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Today’s Teamster News For September 23, 2016
TEAMSTERS
Teamsters Strongly Oppose New House ‘Composite’ Pension Legislation Teamster.org …The Teamsters are calling on the House Education & Workforce Committee to go back to the drawing board rather than move forward with newly proposed legislation that changes pension funding rules to create “composite” multiemployer plans, saying they are a bum deal for both active participants and retirees. The bill, sponsored by committee Chairman John Kline (R-Minn.), was the subject of a hearing by the House panel Thursday…
Teamsters Brotherhood of Locamotive Engineers & Trainmen Joins DC Metro Council DC Labor …The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers & Trainmen / District of Columbia-State Legislative Board has affiliated with the Metro Washington Council. “We have appreciated our past collaborations and look forward to working on rail transportation and other important issues with the Metro Washington Council,” said State Chairman Herbert Harris Jr…
Pasadena Unified School Board Approves Administrator, Teamsters Pay Raises Pasadena News Now …The Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD) Board, with very little discussion, Thursday evening unanimously approved two previously agreed-upon raises for both unionized workers and school administrators. District employees who are members of the Teamsters Local 911 will be receiving an additional salary step to their recently agreed-upon pay schedule. Union members will be given a 3 percent salary increase…
Teamsters Expand Organizing at XPO Logistics Labor Press …The Teamsters union is expanding efforts to organize workers at one of the nation’s fastest-growing shipping-logistics companies. Local 179 filed a union-representation petition with the National Labor Relations Board Sept. 14 for 72 truck drivers at an XPO “less-than-truckload” terminal in Aurora, Illinois, and Local 443 filed one for 125 workers at an XPO warehouse in New Haven, Connecticut…
GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
Norway service workers strike, no production impact yet Petro Global News …Hundreds of Norwegian services workers have gone on strike but the action is not expected to immediately impact oil and gas production. Industri Energi, a union representing service firm employees, said on Wednesday that over 300 oil service employees are on strike after “mediation failed”…
UK: Southern Railways strike: 14-day industrial action announced by rail company workers Independent …Southern Railway workers are to stage 14 days of strike action in five blocks from next month in the long running dispute over the role of conductors. The Rail, Maritime and Transport union announced an escalation of industrial action which will bring fresh travel chaos for hundreds of thousands of passengers. The strikes will start on 11 October and will be held intermittently until 8 December…
Austria, France push for TTIP restart under new name DW.com …Austrian Economy Minister Reinhold Mitterlehner has joined a call by France’s Trade Minister Matthias Fekl, urging his EU counterparts to end talks on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). In an interview for Friday’s edition of German newspaper Die Welt, Mitterlehner said free trade talks should begin “under a new title and with different substantive headings,” including greater transparency…
French Trade Minister: TTIP Has Failed Handelsblatt …The French trade minister Matthias Fekl plans to formally petition Brussels to break off trade talks with the United States during a meeting with his European colleagues in Bratislava on Friday. The minister told Handelsblatt talks on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership or TTIP have stalled because Washington has refused to meet Brussels halfway on issues such as opening public procurement markets…
TISA and the Privatization of Public Services Counterpunch …Nick Dearden, director of UK-based Global Justice Now (GJN), calls TISA “a massive super-privatization deal covering everything from finance to education.” TISA focuses on services, not goods, and allows multinational corporations to provide services across national borders by turning public services into commodities run for profit…
Joe Biden: Ramming TPP Through Lame Duck “Our Only Real Shot” Truthout …Vice President Joe Biden said that “our only real shot” of Congress approving the Trans-Pacific Partnership is a vote during the upcoming lame duck session. Biden made the remarks on Wednesday at the Council of Foreign Relations in New York, while conceding the agreement has a “less than even chance” of passage…
‘I am not down with TPP’: Hillary Clinton grilled on Between Two Ferns RT …She may have been down with pneumonia, but Clinton denied being down with TPP when Between Two Ferns host Zach Galifianakis grilled her on her past support. She maintained that she has no love for the global trade deal. In another attempt to show her playful side, Clinton appeared on the mock celebrity interview show posted by comedy site Funny or Die on Thursday…
STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
Kentucky Supreme Court says Bevin cannot cut university budgets Insider Louisville …Kentucky’s highest court says the state’s Republican governor cannot cut the budgets of public colleges and universities without the approval of the state legislature. The 5-2 ruling by the state Supreme Court reverses a lower court ruling that said Gov. Matt Bevin had the authority to order public colleges and universities not to spend all of the money the state legislature gave them…
Pa. court throws out bargaining rights for home care workers The Morning Call …Parts of a program established by Gov. Tom Wolf improperly granted union rights to home care workers who look after elderly and disabled people, judges at a Pennsylvania court said on Thursday.Commonwealth Court ruled 4-to-1 in favor of the plaintiffs who challenged an executive order Wolf issued in February 2015, shortly after he took office…
Amid voter ID fight and ‘misleading’ mailings, voting to begin in battleground Va. Washington Post …Voters begin going to the polls Friday in this battleground state, where Republicans and Democrats continue wrangling over voter ID laws, and elections officials were warning Virginians to ignore “misleading” letters about their registration status…
Insurance Commissioner: California Should ‘Strongly’ Consider a Public Option Health Plan KQED …With major insurers retreating from the federal health law’s marketplaces, California’s insurance commissioner said he supports a public option at the state level that could bolster competition and potentially serve as a test for the controversial idea nationwide. “I think we should strongly consider a public option in California,” Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones said in a recent interview with California Healthline…
Walmart Brags About Workers’ Quarterly Bonueses While Continuing to Deceive About Wages MCAW …In response to Walmart’s news regarding quarterly bonuses for the stores’ hundreds of thousands of retail workers, Making Change at Walmart released the following statement: “What Walmart doesn’t tell you is that in order to get this bonus, workers must complete a months-long training program that is often implemented with ‘buggy and outdated technology.’ In fact, in order to also receive the $10 an hour minimum wage that Walmart promotes, completion of this tedious program is required”…
Predictable Schedules Are the New $15 Minimum Wage The Atlantic …This month, following San Francisco’s lead, lawmakers in Seattle and New York City have set out to address another progressive cause: hourly workers’ schedules. On Monday, Seattle’s city council unanimously passed a proposal that will require employers to post the schedules of hourly employees at chain restaurants and large retailers no less than two weeks ahead of time…
U.S. LABOR
‘Non-union union’ at Volkswagen plant loses certification US News & World Report …A group billing itself as an alternative to the United Auto Workers union at the Volkswagen plant in Tennessee has failed to meet minimum enrollment standards under the German automaker’s internal labor policy. Volkswagen announced to workers on Thursday morning that the UAW has once again been verified as representing at least 45 percent of workers at the plant, qualifying the union for the top tier of the policy…
Janitor ‘Franchisees’ May Pursue Misclassification Class Action Bloomberg …Two janitors working as Jani-King “franchisees” in Philadelphia may pursue a class action alleging that they and about 300 similar franchisees are wrongly classified as independent contractors and should be deemed employees, a divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled. Attorneys for both sides declared at least a partial victory over franchising issues that are currently being litigated in other courts as well…
WGA East Wins Unionization Bid at NBC’s Peacock Productions Variety …The Writers Guild of America East has won a four-year battle with NBCUniversal’s reality-documentary arm Peacock Productions to unionize producers and associate producers. The guild announced Wednesday that three-year-old ballots counted by the National Labor Relations Board show that the writer-producers at Peacock Productions voted “decisively” in favor of unionizing about 100 freelance producers and associate producers…
Cleveland Teachers Union rejects tentative agreement FOX …Members of the Cleveland Teachers Union voted to reject a tentative agreement with the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. The vote was 51.4 percent to 48.6 percent. The two parties reached the agreement on Aug. 29 after about 21 hours of bargaining. That averted a strike…
Emergency meeting for CTU body tasked with setting strike dates Chicago Sun Times …Even before the results of its second strike vote have been tallied, the Chicago Teachers Union has called an emergency meeting of the governing board authorized with setting strike dates. Instead of waiting until the regularly scheduled Oct. 5 meeting, the House of Delegates will convene a week early on Wednesday, Sept. 28, CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey said Thursday…
Dozens of TransCanada workers being laid off in West Virginia as company integrates Columbia Pipeline Group MetroNews …Dozens of employees of TransCanada in West Virginia, formerly employed by Columbia Pipeline Group, are being laid off this week as part of TransCanada’s efforts to align operations with combined company needs, according to a spokesperson. TransCanada employs 700 people in the Mountain State. About 400 of those workers are based in Charleston…
Donald Trump Presidency Would Mean The ‘Decimation Of Public Education,’ Says Top Teachers Union Leader Huffington Post …Weingarten said AFT is considering having town hall meetings allowing teachers to step forward and testify about this “Trump effect” and what is happening in schools. The labor leader has also spoken out about Trump’s $20 billion voucher proposal, which would use federal funds to create state-run block grants allowing students to enroll in private and charter schools…
Autonomous vehicles could cost America 5 million jobs. What should we do about it? LA Times …Driverless cars will create some big winners — imagine how Uber’s and Lyft’s profits will jump when they can keep 100% of fares instead of letting drivers keep 70%. But they will produce some big losers too, notably the 5 million people nationwide — including 600,000 in California — who make their living driving taxis, buses, vans, trucks and e-hailing vehicles…
SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
Hillary Clinton has a plan to fight poverty Daily Kos …The statistics on poverty in America are stark—“Nearly 40 percent of Americans between the ages of 25 and 60 will experience a year in poverty at some point” and extreme poverty is on the rise—but there are positive signs, too—the number of people living in poverty dropped by 3.5 million in 2015. Hillary Clinton cites these numbers in a New York Times op-ed introducing her plans for tackling poverty…
The Many Scandals of Donald Trump: A Cheat Sheet The Atlantic …These cases are not simply distasteful and deceptive. They’re also potentially illegal. The IRS prohibits “self-dealing,” or using charitable funds to benefit oneself. As Fahrenthold writes, “More broadly, these cases also provide new evidence that Trump ran his charity in a way that may have violated U.S. tax law”…
After Two Fatal Police Shootings, Trump Calls for ‘Nationwide Stop-and-Frisk’ Common Dreams …As the nation reels from two recent fatal police shootings of black men, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Wednesday called for cities nationwide to adopt “stop-and-frisk”—a widely condemned police practice that New York City was forced to abandon after a federal judge struck it down as unconstitutional, finding that it disproportionately targeted minorities…
State of Emergency: Charlotte NAACP & Protesters Demand Police Release Video of Keith Scott Shooting Democracy Now …North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory has declared a state of emergency in the city of Charlotte, where protests continued for a second night after Tuesday’s fatal police shooting of 43-year-old African American Keith Lamont Scott, the father of seven children. Police say Scott “posed an imminent deadly threat,” but Scott’s family says he was unarmed…
Enterprise car rental company leaves ALEC after public outcry The Guardian …The car rental giant Enterprise says it has resigned its membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an anti-regulation lobby group that has pushed against climate change legislation, effective immediately. The announcement follows last month’s revelation by the Guardian of the publicly environmentally friendly company’s contributions to the group…
Renters Unite to Demand Affordable Housing Truthout ….The lack of affordable housing across the country has gained increasing attention in recent months. A report released earlier this year by the personal finance website SmartAsset found that in 12 of the top 15 US cities, rents had increased from 2015 to 2016. In some places, rent prices skyrocketed. Activists and renters nationwide are agitating around these issues…