Amazon and Starbucks workers are on strike. Trump might have something to do with it
Amazon delivery drivers and Starbucks baristas are on strike in a handful of U.S. cities as they seek to exert pressure on the two major companies to recognize them as unionized employees or to meet demands for an inaugural labor contract. Strikes during busy periods like the holidays can help unions exercise leverage during negotiations or garner support from sympathetic consumers. One expert says he thinks workers at both companies are “desperate” to make progress before President-elect Donald Trump can appoint a Republican majority to the National Labor Relations Board. Workers at Starbucks, Amazon and some other prominent consumer brands are fighting for their first contracts after several locations voted to unionize.
Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge shows price pressures eased last month
WASHINGTON (AP) — An inflation gauge that is closely watched by the Federal Reserve barely rose last month in a sign that price pressures cooled after two months of sharp gains. Prices rose just 0.1% from October to November. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, prices also ticked up just 0.1%, after two months of outsize 0.3% gains. The milder inflation figures arrived two days after Federal Reserve officials, led by Chair Jerome Powell, rocked financial markets by revealing that they now expect to cut their key interest rate just two times in 2025, down from four in their previous estimate.
Stock market today: Wall Street rises to turn a dismal week into just a bad one
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks rose to turn what would have been one of the market’s worst weeks of the year into just a pretty bad one. The S&P 500 rallied 1.1% Friday to shave its loss for the week down to 2%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped nearly 500 points, and the Nasdaq composite gained 1%. A report said a measure of inflation the Federal Reserve likes to use was slightly lower last month than expected. It’s an encouraging signal after the Fed shocked markets Wednesday by saying worries about inflation could keep it from cutting interest rates in 2025 as much as earlier thought.
Starbucks workers begin strikes that could spread to hundreds of US stores by Christmas Eve
Workers at U.S. Starbucks stores have begun a five-day strike to protest a lack of progress in contract negotiations with the company. The strikes began in Los Angeles, Chicago and Seattle and could spread to hundreds of stores across the country by Christmas Eve. Workers at 535 of the 10,000 company-owned Starbucks stores in the U.S. have voted to unionize. The Starbucks Workers United union accuses the Seattle-based coffeehouse chain of failing to honor a commitment made in February to reach a labor agreement this year. Starbucks says the union prematurely left the bargaining table this week. It said Friday there’s been no significant impact to store operations.
It’s beginning to look like another record for holiday travel
Drivers and airline passengers without reindeer and sleighs better make a dash for it: it’s beginning to look like another record for holiday travel in the U.S. The auto club AAA predicts that more than 119 million people will travel at least 50 miles from home between Saturday and New Year’s Day. The two weekends on either side of Christmas are tempting a lot of people to head out earlier. U.S. airlines expect to have their busiest days to be Friday and Sunday this week and next Thursday, Friday and Sunday. A government shutdown that could start as soon as Saturday was not expected to immediately affect flights and airport operations.
Amazon workers are striking at multiple facilities. Here’s what you should know
Amazon workers affiliated with the Teamsters union are on strike for a second day at seven of the company’s delivery hubs just days before Christmas. At midnight on Saturday, the Teamsters say workers at a prominent unionized warehouse in New York will also join. The union has not indicated how many employees were participating in the walkout or when it will end. The Teamsters say the workers were continuing their strike on Friday after Amazon ignored a Sunday deadline the union had set for contract negotiations. The company says it doesn’t expect the strikes taking place in Southern California, San Francisco, New York City, Atlanta, and Skokie, Illinois, to impact holiday shipments.
Alabama profits off prisoners who work at McDonald’s but deems them too dangerous for parole
DADEVILLE, Ala. (AP) — No state has a longer, more profit-driven history of contracting prisoners out to private companies than Alabama. Best Western, Bama Budweiser and Burger King are among the more than 500 businesses to lease incarcerated workers from one of the most violent, overcrowded and unruly prison systems in the U.S. in the past five years alone, The Associated Press found as part of a two-year investigation into prison labor. The cheap, reliable labor force has generated more than $250 million for the state since 2000 — money garnished from prisoners’ paychecks. Kelly Betts of the corrections department defended the work programs, calling them crucial to the success of inmates preparing to leave prison, though she added some of the incarcerated workers are serving life without parole.
VW wage deal for 120,000 German workers avoids layoffs, plant closures
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Volkswagen’s employee representatives say they have reached a wage deal. The deal will ward off management proposals for plant closings in Germany and bars involuntary layoffs through 2030. The company said the deal includes provisions to shed more than 35,000 jobs in “socially responsible” ways by 2030. The company pressed for cost cuts to deal with lagging auto sales in Europe.
JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, BofA facing federal lawsuit over Zelle payment network fraud
A federal regulator has sued JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Bank of America. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says the banks failed to protect hundreds of thousands of consumers from rampant fraud on the popular payments network Zelle, in violation of consumer financial laws. In the federal civil complaint, the agency asserts that banks rushed to get the peer-to-peer payments platform to market without effective safeguards against fraud. Then, after consumers complained about being defrauded on the service, largely denied them relief. JPMorgan, Wells Fargo and Bank of America are the largest financial institutions on the Zelle network, accounting for 73% of activity last year.
NTSB trying to determine why tractor-trailer stopped on train tracks before deadly West Texas crash
PECOS, Texas (AP) — Federal officials investigating the deadly West Texas collision between at Union Pacific train and a tractor-trailer hauling a wind turbine base are trying to determine why the tractor-trailer was stopped on the tracks. Two employees of Omaha, Nebraska-based Union Pacific were killed in the Wednesday crash at a railway crossing in Pecos. The National Transportation Safety Board says the crash derailed the train and caused the enormous wind turbine base to fly into the air and hit a building.
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