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Today’s Teamster News For December 9, 2016
TEAMSTERS
Uber and Teamsters find common ground on one part of bargaining process KUOW.org …The debate now is over which drivers will get to vote on whether to form a union. The city’s proposal would give most drivers a vote, except those that only give a few rides a week. But Uber and a local Teamsters union think all drivers should have a say. Uber said denying some people a vote will silence them on decisions that affect their work. Teamsters Local 117 agrees…
Atlantic Coast Pipeline Planned For WV,VA and NC Teamster.org …Representatives from the Teamsters National Pipeline participated in an informational meeting for residents in West Virginia about the planned Atlantic Coast Pipeline project. The project is a natural gas pipeline which starts in Harrison County, West Virginia and ends in Robeson County, North Carolina and could employ Teamster members working on its construction…
Bus strike scare resolved for Nashua schools, five-year contract ratified Telegraph …After a looming strike scare last month, Nashua school buses will stay on the roads for the foreseeable future. Leading transportation firm First Student and the union that represents the drivers, Teamsters Local 633, ratified a contract proposal Wednesday evening at a meeting in the Lakes Region, said Chris Kemper, director of external communications at First Student. The contract is good for five years…
Under Threat of Strike Action, University Returns to the Table and Increases Wage Offer Local 2010 …The Teamsters Local 2010 campaign for a fair contract is showing results, as the University returned to the bargaining table today and gave in to several of the Union’s key demands. The University for the first time agreed to provide a total of six raises during the life of the five-year contract, including two raises in the first year. …
Morale is sinking, pilots for Amazon cargo say in survey Seattle Times …The pilots who work for an air-cargo contractor scheduled to become a big part of Amazon.com’s budding air force are chafing under what they say are lackluster compensation packages, attrition and a looming pilot shortage — and they want the tech giant to know all about it. The Atlas pilots’ union, Airline Professionals Association Teamsters Local 1224, says its members are paid much less and have longer working hours than pilots at UPS or FedEx…
GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
India: sanitation workers’ strike raises stink in city Times of India …Heaps of garbage strewn along the roadside as sanitation workers strike in the city have become an eyesore for the residents. The door-to-door garbage collection in the city has been on hold for the past four days as the workers stopped reporting for duty. The workers, who are contractual employees of the nagar nigam, are demanding a pay hike…
Nigeria: NUPENG Set To Commence 3-Day Warning Strike The Whistler …The Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG, on Wednesday called for a 3-day nation-wide warning strike over unresolved labour issues with multinational oil and gas industries operating in the country. This was revealed in a statement signed by the president of the union, Mr Igwe Achese, as part of a resolve from its National Executive Council, NEC, meeting in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, on Monday…
Diet ratifies TPP but trade deal remains dead in the water without U.S. Japan Times …Japan ratified the Trans-Pacific Partnership pact on Friday as the ruling camp approved the trade deal and its related legislation in the Upper House, overcoming resistance from the opposition camp. However, the chance of the free trade deal taking effect is considered very slim. Even Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has admitted that a TPP without the U.S. would be “meaningless”…
Bangladesh unions join suit against FIFA over World Cup workers EuroNews …Bangladesh labour activists said on Friday they had joined a lawsuit in Switzerland against world soccer body FIFA for allegedly failing to use its influence to ensure people working on 2022 World Cup facilities in Qatar are treated fairly. The suit, filed in FIFA’s home city of Zurich with the backing of the largest labour union in the Netherlands, calls on FIFA to force Qatar to adopt “minimum labour standards” for migrant workers…
Brazil: McDonald’s Fined $30 Million for Labor Law Violations Bloomberg …The Brazilian unit of McDonald’s has been hit with a $30 million fine for violating the country’s labor laws. The prosecutors office of the labor ministry announced the fine on Dec. 1 and stated that a hearing will be held on Dec. 13 where the payment of the fine will be discussed and McDonald’s will “be informed of all penalties for the recurrence of its violations”…
STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
Anti-union bills pass Michigan House of Representatives Detroit Free Press …The Michigan House of Representatives passed a pair of anti-union bills Wednesday night that make it harder for workers and unions to picket and easier for employers to hire workers to replace striking employees. One bill would increase fines against picketers to $1,000 per person per day of a picket and $10,000 per day for an organization or union involved in the picket that is deemed to be an illegal mass picket…
Minimum-Wage Foes Tripped Up by Facts Bloomberg …The modern minimum-wage debate traces back to the seminal 1993 research by Alan Krueger and David Card. The two economists looked at employment in the fast-food industry when minimum wages were raised in one market but not in the adjacent market. Their studies found no reduction in job growth…
Portland Adopts Surcharge on C.E.O. Pay in Move vs. Income Inequality New York Times …Moving to address income inequality on a local level, the City Council in Portland, Ore., voted on Wednesday to impose a surtax on companies whose chief executives earn more than 100 times the median pay of their rank-and-file workers. The surcharge, which Portland officials said is the first in the nation linked to chief executives’ pay, would be added to the city’s business tax for those companies that exceed the pay threshold…
U.S. LABOR
Trump names Andrew Puzder, a fast-food CEO and critic of substantially raising the minimum wage, to head the Labor Department Washington Post …President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday he intends to nominate fast-food executive Andrew Puzder, a vocal critic of substantially increasing the minimum wage and an opponent of rules that would make more workers eligible for overtime pay, as head of the Labor Department…
UFCW Scolds Amazon for Dropping Checkout Stands, Clerks Progressive Grocer …E-commerce giant Amazon.com has received some harsh words from UFCW, the largest union representing grocery store workers, for opening a new format that drops checkout lines and cashiers altogether. In a statement shared by The Seattle Times, Marc Perrone, international UFCW president, said Amazon “believes America’s hardworking men and women are irrelevant to customers,” and that “they couldn’t be more wrong”…
Big Law Rules Employer Defense Business in Labor Board Cases Bloomberg …ine national law firms dominated the representation of employers before the National Labor Relations Board in 2016, the agency’s records show. The firms represented employers in about one-third of the cases reported in the board’s published decisions for the fiscal year. Littler Mendelson P.C. topped the list, taking part in 28 of 298 unfair labor practice or representation cases, or nearly 10 percent of cases before the board in fiscal 2016…
Most Jobs Created Since 2005 Are Nontraditional NBC …a recently updated study by Harvard and Princeton economists shows that 94 percent of “net job growth” — the number of jobs created minus the number of jobs lost — from 2005-2015 was in “alternative work.” It’s a big bucket that includes independent contractors, freelancers, temp agencies, on-call employees, and people who work for contract companies, like janitors…
AFL-CIO Endorses Keith Ellison to Lead DNC AFL-CIO …The Executive Council of the 12.5 million member AFL-CIO has voted overwhelmingly to endorse Representative Keith Ellison to lead the Democratic National Committee. Over the last few weeks, several candidates have sought the endorsement of the AFL-CIO and met personally with members of the Political Committee, which ultimately recommended the endorsement…
SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
Racism is built into sharing economy, and startups can do little about it MarketWatch …Racism has infected the platforms of some of Silicon Valley’s tech darlings, and experts say the business models of the “sharing economy” could keep startups from addressing the issue. Studies have tracked racial discrimination in car-sharing services such as Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc., as well as on home-rental sites like Airbnb, as part of a growing body of research finding bias among contractors and hosts…