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Today’s Teamster News For March 22, 2016
TEAMSTERS
NYCHA union wants workers tested for lead after feds launch probe into health issues at public housing Daily News …With the feds scrutinizing records on blood-lead levels at the city Housing Authority, the head of NYCHA’s biggest union Monday demanded that workers be tested for lead exposure. Teamsters Local 237 President Greg Floyd wrote to NYCHA Chairwoman Shola Olatoye Monday requesting a list of all buildings where tenants with elevated blood-lead levels have been identified…
Teamsters Turn on TPP Dem Free Beacon …Local California unions are flocking to Republican Scott Jones’ congressional campaign as retribution against Democratic Rep. Ami Bera’s support for the Trans Pacific Partnership. “We are endorsing Scott Jones because of his strong stance against the Trans Pacific Partnership and commitment to protecting American jobs,” Rome Aloise, president of Teamsters Joint Council 7, and a registered Democrat, said in a prepared statement…
Local 727 Pepsi Bargaining Committee Finalizes Preparations; Negotiations Set to Begin March 22 Local 727 …The Teamsters Local 727 Bargaining Committee has finalized its preparations for contract negotiations with Pepsi management, which are set to begin March 22. The Local 727 Bargaining Committee met for the third time on March 17 to finalize the union’s initial proposal, which is based on member demands gathered by the union during site visits and a demands meeting at the union hall on Feb. 7…
GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
Amazon German warehouse workers start fresh strike in pay row Reuters …Workers at an Amazon.com warehouse in Germany are starting a new round of strikes in an attempt to pressure the U.S. online retailer to increase pay. The walkout by workers at the warehouse in Koblenz, western Germany, began on Monday night and is due to run until the end of the night shift on Wednesday, March 23, union Verdi said in a statement…
EasyJet and British Airways passengers face cancellations as French air traffic control workers launch three-day strike Daily Mail …Hundreds of passengers flying with easyJet and British Airways will face flight cancellations over the next three days due to industrial action being carried out by French traffic control employees. Passengers travelling from Gatwick, Heathrow and Luton Airport to French destinations are likely to experience lengthy delays…
Backers of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact pin hopes on lame-duck Congress Post-Dispatch …Election-year protectionism has trade supporters and some lawmakers eyeing the lame-duck session of Congress late this year as the last chance for the United States to approve the Trans-Pacific Partnership before a new administration waters down or scuttles a deal. Opposition to trade has emerged as a rare area of bipartisan agreement in the 2016 election campaign…
TPP, under fire in US, not a slam dunk in Mexico either Plastics News …The Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal is generally getting trashed in U.S. presidential election debates, over concerns that it will cost U.S. manufacturing jobs. But in Mexico — which is often mentioned in U.S. debates as benefiting when jobs leave for lower-wage countries — the TPP is not seen as slam-dunk win either…
Fools or Liars On the Trans-Pacific Partnership? (opinion) Huffington Post …The very pro-TPP Peter Peterson Institute for International Economics produced a study showing that the deal will add 0.5 percentage points to GDP when its effects are fully felt in 2030. While this projection is supposed to convince people of the huge benefits of the TPP, taken at face value it means we will be as rich on January 1, 2030 as we would otherwise be on March 15, 2030…
Carrier Workers See Costs, Not Benefits, of Global Trade New York Times …The fuzzy video, shot by a worker on the floor of a Carrier factory here in the American heartland last month, captured the raging national debate over trade and the future of the working class. a chronic trade deficit and an overvalued dollar have caused factory jobs to dry up, contributing to a deep divide between the political and economic elite and the rest of the nation…
TTIP-EU Proposal on Regulatory Cooperation Threatening Democracy Sputnik News …The EU proposal on Regulatory Cooperation within the planned Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) free trade deal between the United States and the European Union is a threat to democracy, a group of non-governmental organizations said in a joint statement Monday…
STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
Arizona Republicans Want to Defund Cities That Mandate Paid Sick Leave Gawker …Republican members of the Arizona state legislature are so worked up about the prospect of paid sick leave in their state that they’re trying to actively divert taxpayer dollars from cities that have chosen to mandate it. You can tell these guys are really dedicated to the concept of a small central government that doesn’t meddle in local affairs…
Advocates of minimum wage hike rally against cost argument Politico …With 10 days until a final agreement is due, advocacy groups are ramping up their efforts to include a $15 minimum wage in the state budget. Several nonprofit organizations, advocates and Democratic legislators are slated to hold a rally outside of the Senate chambers in the Capitol Tuesday calling for a $15 minimum wage. “The organizations will call on their opponents to stop using nonprofits as a scapegoat for maintaining the status quo of low wages,” they said in a press release…
Maine Minimum Wage: Competing Versions Duke It Out Public News Service …It would raise the minimum wage in Maine to $9 an hour by 2017, and supporters of the ballot initiative now say they are optimistic voters will have their say in November. Opponents of the measure attempted to send it to a dead end in committee last week, but Matt Schlobohm, executive director of the Maine AFL-CIO says the House handily defeated that tactic…
Nixon vetoes ‘paycheck protection’ bill Missourinet …Governor Jay Nixon (D) vetoed today House Bill 1891, which would require public employees to give annual written consent for union dues to be taken from their paychecks. Advocates of the legislation call it “paycheck protection”, while opponents refer to it as “paycheck deception”. In a statement from Nixon, he said such a law would impose an additional and unnecessary process on public employees…
Punishing the poor is not going to end poverty Daily Kos …In Kansas this week, Gov. Sam Brownback signed a bill into law that bans the use of public assistance funds to visit swimming pools, see movies, go gambling, or get tattoos. One of the key items in the bill is a drug testing requirement, which has been proven to be a waste of time, resources, and money in other states that have tried it…
U.S. LABOR
Lyft drivers, if employees, owed millions more – court documents Reuters …Drivers who worked for ride-hailing service Lyft in California during the past four years would have been entitled to an estimated $126 million in expense reimbursements had they been employees rather than contractors, court documents show. Lyft drivers would have recouped an average of $835 each under a standard rate…
Feds Propose Two Crew Member Minimum On Trains, Irking Rail Industry And Drawing Praise From Safety Advocates IBTimes …U.S. federal regulators rolled out a long-awaited proposal this week that would require at least two crew members on most railroad trains across the country. labor unions and safety advocates say such a mandate by the Federal Railroad Administration provides a crucial bulwark against railroads’ moves to reduce crew sizes. At stake, ultimately, is the future of work on the country’s hundreds of thousands of miles of track…
Unsung black heroines launched a modern domestic workers movement — powered by their own stories YES Magazine …In the late 1990s, household workers around the country began to organize to address the exploitation and abuse they face. These domestic workers, immigrant nannies, housecleaners and elder-care workers from all over the world — the Philippines, Barbados, Brazil, Mexico, El Salvador, Indonesia and Nepal — used public shaming strategies to draw attention to particularly egregious employers…
Cesar Chavez rally and march in Mission Hills call for activism and to ‘Dump Trump’ LA Daily News …If Cesar Chavez were alive today, he would probably invite Donald Trump to spend a day working in the fields of Central California, the union leader’s son said Sunday. Paul Chavez was among the hundreds of activists, dignitaries, students and workers who celebrated the life and legacy of Cesar Chavez Sunday with a rally and march while calling on voters to “Dump Trump”…
Until Last Year, No One Was Tracking Workplace Injuries The Nation …The federal agency that was established to keep workers safe has decided, for the first time in its 45-year history, that it should know who exactly is getting hurt at work. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which has historically focused on tracking work-related deaths, in 2015 began systematically requiring employers “to report any severe work-related injury…
SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
U.S. Citizen Detained By Immigration Agents After Protesting Donald Trump Think Progress …Over the weekend, dozens of Arizonans shut down a major highway leading to a rally Republican frontrunner Donald Trump held in Phoenix. While her fellow activists were processed and released a few hours later, Juanita Gonzalez was held overnight, transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and questioned about her immigration status, despite the fact that she is a U.S. citizen…
After ‘Unprecedented’ Year of Warming, UN Warns We Must Curb Emissions Now Common Dreams …The World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the climate arm of the United Nations, said on Monday that climate change is occurring at an “alarming rate” and that world leaders must act to curb greenhouse gases now, “before we pass the point of no return.” After 2015 broke all previous global average surface temperature records, WMO is releasing its State of the Climate report…