Friday, July 25, 2014

Today's Teamster News 07.25.14

Teamster News
Union Official: GET Board Rejects Offer, Strike To Continue  KBFX   ...Union drivers, mechanics and other support staff went on strike July 15, unhappy with pay and the part-time status of more than half of their GET drivers. The union was asking for a 4 percent wage increase every year over a three-year deal...
Latino Express Bus Drivers Still Fighting For Rights In Chicago  teamster.org   ...For more than three years, Teamsters Local 777 has continued to fight for approximately 100 school bus drivers in Chicago who want nothing more than fair working conditions...
Teamsters Grievance Prompts Cook County Sheriff to Conduct Manpower Study  teamster.org   ... Teamsters Local 700, Cook County's largest public employee union, has learned the Sheriff's Office has enlisted college-age interns to oversee a critical new study on manpower shortages facing the department...
Trade
Administration Plans Orwellian Statistics Fudge to Make Offshored Production Look Like US Made  naked capitalism   ...If the factoryless goods proposal were to be implemented, the value of U.S. brand-name products made outside of the United States and imported here would be counted as manufacturing “services” imports, not imported goods...
State Battles
Seattle Minimum Wage Referendum Effort Fails  Daily Caller   ...Forward Seattle, a group which represents local businesses in Seattle, announced Wednesday that they failed to collect enough signatures to subject the city’s $15 minimum wage to a November vote...
Recent Report Points To Job Growth Despite Minimum Wage Increase  Oakland Press   ...New data released by the Department of Labor points toward job growth in states that have raised the minimum wage, something still being debated in Michigan...
Republican lawmakers push 'paycheck protection' in Pa.  Pocono Record    ...Republican supporters of so-called "paycheck protection" legislation moved bills in both houses last week that would prevent government employee unions, such as the Service Employees International Union and the Pennsylvania State Education Association from deducting union dues and political contributions from members' checks...
Davis And State Dems Planning To Monitor For Voter Suppression, Discrimination  Texas Public Radio   ...Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis and the Texas Democratic Party are launching a voter protection program to monitor voter suppression and discrimination on Election Day...
Christie: Public workers' benefits must be cut  Asbury Park Press   ...It was the first time Gov. Chris Christie had come to any event in Republican-red Ocean County where the protesters outnumbered his supporters. And these were not just ordinary protesters — they were police officers and firefighters in the hundreds from all over New Jersey, outraged that Christie on Tuesday had come to use a municipal park their fraternal brothers and sisters had built for local children...
War On Workers
The Pay-For-Performance Myth  Bloomberg Businessweek   ...The trend line—the average of how much a CEO’s ranking is affected by stock performance—shows that a CEO’s income ranking is only 1 percent based on the company’s stock return. That means that 99 percent of the ranking has nothing to do with performance at all. (The size and profitability of companies didn’t affect the random patterns.)...
Obama Seeks to Close Loophole That Firms Use to Shield Profits Abroad  New York Times   ...President Obama on Thursday called for Congress to strip away tax advantages that have encouraged a rush of mergers and acquisitions that give companies an overseas base while they maintain their presence in the United States...
IMF Cuts US and Global Growth Forecasts for 2014  Associated Press   ...The International Monetary Fund foresees the global economy expanding less than it had previously forecast, slowed by weaker growth in the United States, Russia and developing economies...
Koch High: How The Koch Brothers Are Buying Their Way Into The Minds Of Public School Students  Huffington Post   ...The official mission of Youth Entrepreneurs is to provide kids with "business and entrepreneurial education and experiences that help them prosper and become contributing members of society." The underlying goal of the program, however, is to impart Koch's radical free-market ideology to teenagers. In the last school year, the class reached more than 1,000 students across Kansas and Missouri...
Norfolk Southern sues to block disclosure of crude oil shipments  McClatchy   ...A major hauler of crude oil by rail has sued the state of Maryland to stop the public release of information about the shipments, according to court documents...
Stability Is Good For Employees And Bosses (opinion)  New York Times   ...Unpredictable, unstable work hours, over which workers may have little control, make it difficult for any employee, at any level of income, to combine or schedule caregiving for family members, education, participation in civic and religious organizations or another job...
Volatile Schedules Exacerbate Inequality (opinion)  New York Times   ...Across the economy, workers are either employed for too few hours or far too many in an ever-changing workweek that demands 24/7 availability, without guarantees of equal treatment or employee input...
Road Construction Worker Killed In Reno County  KAKE   ...The Kansas Highway Patrol says a construction worker died after being hit by a trash truck in Reno County...
Miscellaneous
Walmart U.S. CEO Bill Simon Is Out  Huffington Post   ...Walmart’s U.S. chief Bill Simon is leaving the company after a rough four years. The 54-year-old will be replaced by Greg Foran, 53, Walmart’s current president and CEO in Asia...