Teamsters
Labor, Community And Environmental Advocates Call On McDonald's To Protect Workers In Its Supply Chain Teamster.org ...Advocates from labor, community and environmental organizations joined together to today at a rally outside a McDonald’s in downtown San Francisco, to demand that the company adhere to its own supplier code of conduct and protect workers’ rights throughout supply chain...
Teamsters Break Strike Record, Plan To Rally Arizona Daily Star ...The strike has passed the record for the longest ever. In 2001, the workers were on strike for 12 days. Teamsters Local 104 is holding a rally at 4 p.m. today, at Ronstadt Transit Center, 215 E. Congress St...
EVSC, Teamsters Plan To Meet Again In Late August Evansville Courier & Press ...Teamsters Local 215 and the Evansville Vanderburgh School Board negotiating teams have scheduled a collective bargaining session for Aug. 29 to further discuss contract proposals exchanged a week ago...
Carriage Horse Drivers Hesitate To Declare Victory Over Animal Rights Advocates On Proposed Ban New York Daily News ...Round one of the carriage horse wars goes to the Teamsters union — but drivers are skittish about declaring a runaway victory over animal rights activists...
Teamsters Win Union Recognition For Fuelers At Newark Airport Patch ...In a decision announced on Wednesday, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ordered Allied Aviation Service Company of New Jersey to recognize and bargain with Local 553, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, AFL–CIO, which represents a group of about 40 workers at the airport...
Support Staff, Board Agree On Contract After Eight Years Akron Leader ...For the first time in eight years, support staff in the Copley-Fairlawn City School District will be working under a contract. The district’s Board of Education approved the contract with support staff represented by Teamsters Local 348 at a special Aug. 13 meeting and board retreat. The contract was presented to the union in May and union members voted Aug. 8 to accept it, said Treasurer John Wheadon...
Driver Drug Testing: Teamsters, Other Labor Groups Ask House To Reject Senate Changes Overdrive ...17 workers’ advocate associations, including the Teamsters and a branch of the AFL-CIO, have asked those in the House tasked with crafting the lower chamber’s version of the DRIVE Act to nix the provision that would make hair testing a regulator-recognized option. The House has not yet taken up the Senate’s version of the legislation, and House lawmakers have not indicated whether the lower chamber will in its upcoming fall session...
Global Labor & Trade
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras Calls For New Elections New York Times ...Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of Greece called Thursday for new national elections in a bid to consolidate his power and press ahead with the 86 billion euro bailout plan he agreed to with European creditors...
Macedonia Troops Fire Stun Grenades At Crowds Of Migrants On Border Huffington Post ...Macedonian special police forces fired stun grenades Friday to disperse thousands of migrants stuck on a no-man's land with Greece, a day after declaring a state of emergency on its border to deal with a massive influx of migrants heading north to the European Union...
Congress Is Sick of the Secrecy Around the TPP The Nation ...This has consistently irritated members of Congress, especially those already suspicious of the wide-reaching pact. Their aggravation is especially sharp now that the deal is nearing completion—this is the period in which legislators can actually influence the shape of the document. Once the deal is signed, Congress will not be able to amend the TPP, as per the rules of the fast-track legislation passed earlier this summer, and the deal will only need a simple majority in the Senate...
State & Living Wage Battles
Roseville Rep. Chirkun Seeks To Repeal Right-To-Work Laws Macomb Daily ...John Chirkun, a Roseville Democrat, announced Wednesday he is introducing a pair of bills that would overturn the right-to-work legislation that eliminated compulsory dues for unions in many workplaces. In a release, he said the pair of House bills “would return Michigan to a ‘free bargaining’ state, where unions are better positioned to negotiate for pay, benefits and working conditions on behalf of their members.”...
Minimum Wage Petition Is Approved For KC’s November Ballot, But It Could Get Withdrawn Kansas City Star ...The Kansas City Council agreed Thursday to place a citizens petition initiative on the November ballot that seeks a local minimum wage increase to $15 per hour by 2020. But the council also said the petition may get withdrawn from the ballot if the Missouri General Assembly acts in September to prevent a higher minimum wage...
Court Says Minimum Wage Increase Applies To Airport Workers ABC News ...A divided Washington Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a first-in-the nation initiative to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour in the city of SeaTac should apply to thousands of workers at the airport. In its 5-4 ruling, the majority upheld the entirety of Proposition 1, writing that there was no indication that the law would interfere with airport operations. SeaTac's minimum wage was raised to $15 an hour in 2014 and increased again to $15.24 this January because it is tied to the consumer price index...
The Housing Crisis Is More Complex Than A Few People Paying Too Little In Rent Washington Post ...Affordable housing programs need more money to revamp old units, build new ones for mixed-income use and provide vouchers generous enough to get people out of bad neighborhoods and into better ones. Otherwise, wait lists will not go down, and those on them will have no chance to make their way up...
U.S. Labor
U.S. Factories Still Haven’t Recovered From The Recession Washington Post ...It took less than a year for America's factory output to rebound from the 1991 recession. It took 3½ years to bounce back from the 2001 recession. Now, six years clear of the Great Recession, manufacturing output still hasn't returned to the pre-crisis levels it reached in 2007, according to revised economic data from the Federal Reserve...
Social Justice & Other News
Consumers Are Cutting The Cord To Gain Choices And Pay Less New York Times ...On the whole, cutting the cord with cable should benefit consumers. It will help people save money and gain more control over their entertainment by allowing them to pay only for what they want to watch. Many Americans chafe at having to pay about $67 a month for dozens of TV channels they never use so they can watch a handful of shows. The price of cable and satellite TV service has roughly doubled over the last 20 years, rising about twice as fast as inflation, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics...
Can Our Transit System Get Any Worse? New York Times ...Of course, we must find money to repair and expand our subway systems, and we must sort out the interstate political rivalries at the Port Authority. But it’s our crisis-driven approach to infrastructure that most needs to change...
FAA Records Detail Hundreds Of Close Calls Between Airplanes And Drones Washington Post ...Before last year, close encounters with rogue drones were unheard of. But as a result of a sales boom, small, largely unregulated remote-control aircraft are clogging U.S. airspace, snarling air traffic and giving the FAA fits...
“People Know Next To Nothing About Reconstruction”: The Pernicious Civil War Revisionism Poisoning American History Students Salon.com ...Yes, slavery got washed out of the writing on the war. But it didn’t happen in a straight line. When it comes to the Civil War, what historians write is a reflection of the world they are living in at the moment...
The Largest Movie-Theater Chain In America Is Going To Start Searching Your Bags Think Progress ...Regal Cinemas, the biggest movie-theater chain in the United States, will start to search ticket-buyers’ bags before they enter any of its movie theaters...
Showing posts with label drones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drones. Show all posts
Friday, August 21, 2015
Monday, August 17, 2015
Today's Teamster News 08.17.15
Teamsters
SunTran Strike: Teamsters Say Their Offer Rejected; SunTran Still Says, “Let’s Talk.” KQTH ...The SunTran strike has been dragging on for nine days now. Late Friday afternoon, the Teamsters said SunTran rejected another offer the union proposed late Thursday, though SunTran says it's still interested in talking more about the proposal...
Teamsters Union Approves Contract With County Laconia Daily Sun ...The contract was approved by a 2-1 vote of the County Commissioners last week, the commissioners announced Wednesday. This week the pact was approved by a majority vote of union membership. The contract will now go the Belknap County Convention for approval of the cost items...
Anti-Union Campaign In Full Swing At Google Express San Francisco Chronicle ...While the rest of the on-demand economy struggles to come to terms with the fallout from start-ups' reliance on classifying employees as independent contractors, Google Express — which does not use independent contractors but instead subcontracts its workforce through a staffing agency — is facing labor troubles of its own. And the battle is heating up...
Global Labor & Trade
Germany's Merkel To Face Down Party Rebels In Greek Bailout Vote Huffington Post ...In a major test of her authority, Chancellor Angela Merkel will ask skeptical German lawmakers to back an 86 billion euro ($95.5 billion) bailout for Greece on Wednesday despite uncertainty over whether the IMF will play a role in the rescue...
State & Living Wage Battles
Ulster County Considers Raising Minimum Wage To $15 An Hour For Its Employees Daily Freeman ...Ulster County Legislature Chairman John Parete has proposed establishing a $15-an-hour minimum wage for county employees. “If we’re going to try to save the world, we’ve got to start leading from right here,” said Parete, D-Boiceville. “It might be an awful good signal to the world that we’re progressive and we care about the people that are servicing us and servicing our county...
Researchers: Voter ID Confusion May Have Turned An Election Jacksonville Daily Progress ...Mark Jones, a Rice University political scientist, and other researchers talked to 400 registered voters who didn't participate in the election in District 23, which experts said was the only congressional district in the state with competitive candidates from both major parties. The district sprawls the Trans-Pecos region from San Antonio to El Paso County. Confusion over ID rules potentially discouraged up to 9 percent of voters from casting ballots, the researchers found. “When you look at the people who were confused, those voters overwhelmingly favored Pete Gallego,” Jones said. “If they hadn’t been confused, it’s quite possible that Pete Gallego would have won.”...
Paid Sick Leave Vote Put On Hold Spokane Spokesman-Review ...City Council President Ben Stuckart said some council members had hoped to vote later this month on a plan that would require businesses to offer their workers one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked. That amounts to three days a year for full-time workers...
Los Angeles Is Facing A Housing Affordability Crisis BuzzFeed ...Los Angeles appears to be facing a growing crisis after two new reports showed that it has the least affordable housing in the U.S., stagnant wages, and a market that favors a “wealthy minority.”...
ATI Locks Out Union Workers Pittsburgh Post Gazette ...On Friday, union officials said non-essential union workers were told to go home and that they would be paid through today. Mr. Troyan, 59, who works at a furnace at the company’s new, $1.2 billion Brackenridge mill, said he was told to report for his shift, which started at 7 p.m. Friday and ends at 7 a.m. today...
U.S. Labor
How America's Global Financial System Blocks Development Huffington Post ...Just a few years ago, Ben Bernanke, then the chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, talked about a global savings glut. And yet investment projects with high social returns were being starved of funds. That remains true today. The problem, then as now, is that the world's financial markets, meant to intermediate efficiently between savings and investment opportunities, instead misallocate capital and create risk...
FAA Still Working To Fix Flight Delays After Computer Outage BuzzFeed ...The Federal Aviation Administration on Sunday said it was still working to resume normal air traffic operations after flights along the East Coast were disrupted Saturday because of a computer problem, delaying some flights in the Washington, D.C. area for hours...
Bankruptcy Loses Its Stigma - For Wealthy Corporations Philadelphia Inquirer ...The finance industry urged lawmakers to ignore factors such as overly easy and tricky credit or lagging middle-class incomes. It achieved its key goal - making it harder and costlier for consumers to go to court to escape debt - largely by arguing that bankruptcy was booming because it had "lost its stigma."...
Walmart's Use Of Tax Havens Hurts Small Businesses Cap Times ...ATF says Walmart may have skirted U.S. securities law by not properly reporting its tax-haven subsidiaries. But even if hiding them runs afoul of the law, using tax havens to avoid U.S. taxes is perfectly legal. Yet every time a big corporation uses accounting schemes to avoid paying its full measure of taxes — the typical use of tax havens — small businesses and working families pay the price, either in higher taxes or deteriorating public services...
Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas In A Brutal Workplace New York Times ...Even as the company tests delivery by drone and ways to restock toilet paper at the push of a bathroom button, it is conducting a little-known experiment in how far it can push white-collar workers, redrawing the boundaries of what is acceptable. The company, founded and still run by Jeff Bezos, rejects many of the popular management bromides that other corporations at least pay lip service to and has instead designed what many workers call an intricate machine propelling them to achieve Mr. Bezos’ ever-expanding ambitions...
Social Justice & Other News
Julian Bond, Former N.A.A.C.P. Chairman And Civil Rights Leader, Dies At 75 New York Times ...Julian Bond, a former chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a charismatic figure of the 1960s civil rights movement, a lightning rod of the anti-Vietnam War campaign and a lifelong champion of equal rights for minorities, died on Saturday night, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. He was 75...
Exclusion Of Blacks From Juries Raises Renewed Scrutiny New York Times ...Here are some reasons prosecutors have offered for excluding blacks from juries: They were young or old, single or divorced, religious or not, failed to make eye contact, lived in a poor part of town, had served in the military, had a hyphenated last name, displayed bad posture, were sullen, disrespectful or talkative, had long hair, wore a beard...
David Denson Becomes First Openly Gay Player On MLB-Affiliated Team Huffington Post ..."Talking with my teammates, they gave me the confidence I needed, coming out to them," Denson told the newspaper. "They said, "You're still our teammate. You're still our brother. We kind of had an idea, but your sexuality has nothing to do with your ability. You're still a ballplayer at the end of the day. We don't treat you any different. We've got your back.'...
Black Lives Matter Joins A Long Line Of Protest Movements That Have Shifted Public Opinion — Most Recently, Occupy Wall Street Salon.com ...By introducing the phrase “black lives matters” into our culture – primarily through the use of social media but also by engaging in protest and civil disobedience – BLM has shifted public opinion. A new Pew Research Center poll discovered that the number of Americans who believe that changes are needed to give African-Americans equal rights has swelled from 46 percent to 59 percent just in the past year. Among white Americans, the number has increased from 39 percent to 53 percent. Among Republicans, it spiked from 27 percent to 42 percent...
NC House Passes Bill That Regulates Drone Usage WNCN ...As drones become more popular across the nation, North Carolina lawmakers are working to create regulations for the technology. The State House passed Senate Bill 446 this week that develops guidelines for operating drones. The bill now moves on to the Senate...
FAA Considering New Drone Registration Rules CBS News ...The Department of Transportation is reviewing whether the FAA has the authority to require drones be registered at their point of sale, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx told CBS News on Friday...
When Public Servants Refuse To Serve The Public The Atlantic ...Is it possible to agree on what religious freedom is not? It’s not a right to wear a Marine uniform but refuse to fight. It’s not a right to be a county clerk and decide which citizens you will serve and which you won’t. Religious “accommodation” doesn’t mean what Liberty Counsel thinks it means. If a person can perform the duties of a job with some adjustment for religious belief, that’s an accommodation. If they’re not willing to do the job, they have to leave. That’s not just a requirement of law; honor requires it as well...
Lawyers: Immigrant Family Detention Still Lengthy And Unsafe ABC News ...A group of immigrant rights lawyers say that detention of women and children caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally is lengthy and unsafe, challenging the government's claims that immigrant families are held only briefly and that their detention doesn't violate a longstanding ban...
SunTran Strike: Teamsters Say Their Offer Rejected; SunTran Still Says, “Let’s Talk.” KQTH ...The SunTran strike has been dragging on for nine days now. Late Friday afternoon, the Teamsters said SunTran rejected another offer the union proposed late Thursday, though SunTran says it's still interested in talking more about the proposal...
Teamsters Union Approves Contract With County Laconia Daily Sun ...The contract was approved by a 2-1 vote of the County Commissioners last week, the commissioners announced Wednesday. This week the pact was approved by a majority vote of union membership. The contract will now go the Belknap County Convention for approval of the cost items...
Anti-Union Campaign In Full Swing At Google Express San Francisco Chronicle ...While the rest of the on-demand economy struggles to come to terms with the fallout from start-ups' reliance on classifying employees as independent contractors, Google Express — which does not use independent contractors but instead subcontracts its workforce through a staffing agency — is facing labor troubles of its own. And the battle is heating up...
Global Labor & Trade
Germany's Merkel To Face Down Party Rebels In Greek Bailout Vote Huffington Post ...In a major test of her authority, Chancellor Angela Merkel will ask skeptical German lawmakers to back an 86 billion euro ($95.5 billion) bailout for Greece on Wednesday despite uncertainty over whether the IMF will play a role in the rescue...
State & Living Wage Battles
Ulster County Considers Raising Minimum Wage To $15 An Hour For Its Employees Daily Freeman ...Ulster County Legislature Chairman John Parete has proposed establishing a $15-an-hour minimum wage for county employees. “If we’re going to try to save the world, we’ve got to start leading from right here,” said Parete, D-Boiceville. “It might be an awful good signal to the world that we’re progressive and we care about the people that are servicing us and servicing our county...
Researchers: Voter ID Confusion May Have Turned An Election Jacksonville Daily Progress ...Mark Jones, a Rice University political scientist, and other researchers talked to 400 registered voters who didn't participate in the election in District 23, which experts said was the only congressional district in the state with competitive candidates from both major parties. The district sprawls the Trans-Pecos region from San Antonio to El Paso County. Confusion over ID rules potentially discouraged up to 9 percent of voters from casting ballots, the researchers found. “When you look at the people who were confused, those voters overwhelmingly favored Pete Gallego,” Jones said. “If they hadn’t been confused, it’s quite possible that Pete Gallego would have won.”...
Paid Sick Leave Vote Put On Hold Spokane Spokesman-Review ...City Council President Ben Stuckart said some council members had hoped to vote later this month on a plan that would require businesses to offer their workers one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked. That amounts to three days a year for full-time workers...
Los Angeles Is Facing A Housing Affordability Crisis BuzzFeed ...Los Angeles appears to be facing a growing crisis after two new reports showed that it has the least affordable housing in the U.S., stagnant wages, and a market that favors a “wealthy minority.”...
ATI Locks Out Union Workers Pittsburgh Post Gazette ...On Friday, union officials said non-essential union workers were told to go home and that they would be paid through today. Mr. Troyan, 59, who works at a furnace at the company’s new, $1.2 billion Brackenridge mill, said he was told to report for his shift, which started at 7 p.m. Friday and ends at 7 a.m. today...
U.S. Labor
How America's Global Financial System Blocks Development Huffington Post ...Just a few years ago, Ben Bernanke, then the chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, talked about a global savings glut. And yet investment projects with high social returns were being starved of funds. That remains true today. The problem, then as now, is that the world's financial markets, meant to intermediate efficiently between savings and investment opportunities, instead misallocate capital and create risk...
FAA Still Working To Fix Flight Delays After Computer Outage BuzzFeed ...The Federal Aviation Administration on Sunday said it was still working to resume normal air traffic operations after flights along the East Coast were disrupted Saturday because of a computer problem, delaying some flights in the Washington, D.C. area for hours...
Bankruptcy Loses Its Stigma - For Wealthy Corporations Philadelphia Inquirer ...The finance industry urged lawmakers to ignore factors such as overly easy and tricky credit or lagging middle-class incomes. It achieved its key goal - making it harder and costlier for consumers to go to court to escape debt - largely by arguing that bankruptcy was booming because it had "lost its stigma."...
Walmart's Use Of Tax Havens Hurts Small Businesses Cap Times ...ATF says Walmart may have skirted U.S. securities law by not properly reporting its tax-haven subsidiaries. But even if hiding them runs afoul of the law, using tax havens to avoid U.S. taxes is perfectly legal. Yet every time a big corporation uses accounting schemes to avoid paying its full measure of taxes — the typical use of tax havens — small businesses and working families pay the price, either in higher taxes or deteriorating public services...
Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas In A Brutal Workplace New York Times ...Even as the company tests delivery by drone and ways to restock toilet paper at the push of a bathroom button, it is conducting a little-known experiment in how far it can push white-collar workers, redrawing the boundaries of what is acceptable. The company, founded and still run by Jeff Bezos, rejects many of the popular management bromides that other corporations at least pay lip service to and has instead designed what many workers call an intricate machine propelling them to achieve Mr. Bezos’ ever-expanding ambitions...
Social Justice & Other News
Julian Bond, Former N.A.A.C.P. Chairman And Civil Rights Leader, Dies At 75 New York Times ...Julian Bond, a former chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a charismatic figure of the 1960s civil rights movement, a lightning rod of the anti-Vietnam War campaign and a lifelong champion of equal rights for minorities, died on Saturday night, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. He was 75...
Exclusion Of Blacks From Juries Raises Renewed Scrutiny New York Times ...Here are some reasons prosecutors have offered for excluding blacks from juries: They were young or old, single or divorced, religious or not, failed to make eye contact, lived in a poor part of town, had served in the military, had a hyphenated last name, displayed bad posture, were sullen, disrespectful or talkative, had long hair, wore a beard...
David Denson Becomes First Openly Gay Player On MLB-Affiliated Team Huffington Post ..."Talking with my teammates, they gave me the confidence I needed, coming out to them," Denson told the newspaper. "They said, "You're still our teammate. You're still our brother. We kind of had an idea, but your sexuality has nothing to do with your ability. You're still a ballplayer at the end of the day. We don't treat you any different. We've got your back.'...
Black Lives Matter Joins A Long Line Of Protest Movements That Have Shifted Public Opinion — Most Recently, Occupy Wall Street Salon.com ...By introducing the phrase “black lives matters” into our culture – primarily through the use of social media but also by engaging in protest and civil disobedience – BLM has shifted public opinion. A new Pew Research Center poll discovered that the number of Americans who believe that changes are needed to give African-Americans equal rights has swelled from 46 percent to 59 percent just in the past year. Among white Americans, the number has increased from 39 percent to 53 percent. Among Republicans, it spiked from 27 percent to 42 percent...
NC House Passes Bill That Regulates Drone Usage WNCN ...As drones become more popular across the nation, North Carolina lawmakers are working to create regulations for the technology. The State House passed Senate Bill 446 this week that develops guidelines for operating drones. The bill now moves on to the Senate...
FAA Considering New Drone Registration Rules CBS News ...The Department of Transportation is reviewing whether the FAA has the authority to require drones be registered at their point of sale, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx told CBS News on Friday...
When Public Servants Refuse To Serve The Public The Atlantic ...Is it possible to agree on what religious freedom is not? It’s not a right to wear a Marine uniform but refuse to fight. It’s not a right to be a county clerk and decide which citizens you will serve and which you won’t. Religious “accommodation” doesn’t mean what Liberty Counsel thinks it means. If a person can perform the duties of a job with some adjustment for religious belief, that’s an accommodation. If they’re not willing to do the job, they have to leave. That’s not just a requirement of law; honor requires it as well...
Lawyers: Immigrant Family Detention Still Lengthy And Unsafe ABC News ...A group of immigrant rights lawyers say that detention of women and children caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally is lengthy and unsafe, challenging the government's claims that immigrant families are held only briefly and that their detention doesn't violate a longstanding ban...
Friday, August 14, 2015
Today's Teamster News 08.14.15
Teamsters
Public Employees To San Bernardino: Keep Your Promises Teamster.org ...At this week’s San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors public meeting, more than 60 county employees, who are members of Teamsters Local 1932, attended in order to testify in front of the Board about how wage theft is directly impacting not only the cost of living, but their basic needs, many holding signs that read, “San Bernardino: Keep Your Promises.”...
Contract Between EVSC, Teamsters Still Up In The Air WFIE ...President of Teamsters Local 215 Chuck Whobrey says the EVSC never had any intention of reaching an agreement with the union...
Sun Tran Union Workers Contact Federal Mediator KTTU ...The Teamsters Local Union 104 released a press release on Thursday evening, stating they have contacted a federal mediator and presented a "comprehensive proposal addressing all open items."...
Burnco Ends Labour Dispute 660 News ...A labour dispute at the Burnco Rock Products plant in Calgary is over. The company and the Teamsters Local Union 362 reached an agreement Thursday evening, but no specific details have been released...
Global Labor & Trade
Greece Crisis: Eurogroup Agrees To Third Bailout BBC News ...Eurozone finance ministers have agreed on a new bailout deal for Greece after Athens backed the plan. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said the deal sent a message "loud and clear" - Greece will stay in the eurozone...
Sen. Sherrod Brown Blocks Trade Nominee To Protest TPP Secrecy Cleveland Plain Dealer ...U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown has decided to block a cabinet-level trade nominee from being confirmed, saying he will relent if President Barack Obama drops a secrecy requirement that has made it hard for Congress to review a pending trade deal with Pacific Rim nations...
TTIP Controversy: Secret Trade Deal Can Only Be Read In Secure 'Reading Room' In Brussels The Independent ...The European Commission is making the secret Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) trade deal even more secret, introducing a new rule that means politicians can only view the text in a secure 'reading room' in Brussels...
State & Living Wage Battles
Court Rejects Suit Over Obama Immigration Moves Politico ...A federal appeals court Friday upheld the dismissal of an Arizona sheriff's lawsuit challenging President Barack Obama's executive actions on immigration, but one judge on the panel expressed strong doubts about the constitutionality of Obama's moves — now largely on hold as a result of other litigation...
Workers Score Paid Sick Leave Victory In Pittsburgh Next City ...The bill, which passed 7-1 with one abstention, requires employers with 15 employees or more to provide as much as 40 hours of paid sick time per year, while employers of fewer than 15 people will be required to provide up to 24 hours per year. Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, who ran for office on a progressive track record and platform, is expected to sign the bill, in the face of assurances from business groups that a legal challenge is on its way...
Florida: Disputed Plan For Voting Map Advances New York Times ...A House panel on Thursday approved changes to Florida’s 27 congressional districts, despite criticism that the move would disenfranchise black voters. The new map would make several changes, including shifting the district now held by Representative Corrine Brown, a Democrat who is suing to stop the Legislature and says the proposal would dilute the voting strength of blacks...
City Begins Minimum Wage Outreach Santa Monica Daily Press ...Santa Monica is considering local rules that would raise the minimum wage in a way similar to a recently passed law in Los Angeles. As of July 1, 2016 Los Angeles will begin raising the minimum wage annually to $10.50, $12, $13.25, $14.25 and $15 by 2020. The rules allow small companies to delay implementation for a year and have an additional year exemption for nonprofits that help the disadvantage or receive a majority of funding from government grants. The increases are indexed to inflation and an enforcement office will be established...
How Corporate Farmers Are Waging War On Our 1st Amendment AlterNet ...The First Amendment may be inconvenient to some people at times, but it’s still the law of the land. Case in point: so-called “ag-gag laws.” These are laws in Idaho, Montana, Utah, North Dakota, Missouri, Kansas, and Iowa that prohibit people from taking photos or videos of farms without permission. They’re designed to prevent the exposure of cruelty to animals on factory farms...
$15 Minimum Wage Proposal Could Go On November Ballot In Kansas City Kansas City Star ...The Kansas City Council has taken the first step toward putting a $15 minimum wage question on the November ballot. In a procedural move Thursday, an ordinance was introduced on the council docket to submit a petition initiative to voters in the Nov. 3 election. The council must discuss and vote on the measure by next Thursday to meet election authorities’ deadline for the November ballot...
U.S. Labor
Pilots Are Spotting More Drones, Prompting Worries About Collisions Wall Street Journal ...Pilots are spotting drones in flight at a far higher rate than last year, U.S. regulators said, triggering authorities to step up efforts to prevent a midair collision as drones proliferate in U.S. skies...
The Many Ways You Can Be Screwed Out Of Unemployment Benefits The Nation ...Unemployment insurance provides a critical income support to workers who lose their jobs “through no fault of their own.” But this compensation, which states generally award on the basis of past earnings, don’t quite work for the millions who are forced to work irregular part-time shifts or stuck in unstable “casual” service work. For these “irregular” workers—filling our retail stores, restaurants and warehouses—being forced to quit because of unsustainable hours is routine. But the standard unemployment check is often out of reach...
Retirement Isn't What It Used To Be The Atlantic ...As the idea of retirement continues to evolve for Americans, the hope is that seniors still be able to afford the leisure they seek—whether it’s through social-security reforms or companies taking greater responsibility in their workers’ retirement plans—and that they’re healthy enough to work if they’d like...
Social Justice & Other News
Citizens United Means Wealthy, White Donors Dominate 2016 Presidential Fundraising The Intercept ...Though the American population is becoming more and more diverse, the presidential candidates are being bankrolled by a pool of very wealthy donors, the vast majority of whom are white...
John Kerry Raises U.S. Flag At American Embassy In Cuba Huffington Post ...Watched over by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, U.S. Marines raised the American flag at the embassy in Cuba for the first time in 54 years on Friday, symbolically ushering in an era of renewed diplomatic relations between the two Cold War-era foes...
Let's Expand Social Security On Its Birthday Huffington Post ...Eighty years ago, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law, creating a national plan to provide economic security for American workers. Since then, Social Security has proven to be the most successful anti-poverty program in our history. Each year, Social Security lifts more than 20 million Americans - including a million children - out of poverty...
Student Loan Delinquencies Jump As Crisis Spreads Huffington Post ...About 11.5 percent of outstanding student debt was at least 90 days late or in default as of June 30, up from around 10.9 percent at the same time last year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The New York Fed estimates that nearly one in four borrowers whose loans have come due are severely delinquent, or double the published rate, because nearly half of student debt doesn't presently require a monthly payment...
Public Employees To San Bernardino: Keep Your Promises Teamster.org ...At this week’s San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors public meeting, more than 60 county employees, who are members of Teamsters Local 1932, attended in order to testify in front of the Board about how wage theft is directly impacting not only the cost of living, but their basic needs, many holding signs that read, “San Bernardino: Keep Your Promises.”...
Contract Between EVSC, Teamsters Still Up In The Air WFIE ...President of Teamsters Local 215 Chuck Whobrey says the EVSC never had any intention of reaching an agreement with the union...
Sun Tran Union Workers Contact Federal Mediator KTTU ...The Teamsters Local Union 104 released a press release on Thursday evening, stating they have contacted a federal mediator and presented a "comprehensive proposal addressing all open items."...
Burnco Ends Labour Dispute 660 News ...A labour dispute at the Burnco Rock Products plant in Calgary is over. The company and the Teamsters Local Union 362 reached an agreement Thursday evening, but no specific details have been released...
Global Labor & Trade
Greece Crisis: Eurogroup Agrees To Third Bailout BBC News ...Eurozone finance ministers have agreed on a new bailout deal for Greece after Athens backed the plan. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said the deal sent a message "loud and clear" - Greece will stay in the eurozone...
Sen. Sherrod Brown Blocks Trade Nominee To Protest TPP Secrecy Cleveland Plain Dealer ...U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown has decided to block a cabinet-level trade nominee from being confirmed, saying he will relent if President Barack Obama drops a secrecy requirement that has made it hard for Congress to review a pending trade deal with Pacific Rim nations...
TTIP Controversy: Secret Trade Deal Can Only Be Read In Secure 'Reading Room' In Brussels The Independent ...The European Commission is making the secret Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) trade deal even more secret, introducing a new rule that means politicians can only view the text in a secure 'reading room' in Brussels...
State & Living Wage Battles
Court Rejects Suit Over Obama Immigration Moves Politico ...A federal appeals court Friday upheld the dismissal of an Arizona sheriff's lawsuit challenging President Barack Obama's executive actions on immigration, but one judge on the panel expressed strong doubts about the constitutionality of Obama's moves — now largely on hold as a result of other litigation...
Workers Score Paid Sick Leave Victory In Pittsburgh Next City ...The bill, which passed 7-1 with one abstention, requires employers with 15 employees or more to provide as much as 40 hours of paid sick time per year, while employers of fewer than 15 people will be required to provide up to 24 hours per year. Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, who ran for office on a progressive track record and platform, is expected to sign the bill, in the face of assurances from business groups that a legal challenge is on its way...
Florida: Disputed Plan For Voting Map Advances New York Times ...A House panel on Thursday approved changes to Florida’s 27 congressional districts, despite criticism that the move would disenfranchise black voters. The new map would make several changes, including shifting the district now held by Representative Corrine Brown, a Democrat who is suing to stop the Legislature and says the proposal would dilute the voting strength of blacks...
City Begins Minimum Wage Outreach Santa Monica Daily Press ...Santa Monica is considering local rules that would raise the minimum wage in a way similar to a recently passed law in Los Angeles. As of July 1, 2016 Los Angeles will begin raising the minimum wage annually to $10.50, $12, $13.25, $14.25 and $15 by 2020. The rules allow small companies to delay implementation for a year and have an additional year exemption for nonprofits that help the disadvantage or receive a majority of funding from government grants. The increases are indexed to inflation and an enforcement office will be established...
How Corporate Farmers Are Waging War On Our 1st Amendment AlterNet ...The First Amendment may be inconvenient to some people at times, but it’s still the law of the land. Case in point: so-called “ag-gag laws.” These are laws in Idaho, Montana, Utah, North Dakota, Missouri, Kansas, and Iowa that prohibit people from taking photos or videos of farms without permission. They’re designed to prevent the exposure of cruelty to animals on factory farms...
$15 Minimum Wage Proposal Could Go On November Ballot In Kansas City Kansas City Star ...The Kansas City Council has taken the first step toward putting a $15 minimum wage question on the November ballot. In a procedural move Thursday, an ordinance was introduced on the council docket to submit a petition initiative to voters in the Nov. 3 election. The council must discuss and vote on the measure by next Thursday to meet election authorities’ deadline for the November ballot...
U.S. Labor
Pilots Are Spotting More Drones, Prompting Worries About Collisions Wall Street Journal ...Pilots are spotting drones in flight at a far higher rate than last year, U.S. regulators said, triggering authorities to step up efforts to prevent a midair collision as drones proliferate in U.S. skies...
The Many Ways You Can Be Screwed Out Of Unemployment Benefits The Nation ...Unemployment insurance provides a critical income support to workers who lose their jobs “through no fault of their own.” But this compensation, which states generally award on the basis of past earnings, don’t quite work for the millions who are forced to work irregular part-time shifts or stuck in unstable “casual” service work. For these “irregular” workers—filling our retail stores, restaurants and warehouses—being forced to quit because of unsustainable hours is routine. But the standard unemployment check is often out of reach...
Retirement Isn't What It Used To Be The Atlantic ...As the idea of retirement continues to evolve for Americans, the hope is that seniors still be able to afford the leisure they seek—whether it’s through social-security reforms or companies taking greater responsibility in their workers’ retirement plans—and that they’re healthy enough to work if they’d like...
Social Justice & Other News
Citizens United Means Wealthy, White Donors Dominate 2016 Presidential Fundraising The Intercept ...Though the American population is becoming more and more diverse, the presidential candidates are being bankrolled by a pool of very wealthy donors, the vast majority of whom are white...
John Kerry Raises U.S. Flag At American Embassy In Cuba Huffington Post ...Watched over by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, U.S. Marines raised the American flag at the embassy in Cuba for the first time in 54 years on Friday, symbolically ushering in an era of renewed diplomatic relations between the two Cold War-era foes...
Let's Expand Social Security On Its Birthday Huffington Post ...Eighty years ago, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law, creating a national plan to provide economic security for American workers. Since then, Social Security has proven to be the most successful anti-poverty program in our history. Each year, Social Security lifts more than 20 million Americans - including a million children - out of poverty...
Student Loan Delinquencies Jump As Crisis Spreads Huffington Post ...About 11.5 percent of outstanding student debt was at least 90 days late or in default as of June 30, up from around 10.9 percent at the same time last year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The New York Fed estimates that nearly one in four borrowers whose loans have come due are severely delinquent, or double the published rate, because nearly half of student debt doesn't presently require a monthly payment...
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Today's Teamster News 08.12.15
Teamsters
Hoffa: CEO Pay Rule Will Help Close Wage Gap Detroit News ...Those in favor of corporate disclosure won a hard-fought victory at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last week when the agency finally decided to move ahead with a portion of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law that requires companies to report the pay gap between CEOs and rank-and-file workers...
Sun Tran Worker Strike Now In Sixth Day, Still Going Strong WTTU ...On day six of the Sun Tran worker strike, the mood at Ronstadt Transit Center in downtown, Tucson was unity and solidarity...
Nearly 30 percent Of Loudoun County’s Commuter Bus Drivers May Strike Loudoun Times Mirror ...Nearly 30 percent of the county's public transit bus drivers may go on strike if their Teamsters union and Loudoun's commuter bus contractor, Transdev, can't reach a deal on a new collective bargaining agreement...
City Council Skips Closed Session Over For Police Contract Negotiations Chicago Tribune ...Teamsters Local 700 represents 10,000 public employees across the state of Illinois, including more than 5,000 law enforcement members, according to the union's website. Forty police officers and personnel from the Park Ridge Police Department voted to join the union in May 2014. After briefly reviewing a bargaining agreement for a three-year contract with the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police, which represents seven police sergeants in Park Ridge, city councilors decided to forgo an option to take the discussion into closed session, with some alderman stating that they failed to see the advantage in keeping the talks a secret...
Global Labor & Trade
Will Trans-Pacific Trade Deal Go Up In Smoke Over Anti-Tobacco Proposal? Politico ...Big Tobacco is pushing back against a strict anti-smoking provision in the massive Trans-Pacific trade deal — and it has enlisted the support of the most powerful Republican in the Senate...
The Ripple Effects Of China's Weakening Currency The Atlantic ...China devalued its currency for the second straight day, sending markets across the region sharply lower and raising fresh concerns about the health of the world’s second-largest economy...
TPP Protesters Descend On Parliament Radio New Zealand ...The group said it was conducting a nationwide search for the full text of the TPP trade deal, and started with the ministry's Auckland headquarters. Several members of the group went into the offices, equipped with giant magnifying glasses, to demand the Government release the full TPP text by the end of the month...
State & Living Wage Battles
Long Beach City Council Votes To Study Minimum Wage Hike KPCC ...The Long Beach City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to commission a study of the impact of raising the city's minimum wage - to even higher than the wage hike coming to Los Angeles...
New York State Officials Recover More Than $18.1 Million In Wages For Short-Changed Workers New York Daily News ...During the first six months of 2015, the state Labor Department recovered more than $18.1 million for nearly 19,000 workers who were not paid the proper minimum wage, overtime or fringe benefits, officials reported. The recoveries represented a 6% increase from the same time period in 2014 and put the state on pace to surpass last year’s record of $30.2 million...
More N.J. Public Employee Unions Join Lawsuit Against Christie Over Pay Freeze NJ.com ...The state's largest state workers union and three others have joined a lawsuit against the Christie administration over its decision to freeze wages for state employees...
Railroads Face Big Fines For Failure To Meet Federal Safety Deadline Truthout ...The Federal Railroad Administration plans to impose big penalties on railroads that fail to meet a year-end deadline to install a new collision avoidance system, including more than 70 percent of the nation's commuter railroads...
Scott Walker Signs Arena Deal, Handing $400 Million To Billionaire NBA Owners Huffington Post ...Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) signed legislation Wednesday that commits hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money to a new arena for the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks, a move that could complicate the Republican presidential candidate’s efforts to paint himself as the most ardent small-government conservative in a crowded field...
U.S. Labor
Single Mothers ‘Most Likely’ To Benefit From Paid Overtime Expansion Al Jazeera America ...A proposal to extend overtime pay eligibility to millions of workers would have its biggest impact on single mothers and women of color, according to a study published Tuesday by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) and the advocacy group MomsRising...
Uber Drivers Could Earn Thousands In Benefits As Full-Time Employees Forbes ...According to a new analysis, Uber drivers in six major U.S. cities would receive paid holidays and health care benefits worth an average of $5,500 annually...
America Is Working Itself To Death: How “9 To 5″ Became “24/7″ Salon.com ...The reality is, Americans don’t just work more than they have in the past, they work more than most of the industrialized world. It’s not exactly breaking news that we spend more hours at the office — or on the assembly line or behind the coffee counter — than our European peers. A 2004 study from the National Bureau of Economic Research found Americans work “50 percent more than do the Germans, French, and Italians.” More recent data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found that in 2014, Americans outworked several expected other countries, among them Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Finland, Switzerland and Austria, all countries that (coincidentally, I’m so sure) rank higher than us on the most recent World Happiness survey...
Social Justice & Other News
Black Poverty Differs From White Poverty Washington Post ...The poverty that poor African Americans experience is often different from the poverty of poor whites. It's more isolating and concentrated. It extends out the door of a family's home and occupies the entire neighborhood around it, touching the streets, the schools, the grocery stores. A poor black family, in short, is much more likely than a poor white one to live in a neighborhood where many other families are poor, too, creating what sociologists call the "double burden" of poverty. The difference is stark in most major metropolitan areas, according to new data analyzed by Rutgers University's Paul Jargowsky in a new report for the Century Foundation...
Teachers Union Lawsuit Over State Evaluation System May Go To Trial Santa Fe New Mexican ...State District Judge Francis Mathew of Santa Fe cleared the way Tuesday for a trial on whether New Mexico’s system of evaluating teachers should remain in place...
St. Louis County Police File Charges Against 3 Journalists One Year After Ferguson Protests Think Progress ...St. Louis County police are suddenly levying an onslaught of charges against journalists who covered the Ferguson protests last year, accusing them of minor offenses days before the statute of limitations is up. This week alone, three journalists have been charged for interfering with on-duty officers — a full year after their arrests. The recent developments follow an ongoing trend of criminalizing journalists for doing their jobs...
Teaching People Not To Be Corrupt Could Save Millions Of Lives Think Progress ...Corruption takes a particularly heavy toll in developing countries which lack the political and economic infrastructure to effectively regulate businesses. “In developing countries, corruption is a killer,” said David McNair of the advocacy organization ONE. “Up to 3.6 million lives could be saved if we end the web of secrecy that helps the criminal and corrupt. When governments are deprived of their own resources to invest in the essentials — like nurses and teachers — the human cost is devastating.”...
Black Activists Know Feds Are Monitoring Them, Yet Refuse to Be Intimidated Alternet ...When Erika Totten returned to protesting in the DC area after taking a few months off last winter, law enforcement officers were waiting to greet her...
Amnesty International Is Finally On The Right Side Of The Sex Work Struggle The Nation ...“We really hope that those who have opposed Amnesty’s position in the past will reconsider their position and look at the evidence that criminalization of sex work is a key factor in our vulnerability to violence and abuse,” Stevenson told me. “We hope that this evidence-based decision by Amnesty will help other progressive organizations take a position to support sex workers’ rights.”...
Don’t Blame Citizens United For Donald Trump; Blame 1976’s Buckley v. Valeo Decision The Intercept ...If you don’t think it’s fair that billionaires like Donald Trump can run their own self-funded campaigns for president, don’t blame the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision. Blame the 1976 case Buckley v. Valeo instead. Citizens United lets billionaires give unlimited money to Super PACs trying to elect other people, but billionaires have been able to give as much money as they wanted to their own campaigns since Buckley...
The Pentagon's Half-Billion Dollar Drone Boondoggle The Intercept ...Rivalry between the Army and Air Force over Predator drones may have cost the Pentagon over $500 million in wasteful spending, according to a report released under the Freedom of Information Act. The report, which the Pentagon’s Inspector General completed in 2010, is not available on the Defense Department’s public website, which instructs people to request it through the Freedom of Information Act. The Pentagon released a copy of the report to The Intercept this week, nearly five years after it was originally requested...
Hoffa: CEO Pay Rule Will Help Close Wage Gap Detroit News ...Those in favor of corporate disclosure won a hard-fought victory at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last week when the agency finally decided to move ahead with a portion of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law that requires companies to report the pay gap between CEOs and rank-and-file workers...
Sun Tran Worker Strike Now In Sixth Day, Still Going Strong WTTU ...On day six of the Sun Tran worker strike, the mood at Ronstadt Transit Center in downtown, Tucson was unity and solidarity...
Nearly 30 percent Of Loudoun County’s Commuter Bus Drivers May Strike Loudoun Times Mirror ...Nearly 30 percent of the county's public transit bus drivers may go on strike if their Teamsters union and Loudoun's commuter bus contractor, Transdev, can't reach a deal on a new collective bargaining agreement...
City Council Skips Closed Session Over For Police Contract Negotiations Chicago Tribune ...Teamsters Local 700 represents 10,000 public employees across the state of Illinois, including more than 5,000 law enforcement members, according to the union's website. Forty police officers and personnel from the Park Ridge Police Department voted to join the union in May 2014. After briefly reviewing a bargaining agreement for a three-year contract with the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police, which represents seven police sergeants in Park Ridge, city councilors decided to forgo an option to take the discussion into closed session, with some alderman stating that they failed to see the advantage in keeping the talks a secret...
Global Labor & Trade
Will Trans-Pacific Trade Deal Go Up In Smoke Over Anti-Tobacco Proposal? Politico ...Big Tobacco is pushing back against a strict anti-smoking provision in the massive Trans-Pacific trade deal — and it has enlisted the support of the most powerful Republican in the Senate...
The Ripple Effects Of China's Weakening Currency The Atlantic ...China devalued its currency for the second straight day, sending markets across the region sharply lower and raising fresh concerns about the health of the world’s second-largest economy...
TPP Protesters Descend On Parliament Radio New Zealand ...The group said it was conducting a nationwide search for the full text of the TPP trade deal, and started with the ministry's Auckland headquarters. Several members of the group went into the offices, equipped with giant magnifying glasses, to demand the Government release the full TPP text by the end of the month...
State & Living Wage Battles
Long Beach City Council Votes To Study Minimum Wage Hike KPCC ...The Long Beach City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to commission a study of the impact of raising the city's minimum wage - to even higher than the wage hike coming to Los Angeles...
New York State Officials Recover More Than $18.1 Million In Wages For Short-Changed Workers New York Daily News ...During the first six months of 2015, the state Labor Department recovered more than $18.1 million for nearly 19,000 workers who were not paid the proper minimum wage, overtime or fringe benefits, officials reported. The recoveries represented a 6% increase from the same time period in 2014 and put the state on pace to surpass last year’s record of $30.2 million...
More N.J. Public Employee Unions Join Lawsuit Against Christie Over Pay Freeze NJ.com ...The state's largest state workers union and three others have joined a lawsuit against the Christie administration over its decision to freeze wages for state employees...
Railroads Face Big Fines For Failure To Meet Federal Safety Deadline Truthout ...The Federal Railroad Administration plans to impose big penalties on railroads that fail to meet a year-end deadline to install a new collision avoidance system, including more than 70 percent of the nation's commuter railroads...
Scott Walker Signs Arena Deal, Handing $400 Million To Billionaire NBA Owners Huffington Post ...Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) signed legislation Wednesday that commits hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money to a new arena for the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks, a move that could complicate the Republican presidential candidate’s efforts to paint himself as the most ardent small-government conservative in a crowded field...
U.S. Labor
Single Mothers ‘Most Likely’ To Benefit From Paid Overtime Expansion Al Jazeera America ...A proposal to extend overtime pay eligibility to millions of workers would have its biggest impact on single mothers and women of color, according to a study published Tuesday by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) and the advocacy group MomsRising...
Uber Drivers Could Earn Thousands In Benefits As Full-Time Employees Forbes ...According to a new analysis, Uber drivers in six major U.S. cities would receive paid holidays and health care benefits worth an average of $5,500 annually...
America Is Working Itself To Death: How “9 To 5″ Became “24/7″ Salon.com ...The reality is, Americans don’t just work more than they have in the past, they work more than most of the industrialized world. It’s not exactly breaking news that we spend more hours at the office — or on the assembly line or behind the coffee counter — than our European peers. A 2004 study from the National Bureau of Economic Research found Americans work “50 percent more than do the Germans, French, and Italians.” More recent data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found that in 2014, Americans outworked several expected other countries, among them Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Finland, Switzerland and Austria, all countries that (coincidentally, I’m so sure) rank higher than us on the most recent World Happiness survey...
Social Justice & Other News
Black Poverty Differs From White Poverty Washington Post ...The poverty that poor African Americans experience is often different from the poverty of poor whites. It's more isolating and concentrated. It extends out the door of a family's home and occupies the entire neighborhood around it, touching the streets, the schools, the grocery stores. A poor black family, in short, is much more likely than a poor white one to live in a neighborhood where many other families are poor, too, creating what sociologists call the "double burden" of poverty. The difference is stark in most major metropolitan areas, according to new data analyzed by Rutgers University's Paul Jargowsky in a new report for the Century Foundation...
Teachers Union Lawsuit Over State Evaluation System May Go To Trial Santa Fe New Mexican ...State District Judge Francis Mathew of Santa Fe cleared the way Tuesday for a trial on whether New Mexico’s system of evaluating teachers should remain in place...
St. Louis County Police File Charges Against 3 Journalists One Year After Ferguson Protests Think Progress ...St. Louis County police are suddenly levying an onslaught of charges against journalists who covered the Ferguson protests last year, accusing them of minor offenses days before the statute of limitations is up. This week alone, three journalists have been charged for interfering with on-duty officers — a full year after their arrests. The recent developments follow an ongoing trend of criminalizing journalists for doing their jobs...
Teaching People Not To Be Corrupt Could Save Millions Of Lives Think Progress ...Corruption takes a particularly heavy toll in developing countries which lack the political and economic infrastructure to effectively regulate businesses. “In developing countries, corruption is a killer,” said David McNair of the advocacy organization ONE. “Up to 3.6 million lives could be saved if we end the web of secrecy that helps the criminal and corrupt. When governments are deprived of their own resources to invest in the essentials — like nurses and teachers — the human cost is devastating.”...
Black Activists Know Feds Are Monitoring Them, Yet Refuse to Be Intimidated Alternet ...When Erika Totten returned to protesting in the DC area after taking a few months off last winter, law enforcement officers were waiting to greet her...
Amnesty International Is Finally On The Right Side Of The Sex Work Struggle The Nation ...“We really hope that those who have opposed Amnesty’s position in the past will reconsider their position and look at the evidence that criminalization of sex work is a key factor in our vulnerability to violence and abuse,” Stevenson told me. “We hope that this evidence-based decision by Amnesty will help other progressive organizations take a position to support sex workers’ rights.”...
Don’t Blame Citizens United For Donald Trump; Blame 1976’s Buckley v. Valeo Decision The Intercept ...If you don’t think it’s fair that billionaires like Donald Trump can run their own self-funded campaigns for president, don’t blame the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision. Blame the 1976 case Buckley v. Valeo instead. Citizens United lets billionaires give unlimited money to Super PACs trying to elect other people, but billionaires have been able to give as much money as they wanted to their own campaigns since Buckley...
The Pentagon's Half-Billion Dollar Drone Boondoggle The Intercept ...Rivalry between the Army and Air Force over Predator drones may have cost the Pentagon over $500 million in wasteful spending, according to a report released under the Freedom of Information Act. The report, which the Pentagon’s Inspector General completed in 2010, is not available on the Defense Department’s public website, which instructs people to request it through the Freedom of Information Act. The Pentagon released a copy of the report to The Intercept this week, nearly five years after it was originally requested...
Friday, April 24, 2015
Today's Teamster News 04.24.15
Teamsters
Cedar Falls Schools, Teamsters open labor talks WCF Courier ...Teamsters Local 238 is in the middle of a two-year contract with Cedar Falls Schools, and officials are only bargaining on wages and insurance, said district spokeswoman Janelle Darst. A total of 46 people are covered by the agreement, including various custodial positions, groundskeepers, mail deliverers, laundry workers, warehouse workers, plumbers, painters, carpenters, technicians and electricians...
Global Labor & Trade
Obama 'Fast Track' Trade Agenda Advances In Senate Huffington Post ...The Senate Finance Committee endorsed Obama's request for "fast track" legislation, which would renew presidential authority to present trade deals that Congress can endorse or reject but not amend. If the House and Senate eventually comply, Obama is likely to ask them to approve the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership, which involves Japan, Canada and Mexico, but not China. Other trade proposals could follow...
Obama admonishes his base on trade Politico ... President Barack Obama told his progressive base that their stance on trade is retro. While Republicans have backed fast-tracking a 12-nation Pacific trade agreement, it’s Democrats who have balked, with liberal voices like Elizabeth Warren warning that the deal would fuel outsourcing and lost wages...
Pelosi criticizes Obama-backed trade bill The Hill ...Weighing in for the first time since the trade promotion authority (TPA) legislation was introduced last week, Pelosi said the bill lacks safeguards protecting U.S. workers and fritters an historic opportunity to improve worker rights, food safety and the environment across the globe...
Democrats Balk At Obama Plan To Cut Funding For Workers Hurt By Trade Deals Huffington Post ...The rift between President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats over trade policy deepened Wednesday as the administration opposed an effort to fully restore aid for American workers who lose their jobs to international trade...
Obama is failing us all by ignoring the need for currency rules in TPP (opinion) The Guardian ...If we recognize the need to address the trade deficit, and the centrality of the value of the dollar, then it is mind-boggling that the Obama administration would not have sought to include rules on currency in the TPP. After all, the Obama administration has been in office more than six years and allowed large trade deficits to persist...
Newly Leaked TTIP Draft Reveals Far-Reaching Assault On US/EU Democracy Common Dreams ...A freshly-leaked chapter from the highly secretive Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) agreement, currently under negotiation between the United States and European Union, reveals that the so-called "free trade" deal poses an even greater threat to environmental and human rights protections—and democracy itself—than previously known, civil society organizations warn...
Hey Mr. President: Transparency Applies to the TPP, Too (opinion) Truthout.org ...when it comes to transparency you can't play pick and choose. You can't be transparent about a counterterrorism operation that went horribly wrong, but then be incredibly secretive about something like... the TPP...
State & Living Wage Battles
Illinois Lawmakers To Consider Right-To-Work WTHI ...An Illinois legislator expects Right to Work to be debated in the state legislature. Right to Work bills prohibit workers from being forced to join labor unions. Indiana and Wisconsin passed Right to Work laws amidst a huge controversy...
Democrats Are Rallying Around $12 Minimum Wage New York Times ...Democrats in Congress are uniting around a proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $12 an hour. Within the next several days, Senator Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate committee that deals with labor issues, plans to introduce a bill to increase the minimum wage, in steps, from its current level of $7.25 to $12 by 2020...
Religious Groups To Scott Walker: Don’t Drug Test The Poor Think Progress ...Wisconsin faith leaders from across the religious spectrum are calling on their state legislature to reject a proposal from Gov. Scott Walker (R) that would impose drug tests for some recipients of government-funded aid, arguing such screenings don’t work and unfairly stigmatize the poor...
NLRB Files Brief Supporting Unions' Lawsuit, Calling County Right-to-Work Laws Preempted Bloomberg News ...The National Labor Relations Board April 17 urged a federal district court in Kentucky to invalidate a county ordinance that prohibits the use of union-security provisions in collective bargaining agreements and regulates other practices that are either permitted or prohibited by federal law...
66% of San Jose’s Confirmed Wage Theft Money Goes Unawarded; Ordinance Proposed We Party Patriots ...San Jose is considering a wage theft ordinance which would help the labor commission recoup lost wages and deny permits and licenses to companies with pending wage theft violations. The proposal is similar to one passed in Santa Clara County last year. San Jose’s version is being supported by city council members Don Rocha, Margie Matthews, Ash Kalra, and Magdalena Carrasco. The ordinance has been sent to the Rules and Open Government Committee...
The homeless man who works in the Senate (opinion) Washington Post ...In the basement of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, 63-year-old Charles Gladden works alongside some of the nation’s most powerful people. But unbeknown to any of these bigwigs, or even to his employer, Gladden is homeless. Alongside hundreds of other federal contract workers, he protested the fact that our government doesn’t require the companies it does business with to pay what he considers a living wage....
U.S. Labor
Have We Seen the End of the Eight-Hour Day? The Nation ...Along with wages and conditions, hours used to be a basic concern in worker organizing. But since the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 enshrined the 40-hour week, hours have tended to be taken for granted. This is changing only because, in recent years, employers have entered a devastating new race to the bottom: Involuntary part-time is becoming the new norm for low-wage workers, together with schedules so unpredictable and varying that one can’t easily get another job, or go to school, or be a reliable parent...
Unions converge in Jersey City to protest legislation that they say will cut American jobs NJ.com ...More than 100 strong, labor leaders and union workers demonstrated at the plaza in Journal Square this afternoon, urging lawmakers to vote down a federal bill they say would take jobs away from Americans. Led by Ray Greaves, a former Bayonne City Council member and chairman of the Amalgamated Transit Union, the group -- which included the Hudson County Central Labor Council, Food & Water Watch, ATU, NJ Industrial Union Council, Anakbayan and Communications Workers of America -- spread the word to anyone in Journal Square who stopped to listen....
Miscellaneous
House Republicans vote against American consumer, again Daily Kos ...Proving once again how much disdain Republicans really have for the American public, the House passed a bill Wednesday, 250-173, to weaken the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Because they really, really don't want us to have any recourse against predatory businesses trying to fleece us...
Fed’s Rate Decisions Hang On Dollar, Growth Concerns Wall Street Journal ...The strong U.S. dollar and an unsteady global economy are emerging as primary concerns for Federal Reserve officials as they prepare for a policy meeting next week to consider the timing of the first interest-rate increase since before the financial crisis...
Airmail Via Drones Is Vexing For Prisons New York Times ...Drones flying over prison walls may not be the chief concern of corrections officials. But they say that some would-be smugglers are experimenting with the technique as an alternative to established methods like paying off officers, hiding contraband in incoming laundry and throwing packages disguised as rocks over fences into recreational yards...
It's Not The 1% Controlling Politics. It's The 0.01 Percent. Mother Jones ...In other words, about 1,200 Americans control more than 40 percent of election contributions. Notably, between 2010 and 2012, the total share of giving by these donors jumped more than 10 percentage points. That shift is likely the direct result of the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United ruling, which struck down decades of fundraising limits and kicked off the super-PAC era. And this data only includes publicly disclosed donations, not dark money, which almost certainly means that the megadonors' actual share of total political spending is even higher...
Inequality’s Big Enabler? The Tax Code. (opinion) Washington Post ...Of the 10 largest tax expenditures, only two — the $70 billion-per-year earned-income tax credit and the $57 billion child tax credit — favor the poor. The others disproportionately benefit the top 20 percent of earners, according to a Congressional Budget Office report...
Cedar Falls Schools, Teamsters open labor talks WCF Courier ...Teamsters Local 238 is in the middle of a two-year contract with Cedar Falls Schools, and officials are only bargaining on wages and insurance, said district spokeswoman Janelle Darst. A total of 46 people are covered by the agreement, including various custodial positions, groundskeepers, mail deliverers, laundry workers, warehouse workers, plumbers, painters, carpenters, technicians and electricians...
Global Labor & Trade
Obama 'Fast Track' Trade Agenda Advances In Senate Huffington Post ...The Senate Finance Committee endorsed Obama's request for "fast track" legislation, which would renew presidential authority to present trade deals that Congress can endorse or reject but not amend. If the House and Senate eventually comply, Obama is likely to ask them to approve the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership, which involves Japan, Canada and Mexico, but not China. Other trade proposals could follow...
Obama admonishes his base on trade Politico ... President Barack Obama told his progressive base that their stance on trade is retro. While Republicans have backed fast-tracking a 12-nation Pacific trade agreement, it’s Democrats who have balked, with liberal voices like Elizabeth Warren warning that the deal would fuel outsourcing and lost wages...
Pelosi criticizes Obama-backed trade bill The Hill ...Weighing in for the first time since the trade promotion authority (TPA) legislation was introduced last week, Pelosi said the bill lacks safeguards protecting U.S. workers and fritters an historic opportunity to improve worker rights, food safety and the environment across the globe...
Democrats Balk At Obama Plan To Cut Funding For Workers Hurt By Trade Deals Huffington Post ...The rift between President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats over trade policy deepened Wednesday as the administration opposed an effort to fully restore aid for American workers who lose their jobs to international trade...
Obama is failing us all by ignoring the need for currency rules in TPP (opinion) The Guardian ...If we recognize the need to address the trade deficit, and the centrality of the value of the dollar, then it is mind-boggling that the Obama administration would not have sought to include rules on currency in the TPP. After all, the Obama administration has been in office more than six years and allowed large trade deficits to persist...
Newly Leaked TTIP Draft Reveals Far-Reaching Assault On US/EU Democracy Common Dreams ...A freshly-leaked chapter from the highly secretive Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) agreement, currently under negotiation between the United States and European Union, reveals that the so-called "free trade" deal poses an even greater threat to environmental and human rights protections—and democracy itself—than previously known, civil society organizations warn...
Hey Mr. President: Transparency Applies to the TPP, Too (opinion) Truthout.org ...when it comes to transparency you can't play pick and choose. You can't be transparent about a counterterrorism operation that went horribly wrong, but then be incredibly secretive about something like... the TPP...
State & Living Wage Battles
Illinois Lawmakers To Consider Right-To-Work WTHI ...An Illinois legislator expects Right to Work to be debated in the state legislature. Right to Work bills prohibit workers from being forced to join labor unions. Indiana and Wisconsin passed Right to Work laws amidst a huge controversy...
Democrats Are Rallying Around $12 Minimum Wage New York Times ...Democrats in Congress are uniting around a proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $12 an hour. Within the next several days, Senator Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate committee that deals with labor issues, plans to introduce a bill to increase the minimum wage, in steps, from its current level of $7.25 to $12 by 2020...
Religious Groups To Scott Walker: Don’t Drug Test The Poor Think Progress ...Wisconsin faith leaders from across the religious spectrum are calling on their state legislature to reject a proposal from Gov. Scott Walker (R) that would impose drug tests for some recipients of government-funded aid, arguing such screenings don’t work and unfairly stigmatize the poor...
NLRB Files Brief Supporting Unions' Lawsuit, Calling County Right-to-Work Laws Preempted Bloomberg News ...The National Labor Relations Board April 17 urged a federal district court in Kentucky to invalidate a county ordinance that prohibits the use of union-security provisions in collective bargaining agreements and regulates other practices that are either permitted or prohibited by federal law...
66% of San Jose’s Confirmed Wage Theft Money Goes Unawarded; Ordinance Proposed We Party Patriots ...San Jose is considering a wage theft ordinance which would help the labor commission recoup lost wages and deny permits and licenses to companies with pending wage theft violations. The proposal is similar to one passed in Santa Clara County last year. San Jose’s version is being supported by city council members Don Rocha, Margie Matthews, Ash Kalra, and Magdalena Carrasco. The ordinance has been sent to the Rules and Open Government Committee...
The homeless man who works in the Senate (opinion) Washington Post ...In the basement of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, 63-year-old Charles Gladden works alongside some of the nation’s most powerful people. But unbeknown to any of these bigwigs, or even to his employer, Gladden is homeless. Alongside hundreds of other federal contract workers, he protested the fact that our government doesn’t require the companies it does business with to pay what he considers a living wage....
U.S. Labor
Have We Seen the End of the Eight-Hour Day? The Nation ...Along with wages and conditions, hours used to be a basic concern in worker organizing. But since the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 enshrined the 40-hour week, hours have tended to be taken for granted. This is changing only because, in recent years, employers have entered a devastating new race to the bottom: Involuntary part-time is becoming the new norm for low-wage workers, together with schedules so unpredictable and varying that one can’t easily get another job, or go to school, or be a reliable parent...
Unions converge in Jersey City to protest legislation that they say will cut American jobs NJ.com ...More than 100 strong, labor leaders and union workers demonstrated at the plaza in Journal Square this afternoon, urging lawmakers to vote down a federal bill they say would take jobs away from Americans. Led by Ray Greaves, a former Bayonne City Council member and chairman of the Amalgamated Transit Union, the group -- which included the Hudson County Central Labor Council, Food & Water Watch, ATU, NJ Industrial Union Council, Anakbayan and Communications Workers of America -- spread the word to anyone in Journal Square who stopped to listen....
Miscellaneous
House Republicans vote against American consumer, again Daily Kos ...Proving once again how much disdain Republicans really have for the American public, the House passed a bill Wednesday, 250-173, to weaken the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Because they really, really don't want us to have any recourse against predatory businesses trying to fleece us...
Fed’s Rate Decisions Hang On Dollar, Growth Concerns Wall Street Journal ...The strong U.S. dollar and an unsteady global economy are emerging as primary concerns for Federal Reserve officials as they prepare for a policy meeting next week to consider the timing of the first interest-rate increase since before the financial crisis...
Airmail Via Drones Is Vexing For Prisons New York Times ...Drones flying over prison walls may not be the chief concern of corrections officials. But they say that some would-be smugglers are experimenting with the technique as an alternative to established methods like paying off officers, hiding contraband in incoming laundry and throwing packages disguised as rocks over fences into recreational yards...
It's Not The 1% Controlling Politics. It's The 0.01 Percent. Mother Jones ...In other words, about 1,200 Americans control more than 40 percent of election contributions. Notably, between 2010 and 2012, the total share of giving by these donors jumped more than 10 percentage points. That shift is likely the direct result of the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United ruling, which struck down decades of fundraising limits and kicked off the super-PAC era. And this data only includes publicly disclosed donations, not dark money, which almost certainly means that the megadonors' actual share of total political spending is even higher...
Inequality’s Big Enabler? The Tax Code. (opinion) Washington Post ...Of the 10 largest tax expenditures, only two — the $70 billion-per-year earned-income tax credit and the $57 billion child tax credit — favor the poor. The others disproportionately benefit the top 20 percent of earners, according to a Congressional Budget Office report...
Thursday, April 2, 2015
Today's Teamster News 04.02.15
Trade
Australia should fix trade deal investor protection Financial review ...Two weeks ago an international arbitration panel awarded a US company compensation for the way its quarry project in Canada was "unfairly" rejected on environmental and planning grounds...
In Press Call, Progressives Announce Anti-Fast Track Activities Nationwide Public Citizen ...Hundreds of progressive organizations are engaged nationwide in two action-packed weeks of rallies, press events, briefings, bird-dogging events, phone banks,canvasses and more to build opposition against Fast Tracking the Trans-Pacific Partnership...
Blame Bad Trade For Hurting America's Steel Industry Alternet ...Sucker punched by massive, illegally subsidized imports, American steel producers laid off thousands of workers in bedrock communities from Ohio and Illinois to Texas and Alabama. That’s in just the past three months...
ISDS A Bigger Threat Than ISIS (opinion) Wanganui Chronicle ...The Investor-State Dispute Settlement. ISDS is a means whereby investors (read corporations) may sue a government for lost corporate profits due to regulatory barriers of the defendant country. Regulatory barriers like environmental protections, health and safety rules, generic pharmaceuticals. ISDS is part of the invasive TPPA (TransPacific Partnership Agreement), a trade agreement written to benefit multinational corporations....
Cambodian Child Labor Laws Flouted With Fake IDs The Guardian ...“For many children in Cambodia, the child protection situation is dire,” says Unicef’s chief of communication...
State Battles
Seattle Minimum Wage Up To $11 For Most Wednesday KING ...Seattle's minimum wage is increasing to $11 for most businesses on Wednesday. It's the start of a phased increase to $15 per hour over the next several years...
City Council Pushes To Raise Minimum Wage WDAF ...The Kansas City council will consider an ordinance to raise minimum wage within the city to $15 an hour. Mayor Sly James talked about the ordinance during his state of the city address. The ordinance would begin raising the minimum wage within the city to $10 by September and then up to $15 by 2021...
Perez And Garcetti Take Aim At Wage Theft, Minimum Wage Los Angeles Times ...On Tuesday, Los Angeles County supervisors voted 5 to 0 to study the possible effects of boosting wage floors at the county level. City leaders in Los Angeles are considering an increase in the minimum wage to $13.25 or $15.25 an hour from the state minimum of $9 an hour...
Oil Trains To Pay More In State Fees Albany Times Union ...The state will collect millions of dollars more from companies that ship oil from the Midwest in massive trains that pass through the Capital Region and other parts of the state under language contained in the state budget hammered out by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and lawmakers...
BNSF Implements New Safety Rules For Oil Trains Flathead Beacon ...In an effort to safely move massive oil trains from North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields, BNSF Railway has told shippers that it is implementing its own rules to try and prevent explosive derailments and accidental spills...
War on Workers
Student Debt Strikers Grow in Number and in Power truthout ...Just over a month ago, Waging Nonviolence reported that 15 former students of Corinthian Colleges — the beleaguered, notorious for-profit higher education system — were going on strike; not from their jobs, or from class, but from their debt. Today, there are over 100 debt strikers...
McDonald’s to Raise Pay at Outlets It Operates New York Times ...McDonald's announced on Wednesday that it would raise wages and offer new benefits to 90,000 employees in he 1,500 outlets in the United States that it owns and operates, responding to competitive pressure from a tighter job market and to labor campaigns drawing public attention to its pay policies...
Republicans Take Aim At Union ‘Official Time’ For Federal Employees Washington Post ...House and Senate Republicans have introduced bills to bar federal employees from performing union work on the government’s dime, a practice that has been allowed since 1978 under the Civil Service Reform Act...
Worker Killed In Fall At Site New Braunfels Herald Zeitung ...A San Antonio construction worker died as a result of an accident he had while working Tuesday in New Braunfels, a New Braunfels Police Department spokesman said. Authorities said Victor Echartea-Medina, 41, fell from about four stories up before being rushed in an ambulance to Resolute Health Hospital in town. The man died from his injuries...
Miscellaneous
DOJ Inspector General: ATF, FBI's Drones Worthless, Expensive And Completely Mismanaged Techdirt ...$3 million spent on drones, with only half currently considered "operational." In eight years (2006-2014), the drones have only been deployed to assist in 13 investigations, with nine of those occurring in the last four years. This may be good news for those concerned about extensive domestic surveillance, but it's not good news for those interested in how their tax dollars are being spent...
Australia should fix trade deal investor protection Financial review ...Two weeks ago an international arbitration panel awarded a US company compensation for the way its quarry project in Canada was "unfairly" rejected on environmental and planning grounds...
In Press Call, Progressives Announce Anti-Fast Track Activities Nationwide Public Citizen ...Hundreds of progressive organizations are engaged nationwide in two action-packed weeks of rallies, press events, briefings, bird-dogging events, phone banks,canvasses and more to build opposition against Fast Tracking the Trans-Pacific Partnership...
Blame Bad Trade For Hurting America's Steel Industry Alternet ...Sucker punched by massive, illegally subsidized imports, American steel producers laid off thousands of workers in bedrock communities from Ohio and Illinois to Texas and Alabama. That’s in just the past three months...
ISDS A Bigger Threat Than ISIS (opinion) Wanganui Chronicle ...The Investor-State Dispute Settlement. ISDS is a means whereby investors (read corporations) may sue a government for lost corporate profits due to regulatory barriers of the defendant country. Regulatory barriers like environmental protections, health and safety rules, generic pharmaceuticals. ISDS is part of the invasive TPPA (TransPacific Partnership Agreement), a trade agreement written to benefit multinational corporations....
Cambodian Child Labor Laws Flouted With Fake IDs The Guardian ...“For many children in Cambodia, the child protection situation is dire,” says Unicef’s chief of communication...
State Battles
Seattle Minimum Wage Up To $11 For Most Wednesday KING ...Seattle's minimum wage is increasing to $11 for most businesses on Wednesday. It's the start of a phased increase to $15 per hour over the next several years...
City Council Pushes To Raise Minimum Wage WDAF ...The Kansas City council will consider an ordinance to raise minimum wage within the city to $15 an hour. Mayor Sly James talked about the ordinance during his state of the city address. The ordinance would begin raising the minimum wage within the city to $10 by September and then up to $15 by 2021...
Perez And Garcetti Take Aim At Wage Theft, Minimum Wage Los Angeles Times ...On Tuesday, Los Angeles County supervisors voted 5 to 0 to study the possible effects of boosting wage floors at the county level. City leaders in Los Angeles are considering an increase in the minimum wage to $13.25 or $15.25 an hour from the state minimum of $9 an hour...
Oil Trains To Pay More In State Fees Albany Times Union ...The state will collect millions of dollars more from companies that ship oil from the Midwest in massive trains that pass through the Capital Region and other parts of the state under language contained in the state budget hammered out by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and lawmakers...
BNSF Implements New Safety Rules For Oil Trains Flathead Beacon ...In an effort to safely move massive oil trains from North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields, BNSF Railway has told shippers that it is implementing its own rules to try and prevent explosive derailments and accidental spills...
War on Workers
Student Debt Strikers Grow in Number and in Power truthout ...Just over a month ago, Waging Nonviolence reported that 15 former students of Corinthian Colleges — the beleaguered, notorious for-profit higher education system — were going on strike; not from their jobs, or from class, but from their debt. Today, there are over 100 debt strikers...
McDonald’s to Raise Pay at Outlets It Operates New York Times ...McDonald's announced on Wednesday that it would raise wages and offer new benefits to 90,000 employees in he 1,500 outlets in the United States that it owns and operates, responding to competitive pressure from a tighter job market and to labor campaigns drawing public attention to its pay policies...
Republicans Take Aim At Union ‘Official Time’ For Federal Employees Washington Post ...House and Senate Republicans have introduced bills to bar federal employees from performing union work on the government’s dime, a practice that has been allowed since 1978 under the Civil Service Reform Act...
Worker Killed In Fall At Site New Braunfels Herald Zeitung ...A San Antonio construction worker died as a result of an accident he had while working Tuesday in New Braunfels, a New Braunfels Police Department spokesman said. Authorities said Victor Echartea-Medina, 41, fell from about four stories up before being rushed in an ambulance to Resolute Health Hospital in town. The man died from his injuries...
Miscellaneous
DOJ Inspector General: ATF, FBI's Drones Worthless, Expensive And Completely Mismanaged Techdirt ...$3 million spent on drones, with only half currently considered "operational." In eight years (2006-2014), the drones have only been deployed to assist in 13 investigations, with nine of those occurring in the last four years. This may be good news for those concerned about extensive domestic surveillance, but it's not good news for those interested in how their tax dollars are being spent...
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Today's Teamster News 03.31.15
Teamsters
Techs At St. Vincent Hospital Seek To Unionize Worcester Telegram ...Approximately 200 technicians have applied to the Boston bureau of the National Labor Relations Board for an election to join Teamsters Local 170 in Worcester...
As Dark Money Monsters Torment Investors, Shareholders Need SEC Chair To Be Superhero; They Ask: ‘Where Is Mary Jo White?’ Public Citizen ...Jim Hoffa, general president, Teamsters. The Teamsters invest more than $100 billion in the capital markets through affiliated pension and benefit funds...
Trade
U.S.-Korea Trade Deal Resulted In Growing Trade Deficits And More Than 75,000 Lost U.S. Jobs Economic Policy Institute ...March 15th was the third anniversary of the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS). President Obama said that the agreement would support 70,000 U.S. jobs...
Digital Rights Activists Use Jumbotron ‘Film Fest’ To Pressure Ron Wyden Go Local PDX ...The Digital Rights group Fight for the Future, a posse of internet activists currently campaigning against an international trade deal they say would give officials too much power to censor online content, brought its message to Capitol Hill Monday...
City Council Opposes Fast Track For Pacific Rim Trade Pact Seattle Times ...Seattle City Council on Monday unanimously passed a resolution opposing the so-called fast-track consideration of the Trans-Pacific Partnership...
UAW, Dems Rally Against TPP Trade Agreement Detroit News ...Lortz, who works at the Toledo Assembly Complex producing the Jeep Cherokee, was one of hundreds of union members and others to attend an anti-TPP forum featuring U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Toledo, and local UAW leaders...
State Battles
Indiana Lawmakers Try To Quiet Firestorm Surrounding New Law Associated Press ...Gov. Mike Pence called off public appearances Monday and sports officials planned an "Indy Welcomes All" campaign ahead of this weekend's Final Four as lawmakers scrambled to quiet the firestorm over a new law that has much of the country portraying Indiana as a state of intolerance...
Senate To Consider Bill Raising Washington's Minimum Wage News Tribune ...A bill to raise Washington's highest-in-the-nation state minimum wage to $12-an-hour with a series of annual 50-cent increases is set to get a hearing in the state Senate...
War on Workers
Movement To Increase McDonald’s Minimum Wage Broadens Its Tactics New York Times ...in the wave of actions on April 15, organizers say more than 60,000 people will join strikes and protests in 200 cities nationwide...
NLRB To Weigh In On High-Stakes McDonald’s Labor Dispute The Hill ...An NLRB administrative law judge on Monday will begin weighing whether McDonald’s should be responsible for what employees say are poor working conditions and low pay at many of its franchise restaurants. A finding in the affirmative would mark the first time that a major franchisor would be found culpable for labor violations at individual chains...
U.S. Signed Agreement With Mexico To Teach Immigrants To Unionize Washington Examiner ...The federal government has signed agreements with three foreign countries — Mexico, Ecuador and the Philippines — to establish outreach programs to teach immigrants their rights to engage in labor organizing in the U.S...
After A Story Is Published, A Minimum Wage Worker Loses Her Job Washington Post ...When I wrote about her in The Post last month, she said the minimum wage hike would bring her a bit of financial relief, but it wouldn’t lift her above the poverty line. She called me the other day to say she didn’t get to enjoy the 25-cent hike for long...
Legions Of Women Workers In U.S. Still Lack Minimum Wage And Labor Protections American Prospect ...Today, the National Labor Relations Act still excludes domestic workers and farm laborers, and the Fair Labor Standards Act does not require overtime for farmworkers or even the minimum wage or overtime for many domestic workers. The implications of these exclusions have been profound, denying a growing workforce the basic workplace protections most of us take for granted...
In Surprise Show Of Support, Filibuster-Proof Senate Majority Backs Paid Sick Leave Washington Post ...Just a few weeks ago, the Healthy Families Act — which would allow employees to earn up to seven days of paid sick leave — seemed like just another White House proposal doomed to die in the newly Republican Senate. But this afternoon, it gained a surprise vote of confidence: 61 senators voted for an amendment to the budget that would do essentially the same thing...
Lawmakers Aim To Toughen Laws On Oil Trains Herald Net ...A spate of oil train accidents the past two years has fueled state and federal lawmakers' concerns about the ability of railroads to safely transport the material and the capability of communities to respond to an incident...
Don't Undermine Open Skies (opinion) USA Today ...The big three U.S. carriers — United Airlines, American Airlines and Delta Air Lines — are rightly asking the Department of Transportation to initiate talks with the UAE and Qatar over their estimated $40 billion in subsidies over a decade...
Miami Beach Maintenance Worker Killed By Flying Tabletop Miami Herald ...A Miami Beach maintenance worker was killed Friday night in what police called an unfortunate accident caused by bad weather...
Worker Killed In Blast At Berks Plant Allentown Morning Call ...Authorities say a worker was killed in an explosion at an eastern Pennsylvania manufacturing plant...
Miscellaneous
Amazon Tests Delivery Drones At Secret Canada Site After US Frustration The Guardian ...The company wants to offer its customers the ability to have packages dropped on their doorstep by flying robots within 30 minutes of ordering goods online. With innovation in the drone sector reaching lightning speeds, Amazon said it was not prepared to curtail its ambitions because of what Misener said was a lack of “impetus” on the US side of the border...
Techs At St. Vincent Hospital Seek To Unionize Worcester Telegram ...Approximately 200 technicians have applied to the Boston bureau of the National Labor Relations Board for an election to join Teamsters Local 170 in Worcester...
As Dark Money Monsters Torment Investors, Shareholders Need SEC Chair To Be Superhero; They Ask: ‘Where Is Mary Jo White?’ Public Citizen ...Jim Hoffa, general president, Teamsters. The Teamsters invest more than $100 billion in the capital markets through affiliated pension and benefit funds...
Trade
U.S.-Korea Trade Deal Resulted In Growing Trade Deficits And More Than 75,000 Lost U.S. Jobs Economic Policy Institute ...March 15th was the third anniversary of the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS). President Obama said that the agreement would support 70,000 U.S. jobs...
Digital Rights Activists Use Jumbotron ‘Film Fest’ To Pressure Ron Wyden Go Local PDX ...The Digital Rights group Fight for the Future, a posse of internet activists currently campaigning against an international trade deal they say would give officials too much power to censor online content, brought its message to Capitol Hill Monday...
City Council Opposes Fast Track For Pacific Rim Trade Pact Seattle Times ...Seattle City Council on Monday unanimously passed a resolution opposing the so-called fast-track consideration of the Trans-Pacific Partnership...
UAW, Dems Rally Against TPP Trade Agreement Detroit News ...Lortz, who works at the Toledo Assembly Complex producing the Jeep Cherokee, was one of hundreds of union members and others to attend an anti-TPP forum featuring U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Toledo, and local UAW leaders...
State Battles
Indiana Lawmakers Try To Quiet Firestorm Surrounding New Law Associated Press ...Gov. Mike Pence called off public appearances Monday and sports officials planned an "Indy Welcomes All" campaign ahead of this weekend's Final Four as lawmakers scrambled to quiet the firestorm over a new law that has much of the country portraying Indiana as a state of intolerance...
Senate To Consider Bill Raising Washington's Minimum Wage News Tribune ...A bill to raise Washington's highest-in-the-nation state minimum wage to $12-an-hour with a series of annual 50-cent increases is set to get a hearing in the state Senate...
War on Workers
Movement To Increase McDonald’s Minimum Wage Broadens Its Tactics New York Times ...in the wave of actions on April 15, organizers say more than 60,000 people will join strikes and protests in 200 cities nationwide...
NLRB To Weigh In On High-Stakes McDonald’s Labor Dispute The Hill ...An NLRB administrative law judge on Monday will begin weighing whether McDonald’s should be responsible for what employees say are poor working conditions and low pay at many of its franchise restaurants. A finding in the affirmative would mark the first time that a major franchisor would be found culpable for labor violations at individual chains...
U.S. Signed Agreement With Mexico To Teach Immigrants To Unionize Washington Examiner ...The federal government has signed agreements with three foreign countries — Mexico, Ecuador and the Philippines — to establish outreach programs to teach immigrants their rights to engage in labor organizing in the U.S...
After A Story Is Published, A Minimum Wage Worker Loses Her Job Washington Post ...When I wrote about her in The Post last month, she said the minimum wage hike would bring her a bit of financial relief, but it wouldn’t lift her above the poverty line. She called me the other day to say she didn’t get to enjoy the 25-cent hike for long...
Legions Of Women Workers In U.S. Still Lack Minimum Wage And Labor Protections American Prospect ...Today, the National Labor Relations Act still excludes domestic workers and farm laborers, and the Fair Labor Standards Act does not require overtime for farmworkers or even the minimum wage or overtime for many domestic workers. The implications of these exclusions have been profound, denying a growing workforce the basic workplace protections most of us take for granted...
In Surprise Show Of Support, Filibuster-Proof Senate Majority Backs Paid Sick Leave Washington Post ...Just a few weeks ago, the Healthy Families Act — which would allow employees to earn up to seven days of paid sick leave — seemed like just another White House proposal doomed to die in the newly Republican Senate. But this afternoon, it gained a surprise vote of confidence: 61 senators voted for an amendment to the budget that would do essentially the same thing...
Lawmakers Aim To Toughen Laws On Oil Trains Herald Net ...A spate of oil train accidents the past two years has fueled state and federal lawmakers' concerns about the ability of railroads to safely transport the material and the capability of communities to respond to an incident...
Don't Undermine Open Skies (opinion) USA Today ...The big three U.S. carriers — United Airlines, American Airlines and Delta Air Lines — are rightly asking the Department of Transportation to initiate talks with the UAE and Qatar over their estimated $40 billion in subsidies over a decade...
Miami Beach Maintenance Worker Killed By Flying Tabletop Miami Herald ...A Miami Beach maintenance worker was killed Friday night in what police called an unfortunate accident caused by bad weather...
Worker Killed In Blast At Berks Plant Allentown Morning Call ...Authorities say a worker was killed in an explosion at an eastern Pennsylvania manufacturing plant...
Miscellaneous
Amazon Tests Delivery Drones At Secret Canada Site After US Frustration The Guardian ...The company wants to offer its customers the ability to have packages dropped on their doorstep by flying robots within 30 minutes of ordering goods online. With innovation in the drone sector reaching lightning speeds, Amazon said it was not prepared to curtail its ambitions because of what Misener said was a lack of “impetus” on the US side of the border...
Sunday, March 22, 2015
Today's Teamster News 03.22.15
Teamsters
Profiles of a Community teamster.org ...Seattle Teamsters Explore Diverse Membership...
Trade
Senate's Hatch says making progress on fast-track trade talks Reuters ... Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, a Republican, said on Monday he is making progress with his Democratic colleagues on a bill to streamline the passage of free-trade deals through Congress...
State Battles
Session recap: House leaders point fingers NM Political Report ...The 2015 New Mexico Legislative Session ended on Saturday with House leaders from both parties pointing fingers and assigning blame on high profile legislation that failed to pass.... Gentry said he was disappointed with many other bills that stalled in the Senate. Third grade retention, right-to-work and a repeal of the law allowing those in the country illegally to obtain driver’s licenses were the major pieces of legislation that Gentry said were strategically held up in the Senate, despite his efforts...
War on Workers
Delivery Drones Hit Bumps on Path to Doorstep Wall Street Journal ...Companies hoping to use drones to deliver small packages are confronting technical hurdles such as battery life and weather that are at least as vexing as proposed U.S. regulatory limits...
Mexican farmworkers strike over low wages, blocking harvest Los Angeles Times ...The strike, which began Tuesday, has shut down schools and stores across the region and focused attention on alleged labor abuses at agribusinesses that export millions of tons of produce to the U.S. every year. Among those targeted are U.S.-based BerryMex, which grows strawberries and raspberries sold under the Driscoll label....
Who Needs a Boss? New York Times ...Research findings about employee-owned bsuinesses are rarely negative -- they are either just as good as regular businesses, or they are more productive, less susceptible to failure, more attentive to quality and less likely to lay off workers in a downturn...
Commentary: Defending unions against the haters (opinion) Chicago Tribune ...Restricting union growth has always been bad for workers' economic and political freedom. The cumulative weight of decades of social science has unquestionably demonstrated that union-bargained contracts provide workers with higher incomes, more and better benefits, and a stronger "voice" in the workplace...
58-year-old Worker Dies Due to Ignored Safety Hazards Occupational Health & Safety ...A maintenance worker was killed after being pinned down between a scrap metal table and a railing at Hussmann Corp.’s Bridgeton facility, according to a news release. OSHA has cited the company for three willful and 12 serious safety violations...
Profiles of a Community teamster.org ...Seattle Teamsters Explore Diverse Membership...
Trade
Senate's Hatch says making progress on fast-track trade talks Reuters ... Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, a Republican, said on Monday he is making progress with his Democratic colleagues on a bill to streamline the passage of free-trade deals through Congress...
State Battles
Session recap: House leaders point fingers NM Political Report ...The 2015 New Mexico Legislative Session ended on Saturday with House leaders from both parties pointing fingers and assigning blame on high profile legislation that failed to pass.... Gentry said he was disappointed with many other bills that stalled in the Senate. Third grade retention, right-to-work and a repeal of the law allowing those in the country illegally to obtain driver’s licenses were the major pieces of legislation that Gentry said were strategically held up in the Senate, despite his efforts...
War on Workers
Delivery Drones Hit Bumps on Path to Doorstep Wall Street Journal ...Companies hoping to use drones to deliver small packages are confronting technical hurdles such as battery life and weather that are at least as vexing as proposed U.S. regulatory limits...
Mexican farmworkers strike over low wages, blocking harvest Los Angeles Times ...The strike, which began Tuesday, has shut down schools and stores across the region and focused attention on alleged labor abuses at agribusinesses that export millions of tons of produce to the U.S. every year. Among those targeted are U.S.-based BerryMex, which grows strawberries and raspberries sold under the Driscoll label....
Who Needs a Boss? New York Times ...Research findings about employee-owned bsuinesses are rarely negative -- they are either just as good as regular businesses, or they are more productive, less susceptible to failure, more attentive to quality and less likely to lay off workers in a downturn...
Commentary: Defending unions against the haters (opinion) Chicago Tribune ...Restricting union growth has always been bad for workers' economic and political freedom. The cumulative weight of decades of social science has unquestionably demonstrated that union-bargained contracts provide workers with higher incomes, more and better benefits, and a stronger "voice" in the workplace...
58-year-old Worker Dies Due to Ignored Safety Hazards Occupational Health & Safety ...A maintenance worker was killed after being pinned down between a scrap metal table and a railing at Hussmann Corp.’s Bridgeton facility, according to a news release. OSHA has cited the company for three willful and 12 serious safety violations...
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Today's Teamster News 02.24.15
Teamsters
Teamsters Protest Labatt Beer At Buffalo Pond Hockey Tournament teamster.org ...At the Labatt Blue Pond Hockey tournament this weekend, Teamster members distributed information to fans about Heidelberg Distributing’s abusive behavior towards its drivers and warehouse workers. Heidelberg distributes Labatt Beer products in Ohio...
Unionized UC Berkeley Workers Rally Against New Pay Calculations Daily Californian ...Teamsters Local 2010 said in a press release that the goals of this rally were not only to educate the public on the employees’ grievances with the UC system but also to highlight the pay that UC employees receive. According to a recent Economic Policy Institute study cited in the press release, 80 percent of the union’s members are not paid enough to live in the cities in which their campuses reside...
Sysco Not In Talks To Settle U.S. Lawsuit To Stop Merger Reuters ...Sysco Corp is not holding settlement talks with the U.S. government to resolve a lawsuit aimed at stopping a $3.5 billion merger of the food distributor and its largest rival, a lawyer for Sysco said on Friday...
Trade
Medicines forecast to cost taxpayers millions more in secret TPP trade deal Guardian ...Medicines will cost Australian taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars more each year if measures in a leaked draft of the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement are implemented, a new report says...
Japan's Amari: Japan-U.S. TPP talks are behind schedule Reuters …Chief negotiators for the TPP deal will meet in Hawaii for talks in the second week of March, the U.S. trade office said on Friday, a move which could delay a final agreement on the pact…
Froman asks county officials to back Obama trade policies AgriPulse ...U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman today called on county government officials from across the country to support President Obama's request for trade promotion authority and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal...
State Battles
Scott Walker Pushes ALEC 'Right to Work' Bill, Divide and Conquer Comes Full Circle Huffington Post ...Wisconsin GOP leaders announced they would have an "extraordinary session" to ram through union-busting "right to work" legislation. CMD/PRwatch quickly noted that the bill is taken almost word-for-word from the Koch corporate bill mill known as the American Legislative Exchange Council known as "ALEC."...
Bell Right-To-Work Amendment Passes Senate Augusta Free Press ...Current law provides that a citizen cannot be denied the employment or continuation of employment for failing to join a union or other labor organization. This amendment, sponsored by Delegate Dickie Bell, R-Staunton, would make Virginia’s Right to Work law more permanent by adding it to the constitution...
Walker’s Anti-Union Law Has Labor Reeling In Wisconsin Washington Post ...Walker had vowed that union power would shrink, workers would be judged on their merits, and local governments would save money. Unions had warned that workers would lose benefits and be forced to take on second jobs or find new careers. Many of those changes came to pass, but the once-thriving public-sector unions were not just shrunken — they were crippled...
House set to vote on liquor privatization bill despite concerns that members may not know what's in it PennLive ...In its first significant piece of business in the 2015-16 legislative session, the state House of Representatives is poised to vote this week on a bill that would get the state out of the liquor business. But some wonder how many legislators casting votes really know what the bill would do...
Indiana State AFL-CIO President Reacts to House Approval of Common Construction Wage Repeal Indiana State AFL-CIO ..."With today’s vote in the House of Representatives, the Republican supermajority has attacked the wages of working Hoosiers, a successful private sector business model and the autonomy of local governments...."
War on Workers
Oil, Ethanol Trains Will Derail 10 Times A Year For 2 Decades, Federal Government Estimates The Oregonian ...The federal government predicts trains hauling crude oil or ethanol will derail an average of 10 times a year during the next two decades, causing more than $4 billion in damage and possibly killing hundreds of people if an accident happens in a densely populated part of the U.S...
In service sector, no rest for the working New York Times ...Employees are literally losing sleep as restaurants, retailers and many other businesses shrink the intervals between shifts and rely on smaller, leaner staffs to shave costs. These scheduling practices can take a toll on employees who have to squeeze commuting, family duties and sleep into fewer hours between shifts. The growing practice of the same workers closing the doors at night and returning to open them in the morning even has its own name: "clopening."...
Seattle, Tacoma, other ports busy again after tentative labor deal Associated Press ...Nearly all West Coast seaports began the work week with crews hustling to load and unload cargo ships that were held up amid a months-long dispute over a new contract for dockworkers...
Look who's living on the financial edge CNBC …24 percent of Americans have more credit card debt than emergency savings, and 13 percent are not much better off—they don't have credit card debt but they don't have emergency savings either. Put another way, more than a third of Americans are living at risk of a financial crisis…
Worker killed in accident at Alcoa plant Associated Press … An Alcoa plant employee was killed about 6:30 p.m. Monday in what's being termed an "accident" at the Tennessee Operations North Plant, according to an Alcoa spokeswoman...
Why We're All Becoming Independent Contractors (opinion) Huffington Post ...The rise of "independent contractors" is the most significant legal trend in the American workforce -- contributing directly to low pay, irregular hours, and job insecurity...
Knowledge Isn’t Power (opinion) New York Times ...We could levy higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy, and invest the proceeds in programs that help working families. We could raise the minimum wage and make it easier for workers to organize. It’s not hard to imagine a truly serious effort to make America less unequal...
Drones Are The New Buzz In Ag Business Yakima Herald Republic ...Farmers already are using drones in the area and throughout the nation, albeit by stretching the limits of rapidly changing regulations. They purchase the planes online. Some allow users to control them with a smartphone application, turning their screen into a virtual cockpit...
Miscellaneous
Crackdown On Drones Goes Local USA Today ...Since 2012, 15 states have enacted laws restricting drones in some way, according to data from the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), which tracks state laws. And if New York City Council Member Dan Garodnick gets his way, drones will be banned in the Big Apple, except for police with a warrant, as soon as this year...
Teamsters Protest Labatt Beer At Buffalo Pond Hockey Tournament teamster.org ...At the Labatt Blue Pond Hockey tournament this weekend, Teamster members distributed information to fans about Heidelberg Distributing’s abusive behavior towards its drivers and warehouse workers. Heidelberg distributes Labatt Beer products in Ohio...
Unionized UC Berkeley Workers Rally Against New Pay Calculations Daily Californian ...Teamsters Local 2010 said in a press release that the goals of this rally were not only to educate the public on the employees’ grievances with the UC system but also to highlight the pay that UC employees receive. According to a recent Economic Policy Institute study cited in the press release, 80 percent of the union’s members are not paid enough to live in the cities in which their campuses reside...
Sysco Not In Talks To Settle U.S. Lawsuit To Stop Merger Reuters ...Sysco Corp is not holding settlement talks with the U.S. government to resolve a lawsuit aimed at stopping a $3.5 billion merger of the food distributor and its largest rival, a lawyer for Sysco said on Friday...
Trade
Medicines forecast to cost taxpayers millions more in secret TPP trade deal Guardian ...Medicines will cost Australian taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars more each year if measures in a leaked draft of the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement are implemented, a new report says...
Japan's Amari: Japan-U.S. TPP talks are behind schedule Reuters …Chief negotiators for the TPP deal will meet in Hawaii for talks in the second week of March, the U.S. trade office said on Friday, a move which could delay a final agreement on the pact…
Froman asks county officials to back Obama trade policies AgriPulse ...U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman today called on county government officials from across the country to support President Obama's request for trade promotion authority and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal...
State Battles
Scott Walker Pushes ALEC 'Right to Work' Bill, Divide and Conquer Comes Full Circle Huffington Post ...Wisconsin GOP leaders announced they would have an "extraordinary session" to ram through union-busting "right to work" legislation. CMD/PRwatch quickly noted that the bill is taken almost word-for-word from the Koch corporate bill mill known as the American Legislative Exchange Council known as "ALEC."...
Bell Right-To-Work Amendment Passes Senate Augusta Free Press ...Current law provides that a citizen cannot be denied the employment or continuation of employment for failing to join a union or other labor organization. This amendment, sponsored by Delegate Dickie Bell, R-Staunton, would make Virginia’s Right to Work law more permanent by adding it to the constitution...
Walker’s Anti-Union Law Has Labor Reeling In Wisconsin Washington Post ...Walker had vowed that union power would shrink, workers would be judged on their merits, and local governments would save money. Unions had warned that workers would lose benefits and be forced to take on second jobs or find new careers. Many of those changes came to pass, but the once-thriving public-sector unions were not just shrunken — they were crippled...
House set to vote on liquor privatization bill despite concerns that members may not know what's in it PennLive ...In its first significant piece of business in the 2015-16 legislative session, the state House of Representatives is poised to vote this week on a bill that would get the state out of the liquor business. But some wonder how many legislators casting votes really know what the bill would do...
Indiana State AFL-CIO President Reacts to House Approval of Common Construction Wage Repeal Indiana State AFL-CIO ..."With today’s vote in the House of Representatives, the Republican supermajority has attacked the wages of working Hoosiers, a successful private sector business model and the autonomy of local governments...."
War on Workers
Oil, Ethanol Trains Will Derail 10 Times A Year For 2 Decades, Federal Government Estimates The Oregonian ...The federal government predicts trains hauling crude oil or ethanol will derail an average of 10 times a year during the next two decades, causing more than $4 billion in damage and possibly killing hundreds of people if an accident happens in a densely populated part of the U.S...
In service sector, no rest for the working New York Times ...Employees are literally losing sleep as restaurants, retailers and many other businesses shrink the intervals between shifts and rely on smaller, leaner staffs to shave costs. These scheduling practices can take a toll on employees who have to squeeze commuting, family duties and sleep into fewer hours between shifts. The growing practice of the same workers closing the doors at night and returning to open them in the morning even has its own name: "clopening."...
Seattle, Tacoma, other ports busy again after tentative labor deal Associated Press ...Nearly all West Coast seaports began the work week with crews hustling to load and unload cargo ships that were held up amid a months-long dispute over a new contract for dockworkers...
Look who's living on the financial edge CNBC …24 percent of Americans have more credit card debt than emergency savings, and 13 percent are not much better off—they don't have credit card debt but they don't have emergency savings either. Put another way, more than a third of Americans are living at risk of a financial crisis…
Worker killed in accident at Alcoa plant Associated Press … An Alcoa plant employee was killed about 6:30 p.m. Monday in what's being termed an "accident" at the Tennessee Operations North Plant, according to an Alcoa spokeswoman...
Why We're All Becoming Independent Contractors (opinion) Huffington Post ...The rise of "independent contractors" is the most significant legal trend in the American workforce -- contributing directly to low pay, irregular hours, and job insecurity...
Knowledge Isn’t Power (opinion) New York Times ...We could levy higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy, and invest the proceeds in programs that help working families. We could raise the minimum wage and make it easier for workers to organize. It’s not hard to imagine a truly serious effort to make America less unequal...
Drones Are The New Buzz In Ag Business Yakima Herald Republic ...Farmers already are using drones in the area and throughout the nation, albeit by stretching the limits of rapidly changing regulations. They purchase the planes online. Some allow users to control them with a smartphone application, turning their screen into a virtual cockpit...
Miscellaneous
Crackdown On Drones Goes Local USA Today ...Since 2012, 15 states have enacted laws restricting drones in some way, according to data from the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), which tracks state laws. And if New York City Council Member Dan Garodnick gets his way, drones will be banned in the Big Apple, except for police with a warrant, as soon as this year...
Monday, February 16, 2015
Today's Teamster News 02.16.15
Teamsters
Striking Teamsters picket CP Rail offices in Thunder Bay CBC News …Striking Canadian Pacific Railway employees braved the bitter cold in Thunder Bay Sunday to picket the CP offices on Syndicate Avenue in what is expected to be a short-lived labour action. The federal government is expected to introduce legislation on Monday to end the strike by more than 3,000 unionized CP workers…
Canadian Pacific Railway blasted for intimidating employees Spyghana …Dennis Pierce, National President of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen and President of the Teamsters Rail Conference (U.S.), blasted Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) today for its growing culture of threats and intimidation toward its employees in the U.S. and Canada...
Teamsters: State Reps. To Host Community Forum On School Bus Transportation istockanalyst …On Monday, Feb. 16, at 3:30 p.m., State Reps. Wendell Gilliard, David Mack and Seth Whipper will be joined by Charleston NAACP President Dot Scott, Members of the British Parliament, Charleston school bus drivers, parents and concerned community members at a press conference and public forum on school bus transportation. The forum will cover the ongoing serious safety, service and working condition concerns with Durham School Services, the transportation contractor for Charleston City Schools...
Trade
Trading US Democracy for Corporate Profits with TPP Counterpunch …The key point to notice about TPP, as with earlier trade deals, is that it is being negotiated in secret. The reason for this is that there are so many outrages in it which undermine US sovereignty and democratic control, and so many things in the deal that benefit multinational corporations at the expense of the American worker and the broader American public that there would be almost universal outrage if they were known…
Opinion: Progressives and Tea Party find common ground as they oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership NJ.com ...So, you think the idea of progressives and the Tea Party working together or achieving a common purpose is some woolly-headed, academic fantasy without the proverbial snowball's chance -- that it cannot happen because the gulf separating these two factions is unbridgeable? Well, think again...
War on Workers
Tax Cuts Didn’t Lead to Faster Growth Economic Policy Institute …The figure below shows average top tax rates and average productivity growth (how much output is produced in the average hour of work in the economy) for two periods: 1948-1979 and 1979-2007. The earlier period saw significantly higher average top tax rates and significantly faster productivity growth...
Striking Teamsters picket CP Rail offices in Thunder Bay CBC News …Striking Canadian Pacific Railway employees braved the bitter cold in Thunder Bay Sunday to picket the CP offices on Syndicate Avenue in what is expected to be a short-lived labour action. The federal government is expected to introduce legislation on Monday to end the strike by more than 3,000 unionized CP workers…
Canadian Pacific Railway blasted for intimidating employees Spyghana …Dennis Pierce, National President of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen and President of the Teamsters Rail Conference (U.S.), blasted Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) today for its growing culture of threats and intimidation toward its employees in the U.S. and Canada...
Teamsters: State Reps. To Host Community Forum On School Bus Transportation istockanalyst …On Monday, Feb. 16, at 3:30 p.m., State Reps. Wendell Gilliard, David Mack and Seth Whipper will be joined by Charleston NAACP President Dot Scott, Members of the British Parliament, Charleston school bus drivers, parents and concerned community members at a press conference and public forum on school bus transportation. The forum will cover the ongoing serious safety, service and working condition concerns with Durham School Services, the transportation contractor for Charleston City Schools...
Trade
Trading US Democracy for Corporate Profits with TPP Counterpunch …The key point to notice about TPP, as with earlier trade deals, is that it is being negotiated in secret. The reason for this is that there are so many outrages in it which undermine US sovereignty and democratic control, and so many things in the deal that benefit multinational corporations at the expense of the American worker and the broader American public that there would be almost universal outrage if they were known…
Opinion: Progressives and Tea Party find common ground as they oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership NJ.com ...So, you think the idea of progressives and the Tea Party working together or achieving a common purpose is some woolly-headed, academic fantasy without the proverbial snowball's chance -- that it cannot happen because the gulf separating these two factions is unbridgeable? Well, think again...
War on Workers
Tax Cuts Didn’t Lead to Faster Growth Economic Policy Institute …The figure below shows average top tax rates and average productivity growth (how much output is produced in the average hour of work in the economy) for two periods: 1948-1979 and 1979-2007. The earlier period saw significantly higher average top tax rates and significantly faster productivity growth...
Latino workers dying at higher rates in job accidents, report shows Reflejos …of the 4,405 U.S. workers killed on the job in 2013, 797 were Latinos. That equates to 3.8 of every 100,000 full-time Latino employees in the U.S. dying in workplace accidents during the year...
Miscellaneous
Feds unveil commercial drone rules The Hill …The Federal Aviation Administration is moving to allow commercial drones that weigh less than 55 pounds to be flown in the U.S. under new regulations that were released on Sunday morning...
The Richest Cities for Young People: 1980 vs. Today The Atlantic …Five of the ten richest cities for young Boomers have since seen median wages for young people fall by at least 15 percent...
Miscellaneous
Feds unveil commercial drone rules The Hill …The Federal Aviation Administration is moving to allow commercial drones that weigh less than 55 pounds to be flown in the U.S. under new regulations that were released on Sunday morning...
The Richest Cities for Young People: 1980 vs. Today The Atlantic …Five of the ten richest cities for young Boomers have since seen median wages for young people fall by at least 15 percent...
Saturday, January 31, 2015
Today's Teamster News 01.31.15
Teamsters
Teamsters Urge Tech Giants To Support Workers, Hold Contractor Accountable 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., urged the executives to call on their transportation contractor, Compass Transportation, to cease its anti-worker, anti-union tactics and proceed with a representation election...
Unions urge president not to veto Keystone Washington Examiner ...Galen Munroe, spokesman for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said the union was still backing the project though it hasn't issued a statement on the Senate vote...
Strike possible at Dutchess LOOP MidHudson News …The [Teamsters] union representing Dutchess County LOOP bus drivers, mechanics, office employees and bus washers said they could be walking the picket line within the next few days...
Rhode Island Hospital Workers Demonstrate Amid Negotiations On New Contract Providence Journal ...Workers seeking a new contract demonstrated outside Rhode Island Hospital on Thursday afternoon to demand job protection and improved pay and benefits. The union leading the demonstration — the Teamsters, Local 251 — represents about 2,300 employees at the hospital, which is part of the Lifespan health system. They include certified nursing assistants, maintenance staff and clerical help...
Trade
Trans-Pacific Partnership: Fast Track To Job Losses (opinion) Huffington Post ...Much like NAFTA, the TPP has more to do with big-business protectionism than with genuine free trade. Of TPP's 29 sections, only five relate to traditional trade issues like lowering tariffs. The rest of the chapters seek to limit the powers of governments to protect the safety of food, medicines, and the environment, as well as to forestall governments from implementing financial regulations of the sort that are needed to safeguard taxpayer money from bank bailouts. Most damaging of all, the TPP would create new incentives for corporations to ship jobs overseas and would forbid governments from using strategies like "Buy American" provisions that keep jobs in our country...
Big Business “Regulators” And The Transatlantic Trade And Investment Partnership (TTIP): Opening The Floodgates To Corporate Plunder Center for Research on Globalization ...there would be compulsory impact assessments for proposed regulation, which will be checked for their potential impact on trade. This would be ideal for big business lobbies: creating a firm brake on any new progressive regulation in the very first stage of decision-making...
The Obama Administration’s Illusionary Job Gains From The Trans-Pacific Partnership Washington Post ...imports would increase by virtually the same amount as exports, meaning the net number of new jobs is zero....
State Battles
Meet the next Scott Walker: Illinois’ new GOP governor declares war on labor Salon …Meet the next Scott Walker: Illinois’ new GOP governor declares war on labor...
Rauner Presents "Right-to-Work" Zone Preferences and Hopes for Improvement in Illinois' Business Competition Reboot Illinois ...In a speech in Champaign Jan. 29, Gov. Bruce Rauner talked business and state competition. He reiterated his position on unions–he’s not against them, but wants to encourage parts of Illinois to become “right-to-work zones.”
Rauner Wants Gov't Unions Banned From Political Campaign Contributions WNIJ ...Gov. Bruce Rauner lit a fire under labor unions this week when he suggested local governments should be able to implement their own right-to-work laws. Yesterday, Rauner went one step further, saying government unions should be banned from contributing to political campaigns...
Logan may soon join others in state to step up for ‘Right-to-Work’ newsdemocratleader.com ...The Logan County fiscal court unanimously voted on a first reading of an ordinance that will declare Logan a “Right-to-Work” county. Logan will become one of the handfull of counties in the state to historically set out into uncharted territory to send a loud and clear message to the legislators in Frankfort...
$12 Minimum-Wage Bill Advances After Fiery Debate Seattle Times ...A bill to boost the state minimum wage to $12-an-hour over four years passed out of a House committee Thursday, but not before an opposed GOP lawmaker ripped minimum-wage activists as entitled in a “kids-these-days” diatribe...
Right-to-work advocate visits Ruidoso Ruidoso News ...Paul Gessing, president of the [Koch-funded] Rio Grande Foundation, was in Ruidoso Monday raising awareness and support for passage of right-to-work legislation in New Mexico...
GOP in full sail at the Capitol West Virginia Metro News ... there are hints of possible storm clouds ahead. Senate Majority Leader Mitch Carmichael (R-Jackson) is adamant about pushing legislation making West Virginia a right-to-work state. Carmichael has long lobbied for limiting the power of unions in the workplace and he wants to take advantage of the new majority to see it through this year. Labor leaders will fight right-to-work to the last man...
Senate leader says he will have votes to pass right to work The Chippewa Herald ...Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said Friday there will be enough votes to pass a right-to-work bill in Wisconsin this session after the GOP majority grows to 19 following the April election to fill a vacant seat...
War on Workers
McConnell, Alexander Introduce Bill To Reform National Labor Relations Board The Chattanoogan ...Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senator Lamar Alexander, chairman of the Senate labor committee, on Wednesday introduced the NLRB Reform Act to turn the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from an advocate to an umpire and keep the general counsel from operating as an activist for one side or the other...
Construction worker killed in Gold Coast crane accident WLS …the 45-year-old man was 60 feet up when part of the crane's equipment came crashing down on his chest around 3 p.m. Friday near State and Elm. He was pinned by part of the crane until workers were able free him...
Miscellaneous
U.S. Economy Slows To 2.6 Percent Growth In Fourth Quarter Politico ...The U.S. economy slowed in the final three months of 2014 as a big burst in consumer spending was offset by weakness in other areas. The Commerce Department said Thursday the overall economy grew at a 2.6 percent rate in the October-December period, down from sizzling gains of 4.6 percent in the second quarter and 5 percent in the third quarter...
Senate Approves Keystone XL Pipeline Bill, Testing Obama New York Times ...The Senate voted 62 to 36 in favor of building the pipeline. Nine Democrats joined 53 Republicans in passing the bill. The passage sends the measure back to the House, which passed a largely similar bill this month. House leaders are deciding whether to pass the Senate bill as is or to hold a conference merging the House and Senate versions into a new bill to be voted on by each chamber...
Drones Spotted, But Not Halted, Raise Concerns New York Times ...While drones have not been used in a terrorist attack on American soil, thwarting them is increasingly becoming a challenge for law enforcement and security officials who are charged with protecting large-scale events like the Super Bowl and high-profile public buildings like the White House. The officials have warned that the low-flying devices could be modified to carry explosives, chemicals, biological agents, guns or cameras...
Teamsters Urge Tech Giants To Support Workers, Hold Contractor Accountable 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., urged the executives to call on their transportation contractor, Compass Transportation, to cease its anti-worker, anti-union tactics and proceed with a representation election...
Unions urge president not to veto Keystone Washington Examiner ...Galen Munroe, spokesman for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said the union was still backing the project though it hasn't issued a statement on the Senate vote...
Strike possible at Dutchess LOOP MidHudson News …The [Teamsters] union representing Dutchess County LOOP bus drivers, mechanics, office employees and bus washers said they could be walking the picket line within the next few days...
Rhode Island Hospital Workers Demonstrate Amid Negotiations On New Contract Providence Journal ...Workers seeking a new contract demonstrated outside Rhode Island Hospital on Thursday afternoon to demand job protection and improved pay and benefits. The union leading the demonstration — the Teamsters, Local 251 — represents about 2,300 employees at the hospital, which is part of the Lifespan health system. They include certified nursing assistants, maintenance staff and clerical help...
Trade
Trans-Pacific Partnership: Fast Track To Job Losses (opinion) Huffington Post ...Much like NAFTA, the TPP has more to do with big-business protectionism than with genuine free trade. Of TPP's 29 sections, only five relate to traditional trade issues like lowering tariffs. The rest of the chapters seek to limit the powers of governments to protect the safety of food, medicines, and the environment, as well as to forestall governments from implementing financial regulations of the sort that are needed to safeguard taxpayer money from bank bailouts. Most damaging of all, the TPP would create new incentives for corporations to ship jobs overseas and would forbid governments from using strategies like "Buy American" provisions that keep jobs in our country...
Big Business “Regulators” And The Transatlantic Trade And Investment Partnership (TTIP): Opening The Floodgates To Corporate Plunder Center for Research on Globalization ...there would be compulsory impact assessments for proposed regulation, which will be checked for their potential impact on trade. This would be ideal for big business lobbies: creating a firm brake on any new progressive regulation in the very first stage of decision-making...
The Obama Administration’s Illusionary Job Gains From The Trans-Pacific Partnership Washington Post ...imports would increase by virtually the same amount as exports, meaning the net number of new jobs is zero....
State Battles
Meet the next Scott Walker: Illinois’ new GOP governor declares war on labor Salon …Meet the next Scott Walker: Illinois’ new GOP governor declares war on labor...
Rauner Presents "Right-to-Work" Zone Preferences and Hopes for Improvement in Illinois' Business Competition Reboot Illinois ...In a speech in Champaign Jan. 29, Gov. Bruce Rauner talked business and state competition. He reiterated his position on unions–he’s not against them, but wants to encourage parts of Illinois to become “right-to-work zones.”
Rauner Wants Gov't Unions Banned From Political Campaign Contributions WNIJ ...Gov. Bruce Rauner lit a fire under labor unions this week when he suggested local governments should be able to implement their own right-to-work laws. Yesterday, Rauner went one step further, saying government unions should be banned from contributing to political campaigns...
Logan may soon join others in state to step up for ‘Right-to-Work’ newsdemocratleader.com ...The Logan County fiscal court unanimously voted on a first reading of an ordinance that will declare Logan a “Right-to-Work” county. Logan will become one of the handfull of counties in the state to historically set out into uncharted territory to send a loud and clear message to the legislators in Frankfort...
$12 Minimum-Wage Bill Advances After Fiery Debate Seattle Times ...A bill to boost the state minimum wage to $12-an-hour over four years passed out of a House committee Thursday, but not before an opposed GOP lawmaker ripped minimum-wage activists as entitled in a “kids-these-days” diatribe...
Right-to-work advocate visits Ruidoso Ruidoso News ...Paul Gessing, president of the [Koch-funded] Rio Grande Foundation, was in Ruidoso Monday raising awareness and support for passage of right-to-work legislation in New Mexico...
GOP in full sail at the Capitol West Virginia Metro News ... there are hints of possible storm clouds ahead. Senate Majority Leader Mitch Carmichael (R-Jackson) is adamant about pushing legislation making West Virginia a right-to-work state. Carmichael has long lobbied for limiting the power of unions in the workplace and he wants to take advantage of the new majority to see it through this year. Labor leaders will fight right-to-work to the last man...
Senate leader says he will have votes to pass right to work The Chippewa Herald ...Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said Friday there will be enough votes to pass a right-to-work bill in Wisconsin this session after the GOP majority grows to 19 following the April election to fill a vacant seat...
War on Workers
McConnell, Alexander Introduce Bill To Reform National Labor Relations Board The Chattanoogan ...Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senator Lamar Alexander, chairman of the Senate labor committee, on Wednesday introduced the NLRB Reform Act to turn the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from an advocate to an umpire and keep the general counsel from operating as an activist for one side or the other...
Construction worker killed in Gold Coast crane accident WLS …the 45-year-old man was 60 feet up when part of the crane's equipment came crashing down on his chest around 3 p.m. Friday near State and Elm. He was pinned by part of the crane until workers were able free him...
Miscellaneous
U.S. Economy Slows To 2.6 Percent Growth In Fourth Quarter Politico ...The U.S. economy slowed in the final three months of 2014 as a big burst in consumer spending was offset by weakness in other areas. The Commerce Department said Thursday the overall economy grew at a 2.6 percent rate in the October-December period, down from sizzling gains of 4.6 percent in the second quarter and 5 percent in the third quarter...
Senate Approves Keystone XL Pipeline Bill, Testing Obama New York Times ...The Senate voted 62 to 36 in favor of building the pipeline. Nine Democrats joined 53 Republicans in passing the bill. The passage sends the measure back to the House, which passed a largely similar bill this month. House leaders are deciding whether to pass the Senate bill as is or to hold a conference merging the House and Senate versions into a new bill to be voted on by each chamber...
Drones Spotted, But Not Halted, Raise Concerns New York Times ...While drones have not been used in a terrorist attack on American soil, thwarting them is increasingly becoming a challenge for law enforcement and security officials who are charged with protecting large-scale events like the Super Bowl and high-profile public buildings like the White House. The officials have warned that the low-flying devices could be modified to carry explosives, chemicals, biological agents, guns or cameras...
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