Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Today's Teamster News 01.29.14

Labor unions pack Pa. Capitol over paycheck bill  Associated Press   ...Labor unions packed the Pennsylvania Capitol for a raucous rally Tuesday as they widened their fight over legislation that aims to prevent the state, school districts and local governments from deducting union dues and political action committee contributions from the paychecks of unionized workers…"If you watched what happened in Wisconsin and Michigan, it was far too late when it got to the House," William Hamilton, president of the Pennsylvania Conference of Teamsters, told the packed rally. "We're on time."...
Pennsylvania Think Tank Plans to 'Slay' Unions, Like in Wisconsin  The Nation   ...The Commonwealth Foundation is one of a fifty-nine-state network of similar think tanks that have vastly expanded since 2009. The letter makes clear that conservatives believe that right-wing political infrastructure—the organizing institutes, the partisan media outlets, the rapid response efforts—has helped turn the tide against labor unions...
YRC Says Pact With Teamsters Satisfies Refinancing Conditions  Wall Street Journal   ...YRC Worldwide Inc. YRCW +13.45%  on Tuesday said its new contract with the Teamsters satisfied conditions that enable the company to complete a refinancing agreement critical to stabilizing the company...
Sabreliner under new management  St. Louis Post-Dispatch .  ..Sabreliner Corp. is under new management, and its employees are left with a lot of questions. Seventy of the workers are represented by Teamsters Local 600...
Happy horses have jobs: Column  USA Today   ...the mayor is not only putting 300 or so New Yorkers out of work. He is also pushing a policy to which even the horses themselves might object...
NYC carriage drivers say electric cars not like horses  USA Today   ...Conor McHugh, 49, a father of three who lives in Congers, N.Y., stressed: "We're not in a position to experiment with how to make a living."...
The Techtopus: How Silicon Valley’s most celebrated CEOs conspired to drive down 100,000 tech engineers’ wages  Pando News   ...In early 2005, as demand for Silicon Valley engineers began booming, Apple’s Steve Jobs sealed a secret and illegal pact with Google’s Eric Schmidt to artificially push their workers wages lower by agreeing not to recruit each other’s employees, sharing wage scale information, and punishing violators...
Let Banks Fail Is Iceland Mantra as 2% Joblessness in Sight  Bloomberg   ...Iceland let its banks fail in 2008 because they proved too big to save. Now, the island is finding crisis-management decisions made half a decade ago have put it on a trajectory that’s turned 2 percent unemployment into a realistic goal...
One-Third of Americans Who Were Middle Class in 2008 Now Consider Themselves Lower or Lower Middle Class  Mother Jones   ...A third of the people who identified as middle class in 2008 now identify as lower middle or lower class. And that happened in a mere six years...
The cities where the American Dream goes to die  Salon ...The tale of two Americas: Upward mobility varies drastically if you grow up in Charlotte versus San Francisco...
“We’re gonna lose everything”: One family’s urgent unemployment insurance story  Salon   ...Kerstin, one of 1.6 million now without jobless benefits, opens up about skipping meals and canceling Christmas...
Almost Half The Country Wants To Boot Their Own Member Of Congress  Huffington Post ... Nearly half of Americans believe their own member of Congress unworthy of reelection, according to a new HuffPost/YouGov poll...
West Virginia’s Chemical Spill Was Larger Than Previously Reported, Company Reveals  ThinkProgress The West Virginia DEP says they still aren't certain how much chemical spilled into the Elk River...
Don’t be surprised if your TV soon seems to know everything about your politics  Washington Post   ...You're probably aware that much of your online behavior is tracked, logged and probably sold to third parties so that marketers can better target you with ads because Internet browsing generates a wealth of useful data that's easily studied. Television is a bit of a different story...
Grad Students Reunionize  In These Times   ...Graduate student employees at New York University have pulled off a first in the world of labor rights—for the second time, by voting to unionize, making NYU the only private university to recognize a graduate-employee union...
College football players want to join union  CNNMoney   ...Football players at Northwestern University are seeking to join a labor union, according to the National College Players Association, which wants to be the first union to represent college athletes...
Ill. labor unions sue over plan to cut pensions  Associated Press   ...Illinois labor unions have filed a lawsuit seeking a new plan to reduce the state’s $100 billion pension shortfall declared unconstitutional...