Posts tagged Arizona
Phoenix CenturyLink Employee Wins Federal Case Charging CWA Union with Illegal Dues Seizures
April 6, 2023 // CenturyLink Communications employee Adrianna Delatorre has forced Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 7019 union officials to back down in her federal case, in which she charged them with seizing dues money illegally from her wages. Delatorre, who filed charges against both the CWA union and her employer at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in May 2022, received free legal representation from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys. Delatorre asserted in her charges that CWA union bosses violated her rights under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) by rejecting her clear notice that she was resigning union membership and ending union dues deductions from her paycheck. The NLRA guarantees American private sector employees the right to “refrain from any or all” union activities, with some restrictions not applicable to Delatorre. Delatorre’s right to cut off financial support to the CWA union she opposes is fully protected by Arizona’s Right to Work law,
Biden’s ‘nightmare’ Labor nominee under fire from small businesses, contract workers
April 5, 2023 // "As the chief enforcer of AB 5, Julie Su was a nightmare for freelancers and small businesses in California. She has no business being Labor Secretary after her track of failure," said Freelancers Against AB 5 founder Karen Anderson. Wes Snyder, the owner of a FASTSIGNS franchise in Arizona, criticized Su’s stance on franchise liability. "This business model gives anyone the opportunity to experience the transformative power of entrepreneurship while strengthening their local communities," he said. "Julie Su wants to rob us of this opportunity – she will turn the American dream into the American nightmare."
Video: ALEC’s Labor of Love: A History of Championing Worker Freedom
March 10, 2023 // Today, ALEC debuts its first episode, “Worker Freedom,” in our 50th anniversary video series. The episode features ALEC champions Scott Walker (45th Governor of Wisconsin), Matt Hall (Michigan House Minority Leader and ALEC Board of Directors Member), and Vinnie Vernuccio (Senior Fellow, Mackinac Center), discussing ALEC’s pivotal role in securing Worker Freedom policy wins across the states. In some states, private sector workers can be forced to join, leave, or pay fees to a union as job requirement. The Right-to-Work Act, which ALEC task forces approved as a model policy, provides a solution to this issue. It prevents private employers from requiring or banning union membership (or fees) as conditions for employment, giving workers in Right-to-Work states a guaranteed right to support a union or not to support a union without this choice affecting their hiring or job security.
CA Farmworkers’ Right to Unionize by Mail May Change
March 8, 2023 // If a majority voted to unionize, the employer had to recognize the union. Labor advocates say this process poses significant barriers for farmworker unionization, as many workers fear employer retaliation. More than half of California’s farmworkers are undocumented. Also a 2021 Supreme Court decision put limits on union organizers’ access to growers’ property. Farmworkers are not covered by the union protections afforded most other workers under the National Labor Relations Act. California’s agricultural workers didn’t gain the right to unionize until 1975, when Gov. Jerry Brown signed the Agricultural Labor Relations Act, after years of United Farm Workers activism to improve work conditions.
Which States Are Best for Remote Workers?
March 2, 2023 // Remote work has proliferated as a work arrangement since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020. While its popularity has declined since its Spring 2020 peak, remote work remains far more common today than it was before the pandemic (see Figure 1). Research from Nicholas Bloom and others found that last month, nearly 13 percent of workers were fully remote, and an additional 28 percent worked in a hybrid arrangement.
Goldwater Institute warns Phoenix and Tempe of potential union dues violations
February 27, 2023 // Phoenix City Code Section 2-214 restricts the time frame to leave the union to only two weeks out of the year. In addition, multiple memoranda of understanding have been made between the city and labor organizations. Among these groups is the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Local 2960. Arizona’s Right to Work laws contain even more restrictions, forbidding entities from imposing “the requirement that any person participate in any form or design of union membership.”
Smart & Final warehouse workers vote to unionize
February 15, 2023 // Last November, the Teamsters union said its members ratified a new contract covering 1,500 warehouse workers and truck drivers at The Kroger Co., providing improvements in wages, benefits, and working conditions. A report from Bloomberg law, meanwhile, found that the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which represents 835,000 grocery workers in the U.S. and Canada, more than doubled its victory count in 2022, winning 111 of its 158 elections. That compares with 51 victories in 74 elections in 2021.
‘It’s about damn time’: College workers organize amid nationwide labor unrest
February 8, 2023 // A historic strike at the University of California kicked things off in November. And the six-week standoff among 48,000 campus workers, a broader surge in labor strikes across industries, a depleted pandemic workforce and a friendlier atmosphere in Washington has culminated in a wave of uprisings.+
Perspective: National teachers’ unions aren’t on your side
January 17, 2023 //
AZ University Workers Ask for Better Pay, Working Conditions
January 3, 2023 // The United Campus Workers of Arizona group says contingent faculty make up the majority of all faculty appointments at both schools. Reed said that means being hired on short-term contracts with no guarantee of renewal. "There is a lot of precarity in these teaching positions," said Reed, "and that, of course, influences students' learning, so that students can't really count on having instructors teaching particular courses. There's just a lot of uncertainty." The union members want more job stability in the form of multi-year contracts, as well as paths to promotion. UCW Arizona is collecting signatures before presenting the petitions to each university's respective president and the Arizona Board of Regents