Photos: Teamster boots on the ground (and ears on the phones) all over the USA

Working people don't have as much money as the squillionaires trying to buy our democracy, but there are more of us than there are of them. We have boots on the ground to combat the influence of big money in politics. 

Here, for example, are just a few photos of Teamsters getting out the vote all over the country. We're pulling out all the stops to elect pro-worker candidates for office on November 4: phone-banking, handbilling, rallying, registering, hosting candidates. And we're campaigning for candidates seeking local office in the City of Tracy, Calif., all the way up to Alison Grimes, who's challenging Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

 

Above, Brother Doug Bloch from Teamsters Joint Council 7 in Northern California sent us this photo of Teamsters from Locals 150, 439 and 601 phone-banking in Tracy. Our California brothers are working to elect Ray Morelos to be the first Latino mayor in the city's history. It's important because Tracy is home to Taylor Farms, which harasses and intimidates its mostly Latino workers who are fighting against poverty wages.

Congressman Tim Ryan, a staunch friend of working people, was invited to speak at Teamsters Joint Council 41 in northern Ohio. Afterwards, Tim tweeted:

Thanks to @Teamsters Joint Council No. 41 for having me out to speak!

Above, Teamsters stand with Nina Turner, a secretary of state candidate who will protect Ohioans' right to vote. The current administration is pulling all kinds of tricks to make it easier for its own supporters to vote. Standing to the left of Nina is Al Mixon, an international vice president and president of Teamsters Local 507.

Ohio Teamsters are also working hard for Connie Pillich, a pro-worker candidate for state treasurer. Lost-timers are up and at 'em early every day. Thanks to Brother Fred Crow for this photo.

Above, Georgia Teamsters are working hard to win for working families this November. Members of Teamsters Local 728 are fanning out to work sites, determined to make a difference in the race for governor. They're especially hopeful that Jason Carter will restore an honest state government that works for everyone, not just friends and campaign donors. Brother Eric Robertson sent us this photo from a YRC yard.

There are plenty more photos of Teamster boots on the ground to come!

Teamsters Get Out the Vote in Wisconsin

Midterm elections matter more than ever, and Wisconsin Teamsters already have their boots on the ground getting out the vote. Above, Teamsters Local 200 Secretary-Treasurer Tom Millonzi, along with business agents Mike Gurich, Tom Benvenuto and Jeff Bandur, get out the vote for Sara Geenen for Wisconsin State Assembly this morning in the Milwaukee area.

Tomorrow is Wisconsin's primary election, and Wisconsin is a case study in why the upcoming general elections are so important. Voters are angry and discouraged and inclined to stay away from the polls, but that is exactly the wrong thing to do.

Voters were angry and discouraged in 2010, when Scott Walker and a majority of Republican lawmakers won in Wisconsin. The result was devastating to working families in Wisconsin.

Walker weakened workers' rights, lowered wages for public service workers, cut education spending, canceled a high-speed rail project and privatized Wisconsin's economic development agency. The result? Wisconsin has the worst performing economy in the region and one of the worst in the country.

Talking Points Memo recently noted:

Finally, no description of the failed experiments of conservative governors is complete without noting the sad record of Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, who went to great and campaign-finance-law-stretching lengths to gain and hold his office. He promised that his agenda would deliver economic growth and bountiful new jobs; the reality has fallen far short. As Marc Levine writes, not only have Walker’s policies not delivered the 250,000 jobs he claimed they would, they may have actually held back job growth in the state, as Wisconsin’s economy falls behind those of its neighbors.

The story was the same in other states where extremist, anti-worker candidates won office in 2010. Kansas, for example, is in serious trouble.

Kansas is now hundreds of millions of dollars short in revenue collection, its job growth has lagged the rest of the nation, and Moody's has cut the state's bond rating. ‘Governor Brownback came in here with an agenda to reduce the size of government, reduce taxes, and create a great economic boom,’ says University of Kansas professor Burdett Loomis. ‘Now there's been a dramatic decline in revenues, no great increase in economic activity, and we've got red ink until the cows come home.’ 

In Minnesota, Republicans trying to toss out progressive, Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton say they'll emulate Walker. Bad idea. According to The Cap Times, Minnesota's economy is leading the region and the nation:

• Minnesota leads the upper Midwest in job creation, with 8.8 percent growth since 2010. Kansas saw 6.6 percent growth during that period, while Wisconsin is tied with South Dakota at 6.3 percent.
• In 2013, Minnesotans earned about 106 percent of the national average income after taxes. Kansans earned almost the national average, at 99 percent, and Wisconsinites earned 97 percent.
• Looking at the period when the recession began, in December 2007, through June 2014, Minnesota was the only state where private-sector employment increased — albeit slightly, by 0.3 percent. It fell by 0.6 percent in Kansas and 2.2 percent in Wisconsin.

So get out there and vote!

Today's Teamster News 08.11.14

Teamsters
Teamsters reject contract with Washoe RTC operator  Reno Gazette-Journal   ...Public transit workers in Washoe County turned down a contract Sunday afternoon with MV Transportation, which manages the county's transit system for the Regional Transportation Commission...
Trade
Critical Moment to Stop The TPP & Other Rigged Trade Agreements (opinion)  The Real News   ...It is time to declare the TPP, TAFTA and the Services agreements as dead, develop a new approach to trade and begin to renegotiate past trade agreements like NAFTA that are doing ongoing damage to the economy, planet and people...
State Battles
The 'P3' dilemma: How effective are public-private partnerships?  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette   ...Six months after Chicago inked the deal, the city’s inspector general conservatively estimated the city received $974 million less from the 75-year lease than it would have received by keeping the meters and operating them under the same terms it gave to the investors...
The War on Workers
Are Wages Really Rising?  Global Economic Intersection   ...The standard of living of most Americans continues to decline. Just as a house divided against itself cannot stand, neither can an economy where nearly half of its actors are losing purchasing power. It steadily becomes a house more divided. It’s bad economically and bad for society...
The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More.  New York Times   ...The industry complains of shortages of truck drivers, but in real terms tractor-trailer drivers made less in 2013 than they did a decade earlier...
Texas Energy Company Worker Killed in Egypt  Associated Press   ...An American employee of Texas-based energy company Apache Corp was killed last week in an apparent carjacking in the western Egyptian desert, officials said Sunday...
Pollsters: 'Everything is terrible'  Politico   ...Americans are also bummed out about the future in general, especially the economy. Things are so low that even an old favorite, sugar, polled poorly...
In the Future We'll All Be Renters: America's Disappearing Middle Class  new geography   ...Homeownership, which peaked in 2002 at nearly 70 percent, has dropped, according to the U.S. Census, to 65 percent in 2013, the lowest in almost two decade...
Why a $16 Billion Fine Is Chicken Scratch for a Big Bank  Alternet   ...Bankers fraudulently inflated a housing bubble. They became extremely wealthy as a result, but the U.S. housing market lost $6.3 trillion in value when the bubble burst. It had only recovered 44 percent of that lost value by of the end of 2013...
Miscellaneous
Want to meet a millionaire? Here's where to go  CNN Money   ...Looking to meet a millionaire? Head to Europe, where in some places nearly three in every ten people is one...
Personal Consumption Expenditures by State, 1997-2012 (Prototype Estimates)  Bureau of Economic Analysis   ...The prototype statistics show that total PCE rose in all states in 2012, but generally at a slower rate than in 2011. Growth was fastest in North Dakota at 11.5%, after growing 11.6% in 2011. PCE grew faster in 2012 compared with 2011 in Arizona, the District of Columbia, North Carolina, Nevada, and Utah...

Today's Teamster News 12.05.10

Participation Rate of 25 to 54 Age Men at Record Low  Calculated Risk   ...The collapse in the labor force participation rate has been one of the key stories of the great recession...
72 super PACs spent $83.7 million on election, financial disclosure reports show  Washington Post ...The newly created independent political groups known as super PACs, which raised and spent millions of dollars on last month's elections, drew much of their funding from private-equity partners and others in the financial industry...
Mounting State Debts Stoke Fears of a Looming Crisis  New York Times ... many state and local governments have so much debt — several trillion dollars’ worth, with much of it off the books and largely hidden from view — that it could overwhelm them in the next few years...
Running Backwards in the U.S. Economy  Gregor.us   ...a handful of Americans are going back to work in our surging export industries, but, they are doing so at much lower pay...
It's Ugly Out There  Financial Armageddon  ...Roundup of stories about homeless camps...

Media biased against working people: federal official

This won't come as a surprise to any of us in the labor movement: the mainstream media is so biased against working people that it won't even report on a federal agency.

The Department of Labor says it can't get its message out because of media prejudice against workers, according to People's World.

People's World was reporting on a talk given by Carl Fillichio, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis's senior adviser for public affairs and communications, at a meeting of the International Labor Communications Association.

Fillichio said the media elitists failed to report that, since Solis took over, the Department of Labor has hired 720 bilingual grievance personnel, issued the largest OSHA fine in history, and, in a move unprecedented in U.S. history, completely shut down a mine because of worker fatalities.


A good explanation for the media bias against workers can be found in a recent issue of The Nation: the corporate-owned media is drowning in money from corporate-funded campaigns. Says The Nation...

...in the 1990s the average commercial TV station received about 3 percent of its revenues from campaign ads, this year campaign money could account for as much as 20 percent ... thirty-second spots that went for $2,000 in 2008 were jacked up to $5,000 this year... Much of this money will go to stations owned by a handful of Fortune 500 firms...

On top of that, a 30-minute newscast at election time has more political advertising than campaign news.

The last election was the worst-ever because of the Supreme Court's Citizen United ruling, which, The Nation says,

...wiped away a century of campaign finance regulations designed to prevent corporations and business alliances from using their immense resources to buy the results that best serve their interests...

The corporate-owned media serves the corporate interests by restricting debate and participation, which, the Nation points out, makes it easier to buy the government. And yet broadcasters receive free monopoly licenses from the government -- under the condition that they serve the public interest. 

The last election cost at least $4 billion in campaign cash. Most of that money went to buy the media. And it's buying our democracy, lock, stock and barrel.

Today's Teamster News 11/14/10

Who Will Stand Up to the Superrich? (opinion)  New York Times   ...Inequality is instead the result of specific policies, including tax policies, championed by Washington Democrats and Republicans alike as they conducted a bidding war for high-rolling donors in election after election...

A Journey From Lawmaker to Lobbyist and Back  New York Times   ...When Cooper Industries, a century-old manufacturing company based in Texas, moved its headquarters to Bermuda to slash its American income tax bill, it had to turn to ... (lobbyist) Dan Coats ...a Republican from Indiana (who) will join the Senate again...
The Financial Crisis and America's Political Duopoly  Huffington Post 
How Beer Made Us Civilized  The Daily Dish
Six House Races Remain in Limbo  New York Times

Some more Teamster winners in Congress

Congratulations to our friends in Congress who had tough races but won:

Raul Grijalva of Arizona, Loretta Sanchez of California, Sanford Bishop of Georgia, Bruce Braley of Iowa, Barney Frank of Massachusetts, Mike Michaud of Maine, Gary Peters of Michigan, Russ Carnahan of Missouri, Tim Bishop of New York, Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, Peter DeFazio of Oregon, Tim Holden of Pennsylvania and Nick Rahall of West Virginia.

Other friends in Congress we're pleased to see back (and yes, they include Republicans):

Ed Pastor of Arizona; Californians George Miller, Nancy Pelosi, Brad Sherman, Linda Sanchez, Joe Baca, Xavier Becerra and Bob Filner; Joe Courtney of Connecticut; Debbie Wasserman-Schulz and Alcee Hastings of Florida; John Lewis of Georgia; Jan Schakowsky and Jerry Costello of Illinois; Mike Capuano, Jim McGovern and Steve Lynch of Massachusetts; Michiganders Sander Levin, John Conyers and John Dingell; Minnesotans Tim Walz, Betty McCollum and Keith Ellison; Bennie Thompson of Mississippi; Lacy Clay of Missouri; Shelley Berkley of Nevada; Rob Andrews, Frank LoBiondo and Chris Smith of New Jersey; New Yorkers Peter King, Carolyn McCarthy; Jerry Nadler and Louise Slaughter; Ohioans Marcy Kaptur, Betty Sutton, Steve LaTourette, Tim Ryan and Pat Tiberi; David Wu and Earl Blumenauer of Oregon; Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania; Jim Clyburn of South Carolina; Sheila Jackson-Lee of Texas; Jim McDermott and Norm Dicks of Washingon; and Nick Rahall of West Virginia.

And in the Senate:

Barbara Boxer of California; Barbara Mikulski of Maryland; Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York; Chris Coons of Delaware; Patrick Leahy of Vermont; Harry Reid of Nevada; Patty Murray of Washington; Michael Bennet of Colorado; Ron Wyden of Oregon; Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut; Daniel Inoye of Hawaii and Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

We may have left someone out, so apologies in advance.

What happened in Kentucky (it wasn't good)

The Teamsters are pretty bummed that Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway lost his race for Senate to Rand Paul.

Here's what Paul thinks of unions: he just named a vice president of the National Right to Work for Less Committee as his chief of staff.

Conway was one of the state attorneys general who sued FedEx for misclassifying workers. He paid a heavy price for prosecuting a nursing home chain that allegedly covered up the sexual abuse of an elderly resident. The owner of the nursing home chain, Terry Forcht, poured money into Paul's campaign for attack ads on Conway.

It will be interesting to see if Rand Paul stands up for working people and elderly victims of sexual assault when he arrives in the U.S. Senate.

Another Teamster Take on Tuesday's Election

More good and bad news trickled in with the results of tight races.

Good news from Illinois, where Gov. Pat Quinn won a full four-year term. Teamsters Joint Council 25 was the first union to endorse Quinn, and Cook County Teamsters busted their butts to elect him. Said John Coli, JC25 president:

Teamsters in Chicago and across Illinois put their boots to the ground to help elect a leader who has spent his career protecting working families and fighting for labor.

We also had good news from Washington, where Sen. Patty Murray narrowly defeated Dino Rossi for a fourth term. Murray has worked closely with the Teamsters in Congress on important transportation issues.

California Sen. Barbara Boxer, an invaluable friend of the Teamsters, defeated a former CEO who sent thousands of jobs overseas and collected millions for her efforts. Rome Alois, Joint Council 7 president in San Francisco, said the Teamsters are proud to return her to Washington.

Jerry Brown's defeat of Google billionairess Meg Whitman was especially sweet for Randy Cammack, president of Joint Council 5 in Covina. As attorney general, Brown fought against trucking company abuses of the drivers at the Port of L.A./Long Beach.

It's taken a few days to sink in, but Jim Oberstar's loss in Minnesota is an especially bitter pill. Oberstar will be replaced as chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee by Florida Rep. John Mica, no friend to labor. By any stretch of the imagination. Mica has voted against the Teamsters on important issues 97 percent of the time.

Over at firedoglake, David Dayen had a good analysis of the state attorney general races. State AGs have been the ones who took on FedEx and other bad actors for misclassifying workers. They are also running the foreclosure fraud investigation, so who won and who lost takes on added importance.

Tom Miller, the Iowa AG who was in charge of the 50-state foreclosure fraud investigation, won re-election. Massachusetts AG Martha Coakley, who sued FedEx for misclassification, also won.

Sadly, Ohio AG Richard Cordray lost. He had cracked down on employee misclassification and was one of the eight who investigated FedEx for the practice.

Today's Teamster News 11/05/10

Productivity Jumps, Jobless Claims Up Wall Street Journal ...Productivity rose in the third quarter as businesses got more out of their employees, while jobless claims reversed course with a sharp increase last week...

Behind a foreclosure, danger and tragedy Miami Herald ...When a toddler wandered into a foreclosed home and drowned in the pool, a host of legal complexities surfaced...

Sen. Patty Murray wins fourth term Seattle Times ...Her victory helped Democrats maintain a majority in the U.S. Senate...

Business gains a friend: Congress Los Angeles Times ...incoming leaders in the GOP-controlled House pledg(ed) less government involvement in the private sector and more scrutiny of new regulations...

Seattle Chamber of Commerce Wants Everyone To Know It Is "Separate and Distinct" From U.S. Chamber ThinkProgress ...The Chamber’s aggressive, hyper-partisan campaign to defeat Democrats in this year’s elections has also run afoul of local Chambers elsewhere in the country...

Today's Teamster News 11/04/10

Republican House Could Re-energize Trade Talks New York Times ...lawmakers with a strong interest in trade would have leading roles in the next Congress...

Fed Fires $600 Billion Stimulus Shot Wall Street Journal ...The Federal Reserve...said it would buy $600 billion of government bonds...to drive down interest rates and encourage more borrowing and growth...

Emerging-Market Countries Criticize Fed Decision New York Times ...the Federal Reserve('s) decision ... they fear ...could escalate the worrisome influx of cash into fast-growing economies around the world...

A Lull in Deals, IPOs, Hits KKR's Earnings Wall Street Journal ...Private equity firms are finding it harder to rack up big gains...

Drugs Seized in Tunnel Near Border New York Times ...the discovery came after officals found 10 tons of marijuana in a tractor-trailer at a freeway checkpoint Tuesday afternoon...

The sad tale of the Democrats who hated the unemployed Salon ...nearly all of them were rewarded with early ... retirement from public service...

How did the Teamsters fare yesterday?

Elections sure do matter. Some of the Teamsters' staunchest allies in Congress and in state capitals lost yesterday. Some won, and a few new faces will be welcome. But by and large, it was not a happy night for organized labor.



First the good news:



West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin won a nail-biter of a race against an anti-union candidate from out of state. Teamsters Vice President Ken Hall called it a big victory for middle-class workers in West Virginia. We were also very pleased that Nick Rahall, a good friend to the Teamsters, won re-election to the House.



Barbara Boxer, who has worked with the Teamsters on so many important issues, won re-election to the Senate from California. Another strong Teamsters ally in California, Jerry Brown, will return to the governor's office 30 years after he first served.



Raul Grijalva a key House leader in the fight to preserve Social Security benefits, won re-election fights in Arizona. Another House leader on Social Security, Gabrielle Giffords, is narrowly ahead of her opponent, also in Arizona.



In Ohio, Pat Tiberi, who co-sponsored a pension-relief bill that is crucial to the Teamsters' and other pension funds, won re-election. So did two strong opponents of job-killing trade agreements, Betty Sutton and Marcy Kaptur (her opponent was the guy who dressed up in a Nazi uniform).



Long-time Teamster ally John Dingell won re-election in Michigan to his 28th or 29th House term, depending on who's reporting (but who's counting?).



Joe Courtney, who strongly opposed plans to tax health care plans, easily won re-election to the House in Connecticut.


Jim McDermott won re-election to his House seat in Washington. He sponsored an important bill that cracks down on companies that misclassify workers.



Andrew Cuomo, who has supported the Teamsters on misclassification, easily won election as governor of New York.



And now the bad news.



This is really bad: Rep. Jim Oberstar lost after serving 18 terms in the House from Northern Minnesota. As chairman of the House Transportation Committee, he has been an invaluable supporter of the Express Carrier Employee Protection Act and a strong advocate for aviation safety. His replacement as committee chair, John Mica of Florida, is no friend to labor.



Jack Conway, Kentucky's attorney general who worked with us to stop FedEx from misclassifying its drivers, lost to Rand Paul for the senate.



Robin Carnahan, who the Teamsters strongly supported in Missouri, lost her campaign for Senate to Roy Blunt.



There was plenty of bad news from Ohio, where Lee Fisher lost his Senate bid to a former U.S. Trade Representative, Rob Portman, and Gov. Ted Strickland lost his race for re-election to Wall Street banker John Kasich.



Rep. Earl Pomeroy, who co-sponsored the pension-relief bill with Pat Tiberi, lost his race in South Dakota.



Phil Hare, a former shop steward from Rockford, Illinois, lost his bid for re-election.



Former UPS driver and Teamster Gary McDowell lost his bid for former Rep. Bart Stupak's seat in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.



We're also still waiting to find out what happens in Washington State, where Teamster ally Sen. Patty Murray holds a tiny lead over challenger Dino Rossi.



This is by no means an exhaustive list; the Teamsters supported many more candidates. But it'll have to do for now.

Today's Teamster News 11/02/10

Foreign Money, National Security and the Midterm Elections Baseline Scenario ...We have effectively enfranchised foreigners in U.S. elections....

Teamsters at YRC Worldwide OK Pact Buffalo News ...Teamsters at YRC Worldwide's trucking companies have approved extending contract concessions...

Teamsters target UC Merced Examiner ...UC employees have worked without a contract for three years, the union says...

Lawmaker questions power to foreclose Wall Street Journal ...A Republican member of the House of Delegates requested Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli determine whether ... (MERS) ...violates state law because it doesn't pay a fee every time a loan changes hands ...

In Air Cargo Screening, It's Speed vs. Security, Creating a Weak Link in Security New York Times ...full screening of all air cargo would cause the system of express air delivery to come to a grinding halt...

Deficit Commission Plots to Overhaul Social Security Behind Voters' Backs Beat the Press ...this commission conspired to keep ...(Social Security and Medicare) ...outside of the election debate.

Today's Teamster News 10/20/10

Bus strike ends in Pr. George's Washington Post ...Tommy Ratliff, president of Teamsters Local 639, said union members voted 93 to 12 to approve a three-year contract with Veolia Transportation...

China Said to Widen Its Embargo of Minerals New York Times ...China mines 95 percent of the world’s rare earth elements, which have broad commercial and military applications, and are vital to the manufacture of products as diverse as cellphones, large wind turbines and guided missiles...

Will Bankers go to Jail for Foreclosure-gate? Time ...law enforcement officials are investigating whether banks and their employees broke federal law in the handling of foreclosures...

The Perfect Storm (opinion) robertreich.org ...An unprecedented concentration of income and wealth at the top; a record amount of secret money flooding our democracy; and a public becoming increasingly angry and cynical about a government that’s raising its taxes, reducing its services, and unable to get it back to work...

The Wall Comes Tumbling Down The Nation ...an agreement (was reached) with the 4000-memberCoalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) to implement a penny per pound pay raise—which stands to increase workers’ annual earnings from about $10,000 to as much as $17,000—and establish a code of conduct that includes an external complaint resolution system, shade and protective equipment in the fields, and a worker-to-worker education process on their rights under the new agreement...

Today's Teamster News 10/19/10

From Obama, the tax cut nobody heard of New York Times ...What if a president cut American income taxes by $116 billion and nobody noticed?...

Jobless benefits about to crash Politico ...there's little prospect anytime soon for the sort of costly and complex rescue that's necessary...

Largest Bank Will Resume Foreclosure Push in 23 States New York Times ...Bank of America announced on Monday it would resume home foreclosures in nearly two dozen states...

Teamsters rack up four organizing wins People's World ...the wins added almost 1,900 workers to the union...

Witness: Foreclosure firm owner gave gifts for altering documents Tampa Bay Online ...Some employees of Florida's largest "foreclosure mill" were given jewelry, cars and houses from the firm, in exchange for altering and forging key documents...

The New Tax Man: Big Banks and Hedge Funds Huffington Post ...Nearly a dozen major banks and hedge funds, anticipating quick profits from homeowners who fall behind on property taxes, are quietly plowing hundreds of millions of dollars into businesses that collect the debts, tack on escalating fees and threaten to foreclose on the homes of those who fail to pay...

Today's Teamster News 10/18/10

China Escalates Fight With U.S. on Energy Aid New York Times ...Zhang Guobao, sharply rebuked the Obama administration for opening an inquiry on Friday into the subsidies...

Republicans, Democrats who criticized stimulus wrote letters seeking funds Washington Post ...They include tea party favorites such as freshman Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), as well as Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)...

GOP cash threatens to swamp Dems Politico ...the widening cash flow to Republican challengers is a disturbing development for Democrats who are struggling to stem the incoming GOP tide...

Iowa workers feel pay theft pinch DesMoines Register ...the federal government has investigated an increasing number of wage theft cases in an effort to prevent billions in lost worker pay and tax revenue...

Union-Backed Critic of U.S. Chamber Asks IRS to Probe Political Funding Bloomberg ... the chamber may have misstated financial transactions and given improper compensation to Chamber President Thomas Donohue...

Today's Teamster News 10/15/10

Chamber of Commerce hits Democratic Senate candidates on union bill The Hill ...The two “issue ads” in Missouri and Pennsylvania target candidates Joe Sestak and Robin Carnahan, respectively, for their support of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA)...

Paul, Conway spar over union balloting in Ky. Associated Press ...Paul positioned himself as a staunch opponent of the proposed Employee Free Choice Act ... Conway said he believes employees should be able to form a union if 50 percent of workers want one...

How much can we blame on state pensions? Washington Post ...Pension obligations currently account for 3.8 percent of the average state's spending. That's not where the current crisis is coming from...

Taking a Vote on Union Construction New York Times ...next month, residents of San Diego County, which includes the two cities, will vote on a similar ban against favoring unions in county construction contracts...

As Genesys Regional Medical Center technical workers approve contract, registered nurses prepare for more rough negotiations ahead Flint Journal ...recording secretary Angie Oberman ... (said) “It feels like we’ve been at war for 10 months and now there is justice for it all,” ...

In Cities Fighting Wal-Mart, Target Welcomed Wall Street Journal ...the opposition has caused Wal-Mart to lose ground to competitors—notably Minneapolis-based Target, which has moved into large cities in recent years with comparatively little opposition despite also employing nonunion workers.

Today's Teamster News 10/14/10

Rove, Chamber ads widely debunked as false or misleading Washington Post ...the sheer scale and dimension of dishonesty and distortion coming from the conservative side of this debate is a very big part of the story. And it's largely going untold...

Bankers Ignored Signs of Trouble on Foreclosures New York Times ... all 50 state attorneys general announced that they would investigate foreclosure practices...

U.S. Trade Deficit Widens; Producer Prices Rise Associated Press ...The politically sensitive deficit with China reached an all-time high...

GW’s Gelman Library Opens International Brotherhood of Teamsters Labor History Research Center George Washington University ...Center is first major labor history center to open in the U.S in 30 Years, IBT Archives, dating back to the 1900s, will Peprmanently reside at GW...

Jobless claims rise, topping 460,000 CNN Money.com ...The number of Americans filing for first-time unemployment benefits rose last week...

Chamber can't or won't prove it isn't funneling foreign money to U.S. elections

Of COURSE the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is soliciting money from foreign countries (who by and large want to take our jobs) and spending it on mostly Republican political candidates. Which is, by the way, against the law.

The Chamber claims it "segregates" the money but won't explain how. Some Democrats actually think it's a bad idea to attack the Chamber for an activity that's loathsome to most voters.

David Dayen at firedoglake has a good take on the controversy:

It’s incredible that anyone would call the charges about the Chamber “baseless.” The Chamber solicits donations from abroad. That money goes into an account. The Chamber then spends $75 million dollars from that same account. They say that the money is segregated but refuse to show any documentation backing that up. Nobody disputes any of this. Why is it at all out of bounds to point it out?

But some battered-wife-syndrome Democrats think that defending themselves during an election is just terribly partisan and not at all what the God-fearing voters in real America want.

Voters in America want jobs in America. The Chamber wants to raise money by helping foreign multinationals move jobs overseas.

Seems pretty cut and dried.

Has Chamber proved it hasn't funneled foreign money to political campaigns?

White House adviser David Axelrod says the U.S. Chamber has some 'splaining to do. He appeared on "Face the Nation" yesterday and told Bob Schieffer that the U.S. Chamber hasn't proven that the foreign money it funneled to U.S. campaigns is "peanuts":

The fact is the Chamber has asserted that, but they won't release any information about where their money is coming from. And that's the core of the problem.

The U.S. Chamber is probably the single biggest contributor to U.S. political campaigns, and it has long championed NAFTA, CAFTA and all the trade deals that give workers the SHAFTA (as my boss, Jim Hoffa, likes to say).

The Washington Post and the New York Times, both ardent supporters of job-killing trade deals, dismiss the story about the U.S> Chamber's practice of funneling money to pro-free-trade candidates from countries like Bahrain, Egypt and India.

But ThinkProgress, the blog that originally reported the story, produced the chart above that shows how the U.S. Chamber does it.

And ThinkProgress asks two very good questions that neither the Times nor the Post thought to get answered:

How many foreign sources of funding does the U.S. Chamber have? and

Are the foreign funds being directed to the same general account that is being used to pay for partisan attack ads?

Stay tuned.