TEAMSTERS

Apple Shuttle Drivers Overwhelmingly Ratify Teamsters Contract    Teamsters…Apple shuttle drivers who are members of Teamsters Local 853 in Oakland have voted overwhelmingly in favor of a first agreement. The more than 30 Apple drivers work for Loop Transportation, which also employs Teamster drivers at Facebook. The new contract provides for improvements that many other tech industry contracts negotiated by Teamsters Local 853 include…

Teamsters Celebrate Unity And Diversity At Teamsters National Hispanic Caucus   Teamsters…More than 150 Teamster delegates gathered on the opening day of the biannual convening of the Teamsters National Hispanic Caucus (THNC) at Bally’s Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, N.J. “One of the greatest values of our union is our commitment to diversity and I am proud that the Teamsters have maintained their commitment to uplift all people, including the growing number of Hispanic people in the United States,” said George Miranda, President of the THNC and Local 210…

Hispanic Caucus Concludes With Election Of Executive Board   Teamsters…The Teamsters National Hispanic Caucus (THNC) Executive Board was sworn in for a two-year term on Saturday, July 30th, on the final day of the 2016 biannual THNC in Atlantic City, N.J. George Miranda was re-elected as President of the THNC and Ron Herrera was re-appointed as Caucus Executive Director. Secretary-Treasurer Ruben Torres, Recording Secretary Jesse Miranda, 1st Vice President Maria Perez, 2nd Vice President Jaime Vazquez and Trustees Olga Gonzales, Oscar Gonzales, Alexis Rodriguez, Ashley Alvarado and Hector Hernandez were all re-elected for two-year terms…

WWTCOA Members Join Local 117   Teamsters Local 117…At their annual meeting, taxicab operators in the Western Washington Taxi Cab Operators Association (WWTCOA) voted unanimously to join Teamsters Local 117 as full-fledged union members. The vote took place during the annual meeting on July 27 at the Teamsters Hall in Tukwila…

Transit Officials In Tentative Agreement With Drivers   Seaside Courier…North County Transit District buses were back on schedule Thursday afternoon, thanks to a tentative agreement with drivers. First Transit officials said the tentative agreement with the Teamsters Local 542 of San Diego means passengers of the North County Transit District, LIFT paratransit, FLEX, and BREEZE will have continuous, uninterrupted service…

Lewis County Approves Settlement With 911 Workers Claiming Unfair Labor Practice   The Chronicle (Centralia, WA)…The Board of County Commissioners approved settlement agreement this week after an accusation of unfair labor practices with E911 Communications employees. The agreement requires Lewis County to pay members of the Teamsters Local 252 Union employed with the 911 Communications Center between October 2015 and March 2016 a sum of $500 each…

HDI Union Lockout Drags On   Journal-Inquirer (Hartford, CT)…The nearly two-month-long lockout of union workers at Hartford Distributors Inc. remains unresolved even as both sides prepare for a memorial next week marking the sixth anniversary of the mass shooting at the 131 Chapel Road beer distributor. Both Teamsters Local 1035 and HDI officials said Thursday that they would set aside their differences on Wednesday to focus on remembering their fallen co-workers…

Newville Borough Officials Reinstate Police Officer   Shippensburgh Sentinel…The new police contract with Teamsters Union Local 776 was approved by the council during a special meeting July 19. It addresses salary increases, benefits and working conditions, according to Borough Manager Fred Potzer. “It will cost the borough an additional $29,000 to implement,” he said…

 

GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE

Over 150,000 Passengers Affected By Air France Strike   Al Jazeera…Strikes by Air France flight attendants in the past five days have led to 900 flights being cancelled and more than 150,000 passengers affected through Sunday.  The week-long strike is expected to last until Tuesday evening. On Monday, the French airliner expects 20 per cent of medium-haul flights to and from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris to be affected, but said it will operate more than 95 per cent of long-haul flights…

The Price Of Becoming Asia’s World City: Attracting Global Trade Opens Hong Kong To Laundering   South China Morning Post…As Chief Executive Leung ­Chun-ying has sought to position Hong Kong as Asia’s world city and a “super-connector” in global trade, the city has also battled notoriety for being a fundraising platform for money laundering and even terrorist activity. Anti-fraud regulations have been imposed by foreign governments over the past few years, such as the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act in the US, along with international anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing regulations…

Argentina, Mexico Deepen Economic Accord In Bid For Free Trade Agreement   Reuters…The presidents of Argentina and Mexico agreed to deepen a pre-existing commercial accord on Friday, in a bid to set the groundwork for a bilateral free trade agreement. The ACE 6, as the treaty is called in Spanish, lowers tariffs on some products and includes a number of principles regulating trade. It has been in effect since 1987, though leaders have attempted to renegotiate aspects in recent years…

Trade Deal’s Supporters Counterattack   Politico…Democrats ripped President Barack Obama’s Asia Pacific trade deal in Philadelphia this week, much as Republicans had the week before in Cleveland. But despite the boisterous politics and candidates’ dead-on-arrival declarations, business groups have launched a well-funded, national effort to lobby their way to TPP approval…

A Major Gain From US Elections Would Be The Collapse Of TPP, Which Threatens India’s Export Prospects   Times of India (opinion)…Whatever be the final outcome of the US presidential election in early November one thing that is certain is that India will end up a major gainer. This is because, despite all their differences, one thing that both the Democratic and Republican candidates for President have in common is their agreement to jettison the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the giant mega regional preferential trade agreement (PTA) of Pacific Rim countries that has been so painstakingly pushed by the Obama administration…

German Transatlantic Coordinator Goes To US, Canada For Free Trade Talks   Sputnick News…German coordinator for transatlantic cooperation Juergen Hardt will travel to the United States and Canada this week in a bid to promote closer economic ties, the German Foreign Office said Monday. This comes days after German Chancellor Angela Merkel denied claims that talks on the EU-US free trade pact, called the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), had collapsed…

Coalition To World Bank: Hold Uzbekistan Accountable   Solidarity Center…In a July 29 letter to key World Bank officials, the Cotton Campaign, a coalition of dozens of labor and human rights groups that includes the Solidarity Center, wrote: “The World Bank should take all reasonable measures to create an enabling environment for independent actors to monitor projects that it finances. We have not seen the bank take such measures in Uzbekistan.” The World Bank Group is providing more than $500 million in financing to the government of Uzbekistan for its agriculture sector and additional financing to multinational companies processing forced-labor cotton in Uzbekistan…

 

STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES

These Policies Could Move America Toward A Universal Basic Income   The Nation…Still, a guaranteed basic income would require a big shift in perspective among American voters. What we need is a policy (or perhaps several of them) that benefits Americans while destigmatizing the concept of giving people no-strings-attached cash. Think of it as a basic-income starter kit, which would also include things like a $12-an-hour minimum wage and generous paid leave. And there’s one policy in particular that should lead: a basic income for children…

Gig Economy Workers: Independent Contractors Or Indentured Servants?   Salon…What if millions of American workers were being denied health insurance, job security and the most basic legal protections, from overtime pay to workers compensation to the right to join a union? What if tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer revenues — money desperately needed to address everything from crumbling roads to education to health care — were never making it to local, state and federal treasuries? What if thousands of companies were violating the law with impunity? That is exactly what is happening in the United States today, thanks to a rampant practice known as worker misclassification — illegally labeling workers as independent contractors when in fact they are employees under the law…

Read Between The Lines Of The Minimum-Wage Experiment    Seattle Times (opinion)…Seattle may be willing to make these trade-offs. Other communities and states also seem to be willing, as the nationwide movement indicates. But those followers should know the real effects — good and bad — of Seattle’s experiment, and not just fall for the rhetoric — rosy or gloomy…

Critics See Efforts By Counties And Towns To Purge Minority Voters From Rolls    New York Times…But since the Supreme Court’s 5-to-4 ruling in the voting-rights case, Shelby County v. Holder, critics argue, the blatant efforts to keep minorities from voting have been supplanted by a blizzard of more subtle changes. Most conspicuous have been state efforts like voter ID laws or cutbacks in early voting periods, which critics say disproportionately affect minorities and the poor. Less apparent, but often just as contentious, have been numerous voting changes enacted in counties and towns across the South and elsewhere around the country…

4th U.S. Circuit Judges Overturn North Carolina’s Voter ID Law   Raleigh News and Observer…The ruling prohibits North Carolina from requiring photo identification from voters in future elections, including the November 2016 general election. It restores a week of early voting and preregistration for 16- and 17-year-olds, and ensures that same-day registration and out-of-precinct voting will remain in effect. State Board of Elections officials immediately began to pull back advertising campaigns that had been designed to air on TV, radio and other media in the coming months to educate North Carolina voters about what they would need to cast ballots in the coming election”…

Judge Strikes Down Wisconsin Voter ID, Early Voting Laws   Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel…Finding that Republican lawmakers had discriminated against minorities, a federal judge Friday struck down parts of Wisconsin’s voter ID law, limits on early voting and prohibitions on allowing people to vote early at multiple sites. With the presidential election less than four months away, GOP Attorney General Brad Schimel said he plans to appeal the sweeping decision by U.S. District Court Judge James Peterson. Peterson also turned back other election laws Republicans have put in place in recent years…

This Isn’t The First Time Baltimore Has Debated The Minimum Wage   Baltimore Sun…Business owners warned the City Council that a new minimum wage would lead to economic disaster. Advocates said it would lift poor residents out of poverty. The year was 1964. When the dust settled, officials agreed to require employers to pay their workers at least $1 an hour, the city’s first minimum wage. The current debate over a proposed $15 minimum wage strongly mirrors the one that played out more than half a century ago..

Squeezed Garment Factories Use Check Cashing Services To Mask True Wages, Workers Say   L.A. Times…Check-cashing vans showing up outside L.A. garment factories are another twist for bottom-rung workers. And they are another tactic for factory owners to disguise payments less than the legal minimum wage, say employees, advocates and an official for the U.S. Labor Department. “It is a scheme to weaken a wage-theft case, and essentially escape accountability,” said Mariela Martinez, an organizer at the Garment Workers Center, an advocacy group based in Los Angeles. “When you’re paying through this check cashing system, there is no record of the hours worked”…

 

U.S. LABOR

A Power Broker Who Wants Labor At The Table, Not On The Menu    New York Times…The person at the center of defusing arguably the most contentious issue facing Democrats on the eve of their convention in Philadelphia was not a Hillary Clinton adviser or even a party operative. It was Lee Saunders, president of the 1.6-million-member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. With aides to Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont threatening a floor fight over the issue of trade, President Obama still hoping to ratify the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the 12-nation trade pact his administration negotiated, and Mrs. Clinton caught in the middle, Mr. Saunders led the effort to broker a final compromise…

Campaign Aims To Enforce Fair Labor Practices With Public Pressure   Chicago Reporter…So when Centro de Trabajadores Unidos: Immigrant Workers’ Project rolled out its campaign to hold local businesses accountable for treating workers fairly, Lopez quickly signed up. He was among eight businesses to sign the Community Alliance for Respect and Empowerment (C.A.R.E.) community agreement. The effort seeks to reduce wage theft among low-wage workers, which studies show is prevalent in Cook County…

Trump Hotel Workers Campaign for A Union, Over The Boss’s Objections    New York Times…About 500 employees who clean the hotel and prepare and deliver food and drinks to guests narrowly approved unionizing in a vote in December. But the hotel has been challenging the vote, contending that it “was anything but free and fair,” and appealing a regional National Labor Relations Board decision in March that certified the union. On Thursday, the board’s national headquarters in Washington rejected the hotel’s requests for another round of review…

It’s A Great Time To Be A Blue-Collar Worker In NYC   New York Post…Thousands of the best-paid blue-collar jobs in the Big Apple are opening up, starting with a huge union recruitment drive for carpenters and laborers. And the blue-collar compensation, with benefits and pensions, knocks the socks off pay for many white-collar jobs, often exceeding or matching salary for pros in fields as diverse as finance and technology, according to human resources experts…

Uber Drivers Want Rate Hikes, And Some Want A Union   KUOW (Seattle)…The Seattle City Council has voted to offer union representation to drivers for Uber and Lyft. On Wednesday, Aug. 3, they’ll hear from city officials on how that process is going. The ordinance affecting all for-hire drivers is scheduled to take effect in September…

Three Grape Farm Workers Dead, Possibly From Heat-Related Illnesses According To United Farm Workers   KERO (Bakersfield, CA)…According the United Farm Workers, three women have died this week, possibly due to the heat. All of the women were grape farm workers. The UFW stated that a woman died at a vineyard in Arvin. She began feeling bad and sat down to rest in the shade, where she died…

Jerry Brown Offers 12 Percent Raises (Over 4 Years) To SEIU Local 1000   Sacramento Bee…The offer, dated July 8, would also require increased payments into funding post-retirement health benefits amounting to a 3.5 percent increase in contributions over either three or four years. California’s largest state employee union is in the midst of contract negotiations with the governor’s office. In a newsletter, SEIU officials wrote the talks had come to a “crossroads”…

ACLU, AFT Oppose Kanawha Schools Proposed Social Media Policy   Charleston Gazette-Mail…One school board member, Ryan White, said Thursday he doesn’t think he can support the policy in its current state. And Dinah Adkins, a co-president of the Kanawha County Education Association, said her union is concerned that the policy could be interpreted to cover personal content on the personal cellphones and computers that school employees are nevertheless asked to use for certain work situations, such as emergencies…

 

SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS

Hospitals In Philadelphia On Opposite Ends Of Spectrum When It Comes To Charity Care   Pittsburgh Post-Gazette…Gwen Snyder, executive director of Philadelphia Jobs with Justice, a social advocacy group, has been trying for two years to get Philadelphia’s wealthy, large nonprofits like HUP to pay the city some payments in lieu of taxes (PILOT) to help with city and local school funding issues. Finding out that HUP provides such a low percentage of charity care “is appalling but not surprising,” she said…

A Few Simple Truths On Immigration   New York Times…Recent polling from the Pew Research Center is instructive: Fifty-nine percent of the public said immigrants “strengthen the country,” while only 33 percent said they were a burden. And 75 percent said immigrants should be allowed to stay legally, if they meet certain conditions. These principles — recognizing the good that immigrants do for the country and rejecting the folly of high walls and mass expulsion — are the basis of the reform legislation that Mr. Trump so deplores as “amnesty” and that many Republicans themselves support…

Aging Workforce Puts Strain On Skilled Manufacturing Workers   Associated Press…Nationally, a 2015 report from The Manufacturing Institute and Deloitte found that the skills gap “is real, and it is substantial,” noting that over the next decade, 3.5 million manufacturing jobs will have to be filled and that the skills gap means that 2 million of those jobs will go unfilled. Of the CEOs surveyed for the report, 82 percent said that the skills gap would impact their abilities to meet customer demands and 78 percent said it would impact their abilities to implement new technologies and increase productivity…

Noncompete Agreements Create Modern-Day Servitude   Houston Chronicle…Maxie Foster is a single mom whose former employer is preventing her from finding another job as an esthetician because of a non-compete agreement. She is fighting a $100,000 lawsuit even though she lives with her parents in Magnolia, Texas. She moved into a mobile home on their property yesterday with her 6-year-old daughter Colbie Foster and rescue dog Trix…

Here’s What Black Lives Matter Wants: 6 Reforms Detailed In Social Justice Movement’s Agenda   International Business Times…More than 60 organizations affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement have released an agenda Monday morning outlining the social justice movement’s desired reforms. Titled “A Vision for Black Lives: Policy Demands for Black Power, Freedom and Justice,” the agenda lists six demands and offers 40 suggestions on how to meet them. “In recent years we have taken to the streets, launched massive campaigns, and impacted elections, but our elected leaders have failed to address the legitimate demands of our Movement,” reads a release, reports BuzzFeed. “We can no longer wait”…

 

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