Monday, December 16, 2013

Today's Teamster News 12.16.13

Pope Francis In Peace Message Attacks Mega-Salaries With 'Crumbs' For Poor  Huffington Post   ...Pope Francis said in the first peace message of his pontificate that huge salaries and bonuses are symptoms of an economy based on greed and inequality and called again for nations to narrow the wealth gap...
Rich People’s Idea of Charity: Giving to Elite Schools and Operas  Alternet   ...a large portion of the charitable deductions now claimed by America’s wealthy are for donations to culture palaces – operas, art museums, symphonies, and theaters – where they spend their leisure time hobnobbing with other wealthy benefactors...
Is this the end of in-flight phone calls?  Salon   ...There’s a government showdown in the making, and it’s all about cellphones: specifically, if passengers on US flights should be allowed to make phone calls or not...
The 1% is Hogging so much of our Income that it’s Holding the Economy Back  Informed Comment   ...“If the typical American family still got today the same share of income they earned in 1980, they would earn about 25 percent more and have an astounding $13,000 more a year...
Poverty nation: How America created a low-wage work swamp  Salon   ... a quarter of people who have jobs today make so little money that they also receive some form of public assistance, or welfare – a proportion that’s much higher in some of the fastest growing sectors of the workforce. Or that 60 percent of able-bodied adult food-stamp recipients are employed...
IBM faces shareholder lawsuit over cooperation with NSA  CNet   ...IBM's cooperation with a National Security Agency surveillance program caused sales in China to "abruptly halt" and the company's stock price to decline, a shareholder lawsuit claims...
US Government Pays Contractors Twice as Much as Civil Servants for the Same Work  Bill Moyers   ...the budget deal just worked out between the White House and Capitol Hill will prevent a government shutdown and all of its attendant global financial inconveniences. But it does nothing to curtail wasteful spending on companies that are among the nation’s richest and most powerful – from Booz Allen Hamilton, the $6 billion-a-year management-consulting firm, to Boeing, the defense contractor boasting $82 billion in worldwide sales...
Pushing for Justice at Walmart  The Daily Beast   ...Dominic Ware was a charismatic leader in the nationwide Our Walmart campaign, fighting for better working conditions—until he got fired after speaking out for himself and his coworkers...
Amid Healing Labor Market, Long-Term Unemployment Still Dire  US News   ...As Washington fights about jobless benefits, the long-term jobless make up a remarkably high share of the unemployed...