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Today’s Teamster News For November 2, 2016
TEAMSTERS
Hoffa: a better way forward requires showing up to vote Detroit News …Americans are working longer and harder but are still struggling to make ends meet. Corporations are keeping more of their sky-high profits for themselves. That’s the reason the Teamsters and our allies have taken such a strong stand against the terrible Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The proposed 12-nation Pacific Rim trade deal is nothing but a corporate handout…
Teamsters complain about mystery campaign letter from outside group Register-Herald …The Teamsters filed a formal complaint Monday against an outside group that allegedly violated campaign finance laws by mailing anti-union letters to voters without registering or reporting its activities with the state. Teamsters General Secretary-Treasurer Ken Hall personally filed an election complaint with the West Virginia Secretary of State’s Office against West Virginia Right to Work Committee for not “filing or disclosing the required financial information” with that proper state agency…
Teamsters, Lyft Drivers File Objections to Class-Action Lawsuit Settlement Teamster.org …Lyft drivers, the Uber Lyft Teamsters Rideshare Alliance (ULTRA), Teamsters Joint Council 7 and Teamsters Joint Council 42 have filed legal objections to a class-action lawsuit settlement which would continue to misclassify Lyft employees in California as independent contractors. The objections were filed late yesterday in federal district court in San Francisco. The case is being heard by Judge Vince Chhabria…
Teamsters object to Lyft settlement Politico …Teamsters groups and several California Lyft drivers filed an objection this week to a proposed $27 million settlement in a class-action lawsuit over employee classification. In 2013 drivers sued the ride-sharing company, arguing Lyft had misclassified them as independent contractors when they should have been classified as employees…
Unions rally Tuesday at University of Minnesota Workday Minnesota …The Teamsters local representing University of Minnesota maintenance, food service and other workers, and the SEIU local seeking to represent faculty will hold a Solidarity Rally Tuesday, Nov. 1, on the Minneapolis campus. Teamsters Local 320 represents several hundred facilities and food service workers at the University. Under their union contract, members are entitled to take paid sick leave, but the union says it “continues to battle with the University of Minnesota over its application” of the leave policy…
GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
Greek main labour union to strike against EU/IMF reforms on Dec. 8 Reuters …Greece’s largest labour union GSEE will stage a nationwide strike on December 8 to protest against austerity measures and labour reforms demanded by the country’s official lenders as part of a crucial bailout review. GSEE, which represents about 2 million workers and pensioners in the private sector, said the 24-hour walkout would be a protest against the planned reforms, warning that it would step up labour action…
UK: BMW faces walkout of British workers by Christmas The Week …”BMW is facing a battle with its British workforce,” says The Times, that could lead to a mass staff walkout before Christmas. Unite, Britain’s biggest trade union, has launched a “consultative ballot” of more than 5,000 staff at five sites across the country, including the Rolls-Royce Goodwood plant and Mini factories in Oxfordshire and Swindon. If this garners widespread support the union will press on with a full strike ballot…
TPP headed for ratification in Japan, but questions remain Asian Review …Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party and main opposition Democratic Party have agreed to hold a lower house vote on the Trans-Pacific Partnership this week, making the controversial free trade agreement likely to see ratification during the current parliamentary session. The public still has doubts about the TPP…
Obama Makes a Long-Shot Bid for TPP Trade Deal Wall Street Journal …President Barack Obama is forging ahead with a long-shot bid to bring a 12-nation Pacific trade agreement to a vote in Congress immediately after an election that has stirred deep antitrade sentiments in both parties. The administration’s push—which includes campaign support for congressional allies and targeted bids to convert naysayers—marks a huge wager that a majority of House and Senate lawmakers might brush aside the opposition…
With CETA signed, Canada trade opponents shift focus to TPP Yahoo.com …One of Canada’s largest unions wasted no time Monday voicing opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), just one day after the country signed a landmark free trade deal with the EU. Unifor, which represents more than 300,000 workers in several sectors across the country and is generally supportive of free trade, urged lawmakers to vote against ratifying the TPP deal between 12 Asia-Pacific countries…
Workers threaten to sue Rio Olympics over late payments USA Today …Nearly two and a half months after the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, hundreds of workers still haven’t been paid and are planning to sue the local organizing committee to get their money. Among those late getting paid are about 100 freelance contractors who worked as stadium announcers, show producers and DJs, and several hundred others…
10 of the World’s Poorest Countries Host Half the Global Refugee Population The Nation …While Europe rushes to steel its external borders against an oncoming wave of migration, its internal political union is dissolving under a storm of populist nationalism. French officials’ ongoing scorched-earth demolition of the migrant camp in Calais known as “the Jungle” was a haphazard stitch on a gaping continental wound…
Morocco: Massive Protests Against Neoliberalism, Privatization Democracy Now …In Morocco, thousands of people have been protesting across the country after a fish seller was crushed to death in a garbage truck trying to retrieve fish confiscated by police. The weekend’s rallies were called by activists from the February 20 movement, which organized demonstrations during the Arab unrest of 2011. Fikri’s death drew parallels to that of Tunisian fruit seller Mohamed Bouazizi in 2010 whose death sparked the Arab Spring uprisings…
STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
North Carolina: New Lawsuit Challenges Effort to Stamp Out African-American Vote Common Dreams …With just over a week to go before Election Day, the North Carolina NAACP on Monday filed a lawsuit to stop what it describes as a Republican-led effort to snuff out the African-American vote. “This is our Selma and we will not back down and allow this suppression to continue,” said Rev. William Barber II, president of the organization…
Colorado: total spending on campaigns initiatives nears $48 million so far Denver Post …More than $3 million in contributions aided the slate of statewide initiatives in the final campaign finance reporting period before next Tuesday’s election, with more than $1 million in last-minute money bolstering the effort to increase Colorado’s minimum wage…
South Dakota: Kochs Battle Dark Money Disclosure CMD …The Koch network has mobilized in South Dakota to defeat the “South Dakota Accountability and Anti-Corruption Act,” a state-wide initiative on the ballot November 8. The anti-corruption measure, Initiated Measure 22 or IM-22, was launched by a bipartisan group called the South Dakotans for Integrity and put on the ballot with signatures from over 20,000 state residents…
GOP Pols Won’t Raise the Minimum Wage — So Voters Are About To American Prospect …With congressional Republicans resisting any attempt by Democrats to raise the federal minimum wage, the fight to raise the base pay for low-wage workers has gone decidedly local. Spurred by the organized pressure of the Fight for 15 campaign, sympathetic lawmakers in liberal strongholds have passed legislation to dramatically raise wages over the next few years. And blue states are starting to hike their minimum wages as well…
Several States, Some Employers Help Workers Make Time To Vote NPR …Twenty-three states require employers to offer some form of paid leave to vote. Others, including Illinois, Kentucky or Wisconsin, allow for unpaid leave, the timing of which employers can set. Still others, including Florida, North Carolina and Virginia have no laws requiring companies to give workers time off to vote…
Democrats sue Trump for alleged voter intimidation in four states Reuters …Democratic Party officials sued Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in four battleground states on Monday, seeking to shut down a poll-watching effort they said was designed to harass minority voters in the Nov. 8 election. Lawsuits were filed in federal courts in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona and Ohio…
U.S. LABOR
No deal reached as SEPTA strike enters 2nd day Philly.com …At 5 p.m. Tuesday, seventeen hours after almost 5,000 city transit workers walked off the job, SEPTA offered its first poststrike contract proposal. The union rejected it almost immediately. Based on accounts from SEPTA and Transportation Workers Union Local 234, the two parties spent virtually no time face-to-face Tuesday even as hundreds of thousands in the region scrambled to find ways to get around without subways, trolleys and buses…
Honeywell stalemate takes toll on UAW members South Bend Tribune …Honeywell Aerospace and the United Auto Workers Local 9 have been in a war of wills for the past six months, each side waiting for the other to blink. But one side has an advantage in this standoff: While Honeywell is a multibillion-dollar company and continues to operate during the lockout, 317 union members locked out of the company’s South Bend plant are watching their hard-earned savings bleed away…
Chicago Teachers Union Members Begin Voting On New Contract DNA …Members of the Chicago Teachers Union began voting Monday on whether to approve a new contract agreement with the Chicago Public Schools. The nearly 30,000 teachers and support staff members that belong to the union will vote Monday and Tuesday on whether to accept the agreement that has already been overwhelmingly endorsed by union leaders and delegates…
Drama Brews Over Off-Broadway Wages Wall Street Journal …The contract governing select off-Broadway wages is set to expire. Actors’ Equity Association is negotiating with the League of Off-Broadway Theatres & Producers to iron out a contract applying to six major nonprofits, including the Public Theater and Signature Theatre, as well as about 100 commercial producers…
The High Costs of Not Offering Paid Sick Leave New York Times …Paid sick leave is not free, of course. Economic theory suggests that its cost would be passed from employers to their employees in the form of lower wages or reductions in other benefits like vacation time. Yet employees and their co-workers may be better off with an incentive to take time off when sick. A number of recent studies point to the benefits…
These workers are the most likely to be hurt on the job CBS …Employees in state-run nursing homes and hospitals suffer from the highest rate of on-the-job injury, surpassing that of even construction or policing, according to recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. About 12 out of 100 workers in state-run nursing homes or hospitals suffered nonfatal workplace injuries last year, compared with 8 out of 100 workers in state construction jobs and 6.2 for justice and public order jobs…
Immigrants Are Keeping America Young — And The Economy Growing FiveThirtyEight …You wouldn’t know it from this year’s overheated campaign rhetoric, but immigration is the only thing keeping the U.S. from facing a Japan-style demographic cliff. At a time when aging and other factors mean that fewer Americans are working, immigrants — who tend to come to the U.S. during their working years and have a higher rate of labor-force participation than native-born Americans — play an increasingly important role in the U.S. workforce…
What the last employment report before the election will tell us Salon …On Friday Americans will get a glimpse at the last monthly U.S. jobs report before they head off to the polls next Tuesday to decide who will lead the nation for the next four years. By just about every imaginable measure of the labor market, Americans are better off than they were when President Barack Obama came into office in 2009, inheriting the worst economic crisis since the Depression…
SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
Uber and Lyft Are Failing Black Riders The Atlantic …Uber, Lyft, and other ride-sharing services were supposed to be a more egalitarian transportation option than a traditional cab service. There’s a mountain of data that shows how difficult and dangerous something as simple as finding a cab ride home can be, particularly for women and black people. Ride-hailing apps were expected to help fix that. But a new study finds some of the problems persist…
Private-Prison Firm CCA to Rename Itself CoreCivic Wall street Journal …The private prison firm CCA is renaming itself CoreCivic as it seeks to diversify into prisoner re-entry programs, building jails, and maintaining them, rather than just guarding and operating the facilities. The move comes amid a public debate about whether federal, state and local governments should use private prisons and facilities to hold convicted criminals, suspects awaiting trial, and immigrants awaiting deportation…
For Helping Immigrants, Chobani’s Founder Draws Threats New York Times …In this contentious election season, the extreme right has a problem with Chobani: In its view, too many of those employees are refugees. As Mr. Ulukaya has stepped up his advocacy — employing more than 300 refugees in his factories, starting a foundation to help migrants, and traveling to the Greek island of Lesbos to witness the crisis firsthand — he and his company have been targeted with racist attacks on social media…
Donald Trump Used Legally Dubious Method to Avoid Paying Taxes New York Times …But newly obtained documents show that in the early 1990s, as he scrambled to stave off financial ruin, Mr. Trump avoided reporting hundreds of millions of dollars in taxable income by using a tax avoidance maneuver so legally dubious his own lawyers advised him that the Internal Revenue Service would most likely declare it improper if he were audited…
America Is Already in the Midst of a Voter Suppression Crisis Slate …Voter suppression doesn’t only happen on Election Day. America is already in the midst of a voter suppression crisis. Voters attempting to cast an early ballot are being thwarted and lied to by Republican officials—a problem that will likely escalate into chaos on election day. In North Carolina, Grace Bell Hardison, a 100-year-old black woman, felt the sting of voter suppression…