TEAMSTERS
Teamsters Local 727 Files Unfair Labor Practices Against Coca-Cola Refreshments Teamster.org ...Teamsters Local 727 filed numerous unfair labor practice charges today against Coca-Cola Refreshments, a subsidiary of Coca-Cola, that include bargaining in bad faith, intimidation of workers with baseball bats and unilaterally changing contract terms and working conditions. Local 727 represents more than 300 warehouse and production workers and transport drivers at Coca-Cola Refreshments facilities in Niles and Alsip, Ill...
An Uber union? Seattle could clear way for ride-app drivers Seattle Times ...Ajema contacted Uber staffers in Seattle suggesting the company meet with a committee of drivers to review changes, he said. For months, the effort went nowhere. “So I just Googled labor unions in Seattle,” Ajema said. The only response came from Teamsters Local 117, which had already helped set up a trade association for taxi drivers...
Strike at Distributor Slows Beer, Wine Deliveries KEZI ...A strike at a Portland-area beer and wine distributor has slowed deliveries just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday. The Oregonian reports that about 80 workers represented by Teamsters Local 162 went on strike last week at General Distributors Inc. in Oregon City. Teamsters officials say the walkout began Tuesday. They say the company is demanding annual cuts that would average $19,000 per employee...
Transdev Drivers Are Standing Together to Form Their Union Local 117 ...About 275 drivers, employed at Transdev, are fighting to win their union and become members of Teamsters Local 117. These drivers perform essential services to our community by transporting elderly and disabled residents of King County to locations throughout our region. Many will be working over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend...
Teamsters to represent Site C camp attendants Alaska Highways ...The Teamsters union has won the right to represent attendants at the Site C work camp, against the wishes of the company hired to build it. On Nov. 2, the Labour Relations Board dismissed an objection by ATCO Two Rivers Camp Services calling the union’s application for certification “premature.” Close to two dozen workers servicing the temporary work camp at the dam site had been seeking representation...
Teamsters Local 362 Celebrates New Opportunities For Veterans In Alberta Teamsters 362 ...Just days before Remembrance Day, an announcement was made by the Alberta government that will have a positive impact for Canadian Armed Forces. Alberta transportation Minister Brian Mason announced that Alberta will now recognize the DND 404 military driver’s permit. Teamsters Canada has been a supporter of the initiative and were very happy with the announcement...
GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
How the TPP could impact regulation of everything from cars to medical devices Vox ...The Trans-Pacific Partnership, a mammoth deal the Obama administration finished negotiating last month, doesn't just deal with trade in physical goods. It also establishes a number of new rules governing how countries from Canada to Vietnam regulate the digital economy. Like most parts of the TPP, the new rules on electronic commerce largely reflect the priorities of US industry...
Five groups that could determine the fate of TPP The Hill ...Congressional passage of a sweeping Asia-Pacific trade agreement hinges on several key endorsements that will make or break the pact on Capitol Hill. Republican leaders, a tight coalition of Democrats and a diverse range of business groups — all of whom worked hard to pass trade promotion authority (TPA) this summer — are needed to push through the massive 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal...
Thailand says 'highly likely' it will seek TPP membership Reuters ...Thailand is "highly likely" to seek membership of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) but would first need to weigh up the impact of the free-trade accord on its export-led economy, a deputy prime minister said on Friday. The pact currently has 12 members and would slash tariffs in a bloc comprising countries from Canada, Australia and Japan to Mexico, Vietnam and Chile in a trade area of 800 million people worth about 40 percent of the global economy...
Once an Obama ally on trade deal, Utah’s Hatch may fight latest proposal SLTribune ...The Trade Promotion Authority passed Congress, but now with Hatch's help may actually doom the president's push for a transpacific-trade deal. The TPA allows Congress only an up or down vote on a trade deal without amendments, but it also mandates that the legislative body gets to review and suggest changes to the administration...
TTIP talks: EU alleged to have given ExxonMobil access to confidential strategies The Guardian ...The EU appears to have given the US oil company ExxonMobil access to confidential negotiating strategies considered too sensitive to be released to the European public during its negotiations with the US on the trade agreement TTIP, documents reveal. Officials also asked one oil refinery association for “concrete input” on the text of an energy chapter for the negotiations...
Thai traffickers exposed by campaign group investigating fishing industry Reuters ...A three-year investigation into slavery on Thailand's fishing boats has uncovered a well-oiled system of trafficking, abuse and exploitation in the southern port of Kantang, leading to eight arrests this month, a campaign group said on Monday. The owner of a fishing company, three enforcers and four boat captains were arrested on Nov. 7 after the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) handed police evidence against them...
Hundreds walk in Montreal austerity protest Global News ...They walked by the hundreds: students, teachers, healthcare workers, even politicians. “What they are saying to the government is stop lying about balancing the budget, there are other means of balancing the budget,” said Québec Solidaire deputy Amir Khadir. Saturday afternoon, protesters gathered in Jarry Park to make their message heard: no to austerity, yes to social justice...
STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
Republicans look to shift federal road funds; opponents say it's attack on prevailing wage Star Tribune ...Republican legislators have created a bill that would shift federal road-building dollars from local work to state projects, a move that would exempt local projects from federal prevailing wage requirements. Sen. Duey Stroebel and Rep. Rob Brooks' bill would move $47 million in federal funding away from local projects and pour it into state projects such as freeway rehabilitation...
Kraus announces voter ID as a top priority Missouri Times ...Sen. Will Kraus, R-Lee’s Summit, plans to file a joint resolution and a bill regarding voter identification Tuesday when pre-filing begins for the upcoming legislative session. Kraus said passing the joint resolution and putting the issue to a vote of the people is a key step in preventing voter fraud in the state...
Walmart Workers Strike, Protest Company Heiress On Black Friday Think Progress ...Walmart workers and their supporters are protesting at a dozen stores around the United States on Black Friday as part of an ongoing campaign for union recognition and a $15 hourly wage. The protests are scaled down from previous years’ Black Friday activism, when striking workers and solidarity protesters staged larger rallies and a longer list of locations...
How Walmart Keeps an Eye on Its Massive Workforce Bloomberg ...OUR Walmart, a group of employees backed and funded by a union, was asking for more full-time jobs with higher wages and predictable schedules. Walmart considered the group enough of a threat that it hired an intelligence-gathering service from Lockheed Martin, contacted the FBI, staffed up its labor hotline, ranked stores by labor activity, and kept eyes on employees (and activists) prominent in the group...
U.S. LABOR
CUNY Faculty Authorizes a Strike Vote The Nation ... The Professional Staff Congress—the labor union that represents more than 25,000 faculty and staff across the City University of New York’s 24 campuses—has had a busy November. In the course of three weeks, the union has organized a coordinated act of civil disobedience, taken the first step towards calling for a strike, and helped deliver more than 40,000 postcards to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office...
How Higher Wages For U.S. Autoworkers Could Help You Get a Raise, Too Bloomberg ...Cars are flying off U.S. dealer lots at the fastest pace since 2005, and after a decade of flat wages, the workers who make them are getting a raise, too. If such gains precede broader pay bumps in the labor market, Federal Reserve policy makers could have more evidence that the wage pressure they so desperately want to see is starting to build...
Ford Says UAW Contract Lifts U.S. Labor Costs Less Than 1.5% Bloomberg ...Ford Motor Co. said its new four-year contract with the United Auto Workers will increase its U.S. labor costs by less than 1.5 percent annually by letting the company hire more low-cost workers and move production to factories in other countries. The contract will raise Ford’s hourly labor rate, including wages and benefits, to $60 from $57...
Hillary Clinton Nabs Another Big Endorsement Huffington Post ...Hillary Clinton just locked down another endorsement from a major labor union as she seeks the Democratic nomination for president, solidifying her hold on organized labor's backing in the primary. The Laborers' International Union of North America, or LIUNA, announced Tuesday that it would be throwing its weight behind the front-runner...
Tampa assisted living facility pays $287K in back wages Business Journal ...A federal probe has found that workers at La Bella Vida Assisted Living Facility Inc. in Tampa weren't living a beautiful life, at least not when it came to their paychecks. The facility is paying $287,087 in back wages and damages to 20 workers, after a U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division investigation found that La Bella Vida violated overtime, minimum wage and record-keeping provisions...
Making Employees Work On Thanksgiving Doesn’t Pay Off For Retailers Think Progress ...Eleven brands opened their doors on Thanksgiving Day this year, requiring millions of employees to report to work on the national holiday. Many businesses believe that opening on Thanksgiving will boost overall holiday sales by getting shoppers in ahead of the official start to Black Friday. But this year’s sales data show it was mostly a dud...
The middle-class economic squeeze is not about rising federal taxes EPI ...Policymakers and candidates for office have reacted to rising inequality and near-stagnant wages in recent decades by promising to either cut or hold the line on federal taxes for “middle-class” families. However, the rise in inequality and the near-stagnation of hourly wages for most American workers has not been driven by rising federal taxes. In fact, federal tax rates have steadily fallen...
Inside the Southern California factory that makes the Donald Trump hats LA Times ...Look around the factory floor where these hats are being made by the thousands, and you’ll find faces that don’t seem to fit into Trump’s America. Yolanda Melendrez is one of them. Melendrez, an immigrant from Mexico who was brought to the United States by her parents when she was a baby, has worked at the Carson-based Cali-Fame headwear company since 1991...
SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
Taylor Farms recalls Costco salad linked to E. coli The Californian ...Federal officials say a vegetable mix has been recalled after it was believed to be the source of E.coli in Costco chicken salad that has been linked to an outbreak that has sickened 19 people in seven states. Taylor Farms Pacific Inc. of Tracy, has recalled a mix of diced celery and onion used in Costco chicken salad...
3 Dead; 9 Wounded at Planned Parenthood in Colorado Common Dreams ...Robert Lewis Dear, a 57-year-old from North Carolina, has been named as the gunman behind a massacre at a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic in which three people died and nine were injured. In a statement Friday night, Planned Parenthood said: "We share the concerns of many Americans that extremists are creating a poisonous environment"...
Paris Protests Turn Violent as Hundreds of Thousands Rally for Climate Worldwide Slate ...Hundreds of thousands of people around the world got together for rallies and demonstrations on Sunday to demand action on climate change from global leaders who are gathering in Paris for a major summit on the issue. In Paris itself, things got off to a violent start as police fired tear gas at protesters and 208 people were detained after clashing with riot police...
Paris Climate Deal Must Not Ignore Billions of World's Poorest: Oxfam Common Dreams ..."World leaders need to step up," the head of Oxfam declared Wednesday, calling for an ambitious global fund to address a key paradox of climate change in which the poorest people on Earth suffer most from a crisis they did little to cause. The international aid agency is calling on rich countries to do their part by committing to deeper emissions cuts and higher climate finance...
Krugman: How to Stop the Affluent from Trampling on the Poor as They Move Back to Big Cities Alternet ..."Urban America reached an inflection point around 15 years ago," he writes. "After decades of decline, central cities began getting richer, more educated, and, yes, whiter. Today our urban cores are providing ever more amenities, but largely to a very affluent minority." There are a couple of drivers for this phenomenon, Krugman figures...
Showing posts with label slavery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label slavery. Show all posts
Monday, November 30, 2015
Monday, July 20, 2015
Today's Teamster News 07.20.15
Teamsters
Drivers at Lumber Company Near Philadelphia Join Teamsters Local 107 Teamster.org ...On Friday, July 17, drivers at Lumbermen Associates in Bristol, Pennsylvania voted 9-0 to join Local 107. The employees drive flatbed trucks and deliver and pick up lumber at and to various locations. There are 10 drivers in the bargaining unit. “The unanimous vote clearly shows that these drivers are seeking a safe workplace and fairness on the job,” said Bill Hamilton, President of Local 107...
High Tech and New Media: Organized Labor’s New Frontier National Law Review ...One of Silicon Valley Rising’s first successes came earlier this year, when it was certified as the bargaining representative of the company that Facebook relies upon to provide shuttle bus services between its various facilities at its headquarters. Soon after it won a representation election, Teamsters Local 853 negotiated a first contract with Loop Transportation that significantly increased wages and benefits and changed work rules...
Minneapolis commemoration of 1934 Teamsters strike Fight Back News ...About 200 people gathered in the Warehouse District here, July 18, to install a plaque commemorating the 1934 Teamsters strike. The epic strike was one of the pivotal events of the 1930s that ushered in a huge upsurge in the labor movement. Speaking on behalf of the Remember 1934 Committee, Bob Kolstad, of Teamster Local 320 stated, “This is an important day. We believe that the plaque we are unveiling here today is the first public monument to the labor movement in the city of Minneapolis"...
Kalama police officers, Teamsters get raises TDN.com ...Kalama police officers and members of the Teamsters union are both getting raises for the next three years under new contracts with the city signed this month. The Teamsters Local No. 58 represents about a dozen employees on the public works crew and in the city’s finance department. The police guild represents four officers...
Global Labor & Trade
Congress Suggests Obama Will Ignore Slavery To Secure Trade Deal Huffington Post ...Lawmakers across Capitol Hill raised questions Thursday about whether President Barack Obama's administration is willing to look the other way on some of the worst human trafficking violations in the world in order to win his trade deal. The doubts concern reports that the State Department is about to upgrade Malaysia in its annual Trafficking In Persons report from Tier 3, the worst ranking, to Tier 2...
House Dems: White House pushing Big Pharma agenda in trade deal The Hill ...A pair of House Democrats are attacking the Obama administration for secretly shaping a trade deal that they say boosts profits for American pharmaceutical giants at the expense of patients worldwide. Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) argued Friday that the U.S. is the only country pushing the “Big Pharma” agenda in the ongoing talks for the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal...
Agricultural implications just the tip of the TPP iceberg The Hill Times ...The Trans Pacific Partnership, a proposed trade agreement that encompasses nearly 40 per cent of world GDP, heads to Hawaii later this month for ministerial-level negotiations. According to media reports, this may be the final round of talks, with countries expected to address the remaining contentious issues. Canadian coverage of the TPP has centered primarily on U.S. demands for changes to longstanding agricultural market safeguards...
Scottish MEP: TTIP deal may not complete during current European Parliament Herald Scotland ...Scotland's senior politician in Europe David Martin MEP has cast doubt on completion of a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) deal in the lifetime of the current European Parliament or the Obama administration. His remarks are also likely to be influential because of his 30 years experience in the parliament, and because he himself is an outspoken supporter of the controversial US-EU TTIP deal...
Dingell pushes back on trade deal Michigan Radio ...U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell won't support a free-trade deal she says will harm the auto industry and Michigan's economy. She's criticizing the Obama administration's Trans-Pacific Partnership on the basis that it doesn't address currency manipulation that keeps foreign currencies artificially low compared to the U.S. dollar...
Greek banks reopen but cash limits remain and taxes soar Boston Herald ...Greek banks opened their doors Monday for the first time in over three weeks, a move the government hopes will help the economy get back to normal following a period dominated by fears over the country's future in the euro. Strict controls on the amounts individuals can withdraw remain, however, and new austerity taxes demanded by the country's European creditors came into effect, making most everyday items more expensive — from coffee to taxis...
Cabbies Are Driving the Opposition to China’s Ridesharing Revolution The Nation ...Hundreds of cab drivers have gone on strike in cities across China to protest the invasion of a new rival: a rash of ride-sharing companies rapidly flooding the streets with slick marketing and nimble digital platforms. Angry drivers are pushing back with clever protest hacks...
State & Living Wage Battles
In Maine, a Minimum Wage Law With a Surprise Inside Bloomberg ...On July 6, the City Council of Portland, Maine, voted 6 to 3 to establish a local minimum wage of $10.10, a $2.60 increase over the statewide minimum. The next day, the mayor and several council members said they’d made a mistake. The law, which they thought would let restaurants and other businesses keep paying tipped employees $3.75 an hour, actually gave such workers a giant raise—to $6.35 an hour...
New California law recognizes pro cheerleaders as employees ESPN ...Gov. Jerry Brown has approved legislation recognizing California's professional cheerleaders as employees who are entitled to minimum wage and overtime. Brown announced Wednesday that he signed AB202, requiring that sports teams employ cheerleaders as workers instead of contractors. It provides them with sick leave and overtime pay, as well as other labor protections available to team staff...
Taxpayers covered $340,000 for security during right-to-work debates Journal-Sentinel ...State taxpayers paid more than $340,000 to provide extra security at the Capitol this year during the debate over legislation known as the right-to-work law, which bans labor contracts that include mandatory union fees. The costs added up even though labor demonstrations against that measure never reached the massive size and fever pitch of the 2011 protests over Act 10, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's repeal of most collective bargaining for most public workers...
Michigan Ditches For-Profit Prison Food Provider, But Not Because It Fed Inmates Rat-Eaten Trash Think Progress ...After the company repeatedly fed inmates out of trash cans, struggled with maggot problems in its kitchens, encouraged prisoners to serve each other meat that had been unrefrigerated for days, and hired workers who consorted with inmates, Aramark Correctional Services is finally losing its contract with the state of Michigan’s prison system...
N.Y. Panel Is Set to Propose $15 Fast-Food Wage Wall Street Journal ...New York state’s fast-food wage board on Wednesday is expected to recommend raising the fast-food minimum wage to $15 an hour, and the state’s labor commissioner is expected to approve that recommendation, according to a person familiar with the board’s plans. The move is fairly unusual: While other cities have raised the minimum wage to $15, it is uncommon for a state to do so for only one industry...
Voting rights trial continues in Winston-Salem Progressive Pulse ...Attorneys and parties in the voting rights trial return to federal court in Winston-Salem this morning to continue presenting testimony and other evidence to U.S. District Judge Thomas Schroeder. During week one of what’s expected to be a multi-week trial, attorneys for the parties challenging the sweeping voting restrictions adopted in 2013 unfolded their case with personal stories from voters...
Five Things to Know About the Scott Walker John Doe Ruling Truthout ....The Wisconsin Supreme Court has single-handedly rewritten the state's limits on money in politics, rendering the state's disclosure laws and contribution limits meaningless, and opening the door to unlimited funds directly from corporations and foreign firms. In a 4-2 decision that broke along ideological lines, the Court's conservative majority ended the John Doe probe into whether Governor Scott Walker illegally coordinated with supposedly "independent" dark money groups...
New Mexico City Finds A Home For All Its Homeless Veterans Think Progress ...When Mayor Ken Miyagishima (D) directed municipal resources towards providing housing for the city’s homeless population, earmarking tens of thousands of dollars for a local homeless nonprofit Community of Hope, the number of veterans living on the streets began to come down dramatically.
This week, the mayor announced that the city had achieved its goal of ending veterans’ homelessness...
U.S. Labor
Contract talks begin for Detroit automakers, UAW MLive ...It's been a cool summer in Michigan, but the temperature will be rising in the negotiating rooms as the United Auto Workers union and the Detroit Three automakers hammer out new contracts. Talks kicked off last week at General Motors Co. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. They will begin at Ford Motor Co. later this month. The current contracts, covering about 139,000 UAW members, expire on Sept. 14...
CWA, IBEW local unions say they are conducting a strike authorization vote with Verizon Fierce Telecom ...As Verizon and wireline workers represented by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) continue their labor negotiations, local members said they are in the process of conducting a strike authorization vote. CWA said in a regional bargaining report that it wants to send Verizon a "strong message that we will do whatever it takes to achieve a fair and just contract"...
Women’s college agrees to let adjunct faculty unionize after giving up NLRB fight The College Fix ...Rather than keep fighting adjunct faculty who want to unionize, Barnard College is giving up. The Columbia Spectator reports that the women’s college, affiliated with Columbia University, spent 13 hours in negotiation with Barnard Contingent Faculty-UAW rather than present its closing arguments at the eighth and final National Labor Relations Board hearing Thursday...
GOP funding bill would force the NLRB to lay off one-third of its staff People's World ...The Obama administration is blasting a Republican-authored money bill for the National Labor Relations Board, the Labor Department and other agencies, saying the cuts would force the NLRB to lay off one-third of its staff...
Mendocino County, SEIU 1021 reach tentative agreement Daily Journal ...Mendocino County workers represented by Service Employees’ International Union Local 1021 could soon see a reinstatement in pay which was cut by 10 percent in 2011. The county Executive Office reported late Friday afternoon it had reached a tentative agreement with the union after a three-day negotiating period. The agreement is for two years, and employees will see a 3 percent salary reinstatement in the first year...
New York City airport employees will vote Monday to set a time for a labor strike Sputnik ...New York City airport employees will vote Monday to set a time for a labor strike demanding higher wages and benefits, local media reported, citing the labor union. Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is expected to announce the strike date on Tuesday following the vote, NBC New York reported Sunday...
The ‘Nightmarish’ Boston Hotel Where Workers Have To Deal with Vomit, Blood-Soaked Carpets, Needles In These Times ...On June 25, workers at Boston’s Wyndham Beacon Hill took to the streets to protest unsafe working conditions, the culmination of an escalating fight over biohazards at the hotel. The alleged ongoing problem and lack of response from hotel management led the non-union workers to begin organizing around the issue in 2014, reaching out to UNITE HERE Local 26, which represents hotel and other service workers, for assistance...
Class Action Lawsuit Advances, Claiming Abercrombie Employees Were Forced To Buy Abercrombie Clothes Think Progress ...On Thursday, a California federal judge certified a class action lawsuit for about 62,000 Abercrombie & Fitch employees who claim that they were illegally required to buy the company’s clothing for work. Abercrombie’s “Look Policy” requires workers on the floor to wear “clothes, accessories and footwear that are similar in style and fit to the brand, and that are consistent with the current fashion season and colors” but that aren’t “clearly that of a competitor”...
Miscellaneous
Disrupting Speeches, Protesters Challenge Sanders and O'Malley: Say 'Black Lives Matter!' Common Dreams ...Demanding that pervasive racial injustice and police brutality against people of color be addressed on the campaign trail, protesters with the Black Lives Matter movement interrupted speeches by Democratic candidates Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley Saturday evening. Cutting off O'Malley's prepared remarks during the annual Netroots Nation convention in Phoenix, Arizona, activist Patrisse Cullors described the urgency driving the protest...
Elizabeth Warren Challenges Presidential Candidates to Stop Revolving Door Between Wall St. and Government Atlernet ...Elizabeth Warren has drawn a line in 2016’s presidential election sands. Speaking at the Netroots Nation conference in Phoenix on Friday, she challenged the presidential candidates to stand behind legislation introduced this week that would vastly slow down the revolving door between Wall Street’s financial firms and working for the government—where high-level private sector employees end up making government decisions that favor their past employers over the public...
Cuba raises flag in Washington as embassy reopens after half a century The Guardian ...Diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba have been officially restored, with Cuba’s foreign minister taking the hugely symbolic step of raising his country’s flag at a newly designated embassy in Washington later on Monday. Bruno Rodríguez, visiting the US capital for the first time in his life, conducted the ceremony at the mansion which has not functioned as an embassy for more than 50 years...
L.A. County considers new immigration program for jails in light of S.F. slaying LA Times ...In Los Angeles and across the country, local authorities are deciding to what degree they should participate in ICE's new Priority Enforcement Program. Under the program, ICE asks jails to notify federal agents when inmates flagged for potential deportation are being released, and in some cases asks jails to hold such inmates so federal agents can pick them up...
Mom Gets Arrested For ‘Abandoning’ Kids In Nearby Food Court While At Job Interview Think Progress ...A single mom was arrested at the Memorial City Mall in Houston, Texas, for allegedly “abandoning” her two and six-year-old children who were waiting for her 30 feet away. Laura Browder had just moved to Houston from Chicago and was called in for a last-minute interview for a job, according to KHOU. Because she was new in town, she didn’t have anyone to watch her children...
FBI Joins Investigation Into 'Unfathomable' Death of Sandra Bland Common Dreams ...The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Friday announced it was joining the probe into the disturbing death of Sandra Bland, a 28-year-old black woman who died in police custody in Texas on Monday. An investigation was launched on Wednesday by the Texas Rangers, a branch of the state's Department of Public Safety, after a campaign spread demanding answers about the young woman's death under the hashtag #WhatHappenedToSandraBland...
Drivers at Lumber Company Near Philadelphia Join Teamsters Local 107 Teamster.org ...On Friday, July 17, drivers at Lumbermen Associates in Bristol, Pennsylvania voted 9-0 to join Local 107. The employees drive flatbed trucks and deliver and pick up lumber at and to various locations. There are 10 drivers in the bargaining unit. “The unanimous vote clearly shows that these drivers are seeking a safe workplace and fairness on the job,” said Bill Hamilton, President of Local 107...
High Tech and New Media: Organized Labor’s New Frontier National Law Review ...One of Silicon Valley Rising’s first successes came earlier this year, when it was certified as the bargaining representative of the company that Facebook relies upon to provide shuttle bus services between its various facilities at its headquarters. Soon after it won a representation election, Teamsters Local 853 negotiated a first contract with Loop Transportation that significantly increased wages and benefits and changed work rules...
Minneapolis commemoration of 1934 Teamsters strike Fight Back News ...About 200 people gathered in the Warehouse District here, July 18, to install a plaque commemorating the 1934 Teamsters strike. The epic strike was one of the pivotal events of the 1930s that ushered in a huge upsurge in the labor movement. Speaking on behalf of the Remember 1934 Committee, Bob Kolstad, of Teamster Local 320 stated, “This is an important day. We believe that the plaque we are unveiling here today is the first public monument to the labor movement in the city of Minneapolis"...
Kalama police officers, Teamsters get raises TDN.com ...Kalama police officers and members of the Teamsters union are both getting raises for the next three years under new contracts with the city signed this month. The Teamsters Local No. 58 represents about a dozen employees on the public works crew and in the city’s finance department. The police guild represents four officers...
Global Labor & Trade
Congress Suggests Obama Will Ignore Slavery To Secure Trade Deal Huffington Post ...Lawmakers across Capitol Hill raised questions Thursday about whether President Barack Obama's administration is willing to look the other way on some of the worst human trafficking violations in the world in order to win his trade deal. The doubts concern reports that the State Department is about to upgrade Malaysia in its annual Trafficking In Persons report from Tier 3, the worst ranking, to Tier 2...
House Dems: White House pushing Big Pharma agenda in trade deal The Hill ...A pair of House Democrats are attacking the Obama administration for secretly shaping a trade deal that they say boosts profits for American pharmaceutical giants at the expense of patients worldwide. Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) argued Friday that the U.S. is the only country pushing the “Big Pharma” agenda in the ongoing talks for the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal...
Agricultural implications just the tip of the TPP iceberg The Hill Times ...The Trans Pacific Partnership, a proposed trade agreement that encompasses nearly 40 per cent of world GDP, heads to Hawaii later this month for ministerial-level negotiations. According to media reports, this may be the final round of talks, with countries expected to address the remaining contentious issues. Canadian coverage of the TPP has centered primarily on U.S. demands for changes to longstanding agricultural market safeguards...
Scottish MEP: TTIP deal may not complete during current European Parliament Herald Scotland ...Scotland's senior politician in Europe David Martin MEP has cast doubt on completion of a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) deal in the lifetime of the current European Parliament or the Obama administration. His remarks are also likely to be influential because of his 30 years experience in the parliament, and because he himself is an outspoken supporter of the controversial US-EU TTIP deal...
Dingell pushes back on trade deal Michigan Radio ...U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell won't support a free-trade deal she says will harm the auto industry and Michigan's economy. She's criticizing the Obama administration's Trans-Pacific Partnership on the basis that it doesn't address currency manipulation that keeps foreign currencies artificially low compared to the U.S. dollar...
Greek banks reopen but cash limits remain and taxes soar Boston Herald ...Greek banks opened their doors Monday for the first time in over three weeks, a move the government hopes will help the economy get back to normal following a period dominated by fears over the country's future in the euro. Strict controls on the amounts individuals can withdraw remain, however, and new austerity taxes demanded by the country's European creditors came into effect, making most everyday items more expensive — from coffee to taxis...
Cabbies Are Driving the Opposition to China’s Ridesharing Revolution The Nation ...Hundreds of cab drivers have gone on strike in cities across China to protest the invasion of a new rival: a rash of ride-sharing companies rapidly flooding the streets with slick marketing and nimble digital platforms. Angry drivers are pushing back with clever protest hacks...
State & Living Wage Battles
In Maine, a Minimum Wage Law With a Surprise Inside Bloomberg ...On July 6, the City Council of Portland, Maine, voted 6 to 3 to establish a local minimum wage of $10.10, a $2.60 increase over the statewide minimum. The next day, the mayor and several council members said they’d made a mistake. The law, which they thought would let restaurants and other businesses keep paying tipped employees $3.75 an hour, actually gave such workers a giant raise—to $6.35 an hour...
New California law recognizes pro cheerleaders as employees ESPN ...Gov. Jerry Brown has approved legislation recognizing California's professional cheerleaders as employees who are entitled to minimum wage and overtime. Brown announced Wednesday that he signed AB202, requiring that sports teams employ cheerleaders as workers instead of contractors. It provides them with sick leave and overtime pay, as well as other labor protections available to team staff...
Taxpayers covered $340,000 for security during right-to-work debates Journal-Sentinel ...State taxpayers paid more than $340,000 to provide extra security at the Capitol this year during the debate over legislation known as the right-to-work law, which bans labor contracts that include mandatory union fees. The costs added up even though labor demonstrations against that measure never reached the massive size and fever pitch of the 2011 protests over Act 10, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's repeal of most collective bargaining for most public workers...
Michigan Ditches For-Profit Prison Food Provider, But Not Because It Fed Inmates Rat-Eaten Trash Think Progress ...After the company repeatedly fed inmates out of trash cans, struggled with maggot problems in its kitchens, encouraged prisoners to serve each other meat that had been unrefrigerated for days, and hired workers who consorted with inmates, Aramark Correctional Services is finally losing its contract with the state of Michigan’s prison system...
N.Y. Panel Is Set to Propose $15 Fast-Food Wage Wall Street Journal ...New York state’s fast-food wage board on Wednesday is expected to recommend raising the fast-food minimum wage to $15 an hour, and the state’s labor commissioner is expected to approve that recommendation, according to a person familiar with the board’s plans. The move is fairly unusual: While other cities have raised the minimum wage to $15, it is uncommon for a state to do so for only one industry...
Voting rights trial continues in Winston-Salem Progressive Pulse ...Attorneys and parties in the voting rights trial return to federal court in Winston-Salem this morning to continue presenting testimony and other evidence to U.S. District Judge Thomas Schroeder. During week one of what’s expected to be a multi-week trial, attorneys for the parties challenging the sweeping voting restrictions adopted in 2013 unfolded their case with personal stories from voters...
Five Things to Know About the Scott Walker John Doe Ruling Truthout ....The Wisconsin Supreme Court has single-handedly rewritten the state's limits on money in politics, rendering the state's disclosure laws and contribution limits meaningless, and opening the door to unlimited funds directly from corporations and foreign firms. In a 4-2 decision that broke along ideological lines, the Court's conservative majority ended the John Doe probe into whether Governor Scott Walker illegally coordinated with supposedly "independent" dark money groups...
New Mexico City Finds A Home For All Its Homeless Veterans Think Progress ...When Mayor Ken Miyagishima (D) directed municipal resources towards providing housing for the city’s homeless population, earmarking tens of thousands of dollars for a local homeless nonprofit Community of Hope, the number of veterans living on the streets began to come down dramatically.
This week, the mayor announced that the city had achieved its goal of ending veterans’ homelessness...
U.S. Labor
Contract talks begin for Detroit automakers, UAW MLive ...It's been a cool summer in Michigan, but the temperature will be rising in the negotiating rooms as the United Auto Workers union and the Detroit Three automakers hammer out new contracts. Talks kicked off last week at General Motors Co. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. They will begin at Ford Motor Co. later this month. The current contracts, covering about 139,000 UAW members, expire on Sept. 14...
CWA, IBEW local unions say they are conducting a strike authorization vote with Verizon Fierce Telecom ...As Verizon and wireline workers represented by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) continue their labor negotiations, local members said they are in the process of conducting a strike authorization vote. CWA said in a regional bargaining report that it wants to send Verizon a "strong message that we will do whatever it takes to achieve a fair and just contract"...
Women’s college agrees to let adjunct faculty unionize after giving up NLRB fight The College Fix ...Rather than keep fighting adjunct faculty who want to unionize, Barnard College is giving up. The Columbia Spectator reports that the women’s college, affiliated with Columbia University, spent 13 hours in negotiation with Barnard Contingent Faculty-UAW rather than present its closing arguments at the eighth and final National Labor Relations Board hearing Thursday...
GOP funding bill would force the NLRB to lay off one-third of its staff People's World ...The Obama administration is blasting a Republican-authored money bill for the National Labor Relations Board, the Labor Department and other agencies, saying the cuts would force the NLRB to lay off one-third of its staff...
Mendocino County, SEIU 1021 reach tentative agreement Daily Journal ...Mendocino County workers represented by Service Employees’ International Union Local 1021 could soon see a reinstatement in pay which was cut by 10 percent in 2011. The county Executive Office reported late Friday afternoon it had reached a tentative agreement with the union after a three-day negotiating period. The agreement is for two years, and employees will see a 3 percent salary reinstatement in the first year...
New York City airport employees will vote Monday to set a time for a labor strike Sputnik ...New York City airport employees will vote Monday to set a time for a labor strike demanding higher wages and benefits, local media reported, citing the labor union. Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is expected to announce the strike date on Tuesday following the vote, NBC New York reported Sunday...
The ‘Nightmarish’ Boston Hotel Where Workers Have To Deal with Vomit, Blood-Soaked Carpets, Needles In These Times ...On June 25, workers at Boston’s Wyndham Beacon Hill took to the streets to protest unsafe working conditions, the culmination of an escalating fight over biohazards at the hotel. The alleged ongoing problem and lack of response from hotel management led the non-union workers to begin organizing around the issue in 2014, reaching out to UNITE HERE Local 26, which represents hotel and other service workers, for assistance...
Class Action Lawsuit Advances, Claiming Abercrombie Employees Were Forced To Buy Abercrombie Clothes Think Progress ...On Thursday, a California federal judge certified a class action lawsuit for about 62,000 Abercrombie & Fitch employees who claim that they were illegally required to buy the company’s clothing for work. Abercrombie’s “Look Policy” requires workers on the floor to wear “clothes, accessories and footwear that are similar in style and fit to the brand, and that are consistent with the current fashion season and colors” but that aren’t “clearly that of a competitor”...
Miscellaneous
Disrupting Speeches, Protesters Challenge Sanders and O'Malley: Say 'Black Lives Matter!' Common Dreams ...Demanding that pervasive racial injustice and police brutality against people of color be addressed on the campaign trail, protesters with the Black Lives Matter movement interrupted speeches by Democratic candidates Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley Saturday evening. Cutting off O'Malley's prepared remarks during the annual Netroots Nation convention in Phoenix, Arizona, activist Patrisse Cullors described the urgency driving the protest...
Elizabeth Warren Challenges Presidential Candidates to Stop Revolving Door Between Wall St. and Government Atlernet ...Elizabeth Warren has drawn a line in 2016’s presidential election sands. Speaking at the Netroots Nation conference in Phoenix on Friday, she challenged the presidential candidates to stand behind legislation introduced this week that would vastly slow down the revolving door between Wall Street’s financial firms and working for the government—where high-level private sector employees end up making government decisions that favor their past employers over the public...
Cuba raises flag in Washington as embassy reopens after half a century The Guardian ...Diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba have been officially restored, with Cuba’s foreign minister taking the hugely symbolic step of raising his country’s flag at a newly designated embassy in Washington later on Monday. Bruno Rodríguez, visiting the US capital for the first time in his life, conducted the ceremony at the mansion which has not functioned as an embassy for more than 50 years...
L.A. County considers new immigration program for jails in light of S.F. slaying LA Times ...In Los Angeles and across the country, local authorities are deciding to what degree they should participate in ICE's new Priority Enforcement Program. Under the program, ICE asks jails to notify federal agents when inmates flagged for potential deportation are being released, and in some cases asks jails to hold such inmates so federal agents can pick them up...
Mom Gets Arrested For ‘Abandoning’ Kids In Nearby Food Court While At Job Interview Think Progress ...A single mom was arrested at the Memorial City Mall in Houston, Texas, for allegedly “abandoning” her two and six-year-old children who were waiting for her 30 feet away. Laura Browder had just moved to Houston from Chicago and was called in for a last-minute interview for a job, according to KHOU. Because she was new in town, she didn’t have anyone to watch her children...
FBI Joins Investigation Into 'Unfathomable' Death of Sandra Bland Common Dreams ...The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Friday announced it was joining the probe into the disturbing death of Sandra Bland, a 28-year-old black woman who died in police custody in Texas on Monday. An investigation was launched on Wednesday by the Texas Rangers, a branch of the state's Department of Public Safety, after a campaign spread demanding answers about the young woman's death under the hashtag #WhatHappenedToSandraBland...
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Today's Teamster News 03.25.15
Teamsters
Ownership Fight At Heidelberg Distributing Could Affect Teamster Contracts WCPO ...Union workers are threatening a statewide strike at one of the largest beer and wine distributorships in the Midwest, citing stalled contract negotiations over better wages and health care...
State Education Association Replaces Leader Amid Turmoil Las Vegas Review Journal ...During the March 12 meeting, the Local Government Employee-Management Relations Board discussed holding a runoff election between ESEA and Teamsters Local 14 to decide who will represent district support staff at the bargaining table. That election could prove to be the downfall of ESEA, which has represented school district support staff for more than 40 years...
Labor Federation Re-Elects Top Officers To 3-Year Terms Buffalo News ...Richard Lipsitz Jr. of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters will continue to serve as president of the Western New York Area Labor Federation, AFL-CIO. His new term runs until March 2018; Lipsitz and the three other officers ran unopposed. The federation is an umbrella group that covers unions with about 125,000 dues-paying members, stretching as far east as Batavia and as far south as Jamestown...
ONTC And Union Reach Five-Year Deal North Bay Nugget ...This year the ONTC will be negotiating with the remaining four unions (Unifor, Teamsters-Rail, Teamsters-Motor Coach, and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers System). Eight collective agreements remain to be negotiated...
Union Drops Objection To Sunday Growler Sales KARE ...Ed Reynoso of the Teamsters Joint Council 32 told a Senate committee on Monday that "at this point" the union won't oppose a bill legalizing those growler sales on Sunday. It's a shift from last year when Teamsters' concerns about those sales affecting labor contracts helped derail the proposal...
City Council Candidates Stockpile Endorsements Philadelphia Tribune ...Teamsters Joint Council 53 recently endorsed at–large candidate Isaiah Thomas. “I am proud to have the support from Teamsters Joint Council 53,” Thomas said. “I have received endorsements from many members of the labor community and am excited that the Teamsters Union joins this extensive list. As the candidate who will work for Philadelphia, I understand the importance of strong labor support...
Teamsters Local 25 Will Honor David O. Russell Boston Globe ...Teamsters Local 25 will honor writer-director David O. Russell at its annual Light Up the Night Gala for Autism on Saturday. Russell has worked closely with Local 25 while filming the Massachusetts movies “The Fighter,” “American Hustle,” and “Joy,” which is now in production. He’ll be recognized for his work as an advocate for mental health issues...
Trade
Rep. Sander Levin, 83, may pose greatest obstacle to sweeping Asia trade pact Los Angeles Times ...If the president wants to push the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, through Congress this year, first he must win over Levin and other leading liberals, convincing them to ease their demands and give U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman a freer hand...
U.S. fast-track trade deal unlikely until next month: Senator Hatch Reuters ..."I will do my very best to come up with something between now and when we get back, but if he doesn't do it, that would be very unfortunate, but we are going to have to go ahead," Hatch said...
State Battles
ALEC, NFIB Push Prevailing Wage Repeal Center for Media and Democracy ...As unions and working people battle "right-to-work" legislation in several states, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and allies have opened another flank in their war on good jobs. Targeted this time are state prevailing wage laws, which require public construction projects to support local wage standards instead of undercutting them...
Changes to collective bargaining in Nevada? MyNews4 ...A hot topic is set to go before a committee of lawmakers on Wednesday. It’s a bill that would change collective bargaining involving public employee unions...
Unions Win Round Over Rauner In Fee Lawsuit Chicago Tribune ...Unions sued this month to halt an executive order Rauner issued that stopped the "fair share" fees from being sent to them, asking a St. Clair County judge to free up the money while the legal process plays out. Rauner attempted to have the matter moved to a federal court, but U.S. District Judge Staci Yandle ruled that the suit deals with questions regarding Illinois law and should be debated in state court...
Colorado Lawmakers Begin Debate For A $12.50 Minimum Wage By 2020 Denver Post ...A Colorado House committee passed two bills Monday to potentially raise the minimum wage. The first would allow urban and resort communities to raise the local minimum wages, and the other would let voters in 2016 decide on a plan that could hike the state minimum wage to $12.50 an hour by 2020. Both passed on a 6-5 party-line vote with Democrats in support...
Supreme Court Lets Wisconsin’s Voter-ID Law Stand Washington Post ...The justices’ decision not to review a federal appeals court ruling that upheld the law was a victory for Gov. Scott Walker (R), who supported and signed the law, and perhaps for other states that have tightened voting procedures to require additional identification. More challenges to specific state laws are in the pipeline...
War on Workers
AP Investigation: Slavery taints global supply of seafood Associated Press ...Here, in the Indonesian island village of Benjina and the surrounding waters, hundreds of trapped men represent one of the most desperate links criss-crossing between companies and countries in the seafood industry. This intricate web of connections separates the fish we eat from the men who catch it, and obscures a brutal truth: Your seafood may come from slaves...
Scientists to Smithsonian: Cut ties with Koch brothers Washington Post ...Three dozen scientists sent an open letter to museums of natural history calling on them to cut ties with the Koch brothers and anyone else with connections to the fossil fuel industry...
Power from the People International Monetary Fund ...The decline in unionization in recent decades has fed the rise in incomes at the top...
Miscellaneous
RadioShack's Bankruptcy Could Give Your Customer Data to the Highest Bidder Bloomberg ...The phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and shopping habits of more than 100 million customers are part of RadioShack's bankruptcy auction...
Ownership Fight At Heidelberg Distributing Could Affect Teamster Contracts WCPO ...Union workers are threatening a statewide strike at one of the largest beer and wine distributorships in the Midwest, citing stalled contract negotiations over better wages and health care...
State Education Association Replaces Leader Amid Turmoil Las Vegas Review Journal ...During the March 12 meeting, the Local Government Employee-Management Relations Board discussed holding a runoff election between ESEA and Teamsters Local 14 to decide who will represent district support staff at the bargaining table. That election could prove to be the downfall of ESEA, which has represented school district support staff for more than 40 years...
Labor Federation Re-Elects Top Officers To 3-Year Terms Buffalo News ...Richard Lipsitz Jr. of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters will continue to serve as president of the Western New York Area Labor Federation, AFL-CIO. His new term runs until March 2018; Lipsitz and the three other officers ran unopposed. The federation is an umbrella group that covers unions with about 125,000 dues-paying members, stretching as far east as Batavia and as far south as Jamestown...
ONTC And Union Reach Five-Year Deal North Bay Nugget ...This year the ONTC will be negotiating with the remaining four unions (Unifor, Teamsters-Rail, Teamsters-Motor Coach, and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers System). Eight collective agreements remain to be negotiated...
Union Drops Objection To Sunday Growler Sales KARE ...Ed Reynoso of the Teamsters Joint Council 32 told a Senate committee on Monday that "at this point" the union won't oppose a bill legalizing those growler sales on Sunday. It's a shift from last year when Teamsters' concerns about those sales affecting labor contracts helped derail the proposal...
City Council Candidates Stockpile Endorsements Philadelphia Tribune ...Teamsters Joint Council 53 recently endorsed at–large candidate Isaiah Thomas. “I am proud to have the support from Teamsters Joint Council 53,” Thomas said. “I have received endorsements from many members of the labor community and am excited that the Teamsters Union joins this extensive list. As the candidate who will work for Philadelphia, I understand the importance of strong labor support...
Teamsters Local 25 Will Honor David O. Russell Boston Globe ...Teamsters Local 25 will honor writer-director David O. Russell at its annual Light Up the Night Gala for Autism on Saturday. Russell has worked closely with Local 25 while filming the Massachusetts movies “The Fighter,” “American Hustle,” and “Joy,” which is now in production. He’ll be recognized for his work as an advocate for mental health issues...
Trade
Rep. Sander Levin, 83, may pose greatest obstacle to sweeping Asia trade pact Los Angeles Times ...If the president wants to push the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, through Congress this year, first he must win over Levin and other leading liberals, convincing them to ease their demands and give U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman a freer hand...
U.S. fast-track trade deal unlikely until next month: Senator Hatch Reuters ..."I will do my very best to come up with something between now and when we get back, but if he doesn't do it, that would be very unfortunate, but we are going to have to go ahead," Hatch said...
State Battles
ALEC, NFIB Push Prevailing Wage Repeal Center for Media and Democracy ...As unions and working people battle "right-to-work" legislation in several states, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and allies have opened another flank in their war on good jobs. Targeted this time are state prevailing wage laws, which require public construction projects to support local wage standards instead of undercutting them...
Changes to collective bargaining in Nevada? MyNews4 ...A hot topic is set to go before a committee of lawmakers on Wednesday. It’s a bill that would change collective bargaining involving public employee unions...
Unions Win Round Over Rauner In Fee Lawsuit Chicago Tribune ...Unions sued this month to halt an executive order Rauner issued that stopped the "fair share" fees from being sent to them, asking a St. Clair County judge to free up the money while the legal process plays out. Rauner attempted to have the matter moved to a federal court, but U.S. District Judge Staci Yandle ruled that the suit deals with questions regarding Illinois law and should be debated in state court...
Colorado Lawmakers Begin Debate For A $12.50 Minimum Wage By 2020 Denver Post ...A Colorado House committee passed two bills Monday to potentially raise the minimum wage. The first would allow urban and resort communities to raise the local minimum wages, and the other would let voters in 2016 decide on a plan that could hike the state minimum wage to $12.50 an hour by 2020. Both passed on a 6-5 party-line vote with Democrats in support...
Supreme Court Lets Wisconsin’s Voter-ID Law Stand Washington Post ...The justices’ decision not to review a federal appeals court ruling that upheld the law was a victory for Gov. Scott Walker (R), who supported and signed the law, and perhaps for other states that have tightened voting procedures to require additional identification. More challenges to specific state laws are in the pipeline...
War on Workers
AP Investigation: Slavery taints global supply of seafood Associated Press ...Here, in the Indonesian island village of Benjina and the surrounding waters, hundreds of trapped men represent one of the most desperate links criss-crossing between companies and countries in the seafood industry. This intricate web of connections separates the fish we eat from the men who catch it, and obscures a brutal truth: Your seafood may come from slaves...
Scientists to Smithsonian: Cut ties with Koch brothers Washington Post ...Three dozen scientists sent an open letter to museums of natural history calling on them to cut ties with the Koch brothers and anyone else with connections to the fossil fuel industry...
Power from the People International Monetary Fund ...The decline in unionization in recent decades has fed the rise in incomes at the top...
Miscellaneous
RadioShack's Bankruptcy Could Give Your Customer Data to the Highest Bidder Bloomberg ...The phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and shopping habits of more than 100 million customers are part of RadioShack's bankruptcy auction...
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...
Thursday, September 11, 2014
Today's Teamster News 09.11.14
Teamster News
Teamsters Score Victory For Investor Rights At Sysco teamster.org ...The Teamsters Union scored a major victory for Sysco [NYSE: SYY] shareholders when the board of directors agreed this week to adopt the union’s proposal to amend company by-laws and provide shareholders with the right to call a special meeting. In 2015, a quorum of Sysco investors owning 25 percent of the company’s outstanding shares will be empowered to call a special meeting of shareholders...
Teamsters aim to organize FedEx Freight Indy drivers Indianapolis Star ...The Teamsters union is trying to whip up pro-union sentiment among 250 local FedEx Freight drivers as it lays the groundwork for a possible unionization vote...
NM Jail Employees In Union To Receive Retroactive Raise Corrections One ...It is the first contract for Teamsters Local 492 of Albuquerque, which was elected by jail employees to represent county detention sergeants, detention officers and booking specialists. The raise is for all union members regardless of their salary level...
Detroit's Creditors Are Morally Bankrupt (opinion) teamster.org ...Detroit city worker retirees have given more than their fair share when it comes to making pension concessions. So have current municipal employees. Together, they helped Motor City officials earlier this year cobble together a “grand bargain” as part of the city’s bankruptcy plan. But evidently, that’s still not enough for some...
Trade
U.S. groups leery of fast-track trade deals demand transparency Reuters ...More than 500 U.S. organizations on Wednesday urged the Obama administration to ditch the system of congressional authority to fast-track trade negotiations, demanding a more transparent method of handling trade negotiations...
U.S. Commerce Drops Duties On Turkish Steel Rebar Imports, Confirms Mexican Duties Reuters ...The U.S. Commerce Department on Tuesday dropped a preliminary decision to impose anti-dumping duties on steel rebar imports from Turkey while it confirmed anti-dumping duties on Mexican material of up to 66.7 percent...
State Battles
Gov. Brown Signs Bill Requiring Paid Sick Leave For Millions Of Workers CBS Los Angeles ...Assembly Bill 1522, known as The Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act of 2014, requires employers to provide paid sick leave to any employee who works in California for 30 or more days within a year from the commencement of employment starting on or after July 1, 2015...
Federal Panel Suggests Koch-Tied Judge Overreached When He Halted Walker Probe Center for Media and Democracy ...Tuesday's hearing suggested the 7th Circuit judges were wary of a federal court cutting off a state criminal investigation, being conducted under state law, and overseen by state courts...
Court Hears Arguments On Secret Scott Walker Investigation MSNBC ...A 7th Circuit Court of Appeals panel heard oral arguments Tuesday from Wisconsin prosecutors and attorneys for the conservative political group Wisconsin Club for Growth State prosecutors had been investigating since 2012 whether Walker and his campaign staff illegally coordinated with conservative groups to raise and spend campaign dollars in a way that skirted state contribution limits...
Minneapolis Leaders Consider $15-An-Hour Minimum Wage Minneapolis Star Tribune ...The new effort comes six weeks after the statewide minimum wage went up from $7.25 to $8 an hour — on its way to $9.50 in 2016.Cano is taking a measured approach. She said that process would begin with an update to the city’s rules for how it pays its contractors, then be expanded to include a higher minimum wage for all people working in Minneapolis, similar to Seattle’s recent minimum wage boost...
Tennessee Hasn't Inspected Tobacco Farms Since 2006 The Tennessean ...unlike some other states, Tennessee has virtually no oversight of child labor on tobacco farms. The Tennessee Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the state agency charged with inspecting and enforcing safety and sanitation standards on the state's farms, has conducted no tobacco farm inspections since December 2006...
Homeowners steamrolled as Florida courts clear foreclosure backlog Center for Public Integrity ...“The state’s entire court system has been compromised,” says Matt Weidner, an outspoken foreclosure defense lawyer who practices in Tampa and St. Petersburg and blogs about the system. “They’re stripping away private property rights and transferring billions of dollars in assets from individuals to large entities...”
War On Workers
Senate advances Paycheck Fairness Act The Hill ...Senate Republicans decided not to block the advancement of the Paycheck Fairness Act. Democrats needed 60 votes to advance the legislation procedurally; the tally was 73-25 on Wednesday. The move will once again tie up the Senate in debate for days...
Republicans Make Big Advances Thanks to Citizens United American Prospect ...the ruling has significantly benefited Republican candidates for state legislatures -- especially in North Carolina and Tennessee...
Bible College President Admits He Used Foreign Students As Slave Labor crooks and liars ...Miller forced foreign students at his supposedly Christian "Bible college" to live in substandard living conditions, work long hours for little or no pay, and - when students complained - he threatened them with deportation...
Worker Killed After Being Run Over By Trash Truck Tulsa's Channel 8 ...On Wednesday morning a Sand Springs sanitation worker lost his life while on the job...
Worker Killed In Johnston County Oil Rig Accident KTEN ...The sheriff's office says a man was killed when something went horribly wrong at an oil rig in Mannsville, Oklahoma...
Police and fire unions sue City of Indianapolis over alleged contract violations Fox 58 ...Lawyers for the unions accuse city officials of violating union contracts. According to the lawsuit, the city plans to get rid of the current HMO advantage plan beginning this January. The plan would be replaced by a health savings account or (HSA)...
At The Uber For Home Cleaning, Workers Pay A Price For Convenience Washington Post ...At the end of a five-hour trip back and forth, averaged out, he has made $10 an hour, without any taxes being withheld, as they would be if he were an employee. What’s more, he doesn’t get workers’ compensation, unemployment insurance, time off or retirement benefits — all the perks and protections of working for a traditional business...
U.S. mortgage applications fall to lowest since Dec 2000: MBA Reuters ...Applications for U.S. home mortgages fell last week to the lowest since December 2000 as interest rates rose for the first time in four weeks, an industry group said on Wednesday...
Elizabeth Warren: Jamie Dimon Gets $8.5 Million Raise for Illegal Conduct at JPMorgan Wall Street on Parade ...despite the misconduct at these banks that generated tens of billions of dollars in settlement payments by the companies, not a single senior executive at these banks has been criminally prosecuted...
Senators and Other Experts to Appeals Court: NSA's Phone Records Program Is a Massive Invasion of Privacy Electronic Frontier Foundation ...Senators Ron Wyden, Mark Udall, and Martin Heinrich—members of the committee charged with overseeing the NSA—write that they “have seen no evidence that the bulk collection of Americans’ phone records has provided any intelligence of value that could not have been gathered through means that caused far less harm to the privacy interests of millions of Americans.”...
When A ‘Contractor’ Is Really A Cheated Employee (opinion) Tacoma News Tribune ...‘Worker misclassification” is a dry term that smacks of paperwork mistakes and picayune regulations. But as a multi-state McClatchy Newspaper investigation has revealed, it’s often a deliberate scheme to cheat laborers out of wages and defraud the public...
Miscellaneous
Union Members Remember 9/11 By Rebuilding The World Trade Center AFL-CIO ...As millions of Americans took a moment this morning to remember the tragedy that occurred 11 years ago on Sept. 11 in New York City, Virginia and Pennsylvania, military veterans who’ve found careers through the Ironworkers, Laborers (LiUNA), Heat and Frost Insulators and Bricklayers (BAC) are rebuilding the World Trade Center in New York...
Teamsters Score Victory For Investor Rights At Sysco teamster.org ...The Teamsters Union scored a major victory for Sysco [NYSE: SYY] shareholders when the board of directors agreed this week to adopt the union’s proposal to amend company by-laws and provide shareholders with the right to call a special meeting. In 2015, a quorum of Sysco investors owning 25 percent of the company’s outstanding shares will be empowered to call a special meeting of shareholders...
Teamsters aim to organize FedEx Freight Indy drivers Indianapolis Star ...The Teamsters union is trying to whip up pro-union sentiment among 250 local FedEx Freight drivers as it lays the groundwork for a possible unionization vote...
NM Jail Employees In Union To Receive Retroactive Raise Corrections One ...It is the first contract for Teamsters Local 492 of Albuquerque, which was elected by jail employees to represent county detention sergeants, detention officers and booking specialists. The raise is for all union members regardless of their salary level...
Detroit's Creditors Are Morally Bankrupt (opinion) teamster.org ...Detroit city worker retirees have given more than their fair share when it comes to making pension concessions. So have current municipal employees. Together, they helped Motor City officials earlier this year cobble together a “grand bargain” as part of the city’s bankruptcy plan. But evidently, that’s still not enough for some...
Trade
U.S. groups leery of fast-track trade deals demand transparency Reuters ...More than 500 U.S. organizations on Wednesday urged the Obama administration to ditch the system of congressional authority to fast-track trade negotiations, demanding a more transparent method of handling trade negotiations...
U.S. Commerce Drops Duties On Turkish Steel Rebar Imports, Confirms Mexican Duties Reuters ...The U.S. Commerce Department on Tuesday dropped a preliminary decision to impose anti-dumping duties on steel rebar imports from Turkey while it confirmed anti-dumping duties on Mexican material of up to 66.7 percent...
State Battles
Gov. Brown Signs Bill Requiring Paid Sick Leave For Millions Of Workers CBS Los Angeles ...Assembly Bill 1522, known as The Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act of 2014, requires employers to provide paid sick leave to any employee who works in California for 30 or more days within a year from the commencement of employment starting on or after July 1, 2015...
Federal Panel Suggests Koch-Tied Judge Overreached When He Halted Walker Probe Center for Media and Democracy ...Tuesday's hearing suggested the 7th Circuit judges were wary of a federal court cutting off a state criminal investigation, being conducted under state law, and overseen by state courts...
Court Hears Arguments On Secret Scott Walker Investigation MSNBC ...A 7th Circuit Court of Appeals panel heard oral arguments Tuesday from Wisconsin prosecutors and attorneys for the conservative political group Wisconsin Club for Growth State prosecutors had been investigating since 2012 whether Walker and his campaign staff illegally coordinated with conservative groups to raise and spend campaign dollars in a way that skirted state contribution limits...
Minneapolis Leaders Consider $15-An-Hour Minimum Wage Minneapolis Star Tribune ...The new effort comes six weeks after the statewide minimum wage went up from $7.25 to $8 an hour — on its way to $9.50 in 2016.Cano is taking a measured approach. She said that process would begin with an update to the city’s rules for how it pays its contractors, then be expanded to include a higher minimum wage for all people working in Minneapolis, similar to Seattle’s recent minimum wage boost...
Tennessee Hasn't Inspected Tobacco Farms Since 2006 The Tennessean ...unlike some other states, Tennessee has virtually no oversight of child labor on tobacco farms. The Tennessee Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the state agency charged with inspecting and enforcing safety and sanitation standards on the state's farms, has conducted no tobacco farm inspections since December 2006...
Homeowners steamrolled as Florida courts clear foreclosure backlog Center for Public Integrity ...“The state’s entire court system has been compromised,” says Matt Weidner, an outspoken foreclosure defense lawyer who practices in Tampa and St. Petersburg and blogs about the system. “They’re stripping away private property rights and transferring billions of dollars in assets from individuals to large entities...”
War On Workers
Senate advances Paycheck Fairness Act The Hill ...Senate Republicans decided not to block the advancement of the Paycheck Fairness Act. Democrats needed 60 votes to advance the legislation procedurally; the tally was 73-25 on Wednesday. The move will once again tie up the Senate in debate for days...
Republicans Make Big Advances Thanks to Citizens United American Prospect ...the ruling has significantly benefited Republican candidates for state legislatures -- especially in North Carolina and Tennessee...
Bible College President Admits He Used Foreign Students As Slave Labor crooks and liars ...Miller forced foreign students at his supposedly Christian "Bible college" to live in substandard living conditions, work long hours for little or no pay, and - when students complained - he threatened them with deportation...
Worker Killed After Being Run Over By Trash Truck Tulsa's Channel 8 ...On Wednesday morning a Sand Springs sanitation worker lost his life while on the job...
Worker Killed In Johnston County Oil Rig Accident KTEN ...The sheriff's office says a man was killed when something went horribly wrong at an oil rig in Mannsville, Oklahoma...
Police and fire unions sue City of Indianapolis over alleged contract violations Fox 58 ...Lawyers for the unions accuse city officials of violating union contracts. According to the lawsuit, the city plans to get rid of the current HMO advantage plan beginning this January. The plan would be replaced by a health savings account or (HSA)...
At The Uber For Home Cleaning, Workers Pay A Price For Convenience Washington Post ...At the end of a five-hour trip back and forth, averaged out, he has made $10 an hour, without any taxes being withheld, as they would be if he were an employee. What’s more, he doesn’t get workers’ compensation, unemployment insurance, time off or retirement benefits — all the perks and protections of working for a traditional business...
U.S. mortgage applications fall to lowest since Dec 2000: MBA Reuters ...Applications for U.S. home mortgages fell last week to the lowest since December 2000 as interest rates rose for the first time in four weeks, an industry group said on Wednesday...
Elizabeth Warren: Jamie Dimon Gets $8.5 Million Raise for Illegal Conduct at JPMorgan Wall Street on Parade ...despite the misconduct at these banks that generated tens of billions of dollars in settlement payments by the companies, not a single senior executive at these banks has been criminally prosecuted...
Senators and Other Experts to Appeals Court: NSA's Phone Records Program Is a Massive Invasion of Privacy Electronic Frontier Foundation ...Senators Ron Wyden, Mark Udall, and Martin Heinrich—members of the committee charged with overseeing the NSA—write that they “have seen no evidence that the bulk collection of Americans’ phone records has provided any intelligence of value that could not have been gathered through means that caused far less harm to the privacy interests of millions of Americans.”...
When A ‘Contractor’ Is Really A Cheated Employee (opinion) Tacoma News Tribune ...‘Worker misclassification” is a dry term that smacks of paperwork mistakes and picayune regulations. But as a multi-state McClatchy Newspaper investigation has revealed, it’s often a deliberate scheme to cheat laborers out of wages and defraud the public...
Miscellaneous
Union Members Remember 9/11 By Rebuilding The World Trade Center AFL-CIO ...As millions of Americans took a moment this morning to remember the tragedy that occurred 11 years ago on Sept. 11 in New York City, Virginia and Pennsylvania, military veterans who’ve found careers through the Ironworkers, Laborers (LiUNA), Heat and Frost Insulators and Bricklayers (BAC) are rebuilding the World Trade Center in New York...
Monday, June 9, 2014
Today's Teamster News 06.09.14
Teamsters
Teamsters Fear ABF Freight's Plans to Move Arkansas Business ...ArcBest Corp. of Fort Smith is leaning toward moving ABF Freight, its largest subsidiary, to Memphis, which would result in a major reduction of its operations in North Little Rock....
Trade
TPP would hurt farmers, America (opinion) Springfield News-Leader ...these trade deals take power away from local and state elected representatives and make us subject to a virtual undemocratic corporate, global constitution that could undermine the U.S. Constitution, state constitutions, federal and state laws and local control laws. Laws such as Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) would be in jeopardy — COOL is supported by the majority of farmers and consumers, but opposed by corporate agribusiness...
TTIP: EU Commissioner Defends Controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership International Business Times ...Politicians have also been labelled "undemocratic" for the perceived secrecy of negotiations. In May, a group of 120 European NGOs attacked TTIP's "lack of transparency and democratic procedures"...
War on Workers
Starting Out Behind New York Times ...The result has been an economy where young people starting out are at risk of prolonged underachievement...
Trafficked Teachers: Neoliberalism’s Latest Labor Source In These Times ...Between 2007 and 2009, 350 Filipino teachers arrived in Louisiana, excited for the opportunity to teach math and science in public schools throughout the state. They’d been recruited through a company called Universal Placement International Inc., which professes on its website to “successfully place teachers in different schools thru out [sic] the United States.” As a lawsuit later revealed, however, their journey through the American public school system was fraught with abuse...
The Great Deleveraging: Six and a Half Lost Years New Yorker ...The bad news is that for the American economy, whose leitmotif is expansion, to go for six and a half years without any net job growth is something we haven’t seen in eighty years. The only comparable period on record is the Great Depression...
Dark Money, Dirty War: The Corporate Crusade Against Low-Wage Workers Portside ...The U.S. Chamber is using its reports–plus attack ads, articles from right-wing think tanks such as the Manhattan Institute, and op-eds in major newspapers echoing similar refrains—to persuade the public and the government that all low-wage and immigrant worker organizing groups should be subjected to the same financial reporting and internal structuring requirements that unions face...
Teamsters Fear ABF Freight's Plans to Move Arkansas Business ...ArcBest Corp. of Fort Smith is leaning toward moving ABF Freight, its largest subsidiary, to Memphis, which would result in a major reduction of its operations in North Little Rock....
Trade
TPP would hurt farmers, America (opinion) Springfield News-Leader ...these trade deals take power away from local and state elected representatives and make us subject to a virtual undemocratic corporate, global constitution that could undermine the U.S. Constitution, state constitutions, federal and state laws and local control laws. Laws such as Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) would be in jeopardy — COOL is supported by the majority of farmers and consumers, but opposed by corporate agribusiness...
TTIP: EU Commissioner Defends Controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership International Business Times ...Politicians have also been labelled "undemocratic" for the perceived secrecy of negotiations. In May, a group of 120 European NGOs attacked TTIP's "lack of transparency and democratic procedures"...
War on Workers
Starting Out Behind New York Times ...The result has been an economy where young people starting out are at risk of prolonged underachievement...
Trafficked Teachers: Neoliberalism’s Latest Labor Source In These Times ...Between 2007 and 2009, 350 Filipino teachers arrived in Louisiana, excited for the opportunity to teach math and science in public schools throughout the state. They’d been recruited through a company called Universal Placement International Inc., which professes on its website to “successfully place teachers in different schools thru out [sic] the United States.” As a lawsuit later revealed, however, their journey through the American public school system was fraught with abuse...
The Great Deleveraging: Six and a Half Lost Years New Yorker ...The bad news is that for the American economy, whose leitmotif is expansion, to go for six and a half years without any net job growth is something we haven’t seen in eighty years. The only comparable period on record is the Great Depression...
Dark Money, Dirty War: The Corporate Crusade Against Low-Wage Workers Portside ...The U.S. Chamber is using its reports–plus attack ads, articles from right-wing think tanks such as the Manhattan Institute, and op-eds in major newspapers echoing similar refrains—to persuade the public and the government that all low-wage and immigrant worker organizing groups should be subjected to the same financial reporting and internal structuring requirements that unions face...
Monday, March 3, 2014
Today's Teamster News 03.03.14
Trade
As TPP Opposition Soars, Corporate Media Blackout Deafening Common Dreams ...Opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership—dubbed 'NAFTA on steroids'—is receiving unprecedented popular opposition and nearly no news coverage by major outlets...
State Battles
While Duke Energy Dodges Taxes, Its Pollution Costs the Public Dearly truthout ...The investor-owned company earned over $9 billion in profits during those years but received tax rebates totaling $299 million...
The War on Workers
Thrown in jail for being poor: the booming for-profit probation industry The Guardian ...Many poor Americans face jail when they can’t pay steep fines for nonviolent crimes, like $1,000 for stealing a $2 beer...
Income Inequality Hurts Economic Growth, But Fixing It Doesn’t ThinkProgress ...the conservative policy notion that a rising economic tide will lift even the poorest people’s boats is not supported by the data. It is “a mistake to focus on growth and let inequality take care of itself,” they write, in part because inequality impairs the growth poor people need to make gains...
Deficit Is Falling Because Of Government Austerity, Not Economic Recovery The Real News ...the deficit has been falling, as you mentioned, at its fastest clip since the end of World War II, and it's actually been falling at a pretty rapid clip for quite a long time now...
India's tea firms urged to act on slave trafficking after girls freed The Guardian ...Plantations pay below minimum wage, which campaigners say strengthens hand of slavers who take girls as young as 11...
Discover Faces Investigation Into Student Loan Debt Collection Practices Amid Rising Delinquencies Buzzfeed ...Discover Financial Services, one of the biggest providers of private student loans, is facing an investigation from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over its loan servicing practices...
Miscellaneous
Where Have All the Lobbyists Gone? The Nation ...On paper, the influence-peddling business is drying up. But lobbying money is flooding Washington, DC like never before. What’s going on?...
As TPP Opposition Soars, Corporate Media Blackout Deafening Common Dreams ...Opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership—dubbed 'NAFTA on steroids'—is receiving unprecedented popular opposition and nearly no news coverage by major outlets...
State Battles
While Duke Energy Dodges Taxes, Its Pollution Costs the Public Dearly truthout ...The investor-owned company earned over $9 billion in profits during those years but received tax rebates totaling $299 million...
The War on Workers
Thrown in jail for being poor: the booming for-profit probation industry The Guardian ...Many poor Americans face jail when they can’t pay steep fines for nonviolent crimes, like $1,000 for stealing a $2 beer...
Income Inequality Hurts Economic Growth, But Fixing It Doesn’t ThinkProgress ...the conservative policy notion that a rising economic tide will lift even the poorest people’s boats is not supported by the data. It is “a mistake to focus on growth and let inequality take care of itself,” they write, in part because inequality impairs the growth poor people need to make gains...
Deficit Is Falling Because Of Government Austerity, Not Economic Recovery The Real News ...the deficit has been falling, as you mentioned, at its fastest clip since the end of World War II, and it's actually been falling at a pretty rapid clip for quite a long time now...
India's tea firms urged to act on slave trafficking after girls freed The Guardian ...Plantations pay below minimum wage, which campaigners say strengthens hand of slavers who take girls as young as 11...
Discover Faces Investigation Into Student Loan Debt Collection Practices Amid Rising Delinquencies Buzzfeed ...Discover Financial Services, one of the biggest providers of private student loans, is facing an investigation from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over its loan servicing practices...
Miscellaneous
Where Have All the Lobbyists Gone? The Nation ...On paper, the influence-peddling business is drying up. But lobbying money is flooding Washington, DC like never before. What’s going on?...
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Today's Teamster News 01.01.14
Settlement reached at Northern Tier Refinery in St. Paul Park Minneapolis Star Tribune ...Union and company negotiators reached a tentative agreement about 5 p.m. Tuesday, averting a strike that had been called to begin at midnight at the Northern Tier Refinery in St. Paul Park. The deal, which must still be voted on by about 190 workers, came just in time, said Chris Riley, business agent for Teamsters Local 120. “We went to the edge of the cliff,” Riley said…
Are we heading for the world's first TRILLIONAIRE? Tax Justice Network ...if you're under 60 years of age, you're likely to witness the emergence of the world's first trillionaire...
In No One We Trust (opinion) New York Times ...trust is becoming yet another casualty of our country’s staggering inequality:..
30 Million People Worldwide Are Living As Slaves Huffington Post ...The Global Slavery Index released a shocking report last week, estimating that almost 30 million people worldwide are living as slaves...
US population growing at slowest rate since 1930s, census data shows The Guardian ...“This sharp bump that we've seen in the last few years does suggest that the economy has a lot to do with it.”...
How NAFTA Drove Mexicans into Poverty and Sparked the Zapatista Revolt Alternet ...The North American Free Trade Agreement, passed 20 years ago, has resulted in increased emigration, hunger and poverty...
Case-Shiller Home Prices Double Digit Annual Increase Party May Be Over Economic Populist ...The October 2013 S&P Case Shiller home price index shows a seasonally adjusted 13.6% price increase from a year ago for both the 20 metropolitan housing markets and the top 10 housing markets. This is an incredible price run up and has not been seen since the height of the housing bubble, February 2006...
Only A Quarter Of Unemployed Americans Receiving Benefits After Congress Failed To Act: Data Huffington Post ...The number is the lowest since the Department of Labor began keeping records in 1946. Before Congress let the federal unemployment benefit-assistance plan expire on Dec. 28, 38 percent of unemployed Americans who paid unemployment taxes were receiving unemployment insurance either through their state or the federal government...
Residents allowed to return home after smoky North Dakota rail crash Reuters ...Mandatory evacuation orders were lifted on Tuesday in Casselton, North Dakota, where a fiery oil train crash a day earlier triggered a series of blasts and forced residents from their homes...
Business property tax cut could drive up other taxes, report says Indianapolis Star ...A new legislative report says cutting the business personal property tax could raise taxes for homeowners and workers across the state...
Pot Shops in Denver Open Door to $578 Million in Sales Bloomberg ...Fox’s shop is among 14 in Denver that got state and local licenses in time to sell marijuana to anyone 21 or older starting Jan. 1, just over a year after Colorado and Washington voters made their states the first to legalize recreational use. Washington’s shops are expected to open later in the year. Colorado projects $578.1 million a year in combined wholesale and retail marijuana sales to yield $67 million in tax revenue…
Solidarity Sing Along up; The YMCA of Dane County down Isthmus ...The state's Fourth District Court of Appeals rules that people who were charged for singing in the (Wisconsin) Capitol Rotunda during the noontime protests are allowed to use discovery in their defense, which means they can call witnesses and seek evidence the state has against them...
Are we heading for the world's first TRILLIONAIRE? Tax Justice Network ...if you're under 60 years of age, you're likely to witness the emergence of the world's first trillionaire...
In No One We Trust (opinion) New York Times ...trust is becoming yet another casualty of our country’s staggering inequality:..
30 Million People Worldwide Are Living As Slaves Huffington Post ...The Global Slavery Index released a shocking report last week, estimating that almost 30 million people worldwide are living as slaves...
US population growing at slowest rate since 1930s, census data shows The Guardian ...“This sharp bump that we've seen in the last few years does suggest that the economy has a lot to do with it.”...
How NAFTA Drove Mexicans into Poverty and Sparked the Zapatista Revolt Alternet ...The North American Free Trade Agreement, passed 20 years ago, has resulted in increased emigration, hunger and poverty...
Case-Shiller Home Prices Double Digit Annual Increase Party May Be Over Economic Populist ...The October 2013 S&P Case Shiller home price index shows a seasonally adjusted 13.6% price increase from a year ago for both the 20 metropolitan housing markets and the top 10 housing markets. This is an incredible price run up and has not been seen since the height of the housing bubble, February 2006...
Only A Quarter Of Unemployed Americans Receiving Benefits After Congress Failed To Act: Data Huffington Post ...The number is the lowest since the Department of Labor began keeping records in 1946. Before Congress let the federal unemployment benefit-assistance plan expire on Dec. 28, 38 percent of unemployed Americans who paid unemployment taxes were receiving unemployment insurance either through their state or the federal government...
Residents allowed to return home after smoky North Dakota rail crash Reuters ...Mandatory evacuation orders were lifted on Tuesday in Casselton, North Dakota, where a fiery oil train crash a day earlier triggered a series of blasts and forced residents from their homes...
Business property tax cut could drive up other taxes, report says Indianapolis Star ...A new legislative report says cutting the business personal property tax could raise taxes for homeowners and workers across the state...
Pot Shops in Denver Open Door to $578 Million in Sales Bloomberg ...Fox’s shop is among 14 in Denver that got state and local licenses in time to sell marijuana to anyone 21 or older starting Jan. 1, just over a year after Colorado and Washington voters made their states the first to legalize recreational use. Washington’s shops are expected to open later in the year. Colorado projects $578.1 million a year in combined wholesale and retail marijuana sales to yield $67 million in tax revenue…
Solidarity Sing Along up; The YMCA of Dane County down Isthmus ...The state's Fourth District Court of Appeals rules that people who were charged for singing in the (Wisconsin) Capitol Rotunda during the noontime protests are allowed to use discovery in their defense, which means they can call witnesses and seek evidence the state has against them...
Monday, December 23, 2013
Today's Teamster News 12.23.13
UPDATE: Adding S. Korea rail strike item.
Military pension cuts now unsure; changes likely Washington Post ...The Pentagon’s top civilian says it’s time to tame burgeoning military personnel costs, but he’s facing a test of wills with the nation’s powerful veterans groups, which want no cut in their benefits...
Diplomat's housekeeper kept 'like a slave' New York Post ...In India, Devyani Khobragade advocated for women’s rights. But in New York, she was a slave driver, says the family of Khobragade’s housekeeper...
50 educators sign letter to Catholic University protesting Koch Foundation’s $1 million gift Washington Post ...Fifty prominent Catholic educators have signed a letter protesting Catholic University of America’s recent acceptance of a $1 million grant from a foundation affiliated with the billionaire libertarian Koch brothers … It says the Koch brothers’ activism against unions and climate-change science, among other things, is in “stark contrast” to the church’s “traditional social justice teachings.”…
U.S. agriculture considering opposition to TPP trade deal The Grand Island Independent ...A coalition of agricultural organizations is likely to oppose a final Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement if Japan is included...
South Korean union vows all-out strike in sympathy with rail workers Reuters ...South Korea's militant labor federation announced a general strike from Saturday in sympathy with rail workers, after police hauled away scores of strikers in a two-week dispute that has hit President Park Geun-hye's popularity ratings...
Corporate Tribunals: A U.S. / EU Holiday Gift to Foreign Firms? Public Citizen ...A moratorium on fracking. A strong anti-smoking cigarette label. A requirement to clean up industrial pollution. A medicine patent policy that could tamp down health costs. A decision to phase out nuclear energy. Each of these has been attacked by a foreign corporation using "trade" and investment treaties that allow firms to circumvent domestic legal systems and directly challenge domestic public interest policies before private international tribunals...
This Chart Blows Up the Myth of the Welfare Queen The Atlantic ...On average, they spend $30,582 in a year, compared to $66,525 for families not on public assistance. Meanwhile, they spend a third less on food, half as much on housing, and 60 percent less on entertainment...
US Treasury signs anti-tax evasion pacts with six jurisdictions Reuters ...The agreements were completed this past week with Bermuda, Malta, the Netherlands and three UK Crown Dependencies: Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man...
The death of the American Dream in a single image Hullabaloo ... It is harder for the poor to get into the middle class, and for the middle class to become wealthy, in America than in almost any other industrialized country. Our income distribution is the most unequal of any industrialized country, and at the highest level since 1928...
Military pension cuts now unsure; changes likely Washington Post ...The Pentagon’s top civilian says it’s time to tame burgeoning military personnel costs, but he’s facing a test of wills with the nation’s powerful veterans groups, which want no cut in their benefits...
Diplomat's housekeeper kept 'like a slave' New York Post ...In India, Devyani Khobragade advocated for women’s rights. But in New York, she was a slave driver, says the family of Khobragade’s housekeeper...
50 educators sign letter to Catholic University protesting Koch Foundation’s $1 million gift Washington Post ...Fifty prominent Catholic educators have signed a letter protesting Catholic University of America’s recent acceptance of a $1 million grant from a foundation affiliated with the billionaire libertarian Koch brothers … It says the Koch brothers’ activism against unions and climate-change science, among other things, is in “stark contrast” to the church’s “traditional social justice teachings.”…
U.S. agriculture considering opposition to TPP trade deal The Grand Island Independent ...A coalition of agricultural organizations is likely to oppose a final Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement if Japan is included...
South Korean union vows all-out strike in sympathy with rail workers Reuters ...South Korea's militant labor federation announced a general strike from Saturday in sympathy with rail workers, after police hauled away scores of strikers in a two-week dispute that has hit President Park Geun-hye's popularity ratings...
Corporate Tribunals: A U.S. / EU Holiday Gift to Foreign Firms? Public Citizen ...A moratorium on fracking. A strong anti-smoking cigarette label. A requirement to clean up industrial pollution. A medicine patent policy that could tamp down health costs. A decision to phase out nuclear energy. Each of these has been attacked by a foreign corporation using "trade" and investment treaties that allow firms to circumvent domestic legal systems and directly challenge domestic public interest policies before private international tribunals...
This Chart Blows Up the Myth of the Welfare Queen The Atlantic ...On average, they spend $30,582 in a year, compared to $66,525 for families not on public assistance. Meanwhile, they spend a third less on food, half as much on housing, and 60 percent less on entertainment...
US Treasury signs anti-tax evasion pacts with six jurisdictions Reuters ...The agreements were completed this past week with Bermuda, Malta, the Netherlands and three UK Crown Dependencies: Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man...
The death of the American Dream in a single image Hullabaloo ... It is harder for the poor to get into the middle class, and for the middle class to become wealthy, in America than in almost any other industrialized country. Our income distribution is the most unequal of any industrialized country, and at the highest level since 1928...
Monday, November 18, 2013
Today's Teamster News 11.18.13
Is a stealth Right to Work effort brewing in Columbus? Thomas Suddes Cleveland Plain Dealer ... fretting about whether this General Assembly will spring so-called Right to Work (for Less) on Ohioans isn’t a symptom of paranoia. Instead, it may be common-sense caution...
ALEC’s Latest Trojan Horse: The Attack on Standards and Safeguards Moves to the States Center for Effective Government ..., these pieces of legislation serve as a Trojan horse designed to quietly shut down state efforts to establish public protections that ensure all their residents enjoy safe and healthful lives...
The 10 Companies Paying Americans The Least: 24/7 Wall Street Huffington Post ...CEOs at nine of these 10 companies are paid more than $10 million annually, while Michael Duke and Howard Schultz, CEOs of Walmart and Starbucks, each receive more than $20 million per year...
Three Million More in Poverty than Previously Estimated The Real News ...the West now becomes the area that has the highest poverty rate, at about 25 percent of their population being counted as poor...
Deadly tornadoes hit US Midwest states BBC News ...Powerful tornadoes have swept through the US Midwest, destroying buildings and overturning vehicles in the states of Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky...
The People Can Defeat the Trans-Pacific Partnership Counterpunch ...The broad bi-partisan opposition announced this week shows that winning Fast Track has very little support in Congress. In fact, the letters may be the death knell for such legislation...
Qatar migrant workers 'treated like animals' - Amnesty BBC News ...Amnesty says migrant workers are often subjected to non-payment of wages, dangerous working conditions and squalid accommodation. The rights group said one manager had referred to workers as "animals"...
Rights group: Gulf must increase worker protection Associated Press ...Riots have broken out in Saudi Arabia as authorities crack down on laborers without proper visas. In Qatar, rights groups and others have raised concerns about living and working conditions for crews building venues for the 2022 World Cup. ...
Mexico officials find 8 bodies in border city home Associated Press ...the bodies were found early Sunday and apparently were members of the same extended family. He said exact ages were not yet available but three of the dead appeared to be children and five were adults...
Something stinks in Wisconsin Center for Media and Democracy ...Wisconsin is home to two SPN right-wing think tanks: the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (WPRI) and the MacIver Institute for Public Policy. While WPRI and the MacIver Institute claim to be focused on issues important to the people of Wisconsin, both push a right-wing agenda dictated by their right-wing funders and partners, such as the Bradley Foundation...
Workers Standing Together to Demand Respect at Taylor Farms Labor's Edge ...at Taylor Farms in Tracy, the bosses are threatening and intimidating workers as part of a campaign to stop those workers from joining a union...
ALEC’s Latest Trojan Horse: The Attack on Standards and Safeguards Moves to the States Center for Effective Government ..., these pieces of legislation serve as a Trojan horse designed to quietly shut down state efforts to establish public protections that ensure all their residents enjoy safe and healthful lives...
The 10 Companies Paying Americans The Least: 24/7 Wall Street Huffington Post ...CEOs at nine of these 10 companies are paid more than $10 million annually, while Michael Duke and Howard Schultz, CEOs of Walmart and Starbucks, each receive more than $20 million per year...
Three Million More in Poverty than Previously Estimated The Real News ...the West now becomes the area that has the highest poverty rate, at about 25 percent of their population being counted as poor...
Deadly tornadoes hit US Midwest states BBC News ...Powerful tornadoes have swept through the US Midwest, destroying buildings and overturning vehicles in the states of Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky...
The People Can Defeat the Trans-Pacific Partnership Counterpunch ...The broad bi-partisan opposition announced this week shows that winning Fast Track has very little support in Congress. In fact, the letters may be the death knell for such legislation...
Qatar migrant workers 'treated like animals' - Amnesty BBC News ...Amnesty says migrant workers are often subjected to non-payment of wages, dangerous working conditions and squalid accommodation. The rights group said one manager had referred to workers as "animals"...
Rights group: Gulf must increase worker protection Associated Press ...Riots have broken out in Saudi Arabia as authorities crack down on laborers without proper visas. In Qatar, rights groups and others have raised concerns about living and working conditions for crews building venues for the 2022 World Cup. ...
Mexico officials find 8 bodies in border city home Associated Press ...the bodies were found early Sunday and apparently were members of the same extended family. He said exact ages were not yet available but three of the dead appeared to be children and five were adults...
Something stinks in Wisconsin Center for Media and Democracy ...Wisconsin is home to two SPN right-wing think tanks: the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (WPRI) and the MacIver Institute for Public Policy. While WPRI and the MacIver Institute claim to be focused on issues important to the people of Wisconsin, both push a right-wing agenda dictated by their right-wing funders and partners, such as the Bradley Foundation...
Workers Standing Together to Demand Respect at Taylor Farms Labor's Edge ...at Taylor Farms in Tracy, the bosses are threatening and intimidating workers as part of a campaign to stop those workers from joining a union...
Monday, November 11, 2013
Today's Teamster News 11.11.13
Today is Veterans Day. Remember to thank the veterans you know for their service. And check out the Teamsters Facebook page, where photos of Teamster veterans are being posted.
Mayor's Spokesperson Is Sorry If Anyone Thought His 'Third-World Taxicab System' Comment Was Offensive DCist ..."Those words are hurtful to each and every driver who works long days—often up to 16 hours, seven days a week—and who earn about $25,000 to $30,000 per year providing a valuable service," the statement from the Teamsters-affiliated association continued...
Teamsters choose sides in Inquirer owners' dispute philly.com ...The union local representing more than 325 truck drivers and other employees for The Inquirer on Sunday declared its support for the two newspaper co-owners seeking to reinstate fired editor William K. Marimow. During its monthly meeting in Bridesburg, Teamsters Local 628 president John P. Laigaie said the owners, Lewis Katz and H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest, would preserve the editorial integrity of the paper...
Everyone In America Is Even More Broke Than You Think Huffington Post ...more than half of U.S. wage earners made less than $30,000 last year, according to an analysis released by the Social Security Administration on Tuesday. That's not far above the $27,010 that marked the federal poverty line for a family of five in 2012...
The Pension Theft Crime Wave Rages On Alternet ...Rhode Island ... handed more than $1 billion in pension funds over to hedge fund companies to manage—in exchange for an expected $2.1 billion in fees over 20 years, effectively taken straight out of the pockets of retirees, who would forego $2.3 billion in COLAs over the same period...
Wal-Mart: An economic cancer on our cities Salon ... the small businesses that occupied the old Penney’s building employed fourteen people, which doesn’t seem like many until you realize that this is actually seventy-four jobs per acre, compared with the fewer than six jobs per acre created on a sprawling Walmart site...
Children Locked Up For Life: 10 Shockers About America's Prison System Alternet ...Twice as many people rot in prison for crack use than for violent crimes. Children are being locked up for life. What's wrong with our criminal justice system?...
Chinese labor camp inmate tells of true horror of Halloween 'SOS' CNN ..."Making products turned out to be an escape from the horrible violence," he said. "We thought we could protect ourselves, and avoid verbal and physical assaults as long as we worked and did the job well..."
Seattle council race tightens; socialist Sawant has 49.5% of vote The Seattle Times ...Kshama Sawant has steadily gained ground on Councilmember Richard Conlin, giving her a chance to pull off a shocking turnaround victory and become the first socialist on the Seattle City Council in modern history...
Every Green vote was a conscious vote Green Party ...40% for a Green Party candidate (for Syracuse, N.Y., Council) where the Democratic Party threw everything it had into the race is nothing to be discouraged about. Our capacity in terms of volunteers, fundraising, and campaign skills exploded. We offered realistic and positive alternatives to a status quo that is failing...
Your daily jolt: A Chamber-sponsored alternative to ALEC Atlanta Journal-Constitution ...One of the main generators of model legislation in Georgia and other red states has been the American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization sometimes criticized for its conservative social agenda. An alternative has sprung up recently, and come January it will be chaired by Chris Clark, the president and CEO of the Georgia Chamber...
For the First Time Ever, a Prosecutor Will Go to Jail for Wrongfully Convicting an Innocent Man Alternet ...Today in Texas, former prosecutor and judge Ken Anderson pled guilty to intentionally failing to disclose evidence in a case that sent an innocent man, Michael Morton, to prison for the murder of his wife...
It’s possible to end homelessness for veterans. Here’s where Maine stands so far Bangor Daily News ...Veterans Housing Services has served 308 veterans — either preventing homelessness or securing safe, permanent housing for homeless veterans and their families as quickly as possible...
Mayor's Spokesperson Is Sorry If Anyone Thought His 'Third-World Taxicab System' Comment Was Offensive DCist ..."Those words are hurtful to each and every driver who works long days—often up to 16 hours, seven days a week—and who earn about $25,000 to $30,000 per year providing a valuable service," the statement from the Teamsters-affiliated association continued...
Teamsters choose sides in Inquirer owners' dispute philly.com ...The union local representing more than 325 truck drivers and other employees for The Inquirer on Sunday declared its support for the two newspaper co-owners seeking to reinstate fired editor William K. Marimow. During its monthly meeting in Bridesburg, Teamsters Local 628 president John P. Laigaie said the owners, Lewis Katz and H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest, would preserve the editorial integrity of the paper...
Everyone In America Is Even More Broke Than You Think Huffington Post ...more than half of U.S. wage earners made less than $30,000 last year, according to an analysis released by the Social Security Administration on Tuesday. That's not far above the $27,010 that marked the federal poverty line for a family of five in 2012...
The Pension Theft Crime Wave Rages On Alternet ...Rhode Island ... handed more than $1 billion in pension funds over to hedge fund companies to manage—in exchange for an expected $2.1 billion in fees over 20 years, effectively taken straight out of the pockets of retirees, who would forego $2.3 billion in COLAs over the same period...
Wal-Mart: An economic cancer on our cities Salon ... the small businesses that occupied the old Penney’s building employed fourteen people, which doesn’t seem like many until you realize that this is actually seventy-four jobs per acre, compared with the fewer than six jobs per acre created on a sprawling Walmart site...
Children Locked Up For Life: 10 Shockers About America's Prison System Alternet ...Twice as many people rot in prison for crack use than for violent crimes. Children are being locked up for life. What's wrong with our criminal justice system?...
Chinese labor camp inmate tells of true horror of Halloween 'SOS' CNN ..."Making products turned out to be an escape from the horrible violence," he said. "We thought we could protect ourselves, and avoid verbal and physical assaults as long as we worked and did the job well..."
Seattle council race tightens; socialist Sawant has 49.5% of vote The Seattle Times ...Kshama Sawant has steadily gained ground on Councilmember Richard Conlin, giving her a chance to pull off a shocking turnaround victory and become the first socialist on the Seattle City Council in modern history...
Every Green vote was a conscious vote Green Party ...40% for a Green Party candidate (for Syracuse, N.Y., Council) where the Democratic Party threw everything it had into the race is nothing to be discouraged about. Our capacity in terms of volunteers, fundraising, and campaign skills exploded. We offered realistic and positive alternatives to a status quo that is failing...
Your daily jolt: A Chamber-sponsored alternative to ALEC Atlanta Journal-Constitution ...One of the main generators of model legislation in Georgia and other red states has been the American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization sometimes criticized for its conservative social agenda. An alternative has sprung up recently, and come January it will be chaired by Chris Clark, the president and CEO of the Georgia Chamber...
For the First Time Ever, a Prosecutor Will Go to Jail for Wrongfully Convicting an Innocent Man Alternet ...Today in Texas, former prosecutor and judge Ken Anderson pled guilty to intentionally failing to disclose evidence in a case that sent an innocent man, Michael Morton, to prison for the murder of his wife...
It’s possible to end homelessness for veterans. Here’s where Maine stands so far Bangor Daily News ...Veterans Housing Services has served 308 veterans — either preventing homelessness or securing safe, permanent housing for homeless veterans and their families as quickly as possible...
Monday, October 21, 2013
Study: Modern managers mimic slave owners
A Harvard historian discovered what many of us suspected: Today's corporations use many of the same management techniques plantation owners used on their slaves.
The legacy of slavery can be seen in aloof corporate managers (McKesson's CEO John Hammergren, for example.) They see workers as interchangeable units of production instead of human beings. They collect data on their work force, move workers around, demand speed-ups and liberally mete out punishment.
That, at least, is what Prof. Caitlin C. Rosenthal discovered, according to a story, titled "The Messy Link Between Slave Owners And Modern Management," in a pro-business magazine Forbes. Forbes' take on the historian's research was that it could be seen as a justification for slavery. Leave it to a business magazine to miss the point that it's an indictment of modern corporate management.
Here's what Rosenthal found when she set out to investigate the history of modern business practices:
Rosenthal said her research led to a question:
The legacy of slavery can be seen in aloof corporate managers (McKesson's CEO John Hammergren, for example.) They see workers as interchangeable units of production instead of human beings. They collect data on their work force, move workers around, demand speed-ups and liberally mete out punishment.
That, at least, is what Prof. Caitlin C. Rosenthal discovered, according to a story, titled "The Messy Link Between Slave Owners And Modern Management," in a pro-business magazine Forbes. Forbes' take on the historian's research was that it could be seen as a justification for slavery. Leave it to a business magazine to miss the point that it's an indictment of modern corporate management.
Here's what Rosenthal found when she set out to investigate the history of modern business practices:
Slave owners were able to collect data on their workforce in ways that other business owners couldn’t because they had complete control over their workers. They didn’t have to worry about turnover or recruiting new workers, and they could experiment with different tactics—moving workers around and demanding higher levels of output, even monitoring what they ate and how long new mothers breastfed their babies. And the slaves had no recourse...
Tracking this information allowed planters to determine how far they could push their workers to get the most profit. Using the account books, slave owners could see how many pounds of cotton each slave picked and compare it to their output from previous years—and then create minimum picking requirements based on these calculations.
This led owners to experiment with ways of increasing the pace of labor, Rosenthal explains, such as holding contests with small cash prizes for those who picked the most cotton, and then requiring the winners to pick that much cotton from there on out. Slave narratives describe how others used the data to calculate punishment, meting out whippings according to how many pounds each picker fell short.
Similar incentive plans reappeared in early twentieth-century factories, with managers dangling the promise of cash rewards if their workers reached certain production levels.
Planters also used group incentives to encourage honesty, doling out a barrel of corn to each hand with the caveat that if anything was stolen from the farm and no one turned in the thief, double the value of that corn would be deducted from each of their Christmas awards. Collective penalties would later be adopted by salesmen and companies like Singer Sewing Company to encourage workers to police one another.Weove noted in the past that technology is allowing corporations to bring employee surveillance to a new level. At the British grocery chain Tesco, warehouse workers have to wear armbands so their bosses can monitor how hard they're working.
Rosenthal said her research led to a question:
If today we are using management techniques that were also used on slave plantations, how much more careful do we need to be? How much more do we need to think about our responsibility to people?One commenter put it more succinctly:
Slavery never ended, it just shifted to a different form.Actually, it hasn't shifted to a different form in a lot of places. There are 30 million slaves in the world. Click here to see where they are.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)