Hazel Bradford Pesnion & Investments 13, 2013 View the original piece Labor economist and pension reform advocate Teresa Ghilarducci got into pension issues by default. As a 19-year-old graduate student in economics, Ms. Ghilarducci started working at the University of California's Labor Research Center in Berkeley, where in the late 1970s pension issues were disdained by other students more interested in modeling inflation. Click here to read more at Pensions & Investments.

Ruth Milkman CNN 09, 2013 View the original piece Fast food workers around the country have mounted dozens of strikes over the past few months. Their demands are simple: a pay raise to $15 per hour - roughly double the federal minimum wage - and union recognition. The "Fast Food Forward" movement began in New York City last fall and quickly spread to other cities. In some places it grew to include workers in other...

John D. Schulz Logistics Management 13, 2013 View the original piece YRC narrowed its quarterly loss to 39.6 million on $1.243 billion revenue, compared with a net loss of $104.2 million on $1.251 billion revenue in the 2012 second quarter. Consolidated operating income decreased slightly from $15.5 million to $14.3 million, or by $1.2 million.  Operating income in 2013 included a $1.3 million loss on asset disposals compared to $6.5 million gain on asset disposals...

Terry Maxon Dallas News 12, 2013 View the original piece The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers said Monday that US Airways mechanics and related employees voted overwhelmingly to retain the IAM as their bargaining representative. The IAM said 1,903 members, or 58 percent of all votes cast, preferred the IAM, to 1,418 votes for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, or 42 percent. "This victory marks an important milestone for the Mechanic and Related...

Dan Mihalopoulos Chicago Sun Times 12, 2013 View the original piece Barely a year into a 15-year deal, a union representing more than 12,000 government employees in the Chicago area broke the lease on its headquarters in Des Plaines and moved to new quarters in Park Ridge. Teamsters Local 700's actions have prompted a lawsuit against the union by its old landlords, who are claiming damages "in the millions of dollars." But the move gave...

Steven Greenhouse New York Times 11, 2013 View the original piece Like most construction workers who come to see Patricia Zavala, the two dozen men who crowded into her office in Austin, Tex., one afternoon in March had a complaint. The workers, most of them Honduran immigrants, had jobs applying stucco to the exterior of a 17-story luxury student residence. It was difficult, dangerous work, but that was to be expected. What upset them was...

Marcus Wohlsen Wired June 13, 2013 View the original piece The Astronomical Math Behind UPS' New Tool to Deliver Packages Faster In a sense, all business boils down to math. But some companies have tougher equations to solve than others. At UPS, the average driver makes about 120 deliveries per day, says Jack Levis, the shipping giant's director of process management. To figure out how many different possible routes that driver could travel, just start...

J.P. Wright Labor Notes 07, 2013 View the original piece Rail workers on the Union Pacific are on strike in Chicago, but they are not traditional railroaders. They are contract workers who service locomotives, work traditionally done by railroad employees paid much more than the $14 an hour at Mobile Rail Solutions. The 30 workers who oil and fuel the locomotives and empty their toilets went public with a union recognition drive July 8. Mobile...

Lance Turner and Chris Bahn Arkansas Business 09, 2013 View the original piece Arkansas Best Corp. of Fort Smith on Friday reported a profitable second quarter but said it continued to sustain losses in the first six months of the year on rising costs at its largest subsidiary, ABF Freight System Inc. The publicly traded trucking firm (Nasdaq: ABFS) reported net income of $4.9 million, down 58 percent from the same quarter last year. Earnings...

BNA Daily Labor Report 09, 2013 View the original piece In an effort to build a more unified labor movement, the United Food and Commercial Workers announced today it is reaffiliating with the AFL-CIO and disaffiliating from the Change to Win federation.However, UFCW President Joseph Hansen said UFCW will remain active in CTW's Strategic Organizing Center and will “bring our AFL-CIO partners into collaboration with private sector unions in an effort to build more power...