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Today’s Teamster News For November 30, 2016
TEAMSTERS
Teamsters Praise Approval of Enbridge Line 3 Replacement Project Teamsters Canada …Teamsters are praising the government’s decision to approve the Enbridge Line 3 Replacement Project, an ambitious pipeline maintenance project that will help thousands of working families. The massive $7.5 billion project stands to generate over $514 million in tax revenue for federal and provincial governments and add close to $3 billion to Canada’s GDP…
Lakeville closure ripples to Hermantown LME terminal Duluth News Tribune …The sudden shuttering of Lakeville Motor Express in Roseville, Minn., last week has left two employees at the LME Inc. terminal in Hermantown out of work and missing a paycheck, according to the Teamsters union. “The company is refusing to pay,” said Teamsters Local 120 Secretary-Treasurer Bill Wedebrand…
Peninsula Humane Society mired in controversy over treatment of animals, shelter conditions Mercury News …The Peninsula Humane Society, which provides animal control for San Mateo County, is facing animal cruelty accusations from some current and former employees that its executive director blames on a union pay dispute. The saga began in October when a dozen employees represented by the Teamsters accused the humane society of mistreatment…
Program trains young garbage collectors as country struggles with growing driver shortage World-Herald …Corey Lever heard about a new partnership involving Waste Management of Alameda County Inc., Oakland Civicorps and unions that gives young adults — often high school dropouts from low-income communities — a chance to become Teamsters union drivers after two years of training. “It’s the only city garbage franchise agreement in the country to include a nonprofit job training program,” said Civicorps Executive Director Alan Lessik…
Trucking, Auto Industries Praise Elaine Chao Transportation Secretary Nomination Trucks.com …The Teamsters told Trucks.com they are not commenting on Trump’s proposed policies and cabinet nominations. But the union was critical of Chao when she was labor secretary. James P. Hoffa, the Teamsters’ president, said she was pushing many anti-union proposals and was against a higher minimum wage…
Latest Port Driver Strike at Ports of LA/Long Beach Ties Up Cargo Port Innovations …Late last month, Teamster-backed port truck drivers and warehouse workers serving the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach expanded their protests against false classification as independent contractors and alleged wage theft. The California Cartage family of companies bore the brunt of the action with workers from K&R Transportation, California Cartage Express, Container Freight, and Orient Tally walking off their jobs for 48 hours from October 25 through 27…
GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
German court rejects Lufthansa bid to prevent pilots’ strike Reuters …A Munich court has rejected a request by Lufthansa (LHAG.DE) to issue a temporary injunction to prevent the latest strike planned by the German airline’s pilots in a long-running dispute over pay. Lufthansa had sought the injunction after it was forced to cancel 2,800 flights because of last week’s four-day strike and said on Monday that another strike planned for the next two days would result in a further 1,700 cancellations…
Fyffes melons at centre of labour abuse claims from Honduran workers The Guardian …Thousands of miles from the supermarkets in the west that they supply with cantaloupes, a community of Honduran melon plantation labourers say they are threatened with dismissal and destitution because they have tried to form a union at their Irish-owned company. The workers are now appealing to US and European consumers to boycott products sold by the fruit multinational Fyffes until it improves working conditions and allows collective bargaining…
Some Trade Deals on Hold after Trump’s Election, but Danger Lurks in the Lesser-Known Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) Huffington Post …Fair Traders who are celebrating the defeat of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) may see their hard work undone if the talks towards the proposed Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) continue under a Trump administration. Many Democrats who minimized the importance of the negative impacts of corporate trade deals on working class Americans have now paid the price in the recent elections…
The Slow, Painful Death of the TPP (opinion) Truthout …In spite of the hopes of many elite types for a last-minute resurrection, it appears that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is finally dead. This is good news, but it took a long time to kill the deal, and the country is likely to pay a huge price for the execution. The basic point that everyone should know by now is that the TPP had little to do with trade…
A proposal to the incoming administration to lower the trade deficit (opinion) Washington Post … Those hoping that American industry will rise again if and when the president-elect whacks deals like the North American or Korea trade deals will be profoundly disappointed. Neither does the failure of the TPP pave the way for the rise of our new Chinese overlords. The problem with this hyper-elevation of trade deals is that it conflates the deals with the trade…
Tom Morello Helps Pen Op-Ed Arguing The People, Not The Donald, Defeated the TPP Trade Deal Billboard …Despite what you might have read about the election of Donald Trump killing the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, Prophets of Rage guitarist Tom Morello writes in a new essay for The Guardian that the real reason the TPP has been defeated was not thanks to The Donald, but thanks to The People. “If not for the constant pressure from activists and civil society groups, the TPP would have become law long before the recent U.S. election,” writes Morello…
Protest Against Austerity Measures Turns Violent in Brazil Rio Times …On Tuesday, November 29th, while thousands protested outside Brazil’s Congress building, the Brazilian Senate approved a Constitutional Amendment (Pec 55 in Senate PEC 241 in Chamber of Deputies) that would limit government spending for the next twenty years. Demonstrators turned violent during the early evening hours, and police threw tear gas to disperse the crowd…
STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
Maine voters raised the minimum wage. Now their governor wants to block the raise. Daily Kos …The 2016 ballot measure raising Maine’s minimum wage to $12 by 2020 got far more votes than Gov. Paul LePage did in 2014—417,132 vs. 294,533. But according to LePage, Maine voters just didn’t know what they were doing when they passed the minimum wage increase, and they need him to protect them from their own actions by blocking it…
N. Carolina: Moral Monday Movement Vows to Defend Victory Over Right-Wing Governor Common Dreams …Vowing mass civil disobedience if North Carolina’s Republican governor attempts to thwart the will of the people and “steal this election,” hundreds gathered in a candlelight vigil outside the North Carolina Capitol building Monday evening. Governor Pat McCrory, who lost in the November election to Attorney General Roy Cooper by roughly 9,700 votes but has refused to concede, has been the subject of demonstrations throughout his tenure…
New York’s Proposed Overtime Overhaul Would Give Restaurant Workers Hefty Raises Eater …New York restaurant workers are about to get paid more. Less than two weeks after a federal judge blocked President Barack Obama’s plan to expand overtime eligibility to millions, New York is on the cusp of issuing its own, even more ambitious overtime law. It’s a move that will increase compensation for hospitality industry employees…
DC lawmakers to vote on generous paid family leave benefits; Bowser urges caution on bill WJLA … District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser is not ready to back the D.C. Council’s plan to provide paid family leave to people who work in the nation’s capital. The council will vote Tuesday on whether to impose a tax on businesses to fund 11 weeks of paid leave for the birth or adoption of a child and eight weeks of leave to care for a sick relative. The benefits would be the most generous in the nation…
Study: Low-wage workers won $60M in raises since 2012 The Hill …As the Fight for $15 celebrates its fourth anniversary Tuesday with protests in 340 cities around the country, a new study finds low-wage workers have earned more than $60 million in raises. The progressive National Employment Law Project reported that 19 million workers have won raises in places like New York, California, Seattle, and Washington, D.C…
U.S. LABOR
Fight for 15: Organized mass strikes, protests take place across country Mic …The Fight For 15 movement’s national Day of Disruption started early Tuesday morning. Low-wage workers across the country are striking in what the Fight For 15 movement calls its “largest, most disruptive protest” in its 4-year history. The strikes are expected to take place in 340 cities and almost 20 of the nation’s busiest airports, according to organizers from Fight For 15…
Why I Was Arrested During the National Day of Disruption The Nation … In the age of Trump, the Fight for $15 offers a rare model of bravery, boldness, and solidarity. Four years ago, just after our last presidential election, a small group of fast-food workers in Brooklyn walked off their jobs, demanding $15 an hour and a union…
Uber Drivers, Other Workers Protest For $15 Minimum Wage NPR …Uber drivers, fast food workers, health aides and airport employees are striking or demonstrating in several cities across America on Tuesday, in what organizers are describing as a “day of disruption” calling for a higher minimum wage. For years, several groups have held protests in support of a $15 minimum wage. But the “Fight for $15” organizers planning Tuesday’s event say this is the first time Uber drivers are joining in the demonstrations…
What Trump’s Secretary of Transportation Could Mean for Uber and Lyft Fortune …While not much is known about her stance on self-driving cars—an important area for pretty much every transportation or auto company today—she seems quite friendly to the so-called “sharing economy.” Chao expressed support for the idea that an increasing number of Americans will take part in the “gig economy” and work part-time for more than one employer…
Carrier says it has struck a deal with Trump to keep nearly 1,000 jobs in Indiana CNN …President-elect Donald Trump and Carrier have reached a deal that will keep nearly 1,000 factory jobs in Indiana, the company said on Tuesday. Carrier poses an early critical test for Trump, who promised during the campaign to keep American jobs from fleeing to Mexico…
U.S. appeals court to hear gay workplace discrimination case Reuters …A U.S. appeals court takes up a closely watched gay rights case on Wednesday in which an Indiana college professor who says she lost her job because she is a lesbian is arguing that federal civil rights law should protect gay people from workplace discrimination. The full 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago will hear Kimberly Hively’s appeal of a July decision by three of its judges who threw out her discrimination case against Ivy Tech Community College in South Bend, Indiana…
Fed Won’t Stand in Workers’ Way on Wages Wall Street Journal …A strong economy, tightening labor market and an expected stimulus package from President-elect Donald Trump would seem to be a recipe for higher inflation and tightening by the Federal Reserve. But a close look at gross-domestic-product data released Tuesday shows why inflation may not jump and why the Fed, while likely to raise rates next month, could remain cautious…
Trump’s Supreme Court pick could strike crippling blow to unions SF Chronicle …With his first Supreme Court appointment, President-elect Donald Trump will be in a position to deal a severe blow to unions representing government workers, the stronghold of organized labor in the United States. Unions won a reprieve in March when the court, after the death of its leading conservative, Justice Antonin Scalia, deadlocked 4-4 on a lawsuit by nonunion teachers in California…
SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
Donald Trump Is the Greatest Threat to American Democracy in Our Lifetime The Nation …His conspiracy theories about rigged elections during the presidential race were meant to delegitimize the possibility of Hillary Clinton’s election. But now that he’s won the election we have to take his words far more seriously. He will appoint the next attorney general, at least one Supreme Court justice and thousands of positions in the federal government…
Donald Trump Couldn’t Get a Job in His Own Administration, According to His Own Administration Mother Jones …The Trump transition team warns applicants that no conflicts of interest will be tolerated. That would disqualify Trump himself from serving in his own administration, as his conflicts of interest are numerous and he has steadfastly refused to remedy the matter, even though some of these conflicts apparently violate the Constitution…
Warren: Trump’s Treasury pick ‘the Forrest Gump of the financial crisis’ Politico …Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Tuesday night that President-elect Donald Trump’s expected pick to run the Treasury Department “is the Forrest Gump of the financial crisis.” In a statement, the Massachusetts Democrat said the prospect of Trump appointing Goldman Sachs alum Steven Mnuchin as his Treasury secretary “should send shivers down the spine of every American who got hit hard by the financial crisis”…
Inmates are dying in jails that prioritize cutting health care costs Think Progress …Companies like ACH appeal to cash-strapped governments by offering to save them money through lower administrative fees. “Our commitment to addressing cost concerns has saved the county over $2.9 million during our tenure,” ACH boasted in a 2013 contract proposal presented to Madison County just a few months after Deundrez died in jail. But critics worry that these cost-cutting measures can fall directly on inmates’ well-being…
Trump’s New Cabinet Pick Is Horrible News for Obamacare and Medicare Slate …Donald Trump’s transition team announced on Tuesday morning that the president-elect has selected Georgia Rep. Tom Price as secretary of health and human services. The move sends at least two very loud messages. First, the incoming White House is dead serious about scrapping the Affordable Care Act. Second, it may well be open to ending Medicare as we know it…
Trump’s Billionaire Education Secretary Has Been Trying to Gut Public Schools for Years Mother Jones …Meet Betsy DeVos, the anti-union, pro-voucher surprise nominee. Last Wednesday, President-elect Donald Trump announced that he would nominate billionaire activist and Republican fundraiser Betsy DeVos as his education secretary. DeVos’ ideas for school reforms are even more radical than what Trump proposed on the campaign trail…
Trump proposes stripping citizenship from political protesters Think Progress …Americans woke up Tuesday to discover that the incoming president took to Twitter to expose his ignorance of or disregard for the Constitution. Criminalizing flag burning is unconstitutional, at least when the flag is burned as a political statement. As the Supreme Court explained in Texas v. Johnson, “if there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable”…