Saturday, August 2, 2014

Today's Teamster News 08.02.14

Teamster News
Workers: AGY Union Approves Contract  Aiken Standard   ...Employees of Aiken's AGY plant are expected to return to work on Monday, after the plant's labor union voted on Thursday to approve a new labor contract...
4 More LAUSD Bargaining Units Ratify Contracts, Secure Salary Raises  CBS News   ...Four Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) bargaining units have ratified their contracts, providing salary raises to employees for the first time in several years...
Rail Traffic Controllers And Canadian Pacific Reach Tentative Agreement  Wall Street Journal   ...Canadian Pacific and the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference Rail Canada Traffic Controllers announced today that they have reached a tentative six-year labour agreement covering approximately 135 employees rail traffic controllers in Canada...
Teamsters contract extended, school buses will run as planned  Memphis Commercial Appeal   ...Durham School Services and the Teamsters school bus drivers agreed late Friday to a 30-day extension of its current contract while negotiations continue, said Teamsters business agent Edward Houston...
Teamsters 'outraged' about BlueCross BlueShield urgent care decision  insurancenewsnet.com   ..."The Local Union is constantly receiving calls from members on this chaotic BCBS decision and the members are outraged," wrote James Todd, a business agent for the Teamsters Local Union in West Columbia. "Particularly, our UPS members are mad as hell..."
Trade
Central America Crisis Belies CAFTA’s Empty Promises  Public Citizen   ...the 67 members of Congress’ Progressive Caucus ... included CAFTA in their recent summary of the root causes of the refugee crisis occurring along the U.S.-Mexico border: “free trade agreements, including the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) have led to the displacement of workers and subsequent migration from these countries...”
Changing Asia: China’s high-speed railway diplomacy  The Strategist   ...‘high-speed railway diplomacy’ … is used to describe the mechanisms by which China’s burgeoning capacities in high-speed railway (HSR) construction are being used in China’s international relations....
House Lawmakers Are Seeing The Light On ‘Buy American’  teamster.org   ...Lawmakers signed onto two different letters this week that called on the Obama administration to protect the more than 80-year-old program from being phased out as a condition included in the Pacific Rim trade agreement...
State Battles
Some ALEC Funders Flee, but Koch, Big Tobacco, and PhRMA Remain Loyalists  Center for Media and Democracy   ...the petrochemical giant Koch Industries gave ALEC $504,700 between 1995 and 1998. This is in addition to nearly a million dollars that foundations controlled by the billionaire Koch brothers gave ALEC outright between 1998 and 2012, and a nearly $500,000 loan that the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation gave ALEC in 1996...  
Fresno Cabbies Want Uber, Lyft Rideshare Services Off The Road  Fresno Bee   ...Fresno cabbies are asking City Hall to get on-demand ridesharing companies Uber and Lyft off the city's roads...
Only Case Of Voter Fraud Cited In Wisconsin Voter ID Ruling Involved A Scott Walker Fan  Huffington Post   ...The only example of voter fraud that the Wisconsin Supreme Court cited Thursday when it upheld a state voter ID law signed by Gov. Scott Walker (R) was allegedly committed by a Walker supporter....
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder To Gov. Rick Scott: We're Watching You  Tampa Bay Times   ...U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder sent a scathing letter to Gov. Rick Scott over voting changes in Florida and issued a warning that the Justice Department is "carefully monitoring" the state...
After Gov. Rick Scott’s Secret Trip To King Ranch, He Tapped A Ranch Executive For State Regulatory Board  Miami Herald   ...A month after Gov. Rick Scott took a secret hunting trip to the King Ranch in Texas last year ... Scott picked a corporate executive named Mitchel A. “Mitch” Hutchcraft...
War On Workers
Driverless Cars on UK Public Streets Starting January; Transforming Personal Mobility; Taxi and Truck-Drivers Targeted  Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis   ...Google's cars come equipped with elaborate sensors that can see 600 feet in every direction, are fully electric, and have a range of about 100 miles, perfect for city use, especially driverless taxi cabs. Google plans for 2017 operation...
The ‘meh’ economy: What it means for 2014  Politico Pro   ...Over the past two years, per-capita income adjusted for inflation has risen just 1.16 percent, down from 2.54 percent in the first two years of the recovery. Average hourly earnings rose just 1 cent to $24.45 in the latest jobs report...
Drunk Driver Kills Construction Worker, FHP Says  Sarasota Herald-Tribune   ...One construction worker was killed and another seriously injured Wednesday night when a drunk driver ran into them with his sedan, the Florida Highway Patrol reports...
Miscellaneous
The Other Aging of America: The Increasing Dominance of Older Firms  Brookings   ...The share of firms aged 16 years or more was 23 percent in 1992, but leaped to 34 percent by 2011—an increase of 50 percent in two decades. The share of private-sector workers employed in these mature firms increased from 60 percent to 72 percent during the same period...
BitTorrent Unveils NSA-Proof Online Calling And Messaging Software  Los Angeles Times   ...BitTorrent Inc., the San Francisco company behind the most popular technology for sharing files online, is branching out into a new arena: snoop-proof calling and texting...