How workers' freedom is getting chipped away

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6oylO2Q0QqUoae7yD0z0rhidaGPCClRl6CKAg-bzoDwPfri-NftKd-ecTFoEJ9x2ndAEwJ73Yjes15boQslii8ufg5LiowQwJF-Q9OBtSJ4GW9m8OmN6e2OkWyvuoS1N5NwjiNXHhHlD9/s1600/Infographic-Attack-On-American-Labor-Standards.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6oylO2Q0QqUoae7yD0z0rhidaGPCClRl6CKAg-bzoDwPfri-NftKd-ecTFoEJ9x2ndAEwJ73Yjes15boQslii8ufg5LiowQwJF-Q9OBtSJ4GW9m8OmN6e2OkWyvuoS1N5NwjiNXHhHlD9/s1600/Infographic-Attack-On-American-Labor-Standards.png" /></a></div>Our friends at the <a href="http://epi.org/" rel="nofollow">Economic Policy Institute</a> came up with this analysis of the attacks on workers' freedoms over the past two years. In dozens of states, workers' freedom is being undermined to take a sick day, to earn a decent living or to collect benefits they paid for.<br /><br />The war on workers is waged in states all over the country because of <a href="http://alec.org/" rel="nofollow">ALEC</a>, the corporate dating service for state lawmakers.<br /><br />EPI gives a good rundown of exactly how ALEC works:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">ALEC’s 2,000 member legislators include a large share of the country’s state senate presidents and house speakers. Legislators are invited to conferences—often at posh resorts—where committees composed of equal numbers of public and private officials draft proposals for model legislation. ALEC’s staff then drafts the legislative language and produces supporting policy reports. Thus state legislators with little time, staff, or expertise are able to introduce fully formed and professionally supported legislation. </blockquote>And this is what happens: <br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">The corporations pay ALEC’s expenses, contribute to legislators’ campaigns, and fund the state-level think tanks that promote legislation; in return, legislators carry the corporate agenda into their statehouses. Over the past decade, ALEC’s leading corporate backers have contributed more than $370 million to state elections, and over 100 laws a year based on ALEC’s model bills have been adopted.</blockquote>Be very afraid. <br /><br /><br />

ALEC child labor minimum wage paid sick leave unemployment How workers' freedom is getting chipped away

Our friends at the Economic Policy Institute came up with this analysis of the attacks on workers' freedoms over the past two years. In dozens of states, workers' freedom is being undermined to take a sick day, to earn a decent living or to collect b…

Read more »

Today's Teamster News 10.28.13

<a href="http://www.alternet.org/economy/point-seveners-new-name-millionaires-club" rel="nofollow">America’s Wealthy Are Even Wealthier And Have A New Name: Point-Seveners</a>  Alternet   ...America has 45,000 citizens worth more than $50 million...<br /><a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/10/26/dark_money_groups_linked_to_koch_brothers_pay_1_million_in_fines_partner/" rel="nofollow">Dark money groups linked to Koch brothers pay $1 million in fines</a>  Salon   ...They allegedly spent a combined $15 million on conservative ballot proposals without proper disclosure...<br /><a href="http://www.alternet.org/education/great-voucher-fraud" rel="nofollow">The Great Voucher Fraud</a>  Alternet   ... decades of accumulated evidence paints a different story: Vouchers do not improve educational outcomes, they take money away from struggling public schools, they’re cash cows for institutions offering questionable education, they aid students already attending private institutions and they ignore the needs of special-education students...<br /><a href="http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2013/10/27/Recall-222959-pounds-of-ready-to-eat-chicken-salad-products/UPI-68441382896086/" rel="nofollow">Recall: 222,959 pounds of ready-to-eat chicken salad products</a>  UPI   ...Boston Salads and Provisions Company is recalling about 222,959 pounds of chicken salad products due to possible contamination with Listeria, officials say...<br /><a href="http://thediplomat.com/china-power/the-us-is-quietly-losing-its-innovation-edge-to-china/" rel="nofollow">The US Is Quietly Losing Its Innovation Edge to China</a>  The Diplomat   ...Between 2003 and 2013, the number of applications increased from nearly 35,000 to more than 51,000, while NIH appropriations shrunk from $21 billion to $16 billion (in 1995 dollars). As a consequence, it has become increasingly difficult for our scientists to garner an NIH grant…The story is dramatically different on the China side. The government is determined to be the next technology innovation center in the world. By 2011, China had already become the world’s second highest investor in R&D. Government research funding has been growing at an annual rate of more than 20 percent...<br /><a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/10/another-reason-hate-tpp-it-gives-big-content-new-tools-undermine-sane-digital" rel="nofollow">Another Reason to Hate TPP: It Gives Big Content New Tools to Undermine Sane Digital Rights Policies</a>  EFF   ...TPP would give multinational companies the power to sue countries over laws that that might diminish the value of their company or cut into their expected future profits...<br /><a href="http://soberlook.com/2013/10/has-great-recession-created-behavioral.html" rel="nofollow">Has the Great Recession created behavioral changes in the labor markets?</a>  Sober Look   ...One of the persistent problems with the US labor markets is the current pool of unemployed people taking far longer to find work than in the past. This would suggest that the key for those without work is to enter the workforce as quickly as possible - even if it means part-time, temp, consulting, etc. The barriers to re-entry are much higher these days than any time in recent decades...<br /><a href="http://thediplomat.com/asia-life/2013/10/mizuho-banks-yakuza-scandal-more-than-30-execs-to-be-punished/" rel="nofollow">Mizuho Bank’s Yakuza Scandal: More than 30 Execs to be Punished</a>  The Diplomat   ...More than 30 executives at Mizuho Financial Group, Japan’s third largest bank, will be held accountable for making loans to the country’s organized crime syndicates, known as the yakuza...<br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/magazine/could-new-york-city-subways-survive-another-hurricane.html?_r=0" rel="nofollow">Could New York City Subways Survive Another Hurricane?</a>  New York Times   ...you see what it will take to keep the system going: technological improvements, yes, but also the oldest technology of all — the knowledge of the people who run the subway, many of whom have been there for their entire working lives...<br /><a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/what-even-is-a-wisconsin-john-doe-investigation" rel="nofollow">What Is Going On in Wisconsin -- And Why Is It So Secret? </a> Talking Points Memo   ... a former federal prosecutor had been appointed to lead a "John Doe investigation" into state-level issues in Wisconsin, including the 2011 and 2012 recall elections. And this John Doe investigation reportedly grew out of an earlier John Doe probe, which closed in March after snaring six former aides and associates of Gov. Scott Walker (R)...<br /><br /><br />

bank criminality China food safety Hurricane Sandy inequality innovation Koch brothers scott walker TPP unemployment WI Today's Teamster News 10.28.13

America’s Wealthy Are Even Wealthier And Have A New Name: Point-Seveners  Alternet   ...America has 45,000 citizens worth more than $50 million...Dark money groups linked to Koch brothers pay $1 million in fines  Salon   ...They allegedly spent a com…

Read more »

Today's Teamster News 08.25.13

<a href="http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/08/24/2523101/john-lewis-march-washington-going-stand-let-supreme-court-vote/" rel="nofollow">John Lewis At March On Washington: ‘I’m Not Going To Stand By And Let The Supreme Court Take The Right To Vote Away’</a>  ThinkProgress   ...Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) — who was the youngest speaker during the March on Washington in 1963 — delivered a passionate address about the importance of protecting voting rights at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial fifty years later, as thousands gathered to celebrate the anniversary of the historic event on Saturday...<br /><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/thousands-march-to-mall-to-mark-dream-anniversary/2013/08/24/2a20d512-0cbe-11e3-b87c-476db8ac34cd_story.html" rel="nofollow">Thousands march to Mall to mark ‘Dream’ anniversary</a>  Washington Post   ...Saturday was a day to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the historic Aug. 28, 1963, March on Washington, and a vision one man delivered so forcefully that five decades later, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech ranks with Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Day of Infamy” speech to Congress as among the most memorable in U.S. history...<br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/us/citizens-without-a-country-wage-battle-with-liens.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0" rel="nofollow">In Paper War, Flood of Liens Is the Weapon</a>  New York Times   ...liens, legal claims on property to secure the payment of a debt, were just the earliest salvos in a war of paper, waged by a couple who had lost their home to foreclosure in 2009 — a tactic that, with the spread of an anti-government ideology known as the “sovereign citizen” movement, is being employed more frequently as a way to retaliate against perceived injustices...<br /><a href="http://www.juancole.com/2013/08/include-stalking-girlfriends.html" rel="nofollow">NSA abuses include Stalking ex-Girlfriends</a>  Informed Consent   ...now we have LOVEINT or NSA analysts occasionally reading the emails of ex-lovers. It doesn’t happen a lot, the NSA told the WSJ, but often enough that there is a word for it...<br /><a href="http://www.hightowerlowdown.org/node/3402#" rel="nofollow">The Trans-Pacific Partnership is not about free trade. It's a corporate coup d'etat--against us! </a> Hightower Lowdown   ...The nullification of our people's right to direct expenditures of our own tax dollars is but one of the horror stories being quietly packed into a political-and-economic bombshell benignly labeled TPP --the Trans-Pacific Partnership...<br /><a href="http://citizen.typepad.com/eyesontrade/2013/08/health-advocates-denounce-obama-for-caving-to-big-tobacco-in-tpp.html" rel="nofollow">Bloomberg, Health Experts Denounce Obama's Gift to Big Tobacco in the TPP</a>  Public Citizen   ...The Obama administration has drawn sharp criticism from leading health organizations, U.S. state representatives, and New York mayor Michael Bloomberg by caving to pressure from Big Tobacco to abandon safeguards for tobacco control policies in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the pending "free trade" deal with 11 Pacific Rim countries...<br /><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/08/24/2522701/jersey-senate-candidate-single-mothers-need-food-stamps/" rel="nofollow">New Jersey Senate Candidate To Single Mothers: Stop Relying On Food Stamps And Go To Work!</a>  ThinkProgress   ...Lonegan, who is the former New Jersey head for the Koch Brothers’ Americans for Prosperity, encouraged single mothers to roll up their sleeves and go to work, adding that free market policies and less government will free “individuals to achieve their best potential..."<br /><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/15/how-to-roll-back-police-militarization_n_3749272.html" rel="nofollow">Drawing Down: How To Roll Back Police Militarization In America</a> (opinion)  Huffington Post   ...Today in America, SWAT teams are deployed about 100 to 150 times per day, or about 50,000 times per year -- a dramatic increase from the 3,000 or so annual deployments in the early 1980s, or the few hundred in the 1970s. The vast majority of today's deployments are to serve search warrants for drug crimes...<br /><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/08/who-are-the-long-term-unemployed/278964/" rel="nofollow">Who Are the Long-Term Unemployed?</a>  The Atlantic   ...The long-term unemployed tend to be people who 1) are a little bit older, and 2) got laid off from their last job...<br /><a href="http://billmoyers.com/wp-content/themes/billmoyers/transcript-print.php?post=39010" rel="nofollow">Mark Leibovich on Glitz and Greed in Washington</a>  Bill Moyers   ...The tragic story is that what has grown up in this city that was supposedly built on public service is this permanent feudal class of insiders, of people who are not term limited. Of people who never leave and never die, figuratively never die. And who are there and who are doing very, very well for themselves, very, very well for Washington, and not very, very well for the United States...<br /><a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/education/federal-grand-jury-indicts-pa-cyber-charter-school-founder-nick-trombetta-and-his-accountant-700493/" rel="nofollow">Feds: PA Cyber Charter School founder Trombetta schemed to steal $1 million</a>  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette   ...For more than a year, federal investigators pursued suspicions about Nicholas Trombetta, a high-flying educator with small-town origins who created the biggest, richest cyber school in the state...

Corruption foreclosure hunger Koch March on Washington police militarization spying TPP unemployment Today's Teamster News 08.25.13

John Lewis At March On Washington: ‘I’m Not Going To Stand By And Let The Supreme Court Take The Right To Vote Away’  ThinkProgress   ...Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) — who was the youngest speaker during the March on Washington in 1963 — delivered a passio…

Read more »

March on Washington: It's still about jobs

<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span style="color: black;">Next week is the 50^th<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Marchers, including Teamsters from across the country, gathered in Washington, D.C., to call attention to civil rights issues, especially the need for good jobs for all people. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>This series focuses on how well (or not) our society has met the 50-year-old demands of the marchers. So far, we’ve discussed<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></i><span style="color: black;"><a href="http://teamsternation.blogspot.com/2013/08/minimum-wage-lower-today.html"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the decline of the minimum wages</i></a><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> and<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i><a href="http://teamsternation.blogspot.com/2013/08/port-drivers-regressed-since-1963.html"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the gaps in labor law protections</i></a><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">.</i></span><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;">In 1963, America was in the middle of an economic crisis. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Although the national unemployment rate was only 5.6 percent that summer,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/p60-214.pdf">almost one in five Americans lived in poverty</a>. For black Americans, the situation was much more dire. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/07/11/poverty-in-the-50-years-since-the-other-america-in-five-charts/">About half of African-Americans were in poverty</a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>– and were unemployed at over twice the rate of white Americans – something still true today.</span><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;">None of the employment figures include people who had given up looking for a job or who work only a few hours a week while looking for a better job. Last month, the U6 unemployment rate -- the unemployed, the discouraged and the underemployed --<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/catch-22-hiring-2013-165856551.html" rel="nofollow">is 14 percent.</a></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/catch-22-hiring-2013-165856551.html" rel="nofollow">Organizers of the March on Washington believed that getting people good jobs was key to helping their communities.</a><br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._Philip_Randolph" rel="nofollow">A. Philip Randolph,</a> president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and one of the main organizers,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/unfinished-march-overview/">said at the march</a>: <br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">We have no future in a society in which 6 million black and white people are unemployed and millions more live in poverty. Nor is the goal of our civil rights revolution merely the passage of civil rights legislation. Yes, we want all public accommodations open to all citizens, but those accommodations will mean little to those who cannot afford to use them. Yes, we want a Fair Employment Practice Act, but what good will it do if profit-geared automation destroys the jobs of millions of workers black and white?</blockquote>Today, Teamsters International Vice President Al Mixon echoed Randolph as he prepared to join tomorrow's <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/us/a-time-to-return-to-and-reflect-on-the-march-on-washington.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0" rel="nofollow" style="font-family: inherit;">March on Washington 50 years later</a>.<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">I look at how far we've come and how far we have to go. It was about jobs then, it's about jobs now. </blockquote><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;">Participants at the 1963 march demanded “a massive federal program to train and place all unemployed workers — Negro and white — on meaningful and dignified jobs at decent wages.”</span><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;">At that point, the only active job training program, the Manpower Development and Training Act, had been around for less than a year. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Only 200,000 people enrolled in the program. </span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;">Today,</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><a href="http://www.gao.gov/assets/320/314551.pdf" style="font-family: inherit;">47 different federal programs that focus on job training are run through seven different departments</a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. Most focus on a specific subset of the population: Farmworkers, Native Americans, veterans and youth all have multiple programs that offer basic employment help. Funding for all of the programs in 2009 totaled $18 billion, half of one percent of the total federal budget. </span> That represented a dramatic increase in funding over six years, and the current administration increased funding by a third since 2009.<br /><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Department of Labor estimates that about 26 million people have worked with their programs that offer job training in the past year.  In January of this year alone, 22.7 million people were classified as truly unemployed -</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><a href="http://www.rpc.senate.gov/policy-papers/january-2013-unemployment-report" style="font-family: inherit;">people who are unemployed (12.3 million), want work but have stopped searching for a job (2.4 million), or work part time because they can’t find full time employment (8.0 million)</a><span style="font-family: inherit;">.</span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;">Fifty years later, we still have plenty of marching to do.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span> </span></div>

job training Jobs March on Washington unemployment March on Washington: It's still about jobs

Next week is the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.  Marchers, including Teamsters from across the country, gathered in Washington, D.C., to call attention to civil rights issues, especially the need for good jobs …

Read more »