Transport Workers Solidarity Committee

While UPS makes multimillionaire profit, they fire workers from UPS-Madrid Vallecas

http://www.litci.org/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1709:while-ups-makes-multimillionaire-profit-they-fire-workers-from-ups-vallecas&catid=22:spain
While UPS makes multimillionaire profit, they fire workers from UPS-Vallecas
Written by Worker’s Committee of UPS Vallecas
Tuesday, 31 August 2010 23:14
To UPS workers all over the world

Dear colleagues,

First of all, we want to inform you that on the 30th of july UPS started to fire the employees of Vallecas (Madrid), up to now, they have dismissed up to 18 colleagues.

During the last two years, the company has presented three Layoff Plans (said “ERE” in Spain, official procedure to request to the Administration the workers contract termination), in order to fire most of the employees of UPS Vallecas and to modify the working and financial conditions of the remaining ones, including to put an end to our signed up collective agreement.

After much struggle, the first two Layoff Plans and their respective legal appeals were defeated by the Administrations (Ministry of Labour and Madrid Regional Authority), that denied in a categorical way the existence of any reason for the dismissals. Finally the management of UPS resolved to withdraw the third one before the Administration would deny it again.

AC Transit Bosses and Board Blames ATU 192 Drivers For Making Cuts In Service To Community

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/08/31/BAO31F5UPE.DTL
AC Transit pushes severe service cuts

Michael Cabanatuan, Chronicle Staff Writer

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Michael Macor / The Chronicle
AC Transit will propose, among other things, slashing its weekend service by half and eliminating some overnight lines.

AC Transit could slash its weekend service by half, eliminate all but two of its overnight bus lines and shorten service hours on all routes in a series of budget cuts the transit agency is blaming on its drivers' union.

The East Bay's largest bus transit agency plans to announce the proposed budget cuts at its Wednesday Board of Directors meeting in Oakland.

The transit district, enmeshed in a battle with its largest labor union, had planned to cut service by about 7 percent this month but put off those reductions after a judge prohibited the agency from imposing working conditions, designed to save $15.7 million, on its drivers and mechanics, and ordered them to let an arbitrator settle the contract dispute.

AC Transit officials said that they now need to make much deeper cuts - slashing service to a level not seen in at least 24 years, perhaps ever - in December.

CA AFL-CIO Fed Endorsed Anti-Labor Mayor Newsom Attacks SF ATU 250 A Muni Drivers With New Fee-CA AFL-CIO And SFLC Endorsed Candidate For CA Lt. Governor

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/08/30/BAU61F4LNB.DTL
Time for Muni drivers to pay to park

Phillip Matier,Andrew Ross

Monday, August 30, 2010

MATIER & ROSS
Some DMV workers extend their furlough 08.25.10
Montel Williams looks at Oakland's pot business 08.23.10
Alameda Fire Chief David Kapler's car troubles 08.22.10
More Matier & Ross »
Muni drivers, who recently refused to forgo their legally mandated pay raises, are about to be hit with an $80-a-month charge to park their cars at work.

The new fee to park at Muni yards comes to $960 a year, or about a third of drivers' 5.75 percent raise.

Until now, drivers were allowed to park for free at the city's bus yards.

So were most of the transit agency's other 2,000 employees, who will be hit with the same parking charges, according to a memo that Municipal Transportation Agency chiefNathaniel Ford just sent out with everyone's paychecks.

Agency spokesman Paul Rose insists that "this is not about paybacks. This is about finding alternative ways to improve our service for our customers."

American Mechanics Shoot Down Tentative Agreement, Move Closer to Strike

http://www.bnet.com/blog/airline-business/american-mechanics-shoot-down-tentative-agreement-move-closer-to-strike/2206
American Mechanics Shoot Down Tentative Agreement, Move Closer to Strike
By Brett Snyder | August 27, 2010Comments

The apparent labor peace atAmerican Airlines (AMR) is looking more like a temporary blip. In the latest development,American’s mechanics and stores clerks have handily defeated “tentative” contract terms presented by their union leaders, making a strike vote highly likely — even though the feds would most likely put the kibosh on any actual work stoppage.

Airline labor relationships are incredibly messy thanks to the governing Railway Labor Act. This law effectively means that airline (and rail) labor contracts never expire. They just become amendable, so there’s no urgency. Management and labor generally poke along at negotiations for years. In most cases, a tentative agreement will, at some point, be presented to the membership for a vote. If it fails, negotiations continue for a while longer until the sides declare an impasse and workers go on strike. The president can legally bar a strike, and with airlines growing larger and larger, it’s doubtful that the Obama administration would allow one at any of the big guys.

UK Tube workers' unions to meet over strike action

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5gQgQjy-u9CoWRHkXw85U8IJ9e0ig
Hosted by Back to Google News
Tube workers' unions to meet over strike action
(UKPA) – 3 days ago
London Underground (LU) union leaders are to meet to draw up a possible timetable for strikes in a row over jobs, threatening disruption as the capital returns to normal working after the summer holidays next month.
Members of the Rail Maritime and Transport union and the Transport Salaried Staffs Association voted in favour of a campaign of industrial action over plans to cut 800 jobs among station staff.
The executives of both unions will have to endorse any strike dates, but it is likely that action could start from September 6, when Parliament returns for a few weeks before the autumn political conferences.
Meanwhile, Caroline Pidgeon, leader of the Liberal Democrat London Assembly Group, said LU was set to close ticket offices across the underground by almost 7,500 hours every week.
"London Underground and the Mayor are playing with words when they keep peddling the claim that no ticket office will actually close. The harsh reality is that if you can't access a ticket office for most hours of the day, it is effectively closed.

AC Transit Board to appeal court-ordered arbitration supported by ATU 192
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/08/19/BABB1F050N.DTL
AC Transit to appeal court-ordered arbitration

Michael Cabanatuan, Chronicle Staff Writer

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Those who give booze to youths now can be sued 08.19.10
Brown's campaign explains state plane flights 08.19.10
State pushing for tougher caregiver standards 08.19.10
The contract feud between AC Transit and the union representing its drivers and mechanics grew testier and more complex Wednesday night as the transit agency's board voted to appeal a court order mandating an arbitrator settle the dispute.

The AC Transit Board of Directors voted 4-2, with Directors Rocky Fernandez and Elsa Ortiz opposed, to appeal a July 16 court ruling that forced AC Transit into arbitration over a new contract withAmalgamated Transit Union Local 192. It also voted to appeal an Aug. 2 order that prohibited the transit agency from imposing new working conditions. Director Joel Young abstained on the advice of the agency's attorney.

Arbitration hearings are scheduled to begin Friday. Sam Singer, a spokesman for AC Transit during the labor dispute, said the agency will comply with the court order and participate in the arbitration while its appeals are considered.

BAA, Union Avert U.K. Airports Strike

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704868604575433864209199710.html

BUSINESSAUGUST 16, 2010, 5:57 P.M. ET
BAA, Union Avert U.K. Airports Strike

Associated Press

LONDON—Strikes that could have closed Britain's major airports during peak vacation season were averted Monday after a full day of talks between the country's airports operator, BAA Ltd., and the Unite union.

Officials from BAA and the union emerged Monday evening from a meeting brokered by the U.K. government's conciliation service to announce the agreement. Unite's national secretary, Brendan Gold, said it was "a settlement which we're prepared to recommend to our members."

The details of the agreement weren't revealed. They are to be presented Tuesday to union members, who must now vote on the offer.

The two sides had been locked in a dispute over pay.

"It's been challenging," said conciliation service spokesman Peter Harwood. "The parties wouldn't have been here if it was a straightforward matter."

BAA, which is owned by Spain's Grupo Ferrovial SA, had said it would have to shut down its six airports—including Heathrow, Stansted and Edinburgh—if the walkout went ahead because the striking workers would have included security staff, engineers and firefighters.

Union workers keep NY MTA trains running on time
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20100811/OPINION/8110354/Union-workers-keep-MTA-trains-running-on-time
Union workers keep MTA trains running on time
AUGUST 11, 2010

Today the unions find themselves, again, under a blistering attack by the media ("MTA's policies counterproductive," Aug. 7 editorial) and management. This attack seeks to transfer blame for the current economic crisis to organized workers who refuse to be broken or bowed into pretending that they are to blame for this crisis.

This economic disaster should be laid at the feet of the greedy capitalists working on Wall Street, in our banking sector, and their agents in government who signed ill-conceived trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China — among others.

The destruction of our industrial base and our refusal to create a high-wage-and-benefit service sector to replace our high-wage-and-benefit industrial sector, coupled with capitalist greed, has pushed our economy over a cliff without enough parachutes to protect the working class.

Currently, we see numerous questions about overtime within the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The economic crisis at the MTA has nothing to do with overtime or work rules, but much to do with the overall meltdown that was precipitated by Wall Street greed. Furthermore, state Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli should master his own job before attacking the MTA.

NY TWU 100 Transit Union to Operate Vans it Opposes
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704164904575421702343430886.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_newyork

NY TRANSITAUGUST 11, 2010
Transit Union to Run Vans It Opposes

By AARON RUTKOFF

The transit union said on Tuesday it has won permission from the Taxi and Limousine Commission to operate a commuter-van service along the canceled B71 bus's former route in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Park Slope, Carroll Gardens and Prospect Heights.

Arthur Z. Schwartz, an attorney for Transport Workers Union Local 100, said the new van service would charge passengers $1 for rides and would employ bus drivers laid off by the Metropolitan Transportation Agency.

One odd hitch: TWU Local 100 is also engaged in a lawsuit against the dollar-van program. Mr. Schwartz sought an injunction against the city to stop the TLC's pilot program last week in a Manhattan court, arguing that the program is illegal.

He expects a court decision by Thursday.

Mr. Schwartz said the service would launch in mid-September, but noted that the TLC has not yet established a firm date.

TWU has also sought permission to operate on the four other former bus routes that are part of the TLC pilot program.

KCS Engineers & Trainmen Unite to Fight Back -RWU
Railroad Workers United
Official Publication of
The Highball
Volume 3 Number 3 SUMMER 2010
KCS Engineers & Trainmen Unite to Fight Back
On the former Mid-South Railroad, the process of com-
plete and total disregard of our contract by the carrier,
coupled with non/misrepresentation by the operating craft
unions began in earnest approximately five years ago. We
don't really know where to start or where to end, as there
are so many different things to talk about. It seems to
have started with engineer trainees being denied their
meal period and holidays once Kansas City Southern
(KCS) found a loophole in the contract where engineer
trainees will be paid 100% brakeman rate, period.
The carrier basically honors no part of our contract. KCS
refuses to meet with us, as they like things just the way
they are. The unions tell us that they can't force KCS to
meet with them (even though under the Railway Labor Act
hours of work and work schedules are mandatory subjects
of bargaining), so we are left with very few options
besides standing together and building rank-&-file solidari-
ty in what is a hostile anti-union environment. We are