News Stories for january 24, 2012
Source: Teamster Nation
Teamsters and other unions in Indiana are putting the call out to occupy protestors everywhere to occupy the Indiana Statehouse. Those who can make it are encouraged to be in Indianapolis by 2:30 p.m. central time.
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Teamster Nation
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels and anti-worker lawmakers may have stopped a right-to-work-for-less referendum, but the fight is far from over. In fact, thanks to Teamsters, it’ll be heating up again tonight.
The Teamsters joined with other groups to sponsor an ad that will appear in Hoosier homes tonight and, hopefully, make Daniels eat his own words. The spot features Daniels speaking to a group of Teamsters in 2006 about his support for working people in Indiana and his interest in keeping anti-worker laws out of Indiana:
I’m a supporter of the labor law he have in the state of Indiana. I’m not interested in changing any of them—not the prevailing wage law, certainly not a right to work law.The ad is expected to draw a lot of attention to the issue—but it isn’t the only card Hoosier workers have up their sleeves. Union members, community leaders and other supporters have threatened to protest at the upcoming Superbowl, according to Jeff Combs, organizing director for Local 135 in Indianapolis.
Read the source story here.
The StandGov. Chris Gregoire today announced that EGT and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union reached a tentative settlement on pending legal issues surrounding labor disputes at EGT’s grain export facility in Longview.
“I asked EGT and ILWU to come together in a good faith effort to overcome their differences,” Gregoire said. “Both parties should be commended for their willingness to work together and compromise. This framework reflects considerable effort to put the interests of the Longview community and the entire Columbia River basin first. I am confident an agreement can be reached that will satisfy both parties and allow the new grain terminal to become fully operational.”
“We are pleased to announce that after a series of discussions convened by Governor Gregoire, the ILWU and EGT have reached a tentative settlement to resolve the pending legal matters between the parties and the Port of Longview,” said EGT CEO Larry Clarke. “While the parties are still working to finalize certain conditions over the next several days, we are optimistic we can resolve the dispute and get on with the business of operating the facility. From the beginning, we had two core goals — to operate this 21st Century facility safely and efficiently and to ensure the entire Longview Community shares in the economic benefits this facility will provide. We are optimistic this process will help us reach both of these objectives.”
“This is a win for the ILWU, EGT, and the Longview community,” said ILWU President Robert McEllrath. “I want to thank Governor Gregoire for her leadership in working with both parties to find common ground. The ILWU has eight decades of grain export experience in the Northwest, and we look forward to the opportunity to develop a positive working relationship with EGT.”Read the source story here.
Teamster.org
Turning prison facilities over to for-profit companies won’t save Florida taxpayers any money and will probably cost them more, said Teamster correctional officers, their families, their neighbors and union officials who came to the Statehouse Monday. View more photos from this event here .
Former Sen. Ron Silver, attorney for Teamsters Local 2011 in Tampa, testified against the privatization proposal at a hearing of the Senate Rules Committee.
“This is yet another proposal based on empty promises of savings to the state,” Silver said. “The thousands of families and hundreds of local communities impacted by this proposal deserve better from their state officials. What recourse do they have after they lose their jobs and the promised savings are never realized? This is about real people, real families and real communities facing irreparable harm.”
Ken Wood, Acting President of Local 2011, said the rush to privatize correctional facilities has nothing to do with cost savings.
“After many conversations with our members and a great deal of research, I’m convinced that privatization is about political payback, not saving money,” said Wood. “This is just politics as usual.”
There is almost no evidence that Florida’s for-profit prisons have saved money, according to a 2010 Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy report. The report noted that prisoners who are most costly to handle, such as high-security risks, are usually housed in public prisons.Read the source story here.
The News Tribune
Pierce County sheriff’s deputies have agreed to a contract with no cost-of-living wage increase for this year.
The agreement marks the first time that 300 deputies, sergeants and lieutenants won’t receive an annual pay raise, or COLA, in at least 20 years, county labor relations manager Joe Carrillo said Monday.
The deputies guild received a 2.5 percent COLA in 2011.
The county also agreed to pay up to 10 percent of any increase in health care premiums this year. Any increase above that would be split evenly by the county and the commissioned officers.
Sixteen of the county’s 21 other bargaining units have approved the same package, including no annual wage increase. Nonrepresented and represented employees generally received cost-of-living adjustments before this year.Read the source story here.
The Washington Post
Obama’s speech tonight was a bit short on the sort of grandiose and stirring populist oratory we heard in his Kansas speech; today’s effort was long and attempted to check a lot of boxes. But on balance he laid out a pretty solid set of narratives that, if he and Democrats have their way, will frame the reelection campaign to his advantage.
The biggest news in Obama’s speech was his call for a 30 percent minimum tax on millionaires. This was the first time Obama made his call for a “Buffett Rule” specific, and he paired this with a welcome and extensive rebuttal of the GOP charge that he’s engaged in class warfare and the politics of “envy." It’s mystifying that Republicans continue making this argument when Obama has so clearly gained the upper hand on fair taxation. It’s stranger still when you consider that Republicans appear close to nominating the walking embodiment of everything that Americans think is unfair and rigged in favor of the wealthy about our economy and tax system.
Obama also beefed up this part of his argument with another call for tougher laws against Wall Street recklessness and a shout out to his new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, implicitly casting the GOP as the party of unfettered free market capitalism and Dems as the party of sensible oversight and judicious consumer protection.
Indeed, Obama not only argued that inequality and the precarious state of the middle class are the “central challenge of our time,” but that this state of affairs flowed from a set of specific policy choices and priorities that Republicans would restore if they get back into power.Read the source story here.
In These Times
Four years ago, Cooper Tire told its workers they’d have to sacrifice to save the company. With a straight face, Cooper executives said it was essential for the corporation’s survival that workers take tens of millions in pay and benefit cuts.
The workers understood the link between their livelihoods long term and Cooper’s success. Dedicated and loyal, they accepted the cutbacks. Soon afterward, city and state officials granted Cooper millions in subsidies.
Management didn’t share in the workers’ and taxpayers’ pain, though. The top dogs rewarded themselves with millions in pay increases and a shiny new corporate jet.
[...] The workers who took the cutbacks and taxpayers who subsidized the company got punk’d.
Then, this year, Cooper top dogs went back to the bargaining table with Steelworkers. Despite the big profits, they demanded more concessions. They planned to punk those workers again.
When workers in Findlay rejected a vague proposal from the company but offered to continue working under the terms of the old contract while talks continued, Cooper locked them out.Read the source story here.
Daily Kos
SEIU and Priorities USA have are launching a six-figure radio ad campaign in the Florida Republican presidential primary. The SEIU/Priorities USA ads will be running on Spanish-language radio stations in the Tampa and Orlando markets and, like AFSCME's $1 million Florida television buy, take aim at Mitt Romney, attempting to counter his outreach to Latino voters.
Read the source story here.
AFL-CIO Now Blog
What would have happened if they had succeeded?
- 2.5 million young adults would have no health insurance.
- 2.65 million seniors would have paid $1.5 billion more for prescription drugs.
- 24.2 million seniors would pay for preventative services they are getting for free.
Read the source story here.
Crooks and Liars
The Transport Workers Union announced plans to protest Mitt Romney's appearances in Florida in the lead-up to the state's Republican Primary in response to Bain & Company's recent hiring to lay off workers at American Eagle Airlines. Union members and working families will picket outside of Romney's events in Florida leading up to the January 31 primary. AMR Corporation, of which American Eagle Airlines is a subsidiary, hired Bain & Company, which is still paying Mitt Romney, specifically to lay off workers.
Read the source story here.
Daily Kos
Among the 99.9 percent of us who don't get more than $20 million a year without working and have Cayman Islands and Swiss bank accounts, the idea that people in the 0.1 percent, like Mitt Romney, should pay more than 14 percent taxes is pretty popular, a New York Times/CBS News poll finds:
A little more than half say the tax rate they pay is about right, while about 4 in 10 say they pay more than their fair share. Nearly 7 in 10 Democrats say wealthy Americans pay less than their fair share in taxes, while Republicans are divided.Read the source story here.About 4 in 10 Republicans say that the rich pay less than their fair share, and about the same number say the amount wealthy people pay is about right. Nearly 2 in 10 Republicans say the rich pay more than their fair share.
And 58 percent of independents also say the rich are not contributing their fair share to the nation’s coffers.
Daily Kos
By now you have heard that Wisconsinites turned in well over one million signatures to recall
Now, if I had 25,000 people collecting over a million signatures to recall me from office, I am pretty sure I would realize that I might be in trouble. But not our governor. After he picked up a large check in New York for standing up for the poor oppressed 1 percent he made a statement about the recall:
"In my first year in office, we did just that by eliminating a $3.6 billion budget deficit without raising taxes, all while the state added thousands of new jobs. Instead of going back to the days of billion-dollar budget deficits, double-digit tax increases and record job loss, I expect Wisconsin voters will stand with me and keep moving Wisconsin forward."Read the source story here.
Washington Monthly
Over the weekend, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) described President Obama’s State of the Union address, which he had not heard, as “pathetic.” Today, Boehner pushed the rhetorical envelope a little further.
House Speaker John Boehner Tuesday forcefully denounced the Democrats’ campaign theme that they are for the middle class and Republicans are for the wealthy — saying the policies the president is running on are “almost un-American.”Even for Boehner, this kind of rhetoric is cheap and inappropriate.
“This is a president who said I’m not going to be a divider, I’m going to be a uniter, and running on the policies of division and envy is — to me it’s almost un-American,” said Boehner.
Read the source story here.
The Raw Story
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) on Tuesday called for Congress to support a constitutional amendment that would overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. the Federal Elections Commission.
“One of the biggest stumbling blocks to America’s economic recovery is corporations can legally buy elections and then influence policies which move millions of jobs out of America, which escape taxation by off shoring profits, which cash in on wars, which press military industrial spending through the roof,” he said on the House floor.
“While we pledge allegiance to the Red, White, and Blue, corporations, whose only allegiance is to green, are selling out America and they are becoming ever more powerful because of a Supreme Court decision in Citizens United which effectively turns this government into an auction where policies may go to the highest bidder.”
Read the source story here.
Crooks and Liars
Members of Congress became involved in the Occupy discussion Tuesday as Republican leaders of the House Oversight Committee held a hearing to discover why camping has been allowed at Occupy D.C., McPherson Square.
The hearing room was filled to capacity with a mix of occupiers, media, curious staff members and police officers. The two-hour hearing ranged from Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) calling the whole thing “baffling” to Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), a self-proclaimed “old country prosecutor” saying “the battle for this republic is going to unravel if the law… is not enforced.”
The law he was referring to is the ban on camping in some national parks. Gowdy grilled Jonathan Jarvis, the director of the National Park Service on the definition of camping.
Jarvis said it was the act of sleeping or preparing to sleep. Given that definition, Gowdy pressed on by asking why the Park Service hadn’t enforced that law.Read the source story here.
The Washington Post
In 2008, when John McCain was vetting Mitt Romney for vice president, Romney turned over 23 years of tax returns. McCain went on to pick Sarah Palin. This year, the American people are vetting Romney for president, and Romney has turned over one full year of his taxes.
So let’s be clear: Romney hasn’t released his “taxes.” He has released a single tax return from a year in which he was already running for president for a second time. As Gov. George Romney — Mitt Romney’s father— said when he released 12 years of his taxes in 1968, “One year could be a fluke, perhaps done for show.” We don’t know all that much more about the taxes Romney has paid today than we did yesterday.
Read the source story here.
- Teamster.org:
KS First Student Monitors Join Teamsters - Daily Kos:
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels: 'People ought to be scared' - The Washington Post:
Obama’s State of the Union speech: Confrontation wrapped in Kumbaya - Reuters:
Romney’s released tax return reveals 13.9% rate, holdings in foreign ‘tax havens’ - Quad City Times:
Teamsters remain on Nichols picket line - The Daily News:
Local leaders’ reaction to EGT-ILWU deal? In a word, relief - Daily Kos:
Poll finds white working-class voters souring on Mitt Romney - Huffington Post:
Horatio Alger Debunked - The Washington Post:
On banks, state regulators are more lax than federal ones - NW Labor Press:
Citizens United, two years old, gives rise to a citizens movement - The Seattle Times:
AP Exclusive: States weaken teacher tenure rights - The Maddow Blog:
Curious counting in Wisconsin - The Raw Story:
Obama: It’s time to ‘do some nation-building right here at home’ - Talking Points Memo:
In SOTU Rebuttal, IN Gov. Mitch Daniels Calls Obama’s Policies ‘Pro-Poverty’ - The Washington Post:
Newt Gingrich’s big, bad ideas - Think Progress:
Romney Blasts Gingrich’s Payments From Freddie Mac While Also Profiting From The Mortgage Giant - The Hill's Congress Blog:
'Cut the pious baloney' about the NLRB - The American Independent:
Former Colorado senator leads protest against corporate money in politics - The American Independent:
Farrar, activists demand Perry return taxpayer money spent while campaigning - Think Progress:
Santorum To Rape Victims: ‘Make The Best Out Of A Bad Situation’ - The Washington Post:
Why the tea party is responsible for Newt Gingrich - Washington Monthly:
The Myth of American Productivity