Teamsters join LA Labor Day march for workers

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti (center) met with Teamsters during picnic.

We're catching up with our Labor Day coverage. Here is a dispatch from California: 

About 250 Southern California Teamsters joined more than 2,000 of their union brothers and sisters Monday in Los Angeles to march for workers’ rights. The Labor Day parade and rally took place near the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, where port truck drivers have been fighting for fair treatment and the right to organize.

Led by three 18-wheelers in front and about 100 motorcycles and classic cars in back, Teamsters from several different locals across the region chanted, cheered and revved their engines while traversing the mile-long parade route. They also delighted the hundreds of spectators taking in the event with their call-and-response cheers:

Rolling, rolling, rolling with the Teamsters! Who are we? Teamsters!

Anthony Balbastro, a Teamsters Local 63 member and a shop steward at United Stationers, said the Labor Day event filled him with pride:

Only in America can you stand next to other brothers and sisters and march.

Patrick Kelly, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 952, said the parade sends an important message to all workers:

It is an example of collective direct action where we can show the community who we are. It is important to reaffirm solidarity among working people.

And a group of retired Teamsters said they are concerned about the next generation of workers. Dan Salazar, a retired member of Teamsters Local 63, said:

We are here out of respect for the lifestyle we enjoy for our families. We want other people to enjoy what we had. The laws have changed, peoples’ culture has changed. They are starting to get left behind.

Teamsters marched for a better life for the middle class.

Salazar said he was encouraged by recent actions by low-wage workers. Last week, L.A. port truck drivers returned to work after a historic 24-hour strike ended against trucking company Green Fleet Systems. The drivers struck to protest unfair labor practices by Green Fleet’s management, including unlawful anti-union retaliation, harassment and intimidation.

The short, sudden port truck driver strike was followed by more job actions by low-wage workers around the country. Fast-food workers in more than 50 U.S. cities walked off the job on Thursday. Walmart workers are planning to strike in 15 cities tomorrow, their largest mobilization since Black Friday. 

After the parade, people thronged a local park for a barbecue and entertainment. Joining them were federal, state and local elected officials who pledged to work on behalf of workers for fairer wages.

Newly elected Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said now is the time to stand up for workers:

We will fight for a living wage. And better schools. And a greater Los Angeles.

Today's Teamster News 09.04.13

BLET, Tacoma Rail sign new 5-year agreement  teamster.org   ...This agreement covers about 20 locomotive engineers and contains a signing bonus and significant wage and paid time off improvements, as well as health and welfare benefits equal to other city workers in Tacoma, Wash...
Safety alert for rail workers  teamster.org   ...All distractions, electronic or otherwise, reduce your focus on safety and can be fatal. This is true whether you are on or near the track or highway...
Henry J. "Hank" Breen, Founder and First Director of Airline Division, Passes Away  teamster.org   ...he assumed the position of Airline Division Director in 1961 at a time when the air cargo industry was largely unrepresented within an industry represented by other unions in the passenger airline industry...
2013 Teamster Women's Conference Registration  teamster.org   ...The Teamster Women’s Conference will be held September 19-21, 2013 in New Orleans, Louisiana.  Register now to join your Teamster Sisters and Brothers!...
Obama underscores need to finish Asia-Pacific trade deal this year  The Hill   ...the president once again underscored his stance that the 12 nations involved in negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) should conclude talks this fall, the White House said...
Don't Let Corporations Hijack Another Trade Deal  AFL-CIO   ...Corporations are trying to manipulate the Trans-Pacific Partnership—a free trade agreement being negotiated right now that would be bigger than NAFTA—to increase their power over the global economy, so they have a say in everything from your rights at work to the prices of your prescriptions and the safety of your child’s toys...
Labor’s Thomas Perez: ‘jobs, jobs, jobs’  Washington Post   ...I’ve traveled the country in my short time here on the job, talking to CEOs...
Why This Particular Recovery Is So Bad at Creating New Jobs  Pacific Standard   ...Businesses are reluctant to invest their record profits in new workers, and instead, they’re hoarding cash—because they aren’t convinced people can afford to buy the goods and services they sell. Too many of them are unemployed!...
ECONOMISTS: Summers As Fed Chair Would Shave 0.5% Off GDP And Cost Us 350,000 Jobs  Business Insider   ...10-year Treasury rates have already risen because of the expectation that Summers will be nominated...
The Expendables: How the Temps Who Power Corporate Giants Are Getting Crushed  Mother Jones   ...Overall, almost one-fifth of the total job growth since the recession ended in mid-2009 has been in the temp sector, federal data shows. But according to the American Staffing Association, the temp industry's trade group, the pool is even larger: Every year, a tenth of all US workers finds a job at a staffing agency...
What's Killing Poor White Women?  The American Prospect   ...For most Americans, life expectancy continues to rise—but not for uneducated white women. They have lost five years, and no one knows why...
Across U.S., bridges crumble as repair funds fall short  Los Angeles Times   ...Engineers say thousands are close to collapse. And between the recession, sequestration and congressional gridlock, money to fix them is scarcer than ever...
Koch Family Sinks Big Money Into New Pro-Lhota PAC  New York Observer   ...David Koch and his wife, Julia, have each contributed $145,050 to “New Yorkers for Proven Leadership,” which will begin airing television ads tomorrow touting the former MTA chairman and deputy mayor, sources said...
Moral Monday Activists in North Carolina Demand Republicans Pay Attention to Their Constituents  PolicyMic   ...the protests were North Carolina’s new civil rights movement: especially as they resist the racially charged voter suppression legislation — described by some as the most restrictive in the country — that that impedes democracy for people of underprivileged racial and economic backgrounds...

Today's Teamster News 09.03.13

Five reasons for optimism about unions this Labor Day (opinion) The Hill   ...most Americans hold favorable views of unions. According to a June 2013 poll by the Pew Research Center, 51 percent of Americans hold favorable views of labor unions, a 10 percent increase from the number in the same poll conducted two years earlier...
9 Ways We're Better Off Now Than We Were On The First Labor Day (And 5 Ways We're Not)  Huffington Post   ...The federal minimum wage, which currently stands at 7.25 an hour, is not enough to keep American families out of poverty, according to the Center For Economic And Policy Research...
Union Busting Ended My Love Affair with a Beer  Huffington Post   ...Yuengling had illegally busted their union...
Labor Day message: We can fix this (opinion)  NWI   ...We must embrace the new worker activism we see popping up at places like fast-food chains and retail establishments whose workers merely hope to raise their families on a livable wage...
"What's Outrageous? Poverty Wages!" The Role of Religious Leaders in Worker Justice  Huffington Post   ...The faith leaders now rallying to support fast food workers' demands for a living wage are reviving one of America's oldest and most powerful arguments for social justice, one deeply rooted in religious ideals...
GDP drag from State and Local Governments  Calculated Risk   ...However state and local government spending has made a negative contribution for 13 of the last 14 quarters...
Wall Street Eager to See Larry Summers Nominated Fed Chair  Real News   ...if you had to trace the collapse of the 2007-2009 financial crisis on one person--and, of course, you can't really trace it to one person--but if you did, I think you could make a fair argument that Larry Summers is more to blame for the financial crisis that we experienced than any other person...

Making ‘Too Big To Fail’ Banks Help Poor Borrowers (opinion)  The National Memo   ...Predatory lenders are folding fast in New York State, thanks to a savvy banking regulator who takes his duty to protect the public as seriously as his duties to the financial industry — and knows how to use the law to get quick action...

DIA Director: Selling Art Tantamount To Closing Museum  CBS Detroit   ...Detroit’s Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr has stated that the some of the art could be sold as part of the city’s bankruptcy deal Beal says the art being considered as “assets” are those that were bought by Detroit between 1922 and 1931– that’s about 3,300 pieces...
Ohio GOP grassroots lead to billionaire  Plunderbund   ...Americans for Prosperity. … That’s the right-wing outfit whose work is fashioned  by billionaire David Koch...

What Should You Be Earning?

Follow the link in the last paragraph to use the calculator.

Cross-posting from our friends at the Economic Policy Institute:

In honor of Labor Day, we made a little tool—based on our project inequality.is—that shows how much you would be making if wages had kept pace with productivity, a key indicator of an economy working for all. 

Economic inequality is a real and growing problem in America. Since the 1979, workers are working more, making more goods, and not reaping the rewards of their increased productivity. Instead, CEOs and executives—the top 1% of earners—now take home 20% of the nation’s income. 

But it doesn’t have to be like this. Growing inequality isn’t an inevitability—it was created. It’s the result of intentional policy decisions on taxes, trade, labor, and financial regulation. But that’s the good news: if inequality is not inevitable, then it can be fixed. 

Take a look, and share with your friends. And remember that American workers should be earning more than we are. To do something about it, visit inequality.is.

Click here to see the wage calculator.

Today's Teamster News 09.02.13

Labor Economics 101: Few Jobs Means Bad Jobs  Center for Economics and Policy Research   ...because the economy is not generating decent jobs in any reasonable number, workers are forced to take bad jobs...
Calls to raise minimum wage return with Labor Day  Associated Press   ...A recurring call to raise the minimum wage has returned in the run-up to Labor Day in the form of national rallies and a new report that finds Michigan ranks second-to-worst among states for wage growth during the past 30 years...
The Battle for a Living Wage Goes On  naked capitalism   ...The battle for a living wage for the nation’s poorest workers is set against the backdrop of mass unemployment and the highest level of economic inequality in the U.S. in almost a century...
10 fastest-growing jobs in the USA  USA Today   ...For both petroleum engineers and service unit operators in the resource industry, the nation's two fastest-growing jobs, growth likely is due largely to changes in the energy sector...

The 7 Best Paying Jobs With Only High School Diploma  24/7 Wall Street   ...Subway and streetcar conductors, fashion designers, power distributors and dispatchers...
Taxpayer Dollars Paid A Third Of Richest Corporate CEOs: Report  Huffington Post   ...More than one-third of the nation's highest-paid CEOs from the past two decades led companies that were subsidized by American taxpayers, according to a report released Wednesday by the Institute for Policy Studies, a liberal think tank...
The Hazard of Free-Trade Tobacco  New York Times   ...Give thanks to Malaysia for heading off, at least temporarily, an American effort to weaken the ability of countries to impose stiff rules on the sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products within their own borders...
Eurozone unemployment steady at 12.1% in July - as it happened  The Guardian   ...Eurozone figures show youth unemployment edging higher...
Federal Court Sides With ACLU in No Fly List Lawsuit  ACLU   ...The suit challenges the process for attempting to get off the list as unfair, inadequate, and unconstitutional. The decision also asked the ACLU and the government to submit additional information about the No Fly List redress procedure in order to help the court decide the ultimate question of whether it satisfies the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of due process...
State budget is gold mine for rich, shaft for all others (opinion)  Toledo Blade   ...the richest one percent of Ohioans will net a yearly tax cut of nearly $6,000, Middle class taxpayers who earn $51,000 will see a whopping cut of $9. And some of the poorest Ohioans will see their taxes go up...
Floridians finding jobs, but often at low wages  Sun-Sentinel   ...wages are stagnant or dropping, except for the top 10 percent of households, while health-care and other costs are rising...

A medieval peasant got more vacation than you

Unless you're a member of Congress, you get less vacation than a medieval peasant, Lynn Parramore writes in an opinion piece for Reuters:

Plowing and harvesting were backbreaking toil, but the peasant enjoyed anywhere from eight weeks to half the year off. The Church, mindful of how to keep a population from rebelling, enforced frequent mandatory holidays. Weddings, wakes and births might mean a week off quaffing ale to celebrate, and when wandering jugglers or sporting events came to town, the peasant expected time off for entertainment. There were labor-free Sundays, and when the plowing and harvesting seasons were over, the peasant got time to rest, too. In fact, economist Juliet Shor found that during periods of particularly high wages, such as 14th-century England, peasants might put in no more than 150 days a year.

What happened?

1. The U.S. has no national vacation policy;
2. High unemployment and less job security;
3. Corporate greed. 

You probably knew that. But did you know Congress has 239 days off this year?

Today's Teamster News 09.01.13

This Labor Day, Much of America Will Be . . . Laboring  Time   ...39 percent of employers will keep operations open and require some workers to come into work, while a seperate survey of Beyond.com users says that 45% of those folks will spend Labor Day working or looking for work...
The Burrito Chain That Pays Entry-Level Workers $10 An Hour And Wants To Pay More  ThinkProgress   ...Boloco, a Boston-based burrito chain, pays its entry-level workers anywhere from $9 to $11 an hour, most of them making $10, with many who advance into higher roles making $17 an hour or more, CEO John Pepper told Fox Business News...
Wis. GOP to Ban Public for Miles from Mine  The Progressive   ...A new bill to allow the Gogebic Taconite iron mining company to bar the public from using public access land on an eight-square-mile parcel near their proposed mine site. This is an area that attracts people from all over the country to enjoy the excellent trout fishing and hunting...
Income Gap Grows Wider (and Faster)  New York Times   ...when average wages grow faster than the median, as happened from 2009 through 2011, it means that lower earners are falling further behind those at the top...
Freedom From Jobs  Counterpunch   ... though some gains have certainly been made over the past half-century toward a more inclusive, egalitarian society, in many respects – particularly in economic matters – there has been little or no progress whatsoever...
Longshore union pulls out of national AFL-CIO, citing attacks at Northwest grain terminals  The Oregonian   ...The West Coast longshore union is pulling out of the national AFL-CIO, citing "attacks" in which the umbrella organization's members blatantly cross picket lines at Northwest grain terminals...
Why Wall Street Wants Larry Summers (and Why the Rest of Us Should Not)  Yahoo Finance!   ...Our recent near-death experience under Alan Greenspan’s anti-regulation Fed chairmanship, aided and abetted by the deregulation pushed by Summers, should cause the President to think hard about banking regulation...
NSA intimidation expanding surveillance state: Column  USA Today   ...If you run a business, and the FBI or NSA want to turn it into a mass surveillance tool, they believe they can do so, solely on their own initiative. They can force you to modify your system. They can do it all in secret and then force your business to keep that secret. Once they do that, you no longer control that part of your business...
Slavery!  zero hedge   ...There are more slaves today working in the world than ever before...