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Today’s Teamster News For November 1, 2016
TEAMSTERS
Teamsters General Secretary-Treasurer Files Complaint Against “Right to Work” Committee Teamster.org …Teamsters General Secretary-Treasurer Ken Hall, who also serves as President of Teamsters Local 175 in South Charleston, filed a formal complaint today against the West Virginia Right to Work Committee for violating election campaign laws. The complaint comes after recent revelations of undisclosed mailings by the anti-union group to West Virginia voters, including Teamster members, without registering or reporting its activity with the state…
NYC school bus worker strike averted after talks to settle healthcare contract Daily News …The wheels of city school buses will go round on Tuesday — thanks to a last-minute deal that held off a potentially crippling strike. The union representing school bus drivers and attendants who work for Jofaz Transportation and Y&M Transit reached a tentative contract agreement just after 10 p.m. Monday. “When workers stand together, they can win good jobs for their co-workers and their families,” said Demos Demopoulos, Secretary-Treasurer of Teamsters Local 553, which represents the workers…
Ken Hall: Remember in November (op-ed) Gazette-Mail …Shortly after the last election cycle in 2014, when West Virginia Republicans took control of both the Senate and House, the Teamsters Union sounded the alarm that Senate President Bill Cole and House Speaker Tim Armstead would pursue an out-of-state corporate agenda that was against the interest of the vast majority of West Virginians. And we were right to sound the alarm…
Teamsters Pleased That The TSB Formally Recongnized Crew Fatigue Teamsters Canada …The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC), which represents approximately 12,000 workers in the rail industry, has been urging the federal government for two decades to make crew fatigue a priority. Crew fatigue is a major safety risk for both workers and the public. “We’re pleased that the TSB formally recognized crew fatigue by including it in the Watchlist,” said Doug Finnson, president of TCRC…
Canada safety watchdog says action needed on train crew fatigue Reuters …Too many Canadian train crews, particularly on freight lines, are not getting sufficient rest and railroads need to do more to apply fatigue science to scheduling, the country’s transport safety watchdog said on Monday. Fatigue management has been repeatedly raised as a safety concern by the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, which represents about 10,000 workers at Canadian National Railway Co and Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd…
Medford, Oregon labor unions agree to contracts Mail Tribune …Police and city workers in two separate bargaining units will assume a larger share of health insurance costs under new, three-year labor agreements with the city that were ratified last week. “It’s a reasonable proposition. I don’t think the city made any unreasonable proposals,” said Brent Jensen, labor representative for the Southern Oregon branch of Teamsters Local Union No. 223, which represents both groups. “We recommend ratification to the unions, and they agreed”…
Malloy signs legislation that will keep Sikorsky’s headquarters and thousands of jobs in the state Connecticut Plus …The state’s agreement with Lockheed Martin will keep Sikorsky Aircraft’s worldwide headquarters located in Stratford, where the company will retain and grow approximately 8,000 direct jobs. The legislation was approved in the General Assembly by an overwhelming, bipartisan vote of 35-1 in the State Senate and 136-6 in the House of Representatives. Several days later, Teamsters Union 1150 voted to approve the state’s agreement with Lockheed Martin…
GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
Ford Reaches Tentative Deal With Union in Canada New York Times …Unifor, Canada’s largest private sector union, reached a tentative agreement with the Ford Motor Company of Canada early Tuesday, concluding contract talks with the three Detroit-based automakers. As with the Canadian branches of General Motors and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, the union focused on preserving jobs as much as traditional contract issues like wages…
India: ‘Constant sexual harassment’: TN woman workers’ letter exposes textile industry Hindustan Times …A letter from six women at a spinning mill in Tamil Nadu, describing the sexual harassment they face at work and asking for help, exposes the widespread exploitation of women in the multi-billion-dollar textile industry, campaigners said. India is one of the world’s largest textile and garment manufacturers. Many of the workers employed in this $40-billion-a-year industry are trapped in debt bondage, face abuse or are forced to work long hours in poor conditions, activists said…
In landmark decision, British court rules Uber drivers should get minimum wage Boston Globe …In a landmark ruling Friday that could impact Britain’s wider ‘‘gig’’ economy, a London employment tribunal ruled that taxi drivers using the Uber ride-hailing app are ‘‘workers’’ and entitled to minimum wage and holiday pay. The ruling is a major blow to the San Francisco-based company, which argued that it was a technology company that enabled self-employed drivers to connect with passengers through its smartphone app…
Not dead yet—TPP free trade deal could pass in lame duck Congress, US trade rep says CNBC …The Trans-Pacific Partnership — opposed by Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton — will have enough votes for ratification by Congress after the election, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman told CNBC on Tuesday. The 12-nation free trade agreement has been a signature economic objective of President Barack Obama and had initial support from Republicans on Capitol Hill, including House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell…
US denim industry still haunted by trade deals BBC …The globalising world economy is cited as the reason for most of Columbus’s mill losses, but locals also have a specific culprit for the demise of the US denim trade – the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta). Free trade, they say, forced American manufacturers to leave for cheaper shores or be undercut on price by foreign competitors. They left behind workers and communities who are still struggling two decades later…
Sen. Sherrod Brown: Trade deals sell out workers USA Today …Our trade agreements claim to create a level playing field, but in reality they amount to corporate handouts and worker sellouts. We’ve seen high-paying manufacturing jobs migrate to low-wage countries overseas, and they’ve been replaced — when they’ve been replaced at all — with low-wage service jobs. So it’s no surprise Americans are angry at the prospect of another trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, that would be the largest in world history…
Uzbekistan Cotton Harvest: Activists Detained, Beaten Solidarity Center …In the past month, journalists and human rights activists in Uzbekistan have been arrested, interrogated and even beaten for documenting conditions of forced labor and raising awareness among workers about their rights during the country’s annual cotton harvest. Every year, Uzbekistan mobilizes more than 1 million workers to pick cotton through a coercive system of forced labor…
Just Weeks After Matthew, Global Community Has Forgotten Haiti Common Dreams …The international community has forgotten about Haiti in the wake of Hurricane Matthew, and immediate aid has dwindled to an insufficient long-term response as the island nation faces a new cholera epidemic amid recovery efforts, a broad spectrum of officials are warning. “The low response is not fair to anybody, it is not fair to the people of Haiti, and frankly it’s not fair to the people working in the response effort there at the moment,” Dr. David Nabarro, an adviser to U.N. secretary general Ban Ki-moon, told the Independent on Friday…
STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
Arizona Group Pushing To Hike State Minimum Wage Targeting Leaders Who Oppose Prop 206 KJZZ …Leading in the polls and with lots of money to spend, the group pushing to increase the minimum wage has now turned its sights to defeating political foes. Proposition 206 would hike the Arizona’s minimum wage, currently $8.05 an hour, to $12 an hour by 2020. Of the $3 million raised by Arizonans for Fair Wages and Healthy Families, about $62,000 has gone into targeting Republican incumbents and candidates…
West Virginia labor leaders hoping rallies inspire working voters Metro News …Labor leaders at the local and state level are hoping voters go to the polls and use a simple philosophy when making their choices this year: supporting West Virginia’s working families. “I think when you go to the polls you have to decide who is going to help you make a change for working people for the issues that we’re talking about,” Pat Jack, President of AFSCME Local 3219, said…
California: Number Of Uninsured Kids In State Drops 55 Percent In 2 Years KPBS …Between 2013 and 2015, the U.S. experienced the largest two-year decline in the number of uninsured children ever recorded. And the state of California led the way. A new report from the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute Center for Children and Families provides the details…
The Real Living Wage? $17.28 an Hour – at Least Truthout Fifteen dollars shouldn’t be too much to ask — or demand. In almost every state, a worker needs more than $15 an hour to make ends meet. Add in student debt, and the minimum living wage shoots up to $18.67 an hour nationally. A family with children needs significantly more. That’s according to new research from People’s Action Institute, which calculates the national living wage at $17.28…
Supporters Hope Minimum-Wage Votes Will Push Democratic Turnout NPR …During political campaigns, many dollar figures get tossed about as candidates discuss the national debt, the deficit, and taxes. But in some states, this could be the figure that will matter most: $7.25. That’s the amount minimum-wage workers get paid per hour under federal law. Polls show voters overwhelmingly support a higher wage, and 28 states and the District of Columbia already have passed laws forcing employers to pay more than the national minimum…
U.S. LABOR
Philadelphia Transit Workers Go On Strike, Shutting Down Buses, Trolleys NPR …Around 4,700 public transportation workers in Philadelphia went on strike at midnight, shutting down many of the city’s transit options. The members of the Transport Workers Union Local 234 and the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, or SEPTA, were unable to agree on a new contract. The strike is causing widespread disruption…
Southwest Flight Attendants Approve New Labor Contract Wall Street Journal …A majority of Southwest Airlines Co.’s 14,500 flight attendants who cast ballots approved a new labor agreement on Monday, according to their union and the carrier. The vote ushers in a two-year contract that will raise their pay by 12.5% and provide a signing bonus of almost 16% based on the average hours worked over the past three years…
McDonald’s agrees to $3.75M deal with California workers AP …McDonald’s has agreed to pay $3.75 million to settle a federal lawsuit that sought to hold the company liable for allegations that a franchise owner in the San Francisco Bay Area cheated hundreds of workers out of wages and overtime. A lawyer for the workers on Monday called the settlement agreement filed in court Friday a historic victory for hundreds of workers but the company said it settled to avoid ongoing legal costs…
Trump Talks Tough, But His Policies Might Do Little To Help America’s Workers Huffington Post …Struggling blue-collar workers often voice disdain for billionaires, but millions of them have embraced Trump. When one digs beneath Trump’s rhetoric, however, it’s not at all clear how or whether his ideas would lift American workers. Indeed, many economists warn that Trump’s get-tough trade policies could spark both a trade war and a recession that would batter millions of the workers who support him…
Trump Support Among Union Members Sinks Lower Bloomberg …Support for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has dropped even lower among union members, the AFL-CIO said. Support for Trump among members of AFL-CIO-affiliated unions stood at 33 percent in Florida, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the five battleground states the group was targeting, Michael Podhorzer, political director for the labor federation, said…
Big Mergers May Face a Higher Bar in Washington Wall Street Journal …From General Electric- Baker Hughes to AT&T- Time Warner, a flood of new mergers are facing regulatory scrutiny. They may face a new wrinkle when they head to Washington—how the deals affect workers. The brief the White House Council of Economic Advisers published Tuesday argues that labor market monopsony reduces “wages, employment, and overall welfare”…
Federal employees behind in pay by 34 percent on average, salary council says Washington Post …Federal workers earn 34.07 percent on average less than private-sector employees doing comparable work, according to the government’s official, although not universally accepted, tally of how salaries compare. The figure was announced at Friday’s annual meeting of the Federal Salary Council, a group of union representatives and outside experts…
Latinas will earn $1 million less than white men over a 40-year career Miami Herald …Latinas are overrepresented in low-wage jobs and make up a tiny fraction of America’s high-earning labor pool. But Latinas in all sectors of the workforce earn significantly less than their white male counterparts over the course of their careers. A new analysis by the National Women’s Law Center and the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement says the typical Latina will earn $1 million less than their white male counterpart over a 40-year career…
SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
Why US inmates launched a nationwide strike CNN …Last month, on the 45th anniversary of the infamous Attica Prison uprising, tens of thousands of US inmates launched a nationwide protest that continues today, according to advocates who helped organize the effort. The inmates’ grievances are as varied as the states they came from: Pennies for labor in South Carolina, racial discrimination in California, excessive force in Michigan…
XPO Logistics Sells Truckload Shipping Business to TransForce for $558 Million Wall Street Journal …XPO Logistics Inc. has sold its truckload shipping business to Canadian trucking company TransForce Inc. for $558 million, the company said Thursday. Greenwich, Conn.-based XPO, which took the business unit on as part of its $3 billion acquisition of Con-way Inc. last year, said proceeds of the sale will be used toward paying down $5.1 billion of outstanding debt used to make over a dozen acquisitions since 2011…
Donald Trump Faces a Barrage of New Allegations The Atlantic …Since the director of the FBI on Friday announced the discovery of new emails potentially pertinent to the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private server, the presidential campaign has been shaken up. Now, with about a week left, there’s a new spree of investigative reports related to the election. Two, related to potential interference by Russia in American elections, are now in dispute. A third, alleging ties between Russian intelligence and Donald Trump, is still fresh. The fourth concerns his tax returns…
Trump wants you to believe that 650 million immigrants could enter the country in a week Think Progress …Trump has previously accused Clinton of being a supporter of “open borders” and “amnesty.” But the Democratic presidential candidate has never said that she would allow in 650 million people. It’s unlikely that the federal immigration agency could actually let in 650 million people in a year— let alone in a week— or that so many people would want to come into the United States in the first place…
Clinton’s immigration plan could help economy more than Trump’s, most economists say LA Times …By Moody’s calculations, Hillary Clinton’s more open-door position on immigration — including a pathway to citizenship for those already in the country illegally and increasing legal immigration — would add about a quarter of a percentage point to gross domestic product growth annually, on average, over the next decade…