Monday, September 1, 2014

Today's Teamster News 09.01.14

Trade
Stop conflating trade policies with trade itself (opinion)  The Oregonian   ...Trade clearly has benefits for Oregon's economy. The relevant question is whether individual trade agreements are helping or hurting. There is little debate that U.S. trade policy is worsening the country's job-displacing and wage-suppressing trade imbalance...
Trade treaties expose Australia to costly litigation, experts warn  Sydney Morning Herald   ...Australia risks getting swept up in a wave of litigation by foreign corporations wishing to sue over unfavourable domestic laws, experts warn, after the government rejected a bill to ban controversial trade agreements...
State Battles
Voter Suppression in Wisconsin  Blogging Blue   ...a town or municipal clerk now has the authority to stop dead in its tracks any voter registration drive that any organization or group of concerned citizens may want to mount in that jurisdiction...
War on Workers
A Look at Income Inequality, Hour by Hour  Wall Street Journal   ...Inflation has been low by most measures in recent years, but wage growth for the majority of workers has been even lower. That means even small amounts of inflation have been painful for vast swaths of the workforce...
The Changing Face of Temporary Employment  New York Times   ...The work of temping has changed vastly — today 42 percent of temporary workers labor in light industry or warehouses...
Labor Day stems from deadly labor strike, but few Americans know the history  New York Daily News   ...A labor movement in Chicago in 1894 left 30 Pullman workers dead, and later spurred Congress and President Grover Cleveland to pass a bill creating Labor Day. But the history of this holiday is rarely taught in schools, and there are few full-time labor journalists to write about working class communities...
Labor Today  New York Times   ...five years into an economic recovery that has been notable for resurging corporate profits, the number and quality of jobs are still lagging badly, as are wages and salaries...
Six reasons to kiss a union member  Arizona Republic   ...1. The 40-hour work week: Back in 1903 a labor organizer named Mary Harris "Mother" Jones led the "March of the Mill Children" over 100 miles from Philadelphia to President Theodore Roosevelt's Long Island summer home in Oyster Bay, New York, to publicize the terrible conditions of working children (unions ended child labor eventually, too) and to demand a 55-hour work week...
More Workers Are Claiming ‘Wage Theft’  New York Times   ...Mr. Rangel stands to receive more than $20,000 in back pay as part of a recent $21 million legal settlement with Schneider, a national trucking company...
Low-paid Britain: 'People have had enough. It's soul destroying'  The Guardian   ...Yes, they have jobs … but the five people featured below are typical of millions who have no security, no holiday or sick pay, limited hours, and no dignity at work...
Woman Working Four Part-Time Jobs Dies in Car While Trying to Nap  Gawker   ...A 32-year-old woman was found dead inside her SUV in a convenience store parking lot, where she was trying to get some extra sleep between shifts at her four part-time jobs, the New Jersey Star-Ledger reports...
International Paper worker killed in accident identified  WJCL   ...A maintenance worker was killed Sunday afternoon at International Paper in Savannah. Firefighters and emergency crews responded to an industrial accident at the plant around 2:30 p.m. International Paper said Ricky Salter, 58, died in the paper roll handling area...
Popeye's night shift worker killed in Anne Arundel County  Baktunire Syb   ...An employee at a Popeye's Restaurant off Richie Highway in Brooklyn Park was found dead early Sunday with significant trauma to her upper body, Anne Arundel County police said...