Posts tagged collective bargaining
Third time’s the charm? Colorado Democrats will once again fight to change how workers unionize next session
September 11, 2026 // Democratic Colorado lawmakers are confident that their plan to change the way workers unionize in the state will be successful next year, hoping that a new governor leads to a different outcome for the legislation. Dubbed the Worker Protection Act by advocates, two iterations of the concept to eliminate the second vote needed to form a union in Colorado have passed out of the state Legislature and were then vetoed by Gov. Jared Polis in 2025 and 2026
Report: The Battle for Worker Freedom: Grading State Public Sector Labor Laws
September 10, 2026 // Union executives are prioritizing recruitment. The fastest-growing category of public sector labor legislation expands collective bargaining into new workplaces. On the strength of these new laws, union executives are slowly replacing their membership losses since 2018. From 2018 to 2025, the country’s four largest government unions report a net decline in membership of 87,919, or 1.3 percent. However, they also report a collective gain of 232,502 members, or 3.5 percent since 2024. This report awards full letter-grade increases to Idaho (now A) and Louisiana (now B) due to their adoption of pro-worker labor reforms this past legislative session. However, the drops in grades—Nebraska (D), Nevada (D), and Rhode Island (F)—are the result of these states prioritizing union executives over workers and enacting laws helping unions recruit, politick, organize, and strike. Thirteen states now have an “A” or “A+” grade—up from twelve in the previous edition of this report—while six states earned an “F”—up from five over the same time period. Overall, the research finds 25 states fall below a “C.”
Editorial Board: $10,000 bonuses teach Mamdani a lesson about the teachers union
September 9, 2026 // Compensation changes for unionized city employees are usually negotiated through collective bargaining between the city and organized labor, but the United Federation of Teachers instead pushed the measure through the City Council. UFT President Michael Mulgrew threatened “all-out war” against Mamdani if he opposed the payouts to school paraprofessionals.
Micheal Alcorn: What the new NLRB majority should do for workers like me
September 8, 2026 // Federal law guarantees workers the ability to hold elections, both to unionize and to remove unions through decertification. But under the Biden administration, the NLRB handed union officials the power to delay decertification elections. All a union has to do is file a charge alleging the employer violated federal law somewhere along the way, and the vote stops in its tracks. The workers’ right to a decertification election is simply taken away. Workers who signed their names asking for the vote are made to watch as their petition sits idle. Meanwhile, the blocking charge winds through investigation and litigation — a process that can drag on for years. The union that workers wanted to remove stays in place the entire time.
L.A. Mayor Karen Bass sends letter to USC president urging administration to drop appeal and allow faculty to unionize
September 7, 2026 // Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told USC President Beong-Soo Kim she was “concerned” by their move to ask the National Labor Relations Board to evaluate whether university faculty had a right to form a union in a letter Sept. 1.
House Republicans ramp up labor union investigations before midterms
September 3, 2026 // Inquiries come after conservative thinktanks claim unions are using member dues to support Democratic causes
Mamdani Clashes With Teachers Union, Citing Fiscal Constraints
August 30, 2026 // Michael Mulgrew, the president of the 200,000-member teachers union, threatened an “all-out war” if Mamdani tried to stop the legislation in a New York Times interview earlier this summer. “It’s always surprising when you see a big rift between the teachers unions and Democratic politicians, especially a pretty far-left Democratic politician,” said Michael Petrilli, president of Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education reform think tank. “Conventional wisdom would say that Democratic politicians try not to get sideways with important parts of their constituency and the teachers unions are such an important base.” The fight has also exposed the realities Mamdani faces now that he is in office to follow through on campaign promises when faced with fiscal constraints.
NLRB Holds Bargaining Proposal Alone Not an Unlawful Threat
August 20, 2026 // In a recent decision, Inland Waters Pollution Control, Inc., a divided National Labor Relations Board held that an employer did not violate Section 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act merely by proposing contract language that would permit discipline for employees who filed “baseless, malicious or harassing grievances.” The board emphasized that placing a proposal on the bargaining table, standing alone, does not constitute an unlawful threat.
CT worker unions to test gubernatorial contenders on key issues
August 17, 2026 // The governor, who won a Democratic primary Tuesday by a 2-1 margin and is favored in early polling to win a third term in November, and Fazio are meeting with representatives of 45,000-plus unionized state employees at a closed-door forum at Charter Oak International Academy in West Hartford. Previous contracts establishing long-term benefits have been set in increments of 10 or even 20 years, raising the stakes for labor and the state.
New Jersey employers face evolving union negotiations
August 11, 2026 // New Jersey’s worker-protection laws add further complexity. “When worker-protection laws are enacted or amended in New Jersey, they add layers to collective bargaining,” Gonzalez said. “There’s no requirement to bargain over a law’s implementation, but where statutes are ambiguous, employers must negotiate the gaps.” She pointed to CREAMMA [the state’s Cannabis Regulatory, Enforcement Assistance, and Marketplace Modernization Act] as an example. “The law prohibits adverse action based on cannabis use outside of work,” she noted. “But unionized employers still need to address how drug testing, safety policies, and fitness-for-duty standards interact with the CBA.” Benefits like paid sick leave and NJ WARN Act severance can also stack on top of contractual obligations. “That dual obligation can catch employers off guard if they are not planning for it at the bargaining table,” she detailed.