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Local and National Union News
States hope to make one of the dirtiest, deadliest jobs a little safer
Aug. 11, 2017 | Collecting trash is one of the most dangerous jobs in the country. In fact, garbage workers are far more likely to die on the job than police officers or professional firefighters. One of the biggest dangers they face is being hit by other drivers swerving to pass the trucks along their routes. That’s why lawmakers in 16 states have passed “Slow Down to Get Around” laws in recent years… governing.com (Local 570 represents more than 85 workers employed by sanitation companies.)
Drivers, warehouse workers at Bond Distributing ratify 3-year contract
 July 31, 2017 | Members employed at wholesale beer distributor, Bond Distributing Company, approved on Sunday a three-year collective bargaining agreement that provides retroactive pay back to the contract expiration date, increases in hourly wages and commissions, and preserves Health & Welfare. The very tough negotiations tested the determination of the warehouse workers and drivers on the committee, and the patience of the members but in the end, everyone stood strong together. “We’re union, and that is what being union is all about,” said delivery driver and committee member, Anthony Chillemi. “This [negotiating] committee is a strong group,” said Principal Officer Sean Cedenio. “It did a great job pushing back against initial employer demands to rip up the contract and start over. The result of  their hard work is a contract that protects our members and provides wage increases that we can continue to build on.” In other contract news: Drivers, residential aides and day-center aides at Unified Care Connections (UC2) ratified tentative agreements. Stay tuned for those and other contracts information in our next issue of The 570 Express newsletter. Photos/ Top L-R: Negotiating team members Glenn Fewster (not visible), Anthony Chillemi, Martin Henry, Jason Lambert, Jeff Stifler, Jerome Boyd. Left L-R: Anthony Chillemi, Martin Henry. Teamsters Joint Council 62 photos
Older news stories can be found at Local News
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Aug. 10, 2017 | WORKERS’ RIGHTS | A group of high-profile Democratic Senators, led by Sherrod Brown of Ohio, wrote letters to the nation’s top retail CEOs Monday, demanding they crack down on trucking companies that turned their workers into modern-day indentured servants. The call to action comes in response to a yearlong USA TODAY Network investigation that found port trucking companies in California forced their drivers into debt, pressured them to work up to 20 hours a day and paid them pennies an hour. “As a major U.S. corporation,” the senators wrote, “you also have a role to play in ensuing that you are not complicit in the mistreatment of port truck drivers and that American consumers, your customers, are not unwittingly supporting labor abuses in the United States.”…usatoday.com
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 Aug. 9, 2017 | WAR ON WORKERS | … According to employee reports, and complaints from federal authorities, the auto giant threatened, coerced, and retaliated against those who supported joining in union. Managers screened anti-union videos on a continuous loop in plant breakrooms and pulled individuals into intimidating meetings to pressure them to vote against their own interest. Operating in a state scarred by slavery, Jim Crow laws, and the struggle for civil rights, Nissan has a shameful record of oppressing its predominately African-American workforce and suppressing their votes. It’s no accident that the Canton plant [Mississippi] is one of only three Nissan facilities in the world where the corporation resists working people negotiating over the terms of their work. During the most recent presidential election, managers told some employees they could not make an accommodations for them to vote if they were scheduled for 12-hour shifts that conflicted with voting hours…jobswithjustice.org
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Aug. 8, 2017 | SOCIAL JUSTICE | … So how did the word “entitlement” become such a mean spirited place where we listen to and even agree with arguments that “entitlements” must be slashed? Perhaps it is the politics of fear. When we operate from a zero sum mentality it is easy to become frightened that if we provide for others there will not be enough for us. If everyone receiving entitlements are viewed as just pigs, selfishly slurping at the trough, then indeed the rest of us will be left with nothing. But, what if it’s not a zero sum game? laborpress.com
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.jpg) Aug. 7, 2017 | LABOR HISTORY | Twenty years ago, the Teamsters’ national strike against United Parcel Service (UPS) produced panic, if not outright hysteria, in the corporate boardrooms of the United States. The editorial writers of the Wall Street Journal were at their wits’ end: “The UPS strike is so weird it’s hard to know where to begin. Somehow, we’re supposed to believe that the mighty Teamsters has suddenly decided it must paralyze the nation’s parcel-distribution system to have it out over mostly voluntary part-timers and various pension arcana. These matters may be worth an argument, but Armageddon? What’s this weird, awful strike about anyway?” Everybody else, though, seemed to get it…jacobinmag.com
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Aug. 2, 2017 | WAGES | Raising the minimum wage to a living wage level of $15 an hour over the next seven years would have the effect of raising the pay of more than 41 million workers nationwide, a new report stated. The document, released on the eighth anniversary of the last federal minimum wage increase by the National Employment Law Project (NELP), showed the greatest gains would come in the 21 states whose wage floor is tied to the $7.25 an hour federal standard. There, some 20.7 million workers would benefit… teamster.org
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