Steven Greenhouse The New York Times July 29, 2014 View the original piece As labor gatherings go, this one was highly unusual — 68 workers arrived on charter buses from St. Louis, 100 from New York City and 180 from Alabama, Georgia and the Carolinas. Fifty flew in from Los Angeles and two dozen from Seattle.   These were not well-paid carpenters or autoworkers heading to their annual convention, hoping to sneak in a round...

Dan Rosenbaum The Chief-Leader July 29, 2014 View the original piece IDENTIFYING WITH STRUGGLING MEMBERS: Jakwan Rivers is challenging Teamsters Local 237 President Gregory Floyd in the union's October election. Speaking during a July 23 campaign event, he said that the union’s leadership was unresponsive to the members’ needs and that raises expected for members would not meet the cost of living. ‘You struggle every day,’ he said. ‘You work in, and for, a city...

Frank Juliano Connecticut Post July 28, 2014 View the original piece The top official of the union representing Sikorsky Aircraft Co. employees has been accused by an independent review board of embezzling at least $13,000 in union funds. Harvey Jackson, the president and business agent of Teamsters Union Local 1150, charged his family's cellphone bills to his union credit card and used it to buy cameras, stereo speakers, a high-end DVD player, projector and other electronics...

Rob Wile Business Insider July 28, 2014 View the original piece Shares in Swift Transportation, the largest truckload carrier in North America, were down 14% Friday after management warned it was going to have to invest more to address a driver shortage. The New Jersey-based firm now says it's going to have to spend more on wages and training to hold onto and attract ore drivers. ...We were constrained in the truckload and (central refrigerated systems)  segments by...

Austin Alonzo Kansas City Business Journal July 25, 2014 View the original piece YRC Freight's fleet is in a worse state of repair than most of its main competitors' fleets, according to figures from the U.S. Department of Transportation. In fact, the state of the YRC Freight fleet's vehicle maintenance is close to a threshold requiring federal intervention according to statistics from the DOT's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Click here to read more at the...

Josh Sosland Baking Business July 24, 2014 View the original piece Workers at three of the four snack cake plants operated by Hostess Brands L.L.C. have voted to unionize, according to the union representing the bakery workers. The three plants are located in Indianapolis; Schiller Park, Ill.; and Columbus, Ga. The votes to unionize at the plants were confirmed by a spokesperson for the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco and Grain Millers International Union July 17. The...

Melissa Eddy The New York Times July 18, 2014 View the original piece For Daimler, the truck driver of the future looks something like this: He is seated in the cab of a semi, eyes on a tablet and hands resting in his lap. Daimler demonstrated its vision Thursday along a stretch of the A14 autobahn near Magdeburg in eastern Germany, the culmination of years of innovation. It says the vehicle — called the Mercedes-Benz...

Ken Paff Labor Notes July 17, 2014 View the original piece Facing fresh member dissatisfaction, Teamster President James Hoffa and his Secretary-Treasurer Ken Hall are headed to court to try to make contested Teamster elections a thing of the past. Whether they succeed will determine the future of one of North America’s most powerful unions. Will it continue to manage decline and concessions, or tap the power of organized transport and distribution workers to reverse...

Elizabeth Pfeuti Asset International July 15, 2014 View the original piece The director of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) is to leave his post in August after four years in the role. In a letter to colleagues on Friday, Josh Gotbaum said, as he had three children in college, he had promised his wife he would return to the private sector, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported. Click here to read more at Asset International.

Bloomberg News July 15, 2014 View the original piece Amazon.com Inc., which wants to deliver packages by drone, asked aviation regulators for permission to expand testing outside its research laboratory. “We are rapidly experimenting and iterating on Prime Air inside our next generation research and development lab in Seattle,” the company said in a letter posted on a government website yesterday. Amazon is based in that city. Click here to read more at Transport Topics....