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Today’s Teamster News For June 16, 2016

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TEAMSTERS

Teamsters Make History By Negotiating With FedEx Freight for First Time  Teamster.org   …The Teamsters Union made history today when it met with representatives of FedEx Freight to kick off contract negotiations for workers in the Philadelphia area. It is the first time the union sat down with a FedEx operating unit for contract talks. The talks took place after FedEx Freight exhausted all its legal appeals in the courts and was forced to sit down with the union…

Teamster Flight Dispatchers Ratify Tentative Agreement  Teamster.org  …Following a tentative agreement on May 6, 2016, Teamster flight dispatchers at NetJets have voted unanimously to ratify their first-ever contract. The vote was 38 to 0 in favor of accepting the agreement. The contract will run for five years and contains an average wage increase of 18.5 percent in the first year, with signing bonuses worth thousands of dollars…

Atlas Pilots Protest at NASDAQ While Company Holds Investor Day  Teamster.org  …While Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings (AAWW) hosts an investor day in New York, the Teamster pilots working for its subsidiary air carriers who fly cargo for DHL and Amazon.com are picketing outside the NASDAQ Market site in Times Square. Through its Atlas Air, Inc. and Polar Air Worldwide Cargo, Inc. subsidiaries, AAWW is DHL’s largest American contractor…

Rolling Strike By Teamsters at US Foods Aims to Protect Union Jobs  In These Times  …A rolling strike is hitting multiple warehouses operated by the nation-wide grocery distributor US Foods, Inc. as the Teamsters union tries to fight off threats to its jobs by death from a thousand corporate cuts. The latest in a six-week series of strikes hit a US Foods distribution center in Plymouth, Minnesota, June 8, when truck drivers, warehouse, yard and maintenance workers, and office staff from Teamsters Local 120 honored a picket line manned by Teamsters from Maryland…

Locked-out Teamsters urge public to boycott Hartford Distributors  Journal Inquirer  …Union workers and Hartford Distributors Inc. remain at loggerheads today, a week after 120 Teamsters Local 1035 members were locked out of the 131 Chapel Road beer distributor. Union and company negotiators met Sunday but were unable to reach an agreement, Christopher Roos, principal officer of Local 1035, said Tuesday…

Teamsters to boycott Schnucks stores in layoff dispute  St. Louis Post-Dispatch  …The nearly 7,000 members of Teamsters Local 688 plan to boycott Schnuck Markets following the chain’s decision to lay off more than 200 union warehouse employees and outsource the jobs. The move, announced early Thursday, represents an escalation in the months-long dispute. In recent weeks, members of Local 688 have stood outside dozens of Schnucks stores distributing handbills to customers with information about the dispute…

Philly school principals’ union turns down contract  Philly.com  …The union that represents Philadelphia School District principals and other administrators Wednesday night rejected a proposed four-year contract that called for a 3 percent bonus, some salary increases, and no increase in health-care costs. Robert McGrogan, president of Teamsters Local 502 of the Commonwealth Association of School Administrators, said his membership rejected the tentative agreement by a “decisive margin”…

 

GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE

Mexico Says Force Will Be Used Against Striking Teachers  TeleSUR  …Teachers from the CNTE union have pledged to increase their protest actions after the government arrested several of their leaders. Renato Sales Heredia, national security commissioner, stated unequivocally Tuesday that the government will use force to repress mobilizations by striking teachers and their sympathizers. Teachers from the CNTE union announced they will be increasing their protest actions…

S. Korea: DSME Workers Vote to Strike, Creditors Worried  Maritime Executive  …85 percent of unionized workers at troubled Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering voted Tuesday in favor of a strike in protest of the company’s “self-rescue” plan. The plan proposes to cut wages by 20 percent and sell two of five floating drydocks, and DSME has suggested that it intends an eventual workforce reduction totaling to 10,000 positions…

US Trade Rep Froman Optimistic About TPP Chances  Wall Street Journal  …The White House is optimistic that Congress will pass its proposed Pacific trade agreement this year, despite heated election rhetoric and a skeptical Congress, said U.S. Trade Representative, Michael Froman. “I’m confident when the time comes, it will get the necessary support,” said Mr. Froman, speaking at the CFO Network conference in Washington…

Rage Against the Machine guitarist to play anti-trade deal gig  The Hill  …Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello will perform at a concert protesting the White House’s Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal. The July 23 gig in Denver will also feature appearances from actress Evangeline Lilly and bands including Anti-Flag and the Flobots, The Hill has learned. “Working people everywhere have had enough,” Morello said in a statement…

U.S. farm groups throw shade at EU  Politico  …U.S. farm groups are calling out the European Union for not doing enough in bilateral trade talks to remove barriers to U.S. agricultural exports, an echo of complaints out of Paris and other European capitals that the United States is not willing to make room for more EU farm exports…

Workers at Global Labor Meeting Protest the Removal of Brazil’s Democratically Elected President  AFLCIO  …Workers from many countries this week made clear they reject the process in Brazil to remove democratically elected president Dilma Rousseff. Workers from around the world unite every June at the annual International Labor Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, to debate with governments and employers and defend workers’ rights…

Greeks to stage protests over harsh new austerity measures  The Times  …Thousands of cash-strapped Greeks are preparing to take to the streets today in fresh protests against Alexis Tsipras, the prime minister, and the latest round of toxic austerity measures. Although the movement echoes the slogan of previous popular youth protests in Greece, today’s show of people power is the first to target a hard-left government that surged to power on an anti-austerity wave…

The Brits Battle Over Brexit  The Nation  …Next week’s referendum on whether to leave the EU is an issue that cuts across traditional lines of ideology or party loyalty. The left arguments for Brexit—against not some ideal Europe of cafe culture, free child care, and massive state subsidies for the arts, but the “actually existing Europe” of brutal austerity, brutally enforced, with the free movement of capital everywhere outstripping labor and where globalization has replaced internationalism—remain both powerful and pertinent…

 

STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES

The Conservative Backlash Against Minimum Wage and Paid Sick Leave Victories Sweeping The Nation  Think Progress  …Nineteen states have passed laws blocking local governments from raising the minimum wage above the state level. Some laws, such as Colorado’s, enacted in 1999, have been in place for a long time. However, 11 out of the 19 laws have been enacted since 2013. These laws range geographically from coast to coast, but 13 out of the 19 preemption laws were signed into law by a Republican governor…

Despite Court Ruling, KY Governor Again Replaces Workers Comp Commission  Lex18  …Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin scrapped most current members of a powerful commission and replaced them with his own appointees for a second time, in spite of a judge’s order last week that temporarily blocked the reorganization. The Workers Compensation Nominating Commission recommends people to serve as administrative law judges…

Connecticut State Budget Cuts Force Courthouse Closures  Hartford Courant  …Budget cuts have forced the closure of juvenile courts in Torrington, Danbury, and Stamford, as well as the district courthouse in Willimantic, Judicial officials announced Tuesday morning. The Judicial Branch’s budget was cut $77 million. Hundreds of jobs were eliminated and the courts are closing because there aren’t enough staff members to keep them running… 

The real voter ID agenda  (opinion) St. Louis Post-Dispatch  …Extremists in the Republican-controlled Missouri Legislature recently voted to add a new constitutional amendment option to the ballot this November. If it passes, the amendment would make it easier for the Legislature to pass laws requiring voters to produce photo identification at the polls. Voter ID and similar disenfranchisement bills have nothing to do with protecting the integrity of the ballot…

Kane County board debates, passes prevailing wage law  Chicago Tribune  …Kane County commissioners were split Tuesday when voting for what is considered a housekeeping item — establishing the county’s prevailing wages required under state law. The Illinois Department of Labor requires local governments to pass a resolution outlining the prevailing wages for laborers, mechanics and others working on public works projects within Kane County, according to the resolution…

California Will Finally Ditch Racist, Sexist Welfare Rule  Think Progress  …For more than two decades, any poor mother enrolled in California’s cash welfare program was penalized for giving birth to a new baby. While she would get additional money to cover the children she had before enrollment, the state refused to give her more for the new child. The state’s policy is one of many that were explicitly adopted after welfare was reformed in the mid-90s…

 

U.S. LABOR

National Nurses Union Threatens to Strike  SM Observer  …The National Nurses United union, the largest nurses union in the country, is threatening one- to seven-day walkouts in eight hospitals in three states at the end of June. Cited are understaffing issues and consequent reduction in patient care. The states with scheduled walkouts are Minnesota, Massachusetts, and California. 1,300 registered nurses plan a four-day strike at Kaiser Permanente’s flagship hospital, Los Angeles Medical Center… 

Macy’s and NYC Union Reach Tentative Agreement, Avoiding Strike  Wall Street Journal  …Macy’s Inc. and the union representing workers at its flagship Herald Square store and other New York City locations have reached a tentative agreement, averting a strike that had been called for Thursday. The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which represents the 5,000 workers, said on its Facebook page that its negotiating committee had approved a tentative agreement…

Air Traffic Controller Staffing Has Reached A “Crisis Level” Says Controllers Union  NH Labor News  …National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) President Paul Rinaldi told the House Aviation Subcommittee today that the number of fully certified air traffic controllers, already at a 27-year low, fell again in the first three months of this year…

The Sanitation Department’s resident anthropologist wants to clean up the image of garbagemen  Crain’s  …Sanitation workers are the most important of the city’s uniformed forces, Nagle argues. Without them, the city would be uninhabitable. She has made it her job to explain—and demand more respect for the work that they do. A professor of anthropology and environmental studies at New York University, she began shadowing the city’s sanitation workers more than a decade ago…

American Seafood Has Its Own Forced Labor Problem  Mother Jones  …Labor abuse in the seafood sector isn’t a problem confined to Asia. A report published Wednesday by the labor group the National Guestworker Alliance suggests that some US seafood workers also experience abusive conditions. The report focuses on the experiences of undocumented and H2-B visa guestworkers shucking, peeling, and boiling shrimp and crawfish at seafood processing plants in New Bedford, Mass. and along the Louisiana Gulf Coast…

Union leaders see no evidence of migration to Donald Trump  The Hill  …Local union leaders across the Rust Belt are voicing confidence that their members will stick with Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in the race for the White House. Trump has courted organized labor aggressively, staking out hard-line positions against free trade and immigration that resonated with blue-collar voters in the GOP primary. While many of their members have reservations about Clinton, the union leaders don’t see signs of a groundswell toward Trump… 

More Than Half of U.S. Workers Are Leaving Some Vacation Days Unused  Wall Street Journal  …More than half of U.S. workers left some vacation time unused in 2015, depriving the American economy of $223 billion in spending on restaurants, home-improvement projects, hotels and other travel, according to a new study. The main culprit: the spread of smartphones, the Internet and other technologies increasing employees’ attachment to work…

House Republicans stand strong for anti-LGBT discrimination in the wake of Orlando shootings  Daily Kos  …LGBT people may be able to marry, but in many states they can also be fired or not hired because they’re LGBT. And House Republicans are fighting to keep that from changing. President Obama’s executive order banning federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity went into effect in 2015…

 

SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS

‘Enough Is Enough’: Prisoners Across The Country Band Together To End Slavery For Good  Think Progress  …Beginning in March, thousands of people locked away in Michigan prisons launched a hunger strike over the amount and quality of food they were served by a private food vendor. In April, inmates in seven Texas facilities refused to go to work in protest of astronomical health care costs, their inability to use work time as credit for their parole, and having to live and labor in extreme heat with minimal compensation…

ACLU Sues Cleveland Over ‘Draconian Reach’ of RNC Protest Rules  Common Dreams  …The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio on Tuesday filed a lawsuit in a federal court against the city of Cleveland charging that the rules for the 2016 Republican National Convention violate free speech and “criminalize everyone.” The rules for the convention, which takes place July 18-21, cover a 3.3-square mile so-called Event Zone. They include restrictions on the duration and location of protests…

How Donald Trump Bankrupted His Casinos, Left Contractors Unpaid, Ruined Investors & Made Millions  Democracy Now  …A series of new investigative articles have revealed Donald Trump’s shady business dealings in Atlantic City, his failure to pay contracted workers over the years, and his decision to partake in what may amount to “calculated tax fraud” — a felony…

Media Coverage of the Primaries Was Awful, Harvard Study Confirms  US Uncut  …A recently released Harvard study is accusing major print and broadcast media of improperly influencing the presidential primaries in the months leading up to the first contests. The analysis of eight different found that media companies devoted an unprecedented amount of coverage to Donald Trump from the start of his campaign, effectively shutting out over a dozen of his competitors… 

World’s Banks Driving Climate Chaos with Hundreds of Billions in Extreme Energy Financing  Common Dreams  …Turning their backs on climate science and the consensus of governments and civil society across the globe, the world’s biggest banks are dangerously advancing the climate crisis by pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into the world’s most polluting fossil fuel industries, according to a new report published Tuesday…

Chris Christie Calls For The U.S. Military To Retaliate For The Orlando Massacre. He’s Not Sure Where.  Think Progress  …Chris Christie believes the American military should “fight back” somewhere overseas in response to a Queens-born American citizen shooting up a gay nightclub in Orlando. It remains unclear precisely to what extent radical Islam motivated suspected shooter Omar Mateen — his ex-wife told the Washington Post he was emotionally troubled and not particularly religious…