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Today’s Teamster News For May 10, 2016
TEAMSTERS
Teamsters, Community Protest Republic Services Over Toxic Landfills Teamster.org … Teamsters with the Solid Waste and Recycling Division, and Beth Roach, a community activist from Wayne County, Ga., attended Republic Services Inc.’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Phoenix on Friday, decrying the company’s serial mismanagement of its landfills and the lack of care and respect for affected communities…
Teamsters: CVS Is Unfair to Labor, Unfair to Pharmacists Local 727 …CVS pharmacists and Teamsters Local 727 representatives took action Tuesday, May 10, by passing out handbills outside Chicago-area pharmacies to inform the public of safety risks associated with CVS management’s mistreatment of overworked and understaffed pharmacists. “Pharmacists are professionals whose top priorities are patient care and public safety,” said John Coli Jr., President of Local 727…
Teamsters 688 files NLRB charges against Schnucks Labor Tribune …Two charges have been filed against Schnuck Markets by Teamsters Local 688 seeking to protect the rights of 190 of their warehouse members scheduled to be fired at the end of July when Schnucks opens a new warehouse staffed by non-union workers earning half the Teamster’s pay…
Teamsters to Host Investor Call on Antitrust Issues Facing AB InBev/SABMiller Deal Teamster.org …On Friday, May 13, 2016, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters will host a conference call for investors and industry analysts to discuss potential obstacles to Justice Department (DOJ) antitrust approval of the proposed SABMiller plc acquisition by Anheuser-Busch InBev and related sale of the MillerCoors joint venture to the Molson Coors Brewing Company…
Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied Teamster.org …Monday’s copy of the Las Vegas Review-Journal has a full-page featuring a call for justice for Clark County School District (CCSD) workers. The 12,000 custodians, school bus drivers, clerical and cafeteria staff at CCSD have already voted three times for Teamster representation…
Tibetan Food Terminal Strikers Spoke to Larger Issue of Precarious Work Torontoist …In November 2015, the first Toronto Tibetan union (Teamsters Local 419) was born. Months of seeking fair treatment and wages at the bargaining table eventually amounted to nothing. The only option was to strike. Almost every labour union in the area, concerned community members, politicians, and a large swath of Tibetans all supported the movement…
GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
UN Consultation on Worker Rights Gathers Global Experts Solidarity Center …More than two dozen worker, union and human rights experts from around the world gathered last week in Kenya to discuss some of the most intractable global labor issues: informalization of work, gender inequality, migrant worker rights and the erosion of workers’ freedoms of peaceful assembly and of association…
The Hellish Commute of the Women Who Make Your Clothes Broadly …In April, about 70 Cambodian workers were injured after a truck overturned in Kampong Speu. More than 7,000 workers were injured and 130 killed in crashes in 2015 while another 73 died in 2014, according to the National Social Security Fund, a government body set up to deliver compensation for workplace accidents…
Trade Chief Lambasts EU Leaders for Falling Public Trust in TTIP Trade Deal Sputnik News …The TTIP would create the biggest trading zone in the world, opening up the EU and US markets to each other. However, the talks have been mired in controversy because of their secretive nature, disagreements over regulatory issues — food safety and genetic modification in particular — and the contentious Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism…
New Zealand: TPP bill introduced to Parliament Radio NZ …Legislation enacting the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement is missing crucial Treasury analysis, Labour says. The trade deal was signed by 12 nations in New Zealand in February. The bill makes changes to several acts, such as extending copyright terms and introducing regulations so investment screening thresholds can be raised for overseas investors…
Failure of Korean Trade Deal Voids TPP (opinion) Huffington Post …On the fourth anniversary of the Korean trade deal, its lofty promises have been revealed as putrid pie in the sky: More jobs lost. No exports gained. Just like NAFTA, just like China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), free traders swore that the Korean deal would shower jobs and economic prosperity down on America. It didn’t happen…
Trapped in ‘Vicious Circle,’ Greece Passes Crushing New Austerity Package Common Dreams …Amid protests and strikes, Greek lawmakers passed a crushing new austerity package early on Monday. The reform package, which passed by a razor-thin margin, was described as “the toughest…the thrice bailed-out nation has been forced to enact since its debt crisis began,” according to the Guardian…
STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
W.Va. Labor Unions Will Sue Over Right-to-Work Law WV Public …Several labor unions say they intend to sue West Virginia over a recently enacted Right-to-Work law. Lawmakers approved the bill in February after Governor Tomblin vetoed it. Senate Bill 1 took effect last week. The bill makes it illegal for unions to require nonmembers to pay union dues or fees…
Bill requiring paid sick leave in New Jersey is stalled Philly.com …New Jersey lawmakers again stalled a vote on legislation requiring employers to offer paid sick time. The Democrat-led state Senate delayed a vote Monday on the bill that requires employers to offer workers one hour of sick leave for every 30 hours worked…
‘Paycheck protection’ override in Missouri Senate may come down to Chappelle-Nadal STL Today …At the end of a filibuster by Democrats in March against a plan tightening how unions can collect dues, state Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal entered the Senate chamber, cast an “aye” vote, then left. On so-called “paycheck protection,” she was on the other side of the rest of the Democratic caucus, which opposed the plan…
League Of Women Voters Of Wisconsin Pushes For Voter ID Education Campaign WPR.org …More than 2 million Wisconsinites voted in the presidential primary election last month, but officials with the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin said the turnout could have been even greater if it weren’t for a lack of knowledge on the state’s voter ID law. Therefore, the nonpartisan organization is advising the Government Accountability Board to request for funding to educate people on Wisconsin’s new voter ID requirements…
Minimum Wage Hike A Welcome Boost To Home Care Workers CA Healthline …The increases will be phased in annually. Next year, the minimum wage will rise to $10.50 for employers with more than 25 employees. The roughly 400,000 IHSS caregivers in California are among a larger number of home care workers who will benefit from the law…
SEIU Leader Describes How SeaTac Helped Ignite The Minimum Wage Movement KPLU …Just a few years ago, the idea of a $15 minimum wage seemed outlandish, but now two of the biggest states in the country – New York and California – have approved plans to gradually raise their wage floors to that amount. The roots of that movement can be traced in part to the small city of SeaTac and a ballot measure approved by voters in 2013 that hiked the city’s minimum wage for airport and hospitality workers to $15 an hour…
U.S. LABOR
Honeywell, UAW labor union in contract dispute WNDU …Picketers are gathering outside Honeywell to voice their disapproval. UAW local 9 members say they turned down the contract, mainly over health care benefits. Negotiators were trying to come to an agreement for the next five years after the contract expired on May 3rd…
Safety of Workers in New York City Commercial Waste Operations Questioned Route Fifty …Household waste in New York City is collected by the city’s Department of Sanitation, which has a unionized, public workforce. But commercial waste is transported by dozens of city-licensed private firms, which vary widely in size and sophistication. Some are unionized, others are not…
Verizon strike: Is the NYPD running a scab escort service? Socialist Worker …A Monday morning protest by striking Verizon workers to give an early “wake-up call” to scabs at their Queens hotel ended with a police hit-and-run on a picketer–and hundreds of workers angered that police had turned themselves into taxpayer-funded chauffeurs for a powerful corporation. Verizon, which has posted profits of $39 billion over the past three years, provoked a strike with its 39,000 workers…
America trails the world on paid maternity leave CBS …While a few generous employers and a handful of states do offer it, that only covers 12% of private-sector workers, according to the Department of Labor. The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 was a step in the right direction, but it calls for unpaid leave, and doesn’t cover 40% of workers in the U.S…
Uber, Lyft spend big, lose big in Texas vote on driver fingerprinting Reuters …On-demand ride companies Uber and Lyft suffered an embarrassing defeat in a Saturday election in Austin as voters backed a measure requiring fingerprint background checks for drivers. The two companies spent more than $8 million to repeal a city ordinance requiring the fingerprint-based criminal checks and launched what turned into the most expensive race in the Texas capital’s history…
Union Members Don’t Love Donald Trump As He Claims NH Labor News …Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, bragged about his “tremendous support within unions.” “The workers love me,” he claimed. The Donald likely would be looking for love in all the wrong places if he campaigned in some deep western Kentucky union halls…
SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
North Carolina Gov. McCrory denies HB2 is discriminatory, sues Justice Department instead Daily Kos …Gov. Pat McCrory came to the only conclusion possible short of being willing to admit that he eagerly enacted a broadly discriminatory law in a 12-hour session: He decided to take on the federal government after the Justice Department determined that his law does, in fact, violate federal statute by discriminating against transgender individuals…
Big Banks Want To Take The Sting Out Of Payday Loans. Predatory Lenders Are Not Happy About It. Think Progress …Federal regulations on payday lending are set to kick in nationwide later this year. When they do, a lot will change for the 12 million Americans who use them each year. Opponents of any federal rules for the industry have long exploited that uncertainty to try to derail the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s efforts to curb payday lending’s most abusive business practices…
The First Glimpses of Devastation in Fort McMurray The Atlantic …Reporters toured the fire-ravaged Canadian oil city of Fort McMurray on Monday, offering the first glimpses of the destruction after 88,000 people fled a massive wildfire. A bus guided by Fire Chief Darby Allen carried journalists through the city, and it was clear some areas were lost, while others were normal—except for the absence of life…