Posts tagged bargaining unit
Notebaert Nature Museum workers urge support for union
March 27, 2023 // Unions typically need to show via signed cards support from a substantial majority of workers before scheduling an election with the National Labor Relations Board. An employer can voluntarily recognize a union, but most want an election that will give them time to make anti-union arguments to the workers. While known for representing government workers, AFSCME also counts more than 10,000 members at museums nationwide.
White House touts ‘significant results’ of task force after 80,000 feds opt to join a union
March 21, 2023 // Federal unions saw a roughly 20% increase in bargaining unit membership governmentwide, with close to 80,000 feds joining a union between September 2021 and September 2022, according to a March 17 update from the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment. The Biden administration credited the “significant results” to the work of the task force, a group that President Joe Biden created through an April 2021 executive order seeking to strengthen collective bargaining rights for federal employees. Following the initial executive order, the task force, led by Vice President Kamala Harris, laid out 70 recommendations to improve labor-management relations for the federal workforce. Similar to the first priority of the President’s Management Agenda (PMA), the task force said it aims to position the federal government as a model employer, including through worker empowerment.
California Trucking Company Workers Win Freedom from Unwanted Teamsters Local 665 Union Officials
March 9, 2023 // Rather than face vote to strip union officials of their forced representation powers, Teamsters officials concede defeat Valdivia Trucking Co. workers in California are finally free of unwanted Teamsters Local 665 union officials after three months of delays created by the union officials. The workers’ bid to remove the union recently became official when, rather than face a decertification vote of Valdivia workers whether to strip the union of its power, the union preemptively “disclaimed” interest in representation and walked away from the workers. Valdivia Trucking worker John Murdick received free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation while filing for a decertification vote. His decertification petition filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) included the signatures of a significant majority of the workers at the facility.
Unionized Dartmouth College Students Win $21 Wage
February 21, 2023 // “I’m on financial aid. And most of what I earn goes towards paying for my college and making sure that I can graduate with as little debt as possible,” he said. Higher pay for him would be “monumental,” he added, a chance to have a social life and get some sleep. Solange Acosta, another student who spoke at the rally, said, “what I’m asking for, what we we’re all asking for here, is a chance to be a student first and a worker second.” In a statement released Saturday, the union said, “We now have a tentative agreement on the full package proposal with the College,” including a $21/hour base wage, annual wage increases tied to the cost of college, and mental health and sick pay. Students working as area managers in the dining facilities covered by the contract would be included in the bargaining unit, a demand the college had previously been reluctant to accept.
Why a group of Allina Health Mercy Hospital doctors wants to unionize
February 17, 2023 // Less than 10 percent of doctors in the United States are members of a union. But physicians at Allina Health Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids want to join that group. They filed a petition for representation through Doctors Council SEIU, which already represents other health care workers at Allina Mercy, Unity and other hospitals throughout the state.
HarperCollins and striking union reach tentative agreement
February 13, 2023 // The industry and others closely followed the walkout, which drew attention to growing unhappiness over wages that have traditionally been low in book publishing and have made it hard for younger staffers without outside help to afford living in New York City, the nation's publishing hub. Earlier this week, Macmillan announced it was raising starting salaries from $42,000 to $47,000. The other three major New York publishing houses — Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group USA and Simon & Schuster — offer starting salaries between $45,000 and $50,000.
Americans for Fair Treatment: Member Spotlight: Rochelle Porto
February 6, 2023 // "The union does not stand up for kids, and I care about the children I teach and think we should do what’s best for them.”
Kansas: Two More School Districts Drop the NEA
January 27, 2023 // The Center for Independent Employees (CIE) announces that it has successfully assisted in removing the National Educational Association as the bargaining unit from two additional school districts in Kansas. The action liberates 60 public school educators and more than 700 Kansas schoolchildren from the NEA. CIE provided the legal counsel for Kansas NEA removal from the Valley Heights and South Central School Districts. Teachers in both districts held votes to become unaffiliated and remove the NEA’s influence on Jan. 17. The votes were unanimous in both cases.
‘SNL’ Postproduction Workers Authorize Strike as Contract Negotiations Stall
January 26, 2023 // On Thursday, Jan. 12, the crew of around 20 part-time film editors, editors, assistant editors and media managers voted in a meeting over Zoom to allow their union to order a strike if necessary amid the slow-moving contract talks, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. The group, which unionized with the IATSE-affiliated Motion Picture Editors Guild in October, is responsible for postproduction on pretaped sketches, like music videos and commercial parodies, shot before the live show. After the union was voluntarily recognized by NBC management in October, the group has so far only had one bargaining session with NBC, with no additional dates currently scheduled. The Editors Guild sent management a package of proposals in December.
Legislative staffer unions percolate beyond D.C.
January 26, 2023 // Part of its argument is that the legislative union would violate the separation of powers because it would be overseen by Oregon’s Employment Relations Board, a part of the executive branch. “All of its members are appointed by the governor, so it's controlled by the executive branch, and that subjects the legislature to the executive branch in a specific way,” Freedom Foundation attorney Rebekah Millard told POLITICO.