Saturday, May 3, 2014

Today's Teamster News 05.03.14

Teamster News
Pepsi Workers Hit Picket Line  WIBC   ...Teamsters Local 135 Spokesman Jeff Combs says they're officially on strike. They picketed outside the Pepsi distribution facility on (Indianapolis') far northwest side. He says their last contract expired Saturday...
Teamsters Win Executive Pay Reform At Gannett  teamster.org   ...Yesterday, a historic executive pay reform proposal from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters General Fund became the first of its kind to receive a majority of the shares cast at a publically-traded company's annual meeting of shareholders...
Trade
US Senators Voice Doubts On Obama Trade Agenda  ABC News   ...Lawmakers provided a reality check Thursday to the Obama administration's optimism over its trade agenda following some progress in key negotiations with Japan...
In Colombia, Free Trade Brings More Poverty and More Killings  truthout   ..."In 2013, 26 trade unionists were murdered, four more than in 2012," according to the AFL-CIO. "Attempted murders also increased, from seven to 13...
State Battles
Seattle Announces $15 Minimum Wage, Highest In The U.S.  Think Progress   ...Seattle will raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour over the coming years under a deal brokered by Mayor Ed Murray and blessed by labor and business groups alike...
California's Bid To Tax Companies Who Don't Share The Wealth  Washington Post   ...Last week, a committee of California's Senate ... recommended to the full Senate a bill that would cut the state’s taxes on companies with lower ratios between their chief executives’ pay and the pay of their median workers, and raise taxes on companies with the kind of insanely high gap between chief executive and median worker pay that has become the norm in American business...
Conservative ALEC Gathering In Kansas City Will Work On Policy And Power  Kansas City Star   ...When U.S. Senate Republicans blocked action this week on a bill to raise the federal minimum wage, they echoed a longstanding anti-worker, pro-business campaign by the American Legislative Exchange Council. The council, known widely as ALEC, promotes a free-market, limited-government agenda...
War On Workers
Look Who The Folks Who Took Down ACORN Are Targeting Now  The Nation   ...Right-wing operatives with links to big retailers going after worker centers like the Restaurant Opportunities Center....
Bankers Learn What Happens In Vegas, Can Land Back In D.C.  Bloomberg Businessweek   ...While the union’s ranks of maids, dishwashers, cooks and cocktail servers may not pay much attention to financial regulation, its researchers have dug deep into the 2010 Dodd-Frank law to pressure ...(Deutsche Bank AG) to the bargaining table....
Drone Operator Fined After Almost Hitting NYC Pedestrian  Bloomberg   ...Two weeks after a judge overturned the first U.S. fine for recklessly flying a drone, the government tested its authority again by citing the operator of an unmanned helicopter that crash-landed 20 feet from a pedestrian in New York City...
Everyone is under surveillance now, says whistleblower Edward Snowden  The Guardiain   ...the US government has programs in place to spy on hundreds of millions of people’s emails, social networking posts, online chat histories, browsing histories, telephone records, telephone calls and texts – “nearly everything a typical user does on the internet”, in the words of one leaked document...
Miscellaneous
U.S. Creates 288,000 Jobs In April, Unemployment Falls to 6.3%  Huffington Post   ...The U.S. Economy added 288,000 jobs in April as the unemployment rate fell to 6.3 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday...
The Jobs Report Isn’t as Good as It Looks  New York Times   ...The number of people in the labor force fell by a whopping 806,000, wiping out the February and March gains and a bit of January as well…. Both hours worked and wages were unchanged...
Buildings collapse on K Street in Northwest Washington  Washington Post   ...One building completely collapsed and two others, including an adult club, were damaged Friday afternoon near Mount Vernon Square, injuring one person and snarling rush-hour traffic as firefighters investigated and searched the debris...