Uncategorized
This Week’s Teamster News for July 1-7
TEAMSTERS
Canada Teamsters
Laporte, Hoffa, Hall Open 12th Teamsters Canada Convention Teamster.org …Monday marked the opening day of Teamsters Canada’s 12th convention and Teamster members from across the country representing every local union and joint conference were in attendance. It was a historic event as delegates voted unanimously to create a position for women on the Teamsters Canada Executive Board. General President Jim Hoffa, General Secretary-Treasurer Ken Hall and Vancouver Kingsway MP Don Davies were in attendance…
Community Action
Hoffa: Opioid use due to broken system The Detroit News …Our country’s opioid epidemic which claims the lives of 91 Americans every day is hurting far too many families in Michigan and across the country. For our part, the Teamsters Union is leading a shareholder effort to demand accountability from our country’s largest wholesale drug distributors for their role in fueling the opioid epidemic…
Teamsters Military Assistance Program Supports Warrior Games Teamster.org …The Teamsters Military Assistance Program supports the U.S. Department of Defense’s Warrior Games being held now in Chicago. Approximately 265 wounded, ill and injured service members and veterans representing teams from the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), as well as the United Kingdom Armed Forces and the Australian Defense Force will participate…
Contract Campaigns & Strikes
Bay Area Waste Workers Agree to New Contracts Teamster.org …Workers at three Alameda County, Calif.-based waste facilities affiliated with Local 70 separately approved new contracts recently with their employers that will improve their wages, benefits and paid time off. Employees at Waste Management in Oakland, Republic Services in Freemont and Alameda County Industries (ACI) in San Leandro overwhelmingly adopted the same new deal…
CUSD Classified Workers Ratify First Teamster Contract Teamster.org …The over 600 classified workers of the Compton, Calif., Unified School District (CUSD) voted to accept their first Teamster Local 911 contract with 95 percent voting in favor of ratification on Thursday, June 29, 2017. The three-year agreement ends years of stagnant wages with guaranteed increases and significantly drops the cost of health care…
Cannery workers reach contract agreement, end strike Benito Link …San Benito Foods cannery workers and Neil Jones Food Company reached a contract agreement on July 1, ending the union’s strike with members receiving a $1 raise this year, a 2.25 percent raise for 2018 and a 2.25 percent increase for 2019. The announcement was made in a press release issued by Teamsters Local 890, which said it had been in in negotiations with San Benito Foods since January…
Clare Rose, union meetings hold talks with mediator Newsday …East Yaphank beer distributor Clare Rose and union leaders negotiated with the help of a private mediator Wednesday night and planned to do so again Thursday amid a strike that is in its third month, the company’s CEO and Teamsters Local 812 said. The two sides said in late June that the two parties planned to work with an arbitrator to bring a resolution to the strike…
Top NYC Office Furniture Company Locks Out Teamster Workers Joint Council 16 …This morning, Waldner’s Business Environments locked out its union workers. Waldner’s is one of the largest office furniture companies in the New York City area and has been unionized for over 50 years. For several months, Waldner’s refused to bargain a new contract with Teamsters Local 814…
Sun Tran and Teamsters Union sign contract extension through July 8 KGUN …Sun Tran and Teamsters Local 104 have agreed to extend the current labor contract until 11:59 p.m. July 8th. This extension will allow negotiations to continue. The Sun Tran bus service will operate on a regular schedule throughout this period. Labor talks will resume on July 3rd…
Teamsters Declare Victory in Itasca County Local 320 …Local 320 has declared another victory in a long battle with Itasca County. After the union organized the Probation Officers in 2014, the County questioned whether it was the true employer of the probation officers. The Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s denial of the County’s summary judgment motion. The local is ready to go back to the table or appear in front of an arbitrator…
Locals
Teamsters Local 1224: Amazon Prime Customers to Hear About Risks to Delivery Service Ahead of “Prime Day” Teamster.org … Ahead of Amazon’s largest single-day sales event, pilots who fly for Amazon Prime Air are taking their concerns about the future of the delivery service directly to Amazon customers. Pilots from Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings (AAWW) and Air Transport Services Group (ATSG) launched a nationwide advertising campaign detailing the issues at their airlines…
Corrections Officers Warn Low Staffing Plagues N.H. Prisons Valley News …The union, which represents more than 380 corrections officers, is arguing that a shortage of trained officers forced to work thousands of hours in overtime is creating an unsafe environment for workers and inmates, according to a news release from Teamsters Local 633…
Molson Coors plans to spend up to $500 million to build new Montreal brewery RD News Now …A tract of waterfront land at the edge of Old Montreal will undergo a transformation after Molson Coors announced plans to spend up to $500 million to build a new brewery in the city instead of modernizing its current brewery, North America’s oldest. Local union president Eric Picotte of the Teamsters welcomed the decision to maintain a long-term brewing presence in Montreal…
The Next Operation Dixie Dissent Magazine …Teamsters Local 728 has organized public-sector workers in Georgia, who do not have collective bargaining rights. There are also other unions who have done this in Georgia and other states in the South with similar anti–collective bargaining laws. This type of organizing really forces unions to go “back to basics” in terms of organizing and representation…
National Campaigns
UPS’s new vehicles are tiny — and Teamsters in Kentucky object Business Chronicle …Atlanta-based United Parcel Service Inc. is planning to use golf carts to make package deliveries in suburban and residential areas when needed. The new delivery option comes as Kentucky law was recently loosened up on these vehicles. But Teamsters Local 89, which represents many UPS employees in Louisville, is speaking out against it…
Workers slow to return to work after UPS shooting ABC News …Only five of nearly 40 San Francisco UPS workers have returned to work after witnessing the fatal shootings of three colleagues last month, a union official said. “People are afraid,” said Joe Cilia, secretary-treasurer for Teamsters Local 2785, the drivers’ union. “It’s tough. People are starting to wonder what’s going to happen going forward, and they’re not able to go back to work”…
Teamsters Blast XPO Logistics’ Plan to Expand Operations, Increase Debt Teamster.org …The Teamsters believe XPO Logistics, Inc.’s stated plan to buy more companies and expand its global operations to Asia and beyond is fraught with risk because of the company’s record of integrating businesses while implementing unsustainable policies and practices that harms its workforce…
Jack Cooper Successfully Completes Debt Reduction; Good News for Teamster Carhaulers Teamster.org …In a series of financial transactions, Jack Cooper announced on June 29, 2017 that it had successfully reduced the company’s outstanding debt by $300 million which in turn will reduce annual interest by nearly $10 million. “This is good news–really good news for Teamster-represented workers at Jack Cooper,” said Kevin Moore, Director of the Teamsters Carhaul Division…
Rail Teamsters
Western New York And Pennsylvania Railroad Workers Ratify BLET Contract Teamster.org …In late May, members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) achieved a significant milestone with the ratification of their first-ever union contract with the Western New York & Pennsylvania Railroad. It was ratified by an overwhelming majority of those casting a ballot.The four-year agreement governs about a dozen members and runs through December 31, 2021…
GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
Germany: police, protesters skirmish in Hamburg as G-20 makes city site of global discord Washington Post …The street marches planned for the summit — emulating the forceful dissent seen at past G-20 gatherings — cover a range of issues, including calls for environmental protection, denunciations of ethnic nationalism and opposition to free trade. But the Hamburg protests have gained added momentum as a stand against Trump and his brand of “America First” populism…
Union Leader Murdered in Colombia Solidarity Center …The president of a local branch of Colombia’s National Union of Agricultural Workers (SINTRAINAGRO) was fatally shot by gunmen on a motorcycle on July 1 while watching his son play soccer. SINTRAINAGRO is an affiliate of the global food, farm and hotel union, IUF, which has written Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos to “demand a full and transparent investigation into this latest assassination. Last month, Colombia was listed as among the 10 worst countries for worker rights…
UK: bank workers will strike for first time in 50 years CNN …Maintenance and security workers at the central bank have voted by a huge majority to strike for four days starting July 31 in a dispute over pay. Labor union Unite said the bank offered workers a raise worth less than inflation for the second year in a row. If the strike goes ahead, it will be the first at the bank in over 50 years…
Spain ratifies Canada-EU trade deal after opposition backs away Bilaterals.org …The Spanish parliament has ratified the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), the free trade agreement between the EU and Canada, Lavanguardia reported. The Spanish socialist party PSOE, which was the main opposition party to the agreement, said it would abstain in the vote, a Spanish source familiar with the process told Undercurrent News…
Union reps push tough, enforceable labor standards for “New NAFTA” at panel session People’s World …Union representatives outlined tough and enforceable pro-worker standards for a “new NAFTA” before a special trade panel studying the issue. Labor told the International Trade Commission that, as Lee put it, the current NAFTA “has provided tremendous benefits to CEOs and wealthy corporations, but has not benefited working people”…
American Workers Seek Enforcement, Not Protection (opinion) Huffington Post …American workers have made a simple request of politicians for decades: stop the trade violations that kill American manufacturers and jobs. American factories and workers are willing to compete. They are able to compete. But the playing field must be level. American workers and employers can’t win when their rival is not a company but a country…
Brexit: UK may not actually exit the EU, warn political sources Independent …The department announced last week it will start talks on a US-UK trade deal in Washington on 24 July. Meanwhile the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, is leading a drive for a lengthy transitional period, hoping to avoid a disastrous “cliff edge” for businesses as a result of leaving with no trade deal…
Conservative Polish politicians bus people in for Trump speech CNN …Law and Justice politicians from all over Poland informed their supporters over social media in the weeks leading up to Trump’s visit that free buses would be provided to anyone who wanted to attend Trump’s speech Thursday to the Polish people in Warsaw. The nationalist party that vaulted President Andrzej Duda to power in 2015 had worked to roll out the red carpet for Trump…
STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
Washington Legislature passes paid family leave measure The Olympian …The Washington Legislature on Friday approved a paid family leave program that offers workers paid time off for the birth or adoption of a child or for the serious medical condition of the worker or the worker’s family member. The measure passed the House on a 65-29 vote shortly after the Senate passed it on a 37-12 vote…
Christie signs N.J. budget, ending 3-day government shutdown Politico …Gov. Chris Christie and lawmakers ended New Jersey’s first state government shutdown in more than a decade, settling a bitter feud over an unrelated bill that had left the Statehouse in disarray for two weeks. In votes after midnight, both houses of the Legislature passed the state budget and the companion legislation…
Gov. Chris Christie is blistered over his day at the beach Newsday …Christie is getting blistered online and in the real world after he was photographed with his family soaking up the sun on a beach that he had closed to the public over the Fourth of July weekend because of a government shutdown. A deeply unpopular Republican serving out his final six months in office, Christie was lambasted Monday as selfish and arrogant…
Pennsylvania council resolution to encourage minimum wage increase Post-Gazette …A proposal to double Pennsylvania’s minimum wage over several years is finding support on Pittsburgh City Council. Councilman Dan Gilman said he will introduce a resolution Thursday endorsing the state House bill, whose prime sponsor is Rep. Patty Kim, a Dauphin County Democrat…
Minimum Wages Tick Up in Many Cities With New Fiscal Year NBC …Higher minimum wages go into effect across the country this week, boosting many low-wage workers’ paychecks — and the blood pressures of some employers and economists. In Los Angeles, the minimum wage is rising from $10.50 to $12 an hour for businesses with 26 or more employees (and to $10.50 per hour for smaller businesses)…
Fast-food workers, others hail Oregon’s scheduling measure Columbian …Fast-food workers, retail clerks and hospital orderlies nationwide sometimes learn their hours on a day’s notice, making it harder for them to secure child care or plan their lives. Last week, Oregon took a major step to ease that challenge, advancing a bill that requires large companies to give employees a schedule at least a week in advance…
FLOC joins fight against North Carolina farm bill The Blade …Local members of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee are scrambling to persuade North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper to veto a bill that severely would limit their organizing power. Representatives from FLOC, which has its headquarters in Toledo but functions as the only agricultural union in North Carolina, said a last-minute amendment to a bill ratified Thursday targets them…
Family-Friendly Laws Are Being Passed, but Not by Trump’s Team New York Times …President Trump has promised help for families with jobs and young children. And recently, they have been getting it — but not from the federal government. Instead, state and local lawmakers have been passing policies to address their needs. Last week alone, state legislatures passed several major pieces of legislation that benefit families…
U.S. LABOR
SAG-AFTRA, Production Companies Reach Three-Year Deal Variety …SAG-AFTRA and Hollywood’s production companies have reached a tentative deal on a new three-year master contract for union performers — averting a strike. The deal was concluded at 6 a.m. and announced at 6:40 a.m Tuesday morning following a month of bargaining at the headquarters of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers in Sherman Oaks, Calif…
Graduate Worker and Faculty Unions Are Taking on Duke’s Administration Paste Magazine …The administration had been in bargaining for nine months with the Duke Faculty Union, which represents contingent (adjunct/part-time/non-regular full-time) faculty. Instead of directly addressing low wages that have some full-time contingent faculty eligible for food stamps and others working multiple part time jobs to make ends meet, Duke’s initial response to bargaining was to offer workers contracts largely the same as, or worse than, the status quo…
Governor And Union Fail To Reach Agreement Leaving NH State Employees Without A Contract NH Labor News …The New Hampshire State Employees Association (SEIU1984) and the State of New Hampshire have failed to reach a contract agreement and workers are now working without a contract. As of now the NHLN does not have any details on the negotiations other that what the SEA said in this brief statement issued on June 30, the last day of the fiscal year for the state of NH…
White House pays women 80 cents for every dollar paid to men CNN …Women working in the White House earn an average salary of 80 cents for every dollar paid to their male colleagues, a CNN analysis found. That’s a gender pay gap wider than the national average of 82 cents on the dollar, according to the Labor Department…
Trump touts ‘great jobs numbers’ that aren’t actually so great Los Angeles Times …President Trump on Monday touted the “great jobs numbers” since he took office — numbers that his own administration’s statistics show aren’t all that great. Trump said in a tweet that “at some point the Fake News will be forced to discuss our great jobs numbers, strong economy” and other successes of his administration…
Side hustles are the new norm. Here’s how much they really pay. Washington Post …The “gig economy,” popularized by the likes of Lyft, Airbnb and TaskRabbit, has for years been promoted as an effective way for Americans to make money on their own terms. But new data shows that the majority of gig workers — 85 percent — make less than $500 a month, on average, through those services…
Black Workers Face a Tough Labor-Market Slog During Recessions Bloomberg …Black men and women are much more likely to lose their job in a downturn, Federal Reserve research finds. Over the past four decades, black Americans have had higher unemployment rates that are more business-cycle tied than those of their white counterparts. Observable characteristics such as education do little to explain the discrepancy…
Labor shortages leave some California growers searching for workers SacBee …What’s causing the shortage? Although many believe President Donald’s Trumps aggressive crackdown on illegal immigrants has plugged the pipeline of undocumented workers, that’s only part of it. Tougher border enforcement, drug cartels and the hefty price of being smuggled across the border have all played a part…
Hundreds of thousands of workers could lose their jobs if Senate health bill passes Vox …The health care bill moving through the Senate, and particularly its rollback of Medicaid, would threaten millions of dollars of funding for the county hospital system here. It could end mental health and behavioral services for low-income patients. And it has cast a pall of uncertainty over hospital staff…
After Years of Growth, Automakers Are Cutting U.S. Jobs New York Times …After a prolonged recovery that culminated in two years of record sales, the American auto industry is slowing down, with fewer buyers in dealer showrooms and fewer workers on the factory floor. Automakers said this week that sales dropped in June for a sixth consecutive month…
SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
Trump proposes end to heating aid for low-income Americans WCVB …President Donald Trump has proposed eliminating heating aid for low-income Americans, claiming it’s no longer necessary and rife with fraud. People needn’t worry about being left in the cold, he says, because utilities cannot cut off customers in the dead of winter. But he is wrong on all counts…
White House council for women and girls goes dark under Trump Politico …The council, created by Obama in 2009 to monitor the impact of policy changes and liaise with women’s groups has been defunct while the Trump administration evaluates whether to keep it, according to three senior White House officials. “We want the input of the various agencies to understand the assets they have so that we make this office additive, not redundant,” said White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks…
‘Autocrats Are Rejoicing’: Trump’s Latest Attack on Press Meets Fierce Rebuke Common Dreams …Journalists, human rights groups, and lawmakers found common ground in their reaction to Donald Trump’s latest attack on media outlets who critically who cover his administration. The video the president posted on Twitter over the weekend, showing him tackling and punching the wrestling promoter Vince McMahon with a superimposed CNN logo over McMahon’s face, was met with widespread disbelief and outrage…
Why the Koch brothers want to kill an obscure Senate rule to help shape the federal courts USA Today …The influential donor network tied to billionaire Charles Koch is taking aim at a longstanding Senate tradition that allows Democratic senators to block judicial nominees from their states, as conservatives race to seize on one-party control of Washington to rapidly reshape the federal judiciary….
Counseled by Industry, Not Staff, E.P.A. Chief Is Off to a Blazing Start New York Times …In the four months since he took office as the Environmental Protection Agency’s administrator, Scott Pruitt has moved to undo, delay or otherwise block more than 30 environmental rules, a regulatory rollback larger in scope than any other over so short a time in the agency’s 47-year history, according to experts in environmental law…
Proposed police training fund to be named after Philando Castile Pioneer Press …Standing beside family members of Philando Castile on the one-year anniversary of the police shooting that claimed the man’s life, Gov. Mark Dayton stood by his previous statement that it wouldn’t have happened if Castile were white — and urged that a new police training fund be named after him…
At parades and protests, GOP lawmakers get earful about health care Washington Post … Republicans, who skipped the usual committee process in the hopes of passing a bill quickly, spent the Fourth of July recess fending off protesters, low poll numbers and newspaper front pages that warn of shuttered hospitals and 22 million people being shunted off their insurance…
The Trump Administration’s Voter-Suppression Plans Are Backfiring Badly The Nation …On June 28, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the vice chair of Donald Trump’s presidential commission on “election integrity,” sent a letter to all 50 states requesting sweeping voter data. Over the holiday weekend, opposition to Kobach’s request dramatically increased from both red and blue states…