Posts tagged collective bargaining agreement
VIDEO: Microsoft tries to address AI labor concerns with new AFL-CIO pact and ‘neutrality framework’
December 13, 2023 // The AFL-CIO and Microsoft said the agreement includes a “neutrality framework” that will apply to future efforts by workers to organize under affiliated unions. They said the framework confirms “a joint commitment to respect the right of employees to form or join unions, to develop positive and cooperative labor-management relationships, and to negotiate collective bargaining agreements that will support workers in an era of rapid technological change.” AI has emerged as a wedge issue in a wide range of labor negotiations over the past year, including the now-settled strikes by Hollywood screenwriters and actors.
Bitter strike over as nurses, N.J. hospital reach tentative agreement after 120+ days
December 3, 2023 // For months, the union members went without paychecks and benefits, which the hospital had cut off in September. The two sides were at a standstill, and for a time, it was unclear how they would find a path forward. The strike drew national attention, as U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) visited Rutgers University in October to hold a Senate committee hearing on the labor dispute and hospital staffing guidelines. At the event. Sanders expressed support for the nurses and the ratios they sought while lambasting hospital leaders for not appearing. The hospital — ranked the fifth best in New Jersey by U.S. News and World Report — had maintained that strict staffing ratios would not allow it the necessary flexibility during times of high patient volume. But many nurses said they were working in untenable conditions, often forced to juggle five or six patients during a given shift, which they said impacted the patients’ well-being as well as the nurses’ ability to provide adequate care.
UNION’S FIRST CONTRACTS: MORE TWISTS THAN A SEASON OF ‘STRANGER THINGS’
November 16, 2023 // Welcome to the wild world of collective bargaining, where the quest for a first-time collective bargaining agreement (CBA) often feels like an episode straight out of ‘Stranger Things’ – unpredictable, a little strange, and full of twists and turns.
FREEDOM FOUNDATION FILES PERC COMPLAINT AGAINST WFSE CITING DISCRIMINATION, INTERFERENCE WITH LABOR RIGHTS
October 11, 2023 // Additionally, it’s unlawful for exclusive bargaining representatives to “restrain or coerce an employee” in the exercise of their right to not join a union. Conditioning access to equitable representation on a worker joining a union coerces the employee to join the union. As for Fix, he was exclusively represented by WFSE for the purposes of collective bargaining. Therefore, WFSE owed him a duty of fair representation that was breached when Yestramski refused to communicate with him. Public employees like Todd Fix who have no desire to affiliate with unions are constantly bearing the price of exclusive representation regimes, the original sin of modern public-sector labor law principles. In exchange for their compliance with exclusive representation laws, workers have the right to be represented fairly by their exclusive representative. And they have a right to make their own choices about joining a union without fear of losing access to equitable representation.
OPINION: Pritzker risks bankrupting Illinois to curry favor with Big Labor
August 14, 2023 // Members of AFSCME Council 31 eagerly voted in local union meetings over the past two weeks to ratify the contract, which negotiators had tentatively agreed to on July 1. And who could blame them? The contract also includes a $1,200 “stipend” paid to every worker merely for ratifying the contract. Pritzker, a Democrat, included these bonuses in his last contract negotiation in 2019, ostensibly to compensate workers for the financial “hardship” of being state employees under his Republican predecessor, Bruce Rauner. Predictably, such payoffs have now become standard operating procedure. The governor celebrated his and AFSCME’s windfall by tweeting out, “Illinois is a pro-worker state through and through.” The pronouncement was eerily reminiscent of Biden’s one-time campaign promise to become the “most pro-union president you ever saw.”