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Today’s Teamster News For September 21, 2016
TEAMSTERS
Schnucks again delays firing Teamsters as scab warehouse still can’t deliver products Labor Tribune …Firings of almost 200 Teamsters by Schnucks have been delayed a second time for two awkward reasons for the company: the scabs can’t get products delivered to the stores, so for a second time, it’s being sent from the scab warehouse back to the union warehouse where Teamsters Local 688 members are doing their job…
Local 117 Teamster at Ikea Gives Back Through Youth Basketball Local 117 …When Local 117 member Mario Sapilak first started taking his daughter to the rec basketball court, he never imagined it would lead to an opportunity to coach a youth basketball team. Mario often stayed to watch his daughter practice, and eventually began talking with her coach, Ronnie Jones. Mario is an internal-hauler at IKEA and six-year member of Teamsters Local 117…
Locomotive Voice and Video Recorders: A Sword of Damocles Teamsters Canada …Officers of the Teamsters Union have reacted strongly to some of the conclusions revealed yesterday by the Transportation Safety Board (TSB) with respect to locomotive voice and video recorders. The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC) took part in the study and represents almost all workers who operate the trains throughout the country…
Pay truck drivers by the hour to keep us safe (opinion) AZ Central …Since the Teamsters Union was busted, most drivers are now non-union and are paid by the mile, forcing the majority of them to drive ridiculously long hours at dangerous speeds just to put food on their family’s tables. We desperately need to limit the legal speed limits of trucks on our interstate highways…
GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
Norway oil workers strike, output at risk if conflict extends Reuters …More than 300 Norwegian oil service workers went on strike on Wednesday after wage talks broke down, hitting operations of five large subcontractors to the country’s oil and gas industry, the Industri Energi trade union said. The conflict will force oil firms to halt drilling of some wells on Norway’s continental shelf and may later hit output from western Europe’s top crude and gas producer, the union and companies said…
Thousands protest against CETA and TTIP in Brussels DW.com …The European Union headquarters in Brussels saw thousands of protesters on Tuesday demanding trans-Atlantic trade talks between the United States and Canada stop. Unions, human rights and farming groups took to the streets in the Belgian capital out of concerns against the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)…
Global trade deal threatens Paris climate goals, leaked documents show The Guardian …A far-reaching global trade deal being negotiated in secret could threaten the goals of the Paris climate deal by making it harder for governments to favour clean energy over fossil fuels, a leak of the latest negotiating text shows. The controversial Trade in Services Agreement (Tisa) aims to liberalise trade between the EU and 22 countries across the global services sector, which employs tens of millions in Europe alone…
To trade or not to trade: Party elites are maximizing corporate profit at the expense of workers Salon …While the now-infamous Investor Dispute Settlement System allows companies doing business in countries covered by trade deals to take swift action against government regulations and laws they consider anti-competitive, the wheels of justice grind much more slowly, if at all, when it comes to labor and environmental protections…
John Kerry Backs Bangladesh Workers in Forming Unions Solidarity Center …U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with leaders of Bangladesh garment unions recently in Dhaka, where he emphasized workers’ ability to freely form unions as key to workplace safety. “Enhancing worker safety has to be paired with strengthening workers’ rights,” he told a group of 60 garment workers and allies…
Austerity Only Benefits Germany and Destroys Europe, Renzi Says Bloomberg …Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi had some fighting words for German leader Angela Merkel: Your obsession with austerity is strangling Europe and your country is the only one profiting. That view, held by others in the European Union, rarely gets aired publicly quite so forcefully…
Your new iPhone’s features include oppression, inequality – and vast profit (opinion) The Guardian …Whatever marvels have been shoved into the new iPhones, the devices serve to increase the gulf between the super-rich and the rest of us, bilk countries of rightful tax revenues, and oppress Chinese workers even while depriving Americans of high-paying jobs. Arrogant towards critics and governments, glutted with cash and yet plainly out of ideas, Apple is elegant shorthand for a redundant economic system…
STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
Texas Workers Comp System Questioned After Oklahoma Ruling Texas Tribune …In the wake of an Oklahoma Supreme Court decision striking down part of that state’s workers’ compensation law, Texas is now the only state that lets private companies opt out of a state-run system and draw up their own plans to compensate injured workers. Before the ruling, Oklahoma had been the only other state offering an “opt out” provision…
Christie unfreezes $33M in spending he tied to N.J. public worker health care cuts NJ.com …Gov. Chris Christie Tuesday released more than $33 million in funds for social programs he withheld to spur cuts to employee health care. The governor temporarily sequestered more than $100 million, including $54 million for troubled municipalities and $55 million for such social programs as Holocaust survivor assistance and domestic violence prevention until public employees heeded his call to cut $250 million in their health benefits…
Some Republicans Acknowledge Leveraging Voter ID Laws for Political Gain New York Times …Deep in a trove of leaked documents made public this week was the latest example of Republican candor over voter ID laws — this time in Wisconsin. There, as a tight race for election to the state’s Supreme Court came to a close in April 2011, conservative leaders wondered aloud how to respond should Justice David Prosser Jr. — a reliable opponent of legal challenges to the agenda of Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican — go down in defeat…
Scott Walker Leaks Could Force Supreme Court to Confront Dark Money American Prospect …The documents, leaked to The Guardian newspaper, detail the allegedly illegal coordination between Walker’s campaign and an outside group. Walker, in a scramble to win a bitterly contested election, asked a slew of right-wing billionaires in 2011 and 2012 to pour money into the Wisconsin Club for Growth, a dark money group working closely with a top aide to the governor…
Fast food workers to protest for $15 an hour federal minimum wage outside first presidential debate Daily News …Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will have some company at their first debate next Monday: Thousands of protesters calling for a nationwide $15 an hour minimum wage and union rights. At least 1,500 fast food workers from states across the U.S. will walk off the job and protest for higher wages…
In $15’s Wake, Fair Scheduling Gains Momentum American Prospect …Worker movements have had tremendous success in blue cities and states in securing higher minimum wages and access to paid sick leave. Now those wins are blazing a trail for another critical policy for low-wage workers: the right to a fair workweek…
Seattle passes new scheduling rules for hourly workers Union-Tribune …Retail and food-service workers will have more predictability with their schedules after the Seattle City Council unanimously approved a new law Monday requiring employers to schedule shifts 14 days in advance and pay workers extra for certain last-minute scheduling changes. Seattle is the second major U.S. city behind San Francisco to pass such scheduling legislation…
U.S. LABOR
CTU strike vote begins Wednesday but no date set yet Chicago Sun Times …Chicago’s public school teachers will be asked again this week to authorize a strike in case they decide to walk out of Chicago Public Schools later this fall. Most teachers, aides and social workers in the Chicago Teachers Union are being asked to vote Wednesday morning before school, but any schools that don’t get everyone who’s eligible can also try again Thursday and Friday if necessary, according to the union…
State College of Florida faculty join union Herald-Tribune …The faculty of State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota (SCF) has voted 75-24 to join a union. The school’s faculty will becomes the newest United Faculty of Florida (UFF) chapter. The faculty voted 75.8 percent for UFF with 92.5 percent of the faculty voting. The vote count followed a three-week period of balloting by mail and was certified by the Florida Public Employees Relations Committee Monday…
University of Minnesota faculty union vote clears hurdle Star Tribune …A ruling Tuesday has cleared the way for a vote this fall on forming a faculty union at the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus. The State Bureau of Mediation Services ruled in favor of union organizers, who had argued for a single bargaining unit to represent both tenured faculty and part-time adjunct instructors, about 2,500 people in all…
The Future of Robot Labor Is Unfolding in Shipping Warehouses Motherboard …Doug Parker, the Executive Director of Worksafe, a California-based organization dedicated to eliminating all types of workplace hazards, is not so convinced. “Robots could certainly eliminate some types of dangerous work or work that is damaging to the body through repetitive stress, but in the warehouse setting it’s hard to imagine the ‘sweet spot’ for workers where it eliminates the hazardous aspects of jobs but not the jobs themselves, or at least many of them,” he said…
How technology like Pokémon Go could capture supply chains JOC …To truly add value, Augmented Reality (AR) technology will have to eliminate wasted time for truck drivers and improve the flow of freight and data for shippers, carriers, and third-party logistics providers. It will also have to be very, very, very easy to use. “I see the use of the technology being applicable anywhere trucking personnel are interacting with freight or equipment and they need to look up or stay abreast of information,” said Lloyd Palum…
The Racial Wage Gap Between Black And White Workers Is Getting Worse Huffington Post …Black men and women earn significantly less than white counterparts largely due to job market discrimination, and this racial wage gap has significantly widened over the last 36 years, according to a report released Tuesday by the Economic Policy Institute. “People should be troubled and really question why we would observe this pattern through 2015,” said Valerie Wilson…
Last-Minute Work Scheduling Is a Real Health Risk, Research Shows Bloomberg …Want to increase your happiness? Look no further than your work schedule. Unstable working hours can harm employees’ financial security and amplify their stress, according to research from the Washington-based Center for Equitable Growth. While it’s well-documented that irregular shift scheduling has become prevalent in the U.S., sociologists Daniel Schneider and Kristen Harknett set out to find out how that affects workers’ wellbeing…
SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
Thousands of Girls Are Locked Up for Talking Back of Staying Our Late Mother Jones …How does a kid wind up in jail for an unmade bed? Ironically, the answer lies in the primary goal of the juvenile justice system: rehabilitation. So that young people have a chance at changing their behavior, juvenile court judges are given great discretion in sentencing…
Profiteering and Perpetuating Human Misery at Taxpayer Expense: The Worst Form of Corporations Co-Opting Government Huffington Post …The U.S. detains nearly 400,000 immigrants- including asylum-seekers, women, and young children – annually within a combination of over 200 federal, state, and privately-owned facilities. Approximately two-thirds of these detainees are held in private, for-profit detention centers. This lesser-known system of mass incarceration and human suffering costs American taxpayers in excess of $2 billion annually…
The Republican party is now embracing Trump’s birther bullshit Slate …On Monday evening, at a rally in Miami, Donald Trump used the occasion of the recent bombing in New York City to rail against immigrants, describing them as snakes that will inevitably attack the United States. It is a message of outright ethnic exclusion, the centerpiece of Trump’s campaign of white nationalism. And it reflects the same attitudes that brought us birtherism. Once, those attitudes lived on the fringe of the Republican Party. Now, like Trump himself, they are the Republican Party…
With CEO in Hot Seat, Wells Fargo Fallout Just Beginning Common Dreams …One day before its chief executive officer is expected to testify before the Senate Banking Committee, the banking giant “raised eyebrows,” as CNN Money put it, when it admitted Monday that its top risk officer, who was charged with safeguarding its retail bank from illegal activities, had taken six-month leave of absence last June, amid the government investigation…
New Study Says 1 Out of Every 5 Corporate Bosses Is a Psychopath Alternet …According to a new study, one out of every five corporate bosses is a psychopath. The study surveyed 261 corporate professionals and determined that their “clinically elevated levels of psychopathy” were on par with the prison population. One out of every 100 people is believed to be a psychopath, but this investigation shows that the numbers for CEOs are much larger…