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Today’s Teamster News For November 10, 2016
In observance of Veterans’ Day, the Teamster Nation blog will not be posting the daily news round-up tomorrow, November 11. We honor all who have served our nation’s armed forces. And we will resume normal postings on Monday, November 14.
TEAMSTERS
Workers picket at Westminster-based Aubuchon Hardware Telegram …Aubuchon Hardware workers represented by Teamsters Local 170 picketed outside the company’s headquarters Monday and Tuesday, with workers saying they had been locked out, and the company reporting that workers were on strike. The dispute stems from a proposed contract for members of Local 170, which represents about 60 people in the Aubuchon Hardware distribution center in Westminster…
OATKA Dairy Workers Vote For Higher Wages Teamster.org …Dairy workers at OATKA in Batavia, N.Y. approved a five-year contract that hikes wages for its Local 118 members as well as locks in health care premiums with the company paying 90 percent. The company also agreed to increase its pension contributions for the 265 workers in the bargaining unit. Despite difficult issues during negotiations and a rejection of the company’s first offer, OATKA workers backed a new deal…
The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference is a Leader in Fatigue Management The Province …The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC), which represents 12,000 workers in the rail industry, publically released its Fatigue Risk Guiding Philosophy for the Railway industry. On November 4 the TCRC issued the document to government and industry leadership alike. Sleep-related fatigue has been a long-standing concern for railway workers, industry, government, and the TCRC…
CP Rail, union at odds over worker fatigue Calgary Herald …Canadian Pacific Railway is butting heads with one of its unions over its workplace fatigue practises, saying its efforts to bring predictable schedules and mandatory time-off periods to employees are being “thwarted at every turn.” Edwards said CP is keen to make changes to its scheduling system. That move prompted the filing of a grievance by the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, which represents approximately 3,000 of the company’s conductors and engineers…
GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
Canada: U of M strike: president aims to end dispute ‘as soon as possible’ CBC …The president and vice-chancellor of the University of Manitoba says he wants to resolve the labour dispute with striking faculty “as soon as possible.” The University of Manitoba Faculty Association said students have made it clear they are standing with the striking faculty. “The motion passed by the Science Students’ Association endorses the demands of UMFA, including protection against arbitrary workload increases,” said a news release issued by the union…
EU Trade Commissioner: Hard to Say What Trump Win Means for TTIP Bloomberg …It’s ‘totally impossible’’ to say what Donald Trump’s victory means for TTIP, EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom says in interview with Swedish Radio. She said the campaign indicates a more closed U.S. “but we’ll see, traditionally there’s a certain difference between an election campaign and what happens later in practice”…
This Trade Deal Would Make It a Whole Lot Harder to Fight Climate Change The Nation … Advocates are now focusing on yet another controversial trade deal being formulated in secretive ministerial talks: the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) aims to marketize public services in ways that may reshape environmental policies. Critics of the deal say TiSA threatens to impose sweeping deregulatory measures that would make it harder for signatory nations to meet the goals established in the COP21 climate treaty…
New Zealand PM concedes TPP Trumped in short term Radio NZ …Prime Minister John Key says the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is not going to happen under Donald Trump presidency “in the short term”. On the campaign trail, Mr Trump, now the president-elect, pledged to unpick several multinational trade deals. That included the TPP…
Japan’s lower house ratifies TPP as US prospects diminish Asian Review …Japan’s House of Representatives voted to ratify the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement and passed a related bill Thursday, despite diminishing prospects for the ratification of the pact by the United States following Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election….
McConnell dashes hopes for Pacific trade deal vote before Trump takes office Reuters …U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday dashed any remaining hopes that President Barack Obama’s signature Pacific-Rim trade deal would come up for a vote before President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January. “It’s certainly not going to be brought up this year,” McConnell said of the 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) at a news briefing in Washington…
AFL-CIO vows to work with Trump on trade The Hill …The nation’s top labor leader vowed Wednesday to work with President-elect Donald Trump to defeat the Obama administration’s controversial Asia Pacific trade agreement. “The president-elect made promises in this campaign — on trade, on restoring manufacturing, on reviving our communities,” Trumka said in a statement late Wednesday after the AFL-CIO abruptly postponed a press conference scheduled for earlier in the day…
Latest TPP Peril: President Donald Trump (opinion) Huffington Post …even if the TPP never goes into effect, its damage will be felt worldwide – in the form of the election of President Donald Trump. Yes, many factors contributed to this outcome. But it was not all racists and other haters who elected Trump. It was also a lot of working class voters who supported President Barack Obama twice. Hillary Clinton suffered her biggest losses in the places where Obama was strongest among white voters…
STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
South Dakota rejects measure opposing right-to-work Washington Examiner …South Dakota voters rejected a ballot measure that would have given labor organizations the right under state law to force all employees at a unionized workplace to pay the union a fee. The initiative would have effectively prohibited South Dakota from adopting a right-to-work law, which says that such practices are prohibited…
Missouri: Governor-elect Greitens likely to make Missouri a right-to-work state Post-Dispatch …Missouri voters on Tuesday gave former Navy SEAL Eric Greitens, a Republican, his newest mission — to be their next governor. Greitens’ victory, along with continued GOP control of the Legislature, virtually guarantees that Missouri soon will join the ranks of so-called “right-to-work” states, with laws that diminish the power of labor unions…
Wisconsin: How Scott Walker’s Law Crushing Unions May Have Helped Trump Win Huffington Post …Donald Trump’s victory in Wisconsin defied all expectation ― or pre-election polling. He even notched a rare loss to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in the state’s Republican primary in April. But Grover Norquist, founder of the anti-tax lobby Americans for Tax Reform, put forward a theory: Act 10, Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s 2011 law stripping Wisconsin’s public-sector unions of their collective bargaining rights, made the Badger State fertile ground for Trump…
Need Good News? We Have Some From Maine and Arizona Mother Jones …If you’re looking for something to savor after Tuesday’s bitter tidings, try this: Voters in Maine and Flagstaff, Arizona opted to eliminate the lower wage for tipped workers. Before Tuesday, Maine and Arizona fell in the category of states that pay tipped workers more than the $2.13 hourly minimum but less than the minimum for regular workers, $7.25…
South Dakota: Campaign Finance Overhaul Approved Keloland …Initiated Measure 22 has passed with 51.5 percent of the vote with 690 precincts reporting. This measure will change South Dakota’s law to reign in out-of-state campaign financing and make the process more transparent. Initiated Measure 22 calls for additional disclosure and increased reporting. It also will lower contribution amounts to candidates, PACs and political parties and it limits lobbyist gifts…
U.S. LABOR
SAG-AFTRA’s video game strike could spark unrest in other Hollywood labor unions LA Times …Members of SAG-AFTRA are protesting the way actors are paid and treated by the gaming industry. They are demanding better working conditions, including safeguards against vocal injury. They are also asking for backend residual-like payments, which are standard practice in film and TV, but not in gaming…
Sharp nurses could authorize strike Thursday ABC …The nurses’ union for Sharp Health could approve a strike Thursday morning as contract negotiations between the union and the San Diego-based company have broken down. If nurses in fact approve the strike, the union must provide Sharp Health with a 10-day notice before nurses walk off the job in order to allow the company to train its backup nurses…
GM announces first layoffs in six years, cuts 2,000 jobs CNN …General Motors is cutting 2,000 factory jobs in Michigan and Ohio — its first round of layoffs since 2010. The company said it will cut the third shift of production at the Lordstown, Ohio plant, which makes the compact Chevrolet Cruze. It’s also cutting jobs at the Lansing, Mich., Grand River plant where it makes the Chevy Camaro and the Cadillac ATS and CTS…
Trump Expected to Seek Deep Cuts in Business Regulations New York Times …The unwinding of Dodd-Frank. The firing up of shuttered coal plants. The rollback of rules that increase overtime pay for low-wage workers. Hours after Donald J. Trump won the race for the White House, scores of regulations that have reshaped corporate America in the last eight years suddenly seemed vulnerable…
Donald Trump vowed to bring back factory jobs, but that could be tough Boston Globe …Donald Trump has vowed to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States, and supporters hold him up as a champion of the working class. But automation and other advances that reduce the need for human labor were responsible for 88 percent of lost factory jobs, while trade accounted only for a fraction of those job losses, according to a recent study at Ball State University’s Center for Business and Economic Research…
Labor Under Trump Jacobin …Donald Trump’s election means it’s truly organize or die time for the labor movement. More than anything, this election was about people who are disgusted with the status quo. People who have had little or no interest in voting before came out and voted because their health care premiums have skyrocketed, or they remember losing their factory jobs when Bill Clinton’s NAFTA took effect…
SOCIAL JUSTICE & POST-ELECTION NEWS
Thousands across the US protest Trump victory USA Today …Protesters took to the streets Wednesday in at least 10 cities to march against president-elect Donald Trump – and numerous college students and faculty leaders took to social media to announce support groups and even postponed exams. Protests were underway in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, D.C., Portland, Ore., St. Paul, Minn. and several other cities. An estimated 2,000 protesters shouted angrily in downtown Seattle, expressing their frustration at the Trump victory…
What Trump, Clinton and Voters Agreed On: Better Infrastructure New York Times …During the presidential campaign, Mr. Trump pledged to spend nearly $1 trillion on infrastructure, seeking to outshine Hillary Clinton on an issue that is a growing concern for many Americans. But with little support from Washington in recent years, many communities have moved forward with their own plans to improve public transportation through local ballot measures…
Trump Elected President by Wave of Angry White Voters Across Upper Midwest and South Truthout …The immediate explanation given Tuesday night by pollsters, analysts and political operatives was Tuesday’s vote was a populist rebellion by aggrieved working-class whites across forgotten America. Look at the county-by-county map of where each candidate won, and Trump took vast stretches where the economy is bleak…
The Nightmare President (opinion) The Intercept …Donald Trump shocked everyone but his own supporters Tuesday as his racist, xenophobic, authoritarian, climate-science-denying, misogynistic, “grab-them-by-the-pussy” candidacy somehow carried him to victory. Larger than expected turnout among rural and working-class white voters led Trump to outperform polling expectations in almost every battleground state…
Why Trump Won The Nation …The Obama coalition only works if Democrats don’t throw white working people out of the boat. Obama won majorities of those who were not college graduates; Clinton did not. Republicans held the Senate, losing only one seat, and the House, losing only seven seats. They gained three more governerships, and now lead 33 to 14…
Trump won. Now we organize to block him, every step of the way (opinion) The Guardian …Both Trump and Clinton were some of history’s most unpopular candidates, and for the Democrats to double down on her establishment tendencies now would be suicidal. The Third Way politics that Clinton’s husband helped craft have been thoroughly trounced, and it’s up to the left now to propose its own populist and progressive alternative to Trump’s doomsday “law and order” neoliberalism…