: TPA Might Move in Lame Duck Politico ...“The danger is, once the elections are over then they go into a smoke-filled room and pass an agreement which gives the president fast track,” Hoffa said at a press conference late Monday marking the start of a trade summit being held today in conjunction with Public Service International, a union representing public sector workers...
Public services unions open new trade agreements to public debate PSI ...Public services unions worldwide are determined to open to public scrutiy a new wave of global trade agreements, which are now being discussed behind closed doors...
Teamsters, Global Public Sector Trade Unions Warn Of Consequences Of Trade Policies teamster.org ...Meeting with global leaders of public sector unions, Teamsters General President James P. Hoffa and officials from Public Services International (PSI) discussed the growing concerns about the effects of public service trade policies as part of a public trade policy summit held today at Teamsters headquarters...
Teamsters, PSI Sound Alarm For Public Workers About Trade Deals teamster.org ...Three proposed trade deals could lead to millions of public sector workers losing their jobs worldwide if large corporations are allowed to impose their agenda, officials with the Teamsters and Public Services International (PSI) said today...
European Commission Denies EU Public Right To Express Views On TAFTA/TTIP And CETA TechDirt ...Since the European Commission refuses to take into account the public's views directly, people have turned to another mechanism to make their voices heard: a special kind of EU-wide petition called a European Citizens' Initiative (ECI). If sufficient signatures are obtained from around the EU, the European Commission is obliged to respond, but the bar to make that happen is set quite high...
State Battles
Walker Shrugs and Declares, "There are Plenty of Jobs Out There" Uppity Wisconsin ...The problem, though-- according to Walker-- isn't that enough jobs have been created, but that there aren't enough workers out there that can pass a drug test...
Electoral Chaos In Wisconsin (opinion) New York Times ...voter ID laws don’t stop fraud. They stop otherwise-eligible voters from coming to the polls. Richard Posner, a federal appellate judge who sits on the same court as the judges on the ruling panel, made just this point when he said last fall that he was mistaken to have approved a voter ID law in Indiana seven years ago...
State reports increase in 2013 workplace deaths Associated Press ...The Indiana Department of Labor reports the number of workplace deaths in Indiana was up in 2013, but it was still the third-lowest number of fatalities recorded in the past 22 years...
Keystone XL Operator Seeks South Dakota Approval Bismarck Tribune ...The operator of the long-delayed Keystone XL crude oil pipeline on Monday formally asked South Dakota's utility regulators to recertify the portion of the project that runs through the state...
Early voting schedule expanded by Secretary of State Jon Husted while court decision under appeal cleveland.com ...Secretary of State Jon Husted has set new early, in-person voting hours for all 88 Ohio counties to comply with a federal court judge's order that he continues to appeal...
Google Refuses to Respond to Letter Questioning ALEC Ties The Progressive ...The Center for Media and Democracy/Progressive Inc. (CMD) has joined more than 50 watchdog, advocacy, and labor groups in sending a letter to Google asking it to cut its ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Google has not responded, telling the trade publication Ars Technica, "we aren't going to be commenting on this letter" and refusing to respond to repeated requests for comment made by the International Business Times...
ALEC Exodus Continues As Four More Companies Leave Lobby Common Cause ...Raytheon, Sempra Energy, Southern California Edison, and Illinois Tool Works all recently told Walden Asset Management that they no longer fund or have any involvement with ALEC...
War On Workers
500 truck drivers set to sue Walmart UNI Global Union News ...A federal district ruled on 10 September that over 500 current and former Walmart truck drivers in California can proceed with a class action lawsuit against the company it claims has violated state wage and hour laws...
Walmart's New Uniforms Made In Jordan, Despite 'Buy American' Campaign And Jordan Labor Controversy International Business Times ...The garment’s place of origin raised plenty of eyebrows due to the giant retailer’s recent pledge to buy more U.S.-made goods, as well as the slate of workers’ rights violations at Walmart suppliers in Jordan...
Lawmaker Assails Foreign Donations to Think Tanks New York Times ...Prominent Washington think tanks that routinely provide Congress with policy advice should refrain from taking foreign government donations, particularly from nations like Qatar that have been associated with financing extremist groups, a senior House lawmaker wrote this week in a letter to the president of the Brookings Institution...
Taxi unions to take on Uber app itfglobal.org ...Taxi worker unions meeting in Belgium today pledged to take action to prevent potentially unsafe competition by non-regulated freelance companies using app technologies...
New Jersey Loses 4th Casino As Trump Plaza Closes ABC News ...Theresa Volpe, a cocktail server at the Plaza for 26 years, is looking for a new job — along with about 8,000 others suddenly cut loose by Atlantic City's casinos since January. An unemployment assistance session will be held Wednesday at Boardwalk Hall...
Paycheck Fairness Act Blocked Again By Senate GOP Huffington Post ...The Paycheck Fairness Act would ban employers from retaliating against employees who share salary information with each other, impose harsher penalties for pay discrimination and require employers to be able to show that wage gaps between men and women are based on factors other than gender...
Narco Cash Flowed Through Citi, Deutsche Bank, BofA, Court Papers Say 100 Reporters ...A Colombian cocaine cartel allegedly laundered millions of dollars in drug money through the international banking giants Citibank, Deutsche Bank and Bank of America, federal court papers reveal...
Chevron Draining Natural Gas After Worker Death Washington Times ...Authorities said that a Chevron Corp. subsidiary was still releasing natural gas Sunday from a pipeline off the Louisiana coast where a Saturday incident killed a maintenance worker...
Franchise Owners Flock To DC In Defense Of McDonald’s The Hill ...Fast food restaurateurs, hotel operators and other franchise owners from around the country are descending upon Washington on Tuesday to register their opposition to a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) finding they say threatens to undermine their business model...
A Hedge Fund Wants to Cut Jobs at Olive Garden, but Everyone Is More Worried About Losing Breadsticks Slog The Stranger ...The document is full of proposals to cut labor costs, including a call to modify "the front-of-the-house service to rely more on tipped servers, less on higher-salaried or higher-wage bussers and food runners," effectively moving payroll costs onto the customers, in addition to the company's attempts to train the customers to do the server's job themselves via tabletop tablet...
Miscellaneous
Why Tesla's Legal Breakthrough in Massachusetts Could Be a Big Deal Bloomberg ...Tesla (TSLA) appears to have finally blown by the last roadblock in its straight-to-consumers sales model in Massachusetts. The state’s supreme court on Monday rejected a legal challenge by the Massachusetts State Automobile Dealers Association that sought to shutter Tesla’s showroom just west of Boston...
Security Guard Killed On Set Of TNT’s ‘Falling Skies’ Deadline ...A Teamsters security guard was killed Monday night on the set of TNT’s sci-fi drama Falling Skies when he was struck by an unattended truck that rolled down a hill and pinned him against a tree. ..
American Airlines, US Airways Passenger Service Agents Vote To Join Teamsters-CWA Association teamster.org ...The joint effort to organize passenger service agents was led by Communication Workers of America (CWA) which will represent about 7,500 new members; 1,300 new members will be represented by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters...
American Airlines, US Airways Workers Vote Overwhelmingly To Join Union Huffington Post ...In a combined union election, airline employees voted on whether to join CWA-IBT, a joint union of the Communications Workers of America and the Teamsters. An overwhelming 86 percent voted in favor of unionizing...
Bus drivers to school board: “We cannot promise labor peace” Santa Rosa Press Gazette ...Members of Teamsters Local 991 held a practice protest Thursday morning at the Santa Rosa County School District’s Professional Development Center...
Mobile Mini Workers in Kansas City Vote Unanimously to Join Teamsters Local 541 teamster.org ...Local 541 is welcoming its new members at Mobile Mini in Kansas City, MO who voted unanimously for Teamster representation on September 10. There are four workers, plus temporary labor, included in the bargaining unit. “This is the first Mobile Mini unit that has been organized in the whole country that we know of,” said Local 541 Vice President and Business Representative Danny Gercone...
Con-way Freight Workers Vote To Organize In Laredo DC Velocity ...Con-way Freight workers in Laredo, Texas, agreed on Friday to unionize under the Teamsters union, the first time in the company's 31 years of operation that it will have to work with a bargaining unit...
Trade
Hoffa: TPA Might Move in Lame Duck Politico ...“The danger is, once the elections are over then they go into a smoke-filled room and pass an agreement which gives the president fast track,” Hoffa said at a press conference late Monday marking the start of a trade summit being held today in conjunction with Public Service International, a union representing public sector workers...
Public services unions open new trade agreements to public debate PSI ...Public services unions worldwide are determined to open to public scrutiy a new wave of global trade agreements, which are now being discussed behind closed doors...
Teamsters, Global Public Sector Trade Unions Warn Of Consequences Of Trade Policies teamster.org ...Meeting with global leaders of public sector unions, Teamsters General President James P. Hoffa and officials from Public Services International (PSI) discussed the growing concerns about the effects of public service trade policies as part of a public trade policy summit held today at Teamsters headquarters...
Teamsters, PSI Sound Alarm For Public Workers About Trade Deals teamster.org ...Three proposed trade deals could lead to millions of public sector workers losing their jobs worldwide if large corporations are allowed to impose their agenda, officials with the Teamsters and Public Services International (PSI) said today...
European Commission Denies EU Public Right To Express Views On TAFTA/TTIP And CETA TechDirt ...Since the European Commission refuses to take into account the public's views directly, people have turned to another mechanism to make their voices heard: a special kind of EU-wide petition called a European Citizens' Initiative (ECI). If sufficient signatures are obtained from around the EU, the European Commission is obliged to respond, but the bar to make that happen is set quite high...
State Battles
Walker Shrugs and Declares, "There are Plenty of Jobs Out There" Uppity Wisconsin ...The problem, though-- according to Walker-- isn't that enough jobs have been created, but that there aren't enough workers out there that can pass a drug test...
Electoral Chaos In Wisconsin (opinion) New York Times ...voter ID laws don’t stop fraud. They stop otherwise-eligible voters from coming to the polls. Richard Posner, a federal appellate judge who sits on the same court as the judges on the ruling panel, made just this point when he said last fall that he was mistaken to have approved a voter ID law in Indiana seven years ago...
State reports increase in 2013 workplace deaths Associated Press ...The Indiana Department of Labor reports the number of workplace deaths in Indiana was up in 2013, but it was still the third-lowest number of fatalities recorded in the past 22 years...
Keystone XL Operator Seeks South Dakota Approval Bismarck Tribune ...The operator of the long-delayed Keystone XL crude oil pipeline on Monday formally asked South Dakota's utility regulators to recertify the portion of the project that runs through the state...
Early voting schedule expanded by Secretary of State Jon Husted while court decision under appeal cleveland.com ...Secretary of State Jon Husted has set new early, in-person voting hours for all 88 Ohio counties to comply with a federal court judge's order that he continues to appeal...
Google Refuses to Respond to Letter Questioning ALEC Ties The Progressive ...The Center for Media and Democracy/Progressive Inc. (CMD) has joined more than 50 watchdog, advocacy, and labor groups in sending a letter to Google asking it to cut its ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Google has not responded, telling the trade publication Ars Technica, "we aren't going to be commenting on this letter" and refusing to respond to repeated requests for comment made by the International Business Times...
ALEC Exodus Continues As Four More Companies Leave Lobby Common Cause ...Raytheon, Sempra Energy, Southern California Edison, and Illinois Tool Works all recently told Walden Asset Management that they no longer fund or have any involvement with ALEC...
War On Workers
500 truck drivers set to sue Walmart UNI Global Union News ...A federal district ruled on 10 September that over 500 current and former Walmart truck drivers in California can proceed with a class action lawsuit against the company it claims has violated state wage and hour laws...
Walmart's New Uniforms Made In Jordan, Despite 'Buy American' Campaign And Jordan Labor Controversy International Business Times ...The garment’s place of origin raised plenty of eyebrows due to the giant retailer’s recent pledge to buy more U.S.-made goods, as well as the slate of workers’ rights violations at Walmart suppliers in Jordan...
Lawmaker Assails Foreign Donations to Think Tanks New York Times ...Prominent Washington think tanks that routinely provide Congress with policy advice should refrain from taking foreign government donations, particularly from nations like Qatar that have been associated with financing extremist groups, a senior House lawmaker wrote this week in a letter to the president of the Brookings Institution...
Taxi unions to take on Uber app itfglobal.org ...Taxi worker unions meeting in Belgium today pledged to take action to prevent potentially unsafe competition by non-regulated freelance companies using app technologies...
New Jersey Loses 4th Casino As Trump Plaza Closes ABC News ...Theresa Volpe, a cocktail server at the Plaza for 26 years, is looking for a new job — along with about 8,000 others suddenly cut loose by Atlantic City's casinos since January. An unemployment assistance session will be held Wednesday at Boardwalk Hall...
Paycheck Fairness Act Blocked Again By Senate GOP Huffington Post ...The Paycheck Fairness Act would ban employers from retaliating against employees who share salary information with each other, impose harsher penalties for pay discrimination and require employers to be able to show that wage gaps between men and women are based on factors other than gender...
Narco Cash Flowed Through Citi, Deutsche Bank, BofA, Court Papers Say 100 Reporters ...A Colombian cocaine cartel allegedly laundered millions of dollars in drug money through the international banking giants Citibank, Deutsche Bank and Bank of America, federal court papers reveal...
Chevron Draining Natural Gas After Worker Death Washington Times ...Authorities said that a Chevron Corp. subsidiary was still releasing natural gas Sunday from a pipeline off the Louisiana coast where a Saturday incident killed a maintenance worker...
Franchise Owners Flock To DC In Defense Of McDonald’s The Hill ...Fast food restaurateurs, hotel operators and other franchise owners from around the country are descending upon Washington on Tuesday to register their opposition to a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) finding they say threatens to undermine their business model...
A Hedge Fund Wants to Cut Jobs at Olive Garden, but Everyone Is More Worried About Losing Breadsticks Slog The Stranger ...The document is full of proposals to cut labor costs, including a call to modify "the front-of-the-house service to rely more on tipped servers, less on higher-salaried or higher-wage bussers and food runners," effectively moving payroll costs onto the customers, in addition to the company's attempts to train the customers to do the server's job themselves via tabletop tablet...
Miscellaneous
Why Tesla's Legal Breakthrough in Massachusetts Could Be a Big Deal Bloomberg ...Tesla (TSLA) appears to have finally blown by the last roadblock in its straight-to-consumers sales model in Massachusetts. The state’s supreme court on Monday rejected a legal challenge by the Massachusetts State Automobile Dealers Association that sought to shutter Tesla’s showroom just west of Boston...
Monday, August 18, 2014
Today's Teamster News 08.18.14
Trade
What Happens in Geneva ... The Mammoth Global Trade Agreement You’ve Never Heard Of In These Times ...our governments are negotiating further deregulation of the financial sector, solely in the interests of large financial corporations,” says Daniel Bertossa, senior policy and advocacy officer at Public Services International (PSI), a global public-sector union federation based in France...
US trade officials say it’s their way or the highway on TPP CIO ...Certification means that the US can refuse to bring an agreement with a country into force until the country has altered its laws to satisfy the US understanding of its obligations under the agreement...
War on Workers
What the NLRB Announcement on McDonald's Means AFL-CIO ...Historically McDonald's has claimed it has no authority over wages or complaints of workers' rights violations at its franchise locations because that is up to the individual owners, but the NLRB general counsel determined McDonald's could be liable as a joint employer in these kinds of situations...
Seeking New Start, Finding Steep Cost New York Times ...Millions of unemployed Americans like Mr. DeGrella have trained for new careers as part of the Workforce Investment Act, a $3.1 billion federal program that, in an unusual act of bipartisanship, was reauthorized by Congress last month with little public discussion about its effectiveness. Like Mr. DeGrella, many have not found the promised new career...
Report Says I.R.S. Inaction May Have Increased Fraud Risk New York Times ...A government investigator said Thursday that the Internal Revenue Service failed to do background checks on some private contractors who handled confidential information, exposing more than a million taxpayers to a risk of fraud and identity theft...
Ferguson Unrest Shows Poverty Grows Fastest in Suburbs Bloomberg ...In Ferguson, Missouri, a community of 21,000 where the poverty rate doubled since 2000, the dynamic has bred animosity over racial segregation and economic inequality...
Across Asia's borders, labor activists team up to press wage claims Reuters ...Negotiations over pay and working conditions have typically remained within national borders, but activists are now bringing more muscle to the table and putting more pressure on employers and governments by using shared experiences in nearby markets...
Miscellaneous
Transporting Bakken crude by rail a volatile situation Chronicle Times ...As federal regulators continue investigating why tank cars on three trains carrying North Dakota crude oil have exploded in the past year, energy experts say part of the problem might be that some producers are deliberately leaving too much propane in their product, making the oil riskier to transport by rail...
Bank Overseer PwC Faces Penalty and Sidelining of Regulatory Consulting Unit New York Times ...The giant consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers occupies a position of trust on Wall Street, acting as a shadow regulator of sorts that promises the government an impartial look inside the world’s biggest banks. But the firm — hired and paid by the banks it examines — has now landed in the regulatory spotlight for obscuring some of the same misconduct it was supposed to unearth...
What Happens in Geneva ... The Mammoth Global Trade Agreement You’ve Never Heard Of In These Times ...our governments are negotiating further deregulation of the financial sector, solely in the interests of large financial corporations,” says Daniel Bertossa, senior policy and advocacy officer at Public Services International (PSI), a global public-sector union federation based in France...
US trade officials say it’s their way or the highway on TPP CIO ...Certification means that the US can refuse to bring an agreement with a country into force until the country has altered its laws to satisfy the US understanding of its obligations under the agreement...
War on Workers
What the NLRB Announcement on McDonald's Means AFL-CIO ...Historically McDonald's has claimed it has no authority over wages or complaints of workers' rights violations at its franchise locations because that is up to the individual owners, but the NLRB general counsel determined McDonald's could be liable as a joint employer in these kinds of situations...
Seeking New Start, Finding Steep Cost New York Times ...Millions of unemployed Americans like Mr. DeGrella have trained for new careers as part of the Workforce Investment Act, a $3.1 billion federal program that, in an unusual act of bipartisanship, was reauthorized by Congress last month with little public discussion about its effectiveness. Like Mr. DeGrella, many have not found the promised new career...
Report Says I.R.S. Inaction May Have Increased Fraud Risk New York Times ...A government investigator said Thursday that the Internal Revenue Service failed to do background checks on some private contractors who handled confidential information, exposing more than a million taxpayers to a risk of fraud and identity theft...
Ferguson Unrest Shows Poverty Grows Fastest in Suburbs Bloomberg ...In Ferguson, Missouri, a community of 21,000 where the poverty rate doubled since 2000, the dynamic has bred animosity over racial segregation and economic inequality...
Across Asia's borders, labor activists team up to press wage claims Reuters ...Negotiations over pay and working conditions have typically remained within national borders, but activists are now bringing more muscle to the table and putting more pressure on employers and governments by using shared experiences in nearby markets...
Miscellaneous
Transporting Bakken crude by rail a volatile situation Chronicle Times ...As federal regulators continue investigating why tank cars on three trains carrying North Dakota crude oil have exploded in the past year, energy experts say part of the problem might be that some producers are deliberately leaving too much propane in their product, making the oil riskier to transport by rail...
Bank Overseer PwC Faces Penalty and Sidelining of Regulatory Consulting Unit New York Times ...The giant consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers occupies a position of trust on Wall Street, acting as a shadow regulator of sorts that promises the government an impartial look inside the world’s biggest banks. But the firm — hired and paid by the banks it examines — has now landed in the regulatory spotlight for obscuring some of the same misconduct it was supposed to unearth...
Monday, August 11, 2014
Today's Teamster News 08.11.14
Teamsters
Teamsters reject contract with Washoe RTC operator Reno Gazette-Journal ...Public transit workers in Washoe County turned down a contract Sunday afternoon with MV Transportation, which manages the county's transit system for the Regional Transportation Commission...
Trade
Critical Moment to Stop The TPP & Other Rigged Trade Agreements (opinion) The Real News ...It is time to declare the TPP, TAFTA and the Services agreements as dead, develop a new approach to trade and begin to renegotiate past trade agreements like NAFTA that are doing ongoing damage to the economy, planet and people...
State Battles
The 'P3' dilemma: How effective are public-private partnerships? Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ...Six months after Chicago inked the deal, the city’s inspector general conservatively estimated the city received $974 million less from the 75-year lease than it would have received by keeping the meters and operating them under the same terms it gave to the investors...
The War on Workers
Are Wages Really Rising? Global Economic Intersection ...The standard of living of most Americans continues to decline. Just as a house divided against itself cannot stand, neither can an economy where nearly half of its actors are losing purchasing power. It steadily becomes a house more divided. It’s bad economically and bad for society...
The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More. New York Times ...The industry complains of shortages of truck drivers, but in real terms tractor-trailer drivers made less in 2013 than they did a decade earlier...
Texas Energy Company Worker Killed in Egypt Associated Press ...An American employee of Texas-based energy company Apache Corp was killed last week in an apparent carjacking in the western Egyptian desert, officials said Sunday...
Pollsters: 'Everything is terrible' Politico ...Americans are also bummed out about the future in general, especially the economy. Things are so low that even an old favorite, sugar, polled poorly...
In the Future We'll All Be Renters: America's Disappearing Middle Class new geography ...Homeownership, which peaked in 2002 at nearly 70 percent, has dropped, according to the U.S. Census, to 65 percent in 2013, the lowest in almost two decade...
Why a $16 Billion Fine Is Chicken Scratch for a Big Bank Alternet ...Bankers fraudulently inflated a housing bubble. They became extremely wealthy as a result, but the U.S. housing market lost $6.3 trillion in value when the bubble burst. It had only recovered 44 percent of that lost value by of the end of 2013...
Miscellaneous
Want to meet a millionaire? Here's where to go CNN Money ...Looking to meet a millionaire? Head to Europe, where in some places nearly three in every ten people is one...
Personal Consumption Expenditures by State, 1997-2012 (Prototype Estimates) Bureau of Economic Analysis ...The prototype statistics show that total PCE rose in all states in 2012, but generally at a slower rate than in 2011. Growth was fastest in North Dakota at 11.5%, after growing 11.6% in 2011. PCE grew faster in 2012 compared with 2011 in Arizona, the District of Columbia, North Carolina, Nevada, and Utah...
Teamsters reject contract with Washoe RTC operator Reno Gazette-Journal ...Public transit workers in Washoe County turned down a contract Sunday afternoon with MV Transportation, which manages the county's transit system for the Regional Transportation Commission...
Trade
Critical Moment to Stop The TPP & Other Rigged Trade Agreements (opinion) The Real News ...It is time to declare the TPP, TAFTA and the Services agreements as dead, develop a new approach to trade and begin to renegotiate past trade agreements like NAFTA that are doing ongoing damage to the economy, planet and people...
State Battles
The 'P3' dilemma: How effective are public-private partnerships? Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ...Six months after Chicago inked the deal, the city’s inspector general conservatively estimated the city received $974 million less from the 75-year lease than it would have received by keeping the meters and operating them under the same terms it gave to the investors...
The War on Workers
Are Wages Really Rising? Global Economic Intersection ...The standard of living of most Americans continues to decline. Just as a house divided against itself cannot stand, neither can an economy where nearly half of its actors are losing purchasing power. It steadily becomes a house more divided. It’s bad economically and bad for society...
The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More. New York Times ...The industry complains of shortages of truck drivers, but in real terms tractor-trailer drivers made less in 2013 than they did a decade earlier...
Texas Energy Company Worker Killed in Egypt Associated Press ...An American employee of Texas-based energy company Apache Corp was killed last week in an apparent carjacking in the western Egyptian desert, officials said Sunday...
Pollsters: 'Everything is terrible' Politico ...Americans are also bummed out about the future in general, especially the economy. Things are so low that even an old favorite, sugar, polled poorly...
In the Future We'll All Be Renters: America's Disappearing Middle Class new geography ...Homeownership, which peaked in 2002 at nearly 70 percent, has dropped, according to the U.S. Census, to 65 percent in 2013, the lowest in almost two decade...
Why a $16 Billion Fine Is Chicken Scratch for a Big Bank Alternet ...Bankers fraudulently inflated a housing bubble. They became extremely wealthy as a result, but the U.S. housing market lost $6.3 trillion in value when the bubble burst. It had only recovered 44 percent of that lost value by of the end of 2013...
Miscellaneous
Want to meet a millionaire? Here's where to go CNN Money ...Looking to meet a millionaire? Head to Europe, where in some places nearly three in every ten people is one...
Personal Consumption Expenditures by State, 1997-2012 (Prototype Estimates) Bureau of Economic Analysis ...The prototype statistics show that total PCE rose in all states in 2012, but generally at a slower rate than in 2011. Growth was fastest in North Dakota at 11.5%, after growing 11.6% in 2011. PCE grew faster in 2012 compared with 2011 in Arizona, the District of Columbia, North Carolina, Nevada, and Utah...
Sunday, July 13, 2014
Today's Teamster News 07.13.14
Teamsters
Teamsters: Port Truck Drivers In Los Angeles Agree to "Cooling Off" Period teamster.org ...The port drivers agreed to the “cooling off” period after the trucking companies agreed to accept all drivers back to work without retaliation and without being forced to sign away all future rights in new truck leases...
Trade
Enormous, Humongous May Trade Deficit Follows Continuing Pattern Trade Reform ...The trade deficit fell 5.6 percent in May, to $44.4 billion. That’s $44.4 billion of orders that could have gone to businesses that make and do things inside the U.S. Those companies would have had to hire hundreds of thousands of people to get that done...
TPP talks make progress, barring thorny issues Japan News ...the 12 countries including Japan and the United States are expected to hold a session of chief negotiators again as early as in September to pave the way for an envisioned broad agreement in November...
Why the Chinese Are Snapping Up Real Estate in the U.S. Five Thirty Eight ...the Chinese spent $22 billion on U.S. housing in the 12 months through March — 72 percent more than they spent the year before...
State Battles
Scott Walker's job creation program is ineffective (opinion) Wisconsin State Journal ...Walker distributed $975 million in grants, loans and tax credits, resulting in limited job creation. Thirty percent of businesses receiving WEDC assistance contributed to Walker's campaign and received 60 percent of funds distributed...
In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker's security detail costs balloon 239 percent Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ...taxpayers spent more than $2.23 million in 2013 for the 10 state troopers who protect Walker and his family, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and dignitaries from other states and countries who visit Wisconsin. That was up from $657,457 paid out by Gov. Jim Doyle on security during his last year in office in 2010...
War on Workers
Tracy Morgan Sues Walmart Over Deadly Crash in New Jersey New York Times ...the plaintiffs contend that the company should have known how little sleep its driver was operating on, and that it allowed him to commute an unreasonable distance before starting the shift that brought him to New Jersey...
The Economy Is Binging on Fast Food and Low Wages—and It Needs to Change Ann Arbor Independent ... lower-wage industries employ 2 million more workers than at the start of the recession, while mid- and higher-wage industries each employ about 900,000 fewer workers...
U.S. Chamber Lobbies To Kill Measure That Would Punish Wage Theft Huffington Post ...Despite the lobbying from business groups, the wage theft amendment passed the House with bipartisan support Thursday afternoon … Some of the nation's leading business lobbies (pressured) ... House lawmakers to spike bipartisan legislation that would take government contracts away from firms that have committed wage theft...
Citigroup's $7 Billion Fraud Deal: The Clique's Still Clicking in DC Huffington Post ...Citigroup is back in the headlines as the result of a new settlement with the Justice Department over its mortgage fraud, reportedly for the sum of $7 billion. This deal is being trumpeted as a major win for the American people. It's not. The money's not enough (and some of it probably won't be paid out), the wrong people are paying, and there will be no prosecutions for criminal behavior...
Flunking Out, at a Price New York Times ...For years, federal and state regulators have done little as dubious operators of for-profit colleges and trade schools have pocketed tuitions funded by taxpayer-backed loans. Many students left these colleges with questionable educations and onerous debt loads that cannot be erased in bankruptcy. Regulators have finally woken up to this ugly reality. And, once again, taxpayers and borrowers will pay the price of regulatory failures...
Teamsters: Port Truck Drivers In Los Angeles Agree to "Cooling Off" Period teamster.org ...The port drivers agreed to the “cooling off” period after the trucking companies agreed to accept all drivers back to work without retaliation and without being forced to sign away all future rights in new truck leases...
Trade
Enormous, Humongous May Trade Deficit Follows Continuing Pattern Trade Reform ...The trade deficit fell 5.6 percent in May, to $44.4 billion. That’s $44.4 billion of orders that could have gone to businesses that make and do things inside the U.S. Those companies would have had to hire hundreds of thousands of people to get that done...
TPP talks make progress, barring thorny issues Japan News ...the 12 countries including Japan and the United States are expected to hold a session of chief negotiators again as early as in September to pave the way for an envisioned broad agreement in November...
Why the Chinese Are Snapping Up Real Estate in the U.S. Five Thirty Eight ...the Chinese spent $22 billion on U.S. housing in the 12 months through March — 72 percent more than they spent the year before...
State Battles
Scott Walker's job creation program is ineffective (opinion) Wisconsin State Journal ...Walker distributed $975 million in grants, loans and tax credits, resulting in limited job creation. Thirty percent of businesses receiving WEDC assistance contributed to Walker's campaign and received 60 percent of funds distributed...
In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker's security detail costs balloon 239 percent Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ...taxpayers spent more than $2.23 million in 2013 for the 10 state troopers who protect Walker and his family, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and dignitaries from other states and countries who visit Wisconsin. That was up from $657,457 paid out by Gov. Jim Doyle on security during his last year in office in 2010...
War on Workers
Tracy Morgan Sues Walmart Over Deadly Crash in New Jersey New York Times ...the plaintiffs contend that the company should have known how little sleep its driver was operating on, and that it allowed him to commute an unreasonable distance before starting the shift that brought him to New Jersey...
The Economy Is Binging on Fast Food and Low Wages—and It Needs to Change Ann Arbor Independent ... lower-wage industries employ 2 million more workers than at the start of the recession, while mid- and higher-wage industries each employ about 900,000 fewer workers...
U.S. Chamber Lobbies To Kill Measure That Would Punish Wage Theft Huffington Post ...Despite the lobbying from business groups, the wage theft amendment passed the House with bipartisan support Thursday afternoon … Some of the nation's leading business lobbies (pressured) ... House lawmakers to spike bipartisan legislation that would take government contracts away from firms that have committed wage theft...
Citigroup's $7 Billion Fraud Deal: The Clique's Still Clicking in DC Huffington Post ...Citigroup is back in the headlines as the result of a new settlement with the Justice Department over its mortgage fraud, reportedly for the sum of $7 billion. This deal is being trumpeted as a major win for the American people. It's not. The money's not enough (and some of it probably won't be paid out), the wrong people are paying, and there will be no prosecutions for criminal behavior...
Flunking Out, at a Price New York Times ...For years, federal and state regulators have done little as dubious operators of for-profit colleges and trade schools have pocketed tuitions funded by taxpayer-backed loans. Many students left these colleges with questionable educations and onerous debt loads that cannot be erased in bankruptcy. Regulators have finally woken up to this ugly reality. And, once again, taxpayers and borrowers will pay the price of regulatory failures...
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Today's Teamster News 07.01.14
Teamster News
Union Representing RTC Workers Authorizes Strike Reno Gazette-Journal ...A labor union local representing Washoe County public transit system employees voted overwhelmingly Sunday to authorize a strike, but a contract extension until July 31 is possible, the union said...
Horizon Air Aircraft Technicians, Fleet Service Agents Ratify New Six-Year Contract Aviation Pros ...Horizon Air's aircraft technicians and fleet service agents have ratified a new six-year contract, the airline and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) announced today...
Contract Between EVSC and Teamsters Expires at Midnight Tristatehomepage.com ...For months, the school system and local union have been working on a new contract. But no agreements were reached. The contract applies to a union made up of bus drivers, custodians, secretaries, and others...
Medford Residents Win Teamster Scholarships Medford Transcript ...Medford residents Olivia Stewart and Tristan Whalen were recently awarded $2,000 scholarships each by Teamsters Local 25...
What Happens If Uber Drivers Start Organizing Too? BuzzFeed ...More than 1,000 D.C. cabbies on Wednesday drove through the streets and refused to pick up passengers in protest of popular ridesharing apps like Uber and Lyft — companies they say are unfairly breaking the law and taking away their business. Their protest is just the latest in cities in the United States and worldwide, as Uber in particular continues its massive expansion from boutique service to a major company, valued at just over $18 billion this year...
Trade
Japan, U.S. resume bilateral TPP talks before Ottawa meeting Mainichi ...Japan and the United States on Monday resumed bilateral talks on a Pacific free trade pact in Tokyo, aiming to bridge remaining differences as far as possible before officials from all 12 negotiating members gather in Canada later this week...
State Battles
Michigan's minimum-wage bill could render your vote null and void (opinion) Michigan Radio ...Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville, R-Monroe, believes in democracy, except when he doesn’t. In the past, Richardville has staunchly supported Michigan voters’ decisions to outlaw gay marriage and affirmative action. But he doesn’t want to allow voters to vote to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour...
AFT Pennsylvania Position Payroll Deduction/Paycheck Deception AFT Pennsylvania ...Legislation prohibiting payroll deduction would wipe out collective bargaining rights that public employees have held for decades. It deprives teachers, nurses, college professors, school bus drivers and other public employees of their right to negotiate payroll deductions for union dues and voluntary political contributions to their union political action committees...
War On Workers
Ruling Against Union Fees Contains Damage to Labor New York Times ...The Supreme Court dealt a limited blow to organized labor on Monday by ruling that some government employees did not have to pay any fees to the unions representing them. But the court declined to strike down a decades-old precedent that required many public sector workers to pay union fees...
SCOTUS Ruling Doesn’t Gut Public Unions, But Creates New Challenges for Care Workers The Next New Deal ...The decision in Harris v. Quinn blocks the right-wing assault against one of the most important pillars of progressive infrastructure, public employee unions, but will add to the challenge of raising wages and benefits in the surging low-wage workforce...
Corporations Are People, And They Have More Rights Than You Huffington Post ... the Supreme Court endorsed corporate personhood -- holding that business firms have rights to religious freedom under federal law. Not only do corporations have rights, their rights are stronger than yours...
A Grieving Father Pulls a Thread That Unravels Illegal Bank Deals New York Times ...A bus bombing two decades ago — and a New Jersey father’s quest for justice — inadvertently set off a chain of events that led American prosecutors to accuse some of the world’s biggest banks of transferring money for nations like Iran. On Monday, that crackdown culminated with the guilty plea of BNP Paribas, which admitted to doing billions of dollars in deals with Iran ...
The Implications of Flat or Declining Real Wages for Inequality Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta ...what we thought had been a decade of essentially flat real wages (since 2002) has actually been a decade of declining real wages...
For Tipped Workers, A Different Minimum Wage Battle NPR ...according to a White House report, tipped workers are more than twice as likely as other workers to experience poverty...
Facebook's massive psychology experiment likely illegal BoingBoing ...there's a federal law that prohibits universities from conducting this kind of experiment without explicit, separate consent (none of this burying-consent-in-the-fine-print bullshit). Two of the three researchers who worked on this were working for federally funded universities with institutional review boards, and the project received federal funds...
Wyden Releases Details of Backdoor Searches of Americans’ Communications Ron Wyden ...When the FBI says it conducts a substantial number of searches and it has no idea of what the number is, it shows how flawed this system is and the consequences of inadequate oversight. This huge gap in oversight is a problem now, and will only grow as global communications systems become more interconnected...
Rio’s Maracanã Stadium is Privatized The Rio Times ...Taking into account the R$304 million of taxpayer money spent on renovations for the 2007 Pan-American games, this brings the total amount spent by the state on Maracanã to about R$1.4 billion, compared to the R$775.6 million it will have received (or not had to spend) after 35 years...
Miscellaneous
Americans Losing Confidence in All Branches of U.S. Gov't Gallup ...Americans' confidence in all three branches of the U.S. government has fallen, reaching record lows for the Supreme Court (30%) and Congress (7%), and a six-year low for the presidency (29%)...
Union Representing RTC Workers Authorizes Strike Reno Gazette-Journal ...A labor union local representing Washoe County public transit system employees voted overwhelmingly Sunday to authorize a strike, but a contract extension until July 31 is possible, the union said...
Horizon Air Aircraft Technicians, Fleet Service Agents Ratify New Six-Year Contract Aviation Pros ...Horizon Air's aircraft technicians and fleet service agents have ratified a new six-year contract, the airline and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) announced today...
Contract Between EVSC and Teamsters Expires at Midnight Tristatehomepage.com ...For months, the school system and local union have been working on a new contract. But no agreements were reached. The contract applies to a union made up of bus drivers, custodians, secretaries, and others...
Medford Residents Win Teamster Scholarships Medford Transcript ...Medford residents Olivia Stewart and Tristan Whalen were recently awarded $2,000 scholarships each by Teamsters Local 25...
What Happens If Uber Drivers Start Organizing Too? BuzzFeed ...More than 1,000 D.C. cabbies on Wednesday drove through the streets and refused to pick up passengers in protest of popular ridesharing apps like Uber and Lyft — companies they say are unfairly breaking the law and taking away their business. Their protest is just the latest in cities in the United States and worldwide, as Uber in particular continues its massive expansion from boutique service to a major company, valued at just over $18 billion this year...
Trade
Japan, U.S. resume bilateral TPP talks before Ottawa meeting Mainichi ...Japan and the United States on Monday resumed bilateral talks on a Pacific free trade pact in Tokyo, aiming to bridge remaining differences as far as possible before officials from all 12 negotiating members gather in Canada later this week...
State Battles
Michigan's minimum-wage bill could render your vote null and void (opinion) Michigan Radio ...Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville, R-Monroe, believes in democracy, except when he doesn’t. In the past, Richardville has staunchly supported Michigan voters’ decisions to outlaw gay marriage and affirmative action. But he doesn’t want to allow voters to vote to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour...
AFT Pennsylvania Position Payroll Deduction/Paycheck Deception AFT Pennsylvania ...Legislation prohibiting payroll deduction would wipe out collective bargaining rights that public employees have held for decades. It deprives teachers, nurses, college professors, school bus drivers and other public employees of their right to negotiate payroll deductions for union dues and voluntary political contributions to their union political action committees...
War On Workers
Ruling Against Union Fees Contains Damage to Labor New York Times ...The Supreme Court dealt a limited blow to organized labor on Monday by ruling that some government employees did not have to pay any fees to the unions representing them. But the court declined to strike down a decades-old precedent that required many public sector workers to pay union fees...
SCOTUS Ruling Doesn’t Gut Public Unions, But Creates New Challenges for Care Workers The Next New Deal ...The decision in Harris v. Quinn blocks the right-wing assault against one of the most important pillars of progressive infrastructure, public employee unions, but will add to the challenge of raising wages and benefits in the surging low-wage workforce...
Corporations Are People, And They Have More Rights Than You Huffington Post ... the Supreme Court endorsed corporate personhood -- holding that business firms have rights to religious freedom under federal law. Not only do corporations have rights, their rights are stronger than yours...
A Grieving Father Pulls a Thread That Unravels Illegal Bank Deals New York Times ...A bus bombing two decades ago — and a New Jersey father’s quest for justice — inadvertently set off a chain of events that led American prosecutors to accuse some of the world’s biggest banks of transferring money for nations like Iran. On Monday, that crackdown culminated with the guilty plea of BNP Paribas, which admitted to doing billions of dollars in deals with Iran ...
The Implications of Flat or Declining Real Wages for Inequality Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta ...what we thought had been a decade of essentially flat real wages (since 2002) has actually been a decade of declining real wages...
For Tipped Workers, A Different Minimum Wage Battle NPR ...according to a White House report, tipped workers are more than twice as likely as other workers to experience poverty...
Facebook's massive psychology experiment likely illegal BoingBoing ...there's a federal law that prohibits universities from conducting this kind of experiment without explicit, separate consent (none of this burying-consent-in-the-fine-print bullshit). Two of the three researchers who worked on this were working for federally funded universities with institutional review boards, and the project received federal funds...
Wyden Releases Details of Backdoor Searches of Americans’ Communications Ron Wyden ...When the FBI says it conducts a substantial number of searches and it has no idea of what the number is, it shows how flawed this system is and the consequences of inadequate oversight. This huge gap in oversight is a problem now, and will only grow as global communications systems become more interconnected...
Rio’s Maracanã Stadium is Privatized The Rio Times ...Taking into account the R$304 million of taxpayer money spent on renovations for the 2007 Pan-American games, this brings the total amount spent by the state on Maracanã to about R$1.4 billion, compared to the R$775.6 million it will have received (or not had to spend) after 35 years...
Miscellaneous
Americans Losing Confidence in All Branches of U.S. Gov't Gallup ...Americans' confidence in all three branches of the U.S. government has fallen, reaching record lows for the Supreme Court (30%) and Congress (7%), and a six-year low for the presidency (29%)...
Monday, June 23, 2014
Today's Teamster News 06.23.14
Teamsters
NLRB orders Anderson Lumber to negotiate with Teamsters Business Management ...The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has ordered a Sacramento-area lumber company to restart contract negotiations with the union that represents its employees...
Trade
TPP unlikely to be finalised this year - PM New Zealand Herald ...Hopes of hammering out a final deal on the 12-country Trans Pacific Partnership agreement this year appear to be fading, Prime Minister John Key indicated this afternoon...
Wikileaks brings much-needed scrutiny to secret trade talks The Conversation ... TISA is part of an interlocking web of new super-deals that are being negotiated under similar conditions of secrecy...all documents other than the final text would be withheld for five years after the agreement came into force...
No to 'Boehner' Trade, No to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (opinion) Huffington Post ...The House Democratic Caucus is challenging President Obama, saying, "Which side are you on... ours or Republican House Speaker Boehner's?"...
Income gap widens as American factories shut down Associated Press ...The downfall of manufacturing in the U.S. has done more than displace workers and leave communities searching for ways to rebuild devastated economies....
State Battles
For Scott Walker, jobs count may be bigger headache than John Doe Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ...In each of Walker’s first three years, Wisconsin has added private-sector jobs more slowly than the nation as whole, and the gap is sizable...
Doe Documents Indicate "David Koch" Call Part of Case Against Walker Uppity Wisconsin ...Walker was "enticed" into a criminal conspiracy with someone he believed to be David Koch because "David Koch" asked "What do you need"? And "publicity efforts"? No, Walker specifically asked for "ads" in "swing areas" for Senators likely to be recalled...
War on Workers
Asiana Crash Debate Goes Beyond Pilots to Automation Bloomberg ...U.S. investigators are debating whether to blame a Boeing Co. (BA) jetliner’s design for helping cause a cascade of pilot mistakes in last year’s Asiana Airlines Inc. (020560) crash that killed three Chinese teenagers...
God Save the United States From This Anti-Democratic Court (opinion) Daily Beast ...it has degraded the other institutions by clearing a broad path for big money to enter politics...
US to Fine BNP $8+ Billion, Suspend Access to Dollar Clearing naked capitalism ...the bank would pay $8 billion to $9 billion and accept other punishment based on what investigators say is evidence the bank intentionally hid $30 billion of financial transactions that violated U.S. sanctions (the deal) would include a guilty plea to a criminal charge of conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act...
The Case of the Missing White-Collar Criminal (opinion) Bloomberg ...Prosecutors often argue that while executives may have acted recklessly and made mistakes, that doesn’t mean they committed crimes. If so, then the 2008 crisis would be unique in its immaculate conception. After the savings-and-loan bust of the 1980s, more than 1,000 people were charged, and more than 100 company officers and directors served prison terms...
NLRB orders Anderson Lumber to negotiate with Teamsters Business Management ...The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has ordered a Sacramento-area lumber company to restart contract negotiations with the union that represents its employees...
Trade
TPP unlikely to be finalised this year - PM New Zealand Herald ...Hopes of hammering out a final deal on the 12-country Trans Pacific Partnership agreement this year appear to be fading, Prime Minister John Key indicated this afternoon...
Wikileaks brings much-needed scrutiny to secret trade talks The Conversation ... TISA is part of an interlocking web of new super-deals that are being negotiated under similar conditions of secrecy...all documents other than the final text would be withheld for five years after the agreement came into force...
No to 'Boehner' Trade, No to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (opinion) Huffington Post ...The House Democratic Caucus is challenging President Obama, saying, "Which side are you on... ours or Republican House Speaker Boehner's?"...
Income gap widens as American factories shut down Associated Press ...The downfall of manufacturing in the U.S. has done more than displace workers and leave communities searching for ways to rebuild devastated economies....
State Battles
For Scott Walker, jobs count may be bigger headache than John Doe Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ...In each of Walker’s first three years, Wisconsin has added private-sector jobs more slowly than the nation as whole, and the gap is sizable...
Doe Documents Indicate "David Koch" Call Part of Case Against Walker Uppity Wisconsin ...Walker was "enticed" into a criminal conspiracy with someone he believed to be David Koch because "David Koch" asked "What do you need"? And "publicity efforts"? No, Walker specifically asked for "ads" in "swing areas" for Senators likely to be recalled...
War on Workers
Asiana Crash Debate Goes Beyond Pilots to Automation Bloomberg ...U.S. investigators are debating whether to blame a Boeing Co. (BA) jetliner’s design for helping cause a cascade of pilot mistakes in last year’s Asiana Airlines Inc. (020560) crash that killed three Chinese teenagers...
God Save the United States From This Anti-Democratic Court (opinion) Daily Beast ...it has degraded the other institutions by clearing a broad path for big money to enter politics...
US to Fine BNP $8+ Billion, Suspend Access to Dollar Clearing naked capitalism ...the bank would pay $8 billion to $9 billion and accept other punishment based on what investigators say is evidence the bank intentionally hid $30 billion of financial transactions that violated U.S. sanctions (the deal) would include a guilty plea to a criminal charge of conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act...
The Case of the Missing White-Collar Criminal (opinion) Bloomberg ...Prosecutors often argue that while executives may have acted recklessly and made mistakes, that doesn’t mean they committed crimes. If so, then the 2008 crisis would be unique in its immaculate conception. After the savings-and-loan bust of the 1980s, more than 1,000 people were charged, and more than 100 company officers and directors served prison terms...
Friday, June 20, 2014
Today's Teamster News 06.20.14
Teamster News
Federal board accuses port trucking firm of labor law violations Los Angeles Times ...The federal government has accused a trucking company in Carson of more than 50 labor law violations, including firing drivers for union activity, retaliating against pro-labor employees and planting an anti-union operative amid its workforce...
Teamsters, Carpenters Protest Over Lost Work But Convention Center Is Not Budging NewsWorks ...About 100 union carpenters and Teamsters rallied outside the Pennsylvania Convention Center Wednesday in the first official protest since a labor dispute last month with center management...
Vermont Maintenance Workers Settle On New Contract San Francisco Chronicle ...Transportation maintenance workers in Vermont's Chittenden County have signed a new three-year-contract that takes effect July 1. Union officials for Teamsters Local 597 say the new contract — signed Thursday — includes wage increases averaging two percent a year and access to promotions through professional certification programs...
Toronto Shooting: The Teamsters Want to Meet with Minister Blainey Teamsters Canada ...A member of Teamsters Local Union 419 is in critical condition following a shooting that occurred last night in Toronto. The victim who works for Garda World Cash Services was in an ambush situation with 3 individuals…."This is not the first time a shooting occurs in the Toronto area or elsewhere in the country for that matter in the past few months," points out Jim Chalmers, director of the Teamsters Canada Armoured Car Division...
Trade
Capitol Hill looks hard at dog treats and processed Chicken from China manufacture this ...1,000 dogs have died, 10 percent of America’s pig population is gone, 5,600 more pets are sick, and three people are ill. And poor safety measures in China may be the cause...
Retirees Gather, Organize For Social Justice People's World ...Retired activists discussed how to stop efforts to cut Medicare and Social Security, raise the minimum wage, and fight back against destructive trade deals like the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership...
State Battles
John Doe prosecutors allege Scott Walker at center of 'criminal scheme' Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ...Prosecutors allege Gov. Scott Walker was at the center of an effort to illegally coordinate fundraising ... to help his campaign and those of Republican state senators facing recall elections during 2011 and 2012, according to documents unsealed Thursday...
Exclusive: Prosecutor Is Closing in on Gov. Christie Esquire ...(U.S. Attorney Paul) Fishman’s challenge is to nail down specific criminal charges on several fronts -- the diversion of Port Authority money to fund New Jersey road and bridge projects; the four-day rush-hour closures of George Washington Bridge lanes in Ft. Lee; and a web of real-estate deals spun by David Samson, long a Christie crony, when he chaired the PA’s Board of Commissioners as Christie’s appointee...
Meet The Hotel Workers Going On Hunger Strike For A $15 Minimum Wage Think Progress ...In Providence, Rhode Island, three hotel workers and a city councilwoman started a week-long hunger strike on Monday, protesting a state bill that would block their efforts to raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour...
War On Workers
Being Out of Work Longer Makes Finding Work Much Harder Wall Street Journal ...Recent research suggests this discouraging silence may have more to do with the time spent out of the work force than with the job seeker’s skills, education or age...
IRS Chief Promises Stricter Rules For 'Dark Money' Non-Profit Groups Philadelphia Inquirer ...The Internal Revenue Service will propose new and specific rules defining how much money “social welfare” nonprofits may spend on political campaigns...
GE Capital Pays Up For Denying Spanish Speakers Access To Credit Card Repayment Program Huffington Post ...Synchrony Bank, formerly known as GE Capital, has reached an agreement with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Justice Department over allegations that it denied access to credit card debt-repayment programs to qualified customers just because they preferred to communicate in Spanish or had a mailing address in Puerto Rico...
Miscellaneous
What Green Revolution? Coal Use Highest In 44 Years Oil Price ...In 2013, enough coal was burned to meet 30.1 percent of the world’s energy demands -- its highest share since 1970, according to new data from BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy...
Federal board accuses port trucking firm of labor law violations Los Angeles Times ...The federal government has accused a trucking company in Carson of more than 50 labor law violations, including firing drivers for union activity, retaliating against pro-labor employees and planting an anti-union operative amid its workforce...
Teamsters, Carpenters Protest Over Lost Work But Convention Center Is Not Budging NewsWorks ...About 100 union carpenters and Teamsters rallied outside the Pennsylvania Convention Center Wednesday in the first official protest since a labor dispute last month with center management...
Vermont Maintenance Workers Settle On New Contract San Francisco Chronicle ...Transportation maintenance workers in Vermont's Chittenden County have signed a new three-year-contract that takes effect July 1. Union officials for Teamsters Local 597 say the new contract — signed Thursday — includes wage increases averaging two percent a year and access to promotions through professional certification programs...
Toronto Shooting: The Teamsters Want to Meet with Minister Blainey Teamsters Canada ...A member of Teamsters Local Union 419 is in critical condition following a shooting that occurred last night in Toronto. The victim who works for Garda World Cash Services was in an ambush situation with 3 individuals…."This is not the first time a shooting occurs in the Toronto area or elsewhere in the country for that matter in the past few months," points out Jim Chalmers, director of the Teamsters Canada Armoured Car Division...
Trade
Capitol Hill looks hard at dog treats and processed Chicken from China manufacture this ...1,000 dogs have died, 10 percent of America’s pig population is gone, 5,600 more pets are sick, and three people are ill. And poor safety measures in China may be the cause...
Retirees Gather, Organize For Social Justice People's World ...Retired activists discussed how to stop efforts to cut Medicare and Social Security, raise the minimum wage, and fight back against destructive trade deals like the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership...
State Battles
John Doe prosecutors allege Scott Walker at center of 'criminal scheme' Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ...Prosecutors allege Gov. Scott Walker was at the center of an effort to illegally coordinate fundraising ... to help his campaign and those of Republican state senators facing recall elections during 2011 and 2012, according to documents unsealed Thursday...
Exclusive: Prosecutor Is Closing in on Gov. Christie Esquire ...(U.S. Attorney Paul) Fishman’s challenge is to nail down specific criminal charges on several fronts -- the diversion of Port Authority money to fund New Jersey road and bridge projects; the four-day rush-hour closures of George Washington Bridge lanes in Ft. Lee; and a web of real-estate deals spun by David Samson, long a Christie crony, when he chaired the PA’s Board of Commissioners as Christie’s appointee...
Meet The Hotel Workers Going On Hunger Strike For A $15 Minimum Wage Think Progress ...In Providence, Rhode Island, three hotel workers and a city councilwoman started a week-long hunger strike on Monday, protesting a state bill that would block their efforts to raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour...
War On Workers
Being Out of Work Longer Makes Finding Work Much Harder Wall Street Journal ...Recent research suggests this discouraging silence may have more to do with the time spent out of the work force than with the job seeker’s skills, education or age...
IRS Chief Promises Stricter Rules For 'Dark Money' Non-Profit Groups Philadelphia Inquirer ...The Internal Revenue Service will propose new and specific rules defining how much money “social welfare” nonprofits may spend on political campaigns...
GE Capital Pays Up For Denying Spanish Speakers Access To Credit Card Repayment Program Huffington Post ...Synchrony Bank, formerly known as GE Capital, has reached an agreement with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Justice Department over allegations that it denied access to credit card debt-repayment programs to qualified customers just because they preferred to communicate in Spanish or had a mailing address in Puerto Rico...
Miscellaneous
What Green Revolution? Coal Use Highest In 44 Years Oil Price ...In 2013, enough coal was burned to meet 30.1 percent of the world’s energy demands -- its highest share since 1970, according to new data from BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy...
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Today's Teamster News 05.31.14
Teamster News
Future Of Bus Driver's Union Up In The Air In Bennington Daily Reporter ...The outcome of a vote on whether employees of the Green Mountain Express company in Vermont will join the Teamsters Union is up in the air...
Bill de Blasio takes on Teamsters and Liam Neeson as he tries to ban New York's horse carriages Guardian ...The city's major newspapers have come out against the proposed ban and the powerful Teamsters union has mobilised in support of the carriage drivers, stable owners and stable hands...
Trade
153 Democratic Lawmakers Push U.S. To Toughen Up Trans-Pacific Partnership Rules Raw Story ...U.S. trade negotiators must insist on tough standards on human and workers' rights in a Pacific trading deal spanning 12 countries, more than 150 Democratic lawmakers said in a letter to the Obama administration on Thursday...
Rip Up The TTIP opinion The Scottish Farmer ...It may sound like just another annoying agri-politics acronym, but European milk industry leaders should be very concerned about the TTIP--the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership...
State Battles
Scott Walker Is Falling Apart: The Little Corruption Problem He Just Can't Shake Salon.com ...Walker has a corruption problem he just can't seem to shake. In brief, the governor is being investigated by prosecutors for illegally coordinating with conservative groups, an investigation that sprang from an earlier one investigating Walker's previous tenure as Milwaukee County executive...
Scott Walker says he won't back away from allies in Doe probe Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ...Walker also expressed surprise with a recent Wall Street Journal editorial that criticized alleged settlement talks between the Walker campaign and special prosecutor Francis Schmitz...
War On Workers
What McDonald's Owes Its Workers CNN Money ...Thompson's pay for one day (based on 365 days a year) in 2013 was 1.4 times the average annual rate of a full-time fast food worker. McDonald's did not respond to a request for a comment on worker pay issues...
Walmart defends ‘overpaid’ executives New York Post ...Walmart is refusing to budge an inch after critics bashed the retail giant for overpaying its executives while they mishandled a probe into charges that it systematically bribed officials in Mexico...
Chicopee Walmart site of new skirmish over wages and work conditions MassLive ...At the customer service desk, she presented her boss with a letter outlining the reasons for her strike, including unreasonable scheduling, lack of benefits and other practices...
Will The Supreme Court Undermine Public-Sector Labor Rights? The Hill ...Before late June, the Supreme Court will rule on Harris v. Quinn, perhaps the most important labor case to come before it in several decades. If the court sides with the extremist National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (NRTW) which appealed the case after losing before the Seventh Circuit and lower courts, it could inflict a major blow on unions that represent public sector employees...
House GOP Votes Down Measure Aimed At Curbing Wage Theft Huffington Post ...Early Friday morning, House Republicans voted down a measure that would have discouraged the government from giving contracts to companies that have committed wage theft...
Big Money, The Koch Brothers And Me Politico ...The richest Americans have always used their fortunes to try and tilt America's political landscape to their liking. The robber barons spent unknown millions financing William McKinley's 1896 Presidential election...
Shinseki Resigns Amid Veterans' Health Care Issues Christian Science Monitor ... Lawmakers are now calling for a complete overhaul of the VA system, including Sen. Charles Schumer...
Miscellaneous
U.S. Ranks Alongside Indonesia And Thailand On Workers Rights Think Progress ...The United States ranks in the bottom half of the world when it comes to labor rights, according to a new global comparison from an international labor coalition that represents 176 million workers from 161 different nations...
Justice Department Seeks More Than $10 Billion From PNB Paribas Wall Street Journal ...U.S. authorities are pushing BNP Paribas to pay more than $10 billion to end a criminal probe into allegations the bank evaded U.S. sanctions...
Future Of Bus Driver's Union Up In The Air In Bennington Daily Reporter ...The outcome of a vote on whether employees of the Green Mountain Express company in Vermont will join the Teamsters Union is up in the air...
Bill de Blasio takes on Teamsters and Liam Neeson as he tries to ban New York's horse carriages Guardian ...The city's major newspapers have come out against the proposed ban and the powerful Teamsters union has mobilised in support of the carriage drivers, stable owners and stable hands...
Trade
153 Democratic Lawmakers Push U.S. To Toughen Up Trans-Pacific Partnership Rules Raw Story ...U.S. trade negotiators must insist on tough standards on human and workers' rights in a Pacific trading deal spanning 12 countries, more than 150 Democratic lawmakers said in a letter to the Obama administration on Thursday...
Rip Up The TTIP opinion The Scottish Farmer ...It may sound like just another annoying agri-politics acronym, but European milk industry leaders should be very concerned about the TTIP--the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership...
State Battles
Scott Walker Is Falling Apart: The Little Corruption Problem He Just Can't Shake Salon.com ...Walker has a corruption problem he just can't seem to shake. In brief, the governor is being investigated by prosecutors for illegally coordinating with conservative groups, an investigation that sprang from an earlier one investigating Walker's previous tenure as Milwaukee County executive...
Scott Walker says he won't back away from allies in Doe probe Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ...Walker also expressed surprise with a recent Wall Street Journal editorial that criticized alleged settlement talks between the Walker campaign and special prosecutor Francis Schmitz...
War On Workers
What McDonald's Owes Its Workers CNN Money ...Thompson's pay for one day (based on 365 days a year) in 2013 was 1.4 times the average annual rate of a full-time fast food worker. McDonald's did not respond to a request for a comment on worker pay issues...
Walmart defends ‘overpaid’ executives New York Post ...Walmart is refusing to budge an inch after critics bashed the retail giant for overpaying its executives while they mishandled a probe into charges that it systematically bribed officials in Mexico...
Chicopee Walmart site of new skirmish over wages and work conditions MassLive ...At the customer service desk, she presented her boss with a letter outlining the reasons for her strike, including unreasonable scheduling, lack of benefits and other practices...
Will The Supreme Court Undermine Public-Sector Labor Rights? The Hill ...Before late June, the Supreme Court will rule on Harris v. Quinn, perhaps the most important labor case to come before it in several decades. If the court sides with the extremist National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (NRTW) which appealed the case after losing before the Seventh Circuit and lower courts, it could inflict a major blow on unions that represent public sector employees...
House GOP Votes Down Measure Aimed At Curbing Wage Theft Huffington Post ...Early Friday morning, House Republicans voted down a measure that would have discouraged the government from giving contracts to companies that have committed wage theft...
Big Money, The Koch Brothers And Me Politico ...The richest Americans have always used their fortunes to try and tilt America's political landscape to their liking. The robber barons spent unknown millions financing William McKinley's 1896 Presidential election...
Shinseki Resigns Amid Veterans' Health Care Issues Christian Science Monitor ... Lawmakers are now calling for a complete overhaul of the VA system, including Sen. Charles Schumer...
Miscellaneous
U.S. Ranks Alongside Indonesia And Thailand On Workers Rights Think Progress ...The United States ranks in the bottom half of the world when it comes to labor rights, according to a new global comparison from an international labor coalition that represents 176 million workers from 161 different nations...
Justice Department Seeks More Than $10 Billion From PNB Paribas Wall Street Journal ...U.S. authorities are pushing BNP Paribas to pay more than $10 billion to end a criminal probe into allegations the bank evaded U.S. sanctions...
Thursday, May 22, 2014
Today's Teamster News 05.22.14
Teamster News
Teamsters Strike Averted Pekin Daily Times ...After about five hours of mediation between the city of Pekin and Teamsters Local 627 officials the two sides reached a tentative agreement Tuesday to keep city services operational...
International Brotherhood Of Teamsters Reports Taylor Farms Workers' Rights Violations Insurance News Net ...Taylor Farms workers and Teamster members gathered with state and community leaders at a forum on May 15 evening to investigate workers' rights violations at the company's facilities in Tracy, California, according to a release from International Brotherhood of Teamsters...
ACTR Drivers To Vote On Union The Eagle ...Bus drivers of ACTR, Addison County Transit Resources, will vote to unionize June 11, according to driver Craig Bingham. Bingham says the drivers will decide to join the Teamsters Local 597...
Drivers Physicals Must Now Be Performed by Certified Medical Examiners Trucking Info ...The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is reminding the trucking industry Wednesday marks the start of new regulations requiring that all U.S. DOT physicals must be performed by a qualified health professional listed on the National Registry of Certified Medical Examiners.
The new program sets baseline training and testing standards for medical professionals who perform commercial driver physicals and for tracking of driver medical certificates...
Teamsters Local 727 Defends Funeral Workers at SCI Shareholders Meeting Teamsters Local 727 ...Teamsters Local 727 President John Coli Jr. on May 14 publicly denounced funeral giant Service Corporation International at its annual shareholders meeting in Houston for the company’s mistreatment of Chicago-area workers...
Trade
Surprise, US media fails to cover talks on big 'trade' deal with Europe TeamsterNation ...The European media came out for a press conference today against TAFTA, the latest power grab by big corporations and the 1%. The American media wasn't interested in the so-called trade deal with Europe...
Trans-Pacific Partnership Talks To Intensify As Key Players Remain Divided Raw Story ...Asia-Pacific trade ministers said Tuesday they would intensify talks on a vast trans-Pacific free trade agreement, but offered no clue on when a final accord would be reached. At the end of a two-day meeting in Singapore, ministers and chief negotiators of the 12 putative member economies of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) remained divided on key issues...
State Battles
Christie's pension payment reduction plan sparks lawsuit from CWA NJ.com ...Another prominent labor union, the Communications Workers of America, says it will file a lawsuit in an effort to stop Gov. Chris Christie's plans to grab $2.43 billion meant for the pension system to balance the state budget...
Minnesota vs. Wisconsin, and More Econbrowser ... No turnaround for Wisconsin — it continues to lag Minnesota and the Nation...
War On Workers
U.S. Fast Food Protests Go Global The Hill ...Last Thursday, fast food workers in over 30 countries participated in protests over poverty wages, a lack of full-time positions, poor working conditions and management retaliation against union activism. U.S. workers protested in over 160 cities...
McDonald's Vacates Headquarters Ahead Of Massive Protest Business Insider ...McDonald's executives vacated the company headquarters in Oak Brook, Illinois, on Wednesday ahead of a massive protest involving thousands of workers and supporters...
Why Is Credit Suisse Still Allowed to Do Business in the United States? The Atlantic ...Credit Suisse, the gigantic Swiss bank, is clearly a criminal organization. In its guilty plea yesterday, Credit Suisse admitted that it has been actively helping Americans (and no doubt people from all around the world) evade taxes for years...
Is Credit Suisse Really in Jail? Baseline Scenario ...no one will go to jail because of the conviction...
Hubris at the Top: The Imperial and Tone Deaf CEO Wall Street on Parade ...Yesterday, at the JPMorgan shareholders’ meeting, which has been held in Tampa, Florida for the past three years, more than 1,000 miles from the JPMorgan headquarters in New York (ostensibly to avoid mass protests), CEO Jamie Dimon’s pay package was rubber stamped by shareholders at $20 million for 2013. Over the past 18 months, the bank has been charged with ever alarming amounts of crimes, including the unprecedented two-felony count charge for aiding and abetting the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme which devastated financial lives across America...
Miscellaneous
TransCanada Considers Keystone XL Pipeline Alternative, Oil By Rail Reuters ...TransCanada Corp is in talks with customers about shipping Canadian crude to the United States by rail as an alternative route as its Keystone XL pipeline project that has been mired in political delays, Chief Executive Russ Girling said on Wednesday...
Couple Fined $750, Threatened With Jail for Feeding Homeless People Alternet ...A Florida couple who fed more than 100 homeless people each week have been accused of breaking the law for their good deed...
Saudi Arabia: Filipino Maid Disfigured with Boiling Water for not Bringing Coffee on Time IBT ...The maid, who is from Pikit, North Cotabato, said she had been working for the Arab family in Riyadh for two months. She was not given her salary or provided with proper meals...
Teamsters Strike Averted Pekin Daily Times ...After about five hours of mediation between the city of Pekin and Teamsters Local 627 officials the two sides reached a tentative agreement Tuesday to keep city services operational...
International Brotherhood Of Teamsters Reports Taylor Farms Workers' Rights Violations Insurance News Net ...Taylor Farms workers and Teamster members gathered with state and community leaders at a forum on May 15 evening to investigate workers' rights violations at the company's facilities in Tracy, California, according to a release from International Brotherhood of Teamsters...
ACTR Drivers To Vote On Union The Eagle ...Bus drivers of ACTR, Addison County Transit Resources, will vote to unionize June 11, according to driver Craig Bingham. Bingham says the drivers will decide to join the Teamsters Local 597...
Drivers Physicals Must Now Be Performed by Certified Medical Examiners Trucking Info ...The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is reminding the trucking industry Wednesday marks the start of new regulations requiring that all U.S. DOT physicals must be performed by a qualified health professional listed on the National Registry of Certified Medical Examiners.
The new program sets baseline training and testing standards for medical professionals who perform commercial driver physicals and for tracking of driver medical certificates...
Teamsters Local 727 Defends Funeral Workers at SCI Shareholders Meeting Teamsters Local 727 ...Teamsters Local 727 President John Coli Jr. on May 14 publicly denounced funeral giant Service Corporation International at its annual shareholders meeting in Houston for the company’s mistreatment of Chicago-area workers...
Trade
Surprise, US media fails to cover talks on big 'trade' deal with Europe TeamsterNation ...The European media came out for a press conference today against TAFTA, the latest power grab by big corporations and the 1%. The American media wasn't interested in the so-called trade deal with Europe...
Trans-Pacific Partnership Talks To Intensify As Key Players Remain Divided Raw Story ...Asia-Pacific trade ministers said Tuesday they would intensify talks on a vast trans-Pacific free trade agreement, but offered no clue on when a final accord would be reached. At the end of a two-day meeting in Singapore, ministers and chief negotiators of the 12 putative member economies of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) remained divided on key issues...
State Battles
Christie's pension payment reduction plan sparks lawsuit from CWA NJ.com ...Another prominent labor union, the Communications Workers of America, says it will file a lawsuit in an effort to stop Gov. Chris Christie's plans to grab $2.43 billion meant for the pension system to balance the state budget...
Minnesota vs. Wisconsin, and More Econbrowser ... No turnaround for Wisconsin — it continues to lag Minnesota and the Nation...
War On Workers
U.S. Fast Food Protests Go Global The Hill ...Last Thursday, fast food workers in over 30 countries participated in protests over poverty wages, a lack of full-time positions, poor working conditions and management retaliation against union activism. U.S. workers protested in over 160 cities...
McDonald's Vacates Headquarters Ahead Of Massive Protest Business Insider ...McDonald's executives vacated the company headquarters in Oak Brook, Illinois, on Wednesday ahead of a massive protest involving thousands of workers and supporters...
Why Is Credit Suisse Still Allowed to Do Business in the United States? The Atlantic ...Credit Suisse, the gigantic Swiss bank, is clearly a criminal organization. In its guilty plea yesterday, Credit Suisse admitted that it has been actively helping Americans (and no doubt people from all around the world) evade taxes for years...
Is Credit Suisse Really in Jail? Baseline Scenario ...no one will go to jail because of the conviction...
Hubris at the Top: The Imperial and Tone Deaf CEO Wall Street on Parade ...Yesterday, at the JPMorgan shareholders’ meeting, which has been held in Tampa, Florida for the past three years, more than 1,000 miles from the JPMorgan headquarters in New York (ostensibly to avoid mass protests), CEO Jamie Dimon’s pay package was rubber stamped by shareholders at $20 million for 2013. Over the past 18 months, the bank has been charged with ever alarming amounts of crimes, including the unprecedented two-felony count charge for aiding and abetting the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme which devastated financial lives across America...
Miscellaneous
TransCanada Considers Keystone XL Pipeline Alternative, Oil By Rail Reuters ...TransCanada Corp is in talks with customers about shipping Canadian crude to the United States by rail as an alternative route as its Keystone XL pipeline project that has been mired in political delays, Chief Executive Russ Girling said on Wednesday...
Couple Fined $750, Threatened With Jail for Feeding Homeless People Alternet ...A Florida couple who fed more than 100 homeless people each week have been accused of breaking the law for their good deed...
Saudi Arabia: Filipino Maid Disfigured with Boiling Water for not Bringing Coffee on Time IBT ...The maid, who is from Pikit, North Cotabato, said she had been working for the Arab family in Riyadh for two months. She was not given her salary or provided with proper meals...
Tuesday, May 6, 2014
Today's Teamster News 05.06.14
Teamster News
2014 Teamsters Unity Conference Convenes teamster.org ...The 2014 Teamsters Unity Conference convened Sunday, May 4, with General President Jim Hoffa welcoming more than 1,400 Teamsters who learned about several key challenges facing the union...
Lilly Ledbetter joins Teamsters and others in support of pay equality for city's 5,000 school safety agents teamster.org ...Lilly Ledbetter, the tireless advocate for equal pay, whose historic Supreme Court case led the way to the Fair Pay Act of 2009—which bears her name—will join Teamsters Local 237 President Gregory Floyd; Sonia Ossorio, President of the New York City Chapter of National Organization for Women; and Mary Lou Urban, Co-President of the League of Women Voters, at a rally in support of resolving the pay disparity of school safety agents...
Trade
Trans Pacific Partnership Still Stalled The Register ...In spite of optimistic official rhetoric from the White House, Japan seems to be the latest speed bump on the road to the controversial Trans Pacific Partnership trade treaty...
Is Another Aspect Of The TPP They Hid From Us, Legally Stoning Gays? Down With Tyranny ...The dictator (of Brunei) is an hereditary sultan and this one is a homophobic psychotic who has just mandated the death penalty (by stoning) for gays. He's one our our esteemed partners in the TPP...
Oscars 'Night Before' Party Pulled From Beverly Hills Hotel Over Sultan of Brunei Ownership (Exclusive) Hollywood Reporter ...The Night Before the Oscars, Hollywood's starriest annual charity event, will not be held at the Beverly Hills Hotel because of the hotel’s ties to Brunei, where Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah instituted a severe new anti-gay penal code based on Sharia law last week...
State Battles
The drive to ban mandated sick days America Al-Jazeera ...the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) ... and the National Restaurant Association ... are pushing legislatures and governors to enact pre-emption (or kill-shot) laws to bar cities and counties from passing paid sick day mandates...
Outside Spending Enters Arena of Judicial Races New York Times ...The primary race for Justice Hudson’s Supreme Court seat alone has drawn more than $1 million — the bulk of it by independent groups including the Republican committee and an arm of the state Chamber of Commerce, which has spent $250,000 to promote both of her opponents with money from companies including Reynolds American, Blue Cross Blue Shield and Koch Industries.
The costly and fierce primary shows how the revolution in financing political campaigns, with the surging role of “super PACs” and other groups financed by corporations, unions and other interests, has entered what was the quieter arena of judicial elections...
War On Workers
Enron 2.0: Goldman-Linked Investors Set to Manipulate East Coast Electricity Prices naked capitalism ...With Brayton Point closed, New England consumers and businesses will spend as much as $2.6 billion more per year for electricity, critics of the deal suggest in documents filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission...
There's no evidence that privatisation works, but it marches on (opinion) ...Governments will always need to deal with markets for procurement and regulation – but that needs a strong, experienced civil service with equal cunning, not one cut by 30%, losing memory of past errors...
Bonuses For Federal Workers Cut In Half, Figures Show USA Today ...Bonus pay for 1.3 million federal workers fell of a proverbial fiscal cliff last year, dropping nearly 50% as a result of draconian budget cuts tied to a partial government shutdown and recent caps on employee awards...
Why Is This Farm Using Guest Workers As Strike Breakers? The Nation ...By law, a company can’t hire H-2A guest workers if it is in a labor dispute with its US workforce. But that is exactly what this Washington State berry grower is trying to do....
The Recession Made Income Inequality Even Worse Think Progress ...The gap between the rich and the poor has grown faster since the financial crisis than it did the entire decade before it, according to a new report from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)...
Your Paycheck Proves There Was No Recovery Huffington Post ...Stock prices and corporate profits are setting records, jobs are growing and yet most Americans think the recession never ended. How can this be? Because in the one place it counts--your paycheck--the recovery never happened...
Miscellaneous
Declining Business Dynamism in the United States: A Look at States and Metros Brookings Institute ...dynamism is slowing down. Business churning and new firm formations have been on a persistent decline during the last few decades, and the pace of net job creation has been subdued. This decline has been documented across a broad range of sectors in the U.S. economy, even in high-tech...
2014 Teamsters Unity Conference Convenes teamster.org ...The 2014 Teamsters Unity Conference convened Sunday, May 4, with General President Jim Hoffa welcoming more than 1,400 Teamsters who learned about several key challenges facing the union...
Lilly Ledbetter joins Teamsters and others in support of pay equality for city's 5,000 school safety agents teamster.org ...Lilly Ledbetter, the tireless advocate for equal pay, whose historic Supreme Court case led the way to the Fair Pay Act of 2009—which bears her name—will join Teamsters Local 237 President Gregory Floyd; Sonia Ossorio, President of the New York City Chapter of National Organization for Women; and Mary Lou Urban, Co-President of the League of Women Voters, at a rally in support of resolving the pay disparity of school safety agents...
Trade
Trans Pacific Partnership Still Stalled The Register ...In spite of optimistic official rhetoric from the White House, Japan seems to be the latest speed bump on the road to the controversial Trans Pacific Partnership trade treaty...
Is Another Aspect Of The TPP They Hid From Us, Legally Stoning Gays? Down With Tyranny ...The dictator (of Brunei) is an hereditary sultan and this one is a homophobic psychotic who has just mandated the death penalty (by stoning) for gays. He's one our our esteemed partners in the TPP...
Oscars 'Night Before' Party Pulled From Beverly Hills Hotel Over Sultan of Brunei Ownership (Exclusive) Hollywood Reporter ...The Night Before the Oscars, Hollywood's starriest annual charity event, will not be held at the Beverly Hills Hotel because of the hotel’s ties to Brunei, where Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah instituted a severe new anti-gay penal code based on Sharia law last week...
State Battles
The drive to ban mandated sick days America Al-Jazeera ...the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) ... and the National Restaurant Association ... are pushing legislatures and governors to enact pre-emption (or kill-shot) laws to bar cities and counties from passing paid sick day mandates...
Outside Spending Enters Arena of Judicial Races New York Times ...The primary race for Justice Hudson’s Supreme Court seat alone has drawn more than $1 million — the bulk of it by independent groups including the Republican committee and an arm of the state Chamber of Commerce, which has spent $250,000 to promote both of her opponents with money from companies including Reynolds American, Blue Cross Blue Shield and Koch Industries.
The costly and fierce primary shows how the revolution in financing political campaigns, with the surging role of “super PACs” and other groups financed by corporations, unions and other interests, has entered what was the quieter arena of judicial elections...
War On Workers
Enron 2.0: Goldman-Linked Investors Set to Manipulate East Coast Electricity Prices naked capitalism ...With Brayton Point closed, New England consumers and businesses will spend as much as $2.6 billion more per year for electricity, critics of the deal suggest in documents filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission...
There's no evidence that privatisation works, but it marches on (opinion) ...Governments will always need to deal with markets for procurement and regulation – but that needs a strong, experienced civil service with equal cunning, not one cut by 30%, losing memory of past errors...
Bonuses For Federal Workers Cut In Half, Figures Show USA Today ...Bonus pay for 1.3 million federal workers fell of a proverbial fiscal cliff last year, dropping nearly 50% as a result of draconian budget cuts tied to a partial government shutdown and recent caps on employee awards...
Why Is This Farm Using Guest Workers As Strike Breakers? The Nation ...By law, a company can’t hire H-2A guest workers if it is in a labor dispute with its US workforce. But that is exactly what this Washington State berry grower is trying to do....
The Recession Made Income Inequality Even Worse Think Progress ...The gap between the rich and the poor has grown faster since the financial crisis than it did the entire decade before it, according to a new report from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)...
Your Paycheck Proves There Was No Recovery Huffington Post ...Stock prices and corporate profits are setting records, jobs are growing and yet most Americans think the recession never ended. How can this be? Because in the one place it counts--your paycheck--the recovery never happened...
Miscellaneous
Declining Business Dynamism in the United States: A Look at States and Metros Brookings Institute ...dynamism is slowing down. Business churning and new firm formations have been on a persistent decline during the last few decades, and the pace of net job creation has been subdued. This decline has been documented across a broad range of sectors in the U.S. economy, even in high-tech...
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