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Today’s Teamster News For June 17, 2016
TEAMSTERS
Second Teamsters Local Meets to Negotiate With FedEx Freight Teamster.org …A day after Teamsters Local 107 made history by meeting with representatives of FedEx Freight to kick off contract negotiations for workers in the Philadelphia area, Local 71 met with the company today on behalf of FedEx Freight employees in Charlotte, N.C. “We are going to hold the company’s feet to the fire during negotiations and we are committed to negotiating a first contract for the workers in Charlotte,” said Joe Eason, President of Local 71 in Charlotte…
New Report Shows NYC Private Sanitation Industry Endangers Residents Teamster.org … A new report finds that New York City’s private sanitation companies operate garbage trucks with high rates of faulty brakes, bad tires, broken signals, and unsecured cargo, which endanger workers, pedestrians, and other street users. “As New York City’s union of commercial drivers, the Teamsters see it as our duty to raise safety standards to protect all road users,” said Sean Campbell, President of Teamsters Local 813, which represents private sanitation workers…
Labor and Advocacy Groups Call for Action on Unsafe Garbage Haulers Streets Blog …A new report from Transform Don’t Trash NYC, a coalition of labor and advocacy groups including Teamsters Local 813 and Transportation Alternatives, is calling on the city to get unsafe sanitation trucks off NYC streets. The job of collecting garbage in the city is shared by the Department of Sanitation, which handles waste from residential and governmental buildings, and more than 250 private companies…
Teamsters Applaud National Labor Relations Board on ‘Mixed-Guard’ Ruling Teamster.org …The Teamsters Union is applauding the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington, D.C., for its decision in the case of Loomis Armored US, Inc., an additional step to protect and provide a union voice to security guards throughout the country. The decision by the NLRB reverses a 32 year-old rule that allowed employers to revoke recognition of bargaining units that include security guards…
BLET: Federal Regulators Must Prohibit One-Person Freight Train Crews Teamster.org …“Operating freight trains with one-person train crews is unsafe and must be prohibited. That is the message we delivered yesterday in comments filed with federal rail safety regulators. Our comments provide a clear rationale for the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to finalize a rule this year and to close loopholes,” said John Previsich, president of SMART Transportation Division and Dennis Pierce, president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen…
GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
Domestic Workers See Gains, yet Struggle for Decent Work Solidarity Center …Some 70 countries around the world have taken action to advance decent work for domestic workers in the five years since the International Labor Organization (ILO) adopted Convention 189, the standard covering domestic worker rights. Most recently, Morocco passed a law covering gaps in coverage for domestic workers. The bill sets the minimum age for domestic work at 18 years and raises salaries…
Pepsi Linked to Child Labor and Worker Exploitation Alternet …American food multinational PepsiCo’s Indonesia-made products are linked to child labor, unethically low wages, and worker exploitation, a new investigative report by environmental and labor rights groups has found. The report, titled The human cost of conflict palm oil: Indofood, PepsiCo’s hidden link to worker exploitation in Indonesia and released on Wednesday, found extensive labor violations on two palm oil plantations operated by PT PP London Sumatra, a subsidiary of Indonesian food giant Indofood…
Sliglitz: The High Health Costs of TPP’s “Free Trade” Medium …Despite protests from industry lobbyists who are upset that they did not get everything they wanted, big pharmaceutical companies are some of the biggest winners in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). This supposed “free trade” agreement between the United States and 11 countries in the Americas and Asia would enshrine expansive monopoly protections for intellectual properties that shield drug makers from competition…
Hatch: Obama willing to dance on TPP Politico …Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch said the Obama administration for the first time appears to be willing to meet his demands on TPP. Hatch repeated that he still wants 12 years of data protection for biologics in the TPP instead of the current formulation that provides at most eight years of protection and possibly only five. TPP doesn’t have the votes to pass, said Hatch…
Canadian trade policy expert calls TPP a “threat to democracy” Boing Boing …TPP has been written in such a way that the public always gets the worst of both worlds. Van Harten’s chilling summary of the corporate sovereignty provisions in TPP is worth quoting in full: The TPP would take us in the wrong direction and be very difficult to reverse. It would expand the transfer of power to ISDS arbitrators…
State Department Won’t Release Clinton TPP Emails Until After Election Sputnik News …The US State Department will not release Hillary Clinton’s emails on the TPP trade deal until after the November election, reversing an earlier decision to make the documents public. ”This is going to be a pretty critical issue during the election,” Saks said. “You’ve seen Donald Trump take a position against TPP. Hillary Clinton was forced from the left to abandon her previous support”…
EU to challenge French minimum wage law on foreign truck drivers – sources Reuters …The European Commission will launch a challenge on Thursday to a French law requiring foreign truck drivers to be paid the French minimum wage when they make deliveries there, two sources familiar with the matter said. Operators from Eastern Europe, where wages are lower, have taken a big share of the trans-European road freight business, prompting complaints from hauliers in higher-wage countries…
As Brexit Battle Enters Final Week, New Poll Shows Shift Towards Leaving EU Common Dreams …A week ahead of the so-called Brexit referendum, new polling shows the British public now leaning in favor of leaving the European Union. The results of the Ipsos MORI poll published Thursday in the Evening Standard show 53 percent now in favor of leaving the EU and 47 percent in favor of remaining…
STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
Maine business groups want to change wording of minimum wage referendum Portland Press Herald …Groups opposing a November ballot referendum to raise the minimum wage in Maine want to see changes in how the question is worded. The groups said Thursday at a Portland news conference that the proposed question doesn’t make clear that the minimum wage would be increased based on changes in the consumer price index after rising from the current $7.50 per hour to $12 per hour in 2020…
North Dakota Rejects Corporate Farm Ownership by 3-to-1 Margin Common Dreams …In a victory for family farmers and local communities, North Dakota voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly upheld their state’s rules prohibiting corporate farming. According to the North Dakota Secretary of State, fully 75 percent of voters cast ballots against Measure 1, which would have loosened century-old corporate farming restrictions…
Union members march in Charleston Metro News …Members of organized labor marched on the streets of Charleston Thursday behind a “Remember in November” banner. The West Virginia AFL-CIO is holding its special convention in the Capital City and marched a few blocks holding signs decrying the Republican-led state legislature’s approval of prevailing wage and right-to-work legislation. Organized labor has held a number of rallies during the past two years since Republicans seized control of the legislature…
Kentucky County Defends Right-to-Work Law in 6th Cir. Bloomberg …Citing questions of “enormous significance” about state labor law regulations, a Kentucky county is asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to rule that a local right-to-work ordinance is not preempted by the National Labor Relations Act. Hardin County, Ky., and a group of national and local unions June 13 completed the filing of briefs on the county’s appeal…
Employers, workers get clarity on Oregon minimum wage rules KATU …With the first batch of gradual increases to Oregon’s minimum wage launching in two weeks, employers and workers got final word from the state on Wednesday about how payroll checks should be handled from there on. The final rules, released by Oregon’s Bureau of Labor and Industries, clarify what businesses should pay employees who work in different parts of the state…
Kansas’ voter ID mess: The problem with fixing something that isn’t broken (opinion) Kansas City Star ….Kansas is set to become the national example for how poorly thought out legislation can undercut the right to vote. Changes the Legislature approved in 2012 are being compared to the days of poll taxes. It’s not a stretch. This go-round, thousands of would-be voters were excluded, not by race. It was over their ready access to documents, birth certificates and passports that they needed to produce to prove their citizenship…
U.S. LABOR
Workers at four Atlantic City casinos vote to strike Reuters …Workers at four casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey’s gambling hub, voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to authorize a strike if they are not offered what they consider to be a fair contract by the start of the busy July 4 holiday weekend. A strike vote could give Unite Here Local 54 bargaining committees more firepower in negotiations over new contracts for the 6,000 cocktail servers, cooks, housekeepers and other hospitality workers…
Allina hiring 1,400 replacement nurses as strike looms Business Journal …Allina Health is hiring 1,400 nurses from across the country ahead of a possible strike. The Minnesota Nurses Association, which represents 4,800 nurses, broke off talks with Allina after making no progress during conversations with a federal mediator Monday…
The Right to Strike Must Mean the Right to Return to Work After a Strike In These Times …With the decisive victory for union members at Verizon, 2016 is already on pace to be the second year in a row where recorded strike activity has increased over the previous half-decade. Now, a new decision from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) could restore legal job protections for striking workers, making workplace job actions a more common—and more powerful—union strategy…
SEIU Urging Governor To Sign Legislation Fox …Governor Rauner and organized labor have had a tense relationship. Now, SEIU says it’s long past time they get a contract. The union that represents home care and child care workers is urging the governor to sign a package of bills aimed at raising their wages and protecting health insurance benefits. SEIU unveiled a study on Wednesday that shows there are 55,000 fewer children in the Child Care Assistance Program since cuts were put in place during the budget impasse…
Teacher Unions Are ‘Bargaining for the Common Good’ American Prospect …The idea of “bargaining for the common good”—and working in partnership with local allies—is not a new idea for labor unions, but its potential has never been fully realized, and past efforts have not gone deep enough. One major obstacle has been that labor law tries to limit unions to bargaining just over issues of wages and benefits. “Unions have been significantly hobbled by the legal regime, and a lack of imagination to challenge it,” says Stephen Lerner, a longtime labor organizer…
The Fight to Bring Hotel Housekeepers Out of the Shadows Seattle Weekly …Unite Here Local 8, the regional chapter of a national union that represents about 5,000 hospitality workers across Washington and Oregon, recently launched a signature campaign for Initiative 124, a citywide ballot measure that would require strict protections against harassment and assault of hotel workers and would, if passed, ensure that some of the protections the union has already negotiated for its members extend to all Seattle hotels…
SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
Is the Boom in Home Delivery Condeming Cities to More Gridlock? Slate …As Amazon, Uber, Instacart, and a host of other companies compete to bring books, milk, and everything else to your doorstep, millions of personal shopping trips are being converted into freight traffic. Apartment-building mailrooms have begun to look like warehouses, and residential streets hum with truck engines…
Welcome to Jail Inc: how private companies make money off US prisons The Guardian …Getting locked up is unlikely to be good for your health but it’s “terrific, terrific” business for the booming private industry supplying doctors and nurses to jails and prisons. Many of those suppliers descended on Austin, Texas, last month to tout their services directly to jail administrators at the 35th annual American Jail Association conference…
This Foreign Firm Wants to Break Into the US “Market” of Detaining Refugee Women and Children Truthout …The deportation of Central American refugees under the Obama administration is such “booming business” a British company is seeking to open its own family detention center in Texas and may be given the green light. The British-owned multinational security firm Serco is accused of severely violating the rights of refugees in Australia and the United Kingdom…
Who Does the Biggest Lobbying Force in the US Represent? Not Its Members Common Dreams …Who does the biggest lobbying force in the United States represent? Not its members. That’s according to a new investigation by a group of U.S. senators, which found that on the issues of tobacco use and climate change, there’s a profound disparity between the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s positions and those of the companies it supposedly speaks for…
Israel ‘cuts off water supply to West Bank’ during Muslim holy month Independent …Israel has cut off the water supply to large areas of the West Bank, Palestinian authorities have claimed. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have reportedly been left without access to safe drinking water during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, a period of fasting, at a time when temperatures can exceed 35C. The northern city of Jenin, which has a population of more than 40,000, said its water supplies had been cut in half…
Former Ms. Universe Urges Immigrants To Join Her In Becoming Citizens To Vote Against Donald Trump Think Progress …Venezuelan model and actress Alicia Machado says it took her many years to get over get over the abuse she suffered at the hands of Donald Trump when she was crowned Ms. Universe. “He called me ‘Ms. Housekeeping’ in front of his friends.” Trump publicly mocked Machado for gaining weight and forced her to exercise in front of TV cameras. She suffered from an eating disorder for several years as a result. “He hates girls,” she said…