Saturday, November 22, 2014

Today's Teamster News 11.22.14

Teamster News
Teamsters Win Midwest Seniority Case For Flight Attendants  teamster.org   ...The Teamsters Airline Division and Teamsters Local 135 prevailed in the Midwest Seniority Integration Arbitration on November 18, when labor arbitrator Homer C. La Rue found the Teamsters’ proposal to be the most “fair and equitable” method to integrate Republic and former Midwest flight attendants...
North Las Vegas Mayor, City Workers Come Together In Support Of Teamsters Local 14  teamster.org   ...Over 150 city workers gathered Thursday morning in front of City Hall to join Mayor John Lee in a show of support for Teamsters Local 14, recognizing the hard work and leadership the union played in averting the City of North Las Vegas from state takeover...
Teamsters Joint Council 16 Statement On Immigration Action  teamster.org   ...“Teamsters know that our diversity gives us strength. When our brothers and sisters demand justice and respect, we stand with them...
Labor Remains Strong In The Bay Area (opinion)  San Francisco Chronicle   ...Drivers are fed up with the long days behind the wheel and time spent waiting between runs. By a 43-to- 28 margin, they voted to go with the Teamsters. A contract comes next, and possible organizing drives for other tech bus drivers among the dozen or more companies that offer shuttle service...
Three Trucking Companies Picketed By Drivers Agree To Negotiate In Dispute At Los Angeles, Long Beach Ports  Daily Breeze   ...Three of five trucking companies targeted this week by picketing drivers serving the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports have agreed to discuss labor disagreements and to “resolve outstanding issues” with their drivers...
Bridgeton Landfill Odor Concerns Grow As Weather Turns Colder  St. Louis Post-Dispatch   ...A new report shows that odor filters installed by the landfill’s owner Republic Services over the summer were only partially effective at reducing the smells...
Sysco Set To Merge With Biggest Rival In Billion Dollar Deal  New York Post   ...Sysco, the country’s biggest food distributor, is closing in on a deal to win regulatory approval for its $3.5 billion acquisition/merger with closest rival US Foods, The Post has learned. The company is in advanced talks to sell some assets to Blackstone Group-owned Performance Food Group...
Trade
Activists Worldwide Rally Against the TPP  Public Citizen   ...The groups also launched an online campaign resulting in thousands of calls and hundreds of thousands of e-mails to Members of Congress urging them to vote “No” on Fast Track. Across the country, 20 rallies and town halls brought the anti-Fast Track message to lawmakers’ home districts...
State Battles
Right-To-Work Fades As A Top Priority For Some GOP Governors  Wall Street Journal   ...Both Wisconsin and Ohio have already had bruising fights over public sector unions. At the start of his first term, Mr. Walker pushed through a law ending most collective-bargaining rights for government employees in Wisconsin, eventually leading to his recall. Ohio lawmakers passed similar legislation, only to have it overturned in a statewide vote...
SF Taxi Drivers Promise A Repeat Of Airport Protest  San Francisco Chronicle   ...Taxi operators complain that the newcomers are barely regulated while the ride services argue that the cab industry was a monopoly in need of a shakeup...
Utah Considers Cutting Off Water To The NSA’s Monster Data Center  Wired   ...The legislation, proposed by Utah lawmaker Marc Roberts, is due to go to the floor of the Utah House of Representatives early next year, but it was debated in a Public Utilities and Technology Interim Committee meeting on Wednesday. The bill, H.B. 161, directs municipalities like Bluffdale to “refuse support to any federal agency which collects electronic data within this state.”...
War on Workers
Walmart Dodges Taxes While Its Employees Starve  Gawker   ...Two new reports today about Walmart, the world's top provider of crap. One points out that Walmart is a tax dodger; the other points out that Walmart worsens our national hunger crisis. A banner day for Walmart!...
Five Ugly Decades of Middle-Class Wages in America  Wolf Street   ...We thus get a hypothetical number for average weekly wages of this middle-class cohort, currently at $700 — well below its $827 peak back in the early 1970s...
Uber Slammed For Tracking Riders Without Permission  New York Post   ...Just when it seemed it couldn’t get any worse for Uber, the taxi-hail app finds itself in the middle of a spying scandal. Reports that Uber employees have tracked riders’ whereabouts without their permission — and for seemingly no good reason — has users rethinking their relationship with the $17 billion startup...
Worker killed in forklift accident  Brandon Sun   ...A 34-year-old Oakbank man died in an industrial accident Friday morning in the RM of Springfield just outside Winnipeg...
Another NY Dairy Farm Worker Dies; Voluntary Safety Enforcement Isn't Working (opinion)  Syracuse Post-Standard   ...On Nov. 9, a dairy farm worker was pulled into the auger of a grain silo and lost his life...His death is the most recent in a string of fatalities on dairy farms in New York state in less than two years...
Calgary construction worker killed after wall collapses on him  Journal of Commerce   ... a 60-year man was working with a demolition crew dismantling a brick building on 28th Street in northeast Calgary Thursday afternoon when a portion of the wall collapsed on top of him...