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Mayoral candidate still on union payroll

March 27, 2023 // Brandon Johnson, a mayoral candidate in the upcoming Chicago run-off election, continues to sidestep allegations of conflict-of-interest while he remains on the payroll of the city’s powerful teachers’ union, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU). Johnson currently works as the Cook County Commissioner and is paid a salary of $93,500. But, one report said that Johnson earns an additional $103,000 from CTU as a union organizer focusing on legislative affairs.

The president of the United Auto Workers union has been ousted in an election

March 27, 2023 // A court-appointed monitor declared challenger Shawn Fain the winner over incumbent Ray Curry. Fain's slate of candidates won control of the big union, as workers rejected most incumbents in the wake of a bribery and embezzlement scandal It was the 372,000-member union's first direct election of its 14-member International Executive Board, which came in the wake of the wide-ranging scandal that landed two former presidents in prison. The vote count had been going on since March 1, and the outcome was uncertain going into Saturday because of challenges against several hundred ballots.

Graduate Unions: Why Student Workers at University of California, Temple, More Are Striking

March 27, 2023 // HELU was founded in 2021 in an effort to fill those shoes. At a digital summit that July, members of 75 unions and labor organizations convened to draft a “vision platform” laying out everything from their legislative commitments (like Sen. Bernie Sanders’s College for All Act) to their support of student debt cancelation. The endgame is a unified academic labor movement capable of securing public investment and reorienting higher ed to “prioritize people and the common good over profit and prestige.” To date, 130 unions and affiliated groups representing over half a million workers have endorsed the platform. The first step in realizing this vision, says Jaime, who attended the 2021 summit, is to build union density. “Transforming academia is not going to happen in one single contract campaign. We have to organize workers in every single university in order to achieve real change,” he says.

How Utah Is Protecting Workers Without the Baggage of Unions | Opinion

March 28, 2023 // Utah's Portable Benefit Plan is a national breakthrough for independent contractors, establishing a legal pathway for entities to offer fully voluntary benefits plans that self-employed workers can open on their own. Unlike employer-sponsored health plans for traditional employees that are tied to jobs, Utah's self-employed workers instead will soon have access to a variety of new benefits plans that are entirely their own and entirely portable for their evolving careers. The possibilities of products that may be established are broad, including the potential for health insurance, unemployment insurance, and disability insurance related products. There is even a pre-existing financial tool known as a "Utah medical care savings account" that self-employed Utahns may conveniently use to pay for their portable health insurance benefits and medical expenses. Many opponents of independent contracting argue that such workers are exploited and deserve the health care and other benefits that many traditional employees receive.

Column: The PRO Act will disempower Virginia workers

March 28, 2023 // Under the guise of transparency, the PRO Act would mandate employers to partake in “notice-posting” and codify the National Labor Relations Board’s 2014 Election Rule that gives them access to workers names, addresses, job locations, phone numbers and email addresses in a searchable electronic format. Unions having unfettered access to information like this would be a major privacy violation and lead to worker intimidation for refusal to comply. It’s unacceptable for labor unions to meddle in affairs like this.

Chipotle will pay a $240,000 penalty — roughly 1% of its daily revenue— for shutting down a store that tried to unionize

March 28, 2023 // The employees filed a petition to form a union last June — the first time Chipotle employees had taken that step. The following month, Chipotle said it would close the location, citing problems recruiting enough employees to run the location, CNBC reported. According to the Kennebec Journal, the National Labor Relations Board later found that the closure violated labor laws. The payment will be split among the former location's employees, who will receive between $5,800 and $21,000 each based on their seniority, pay rate, and other factors, per the Journal.

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Federal Employee Union Membership is Up 20%

AUSTEN BANNAN

How Utah Is Protecting Workers Without the Baggage of Unions | Opinion

National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation

Special Legal Notice to Private-Sector Workers in Michigan

James Holman

Mackinac Center For Public Policy

The weak support for mandatory payments to unions

Bradley Vasoli

Commonwealth Foundation

Pennsylvania Government Union Political Spending Skyrockets Even as Membership Declines

Rusty Brown

Freedom Foundation

Southern States Moving Bills to Reinforce Janus Ruling

Brandon Drey

Freedom Foundation

400,000 Los Angeles Students Missed School As Union Employees Launch 3-Day Strike Demanding Better Wages, Benefits