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Today’s Teamster News For September 16, 2016
TEAMSTERS
Workers at XPO Logistics in Connecticut Seek Teamster Representation Teamster.org …On behalf of warehouse workers at XPO Logistics in North Haven, Conn., Teamsters Local 443 filed for Teamster representation today, one day after XPO freight workers in Illinois took similar action, as workers nationwide band together to fight for fair treatment at the multinational corporation. The 125 workers plan to become the first Teamster-represented warehouse workers at the company…
In battling XPO, Teamsters broaden supply-chain organizing JOC …The Teamsters union is expanding efforts to organize employees at XPO Logistics, from ports to less-than-truckload terminals and warehouses. Teamster locals this week called for union representation votes at a trucking terminal in Illinois and a Connecticut warehouse. Teamsters Local 179 filed a union representation petition with the National Labor Relations Board on behalf of 72 truck drivers at an XPO LTL terminal in Aurora, Illinois. The 125 warehouse workers in New Haven, Connecticut, want to join Teamsters Local 443…
Teamsters crash school board meeting MT Express …The Teamster members said they were at the meeting to start discussions with the board about School District administrator negotiations. Twenty-two administrators went to the Teamsters, who usually represent workers in the private sector, because the administrators were concerned about trustees’ discussions over benefits and salaries. Board members have discussed how to address disparities between administrator and teacher compensation packages…
Teamster Carhaul Members Reject National Contract Teamster.org …Teamster carhaul members have rejected a national contract and the Central-Southern supplement, but have approved the Eastern and Western supplements. “In light of the members voting no on the national contract and Central-Southern Supplement, we will reconvene our national negotiating committee next week and determine the next steps,” said Kevin Moore, Director of the Teamsters Carhaul Division…
GLOBAL LABOR & TRADE
French Workers Step Up Labor Strikes: “With This Law, We’re Going Toward a Catastrophe” In These Times …From March to July, hundreds of thousands of workers, students, unionists and sympathizers protested against the so-called Loi Travail. With the country back from its collective break rabble-rousers are ready to hit the streets again. This Thursday, opponents have called for another round of strikes and protests against the reforms, demanding the government withdraw the law…
Next Round of TTIP Talks Set for October 3 in New York Sputnik News …The next round of talks on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) deal will be held the first week of October in New York, US Trade Representative Michael Froman and EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom announced in a joint statement after a meeting in Brussels…
America’s $38 trillion global trade deal you’ve never heard of CNN Money …The U.S. is negotiating a trade deal that’s worth $38.5 trillion and spans 50 countries — and most people have never heard about it. The Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) has been in the works since April 2013 and it could soon become America’s most important trade deal. That’s because services — everything from tourism, to communication and finance — are increasingly important for the U.S. economy…
Blow for Obama’s TPP as Vietnam parliament defers ratification Reuters …Vietnam will not include ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) on its agenda for its next parliament session, an official said on Friday, adding to uncertainty over the future of U.S. President Barack Obama’s signature trade deal. As arguably the biggest beneficiary of the deal covering 40 percent of the global economy, Vietnam was expected to be among the first to ratify the TPP…
Obama Plans Another Appeal for Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Deal New York Times …President Obama, beginning a final uphill push for a trade initiative that is opposed by both party’s presidential candidates, will host an Oval Office meeting on Friday to showcase support among public figures in both parties. Mr. Obama will convene a bipartisan group to discuss the benefits of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the 12-nation Pacific trade agreement whose completion he has made a top priority, White House officials said…
Obama enlists Republican Kasich to press for TPP passage Reuters ….President Barack Obama on Friday engaged Ohio Governor John Kasich, a high-profile political foe, to help press Republicans to approve the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal before he leaves office in four months. Obama was set to discuss strategy for the TPP in the Oval Office with Kasich…
Trade deal could undermine national security (opinion) Union-Tribune …There’s near-consensus that TPP would make our manufacturing situation — and, in turn, our supply chain problem — worse. Studies indicate that the deal would lower wages for 90 percent of Americans, contributing to the growing income inequality that destabilizes us as a nation and diminishes our citizen’s desire for international engagement…
A New Generation of Freedom Fighters Is Taking It to the Streets—and the World The Nation … As schools, states, and corporations redraw their borders, young people are launching transnational campaigns to fight back. Global solidarity was the call of Third World internationalists in the uprisings of the ’68 generation. In the post-9/11 world, the legacy of internationalism lives on, reframing the issues at the center of student and youth struggle…
STATE & LIVING WAGE BATTLES
Ohio Supreme Court dismisses complaint filed by backers of $15 minimum wage in Cleveland Cleveland.com …The Ohio Supreme Court has dismissed the complaint filed by backers of the campaign for a $15 minimum wage in Cleveland, who had argued that thousands of signatures in support of the initiative should have compelled City Council to put the issue on the November ballot. In a one-sentence docket entry Wednesday, the high court ruled that the case was “dismissed without prejudice as the cause is not yet ripe for review”…
Christie goes to court to break teacher union rules Philly.com …Gov. Christie on Thursday asked the New Jersey Supreme Court to reopen the landmark case that for decades has been the basis for the state’s school-funding system, seeking the right to break union agreements that he contends are harming students in poor districts. The governor, who has been pushing to redistribute school aid from urban to suburban districts, is arguing that the current funding system hasn’t sufficiently improved poorer school districts…
Arizona’s once-feared immigration law, SB 1070, loses most of its power in settlement LA Times …Arizona has announced an end to its practice of requiring police officers to demand the papers of people suspected of being in the country illegally — a move that pulls the last set of teeth from what was once the nation’s most fearsome immigration law. The announcement on Thursday came as part of a settlement with the National Immigration Law Center and other immigrants’ rights groups that sued six years ago…
Mayor de Blasio backs bills to ban surprise shifts for fast food workers Daily News …Mayor de Blasio is pushing legislation that would prohibit fast food chains from changing employee schedules at the last minute, saying it’s an abusive labor practice that’s rampant in the industry. The City Council will introduce bills in the coming weeks that would force the chains to make employee schedules two weeks in advance, he said. Many eateries don’t tell workers schedules ahead of time, with some even waiting until the day of to let people know if they’re needed, de Blasio said…
Colorado minimum wage proposal gets support of U.S. Labor Secretary Denver Post …U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez on Wednesday threw the Obama administration’s full support behind Colorado’s Amendment 70, which seeks to raise the state’s minimum wage from $8.31 an hour to $12 an hour by 2020. “This is one where the nation is watching,” Perez told a round table of workers, business owners and nonprofit and union leaders…
If you’re a union member who might vote for Donald Trump, consider this NH Labor News …Buried in this week’s document leak to the UK-based Guardian, there is a check from Donald Trump for $15,000 – made payable to Wisconsin Club for Growth – and dated April 3, 2012, the same day that Trump met with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in New York. Remember what was going on in Wisconsin, back then? Remember there was a recall election after most of the state’s public employees had their bargaining rights stripped away?…
U.S. LABOR
Faculty Lockout at L.I.U.-Brooklyn Ends With Contract Agreement New York Times …A faculty lockout at Long Island University-Brooklyn ended on Wednesday after 12 days, with the administration and the faculty agreeing to extend a contract that had expired at the end of August. The announcement came on the heels of several student walkouts in protest of the replacement teachers who conducted classes, which began on Sept. 7…
Workplace dangers take the stage in Allina nurses strike MPR News …Striking nurses say they’re worried Allina Health will back away from an informal agreement to add 24-hour-a-day security guards in emergency departments. A half dozen nurses shared their stories of being injured in patient attacks at a news conference Thursday. Now that nurses are on strike, they fear that Allina will withdraw its consent to boost security…
With votes finally counted, Seattle U adjuncts approve union Seattle Times …More than two years after nontenure-track professors at Seattle University cast ballots on whether to form a union, the votes were finally counted Friday. And the union won. The vote was 73-63. As long as no objections are filed, the union will be certified in one week…
Chipotle Avoids DOL Scrutiny Despite ‘Wage Theft’ Claims Bloomberg …Chipotle Mexican Grill is under attack from a lawmaker and thousands of employees for alleged “wage theft,” but the restaurant chain is mostly avoiding scrutiny from the agency that enforces federal overtime law. The Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division has concluded 18 investigations at Chipotle stores during the Obama administration, resulting in the company paying workers $17,279 for Fair Labor Standards Act violations…
Walmart is patenting technology that could have terrifying implications for workers Business Insider …Walmart just patented a system based on mini-robots that can control shopping carts, as well as complete a long list of duties once reserved for human employees. Last week, Walmart was granted a patent for a new system that allows shopping carts to drive themselves, untouched by customers and employees…
Ford moving small car production to Mexico Daily Kos …The only small cars still produced in the U.S. are the Focus and C-Max, built at Michigan Assembly in Wayne. Ford announced last year it would end production of those vehicles in the U.S. in 2018, but until now has not confirmed where they would go. It’s not good news that production is moving to Mexico to lower costs…
Strike continues as Just Born holds job fair WFMZ …All Thursday, the employees stood strong although battered. In the second week of a strike in which 400 BCTGM members walked off the job, more than four dozen Just Born employees have the crossed the picket line and gone back to work. Calls of “scab” could be heard throughout the afternoon as the company held a job fair to find replacements for the remaining strikers…
Not All Trump Hotels Provide Paid Maternity Leave, Despite Ivanka Trump’s Claim Huffington Post …Employees at the Trump SoHo, New York and Miami hotels, as well as the Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida, all said that they do not offer workers paid maternity leave. Instead, they said that the company complied with the Family and Medical Leave Act, a federal law that requires companies to give employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid time off for the adoption or birth of a child…
SOCIAL JUSTICE & OTHER NEWS
Trump is trying to rewrite his history of birtherism. This is what really happened. Think Progress …Since 2011, Donald Trump has been the most prominent spokesperson for birtherism — the racist conspiracy theory that Barack Obama is not a U.S. citizen. Trump’s embrace of birtherism is what propelled him to political prominence, making him a hero to the far-right seeking to drive their fringe views into the mainstream…
A Rebounding Economy Remains Fragile for Many New York Times …The eye-popping improvement in economic fortunes last year raises the question: If incomes are up and poverty is down, why is Donald J. Trump’s message of economic decay resonating so broadly? The answer is in plain sight. While the economy finally is moving in the right direction, the real incomes of most American households still are smaller than in the late 1990s. And large swaths of the country are lagging behind…
Los Angeles protesters call out Trump’s biggest campaign donor on affordable housing People’s World …With chants such as “We want Prop JJJ, not Trump’s LA,” and “Angelenos want better jobs,” the Build Better LA Coalition, a coalition of labor and affordable housing advocates, held a rally on Sept. 13th with over 75 participants at the Medici Apartments, owned by luxury apartment developer – and Donald Trump’s number one campaign contributor – Geoff Palmer…
Bay Area’s tech shuttles make 800 round trips a day, new report says Mercury News …There are so many of the large, privately owned shuttles operating in the Bay Area that if they all fell under a single agency, they would be the seventh-largest transportation provider in the region in terms of ridership, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which released the study in conjunction with the Bay Area Council, a business-sponsored advocacy organization…