Judge reserves decision on deal to end fed consent order.

Click here to read more.

Terminal operators at ports along the U.S. West Coast will, for the second time in less than a week, suspend vessel loadings amid a labor dispute with dockworkers.

Vessel loadings and unloadings will be stopped Feb. 12 and again Feb. 14-16, the Pacific Maritime Association, a San Francisco-based group representing employers in the negotiations with longshoremen, said by e-mail Feb. 11. Association members cited “ongoing and costly” worker slowdowns in their decision to halt vessel traffic. Some yard, gate and rail operations will continue.

Click here to read more at Transport Topics.

Farmer Brothers, the iconic coffee company based on the border of Torrance and Los Angeles, likes to market a sweet story about how it came to be.

In 1912, Roy E. Farmer thought restaurants should be serving a better cup of coffee, so he started a bean delivery business in the back of his brother's bicycle shop. And from those humble beginnings, the business became a national success, with Farmer later handing the reins to his son.

Click here to read more at the Los Angeles Times.

January 30, 2015: With TDU’s support, the 5,500 members of Teamsters Local 251 took back their union and elected reform leaders.

Now, Local 251 members at Rhode Island Hospital are standing up against corporate greed by building labor-community solidarity. Will you stand with them?

Click here to sign a petition supporting the Campaign for a Fair Contract, Good Jobs & Quality Care at Rhode Island Hospital.

Yesterday, they held a massive informational picket line in front of Lifespan-Rhode Island Hospital. 

Lifespan is supposed to be a nonprofit but it paid its top executives more than $16 million in one year! In the meantime, the Hospital refuses to negotiate a fair contract for 2,200 Teamster members.

The Hospital has even rejected a contract proposal that "providing quality care to patients and their family is the top objective of the Hospital" and requiring management "to maintain sufficient staff and adequate supplies."

What kind of Hospital says no to quality care?

Rhode Island Hospital Teamsters are not just speaking for themselves. They are teaming up with the community to fight for a fair contract, good jobs, and quality patient care.

Pubic supporters launched an online petition to speak out to Lifespan. In just one day, more than 12,000 people have signed the petition and the numbers continue to grow.

Please sign this petition and take online action to support the Campaign for a Fair Contract, Good Jobs & Quality Care at Rhode Island Hospital.

For more info and photos of the picket line, check out www.facebook.com/goodjobsqualitycare

January 22, 2015: Since last year’s Congressional elections, lawmakers in at least nine states have signaled that they intend to introduce “right-to-work” legislation.  

Wisconsin, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Ohio and Missouri will be battlegrounds over the misnamed legislation, with bills being introduced in early 2015. Efforts to pass RTW laws are also expected in Colorado, Kentucky, Montana and Pennsylvania. 

“Right to Work” laws mandate unions to represent workers who don’t pay any dues or fees to support the union. Numerous studies  demonstrate there is a connection between weaker union power in RTW states and lower wages, worse benefits, poor health coverage and even higher mortality rates.

Click here to read more on the new push expand RTW laws.

The Hunts Point Terminal Produce Market reached a tentative contract agreement on Saturday with more than 1,200 workers, averting a potential strike that could have disrupted the region’s supply of fresh fruits and vegetables.

The three-year agreement would give workers a raise of $20 a week the first year, $22 the second year and $24 the third year. The increases represented a compromise between the union’s earlier push for a raise of $25 a week each year, and the merchants’ counteroffer of $16 in the first year and $22 thereafter.

Click here to read more at The New York Times.

A Contract dispute between commercial producers and Teamsters Local 399 has escalated, raising the prospect of the first Hollywood strike by the union in nearly two decades.

On Sunday, Teamsters drivers, location managers and scouts voted by a 10-to-1 margin to reject a contract proposed by the Assn. of Independent Commercial Producers and to authorize their leaders to stage a walkout should they fail to reach an agreement by the end of the month.

Click here to read more at the Los Angeles Times.

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In his 2014 state of the union address, President Obama kicked off what could unofficially be dubbed the Year of the Minimum Wage. Just a year earlier, he had called for a $9 federal minimum, but there he was in early 2014, saying workers should earn at least $10.10 an hour. The shift shows how coordinated campaigns for higher wages, which started with fast-food workers and spread more broadly, raised expectations of what’s considered fair compensation.

Obama’s call to raise the federal minimum may have gone unanswered, but states and cities picked up the torch. In 2014, 13 states passed legislation or initiatives to raise the wage floor, not just in Democratic strongholds but in red states as well. Now the results of those campaigns are starting to come to fruition nationwide. About 3.6 million people will see their pay go up for the new year, according to an analysis of census data by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), which supports higher minimum pay.

Click here to read more at Bloomberg.

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Conservative groups are opening a new front in their effort to reshape American law, arguing that local governments have the power to write their own rules on a key labor issue that has, up to now, been the prerogative of states.

Beginning here in the hometown of Senator Rand Paul and the Chevy Corvette, groups including the American Legislative Exchange Council, the Heritage Foundation and a newly formed nonprofit called Protect My Check are working together to influence local governments the same way they have influenced state legislatures, and anti-union ordinances are just the first step in the coordinated effort they envision.

Click here to read more at The New York Times.

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