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Today’s Teamster News For August 10, 2016
TEAMSTERS
Teamsters promise retail protests of Taylor Farms The Packer …In what appears to be part of a long-running attempt to unionize Taylor Farms’ Tracy, Calif., facility, the Teamsters are promising to hand out leaflets at grocery stores across the country to highlight what the union says are poor working conditions at the plant. The union said the group’s representatives will hold signs and hand out fliers critical of Taylor Farms at retail stores in central and southern California…
3rd Circuit rejects FedEx’s challenge to NLRB ‘micro union’ test Reuters …A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday became the latest to sign off on the National Labor Relations Board’s standard for creating bargaining units that exclude some employees, rejecting FedEx Freight Inc’s challenge to the formation of a “micro union” of the company’s drivers in New Jersey. FedEx, represented by Jackson Lewis, broke the law by refusing to recognize an International Brotherhood of Teamsters unit of 114 drivers that excluded about 50 dockworkers who load and unload trucks…
Hearing on challenging ‘Right to Work’ law to be held Wednesday WV Record …Kanawha Circuit Judge Jennifer Bailey has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday to consider requests from West Virginia AFL-CIO and several other unions representing West Virginia employees who are challenging the “Right to Work” law. Teamsters General Secretary-Treasurer Ken Hall, who is also President of Teamsters Local 175, will likely be called to testify during the hearing…
GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
Thousands more workers to join strike at South African power utility Reuters …Thousands more workers at South African power stations plan to join a strike on Wednesday over pay at state-run utility Eskom, their union said on Tuesday. The strike began on Monday when about 1,500 members of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) downed tools after wage talks stalled…
UK: Eurostar workers to strike in dispute over work-life balance The Guardian …Eurostar rail workers are to go on strike for seven days this month in a dispute over work-life balance – the latest RMT-led row to erupt on the railways this month. The union said the Eurostar dispute had been caused by the company’s failure to honour a 2008 agreement to ensure that train managers could expect a good work-life balance in terms of unsocial hours and duty rosters…
No TTIP Deal This Year Handelsblatt …German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. President Barack Obama’s goal of ironing out a trade agreement between the United States and the European Union by the end of the year has “no basis” in reality, according to Handelsblatt’s sources in the German economics ministry. Negotiators in Brussels and Washington haven’t finalized a single chapter of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP…
Activist Groups Urge Clinton To Publicly Oppose Lame-Duck TPP Vote BuzzFeed …The progressive activist groups CREDO Action and Democracy for America are launching an campaign calling on Hillary Clinton to “publicly and personally oppose” a vote on the Trans-Pacific Partnership during a lame duck session of Congress after the presidential election. While the massive trade deal is supported by President Obama, Clinton came out publicly against it during her campaign…
TPP more likely to harm than help American workers (opinion) Chicago Tribune …President Barack Obama has told Americans that the Trans-Pacific Partnership would grow American jobs as trade barriers are removed and exports to foreign countries increase. The same promises were made with past trade deals, but those deals wound up hurting America’s middle class…
Greece Seeks to Create South-European Alliance to Protest ‘Austerity Policy’ Sputnik News ..The Greek government invited leaders of five South-European countries in order to accelerate cooperation in the economic field. German newspaper DWN writes that the main goal of the alliance would be to counter the austerity policy of the German government. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is said to have invited the leaders of five South-European countries to a conference which will take place on September 9…
STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
Organized labor ready to challenge Right to Work in court Metro News …Six months since the West Virginia Legislature passed Right to Work legislation, organized labor is ready to go to court to seek an injunction to block the measure. The new law was described by supporters during the debate as a bid to drop a requirement of union membership as a condition of employment. Union groups contend the measure amounted to an unfair taking of property…
Illinois Gov. Rauner vetoes four pro-worker laws, blasts Service Employees by name for two of them Labor Tribune …In the latest phase of his continuing war on workers and unions, right wing Gov. Bruce Rauner, R-IL, vetoed four pro-worker laws – including two raising the minimum wage for some of the lowest-paid workers in the state. And he blasted the Service Employees’ Illinois affiliate, by name, for pushing those two through the legislature…
North Carolina will try to block voter ID ruling Wednesday Charlotte Observer …Uncertainty continues to cloud this fall’s elections, with the state expected to ask the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday to reinstate North Carolina’s voter ID law, while counties decide whether to extend or shorten early voting. Mecklenburg County’s elections board Chair Mary Potter Summa said it’s unclear whether the board will reduce the number of planned early voting hours. The board is scheduled to vote on a plan Monday…
Des Moines mayor: $15 minimum wage for city workers Des Moines Register …Des Moines Mayor Frank Cownie says full-time city workers deserve a $15 an hour minimum wage and he’s pushing the city to establish that standard. Cownie and the City Council gave a directive to city staff Monday to evaluate all city job descriptions and functions. The goal is to forge an ordinance that would guarantee “to pay a livable wage” to all permanent, full-time city workers…
So far, the Seattle minimum-wage increase is doing what it’s supposed to do (opinion) Washington Post …The pay of affected workers went up almost 12 percent, compared to a 5 percent increase for workers in nearby, similar places that weren’t bound by the increase. The study’s authors concluded that the increase raised the pay of affected workers by seven percentage points more than might otherwise have occurred…
U.S. LABOR
USW, Michelin reach tentative labor agreements Tire Business …The United Steelworkers (USW) union has reached a tentative master agreement with two Michelin North America Inc./BFGoodrich plants in the U.S., pending ratification. A summary of the agreement, posted on both USW local websites, said the agreement was reached on Aug. 2…
Santa Clara County Court strike by workers moves into 4th day Mercury News …In the latest bit of political theater by striking Santa Clara County court employees, a spokesman for the group hired a casino-party company to set up a craps table Monday in front of the Hall of Justice The craps table — with three professional dealers — was meant to symbolize what employees say is the administration’s gamble on a new $208 million Family Justice Center in downtown San Jose while employees have gone without a raise in eight years…
UAW Ramps Up Pressure to Organize Mississippi Plant Wards Auto …Long frustrated in its dealings with the Renault-Nissan Alliance, the UAW is going international in its drive to revive its stalled organizing campaign at Nissan’s assembly complex in Canton, MS. So far, the UAW has made little headway as it takes on the Mississippi conservative political establishment, which has been hostile to trade unions for decades…
Nearly 3K Trump Taj Mahal workers to lose jobs in casino closure NJ.com …Nearly 3,000 Trump Taj Mahal workers will be laid off in October when the casino shuts down, according to documents filed with the state. The owners of the struggling resort announced last week that it was shutting down operation after Labor Day amidst the longest casino-era strike in Atlantic City…
Here Are the Signs That American Workers Are Gaining Power and Higher Pay Bloomberg …The U.S. is running out of available workers and that means employees are getting paid more. And what’s left in terms of labor slack is being run down at a faster pace than economists anticipate, with July’s non-farm payroll report showing employment growth of 255,000 for the month. This combination is a recipe for rising wages…
The Emerging Paid Family Leave Gap American Prospect …More and more Fortune 500 companies and leading localities have implemented mandatory paid parental and family leave policies, which have quickly become a major cause for the left. Still, there are already indications of an emerging geographic and industry-based gap. While American workers’ access to paid family leave remains abysmally low across the board, it’s far more common in the lucrative tech and finance industries…
Chemical Burns, Frostbite, Broken Bones—All for Cheap Chicken The Nation …You need to be brave to work in the chicken business—you’re bombarded with bloody carcasses, stung by spurting chemicals, and menaced by gnashing blades that stop for nothing no matter how tired you are, or how much blood is spurting from your hand. For decades, government regulators have bowed to Big Poultry’s multinational moguls, reluctant to penalize companies for inhumane factory production systems…
SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
Donald Trump’s economic plan recycles the failed policies of past Republicans EPI.org …Donald Trump fashions himself a populist, but his economic plan just recycles the failed policies of deregulation and massive tax cuts for the rich and corporations. If such policies were effective, we would remember George W. Bush’s presidency as one of great prosperity, instead of a period of stagnant wages for blue- and white-collar workers…
‘America is Back,’ Trump Declares, Announcing Tax Cuts for Billionaires Common Dreams …Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump introduced his most detailed policy plan yet on Monday at the Detroit Economic Club, in a speech that was ostensibly targeted toward the working class but mostly outlined benefits for the wealthy. The speech was also widely panned for lacking substance: New York Magazine editor Annie Lowrey commented on CNN that “it was self-contradictory word salad”…
Black families will need 228 years to attain wealth of white families today, shocking new study finds Daily News …The racial wealth gap is so wide it would take black families over two centuries to catch up to white families, a jaw-dropping new study found. Unless public policy intervenes, black households wouldn’t amass the wealth of today’s white households for another 228 years…
Vowing to Fight On, Activists Honor Legacy of Ferguson’s Mike Brown Common Dreams …Across the country on Tuesday, community members, activists, racial justice advocates, and others held a global moment of silence to mark two years since the killing of Mike Brown Jr., whose death at the hands of a Ferguson, Missouri police officer sparked a national call for change—a moment that many say has yet to arrive. “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” and “Black Lives Matter” became the national rallying cry to address those grievances, and the movement swiftly followed…
Groups tied to the Koch brothers lied to the IRS — and they’re paying for it Salon …The gridlocked Federal Elections Commission, which rarely enforces any campaign finance laws, slapped three groups backed by Charles and David Koch with hefty fines earlier this summer. The Center to Protect Patient Rights (CPPR), an Arizona-based “social welfare nonprofit” established in 2009 that’s now called American Encore, was the Koch political donor network’s main conduit for distributing secret money…