Steve Lopez Los Angeles Times May 20, 2014 View the original piece It was just after 2 p.m. and two truck drivers were hanging out at a burger joint in Carson, hoping their phones would ring. When a call comes in, they go to work. When the phones are silent, the stress and the bills pile up. That's the daily routine for Byron Monzon and Santiago Aguilar, who had reported for duty at 6 a.m. Wednesday...

Pamela Yip How to read your pension plan's annual funding notices May 19, 2014 View the original piece If you’re a participant in a pension plan, you’ve probably received or will soon receive what’s called the plan’s “annual funding notice.” The notice, which employers are required to send each year to all plan participants, tells you: How well your pension is funded. The value of your pension plan’s assets and liabilities. The total assets and...

Jane M. Von Bergen The Inquirer May 15, 2014 View the original piece The first real test of how the Convention Center will operate under its new work rules will come Thursday afternoon, when the 2014 BIO World Congress of Industrial Biotechnology wraps up its three-day conference. That's when, instead of having the usual full array of six Convention Center unions to dismantle the show, the work will be done by members of the four...

Rick Smith The Motley Fool May 13, 2014 View the original piece You wouldn't think that the old saw, "Good help is hard to find," had anything left to it, what with last week's unemployment report out of the U.S. Department of Labor showing unemployment in America is still 6.3%. The fact that hourly wages in America grew a measly 1.9% over the past 12 months tends to suggest there's little slack in the jobs market, too. (After...

Eric Lee IUF May 13, 2014 View the original piece AB InBev is a giant transnational food company which claims to support human rights in the workplace.  In fact, it's a member of the United Nations Global Compact which calls on companies to guarantee freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining.But in Mexico, those rights are being violated at Industria Vidriera del Potosí, a subsidiary of Grupo Modelo-AB InBev where in 2008  220...

Jeff Swiatek IndyStar May 12, 2014 View the original piece About 345 members of Teamsters Local 135 went on strike Thursday at a PepsiCo bottling plant on Indianapolis’ Northwestside. PepsiCo said it doesn’t expect disruptions of supply of beverages to customers due to the strike. Click here to read more at the IndyStar.

Mark Abrams CBS May 12, 2014 View the original piece It was noisy and, at times, nasty as laborers, electrical workers, and stagehands walked into the heavily guarded employees-only entrance of the Pennsylvania Convention Center this morning, led by their union representatives.  Members of Teamsters’ Local 107 –- one of the two unions locked out -– shouted at their union brothers for crossing their picket line. The teamsters and Carpenters’ Union Local 8 are locked...

Michael Sasso and Mary Schlangenstein Bloomberg News May 09, 2014 View the original piece As FedEx prepares to start charging for ground-shipped packages by size, not just weight, the promise of $350 million in extra revenue could be “compelling” enough to spur UPS to copy that approach, said Kevin Sterling, a BB&T Capital Markets analyst. UPS said it’s “continually” evaluating its policies. “History tells you that when one changes prices, the other follows,” Sterling said yesterday...

Liz Perlman and Seth Newton Patel Labor Notes May 08, 2014 View the original piece University of California executives hoped this round of bargaining would extract deep concessions on benefits from 22,000 hospital and campus workers. And like many large university and health care employers, UC wanted to replace full-time work with contingent work by expanding the use of temps and private contractors. But instead, in contracts signed in February and March, AFSCME Local 3299...

Aisha Thurman Detroit Free Press May 01, 2014 View the original piece I have worked as a tipped server for 15 years and, not counting tips, I still make only $2.65 an hour. I’m a divorced mother with three kids. I need to put food on the table. I need to put clothes on their backs. I need to make sure they have what they need for school. I want to make sure they can...