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Today’s Teamster News For May 31, 2016

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TEAMSTERS

Teamsters Strike San Diego First Transit Buses  Teamster.org  …Over 300 Teamsters Local 542 members performing paratransit transit service (including bus drivers, fuel/washers, mechanics, and reservationists) for First Transit in San Diego turned down the company’s last and final contract offer on Tuesday, May 24, 2016. Drivers, fuel/washers, mechanics and reservationists walked out on strike early at 3:00 a.m. Wednesday…

Pharmacists: Jewel-Osco’s Business Decisions Put Public at Risk  Local 727  …Teamsters Local 727 began informing the public of the safety risks associated with Jewel-Osco’s chronic understaffing of pharmacies amid ever-increasing pharmacist workloads by informational picketing outside Chicago-area Jewel-Osco stores this week. Teamsters Local 727 represents about 500 pharmacists at 134 Jewel-Osco locations…

Schnucks customers supporting Teamsters; enthusiasm continues to grow  Labor Tribune  …Demonstrating that the enthusiasm for handbilling of Schnucks Markets continues at a fever pitch as more than 80 Teamsters Local 688 members, along with the spontaneous help from other union members, showed up recently at the Schnucks Overland store where Channel 4 was holding one of its weekly weather radio seminars…

Teamsters vs. Schnucks battle offers lesson in St. Louis growth patterns  Post-Dispatch  …In April, Schnucks announced it was laying off 190 union workers at its Bridgeton warehouse. Schnucks is a partner in a new 900,000-square-foot, high-tech taxpayer-subsidized warehouse, but Schnucks is contracting with a nonunion company – XPO Logistics. “They’ve chosen to fire the people who have been doing the work for years and hire new people at half the price,” says Mike Schleuter, the business representative for Teamsters Local 688….

Soda tax will cost Teamsters’ jobs  (opinion) Philly.com  …The Kenney administration’s spin machine is in overdrive. In its cynical attempts to downplay the job losses Local 830 and other Teamsters locals will suffer if the regressive 3-cents-an-ounce sugary-drinks tax is enacted, the administration continues to say only Teamsters truck drivers would be affected. That’s false, and the administration knows better…

A Memorial Day Message from Jim Hoffa  Teamster.org  …For more than a century, the Teamsters have seen some of our union brothers and sisters go off to war and not come home. We also know that many of our members have lost family and friends in such conflicts as well. The Teamsters are humbled by the sacrifice made by all these soldiers…

 

GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE

Public-sector workers strike in Belgium, transport disrupted  AP  …Strikes by public-sector employees across Belgium intensified Tuesday, with train and bus services disrupted along with schools, prisons and mail delivery as workers protested against the government’s social and economic policies. Belgium’s state railway said that domestic services in the country’s French-speaking south ground to a halt on Tuesday…

Port workers in Greece lead resistance to stop selloffs after new bailout blackmail  Socialist Worker  …Workers at the Greek port of Piraeus near Athens struck for two days last week against privatisation. Railway workers and Athens Metro workers struck for five hours on Thursday of last week. Bus workers are expected to coordinate with the next walkouts…

Pilots, oil workers strike as France seeks way out of crisis  Reuters  …Air France pilots voted on Monday to go on strike and oil storage workers extended a job walkout, compounding the French government’s woes as it scrambled to calm rolling protests against labor reforms ahead of the Euro soccer tournament…

60,000 Chinese factory workers replaced by robots  RT  …Foxconn, a major manufacturer of devices for Apple and Samsung, has reportedly sacked 60,000 workers in one of its factories in China and replaced them with robots. The factory in China’s Kunshan region has reduced the number of employees from 110,000 to 50,000 thanks to the introduction of robots, reports the South China Morning Post…

Approval of TPP in US Congress Seen as Difficult  VOA  …In Vietnam this week, President Barack Obama spoke in support of the free-trade agreement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The free-trade deal is among the United States and 11 other nations around the Pacific Ocean. On Monday, he said he was “confident” that the deal, known as the TPP, will pass in the U.S. Congress. Vietnam is one of the countries included in the TPP. But members of the U.S. Senate, which approves trade agreements, are not so sure…

Emails Show TPP ‘Collusion’ Between Big Banks & Obama Administration  Common Dreams  …The emails, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the group Rootstrikers, which organizes against money in politics, include a message to Froman from a managing director at Goldman Sachs urging him to push for “robust commitments” on Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions… 

EU’s Juncker pushes leaders on US trade deal  Yahoo News  …European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker will press EU leaders at a summit next month to back a historic free trade deal with the United States despite growing skepticism about the pact, a spokesman said Monday. Washington and Brussels want the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) completed this year before US President Barack Obama leaves office…

Austerity policies do more harm than good, IMF study concludes  The Guardian  …A strong warning that austerity policies can do more harm than good has been delivered by economists from the International Monetary Fund, in a critique of the neoliberal doctrine that has dominated economics for the past three decades. Tthe IMF economists said rising inequality was bad for growth and that governments should use controls to cope with destabilising capital flows…

 

STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES

Under Rauner, Illinois unemployment rate becomes highest in nation  Chicago Reporter  …Under Gov. Bruce Rauner, Illinois now has the highest unemployment rate in the nation. The record is quite clear.  Before Rauner, the state’s jobless rate was “in the middle of the pack” among states, and unemployment was going down, said Frank Manzo IV of the Illinois Economic Policy Institute. Since Rauner came into office, unemployment has gone up in Illinois while it’s continued to drop nationally…

Prevailing Wage Is a Veterans Issue  (opinion) Huffington Post  …At least eleven states have proposed or considered eliminating their prevailing wage standards in the last two years—including Illinois. Missing entirely from the debate over these laws is who they would impact the most. Military veterans, for example, pursue employment in the construction trades at substantially higher rates than non-veterans…

To Get Driver’s Licenses For Undocumented Immigrants, Activists Plan Rally In Rhode Island  IBTimes  …After an emotionally charged debate last week in Rhode Island on whether to make driver’s licenses available to undocumented immigrants in the state, activists and immigrants plan to protest state lawmakers’ seeming resistance to the policy. They said they will hold a march late this summer that will also honor labor leader Cesar Chavez…

Group won’t get prevailing wage repeal on November ballot  Detroit Free Press  …The group leading the charge to repeal Michigan’s prevailing wage law announced Friday that it won’t turn in petitions by the June 1 deadline. The first petition company hired by the anti-prevailing wage group gathered and turned in more than 390,000 signatures, but the petitions were rife with duplicates, leaving the group far short of the total it needed to put the issue before the Legislature…

Paid Sick Leave Stakes A Claim In The Midwest  Think Progress  …On Friday, almost 62,000 more workers got the right to stay home when they’re feeling under the weather. Paid sick leave advocates have been on a roll for the past three years, racking up dozens of legislative victories in cities and states. But until last week, all the activity was concentrated on the country’s coasts…

This Lawsuit Against Domino’s Could Be Huge for Workers  The Nation  …It might become the biggest tip in the history of New York pizza: a lawsuit cracking down on one of the country’s fast-food giants, linking its chain-business model to three franchise bosses charged with collectively owing workers more than half a million dollars in stolen wages… 

 

U.S. LABOR

Verizon, unions reach four-year labor contract  USA Today  …Verizon and striking unions have reached a four-year contract and employees will likely return to work next week, labor and union officials say. Nearly 40,000 Verizon employees who are members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and Communications Workers of America went on strike more than six weeks ago…

Verizon Strike to End as Both Sides Claim Victories on Key Points  New York Times  …Verizon reached a series of tentative agreements with unions representing nearly 40,000 striking workers over the holiday weekend, retreating on some of the major points of contention, including pension cuts and greater flexibility to outsource work. The agreements reached on Sunday and Monday between Verizon and two major unions will most likely bring to an end the work stoppage, which began on April 13…

Macy’s workers vote to strike  Business Courier  …A group of nearly 5,000 Macy’s Inc. employees have voted to go on strike, the New York Post reports. The employees of four New York stores, including the Cincinnati-based retailer’s flagship location in Herald Square, voted to authorize a strike as soon as June 15 when a contract extension expires. Health care benefits, pay and employees’ rights to opt out of working on holidays are at the center of the issue, officials for Local 1-S of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union said… 

Federal agency offering millions to retrain Ky. coal miners  Herald Leader  …The U.S Department of Labor has funded a grant worth $3.4 million to help retrain out-of-work coal miners in Kentucky. Shuttering coal mines have left thousands of miners in the state without a job, many of them in eastern Kentucky…

There’s More Pain And Injury In The Meatpacking Business Than We Realize  Huffington Post  …Reported injuries have decreased in the meat and poultry industry, but plant workers still face grave dangers on the job — and there’s reason to believe the safety hazards are worse than they seem, according to the Government Accountability Office. Many workers are unlikely to speak out about health and safety risks for fear of losing their jobs…

 

SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS

Dow-Dupont Deal Will Cripple Farmers and Food Sovereignty, Groups Warn  Common Dreams  …Public interest groups urged the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to block the mega-merger of chemical corporations Dow and DuPont, which the organizations argue is part of a larger effort to put a “corporate cabal” in charge of the nation’s food system. Dow and DuPont announced in December plans “to merge into a $130 billion giant, thereby establishing the world’s biggest seed and pesticide conglomerate”…

How racism stalls progressive action: Policies to aid America’s poor are hampered by deeply entrenched bias across parties  Salon  …As the Obama presidency draws to a close, and the primary exposes cleavages across both age and racial lines in the Democratic Party coalition, there has been an intense debate about the role of racism in fomenting and hampering support for policies aimed at helping the poor and working class…