While Google Inc. plans to someday unleash driverless cars on public streets, the logistics industry will probably be one of the first training grounds for such automated vehicles.

Shipping companies will probably adopt the technology faster than other industries as moving cargo in non-public areas like storage facilities and warehouses offers a way to test such devices with less risk to human life, according to a study published by DHL, the freight and express arm of Deutsche Post AG. Eventually vehicles might bring packages to a pick-up station where a consumer could find them, the shipper said.

DHL plans to “maintain pole position in the world of self-driving vehicles,” wrote Matthias Heutger and Markus Kueckelhaus, the authors of the study. “The question is no longer ‘if’ but rather ‘when’ autonomous vehicles will drive onto our streets and highways.”

A boom in electronic commerce is making it harder for delivery companies from DHL to UPS Inc. to satisfy consumers who expect first-attempt delivery even though they’re not home during daytime hours.

With online retailers including Amazon.com Inc. and Google developing drones to push into the delivery business, companies are contemplating new solutions, such as making deliveries to the trunk of a customer’s parked car.

Warehouses have been using robots and automated pallet movers for decades, however, the systems typically stop when they encounter obstacles to ensure safety, the study said. The robots will in the future deploy vision-guidance technologies including depth cameras and lasers to improve efficiency, and include more steps of the shipping process.

Robots will also increasingly be used outdoors at shipyards, ports and airports to automatize movement of pallets and swap containers, the study said.

On roads, existing driver assistance systems will be enhanced to ensure vehicles stay in their lanes, obey speed limits and eventually automate functions like overtaking and leaving a highway, while semi-automatic trucks will develop from being able to drive parts of a journey themselves before driverless trucks become reality, the study said.

Automation will improve road safety and fuel efficiency and increase the economics of the logistics chain, the study said.

Komatsu Ltd. is already developing driverless dump trucks and Caterpillar Inc. deploys driverless hauling vehicles to improve productivity in mines for BHP Billiton Plc. Further out, the DHL study envisaged more “futuristic” solutions such as self-driving parcels that may one day arrive through small gates in consumers’ doors, similar to a cat flap.

Deutsche Post started a pilot project of sending urgent goods to the island of Juist in Germany’s Wadden Sea, beating Amazon and Google to offer the first scheduled parcel delivery service with drones this year. The company has said it will take time before such services become a widespread possibility.

The National Labor Relations Board finally issued its long-in-the-works rule speeding up union representation elections. Currently, employers can drag out the election process by withholding information from organizers and with frivolous lawsuits, time they often use to intimidate and coerce workers away from union support.

The new rule, set to take effect on April 15, will cut waiting times between when an election is set and when it happens, put off litigation—often filed by businesses to drag out the election process—until after the election, allow election petitions to be filed electronically (hi there, 21st century!), require businesses to share additional worker contact information with union organizers, and consolidate the post-election appeals process.

Click here to read more at Daily Kos.

A group of 74 drivers and dockworkers at Con-way Freight in Miami Lakes, Fla., voted today to join Teamsters Local 769 in North Miami, Fla.

“The Con-way workers have taken a bold step today to improve their lives and have a more secure future as Teamsters,” said Mike Scott, President of Teamsters Local 769. “As we have seen across the country, the company spent lots of money to wage a vicious anti-worker campaign, but the workers remained strong and united and didn’t let management’s bullying get to them.”

Click here to read more.

The devastating pension reform crammed into the omnibus spending bill that will likely soon become law would allow pension trustees to slash the benefits of retired workers and cut future benefits for a shrinking pool of middle-income employees.

These people were and are the backbone of our nation’s economy. They drive trucks, mine coal, haul bricks and bag groceries. Corporations have been weaseling out of guarantees for future retirees for years, but promises to current retirees generally have been sacrosanct.

Most of these employees contributed what was expected of them over their working lifetimes and retired — or hope to — with a well-earned nest egg.

The plans that will be affected are know as multiemployer pension plans. They typically involve union workers who are allowed to accrue benefits while changing employers, with each employer contributing to the plan.

About 1,400 such plans currently cover about 10 million workers, and most of the plans are solvent. Between 150 and 200 of them, covering roughly 1.5 million workers, are not. They could run out of funds within the next 20 years, according to the Pension Rights Center.

It’s those pension plans that the legislation aims to benefit. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., an agency set up 40 years ago to guarantee those pensions, says it may run out of money to pay them in 2018, and is certain to be broke by 2025.

Hence the emergency. While it is important to help prevent these plans from becoming insolvent, pension advocates say the deal Congress worked out in haste and then attached to the $1.1 trillion budget bill funding all of government is the wrong way to do it.

That politicians are willing to eviscerate labor law safeguards that have been in place since 1974 under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, known by its acronym, ERISA, is a sign of what little value they place on the futures of the hard-working men and women of Main Street.

Because the plans generally benefit union members, they are not popular with congressional Republicans. Union political influence has been waning for years and some of the plans — such as the Central States Teamsters fund — have a history that includes legendary levels of corruption. Even though that was generations ago, it’s enough to give cover to grandstanding lawmakers who want to look like they have a legitimate reason to vote against older, middle-class workers.

Selling out these workers is the wrong message to send to future retirees. The baby boomers now retiring may be the last generation of Americans to leave work assured of adequate income in old age. It’s not just the 1 percent who deserve security.

More than a million retired and current truck drivers, construction workers and other union workers could see their pension benefits cut now that Congress passed a proposal aimed at shoring up some of the nation's biggest pensions.

Tacked on as an amendment to the government's $1.1 trillion spending bill, the proposal was approved by the Senate late Saturday night.

While those sponsoring the pension proposal say it is "the only available option" to save failing multiemployer pension plans, other groups -- like the AARP and the Pension Rights Center -- are crying foul.

Multiemployer pension plans cover more than 10 million workers and retirees in the trucking, manufacturing and other industries. But many of these plans have struggled in the last decade as they grapple with an aging workforce and major investment losses from the recession. Plus, many larger employers have pulled out of the plans.

That has put a major strain on the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the government agency that insures pension plans, which last month said its reserves are dangerously low.

The Congressional proposal would allow plans that are projected to run out of money in the next 10 to 20 years to cut the benefits they pay to both current and future retirees. Benefits would not be cut for disabled pensioners or those 80 years and older, while cuts would be lessened for those between 75 and 80.

The PBGC projects that more than 10% of the roughly 1,400 multiemployer pension plans, which cover more than 1 million workers and retirees, currently meet this criteria.

Under current law, cutting the benefits of those who are already retired is off-limits. Instead, troubled multiemployer plans can take other actions, like reducing the benefits employees earn going forward and raising employee and employer contributions to the plan.

If the Congressional plan passes, cuts would require participant and government approval first, although the largest troubled plans could slash benefits even if retirees vote against it.

Retired truck driver Glenn Nicodemus, 64, receives his pension checks from the Central States Southeast and Southwest Areas Pension Fund, which is struggling to cover more than 300,000 retirees, widows and others.

Under the Congressional proposal, Nicodemus could see his annual benefits plummet from around $40,000 a year to as little as $15,000.

"I am disappointed in the fact that such an important matter is being done is such an underhanded way with little or no discussion of the consequences to millions who will be effected," he said.

Groups like the AARP, the Pension Rights Center and some worker unions say that retirees like Nicodemus are counting on their pension benefits, which they paid for through decades of contributions, and that other measures should be taken to save plans like Central States.

But supporters of the legislation counter that allowing for benefit cuts -- along with other changes included in the legislation, like allowing troubled plans to merge with healthier plans and doubling the insurance premiums employers pay the PBGC -- will help preserve the plans for both retirees and current workers.

One Cleveland plan, for example, has said it would only need to cut current benefits by 10% in order to prevent insolvency, said Randy DeFrehn, executive director of a coalition of employers and labor unions that crafted the proposal the legislation is based on.

Without any cuts now, he said that plan expects to run out of money by 2028, at which point all participants would see their benefits cut by 50% or more.

That's because if a multiemployer plan goes insolvent, a retiree is guaranteed less than $13,000 a year. In contrast, a retiree in a single employer plan that goes bust is insured for up to $60,000.

To make matters worse, the PBGC's multiemployer insurance program is itself projected to run out of money in the next decade unless changes are made -- meaning that workers and retirees in failing plans could be left with no benefits at all.

WASHINGTON -- Federal officials unveiled new rules on Friday that will streamline and simplify the union election process, a reform long sought by labor unions and fiercely opposed by businesses.

Among other changes, the rules issued by the National Labor Relations Board will limit some of the litigation that can precede a union election, making it harder for parties to stall or drag out the process. The reforms will also allow unions to file election petitions and other documents via email, and they will require employers to provide unions with the email addresses and phone numbers of workers eligible to vote.

Many employers favor the older, slower election process, as it gives them more time to dissuade workers from unionizing. The reforms announced Friday have long been discussed and debated, and businesses have argued that they would infringe on the businesses' free speech rights and lead to "ambush" or "quickie" elections.

The labor board -- or at least its left-leaning majority appointed by President Barack Obama -- disagrees. In a statement Friday, the agency said the changes would "modernize" procedures and allow it to "more effectively administer" the laws on collective bargaining. In a sign of the partisan divide at play, the rules were approved by the board's three liberal members, while its two conservative members dissented.

Labor groups have long bemoaned the current process as outdated and tied up with red tape, giving employers ample time to bust unions. Companies often dispute which workers should belong in the bargaining unit -- that is, the people who would be covered by the union contract -- and the reforms announced Friday will shift that litigation to after the election. Employers will also have to prove that a review of the election is warranted, as opposed to merely requesting one.

Mark Gaston Pearce, the labor board's chairman, said in a statement that he was "heartened" that the board is enacting the amendments.

"Simplifying and streamlining the process will result in improvements for all parties," Pearce said. "With these changes, the Board strives to ensure that its representation process remains a model of fairness and efficiency for all."

The rules were announced in the Federal Register on Friday and will go into effect on April 14, 2015.

The board put forth a similar batch of rules more than three years ago, drawing heat from various business lobbying groups as well as congressional Republicans. After a federal court ruled that the board had lacked a quorum when it issued them, the board formally withdrew those rules early this year. It had been expected to reissue similar rules now that it has five confirmed board members.

Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO labor federation, applauded the announcement of the rules Friday.

"The modest but important reforms to the representation election process announced today by the National Labor Relations Board will help reduce delay in the process and make it easier for workers to vote on forming a union in a timely manner," Trumka said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the National Retail Federation, an industry lobby, said it was considering "both a legal and legislative strategy" to block the rules from going into effect, calling them "the latest attempt by the Obama Administration to aid their allies in Big Labor at the expense of employers and employees."

Republicans in Congress have already held hearings on what they deem the "ambush" election rules and may well hold more once the GOP takes control of both chambers next year. They could potentially try to block the rules from going into effect -- though not in the immediate future, since members of Congress are already far along in hammering out a deal this week to fund the government. By waiting to release the rules Friday, the labor board may at least have avoided a GOP-sponsored rider in the spending bill that could gut the rules.

At last the actual language has been released of the backroom, last-minute congressional deal allowing benefits of millions of retired workers to be shredded.

It's even worse than its critics anticipated.

We've tracked this inexcusably hasty, secretive maneuvering during the last week, reporting that it allows extreme, potentially premature cuts in benefits for retirees who are members of multi-employer pension plans. Such plans typically are sponsored jointly by unions and employers in given industries, like trucking. See our posts here and here for more background.

Click here to read more at the Los Angeles Times.

Dave Erickson of Isanti, Minn., believed his pension benefits were guaranteed when he contributed a fixed portion of his pay into the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund.

On Wednesday, Erickson learned that those benefits might be cut under a provision that Minnesota Rep. John Kline aims to tack onto the new federal budget bill.

Click here to read more at the Star Tribune.

Six years after the financial crisis, the economic aftershocks are still rattling the halls of Congress -- this time in a debate over an esoteric pension provision tucked into an end-of-year budget bill. Though that legislation, known as the “cromnibus,” is supposed to be about annual appropriations for government agencies, lawmakers have inserted language that would give private pension plans the power to cut benefits to thousands of current retirees whose pension savings were decimated by investment losses from the financial collapse of 2008.

If the initiative is enacted, experts say, it would be the most consequential change to retirement policy in the United States since the passage of landmark pension legislation 40 years ago. Altering the 1974 Employee Retirement Income Security Act to permit benefit cuts could prompt a slew of efforts to chip away at formerly untouchable guarantees of income to millions of retirees.

Click here to read more at The International Times.

A bipartisan group of congressional leaders reached a deal Tuesday evening that would for the first time allow the benefits of current retirees to be severely cut, part of an effort to save some of the nation’s most distressed pension plans.

The measure, attached to a massive $1.01 trillion spending bill, would alter 40 years of federal law and could affect millions of workers, many of them part of a shrinking corps of middle-income employees in businesses such as trucking, construction and supermarkets.

Click here to read more at The Washington Post.