Thursday, March 12, 2015

Today's Teamster News 03.12.15

Teamsters
Teamsters hit FMCSA with lawsuit over move to open border for Mexican carriers  Overdrive   ...The Teamsters Union announced this week it has filed a lawsuit against the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s recent move to expand its cross-border trucking program with Mexico...
Teamsters Win Landslide Shareholder Vote At Hologic  teamster.org   ... A shareholder proposal sponsored by the Teamsters-affiliated GCC Benevolent Trust Fund secured an overwhelming majority vote of shareholders at last week’s Hologic Incorporated annual meeting. The proposal called on the Board of Directors to submit the adoption, maintenance or extension of any poison pill plan to a vote of the shareholders...
Hoffa: Film Tax Credits Are Worth Saving  Detroit News   ...Lawmakers on the campaign trail in Michigan have rightfully stressed the need for jobs in recent years. They say it is a top priority. But once within the cozy confines of the Statehouse in Lansing, too many seem to lose sight of the issue or its importance to their constituents. Case in point — a House committee’s decision last week to back legislation that ends some $50 million in annual tax credits to encourage films and television shows to shoot in the Great Lakes State...
Teamsters, RI Hospital Negotiations Stall  Rhode Island Public Radio   ...The Teamsters represent about 2500 nursing assistants, food service, and other workers at Rhode Island Hospital. They’ve threatened to strike if negotiators can’t agree on job protections and wage hikes, as well as improvements to their retirement plan...
Debate Over Fawn's Police Coverage Intensifies  Pittsburgh Tribune Review   ...Smith had a copy of a letter dated March 2, from Tom Huck, business agent for Teamsters Local 249 which represents the police, to supervisors chairman David Montanari. The supervisors and Teamsters negotiators were unable to come to a contract agreement for the police and the contract is headed to arbitration. In the letter, also sent to the Valley News Dispatch, Huck criticized the supervisors for allowing the shifts to go unmanned...
County Employees Receive Pay Hike  Ottumwa Courier   ...Employees in two different bargaining units were given identical pay increases by Wapello County Board of Supervisors Tuesday night. Teamsters Local 238 for the courthouse bargaining unit and Teamsters Local 238 for the sheriff's bargaining unit will receive a two percent increase on July 1, 2015, and July 1, 2016 and a two and half percent increase on July 1, 2017...
Trade
Push against investment rules in U.S. trade deals picks up  Reuters   ...Law professors from across the United States urged lawmakers to keep rules to protect foreign investors out of trade pacts on Wednesday, warning they would give big companies too much power...
Huckabee slams 'globalists,' free trade agreements  Politico   ...Expressing deep skepticism of proposed free trade agreements, Mike Huckabee warned in Iowa Saturday that the United States is becoming like communist China...
Unions To Fight Trade Pact By Freezing Political Donations  Wall Street Journal   ...The move is part of the unions’ campaign against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, which the Obama administration is negotiating with 11 nations around the Pacific Ocean. The unions worry the trade agreement could send more jobs to low-wage countries, including Vietnam and Malaysia...
Paul Krugman: TPP At The NABE  New York Times   ...Why, exactly, should the Obama administration spend any political capital – alienating labor, disillusioning progressive activists – over such a deal?...
Health Impact Assessment: TPP Poses Risks To Affordable Medicines, Tobacco Control And Nutrition Labeling  Techdirt   ...The negotiations are still being conducted with a total lack of transparency -- especially compared to TAFTA/TTIP, where public pressure has led to the release of a large number of documents from the EU, though not from the US...
State Battles
Unions Challenge Wisconsin's New 'Right-To-Work' Law In Court  Reuters   ...The Wisconsin state AFL-CIO and two other unions filed suit on Tuesday challenging a new statute that lets private-sector employees avoid joining unions or paying dues even when covered by union-negotiated contracts...
Right-To-Work: NM Senate Panel Tables Bill  KOTA   ...A New Mexico Senate panel has voted along party lines to stop the advance of a bill that prohibits requiring workers to join a union and pay dues as a condition of employment...
War on Workers
Not a Puzzle—Wages Growth is Sluggish Because Employers Hold All the Cards  Economic Policy Institute   ...We’ve finally seen 12 consecutive months of job growth above 200,000, but wage growth shows little sign of accelerating. The question that everyone seems to be asking now is, when will wage growth pick up?...
Business Pushes for Delay, Litigation, and One-Sided Access in Union Elections  Economic Policy Institute   ... The NLRB is updating obsolete election rules that fail to recognize modern developments like e-mail, and which encourage excessive litigation and delay. Yet a panel stacked with anti-union lawyers attacked the rules as if they were ending American democracy...
How income fraud made the housing bubble worse  Science Daily   ... The researchers place the blame for falsified earnings listed on mortgage applications -- which the researchers call "buyer income overstatement" -- on brokers producing mortgages intended to be sold as securities...
Worker Electrocuted, Killed On South Tropical Trail  Space Coast Daily   ...A worker was killed Tuesday at about 2:45 p.m. while replacing power poles...