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Today’s Teamster News For August 8, 2016
TEAMSTERS
Leaders of Carhaul Local Unions Overwhelmingly Endorse Tentative Agreement Teamster.org …Leaders of carhaul local unions from across the country overwhelmingly endorsed a new tentative National Master Automobile Transporters Agreement today in Detroit, paving the way for members to vote on the contract later this month. Ballots are scheduled to be mailed out to members on or about August 22 and tentatively scheduled to be counted on September 15. This schedule will allow local unions enough time to conduct informational meetings…
Proposed Deal Hikes Teamsters’ Pay, Retains Benefits Wards Auto …The Teamsters union reaches a tentative labor agreement covering more than 6,000 drivers and maintenance workers employed by trucking companies that move finished vehicles from assembly plants, deep-water ports and rail yards to new-car dealers across the country. The 5-year agreement awaiting ratification by union members includes annual pay increases of 1.2% to 1.4% for drivers and yard workers…
Teamsters Begin Rolling National Hand Billing Of Albertsons Grocery Stores Teamster.org …The International Brotherhood of Teamsters began rolling hand billing actions outside grocery stores under the Albertsons umbrella this week, demanding that the grocery stores hold their food supplier, Taylor Farms, accountable for a long list of human rights violations or cease purchasing food from the company. “This is just the beginning of our actions at the Albertsons family of stores,” said Rome Aloise, President of Joint Council 7 and Secretary-Treasurer of Local 853…
Allegiant Teamster Pilots Say ‘It’s a Better Airline’ After Contract Deal The Street …After a four-year year battle that included a near-strike, a visible corporate campaign and a series of damning safety-related charges that led to enhanced Federal Aviation Administration oversight, Teamster pilots have signed a contract with Allegiant Travel. While it’s too soon to say that all is forgiven by both sides, the end of negotiations appears to benefit all parties…
Allegiant Pilots Ratify First Teamsters Contract Labor Press …More than three years after they voted to join the Teamsters, pilots at Allegiant Air have ratified their first union contract with the budget airline. The agreement with the Airline Professionals Association, Teamsters Local 1224, went into effect Aug. 1, after more than 85% of the pilots voted yes. The five-year deal will give the pilots immediate raises of up to 31%, better health insurance, more job security, and up to four weeks of paid vacation…
Teamsters to get raises under new city contract Post-Gazette …Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto today announced a new labor contract with Teamsters Local 249, whose members collect refuse and man animal control trucks — and will get substantial raises. The five-year pact boosts base wages to $14.75, up from $12.28 now, consistent with the mayor’s drive to get all full-time city workers to the $15-an-hour level. First-year Teamsters will get $15.20 an hour in 2018…
Union workers protest against Mill Creek development News12 …Union workers gathered Friday near a construction site to protest the use of non-union workers in Yonkers. Teamsters Local 456 rallied in and outside of the water near Water Grant Street to protest against development company Mill Creek. They say the developers hired a non-union concrete company from the Bronx to build an apartment complex. “In Westchester, we’re trying to make a decent living,” says Louis Picani, a Teamsters Local 456 member…
Enterprise Must Reimburse Teamsters Local for Union Dues Bloomberg …A rental car company waited too long to challenge an order that it reimburse a labor organization out of its own funds for union dues that should have been deducted from employee paychecks, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held. The court closed the case without reaching the merits of an unusual order that precludes the employer from recouping dues payments from the employees who would have made them but for the employer’s labor law violations…
GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
Workers at S.African power utility Eskom strike over pay, supplies stable Reuters …Workers at three South African power stations downed tools on Monday, with more set to follow, after wage talks at state-run utility Eskom stalled. The company branded the stoppage illegal but said its operations had not yet been affected. Eskom provides almost all the power in Africa’s most industrialised economy…
Hundreds of trains cancelled in Southern rail strike Belfast Telegraph …Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union were “solidly” supporting the walkout, saying they were receiving backing from the public as they mounted picket lines outside stations. RMT general secretary Mick Cash said: “This action has been forced on us by the arrogance and inaction of Govia Thameslink and the Government…
Australian TPP Ratification Depends on Labor Support Bloomberg …More than a month after Australia’s federal election, final Senate results make it clear that a 12-nation Pacific Rim trade pact will be ratified only if the government secures the backing of the major opposition party. The Australian Electoral Commission Aug. 4 finally confirmed the Senate results of the July 2 federal election…
Don’t Be Fooled. TPP Is Still Very Much Alive. Help Kill It For Good (opinion) OurFuture.org …There are lots of stories in the media claiming that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is dead for now.But here’s the thing: Wall Street wants TPP and the giant multinational corporations want TPP. And what Wall Street and giant multinational corporations want from Congress, Wall Street and giant multinational corporations usually get from Congress…
Athens seeks southern alliance against EU austerity policy RT …Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has invited the heads of Southern European countries to discuss a new alliance against the EU’s tough austerity policy. A conference is expected to be held in Athens on September 9 attended by France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Cyprus, and Malta. The meeting of the Southern countries will focus on the “common” challenges facing the EU, including austerity, fiscal measures and migration…
Don’t Forget The Construction Workers Who Died Making The Rio Olympics Happen (opinion) Think Progress …As the 2016 Olympic Games begin Friday, construction workers are still putting the finishing touches on several Olympics sites, including the Olympic Village. The final rush to deliver on venues has added pressure to the already precarious working conditions observed at construction sites. Eleven workers have died on the job during construction for the Rio Olympics since January 2013 — and there’s no sign conditions improved in the last few days…
STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
Fight for higher wages lands in Richmond Washington Post …The national fight to raise the minimum wage will descend on Richmond this week as thousands of low-wage workers hold their first national convention in the former capital of the Confederacy. Organizers say the setting is intended to underscore the link between economic inequality, which has become a theme in this year’s presidential election, and the South’s history of slavery and systemic racism…
Tide turns on voter ID laws as courts block requirements in several states Press Herald …Voter-identification laws are suddenly in peril. In agreeing last week to relax its voter-ID requirements for the November election, Texas showed how far the legal climate has shifted with respect to the wave of state laws enacted over the past decade…
Baltimore City Council to vote on raising minimum wage Baltimore Sun …In a vote that is expected to be close, the Baltimore City Council is scheduled Monday to consider whether to raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2022. The bill’s lead sponsor, Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke, expressed hope she has persuaded a majority of her colleagues to back the measure. “It’s a close contest right now,” Clarke said…
The disturbing link between voter ID and Jim Crow (opinion) Detroit Free Press …A stunning rebuke of the North Carolina Legislature by the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., absolutely unmasked the ruse of Voter ID laws, pushed by conservatives in recent years as a way to prevent “voter fraud,” a mythical issue ginned up to raise the specter of mass-scale vote stealing…
Massachusetts contractor fined for failing to pay prevailing wages Legal News Line …Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey has announced that On-Time Construction Services Inc. (On-Time) will pay $117,082 for allegedly violating the state’s prevailing wage law. The Massachusetts Prevailing Wage law mandates that contractors and subcontractors engaged in public construction projects need to pay all employees special minimum wages…
U.S. LABOR
Southern California Grocery Workers Reach Tentative Deal CBS …A strike by 47,000 Southern California grocery workers may have been averted Thursday as their unions reached a tentative contract with three supermarket chains. Employees were scheduled to vote Monday on whether to approve the deal with Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons. That was the deadline set for reaching an agreement when workers voted in June to authorize a strike…
CUNY Workers Overwhelmingly Approve New Contract With 94% Voting Yes In These Times …After six years without a contract, City University of New York professors and staff will finally get a raise. Members of the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), which represents more than 25,000 professors and staff at CUNY, voted overwhelmingly—94 percent—in favor of a new contract. The deal is retroactive…
UAW plans protest of Trump’s Detroit speech The Detroit News …The United Auto Workers union plans to protest Monday against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump outside Cobo Center. The union put out a Facebook invitation to members to demonstrate against the New York businessman outside of Cobo Center, where he is scheduled to speak to the Detroit Economic Club, arguing that “Trump would be an absolute disaster for working people in Michigan”…
Women Day Laborers Are Tired of Waiting for Work, and for Justice The Nation … During the mid-20th century, black women lined up on sad corners of New York known as the Bronx Slave Market, waiting for white “madams” to pluck impoverished housemaids from the so-called “paper-bag brigade.” These desperate domestics would work virtually any job for a day, for any wage. Today the image of the immigrant day laborer is often associated with Latino construction workers…
Think teachers can’t be fired because of unions? Surprising results from new study. Washington Post …Those who think tenured teachers can’t be fired may be interested in new research by Eunice Han, who will join the economics faculty at the University of Utah in the fall. Han found that “highly unionized districts actually fire more bad teachers”…
This election could decide the fate of American labor — and that’s the problem (opinion) Washington Post …We are approaching an electoral watershed that could break the long stalemate in U.S. labor policy. If Trump wins and Republicans hold the Senate, unions will face three Republican-controlled branches of government more uniformly hostile to union rights than ever before. If Clinton wins, labor will be poised to translate its recent victories into bigger breakthroughs…
SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
How Black Lives Matter Activists Plan to Fix Schools The Atlantic …Black Lives Matter activists have already successfully pushed some colleges to address racism on campus and make curriculum more inclusive. But the movement as a whole has been less visible in the K-12 space. That’s changing. The Movement for Black Lives Matter coalition recently published a platform outlining a range of specific policies it would like to see take shape at the local, state, and federal levels. The education proposals are rooted in the K-12 space…
AARP to Drop Membership to Right-Wing Lobby Group ALEC After Progressive Groups Apply Pressure Truthout …Progressives dedicated to protecting safety nets for seniors have pressured AARP, formerly the American Association of Retired People, to drop its dues-paying membership at ALEC, the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council, whose work includes drafting and promoting bills that would undermine and privatize Social Security and Medicare…
After Saying Clinton Is ‘Owned’ By Wall Street, Trump Proposes A Ban On All Financial Regulation Think Progress …Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has spent much of his campaign blasting his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton for being too close to Wall Street. Yet in a speech focused on economic policy on Monday, Trump will call for a moratorium on all new regulations for the financial industry…
Top Nazi leader: Trump will be a ‘real opportunity’ for white nationalists Washington Post …The effort to plant the seeds of white nationalism in the political mainstream, where they might blossom into pro-white political coalitions that appeal to a broader swath of Caucasian voters, will not be easy, according to the chairman of the American Nazi Party. But Rocky Suhayda thinks there is one political figure who presents a “real opportunity” to lessen the load. Who is it? Donald Trump…