Today's Teamster News 05.07.12

Sarkozy loses in France; Greek voters also turn on leaders  McClatchy Newspapers   ...the publics in both countries appeared to be rejecting the European Union’s austerity program that was undertaken largely on German demands to stabilize the euro following fiscal crises in Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland...
Quebec students to vote on tuition compromise  CBC News   ...Students in Quebec have been holding protests and clashing with police for almost three months, denouncing the government's plans to raise tuition fees...
Protesters in Miami clean garbage from foreclosed homes and dump it at bank  Photoblog   ...''It's bad enough these big banks put families out of their homes, now they just let the houses sit there bringing down the property value for everyone else in the neighborhood...
Dozens of Police Evict Georgia Family at Gunpoint at 3am  Alternet   ...The eviction came as Frazer, 63, who lost her husband and then job in 2009, had been challenging the foreclosure in county and federal courts by seeking to restructure the terms of a delinquent mortgage. However, the latest holder of her loan, Investors One Corporation—the fourth company that bought her mortgage in an eight-month period—allowed the eviction to proceed even thought it was "negotiating" new loan terms with her attorney one day before the police raid...
Walker talking less about new jobs  LaCrosse Tribune   ...Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is downplaying his pledge to create 250,000 new private-sector jobs by the end of his term, a review of his official pronouncements suggests...
Sotheby’s Handlers to Confront Board, Pay Plan Backed  Bloomberg   ...Locked-out art handlers who own shares will confront directors about labor practices, according to the union representing the workers...

Today's Teamster News 05.04.12

Mitt Romney Commissioned Pro-America Pins, Made Them In China  ThinkProgress   ...He told a story about the “We Stand United” American flag pins he commissioned for the games, which took place just months after the terror attacks on 9/11. ..Complicating Romney’s patriotic message is the fact that the pins were made in China...
Paul: The High Cost of Our Addiction to China  CNBC   ...Ten years after the United States officially ended its yearly review of China's trade status, no one can credibly argue that China is any freer or more attentive to human rights, nor can they claim the United States is better off economically as a result of our bilateral trade and investment relationship with the People's Republic...
How work boredom is the new stress... and it affects everyone from office workers to those on the Afghan frontline  Daily Mail   ...'We seem to be in a culture of having meetings, which a lot of people find boring. There are a lot of automated systems now, so a lot of the things we do are quite remote. We have more people working night shifts, which are more boring because you've got fewer people to talk to...
T. Boone Pickens: Biggest Deterrent To U.S. Energy Plan Is Koch Industries  Yahoo Daily Ticker   ..."They do not want an energy plan for America because they have the cheapest natural gas price they've ever had, and they're in the fertilizer business and they're in the chemical business. So their margins are huge. And they do not want you to have an energy plan, because if you had a plan, then natural gas prices would come up."...
Economists' Malign Influence on Taxes  Forbes   ...The United States is a plutocracy, with an income and wealth distribution that rivals South America’s worst cases, but economists refuse to acknowledge that these outcomes are attributable to ill-advised public policies on taxation, regulation, trade, and education spending over the last several decades...
Sotheby's 'The Scream' Sale Intensifies Criticism Of Art Handlers' Lockout  Huffington Post   ...The final sale price for the Munch painting included $12.9 million in commission fees for the art house. Teamsters Local 814, which represents the handlers, says the yearly contract for all 42 union members would cost the company $3.3 million...

Real world confronts art world

What's disgusting? A wealthy, profitable company locking out 42 art handlers for eight months.

Today's Teamster News 03.17.12

Ex-CBO Staffer’s Warnings About Foreclosures Ignored  firedoglake   ...Dr. Lan Pham, a former senior staffer financial economist for the Congressional Budget Office, was fired from the organization for her attempts to quantify the economic implications of foreclosures and foreclosure fraud ... The release of this information should cause grave concern as to the legitimacy of CBO reports, and highlight the conspiracy of silence about foreclosure fraud issues, which official Washington simply does not want to deal with...
When Do Humans Want to Share the Wealth?  Angry Bear   ...If there’s a problem with the ultra-rich, it’s not that they have too much wealth, it’s that they bought laws that made it easy for them to gain and keep so much more wealth in recent decades...
Complaint filed against Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser in choking case  Appleton Post Crescent   ...Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser violated the court's ethics code when he allegedly choked a rival justice (Ann Walsh Bradley) and should be disciplined, according to a complaint the state Judicial Commission filed with the high court Friday ... Tensions ... reached a head last June as the court dealt with a legal challenge to Republican Gov. Scott Walker's law that took away union powers from most public workers...
Saturday rally at Gold Dome to fight against Ga. anti-protest bill  GA Voice   ...In essence, SB 469 is an anti-union bill that wants to make it, among other things, illegal for a bunch of people protest at, say, a CEO's house or a bank or another public building. Saturday, March 17, 40 groups are gathering at the state Capitol from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. to send a message that the right to protest is not something to be denied...
James Murdoch gives up another directorship  The Guardian   ...Rupert Murdoch's youngest son was a Sotheby's director for two years. His move follows demands for Murdoch's resignation from some Sotheby's shareholders in the wake of the phone hacking scandal...
Teamsters Local 580 Issues Intent to Strike Notice  WLNS   ...The American Red Cross Great Lakes Blood Services Region received notices of intent to strike by staff members represented by Teamsters Local 580. This is the fourth time they've received a notification like this in the past two years and it would be the third time Teamsters Local 580 has gone on strike... 
AC Transit Chooses Teamster Employer to Manufacture Buses  Joint Council 7   ...The Alameda-Contra Costa (AC) Transit District Board of Directors has voted to purchase its buses from Gillig, LLC, a local company that employs 450 Teamster members who produce heavy-duty transit buses...

RFK Jr. joins Teamsters on Sotheby's picket line

On the Sotheby's picket line this morning. RFK Jr. wears a white shirt.

(NOTE: Adds new graf with Kennedy saying he couldn't cross a picket line.)

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., told picketing Teamsters today that he had come face-to-face with Sotheby's callous indifference to working families.

Kennedy had canceled an auction at Sotheby's in sympathy with Local 814's 42 art handlers, who have been locked out for seven months. The event to benefit Kennedy's environmental group, Waterkeeper Alliance, was moved to another venue.

"I talked to them and they just don't care," Kennedy told about two dozen members of Local 814 walking the picket line outside of the auction house.

One worker asked him why he moved his auction. "I couldn't have my event here," Kennedy said. "I couldn't cross a picket line."

Kennedy's visit came on the same day that Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa announced that he was donating their correspondence to the union's archives at The International Brotherhood of Teamsters Labor History Research Center at The George Washington University in Washington.

Kennedy wrote,

I know that our families have been at odds in the past. But you and I have spent our lifetimes fighting off the right wing attacks on the union movement and battling to make our country live up to her historical ideal as a template for justice and democracy.

Hoffa responded,

Thank you for joining in with the chorus of labor unions, Occupy Wall Street and others who believe in economic justice and a strong middle class, to help the art handlers. This injustice is yet another example of the class warfare being waged by the top 1 percent.

Dave Martinez, shop steward, said Kennedy was really nice.

He just came up to one of the guys and introduced himself. He was really cool about it.

Whoa! Sotheby's abuse of Teamsters brings RFK Jr., Hoffa together

It took Sotheby's lockout of 42 Teamsters to bring together the sons of Jimmy Hoffa and Bobby Kennedy after 40 years of chill between the families.

Or, as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., wrote in a Feb. 13 letter to Jim Hoffa:

I know that our families have been at odds in the past. But you and I have spent our lifetimes fighting off the right wing attacks on the union movement and battling to making our country live up to her historical ideal as a template for justice and democracy. Our success will require a large and durable middle class that can only come from a strong union movement.

Dave Shepardson at the Detroit News had the story this afternoon. He writes,

The Hoffa and Kennedy families appear to be patching up relations nearly four decades after a well-publicized fight, and they are doing it through the handling of a labor conflict.
As U.S. attorney general, Robert F. Kennedy targeted then-Teamsters President James R. Hoffa for prosecution...

Kenney had planned an auction at Sotheby's to raise money for his environmental group, the Waterkeeper Alliance. Then he learned about the auction house's 7-month lockout of its art handlers from Teamsters Local 814. So he pulled the auction from Sotheby's and wrote the letter to Hoffa.

Said Hoffa,

The problems facing working families are far more serious than our fathers' past conflicts. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s decision to stand up for the locked-out Teamsters at Sotheby's tells me what a good man he is.

Well said.

Sotheby's bad karma bites it in the butt

The Whitney's frou-frou exhibit disrupted by supporters of locked-out Sotheby's Teamsters.

Sotheby's lockout of 42 Teamster art handlers during a period of record profit seems to have brought the wrath of the gods on the auction house.

One Sotheby's director just quit as chairman of an international corporation because of his alleged crimes. Another director gets caught on youtube talking down to art handlers in a performance worthy of Cruella DeVille. Other directors' businesses have been disrupted. When protesters loudly denounced Sotheby director Danny Meyer during his restaurant's busy dinner hour, it went viral on the Internet.

Now the Museum of Modern Art is involved in a legal tangle because it won't cut its ties with Sotheby's. Occupy Museums is demanding payment for a banner MoMA confiscated inside the museum during an action in solidarity with the Teamsters. Just this week, the Whitney Museum was targeted for its ties to Sotheby's in several embarrassing and well-publicized actions. Read about them here and here and here.

On top of all that, the New York Times last week ran a front-page story about the Cambodian relic Sotheby's wants to sell though it was apparently looted from the Killing Fields. (Even Chumlee on Pawn Stars knows better than to fence stolen art.)

Karma's a bitch, ain't it? During this time of growing social unrest, Sotheby's bad behavior has come to epitomize the cruelty, arrogance and possible criminality of the 1 percent.

But there's more to it than karma. We learned recently that Sotheby's profit was lower than forecast, not by a little but by a lot. This is a big deal in the world of finance. We suspect that the added costs for security guards and union-busting lawyers had a teensy bit to do with Sotheby's lower profit.

This suggests to us that Sotheby's represents more than bad behavior. It represents the unsustainable economic systems we live with today, systems that are so top-heavy they're falling in on themselves.

A hoax press release put out by Sotheby's Teamsters supporters last week described the imbalance:

...the financial speculation on art taking place in secondary sales of works benefits wealthy investors far more than the artists who created the works, let alone the workers who craft, move, install, maintain, or guard them...

If artists and art workers cannot live on what they earn, there will be no more art. In the end, Sotheby's will have destroyed itself.

Teamsters demand MoMA cut ties to Sotheby's

Our brothers who've been thrown out on the street by Sotheby's are right now standing on the street in front of the prestigious Museum of Modern Art in New York, demanding that it cut ties to the auction house because of the way it treats workers.

They've just put out a press release explaining their demands, which we'll quote from here:

The workers who rallied today outside of MoMA are not on strike; Sotheby's kicked them out of their jobs with no paychecks.

The auction house sparked the bitter labor dispute seven months ago when it locked out its 42 art handlers who belong to Teamsters Local 814. Their contract had expired at the end of July 2011. Sotheby's - which grossed $680 million in 2010, its second-most profitable year ever - wants to eliminate the union by demanding all future hires be low-wage temporary workers with no benefits and no collective bargaining rights.

MoMA recently sold several major works of art at Sotheby's, and has a long history of buying and selling with the auction house. This ongoing relationship is a direct contradiction of any claim the museum has to responsible behavior, according to Local 814 President Jason Ide. Ide said,

MoMA has always tried to act justly toward its own employees and been diligent in selecting responsible contractors," said Ide. "But the decision to do business with Sotheby's when it wants to eliminate good jobs just when New Yorkers need them most is very disturbing.

Occupy Wall Street activists have taken up the cause of the 42 art handlers, who lost their health care on Jan. 1, 2012 and are struggling to survive on unemployment. OWS recently dropped a large banner inside the museum that read "Sotheby's End Your Lockout. Hang Art Not Workers."

Teamsters Joint Council 16 President George Miranda had this to say:

The kind of reckless, anti-worker practices you see at Sotheby's should not be condoned or supported by leading institutions like MoMA. MoMA should be setting an example for the art world. Until the lockout is ended, all museums, especially those receiving money from New York taxpayers should cease all business with Sotheby's.

Sotheby's Teamsters on art and the lockout

Sim Jones is a Sotheby's Teamster who's been locked out of his job since Aug. 1. This painting is by one of his favorite artists, Guy Wiggins. Jones tells MetroFocus,

The first paintings I fell in love with were Guy Wiggins’ snow scenes, but that’s just because I’m a city kid. I love what he does with his paint. He brings out the light, and you really get a feel for New York City.

Props to Sam Lewis at MetroFocus for interviewing our locked-out brothers. The story, "Love’s Labor Lost: Lockout at Sotheby’s" is a great read. We learn, for example,

Still there.

There is a right way and a wrong way to pick up a $15,000 chair that was made in 18th century France. According to Sotheby’s art handler Luis Baucage, this kind of knowledge matters when you’re handling high-priced antiques. “But there’s more than a price tag underneath the cushion,” Baucage cautioned. “There’s an entire history to learn.”

Anwari Musan, the youngest art handler, says he tries to picket every day:

I just want the people to know that we’re out here everyday for a purpose, we’re not just making noise. The clients seem to be so focused on the auction and people from the community don’t always come inside the building, but they wake up to our whistles. I want them to know that they’re actually waking up to our struggle. Now that we’ve been out here for three months, people from the community have started coming by and asking us questions.

Read the whole thing here.

Ah, the luxury of toying with workers' lives

One of our brothers locked out by Sotheby's saw this sticker on an advertisement for something luxurious. It captured the cool indifference of the entitled jerks at Sotheby's. Six months ago, they kicked their fellow human beings out on the street -- because they stood up for their right to belong to a union.  According to Sotheby's report to the SEC, it cost them more to lock out 42 art handlers than it would cost to pay them their wages.

We hear negotiations are going along okay between Teamsters Local 814, which represents the art handlers, and Sotheby's. We're just wondering if Sotheby's board members will ever step out of their luxe cocoons. They might just find their reputations as decent human beings forever tainted.

Sotheby's Teamsters take action against Museum of Modern Art

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) in New York last night got Occupied again -- by Teamsters from Local 814, Occupy Wall Street, museumgoers, artists, arts enthusiasts and culture activists.

The groups gathered outside of the multimillion-dollar exhibition of Diego Rivera's legendary murals and disrupted museumgoers' quiet viewing experience.

Organizer Noah Ficher addressed the crowd, giving them an alternative interpretation of Rivera's art:

Work by Rivera.

They're not miracles of art. They're works.

The action was chiefly the effort of Occupy Museums, an Occupy Wall Street working group that fights against the influence of the 1% in the arts. As outspoken supporters of the locked-out Teamsters, Occupy Museums activists fight the "Sotheby's economy" -- a system of elite influence that works to "support" the arts with one hand, then grabs at its profit with the other.

MoMa deals with Sotheby's, which threw 43 art handlers out of work because they demanded a fair standard of living from the mega-rich employer.

The visit followed the action last Friday, when Occupy Museums took to MoMa in collaboration with labor activists from Occupy Sotheby's (who had last been seen getting jostled in the picket line clash during the Nov. 9 auction.

Felix Cardinal, an art handler of 4 years who came to MoMa assembly, said he appreciated Occupy Wall Street's support:

We know that OWS can take action and walk the walk, but now I'm even more impressed by this level of conversation taking place. I'm inspired that people who seriously care about art are doing something to help our cause, that this issue stretches way beyond just Sotheby's.

Rivera's works, which depict scenes of life, labor and inequality in the new industial world, were commissioned in part by corporate mogul and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller. When he saw that they depicted a pro-worker message, Rockefeller wouldn't let the work remain on display in 30 Rockefeller Plaza.

Arts activist Ariel Lugo pointed out that the exhibit's success resulted from art handlers' skill:

The art handlers who installed this exhibit had their work cut out for them, because these murals were painted on cement. They were painted on cement because Rivera thought they'd be shown in a public space, not in a museum with corporate-subsidized admission.

Harrison Magee, a member of Occupy Sotheby's, said:

Rivera wouldn't have wanted his paintings here. His works stood for the interests of working people, whose voices are being silenced everywhere.

As Sotheby's enters a new auction season having once again broken sales records in the fall, they have still yet to reach a fair agreement with the Teamsters union. Estimates predict that the lockout has by now cost the company more money than they would have spent over the course of the 3-year contract as proposed by the union. with new parts of the movement now getting involved, OWS is throwing the weight of the 99% back into the fight to end the lockout.

'Sotheby's: Hang art, not workers' says Occupy Museums in MOMA direct action

It's kind of disgusting, when you think about it, that artwork about suffering workers gets sold by rich, union-busting companies like Sotheby's for millions of dollars -- to rich people.

That's why Occupy Museums disrupted the Museum of Modern Art last month at a Diego Rivera exhibition.

(If you haven't been following, Sotheby's locked out 42 art handlers on Aug. 1 because they wouldn't stand for lower wages, a lousier retirement plan and the gradual dissolution of the union.)

Art in America writes,

The Museum of Modern Art was once again targeted by Occupy Museums, bringing their protest inside the building on a bitterly cold evening. Occupy Museums has staged a number of demonstrations since October; this was a homecoming of sorts, since the first protest took place at MoMA.

Over the two-hour event, protesters ... were joined by representatives of the Arts and Labor Group of Occupy Wall Street, artists' group 16 Beaver and Occupy Sotheby's.

The main thrust of the occupiers' complaints was that two MoMA board members, James Niven and Richard E. Oldenburg, are also involved with Sotheby's (as a vice chairman and consultant, respectively), which has locked out its unionized art handlers over a contract dispute. A representative of OWS Labor Outreach (who gave his name only as "Alex") proclaimed in the Rivera exhibition, "The fact that MoMA will show Diego Rivera while breaking labor is a disgrace." Noah Fischer, the artist who is the main organizer of Occupy Museums, repeatedly asserted that Sotheby's has spent more on locking the workers out than it would have on their wages.

And we love this:

Creative Time curator Nato Thompson, a participant in the protest, pointed out that while The New York Times was slow to cover Occupy Wall Street, it was fascinated with the Egyptian revolution. He saw a similar phenomenon in MoMA's exhibition of Rivera: "Rivera can be abstracted from the present. Would he really want us to passively enjoy his murals? If you really love this show you'll get off your ass and overthrow your boss!"

Sotheby's Teamsters to lose health insurance in 9 days

Dave Martinez. The patch says "Occupy Wall Street United We Stand"

Our 42 brothers at Sotheby's lose their health care on Jan. 1 because of those charming people who make hundreds of millions of dollars selling things to the 1 percent.

The New York Observer reports "Sotheby's Is Killing Christmas."

Sotheby’s has yet to let its locked-out workers back in after more than four months off the job due to disagreements over their union contract. So now the workers of the Local 814, the Teamsters union that includes art handlers at Sotheby’s high-end auctionhouse, have launched an email campaign comparing Sotheby’s CEO William Ruprecht to Scrooge and claiming the Teamsters have no money to care for their Tiny Tims. The catalyst? The locked-out workers are on the verge of losing their health insurance.

Publicity like this pressures Sotheby's to do the right thing. So does an online petition, if it generates thousands of signatures. Add yours to the petition here.

Diana Taylor adds insult to injury by serving on the board of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. Taylor is a Sotheby's director and girlfriend of Mayor "I have the seventh biggest army in the world" Bloomberg.

Dave Martinez, Sotheby's shop steward, explained why that is such an insult at a gathering of Occupy Wall Street during the Netroots New York confab last weekend.

The Mailman School is committed to principles of social justice and the promotion of health as a fundamental right of all human beings.

Could Diana Taylor be any more clueless? Could Sotheby's be any more heartless?

Today's Teamster News 12.11.11

Mayor Bloomberg's girlfriend has a 'Let them eat sh*t' moment  Daily Kos   ... Is it really so hard to go back to the bargaining table and break off a few more pennies for the working class?...
How Goldman Sachs and Other Companies Exploit Port Truck Drivers — Occupy Protesters Plan to Shut Down West Coast Ports in Protest  Alternet   ...Once a middle-class profession, the port trucking (or drayage) industry has now been dubbed "sweatshops on wheels..."
30 Major U.S. Corporations Paid More to Lobby Congress Than Income Taxes, 2008-2010  International Business Times   ...By employing a plethora of tax-dodging techniques, 30 multi-million dollar American corporations expended more money lobbying Congress than they paid in federal income taxes between 2008 and 2010, ultimately spending approximately $400,000 every day -- including weekends -- during that three-year period to lobby lawmakers and influence political elections...
Negative Equity: How Many Loans are Underwater in Your State?  creditsesame   ...Home equity has become a thing of the past for millions of homeowners...
Court Cases Revealing Massive Fraud in Mortgage Business  firedoglake   ...The grand jury transcripts ... show an undeniable pattern of criminality among the document processing companies that feed foreclosures into the system....
Irony alert: U.S. calls on Russia to respect peaceful protests  Raw Story   ... The United States called Friday on both Russian authorities and protesters to remain peaceful as opponents of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin prepared major weekend demonstrations against his rule...

How Sotheby's CEO disgraces Univ. of Vermont

Sotheby's CEO Bill Ruprecht is on the University of Vermont's board of trustees. At a hoity-toity UV alumni reception, an Occupy Wall Street activist named Andy F (impersonating a UV alum) seized a microphone and recounted Ruprecht's shameful actions toward Teamsters Local 814 art handlers.

Here's what happened, according to the Occupy Wall Street Labor Outreach Committee:

When UVM’s interim President, John Bramley, finished giving his greetings and remarks he began to struggle with turning off the microphone. Andy was in the front row, and walked right up to him and offered to help him with it. John was relieved he didn’t have to figure that out, and Andy began his address. 

Andy kept his cool, spoke slowly, and fit right in. In the beginning, the lively crowd actually began shushing others around them so they could hear what he had to say. He was eventually escorted out, but oh so gently – except for the head lock someone put him in for a few seconds. They even let him keep talking into the mic as they were kindly walking him out the door.

And just a reminder of what Ruprecht was told about the lockout by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's girlfriend Diana Taylor here.

Hoffa to NY Gov: Fire Diana Taylor for hating on workers

If you've seen it, you won't soon forget the video of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's insufferable girlfriend insulting Teamsters. They actually have the audacity to want to keep their jobs, their wages and their pay -- something Diana Taylor views as an unacceptable demand. What's worse, she delivered her insults in a public meeting about a new park that's supposed to benefit New York's working families. Her dislike of working families couldn't be clearer.

Taylor was chairing a meeting of the Hudson River Park Trust when two Teamsters stood up. They had been locked out of their jobs by Sotheby's, a wildly profitable pawn shop for the 1 percent. Teamsters Dave Martinez and Julian Tysh asked Taylor what she had against working families and why she wouldn't do the right thing.

"Let them eat cake," would have been better than what she actually said:

I have one thing to say to you. I have had one conversation with [Sotheby's President] Bill Ruprecht about this, and I told him that if he accedes to any of your demands, I will resign from the board.

Yesterday, Teamster General President Jim Hoffa wrote a letter to Gov. Andrew Cuomo asking him to fire Taylor from the board of Hudson River Park Trust. Hoffa makes a compelling case:

Ms. Taylor thinks it’s an unreasonable ‘demand’ for middle-class workers to want a job, a union and a stable standard of living. She may represent the views of 1 percent of New York’s wealthiest, but she doesn’t represent the 99 percent whose interests she is entrusted to represent as chair of the Hudson River Park Trust.

Someone who is so hostile to the well-being of New York’s working families shouldn’t be overseeing a public project intended to improve their lives. Ms. Taylor’s expertise may be helpful in developing this park, but she spoke in public with such contempt for working people who have only stood up for their rights that I think it is no longer appropriate for her to continue in that role.

That she embarrassed Sotheby’s is between her and Sotheby’s. But she publicly attacked the working people she is supposed to be helping. The State of New York owes it to the vast majority of its people to remove her from the Hudson River Park Trust.

 Amen.

Today's Teamster News 12.03.11

YRC Worldwide Executes 1-for-300 reverse stock split  IBT   ...today’s actions will not affect the value of your shares, but they will lower the total number of shares in your account...
Bloomberg's Girlfriend Diana Taylor Threatens to Resign From Sotheby’s Board If Teamsters’ Demands Are Met (Video)  New York Observer   ...this is perhaps the most inflammatory response the Teamsters could have hoped for...
Toll rejects Hoffa's claims on LA truckers  The Sydney Morning Herald   ...James Hoffa, son of the legendary American union boss Jimmy Hoffa, has led a rally outside Australian transport company Toll Holdings' Los Angeles facility to protest what he says was the sacking of 26 US truck drivers...
Banks May Have Illegally Foreclosed On 5,000 Members Of The Military  ThinkProgress   ... the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has found that banks — including Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup — may have improperly foreclosed on up to 5,000 active members of the military...
Alabama red-faced as second foreign car boss held under immigration law  The Guardian   ...To arrest one foreign car-making executive under Alabama's new tough immigration laws may be regarded as a misfortune; to arrest a second looks like carelessness...
Bloomberg: If I Had It My Way I’d Dump Half Of NYC’s Teachers  CBS News   ...And I would, if I had the abilitym... cut the number of teachers in half, but you would double the compensation of them and you would weed out all the bad ones and just have good teachers. And double the class size with a better teacher is a good deal for the students...”

Teamsters, CWA, Occupy Wall Street protest Mayor's girlfriend

Protesting Brookfield Properties, which evicted OWS; Mayor Bloomberg's girlfriend is a director of the company as well as of Sotheby's.

As many police officers as protesters occupied the pavement today in front of 3 World Financial, the headquarters of Brookfield Properties. Teamsters, members of CWA Local 1101 and Occupy Wall Street rallied to protest the company's eviction of the camp at Zuccotti Park. We posted earlier about Mayor Bloomberg's girlfriend's links to Brookfield and to Sotheby's.
 
Jason Ide, president of Local 814, said Brookfield was not happy about the rally, which included about 50 police officers and 50 protesters. Their target was Diana Taylor, Mayor Bloomberg's galpal. She wants to run for Senate.

Check out the police-to-protester ratio.

Said Ide,

We passed out handbills calling on Diana Taylor to let Occupy Wall Street back in the park. Some of the members talked about getting locked out of Sotheby's, and why Diana Taylor's labor practices are so terrible. We had a chant,

Zuccotti Park out in the streets, there goes your Senate seat.

We asked, 'How can you represent New Yorkers with a labor record like this?

Both the Teamsters and CWA workers, whose wages and benefits are under assault by Verizon, have been helped by Occupy Wall Street. Ide said he was glad unions could help them as well.

Teamsters, OWS protest Zuccotti Park eviction

Local 814 Teamsters in Foley Square last night.

Right about now our Teamster brothers and sisters in New York are joining Occupy Wall Street to protest their eviction from Zuccotti Park (aka Liberty Park). They're rallying against the park's owners, Brookfield Properties, which ordered the camp taken down.

Once again the 99% -- Teamsters and Occupy Wall Street -- are taking action against the 1%. Once again Teamster Local 814 and OWS are protesting the callous indifference of one particular segment of the 1%.

Sometimes we call that segment "Sotheby's Socialites." Sometimes we call them "entitled jerks." They are all associated with Sotheby's, the fabulously profitable auction house trying to bust their art handlers' union (and, by the way, whose former CEO never went to prison for the felonies she committed). Sotheby's has become an international symbol of reckless greed because it has thrown 43 art handlers out of work because they refuse to let the company destroy their union. 

OWS has given tremendous support to the locked-out art handlers from Local 814. They disrupted auctions. They joined picket lines. They got arrested. They crashed a lavish Sotheby's party and put a damning video of the partygoers' arrogance on youtube. Their efforts put a harsh spotlight on Sotheby's callous treatment of its employees.

Teamsters have supported the Occupy movement on Wall Street as well as throughout the country. Last night, New York Teamsters from Locals 814 and 111 joined OWS supporters in a Foley Square rally. At the same time, Teamsters from Joint Council 7 were preparing to protect Occupy San Francisco from a raid that didn't happen. On Tuesday, the Teamsters General Executive Board unanimously passed a resolution supporting Occupy Wall Street and condemning any effort to shut it down on phony pretenses of public health and safety.

Today the Teamsters and OWS are taking aim at a Sotheby's director, Diana Taylor, who happens to be Mayor Michael Bloomberg's galpal. She is also a director of Brookfield Properties, the company that ordered OWS thrown out of their camp.

The flyer reads,

Brookfield Properties, the owner of Zuccotti Park, decided to have peaceful protestors from Occupy Wall Street forcibly removed its property and jailed.

So who is responsible for this? Diana Taylor, a potential candidate for US Senate and Mayor Bloomberg’s partner, is a Director of Brookfield Properties. Taylor is also a Director of Sotheby’s Auction House--a company that has thrown its 43 art handlers out on the street for over fourteen weeks but doubled its CEO’s salary to $6 million.

Join Occupy Wall Street and Teamsters Local 814 at Brookfield Properties this Friday to protest her treatment of workers and peaceful protestors.

(Just FYI, some of the other entitled jerks who comprise the Sotheby's 1% include Sotheby's director Danny Meyer, the popular restaurateur who owns the Shake Shack, and Sotheby's board chairman, Michael Sovern, also a Columbia Law School professor.)

We'll try to keep you posted about the action.

Wild scene at Sotheby's

If you haven't seen it yet, we thought we'd share it with you.

And while we're at it, we thought we'd mention that Sotheyb's former chief executive, Dede Brooks, committed felonies but spent no time in jail. No one ever dragged her out on the sidewalk. Wikipedia has the story:

In February 2000, A. Alfred Taubman and Diana (Dede) Brooks, the CEO of the company, stepped down amidst a price fixing scandal. The FBI had been investigating auction practices in which it was revealed that collusion involving commission fixing between Christie's and Sotheby's was occurring.

In October 2000, Brooks admitted her guilt in hopes of receiving a reduced sentence, implicating Taubman.

In December 2001, jurors in a high profile New York City courtroom found Taubman guilty of conspiracy. He served ten months of a one year sentence in prison, while Brooks received a six-month home confinement and a penalty of US$350,000. No staff from Christie's was charged.