Today's Teamster News 02.01.14

Teamsters, techies, tens of thousands take action against Fast Track in intercontinental day of action  TeamsterNation   ...More than 50 rallies, teach-ins and news conferences are being held on the North American continent, from Edmonton, Canada, to Mexico City. By mid-afternoon, social media drove more than 12,000 phone calls and hundreds of thousands of emails to the U.S. Congress...
Anti-TPP Rally in San Francisco Pressures Pelosi to Take Bolder Stance  IndyBay   ...Protester numbers swelled during a march down Market Street, eventually reaching an estimated 500...One arrested as Teamsters protest Highway 101 project  The Press Democrat   ...The picketers were protesting the delivery of the concrete by Superior Supplies Inc., a company whose drivers they said are not in the Teamsters union. They were striking to encourage the company to allow its employees to be represented by the union, Teamsters Local 665 President Ralph Miranda said... 
Black History Is Teamster History  teamster.org   ...The contributions of black members to the success of the Teamsters Union are numerous, varied and as old as the union itself. Black team drivers attended the first Convention in 1903 and were active in all aspects of the union from the beginning. That commitment remains strong today...
Teamsters Local 657 to Host Training for Pipeline Construction Workers  teamster.org  ...The Teamsters National Pipeline Training Fund in collaboration with Teamsters Local 657 will sponsor a Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) training program on Feb. 16 in Brownswood, Texas...
Report Opens Way to Approval for Oil Pipeline  New York Times   ...The State Department released a report on Friday concluding that the Keystone XL pipeline would not substantially worsen carbon pollution, leaving an opening for President Obama to approve the politically divisive project...
Hated on the Left, the TPP Draws Conservative Foes  Trade Reform   ...the American Jobs Alliance and the United States Business and Industry Council—pro-business groups wary of trade’s impact on America’s national interests—joined with Tea Party Nation and the socially conservative Eagle Forum to rail against the TPP...
Walmart warns: Food stamp cuts hurt our profits  Raw Story   ...Walmart Friday said bad weather and cuts in food stamp support for the poor weighed on US sales and would hit earnings for its November-January fourth quarter...
America's Shopping Malls Are Dying A Slow, Ugly Death  Business Insider   ...Traffic-driving anchors like Sears and JCPenney are shutting down stores, and mall owners are having a hard time finding retailers large enough to replace them...
Corporate welfare costs more than pension obligations  Washington Post ...states often spend more on tax breaks and subsidies for businesses than funding their ... pension plans...
Goldman Awards Blankfein $14.7 Million in Stock Bonus  New York Times   ...Goldman Sachs’s board granted its chief executive, Lloyd C. Blankfein, restricted shares worth $14.7 million as part of his pay package for 2013, according to a filing made public on Thursday..,
The Greedy Leading the Greedy - Multimillionaire Former Johnson and Johnson CEO Approved Huge Compensation for JP Morgan Chase CEO After Company Paid $20 Billion in Legal Settlements  Health Care Renewal   ...The current compensation set by the board of directors of JP Morgan Chase for CEO Jamie Dimon, $20 million a year, has attracted some attention ... especially given the contrast between his raise and the $20 billion or so the company had to pay out last year in settlements of allegations of unethical practices...
NY Judge Approves $8.5 Billion Bank of America Mortgage Settlement  Money News   ...A New York judge on Friday approved most of the $8.5 billion Bank of America settlement over investor losses from mortgage-backed securities ... Critics of the settlement had argued that it represented only a fraction of the losses...
Billionaires Attempt To Convince Society That They Are The Good Guys  In These Times   ...America’s rich see themselves as victims of Nazi-like persecution...
Koch-Tied Groups Funded GOP Effort to Mess With Electoral College Rules  Mother Jones   ...Last election season, a shadowy nonprofit pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into a campaign to change how electoral votes are counted...
Amazon wants to send stuff before you order it. Are other retailers doomed?  Washington Post   ...A couple weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal happened upon a 27-page patent for what Amazon.com calls "anticipatory" or "speculative" shipping, which sounds insane. Here's how it works, in a nutshell...
Reinhart and Rogoff: Great Recession may "surpass in severity" the Great Depression in many Countries  Calculated Risk   ...The policies of austerity in Europe have failed miserably and many countries there are experiencing a worse slump than during the Depression (austerity in the US has held back the recovery too...
Illinois company fires woman hours after learning she has cancer  New York Daily News   ...A Chicago-area women is filing a disability discrimination lawsuit, claiming her boss gave her the boot after realizing she’d have to take significant time off for cancer treatments...

Screw U: How For-Profit Colleges Rip You Off  Mother Jones   ...The for-profit college industry makes a killing while handing out expensive degrees that fizzle in the real world...
Where are the jobs? Indiana job numbers still don't add up  WTHR.com   ... Indiana is keeping secrets about hundreds of projects, thousands of missing jobs and millions in taxpayer dollars used to pay for them...
Appeals court allows secret probe into recall elections to proceed  Milwaukee Journal Sentinel   ...The unanimous decision by the Madison-based 4th District Court of Appeals panel is a victory for prosecutors and comes just three weeks after they faced a separate setback by the judge overseeing the investigation. That earlier ruling quashed subpoenas to conservative groups supporting Gov. Scott Walker...
RI lawmakers want to stop banks from evicting tenants in foreclosed properties  Associated Press   ...Two Rhode Island lawmakers are sponsoring legislation to make it harder for banks to evict tenants from foreclosed properties...
Repeal of prevailing wage law would result in a weakened economy, University researchers say  The Daily Illini   ...Pressure from increasing state budget deficits, as well as debt from underfunded pensions, have caused critics to call for the repeal of Illinois’ prevailing wage law for government construction projects. However ... Illinois’ prevailing wage law creates many positive economic and social impacts, and repealing it would not result in any considerable savings for taxpayers or the state...
States Are Feeling the Pinch from Lost Unemployment Revenues  teamster.org   ...more than $1.76 billion has been stripped from state economies across the U.S. since the GOP denied the extension of unemployment insurance...

Teamsters fight for pregnant women in US and Canada

Teamsters want to make sure pregnant women are treated with fairness at work.

In Canada, Teamsters have taken up the cause of a pregnant rail worker who was sent home without pay. In the United States, the Teamsters are lobbying Congress to pass the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act.

In both cases, Teamsters are working to make sure all pregnant women are given lighter, safer assignments at work if they need them.

Canadian Teamsters are fighting on behalf of our sister Marie-Eve Ethier, a Canadian National yardmaster and conductor, who was recently pregnant. She  assembles trains in the rail yard. That's dangerous for a pregnant woman and her colleagues -- she could experience nausea or her blood pressure could drop. Her doctor advised her to take a preventive withdrawal.

Sister Ethier asked Canadian National to assign her tasks that were less risky to her health. Instead, the employer sent her home.

The Teamsters took up her cause. Said Teamsters Canada President Robert Bouvier,

Why would women who fall under Quebec law be entitled to compensation and those subject to federal legislation not? Although this is admittedly a complicated case, it doesn't change the fact that there's injustice here and we at Teamsters believe that as soon as there's injustice, it needs to be rectified immediately.

Teamsters Canada explains:

Éthier did not qualify for compensation provided for under provincial law because her employer is subject to federal law. She was thus deprived of income for six months due to this loophole... 

Since the Canada Labour Code provides no compensation in such a case, the Teamsters are asking that a certain paragraph of Quebec's Act respecting occupational health and safety also apply to workers whose employers are governed by the Canada Labour Code.

So the Teamsters sent a legal team to the Commission des lesions professionnelles (CLP), Quebec's Committee on Occupational Injuries. They asked that a certain paragraph of Quebec's law on occupational health and safety also apply to workers whose employers are governed by the Canada Labour Code.

If the Teamsters don't prevail, Bouvier vowed to fight the case all the way to the Supreme Court. It's not just Ethier who would benefit. So would many Canadian women who work in transportation -- air, rail, road and maritime.

U.S. Teamsters are fighting the same fight. The Teamsters have signed a letter with 10 other labor organizations urging Congress to pass the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. The letter states:

All too often, non-union and union pregnant workers’ requests for workplace accommodations are denied and these workers are fired, forced to go on unpaid leave or quit rather than jeopardize their pregnancies.  Out of economic necessity, some women continue to perform strenuous work duties that compromise their maternal health - when a simple accommodation can be made: drinking water, access to bathrooms, a stool to sit on or less strenuous lifting. 

 Countless stories tell how women are pushed out or fired due to pregnancy.  Once fired, they lose wages and health care – at a time when financial security is needed the most.  Take for example, the pregnant retail worker in Indiana who was denied light duty and as a result suffered pregnancy complications. Ultimately, she was fired for requesting a reasonable accommodation.  

According to the Labor Project for Working Families, the bill would:

...make it unmistakably clear that pregnant women cannot be forced off the job simply because they need temporary reasonable accommodations.

The fight for working families never ends...

Today's Teamster News 03.25.13

UNFIT FOR WORK: The startling rise of disability in America  NPR   ...There used to be a lot of jobs that you could do with just a high school degree, and that paid enough to be considered middle class. ... people who lost those jobs ... (have) been going on disability...
Corporate-Backed Trans-Pacific Partnership Shrouded in Secrecy  truthout   ...legislators around the world are being kept in the dark about what they're voting on until the deal is hammered out; it's expected to be completed this year. When it's finished, if the experience of Congress here is any indication, legislators will be feeling extraordinary pressure from corporate lobbyists and their heads of state to accept the deal without a fuss...
Cyprus reaches last-minute deal on 10 billion euro bailout  Reuters   ...Cyprus clinched a last-ditch deal with international lenders to shut down its second-largest bank and inflict heavy losses on uninsured depositors, including wealthy Russians, in return for a 10 billion euro ($13 billion) bailout...
Pro-Democracy Movement Rises Against 'Disaster Capitalism' in Detroit  Common Dreams   ...Community and pro-democracy activists in Detroit have no intention of rolling over and playing dead for Kevyn Orr, the city's new 'emergency manager' appointed by Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, who will begin his contract to run the city as a one-person government on Monday...
Right-to-work goes into effect March 28  Associated Press   ...When Michigan's right-to-work law takes effect Thursday it will signal the latest sign of turmoil in the union movement that has seen nationwide membership shrink to its lowest levels since at least the 1930s...
Real mess: Public works employees forced to bring toilet paper to work  KCTV   ...It's a real stink in one central Missouri town after male public works employees were forced to bring their own toilet paper to work...
Wisconsin: Hundreds of pardon apps sitting on gov's desk  Associated Press   ... Gov. Scott Walker has refused to consider any of at least 1,400 pardon applications since he's taken office...
Ohio lawmakers take up wind, solar energy rule  Fuel Fix   ...The American Legislative Exchange Council, a policy advisory group dominated by Republicans and targeted by liberals, is a leading force behind the push against the renewable energy targets...