Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Today's Teamster News 08.12.14

Teamster News
Cab Companies Unite Against Uber And Other Ride-Share Services  Washington Post   ...“These companies are basically stealing work from drivers who are doing everything completely legal,” Teamsters organizer Joel Wood said...
New Rules Of The Road For Ridesharing Companies  WUSA   ...Uber and its ridesharing competitors Lyft and Sidecar now may operate legally in Virginia after a temporary agreement was reached with Governor Terry McAuliffe's administration. The deal allows rideshare drivers, who use their own cars as 'private taxis,' to pick up passengers as long as the companies follow a slew of new regulations, including providing primary commercial liability insurance in the event of a crash...
Waiting for a ban as a Central Park horse carriage driver  Metro New York   ...Wilson is just one of 240 licensed buggy drivers who will be out of work if Mayor Bill de Blasio and anti-horse carriage activists are successful in banning the decades-old Central Park tradition...
Trade
Currency manipulation costs jobs in Indiana  Indianapolis Star   ... if the United States truly addressed currency manipulation by its foreign rivals as many as 5.8 million U.S. jobs could be created — with nearly 152,600 of those jobs created here in Indiana...
Critical Moment to Stop The TPP & Other Rigged Trade Agreements  Op-Ed News   ...We are poised to stop these attempts to rig the international economy in favor of multinational corporations and move to a new model of trade that respects the rights of people and nature, but it will take a coordinated effort. We must be prepared for moves to thwart that effort and organize to avoid them...
Textile manufacturing returns to Carolinas – by way of China  Charlotte Observer   ...Now, in an ironic turn of events, Chinese companies are looking to manufacture in the U.S., lured by lower costs of energy, cotton and land, and wary of rising labor costs in China...
State Battles
Minnesota Republicans Want To Follow Wisconsin's Lead, Data Says Maybe They Shouldn't  Cap Times   ...The four Republican candidates aiming to challenge Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton have all campaigned on plans to follow economic policies similar to those of Walker and Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback...
Koch Brothers And D.C. Conservatives Spending Big On Nonpartisan State Supreme Court Races  Center For American Progress   ...Unlike previous Tennessee judicial elections, the justices were forced to run ads funded by campaign cash from attorneys with a financial stake in the court’s rulings. Given its deep pockets, the RSLC could come to dominate nonpartisan judicial elections across the country—just as it has in Tennessee. More money means more attack ads and more fundraising by judicial candidates...
As Scott Walker Falls, His Democratic Challenger Continues To Rise  Time Magazine   ...“At the moment, Burke has an important quality: the potential to defeat Walker,” says Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin Madison...
Higher education -- and voters -- vs. Ohio politicians (opinion)  Toledo Blade   ...A large majority of us want state government to spend more money to help maintain such a system (of state universities and colleges). So when will the politicians who supposedly represent our interests in Columbus -- the ones who elevate tax cuts for the richest Ohioans above the preservation of essential public services -- finally get the message?...
Some Hot Kansas Races Loom In November, Including Trouble For Gov. Sam Brownback  Kansas City Star   ...I selected two Kansas state representative races to make predictions because the Koch Brothers and the Kansas Chamber of Commerce threw the kitchen sink against two moderate Republicans, trying once again — as they successfully did two years ago — to knock out all moderate Republicans in the Legislature. Money doesn’t always prevail. Both Barbara Bollier and Stephanie Clayton were victorious, as we expected. Their districts are moderate and cannot be bought by an avalanche of vicious mailers...
War On Workers
Ralph Lauren Under Fire For Refusing To Sign Worker Safety Pacts  Huffington Post   ...Activists are rallying against the clothing company Ralph Lauren for its staunch refusal to sign an international agreement that seeks to improve conditions for factory workers in Bangladesh, one of the world's biggest clothing suppliers...
EPI and AEI Agree: Cutting Jobless Benefits Did Not Boost Employment  Economic Policy Institute   ...Coming from perspectives that diverge greatly along the ideological spectrum, scholars at both AEI and EPI have come to the conclusion that this “bootstraps” theory is incorrect—curtailing jobless benefits did not boost employment...
Higher Housing Costs Aren’t Likely to Fade Soon, Cleveland Fed Study Says  Wall Street Journal   ...They see housing inflation slowing to around 2% by the end of next year in the Northeast while rising to around 3% in the South. The model forecasts inflation holding at its current level of around 2.9% in the West and falling to 2% in the Midwest...
Virginia Worker Killed In Logging Truck Accident  Billings Gazette   ...Police in Arlington say a logging company worker died when a tree rolled off a flatbed truck and struck him...
Miscellaneous
N.C.A.A. Must Allow Colleges To Pay Athletes, Judge Rules  New York Times   ...In a decision that could drastically reshape the world of college sports, a federal judge ruled on Friday that the N.C.A.A.’s decades-old rules barring payments to college athletes were in violation of antitrust laws...