Today's Teamster News 07.13.14

Teamsters
Teamsters: Port Truck Drivers In Los Angeles Agree to "Cooling Off" Period  teamster.org   ...The port drivers agreed to the “cooling off” period after the trucking companies agreed to accept all drivers back to work without retaliation and without being forced to sign away all future rights in new truck leases...
Trade
Enormous, Humongous May Trade Deficit Follows Continuing Pattern  Trade Reform   ...The trade deficit fell 5.6 percent in May, to $44.4 billion. That’s $44.4 billion of orders that could have gone to businesses that make and do things inside the U.S. Those companies would have had to hire hundreds of thousands of people to get that done...
TPP talks make progress, barring thorny issues  Japan News   ...the 12 countries including Japan and the United States are expected to hold a session of chief negotiators again as early as in September to pave the way for an envisioned broad agreement in November...
Why the Chinese Are Snapping Up Real Estate in the U.S.  Five Thirty Eight   ...the Chinese spent $22 billion on U.S. housing in the 12 months through March — 72 percent more than they spent the year before...
State Battles
Scott Walker's job creation program is ineffective (opinion)  Wisconsin State Journal   ...Walker distributed $975 million in grants, loans and tax credits, resulting in limited job creation. Thirty percent of businesses receiving WEDC assistance contributed to Walker's campaign and received 60 percent of funds distributed...
In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker's security detail costs balloon 239 percent  Milwaukee Journal Sentinel   ...taxpayers spent more than $2.23 million in 2013 for the 10 state troopers who protect Walker and his family, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and dignitaries from other states and countries who visit Wisconsin. That was up from $657,457 paid out by Gov. Jim Doyle on security during his last year in office in 2010...
War on Workers
Tracy Morgan Sues Walmart Over Deadly Crash in New Jersey  New York Times   ...the plaintiffs contend that the company should have known how little sleep its driver was operating on, and that it allowed him to commute an unreasonable distance before starting the shift that brought him to New Jersey...
The Economy Is Binging on Fast Food and Low Wages—and It Needs to Change  Ann Arbor Independent   ... lower-wage industries employ 2 million more workers than at the start of the recession, while mid- and higher-wage industries each employ about 900,000 fewer workers...
U.S. Chamber Lobbies To Kill Measure That Would Punish Wage Theft  Huffington Post   ...Despite the lobbying from business groups, the wage theft amendment passed the House with bipartisan support Thursday afternoon … Some of the nation's leading business lobbies (pressured) ... House lawmakers to spike bipartisan legislation that would take government contracts away from firms that have committed wage theft...
Citigroup's $7 Billion Fraud Deal: The Clique's Still Clicking in DC  Huffington Post   ...Citigroup is back in the headlines as the result of a new settlement with the Justice Department over its mortgage fraud, reportedly for the sum of $7 billion. This deal is being trumpeted as a major win for the American people. It's not. The money's not enough (and some of it probably won't be paid out), the wrong people are paying, and there will be no prosecutions for criminal behavior...
Flunking Out, at a Price  New York Times   ...For years, federal and state regulators have done little as dubious operators of for-profit colleges and trade schools have pocketed tuitions funded by taxpayer-backed loans. Many students left these colleges with questionable educations and onerous debt loads that cannot be erased in bankruptcy. Regulators have finally woken up to this ugly reality. And, once again, taxpayers and borrowers will pay the price of regulatory failures...

Today's Teamster News 07.02.14

Teamster News
RTC Bus Driver Contract Extended To July 31  Reno Gazette-Journal   ...A contract extension until July 31 for Washoe County public transit employees was agreed to today by their labor union and MV Transportation, which operates the transit system for the Regional Transportation Commission of Washoe County...
Labor Board Rules In Favor Of Union  Bennington Banner   ...Nearly a month after a single challenged ballot left the notion of Green Mountain Express bus driver joining the Teamsters Union hanging, the National Labor Relations Board has ruled in the union’s favor...
'Longmire' Crew Member's Death Is Suspected to Be Caused by Too-Long Working Hours  AceShowBiz   ...A crew member of A&E's crime drama series "Longmire" named Gary Tuck, 48, died early morning on Saturday, June 28, in a car accident. Gary's truck rolled over on a highway in an area known as Stanley, N. M. when he was on his way home from the drama's set around 4:30 A.M. Gary was a member of Teamsters Local 492...
NYCLASS Furious That Bill de Blasio Hasn’t Banned Horse Carriages Yet  New York Observer   ...Mr. de Blasio and his advisers have been shying away from banning the Central Park-based carriages, sources say, and are not pressuring the City Council to pass a bill after promising last year the carriages would be history when he took office...
Trade
Plan a Made-in-the-USA July 4th Celebration  manufacture this   ...Display your stars and stripes with a Made in the USA flag (you’d be surprised – not all flags are!)...
State Battles
Private Contractor For Michigan Prisons Repeatedly Failed To Give Inmates Enough Food  Think Progress   ...Less than a year after Michigan shifted responsibility for feeding its prisoners to a private contract with international food services conglomerate Aramark, the state Department of Corrections (DOC) is warning the company that it may yank the contract if chronic food shortages and security violations don’t cease...
The Minimum Wage Will Increase Tomorrow In D.C.  Washington City Paper   ...Beginning tomorrow, the minimum wage will jump to $9.50 per hour from today's $8.25...
California Minimum Wage Rising To $9 Per Hour Tuesday  KCRA   ...California's minimum wage will rise to $9 an hour when a new law takes effect on Tuesday and provides workers with the first such increase since 2008. That amount will increase again to $10 an hour starting on Jan. 1, 2016, under AB10, which Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law last fall...
Gov. Scott Walker to blame for poor job growth (opinion)  Milwaukee Journal Sentinel   ...The 2011-'12 reductions of 10% in real per student K-12 spending were the fourth-largest in the nation. Cuts in higher education spending, the reduction in the purchasing power of state employees through Act 10 and foregone federal dollars in Walker's rejection of high-speed rail and Medicaid investments all helped dampen aggregate demand in the state (compared to other states) and throw sand in the gears of Wisconsin's job creation machinery...
Dead Last in Jobs in the Midwest  Wisconsin State AFL-CIO   ...You know what doesn’t create jobs?  Rejecting high-speed rail projects, failing to expand Medicaid for the poor, focusing on voter disenfranchisement laws instead of job growth policies, taking money out of local economies with austerity policies such as Act 10, tax cuts for the rich and a lack of accountability and transparency in the WEDC, the jobs agency created by Gov. Walker that has been plagued by scandals...
Whistling Past the Intellectual Graveyard  Econbrowser   ...After three years of an experiment in ALEC-Laffernomics, Kansas lags the US economy significantly...
War On Workers
America Ranks 36th in Feeling Free to Choose What to Do With Your Life  firedoglake   ...many of the first world countries where people are more satisfied with their freedom of choice are the Scandinavian countries with very large social safety nets. Despite the Republican claim that a “government takeover” of health care would destroy our freedom, those countries with far more government involvement in health care feel freer...
Why is Washington still protecting the secret political power of corporations? (opinion)  Guardian   ...Regulators at the SEC could illuminate the future of campaign donations. But they aren't interested in disclosing the truth – even though voters are...
Profiteering on Banker Deaths: Regulator Says Public Has No Right to Details  Wall Street on Parade   ... JPMorgan held $17.9 billion in Bank-Owned Life Insurance (BOLI) assets, a dark corner of the insurance market that allows banks to take out life insurance policies on their workers, secretly pocket the death benefits, and receive generous tax perks subsidized by the U.S. taxpayer...
Miscellaneous
Court Gave NSA Broad Leeway In Surveillance, Documents Show  Washington Post   ...Virtually no foreign government is off-limits for the National Security Agency, which has been authorized to intercept information “concerning” all but four countries, according to top-secret documents...
Here Are 4 Lawsuits That Could Inflict More Damage On Unions After Harris V. Quinn  Mother Jones   ...It's possible that one of these cases could do further damage to the labor movement—with the potential to wipe out the precedent set in 1977's Abood v. Detroit Board of Education decision. (In Abood, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of public-employee unions collecting fair-share fees from non-members to pay the costs of collective bargaining.)...

Here's the real answer to trucker fatigue

Unionize the whole trucking industry.

That's what Hamilton Nolan says over at the delightfully snarky Gawker blog.

Nolan today made fun (sort of) of a Wall Street Journal story on new regulations to promote trucking safety. The rule will cut  truckers' maximum work week down to 70 hours from 82. It will also require them to take rest breaks during the day. Writes Nolan,

The goal is to make sure those hardworking truck drivers out there get some nice sleep, so they don't plow into the rest of us at high speeds.

According to the Wall Street Journal,

The Teamsters union, which represents 600,000 truckers, has pushed for stricter limits on drivers' hours, arguing that having shorter work days and longer rest periods would improve worker safety while creating jobs. 

What they're referring to is the 34-hour restart provision, which says that's how long truckers must rest after a work week before hitting the road again. The Teamsters are concerned that isn't long enough and will have a cumulative effect on drivers.

Nolan cuts right to the chase, though: He writes the regulations will cost the trucking industry "one-third of one percent of its annual revenue."

Still, independent truckers are outraged, because they say this will make it harder for them to compete with the big trucking companies, and the big trucking companies are outraged because they say this will eat into their profit margins. (Unionized truckers don't give a shit because they already have better hour and job security thanks to their union.)

Nolan's recommendation:

Unionize the trucking industry ...  tax the rich and subsidize sleep for the working class...

Yeah, baby!