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Today’s Teamster News For June 6, 2016
TEAMSTERS
Local 760 Finally Secures Win Against Noel Canning Teamster.org …A Washington state bottling company that caused a political brewhaha all in an effort to avoid its failure to comply with a collective bargaining agreement involving Local 760 members finally lost its case. A federal appeals court last month upheld a December 2014 NLRB ruling that determined Local 760 members working at Noel Canning in Yakima, Wash. had a bargaining agreement with the company since 2010…
Teamsters Call On Ports Of LA/Long Beach To Ban Trucking Companies Who “Misclassify” Drivers JDOT …Fred Potter, director of the Teamsters Union Port Division, in an interview with AJOT said the Teamsters are calling on the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to “ban trucking companies from Port property when they illegally misclassify truck drivers” as independent contractors…
Teamsters pick Albany for pension protest Times Union …Members of the Teamsters union angered over propose cuts in union pensions are expected to protest outside a federal building downtown. The rally is expected to begin at 9 a.m. outside the Leo O’Brien Building on Clinton Avenue. The Treasury Department rejected an effort by the Central States Pension Plan to cut benefits for 270,000 retired workers starting in July…
GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
Hundreds of Dominican Food Workers Win Union Solidarity Center …More than half of the workers at the eight Frito Lay worksites in the Dominican Republic who sought a voice on the job received official verification of their new union in recent days, culminating a process that began in April. When the 621 sales, distribution and production workers joined the National Union of Workers of Dominican Frito Lay (SINTRALAYDO), their efforts were delayed by factory management…
Nigeria: Labour Backs Ekiti, Ondo Workers Strike AllAfrica …The Joint National Public Service Negotiation Council (Trade Union Side) has said it is solidly behind workers in Ondo and Ekiti states over the ongoing strike by the workers over unpaid salaries. The Council said the main contention that ignited the strike actions were failure of the government’s of the two states to pay monthly salaries of their workers for the past five months…
Strikes, Protests Disrupt France as Tourist Season and Euro 2016 Loom NBC …France is no stranger to strike action — it’s typically business as usual for tourists and locals when workers take to the streets. That looks set to change for the most visited country in the world, which is bracing for a third week of strikes. Unions are angry at a package of government labor reforms that will give big companies more freedom to hire and fire workers or extend working hours…
TPP mired as Congress returns Politico …It could be a long, sleepy summer for the Trans-Pacific Partnership one year after Congress nearly ripped itself apart to give President Barack Obama “fast track” authority to finish the landmark Asia-Pacific deal. Lawmakers return this week from their Memorial Day break with no indication that either House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady or Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch will take any action on the agreement…
Emails Show How Wall Street Execs and Alums Crafted the TPP Alternet …Foreign corporations could sue to undermine US protections for consumers’ health, safety and financial security under a provision added to the proposed TPP after executives of big banks pressed the nation’s chief trade negotiator to include it. A series of emails, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and released last week by Rootstrikers confirm the push by financial service companies for the “Investor-State Dispute Settlement” provision…
State Department Blocks Release Of Hillary Clinton-Era TPP Emails Until After The Election IBTimes …Trade is a hot issue in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. But correspondence from Hillary Clinton and her top State Department aides about a controversial 12-nation trade deal will not be available for public review — at least not until after the election. The Obama administration abruptly blocked the release of Clinton’s State Department correspondence about the TPP…
Sen. Al Franken: Why I oppose the Trans-Pacific Deal Daily Globe …In the coming months, Congress will likely face a vote on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a massive trade deal covering 12 countries and 40 percent of global trade. It’s the largest trade deal the United States has ever negotiated, and would have an enormous effect on workers in every corner of the country. It’s clear that we need a new approach to trade. Unfortunately, the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiated by the Barack Obama administration isn’t it…
Noam Chomsky blows the lid off of the ‘extreme’ TTIP trade deal Raw Story …o weeks after Greenpeace released 280 pages on the TTIP trade agreement, Noam Chomsky spoke with Channel 4 about why he believes the new agreement has nothing to do with reducing tariffs, calling it “pretty extreme.” Chomsky points out that “the so-called free-trade agreements are not free-trade agreements. To a larger extend they’re not even trade agreements. These are investor rights agreements”…
STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
Cost of NM housing outpaces minimum wage Albuquerque Journal …A full-time head of household, working at New Mexico’s minimum wage, would have to clock 86 hours per week to afford a modest two-bedroom apartment, according to the just released “Out of Reach 2016” study. The study was conducted by the National Low Income Housing Coalition…
North Carolina voter ID law generates controversy The Chronicle …North Carolina’s controversial voter identification law will stay in place after a ruling by U.S. District Judge Thomas Schroeder at the end of April. The 2013 law calls for North Carolina voters to bring photo identification when casting their ballots, eliminates same-day registration and ends “out-of-precinct” voting…
Special interests pour record $24M into lawmakers’ races OC Register …Special interest groups have poured a record $24 million so far into California legislative races ahead of Tuesday’s primary election as real estate agents, dentists, businesses, charter schools and others seek to influence the makeup of the Legislature. California Republicans are often on the margins in a state dominated by Democrats. With that being the case, some traditional GOP donors are now throwing their money behind business-friendly Democrats…
Why Virginia’s Restoration of Voting Rights Matters The Atlantic …In April, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe restored voting rights to more than 200,000 people with felony convictions. The provision in the state’s constitution that bans felons from voting stemmed from attempts to prevent African Americans from voting. “The whole genesis of what we’re talking about goes to the core of racism in this country,” McAuliffe says…
The Women Who Are Taking on Walmart Truthout …Pico Rivera is a dusty working-class Latino suburb of Los Angeles. After the school district, Walmart is the city’s largest employer. More than 500 families in the town depend on income from the store. The town is also the epicenter of activism by Walmart workers in the United States. Walmart associates have been fighting for four years to pressure the world’s largest private employer to grant its workers decent conditions, a living wage and regular hours…
U.S. LABOR
Portland State graduate employees’ union approved Oregon Live …Oregon’s Employment Relations Board certified Portland State University’s PSU’s Graduate Employees Union this week, granting 800 administrative, teaching and research assistants on the Park Blocks the right to join a labor union. The new union joins graduate employees at Oregon State and the University of Oregon as the only state unions representing graduate student workers…
At Macy’s Rally, Union Members Demand a Fair Contract Observer …More than one hundred union members employed by Macy’s rallied outside the Herald Square store on Thursday afternoon to demand a fair contract, just one week before their contract is set to expire. Members of Local 1-S of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union swarmed 34th street to protest new work rules imposed by Macy’s…
Transit union says Baltimore’s subway is rat-infested, demands MTA response Baltimore Sun …Union workers who operate the Baltimore Metro subway protested at the Mondawmin station Thursday against a rat infestation they say Maryland Transit Administration management has ignored for years while it festered into unbearable working conditions. “Down inside this system, it is a death trap down there,” said David McClure, president of Baltimore ATU Local 1300…
NLRB curbs justification for permanent replacements Workday Minnesota …In a legal win for workers and unions, the National Labor Relations Boardis sharply curbing employer justification for hiring and using “permanent replacements” for workers forced to strike for economic reasons. The board majority said employers must prove they do not have other, unlawful, motives for permanently replacing striking workers…
New Survey Reports Uber Drivers Are Investing Big in the Company But Get Little Stability In These Times …Conducted by the Partnership for Working Families and Coworker.org, the survey polled more than 300 Uber drivers between March and May of this year and found that a majority of them have made significant personal investments for their future with the service. 57 percent of Uber drivers have “have bought, leased, or made substantial investments in vehicles to drive for Uber”…
SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
‘I Just Wanted to Be Free’: The Radical Reverberations of Muhammad Ali The Nation …The death of Muhammad Ali will undoubtedly move people’s minds to his epic boxing matches against Joe Frazier and George Foreman, or there will be retrospectives about his epic “rumbles” against racism and war. What Muhammad Ali did—in a culture that worships sports and violence as well as a culture that idolizes black athletes while criminalizing black skin—was redefine what it meant to be tough and collectivize the very idea of courage…
Don’t remember Muhammad Ali as a sanctified sports hero. He was a powerful, dangerous political force LA Times …Ali’s death, however, should be an opportunity to remember what made him so dangerous in the first place. The best place to start would be to recall the part of him that died decades ago: his voice. Political courage might seem to be in short supply, but it was inside a young boxer from Louisville who dreamed about being King of the World. Goodbye, Champ. Rest in power and peace…
Progressives Rejoice As Obama Announces Support For Expanding Social Security NH Labor News …Progressives are celebrating a huge win this week as President Obama announced his support for expanding Social Security as part of a larger economic agenda. This is a complete change in direction for Obama as it was only a few years ago that he was willing to make cuts to Social Security as part of his “Grand Bargain” with Republicans…
The Surging Cost of Basic Needs The Atlantic …A new report from The Hamilton Project of the Brookings Institution looks at how the composition of household spending across income levels has changed over the past 30 years. Analyzing data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Consumer Expenditure Survey, the report found that budgets have indeed shifted—particularly for low-income families…
Chicago residents take action to be rid of lead pipes as fear of toxic water grows The Guardian …Residents of America’s third largest city have been given disturbing warnings over their potential exposure to lead. According to the EPA, people in Chicago should run their faucets for three minutes to help clear most of the lead out. This advice, along with the Flint disaster and several uncomfortably high lead readings in Chicago, has sparked a stampede of residents demanding their water tested or lead lines ripped up…