BlogWatch

Cross-posted from RiskMetrics; by Ted Allen.

The Laborers’ International Union of North America and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters are filing new proposals that seek compensation reforms at companies that participate in the U.S. Treasury Department’s bailout program.

In the supporting statement for these 2009 resolutions, the labor funds argue that the pay restrictions in the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) “fail to adequately address the serious shortcomings of many executive compensation plans.” Instead, the unions urge directors to adopt “more rigorous executive compensation reforms that we believe will significantly improve the pay-for-performance features of the Company’s plan and help restore investor confidence.”

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Cross-posted from CtW Connect; by Jason Lefkowitz.

The ongoing saga of Circuit City’s downward spiral continues!

Faithful readers of CtW Connect will remember that I’ve been following CC ever since its incredibly boneheaded decision in March of last year to fire 3,400 of their best-performing workers in order to cut costs.

By stripping their staff of the salespeople best able to explain complicated technology to customers just at the moment most people started to move to HDTV — a complicated technology if ever there was one — they managed to completely destroy their competitiveness, and the market noticed.

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Cross-posted from Huffington Post; by Peter Dreier.

Forget Joe the Plumber. One of America's real working class heroes is Jeff the truck driver.

Jeff Wallace, 43, has been on the picket lines for six weeks. He's fighting for good healthcare for his kids and to make sure he has something to walk away with when he retires from his grueling job for Oak Harbor Freight Lines in Seattle, where he's worked for about 14 years.

This week Jeff, was hit on the picket line by a replacement worker in a pick-up truck who then drove away.

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Cross-posted from DailyKos; by Joe's Union Review

On Oct. 21st, Teamsters rappelled down the side of a building adjacent to The Gap’s headquarters in San Francisco to bring attention to the company’s support of union-busting freight firm Oak Harbor Freight Lines.

They were forced out on strike on Sept. 22 in protest of the freight company's violations of U.S. labor laws and hostile efforts to intimidate workers.

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Cross-posted from Working Life; by Johathan Tasini

It was an overcast afternoon but people still turned out for a very spirited rally organized in a very short time by the New York City Central Labor Council. People came from a whole range of unions--Teamsters, Teachers, UAW, RWDSU, Laborers, AFSCME...John Sweeney was there. Gary Labarbera, the head of the CLC, lead off the rally. Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT and UFT, was in high form...outrage and demands all rolled into one.

And people were extremely pissed off. The recurrent theme: some how the government is able to dig up $700 billion to bail out bankers who screwed up the economy because of their greed but no money is to be found for national health care, teachers' salaries and decent wages for working people.

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