This is the largest award given to date by the NLRB in regards to bad-faith bargaining:

Michigan beer distributors to pay out $41 million

The National Labor Relations Board says an illegal arrangement by five southeastern Michigan beer distributors has resulted in back pay for Teamsters members totaling $41 million.

About 2,000 workers will share in the award, one of the largest ever made by the NLRB in a bad-faith bargaining case.

The NLRB says the distributors made an illegal pact in contract negotiations with Teamsters Local 1038. Each company declared a bargaining impasse and imposed a new contract with “substantially” lower wages and fewer benefits.

Four of the distributors agreed to settlement terms by 2003, but Hubert Distributors Inc. continued fighting the award in court. Its last appeal was rejected in 2006, and the last of the settlement money was paid out in September.

A message seeking comment was left with Hubert Distributors after business hours Tuesday.

Sidney Weintraub, Forbes, 3/20/2009

Weintraub

Mexico announced, effective March 19, tariff increases ranging between 10% and 45% on 90 products whose imports from the U.S. amount to $2.4 billion. This was done because President Obama earlier in the month signed a spending bill that removed funding for a pilot program that allowed designated Mexican trucks to bring cargo directly to destinations in the U.S. Mexico’s retaliation was neither rash nor hurried in that this issue has been in dispute since 1995.

The U.S. government agreed in the North American Free Trade Agreement to allow Mexican trucks to bring cargo to destinations in the four border states (California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas) in 1995, and this action was “delayed” at the urging of the U.S. Teamsters Union.

The action by Mexico may have a salutary effect on future U.S. trade actions in that it demonstrates something that should have been learned from the 1930s, namely, when the U.S. engages in protectionism, other countries are likely to retaliate–and all of us become losers.”

Read more…

The news regarding our economy does not seem to get any better regardless of stock rallies. Gas is down but who could afford it when everything else is up. To make things worse now winter has begun which means an additional bill for heating.

On top of all this many companies can no longer keep up with the failing economy and are being forced to either lay off workers or shut down permanently.

Todays latest casualty is DHL. DHL’s parent company, German-based Deutsche Post World Net, will announce plans for its U.S. operations to investors Monday, That is Today!!! It would seem that Deutsche Post has ordered roughly 8,000 layoffs at DHL’s Wilmington hub. Just to give you an idea as to the severity of this latest possible lay off here is the 2007 census for Wilmington: Population in July 2007: 12,499. Population change since 2000: +4.7%. So if the plans are for 8,000 to be laid off we can be well over 50% of the community, depending of course how many of its residents actually work at DHL, which I imagine are quite a few. Here is the latest on that situation:I wonder if the Teamsters Union was made aware of this?

Ohio braces for possible DHL layoffs

About 8,000 job cuts reportedly may be announced tomorrow, when DHL’s parent company releases its quarterly earnings report.

And as if that were not enough to worry about check this out:

UPS and DHL proposed a collaboration in May in which UPS would carry some air packages for DHL. The deal, if completed, could last up to 10 years and infuse up to US$1 billion in annual revenue for UPS.

UPS has said the contract will mostly involve the transport of DHL packages between airports in North America – not the pickup or delivery of DHL packages to customers. UPS has said the deal is similar to its existing agreement with the US Postal Service.

Thousands of jobs could be lost at an air cargo facility in Wilmington, Ohio, if the agreement between DHL and UPS is consummated.

Those figures can be added to the already 1.2 million lost jobs for the year and the figure continues to rise on a daily basis.

Layoffs hit every corner

Eight companies spanning several different industries announce nearly 15,000 layoffs in first week of November.

Jobs lost in 2008: 1.2 million
Payrolls shrink by 240,000 in October, 10th straight month of cuts. Unemployment soars to 6.5%

Monday…Monday. While the song from the Mama’s and the Papa’s was good – it wasn’t so good for Heather Lott, the former bookkeeper for Local 19 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Lott plead guilty to embezzling more than $140,000 in union funds.

As the bookkeeper of Local 19 from January 2003 through January 2006, Lott’s duties including paying bills and maintaining the financial records. According to the US Attorney’s news release, the treasurer of Local 19 first discovered improprieties in the union’s accounting during his 2005 year-end audit. He noticed more than 12 database entries during 2005 were designated as rent payments for the union hall even though the union only paid rent on a monthly basis. The lessor of the union hall stated he had received only 12 payments from the union that year. The treasurer was unable to find all the cancelled checks for the supposed rent payments in the union’s financial records and subsequently obtained the cancelled checks from the bank supposedly for rent that were missing from the union’s files. All these missing checks listed Lott as the payee and endorser.

Now how dumb is that? Lott steals money from her employer and then gives the auditor – as proof of here excuse for the missing money – checks made out to her?

After this discovery, the Teamster’s International

Union sent two auditors to examine the Local’s records who discovered 91 cancelled checks missing from the Local’s records. According to the database entries, all of these 91 checks were paid to vendors the Local used. However, after the cancelled checks were obtained from the bank, all 91 checks, totaling $135,974.53, listed Lott as the payee and endorser. The subsequent Department of Labor investigation found five additional checks made out to Lott for $4,977.72, bringing the total amount embezzled to $140,952.25. Bank records show the vast majority of the 96 checks were deposited to Lott’s personal account and that she spent the money on personal items.

When there is a lapse of business ethics and integrity – often potential white collar crime follows. In this case Heather Lott was a dumb criminal. Not only did she steal money, but she was lame in the crime as she only disguised the defalcation through accounting entries. All the checks that were written and cashed created the perfect paper trail for the auditors to follow.

Every choice has a consequence. Lott’s choices will likely result in a prison sentence, restitution and potentially an IRS claim for tax fraud as I doubt that she paid tax on the embezzled funds. Yes! Tax is due on money from all sources except those that are exempt and stolen money is taxable. I should know – I spent time in federal prison for not paying tax on stolen money. By the way, I am not proud of that fact, but today, I speak nationwide on (1) fraud in business, (2) how to avoid fraud in your company and (3) how business ethics can improve your financial performance.

One thing is for sure – You do reap what you sow! Heather Lott will come to learn that soon as she is scheduled to be sentenced on July 7, 2008.

If you know Heather Lott and have any comments on her and/or the crime committed here – feel free to comment!

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   Coming soon to an intersection near you…mexican trucking companies have been given the go ahead to assault America’s highways.  this means we will now have three nations hopped up truck drivers out there trying to kill us as we commute.

What is with the fucking 9th circuit court of appeals?  Are they like Borgs or some shit?  they haven’t made an intelligent ruling in the entire history of that august body, and taking all of their black robed asses out and drowning them in the ocean would be a mercy.  Fucking cretins.

    Thanks George Bush.  After 8 years of being fucked By Clinton, It’s nice to know that your stupid ass could carry on his legacy.  cocksucker