Air Canada files unfair labour complaint against union

Just hours after Labour Minister Lisa Raitt blocked Air Canada’s flight attendants from walking off the job, the airline filed an unfair labour practice complaint against the union.

The bad-faith bargaining complaint against the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents 6,800 flight attendants, was faxed to the Canada Industrial Relations Board late Wednesday night.

That move came after Labour Minister Lisa Raitt intervened Wednesday, asking that board to rule on two matters – effectively suspending any possible job action until a decision is made by the quasi-judicial panel.

Raitt raised the question of health and safety concerns for the nation and whether it provides an essential service. As well, she asked whether a deal between Air Canada and unionized employees is possible given two tentative deals have been rejected by members even though union officials had recommended acceptance.

If the board agrees, Raitt want a collective agreement imposed or the dispute sent to binding arbitration.

Corporations Pressure Congress, White House Over 'Territorial Taxation' Of Offshore Profits

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Large U.S. corporations are pressuring Congress and the White House to exempt overseas corporate profits from taxes, a policy shift that critics say would hurt the economy and increase the federal deficit.

A fight is shaping up between supporters of territorial taxation, as this policy proposal is known, and opponents who favor a different reform -- repealing a tax law that allows corporations to defer paying taxes on their overseas income.

The two sides are facing off over an old and worsening problem -- how to fix the system for taxing companies' foreign income. Both sides agree the system is not working and a new approach is needed, but their solutions are direct opposites.

"A tax system that raises little revenue, but imposes high compliance and administrative burdens on taxpayers and the IRS is the very definition of a bad tax system. Unfortunately, that is the system we have," said Philip West, a former U.S. Treasury Department tax official, at a Senate hearing.

Right-Wing Billionaires Invest in Wisconsin's Recall Elections

As co-chair of Wisconsin’s powerful legislative Joint Finance Committee, Alberta Darling was charged by Governor Scott Walker with cobbling together the most anti–public education budget in Wisconsin history. And Darling delivered, with a plan to slash $800 million in funding for public schools across Wisconsin while at the same time scheming to shift tens of millions from the state treasury into the accounts of private schools.

Darling was not just doing the governor’s bidding, however.

She was delivering for American Federation for Children (AFC), the powerful national network of billionaire campaign contributors that has been pouring millions into school privatization fights across the country.

New Exposé Tracks ALEC-Private Prison Industry Effort to Replace Unionized Workers With Prison Labor

Many of the toughest sentencing laws responsible for the explosion of the U.S. population were drafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, which helps corporations write model legislation. Now a new exposé reveals ALEC has paved the way for states and corporations to replace unionized workers with prison labor. We speak with Mike Elk, contributing labor reporter at The Nation magazine. He says ALEC and private prison companies, “put a massive amount of people in jail and created a situation where they could exploit that.” Elk notes that in 2005 more than 40 million pounds of beef infected with rat feces processed by inmates were not recalled in order to drawing attention to how many products are made by prison labor.

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Source: Democracy Now! 

Koch, Exxon Mobil Among Corporations Helping Write State Laws

Koch Industries Inc. and Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) are among companies that would benefit from almost identical energy legislation introduced in state capitals from Oregon to New Mexico to New Hampshire -- and that’s by design.

The energy companies helped write the legislation at a meeting organized by a group they finance, the American Legislative Exchange Council, a Washington-based policy institute known as ALEC.

The corporations, both ALEC members, took a seat at the legislative drafting table beside elected officials and policy analysts by paying a fee between $3,000 and $10,000, according to documents obtained by Bloomberg News.