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Today’s Teamster News For June 20, 2016
TEAMSTERS
US Foods Teamsters Extend Pickets to Chicagoland Teamster.org …Teamsters that work at the US Foods distribution facility in Bensenville, Ill. refused to cross the extended picket line of Teamsters from Severn, Md., who began an unfair labor practice strike against the company in April. The 133 drivers who are members of Local 705 are just the latest group of US Foods workers to honor a picket line in support of the striking Maryland workers…
Tentative Agreement Reached for ReaderLink Warehouse Teamsters Local 710 …The Teamsters Local 710 Bargaining Committee for ReaderLink reached a tentative agreement with their employer today that they will recommend for a vote. This is a three-year contract in effect retroactive to January 4, 2016. The Local 710 committee of four rank-and-file members worked diligently over several months to reach a tentative agreement…
No new talks set in Hartford Distributors’ union worker lockout Journal Inquirer …As the Hartford Distributors Inc. lockout of 120 union workers enters its 10th day, both sides say there are no plans to resume contract negotiations. There has been “no call for more talks” by the company, Christopher Roos, principle officer for Teamsters Local 1035 said Friday. The union is willing to resume negotiations at any time, he said, but the company hasn’t offered to schedule more talks since last Sunday…
NYC’s Private Dump Trucks Are Trashy Rolling Death Machines Gothamist …The new report, which excludes statistics on the NYC Department of Sanitation’s fleet of trucks, was backed in part by the Teamsters Local 813, the union representing private sanitation workers in NYC. The Teamsters are longstanding critics of non-union sanitation haulers, and have endorsed other reports condemning the industry’s safety measures and environmental impact…
Truck Drivers for Large Chinese-Owned Company Demand Teamsters Representation in Long Beach We Party Patriots …Drivers for Intermodal Bridge Transport (IBT), a wing of the Chinese government-owned COSCO Logistics Americas, recently delivered a letter to the company demanding recognition of their right to be represented by Teamsters Local 848. IBT, which coincidentally shares an acronym with the Teamters (IBT), refused the demand so the drivers’ plea is now being taken to Intermodal’s President…
GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
Workers at South Korea’s Big Three May Strike Maritime Executive …On Friday, workers at Hyundai Heavy Industries said that they may strike alongside the unions at Samsung Heavy Industries and at Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering. With possible labor actions pending at all of South Korea’s Big Three shipbuilders, government and shareholder proposals for restructuring may become more difficult…
French workers suspend strike at Fos-Lavera oil port: union official Reuters …French CGT union workers have suspended a four-week strike at the Fos-Lavera oil terminal in southern France, a union official told Reuters on Sunday. Hardline CGT members at France’s biggest oil port terminal joined nationwide rolling protests against government labor reforms on May 23, disrupting the loading and unloading of vessels including oil, LNG and chemical tankers…
Will US approve TPP in lame-duck period? Radio NZ …Free trade advocates are betting the United States will approve the TPP this year, despite trenchant political opposition to the pact. American support for the controversial deal to set up a free trade zone covering 40 percent of world trade and 800 million people is crucial – without it there’s no deal…
Business groups urge Congress to pass TPP this year The Hill …Three powerful business groups on Thursday called on President Obama and congressional Republican and Democratic leaders to redouble their efforts to pass an expansive Asia-Pacific trade agreement by year’s end. Congressional leaders have said that the earliest lawmakers would consider the TPP is in the lame-duck session after the November election. But sharp-edged anti-trade rhetoric in the Republican and Democratic presidential campaigns are making the effort to pass the TPP before the president leaves office even more difficult…
Details coming on TPP financial services Politico …This week cleared trade advisers from industry groups and businesses could have in hand the legal text detailing how the administration will handle the issue of financial data storage in future trade deals, according to private-sector sources. Treasury last month unveiled the outlines of a plan for financial services data as it relates to trade deals, in a bid to ease Congressional passage of the TPP…
EU Austerity Killing Greece. Report Shows Suicide, Infant Death, And Mental Illness On The Rise Global Research …The conclusions drawn in a chapter entitled “Reforms in health, economic crisis and impact on the health of population” confirm that the physical and mental health of Greeks is deteriorating. Economic insecurity, high unemployment, decreasing income and constant stress are the personal struggles that many Greeks now live with. Personal income belt tightening is causing many patients to cut out necessary health care treatments…
Paul Krugman on Brexit: The “free-market fantasy” has “always and everywhere proved delusional” Salon …[S]ome Brexit advocates claim that leaving the E.U. would free Britain to do wonderful things — to deregulate and unleash the magic of markets, leading to explosive growth. Sorry, but that’s just voodoo wrapped in a Union Jack; it’s the same free-market fantasy that has always and everywhere proved delusional…
STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
NC Voter ID law returning to court WNCT …Legal challenges over North Carolina’s photo identification will return to federal court this week. On Tuesday, a panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will make arguments, which include other voting changes. The hearing comes two months since a lower court upheld the voting laws initially approved by the legislature and signed by Governor Pat McCrory in 2013…
State urges feds to OK immigrants’ health coverage Capitol Weekly …Hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants in California would be able to buy insurance through the state healthcare coverage marketplace if the federal government accepts a newly signed state law to exempt them from the federal rule. Federal law prohibits illegal immigrants from buying health insurance through Covered California…
A Brief History of How Kansas Republicans Destroyed Their State Mother Jones …In 2012, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback launched a “real live experiment” in conservative governance. He slashed income taxes for top earners and eliminated them for more than 330,000 small businesses, promising the cuts would be “a shot of adrenaline into the heart of the Kansas economy.” Instead, the result has been disastrous…
Seventy years of exploitation: The enduring plight of California’s farm workers Salon …On June 2 the State Assembly failed to pass AB2757, a bill that would give farm workers the same overtime pay that workers in urban areas have had since the 1930s. In the outcome, echoes can still be heard of those old rules. But the vote also makes clear that past certainties are certain no longer…
Taxicabs collide in Capitol with Uber and Lyft over legislation SacBee …As the state Senate was plowing through budget “trailer bills” Thursday, Sen. Ben Hueso arose to oppose one that, among other things, would hike annual motor vehicle registration fees by $10. He was, without naming them, complaining that the Uber and Lyft ride-sharing services are exempt from paying extra license fees imposed on taxis and other commercial vehicles. There are at least 50,000 Uber drivers in California – up from zero just a few years ago…
Tipped Workers Want In on Push for Higher Minimum Wage Bloomberg …The campaign by fast-food workers to boost the minimum hourly wage to $15 is gaining momentum, but a similar push to increase hourly pay for tipped employees is moving at a slower pace. Many tipped workers face unique challenges tied to poverty, discrimination and sexual harassment, making their need for higher wages as important as that of their counterparts involved in the Fight for $15 campaign…
U.S. LABOR
CWA, IBEW Members Ratify Verizon Contract B&C …Verizon workers represented by the Communications Workers of America and IBEW have “overwhelmingly” voted to approve new contracts stemming from a 45-day strike by between 35,000 and 40,000 workers. The polling began May 31, the strike was settled May 30, and ended June 17 and were conducted via meetings, mail-in ballots, and voting in person in various polling places near work sites…
San Diego grocery workers to vote on strike ABC ..Grocery workers in San Diego County and throughout Southern California are scheduled to vote Monday on whether to authorize a strike against Albertsons, Ralphs and Vons stores, according to the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 135. Union President Mickey Kasparian said the latest offer from the supermarket chains would “drastically” impact take-home pay and devastate employees’ health-care coverage…
Carrier closing to cost Indiana economy $108M a year IndyStar …Carrier Corp.’s decision to shutter its manufacturing operation on Indianapolis’ west side will cause a domino effect that will wipe out more than 2,700 jobs across Indiana and cost the state’s economy more than $100 million a year, experts say. Carrier plans to eliminate 1,400 low- to midgrade manufacturing jobs during the next three years and move its production facility to Mexico…
CUNY and Faculty Union Reach Contract Deal Wall Street Journal …The City University of New York’s faculty union reached a tentative agreement with the school’s administration on Thursday, a deal that would give instructors their first new contract in nearly seven years. The agreement, which proposed boosting the salaries of some 25,000 employees by 10%, comes after months of negotiations…
DoD Union Applauds House Vote to Protect Civilian Jobs from Outsourcing NH Labor News …AFGE is praising the U.S. House of Representatives for including a bipartisan measure in next year’s Department of Defense appropriations bill that will protect civilian jobs from being outsourced. “The Armed Forces rely on civilian employees for a range of services that are vital to military readiness, from training warfighters and maintaining equipment to treating the wounded and sustaining facilities,” AFGE National President J. David Cox Sr. said…
Sweatshop Prisons: the Civil War Didn’t End Slavery After All Counterpunch …Slavery has been abolished in the United States since 1865, when the 13th Amendment was passed in the ashes of the Civil War. Well, almost abolished. Actually, the amendment included a caveat: “except as punishment for a crime.” Since then, prison and forced labor have always gone together. In fact, with over 2 million people behind bars in this country, the American prison system is a massive — albeit largely invisible — part of our economy and social fabric…
Men Are Afraid to Take Parental Leave. Guess Why Bloomberg …Men not taking time off to care for newborns, it turns out, is a difficult cultural norm to overcome. Parental leave policies that offer the same amount of time off to all new parents are on the rise. Yet fathers still don’t want to take it. They’re afraid. Men still think their careers will suffer if they take leave, according to a new Deloitte survey out this week…
Harassment Is Running Rampant In American Workplaces Think Progress …Nearly a third of the charges the EEOC received last year against private employers or state and local governments were complaints of harassment — about 28,000 of 90,000, which comes to about 76 harassment charges a day, a figure that the authors of the report say has remained steady over the years. On top of that, 6,741 harassment complaints were filed by federal workers…
SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
Congresswoman Calls for Drug-Testing the One Percent, Not the Poor Common Dreams …A Wisconsin congresswoman, “sick and tired, and sick and tired of being sick and tired, of the criminalization of poverty,” plans to introduce a bill requiring drug tests for the rich before high-dollar tax deductions are approved. U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, a Democrat from Milwaukee, told the Guardian in an interview Wednesday that her initiative was inspired by fellow Wisconsinite Paul Ryan’s new “anti-poverty” plan…
“We’re officially living in a new world”: Antarctica hits CO2 high unseen in 4 million years Salon …Carbon dioxide has been steadily rising since the start of the Industrial Revolution, setting a new high year after year. There’s a notable new entry to the record books. The last station on Earth without a 400 parts per million (ppm) reading has reached it. In the remote reaches of Antarctica, the South Pole Observatory carbon dioxide observing station cleared 400 ppm on May 23, according to an announcement from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Wednesday…
Goldman Sachs Just Ate Denmark for Breakfast Truthout …Goldman Sachs stands to make a huge profit from the purchase of 19% of Denmark’s national energy company, Dong Energy, for 8 billion Danish kroner ($1.2 billion) two years ago. When Goldman bought it, the energy company was valued at $6.7 billion, a suspiciously low price. Many analysts warned that not all was right, and that it was not in the Danish taxpayers’ interest, to privatize as valuable an infrastructure as Dong Energy…
‘You were born in a Taco Bell’: Trump’s rhetoric fuels school bullies across US The Guardian …An online survey of approximately 2,000 K-12 teachers by the Southern Poverty Law Center found toxic political rhetoric invading elementary, middle and high schools, emboldening children to make racist taunts that leave others bewildered and anxious. “We mapped it out. There was no state or region that jumped out. It was everywhere,” said Maureen Costello…