Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Today's Teamster News 07.15.14

Teamster News
Avalon Teamsters stage 6-hour demonstration over wages, benefits  CantonRep.com   ...About 20 members of Teamsters Local 92 employed by Avalon Foodservice walked off the job for about six hours Monday in what a union official called a “pre-strike” demonstration over wages and health insurance...
A federal agency is about to answer the question: Who do you actually work for?  Washington Post   ...the NLRB has granted an appeal from the Teamsters, which attempted to hold an election for all employees of a recycling plant in Milpitas, Calif. -- not just the staffing agency that controls the bulk of the payroll -- after a regional panel found in favor of Browning-Ferris Industries...
Trade
Carmakers Are Central Voice in U.S.-Europe Trade Talks  New York Times   ...European and American automakers are some of the biggest corporate proponents of a new trans-Atlantic trade pact, even as some other industries oppose disrupting the status quo. Negotiations for that pact, which have struggled to gain momentum for more than a year, resumed Monday in Brussels...
Manufacturing groups press for broad tariff elimination  The Hill   ...More than a dozen manufacturing groups on Friday urged the Obama administration to press for the elimination of all tariffs as part of the Asia-Pacific trade deal negotiations...
What's next in the OCTG trade case?  manufacture this   ...It's not over yet. Those tariffs that Commerce announced? Now they go over to the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), which will have to confirm them. That means the petitioners in the Commerce case (U.S. Steel and other domestic OCTG makers) will have to prove injury or the threat of injury to their industry...
State Battles
Prison food supplier has Michigan officials at wit's end  Detroit Free Press   ...Maggots in the kitchen and on the chow line. Workers caught smuggling contraband or engaging in sex acts with inmates. Food shortages and angry prisoners. Those are among the problems that have plagued Michigan prisons since December when the state — in a move aimed at saving more than $12 million a year — switched from using state workers to feed prisoners to a private contractor, Aramark Correctional Services of Philadelphia...
Kansas’ Ruinous Tax Cuts (opinion)  New York Times   ...The 2012 cuts were among the largest ever enacted by a state, reducing the top tax bracket by 25 percent and eliminating all taxes on business profits that are reported on individual income returns…Kansas, in fact, was one of only five states to lose employment over the last six months, while the rest of the country was improving. It has been below the national average in job gains for the three and half years Mr. Brownback has been in office. Average earnings in the state are down since 2012, and so is net growth in the number of registered businesses...
War On Workers
U.S. Drug Firms Seek Inversion Deals to Evade Taxes  New York Times   ...By buying a smaller overseas competitor and reincorporating abroad — a maneuver called inversion — health care companies are extricating themselves from the American tax regimen...
Workers Struggle In Hamptons Playground For Rich  USA Today   ...Southampton, with its privet hedges, pristine beaches and some estates costing tens of millions, also is where 40% of children get free or reduced school lunches, where a food pantry serves up to 400 clients a month and where some doctors and nurses share homes owned by the local hospital because they can't afford to buy or rent...
United Airlines Opens Door For Raises For Low-Wage Airport Workers  Newark Star-Ledger   ...With raises at stake for 3,700 low-paid cabin cleaners, baggage handlers and other airport workers in Newark, United Airlines acknowledged that its contractors are typically bound to follow local laws or rules governing the airports where they work...