Feed items

USA : State will continue Medicaid purge despite union lawsuit

Source: MyWebTimes

USA : Unions Spared From Taxes After Honolulu Mayor Defers His Own Bill

Source: Honolulu Civil Beat

USA : Teamsters Picket Rochester Wegmans

Source: Teamsters Local 118

ITF to ICTSI: End the threats and violence against union workers

The following was sent to ICTSI CEO Enrique Razon on Sept. 20:

Mr Enrique K Razon Jr
President
ICTSI
Manila Head Office
ICTSI Administration Building
Manila International Container Terminal
MICT South Access Road, Port of Manila
Manila 1012 Philippines
20 September 2013
Our Ref: D/SJ/SD/PH/ss
Dear Mr Razon Jr
We are writing to you, in your capacity as ICTSI’s President, to express our deepest concern over recent developments in Puerto Cortés, Honduras where ICTSI was awarded a 30 year concession to operate the container and general cargo terminal in February 2013. Of immediate concern are the vicious and potentially life-threatening attacks on a trade union leader in Puerto Cortés which we believe is directly linked to his union’s request for a collective bargaining agreement with the stevedoring companies in the port. This request has been made in strict accordance with Honduran labour legislation.
The International Transport Workers’ Federation represents 4.5 million transport workers from 150 countries worldwide. As a defender of trade union and human rights, we are deeply concerned by the latest...

Pickets gone, but Bertha isn’t moving yet

Excerpts from the Seattle Times:
Despite a halt to the longshore union’s picketing Tuesday, tunnel-boring machine Bertha needs a few days before it can restart.
One might expect drilling to begin immediately, given that Seattle Tunnel Partners (STP) had four weeks of delay to prepare. But it’s not that simple, contractor and state officials say.
Rumors and tips abound regarding the supposed real reason Bertha is idle — anything from electrical flaws, to an inability to chew through concrete grout in the soil. All of these, the project officials vehemently deny. But if Bertha does have mechanical flaws, those will be manifested, before too long.
More in the Seattle Times

Post-Convention Rebuff on Obamacare

From Labor Notes:
AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka had hoped to avoid an embarrassing convention outbreak of public criticism of Obamacare. But irate labor leaders, mainly from unions with multi-employer (Taft-Hartley) health plans, insisted on having their say.
Delegates passed a compromise resolution detailing the “fixes” needed in the Affordable Care Act. Without these changes, union-negotiated health coverage will be “regressed to the mean,” as one congressional staffer predicted in a meeting with D Taylor, president of UNITE-HERE.
Two days later at the White House, though, Trumka, Taylor, and other labor officials received an embarrassing post-convention rebuff. The administration still intends to deny union members in multi-employer plans the access to income-based subsidies that will be offered to other lower-income workers through state insurance exchanges.
The same AFL-CIO media operation that was going full-blast for five days in Los Angeles-and for six months before that-suddenly fell silent on Friday. The AFL-CIO had “no comment” on the White House dismissal of labor’s concerns.
More at Labor Notes

USA : Strike continues at Burlington Berry Farm

Source: KUOW

USA : Mendocino County workers plan one day strike

Source: Ukiah Daily News

USA : Teachers in Champaign start process toward strike

Source: News-Gazette

USA : Skidmore College students get involved in union battle

Source: Saratogian