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Today’s Teamster News For April 21, 2016
TEAMSTERS
NLRB Issues Historic Complaint Against Port Trucking Company Teamster.org …Just hours after misclassified employee drivers at Intermodal Bridge Transport (IBT) launched their third Unfair Labor Practice strike (click here for a copy of the charges filed against IBT), drivers received news that Region 21 of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a Complaint alleging the company’s managers and supervisors violated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) by making unlawful threats and promises in violation of Section 8(a)(1) of the NLRA…
NLRB Alleges Misclassification is an Unfair Labor Practice Politico …On Wednesday night the Teamsters Port Division announced that the board’s regional office had filed a complaint alleging an NLRA violation by a company called Intermodal Bridge Transport. “IBT has misclassified its employee drivers as independent contractors, thereby inhibiting them from engaging in Section 7 [union] activity and depriving them of the protections of the Act,” the complaint said…
School district support staff may vote again between unions Review-Journal …Thousands of Clark County School District bus drivers, custodians and support staff may vote — for the fourth time — between two labor unions vying for power as their bargaining agent. In December, following a change in state rules that govern union representation contests, Local Teamsters 14 won a landslide victory in a runoff election to oust the Education Support Employees Association, or ESEA. The unions have been battling for control for nearly 15 years…
Elizabeth Warren chides Goldman Sachs, Northern Trust over Teamsters pensions Market Watch …Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday took aim at the managers of the pension fund of Teamsters truck drivers for receiving millions of dollars in fees while presiding over losses. In a series of tweets, and a video clip of a speech she delivered to the union’s rally, Warren highlighted the $41 million in fees that Goldman Sachs and Northern Trust received while presiding over investments in the Central States Pension Fund…
Bill That Obama Extolled Is Leading to Pension Cuts for Retirees Intercept …One of the many obscure provisions jammed into a last-minute budget bill in 2014 endorsed and signed by President Obama is leading to what would be the first cuts in earned pension benefits to current retirees in over 40 years. The Washington Post reports that the Treasury Department is on the verge of approving an application from the Central States Pension Fund to cut worker pensions by an average of 23 percent…
ISS Recommends Teamster UPS Shareholder Proposal Teamster.org …The country’s largest proxy voting advisor, ISS, has recommended that UPS shareholders vote for proposal 3 for increased lobbying disclosure. Because UPS does not disclose information regarding its trade association participation, ISS concludes the proposal merits support…
Sysco Workers Join Teamsters Labor Press …In a major victory, Sysco workers in West Palm Beach voted to join Teamsters Local 769 in Miami. The vote for Teamster representation was 66 to 15, an 81.5-percent margin of victory. It is the first Sysco facility in Florida where workers have formed a union…
GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
Workers strike outside Toronto Hydro headquarters City News …Engineers and other workers at Toronto Hydro were outside picketing their company headquarters on Thursday morning. Members of The Society of Energy Professionals’ Toronto Hydro Local said they are protesting the proposed elimination of retirement benefits, as well as cuts to parental and family leave for all new hires…
Bangladesh: ‘Changes Are Possible if You Have a Union’ Solidarity Center …ore than 1,100 garment workers died April 24, 2013, when the Rana Plaza building collapsed in Bangladesh, a preventable disaster that injured thousands more workers in the world’s worst industrial accident in years. Yet their lives likely would have been spared “if any of the factories (in the building) had a union,” says union leader Salma Akter Meem.
‘Things Would Be Better if We Had a Union’: 3 Years After Rana Plaza, Little Has Changed in Bangladesh Alternet …In Dhaka, Bangladesh, the conditions Sharina describes at the garment factory where she works can be summed up in three words: dangerous, unsanitary and exploitative. Wages are delayed. Legally required maternity leave is denied. Workers are sometimes forced to toil until 3 a.m. and are fired if they refuse. Bathroom facilities are so appalling workers have difficulty focusing on work because of the odor…
Survey shows plunging public support for TTIP in U.S. and Germany Reuters …Support for the transatlantic trade deal known as TTIP has fallen sharply in Germany and the United States, a survey showed on Thursday, days before Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Barack Obama meet to try to breathe new life into the pact. In the United States, only 18 percent support the deal compared to 53 percent in 2014. Nearly half of U.S. respondents said they did not know enough about the agreement to voice an opinion…
Protesters feel TPP consultations in Saskatoon ‘closed-door’ event Star Phoenix …People on both sides of the Trans-Pacific Partnership debate converged at a Saskatoon hotel on Tuesday as the Standing Committee on International Trade hosted public consultations about the deal. The committee heard about a dozen presentations from organizations in Saskatchewan…
Eurozone Government Debt Falls, Raising Questions Over Continued Austerity Wall Street Journal …Eurozone governments continued to cut their budget deficits in 2015, contributing to the first decline in their total debts since the onset of the financial crisis eight years ago. The decline in government debts may strengthen arguments against continuing the eurozone’s austerity program…
STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
Maryland To Become The Second State To Guarantee Fair Minimum Wage For Workers With Disabilities Think Progress …Maryland will soon become the second state, after New Hampshire, to phase out the “subminimum wage” for workers with disabilities. Maryland lawmakers this month passed a bill that would do away with special wage certificates that allow employers to pay disabled workers according to productivity rather than hours worked…
Immigrant Women Lead Efforts to Transform Conditions for Domestic Workers in Illinois Truthout …Like domestic workers in several states across the country, these women are fighting for legislation that can help improve their working conditions and their way of life. Escobar and her fellow activists want to persuade the Illinois Senate to vote in favor of the Illinois Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights, which would amend four of the state’s existing labor laws to include domestic workers…
Will California Change How Uber Treats Its Drivers? Bloomberg …California, home to the headquarters of Uber and a significant chunk of the company’s U.S. business, was the first state to issue regulations covering the ride-hailing giant, in 2013. It’s once again at the forefront of the debate about how to manage Uber—specifically, what the company’s obligations to its drivers should be…
Senate panel blocks bill targeting ride-hailing app pricing Mercury News …A California Senate on Tuesday blocked legislation aimed at preventing ride-hailing services Uber and Lyft from adjusting their prices based on demand, a practice known as “surge pricing” that is at the heart of the companies’ business models. The bill would also have allowed stricter background checks for ride-sharing drivers and required the companies to report data to the state…
Supreme Court Upholds Arizona’s Right to Ensure Minority Representation Mother Jones …The Supreme Court upheld an Arizona redistricting commission’s right to draw legislative districts in a way that ensures minority representation, delivering a crushing rebuke on Wednesday to a group of Arizona tea party activists who’d sought to strike down the state’s redistricting maps in order to increase the voting power of rural white voters…
Cuomo vows to support organized labor in NY Times Union …Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday that he believes in the labor movement, telling union construction workers he won’t sign legislation in New York that’s not fair to organized labor. Addressing a North America’s Building Trades Unions conference in Washington, Cuomo said unions built the middle class in America and protect it…
U.S. LABOR
Verizon Strike: Bargaining Not Going Well, Union Reps Say Hoboken Patch …Negotiations between Verizon and its striking workers are not going well, union representatives say. On Tuesday, union leaders with the the CWA District 1/IBEW Local 2213 and IBEW New England Regional Committees reportedly met with the Verizon bargaining team to continue contract talks after 39,000 East Coast workers launched a massive strike earlier this month…
Is Verizon Looking for a Negotiation with Striking Workers? Yahoo News …VZ is willing to negotiate with workers unions, representing its wireline and cable workers, which went on strike from Apr 13, 2016. However, the company is yet to find a solution to this problem. Verizon and the unions representing the workforce, namely, The Communications Workers of America (CWA) and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, are currently at a stalemate over a new labor contract…
UFW wins election to represent 240 farm workers at local companies Ventura County Star …United Farm Workers won an election Wednesday to represent 240 farm workers at Ventura County vegetable and nursery companies, officials said. Workers at Hiji Bros., Inc. and Seaview Growers Inc., both based in Oxnard, cast ballots to decertify and replace the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 5 with the UFW…
UPS pilots say they aren’t afraid to strike Courier-Journal …For the last five years, UPS and its pilot union have negotiated a new contract in private, with little said about how the talks were going. The approach and tone shifted dramatically this week when the pilots’ union publicized having opened a strike center at its south Louisville headquarters. The UPS bargaining team is expected to offer its positions at another session starting April 25, said Robert Travis, a captain with the company and president of the Independent Pilots Association…
Nursing Home Workers Vote for a Voice on the Job with Local 1625 UFCW.org …Last week, 12 workers in the dietary department at the Woodland Grove Health and Rehabilitation Center in Jacksonville, Fla., voted overwhelmingly to join UFCW Local 1625 for a voice on the job. Local 1625 represents over 100 health care facilities in Florida. “We were tired of the favoritism when it came to raises and working conditions,” said Sha Terri Frazer, a dietary worker…
Faculty Votes for Union at Plymouth State University NH Labor News …In an election held this week, a majority of the one hundred seventy-four tenured and tenure-track faculty members at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire voted to form a union for collective bargaining with the American Association of University Professors. Plymouth State University is one of the four public universities that make up the University System of New Hampshire…
SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
The ‘Absolutely Disturbing’ New Normal: Earth Just Smashed Another Climate Record Common Dreams …Our ever-warming planet just passed another climate record. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said Tuesday that March 2016 was the warmest March since records began in 1880. It also marked an 11-month of streak of record-breaking global temperatures…
Harriet Tubman Just Abolished Andrew Jackson From The $20 Bill Think Progress …Treasury Secretary Jack Lew will announce on Wednesday that Harriet Tubman, the prominent abolitionist, will replace former President and slaveowner Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20 bill, according to a report from Politico. The only time there was a woman on the front of a bill was during a brief period of time in the late 1800s when Martha Washington was on a $1 silver certificate, and Native American Pocahontas was on the back of a $20 bill in the 1860s…
Hundreds Drown Trying to Reach Europe in 2016’s Deadliest Migrant-Related Disaster Yet Common Dreams …In the deadliest incident the Mediterranean has seen this year, hundreds of asylum seekers attempting to reach Europe drowned last week when their overcrowded boat sank off the coast of Libya, prompting alarm and harsh critique of European refugee policy from rights groups…