Thursday, May 15, 2014

Today's Teamster News 05.15.14

Teamster News
Teamsters and California Hauling Company Reach Settlement through NLRB – Back Wages and New Bargaining Agreement Result  Beeson, Tayer & Bodine   ...Dispatch Transportation, the operating name for Commodity Trucking Acquisition, LLC, is paying $262,000 in back pay to the former employees of the predecessor to Dispatch, Valley Aggregate Transport, Inc.  Even better, perhaps, is that Dispatch has entered into a three-year collective bargaining agreement with Local 137 that includes a generous wage and benefit package in line with what other Union contractors provide in the industry...
Teamsters Take On National Express Group At Annual General Meeting  teamster.org   ...Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa led a powerful delegation of Teamsters, including North American school bus workers, in calling on the National Express Group PLC (NEX: LN) Board of Directors to address the company's poor worker rights record at its North American subsidiaries...
Road Bills Could Lead To Taxpayer Rage  Detroit News   ...Michigan's roads are in dire need of repair. But a House-passed package of bills in Lansing that would allocate upwards of $500 million a year to fix streets and bridges is a far cry from a permanent solution...
Adams County Board Approves Union Contracts  Quincy Journal   ...The Adams County Board unanimously passed three year contracts with most of its bargaining units....
Savannah-Chatham school bus drivers demand year-round pay  Savannah Now   ...Local school bus drivers are demanding new contracts and year-round pay in response to new legislation that bars them from claiming unemployment during the summer break. They protested at the First Student school bus transportation offices Wednesday and last week at the Savannah-Chatham public school board meeting...
Swift Transportation Shareholders Give Mandate: Eliminate Dual Class Structure  teamster.org   ... A Teamster shareholder proposal to address Swift Transportation’s dual class stock structure received 79.2 percent support by shareholders of the company’s Class A, publicly traded shares, based on results disclosed by the company in its 8-K dated May 13, 2014 and filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC)...
IBEW, BLET joint statement regarding SEPTA negotiations  teamster.org   ...SEPTA’s decision on May 9 to decline the proffer of binding arbitration from the National Mediation Board (NMB) is regrettable. We continue to maintain that binding arbitration is a reasonable and expeditious method of resolving the dispute between the labor unions and SEPTA...
Teamsters Announce UPS Will Add Thousands Of New Union Package Jobs  teamster.org   ...Hiring has already started, and the new jobs will be in addition to the regular filling of jobs through attrition...
Trade
Is The Trans-Pacific Partnership An Environmental Disaster Waiting To Happen?  TreeHugger   ...President Obama's environmental legacy is in deep trouble and in large part will hinge on a trade deal that his administration is discussing in Vietnam the week of May 12...
State Battles
Governor Brown Signs SB 27 – Sheds Light on Dark Money  Common Cause   ...Today Governor Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 27, reforming the Political Reform Act of 1974 to further regulate campaign financing, adding the requirement that committees disclose donors of $100 or more where those donations were solicited for the purpose of making contributions or expenditures in California. This essential campaign disclosure bill will go a long way toward improving California’s campaign disclosure laws by closing the nonprofit reporting loophole...
War On Workers
Walmart Warehouse Contractor To Pay $21 Million To Settle Wage Theft Allegations  Huffington Post   ...A Walmart contractor that operates many of the retailer's distribution centers has agreed to pay $21 million in back pay to warehouse workers in California who claim they were systematically shorted on pay for years...
Walmart US CEO Gets A $1.5 Million Bonus For Missing Expectations While A Worker Gets $0  Think Progress   ...Walmart US CEO William Simon's contract gave him the opportunity to earn a $1.5 million bonus on top of $10 million in salary and stock awards if the company's American net sales grew by 2 percent...
Nurses Launch New Campaign to Alert Public to Dangers of Medical Technology and Erosion of Care Standards  National Nurses United   ...An unchecked proliferation of unproven medical technology and sharp erosion of care standards are rapidly spreading through the health care system, far outside the media spotlight but frighteningly apparent to nurses and patients, says National Nurses United...
How Student Debt Keeps Young People From Buying Houses  Slate   ...It seems obvious that owing a lot of student debt should make it difficult to buy a house. After all, if you're stuck paying interest on college loans, it's hard to save up for a 20 percent down payment...
Big Tobacco's Secret Workforce: Child Farm Workers  Think Progress   ...Hundreds of children too young to buy cigarettes are working 60 hours a week on tobacco farms across the South, a new report from Human Rights Watch finds...
Spying Is Meant to Crush Citizens’ Dissent, Not Catch Terrorists  Washington's Blog   ...The record is suffused with examples of groups and individuals being placed under government surveillance by virtue of their dissenting views and activism – Martin Luther King, the civil rights movement, anti-war activists, environmentalists...