Today's Teamster News 09.22.12

Lawmakers may push "fiscal cliff" deadlines into 2013  Reuters   ...Slowly and quietly, the U.S. Congress may be arriving at a consensus on how to avoid falling off the "fiscal cliff" on December 31 - by simply putting off its own deadline for most of the major year-end budget and tax decisions...
The decline of collective bargaining and the erosion of middle class incomes in Michigan  Economic Policy Institute   ...This divergence between pay and productivity and the corresponding failure of middle-class incomes to grow is strongly related to the erosion of collective bargaining. And collective bargaining has eroded more in Michigan than in the rest of the nation, helping to explain Michigan’s more disappointing outcomes...
It’s official: Quebec tuition hikes are history  Canadian Press   ...The tuition increase that triggered such social strife in Quebec was cancelled Thursday during an action-packed first full day in office for the Parti Quebecois government...
Editorial: Electronic voting is the real threat to elections  USA Today   ...While state lawmakers burn enormous energy in a partisan fight over in-person vote fraud, which is virtually nonexistent, they're largely ignoring far likelier ways votes can be lost, stolen or changed...
Concord city employees protest furlough days  KGO-TV   ...Members of teamsters Local 856 agreed to 13 furlough days per year back in 2009, but now they say the city is doing so much better and it's time for the furloughs to end...
CL bus drivers, attendants ink deal  Northwest Herald   ...Teamsters Local 731 represents about 60 bus drivers and bus attendants in Crystal Lake school Districts 47 and 155 employed by the Transportation Joint Agreement...

Teamsters fight against furloughs for City of Concord workers

This morning, in Concord, Calif. Resistance fighters in the War on Workers.

Our brothers and sisters who work for the City of Concord came to work today to protest of the first of 13 unlawfully mandated furlough days.

Local 856, to which they belong, explained the voters of Concord passed a measure two years ago that raised city revenue to maintain and protect their municipal services. But the city is ignoring the voters’referendum. Today it forced city services to be shut down.

Reports Local 856:

The City’s own budget projection includes sizable surpluses; however it is still forcing furlough days and cutting city services. City employees maintain that in some cases, furloughs actually exacerbate costs by increasing the amount of overtime the city must pay other employees to cover essential functions.

The workers answer 911 calls,repair and maintain city streets, monitor water and sewer lines, keep city parks safe and clean, issue business licenses and building permits, process background checks, subpoenas,restraining orders and impounded cars and many other public services.

Local 856 is currently in negotiations with the city and headed to fact-finding next month.

Stand strong, brothers and sisters!

Paul Ryan booed by seniors at AARP conference

Seniors roundly booed Paul Ryan today when he claimed his plan to kill Medicare (he didn't quite put it that way) was somehow better for them.

Reports TalkingPointsMemo:

Paul Ryan’s speech to AARP’s national conference in New Orleans did not go over too well with the audience. 

The Republican vice presidential nominee, who has led his party in proposing a privatization plan for Medicare, drew repeated jeers and catcalls as he made the case for Mitt Romney’s platform on entitlements. 

Easily the worst moments came as Ryan discussed repealing the Affordable Care Act, which increased prescription drug and preventive service benefits for seniors. 

“The first step to a stronger Medicare is to repeal ‘Obamacare,’” Ryan said, prompting a chorus of boos. After the outcry, he said: “I had a feeling there would be mixed reaction, so let me get into it.” 

He drew a second wave of disapproval for saying the president’s law “turned Medicare into a piggy bank for ‘Obamacare.’” Ryan was referring to $716 billion in Medicare savings enacted by the ACA — savings he himself has included in two budgets — that largely came out of payments to insurance providers.

Wow. When you've lost the seniors, your campaign is in deep doo-doo.

Wisconsin police object to crackdown on protest at Capitol

Police officers in Madison, Wisc., are denouncing a recent crackdown on the small, almost daily protests that continue in the Statehouse. Job-killer Gov. Scott Walker is demanding that peaceful protesters be intimidated and arrested.

The protesters mostly hold banners and signs and sing, reports the blue cheddar blog. But under newly appointed Chief David Erwin, Capitol police are arresting people for silently holding a sign, delivering citations to their homes and workplaces and even handcuffed a disabled woman who then passed out and was hospitalized.

The Madison Professional Police Officers Association and the Dane County Deputy Sheriffs Association issued a statement denouncing the crackdown. They don't blame the officers for following their orders; in fact, the Madison police and deputy sheriffs say they're concerned for the safety of the officers:

We believe that the recent policy change at the Capitol presents a substantial safety risk to the officers who are tasked with its implementation. Simply stated, these officers are being forced into emotionally charged confrontations that are neither necessary nor advisable.

And they also note the Capitol police are not protected by a contract since Walker took their collective bargaining rights away:

The Capitol Police officers are also the only participants in this situation who stand to lose their livelihood and ability to support their families. These officers are particularly vulnerable due to the fact that they lost their collective bargaining rights with countless other public employees under Act 10. This statement is as much a statement in support of these officers as it is a statement condemning the policies of the DOA and the leadership of the Capitol Police. These officers are being placed in an impossible position.

They ask Walker to "respect the core values and freedoms upon which this great state and nation were founded, and cease their infringement upon these freedoms."

They conclude, "If the current trajectory of these policies continues, we do not believe that history will judge the leaders of this state kindly with respect to the free speech rights of its citizens."

That boat may have sailed already.

Now a word from the working poor (for a change)

There are poor people who work?

Presidential nominee Mitt Romney's disdain for 47 percent of Americans is inexcusable, but it may be understandable.

The 47 percent of Americans who are either retired or earn too little to pay income taxes (though they pay plenty of other taxes) are invisible in the mainstream media.

That's not an accident. Consider that six corporations control all but a tiny fraction of the news and entertainment consumed by Americans. That includes television and radio networks, news programs, movie studios, cartoon producers and cable systems. (FYI the six companies are Walt Disney, CBS, NBC, Time Warner, News Corporation and Viacom.)

The Economic Collapse Blog notes,

...each of us is deeply influenced by the messages that are constantly being pounded into our heads by the mainstream media.  The average American watches 153 hours of television a month.  In fact, most Americans begin to feel physically uncomfortable if they go too long without watching or listening to something.  Sadly, most Americans have become absolutely addicted to news and entertainment and the ownership of all that news and entertainment that we crave is being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands each year.

None of these giant corporations has any interest in informing Americans about wage theft, exploitation, misclassification, wage theft or poverty. So much of what we see and hear is therefore about comfortable, affluent people -- in the news as well as in entertainment. Poor people show up as criminals.

Ignoring half the country that's considered the working poor may explain why journalism is fast shrinking as a career.

So it was a nice surprise to see a McClatchy reporter actually talking to poor people who work their butts off: Andrew Days at the Rock Hill Herald interviewed workers in South Carolina who don't pay income taxes. He introduces us to three women in age or income brackets that exempt them from federal income taxes:

Sandra Brown, 50, fresh off a shift in the steam and heat and sweat of a dry cleaner, sat on the front porch of a house Tuesday and reflected on the politics of the day... 

“I worked since I was 13 years old,” Brown said. “I worked in a mill. Then I worked at dry cleaners. I worked. I never got a welfare check in my life.” 

Next to her sat Terry Lee Boular, 48, who also works on her feet at the dry cleaner on Cherry Road – a street that bureaucrats and editorial boards call “a homely stepsister” to streets where the more well-heeled get clothes cleaned and where those with style do not have to look at the poor who work on their feet all day in miles of businesses and stores. 

In the third chair sat Shirley Mclean, 75, who still works some at the cleaners, too. 

Mclean’s husband of 43 years, Grady, who worked with his back and hands all his life until the back went, lay in a bed inside the tiny house. 

“His health ain’t good,” Mclean said. “Hard work made him old.”

(Read the whole thing here.)

More, please.

Today's Teamster News 09.21.12

Republican Party ‘Cranks’ Threatening Growth, Swan Says  Bloomberg   ...Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan said “cranks and crazies” in the U.S. Republican Party are threatening economic growth as Congress remains deadlocked on tax increases and spending cuts set to take effect in January...
Fiscal cliff talks heat up  Politico   ...The fiscal cliff is really the only legislative issue that’s even registering a blip on the radar of the government and corporate Washington right now. With an election seven weeks away, serious legislating has completely stopped...
JPMorgan Power-Trading Business Faces Suspension, FERC Says  Bloomberg   ...The agency is investigating JPMorgan’s power trading in California and the Midwest. That investigation came to light when FERC went to court seeking internal e-mails from JPMorgan, saying the bids from the company might have resulted in at least $73 million in improper payments to generators...
Nichols, Teamsters reach tentative pact  Quad Cities Online   ...Teamsters Local 371 and Nichols Aluminum reached a tentative agreement with the aid of a federal mediator Tuesday....
Some American Airlines mechanics shopping for a union  Tulsa World   ...Both AMFA and the Teamsters are holding recruiting/informational events in the next few weeks...
Casting directors, AMPTP ink tentative deal: Three-year pact covers about 500 members in Hollywood, New York  Variety   ...The New York casting directors will meet Thursday to ratify the successor pact, followed by the Hollywood casting directors on Monday, according to Teamsters Local 399 business rep Steve Dayan...

Workers want a visit from Romney as Bain ships their jobs to China

Democracy Now posts longer, more recent videos about workers at Bain-owned Sensata here. The workers are watching as their plant is dismantled and shipped to China. Bain, of course, was founded by Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

Democracy Now reports,

"Welcome to Bainport, a taste of the Romney economy." That’s the message on one of the banners that greets you at the tent city where we broadcast from in Freeport, Illinois. "Bainport" is an encampment set up by workers who face losing their livelihoods when their workplace closes its doors in November and moves to China, taking 170 jobs with it. The workers’ plant, Sensata Technologies, is owned by Bain Capital, the firm co-founded by Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Democracy Now! first spoke to the Sensata workers when we met them at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, where they unsuccessfully tried to meet with Romney. Now, they have returned to Freeport and set up a protest camp in a bid to save their jobs.

Now we don't think Romney will go to Bainport. Not after Rep. Bobby Schilling fled from Sensata workers rather than tell them he opposed the "Bring Jobs Home Act." Here's the video:



Progress Illinois reported on Wednesday:

At a town hall meeting yesterday, Schilling couldn't take the heat when Sensata workers showed up to discuss the issue, so he ran out of the kitchen — or in this case the meeting.
When Tom Gaulrapp, one of the workers set to lose his job after working at the Bain Capital-owned company for 33 years, asked Schilling if he would support a bill that would offer companies tax incentives for bringing overseas jobs back to the U.S. and also close loopholes that allow corporations to ship American jobs overseas, like the Bring American Jobs Home Act, Schilling refused to answer and walked out of the meeting. But his campaign manager Terry Schilling essentially answered the question for the congressman by saying, "He said no. He does not support the bill."