Today's Teamster News 12.12.13

Teamsters Join Delegation Calling On IKEA To End Lockout  teamster.org   ...A representative from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters joined a delegation in Sweden this week to ask IKEA to end the abuse of its workers and stop the lockout...
Hoffa: Detroit Bankruptcy Doesn't Change Pension Obligations  Detroit News   ...Mayor-elect Mike Duggan and the City Council, elected by Detroit residents, should be put in charge of crafting a plan that will protect pensioners and give them both security and certainty going forward...
It's Time to End the Secrecy Surrounding TPP Huffington Post   ...The Teamsters, other unions and fair trade advocates have for years criticized a proposed Pacific Rim trade deal for its lack of transparency...
Study: Labor violations don't stop government contracts  Associated Press   ...The study from Democratic leaders on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee found that nearly 30 percent of companies hit with the highest penalties for federal labor law violations from 2007 to 2012 were also federal contractors...
Airline Deregulation: How Ideology Triumphed Over Evidence in the U.S. Airline Industry  Alternet   ...any rational cost-benefit analysis must conclude that deregulation has been a failed experiment...
Cellphone data spying: It's not just the NSA  USA Today   ...Local police are increasingly able to scoop up large amounts of cellphone data using new technologies, including cell tower dumps and secret mobile devices known as Stingrays...
Pensions Become Less Certain For Government Workers  Northeast Indiana Public Radio   ...The budget agreement announced Tuesday — if it passes — would raise revenue by making employees contribute more toward their pensions...
Americans Say Dream Fading as Income Gap Hurts Chances  Bloomberg   ...By almost two to one -- 64 percent to 33 percent -- Americans say the U.S. no longer offers everyone an equal chance to get ahead...
16-Year-Old Drunk Driver Who Killed Four Escapes Jail — Because He Is Rich  Alternet   ...Couch's attorney argued his parents were responsible for the teen’s actions because they had raised him to believe that wealth and privilege could shield him from consequences.  ... Apparently the judge bought that argument...
Billions of Tax Dollars Later, No New Jobs for New York  taxanalysts.com   ...Over nine years, the state of New York gave businesses roughly $10 billion, or almost $1,400 from each household, in a jobs program that eliminated 175,000 jobs at an average cost of $57,000. And that's just state-level subsidies, not those from industrial development agencies...
Pensions Aren't the Source of Detroit's Woes  Portside   ...Since 2008, Detroit has reduced its spending by more than $400 million. In the same period, city revenues have fallen by nearly $260 million, with a steep decline after 2011.  … And yet there is one expense that has, so far, been spared: service fees on derivatives that were sold to the city by banks backed by UBS and Bank of America. In fact, these fees are the only significant increase in spending over the past five years...
Far-Right Lobby Group ALEC Brags That All Politicians in Two State Legislatures Are Members  Alternet   ...Iowa has 150 in each column, and South Dakota has 105 in each column...

Today's Teamster News 08.28.13

Hundreds rally for justice at LA port  teamster.org   ... Port truck drivers at the Port of Los Angeles lead a march back to work to return to their jobs following a 24-hour Unfair Labor Practice strike on Monday against their employer, Green Fleet Systems (GFS)...
Rental car workers at Seattle airport join Teamsters  teamster.org   ...On Aug. 26 workers at GCA Services Group joined Teamsters Local 117 in Tukwila, Wash. The employees who voted 91-44 in favor of Teamster representation are shuttle drivers, responsible for shuttling rental cars and other vehicles at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport...
Deputies vote to join Teamsters  Sun Journal   ...In a near-unanimous vote, Oxford County Sheriff's Office deputies have chosen to join Teamsters Union Local 340...
Teamsters at Air Express International Approve One-Year Contract Extension  teamster.org   ...Teamsters employed by Air Express International (AEI) have overwhelmingly approved a one-year contract extension that protects health, welfare and pension benefits and provides a $750 bonus...
Living Wage Now!  Huffington Post   ...workers are looking to organize in an effort to earn a living wage that helps pay for the daily staples like food, housing and clothing for their families...
Workers Of America Are Getting Screwed  Business Insider   ...most low-wage workers are employed by large corporations that have been enjoying healthy profits. Three-quarters of these employers (the fifty biggest employers of low-wage workers) are raking in higher revenues now than they did before the recession...
Colombia Nationwide Strike Against 'Free Trade,' Privatization, Poverty  Common Dreams   ...Ignored by English-language media, rural uprisings spread across industries as hundreds of thousands protest US-backed govt...
Martin Luther King's Dream yet to become reality in US  BBC News   ...No-one here doubts that racism is still a reality in the United States...
Moral Monday protests come to Greensboro on Wednesday  News-Record   ...The Moral Monday protests against the Republican-held General Assembly went on for months in Raleigh, leading to more than 900 arrests. Wednesday, they continue in Greensboro as Moral Wednesday...
Racketeering Then and Racketeering Now  Too Much Online   ...deregulation has spawned on Wall Street an entire new generation of fabulously rich racketeers...
Bank CEO Admits To Using Bailout Money To Buy A Luxury Condo In Florida  Business Insider   ...Darryl Layne Woods, the former CEO of a Missouri bank, admitted in court yesterday to using financial crisis...
JP Morgan trader wanted by U.S. on massive fraud charges arrested in Spain  AFP   ...Police in Spain arrested a former trader of banking giant JP Morgan who is wanted by the United States to face criminal charges in a massive fraud case, officials said...
How is Privatization Failing America?  Real News   ... ALEC, (is behind the) ... greater and greater push for corporate interests to privatize areas of society that have been under the public sector banner, as well as a continued effort to further deregulate already private sector areas...
The NSA is losing the benefit of the doubt  Washington Post   ...“The court is troubled that the government’s revelations . . . mark the third instance in less than three years in which the government has disclosed a substantial misrepresentation regarding the scope of a major collection program,” Bates wrote in Footnote 14...
Study: Indiana personal income lags behind US  Evansville Courier & Press   ... Indiana's average personal income lags more than a decade behind the income levels enjoyed by the nation as a whole, a new Ball State University study has found...

Port drivers doing worse now than during 1963 March on Washington

LA port workers, still seeking justice

Next week is the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Marchers, including Teamsters from across the country, gathered in Washington, D.C., to demand good jobs for all people. This series focuses on how well (or not) our society has met the 50-year-old demands of the marchers. Yesterday’s piece discussed the marchers’ demand to raise the minimum wage.

A half-million people came to the 1963 March on Washington with a list of demands. One of those demands was “a broadened Fair Labor Standards Act to include all areas of employment which are presently excluded.” Since then, expanded federal employment regulations have improved the standard of living for some groups of workers, while deregulation in 1980 has hit port workers hard.

The Fair Labor Standards Act, originally passed in 1938, establishes minimum wage, overtime pay, and child labor regulations for workers in America.

In 1963 as well as today, some categories of workers are exempted from minimum wage laws and overtime, which has a dramatic impact on low-income families.

Domestic workers, a significant number of whom were African-American women, were often exploited because they were not guaranteed minimum wage or overtime pay.

Farm workers, government employees and workers at small retail stores were also exempt from the law.

Today all of these workers are subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act regulations -- an important achievement of the Civil Rights movement. However, many other groups of workers are still not covered. Many workers in computers services and transportation industries are exempt from overtime regulations. Tipped employees do get overtime protection, but have a reduced federal minimum wage that has not been adjusted for inflation in more than 20 years. The actual real wage of $2.13 per hour workers get from their employers has almost halved.

In 1963, most of the port truckers were members of the Teamsters. Their wages and benefits were comparable to those of autoworkers, steelworkers and over-the-road drivers. That's because trucking companies had to get a license from the Interstate Commerce Commission to haul freight. The ICC limited the number of trucks to keep the industry stable, which gave companies steady profits and their workers with decent wages and benefits. Then in 1980, port trucking was deregulated.

A 2009 Demos study reported:

New companies entered the industry, hiring their drivers non-union. Established companies faltered. Some went non-union; others went out of business. The firms that triumphed adopted a new business model. They sold all or most of their trucks to the drivers, then contracted with them on a per-load basis. The emerging independent contracting model meant trucking companies had few fixed costs, had no responsibility for workers’ compensation, social security, and unemployment insurance taxes, and were able to obtain drivers’ services without paying for health care costs or pension plans...

In many, many cases these "contracted" workers are actually employees who were misclassified as independent contractors. Although drivers require great skill to transport goods from the docks to warehouses, most drivers live in poverty and work on average over 60 hours a week in terrible working conditions. Since independent contractors are not technically employees, companies have no incentive to reduce the amount of hours they work -- or even improve safety standards for the people who work for them, as workers are often required to supply their own trucks.

This abuse has become so rampant that the Internal Revenue Service and Department of Labor have joined forces with 14 states to stamp out employer abuse through the Misclassification Initiative. Through this project, millions of dollars in back wages have been reclaimed for workers.

The nation's most active port is at Los Angeles/Long Beach. On Tuesday, port workers will hold a rally for justice, almost 50 years to the day after the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Justice. Find out more about the rally here.

Potential TPP costs keep going up

Looking for another reason to oppose a possible TPP trade deal? How about this -- America could be on the hook for potentially billions of dollars if an international company sues the government because it decides our health and safety rules are getting in the way of its profits.

South Centre, an intergovernmental think tank based in Geneva, Switzerland, details how a biased arbitration system used to decide cases between corporations and countries who are members of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and “free trade” agreements is driving some nations to the financial brink:

Under these treaties, foreign companies can sue governments if they introduce policies that these companies deem affect their future incomes.  The treaties define “expropriation” to include depriving investors of future profits due to new regulations.

So a tobacco firm has sued Australia and Uruguay for requiring cigarette boxes to have plain packaging. When Ecuador cancelled a contract with an American oil company for violating the terms of the contract, the company won took a case and was awarded US$2.4 billion.

A report released last year by two European groups explains how a small group attorneys working for investors or as arbitrators have benefited from such litigation. The lawyers also encourage big companies to sue governments for potential fat paydays.

Among some of the findings are:

• Only 15 arbitrators, nearly all from Europe, the US or Canada, have decided 55 percent of all known investment-treaty disputes.   This small group sits on the same panels, acts as both arbitrators and counsels and call on each other as witnesses.

• Many arbitrators show a clear bias towards investors.  Several prominent arbitrators have been members of the board of major multinational companies, including those who filed cases against developing countries.

• A few law firms have been encouraging investors to sue governments, as a weapon to weaken or prevent laws on public health or the environment.  These investment lawyers are the new “ambulance chasers” and have fuelled an increase in cases from 38 in 1996 to 450 known cases in 2011.

• Countries have to pay exorbitant legal and arbitration costs averaging over $8 million per dispute, and exceeding US$30 million in some cases.  The Philippines spent $58 billion defending two cases against a German firm.

The U.S could be a huge target for such litigation if it enters into the TPP deal. Our country has more stringent labor, workplace safety, health and environmental rules than many of the 11 other nations we are currently negotiating with as part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact. If we agree to the TPP, the only solution to avoid these lawsuits would be to lower our standards. That’s no solution at all.

It's time we negotiate trade agreements that protect American workers, not the big corporations. We should be setting the standards on how to treat workers, produce the best and safest products, and protect the environment. If the TPP is going to sink the workplace standards to the level of sweatshops in Vietnam, we should pass.

House GOP: On the road to national failure

Ewww.

We are awash in depressing news this morning about the ill intentions of the troglodyte Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who resembles nothing so much as a baby with a nail gun, has announced the extremist Republicans this fall will try to kill environmental and labor regulations while pushing tax cuts for businesses.

Let's just get this out of the way: If Cantor doesn't like regulations, he should go to Somalia. We'd see how well he fares on his own in a country with no central government. We think the warlords would make quick work of the Virginia Republican once he's shed of his hangers-on, coatholders, hacks, Tea Party acolytes, bag men and talking-point dispensers.

And about those tax cuts for business: If they're so wonderful, then why does GE report so much of its income in countries with higher tax rates than the U.S.? As David Cay Johnson points out,

Washington politicians say high corporate tax rates are driving U.S. companies to invest offshore where tax rates are lower. But that is not General Electric’s experience.

GE’s disclosures show that over the last decade it paid much lower tax rates in America than offshore, just the opposite of the Washington political mantra. Even more puzzling, the U.S. corporate giant chooses to take more of its profits in other lands despite the higher tax rates there.

Given that GE has a roughly 1,000-person tax department dedicated to paying as little as possible in taxes, what the disclosures show is that something other than tax policy is driving GE’s business decisions. 

You would think Cantor understands that regulations are important to prevent things like, oh, nuclear meltdowns -- especially after last week's earthquake may have damaged the North Anna nuclear power plant in his district.

But Cantor can only recite from memos written by corporations that pay for his political campaigns because they want to loot the government. Solving America's real problems just isn't on the agenda.

Well, here's something we think extremist House Republicans like Cantor should memorize. It's from James K. Galbraith's book, The Predator State, and it describes what increasingly appears to be our road to national failure:

Where the reactionary branches of business, the worst polluters, the flagrant monopolists, the technological footdraggers, are given control over the system and capital markets reward them, their more progressive counterparts will eventually give up, disappear or move away. Bad business practices will drive out good. Ultimately the country will become a repository of the worst business practices and correspondingly unable to assert leadership in the world economy at large.