Teamsters
Facebook shuttle drivers ratify new Teamsters contract: WSJ Reuters … Loop Transportation, the contractor that employs the drivers and negotiated with Teamsters Local 853, cautioned that the agreement was not finalized and must be approved by Facebook...
Canadian Pacific and Teamsters Canada Rail Conference agree to binding arbitration Transport Intelligence …Canadian Pacific and the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference have agreed to enter into binding arbitration to put an end to the work stoppage by CP's locomotive engineers and conductors...
Trade
Obama to make TPP free trade sales pitch to American people Big News Network …US President Barack Obama on Saturday began a major sales pitch to the US public to bring them round to the merits of free trade deals, an area in which he faces stiff resistance from many in his own Democratic party...
Europeans Want TTIP Trade-Deal, though Obama Blocks Making Its Terms Public RINF Alternative News …TTIP is a secretly negotiated trade deal between the U.S. and the EU, and all indications are that it will replace each nation’s drug-safety, product-safety, food-safety, environmental, and worker-protection, regulations and laws, placing them into the hands of panels composed of appointees of large international corporations, no longer in the hands of publicly elected officials, no longer in the hands of elected politicians, who need to face voters periodically in order to stay in power...
State Battles
Wisconsin Could Be Right-To-Work In A Matter Of Days Huffington Post …It's been more than two decades since Gov. Scott Walker (R) first pushed right-to-work legislation as a state lawmaker in Wisconsin. Now, all these years later, the famously anti-union governor may finally be getting his wish -- whether he likes it or not...
Second fight over union rights comes to Wisconsin as right-to-work debate looms Associated Press …The first step is a public hearing Tuesday before the state Senate's Labor Committee before the Senate takes it up for debate on Wednesday...
War on Workers
Trend in Temp Workers may not be Temporary Economic Populist …America's third largest job creator is a temp agency called Kelly Services, which provided employment to 555,000 employees in 2014...
Ex-Im critics pounce after bank yanks data The Hill …Critics of the Export-Import Bank are seething over the removal from a government Web site of previously public data earlier they say helps them detect cronyism…
Amid controversy, oil trains quietly rerouted through Virginia towns Reuters …CSX Corp is temporarily rerouting up to five oil trains through this small riverside town to bypass the site of an explosive oil train derailment that occurred 90 miles north in Mount Carbon, West Virginia, on Monday...
Rent walkouts point to strains in U.S. farm economy Reuters …Across the U.S. Midwest, the plunge in grain prices to near four-year lows is pitting landowners determined to sustain rental incomes against farmer tenants worried about making rent payments because their revenues are squeezed...
Will America's Shale Boomtowns Bust? A Report From the Heart of North Dakota's Fracking Country Fortune …After reaching a 12-month high of $108 last summer, U.S. benchmark petroleum prices have dramatically declined, to a price now hovering near $50 per barrel. That has shaken global markets and energy companies alike, causing oil producers to slash their capital expenditure budgets and announce layoffs...
Worker dies in Canton's second fatal snow-related fall in 5 days WCVB …A worker fell 40 feet to his death Sunday while checking the roof of a building for snow removal...
Showing posts with label corruption. Show all posts
Showing posts with label corruption. Show all posts
Monday, February 23, 2015
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Today's Teamster News 02.18.15
Teamsters
Teamsters Call on CEOs Of Six Companies To Denounce Anti-Union Tactics Used By Compass Trans. teamster.org …In a letter to the CEOs of six East Bay-area companies, Rome Aloise, International Vice President and President of Teamsters Local 853 in San Leandro, Calif., called on the executives to denounce alleged assertions made by management at Compass Transportation to its drivers that the six companies would likely end their service agreement with them if they voted for a union...
Judge Approves Agreement Ending Government Oversight Of Teamsters Union teamster.org …Today, Chief Judge Loretta Preska of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York approved an agreement that ends more than 25 years of government oversight of the Teamsters Union...
Trade
Let's Roll! February 17, speak out for Good-Paying Jobs & a Healthy Environment by Saying NO to "Fast Track" Washington Fair Trade Coalition …To voice opposition against the disastrous impacts Fast Track would have on the Pacific Northwest’s economy, environment and public health, the Washington Fair Trade Coalition, the Oregon Fair Trade Campaign, and their partners from the labor, environmental, public health and human rights movements are getting on a bus called the “Blue-Green Machine” for two action-packed days of rallies, press events and briefings that need your support...
Our Opinion: Skepticism about TPP, and no to its fast-tracking Berkshire Eagle …There is ample reason for doubt about the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), although its tenets have not been fully determined. There is more than enough reason to oppose its fast-tracking. Demonstrators in Pittsfield, Springfield and Washington, D.C. will lobby First District Congressman Richard Neal, a Springfield Democrat, to oppose both the agreement and its fast-tracking today. The senior member of the Massachusetts delegation, Mr. Neal anticipates taking part in talks on the TPP and wants to reserve judgment…
Letter: Polis should vote no on TPP, Fast Track Coloradoan …Our representative, Congressman Jared Polis, has not publicly voiced his opposition to TPP, which is a shame...
State Battles
Missouri Senate leader skeptical ‘right-to-work’ will make it to governor PoliticMO … Senate Majority Leader Ron Richard said despite last week’s vote by the House of Representatives to pass “right-to-work,” he sees a tough road ahead in the upper chamber...
Right-To-Work debated again New Hampshire Union Leader …The House could vote to approve the bill, but the Senate is currently tied 12-12 on the right-to-work issue.Whatever the Legislature does, Gov. Maggie Hassan has vowed to veto the bill and neither the House nor the Senate has the two-thirds majority needed to override...
West Virginia workers rally on statehouse steps West Virginia Metro News …The snow and bone-chilling temperatures didn’t stop state-wide union workers from rallying against the prevailing wage law change at the State Capitol Monday afternoon in Charleston...
War on Workers
Student-Loan Delinquencies Rise in U.S. Bloomberg News …Data from the New York Fed released Tuesday showed 11.3 percent of student loans were delinquent in the final three months of 2014, up from 11.1 percent in the prior quarter. The share of auto loans at least 90 days overdue also rose…
How rich conservatives bilk the rank and file into making them richer Washington Post … I like to call [it] the circle of scam. Organizations like the Heritage Foundation and FreedomWorks pay radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity big money to offer on-air endorsements that are the radio equivalent of “native advertising.” Future presidential candidate Mike Huckabee sells his email list on “miracle cancer cures” hidden in the Bible. Conservative media figures like Dick Morris solicit contributions that somehow are never turned to the political ends they claim. Nobody wants to upend the system, because too many people are getting a taste...
Worker dies at Shelbyville Tyson plant WSMV …A worker with a contract cleaning company was killed at the Tyson Food plant in Shelbyville early Tuesday morning...
Teamsters Call on CEOs Of Six Companies To Denounce Anti-Union Tactics Used By Compass Trans. teamster.org …In a letter to the CEOs of six East Bay-area companies, Rome Aloise, International Vice President and President of Teamsters Local 853 in San Leandro, Calif., called on the executives to denounce alleged assertions made by management at Compass Transportation to its drivers that the six companies would likely end their service agreement with them if they voted for a union...
Judge Approves Agreement Ending Government Oversight Of Teamsters Union teamster.org …Today, Chief Judge Loretta Preska of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York approved an agreement that ends more than 25 years of government oversight of the Teamsters Union...
Trade
Let's Roll! February 17, speak out for Good-Paying Jobs & a Healthy Environment by Saying NO to "Fast Track" Washington Fair Trade Coalition …To voice opposition against the disastrous impacts Fast Track would have on the Pacific Northwest’s economy, environment and public health, the Washington Fair Trade Coalition, the Oregon Fair Trade Campaign, and their partners from the labor, environmental, public health and human rights movements are getting on a bus called the “Blue-Green Machine” for two action-packed days of rallies, press events and briefings that need your support...
Our Opinion: Skepticism about TPP, and no to its fast-tracking Berkshire Eagle …There is ample reason for doubt about the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), although its tenets have not been fully determined. There is more than enough reason to oppose its fast-tracking. Demonstrators in Pittsfield, Springfield and Washington, D.C. will lobby First District Congressman Richard Neal, a Springfield Democrat, to oppose both the agreement and its fast-tracking today. The senior member of the Massachusetts delegation, Mr. Neal anticipates taking part in talks on the TPP and wants to reserve judgment…
Letter: Polis should vote no on TPP, Fast Track Coloradoan …Our representative, Congressman Jared Polis, has not publicly voiced his opposition to TPP, which is a shame...
State Battles
Missouri Senate leader skeptical ‘right-to-work’ will make it to governor PoliticMO … Senate Majority Leader Ron Richard said despite last week’s vote by the House of Representatives to pass “right-to-work,” he sees a tough road ahead in the upper chamber...
Right-To-Work debated again New Hampshire Union Leader …The House could vote to approve the bill, but the Senate is currently tied 12-12 on the right-to-work issue.Whatever the Legislature does, Gov. Maggie Hassan has vowed to veto the bill and neither the House nor the Senate has the two-thirds majority needed to override...
West Virginia workers rally on statehouse steps West Virginia Metro News …The snow and bone-chilling temperatures didn’t stop state-wide union workers from rallying against the prevailing wage law change at the State Capitol Monday afternoon in Charleston...
War on Workers
Student-Loan Delinquencies Rise in U.S. Bloomberg News …Data from the New York Fed released Tuesday showed 11.3 percent of student loans were delinquent in the final three months of 2014, up from 11.1 percent in the prior quarter. The share of auto loans at least 90 days overdue also rose…
How rich conservatives bilk the rank and file into making them richer Washington Post … I like to call [it] the circle of scam. Organizations like the Heritage Foundation and FreedomWorks pay radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity big money to offer on-air endorsements that are the radio equivalent of “native advertising.” Future presidential candidate Mike Huckabee sells his email list on “miracle cancer cures” hidden in the Bible. Conservative media figures like Dick Morris solicit contributions that somehow are never turned to the political ends they claim. Nobody wants to upend the system, because too many people are getting a taste...
Worker dies at Shelbyville Tyson plant WSMV …A worker with a contract cleaning company was killed at the Tyson Food plant in Shelbyville early Tuesday morning...
Monday, December 15, 2014
Today's Teamster News 12.15.14
Teamsters
Teamsters Denounce Senate Passage Of Omnibus Spending Bill teamster.org …"With the passage of the omnibus spending bill by the Senate, we have witnessed the latest attack by corporate interests on working families...
Trade
Call for release of Trans-Pacific Partnership text ComputerWorld ...Forty-eight non-government organisations have issued a call for the release of the draft text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement...
State Battles
Early federal sentencing recommendation for McDonnell: At least 10 years in prison Washington Post ...The federal agency that will play a pivotal role in guiding the sentence of former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell has recommended that the onetime Republican rising star spend at least 10 years and a month in prison, according to several people familiar with the matter...
War on Workers
Cromnibus Pension Provisions Gut Forty Years of Policy, Allow Existing Pensions to Be Slashed naked capitalism …[The] measure included in Congress’s mammoth spending bill permits benefit cuts for retirees in one type of pension plan, a big shift that lawmakers and others believe could set a precedent for other troubled retirement programs. Lawmakers and experts, while divided over the merits of the change, largely agreed that it could well be the first of many...
Study: For every $1 corporations spend on elections, they get $760 from government Ring of Fire …From 2007 to 2012, 200 American corporations spent about $5.8 billion on federal lobbying and campaign contributions, but that number is mere chump change when compared to what those same corporations got in return — about $4.4 trillion in federal business and support, according to a study by the Sunlight Foundation...
What's Complicated About a Government That Works to Benefit Rich People? Center for Economic Policy and Research ...we have had a government committed to redistributing income upward for the last three decades...
Congress Again Rewards Tax Dodgers with a Tax Cut Economic Policy Institute ...If a $1 budget reduction yields a $10.60 reduction in enforcement collections, then the $191 million reduction in the IRS enforcement budget could prove to be a $2 billion tax cut for tax cheats. There appears to be a disconnect between what Congress enacts and what the American public wants...
Transport strike likely to shut down much of Belgium Agence France-Press ...Belgium risks coming to a virtual standstill tomorrow as the biggest national strike for years grounds all flights, halts public transport and severs international train links in a protest over the new government's austerity policies...
Smoke killed Thanksgiving Tower workers trapped in deep tank, officials say Dallas Morning News ...Three workers killed in a Thanksgiving Tower fire died of smoke inhalation while trapped in a “dilapidated” 35-foot-deep chiller tank, authorities said Friday. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration and Dallas Fire-Rescue are investigating Thursday’s blaze. A city official said it appeared that the workers did not follow proper safety procedures, nor did they have the proper permit to do work with a torch, although officials still haven’t confirmed what started the fire...
Miscellaneous
Will cheap oil kill Keystone? Politico Pro …The same collapse in oil prices that is pumping dollars into motorists’ wallets also risks undermining the case for building the 1,179-mile pipeline in two crucial ways: It’s squeezing the western Canadian oil industry that has looked to Keystone as its most promising route to the Gulf Coast...
Dancing around data The Hill …A recent Pew study found that ninety-one percent of Americans say that they have “lost control” over how their personal information is collected or used by companies...
Teamsters Denounce Senate Passage Of Omnibus Spending Bill teamster.org …"With the passage of the omnibus spending bill by the Senate, we have witnessed the latest attack by corporate interests on working families...
Trade
Call for release of Trans-Pacific Partnership text ComputerWorld ...Forty-eight non-government organisations have issued a call for the release of the draft text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement...
State Battles
Early federal sentencing recommendation for McDonnell: At least 10 years in prison Washington Post ...The federal agency that will play a pivotal role in guiding the sentence of former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell has recommended that the onetime Republican rising star spend at least 10 years and a month in prison, according to several people familiar with the matter...
War on Workers
Cromnibus Pension Provisions Gut Forty Years of Policy, Allow Existing Pensions to Be Slashed naked capitalism …[The] measure included in Congress’s mammoth spending bill permits benefit cuts for retirees in one type of pension plan, a big shift that lawmakers and others believe could set a precedent for other troubled retirement programs. Lawmakers and experts, while divided over the merits of the change, largely agreed that it could well be the first of many...
Study: For every $1 corporations spend on elections, they get $760 from government Ring of Fire …From 2007 to 2012, 200 American corporations spent about $5.8 billion on federal lobbying and campaign contributions, but that number is mere chump change when compared to what those same corporations got in return — about $4.4 trillion in federal business and support, according to a study by the Sunlight Foundation...
What's Complicated About a Government That Works to Benefit Rich People? Center for Economic Policy and Research ...we have had a government committed to redistributing income upward for the last three decades...
Congress Again Rewards Tax Dodgers with a Tax Cut Economic Policy Institute ...If a $1 budget reduction yields a $10.60 reduction in enforcement collections, then the $191 million reduction in the IRS enforcement budget could prove to be a $2 billion tax cut for tax cheats. There appears to be a disconnect between what Congress enacts and what the American public wants...
Transport strike likely to shut down much of Belgium Agence France-Press ...Belgium risks coming to a virtual standstill tomorrow as the biggest national strike for years grounds all flights, halts public transport and severs international train links in a protest over the new government's austerity policies...
Smoke killed Thanksgiving Tower workers trapped in deep tank, officials say Dallas Morning News ...Three workers killed in a Thanksgiving Tower fire died of smoke inhalation while trapped in a “dilapidated” 35-foot-deep chiller tank, authorities said Friday. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration and Dallas Fire-Rescue are investigating Thursday’s blaze. A city official said it appeared that the workers did not follow proper safety procedures, nor did they have the proper permit to do work with a torch, although officials still haven’t confirmed what started the fire...
Miscellaneous
Will cheap oil kill Keystone? Politico Pro …The same collapse in oil prices that is pumping dollars into motorists’ wallets also risks undermining the case for building the 1,179-mile pipeline in two crucial ways: It’s squeezing the western Canadian oil industry that has looked to Keystone as its most promising route to the Gulf Coast...
Dancing around data The Hill …A recent Pew study found that ninety-one percent of Americans say that they have “lost control” over how their personal information is collected or used by companies...
Saturday, November 8, 2014
Today's Teamster News 11.08.14
Teamster News
Teamsters Applaud U.S. Appeals Court Decision Reinstating Misclassified Port Truck Drivers teamster.org ...In a landmark victory for misclassified “independent contractors” across America, two previously fired port truck drivers have returned to work today as employees of Green Fleet Systems (GFS) in Long Beach, Calif. Earlier misclassified as independent contractors by GFS...
Waste Workers In Houston Vote To Join Teamsters Local 988 teamster.org ...Workers at WCA Waste Corporation in Houston, who are seeking fair wages, job security and safer working conditions, voted today to join Teamsters Local 988. The vote was 90 to 28...
Trade
Thousands rally against trade agreement TVNZ ...There's been an outcry against secretive trade talks, with thousands joining rallies around [New Zealand]. The target of the protesters' anger in 17 towns and cities is the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement...
What the 2014 Election Results Mean for Trade Policy Public Citizen ...The GOP takeover of the U.S. Senate probably reduces the chances that President Barack Obama gets Fast Track at all before his presidency is over or that a deal is completed on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)...
State Battles
One Community Beat Big Money On Election Day. Here's How They Did It. Huffington Post ...Voters in Florida's capital city overwhelmingly approved an extraordinary ethics and campaign finance reform ballot initiative that fights money in politics corruption, reclaims local government for the people, and provides a path to victory for national reform efforts...
Kansas Governor’s Grand Tax Cut Experiment Is Gutting His State’s Services Think Progress ...Kansas brought in $23 million less in tax revenue in October than the state had predicted, continuing a pattern of serious shortfalls that began when Gov. Sam Brownback’s (R) massive tax cuts went into effect in 2012...
Wingnut Voter ID Group Fails Again: “Voter Integrity” Outfit Unable To Find Midterm Fraud Salon.com ...Despite army of monitors, Catherine Engelbrecht's discredited organization uncovers 0 polling place impersonations...
Former Mississippi Prisons Head Charged With Getting Kickbacks, Bribes On Prison Contracts Slate ...A 49-count federal indictment unsealed on Thursday charges the head of prisons in Mississippi, Christopher Epps, with orchestrating a massive corruption scheme where he pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from private prison companies in return for contracts to work in the Mississippi prison system...
War on Workers
U.S. labor market tightens, but wages still anemic Reuters ...Average hourly earnings rose only three cents last month, leaving the year-on-year increase at 2.0 percent, the level it has been around for the last few years. The muted wage growth partly reflects the types of jobs being created. In October, about a fifth of the new jobs were in the food services sector...
The hidden truth about job growth, lost amidst the statistical noise & optimists’ hopes Fabius Maximus ...The key thing to know about the latest job report is the same thing to know about all 2014’s job reports: there has been no change to the trend. No sign of the acceleration so confidently forecast by so many. This confirms the other economic indicators, amidst the slowing world economy...
Whole Foods Employees Ask For a Union Gawker ... There is now an official movement on to unionize at least one Whole Foods store on 4th street in San Francisco. A press release that went out yesterday says that 20 workers held a rally and "initiated a temporary work stoppage to deliver a petition to Whole Foods management demanding a $5 an hour wage increase for all employees and no retaliation against workers for organizing a union."...
Facebook Conducted ‘Psychological Experiment’ On Users To Manipulate US Election Turnout Addicting Info ...The company admits that it deliberately suppressed personal posts from people on your friend’s list, while promoting other posts, in an experiment designed to exploit users emotional response in relation to the 2012 election...
Lawsuit: Chicago Futures Market Creates “Guaranteed Winners and Guaranteed Losers” Wall Street on Parade ...Last week three futures traders told a Federal court in Chicago that it’s not just the high frequency trading firms that are reaping a windfall but the exchanges who are engaged in a conspiracy with them to create “guaranteed winners and guaranteed losers.”...
Citizens United Boss: Supreme Court Ruling Handed Midterm Elections To Republicans Raw Story ...“Citizens United, our Supreme Court case, leveled the playing field, and we’re very proud of the impact that had in last night’s election,” said David Bossie, chairman of the conservative advocacy organization...
Explosive Oil Transported Through Indiana Counties Without Notice WISH ...For months, trains hauling millions of gallons of highly flammable crude oil passed through at least 12 Indiana counties with no advanced warning to firefighters, hazardous materials directors or local emergency managers, an I-Team 8 investigation has found...
More Employers Are Hiring But They Aren’t Raising Pay FiveThirtyEight ...7 in 10 Americans said in exit polls that the economy is in bad shape, and only 28 percent said their financial situation had improved in the past two years. Dissatisfaction with the state of the economy was widely cited as a principal reason for Republicans’ big gains...
Maintenance Worker Dead After Being Trapped In Machine At Fairfield Bowling Alley WCPO ...A maintenance worker at a Butler County bowling alley died Thursday afternoon after getting caught in a machine he was trying to repair...
Miscellaeous
Nation's first soda tax is passed USA Today ...Berkeley, Calif., became the first U.S. city to pass a law taxing sugary drinks including sodas...
Mexico scraps high-speed rail project won by China over corruption worries McClatchy ...Perceptions that Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto rewarded friends with a share of a $4.3 billion high-speed rail contract won by a Chinese-led consortium led this week to a stunning decision by Mexico to scrap the deal and start over with new bidding...
Teamsters Applaud U.S. Appeals Court Decision Reinstating Misclassified Port Truck Drivers teamster.org ...In a landmark victory for misclassified “independent contractors” across America, two previously fired port truck drivers have returned to work today as employees of Green Fleet Systems (GFS) in Long Beach, Calif. Earlier misclassified as independent contractors by GFS...
Waste Workers In Houston Vote To Join Teamsters Local 988 teamster.org ...Workers at WCA Waste Corporation in Houston, who are seeking fair wages, job security and safer working conditions, voted today to join Teamsters Local 988. The vote was 90 to 28...
Trade
Thousands rally against trade agreement TVNZ ...There's been an outcry against secretive trade talks, with thousands joining rallies around [New Zealand]. The target of the protesters' anger in 17 towns and cities is the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement...
What the 2014 Election Results Mean for Trade Policy Public Citizen ...The GOP takeover of the U.S. Senate probably reduces the chances that President Barack Obama gets Fast Track at all before his presidency is over or that a deal is completed on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)...
State Battles
One Community Beat Big Money On Election Day. Here's How They Did It. Huffington Post ...Voters in Florida's capital city overwhelmingly approved an extraordinary ethics and campaign finance reform ballot initiative that fights money in politics corruption, reclaims local government for the people, and provides a path to victory for national reform efforts...
Kansas Governor’s Grand Tax Cut Experiment Is Gutting His State’s Services Think Progress ...Kansas brought in $23 million less in tax revenue in October than the state had predicted, continuing a pattern of serious shortfalls that began when Gov. Sam Brownback’s (R) massive tax cuts went into effect in 2012...
Wingnut Voter ID Group Fails Again: “Voter Integrity” Outfit Unable To Find Midterm Fraud Salon.com ...Despite army of monitors, Catherine Engelbrecht's discredited organization uncovers 0 polling place impersonations...
Former Mississippi Prisons Head Charged With Getting Kickbacks, Bribes On Prison Contracts Slate ...A 49-count federal indictment unsealed on Thursday charges the head of prisons in Mississippi, Christopher Epps, with orchestrating a massive corruption scheme where he pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from private prison companies in return for contracts to work in the Mississippi prison system...
War on Workers
U.S. labor market tightens, but wages still anemic Reuters ...Average hourly earnings rose only three cents last month, leaving the year-on-year increase at 2.0 percent, the level it has been around for the last few years. The muted wage growth partly reflects the types of jobs being created. In October, about a fifth of the new jobs were in the food services sector...
The hidden truth about job growth, lost amidst the statistical noise & optimists’ hopes Fabius Maximus ...The key thing to know about the latest job report is the same thing to know about all 2014’s job reports: there has been no change to the trend. No sign of the acceleration so confidently forecast by so many. This confirms the other economic indicators, amidst the slowing world economy...
Whole Foods Employees Ask For a Union Gawker ... There is now an official movement on to unionize at least one Whole Foods store on 4th street in San Francisco. A press release that went out yesterday says that 20 workers held a rally and "initiated a temporary work stoppage to deliver a petition to Whole Foods management demanding a $5 an hour wage increase for all employees and no retaliation against workers for organizing a union."...
Facebook Conducted ‘Psychological Experiment’ On Users To Manipulate US Election Turnout Addicting Info ...The company admits that it deliberately suppressed personal posts from people on your friend’s list, while promoting other posts, in an experiment designed to exploit users emotional response in relation to the 2012 election...
Lawsuit: Chicago Futures Market Creates “Guaranteed Winners and Guaranteed Losers” Wall Street on Parade ...Last week three futures traders told a Federal court in Chicago that it’s not just the high frequency trading firms that are reaping a windfall but the exchanges who are engaged in a conspiracy with them to create “guaranteed winners and guaranteed losers.”...
Citizens United Boss: Supreme Court Ruling Handed Midterm Elections To Republicans Raw Story ...“Citizens United, our Supreme Court case, leveled the playing field, and we’re very proud of the impact that had in last night’s election,” said David Bossie, chairman of the conservative advocacy organization...
Explosive Oil Transported Through Indiana Counties Without Notice WISH ...For months, trains hauling millions of gallons of highly flammable crude oil passed through at least 12 Indiana counties with no advanced warning to firefighters, hazardous materials directors or local emergency managers, an I-Team 8 investigation has found...
More Employers Are Hiring But They Aren’t Raising Pay FiveThirtyEight ...7 in 10 Americans said in exit polls that the economy is in bad shape, and only 28 percent said their financial situation had improved in the past two years. Dissatisfaction with the state of the economy was widely cited as a principal reason for Republicans’ big gains...
Maintenance Worker Dead After Being Trapped In Machine At Fairfield Bowling Alley WCPO ...A maintenance worker at a Butler County bowling alley died Thursday afternoon after getting caught in a machine he was trying to repair...
Miscellaeous
Nation's first soda tax is passed USA Today ...Berkeley, Calif., became the first U.S. city to pass a law taxing sugary drinks including sodas...
Mexico scraps high-speed rail project won by China over corruption worries McClatchy ...Perceptions that Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto rewarded friends with a share of a $4.3 billion high-speed rail contract won by a Chinese-led consortium led this week to a stunning decision by Mexico to scrap the deal and start over with new bidding...
Friday, September 5, 2014
Today's Teamster News 09.05.14
Teamster News
'My Horse For A Kingdom:' Mayor de Blasio And The Tyranny Of Denial Huffington Post ...After 10 months of filming New York's Greatest Living Icons, the gentle carriage horses, those who love them... and those who hate them, I can say, without equivocation, there is no abuse, no cruelty of any kind, only love...and lots of carrots...
Public Works Employees in Florida Join Teamsters Local 385 teamster.org ...Casselberry, Florida Public Works employees have unanimously voted to join Teamsters Local 385 in Orlando…. Thirty-one ballots were returned and the vote was 31-0 to join Local 385. There are 44 workers in the bargaining unit...
Trade
Trade deficit with China sets new record Trade Reform ...Our deficit with China — People’s Republic of China/Chinese Communist Party/People’s Liberation Army — is an all-time record...
State Battles
Indiana Supreme Court To Hear Right-To-Work Arguments Today Indianapolis Star ...The Indiana Supreme Court will hear oral arguments this morning on the state’s right-to-work law that brought thousands of union protesters to the Statehouse in 2012 when it was passed...
Minimum wage debate returns to Indianapolis WISHTV.com ...A nationwide push to raise the minimum wage returns to Indianapolis Thursday with more local protests. It’s a hot button issue from the nation’s capital to the fast food counter. Fast food workers have protested a handful of times over the last year...
Pension Tax Bites Michigan’s Snyder in Re-Election Bid Bloomberg ...Michigan Governor Rick Snyder’s 2011 tax increase on retirement income from pensions is haunting the Republican as he runs for a second term in a graying state still recovering from the recession...
Tax The Big Businesses That Won’t Pay Connecticut Workers A Living Wage (opinion) The CT Mirror ...If companies with 500 or more employees decide they don’t want to pay a fair wage, then they must repay Connecticut taxpayers for supporting their corporate bottom line...
Alabama's Voter ID Law Blamed For At Least 282 Ballots Uncounted In Primary Birmingham News ...The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund is alleging that at least 282 ballots in the state's June 3 primary election were not counted due to Alabama's law requiring voters to show a valid photo identification card...
Husted’s suppression efforts have costs taxpayers over $400,000 Ohio Democratic Party ...In 2013, the State of Ohio paid the Wiley Rein law firm $285,902.50 to unsuccessfully defend Jon Husted’s attempt to cut early voting in Ohio before the 2012 general election alone...
Bad Labor News for Wisconsin Center for Media and Democracy ... the state still falls 21,900 jobs short of where it was seven years ago--and about 58,000 jobs short of where it would be if it had kept pace with the national recovery rate...
Former Va. Gov. Bob McDonnell Found Guilty In Corruption Case DCist ...Former Va. Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife Maureen were found guilty today on several charges in the corruption case stemming from gifts, including an engraved Rolex and lavish vacations, and thousands of dollars in loans they accepted from a businessman in exchange for political favor...
War On Workers
Fast Food Strikes Hit 150 US Cities MSNBC ...Police arrested at least 19 people outside of a McDonald’s in New York City early Thursday morning as thousands of fast food workers across the country walked off the job...
Congresswoman Gwen Moore arrested during minimum wage protest CBS News ...U.S. Congresswoman Gwen Moore was arrested by West Milwaukee police during a minimum wage protest on Miller Park Way...
The United States Leads in Low-Wage Work and the Lowest Wages for Low-Wage Workers Economic Policy Institute ...the wages of low-wage workers (the 10th percentile of wage earners) declined by five percent over the 1979-2013 period, despite a generation of productivity gains (64.9 percent)...
Groups Accuse Apple Supplier in China of Labor Violations New York Times ...The employees are made to work excessive overtime and handle toxic chemicals without proper protective clothing, according to a report released Thursday by Green America, an environmental nonprofit group, and China Labor Watch, a workers’ rights group based in New York...
Voting Restrictions Are Key Variable In Midterm Elections New York Times ...Voting in midterm elections, which will determine control of Congress, ends this fall. But it starts in North Carolina this week...
Worker Killed on the Job: Four Wheeler Accident News4JAX ...A man was killed on the job after the four wheeler he was riding flipped and landed in a near by lake. The vehicle pinned the man beneath the water...
McMansions not only survive, they’re getting bigger Washington Post ...In 1973, the median newly-completed single-family house was 1,525 square feet; forty years later, in 2013, it was 2,384 square feet. That is a record high...
The Koch Brothers have funded 44,000 ads in the 2014 election Washington Post ...Americans for Prosperity alone has run more than 27,000 ads, which is significantly more than groups like American Crossroads/Crossroads GPS -- groups with close ties to former Bush White House political svengali Karl Rove...
Miscellaneous
Large US Tech Firms Plan 'Go Slow' Day In Protest Over Net Neutrality Rules The Guardian ...Some of the world’s largest tech firms are planning a “go slow” day next week in protest of proposals that could create fast lanes on the internet for some companies...
'My Horse For A Kingdom:' Mayor de Blasio And The Tyranny Of Denial Huffington Post ...After 10 months of filming New York's Greatest Living Icons, the gentle carriage horses, those who love them... and those who hate them, I can say, without equivocation, there is no abuse, no cruelty of any kind, only love...and lots of carrots...
Public Works Employees in Florida Join Teamsters Local 385 teamster.org ...Casselberry, Florida Public Works employees have unanimously voted to join Teamsters Local 385 in Orlando…. Thirty-one ballots were returned and the vote was 31-0 to join Local 385. There are 44 workers in the bargaining unit...
Trade
Trade deficit with China sets new record Trade Reform ...Our deficit with China — People’s Republic of China/Chinese Communist Party/People’s Liberation Army — is an all-time record...
State Battles
Indiana Supreme Court To Hear Right-To-Work Arguments Today Indianapolis Star ...The Indiana Supreme Court will hear oral arguments this morning on the state’s right-to-work law that brought thousands of union protesters to the Statehouse in 2012 when it was passed...
Minimum wage debate returns to Indianapolis WISHTV.com ...A nationwide push to raise the minimum wage returns to Indianapolis Thursday with more local protests. It’s a hot button issue from the nation’s capital to the fast food counter. Fast food workers have protested a handful of times over the last year...
Pension Tax Bites Michigan’s Snyder in Re-Election Bid Bloomberg ...Michigan Governor Rick Snyder’s 2011 tax increase on retirement income from pensions is haunting the Republican as he runs for a second term in a graying state still recovering from the recession...
Tax The Big Businesses That Won’t Pay Connecticut Workers A Living Wage (opinion) The CT Mirror ...If companies with 500 or more employees decide they don’t want to pay a fair wage, then they must repay Connecticut taxpayers for supporting their corporate bottom line...
Alabama's Voter ID Law Blamed For At Least 282 Ballots Uncounted In Primary Birmingham News ...The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund is alleging that at least 282 ballots in the state's June 3 primary election were not counted due to Alabama's law requiring voters to show a valid photo identification card...
Husted’s suppression efforts have costs taxpayers over $400,000 Ohio Democratic Party ...In 2013, the State of Ohio paid the Wiley Rein law firm $285,902.50 to unsuccessfully defend Jon Husted’s attempt to cut early voting in Ohio before the 2012 general election alone...
Bad Labor News for Wisconsin Center for Media and Democracy ... the state still falls 21,900 jobs short of where it was seven years ago--and about 58,000 jobs short of where it would be if it had kept pace with the national recovery rate...
Former Va. Gov. Bob McDonnell Found Guilty In Corruption Case DCist ...Former Va. Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife Maureen were found guilty today on several charges in the corruption case stemming from gifts, including an engraved Rolex and lavish vacations, and thousands of dollars in loans they accepted from a businessman in exchange for political favor...
War On Workers
Fast Food Strikes Hit 150 US Cities MSNBC ...Police arrested at least 19 people outside of a McDonald’s in New York City early Thursday morning as thousands of fast food workers across the country walked off the job...
Congresswoman Gwen Moore arrested during minimum wage protest CBS News ...U.S. Congresswoman Gwen Moore was arrested by West Milwaukee police during a minimum wage protest on Miller Park Way...
The United States Leads in Low-Wage Work and the Lowest Wages for Low-Wage Workers Economic Policy Institute ...the wages of low-wage workers (the 10th percentile of wage earners) declined by five percent over the 1979-2013 period, despite a generation of productivity gains (64.9 percent)...
Groups Accuse Apple Supplier in China of Labor Violations New York Times ...The employees are made to work excessive overtime and handle toxic chemicals without proper protective clothing, according to a report released Thursday by Green America, an environmental nonprofit group, and China Labor Watch, a workers’ rights group based in New York...
Voting Restrictions Are Key Variable In Midterm Elections New York Times ...Voting in midterm elections, which will determine control of Congress, ends this fall. But it starts in North Carolina this week...
Worker Killed on the Job: Four Wheeler Accident News4JAX ...A man was killed on the job after the four wheeler he was riding flipped and landed in a near by lake. The vehicle pinned the man beneath the water...
McMansions not only survive, they’re getting bigger Washington Post ...In 1973, the median newly-completed single-family house was 1,525 square feet; forty years later, in 2013, it was 2,384 square feet. That is a record high...
The Koch Brothers have funded 44,000 ads in the 2014 election Washington Post ...Americans for Prosperity alone has run more than 27,000 ads, which is significantly more than groups like American Crossroads/Crossroads GPS -- groups with close ties to former Bush White House political svengali Karl Rove...
Miscellaneous
Large US Tech Firms Plan 'Go Slow' Day In Protest Over Net Neutrality Rules The Guardian ...Some of the world’s largest tech firms are planning a “go slow” day next week in protest of proposals that could create fast lanes on the internet for some companies...
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Today's Teamster News 08.19.14
Teamster News
Michigan Teamsters Joint Council 43 President Nowak, Executive Board Re-Elected Without Opposition IBT ...Michigan Teamster local union officers who gathered at the Shanty Creek Resort in Bellaire, Mich. for Joint Council 43’s 2014 Fall Delegates Meeting voted unanimously to re-elect Joint Council 43 President Greg Nowak, Secretary-Treasurer Jim “Cinci” Cianciolo and the entire Executive Board to a new three-year term...
Trade
Awash In Coal, U.S. Imports Even More Wall Street Journal ...Coal imports surged 44% to 5.4 million metric tons during the first six months of 2014, compared with a year ago, according to Global Trade Information Services...
State Battles
Nebraska: Minimum Wage Increase to Be on Ballot New York Times ...A proposal to increase Nebraska’s minimum wage has qualified for the November ballot. The secretary of state’s office said Friday it had verified enough signatures. If approved by voters, the measure would increase the state’s minimum wage to $9 an hour by 2016 from $7.25 an hour, the same as the federal minimum...
California teachers union fears right-to-work law inevitable Washington Examiner ... the change might be inevitable based on various lawsuits that could reach the Supreme Court...
With close ties to sugar, Florida’s next House speaker admits taking King Ranch trip Miami Herald ...Crisafulli, who will become the most powerful man in the Florida House of Representatives this fall, has been a major beneficiary of the state’s sugar industry. During the past two election cycles, agricultural interests have contributed at least $200,000 to Rep. Crisafulli, R-Merritt Island, and his political action committees...
How Much Of Wal-Mart Is Really Made In America? Bloomberg Businessweek ...At least one company, Kent Bicycles, has said it located a new factory in South Carolina because of the state’s right-to-work law. The chief executive noted that Wal-Mart had introduced him to South Carolina’s Republican governor, Nikki Haley...
Democracy A Casualty Of Voter-Suppression Politics (opinion) Billings Gazette ...When same-day voter registration and voting is being cut back, as pushed in Montana by the Republican Legislature, and evidence shows that the majority of late registrants do not vote the Republican way, no wonder many Montanans think someone is trying to stop them from voting because of where they stand philosophically...
6,000 Lack Proper Voter ID Locally The Robesonian ...More than 6,000 Robeson County (North Carolina) residents will have to get a voter ID if they they want to vote in the 2016 General Election...
War On Workers
Blame Employers, Not Workers, for Any Skills Gap, Economist Says Wall Street Journal ...The “obvious solution” to “virtually all the skill problems reported by employers is to increase training and produce the skilled workers they want themselves.” Much of the evidence in support of a skills gap could be explained by employers who are no longer willing to train their employees or raise salaries, and instead want to be able to hire people with exactly the right skills–and on the cheap...
Average cost of raising a child hits $245,000 CNN ...To raise a child born in 2013 to the age of 18, it will cost a middle-income couple just over $245,000, according to newly released estimates from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That's up $4,260, or almost 2%, from the year before...
Feds: Red light camera firm paid for Chicago official’s car, condo ars technica ...The former chief executive officer of Redflex, a major red light camera (RLC) vendor, has been indicted on federal corruption charges stemming from a contract with the City of Chicago...
Worker Killed In North Side Industrial Accident KSAT ...A man in his 60s was killed Monday when a 3,500 pound sack of fracking sand fell on him...
Efforts Advance To Stabilize The Schedules Of Part-Time Workers Kansas City Star ...The movement to support “schedules that work” for employees includes a bill by that name, introduced this summer in the U.S. House and Senate, that would let employees request changes to their work schedules “without fear of retaliation,” among other things...
Money in Politics: Rising in Intensity as a 2014 Election Issue Huffington Post ...candidates all over the country, in red states as well as purple and blue, are taking up the fight against money in politics, to take the country back from the Koch brothers, Wall Street, and the big business interests that run things right now...
Miscellaneous
Community Health says data stolen in cyber attack from China Reuters ...Community Health Systems Inc (CYH.N), one of the biggest U.S. hospital groups, said on Monday it was the victim of a cyber attack from China, resulting in the theft of Social Security numbers and other personal data belonging to 4.5 million patients...
Michigan Teamsters Joint Council 43 President Nowak, Executive Board Re-Elected Without Opposition IBT ...Michigan Teamster local union officers who gathered at the Shanty Creek Resort in Bellaire, Mich. for Joint Council 43’s 2014 Fall Delegates Meeting voted unanimously to re-elect Joint Council 43 President Greg Nowak, Secretary-Treasurer Jim “Cinci” Cianciolo and the entire Executive Board to a new three-year term...
Trade
Awash In Coal, U.S. Imports Even More Wall Street Journal ...Coal imports surged 44% to 5.4 million metric tons during the first six months of 2014, compared with a year ago, according to Global Trade Information Services...
State Battles
Nebraska: Minimum Wage Increase to Be on Ballot New York Times ...A proposal to increase Nebraska’s minimum wage has qualified for the November ballot. The secretary of state’s office said Friday it had verified enough signatures. If approved by voters, the measure would increase the state’s minimum wage to $9 an hour by 2016 from $7.25 an hour, the same as the federal minimum...
California teachers union fears right-to-work law inevitable Washington Examiner ... the change might be inevitable based on various lawsuits that could reach the Supreme Court...
With close ties to sugar, Florida’s next House speaker admits taking King Ranch trip Miami Herald ...Crisafulli, who will become the most powerful man in the Florida House of Representatives this fall, has been a major beneficiary of the state’s sugar industry. During the past two election cycles, agricultural interests have contributed at least $200,000 to Rep. Crisafulli, R-Merritt Island, and his political action committees...
How Much Of Wal-Mart Is Really Made In America? Bloomberg Businessweek ...At least one company, Kent Bicycles, has said it located a new factory in South Carolina because of the state’s right-to-work law. The chief executive noted that Wal-Mart had introduced him to South Carolina’s Republican governor, Nikki Haley...
Democracy A Casualty Of Voter-Suppression Politics (opinion) Billings Gazette ...When same-day voter registration and voting is being cut back, as pushed in Montana by the Republican Legislature, and evidence shows that the majority of late registrants do not vote the Republican way, no wonder many Montanans think someone is trying to stop them from voting because of where they stand philosophically...
6,000 Lack Proper Voter ID Locally The Robesonian ...More than 6,000 Robeson County (North Carolina) residents will have to get a voter ID if they they want to vote in the 2016 General Election...
War On Workers
Blame Employers, Not Workers, for Any Skills Gap, Economist Says Wall Street Journal ...The “obvious solution” to “virtually all the skill problems reported by employers is to increase training and produce the skilled workers they want themselves.” Much of the evidence in support of a skills gap could be explained by employers who are no longer willing to train their employees or raise salaries, and instead want to be able to hire people with exactly the right skills–and on the cheap...
Average cost of raising a child hits $245,000 CNN ...To raise a child born in 2013 to the age of 18, it will cost a middle-income couple just over $245,000, according to newly released estimates from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That's up $4,260, or almost 2%, from the year before...
Feds: Red light camera firm paid for Chicago official’s car, condo ars technica ...The former chief executive officer of Redflex, a major red light camera (RLC) vendor, has been indicted on federal corruption charges stemming from a contract with the City of Chicago...
Worker Killed In North Side Industrial Accident KSAT ...A man in his 60s was killed Monday when a 3,500 pound sack of fracking sand fell on him...
Efforts Advance To Stabilize The Schedules Of Part-Time Workers Kansas City Star ...The movement to support “schedules that work” for employees includes a bill by that name, introduced this summer in the U.S. House and Senate, that would let employees request changes to their work schedules “without fear of retaliation,” among other things...
Money in Politics: Rising in Intensity as a 2014 Election Issue Huffington Post ...candidates all over the country, in red states as well as purple and blue, are taking up the fight against money in politics, to take the country back from the Koch brothers, Wall Street, and the big business interests that run things right now...
Miscellaneous
Community Health says data stolen in cyber attack from China Reuters ...Community Health Systems Inc (CYH.N), one of the biggest U.S. hospital groups, said on Monday it was the victim of a cyber attack from China, resulting in the theft of Social Security numbers and other personal data belonging to 4.5 million patients...
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Ex-governor's petty corruption pales next to the legal scam -- privatizaton
Former Gov. Bob McDonnell is accused of accepting $165,000 in loans and gifts in exchange for promoting the Star Scientific company's snake oil -- unapproved drugs marketed as nutritional supplements despite warnings from the FDA.
McDonnell would have been fine if he just stuck with the plutocrats who wanted to loot the state -- the defense contractor that screwed up Virginia's computer system or the disreputable on-line education company. His problem was that he grifted a Rolex watch and a ride in a Lear jet off of a small-time amateur, and he got caught.
McDonnell and his wife Maureen stand accused on 14 counts of federal corruption charges. They allegedly took from a Star Scientific salesman named JonnieWilliams Oscar de la Renta gowns, iPhones, golf clubs, home loans and the $15,000 catering bill for their daughter's wedding.
Now during a bizarre trial, the McDonnells claim Williams wasn't buying favors and access. They say the gifts were all about the crush that Maureen had on Williams. Unfortunately for the defense, that was news to Williams. According to the Washington Post,
Williams spoke of how his friendship with the McDonnells was just a transaction to benefit his company, Star Scientific. "I don't believe I would have been close friends with the governor and his family," he explained, "if not for all the money." The governor and his wife wanted even more, he said, but "I turned down a lot of requests." In return for the cash, he said, he was able to launch his product at the governor's mansion, was introduced to health care leaders for his business and had his product placed in gift bags at a National Governors Association meeting.The pay-to-play scam of which the McDonnells are accused is not all that different from the massive privatization scandals that haven't been prosecuted. That's because they're legal, but that doesn't make them right.
McDonnell sold off government services to a defense contractor in exchange for a $75,000 campaign contribution. He peddled a phony nutritional supplement in the Governor's Mansion in exchange for a Rolex watch. Is there much difference? You could argue McDonnell didn't get anything personally from the defense contractor, but that's not how politics works in America. Political observers wonder why McDonnell didn't just serve out his four years and then get a lucrative lobbying job from the corporations he helped plunder the state treasury.
Here's an example:
McDonnell received $75,000 in campaign contributions from Northrop Grumman. As governor, he extended a contract to outsource the state's computer operations to the corporation. The privatized computer system broke down on Aug. 9, 2010 and then for a week starting on Aug. 25, leaving 45,000 undoubtedly furious Virginians unable to get drivers' licenses.
McDonnell was also in on the 'make-education-a-business scam.' According to Resist the Privatization of America,
Governor Bob McDonnell received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from virtual learning company K12 Inc., and promptly requested the introduction of ALEC model legislation to expand virtual education in 2010.
It passed in the Virginia legislature, and K12 Inc. swung into action in Carroll County, one of the state’s most impoverished counties, to maximize the public money it would receive. Even when the school board voted to close K12 Inc. down because it did worse than traditional schools on 20 out of 22 measures, Virginia legislators with ALEC connections enacted a law in 2012 requiring high school students to take an online course to graduate.McDonnell should have known the plutocrats know how to do it without getting caught. It's the small amateurs who get you in trouble.
Saturday, August 2, 2014
Today's Teamster News 08.02.14
Teamster News
Workers: AGY Union Approves Contract Aiken Standard ...Employees of Aiken's AGY plant are expected to return to work on Monday, after the plant's labor union voted on Thursday to approve a new labor contract...
4 More LAUSD Bargaining Units Ratify Contracts, Secure Salary Raises CBS News ...Four Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) bargaining units have ratified their contracts, providing salary raises to employees for the first time in several years...
Rail Traffic Controllers And Canadian Pacific Reach Tentative Agreement Wall Street Journal ...Canadian Pacific and the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference Rail Canada Traffic Controllers announced today that they have reached a tentative six-year labour agreement covering approximately 135 employees rail traffic controllers in Canada...
Teamsters contract extended, school buses will run as planned Memphis Commercial Appeal ...Durham School Services and the Teamsters school bus drivers agreed late Friday to a 30-day extension of its current contract while negotiations continue, said Teamsters business agent Edward Houston...
Teamsters 'outraged' about BlueCross BlueShield urgent care decision insurancenewsnet.com ..."The Local Union is constantly receiving calls from members on this chaotic BCBS decision and the members are outraged," wrote James Todd, a business agent for the Teamsters Local Union in West Columbia. "Particularly, our UPS members are mad as hell..."
Trade
Central America Crisis Belies CAFTA’s Empty Promises Public Citizen ...the 67 members of Congress’ Progressive Caucus ... included CAFTA in their recent summary of the root causes of the refugee crisis occurring along the U.S.-Mexico border: “free trade agreements, including the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) have led to the displacement of workers and subsequent migration from these countries...”
Changing Asia: China’s high-speed railway diplomacy The Strategist ...‘high-speed railway diplomacy’ … is used to describe the mechanisms by which China’s burgeoning capacities in high-speed railway (HSR) construction are being used in China’s international relations....
House Lawmakers Are Seeing The Light On ‘Buy American’ teamster.org ...Lawmakers signed onto two different letters this week that called on the Obama administration to protect the more than 80-year-old program from being phased out as a condition included in the Pacific Rim trade agreement...
State Battles
Some ALEC Funders Flee, but Koch, Big Tobacco, and PhRMA Remain Loyalists Center for Media and Democracy ...the petrochemical giant Koch Industries gave ALEC $504,700 between 1995 and 1998. This is in addition to nearly a million dollars that foundations controlled by the billionaire Koch brothers gave ALEC outright between 1998 and 2012, and a nearly $500,000 loan that the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation gave ALEC in 1996...
Fresno Cabbies Want Uber, Lyft Rideshare Services Off The Road Fresno Bee ...Fresno cabbies are asking City Hall to get on-demand ridesharing companies Uber and Lyft off the city's roads...
Only Case Of Voter Fraud Cited In Wisconsin Voter ID Ruling Involved A Scott Walker Fan Huffington Post ...The only example of voter fraud that the Wisconsin Supreme Court cited Thursday when it upheld a state voter ID law signed by Gov. Scott Walker (R) was allegedly committed by a Walker supporter....
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder To Gov. Rick Scott: We're Watching You Tampa Bay Times ...U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder sent a scathing letter to Gov. Rick Scott over voting changes in Florida and issued a warning that the Justice Department is "carefully monitoring" the state...
After Gov. Rick Scott’s Secret Trip To King Ranch, He Tapped A Ranch Executive For State Regulatory Board Miami Herald ...A month after Gov. Rick Scott took a secret hunting trip to the King Ranch in Texas last year ... Scott picked a corporate executive named Mitchel A. “Mitch” Hutchcraft...
War On Workers
Driverless Cars on UK Public Streets Starting January; Transforming Personal Mobility; Taxi and Truck-Drivers Targeted Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis ...Google's cars come equipped with elaborate sensors that can see 600 feet in every direction, are fully electric, and have a range of about 100 miles, perfect for city use, especially driverless taxi cabs. Google plans for 2017 operation...
The ‘meh’ economy: What it means for 2014 Politico Pro ...Over the past two years, per-capita income adjusted for inflation has risen just 1.16 percent, down from 2.54 percent in the first two years of the recovery. Average hourly earnings rose just 1 cent to $24.45 in the latest jobs report...
Drunk Driver Kills Construction Worker, FHP Says Sarasota Herald-Tribune ...One construction worker was killed and another seriously injured Wednesday night when a drunk driver ran into them with his sedan, the Florida Highway Patrol reports...
Miscellaneous
The Other Aging of America: The Increasing Dominance of Older Firms Brookings ...The share of firms aged 16 years or more was 23 percent in 1992, but leaped to 34 percent by 2011—an increase of 50 percent in two decades. The share of private-sector workers employed in these mature firms increased from 60 percent to 72 percent during the same period...
BitTorrent Unveils NSA-Proof Online Calling And Messaging Software Los Angeles Times ...BitTorrent Inc., the San Francisco company behind the most popular technology for sharing files online, is branching out into a new arena: snoop-proof calling and texting...
Workers: AGY Union Approves Contract Aiken Standard ...Employees of Aiken's AGY plant are expected to return to work on Monday, after the plant's labor union voted on Thursday to approve a new labor contract...
4 More LAUSD Bargaining Units Ratify Contracts, Secure Salary Raises CBS News ...Four Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) bargaining units have ratified their contracts, providing salary raises to employees for the first time in several years...
Rail Traffic Controllers And Canadian Pacific Reach Tentative Agreement Wall Street Journal ...Canadian Pacific and the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference Rail Canada Traffic Controllers announced today that they have reached a tentative six-year labour agreement covering approximately 135 employees rail traffic controllers in Canada...
Teamsters contract extended, school buses will run as planned Memphis Commercial Appeal ...Durham School Services and the Teamsters school bus drivers agreed late Friday to a 30-day extension of its current contract while negotiations continue, said Teamsters business agent Edward Houston...
Teamsters 'outraged' about BlueCross BlueShield urgent care decision insurancenewsnet.com ..."The Local Union is constantly receiving calls from members on this chaotic BCBS decision and the members are outraged," wrote James Todd, a business agent for the Teamsters Local Union in West Columbia. "Particularly, our UPS members are mad as hell..."
Trade
Central America Crisis Belies CAFTA’s Empty Promises Public Citizen ...the 67 members of Congress’ Progressive Caucus ... included CAFTA in their recent summary of the root causes of the refugee crisis occurring along the U.S.-Mexico border: “free trade agreements, including the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) have led to the displacement of workers and subsequent migration from these countries...”
Changing Asia: China’s high-speed railway diplomacy The Strategist ...‘high-speed railway diplomacy’ … is used to describe the mechanisms by which China’s burgeoning capacities in high-speed railway (HSR) construction are being used in China’s international relations....
House Lawmakers Are Seeing The Light On ‘Buy American’ teamster.org ...Lawmakers signed onto two different letters this week that called on the Obama administration to protect the more than 80-year-old program from being phased out as a condition included in the Pacific Rim trade agreement...
State Battles
Some ALEC Funders Flee, but Koch, Big Tobacco, and PhRMA Remain Loyalists Center for Media and Democracy ...the petrochemical giant Koch Industries gave ALEC $504,700 between 1995 and 1998. This is in addition to nearly a million dollars that foundations controlled by the billionaire Koch brothers gave ALEC outright between 1998 and 2012, and a nearly $500,000 loan that the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation gave ALEC in 1996...
Fresno Cabbies Want Uber, Lyft Rideshare Services Off The Road Fresno Bee ...Fresno cabbies are asking City Hall to get on-demand ridesharing companies Uber and Lyft off the city's roads...
Only Case Of Voter Fraud Cited In Wisconsin Voter ID Ruling Involved A Scott Walker Fan Huffington Post ...The only example of voter fraud that the Wisconsin Supreme Court cited Thursday when it upheld a state voter ID law signed by Gov. Scott Walker (R) was allegedly committed by a Walker supporter....
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder To Gov. Rick Scott: We're Watching You Tampa Bay Times ...U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder sent a scathing letter to Gov. Rick Scott over voting changes in Florida and issued a warning that the Justice Department is "carefully monitoring" the state...
After Gov. Rick Scott’s Secret Trip To King Ranch, He Tapped A Ranch Executive For State Regulatory Board Miami Herald ...A month after Gov. Rick Scott took a secret hunting trip to the King Ranch in Texas last year ... Scott picked a corporate executive named Mitchel A. “Mitch” Hutchcraft...
War On Workers
Driverless Cars on UK Public Streets Starting January; Transforming Personal Mobility; Taxi and Truck-Drivers Targeted Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis ...Google's cars come equipped with elaborate sensors that can see 600 feet in every direction, are fully electric, and have a range of about 100 miles, perfect for city use, especially driverless taxi cabs. Google plans for 2017 operation...
The ‘meh’ economy: What it means for 2014 Politico Pro ...Over the past two years, per-capita income adjusted for inflation has risen just 1.16 percent, down from 2.54 percent in the first two years of the recovery. Average hourly earnings rose just 1 cent to $24.45 in the latest jobs report...
Drunk Driver Kills Construction Worker, FHP Says Sarasota Herald-Tribune ...One construction worker was killed and another seriously injured Wednesday night when a drunk driver ran into them with his sedan, the Florida Highway Patrol reports...
Miscellaneous
The Other Aging of America: The Increasing Dominance of Older Firms Brookings ...The share of firms aged 16 years or more was 23 percent in 1992, but leaped to 34 percent by 2011—an increase of 50 percent in two decades. The share of private-sector workers employed in these mature firms increased from 60 percent to 72 percent during the same period...
BitTorrent Unveils NSA-Proof Online Calling And Messaging Software Los Angeles Times ...BitTorrent Inc., the San Francisco company behind the most popular technology for sharing files online, is branching out into a new arena: snoop-proof calling and texting...
Monday, July 14, 2014
Today's Teamster News 07.14.14
Teamsters
Teamsters Nominate Bob Davidson To YRCW Board Of Directors teamster.org ...After thorough consideration, TNFINC has nominated William R. “Bob” Davidson to serve on YRC Worldwide’s Board of Directors to fill a seat that was vacated earlier this year...
'Revolutionary Teamsters: The Minneapolis Truckers' Strike of 1934,' by Bryan D. Palmer Minneapolis Star-Tribune ...This cadre of drivers steered the city’s truckers through three strikes between February and July 1934...
Events to commemorate 80th anniversary of 1934 strike Workday Minnesota ...Events planned for four days July 17-20 will commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Minneapolis Teamsters strikes of 1934. considered the most significant single labor event in Minnesota history...
Trade
TPP-ing over? New Straits Times ...TRADE negotiators from a dozen countries, including Malaysia, are gathering for their 20th official meeting in Ottawa, Canada, but all signs are that talks on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) won’t get very far, if anywhere at all...
TPP: A Thoroughly Predatory Pact Dissident Voice ...U.S. transnational corporations are working behind the scenes to change the rules governing them. You may say ‘big deal, this doesn’t affect me’. However if you use the internet, view movies, take pharmaceuticals, want a clean and safe environment, believe in democracy, etc., you likely will be negatively impacted...
State Battles
New Jersey law would bar donations from recipients of subsidies The Guardian ...A new law to prevent political contributions by corporations that receive multi-million dollar public subsidies in New Jersey has been proposed in the state senate, following reports by the Guardian on awards made by governor Chris Christie’s administration...
War on Workers
Samsung suspends factory in China after finding evidence that it used child labor Quartz ...Samsung, the world’s largest smartphone maker, has temporarily closed one of its factories in China after finding evidence that its supplier, Dongguan Shinyang Electronics, was using child labor. The moves comes after China Labor Watch (CLW) accused Dongguan of hiring underage workers, forcing them to work as long as 11 hours a day, and denying all overtime pay...
How property tax lenders prey on the state’s most vulnerable homeowners. Texas Observer ...These high-interest loans are part of a multibillion-dollar industry native only to Texas and Nevada. ... But there’s growing concern that homeowners take on unnecessary risk with property tax loans. And while demand is apparently high, their usefulness may be limited, especially after a recent change in the law that requires counties to offer payment plans to homeowners with delinquent taxes...
Companies That Offer Help With Student Loans Often Predatory, Officials Say New York Times ...federal and state regulators are spotting new instances of abuse as the companies shift away from their traditional targets — credit card and mortgage debt — to zero in on student loans. The companies are coming under fire for potentially questionable tactics...
Home, hacked home The Economist ... “If my PC is hit by a cyber-attack, it is a nuisance; if my car is attacked, it could kill me...”
Teamsters Nominate Bob Davidson To YRCW Board Of Directors teamster.org ...After thorough consideration, TNFINC has nominated William R. “Bob” Davidson to serve on YRC Worldwide’s Board of Directors to fill a seat that was vacated earlier this year...
'Revolutionary Teamsters: The Minneapolis Truckers' Strike of 1934,' by Bryan D. Palmer Minneapolis Star-Tribune ...This cadre of drivers steered the city’s truckers through three strikes between February and July 1934...
Events to commemorate 80th anniversary of 1934 strike Workday Minnesota ...Events planned for four days July 17-20 will commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Minneapolis Teamsters strikes of 1934. considered the most significant single labor event in Minnesota history...
Trade
TPP-ing over? New Straits Times ...TRADE negotiators from a dozen countries, including Malaysia, are gathering for their 20th official meeting in Ottawa, Canada, but all signs are that talks on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) won’t get very far, if anywhere at all...
TPP: A Thoroughly Predatory Pact Dissident Voice ...U.S. transnational corporations are working behind the scenes to change the rules governing them. You may say ‘big deal, this doesn’t affect me’. However if you use the internet, view movies, take pharmaceuticals, want a clean and safe environment, believe in democracy, etc., you likely will be negatively impacted...
State Battles
New Jersey law would bar donations from recipients of subsidies The Guardian ...A new law to prevent political contributions by corporations that receive multi-million dollar public subsidies in New Jersey has been proposed in the state senate, following reports by the Guardian on awards made by governor Chris Christie’s administration...
War on Workers
Samsung suspends factory in China after finding evidence that it used child labor Quartz ...Samsung, the world’s largest smartphone maker, has temporarily closed one of its factories in China after finding evidence that its supplier, Dongguan Shinyang Electronics, was using child labor. The moves comes after China Labor Watch (CLW) accused Dongguan of hiring underage workers, forcing them to work as long as 11 hours a day, and denying all overtime pay...
How property tax lenders prey on the state’s most vulnerable homeowners. Texas Observer ...These high-interest loans are part of a multibillion-dollar industry native only to Texas and Nevada. ... But there’s growing concern that homeowners take on unnecessary risk with property tax loans. And while demand is apparently high, their usefulness may be limited, especially after a recent change in the law that requires counties to offer payment plans to homeowners with delinquent taxes...
Companies That Offer Help With Student Loans Often Predatory, Officials Say New York Times ...federal and state regulators are spotting new instances of abuse as the companies shift away from their traditional targets — credit card and mortgage debt — to zero in on student loans. The companies are coming under fire for potentially questionable tactics...
Home, hacked home The Economist ... “If my PC is hit by a cyber-attack, it is a nuisance; if my car is attacked, it could kill me...”
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Corporate pay to play -- on the Supreme Court
If you think corruption is foreign to Supreme Court justices, just remember those distinguished black robes cover men and women who are not just lawyers and not just politicians, but lawyers and politicians.
Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia have both lent their names to Koch brother fund-raisers, despite the Judicial Code of Conduct that says federal judges may not...
...personally participate in fund-raising activities, solicit funds for any organization, or use or permit the use of the prestige of judicial office for that purpose.But lending their names to the fund-raisers got them vacations at expensive resorts where the Kochs advanced their anti-worker agenda, according to the Center for Media and Democracy. In addition,
Justice Thomas has also accepted gifts of travel on the private jets of billionaire Harlan Crow, and he has not been fully forthcoming about the income and political activities of his wife, Ginny Thomas, who launched a group, Liberty Central, to take advantage of the Supreme Court's controversial ruling in the case that struck down election rules, "Citizens United," before the decision in the case was even issued publicly in 2010. And Justice Samuel Alito... has headlined fundraising events for right-wing organizations, such as the American Spectator magazine.Thomas, arguably the most compromised of the justices, took an expensive four-day vacation paid for by the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. Never heard of it? Funded by the Koch brothers, it is responsible in part for the increasingly anti-worker decisions of federal judges.
The Planet POV blog describes the Federalist Society as an elite conspiracy to undermine judges' neutrality. It's an organization of lawyers, law students, judges, professors and anyone else who is willing to claim some sort of intellectual credentials. The organization was founded in 1982 to promote the interest of big business under the guise of 'conservatism.'
The entrenched plutocrats who support the Federalist Society endow professorships, fund conferences and pay for training institutes to explain to judges how to check off their wish list, which includes corporate deregulation, voter suppression and elimination of campaign finance laws. The Federalist Society's influence is insidious, as it has been a channel for young lawyers to get Supreme Court clerkships and prestigious legal jobs since the Reagan administration.
Here's one final indication of the ethical lapses of the corporate wing of the Supreme Court: In 2004, Scalia went duck hunting with Vice President Dick Cheney, but insisted on hearing a challenge to Cheney's energy task force. Imagine if Elana Kagan had taken a vacation with Michelle Obama -- you'd be hearing about that more than Benghazi.
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Today's Teamster News 04.27.14
Teamsters
For de Blasio, Carriage Horse Ban Is No Walk in the Park New York Times ...The mayor’s plan to ban horse-drawn carriages, an obscure proposal until Mr. de Blasio embraced it in last year’s mayoral race, has erupted into a cause célèbre, landing on the cover of The New Yorker and dominating local headlines, even as Mr. de Blasio is trying to refocus his administration on housing and wage issues...
EXCLUSIVE: FBI investigation of mayoral race includes de Blasio's pledge to ban carriage horses New York Daily News ...FBI agents have been questioning people about the pledge de Blasio made in March 2013, and the ads launched the next month by animal rights activists attacking Christine Quinn, the Daily News has learned. Agents also appear interested in a $175,000 contribution to the animal rights group NYCLASS from a union tied to de Blasio's cousin, labor leader John Wilhelm...
Trade
Japan, U.S. tiptoe into new phase of Pacific trade talks Reuters ...The United States and Japan are edging into a new phase of trade negotiations after U.S. President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's summit, people with knowledge of talks to create one of the world's biggest trade pacts said...
TPP Investment Map: New Privileges for 30,000 Companies? Public Citizen ...Under previous presidential administrations, the United States signed a number of free trade agreements (FTAs) that grant foreign corporations extraordinary rights and protections beyond the rights of domestic companies...
War on Workers
U.S. electricity prices may be going up for good Los Angeles Times ...Experts warn of a growing fragility as coal-fired plants are shut down, nuclear power is reduced and consumers switch to renewable energy...
91 Percent of Our Seafood is Imported and Only 2 Percent is Inspected Economy in Crisis ...The U.S. imports an astonishing 91 percent of our seafood and, unbeknownst to many Americans, much of this seafood is contaminated with antibiotics and toxic chemicals. We can’t inspect this food for contaminants because we cannot afford the necessary number of FDA inspectors to do the job...
My Life in the New American Minimum Wage Economy Mother Jones ...After getting driven out of my job by the State Department, I found myself looking for part-time positions in retail...
Thomas Perez: Jobless benefits are a lifesaver (opinion) Reno Gazette-Journal ...With so many people we know facing so much uncertainty, depleting their savings and fearful that their dreams are slipping away, it is unconscionable that Congress has sat on its hands this long...
Scathing Report Finds Rocketship, School Privatization Hurt Poor Kids truthout ...A popular chain of charter schools called Rocketship, which originated in California and has spread to Wisconsin, with the enthusiastic support of state legislators and the local chamber of commerce in Milwaukee, is "a low-budget operation that relies on young and inexperienced teachers rather than more veteran and expensive faculty, that reduces curriculum to a near-exclusive focus on reading and math, and that replaces teachers with online learning and digital applications for a significant portion of the day...
Miscellaneous
Texas Republican Spent Over $30,000 In Campaign Cash On Chocolates And Ham Buzzfeed ...Texas Rep. Ralph Hall, the oldest serving member of Congress, spent more than $33,000 in campaign funds on orders from Honey Baked Foods and Godiva Chocolatier, campaign filings show...
For de Blasio, Carriage Horse Ban Is No Walk in the Park New York Times ...The mayor’s plan to ban horse-drawn carriages, an obscure proposal until Mr. de Blasio embraced it in last year’s mayoral race, has erupted into a cause célèbre, landing on the cover of The New Yorker and dominating local headlines, even as Mr. de Blasio is trying to refocus his administration on housing and wage issues...
EXCLUSIVE: FBI investigation of mayoral race includes de Blasio's pledge to ban carriage horses New York Daily News ...FBI agents have been questioning people about the pledge de Blasio made in March 2013, and the ads launched the next month by animal rights activists attacking Christine Quinn, the Daily News has learned. Agents also appear interested in a $175,000 contribution to the animal rights group NYCLASS from a union tied to de Blasio's cousin, labor leader John Wilhelm...
Trade
Japan, U.S. tiptoe into new phase of Pacific trade talks Reuters ...The United States and Japan are edging into a new phase of trade negotiations after U.S. President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's summit, people with knowledge of talks to create one of the world's biggest trade pacts said...
TPP Investment Map: New Privileges for 30,000 Companies? Public Citizen ...Under previous presidential administrations, the United States signed a number of free trade agreements (FTAs) that grant foreign corporations extraordinary rights and protections beyond the rights of domestic companies...
War on Workers
U.S. electricity prices may be going up for good Los Angeles Times ...Experts warn of a growing fragility as coal-fired plants are shut down, nuclear power is reduced and consumers switch to renewable energy...
91 Percent of Our Seafood is Imported and Only 2 Percent is Inspected Economy in Crisis ...The U.S. imports an astonishing 91 percent of our seafood and, unbeknownst to many Americans, much of this seafood is contaminated with antibiotics and toxic chemicals. We can’t inspect this food for contaminants because we cannot afford the necessary number of FDA inspectors to do the job...
My Life in the New American Minimum Wage Economy Mother Jones ...After getting driven out of my job by the State Department, I found myself looking for part-time positions in retail...
Thomas Perez: Jobless benefits are a lifesaver (opinion) Reno Gazette-Journal ...With so many people we know facing so much uncertainty, depleting their savings and fearful that their dreams are slipping away, it is unconscionable that Congress has sat on its hands this long...
Scathing Report Finds Rocketship, School Privatization Hurt Poor Kids truthout ...A popular chain of charter schools called Rocketship, which originated in California and has spread to Wisconsin, with the enthusiastic support of state legislators and the local chamber of commerce in Milwaukee, is "a low-budget operation that relies on young and inexperienced teachers rather than more veteran and expensive faculty, that reduces curriculum to a near-exclusive focus on reading and math, and that replaces teachers with online learning and digital applications for a significant portion of the day...
Miscellaneous
Texas Republican Spent Over $30,000 In Campaign Cash On Chocolates And Ham Buzzfeed ...Texas Rep. Ralph Hall, the oldest serving member of Congress, spent more than $33,000 in campaign funds on orders from Honey Baked Foods and Godiva Chocolatier, campaign filings show...
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Today's Teamster News 08.27.13
Port truck drivers at Carson firm seek union rep, go on strike Los Angeles Times ...Thirty port truck drivers went on strike Monday night at a Carson-based trucking firm, alleging their employer is attempting to thwart their efforts to unionize, organizers said...
Calif port truck drivers go on 24-hour strike Associated Press ...port truck drivers have gone on strike, claiming their company is trying to thwart their efforts to unionize...
LABOR: Trucking firm that supplies Skechers is Teamsters target Press-Enterprise ...Drivers who work for a Los Angeles area trucking company are leading picket lines at Skechers’ distribution center in Moreno Valley, part of an ongoing labor dispute between the trucking company and the Teamsters...
Teamsters, Hernando County trade figures for salary, benefit increases Tampa Bay Times ...The union that negotiates the contract for 400 Hernando County employees traded pay and benefit proposals with the county Monday, the eve of the County Commission's first discussion of the 2013-14 budget...
BLET Scores Organizing Win at Texas Pacifico teamster.org ...The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) scored a short line organizing victory (Thursday) ... as a majority of workers at Texas-Pacifico Transportation Ltd. voted to make the BLET their designated collective bargaining representative...
Trans-Pacific Partnership talks hit roadblock over anti-smoking policies The Globe and Mail ...Fast-moving trade talks aimed at reaching an ambitious Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal have hit a major snag over anti-smoking policies, as divisions emerged over a proposal critics say would expose governments to lawsuits from tobacco companies...
We’re All Still Hostages to the Big Banks (opinion) New York Times ...NEARLY five years after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers touched off a global financial crisis, we are no safer. Huge, complex and opaque banks continue to take enormous risks that endanger the economy. From Washington to Berlin, banking lobbyists have blocked essential reforms at every turn...
The Leveraged Buyout of America Common Dreams ...Giant bank holding companies now own airports, toll roads, and ports; control power plants; and store and hoard vast quantities of commodities of all sorts. They are systematically buying up or gaining control of the essential lifelines of the economy...
Pinching Pensions to Keep Wall Street Fat and Happy truthout ...Contracts with Wall Street types always seem to draw more respect than contracts with workers...
Set Back by Recession, and Shut Out of Rebound New York Times ...a substantial number of older workers who lost jobs — even those lucky enough to be re-employed — are still suffering. Two-thirds in that age group who found work again are making less than they did in their previous job; their median salary loss is 18 percent compared with a 6.7 percent drop for 20- to 24-year-olds...
College Costs Surge 500% in U.S. Since 1985: Chart of the Day Bloomberg ...The CHART OF THE DAY shows that tuition expenses have increased 538 percent in the 28-year period, compared with a 286 percent jump in medical costs and a 121 percent gain in the consumer price index...
Indiscriminate surveillance fosters distrust, conformity and mediocrity: research The Guardian ...A government that engages in mass surveillance cannot claim to value the wellbeing or productivity of its citizens...
Drone crashes into Virginia bull run crowd Washington Post ...A drone crashed into the grandstand at Virginia Motorsports Park during the Great Bull Run, said Major W.B. Knott, of the Dinwiddie County sheriff’s office, reporting what might be described as the dramatic encounter between a controversial piece of hardware and a controversial spectacle...
With Ensign Decision, Court Hands CREW Fourth Victory Against DOJ CREW ...Judge Bates found Sen. Ensign’s privacy interests were outweighed by the substantial public interest in records that would shed light on the DOJ investigation and the decision not to bring charges against the senator...
Raleigh police threaten arrest for charity feeding homeless WTVD ...A group from a local church has been feeding the homeless in downtown Raleigh virtually every Saturday and Sunday for the past six years, until this weekend...
Nikki Haley Makes Re-Election Bid Mauldin Patch ...Gov. Nikki Haley made it official on Monday, announcing her re-election campaign at a rally at the Bi-Lo Center in Greenville, surrounded by a few hundred supporters, a group of sign-waving protesters, and three fellow Republican governors who might just be planning a run for president...
Calif port truck drivers go on 24-hour strike Associated Press ...port truck drivers have gone on strike, claiming their company is trying to thwart their efforts to unionize...
LABOR: Trucking firm that supplies Skechers is Teamsters target Press-Enterprise ...Drivers who work for a Los Angeles area trucking company are leading picket lines at Skechers’ distribution center in Moreno Valley, part of an ongoing labor dispute between the trucking company and the Teamsters...
Teamsters, Hernando County trade figures for salary, benefit increases Tampa Bay Times ...The union that negotiates the contract for 400 Hernando County employees traded pay and benefit proposals with the county Monday, the eve of the County Commission's first discussion of the 2013-14 budget...
BLET Scores Organizing Win at Texas Pacifico teamster.org ...The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) scored a short line organizing victory (Thursday) ... as a majority of workers at Texas-Pacifico Transportation Ltd. voted to make the BLET their designated collective bargaining representative...
Trans-Pacific Partnership talks hit roadblock over anti-smoking policies The Globe and Mail ...Fast-moving trade talks aimed at reaching an ambitious Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal have hit a major snag over anti-smoking policies, as divisions emerged over a proposal critics say would expose governments to lawsuits from tobacco companies...
We’re All Still Hostages to the Big Banks (opinion) New York Times ...NEARLY five years after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers touched off a global financial crisis, we are no safer. Huge, complex and opaque banks continue to take enormous risks that endanger the economy. From Washington to Berlin, banking lobbyists have blocked essential reforms at every turn...
The Leveraged Buyout of America Common Dreams ...Giant bank holding companies now own airports, toll roads, and ports; control power plants; and store and hoard vast quantities of commodities of all sorts. They are systematically buying up or gaining control of the essential lifelines of the economy...
Pinching Pensions to Keep Wall Street Fat and Happy truthout ...Contracts with Wall Street types always seem to draw more respect than contracts with workers...
Set Back by Recession, and Shut Out of Rebound New York Times ...a substantial number of older workers who lost jobs — even those lucky enough to be re-employed — are still suffering. Two-thirds in that age group who found work again are making less than they did in their previous job; their median salary loss is 18 percent compared with a 6.7 percent drop for 20- to 24-year-olds...
College Costs Surge 500% in U.S. Since 1985: Chart of the Day Bloomberg ...The CHART OF THE DAY shows that tuition expenses have increased 538 percent in the 28-year period, compared with a 286 percent jump in medical costs and a 121 percent gain in the consumer price index...
Indiscriminate surveillance fosters distrust, conformity and mediocrity: research The Guardian ...A government that engages in mass surveillance cannot claim to value the wellbeing or productivity of its citizens...
Drone crashes into Virginia bull run crowd Washington Post ...A drone crashed into the grandstand at Virginia Motorsports Park during the Great Bull Run, said Major W.B. Knott, of the Dinwiddie County sheriff’s office, reporting what might be described as the dramatic encounter between a controversial piece of hardware and a controversial spectacle...
With Ensign Decision, Court Hands CREW Fourth Victory Against DOJ CREW ...Judge Bates found Sen. Ensign’s privacy interests were outweighed by the substantial public interest in records that would shed light on the DOJ investigation and the decision not to bring charges against the senator...
Raleigh police threaten arrest for charity feeding homeless WTVD ...A group from a local church has been feeding the homeless in downtown Raleigh virtually every Saturday and Sunday for the past six years, until this weekend...
Nikki Haley Makes Re-Election Bid Mauldin Patch ...Gov. Nikki Haley made it official on Monday, announcing her re-election campaign at a rally at the Bi-Lo Center in Greenville, surrounded by a few hundred supporters, a group of sign-waving protesters, and three fellow Republican governors who might just be planning a run for president...
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Today's Teamster News 08.25.13
John Lewis At March On Washington: ‘I’m Not Going To Stand By And Let The Supreme Court Take The Right To Vote Away’ ThinkProgress ...Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) — who was the youngest speaker during the March on Washington in 1963 — delivered a passionate address about the importance of protecting voting rights at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial fifty years later, as thousands gathered to celebrate the anniversary of the historic event on Saturday...
Thousands march to Mall to mark ‘Dream’ anniversary Washington Post ...Saturday was a day to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the historic Aug. 28, 1963, March on Washington, and a vision one man delivered so forcefully that five decades later, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech ranks with Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Day of Infamy” speech to Congress as among the most memorable in U.S. history...
In Paper War, Flood of Liens Is the Weapon New York Times ...liens, legal claims on property to secure the payment of a debt, were just the earliest salvos in a war of paper, waged by a couple who had lost their home to foreclosure in 2009 — a tactic that, with the spread of an anti-government ideology known as the “sovereign citizen” movement, is being employed more frequently as a way to retaliate against perceived injustices...
NSA abuses include Stalking ex-Girlfriends Informed Consent ...now we have LOVEINT or NSA analysts occasionally reading the emails of ex-lovers. It doesn’t happen a lot, the NSA told the WSJ, but often enough that there is a word for it...
The Trans-Pacific Partnership is not about free trade. It's a corporate coup d'etat--against us! Hightower Lowdown ...The nullification of our people's right to direct expenditures of our own tax dollars is but one of the horror stories being quietly packed into a political-and-economic bombshell benignly labeled TPP --the Trans-Pacific Partnership...
Bloomberg, Health Experts Denounce Obama's Gift to Big Tobacco in the TPP Public Citizen ...The Obama administration has drawn sharp criticism from leading health organizations, U.S. state representatives, and New York mayor Michael Bloomberg by caving to pressure from Big Tobacco to abandon safeguards for tobacco control policies in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the pending "free trade" deal with 11 Pacific Rim countries...
New Jersey Senate Candidate To Single Mothers: Stop Relying On Food Stamps And Go To Work! ThinkProgress ...Lonegan, who is the former New Jersey head for the Koch Brothers’ Americans for Prosperity, encouraged single mothers to roll up their sleeves and go to work, adding that free market policies and less government will free “individuals to achieve their best potential..."
Drawing Down: How To Roll Back Police Militarization In America (opinion) Huffington Post ...Today in America, SWAT teams are deployed about 100 to 150 times per day, or about 50,000 times per year -- a dramatic increase from the 3,000 or so annual deployments in the early 1980s, or the few hundred in the 1970s. The vast majority of today's deployments are to serve search warrants for drug crimes...
Who Are the Long-Term Unemployed? The Atlantic ...The long-term unemployed tend to be people who 1) are a little bit older, and 2) got laid off from their last job...
Mark Leibovich on Glitz and Greed in Washington Bill Moyers ...The tragic story is that what has grown up in this city that was supposedly built on public service is this permanent feudal class of insiders, of people who are not term limited. Of people who never leave and never die, figuratively never die. And who are there and who are doing very, very well for themselves, very, very well for Washington, and not very, very well for the United States...
Feds: PA Cyber Charter School founder Trombetta schemed to steal $1 million Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ...For more than a year, federal investigators pursued suspicions about Nicholas Trombetta, a high-flying educator with small-town origins who created the biggest, richest cyber school in the state...
Thousands march to Mall to mark ‘Dream’ anniversary Washington Post ...Saturday was a day to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the historic Aug. 28, 1963, March on Washington, and a vision one man delivered so forcefully that five decades later, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech ranks with Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Day of Infamy” speech to Congress as among the most memorable in U.S. history...
In Paper War, Flood of Liens Is the Weapon New York Times ...liens, legal claims on property to secure the payment of a debt, were just the earliest salvos in a war of paper, waged by a couple who had lost their home to foreclosure in 2009 — a tactic that, with the spread of an anti-government ideology known as the “sovereign citizen” movement, is being employed more frequently as a way to retaliate against perceived injustices...
NSA abuses include Stalking ex-Girlfriends Informed Consent ...now we have LOVEINT or NSA analysts occasionally reading the emails of ex-lovers. It doesn’t happen a lot, the NSA told the WSJ, but often enough that there is a word for it...
The Trans-Pacific Partnership is not about free trade. It's a corporate coup d'etat--against us! Hightower Lowdown ...The nullification of our people's right to direct expenditures of our own tax dollars is but one of the horror stories being quietly packed into a political-and-economic bombshell benignly labeled TPP --the Trans-Pacific Partnership...
Bloomberg, Health Experts Denounce Obama's Gift to Big Tobacco in the TPP Public Citizen ...The Obama administration has drawn sharp criticism from leading health organizations, U.S. state representatives, and New York mayor Michael Bloomberg by caving to pressure from Big Tobacco to abandon safeguards for tobacco control policies in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the pending "free trade" deal with 11 Pacific Rim countries...
New Jersey Senate Candidate To Single Mothers: Stop Relying On Food Stamps And Go To Work! ThinkProgress ...Lonegan, who is the former New Jersey head for the Koch Brothers’ Americans for Prosperity, encouraged single mothers to roll up their sleeves and go to work, adding that free market policies and less government will free “individuals to achieve their best potential..."
Drawing Down: How To Roll Back Police Militarization In America (opinion) Huffington Post ...Today in America, SWAT teams are deployed about 100 to 150 times per day, or about 50,000 times per year -- a dramatic increase from the 3,000 or so annual deployments in the early 1980s, or the few hundred in the 1970s. The vast majority of today's deployments are to serve search warrants for drug crimes...
Who Are the Long-Term Unemployed? The Atlantic ...The long-term unemployed tend to be people who 1) are a little bit older, and 2) got laid off from their last job...
Mark Leibovich on Glitz and Greed in Washington Bill Moyers ...The tragic story is that what has grown up in this city that was supposedly built on public service is this permanent feudal class of insiders, of people who are not term limited. Of people who never leave and never die, figuratively never die. And who are there and who are doing very, very well for themselves, very, very well for Washington, and not very, very well for the United States...
Feds: PA Cyber Charter School founder Trombetta schemed to steal $1 million Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ...For more than a year, federal investigators pursued suspicions about Nicholas Trombetta, a high-flying educator with small-town origins who created the biggest, richest cyber school in the state...
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Today's Teamster News 03.30.13
President Obama considering putting social insurance cuts in his budget DailyKos ...The New York Times and Wall Street Journal are reporting that President Obama is "strongly considering" including cuts to social insurance program benefits in his budget...
Walmart's CEO Paid 1,034 Times More Than The Median Walmart Worker: PayScale Huffington Post ...Half of Walmart workers made less than $22,400 in 2012, according to PayScale, which is below poverty level for a family of four...
Banks Seek to Overturn Judge’s Ruling in Critical Mortgage Case New York Times ...banks have been overwhelmed with lawsuits filed by federal and state authorities, as well as private investors. The lawsuits center on a dismal chapter in banks’ histories when Wall Street sold billions of dollars of subprime mortgages that soured, causing the banks and investors to incur vast losses...
ALEC: The Scheme to Remake America, One State House at a Time Huffington Post ...behind that mantra lies a vast network of corporate lobbying and political action aimed to increase corporate profits at public expense without public knowledge...
Deal Reached to Force Paid Sick Leave in New York City New York Times ...New York City is poised to mandate that thousands of companies provide paid time off for sick employees, bolstering a national movement that has been resisted by wary business leaders...
Governor Scott Walker’s Proposed Budget (opinion) The Progressive ...If budgets reflect values, then Governor Scott Walker’s proposed 2013-2015 budget is proof that Wisconsin has regressed back to the days of the robber barons and the paternalistic values of the Victorian era in which they accumulated their wealth...
Guest column: Trying to destroy our public institutions, one by one Lafayette Journal & Courier ...beyond the debate about economic theory is a sustained, well-funded campaign by the Koch Brothers, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), think tanks and many politicians to destroy public institutions that masses of working people have struggled historically to construct...
Michigan's right-to-work law takes effect today, but impact may take a while to see Detroit Free Press ...Indiana has seen 19 consecutive months of private-sector job growth. Its per-capita income grew 3.4% in 2012, more than the national growth of 2.7%, according to statistics released Tuesday. Yet its unemployment rate, which matched the national rate of 8.2% when right-to-work legislation took effect, was pegged at 8.6% in January...
Company gets bigger state contract even as unemployment rate falls Miami Herald ...Also known as WIN, the Tennessee-based firm has a state contract to run the online skills assessment that critics say has acted as a barrier to thousands of people seeking jobless benefits. The company, a major contributor to Florida politicians, saw its annual contract increase from $2 million to $2.7 million last June, even as the number of people it was serving was plummeting...
Teamsters Strike at Republic Services/Allied Waste in Youngstown, Ohio Waste Management World ...Sanitation workers go on Unfair Labor Practice strike; co-workers in Evansville, Ind. and Urbana, Ill. refuse to work in show of support...
YRC, Teamsters will discuss proposed change of operations in Dallas Kansas City Business Journal ...Representatives of YRC Worldwide Inc. and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters will meet on April 19 in Dallas to discuss the company’s proposed change of operations request...
Walmart's CEO Paid 1,034 Times More Than The Median Walmart Worker: PayScale Huffington Post ...Half of Walmart workers made less than $22,400 in 2012, according to PayScale, which is below poverty level for a family of four...
Banks Seek to Overturn Judge’s Ruling in Critical Mortgage Case New York Times ...banks have been overwhelmed with lawsuits filed by federal and state authorities, as well as private investors. The lawsuits center on a dismal chapter in banks’ histories when Wall Street sold billions of dollars of subprime mortgages that soured, causing the banks and investors to incur vast losses...
ALEC: The Scheme to Remake America, One State House at a Time Huffington Post ...behind that mantra lies a vast network of corporate lobbying and political action aimed to increase corporate profits at public expense without public knowledge...
Deal Reached to Force Paid Sick Leave in New York City New York Times ...New York City is poised to mandate that thousands of companies provide paid time off for sick employees, bolstering a national movement that has been resisted by wary business leaders...
Governor Scott Walker’s Proposed Budget (opinion) The Progressive ...If budgets reflect values, then Governor Scott Walker’s proposed 2013-2015 budget is proof that Wisconsin has regressed back to the days of the robber barons and the paternalistic values of the Victorian era in which they accumulated their wealth...
Guest column: Trying to destroy our public institutions, one by one Lafayette Journal & Courier ...beyond the debate about economic theory is a sustained, well-funded campaign by the Koch Brothers, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), think tanks and many politicians to destroy public institutions that masses of working people have struggled historically to construct...
Michigan's right-to-work law takes effect today, but impact may take a while to see Detroit Free Press ...Indiana has seen 19 consecutive months of private-sector job growth. Its per-capita income grew 3.4% in 2012, more than the national growth of 2.7%, according to statistics released Tuesday. Yet its unemployment rate, which matched the national rate of 8.2% when right-to-work legislation took effect, was pegged at 8.6% in January...
Company gets bigger state contract even as unemployment rate falls Miami Herald ...Also known as WIN, the Tennessee-based firm has a state contract to run the online skills assessment that critics say has acted as a barrier to thousands of people seeking jobless benefits. The company, a major contributor to Florida politicians, saw its annual contract increase from $2 million to $2.7 million last June, even as the number of people it was serving was plummeting...
Teamsters Strike at Republic Services/Allied Waste in Youngstown, Ohio Waste Management World ...Sanitation workers go on Unfair Labor Practice strike; co-workers in Evansville, Ind. and Urbana, Ill. refuse to work in show of support...
YRC, Teamsters will discuss proposed change of operations in Dallas Kansas City Business Journal ...Representatives of YRC Worldwide Inc. and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters will meet on April 19 in Dallas to discuss the company’s proposed change of operations request...
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Today's Teamster News 01.22.13
Obama's second term foe - China: Column USA Today ...roughly 30% of American manufacturing job loss since 2001 can be tied to the China PNTR decision...
Hilda Solis, Outgoing Labor Secretary, Reflects On Economic Recovery, Right-Wing Attacks Huffington Post ...Although mine safety reform has stalled in Congress, Solis said the department has worked to make improvements, including a new rule issued this week that would make it easier for the government to shut down mines with a history of safety violations...
Investigation ordered after Spanish politicians got ‘salaries’ from private companies AFP ...senior members of the party, which Rajoy has led since 2004, had received undeclared salaries, mainly from private companies, over a 20-year period...
Back down on austerity, Osborne urged as Britain slips towards triple-dip The Guardian ...A second negative quarter, from January to March, would mark the onset of Britain's third recession in five years...
$240 billion amassed by 100 richest people enough to end extreme poverty four times over: Oxfam Raw Story ...The report found that the richest 1% had increased their incomes by 60% in the past 20 years, with the financial crisis accelerating rather than slowing the process...
Cayman Islands to Disclose Tax Shelter Companies The Progressuve ...After decades of secrecy, the tax-haven country is considering a public database that will make the names of thousands of previously hidden companies and their directors, public...
Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein Gets 75 Percent Raise: Report Huffington Post ...Lloyd Blankfein made $21 million last year, including a $2 million salary and a $19 million bonus...
Goldman bankers get rich betting on food prices as millions starve The Independent ...Goldman Sachs made more than a quarter of a billion pounds last year by speculating on food staples, reigniting the controversy over banks profiting from the global food crisis...
Analysis: 201,000 in Florida didn't vote because of long lines Orlando Sentinel ...The long Election Day lines around Florida may have turned away more than 200,000 frustrated would-be voters who gave up and went home before they cast ballots — or else saw the lines and elected not to join them...
Sanitation workers march for union rights in DeKalb Co. My Fox Atlanta ...DeKalb County sanitation workers marched in downtown Atlanta on Monday in an effort to have their union recognized by the county commission. They had the support of two retired sanitation workers who marched in Memphis nearly 45 years ago just before the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr….
Turner and Leach are supporting attempts by DeKalb County sanitation workers to get the county commission to recognize them as members of Teamsters Local 728...
More Bad News From Private Prison City Beat ...Since the end of 2012, four have been arrested and charged with smuggling. Another four were arrested Monday and police suspect they were in Conneaut for a smuggling job... the four suspects arrested Monday were only caught due to the increased police presence outside the Lake Erie prison...
Virginia Senate Sneaks Through Gerrymandering Bill While Country Watches Inauguration ThinkProgress ...the move could potentially eliminate at least one Democratic seat, the 25th district, which currently belongs to former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Sen. Creigh Deeds (D)...
Hilda Solis, Outgoing Labor Secretary, Reflects On Economic Recovery, Right-Wing Attacks Huffington Post ...Although mine safety reform has stalled in Congress, Solis said the department has worked to make improvements, including a new rule issued this week that would make it easier for the government to shut down mines with a history of safety violations...
Investigation ordered after Spanish politicians got ‘salaries’ from private companies AFP ...senior members of the party, which Rajoy has led since 2004, had received undeclared salaries, mainly from private companies, over a 20-year period...
Back down on austerity, Osborne urged as Britain slips towards triple-dip The Guardian ...A second negative quarter, from January to March, would mark the onset of Britain's third recession in five years...
$240 billion amassed by 100 richest people enough to end extreme poverty four times over: Oxfam Raw Story ...The report found that the richest 1% had increased their incomes by 60% in the past 20 years, with the financial crisis accelerating rather than slowing the process...
Cayman Islands to Disclose Tax Shelter Companies The Progressuve ...After decades of secrecy, the tax-haven country is considering a public database that will make the names of thousands of previously hidden companies and their directors, public...
Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein Gets 75 Percent Raise: Report Huffington Post ...Lloyd Blankfein made $21 million last year, including a $2 million salary and a $19 million bonus...
Goldman bankers get rich betting on food prices as millions starve The Independent ...Goldman Sachs made more than a quarter of a billion pounds last year by speculating on food staples, reigniting the controversy over banks profiting from the global food crisis...
Analysis: 201,000 in Florida didn't vote because of long lines Orlando Sentinel ...The long Election Day lines around Florida may have turned away more than 200,000 frustrated would-be voters who gave up and went home before they cast ballots — or else saw the lines and elected not to join them...
Sanitation workers march for union rights in DeKalb Co. My Fox Atlanta ...DeKalb County sanitation workers marched in downtown Atlanta on Monday in an effort to have their union recognized by the county commission. They had the support of two retired sanitation workers who marched in Memphis nearly 45 years ago just before the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr….
Turner and Leach are supporting attempts by DeKalb County sanitation workers to get the county commission to recognize them as members of Teamsters Local 728...
More Bad News From Private Prison City Beat ...Since the end of 2012, four have been arrested and charged with smuggling. Another four were arrested Monday and police suspect they were in Conneaut for a smuggling job... the four suspects arrested Monday were only caught due to the increased police presence outside the Lake Erie prison...
Virginia Senate Sneaks Through Gerrymandering Bill While Country Watches Inauguration ThinkProgress ...the move could potentially eliminate at least one Democratic seat, the 25th district, which currently belongs to former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Sen. Creigh Deeds (D)...
Monday, December 10, 2012
Today's Teamster News 12.10.12
Editorial: A failure of leadership: Snyder's about-face on right-to-work betrays voters Detroit Free Press ...The argument that right-to-work status makes states more competitive or prosperous is refuted by a mountain of evidence that shows right-to-work states trailing their union-friendly counterparts in key metrics like per capita wealth, poverty rates and health insurance coverage...
Obama Expected To Weigh In On Michigan Right-To-Work Battle In Detroit Speech Huffington Post ...When President Barack Obama arrives in Michigan on Monday to sell his vision for addressing the so-called fiscal cliff, he will be stepping into a state that is currently witnessing a massive battle between its governor and labor community. And according to union officials, Obama will weigh in on the controversy and speak out against "right-to-work" laws...
Top Michigan Newspaper Turns On Snyder: Slams Governor For Sneaking Through Anti-Union ‘Right-To-Work’ Legislation ThinkProgress ...The Detroit Free-Press, which endorsed Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) in his 2010 campaign and has generally supported him since, blasted his decision to ram through a union-busting “right-to-work” law in a lame-duck legislative session...
Protesters deck mall with right-to-work carols Detroit Free Press ...They looked jolly in red scarves and reindeer antler headbands, but the carolers outside of Oakland Mall in Troy on Sunday were actually protesters conveying a serious message: No to right-to-work legislation in Michigan...
Chinese company buys battery maker that got recovery funds Washington Post ...Wanxiang America, the U.S. arm of a Chinese automotive parts giant, won the bidding for a bankrupt Massachusetts-based lithium battery manufacturer that was once hailed as a cornerstone of President Obama’s quest for American dominance in electric vehicles and battery technology...
How Corruption Is Strangling U.S. Innovation Harvard Business Review ...The corruption ... is the phenomenon of money in politics...One of the prime drivers of economic growth inside America over the past century has been disruptive innovation; yet the phenomenon ... is increasingly being used by large incumbent firms as a mechanism to stave off the process. Given how hard it can be to survive a disruptive challenge, and how effective lobbying has proven in stopping it, it's no wonder that incumbent firms take this route so often...
Europe clings to scorched-earth ideology as depression deepens The Telegraph ...Like the generals of the First World War, Europe’s leaders seem determined to send wave after wave of their youth into the barbed wire of tight money, bank deleveraging, and fiscal austerity...
Einhorns' contribution to Walker could trigger 'pay-to-play' rule Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ...Conservative Milwaukee financier Stephen Einhorn and his wife, Nancy, donated $25,000 to Gov. Scott Walker a month before Einhorn's firm won a contract to manage $1 million of taxpayer money, potentially triggering federal "pay-to-play" conflict of interest rules...
Chamber of Commerce wants to ban teachers' unions dues deducted from paychecks Indianapolis Star Tribune ...After two years of labor battles that roiled the Indiana Statehouse, lawmakers are gearing up for a new fight, this time over paycheck deduction of union dues...
Obama Expected To Weigh In On Michigan Right-To-Work Battle In Detroit Speech Huffington Post ...When President Barack Obama arrives in Michigan on Monday to sell his vision for addressing the so-called fiscal cliff, he will be stepping into a state that is currently witnessing a massive battle between its governor and labor community. And according to union officials, Obama will weigh in on the controversy and speak out against "right-to-work" laws...
Top Michigan Newspaper Turns On Snyder: Slams Governor For Sneaking Through Anti-Union ‘Right-To-Work’ Legislation ThinkProgress ...The Detroit Free-Press, which endorsed Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) in his 2010 campaign and has generally supported him since, blasted his decision to ram through a union-busting “right-to-work” law in a lame-duck legislative session...
Protesters deck mall with right-to-work carols Detroit Free Press ...They looked jolly in red scarves and reindeer antler headbands, but the carolers outside of Oakland Mall in Troy on Sunday were actually protesters conveying a serious message: No to right-to-work legislation in Michigan...
Chinese company buys battery maker that got recovery funds Washington Post ...Wanxiang America, the U.S. arm of a Chinese automotive parts giant, won the bidding for a bankrupt Massachusetts-based lithium battery manufacturer that was once hailed as a cornerstone of President Obama’s quest for American dominance in electric vehicles and battery technology...
How Corruption Is Strangling U.S. Innovation Harvard Business Review ...The corruption ... is the phenomenon of money in politics...One of the prime drivers of economic growth inside America over the past century has been disruptive innovation; yet the phenomenon ... is increasingly being used by large incumbent firms as a mechanism to stave off the process. Given how hard it can be to survive a disruptive challenge, and how effective lobbying has proven in stopping it, it's no wonder that incumbent firms take this route so often...
Europe clings to scorched-earth ideology as depression deepens The Telegraph ...Like the generals of the First World War, Europe’s leaders seem determined to send wave after wave of their youth into the barbed wire of tight money, bank deleveraging, and fiscal austerity...
Einhorns' contribution to Walker could trigger 'pay-to-play' rule Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ...Conservative Milwaukee financier Stephen Einhorn and his wife, Nancy, donated $25,000 to Gov. Scott Walker a month before Einhorn's firm won a contract to manage $1 million of taxpayer money, potentially triggering federal "pay-to-play" conflict of interest rules...
Chamber of Commerce wants to ban teachers' unions dues deducted from paychecks Indianapolis Star Tribune ...After two years of labor battles that roiled the Indiana Statehouse, lawmakers are gearing up for a new fight, this time over paycheck deduction of union dues...
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Today's Teamster News 11.12.11
Congress Members Took Part in Insider Trading: Abramoff CNBC ...As many as a dozen members of Congress and their aides took part in insider trading based on foreknowledge of market moving information on Capitol Hill, disgraced Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff told CNBC...
Unemployment for Young Vets: 30%, and Rising Bloomberg ...while the job market is slowly improving for most Americans, it’s moving in the opposite direction for Gulf War II vets...
Occupy Wall Street is winning Politico ...Whatever the objectives of protesters involved in Occupy Wall Street, they have succeeded in engaging the country in a conversation about income inequality...
Wisconsin unions encouraged by Ohio vote but face tough challenge in recalling Gov. Walker Associated Press ...The resounding rejection of an anti-union law by Ohio voters provides a huge boost for Democrats and union officials preparing for their next major battle -- the attempted recall of Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker -- but their prospects could be clouded by the differences between the two Midwestern states and their election laws...
United, Teamsters reach deal on labor contract Chicago Tribune ...The deal is really an interim contract, part of a two-step process to first get union contracts with United and Continental mechanics separately and then negotiate a joint deal...
Teamsters Union International Officer Election Ballot Count Begins November 14 Office of the Election Supervisor for the IBT ...The ... Election Supervisor for the ... Teamsters Union ... will begin counting Teamsters' votes for officers of the International Union on Monday, November 14 in Alexandria, VA...
Unemployment for Young Vets: 30%, and Rising Bloomberg ...while the job market is slowly improving for most Americans, it’s moving in the opposite direction for Gulf War II vets...
Occupy Wall Street is winning Politico ...Whatever the objectives of protesters involved in Occupy Wall Street, they have succeeded in engaging the country in a conversation about income inequality...
Wisconsin unions encouraged by Ohio vote but face tough challenge in recalling Gov. Walker Associated Press ...The resounding rejection of an anti-union law by Ohio voters provides a huge boost for Democrats and union officials preparing for their next major battle -- the attempted recall of Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker -- but their prospects could be clouded by the differences between the two Midwestern states and their election laws...
United, Teamsters reach deal on labor contract Chicago Tribune ...The deal is really an interim contract, part of a two-step process to first get union contracts with United and Continental mechanics separately and then negotiate a joint deal...
Teamsters Union International Officer Election Ballot Count Begins November 14 Office of the Election Supervisor for the IBT ...The ... Election Supervisor for the ... Teamsters Union ... will begin counting Teamsters' votes for officers of the International Union on Monday, November 14 in Alexandria, VA...
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Today's Teamster News 10.01.11
'Occupy Wall Street' Protests Spread Across Country ABC News ...The Occupy Wall Street movement, growing to more than 1,500 people in its second week, called for a march in lower Manhattan today at 3 p.m. to “show that it is time that the 99% are heard..."
24 Arrested As Protesters Pack Financial District WCVB ...Take Back Boston lead hundreds of people marching from Boston Common to the Financial District...the protesters gathered at both entrances to the Bank of America building shouting "We got sold out." The crowd included dozens of families facing foreclosure ... Some 24 protesters were arrested taken from the building in plastic handcuffs as the crowd cheered them on...
Lawyers fought corruption, then lost their jobs Orlando Sentinel ...When last we checked on Attorney General Pam Bondi, she was being investigated for forcing out two of her top-producing investigators, and legislators had asked her to produce records to justify her actions...
Scores of Wis. school unions to try to recertify Associated Press ...More than 200 school unions in Wisconsin have met the deadline to seek recertification, but it's unclear how many let it pass and gave up the little bargaining powers they had left under a contentious new law...
Michigan Emergency Powers Challenge by Pension Boards Dismissed by Judge Bloomberg News ...A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit seeking to overturn a Michigan statute giving emergency powers to state-appointed financial managers, saying the law wasn’t ready for a legal challenge...
Fake Police Officer Endorses Issue 2 Plunderbund ...If you watch WeAreOhio‘s ads or check out their YouTube channel or talk to any of their supporters you’ll see real fire fighters and real police officers and real teachers talking about the negative impacts of SB5/Issue 2. Better Ohio? Not so much...
24 Arrested As Protesters Pack Financial District WCVB ...Take Back Boston lead hundreds of people marching from Boston Common to the Financial District...the protesters gathered at both entrances to the Bank of America building shouting "We got sold out." The crowd included dozens of families facing foreclosure ... Some 24 protesters were arrested taken from the building in plastic handcuffs as the crowd cheered them on...
Lawyers fought corruption, then lost their jobs Orlando Sentinel ...When last we checked on Attorney General Pam Bondi, she was being investigated for forcing out two of her top-producing investigators, and legislators had asked her to produce records to justify her actions...
Scores of Wis. school unions to try to recertify Associated Press ...More than 200 school unions in Wisconsin have met the deadline to seek recertification, but it's unclear how many let it pass and gave up the little bargaining powers they had left under a contentious new law...
Michigan Emergency Powers Challenge by Pension Boards Dismissed by Judge Bloomberg News ...A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit seeking to overturn a Michigan statute giving emergency powers to state-appointed financial managers, saying the law wasn’t ready for a legal challenge...
Fake Police Officer Endorses Issue 2 Plunderbund ...If you watch WeAreOhio‘s ads or check out their YouTube channel or talk to any of their supporters you’ll see real fire fighters and real police officers and real teachers talking about the negative impacts of SB5/Issue 2. Better Ohio? Not so much...
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