---

More than 200 members of Teamsters Local 179 overwhelmingly ratified a new four-year agreement with Stepan Company this month.

With negotiations kicking off in March, Teamsters voted to approve the final contract on May 8, nearly two months ahead of schedule. The determination of Local 179 representatives at the bargaining table helped workers secure early ratification bonuses, significant wage increases each year of the agreement, premium pay for 12-hour shifts and improved accidental death and life insurance benefits.

---

---

Madison - Gov. Scott Walker's administration would gain broad authority to sell state property - including prisons, highways, heating plants and university dormitories - under a plan legislators will take up Tuesday.

Proceeds would be used to chip away at the state's $8 billion debt, but the state entities that formerly owned the properties might not see any benefit from the sales. So, a dorm built with student fees could potentially be sold to pay down the debt for a highway expansion, or vice versa.

---

---

The plan has generated fierce opposition from supporters of the University of Wisconsin System, who say allowing the sale of UW buildings without the approval of the Board of Regents could be detrimental , especially if the buildings were paid for with the help of student fees or private donations. Currently, the regents have a say in the management of all UW buildings.

---

---

Sen. Michael Baumgartner (R-Spokane) on Wednesday announced a strategy that would help Washington retain and grow thousands of Boeing aerospace jobs by introducing legislation to make Washington a right-to-work state if worker’s compensation insurance rates continue to increase.

Baumgartner, who serves on the Senate Trade and Economic Development Committee, said the effort to ensure Boeing’s next generation 777 airliner is built in Washington requires actual steps to make the state’s aerospace industry more competitive, not platitudes and press conferences.

---

---

NEW YORK — The next wave of union protesters isn't blue collar.

It's lawyers, paralegals, secretaries, helicopter pilots, judges, insurance agents and podiatrists.

These white-collar workers are not exactly the picture of the labor movement, but they are becoming a more essential part of it as they turn to unions for help in a tough economy as bosses try to squeeze out more profits.

"Employers have been downsizing, asking employees to take on larger roles, making them work more hours," said Nicole Korkolis, spokeswoman for the Office and Professional Employees International Union. "People are feeling like they need an advocate."

---

---

The Department of Defense confirms to NBC 5 Investigates that accused Fort Hood shooter Major Nidal Hasan has now been paid more than $278,000 since the Nov. 5, 2009 shooting that left 13 dead 32 injured. The Army said under the Military Code of Justice, Hasan’s salary cannot be suspended unless he is proven guilty

---

---

The Army has not classified the wounds of the Ft. Hood victims as “combat related” and declines to label the shooting a “terrorist attack”,

The “combat related” designation is an important one, for without it Burnett and other shooting victims are not given combat-related pay, they are not eligible for Purple Heart retirement or medical benefits given to other soldiers wounded either at war or during the Sept. 11, 2001 attack on the Pentagon.

As a result, Burnett, his wife Torey, and the families of other Fort Hood victims miss out on thousands of dollars of potential benefits and pay every year.

---

---

"Our primary goal is to provide our customers with consistent, reliable, damage-free service," said Jeff Rogers, president of YRC Freight. "The change in operations we are implementing today will give our customers an improved experience when they ship with us."

---

---

Key changes in the proposed Tentative Agreement include:

Immediate 7% wage reduction.
2% wage increases in the following three years; 2.5% in the last year of 5 year contract.
Cost of Living clause limited and with 5c maximum possible.
Loss of one week vacation across the board.
A Memorandum of Agreement to allow subcontracting of road work (“Purchased Transportation”) up 6% of total miles.
Health & welfare benefits maintained.
Pension contributions only to the extent required to protect pension benefits (this means zero money to Central States or Western Conference Funds for the next five years).
Management may use audio, video, electronic tracking devices to fire employees for “stealing time,” without corroboration (Article 26).
Coffee breaks limited to 10 minutes (Addendum B).
Working across classifications expanded (Addendum C; and supplements). Drop and hooks, etc.
Supervisors can handle dock pick-ups if no dock worker is on duty (Article 3).
Profit sharing bonus if operating ratio gets to 96% or better.
Local grievance panels eliminated.
There are additional changes in the supplements.

The International Union’s highlights brochure points out that health coverage and current pensions were protected, and states that the economic and job concessions are necessary to ensure the health of the company.

Read the agreement. Discuss it with your fellow Teamsters. Cast your vote.

---

---

(Chicago) – Leaders from about 160 Teamster local unions that represent ABF members unanimously endorsed a tentative master agreement and supplements today that covers 7,500 workers. The vote to support the tentative agreement and supplements paves the way for a vote by the members.

---

---

The second largest U.S. package delivery company, FedEx (NYSE: FDX) , and the world’s largest package-delivery company, the United Parcel Service (NYSE: UPS) or UPS, have delivered contrasting results. While the former reported a rise in revenues and a sharp drop in earnings, the latter saw increasing top and bottom lines – despite the setbacks coming from the failed acquisition bid for the European package delivery giant TNT Express (NASDAQOTH: TNTEY) . FedEx, however, captured global headlines due to a deal with the U.S. Postal Service even though the deal might not be as attractive as investors would have liked.

---

---

The second largest U.S. package delivery company, FedEx (NYSE: FDX) , and the world’s largest package-delivery company, the United Parcel Service (NYSE: UPS) or UPS, have delivered contrasting results. While the former reported a rise in revenues and a sharp drop in earnings, the latter saw increasing top and bottom lines – despite the setbacks coming from the failed acquisition bid for the European package delivery giant TNT Express (NASDAQOTH: TNTEY) . FedEx, however, captured global headlines due to a deal with the U.S. Postal Service even though the deal might not be as attractive as investors would have liked.

---

---

If you do not agree that corporations are stealing from Americans then you do not understand our current tax structure.

It is a well known fact that there are many multi-billion dollar corporations that do not pay any taxes to the federal government. They use the current tax codes to write off everything from shipping jobs overseas to corporate jets. These tax breaks end up taking away from the revenue that the federal government should be collecting. It is no wonder why corporate giants like the Koch brothers are so heavily involved in politics, they are protecting their tax breaks.

---

---

The bill Walker signed Friday creates a work-share program. Under that program, instead of laying off a few workers, hours for groups of employees would be reduced. Those affected could collect unemployment, paid for by the federal government.

---

---

If you had any doubts that we're living in a new age called the Anthropocene – the term geologists have begun to use to describe our era, as defined by the impact humans are leaving on the planet – then a look at the hundreds of cavernous open-pit mining operations scattered across the Earth's surface ought to be convincing.

But human hands haven't been the only ones scoring the planet's face. Massive meteors have punctured our atmosphere many times in the past, leaving behind craters more than a dozen miles wide in some cases.

---

---

Truckers take note: Roadcheck 2013, the annual safety blitz that checks tractor-trailer equipment, driver logs and other safety aspects of truck drivers’ operations, will take place June 4-6, according to the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance’s (CVSA) calendar.

---

---

In Roadcheck 2012:

• Over 74,000 inspections were conducted

• 20.9% of vehicles inspected were placed out-of-service

• The driver out-of-service rate was 4.6 percent

During "regular" roadside inspections in 2012:

• The No. 1 violation was "Operating Vehicle Not Having The Required Operable Lamps"

• No. 2 was "No/Defective Lighting Devices/Reflective Devices/Projected"

---

---

TALLAHASSEE -- Florida Gov. Rick Scott, who has made job creation his top priority since coming into office, has rejected a proposed deal to bring major Internet retailer Amazon to the state.

After months of behind-the-scenes negotiations, Scott ultimately said no to a deal that would have led to the construction of Amazon warehouses in Florida. The warehouses could have created up to 2,500 jobs in the state.

---

---

Before a company, say Oracle, would be allowed to recruit and hire foreign workers under the H1B visa program in the draft of the immigration bill now under consideration in the Senate, it first must give U.S. workers who are equally or better qualified the first shot at the jobs. That sounds like a patriotic no-brainer.

But recent news reports outline a huge lobbying effort by high-tech firms—like Google and Microsoft—to get those pro-U.S. worker provisions out of the bill. Silicon Valley tycoons—including Oracle’s Larry Ellison and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg—are pushing amendments from Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) to the bill that could open the door for companies to fire U.S. workers and replace them with lower-paid foreign workers.

---

---

THE United States can boast that it has the world’s best basketball players, fighter jets and country and western singers. But hardly anyone would ever boast that the United States has the world’s best retirement system.

---

---

Fifty-eight percent of American workers are not even in a pension or 401(k) plan. The Social Security system faces the threat of a huge shortfall. One-third of America’s retirees get at least 90 percent of their retirement income from Social Security, with annual benefits averaging a modest $15,000 for an individual. And just ask any participant in a 401(k) plan about the scary roller-coaster ride of the last six years.

Scores of other countries have elaborate retirement systems, and some of them avoid the biggest pitfalls of America’s retirement system.

---

---

A bill to create a presumption that port and parcel delivery drivers are employees and not contractors and allow allegedly misclassified drivers to sue for damages is up for a vote Monday in the New Jersey General Assembly.

---

---

The Teamsters union contends the legislation is needed to prevent companies from misclassifying owner-operator drivers as contractors to avoid Social Security, Medicare and unemployment obligations.

---

---

Cheap beers are becoming less cheap, and for that you can thank hipsters.

A recent study by Restaurant Sciences found that your everyday, low-cost beers like Budweiser, Miller Light and Coors Light are getting pricier, a trend the firm attributes to the rise in popularity of Pabst Blue Ribbon -- a favorite among your bearded, flannel shirt-wearing friends.

---

---

Payrolls climbed in 30 U.S. states in April, while the unemployment rate dropped in 40, showing the labor market strengthened across the country.

---

---

Texas led the gains in payrolls, adding 33,100 jobs last month, followed by New York and Florida, according to figures released today in Washington by the Labor Department. California, New York and South Carolina were among states with the biggest decreases in joblessness.

---

---

Wisconsin and Minnesota showed the biggest decreases in payrolls last month, according to the report.

---

---

UPDATED May 16, 2013: The "2-person" meeting for officers from all freight locals will be Monday, May 20, in Chicago. After that time information should be available -- and TDU will post the tentative contract.

---

---

Perez is the son of immigrants from the Dominican Republic. When he was 12, his father died of a heart attack and a Teamster became a surrogate father to him. That bond helped create his lifelong support for labor unions.

“We have watched the middle class get the short end of the stick for too long,” Hoffa said. “We need a strong advocate for working families like Thomas Perez in the Labor Department if we are going continue down the long road toward restoring the middle class.”

---

---

Bradley S. Jacobs, chairman and CEO of XPO Logistics Inc., a Greenwich, Conn.-based truck broker, expedited transporter, and freight forwarder, said truck volumes are neither rapidly accelerating nor precipitously declining, a trend that mirrors the lackluster performance of the overall economy. Truck capacity remains abundant, as it has for months, he added.

Yet the rise in spot market rates reflects the belief of most carriers that they will need to boost prices to offset the negative impact of the rules on driver productivity and the costs of replacing that lost productivity, he said. Jacobs expects productivity levels to be affected from day one, rather than it having a phased-in effect. That's because he expects everyone to obey the law from the start, with predictable consequences on truck miles driven.

---

---

OVERLAND PARK, Kan., May 17, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- YRC Worldwide Inc. (YRCW) Chief Executive Officer James Welch and Chief Financial Officer Jamie Pierson will deliver a company presentation at the Wolfe Research Global Transportation Conference on Thursday, May 23, 2013, at 8:50 a.m. EDT. The conference will be held at the Fordham Law School in New York City, New York.

The presentation will be available to listeners via the YRC Worldwide Internet site yrcw.com as a live webcast and as a replay for 30 days.

---

---

FORT SMITH, Ark., May 17, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Arkansas Best Corporation (ABFS) announced today that it has adopted changes to its nonunion defined benefit pension plan ("the Plan"). The changes affect all active Plan participants including all management executives who are participants. The change is being made to reduce the ongoing costs, including administrative and regulatory costs, associated with the Plan.

Effective July 1, 2013, the Plan will be frozen with the result that the accrual of future benefits under the Plan will stop. Retirement benefits earned by participants through June 30, 2013 will be preserved. In accordance with legal requirements applicable to pensions, the Plan changes will not impact the vested pension benefits of retirees or former employees. Active employees participating in the Plan will become eligible for the discretionary defined contribution plan effective July 1, 2013.

---

---

The London offices of BP and Shell have been raided by European regulators investigating allegations they have “colluded” to rig oil prices for more than a decade.

The European commission said its officers carried out “unannounced inspections” at several oil companies in London, the Netherlands and Norway to investigate claims they may have “colluded in reporting distorted prices to a price reporting agency [PRA] to manipulate the published prices for a number of oil and biofuel products”.

The commission said the alleged price collusion, which may have been going on since 2002, could have had a “huge impact” on the price of petrol at the pumps “potentially harming final consumers”.

---

---

More than 100 Goodwill entities employ workers through the Special Wage Certificate program, a Depression-era loophole in federal labor law that allows organizations to pay subminimum wages to people with disabilities. According to Goodwill, 7,300 of its 105,000 employees are subject to the minimum wage exemption that affects 300,000 workers nationwide. My investigation revealed that these same Goodwill entities that use the special wage program simultaneously spent $53.7 million in total executive compensation. Here are some more highlights:

Goodwill of Southern California paid more than $1.1 million in total compensation to its then-CEO, making him the highest paid Goodwill executive in the country.

A husband-wife Goodwill executive team in North Carolina collected a combined $795,372 in total compensation.

Seventeen Goodwill entities reported executive compensation in excess of $1 million per year.

Goodwill entities spent more than $39.1 million in travel-related expenses.

---

---

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), its corporate backers and extremist Missouri lawmakers may have won the first round in their drive to silence working people with a paycheck deception bill, when the House gave it final approval (86-69) earlier this week.

But thanks to a strong mobilization by Missouri working families and their unions and allies, the close vote—that included several Republicans who voted against the bill—means that Gov. Jay Nixon’s (D) expected veto cannot be overridden. It takes a two-thirds majority vote to override.

---

---

A bill that will require Anheuser-Busch to sell its minority stake in Chicago's City Beverage has passed the Illinois Senate.

Anheuser and the Illinois Liquor Control Commission have been involved in a string of litigation on this issue since the commission blocked the world's largest brewer from acquiring City Beverage in 2010. The matter was sent to the General Assembly for clarification.

Most states regulate alcohol sales through a "three-tier system," designed to separate manufacturing, distribution and retail sales among distinct business interests.

---

---

New Jersey (STONJ1)’s average residential property-tax bill rose 1.6 percent to a record $7,885 last year as most towns abided by Governor Chris Christie’s 2 percent cap on the levies, slowing the growth rate, according to state data.

---

---

“By any measure, the property-tax reforms have been a resounding success,” Community Affairs Commissioner Richard Constable told the Assembly Budget Committee May 9. “This success is measured against a cumulative average increase of 70 percent in the 10 years before Governor Christie took office.”

---

---

The WRDA bill includes a new financing mechanism to support loan guarantees and low-interest loans for flood control, water supply, waste water, and other projects. Without the Merkley amendment, these projects would be free to use goods from China, India, and other foreign suppliers where U.S. producers do not have reciprocal market access.

---

---

Labor is mounting an all-out push to fill the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) as the agency faces the prospect of being sidelined for the rest of President Obama’s second term.

Unions of all stripes have told Senate Democrats that they need to move on all five of Obama's nominees to the board, even if it takes a controversial change to filibuster rules to make it happen.

“Without this, there's nothing [to protect workers],” said Larry Cohen, the president of the Communications Workers of America. “It's a floor, and now the floor is caving in as well.”

---

---

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which administers the pilot program, is only supposed to admit carriers with good safety records.

Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa co-signed a letter sent today to Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) chief Anne Ferro accusing her of endangering the driving public.

The letter states two Mexican carriers hid their dreadful safety records by creating a third company -- and didn't disclose that to the FMCSA in order to be admitted to the pilot program. Two others companies were allowed to continue in the pilot program despite less-than-satisfactory ratings in their safety compliance reviews. Finally, FMCSA promised it would review how its studying the pilot program. It did not.

---

---

“The weak cargo increases expected over the next few months are consistent with other signs that the economy is slowly improving but show that retailers remain cautious, especially when it comes to stocking their inventories,” NRF Vice President for Supply Chain and Customs Policy Jonathan Gold said. “We’re looking at barely 1 percent of year-over-year growth through the early summer, and August and September are expected to be basically flat even though they’re supposed to be two of the busiest months of the years.”

“With consumer confidence low, employment struggling to recover, and less money in shoppers’ pockets because of the payroll tax hike, we need to see action from Washington that will provide some fiscal certainty for families and businesses alike,” Gold said.

---

---

IKEA's Richmond store is behind picket lines after the Teamsters union served the company with a strike notice last week.

Teamsters local 213 — which represents 350 store employees — takes issue with the company's contract offers, rejected twice by members, which proposed a return to a tiered-wage system.

---

---

If the current laws that govern federal taxes and spending do not change, the budget deficit will shrink this year to $642 billion, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates, the smallest shortfall since 2008. Relative to the size of the economy, the deficit this year—at 4.0 percent of gross domestic product (GDP)—will be less than half as large as the shortfall in 2009, which was 10.1 percent of GDP.

---

---

The rapidly declining deficit might provide policymakers some room to alter the ill-conceived sequestration budget cuts. But at the least, this takes all short term (next 2 to 3 years) deficit reduction proposals off the table. Note: The "debt ceiling" (not paying the bills) is already off the table.

---

---

WASHINGTON (AP) -- States should cut their threshold for drunken driving by nearly half- from .08 blood alcohol level to .05-matching a standard that has substantially reduced highway deaths in other countries, a federal safety board recommended Tuesday. That's about one drink for a woman weighing less than 120 pounds, two for a 160-pound man.

---

---

NTSB officials said it wasn't their intention to prevent drivers from having a glass of wine with dinner, but they acknowledged that under a threshold as low as .05 the safest thing for people who have only one or two drinks is not to drive at all.

---

---

Municipal officials are angrily criticizing the state’s plan to seize money from their unused affordable housing trust funds, saying the Christie administration is trying to balance the state budget by grabbing resources meant for those who need it the most.

---

---

This is an egregious example of the state raiding municipal coffers to find a way to balance their budget, and I cannot say that strongly enough

---

---

Grassroots campaigns for local and state laws requiring employers to provide their workers with paid sick days are gaining steam.

In the latest sign of the growing movement, the New York City Council approved legislation that would make 1 million workers eligible for paid sick days.

The passage of the bill capped a three-year fight for the legislation by unions and health-care advocates.

---

---

Florida medical company stands accused of forcing some of its employees to spend at least half their workday participating in courses associated with the Church of Scientology, according to a recently filed complaint.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which filed the complaint on May 8 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, alleges that Dynamic Medical Services required employees to engage in activities including staring at someone for eight hours while motionless, screaming at ashtrays and pushing someone out of the way to get through a door.

Beatriz Biscardi, a trial attorney representing the employees, told The Huffington Post that the employees were clear that the courses were associated with Scientology.

---

---

The AFL-CIO posts the following question on it Web site: “The sustained war on workers from the right has left unions trying to prevent rights from being weakened rather than setting the agenda. Where are the opportunities to play some offense?”

The answers are all over the lot; no coherent agenda is evident. But that does not mean that a coherent agenda cannot be imagined.

The first and essential element of such an agenda is anger. During the heyday of the union movement, the more so in its early years, anger was manifest, directed at “the bosses.” But the anger was and is constricted by four contextual conditions:

---

---

WASHINGTON – Facing the next big health-care challenge in Florida, Uncle Sam plans to enlist hundreds of consumer "navigators" over the next several months to help enroll up to 3.5 million uninsured state residents by January, when everyone is required to have health insurance.

Prospective navigators are preparing to plunge into neighborhoods, schools, clinics, unemployment offices, farm-labor hubs, college campuses, churches and companies about to lay off workers – wherever the uninsured can be found – to persuade them to enroll in a health-care plan, help them to fill out the forms and determine if they're eligible for tax credits to help pay for it.

Still, some of those who already reach out to the uninsured expect the state to be left with big gaps in coverage next year, partly because a deadlocked Florida Legislature -- reluctant to carry out the new law known as "Obamacare" -- ended its session on May 3 without expanding Medicaid.

---

---

About 2,300 employees of aerospace supplier Precision Castparts, Oregon’s second-largest company by revenues, will vote next month on whether to join the Machinists union.

---

---

You hear it all the time: If we want to improve upon today’s dismal job market, we need more education. Here at Campus Progress, we’ve written several times about how an expansion of educational attainment—though it would be great—wouldn’t wholly fix the structural problems that prevent people from getting good jobs.

---

---

Along with college attainment, Schmitt and Jones also considered promoting unionization, universal health care, a universal retirement system to supplement Social Security, and gender pay equity.

---

---

According to the report, the boon from greater unionization is particularly noteworthy. Compared to the other changes, it’s very simple and very cheap.

“Increasing the number of people who have a four-year degree or more is incredibly expensive,” she said. “It also leaves out older workers who are not going to go back to school, but if your job was to unionize you’d be able to participate in that.”

---

---

Whether we’re facing hurricanes, recessions, or terrorist attacks, we have faith that the workers of America will be there, ready to rebuild our communities. They are ready to serve and ready to work, in any circumstance. We were reminded of that strength while viewing and reading the moving slideshow in today’s New York Times on the over 3,200 construction workers rebuilding the World Trade Center site. It’s fitting: union members were among the first responders; union members served in the immediate cleanup; and now union members are part of the rebuilding.

---

---

“Teamsters care. It’s in our DNA,” said Jim Hoffa, Teamsters General President, after reports of Teamsters loading trucks with relief supplies, delivering them to staging areas, working with the Red Cross and other groups, and doing a lot of the heavy lifting that comes with rescue and recovery efforts after a natural disaster of that magnitude.

---

---

It was ugly outside on the day Mike Klein got his check from the Teamsters Disaster Relief Fund. “It was raining, I was upset, but getting that help from the Teamsters Union brought some light into my day,” said Klein, a Local 831 Teamster who works for New York City’s Department of Sanitation. Klein is one of many Teamsters who, despite being affected by the hurricane personally, worked through the deadly aftermath.

---

---

“It is unconscionable that in the middle of the IBT's sensitive negotiations for a new contract for 6,000 ABF Teamsters, and in the context of years of continuing sacrifice by our members at YRC, that YRC would advance a secret effort to acquire ABF's freight division. This interference in the collective bargaining process is an affront to all of the hardworking men and women at both companies.

“Before YRC begins looking for acquisition targets they should first restore our members' wages and pension contributions. We have seen this kind of arrogance from YRC before. We thought they had finally learned the lessons of past management catastrophes. Unfortunately it appears they have not. We want to give credit to ABF for rejecting this gambit, and we now will demand from YRC a full accounting of the calculations and decisions that went into their latest misstep.”

---

---

OVERLAND PARK, Kan., May 10, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- YRC Worldwide Inc. (YRCW) today announced the winners of its third annual Destination Green Environmental Excellence Award honoring employees who develop and practice innovative processes in sustainability and efficiency. This year's winners include two teams and seven individuals from YRC Freight:

Sandy Dyke
Leslie Harshaw
Don Pabst
Gretchen Shafer
Mike Smith
Richard Smith
David Talbert
Accounts Payable Team
Transportation and Linehaul Network Team

---

---

SPRINGFIELD — The Illinois Senate voted Thursday to send a union-supported pension reform bill to the House, leaving lawmakers with two competing proposals for dealing with the nation's worst state pension problem just weeks before the Legislature is scheduled to adjourn.

---

---

You cannot lift up a nation's economy while slashing away at its consumers' pocketbooks. In order to justify their defiance of this elementary law, both Republicans and Democrats start talking the language of "austerity," that is, the notion that economic policy must be guided by reducing budgetary deficits first and foremost, and that workers exclusively must be made to pay the cost.

Policies associated with austerity include the cutting of public programs, privatizing existing government assets, mass layoffs of public workers and wage freezes for those who remain, union busting in the public sector and the revising of labor laws to further enhance the power of employers at the expense of employees.

---

---

SACRAMENTO — California legislative leaders and 10 public employee unions announced opposition Wednesday to any sale of the Los Angeles Times and other Tribune Co. newspapers to a pair of wealthy brothers who fund conservative causes throughout the country.

---

---

“I oppose it,” Steinberg said of a possible sale. “ I believe newspapers are a public trust. The Los Angeles Times has a long and respected tradition of community leadership and impartiality. The Koch brothers have a long and demonstrated history of a rigid political ideology.”

---

---

YRC Worldwide Inc. CEO James Welch said he thinks the company’s attempt to acquire ABF Freight System Inc. earlier this year speaks to YRC’s resurgence since 2011.

---

---

As the blaze, dubbed the Springs Fire, continued to grow in Camarillo May 2, farm workers 11 miles south in Oxnard said they started to feel the effects of the smoke in the strawberry fields.

The ashes were falling on top of us, one of them explained, adding “it was hard to breathe.”

Air quality in the region was at dangerously poor levels and 15 workers at Crisalida Farms decided they could not handle it any longer. They left, even though their foreman warned them they would not have a job when they returned.

When they went back to the fields May 3, the farm fired them.

---

---

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A section of Interstate 81 near Harrisburg was expected to remain closed in both directions for the next several days after a tanker truck fully loaded with diesel fuel overturned Thursday morning and exploded into flames, sending black smoke billowing into the sky.

Officials said the crash occurred on an on-ramp to Route 22-322, where the ramp curls back over the interstate and runs under another section of Route 22-322. They said the intense heat buckled steel beams on the top section and damaged it so badly there were fears it could collapse and fall onto I-81.

---

---

State police said the driver, Thomas Uecker, 52, of Dover, Pa., was treated at a hospital for minor injuries. The truck was registered to Tameric Enterprises LLC in Carlisle.

---

---

The Corrections Corporation of America, or CCA is a multi-billion dollar company and the largest private prison provider in the country. From the company's inception 30 years ago, the US prison population has jumped 500%.

Behind me is one CCA facility, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this week and is coming off the heels of a judicial scandal in which a Pennsylvania judge was found guilty of sending children to prison in exchange for money from privately-run prisons.

---

---

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Voters booted Republican Dan Foley from office after a decade in the New Mexico Legislature, and within months he began collecting taxpayer-financed pension benefits — even though he was only 39 years old.

By the time he turns 67 and qualifies for full Social Security benefits, Foley will have received nearly $450,000 in pension payments in exchange for the $5,000 he contributed to the plan while serving in the state House of Representatives.

New Mexico’s unique and generous legislative retirement program has raised questions as lawmakers have trimmed pension benefits for some government workers, yet resisted scaling back their own program.

---

---

‘‘Given the generous taxpayer-funded benefits these pension plans generate, I have long believed that legislative member contributions are woefully inadequate,’’ GOP Gov. Susana Martinez said in vetoing a measure last month that would have allowed former or current legislators to participate in the retirement system after missing enrollment deadlines — years ago in some cases.

---

---

Or the job market does, anyway. That’s the lesson to draw from the latest Labor Department report, which shows the soft underbelly of the U.S. jobs picture. The unemployment rate may be falling and the number of jobs rising. But there isn’t enough “churn” going on, a hallmark of a healthy job market, in which people freely move between positions

---

---

But the bad news is that while companies aren’t slashing jobs, the job market is such that workers aren’t comfortable quitting. In March 2007, 2.2 percent of workers voluntarily left their jobs, most of them presumably to take a job elsewhere (that count would also include those who quit to retire, or go back to school, or for other reasons). In March 2013, that was 1.6 percent—unchanged from a year ago and only barely up from the 1.4 percent level of the darkest days of the recession in March 2009).

---

---

The legislation is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. While it makes it seem like private sector employees are getting more rights by being allowed to trade overtime pay for additional paid time off, several House Democrats noted that it is really more like the “More Work, Less Pay Act.” They noted companies can already offer such an arrangement, and passage of the bill would only pressure workers into accepting comp time instead of time-and-a-half payment. The added problem is that employers would not be required to grant the comp time - once again leaving workers with the short end of the stick.

---

---

In another blow to the nation’s dwindling labor unions, an appeals court on Tuesday struck down a federal rule that would have required millions of businesses to put up posters informing workers of their right to form a union.

The court’s ruling is the latest success for business groups that have worked to prevent the NLRB from shifting the legal landscape in favor of labor unions, despite President Barack Obama’s appointment of several labor-friendly board members.

---

---

The last meeting between Teamsters Local 727 and Osco management on May 6 went long into the night before the decision to bring in a federal mediator was made. The Teamsters Union has represented Chicago-area Osco pharmacists for more than 30 years, and in that time, there has been no labor action.

The company wants to force its pharmacists to work erratic schedules with 12-hour shifts.

“Do you want your pharmacists to be tired, understaffed and overworked when they are filling prescriptions for you and your family?” said John T. Coli, Secretary-Treasurer of Teamsters Local 727. “If reaching out to the public protects our pharmacists and their customers’ health and well-being, then it is worth it to us.”

---

---

(CHARLOTTE, N.C.) – US Airways mechanics and related workers filed for an election today with the National Mediation Board (NMB) as part of their campaign to become Teamsters.

“Because of the Teamsters’ solid, documented track record of excellent representation, the Teamsters Union is the best and most logical choice to represent us for the future as professionals in the airline industry,” Jim Blanton, a 25-year US Airways mechanic, announced today at a news conference in Charlotte, N.C. with mechanics and related workers from other airports across the country.

---

---

“Corporate greed is the only thing driving the trucking industry to push reckless legislation that would put heavier and longer trucks on our highways,” said Jim Hoffa, Teamsters General President. “Our members travel the nation’s highways every day and know fully the dangers of putting bigger trucks on a highway system already in disrepair. It makes no sense to cause further damage to our highways and bridges when Congress hasn’t found a way to fund the much-needed repairs to our crumbling infrastructure.”

---

---

Charley Richardson passed away on Saturday, six years after his diagnosis with cancer. The well-deserved tributes to his work and memory are many, but I want to focus on what made him stand out among labor educators—and among union leaders.

That was his devotion to the workplace, to life on the job: to helping workers figure out how to wrest control from management’s clutches in the place where we spend most of our waking hours.

Charley was relentless in his belief that the seat of workers’ power was their ability to control their conditions of work and to act together where it counted. “Surrendering the shop floor means surrendering the future,” he warned.

---

---

May 6, 2013: Teamsters for a Democratic Union will host a Conference Call for UPS Teamsters to review the proposed UPS contract on Thursday, May 9.

---

---

Christie’s campaign has $3.4 million on hand, even after a massive $1.2 million ad buy across the state last week.

---

---

According to the campaign, 85 percent of the donations came from within New Jersey and 75 percent were donations of $100 or less.

State Sen. Barbara Buono, Christie’s Democratic opponent, has struggled to raise the kind of money it could take to compete with Christie this fall. She’s taken in $738,000 as of April 30, and has received $1.02 million in matching funds from the state. At her current fundraising rate, Buono won’t bring in enough money to qualify for the maximum matching funds in the primary.

---

---

Shares of trucking company Arkansas Best (NASDAQ: ABFS ) skyrocketed as much as 40% after disclosing in a regulatory filing on Friday that its subsidiary, ABF Freight System, had reached a tentative agreement with the Teamsters union.

---

---

Funded in large part by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, ALEC is casting a wide net as it attempts to empower CEOs while undermining democracy. ALEC wants to make it harder for workers to contribute to political campaigns and causes. They want to alter telecommunications laws so that large phone companies can increase consumer costs while reducing consumer protections. They want gut public education by cutting student funding and implementing a voucher system. These are but a small sampling of ALEC's work across the country.

Last week, hundreds of members of Teamsters Local 886 in Oklahoma City mobilized to protest ALEC's actions during its annual meeting there. ALEC was in Oklahoma City to plot behind closed doors and continue its secretive campaign to win over legislators at the expense of working people.

---

---

They put their own lives at risk to protect the citizens of Webster, Mass. Now, the 41 part-time firefighters with the Webster Fire Department have their own protection—Teamster representation.

The firefighters recently voted to join Local 170 in Worcester, Mass., after years of difficulty in gaining a contract and recognition from their employer. They previously had an association that they disbanded when they decided to join the Teamsters.

---

---

Back the truck up! Shares of two major trucking companies were on fire Monday morning.

YRC Worldwide (YRCW) surged 25%, and Arkansas Best (ABFS) jumped 30%.

The gains pushed the Dow Jones Transportation Average (DJT) to an all-time high.

It was a remarkable achievement considering that FedEx (FDX), one of the largest components of the transport index, was not the main driver, as one trader pointed out on StockTwits.

---

---

It's as if the entire economic recovery is going into the pockets of the rich. And that's no accident. Here's why.

---

---

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio's latest "right to work" effort seems dead on arrival, but don't bet against the issue coming back to life.

The right-to-work debate reached a flash point on Tuesday after House Republicans solicited co-sponsorship for "Workplace Freedom" legislation that would ban compulsory "fair-share" fees paid to unions.

More than a quarter of the House GOP caucus stood behind the move when it was unveiled the following day, inciting union outrage, Democratic vitriol and far-reaching comparisons to Senate Bill 5, the collective bargaining restrictions that voters overwhelmingly rejected in 2011.

---

---

LANSING (AP) — The Michigan Supreme Court is in no hurry to give an opinion on the legality of the state’s right-to-work law.

In fact, the court still hasn’t decided whether to even grant Gov. Rick Snyder’s request. The court on Friday asked a high-ranking member of the attorney general’s office to weigh in on whether the justices should intervene.

---

---

For decades, the docks at the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have been organized labor strongholds, dominated by the powerful International Longshore and Warehouse Union.

But as dockworkers have negotiated lucrative contracts, other workers handling imports and exports have mostly been left out. That includes most of the truck drivers who haul goods to and from port terminals to rail yards, stores and warehouses, many of them in the Inland Empire.

---

---

"These are going to be nasty campaigns," said Fred Potter, a Teamsters vice president based in New Jersey. "Workers are going to be challenged, and we want to make sure they are up for the challenge. This is no different in many cases than preparing soldiers for war. "

---

---

America needs more legislators like South Dakota State Sen. Tom Jones (D-District 17). Sen. Jones recently penned a great op-ed in the Yankton Daily Press and Dakotan called “No Tax Dollars For ALEC Dues!”

---

---

“Do you want your tax dollars to support higher perks, out of state travel, and membership dues for state legislators to a conservative organization funded by corporate special interests?” the commentary starts, and it only gets going from there.

---

---

Union membership in Northwest Indiana is holding steady despite membership rates at their lowest level in decades in the rest of the state and the country as a whole.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows union membership dipped to 9.1 percent of Indiana's workforce in 2012, a drop down from 22 percent in 1983. It's the first time Indiana's union workforce has fallen below 10 percent since the government started tracking individual state data in 1989.

Although some of the region’s union locals have seen drops in membership, union officials say their membership levels remain at pre-recession levels.

---

---

The Teamsters Archive at The George Washington University uncovers some great surprises—even to people steeped in the popular culture of the Teamsters Union. For instance, did you know that the classic song “Six Days on the Road” was written by a Teamster?

Here’s what the archives had to say about it:

---

---

(Reuters) - The Illinois House of Representatives in a 62 to 51 vote on Thursday passed a comprehensive bill aimed at addressing the nation's most under funded state pension plan, a major step after weeks of legislative maneuvering had made pensions the dominant political issue in the financially strapped state.

The bill, introduced only two days ago by the powerful Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan, now goes to the state Senate. That chamber's president is preparing a competing plan that is viewed as more favorable to the state's public-employee labor unions.

---

---

The New Jersey State AFL-CIO commemorated Workers Memorial Day last Sunday by remembering the working men and women who suffered injuries on the job and whose lives were needlessly cut short due to workplace hazards.

---

---

It was not easy for working union men and women in our country to demand workplace safety regulations from employers and government decades ago.

But today, virtually every safety and health protection on the books is there thanks to the struggles and efforts of the labor movement.

---

---

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is inviting supporters to become “citizen cosponsors” of the Job Preservation and Sequester Replacement Act, which would repeal the sequester’s across-the-board spending cuts and ask the wealthiest 2% and corporations to pay their fair share. Warren is cosponsoring the legislation with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse's (D-R.I.).

---

---

According to the report, published last month by the Social Science Research Network, the marriage rate among 21 to 30-year-old Caucasians has increased steadily since 1990 in areas where broadband internet access has become readily available at home. The report indicates that marriage rates increased by between 0.9 and 2.2 percent between 1990 and 2005 in states where broadband internet use increased. Among African Americans, the marriage rate increased by between 1.2 and 2.4 percent from 1990 to 2005.

---

---

Great news out of Missouri. The spokesperson for Senate President Pro Tem Tom Dempsey (R-St. Charles) said right-to-work-for-less legislation is dead for the year. Well, he didn’t use those words, exactly. He sounded kinda glum, probably because he’s one of the Missouri politicians who has pushed the corporate-backed measure.

Gov. Jay Nixon has said he’d veto any right-to-work legislation that came across his desk, so the Republican-dominated legislature decided to shelve it…for now.

---

---

Emily Martin, president of Aschinger Electric, said she’d declined to join the Missouri Chamber of Commerce because of its support for right to work. Aschinger Electric is an electrical contracting firm based in St. Louis. She said her company has been unionized since it started.

“It’s a business decision as to whether I want to contract with organized labor,” Martin said. “In our work with our skilled trades, there are benefits to contracting with unions.”

---

---

The agency said late Friday afternoon that on Thursday it had ordered Kearns, Utah-based passenger carrier Salt Lake Shuttles to immediately cease all operations, declaring that its drivers and vehicles pose an imminent hazard to public safety.

Among other things, investigators found that the company failed to monitor and ensure that its drivers complied with federal Hours of Service regulations, noting that drivers frequently made round-trip journeys from Salt Lake City to Las Vegas, a distance of approximately 840 miles, without rest, in violation of HOS rules.

---

---

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – The International Brotherhood of Teamsters and ABF reached a tentative contract agreement, Gordon Sweeton, Co-Chairman of the Teamsters National ABF Negotiating Committee, announced today.

No further details will be released until leaders from Teamster local unions that represent ABF members meet in the near future to review the tentative agreement and decide whether to endorse it.

---

---

WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy showed last month why it remains the envy of industrialized nations: In the face of tax increases and federal spending cuts, employers added a solid 165,000 jobs in April — and far more in February and March than anyone thought.

---

---

“We don’t know what types of jobs (the April gain) they are, but since the majority of trucking employment is drivers, it would suggest that category,” Bob Costello, chief economist at the American Trucking Associations, said. “The gain since April 2010 is significant. Looking backward, in 2012, trucking employment grew at twice the rate as total U.S. employment.”

---

---

OVERLAND PARK, Kan., May 3, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- YRC Worldwide Inc. (YRCW) today reported financial results for the first quarter 2013.

Consolidated operating revenue for the first quarter ending March 31, 2013 was $1.162 billion, 2.7% lower than the $1.194 billion reported in the first quarter of 2012, but consolidated operating income increased from a loss of $48.8 million to income of $9.9 million, or a $58.7 million increase. Operating income in 2013 included a $4.5 million gain on asset disposals and in 2012 included an $8.3M loss. This is the first time in six years that the company reported consolidated positive first quarter operating income.

---

---

On his national speaking junkets, Gov. Scott Walker boasts about having the courage to stand up to public workers. He’ll tell right-wing audiences that crowds of 100,000 protesters outside of his office didn’t rattle him. Yet Walker has been so agitated by an unorganized cadre of noontime Solidarity Singers that his administration has spent the last eight months, and thousands of taxpayer dollars, issuing $200 citations to individuals for peacefully singing, holding signs and, in some instances, walking in circles around the rotunda.

Over 140 citations have been issued by the Capitol Police since September 2012 to these individuals, oftentimes delivered at a person’s home or through the mail weeks after the alleged violation. Despite the Walker administration’s legal maneuverings, which now involve the Department of Justice, none of these citations has been successfully prosecuted on its merits. To date, approximately one-half of them have been dismissed.

---

---

A California legislative panel pushed back against big business supporters yesterday when it approved two pro-labor bills, a victory for the Teamsters and other unions advocating for the measures.

The Assembly Labor and Employment Committee passed one bill that would give workers additional tools to seek pay they are owed, and another that would protect them from retaliation when they attempt to organize or speak out against unfair treatment. In addition to union support, the bills also have the strong backing of public interest groups representing low-wage and immigrant workers who are seen as the main beneficiaries of the legislation.

---

---

NEW YORK (AP) — Adorned with an American flag that flapped in the breeze, the last pieces of a silver spire were hoisted to the top of the World Trade Center on Thursday as construction workers cheered its ascent.

---

---

"It will give a tremendous indication to people around the entire region, and the world, that we're back and better than ever," said Steven Plate, who is overseeing construction of the World Trade Center.

---

---

Marshaling new polling data of voters in battleground states, the Democratic women's group EMILY's List said Americans fully believe the country is ready to elect a woman as president, pointing to results showing almost three in four Americans "expect" the nation to elect a woman as president in 2016.

---

---

(FORT SMITH, Ark., May 2, 2013) – ABF® service centers in Macon, Ga., Tulsa, Okla., Charlotte, N.C., and Salt Lake City, are being recognized with the prestigious President’s Quality Award from ABF President and CEO Roy Slagle. The award recognizes service centers most exemplifying the ABF Quality Process, which are considered the “Best of the Best.”

---

---

As the Republican Party grapples with implications of its historic losses last fall, a similar reckoning is unfolding among the deep-pocketed conservatives whose “super PACs” and other organizations spent heavily to defeat President Obama and the Democrats in 2012. Nowhere is the self-examination more unrelenting than within the constellation of advocacy groups, foundations and research organizations nurtured by the Kochs.

“They took this defeat pretty hard and pretty self-critically — which is always a good sign of a vital organization,” said Jack Schuler, a Chicago-area philanthropist and entrepreneur who has been involved in some of the discussions. “I think the dollars will flow if we get a sense that there’s a formula that’s going to work. They don’t like to fund losing causes. The attitude is: Show me this new approach is going to work.”

---

---

For working America, the trend over the last few decades has been toward lower wages, fewer workplace rights, and diminished voice in the public sphere.

The relative obscurity of the annual May 1 International Workers’ Day celebration in the United States is perhaps emblematic of just how marginal working class concerns have become to the country’s political order.

---

---

Describing the economy as expanding moderately in a statement that largely mirrored its March decision, Fed officials cited continued improvement in labor market conditions.

But they reiterated that unemployment is still too high for policymakers' comfort, reinforcing their desire to keep buying assets until the outlook for jobs improves substantially.

---

---

Clearly, the expectations of economic security and mobility that were widely shared by Americans in the decades after World War II have vanished, replaced by a pervasive economic anxiety. Anxiety, however, won’t change anything. Neither will the majority of analyses of how we got into this fix, nor will most of the (relatively few) recommendations as to how we can get out of it.

---

---

The primary cause is that, with collective bargaining nearly as dead as the dodo (just 6.6 percent of private-sector workers belong to unions), there is no pressure on American employers to share their productivity gains with their workers in the form of higher wages. But there’s considerable pressure to boost payouts to stockholders. The age of shareholder capitalism, most notably proclaimed by General Electric CEO Jack Welch in the early years of the Reagan presidency (while Welch was furiously off-shoring much of GE’s manufacturing), has, like the age of globalization, also coincided with the age of wage stagnation.

---

---

Teamsters Union Local 320, which represents a substantial portion of Wadena County’s workforce, filed a civil lawsuit against the county on April 26 in Seventh Judicial District Court in Wadena. Court file number 80-CV-13-286 has been assigned to the case. According to Mncourts.gov, the lawsuit deals with employment.

---

---

A California Assembly panel approved a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing by oil and natural-gas producers until the most populous U.S. state assesses health and environmental concerns.

---

---

Fracking, a drilling technique that forces millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals deep underground to free trapped oil and gas, has come under fire from environmentalists as a threat to water resources. California -- the fourth-largest oil-producing state -- is working on industry-backed standards to allow its use to continue. New York and New Jersey have moratoriums in place.

---

---

WASHINGTON — The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is asking for public comments on the application of a Mexico-domiciled carrier that if granted authority to participate in the U.S.-Mexico Pilot Program on NAFTA Trucking Provisions would double the number of participating trucks and almost double the number of participating drivers.

---

---

Washington, D.C.) ISS, the country’s largest proxy voting advisory firm, issued a report yesterday recommending that shareholders withhold votes from all members of the Swift Transportation Company [NYSE: SWFT] Board of Directors’ Audit Committee over concerns about the CEO’s extensive pledging of stock.

ISS cites concerns over the material risk and potential conflicts of interest created by pledging the shares, and notes the audit committee’s responsibility to oversee the management of enterprise and financial risks as well as potential conflicts of interest. Swift Transportation will hold its annual meeting of shareholders on May 8 in Phoenix, Ariz.

---

---

Turning to the income statement, the performance over the past few years has not been as rosy. The company has struggled with a number of issues driven in large part by the macroeconomic environment. ABFS does face company specific issues as well, namely the burdensome labor contract that the company is currently a part of with its unionized employees. However, regardless of the outcome of the labor negotiations, ABFS is making headway towards turning around the profitability of the company. One of those biggest strides, in addition to the acquisition of Panther noted above, is the growth in the organic non-freight business segments within the company. As recently as 2011, the freight transportation segment was responsible for well over 90% of the total revenue for the company. In 2012, through organic growth and the Panther acquisition, freight revenue had declined to only 80% of total revenues for the company. This is notable for two major reasons. The first is that the company is expanding in non-union business segments which will provide leverage in the ongoing negotiations for the new labor agreements. Second, these non-freight transportation segments are already profitable exclusive of the potential positive outcome related to the labor contract.

---

---

Currently, Missouri Republicans are bent on passing so called "right-to work" legislation. Even though the president pro tem of the Senate said it isn't a priority of the Senate and it faces veto by the governor, they press on while they could be working to modernize our economy

---

---

However, let's say at some point the agenda becomes tomorrow's short sighted law of the land. Who will they blame then?

Case in point from Southeast Missouri: After taking millions in federal loan guarantees, Nordyne, located in Poplar Bluff, Mo., has announced they'll move production and close shop. You'd assume greedy unions chased the job creators into the welcoming arms of a "right-to-work" state, but Nordyne wasn't a union shop. Unionization wasn't even talked about at their plant.

---

---

Many Minnesota workers would get a pay hike, extra time to spend with newborns and recently adopted children and more overtime pay in the minimum wage bill that is headed to the House floor.

The House Ways and Means Committee approved legislation Monday, April 29, that would increase Minnesota's floor wage in three steps until it hits $9.50 per hour in 2015. After that, it would increase automatically according to inflation. The measure also doubles the time new parents can take unpaid leave -- from six to 12 weeks -- and lowers the threshold at which most employers need to start paying overtime, from 48 hours to 40.

---

---

Republicans on the committee fought against those changes, which they said were not thoroughly vetted after being added over the weekend.

---

---

James Welch is aiming for an operating profit at YRC Worldwide in 2013, following a $24.1 million operating profit in 2012, as he approaches his third year as CEO of the less-than-truckload operator.

In 2012, the LTL holding company reported a net loss of $140.4 million, a 60 percent improvement from the year before.

"We need to continue to move forward with the turnaround," Welch said in an interview at the 2013 NASSTRAC Shippers Conference in Orlando last week. "It's all about performance. We're finally, I think, over the hump from a performance standpoint."

---

---

Teamsters Local 700 has recouped approximately $5 million in lost wages for City of Chicago workers who were sent home early without pay while working snow removal shifts at area airports from 2009-2011.

The monumental win brings the largest monetary awards thus far for Local 700 members.

---

---

“With no regard for their contract, the City of Chicago treated our hardworking members like disconnected part-time help instead of qualified employees who are committed to keeping our runways safe through the winter,” said Becky Strzechowski, President of Local 700.

---

---

A U.S. judge in July could take up the issue of whether a bankrupt city can shield workers' pensions while inflicting heavy losses on bond holders and other creditors, a lawyer for California's pension fund for public employees said on Friday.

---

---

Stockton's decision to keep paying into the state pension fund known as Calpers has been hotly disputed by the creditors, who argued in the recent eligibility trial that the city would not be able to repair its finances without tackling its pension expenses.

---

---

New York City pension funds sued BP Plc (BP/) for at least $39 million in investment losses, saying the oil company failed to disclose the risks and safety issues leading to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

The company misled investors and attempted to minimize the damage and cost to shareholders after the spill began, according to a complaint unsealed today in federal court in Manhattan. The case was originally filed April 17 by pension funds for city workers, teachers, police officers and firefighters.

---

---

SACRAMENTO — California's $8-an-hour minimum wage needs to go up, says Watsonville Democratic Assemblyman Luis Alejo. And he may be getting the votes he needs to make it happen.

---

---

Supported by labor unions and advocates for the working poor, the bill was approved by the Democrat-dominated committee on a party-line vote. But business lobbyists such as the California Chamber of Commerce, the California Restaurant Assn. and the Western Growers Assn. plan to fight the bill every step of the way through the Legislature.

They oppose it and are part of a business coalition that says "an increase in the minimum wage starting in 2014 will negatively impact our economic recovery by either limiting available jobs, or worse, creating further job loss." The chamber dubs the bill a "job killer." Similar bills by Alejo died in the state Assembly in 2011 and 2012.

---

---

LEBANON, Pa., April 29, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- (YRCW) -- Employees at New Penn terminals in four locations were recently honored for achieving new safety milestones. The Milton, Pa., Cinnaminson, N.J., Altoona, Pa., and Burlington, Vt. terminals have all passed the one year mark with perfect safety records that hold true even today. This safety accomplishment was achieved through the attentive safety focus of terminal employees, supported and encouraged by New Penn's continuous internal safety initiatives and training programs.

---