Friday, August 8, 2014

Today's Teamster News 08.08.14

Teamster News
Teamsters Fully Ratify AEI Contract  teamster.org   ...The contract, which runs through Dec. 31, 2016, covers about 800 Teamsters across the U.S. employed by AEI, the domestic air freight forwarding arm of DHL Global Forwarding...
Wegmans: Teamsters fund dispute going to court  Rochester Democrat & Chronicle   ...Wegmans Food Markets has gone to federal court to resolve a dispute over workers' compensation payments to Teamsters-represented employees that the company says could cost it millions of dollars...
Trade
Pressure on Canada to Open Poultry Markets for Trade Talks with US  The Poultry Site   ...A powerful group of US members of Congress says the White House should cut Canada out of a major global trade deal unless it opens up its protected dairy and poultry markets...
U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman Announces U.S. Victory in Challenge to China’s Rare Earth Export Restraints  Office of the USTR   ...U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman today announced that the World Trade Organization (WTO) Appellate Body found China’s export restraints on rare earths, tungsten, and molybdenum, which are used as key components in a multitude of U.S-made products for critical American manufacturing sectors, including hybrid car batteries, wind turbines, and energy-efficient lighting, to be inconsistent with China’s WTO obligations...
TTIP: Have We Lost Our Democratic Privileges?  The London Economic   ...As the European Commission and the US are busy negotiating a free trade agreement, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), campaigners say they are increasingly worried citizens are losing their democratic privileges. While corporations are looking forward to an improved trade and regulatory cooperation between the US and EU, the opposition -which includes Pan-European civil society groups – is concerned that regulatory convergence will grind down hard-won social and environmental standards...
State Battles
Daniel Golden: Media go too easy on Scott Walker (opinion)  The Cap Times   ..."Wrong Way Walker" has achieved the impossible and launched Wisconsin on an economic death spiral...
Disney World, Union Strike Deal To Raise Minimum Wage  The Ledger   ...The world's most popular vacation resort recently struck an agreement with its largest union group. Last week, Walt Disney World and the Service Trades Council signed off on a 5½-year pact that will raise the minimum hourly pay for the union group's full-time workers to $10 by 2016...
Anchorage Assembly Repeals, Replaces City Labor Law  KTUU   ...The Anchorage Assembly voted 7-4 Tuesday night to repeal controversial ordinance AO37, Mayor Dan Sullivan's overhaul of how the city interacts with municipal workers....
Latest Blow To Gov. Brownback: Kansas Debt Downgrade  Wall Street Journal   ...Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback is more stumbling than storming into the general election. On Tuesday night, results from the GOP primary showed 37% of those voting cast their ballots for a Republican political newcomer over Mr. Brownback. Then Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services on Wednesday morning dropped Kansas’s credit rating by one notch, blaming the downgrade on a sharp slide in state revenues that followed deep tax cuts Mr. Brownback championed...
War On Workers
Part-Time Market Basket Workers Have Hours Cut  Boston Globe   ...Thousands of part-time workers at Market Basket stores have had their hours cut by half or more this week, as the cost of the unusual protest movement hits home for the employees seeking the reinstatement of ousted boss Arthur T. Demoulas...
Plot Thickens as 900 Writers Battle Amazon  New York Times   ...This latest uproar in Amazon’s three-month public battle with Hachette comes at a vulnerable moment for the Internet giant, which is rapidly transforming itself into an empire...
U.S. Labor Force: Where Have All the Workers Gone?  IMF Direct   ...The equivalent of 7.5 million workers have been lost from the U.S. labor force...
Fed Study Finds 2 million in "Forced Retirement", 52% Cannot Afford an Unexpected $400 Expense  Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis   ...Almost half of respondents had not planned financially for retirement, with 24 percent saying they had given only a little thought to financial planning for their retirement and another 25 percent saying they had done no planning at all...
The Federal Reserve Is Telling Us The Economy Is Pitiful  Huffington Post   ...Just 30 percent of survey respondents described themselves as better off than they were in 2008, with 34 percent saying they were doing about the same and 34 percent saying they were worse off...
Worker Killed When Crate Falls From Truck In The Bronx  CBS News   ...A construction worker was killed Tuesday when a heavy crate fell on him as he unloaded a truck near the Throgs Neck Bridge in in the Bronx...
Cornering the Zero-Day Market  Cryptome   ...“The CIA and the big corporations were, in my experience, in step with each other. Later I realized that they may argue about details of strategy - a small war here or there. However, both are vigorously committed to supporting the system.”...
What If Walmart's CEO Took A Pay Cut For His Workers?  Vox   ...The compensation packages of all 500 of the biggest corporations' CEOs are worth enough to boost all full-time minimum wage workers' annual pay by nearly $5,000...
Miscellaneous
Really Big Number Spent on High Speed Rail  Center for Economic and Policy Research   ... the federal government has spent roughly $550 billion on transportation over the last six years, so spending on high speed rail would be roughly 2.0 percent of total transportation spending...