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Today’s Teamster News For August 18, 2016
TEAMSTERS
Teamsters Union Applauds Commercial Sanitation Reforms in New York City Teamster.org …Teamster leaders from across the country are applauding today’s announcement by the de Blasio administration to overhaul New York City’s waste-collection system. The plan seeks to create commercial waste zones throughout the city to reduce traffic, improve recycling and protect workers with higher safety standards…
Handbilling Action At Starbucks Corporate HQ Highlights LGBT Abuse at Taylor Farms Local 117 …Members of Teamsters 117 conducted a hand billing action at Starbucks corporate headquarters in Seattle today, demanding that the company hold its food supplier Taylor Farms accountable for human rights violations at its Tracy, Calif. plant. Teamsters along with Pride at Work and the Martin Luther King County Labor Council, AFL-CIO called out Starbucks for its hypocrisy…
Which Uber drivers will get to vote on unionization? Neither mayor nor council wants to decide Seattle Times …Councilmember Mike O’Brien, who worked with Teamsters Local 117 on the ordinance, initially proposed giving votes only to drivers with at least 150 completed trips in the past 30 days. But he removed that condition before the council’s vote. Uber and some drivers, many of them who take fares on a part-time basis, say every driver should get a vote. The Teamsters and other drivers say people making a living by driving should be in control of their own circumstances…
BLET members ratify NJ Transit contract BLE-T.org …In late July, members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) ratified a new 8-1/2 year contract with New Jersey Transit. The agreement governs rates of pay, work rules, and health and welfare benefits for more than 400 locomotive engineers, assistant locomotive engineers and locomotive engineer trainees. Prior to the ratification, members had been without a new contract for more than five years…
GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
South Africa Petrol strike: Union settles for 7% pay hike IOL …Affected petrol stations across the country will be back to normal as of Monday after the Chemical Energy Paper Printing Wood and Allied Workers’ Union (Ceppwawu) strike came to an end on Wednesday. The union said that close to 12 000 workers would return to work on Monday after it was agreed workers would get a Among 7 percent salary increase…
Farmers Form Unions across Myanmar to Save Their Land Solidarity Center …Farmers are no longer hesitant to negotiate with the government to settle disputes. Along with 10,000 other farmers in the township, Kyin Sun has joined the Agriculture and Farmer Federation of Myanmar (AFFM), part of the Confederation of Trade Unions–Myanmar (CTUM). “Through CTUM, we have made much progress,” she says, speaking through a translator…
Politicians Mishandling TTIP, Says Watchdog Handelsblatt …Germany’s top consumer protection watchdog has blasted Berlin and Brussels over their handling of two controversial free-trade agreements with North America. The controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, between the European Union and the United States, is currently being discussed, and the E.U.-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement was agreed in February…
Toomey, in Fight for Political Life, Abandons TPP Trade Deal ABC …In a fight for his political life, Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey is abandoning a major international trade deal that has emerged as a divisive campaign issue. Announcing his opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement puts the Pennsylvania senator more in line with labor unions and Democrats, including his challenger…
Obama Pushing for TPP: Misinformation and Big Lies His Strategy (opinion) Global Research …Preventing TPP’s enactment into US law is crucial for all working-age Americans and their families. Obama intends going on the offensive publicly to get Congress on board for its passage. Last October, he touted it in his weekly radio address – featuring a litany of Big Lies, one of many examples of how he consistently betrayed the public trust throughout his tenure…
UK: austerity caused 30% rise in homelessness, parliamentary committee finds RT …Government austerity measures have increased homelessness in the UK by as much as 30 percent, according to a parliamentary committee. A report by the Communities and Local Government Select Committee found that rough sleeping in England spiked to 3,569 between 2014 and autumn 2015. One quarter of those were sleeping on the streets of the capital…
We Need to Protect Workers’ Rights in a Neoliberal World (opinion) Newsweek …Neoliberalism—the so-called “Washington Consensus” playbook for economic policies—has generated no shortage of contention over the years. Such controversies have long been a fixture in the global south, as anti-IMF and World Bank protests remain ubiquitous. A common area of concern is the “human cost” of neoliberalism, particularly on lower and working-class citizens…
STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
Minnesota scrambles to act on new rules about pay for disabled workers Star Tribune …After years of deliberation, state workforce regulators are preparing to enforce tough new limits on paying people with disabilities less than the minimum wage, a practice that has long been decried by civil rights advocates as discriminatory. More than 15,000 Minnesotans with disabilities work for employers who take advantage of a loophole in federal labor law…
Texas Will Appeal Ruling Against State’s Voter ID Law To U.S. Supreme Court Houston Public Media …Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton says he will take the fight over the state’s controversial voter ID law to the Supreme Court. The move comes four weeks after the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals struck the law down. Supporters of the state’s voter ID law, including Attorney General Paxton, argue it’s necessary to prevent voter fraud. Opponents counter that the law discriminates against racial minorities…
Gender pay gap 2nd widest in the nation for these N.J. women NJ.com …Black women make 60 cents for every dollar white men earn in New Jersey, the second-widest wage gap in the nation, according to a study the National Women’s Law Center released on Tuesday. This amounts to a loss of $30,790 a year for a black woman employed in New Jersey…
Baltimore’s Democratic City Council Kills $15 Minimum Wage Bill, For Now In These Times …The Baltimore City Council derailed a proposed increase in the minimum wage to $15 an hour Monday, highlighting the ambivalence among many Democratic Party leaders over whether to support the national Fight for $15 movement. Pro-business members on the all-Democrat 15-member council were able to hold together an alliance against the higher minimum wage and voted 8-6 to return the proposed legislation to committee for revision…
Trump Casinos’ Tax Debt Was $30 Million. Then Christie Took Office. NY Times …By the time Chris Christie became governor of New Jersey, the state’s auditors and lawyers had been battling for several years to collect long-overdue taxes owed by the casinos founded by his friend Donald J. Trump. But the year after Governor Christie, a Republican, took office, the tone of the litigation shifted. he state agreed to accept just $5 million, roughly 17 cents on the dollar of what auditors said the casinos owed…
U.S. LABOR
USW Blasts Honeywell as Lockout of UAW Members Enters Fourth Month PR Newswire …A vicious lockout of 360 UAW members by Wall Street darling Honeywell International, Inc., ground on into its fourth month this week with no sign of clearer skies ahead. Honeywell locked out UAW members at its Aircraft Wheel and Brake manufacturing facilities in South Bend, Indiana, and Green Island, New York, May 9, after less than a month of negotiations for a collective agreement…
AT&T, DirecTV IBEW workers approve two new labor contracts Fierce Telecom …AT&T employees represented by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) have voted to approve two labor agreements covering former DirecTV employees in 14 states. This brings a close to another union negotiation for AT&T. In July, the IBEW and AT&T worked out two tentative agreements for the DirecTV workers. Each of the contracts focuses on wages, health care, pension, and work rules, and is the first with this group of employees…
Norwegian Air Says It Backs Unions; Flight Attendant Leader Says “That’s Hilarious.” Forbes …Both Norwegian Air Shuttle and the Association of Flight Attendants say they back the right of the carrier’s U.S. based flight attendants to vote for union representation. The Norwegian airline and the largest flight attendant union don’t agree on much else. AFA says anti-union Norwegian opposed the right of its U.S.-based flight attendants to be represented by a union…
McDonald’s Can’t Escape Franchise Workers’ Pay Suit Law 360 …McDonald’s must answer to workers at eight California franchises who say they weren’t fully paid, a federal judge ruled Tuesday, because the state’s labor code can hold corporate franchisors to account even if they did not make direct personnel decisions. The workers say they’re shortchanged on pay and breaks due to corporate pressure from McDonald’s Corp. and McDonald’s USA LLC; franchisee the Haynes family is also a defendant…
Pay Gap Between Public-School Teachers and Similar Workers Is Wider Than Ever Wall Street Journal …Teachers and their unions have long complained that educators are undervalued and underpaid. A new study of public-school pay seeks to show by just how much and warns of a worsening problem that could make it harder to find and keep good teachers. The study, being released just in time for the school year’s start, found the pay gap between public-school teachers and similar professionals is wider than ever…
SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
New Rules Require Heavy-Duty Trucks to Reduce Emissions by 25% Over the Next Decade NY Times …The Obama administration on Tuesday issued aggressive new emissions standards for heavy-duty trucks. The rules are expected to achieve better fuel efficiency and a bigger cut in pollution than the version that was first proposed last year. Officials said the new standards would require up to a 25 percent reduction in carbon emissions…
Railroads Show Little Progress on Key Safety Technology AP …Many commuter and freight railroads have made little progress installing safety technology designed to prevent deadly collisions and derailments despite a mandate from Congress, according to a government report released Wednesday. The technology, called positive train control or PTC, uses digital radio communications, GPS and signals alongside tracks to monitor train positions…
ALEC Under Attack: Activism Matters Counterpunch …The 2016 election might be a replay of the 2010 off-year election, but this time with the more “liberal” candidates victorious. It might see “progressive” Democrats, “moderate” Republicans and third-party insurgents reshaping the legislative landscape. Such a realignment of political power might lead to many more companies quitting ALEC. One can hope…
80,000 Evacuated As Wildfire Burns Through Southern California Think Progress …A state of emergency has been declared for San Bernardino County in Southern California where a fast-moving fire that started Tuesday put more than 80,000 people under mandatory evacuation as it scorched some 30,000 acres. As of Wednesday morning hundreds of homes have burned near El Cajon Pass, a mountain area east of Los Angeles…
Displaced Baton Rouge Residents Say Devastating Floods Are A Wakeup Call Huffington Post …The devastating floods that have engulfed the area since last week may not be of biblical proportions, but to some displaced residents, the flooding feels like another plague visited on a region already weary from a year of natural disaster, civil unrest and deadly shootings. “This community has been through a lot in the past few months with the shootings and the racial issues”…