Teamsters
NYCLASS flyers aim to convince New Yorkers that horse-carriage ban supports Bill de Blasio’s ‘progressive agenda’ New York Daily News ...“There’s nothing progressive about taking away jobs for 300 families,” said George Miranda, the head of Teamsters Joint Council 16...
Trade
A New Threat Looms on the Horizon: TISA Economy in Crisis ...The Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) covers 50 countries and 68.2 percent of world trade in services. The U.S. and the European Union (EU) are the main proponents of the agreement. If enacted, the agreement would severely limit the ability of the U.S. to regulate the financial sector...
War on Workers
Why New Credit Cards May Fall Short on Fraud Control Wall Street Journal ...Big U.S. banks are steering clear of an advanced security measure used in credit cards around the world, opting for a system that is more convenient for shoppers but may leave them vulnerable to fraud...
Tax Inversion Remains (Huge) naked capitalism ...The recent Treasury measures raised legal obstacles, but the heart of the problem remains unaddressed...
Coca-Cola’s anti-American outsourcing scheme: How Big Soda gets the public to shoulder its costs Salon ...“Citizen Coke: The Making of Coca-Cola capitalism,” traces the history of Coke’s empire through the company’s reliance on offloading its costs and risks in precisely this way, tapping into public goods like curbside recycling and municipal water systems while eschewing ownership of the resources and infrastructure needed to produce its iconic beverage...
Anti-terror plan to spy on toddlers 'is heavy-handed’ The Telegraph ...Nursery school staff and registered childminders must report toddlers at risk of becoming terrorists, under counter-terrorism measures proposed by the [British] Government...
U.S. health worker arrives in Nebraska for Ebola evaluation Reuters ...An American health care worker possibly exposed to the Ebola virus in Sierra Leone arrived at a hospital in Omaha on Sunday for evaluation and any necessary treatment, an official said...
Miscellaneous
Jaguar Demos a Car That Keeps an Eye on Its Driver Technology Review ...An Australian company called Seeing Machines is turning sensing inward with technology that focuses on drivers themselves in hopes of reducing distracted and drowsy driving...
Auto Industry Galvanized After Record Recall Year New York Times ...More than 60 million vehicles have been recalled in the United States, double the previous annual record in 2004. In all, there have been about 700 recall announcements — an average of two a day — affecting the equivalent of one in five vehicles on the road...
The Future of Getting Arrested The Atlantic ...Several cities have recently put in place networks of microphone-based gunshot sensors, and others are likely to adopt similar systems. When a sensor picks up a suspicious noise, a computer program analyzes the sound and, if it resembles gunfire, determines its point of origin to within a few yards...
Princeton graduate, 30, 'who shot dead his $200m hedge fund founder father, 70, in NYC apartment' arrested after he 'went on the run and barricaded himself in his Manhattan home' Daily Mail ...A Princeton graduate has been arrested after he allegedly executed his multimillionaire hedge-funder father at the family's Manhattan apartment on Sunday...
Showing posts with label ebola. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ebola. Show all posts
Monday, January 5, 2015
Saturday, November 15, 2014
Today's Teamster News 11.15.14
Teamster News
Teamsters: Port Truck Drivers Continue Strike in LA/Long Beach teamster.org ...Port truck drivers in Los Angeles/Long Beach, Calif., continued their strike today against drayage companies Pac 9 and TTSI. At issue is the continued misclassification of drivers as "independent contractors"...
Crash Truck Controversy WJAR ...Torigian and Simone are with the Teamsters, the union that represents attenuator drivers. They said they believe the state is breaking its own law by allowing crash trucks to sit empty...
Trade
U.S. Confirms Duties On Chinese Steel Wire Rod Imports Reuters ...The U.S. Department of Commerce confirmed steep duties on imports of carbon and alloy steel wire rod from China after ruling the products were being sold below cost in the U.S. market and received unfair levels of government subsidies...
Why Are Republicans Talking Like Elizabeth Warren? Huffington Post ... Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) will have to expand the scope of President Barack Obama's executive powers if he wants Congress to approve a major free trade agreement currently being negotiated by the administration. And that's making elements of the tea party angry...
State Battles
ALEC Support Drops 19 Percent in 2013 Center for Media and Democracy ...The embattled American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) lost nearly 20 percent in grant revenue between 2012 and 2013 according to new tax filings, reflecting the financial hit that the "corporate bill mill" has suffered as it has been dragged into the sunlight and its corporate members have fled...
Nevada Eyes Voter-ID Bill Following Republican Takeover MSNBC ...State Republicans will have to hurry – Nevada will be a key 2016 battleground, both at the presidential level and with Sen. Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) re-election bid looming. If GOP policymakers are going to impose new restrictions, they’ll no doubt want to have those voting barriers in place before the next Election Day...
War on Workers
Atlantic City Casino Revenue Down 4.4 Pct In Oct. My Central Jersey ...Atlantic City’s casino revenue fell by 4.4 percent in October compared with a year ago. The casinos took in $207 million, compared to $216 million in October 2013...
ATA To Petition FMCSA For Hours Flexibility For Port Truckers Overdrive ...Truckers serving certain ports may soon have some flexibility in compliance with federal hours-of-service rules, if a push by the American Trucking Associations and some ports is successful...
Walmart Workers Promise Biggest Black Friday Strike Ever Think Progress ...Walmart employees who are organizing as part of OUR Walmart are promising the biggest strikes ever on Black Friday, saying more employees will participate than the previous two years. Barbara Gertz, an employee from Denver, Colorado, said organizers are expecting to see protests in 1,600 stores...
Rule Sought On Shipping Oil By Train New York Times ...North Dakota’s top energy industry regulator unveiled new rules on Thursday that would require oil companies to reduce the volatility of crude before it is shipped by rail...
Americans’ Cellphones Targeted In Secret U.S. Spy Program Wall Street Journal ...The Justice Department is scooping up data from thousands of mobile phones through devices deployed on airplanes that mimic cellphone towers, a high-tech hunt for criminal suspects that is snagging a large number of innocent Americans, according to people familiar with the operations...
Worker killed in explosion at Noble County oil and gas facility Columbus Dispatch ...A Virginia man working on an oil and gas pump at a fracking site in Noble County in eastern Ohio died in an explosion on Wednesday. It was the second major incident involving a fracking operation in Ohio in two weeks...
SEPTA worker fights ruling on accident that killed rail inspector philly.com ...A SEPTA worker involved in a fatal 2009 Regional Rail accident is fighting a federal effort to disqualify him from safety-sensitive rail work until 2019...
Miscellaneous
House passes Keystone bill — all eyes shift to Senate Politico ...As expected, the House easily passed a bill to approve the Keystone XL pipeline on Friday — setting the stage for drama next week in the Senate, where supporters are inching close to the filibuster-proof majority needed to send the measure to President Barack Obama’s desk...
Teamsters: Port Truck Drivers Continue Strike in LA/Long Beach teamster.org ...Port truck drivers in Los Angeles/Long Beach, Calif., continued their strike today against drayage companies Pac 9 and TTSI. At issue is the continued misclassification of drivers as "independent contractors"...
Crash Truck Controversy WJAR ...Torigian and Simone are with the Teamsters, the union that represents attenuator drivers. They said they believe the state is breaking its own law by allowing crash trucks to sit empty...
Trade
U.S. Confirms Duties On Chinese Steel Wire Rod Imports Reuters ...The U.S. Department of Commerce confirmed steep duties on imports of carbon and alloy steel wire rod from China after ruling the products were being sold below cost in the U.S. market and received unfair levels of government subsidies...
Why Are Republicans Talking Like Elizabeth Warren? Huffington Post ... Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) will have to expand the scope of President Barack Obama's executive powers if he wants Congress to approve a major free trade agreement currently being negotiated by the administration. And that's making elements of the tea party angry...
State Battles
ALEC Support Drops 19 Percent in 2013 Center for Media and Democracy ...The embattled American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) lost nearly 20 percent in grant revenue between 2012 and 2013 according to new tax filings, reflecting the financial hit that the "corporate bill mill" has suffered as it has been dragged into the sunlight and its corporate members have fled...
Nevada Eyes Voter-ID Bill Following Republican Takeover MSNBC ...State Republicans will have to hurry – Nevada will be a key 2016 battleground, both at the presidential level and with Sen. Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) re-election bid looming. If GOP policymakers are going to impose new restrictions, they’ll no doubt want to have those voting barriers in place before the next Election Day...
War on Workers
Atlantic City Casino Revenue Down 4.4 Pct In Oct. My Central Jersey ...Atlantic City’s casino revenue fell by 4.4 percent in October compared with a year ago. The casinos took in $207 million, compared to $216 million in October 2013...
ATA To Petition FMCSA For Hours Flexibility For Port Truckers Overdrive ...Truckers serving certain ports may soon have some flexibility in compliance with federal hours-of-service rules, if a push by the American Trucking Associations and some ports is successful...
Walmart Workers Promise Biggest Black Friday Strike Ever Think Progress ...Walmart employees who are organizing as part of OUR Walmart are promising the biggest strikes ever on Black Friday, saying more employees will participate than the previous two years. Barbara Gertz, an employee from Denver, Colorado, said organizers are expecting to see protests in 1,600 stores...
Rule Sought On Shipping Oil By Train New York Times ...North Dakota’s top energy industry regulator unveiled new rules on Thursday that would require oil companies to reduce the volatility of crude before it is shipped by rail...
Americans’ Cellphones Targeted In Secret U.S. Spy Program Wall Street Journal ...The Justice Department is scooping up data from thousands of mobile phones through devices deployed on airplanes that mimic cellphone towers, a high-tech hunt for criminal suspects that is snagging a large number of innocent Americans, according to people familiar with the operations...
Worker killed in explosion at Noble County oil and gas facility Columbus Dispatch ...A Virginia man working on an oil and gas pump at a fracking site in Noble County in eastern Ohio died in an explosion on Wednesday. It was the second major incident involving a fracking operation in Ohio in two weeks...
SEPTA worker fights ruling on accident that killed rail inspector philly.com ...A SEPTA worker involved in a fatal 2009 Regional Rail accident is fighting a federal effort to disqualify him from safety-sensitive rail work until 2019...
Miscellaneous
House passes Keystone bill — all eyes shift to Senate Politico ...As expected, the House easily passed a bill to approve the Keystone XL pipeline on Friday — setting the stage for drama next week in the Senate, where supporters are inching close to the filibuster-proof majority needed to send the measure to President Barack Obama’s desk...
Sunday, November 9, 2014
Today's Teamster News 11.09.14
Trade
Japan economy minister says TPP agreement difficult by year-end: report Reuters ...Japan's Economy Minister Akira Amari said on Saturday he saw progress in Asia-Pacific regional trade negotiations, although it would be difficult to reach an agreement by the end of the year, according to Jiji press...
US says TPP is its priority, as China touts free-trade zone AFP ...A China-backed vision for Asia-Pacific free trade is only a "long-term aspiration", a top US commerce official said Sunday, stressing that Washington remains focused on its own plans for a regional trade agreement...
US rules out major Trans-Pacific trade announcement at APEC Business Recorder ...There will be no "major announcement" on a Washington-backed Asia-Pacific free trade deal during a meeting of leaders from the region in Beijing this week, US Trade Representative Michael Froman said on Sunday...
State Battles
Republicans rule in the Missouri and Kansas statehouses, and the consequences could be profound Kansas City Star ...Missouri: The GOP is also expected to once again take aim at public employee unions by making it more difficult for them to collect dues from members. However, allowing employees in the private sector covered by union contracts to refuse to pay union dues or fees — more commonly known as right to work — still appears too steep a hill to climb, even with larger legislative majorities....Kansas: There also might be a run at limiting collective bargaining rights for teachers, especially after the teachers unions spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in a failed attempt to defeat Brownback this year...
Nearly half of Indiana's charter schools doing poorly or failing WTHR ...nearly half of the state's 76 charter schools are doing poorly or failing...
Common construction wage at risk next year Kokomo Perspective ...If the common wage is eliminated, it will result in job loss and lower wages for local workers, according to Chet Fincher, business agent for the Carpenters Local 615...
How Voter Suppression Helped Produce the Lowest Turnout in Decades The Intercept ...the evidence is piling up that systematic voter suppression, including voter ID laws and dubious vote-fraud prevention software, played a significant part in keeping people from casting ballots, as well...
War on Workers
5 New Lows for Walmart—Just Last Month UK Progressive ...From slashing employee healthcare, to stalling on wage increases, to investing in unsustainable energy and selling offensively labeled Halloween costumes, Walmart has stooped to new lows in October. Walmart workers have been fighting back, such as two weeks ago when hundreds of employees and their supporters ralliedin front of Walmart heiress Alice Walton’s luxury New York City condo. Twenty-six of them were arrested...
A Blank Page in the S.E.C. Rule Book, Four Years Later New York Times ...Executives should return compensation earned improperly as a result of accounting shenanigans at their companies. But four years after Congress told the Securities and Exchange Commission to write a rule making it easier to recover unearned pay, that rule remains unwritten...
Lenders Can Now Disable Your Car When You're Driving on the Freeway Alternet ...Car dealers and automotive lenders are targeting those with poor credit by installing GPS-based kill switches, or starter-interrupt devices, on the cars that they sell...
Kaci Hickox, boyfriend leaving Maine after Ebola quarantine fight Portland Press Herald ...the couple will stay through Monday, after which a state court order expires and Hickox will no longer have to submit to daily health monitoring, inform state officials of travel plans and let them know if her health changes...
Worker killed in fall at Gillette-area power plant Casper Star Tribune ... Authorities are investigating after a worker was killed in a fall at a power plant in Gillette...
Worker at Ohio bowling alley dies when clothing gets caught in machinery, authorities say New York Daily News ...A maintenance worker at an Ohio bowling alley died Thursday in what a former colleague calls a "freak accident." David Geiger, 53, passed away when his clothing got caught in machinery while he was working on a pinsetter at Northwest Lanes in Fairfield, WCPO reported...
Japan economy minister says TPP agreement difficult by year-end: report Reuters ...Japan's Economy Minister Akira Amari said on Saturday he saw progress in Asia-Pacific regional trade negotiations, although it would be difficult to reach an agreement by the end of the year, according to Jiji press...
US says TPP is its priority, as China touts free-trade zone AFP ...A China-backed vision for Asia-Pacific free trade is only a "long-term aspiration", a top US commerce official said Sunday, stressing that Washington remains focused on its own plans for a regional trade agreement...
US rules out major Trans-Pacific trade announcement at APEC Business Recorder ...There will be no "major announcement" on a Washington-backed Asia-Pacific free trade deal during a meeting of leaders from the region in Beijing this week, US Trade Representative Michael Froman said on Sunday...
State Battles
Republicans rule in the Missouri and Kansas statehouses, and the consequences could be profound Kansas City Star ...Missouri: The GOP is also expected to once again take aim at public employee unions by making it more difficult for them to collect dues from members. However, allowing employees in the private sector covered by union contracts to refuse to pay union dues or fees — more commonly known as right to work — still appears too steep a hill to climb, even with larger legislative majorities....Kansas: There also might be a run at limiting collective bargaining rights for teachers, especially after the teachers unions spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in a failed attempt to defeat Brownback this year...
Nearly half of Indiana's charter schools doing poorly or failing WTHR ...nearly half of the state's 76 charter schools are doing poorly or failing...
Common construction wage at risk next year Kokomo Perspective ...If the common wage is eliminated, it will result in job loss and lower wages for local workers, according to Chet Fincher, business agent for the Carpenters Local 615...
How Voter Suppression Helped Produce the Lowest Turnout in Decades The Intercept ...the evidence is piling up that systematic voter suppression, including voter ID laws and dubious vote-fraud prevention software, played a significant part in keeping people from casting ballots, as well...
War on Workers
5 New Lows for Walmart—Just Last Month UK Progressive ...From slashing employee healthcare, to stalling on wage increases, to investing in unsustainable energy and selling offensively labeled Halloween costumes, Walmart has stooped to new lows in October. Walmart workers have been fighting back, such as two weeks ago when hundreds of employees and their supporters ralliedin front of Walmart heiress Alice Walton’s luxury New York City condo. Twenty-six of them were arrested...
A Blank Page in the S.E.C. Rule Book, Four Years Later New York Times ...Executives should return compensation earned improperly as a result of accounting shenanigans at their companies. But four years after Congress told the Securities and Exchange Commission to write a rule making it easier to recover unearned pay, that rule remains unwritten...
Lenders Can Now Disable Your Car When You're Driving on the Freeway Alternet ...Car dealers and automotive lenders are targeting those with poor credit by installing GPS-based kill switches, or starter-interrupt devices, on the cars that they sell...
Kaci Hickox, boyfriend leaving Maine after Ebola quarantine fight Portland Press Herald ...the couple will stay through Monday, after which a state court order expires and Hickox will no longer have to submit to daily health monitoring, inform state officials of travel plans and let them know if her health changes...
Worker killed in fall at Gillette-area power plant Casper Star Tribune ... Authorities are investigating after a worker was killed in a fall at a power plant in Gillette...
Worker at Ohio bowling alley dies when clothing gets caught in machinery, authorities say New York Daily News ...A maintenance worker at an Ohio bowling alley died Thursday in what a former colleague calls a "freak accident." David Geiger, 53, passed away when his clothing got caught in machinery while he was working on a pinsetter at Northwest Lanes in Fairfield, WCPO reported...
Monday, November 3, 2014
Today's Teamster News 11.03.14
Trade
Republican gains in midterm elections could aid TPP talks Associated Press ...Big Republican gains on Election Day would be a blow to much of President Barack Obama’s agenda, but one stymied item on his to-do list might get a fresh chance to move forward: trade. That could breathe life into Asia-Pacific trade talks essential to his efforts to deepen engagement in the region...
U.S. says hard to imagine EU trade deal without investor protection Reuters ...European Union lawmakers have said they will reject any Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) agreement that contains investor protections and Germany, the bloc's biggest economy, also opposes such provisions...
State Battles
Taxpayer Dollars Used For Voter Suppression In Milwaukee Crooks & Liars ...Republican Milwaukee County Supervisor Deanna Alexander uses taxpayer dollars to falsely inform her constituents that they need photo ID to vote...
War on Workers
Women's Charity Looks into Sweatshop Allegations Over "Feminist" Shirts Jezebel ...The Fawcett Society, the women's rights charity responsible for those "This is what a feminist looks like" tees is currently investigating allegations that the shirts were actually made in sweatshop conditions on the island of Mauritius, where workers were paid 62p, about a dollar per hour to make the shirts...
New Wages and Salaries Data from the Employment Cost Index Show Yet Again It’s Not Quite Time To Declare Mission Accomplished Economic Policy Institute ... the weak labor market of the last seven years has put enormous downward pressure on wages, and there has been no significant and sustained pickup in nominal wage growth in recent years. Employers still don’t seem to have to offer big wage increases to get and keep the workers they need, when hiring rates and net job creation remain far slower than what’s needed to generate healthy labor market outcomes...
Maine nurse gives ground on Ebola quarantine USA Today ...Kaci Hickox also said on NBC's Meet the Press that she would not go into town or into public places during the 21-day incubation period that will end Nov. 10...
Consumers wasted at least $300 million paying for AT&T’s ‘unlimited’ data Washington Post ...the Federal Trade Commission is suing AT&T for how it treats its unlimited data customers. Despite paying for an unlimited plan, these subscribers had their mobile Internet slowed to dial-up speeds, or "throttled," once AT&T decided they had surfed the Web too much....Tens of thousands of consumers have complained about the practice...
The New Loan Sharks Jacobin ... salary lending has expanded, but under a different name: payday lending, a wildly lucrative industry that occupies more storefronts than McDonald’s and Starbucks combined. These new loan sharks operate under the same logic as salary lenders, but specifically target more vulnerable populations like welfare recipients, and are armed with new techniques to squeeze as much surplus as possible from debtors...
Worker killed in truck accident at dairy plant WNDU.com ...Authorities in western Michigan say that a worker was killed when a tractor-trailer ran over him at the loading dock of a dairy plant...
Republican gains in midterm elections could aid TPP talks Associated Press ...Big Republican gains on Election Day would be a blow to much of President Barack Obama’s agenda, but one stymied item on his to-do list might get a fresh chance to move forward: trade. That could breathe life into Asia-Pacific trade talks essential to his efforts to deepen engagement in the region...
U.S. says hard to imagine EU trade deal without investor protection Reuters ...European Union lawmakers have said they will reject any Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) agreement that contains investor protections and Germany, the bloc's biggest economy, also opposes such provisions...
State Battles
Taxpayer Dollars Used For Voter Suppression In Milwaukee Crooks & Liars ...Republican Milwaukee County Supervisor Deanna Alexander uses taxpayer dollars to falsely inform her constituents that they need photo ID to vote...
War on Workers
Women's Charity Looks into Sweatshop Allegations Over "Feminist" Shirts Jezebel ...The Fawcett Society, the women's rights charity responsible for those "This is what a feminist looks like" tees is currently investigating allegations that the shirts were actually made in sweatshop conditions on the island of Mauritius, where workers were paid 62p, about a dollar per hour to make the shirts...
New Wages and Salaries Data from the Employment Cost Index Show Yet Again It’s Not Quite Time To Declare Mission Accomplished Economic Policy Institute ... the weak labor market of the last seven years has put enormous downward pressure on wages, and there has been no significant and sustained pickup in nominal wage growth in recent years. Employers still don’t seem to have to offer big wage increases to get and keep the workers they need, when hiring rates and net job creation remain far slower than what’s needed to generate healthy labor market outcomes...
Maine nurse gives ground on Ebola quarantine USA Today ...Kaci Hickox also said on NBC's Meet the Press that she would not go into town or into public places during the 21-day incubation period that will end Nov. 10...
Consumers wasted at least $300 million paying for AT&T’s ‘unlimited’ data Washington Post ...the Federal Trade Commission is suing AT&T for how it treats its unlimited data customers. Despite paying for an unlimited plan, these subscribers had their mobile Internet slowed to dial-up speeds, or "throttled," once AT&T decided they had surfed the Web too much....Tens of thousands of consumers have complained about the practice...
The New Loan Sharks Jacobin ... salary lending has expanded, but under a different name: payday lending, a wildly lucrative industry that occupies more storefronts than McDonald’s and Starbucks combined. These new loan sharks operate under the same logic as salary lenders, but specifically target more vulnerable populations like welfare recipients, and are armed with new techniques to squeeze as much surplus as possible from debtors...
Worker killed in truck accident at dairy plant WNDU.com ...Authorities in western Michigan say that a worker was killed when a tractor-trailer ran over him at the loading dock of a dairy plant...
Saturday, November 1, 2014
Today's Teamster News 11.01.14
Teamster News
FedEx Freight Workers In New Jersey Vote To Join Teamsters Local 701 teamster.org ...A group of 113 drivers at FedEx Freight’s South Brunswick, N.J., terminal voted today to join Teamsters Local 701. The vote was 66 to 42...
Teamsters Local 988 Laundry Drivers Ratify Contract teamster.org ...Laundry drivers and members of Teamsters Local 988 in Houston have voted unanimously to ratify a two-year contract with Angelica Textile...
The Ballot Box Is The Great Equalizer For Workers (opinion) Huffington Post ...There are real consequences for workers if they don't make it to the ballot box,...
NYC Carriage Horses Clip-Clop Away While De Blasio Stalls Bloomberg Businessweek ...New York Mayor Bill de Blasio assured animal-rights activists during his run for City Hall that he would rid Central Park of horse-drawn carriages, which he called inhumane….Now, 10 months into his term, tourists still pay $50 for a 20-minute trot through the park, while at City Hall, a draft for legislation has yet to be written and no one is saying why....
Nicholas Lanzilli Secures Additional Endorsements Medford Transcript ...I am honored to receive additional endorsements by a number of respected groups in the area. ...Teamsters Local 25...
Teamsters Trumpet Unemployment Payout To LA-LB Port Truck Driver Journal of Commerce ...A Los Angeles-Long Beach port truck driver who said she was misclassified as an independent contractor was awarded a check for $9,000 in unemployment benefits by the California Employment Development Department this week, giving Teamsters fuel in their campaign to organize local drayage drivers...
Unfinished Construction Has Protesters Marching Near The West Lake Landfill Fox 2 St. Louis ...Unfinished construction work along St. Charles Rock Road has demonstrators raising public health concerns...
Trade
TTIP Debate Suffering From Lack Of Transparency The Parliament Magazine ...The transatlantic trade and investment partnership (TTIP), currently being negotiated between the EU and the US, is by far the most controversial agreement the EU has ever negotiated. Since the start of discussions, opposition has been growing among the civilian population and certain political parties, despite the fact that the final content of the project cannot be discussed in detail, even one year on...
State Battles
McConnell victory could make Kentucky right-to-work Politico ... “Should the Kentucky House go Republican,” writes Labor & Employment’s Mike Elk, “state Senate Majority Leader Damon Thayer has already said that his first priority will be to pass a right-to-work bill.” Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear would likely veto, but to no avail: In Kentucky, all it takes to override a gubernatorial veto is a simple majority of both houses...
Mark Schauer will ax the 'retirement tax' - and Republicans will help him Michigan Live ...If Mark Schauer is elected governor, you can probably kiss the reviled "retirement tax" and other tax hikes goodbye...
All about absentees? Michigan Democratic Party push appears to be paying off in early returns Michigan Live ...One out of every three or four residents who vote in Michigan's general election could do so via absentee ballot before the polls even open on Tuesday, and early indications suggest the trend may benefit Democrats...
Ohio May Disenfranchise Voters For Technical Errors ThinkProgress ...election officials in Ohio can throw out legitimate absentee and provisional ballots that have small errors — such as leaving out a middle name — and in many cases they don’t have to give the voter a chance to fix the problem...
Closing Argument: Kochs Fight To Save Candidate Cronies In Critical Election RealKochFacts ...learn more about Republican candidates who share the Koch agenda and are being propped up by the secretive billionaires in North Carolina, Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, Kentucky, Michigan, Oregon,Wisconsin, and Florida...
Midterms 2014: Candidates With Ties To Pension Business May Gain Control Of State Pension Funds International Business Times ...government ethics experts express concern that governors drawn from the ranks of companies that manage pension money could bring an inherent conflict of interest: Their duty to do right by taxpayers and retirees could be pitted against their personal financial interests and their loyalties to longtime Wall Street associates...
“Indescribably insane”: A public school system from hell Salon ...The needs of [Philadelphia] children are secondary, however, to a right-wing governor in Tom Corbett who remains fixated on breaking the district in order to crush the teachers union and divert money to unproven experiments like vouchers and privately run charters. If the city’s children are left uneducated and impoverished among the smoldering wreckage of a broken school system, so be it...
San Francisco To Raise Minimum Wage To $11.05 Per Hour Reuters ...San Francisco will raise the city's minimum wage to $11.05 per hour from the start of next year, up from $10.74 currently, the mayor's office said on Thursday...
Kansas tax cuts fail again, as new revenue numbers plague Sam Brownback but help Paul Davis Kansas City Star ...In October, individual income tax receipts were almost $27 million below what the state had estimated it would take in, or a jarring 15 percent off expectations. Why does that matter? Because this is the tax that Brownback and the Legislature cut in 2012. The promise then was that more jobs would flood Kansas, eventually pumping back up income tax collections. That’s not working — at all...
More Than 750 people Turn Out For Meeting On Oil-Train Study Seattle Times ...State officials are proposing more funding and more regulatory authority to step up oversight of the surging numbers of oil trains carrying crude through Washington, and to better prepare for any possible spills...
Donors get special access to GOP governors as potential 2016 contenders Washington Post ...One key to the [Republican Governors' Association] fundraising prowess is the exclusive donor access effort, called the Executive Roundtable program, which gives wealthy contributors up-close access to governors at quarterly policy seminars. The initiative has helped create a permanent network of high-net-worth donors who augment the group’s funding from corporation...
War on Workers
Judge in Maine Eases Restrictions on Nurse New York Times ...In a victory for a nurse who treated Ebola patients in West Africa, a judge in Maine on Friday rejected arguments by the state that her movements should be firmly restricted, praising her “compassion” even as he acknowledged the public’s fears about the virus...
Casino Closings Take Toll On Atlantic City Travel Press of Atlantic City ...Fewer cars, buses, airport passengers and rail riders are heading to Atlantic City following the shutdown of three casinos in recent weeks, the latest travel figures show...
Police: Construction worker killed by dump truck DelawareOnLine ...State troopers and emergency crews are on the scene of a fatality in Lewes where a construction worker was hit by a dump truck, police said...
Lafayette construction worker dies on the job KLFY ...Scott Police responded to a 911 call just before 9 a.m. Tuesday regarding a Scott Materials employee that was fatally injured on the job...
Miscellaneous
Starbucks to deliver coffee to your desk starting in 2015 Los Angeles Times ...The delivery service will be available through Starbucks Corp.’s mobile app, which currently lets customers pay at the store through their phone, Schultz said...
Lack of mechanics threatens U.S. Air Force target date for F-35 Reuters ...The U.S. Air Force may miss its target of August 2016 to start using the Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jet in combat if Congress blocks the service's plan to retire its A-10 tank-killer aircraft, a top U.S. general said...
FedEx Freight Workers In New Jersey Vote To Join Teamsters Local 701 teamster.org ...A group of 113 drivers at FedEx Freight’s South Brunswick, N.J., terminal voted today to join Teamsters Local 701. The vote was 66 to 42...
Teamsters Local 988 Laundry Drivers Ratify Contract teamster.org ...Laundry drivers and members of Teamsters Local 988 in Houston have voted unanimously to ratify a two-year contract with Angelica Textile...
The Ballot Box Is The Great Equalizer For Workers (opinion) Huffington Post ...There are real consequences for workers if they don't make it to the ballot box,...
NYC Carriage Horses Clip-Clop Away While De Blasio Stalls Bloomberg Businessweek ...New York Mayor Bill de Blasio assured animal-rights activists during his run for City Hall that he would rid Central Park of horse-drawn carriages, which he called inhumane….Now, 10 months into his term, tourists still pay $50 for a 20-minute trot through the park, while at City Hall, a draft for legislation has yet to be written and no one is saying why....
Nicholas Lanzilli Secures Additional Endorsements Medford Transcript ...I am honored to receive additional endorsements by a number of respected groups in the area. ...Teamsters Local 25...
Teamsters Trumpet Unemployment Payout To LA-LB Port Truck Driver Journal of Commerce ...A Los Angeles-Long Beach port truck driver who said she was misclassified as an independent contractor was awarded a check for $9,000 in unemployment benefits by the California Employment Development Department this week, giving Teamsters fuel in their campaign to organize local drayage drivers...
Unfinished Construction Has Protesters Marching Near The West Lake Landfill Fox 2 St. Louis ...Unfinished construction work along St. Charles Rock Road has demonstrators raising public health concerns...
Trade
TTIP Debate Suffering From Lack Of Transparency The Parliament Magazine ...The transatlantic trade and investment partnership (TTIP), currently being negotiated between the EU and the US, is by far the most controversial agreement the EU has ever negotiated. Since the start of discussions, opposition has been growing among the civilian population and certain political parties, despite the fact that the final content of the project cannot be discussed in detail, even one year on...
State Battles
McConnell victory could make Kentucky right-to-work Politico ... “Should the Kentucky House go Republican,” writes Labor & Employment’s Mike Elk, “state Senate Majority Leader Damon Thayer has already said that his first priority will be to pass a right-to-work bill.” Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear would likely veto, but to no avail: In Kentucky, all it takes to override a gubernatorial veto is a simple majority of both houses...
Mark Schauer will ax the 'retirement tax' - and Republicans will help him Michigan Live ...If Mark Schauer is elected governor, you can probably kiss the reviled "retirement tax" and other tax hikes goodbye...
All about absentees? Michigan Democratic Party push appears to be paying off in early returns Michigan Live ...One out of every three or four residents who vote in Michigan's general election could do so via absentee ballot before the polls even open on Tuesday, and early indications suggest the trend may benefit Democrats...
Ohio May Disenfranchise Voters For Technical Errors ThinkProgress ...election officials in Ohio can throw out legitimate absentee and provisional ballots that have small errors — such as leaving out a middle name — and in many cases they don’t have to give the voter a chance to fix the problem...
Closing Argument: Kochs Fight To Save Candidate Cronies In Critical Election RealKochFacts ...learn more about Republican candidates who share the Koch agenda and are being propped up by the secretive billionaires in North Carolina, Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, Kentucky, Michigan, Oregon,Wisconsin, and Florida...
Midterms 2014: Candidates With Ties To Pension Business May Gain Control Of State Pension Funds International Business Times ...government ethics experts express concern that governors drawn from the ranks of companies that manage pension money could bring an inherent conflict of interest: Their duty to do right by taxpayers and retirees could be pitted against their personal financial interests and their loyalties to longtime Wall Street associates...
“Indescribably insane”: A public school system from hell Salon ...The needs of [Philadelphia] children are secondary, however, to a right-wing governor in Tom Corbett who remains fixated on breaking the district in order to crush the teachers union and divert money to unproven experiments like vouchers and privately run charters. If the city’s children are left uneducated and impoverished among the smoldering wreckage of a broken school system, so be it...
San Francisco To Raise Minimum Wage To $11.05 Per Hour Reuters ...San Francisco will raise the city's minimum wage to $11.05 per hour from the start of next year, up from $10.74 currently, the mayor's office said on Thursday...
Kansas tax cuts fail again, as new revenue numbers plague Sam Brownback but help Paul Davis Kansas City Star ...In October, individual income tax receipts were almost $27 million below what the state had estimated it would take in, or a jarring 15 percent off expectations. Why does that matter? Because this is the tax that Brownback and the Legislature cut in 2012. The promise then was that more jobs would flood Kansas, eventually pumping back up income tax collections. That’s not working — at all...
More Than 750 people Turn Out For Meeting On Oil-Train Study Seattle Times ...State officials are proposing more funding and more regulatory authority to step up oversight of the surging numbers of oil trains carrying crude through Washington, and to better prepare for any possible spills...
Donors get special access to GOP governors as potential 2016 contenders Washington Post ...One key to the [Republican Governors' Association] fundraising prowess is the exclusive donor access effort, called the Executive Roundtable program, which gives wealthy contributors up-close access to governors at quarterly policy seminars. The initiative has helped create a permanent network of high-net-worth donors who augment the group’s funding from corporation...
War on Workers
Judge in Maine Eases Restrictions on Nurse New York Times ...In a victory for a nurse who treated Ebola patients in West Africa, a judge in Maine on Friday rejected arguments by the state that her movements should be firmly restricted, praising her “compassion” even as he acknowledged the public’s fears about the virus...
Casino Closings Take Toll On Atlantic City Travel Press of Atlantic City ...Fewer cars, buses, airport passengers and rail riders are heading to Atlantic City following the shutdown of three casinos in recent weeks, the latest travel figures show...
Police: Construction worker killed by dump truck DelawareOnLine ...State troopers and emergency crews are on the scene of a fatality in Lewes where a construction worker was hit by a dump truck, police said...
Lafayette construction worker dies on the job KLFY ...Scott Police responded to a 911 call just before 9 a.m. Tuesday regarding a Scott Materials employee that was fatally injured on the job...
Miscellaneous
Starbucks to deliver coffee to your desk starting in 2015 Los Angeles Times ...The delivery service will be available through Starbucks Corp.’s mobile app, which currently lets customers pay at the store through their phone, Schultz said...
Lack of mechanics threatens U.S. Air Force target date for F-35 Reuters ...The U.S. Air Force may miss its target of August 2016 to start using the Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jet in combat if Congress blocks the service's plan to retire its A-10 tank-killer aircraft, a top U.S. general said...
Thursday, October 30, 2014
Today's Teamster News 10.30.14
Teamster News
Teamsters: Port Trucking Industry Dealt Another Blow teamster.org ...This week, the first of the fired drivers, Yesenia Rivas, was awarded $9,000 in unemployment benefits by the California Employment Development Department (EDD) – benefits that are only available to “employees,” not “independent contractors.”...
Recycling Workers Continue Strike At Waste Management Bay Area Sites San Jose Mercury News ...Teamsters Joint Council President Rome Aloise characterized the ILWU's struggle against Waste Management as unrealistic and called the workers "pawns" of the union leadership. "The slogan and campaign that has been developed is based on a promise that cannot be met and is designed to create false hope for the workers," Aloise said...
Grimes Courts Labor Votes With Warren In Kentucky Fresno Bee ...Stephen Piercey, a 32-year-old UPS worker and a steward in the Teamsters union, said he supports Grimes because she opposes right to work legislation that would allow companies to hire nonunion workers, which he said would weaken the labor union's ability to bargain for its members...
Trade
Germany Turning Sour on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership naked capitalism ...Germans are particularly aware of the dangers of these foreign investor panels due to payments the German government has been forced to make. Vattenfal, a Swedish company, is a serial trade pact litigant against Germany. In 2011, Der Spiegel reported on how it was suing for expected €1 billion plus losses due to Germany’s program to phase out nuclear power...
Why Support The TPP When It Will Let Foreign Corporations Take Our Democracies To Court? The Guardian ...ISDS clauses enable foreign corporations to sue a host country for laws or policies, or even court decisions, they find inconvenient and objectionable. This has the effect of giving foreign investors more rights than local investors; more influence than local citizens...
Monsanto Agritech Lobbying For The TTIP: Britain Spearheads Campaign To Make European GMO Regulation Meaningless Center For Research On Globalization ...The TTIP aims to force Europe to drop its GMO regulatory standards. If this occurs, Claire Robinson argues that Europe will adopt the type of worthless product-based regulatory assessments that occurs in the US...
Report Links Brands To 'Slavery' In Indian Mills Women's Wear Daily ...A new report alleging “modern-day slavery” in five Indian textile mills prompted at least three of the Western retailers —H&M, Primark and C&A — linked to the factories on Tuesday to pledge to take either punitive or remedial action...
State Battles
Court Refuses To Intervene In Case of 40,000 Missing Voters In Georgia Think Progress ...On Tuesday, Judge Christopher Brasher of the Fulton County Superior Court denied a petition from civil rights advocates to force Georgia’s Secretary of State to process an estimated 40,000 voter registrations that have gone missing from the public database...
Scott Walker Runs Ad Supporting Equal Pay After Repealing Wisconsin's Equal Pay Law Huffington Post ...Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) released an ad on Tuesday in which his female lieutenant governor applauds his support for equal pay for women -- just two years after the governor signed a bill repealing the state's equal pay law...
War on Workers
Money Koch Bros. Stole from Tribes Could Swing Mid-Term Elections Indian Country Media Network ...The committee issued its report (Senate Report 101-216) in 1989: “Koch Oil, the largest purchaser of Indian oil in the country, was engaged in a widespread and sophisticated scheme to steal crude oil from Indians and others through fraudulent mismeasuring and misreporting.” The committee sent the report to the Justice Department and DOJ convened a grand jury to examine possible criminal charges, but no indictments had been returned before the group was disbanded in 1992...
Oil Train Protesters March On Downtown Spokane KXLY ..."Oil trains are dangerous," said King County Executive Dow Constantine, "they can leak, they can catch fire. There have been explosions that are tremendously dangerous to people and property. Second, they take up space that could be used by people here producing agricultural products, manufactured products being shipped from Montana, Idaho, Eastern Washington to the ports, and that capacity that we're losing is costing Washington State jobs."...
Nurse Kaci Hickox 'Will Go to Court' Over Maine Ebola Quarantine Rule ABC News ...Kaci Hickox, a nurse who treated Ebolapatients and threatened to sue New Jersey over being quarantined before she was discharged, today threatened to sue Maine if officials there do not lift a 21-day quarantine restriction...
Amtrak worker killed by train MidHudson News ...An Amtrak employee was struck and killed by one of the railroad’s trains while he was working on a section of the track late Wednesday morning...
Construction worker dies after he's struck by truck on Verrazano-Narrows Bridge Staten Island Advance ...Shell, who was employed by STV, a contractor working on the bridge, was working in a closed work zone in front of the Verrazano-Narrows administration building in Staten Island when he was struck by a truck delivering asphalt to the site...
Recovery efforts continue for contractor who died in trench collapse MyFOXDetroit.com ...Crews are continuing the efforts Thursday morning to recover the body of a construction worker killed in a trench collapse in Grosse Pointe Woods...
Dead babies near oil drilling sites raise questions for researchers Denver Post ...Part of the reluctance of residents around Vernal to ascribe any ill effects to energy-field pollution could be tied to the average $3,963 average monthly nonfarm wage in Uintah County — the highest in Utah...
Why Does the U.S. Senate Need a Petition Drive to Hold Hearings on the Secret Goldman Sachs’ Tapes Wall Street on Parade ...Senators Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown believe they may have a battle on their hands getting their colleagues on the Senate Banking Committee to agree to hold hearings on the now notorious tape recordings secretly made by former New York Fed bank examiner, Carmen Segarra, showing a cozy relationship between the regulator and Goldman Sachs...
Miscellaneous
Police: Woman Decapitated, Son Struck By Train In Murder-Suicide In Farmingdale CBS Local ...A woman was decapitated by her son in the middle of the street, he then killed himself by stepping in front of a Long Island Rail Road train in Farmingdale, police said Wednesday...
FBI demands new powers to hack into computers and carry out surveillance Guardian ...Agency requests rule change but civil liberties groups say ‘extremely invasive’ technique amounts to unconstitutional power grab...
UK Spies Get Bulk Access To NSA Data, Court Rules Fox News ...The British government's insistence that its spies don't use the vast espionage powers of the U.S. National Security Agency to sidestep U.K. restrictions on domestic eavesdropping was called into question by a court document published Wednesday...
Teamsters: Port Trucking Industry Dealt Another Blow teamster.org ...This week, the first of the fired drivers, Yesenia Rivas, was awarded $9,000 in unemployment benefits by the California Employment Development Department (EDD) – benefits that are only available to “employees,” not “independent contractors.”...
Recycling Workers Continue Strike At Waste Management Bay Area Sites San Jose Mercury News ...Teamsters Joint Council President Rome Aloise characterized the ILWU's struggle against Waste Management as unrealistic and called the workers "pawns" of the union leadership. "The slogan and campaign that has been developed is based on a promise that cannot be met and is designed to create false hope for the workers," Aloise said...
Grimes Courts Labor Votes With Warren In Kentucky Fresno Bee ...Stephen Piercey, a 32-year-old UPS worker and a steward in the Teamsters union, said he supports Grimes because she opposes right to work legislation that would allow companies to hire nonunion workers, which he said would weaken the labor union's ability to bargain for its members...
Trade
Germany Turning Sour on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership naked capitalism ...Germans are particularly aware of the dangers of these foreign investor panels due to payments the German government has been forced to make. Vattenfal, a Swedish company, is a serial trade pact litigant against Germany. In 2011, Der Spiegel reported on how it was suing for expected €1 billion plus losses due to Germany’s program to phase out nuclear power...
Why Support The TPP When It Will Let Foreign Corporations Take Our Democracies To Court? The Guardian ...ISDS clauses enable foreign corporations to sue a host country for laws or policies, or even court decisions, they find inconvenient and objectionable. This has the effect of giving foreign investors more rights than local investors; more influence than local citizens...
Monsanto Agritech Lobbying For The TTIP: Britain Spearheads Campaign To Make European GMO Regulation Meaningless Center For Research On Globalization ...The TTIP aims to force Europe to drop its GMO regulatory standards. If this occurs, Claire Robinson argues that Europe will adopt the type of worthless product-based regulatory assessments that occurs in the US...
Report Links Brands To 'Slavery' In Indian Mills Women's Wear Daily ...A new report alleging “modern-day slavery” in five Indian textile mills prompted at least three of the Western retailers —H&M, Primark and C&A — linked to the factories on Tuesday to pledge to take either punitive or remedial action...
State Battles
Court Refuses To Intervene In Case of 40,000 Missing Voters In Georgia Think Progress ...On Tuesday, Judge Christopher Brasher of the Fulton County Superior Court denied a petition from civil rights advocates to force Georgia’s Secretary of State to process an estimated 40,000 voter registrations that have gone missing from the public database...
Scott Walker Runs Ad Supporting Equal Pay After Repealing Wisconsin's Equal Pay Law Huffington Post ...Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) released an ad on Tuesday in which his female lieutenant governor applauds his support for equal pay for women -- just two years after the governor signed a bill repealing the state's equal pay law...
War on Workers
Money Koch Bros. Stole from Tribes Could Swing Mid-Term Elections Indian Country Media Network ...The committee issued its report (Senate Report 101-216) in 1989: “Koch Oil, the largest purchaser of Indian oil in the country, was engaged in a widespread and sophisticated scheme to steal crude oil from Indians and others through fraudulent mismeasuring and misreporting.” The committee sent the report to the Justice Department and DOJ convened a grand jury to examine possible criminal charges, but no indictments had been returned before the group was disbanded in 1992...
Oil Train Protesters March On Downtown Spokane KXLY ..."Oil trains are dangerous," said King County Executive Dow Constantine, "they can leak, they can catch fire. There have been explosions that are tremendously dangerous to people and property. Second, they take up space that could be used by people here producing agricultural products, manufactured products being shipped from Montana, Idaho, Eastern Washington to the ports, and that capacity that we're losing is costing Washington State jobs."...
Nurse Kaci Hickox 'Will Go to Court' Over Maine Ebola Quarantine Rule ABC News ...Kaci Hickox, a nurse who treated Ebolapatients and threatened to sue New Jersey over being quarantined before she was discharged, today threatened to sue Maine if officials there do not lift a 21-day quarantine restriction...
Amtrak worker killed by train MidHudson News ...An Amtrak employee was struck and killed by one of the railroad’s trains while he was working on a section of the track late Wednesday morning...
Construction worker dies after he's struck by truck on Verrazano-Narrows Bridge Staten Island Advance ...Shell, who was employed by STV, a contractor working on the bridge, was working in a closed work zone in front of the Verrazano-Narrows administration building in Staten Island when he was struck by a truck delivering asphalt to the site...
Recovery efforts continue for contractor who died in trench collapse MyFOXDetroit.com ...Crews are continuing the efforts Thursday morning to recover the body of a construction worker killed in a trench collapse in Grosse Pointe Woods...
Dead babies near oil drilling sites raise questions for researchers Denver Post ...Part of the reluctance of residents around Vernal to ascribe any ill effects to energy-field pollution could be tied to the average $3,963 average monthly nonfarm wage in Uintah County — the highest in Utah...
Why Does the U.S. Senate Need a Petition Drive to Hold Hearings on the Secret Goldman Sachs’ Tapes Wall Street on Parade ...Senators Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown believe they may have a battle on their hands getting their colleagues on the Senate Banking Committee to agree to hold hearings on the now notorious tape recordings secretly made by former New York Fed bank examiner, Carmen Segarra, showing a cozy relationship between the regulator and Goldman Sachs...
Miscellaneous
Police: Woman Decapitated, Son Struck By Train In Murder-Suicide In Farmingdale CBS Local ...A woman was decapitated by her son in the middle of the street, he then killed himself by stepping in front of a Long Island Rail Road train in Farmingdale, police said Wednesday...
FBI demands new powers to hack into computers and carry out surveillance Guardian ...Agency requests rule change but civil liberties groups say ‘extremely invasive’ technique amounts to unconstitutional power grab...
UK Spies Get Bulk Access To NSA Data, Court Rules Fox News ...The British government's insistence that its spies don't use the vast espionage powers of the U.S. National Security Agency to sidestep U.K. restrictions on domestic eavesdropping was called into question by a court document published Wednesday...
Monday, October 27, 2014
Today's Teamster News 10.27.14
Teamsters
Disney workers appeal firing over sweaty costumes Orlando Sentinel ...The Teamsters union that represents them is bringing the issue in front of a federal arbitrator later this year. The union argues Disney violated its contract by providing unsanitary clothing...
Philadelphia Labor Law Attorney Bruce M. Ludwig Presents at International Conference of Teamsters Lawyers North Fork View ...Bruce M. Ludwig, of the labor, employment and workers’ compensation law firm Willig, Williams & Davidson, recently presented a paper at the 29th meeting of the International Conference of Teamsters Lawyers in Providence, R.I., entitled “Growing the Union at Penn State University: Issues in Organizing a Residual Unit in the Public Sector.”...
Trade
TPP talks in Sydney end with no breakthrough Japan Times ...Japan and the United States failed to reach a much-awaited breakthrough, seen as vital to advancing the 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, at a three-day meeting on the proposed trade accord that wrapped in Sydney on Monday...
The row over TTIP rumbles on Left Foot Forward ...The row over TTIP (the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership deal between the EU and the USA) and the inclusion of an ISDS (Investor State Dispute Settlement) mechanism is growing almost daily...
UK poultry industry worried about TTIP impact on food safety Global Meat News ...Members of the UK poultry industry are concerned that trade negotiations under the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the EU and US could undermine food safety...
State Battles
Wisconsin Voters Know Walker -- and That’s His Problem Bloomberg ...Yet if Walker is to advance his momentum into the 2016 presidential race, he needs to win re-election next week in a state where roughly half of the voters say they’ve had enough of him...
Fox News Host Calls Out Chris Christie For Putting Millionaires Over State’s Economy ThinkProgress ...You decided to cut payments to pension funds and instead of raising taxes on millionaires and businesses. The credit rating for New Jersey has actually been downgraded eight times your watch, and the polls in New Jersey show you with your lowest favorability rating since you became governor...
War on Workers
States With The Widest Gap Between Rich And Poor: 24/7 Wall St. Huffington Post ...New York was one of only two states, along with Connecticut, where more than 25% of all income was earned by just the top 5% of households...
Inflation Deceptive, CPI 0.1% Yet Some Items Off the Charts Economic Populist ...The average hourly real wage feel -0.2% [in September] and is now $10.32. and has increased just 0.3% for the year. This means wages are not keeping up with inflation. Weekly real earnings increased by only because people were working 0.3% more hours per week...
Police Pay Gap: Many of America's Finest Struggle on Poverty Wages NBC News ...Data obtained by NBC News from 24 municipal police departments in St. Louis County reveal a gulf between police officer pay in poor, majority African-American northern cities and wealthier, whiter cities further south. Average annual patrol officer pay ranges from $23,000 in Hillsdale to nearly $70,000 in Town and County and Des Peres...
Chris Christie Stuck Her In 'Prison.' So Ebola Nurse Says She'll Sue. Forbes ...She worked for Doctors Without Borders — the aid group fighting West Africa’s Ebola epidemic — before flying home on Friday and being rushed into a surprise isolation that she’s described as scary, disorganized, and even cruel...
Disney workers appeal firing over sweaty costumes Orlando Sentinel ...The Teamsters union that represents them is bringing the issue in front of a federal arbitrator later this year. The union argues Disney violated its contract by providing unsanitary clothing...
Philadelphia Labor Law Attorney Bruce M. Ludwig Presents at International Conference of Teamsters Lawyers North Fork View ...Bruce M. Ludwig, of the labor, employment and workers’ compensation law firm Willig, Williams & Davidson, recently presented a paper at the 29th meeting of the International Conference of Teamsters Lawyers in Providence, R.I., entitled “Growing the Union at Penn State University: Issues in Organizing a Residual Unit in the Public Sector.”...
Trade
TPP talks in Sydney end with no breakthrough Japan Times ...Japan and the United States failed to reach a much-awaited breakthrough, seen as vital to advancing the 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, at a three-day meeting on the proposed trade accord that wrapped in Sydney on Monday...
The row over TTIP rumbles on Left Foot Forward ...The row over TTIP (the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership deal between the EU and the USA) and the inclusion of an ISDS (Investor State Dispute Settlement) mechanism is growing almost daily...
UK poultry industry worried about TTIP impact on food safety Global Meat News ...Members of the UK poultry industry are concerned that trade negotiations under the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the EU and US could undermine food safety...
State Battles
Wisconsin Voters Know Walker -- and That’s His Problem Bloomberg ...Yet if Walker is to advance his momentum into the 2016 presidential race, he needs to win re-election next week in a state where roughly half of the voters say they’ve had enough of him...
Fox News Host Calls Out Chris Christie For Putting Millionaires Over State’s Economy ThinkProgress ...You decided to cut payments to pension funds and instead of raising taxes on millionaires and businesses. The credit rating for New Jersey has actually been downgraded eight times your watch, and the polls in New Jersey show you with your lowest favorability rating since you became governor...
War on Workers
States With The Widest Gap Between Rich And Poor: 24/7 Wall St. Huffington Post ...New York was one of only two states, along with Connecticut, where more than 25% of all income was earned by just the top 5% of households...
Inflation Deceptive, CPI 0.1% Yet Some Items Off the Charts Economic Populist ...The average hourly real wage feel -0.2% [in September] and is now $10.32. and has increased just 0.3% for the year. This means wages are not keeping up with inflation. Weekly real earnings increased by only because people were working 0.3% more hours per week...
Police Pay Gap: Many of America's Finest Struggle on Poverty Wages NBC News ...Data obtained by NBC News from 24 municipal police departments in St. Louis County reveal a gulf between police officer pay in poor, majority African-American northern cities and wealthier, whiter cities further south. Average annual patrol officer pay ranges from $23,000 in Hillsdale to nearly $70,000 in Town and County and Des Peres...
Chris Christie Stuck Her In 'Prison.' So Ebola Nurse Says She'll Sue. Forbes ...She worked for Doctors Without Borders — the aid group fighting West Africa’s Ebola epidemic — before flying home on Friday and being rushed into a surprise isolation that she’s described as scary, disorganized, and even cruel...
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Today's Teamster News 10.26.14
Teamsters
Teamsters show support for FairPoint strikers Lewiston-Auburn Sun Journal ...Teamsters Local 340 came to support the striking FairPoint workers on Davis Farm Road in Portland on Saturday. Business agents from Local 340 brought hamburgers and hot dogs for 500, letting IBEW members know that they were not alone in their dispute with FairPoint management...
U.S. Sen. Carper, Tennant lead Democrats at South Charleston rally West Virginia Sunday Gazette-Mail ...U.S. Sen. Tom Carper, of Delaware, makes an appearance in support of Natalie Tennant and other Democrats at a rally held at the Teamsters Local 175 headquarters in South Charleston on Saturday...
Trade
Japan Market Access Still Hurdle at Trans-Pacific Partnership Talks Wall Street Journal ...Japan will come under renewed pressure to further open up its automotive and agriculture industries to global trade during Trans-Pacific Partnership talks here over coming days, amid heightened calls for Tokyo to ensure increased market access remains a key plank of its structural reform agenda under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe...
Momentum building on TPP deal despite U.S.-Japan impasse Japan Times ...Froman said there was now an opportunity to narrow differences ahead of leaders meetings in Asia in coming weeks. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Beijing and G20 summit in Brisbane will both take place next month...
State Battles
Another 150,000 Detroit Residents Are About To Become Homeless Under GOP Governor’s Emergency Manager Addicting Info ...there has been a ‘billionaire’s buying spree‘, as the rich swoop in like the vultures they are, to buy up the property of the very people they made poor, through their own criminal activity...
Walker Claims Next Budget Will Start With Surplus, Though Evidence Indicates Otherwise Wisconsin Public Radio ... the bureau found that the state would begin the next budget with a gross balance of zero dollars — a far cry from the half-billion the governor is claiming...
Scott Walker’s Corruption Problem The Progressive ...Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who is locked in a dead-heat for reelection on November 4, has been dogged throughout his tenure by secret criminal investigations that so far have led to 15 felony indictments of six of his closest aides and associates. This week, new documents released on a judge’s orders show that Walker, while he was Milwaukee County executive, helped his longtime campaign treasurer get inside information for a bid to lease office space to the county...
North Carolina Fights To Take Voting Site Away From Pesky College Kids Moyers & Co. ...Early voting starts today, Thursday in North Carolina, even as the state has pushed to move early voting sites farther away from college campuses...
Christie wants GOP control of voting rules, election officials msnbc ...New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) stunned voting-rights advocates this week, arguing that Republican governors should control “voting mechanisms” in order to help the party win the 2016 presidential election...
Rick Explains It All You Got Schooled ...During his first year as governor, Rick Snyder made drastic cuts to education. He’s been trying to explain his way out of this for years, but this handy-dandy graph shows that his math doesn’t quite add up...
War on Workers
FairPoint and striking unions brace for a long stalemate Portland Press Herald ...While workers get ready to go without paychecks, the company pays for police details at picketing sites...
Ebola outbreak: US nurse criticises quarantine treatment BBC News ...A nurse quarantined on her return to the US from treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone has criticised the way she was dealt with at Newark airport. Kaci Hickox said the experience was frightening and could deter other health workers from travelling to West Africa to help tackle the Ebola virus...
High school cafeteria worker tried to stop gunman USA Today ... A high school cafeteria worker tried to stop a gunman who killed one girl and shot four other students before taking his own life inside the cafeteria at a school north of Seattle, officials said Saturday...
'Koch Congress' Could Make Oligarchy Official The Progressive ...At a time when most Americans agree that the country has too much power in too few hands, the world’s two wealthiest men are only six seats away from seizing the Senate and consolidating their current control of the House...
Dark Money Will Decide Which Party Controls the Senate Center for Public Integrity ...In the most competitive U.S. Senate races this year, big-money special interests that proliferated after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision are routinely out-muscling and out-messaging the candidates themselves...
Teamsters show support for FairPoint strikers Lewiston-Auburn Sun Journal ...Teamsters Local 340 came to support the striking FairPoint workers on Davis Farm Road in Portland on Saturday. Business agents from Local 340 brought hamburgers and hot dogs for 500, letting IBEW members know that they were not alone in their dispute with FairPoint management...
U.S. Sen. Carper, Tennant lead Democrats at South Charleston rally West Virginia Sunday Gazette-Mail ...U.S. Sen. Tom Carper, of Delaware, makes an appearance in support of Natalie Tennant and other Democrats at a rally held at the Teamsters Local 175 headquarters in South Charleston on Saturday...
Trade
Japan Market Access Still Hurdle at Trans-Pacific Partnership Talks Wall Street Journal ...Japan will come under renewed pressure to further open up its automotive and agriculture industries to global trade during Trans-Pacific Partnership talks here over coming days, amid heightened calls for Tokyo to ensure increased market access remains a key plank of its structural reform agenda under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe...
Momentum building on TPP deal despite U.S.-Japan impasse Japan Times ...Froman said there was now an opportunity to narrow differences ahead of leaders meetings in Asia in coming weeks. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Beijing and G20 summit in Brisbane will both take place next month...
State Battles
Another 150,000 Detroit Residents Are About To Become Homeless Under GOP Governor’s Emergency Manager Addicting Info ...there has been a ‘billionaire’s buying spree‘, as the rich swoop in like the vultures they are, to buy up the property of the very people they made poor, through their own criminal activity...
Walker Claims Next Budget Will Start With Surplus, Though Evidence Indicates Otherwise Wisconsin Public Radio ... the bureau found that the state would begin the next budget with a gross balance of zero dollars — a far cry from the half-billion the governor is claiming...
Scott Walker’s Corruption Problem The Progressive ...Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who is locked in a dead-heat for reelection on November 4, has been dogged throughout his tenure by secret criminal investigations that so far have led to 15 felony indictments of six of his closest aides and associates. This week, new documents released on a judge’s orders show that Walker, while he was Milwaukee County executive, helped his longtime campaign treasurer get inside information for a bid to lease office space to the county...
North Carolina Fights To Take Voting Site Away From Pesky College Kids Moyers & Co. ...Early voting starts today, Thursday in North Carolina, even as the state has pushed to move early voting sites farther away from college campuses...
Christie wants GOP control of voting rules, election officials msnbc ...New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) stunned voting-rights advocates this week, arguing that Republican governors should control “voting mechanisms” in order to help the party win the 2016 presidential election...
Rick Explains It All You Got Schooled ...During his first year as governor, Rick Snyder made drastic cuts to education. He’s been trying to explain his way out of this for years, but this handy-dandy graph shows that his math doesn’t quite add up...
War on Workers
FairPoint and striking unions brace for a long stalemate Portland Press Herald ...While workers get ready to go without paychecks, the company pays for police details at picketing sites...
Ebola outbreak: US nurse criticises quarantine treatment BBC News ...A nurse quarantined on her return to the US from treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone has criticised the way she was dealt with at Newark airport. Kaci Hickox said the experience was frightening and could deter other health workers from travelling to West Africa to help tackle the Ebola virus...
High school cafeteria worker tried to stop gunman USA Today ... A high school cafeteria worker tried to stop a gunman who killed one girl and shot four other students before taking his own life inside the cafeteria at a school north of Seattle, officials said Saturday...
'Koch Congress' Could Make Oligarchy Official The Progressive ...At a time when most Americans agree that the country has too much power in too few hands, the world’s two wealthiest men are only six seats away from seizing the Senate and consolidating their current control of the House...
Dark Money Will Decide Which Party Controls the Senate Center for Public Integrity ...In the most competitive U.S. Senate races this year, big-money special interests that proliferated after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision are routinely out-muscling and out-messaging the candidates themselves...
Monday, October 20, 2014
Today's Teamster News 10.20.14
Teamsters
Ikea and union to start mediation Vancouver Sun ...Mediation is set to begin Monday between Ikea and the Teamsters’ Union Local 213, which represents employees at the company’s store in Richmond...
Coakley, Baker rally supporters as election looms Boston Globe ...At a cavernous union hall in Charlestown Sunday morning, her voice resonating off the walls, Democrat Martha Coakley exhorted members of Teamsters Local 25 to get out the vote for her...
Casino question could be a jackpot Boston Herald ...“Obviously Question 3 (the repeal initiative) is a big question for organized labor and also for the economy of Massachusetts,” Teamsters Local 25 President Sean O’Brien said yesterday at a raucous Charlestown rally of hundreds of union members for Democratic candidate Martha Coakley...
Trade
The TPP Would Enroll More Online Spies Public Citizen ... the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) includes draft rules that would increase significantly the role of online service providers in keeping an eye on their users, under the pretext of combatting copyright piracy. Even if you are not an infringer, your Internet service provider (ISP) will be watching you, just in case...
Jack Lew Sees No Evil: Treasury Fails To Name China as a Currency Manipulator for the 12th Time Economic Policy Institute ...China purchased $681 billion in total foreign exchange reserves between December 2012 and June 2014, and more than $2 trillion since this Administration took office. Currency manipulation by China and approximately 20 other countries has increased the U.S. trade deficit by $200 to $500 billion. Elimination of currency manipulation would create 2.3 million to 5.8 million U.S. jobs, without raising public spending at all (indeed, reducing the trade deficit through currency re-alignment would reduce the federal budget deficit)...
TPP proposal is a bad deal (LTE) News and Sentinel ...I do not want my children to wonder where they are going to work because manufacturing will be done in third world countries for pennies on the dollar...
State Battles
Snyder, Schauer spar over fairness of tax rewrite Lansing State Journal ...Democrat Mark Schauer is centering his populist message against Republican Gov. Rick Snyder around a 3-year-old tax overhaul that lowered the burden on business but raised it on individuals...
Letters: State worse under Walker (LTE) Post-Crescent ...the state’s median income has dropped from $54,210 in 2009 to $51,647 in 2013 and that the percentage of children living in poverty has risen from 13.3 percent in 2008 to 18.4 percent in 2013...
War on Workers
The Social Security office of judges who hear appeals for disability benefits is 990,399 cases behind Washington Post ...What’s left now is an office that costs taxpayers billions and still forces applicants to wait more than a year — often, without a paycheck — before delivering an answer about their benefits...
Poor kids who do everything right don’t do better than rich kids who do everything wrong Washington Post ...rich high school dropouts remain in the top about as much as poor college grads stay stuck in the bottom — 14 versus 16 percent, respectively. Not only that, but these low-income strivers are just as likely to end up in the bottom as these wealthy ne'er-do-wells...
Ebola fear, monitoring eases for some in Dallas Associated Press ...Ebola fears began to ease for some Monday as a monitoring period passed for those who had close contact with a victim of the disease and after a cruise ship scare ended with the boat returning to port and a lab worker on board testing negative for the virus...
Harold Meyerson: How workers lost the power struggle — and their pay raises (opinion) Washington Post ...The distribution of income is a function not just of global forces but also of social and institutional power. And over the past four decades, U.S. workers have suffered a loss of power that may exceed even their loss of income...
Behind Private Equity’s Curtain New York Times ...public employees are relying on their pensions for financial security. Private equity firms are relying on their pensions, too. Over the last 10 years, pension funds have piled into private equity buyout funds. But in exchange for what they hope will be hefty returns, many pension funds have signed onto a kind of omerta, or code of silence, about the terms of the funds’ investments...
Ikea and union to start mediation Vancouver Sun ...Mediation is set to begin Monday between Ikea and the Teamsters’ Union Local 213, which represents employees at the company’s store in Richmond...
Coakley, Baker rally supporters as election looms Boston Globe ...At a cavernous union hall in Charlestown Sunday morning, her voice resonating off the walls, Democrat Martha Coakley exhorted members of Teamsters Local 25 to get out the vote for her...
Casino question could be a jackpot Boston Herald ...“Obviously Question 3 (the repeal initiative) is a big question for organized labor and also for the economy of Massachusetts,” Teamsters Local 25 President Sean O’Brien said yesterday at a raucous Charlestown rally of hundreds of union members for Democratic candidate Martha Coakley...
Trade
The TPP Would Enroll More Online Spies Public Citizen ... the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) includes draft rules that would increase significantly the role of online service providers in keeping an eye on their users, under the pretext of combatting copyright piracy. Even if you are not an infringer, your Internet service provider (ISP) will be watching you, just in case...
Jack Lew Sees No Evil: Treasury Fails To Name China as a Currency Manipulator for the 12th Time Economic Policy Institute ...China purchased $681 billion in total foreign exchange reserves between December 2012 and June 2014, and more than $2 trillion since this Administration took office. Currency manipulation by China and approximately 20 other countries has increased the U.S. trade deficit by $200 to $500 billion. Elimination of currency manipulation would create 2.3 million to 5.8 million U.S. jobs, without raising public spending at all (indeed, reducing the trade deficit through currency re-alignment would reduce the federal budget deficit)...
TPP proposal is a bad deal (LTE) News and Sentinel ...I do not want my children to wonder where they are going to work because manufacturing will be done in third world countries for pennies on the dollar...
State Battles
Snyder, Schauer spar over fairness of tax rewrite Lansing State Journal ...Democrat Mark Schauer is centering his populist message against Republican Gov. Rick Snyder around a 3-year-old tax overhaul that lowered the burden on business but raised it on individuals...
Letters: State worse under Walker (LTE) Post-Crescent ...the state’s median income has dropped from $54,210 in 2009 to $51,647 in 2013 and that the percentage of children living in poverty has risen from 13.3 percent in 2008 to 18.4 percent in 2013...
War on Workers
The Social Security office of judges who hear appeals for disability benefits is 990,399 cases behind Washington Post ...What’s left now is an office that costs taxpayers billions and still forces applicants to wait more than a year — often, without a paycheck — before delivering an answer about their benefits...
Poor kids who do everything right don’t do better than rich kids who do everything wrong Washington Post ...rich high school dropouts remain in the top about as much as poor college grads stay stuck in the bottom — 14 versus 16 percent, respectively. Not only that, but these low-income strivers are just as likely to end up in the bottom as these wealthy ne'er-do-wells...
Ebola fear, monitoring eases for some in Dallas Associated Press ...Ebola fears began to ease for some Monday as a monitoring period passed for those who had close contact with a victim of the disease and after a cruise ship scare ended with the boat returning to port and a lab worker on board testing negative for the virus...
Harold Meyerson: How workers lost the power struggle — and their pay raises (opinion) Washington Post ...The distribution of income is a function not just of global forces but also of social and institutional power. And over the past four decades, U.S. workers have suffered a loss of power that may exceed even their loss of income...
Behind Private Equity’s Curtain New York Times ...public employees are relying on their pensions for financial security. Private equity firms are relying on their pensions, too. Over the last 10 years, pension funds have piled into private equity buyout funds. But in exchange for what they hope will be hefty returns, many pension funds have signed onto a kind of omerta, or code of silence, about the terms of the funds’ investments...
Sunday, October 19, 2014
Today's Teamster News 10.19.14
Teamsters
Teamsters’ employees will not get raises Hernando Today ...Hernando County, which was poised to give salary increases to hundreds of employees — union members and others — instead will give them only to some non-union workers. The nonunion employees who will receive raises are those whose paychecks were deemed too low by consultants who looked at pay of government employees elsewhere…
First Student drivers vote to authorize strike Savannah Now ...First Student school bus drivers and mechanics voted to authorize a strike during a meeting of the Teamsters Union Local 728 on Saturday...
Trade
TPP Agreement Will 'Definitely' Raise Medicine Costs telesurtv.com ...The U.S. government has insisted you shouldn't read the leaked draft of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. Expect the cost of life saving drugs like cancer medicine to rise under the secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), a Malaysian legislator warned on Friday...
TPPA would criminalise journalism No Right Turn ...it also criminalises leaks which are detrimental to a party's international relations or international security. So, the US is trying to US the TPPA as a backdoor to silence WikiLeaks, the Snowden files, and the entire enterprise of journalistic criticism of power...
A Trade Storm Is Brewing Public Citizen ...Because Fast Track is so unpopular in the House, Speaker John Boehner has a devious plan to force the bill through Congress in the “lame duck” session after the November elections...
State Battles
The Court won’t interrupt Texas voter ID law Scotus Blog ...In a stinging defeat for the Obama administration and a number of civil rights groups in a major test case on voters’ rights, a divided Supreme Court told the state of Texas early Saturday morning that it may enforce its strict voter ID law for this year’s general election, with early voting starting next Monday...
About Those 8400 Jobs (opinion) Milwaukee Sentinel ...what really matters, is that Governor Walker promised us, that his 250,000 jobs pledge was his "floor not his ceiling". He came as close to reaching his jobs promise as the Bucks did in landing Lebron James!...
War on Workers
Two-Thirds Of America's Biggest Retailers Are Worried About Flat Wages Huffington Post ...Sixty-eight percent of the top 100 retail companies in the U.S. -- a group that includes, Walmart, Apple, McDonald's and J.C. Penney -- say the country's stagnant wages pose a major threat to their bottom lines, according to a new report by the Center For American Progress...
Ebola! Prevention and Responsibility In The Public Interest ...Why didn’t the National Institutes of Health (NIH) properly anticipate Ebola? It did, according to NIH director Dr. Francis Collins. “NIH has been working on Ebola vaccines since 2001,” he asserted, pointing to stagnant congressional funding for developing a vaccine and therapeutics. Dr. Collins said that with funding, “we probably would have had a vaccine in time…”
Unprecedented amount of 'dark money' fuels midterm races Los Angeles Times ..."Is that going to become the new normal, this kind of money focused on one candidate, and we don't know where it's coming from?"...
405 Reopened After Construction Workers Killed in DUI Crash KTLA ...Two construction workers were hit and killed by drunk drivers on the northbound 405 Freeway early Sunday morning.
Teamsters’ employees will not get raises Hernando Today ...Hernando County, which was poised to give salary increases to hundreds of employees — union members and others — instead will give them only to some non-union workers. The nonunion employees who will receive raises are those whose paychecks were deemed too low by consultants who looked at pay of government employees elsewhere…
First Student drivers vote to authorize strike Savannah Now ...First Student school bus drivers and mechanics voted to authorize a strike during a meeting of the Teamsters Union Local 728 on Saturday...
Trade
TPP Agreement Will 'Definitely' Raise Medicine Costs telesurtv.com ...The U.S. government has insisted you shouldn't read the leaked draft of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. Expect the cost of life saving drugs like cancer medicine to rise under the secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), a Malaysian legislator warned on Friday...
TPPA would criminalise journalism No Right Turn ...it also criminalises leaks which are detrimental to a party's international relations or international security. So, the US is trying to US the TPPA as a backdoor to silence WikiLeaks, the Snowden files, and the entire enterprise of journalistic criticism of power...
A Trade Storm Is Brewing Public Citizen ...Because Fast Track is so unpopular in the House, Speaker John Boehner has a devious plan to force the bill through Congress in the “lame duck” session after the November elections...
State Battles
The Court won’t interrupt Texas voter ID law Scotus Blog ...In a stinging defeat for the Obama administration and a number of civil rights groups in a major test case on voters’ rights, a divided Supreme Court told the state of Texas early Saturday morning that it may enforce its strict voter ID law for this year’s general election, with early voting starting next Monday...
About Those 8400 Jobs (opinion) Milwaukee Sentinel ...what really matters, is that Governor Walker promised us, that his 250,000 jobs pledge was his "floor not his ceiling". He came as close to reaching his jobs promise as the Bucks did in landing Lebron James!...
War on Workers
Two-Thirds Of America's Biggest Retailers Are Worried About Flat Wages Huffington Post ...Sixty-eight percent of the top 100 retail companies in the U.S. -- a group that includes, Walmart, Apple, McDonald's and J.C. Penney -- say the country's stagnant wages pose a major threat to their bottom lines, according to a new report by the Center For American Progress...
Ebola! Prevention and Responsibility In The Public Interest ...Why didn’t the National Institutes of Health (NIH) properly anticipate Ebola? It did, according to NIH director Dr. Francis Collins. “NIH has been working on Ebola vaccines since 2001,” he asserted, pointing to stagnant congressional funding for developing a vaccine and therapeutics. Dr. Collins said that with funding, “we probably would have had a vaccine in time…”
Unprecedented amount of 'dark money' fuels midterm races Los Angeles Times ..."Is that going to become the new normal, this kind of money focused on one candidate, and we don't know where it's coming from?"...
405 Reopened After Construction Workers Killed in DUI Crash KTLA ...Two construction workers were hit and killed by drunk drivers on the northbound 405 Freeway early Sunday morning.
Friday, October 17, 2014
Today's Teamster News 10.17.14
Teamster News
Ebola outbreak: CDC, Frontier Airlines hunt passengers who flew with nurse Fox News ...Amber Joy Vinson, 29, a nurse at Texas Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas who cared earlier this month for the first U.S. patient to die of the virus, flew on two Frontier Airlines flights between Dallas and Cleveland. Two days after she returned to work, she became the third confirmed case of Ebola in the United States. [Teamsters represent Frontier pilots]..
Airline notifying more passengers of Ebola Associated Press ...Frontier Airlines is expanding the circle of passengers being notified that they flew with a nurse who later tested positive for Ebola, or flew on a later flight using the same plane...
Hoffa Hits The Road To GOTV In Philadelphia teamster.org ...Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa visited more than 150 members employed by Penn Auto Team today, urging them to get out and vote on Nov. 4...
No Golden Gate Bus Strike Tomorrow PR Newswire ...Teamsters 856 and 665 members working for the Golden Gate Highway & Transportation District will not be holding a bus service strike tomorrow in order to allow for the membership to vote on the District's latest offer...
Connelly returns to talk health insurance in Foster Township The Bradford Era ...Connelly said the supervisors would have to begin with non-union employees, asking them to pay copays and deductibles. Then when it’s time to bargain with the Teamsters union, officials could say other workers are paying those...
Safety groups, congressmen say new poll proves public doesn’t want truckers’ hours increased; ‘misleading’ says ATA The Trucker ...Safety advocacy groups, The Teamsters Union, a couple of Democratic congressmen and a research group today disclosed a new public opinion poll they said shows “dramatically” and overwhelmingly that the general public would be opposed to truckers being able to increase their work week from 70 to 82 hours...
Ambulance Workers Unionize The Spectrum ...Citing a lack of facilities available to the company's 20-plus paramedics and Emergency Medical Technicians working in the St. George area, as well as pay starting as low as $11 per hour for paramedics, employees approached the Utah Teamsters about organizing earlier this year, said Spencer Hogue, secretary treasurer and business agent with the Teamsters Local 222 in Salt Lake City. Employees voted to join in September, and the union has already initiated negotiations with Gold Cross management about improving work conditions, Hogue said...
New Concerns About The Bridgeton Landfill Fire CBS News ...It’s not what they know, but what they don’t know about where the Bridgeton Landfill fire is. That’s why Pattonville Fire Department Assistant Chief Matt LaVanchy says the state Department of Natural Resources is sending a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, asking for more information on where the fire is in relation to buried nuclear waste...
Trade
Trade Talk Documents Suggest Access to Medicines May Become Harder Wall Street Journal ...As the latest round of talks for the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement begins in Australia next week, negotiators will be discussing revisions in a key document that consumer advocacy groups say would strengthen patent rights for drug makers at the expense of patients in poor countries...
Latest Intellectual Property Chapter Of TPP Agreement Leaked: Would Be A Disaster For Public Health TechDirt ...A bunch of countries are pushing for the right to cancel a patent if it "is used in a manner determined to be anti-competitive," but of course, the US and Japan are completely against such a thing...
State Battles
Pa. Senate Defeats Union Dues Measure Pittsburgh Post Gazette ...A controversial proposal that would have ended automatic dues deductions and political contributions from unionized public school employees was defeated in the state Senate Wednesday...
Arkansas Voter ID Law Struck Down Politico ...Arkansas’ highest court on Wednesday struck down a state law that requires voters to show photo identification before casting a ballot, ruling the requirement unconstitutional just days before early voting begins for the Nov. 4 election...
Minnesota Unemployment Rate Drops To 4.1 Percent 610KDAL ...The unemployment rate of 4.1 percent is the lowest Minnesota jobless rate in eight years. The U-S unemployment rate was at 5.9 percent in September...
War on Workers
US hospital worker who may have handled Ebola samples quarantined on cruise ship MyFox8 ...A Texas hospital health worker who may have handled Thomas Eric Duncan’s fluid samples has been quarantined on a cruise ship in Belize — another reminder of the widespread fears of the deadly virus...
Private Prisons Face Suits, Federal Probes Clarion Ledger ...Florida-based GEO got the boot in Mississippi after a federal judge in 2012 called the Walnut Grove Correctional Facility "a cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts and conditions. In Idaho, the FBI is investigating the Tennessee-based Corrections Corporation of America after allegations emerged that records were falsified to cover up staff shortages at the Idaho Correctional Center, that gangs ruled and that violence was so rampant it was called "Gladiator School."...
Worker killed in accident at candy plant in Va. Associated Press ...a worker died Wednesday from injuries suffered in what appeared to be an industrial accident at Helms Candy Co. Police identified the worker as 50-year-old Gary Bowers of Washington County, Virginia. Police say Bowers was employed by At Work Personnel, a temporary employment agency...
Tomorrow’s Taxi Commission Hearing Could Limit How Uber And Lyft Operate In New York City BuzzFeed ...The Taxi and Limousine Commission will be holding a public hearing on Thursday morning to discuss a proposed change to its rules that could place new restrictions on app-based car services like Lyft and Uber operate in New York City...
Miscellaneous
Bill that would stop Tesla direct sales in Michigan reaches Snyder's desk Crain's Detroit Business ...Legislation that would prevent Tesla Motors Inc. from directly selling its electric vehicles in Michigan has cleared the state’s legislative chambers and is awaiting the signature of Gov. Rick Snyder...
Ebola outbreak: CDC, Frontier Airlines hunt passengers who flew with nurse Fox News ...Amber Joy Vinson, 29, a nurse at Texas Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas who cared earlier this month for the first U.S. patient to die of the virus, flew on two Frontier Airlines flights between Dallas and Cleveland. Two days after she returned to work, she became the third confirmed case of Ebola in the United States. [Teamsters represent Frontier pilots]..
Airline notifying more passengers of Ebola Associated Press ...Frontier Airlines is expanding the circle of passengers being notified that they flew with a nurse who later tested positive for Ebola, or flew on a later flight using the same plane...
Hoffa Hits The Road To GOTV In Philadelphia teamster.org ...Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa visited more than 150 members employed by Penn Auto Team today, urging them to get out and vote on Nov. 4...
No Golden Gate Bus Strike Tomorrow PR Newswire ...Teamsters 856 and 665 members working for the Golden Gate Highway & Transportation District will not be holding a bus service strike tomorrow in order to allow for the membership to vote on the District's latest offer...
Connelly returns to talk health insurance in Foster Township The Bradford Era ...Connelly said the supervisors would have to begin with non-union employees, asking them to pay copays and deductibles. Then when it’s time to bargain with the Teamsters union, officials could say other workers are paying those...
Safety groups, congressmen say new poll proves public doesn’t want truckers’ hours increased; ‘misleading’ says ATA The Trucker ...Safety advocacy groups, The Teamsters Union, a couple of Democratic congressmen and a research group today disclosed a new public opinion poll they said shows “dramatically” and overwhelmingly that the general public would be opposed to truckers being able to increase their work week from 70 to 82 hours...
Ambulance Workers Unionize The Spectrum ...Citing a lack of facilities available to the company's 20-plus paramedics and Emergency Medical Technicians working in the St. George area, as well as pay starting as low as $11 per hour for paramedics, employees approached the Utah Teamsters about organizing earlier this year, said Spencer Hogue, secretary treasurer and business agent with the Teamsters Local 222 in Salt Lake City. Employees voted to join in September, and the union has already initiated negotiations with Gold Cross management about improving work conditions, Hogue said...
New Concerns About The Bridgeton Landfill Fire CBS News ...It’s not what they know, but what they don’t know about where the Bridgeton Landfill fire is. That’s why Pattonville Fire Department Assistant Chief Matt LaVanchy says the state Department of Natural Resources is sending a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, asking for more information on where the fire is in relation to buried nuclear waste...
Trade
Trade Talk Documents Suggest Access to Medicines May Become Harder Wall Street Journal ...As the latest round of talks for the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement begins in Australia next week, negotiators will be discussing revisions in a key document that consumer advocacy groups say would strengthen patent rights for drug makers at the expense of patients in poor countries...
Latest Intellectual Property Chapter Of TPP Agreement Leaked: Would Be A Disaster For Public Health TechDirt ...A bunch of countries are pushing for the right to cancel a patent if it "is used in a manner determined to be anti-competitive," but of course, the US and Japan are completely against such a thing...
State Battles
Pa. Senate Defeats Union Dues Measure Pittsburgh Post Gazette ...A controversial proposal that would have ended automatic dues deductions and political contributions from unionized public school employees was defeated in the state Senate Wednesday...
Arkansas Voter ID Law Struck Down Politico ...Arkansas’ highest court on Wednesday struck down a state law that requires voters to show photo identification before casting a ballot, ruling the requirement unconstitutional just days before early voting begins for the Nov. 4 election...
Minnesota Unemployment Rate Drops To 4.1 Percent 610KDAL ...The unemployment rate of 4.1 percent is the lowest Minnesota jobless rate in eight years. The U-S unemployment rate was at 5.9 percent in September...
War on Workers
US hospital worker who may have handled Ebola samples quarantined on cruise ship MyFox8 ...A Texas hospital health worker who may have handled Thomas Eric Duncan’s fluid samples has been quarantined on a cruise ship in Belize — another reminder of the widespread fears of the deadly virus...
Private Prisons Face Suits, Federal Probes Clarion Ledger ...Florida-based GEO got the boot in Mississippi after a federal judge in 2012 called the Walnut Grove Correctional Facility "a cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts and conditions. In Idaho, the FBI is investigating the Tennessee-based Corrections Corporation of America after allegations emerged that records were falsified to cover up staff shortages at the Idaho Correctional Center, that gangs ruled and that violence was so rampant it was called "Gladiator School."...
Worker killed in accident at candy plant in Va. Associated Press ...a worker died Wednesday from injuries suffered in what appeared to be an industrial accident at Helms Candy Co. Police identified the worker as 50-year-old Gary Bowers of Washington County, Virginia. Police say Bowers was employed by At Work Personnel, a temporary employment agency...
Tomorrow’s Taxi Commission Hearing Could Limit How Uber And Lyft Operate In New York City BuzzFeed ...The Taxi and Limousine Commission will be holding a public hearing on Thursday morning to discuss a proposed change to its rules that could place new restrictions on app-based car services like Lyft and Uber operate in New York City...
Miscellaneous
Bill that would stop Tesla direct sales in Michigan reaches Snyder's desk Crain's Detroit Business ...Legislation that would prevent Tesla Motors Inc. from directly selling its electric vehicles in Michigan has cleared the state’s legislative chambers and is awaiting the signature of Gov. Rick Snyder...
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Today's Teamster News 10.15.14
Teamster News
Teamsters Make History With First Ever Organizing Victory At FedEx Freight teamster.org ...A group of 47 drivers at FedEx Freight's East Philadelphia terminal in Croydon, Penn. made history today when they overwhelmingly voted to join Teamsters Local 107 in Philadelphia...
Philadelphia FedEx Freight Drivers Vote to Unionize Wall Street Journal ...A group of Philadelphia FedEx Freight drivers voted on Tuesday to join a local Teamsters union, a landmark move for the company’s drivers who are seeking improved working conditions...
Mexican trucking pilot expires Capital Press ...The Teamsters Union, citing safety and job loss concerns, opposed the pilot program...
Hoffa: Mexican Cross-Border Trucking Program Has Failed teamster.org ...After spending tens of millions of dollars over the past three years to monitor and inspect trucks domiciled in Mexico, the Mexican Cross-Border Trucking Program ends today...
SEPTA, Rail Engineers Reach Tentative Agreement Philadelphia Inquirer ...Negotiators for SEPTA and Regional Rail locomotive engineers reached a tentative agreement, which will avert a possible commuter rail strike if the pact is accepted by the engineers and the SEPTA board...
State Asks Bridgeton Landfill Owners To Do More To Keep Fire From Spreading St. Louis Post-Dispatch ...The owners of the Bridgeton Landfill need to step up their efforts to keep an underground fire from reaching nuclear waste at the adjacent West Lake Landfill, according to a letter released Monday by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources...
Sysco Plying FTC To Save US Foods Deal New York Post ...Executives at Sysco, the nation’s No. 1 food supplier to restaurants and schools, are talking with government regulators in an attempt to save the company’s $3.5 billion purchase of US Foods, The Post has learned...
Trade
Anti-TTIP Demonstrations Seize European Capitals EurActiv ...Some 400 activist groups marched all over Europe on Saturday (11 October) in protest against the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), as the EU-US trade deal crystallises opposition to a wide variety of issues – from shale gas to corporate finance...
State Battles
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker Doesn't Think The Minimum Wage 'Serves A Purpose' Huffington Post ...Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) on Tuesday bluntly put into words how he feels about the minimum wage. "Well, I'm not going to repeal it," he said in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "but I don't think it serves a purpose…
Philly Teachers Say They Already Give To Keep Schools Afloat Philadelphia Inquirer ...Inez Campbell has paid for students' medicine. Kimberly Lent has footed the bill for prom tickets and class dues. Sharnae Wilson bought her own copier because her school's machine doesn't always work. Emily Cohen has shelled out for enough books to fill a small library. For decades, Philadelphia School District teachers, counselors, nurses, school psychologists, and others made a trade-off, they say...
War on Workers
Nurses at Texas hospital: 'There were no protocols' about Ebola CNN ...A union made troubling allegations Tuesday about the Texas hospital where a nurse contracted Ebola, claiming "guidelines were constantly changing" and "there were no protocols" about how to deal with the deadly virus."...
Second Texas health-care worker tests positive for Ebola USA Today ...A second hospital worker who helped care for Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan has tested positive for the disease, the Texas Department of State Health Services said in a statement early Wednesday...
Union Urges Protection for Federal Workers at Possible Risk for Ebola Exposure Government Executive ...A federal employee union is urging agencies to “take all necessary measures” to protect government employees working at the country’s ports of entry from possible exposure to the Ebola virus...
Construction worker dies after Sept. crash Toledo Blade ...A construction worker critically injured last month in a crash on the Anthony Wayne Trail in Maumee died Monday...
Sharp rise in contract workers killed on the job wsws.org ...Last year 734 contract workers were killed on the job in the US...The Bureau of Labor Statistics only began keeping figures on the deaths of contract workers in 2011. But in that short time there has already been a dramatic increase in the number of such workers killed. In 2012, 715 contract workers died in on-the-job accidents, up from 542 in 2011...
Koch Donors Uncloaked Politico ...New York hedge fund billionaire Bob Mercer wrote the largest check — $2.5 million — followed by Charles and David Koch, who each stroked $2 million checks from trusts in their names. The group received $1 million apiece from Arkansas poultry producer Ronnie Cameron, Wisconsin roofing billionaire Diane Hendricks and Nebraska trucking magnate Clarence Werner...
Walmart’s Cuts To Worker Compensation Are Self-Defeating Al Jazeera America ...Walmart is cutting worker compensation — again. The stealthy way the giant retailer is cutting pay for most of its 1.4 million American workers not only throws sand in the gears of the nation’s economic engine but also misleads investors by disguising the company’s weakening finances...
Miscellaneous
Oil Keeps Crashing Business Insider ...This is just unbelievable what's happening in oil. Every day it's crashing. Markets are drifting lower overall, contributing to the general "risk off", deflationary-winds vibe. But man, oil! It's close to breaking below $80...
Uber Just Got A Failing Grade From The Better Business Bureau Jalopnik ...The heart of the BBB's charge apparently lies in Uber's "surge pricing" model, where the company charges you enormous amounts of money for a ride exactly when you need it most, like when they charged more than seven times the normal rate during a blizzard, or five times the normal rate during a busy conference...
Teamsters Make History With First Ever Organizing Victory At FedEx Freight teamster.org ...A group of 47 drivers at FedEx Freight's East Philadelphia terminal in Croydon, Penn. made history today when they overwhelmingly voted to join Teamsters Local 107 in Philadelphia...
Philadelphia FedEx Freight Drivers Vote to Unionize Wall Street Journal ...A group of Philadelphia FedEx Freight drivers voted on Tuesday to join a local Teamsters union, a landmark move for the company’s drivers who are seeking improved working conditions...
Mexican trucking pilot expires Capital Press ...The Teamsters Union, citing safety and job loss concerns, opposed the pilot program...
Hoffa: Mexican Cross-Border Trucking Program Has Failed teamster.org ...After spending tens of millions of dollars over the past three years to monitor and inspect trucks domiciled in Mexico, the Mexican Cross-Border Trucking Program ends today...
SEPTA, Rail Engineers Reach Tentative Agreement Philadelphia Inquirer ...Negotiators for SEPTA and Regional Rail locomotive engineers reached a tentative agreement, which will avert a possible commuter rail strike if the pact is accepted by the engineers and the SEPTA board...
State Asks Bridgeton Landfill Owners To Do More To Keep Fire From Spreading St. Louis Post-Dispatch ...The owners of the Bridgeton Landfill need to step up their efforts to keep an underground fire from reaching nuclear waste at the adjacent West Lake Landfill, according to a letter released Monday by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources...
Sysco Plying FTC To Save US Foods Deal New York Post ...Executives at Sysco, the nation’s No. 1 food supplier to restaurants and schools, are talking with government regulators in an attempt to save the company’s $3.5 billion purchase of US Foods, The Post has learned...
Trade
Anti-TTIP Demonstrations Seize European Capitals EurActiv ...Some 400 activist groups marched all over Europe on Saturday (11 October) in protest against the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), as the EU-US trade deal crystallises opposition to a wide variety of issues – from shale gas to corporate finance...
State Battles
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker Doesn't Think The Minimum Wage 'Serves A Purpose' Huffington Post ...Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) on Tuesday bluntly put into words how he feels about the minimum wage. "Well, I'm not going to repeal it," he said in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "but I don't think it serves a purpose…
Philly Teachers Say They Already Give To Keep Schools Afloat Philadelphia Inquirer ...Inez Campbell has paid for students' medicine. Kimberly Lent has footed the bill for prom tickets and class dues. Sharnae Wilson bought her own copier because her school's machine doesn't always work. Emily Cohen has shelled out for enough books to fill a small library. For decades, Philadelphia School District teachers, counselors, nurses, school psychologists, and others made a trade-off, they say...
War on Workers
Nurses at Texas hospital: 'There were no protocols' about Ebola CNN ...A union made troubling allegations Tuesday about the Texas hospital where a nurse contracted Ebola, claiming "guidelines were constantly changing" and "there were no protocols" about how to deal with the deadly virus."...
Second Texas health-care worker tests positive for Ebola USA Today ...A second hospital worker who helped care for Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan has tested positive for the disease, the Texas Department of State Health Services said in a statement early Wednesday...
Union Urges Protection for Federal Workers at Possible Risk for Ebola Exposure Government Executive ...A federal employee union is urging agencies to “take all necessary measures” to protect government employees working at the country’s ports of entry from possible exposure to the Ebola virus...
Construction worker dies after Sept. crash Toledo Blade ...A construction worker critically injured last month in a crash on the Anthony Wayne Trail in Maumee died Monday...
Sharp rise in contract workers killed on the job wsws.org ...Last year 734 contract workers were killed on the job in the US...The Bureau of Labor Statistics only began keeping figures on the deaths of contract workers in 2011. But in that short time there has already been a dramatic increase in the number of such workers killed. In 2012, 715 contract workers died in on-the-job accidents, up from 542 in 2011...
Koch Donors Uncloaked Politico ...New York hedge fund billionaire Bob Mercer wrote the largest check — $2.5 million — followed by Charles and David Koch, who each stroked $2 million checks from trusts in their names. The group received $1 million apiece from Arkansas poultry producer Ronnie Cameron, Wisconsin roofing billionaire Diane Hendricks and Nebraska trucking magnate Clarence Werner...
Walmart’s Cuts To Worker Compensation Are Self-Defeating Al Jazeera America ...Walmart is cutting worker compensation — again. The stealthy way the giant retailer is cutting pay for most of its 1.4 million American workers not only throws sand in the gears of the nation’s economic engine but also misleads investors by disguising the company’s weakening finances...
Miscellaneous
Oil Keeps Crashing Business Insider ...This is just unbelievable what's happening in oil. Every day it's crashing. Markets are drifting lower overall, contributing to the general "risk off", deflationary-winds vibe. But man, oil! It's close to breaking below $80...
Uber Just Got A Failing Grade From The Better Business Bureau Jalopnik ...The heart of the BBB's charge apparently lies in Uber's "surge pricing" model, where the company charges you enormous amounts of money for a ride exactly when you need it most, like when they charged more than seven times the normal rate during a blizzard, or five times the normal rate during a busy conference...
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