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Today’s Teamster News For July 11, 2016
TEAMSTERS
Teamsters Mourn the Loss of Local 320 Member Philando Castile Teamster.org …The International Brotherhood of Teamsters is saddened by the loss of Teamster brother Philando Castile in this week’s tragic shooting in Minnesota. Brother Castile was a 14-year member of Minnesota Teamsters Local 320 which represents public and law enforcement employees. “We must continue to address issues of racial and economic inequality to ensure that tragedies such as Brother Castile’s death cease to occur,” Hoffa said…
Teamster was one of two African-Americans shot dead People’s World …Philando Castile, a Teamsters Local 320 member and nutrition services supervisor at the J.J. Hill Montessori school in St. Paul, Minn., was one of two African-American men shot dead by police while unresisting on the nights of July 6-7. His death in the suburb of Falcon Heights, and that of Alton Sterling, of Baton Rouge, La., led to peaceful protests and renewed demands for probes of police shootings…
Teamsters at Darigold Vote 159-1 to Strike Local 117 …Darigold production workers and lab technicians at the company’s Seattle and Issaquah milk processing plants voted overwhelmingly to strike on Saturday. The results of the vote were 159 in favor of a strike to 1 opposed. Voting took place at three meetings throughout the day at the Teamsters Union Hall in Tukwila. “We all stand behind each other,” said Henning Jensen, a 27-year Darigold employee and member of the union bargaining committee…
Darigold workers in Seattle, Issaquah vote to strike KIRO …Darigold workers in Seattle and Issaquah voted to strike Saturday. About 200 workers will be affected by the strike. The company said it is actively working with the workers and will be at the bargaining table next week. In a July 10 press release, Teamsters Local Union No. 117 accuses the company of violating federal labor law by engaging in illegal surveillance of its workers and unilaterally changing working conditions…
Members’ Powerful Testimony Shakes Negotiations Local 2010 …A powerful negotiation session was held yesterday as Local 2010 CX Bargaining Unit members shared their stories of personal hardships due to the poverty wages at the University of California. “UC’s unfair pay practices have real impact on real people,” said Secretary-Treasurer Jason Rabinowitz. “We will continue to tell our stories until UC agrees to a fair contract and pays workers enough to live”…
GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
Ghana: Airport Union Workers On Strike, More Flights to Be Suspended AllAfrica …Unionized workers of the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) have threatened to resume their strike if government fails to hand over the entire 640 acres of land for the installation of their equipment. The Lands and Natural Resources Ministry has allocated 20 out of the 640 acres of land at la Nkwantanan near Adenta for the installation of the equipment…
Democrats Toughen Trade Stance—but Reject Formal Opposition to the TPP The Nation … “The majority of Democrats, like the majority of Americans, are against the TPP. Hillary is against the TPP. Bernie is against the TPP. Let’s not be bureaucrats, let’s be leaders,” declared former NAACP president Ben Jealous as he urged the Democratic Party’s platform committee to amend the document to include specific opposition to the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal…
Warren goes on offense to stop Pacific trade deal The Hill …Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Thursday went on the offensive in her efforts to stop a pending Asia-Pacific deal from moving through Congress this year. Warren, in a new video released by Credo Action, said the United States shouldn’t move forward with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) because the 12-nation agreement benefits corporations instead of U.S. workers…
EU and US negotiators gather for more TTIP talks EU Observer …The EU still hopes to reach one of the biggest bilateral trade deals in history before US president Barack Obama leaves the White House in January. But they still have find common ground on a number of issues and swing public opinion, and the bloc is about to lose a major free trade defender – the UK, which could be less focused on working for an EU deal while it would have to negotiate its own trade agreements after Brexit is effective…
Leaked TTIP energy proposal could ‘sabotage’ EU climate policy The Guardian …The latest draft version of the TTIP agreement could sabotage European efforts to save energy and switch to clean power, according to MEPs. A 14th round of the troubled negotiations on a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) free trade deal between the EU and US is due to begin on Monday in Brussels…
The most important free trade agreement you’ve never heard of Politico …Nearly two dozen countries have spent the last three years wrangling over a trade deal that will set the rules governing trade in services for much of the world for decades to come. Yet you’ve likely never heard of it. Other mammoth trade deals have triggered demonstrations across the EU and the U.S. while the so-called Trade in Services Agreement’s technicalities are being worked out largely without political pushback…
Uzbekistan Forced Labor Linked to World Bank Loan Solidarity Center …An Uzbek victim of forced labor in cotton production and three human rights defenders filed a complaint against the World Bank’s private lending arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), according to a coalition of human rights groups. The June 30 complaint seeks an investigation into forced labor connected to a $40 million loan to Indorama Kokand Textile, which operates in Uzbekistan…
STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
Missouri voter ID bill is vetoed by Gov. Jay Nixon Kansas City Star …Gov. Jay Nixon on Thursday vetoed a bill establishing a photo ID requirement to cast a ballot, calling the legislation “an affront to Missourians’ fundamental right to vote.” “Making voting more difficult for qualified voters and disenfranchising certain classes of people is wrong,” Nixon said in a letter to lawmakers explaining his veto…
California: prevailing wages paid to drivers delivering concrete to public works projects ILO …Late last year, California expanded the definition of public works requiring the payment of prevailing wages to include the hauling or delivery of ready-mixed concrete for a public works project. The new law marks a significant departure from the laws that govern the construction industry, which have distinguished between the performance of construction work and the supply of construction materials…
Sanders scores platform victory, calls for $15 minimum wage NBC …Bernie Sanders’ crusade to shape the Democratic party platform scored a win late Friday night, with the approval of an amendment calling for increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 over time. The fight to get more explicit platform language around wages showed the Vermont senator’s campaign still fighting for the liberal issues that made up his “political revolution” even as his clout fades…
Nearly Half Of U.S. States Are Now Fighting To Discriminate Against Transgender Students Think Progress …Nearly half the states in the country are now fighting to make sure that transgender students can be discriminated against in schools. On Friday, ten states filed a federal lawsuit in Nebraska challenging the federal government’s recent guidance about the protections transgender students deserve under the law. The lawsuit joins a separate suit that Texas — along with about a dozen states or their governors — filed in May…
Idaho has nation’s 9th-highest rate of workers earning minimum wage or less Spokesman Review …Idaho, which not long ago ranked first in the nation for the percentage of its workers earning minimum wage or less, ranked 9th in 2015, the same ranking it held in 2014. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 15,000 of Idaho’s 458,000 hourly wage workers earned exactly $7.25 an hour in 2015, while another 6,000 earned less…
U.S. LABOR
Lockheed and Machinists union reach tentative contract agreement Star Telegram …With only days left in the current labor agreement, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics and its Machinists union have agreed to a tentative contract, aiming to avoid a debilitating strike at the massive Fort Worth plant where the F-35 stealth fighter is built. Negotiators for Lockheed and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District Lodge 776 agreed to a proposed six-year contract late Wednesday…
Labor board denies Rauner’s request to expedite union case NW Herald …A state labor board dealt a blow to Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner on Thursday, denying his administration’s unusual request to circumvent a legal recommendation and expedite deciding whether negotiations with the state’s largest public employees union have stalled. The unanimous vote by the Illinois Labor Relations Board, whose members are appointed by the governor, left the high-stakes case in the hands of an administrative law judge who’s already held hearings and will issue a recommendation to the board…
Kroger’s Nashville Division Ratifies Agreement with UFCW Local 1995 Yahoo …The Kroger Co. (KR) today announced that associates working at 93 stores in the company’s Nashville division have ratified a new labor agreement with Local 1995. The agreement covers 12,000 associates working in Middle and East Tennessee, North Alabama and South Kentucky…
Strike Threat Again Facing UFCW, California Grocers Bloomberg …The increasingly crowded supermarket industry in Southern California might make negotiating a new labor contract for some 48,000 affected workers harder than it has been in recent years, analysts told Bloomberg BNA. Two developments are limiting the bargaining power wielded by the United Food and Commercial Workers and traditional grocery stores operating in Southern California…
Medical and dental assistants join union Journal Inquirer …Medical and dental assistants at Community Health Services Inc. clinics in Hartford and Windsor have voted to join a union that already represents physicians and nurses there. The assistants voted in a National Labor Relations Board-supervised election to be represented by AFT Connecticut. “My decision to vote ‘Union Yes’ was about making sure our patients keep getting the care they need,” said Monique Davis, a women’s health medical assistant who’s worked at CHS for nine years…
Sakuma Bros. Farms to allow farmworkers to vote on union representation Skagit Valley Herald …Sakuma Bros. Farms will allow farmworkers to vote on union representation, according to a news release Friday from the farm. The workers will vote on whether they want to be represented by Familias Unidas por la Justicia, a labor group that has long been calling on Sakuma Bros. for better wages and the opportunity to negotiate a union contract…
It’s getting hot in Indianapolis: Corporate greed moves 2,100 more American jobs to Mexico Salon …Severing this workforce of 2,100 top-quality, experienced and dedicated producers makes questionable business sense: The move to Mexico is expected to save UTC only $70 million a year in labor costs. But UTC’s greedy Wall Street investment bankers demanded that the giant go on a cost-cutting binge aimed at generating a 17-percent hike in its stock price over the next two years…
For older workers, getting a new job is a crapshoot CNBC …Getting fired for getting old — or never being considered for an opening in the first place — is a problem that’s only going to get worse. America’s workforce is getting older, and fast. By 2022, about 35 percent of the U.S. labor force will be over 50, according to AARP. That’s up from 25 percent in 2002. At the same time, a stubbornly middling economic recovery continues to set old workers against younger ones…
SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
Officials Say Dallas Sniper, a Former US Army Soldier, Acted Alone Common Dreams …Officials have confirmed that Micah X. Johnson is the identity of the suspect killed after an ambush on Dallas police on Friday that wounded seven people and killed five police officers. On Friday, local officials said the police had taken four suspects into custody. They are now confirming that Johnson is the sole suspect and that he acted alone…
Why the NRA took so long to comment on the Philando Castile police shooting Vox …The NRA has an uneasy alliance with police. Both police unions and the NRA are conservative groups, and many police officers are also gun owners and NRA members. The NRA, then, has an interest in not upsetting police — especially since the facts of the shooting remain unclear due to the lack of video of the shooting itself…
Total Chaos Erupts as Baton Rouge Police Assault Protesters and Deploy Sound Cannon US Uncut …Protesters in Baton Rouge have been met with a wave of police in full riot gear, and there were mass arrests at a gathering near the corner of France and East. Earlier in the day, a sanctioned march with about 1,000 protesters proceeded without incident. A second, unauthorized protest seemed to start off peaceful enough around 6 p.m. local time, but police began pushing back the crowd after about 90 minutes…
The Bahamas Issued A Travel Warning To The United States Think Progress …The Bahamas issued a travel warning to the United States on Friday, cautioning its citizens about police violence in the country. “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Immigration has taken a note of the recent tensions in some American cities over shootings of young black males by police officers,” the statement read. “We wish to advise all Bahamians traveling to the US but especially to the affected cities to exercise appropriate caution”…
Death, Abuse and Sexual Assault: The Horrific and Unregulated Private Prison Extradition Industry Democracy Now …As protests against police brutality spread across the United States, a shocking new joint investigation by the New York Times and the Marshall Project looks at a little-examined part of the criminal justice system: the horrific, and sometimes fatal, private prison extradition industry. Each year, tens of thousands of fugitives and suspects — many who have never been convicted of a crime — are entrusted to a handful of small private companies…