TEAMSTERS

Long Battle Ends With Strong Contract For Teamsters At Roma Food  Teamster.org  …Food distribution drivers and warehouse workers at Roma Food, a Performance Food Group (PFG) company, are celebrating after winning a strong first contract as members of Teamsters Local 630 in Los Angeles. The new agreement covers 200 workers, including 110 drivers and 90 warehouse workers. “Local 630 is committed to winning strong contracts in the foodservice industry,” said Lou Villalvazo, Secretary-Treasurer of Local 630…

Laurentian Intercity Bus Drivers on Strike  Montreal Gazette  …Some 125 bus drivers employed by Transdev and who serve the Conseil intermunicipal de transport des Laurentides will be on strike as of tomorrow at 4:15 am. The labour dispute, which involves members of Teamsters Local Union 106, stems from management’s unwillingness to offer better wages. The walkout will affect intercity and intermediary transportation in fourteen municipalities…

Port truck drivers to return to work after week-long strike  Daily Breeze  …Port truck drivers on strike for nearly a week will return to work this afternoon after picketing today at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, a union official said. The job action was taken to protest their “misclassification as independent contractors and other labor law violations,” said Teamsters Union spokesperson Barb Maynard. Port truck drivers have been on strike since Tuesday…

 

GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE

Greek State Hospital Workers, Teachers on Strike  ABC  …Greek state hospital workers and teachers have walked off the job, demanding back pay and protesting staffing shortages they say are the result of government policies imposed as part of the country’s bailout program. Wednesday’s 24-hour strike by doctors, nurses and paramedics left state hospitals functioning with emergency staff, while striking port workers from the main ports of Piraeus and Thessaloniki were protesting bailout-linked privatizations…

Nigeria: Unpaid for Months, ThisDay Workers Serve Strike Notice  AllAfrica  …Distressed workers of ThisDay Newspapers on Tuesday gave its management till Friday to pay the backlog of several months of unpaid salaries or face a week warning strike. The action will become indefinite if their demands are not met at the end of the warning strike strike action, the staff said…

TPP Menaces US Food, Water, Property Rights – 450 Group Alliance  Sputnik News  …US lawmakers must reject the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement as it poses a direct threat to water and food quality and to property rights across the United States, a coalition of more than 450 civil society groups wrote in a letter to Congress…

How Low Would We Go for TPP?  (opinion) Huffington Post  …The Trans-Pacific Partnership raises the question: How low would we go to get the next NAFTA-style deal? he rules in TPP are very controversial because the rules define power relationships, and those power relationships determine who will take the gains from globalization. President Obama wants us to set the rules, so China doesn’t. Good. But “our” rules were written by and for global investors… 

State Department Won’t Release Clinton Emails About Controversial Trade Deal Until After 2016 Election  Gawker  …Last year, International Business Times reporter David Sirota filed a Freedom of Information Act request for emails between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the United States Trade Representative, a federal agency concerned with negotiating international trade policy, in which the two offices discussed the Trans-Pacific Partnership…

TTIP Work between US and EU Resumes in July  Hoosier Ag Today  …Negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership are set to continue next month. The trade agreement is between the European Union and the United States, and upon resumption of talks in July American Farm Bureau trade specialist Dave Salmonsen says many agriculture issues must be resolved to complete the deal…

Uber Reverses South Africa Fare Cuts as Drivers Are Worse Off  Bloomberg  …Uber Technologies Inc. will on Monday reverse fare cuts announced in South Africa two months ago, saying demand didn’t grow enough to ensure that drivers made the same amount of money as at the previous price levels. “We cut prices to encourage more riders to use Uber,” Alon Lits, general manager for sub-Saharan Africa, said by e-mail…

Let’s Stop the Downgrading of Workers and Jobs in Supply Chains  (opinion) Equal Times  …Improved transport and logistics is a key driver of global supply chains, yet transport workers – such as seafarers, fishers, lorry drivers – are often the hidden workforce in those chains, subject to exploitation and abuse. They are on the sharp end of the changing structure of employment and the growth in aggressive business models…

 

STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES

Wisconsin voter ID law challengers to seek injunction  Journal Times  …Those challenging Wisconsin’s voter identification law in federal court say they will soon be asking that people having trouble getting the required ID be allowed to vote in the August primary. American Civil Liberties Union attorney Sean Young said Tuesday that the ACLU will be filing a motion in federal court… 

DC City Council approves $15 minimum wage  The Hill  …The City Council of Washington, D.C., on Tuesday voted to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, WTOP reported. Mayor Muriel Bowser has said she will sign the bill, which will raise the wage gradually through 2020. The District’s minimum wage is currently $10.50 and will be raised to $11.50 next month as prescribed by a law passed in 2014…

San Diego’s Minimum Wage Measure Wins Easily  KPBS  …Democrats celebrated Tuesday night that San Diego’s measure to raise the minimum wage and guarantee sick days for workers easily passed. Proposition I passed with more than 60 percent of the vote. “Nobody who works hard, full time should live in poverty,” said Dale Kelly Bankhead of the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council… 

10 Kentucky House races to watch  Courier-Journal  …Kentucky Republicans say they have years of momentum and that a big voter turnout in November for a presidential election will help them seize majority control of the Kentucky House of Representatives for the first time since 1921. But Democrats survived an GOP aggressive challenge in 2014 and say that momentum swung back their way in March when Democrats won three of four special elections for vacant House seats…

Indiana governor fundraises for Cole, talks right-to-work  Gazette-Mail  …Praising right-to-work laws, regulatory reforms and charter schools, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence boosted Bill Cole’s candidacy for governor at a Charleston fundraiser on Tuesday. Speaking to about 70 donors at the Embassy Suites hotel, Pence touted his state’s right-to-work law, passed by his predecessor in 2012…

Unions sign labor agreement for Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia  Post-Gazette  …The Democratic National Convention Committee has signed an official project labor agreement with local trade unions for work at convention venues in Philadelphia, a union-strong city that contrasts sharply with Charlotte, N.C., site of the party’s last nominating convention. In 2012, many labor groups stayed away because they were angry that the party picked a host city in a right-to-work state that they said had too few unionized workers…

 

U.S. LABOR

Worker Unity Brings Victory at Verizon  Huffington Post  …The largest strike in recent history ended on Wednesday, as nearly 40,000 Verizon field technicians, call-center workers and others went back to work after more than six weeks on the line. The strike captured the public’s imagination not just because of its size and duration, but because it laid bare the seedy underbelly of the attack on good jobs in America…

Honeywell and UAW Local 9 negotiations resume  WNDU  …According to Scott Sayres, Honeywell’s communications director, the two sides had a production day of discussions but didn’t reach an agreement. The company locked out union workers last month after the union rejected Honeywell’s proposed contract. Workers say they are demanding better compensation, but Honeywell said in their statement that “the company’s last, best and final offer remains in place”…

5th Cir. Backs NLRB Ruling on Macy’s Bargaining Unit  Bloomberg  …The appeals court June 2 upheld the NLRB’s certification of a unit of cosmetics and fragrances employees at a Massachusetts Macy’s department store, rejecting the company’s argument that the ruling departed from NLRB precedent and abused the board’s discretion. A number of business groups supported the retailer’s challenge of the board action…

Helen Chavez, widow of farmworkers’ union founder, dies at 88  SF Gate  …Helen Chavez, widow of civil rights and farm labor leader Cesar Chavez, died Monday at age 88. Ms. Chavez died at a hospital in Bakersfield, surrounded by many of her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, according to a family statement released through the United Farm Workers, the union her husband founded…

‘In danger every day’: Report details hazards facing sanitation workers in NYC  Safety & Health  …Injuries and fatalities are prevalent in the New York City commercial waste industry despite being easily preventable, according to a recent report from the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health. Sanitation workers face a fatality risk that is 10 times higher than workers in all other industries, and their injury risk is 2.5 times higher than miners, the report states…

A push to get workers with disabilities into regular jobs  Boston Globe  …Slightly more than one in four working-age people with disabilities is employed, according to the Department of Labor. But the movement to get more of them into the workforce is growing, part of a shift toward inclusion and self-advocacy by people with disabilities, said Margaret Van Gelder, director of employment and family support at the state’s Department of Developmental Services…

Uber’s car leasing program turns its drivers into modern-day sharecroppers  QZ  …Behind the shiny veneer of Uber’s venture capital–backed technological innovation lies a time-tested business model: labor exploitation. Uber’s latest scheme is a new spin on the age-old practice of sharecropping. Struggling to find enough drivers willing to put miles on their own cars, Uber recently began offering subprime auto loans…

Pride Month: Why Working People in Unions Are Fighting LGBTQ Discrimination in the Workplace  AFL-CIO  …The strongest protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer working people are found in a union contract. Working people in unions have fought hard to make sure that employers cannot discriminate against people. This includes helping pass laws that protect LGBTQ working people, especially transgender people…

 

SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS

Why Did Black Lives Matter Activist Face Four Years in Jail While Stanford Rapist Gets Six Months?  Democracy Now  …In California, Black Lives Matter activist Jasmine Richards was sentenced to 90 days in jail, with 18 days served, and 3 years on probation. She was convicted of a rarely used statute in California law known up until recently as “felony lynching.” Police accused her of trying to de-arrest someone during a peace march…

Donald Trump Overrules “Not So Smart” Staff, Tells Surrogates to Call Media Members Racist  Slate  …Donald Trump has been running around television saying that the judge overseeing a lawsuit against Trump University, Gonzalo Curiel, is biased against Trump because “he’s a Mexican.” Curiel is a Mexican American from Indiana whose father came to the United States years before Trump’s mother did, so what Trump is doing is being a racist, and everyone, including many of his endorsees, are telling him to back off…

New Data Shows The School-To-Prison Pipeline Starts As Early As Preschool  Think Progress  …Black students are disproportionately suspended from class, starting as early as preschool, according to new data from the U.S. Department of Education collected from all public school districts during the 2013-2014 school year. Black preschool children were 3.6 times more likely than white children to receive one or more out-of-school suspensions, according to the survey data…

New House Republican ‘anti-poverty plan’ repackages GOP proposals  Politico  …Speaker Paul Ryan and House Republicans rolled out a new plan on Tuesday to fight poverty and help Americans move up the economic ladder, yet much of this latest initiative is repackaged GOP proposals likely to win only limited support from Democrats…