Mitchell Hirsch National Employment Law Project January 06, 2014 View the original piece A nationwide call-in mobilization is now underway to press Congress to renew federal unemployment insurance, and every single call matters!  The U.S. Senate returns today and your Senators need to hear from you right now. More than 1.3 million Americans were abruptly cut off of their federal unemployment benefits last week after attempts to renew the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program were...

Jenny Brown Labor Notes December 30, 2013 View the original piece Lean meanness stalked workplaces. The political and economic outlook continued dismal. But the year was marked by workers trying new things and setting higher standards, for their employers, their unions, and—in the case of low-wage workers—their pay. Unemployment ticked down slightly, but the jobs created paid worse than ever. Mainstream media reported with amazement that jobs that once paid the bills, from bank teller...

Natalie DeBlasio USA Today December 26, 2013 View the original piece Social media exploded on Christmas with complaints about UPS and FedEx from customers furious about empty spots under their trees. Most complaints were directed at UPS, which issued statements on Christmas Eve and again on Christmas Day acknowledging that the company was overwhelmed by unexpected volume and some packages were delayed until after the holiday. Barry Tesh, 52, of Jacksonville, Fla., said in an...

Lisa Allen The Deal Pipeline December 26, 2013 View the original piece About two months after YRC Worldwide Inc. invoked the threat of bankruptcy, the trucking company has announced a deal to reduce its $1.4 billion debt load by $300 million. Overland Park, Kansas-based YRC said in a Monday, Dec. 23 statement that unnamed investors have agreed to pay $250 million in cash for new common shares in the company. YRC will use the proceeds...

Austin Alonzo Kansas City Business Journal December 23, 2013 View the original piece YRC Worldwide Inc. announced on Monday a deal to raise $250 million in equity and trade another $50 million in notes for stock. The deal, which will allow the company to pay down debt, is contingent on getting union employees to approve a new labor agreement. The Overland Park-based trucking company said it reached a deal on Sunday to sell a combination...

Thomas Black Bloomberg News December 23, 2013 View the original piece YRC Worldwide Inc. (YRCW), the trucker seeking to refinance almost $1 billion in borrowings, rose the most since May after creditors agreed to cut about $300 million in debt, a step toward winning union contract givebacks. The accord calls for some creditors and other investors to buy $250 million of new shares at a price of $15 each, YRC said today in a statement....

Josh Eidelson Salon December 23, 2013 View the original piece A man who dressed up as his boss at a company Halloween party tells Salon the stunt got him interrogated and suspended for four days – and he has a tape recording to back him up. “It was meant to be satirical, meant to be fun,” said Bo Whitener, who ships products from a Georgia distribution center for the pharmaceutical company McKesson. He told Salon...

Mark B. Solomon DC Velocity December 20, 2013 View the original piece After months of virtually no movement and stiff union opposition to the company's proposals, UPS Freight, the less-than-truckload unit of Atlanta-based UPS Inc., and the Teamsters union are close to a tentative collective bargaining agreement governing between 10,000 and 12,000 UPS Freight workers. In a memo dated yesterday, Ken Hall, who co-chairs the Teamsters' UPS Freight National Negotiating Committee, instructed leaders of Teamster...

Mark B. Solomon DC Velocity December 10, 2013 View the original piece For the second time in less than four years, YRC Worldwide Inc.'s unionized workers will be voting on a contract as if their livelihoods depended on it. Leaders of the Teamsters Union, which represents about 26,000 unionized workers at the less-than-truckload (LTL) carrier, on Friday approved a membership vote on the company's proposal to extend the current collective bargaining agreement through March 2019....

Jason Dean The Wall Street Journal December 09, 2013 View the original piece The combined company will have increased leverage selling and distributing food goods from manufacturers to restaurants, hospitals, hotels, schools and other institutions. That middleman role already makes the companies important players in the service economy: Sysco alone has about 425,000 customers. Sysco estimates the combined company will have about 25% of the U.S. food distribution market, up from about 18% now for...