LA Teamsters provide members seeking citizenship with valuable assistance
Apr. 1, 2019  |  Teamsters Local 630 has about 7,000 members. They’re warehouse workers, truckers, and food service employees. Nearly 80 percent of the union is Hispanic. Guillermo Flores’ wife is in the union. For years he has lived, worked, and paid taxes in the United States, thanks to a permanent resident status. On Saturday, March 30 he took a major step toward U.S. citizenship because of Local 630. He submitted the N-400 Application for Naturalization. One of his motivations is political. As a permanent resident Flores isn’t allowed to vote. “The more people that could cast their votes and understand the laws or what’s going to go on in the future, I think it’s better for everybody,” said Flores. Flores’ parents brought him straight to California from Mexico…Spectrum News 

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Tronc to ditch ridiculed name June 29, 2018 | After one of the most lampooned rebrandings of the digital era, Tronc is going to return to the name Tribune Publishing. An insider said that the name change for the parent company of the Chicago Tribune and the New York Daily News was awaiting the completion of Tronc’s spinoff of the Los Angeles Times, San Diego Union-Tribune and several other papers in its California Media Group to health tech billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong… MarketWatch It looks like Tronc is about to be chopped up, sold for parts Sept. 17, 2018 | While it still requires some deal jiu-jitsu, Tronc looks to be on the brink of being broken up. Will Wyatt’s new Donerail Group, several confidential sources tell me, has now gotten the financing in place to do a deal to buy Tronc. Donerail would purchase Tronc’s 10 daily newspaper properties, take the company private, and then most likely sell the papers off to individual buyers — some of whom it already has lined up… Neiman Lab And this: Tronc in talks to sell to McClatchy? Sept. 17, 2018 | A second firm is in talks to potentially acquire Chicago-based newspaper chain Tronc. California-based newspaper chain McClatchy is in “early stage” discussions to buy Tronc, owner of the Chicago Tribune and other major newspapers, a source familiar with the negotiations said Friday. McClatchy, a publicly traded company, generated about $904 million in revenue last year, according to filings with the SEC… Chicago Tribune

Tronc to ditch ridiculed name June 29, 2018 | After one of the most lampooned rebrandings of the digital era, Tronc is going to return to the name Tribune Publishing. An insider said that the name change for the parent company of the Chicago Tribune and the New York Daily News was awaiting the completion of Tronc’s spinoff of the Los Angeles Times, San Diego Union-Tribune and several other papers in its California Media Group to health tech billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong… MarketWatch

It looks like Tronc is about to be chopped up, sold for parts Sept. 17, 2018 | While it still requires some deal jiu-jitsu, Tronc looks to be on the brink of being broken up. Will Wyatt’s new Donerail Group, several confidential sources tell me, has now gotten the financing in place to do a deal to buy Tronc. Donerail would purchase Tronc’s 10 daily newspaper properties, take the company private, and then most likely sell the papers off to individual buyers — some of whom it already has lined up… Neiman Lab

And this: Tronc in talks to sell to McClatchy? Sept. 17, 2018 | A second firm is in talks to potentially acquire Chicago-based newspaper chain Tronc. California-based newspaper chain McClatchy is in “early stage” discussions to buy Tronc, owner of the Chicago Tribune and other major newspapers, a source familiar with the negotiations said Friday. McClatchy, a publicly traded company, generated about $904 million in revenue last year, according to filings with the SEC… Chicago Tribune

	Privacy Is At Stake as Surveillance Tech Monitors Workers’ Every Move Apr. 16, 2019 | WORKPLACE | The emergence of sensor and other technologies that let businesses track, listen to and even watch employees while on company time is raising concern about corporate levels of surveillance. Privacy advocates fear that, if the new technology is not wielded carefully, workers could be at risk of losing any sense of privacy while on the job. Overall, corporate interest in surveillance seems to be on the rise… CNBC

	The Largest Private Sector Strike in Years Is Playing Out Supermarkets Across the Northeast Apr. 15, 2019 | STRIKES | [Note: East Coast supermarket chains Stop & Shop and Giant Food are owned by Amsterdam-based retailer Ahold.] More than 30,000 grocery store employees in the northeastern US are refusing to return to work for the second day in a row. Cashiers and deli workers at Stop & Shop supermarkets walked off the job Thursday afternoon at 240 stores in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, saying the supermarket chain is trying to slash their pay by hiking health insurance premiums and lowering pension benefits for new employees. The workers have been negotiating new jobs contracts with the company since January, according to their labor unions, which are part of the United Food & Commercial Workers Union International. Workers want their paychecks to get larger, not smaller, they say, especially now that Stop & Shop’s profits are growing faster than before… Vox   Related: Teamsters back up striking Stop and Shop workers.

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	Safe at Work? Not in Construction or Driving a Truck Apr. 12, 2019 | HEALTH & SAFETY | […] Overall government statistics don't reflect how hazardous this corner of the workplace has become. Workers compensation insurers, which have to pay when someone gets injured or killed on the job, report that 2015 to 2018 were four banner years when revenue exceeded business costs and losses by more than 5 percent. Fatal injuries in manufacturing and wholesale trade were the lowest since 2003, according to a 2017 report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). But that may not be a reason to celebrate… CBS News

	Report is Latest Example of Nation’s Infrastructure Mess Apr. 12, 2019 | TRANSPORTATION | The condition of many bridges in this country is not good. And a new study shows little is being done to improve it going forward. The American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) last week released its annual report on the state of America’s bridges. It shows that slightly more than 47,000 of the nation’s 616,000 spans were rated structurally deficient and are in need of urgent repairs. It also showed that the pace of repairs fell last year, resulting in only a 1 percent reduction of deficient bridges. It’s a continuation of a trend that began five years ago when the pace of bridge improvements began to slow down. Incredibly, at this point, it would take more than 80 years to make the significant repairs that are needed to these structures… Teamsters