News
Today’s Teamster News For August 23, 2016
TEAMSTERS
Teamsters announce deal with O-AT-KA dairy plant Democrat & Chronicle …Workers at a dairy plant in Batavia have a new five-year labor agreement with Upstate Niagara Cooperative Inc., headquartered in Buffalo. The labor contract covers 265 members of the Teamsters Local 118 union, headquartered in Brighton, working at the O-AT-KA Milk Products Cooperative Inc., according to the union…
Schnucks imposes second retaliatory effort against Teamsters for boycott Labor Tribune …Even as the impact of not having health insurance strikes home to more Teamsters Local 688 warehouse workers being fired by Schnucks, the company has initiated a second retaliatory effort against the union for their audacity initiating a boycott to protect 231 workers being thrown to the curb and replaced by scabs…
Trucks, Buses and Trade: Talking With Australian Labor Leader Tony Sheldon Capital & Main …Tony Sheldon, an internationally known trade unionist and Australia’s national secretary of the Transport Workers Union, recently attended a Las Vegas convention of world labor representatives, hosted by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Sheldon said a handful of multinational corporations now control the lion’s share of world trucking, logistics, transport and warehouse operations. One of these corporations, he said, is XPO Logistics…
UCSC Workers Protest for Fair Wages and Secure Retirement Local 2010 …UC Teamsters and students, filled Quarry Plaza at UCSC on Tuesday, August 16, 2016 protesting low wages at the University of California and management’s attack on a secure retirement. “University of California workers deserve the dignity and respect that comes with fair wages and a guaranteed retirement after a career of service,” said Jason Rabinowitz, Teamsters Local 2010 Secretary-Treasurer…
Union to Starbucks: Stop buying from anti-LGBT supplier Seattle Gay News …Twenty Teamsters union members and community supporters leafleted the lunchtime crowd in front of Starbucks corporate headquarters on August 17. Organized by the Teamsters LGBT Caucus with support from Pride At Work, and the Martin Luther King County Labor Council, the union supporters [said] want Starbucks to stop buying produce from a particularly abusive vendor, Taylor Farms…
Connecticut delegation appeals to Navy to retain Sikorsky for Marine One repairs CT Post …Standing in the Teamsters Local Union 1150 headquarters on Garfield Avenue alongside leaders of the union that represents Sikorsky workers, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., on Monday announced the delegation’s decision to request a “thorough review of all direct and indirect costs of any relocation” in a letter to Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus…
GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
Mozambique: Mediation Ends Sugar Workers’ Strike All Africa …A strike at the Xinavane Sugar company, in Maputo province, came to an end on Thursday, when the company and the workforce signed an agreement, after intervention by the sugar workers’ union and by the Provincial Labour Mediation and Arbitration centre. According to a press release from the Mozambican Labour Ministry, the strike, in pursuit of a demand for a 26 per cent wage increase, broke out last Monday, and involved 120 workers, from the cane transport sector…
Water transport workers’ strike paralyses Bangladesh ports BD News …The workers have come up with a four-point charter of demands that includes a call for fixing minimum wages for boatmen at Tk 10,000. Bangladesh Water Transport Workers’ Federation (BWTWF) President Md Shah Alam Bhuiyan on Tuesday told bdnews24.com the indefinite strike called by the Water Transport Workers’ Oikya Parishad began at midnight on Monday across the country…
Egyptian trade unionists call on global labour movement to support Alexandria Shipyard workers US3 Campaign …Leading Egyptian trade unionists have launched an open letter calling on the global labour movement to mobilise solidarity for the Alexandria Shipyard workers, as the military court postponed the verdict in their trial for a second time until 18 September. The workers will face another month in horrific detention conditions without knowing whether they will face a jail term for organising to improve their pay and conditions at work…
Latest Foxconn Worker Deaths Build Case For Apple To Move Operations From China Forbes …Chinese factory workers have once again fallen victim to this whole global mass manufacturing cycle. Eva Dou of the Wall Street Journal has a stirring report about two deaths last week at the Foxconn production building, aka where most of the world’s iPhones and iPads are assembled. One of the victims, like several others before, took his own life after work…
As Resistance Mounts, TPP Becoming 2016 Election’s Third Rail Common Dreams …As the White House prepares for its final “all-out push” to pass the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) during the upcoming lame-duck session of Congress, lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle are being made vulnerable due to growing opposition to the controversial, corporate-friendly trade deal. “[I]n 2016,” the Guardian reported on Saturday, “America’s faltering faith in free trade has become the most sensitive controversy in D.C”…
How the TPP Could Stifle the Discovery of New Drugs Motherboard …The international trade agreement between the United States and 11 other nations was reached last fall, but has yet to be approved by Congress. It’s a dense trade deal with pros and cons, but one of the biggest concerns is the effect the agreement will have on pharmaceuticals, and their ability to innovate, research and produce new drugs…
Postal Workers To Rally Against TPP Tuesday Common Dreams …The 200,000-member American Postal Workers Union (APWU) is holding its biennial convention in Orlando this week. As part of that convention, there will be a rally to publicize opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The rally will take place Tuesday, August 23 at 3:30 pm beginning in the Hemisphere Ballroom of Orlando’s Dolphin Hotel…
STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
Foes: South Dakota Ballot Measure Circumvents Right-to-Work ABC …A coalition of business groups recently launched a campaign against a labor-backed ballot measure going before voters in November, arguing that the plan would allow unions to circumvent South Dakota’s right-to-work law. Supporters of Initiated Measure 23, which would give corporate or nonprofit organizations the right to charge fees for services provided, said the ballot measure corrects unfairness in state law…
Governor Hobbles Voting Reform in Illinois NY Times …Invoking Republicans’ phantom fear of voter fraud, Gov. Bruce Rauner has vetoed a bipartisan measure to make Illinois a pioneer in one of the truly innovative reforms of modern politics — the automatic registration of citizens as they conduct routine business at motor vehicle departments and other state agencies…
In a major win for teachers unions, state Supreme Court lets teacher tenure ruling stand LA Times …Monday was the end of the line for a landmark California case challenging tenure and other traditional job protections for teachers — and the teachers won. The outcome left some union opponents looking for a different battlefield in the ongoing wars over public education, while others said they should try the courts again. The case, Vergara vs. California, was closely watched across the country…
California set to join states offering retirement plans CNBC …This week California lawmakers are expected to vote on a bill that would enroll employees who are not covered by an employer-sponsored retirement plan at work into a state-run one. Lawmakers in California, the nation’s most populous state, are not alone. Since 2012, more than half of state legislatures have considered bills that would create government-run retirement plans for private-sector workers…
Virginia’s Governor Restores Voting Rights for 13,000 Ex-Felons NY Times …Virginia’s governor said on Monday that he had signed papers restoring the voting rights of nearly 13,000 ex-felons, accomplishing on a case-by-case basis what the state’s Supreme Court last month had barred him from doing with a single executive order. Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, cast the move as a civil rights victory in a state whose constitutional ban on voting by ex-felons has disenfranchised roughly one in five African-Americans…
Blue Cities, Red States American Prospect …In the last five years, as Republicans have captured an unprecedented number of state legislatures and as cities have become hotbeds for progressive organizing, the number of maximum preemption laws has grown dramatically. In 2011, after Wisconsin passed a bill limiting the local ability to require paid sick days, ALEC and the National Restaurant Association took up the cause, and now 15 states have preempted local paid sick day requirements…
U.S. LABOR
SEIU offers Mayo ‘major compromise’ in labor fight Post-Bulletin …SEIU Healthcare Minnesota proposed a “major compromise” Monday for Mayo Clinic that’s being touted as a “win-win” that would end the ongoing labor fight over plans to subcontract Mayo’s food service department. The union representing 700 food service workers across southern Minnesota, including 350 in Rochester, proposed a three-pronged plan at the first of four bargaining sessions…
At Microsoft contractor, union win is a mixed result Seattle Times …A group of temporary workers at Microsoft has signed its first union contract with their employer, a rare feat in a technology industry typically unfriendly to organized labor. But the deal, sealed after almost two years of contentious talks, comes at a cost. This month more than a third of the union’s 33 members, employed by Lionbridge Technologies in Bellevue, were laid off or agreed to leave voluntarily…
Chase Brexton files complaint against labor union Baltimore Sun …The board of directors at Chase Brexton Health Care has asked the National Labor Relations Board to postpone a vote by employees seeking to join a union. The move is the latest volley in an increasingly acrimonious labor dispute between the leadership of the chain of community health care centers and its employees and even its own supervisors. The board said it believes some of its managers and supervisors are encouraging employees to join the 1199 SEIU…
Metro fights union lawsuit to reinstate L’Enfant Plaza tunnel inspector Washington Post …Metro is fighting its largest union, which has sued to reinstate a tunnel fan inspector who was fired after last year’s L’Enfant Plaza smoke disaster for allegedly falsifying an inspection report and later lying about his actions. The union argued that the agency had wrongfully terminated the mechanic and was using him as a scapegoat instead of placing responsibility on supervisors who were charged with verifying inspection reports…
Unions, Ledbetter Warn of Supreme Court Implications of Election Bloomberg …Donald Trump’s power to nominate Supreme Court justices if elected to the White House is a threat to women workers, equal pay advocate Lilly Ledbetter and two union officials said Aug. 19. Ledbetter, a former Goodyear tire plant supervisor who discovered she was making less than her male colleagues after 20 years on the job, lost her pay discrimination case in a divided 2007 Supreme Court decision…
Worker Hours Are More Unpredictable Than Ever Bloomberg …Many people who lost well-paying jobs have found work, but for less money, doing hourly retail and food services jobs. These new hourly workers not only make less money, but they have much less predictable schedules than hourly workers had before the recession, according to a new study from the University of California, Davis…
SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
Shame, Trauma, and Confusion as Judge Blocks Obama’s Trans Bathroom Order Common Dreams …Hours before the start of the new school year, a federal judge issued a national injunction against the Obama administration directive requiring public schools to grant transgender students access to facilities consistent with their gender identity. U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor ruled in favor of 13 states, which sued to block the protective policy guidance after it was issued last May…
Immigration reformers rip Trump’s Hispanic outreach as a lost cause The Hill …Immigrant rights advocates have a brusque message for Donald Trump as the Republican presidential nominee aims to attract more Hispanics to his struggling campaign: It ain’t gonna work. Liberal immigration reformers contend that Trump’s hard-line approach to those living in the country illegally — combined with his incendiary statements toward Mexicans, Syrian refugees and other groups — have so offended immigrant voters that any late-stage outreach will prove futile…
Why Are There So Many Women in Jail? The Nation … There are 14 times more women in jail in this country today than there were in the 1970s. The political sphere is brimming with talk of liberal reform these days, often celebrating a policy shift toward ending mass incarceration, toward a more “humane” criminal justice system focused on rehabilitation. Yet despite recent measures aimed at curbing harsh incarceration policies, the number of women in local jails is only growing…
Welfare Reform Is 20 Years Old and It’s Worse Than You Can Imagine Mother Jones …In a statement after signing the bill, Clinton heralded the legislation as a “historic opportunity to end welfare as we know it and transform our broken welfare system by promoting the fundamental values of work, responsibility, and family.” The bill granted states a large degree of discretion over how, and even whether, the food stamp policy was implemented, so that states with high unemployment were able to request a waiver that nullifies the time limit…
This Town Is Sick of Drinking Polluted Water The Nation …In Alabama’s Black Belt, a region where the vestiges of slavery still manifest in chronic poverty and crumbling infrastructure, a more recent legacy of mining and industry is haunting the land through poisoned waterways and toxic soil. Yet the region has long been the rural core of civil-rights struggles, and along the Black Belt, local citizens are trying to revive a legacy of activism as they struggle to restore their environment…