Posts tagged collectively bargain
US elections will gauge support for unionization in two states
November 1, 2022 // The most significant drive for labor unionization in the United States since the early 1970s will be put to the test in the upcoming midterm elections. Voters in Illinois and Tennessee are being asked to decide on two antithetical visions of the future of organized labor: the right to collective bargaining versus the right to work. The latter allows individual workers to choose whether or not to join a union, and frees non-members from paying compulsory union dues. Illinois wants to do away with right-to-work laws while Tennessee wants to amend its state constitution to include right-to-work provisions like nine other states. Across the US, 27 states have enacted various right-to-work laws, evidence that the country’s divisive polarization extends to labor relations.
Unions have enough power in Albany; legislative staff shouldn’t unionize
August 5, 2022 // But a legislative staffers union isn’t the answer to problems in Albany, and the simple reason is politics. Public-sector union officials who collectively bargain with the government are negotiating with the very people they help elect. Now add another layer to that – union officials negotiating with the people they help elect who then vote on the laws for the rest of the state. Imagine I’m a newly elected state senator. I won a hard-fought and ugly election against the incumbent, and now I’m reporting to Albany to set up my office and learn the ropes. Without unions, elected officials are free to choose their staff, and these staffers are at-will employees – meaning that if elected officials don’t feel their staff are trustworthy, or are doing a good job, they can terminate them. Upon arriving in Albany, I meet my new staff and am surprised to learn that because the collective bargaining agreement says so, my new staff is my former opponent’s old staff. The very staff that worked hard to ensure I wasn’t elected. Can I trust them? I now have no choice.
Murphy calls NJ Transit union walk-out ‘despicable’ as engineers agree to court order
June 22, 2022 // The union representing NJ Transit locomotive engineers agreed to a temporary ban on anything that can be construed as a work stoppage, according to court documents. The union's agreement — following a holiday weekend in which nearly 500 locomotive engineers called out of work and hundreds of trains were canceled — resulted in a hearing scheduled for Tuesday to be canceled. U.S. District Judge Catherine O'Hearn, NJ Transit,
Authorizing congressional unions won’t end Democrats’ labor troubles
May 17, 2022 // Earlier this year, after the Democrat-controlled Washington state Legislature quietly killed a pair of bills extending collective bargaining privileges to legislative aides, about 100 Democrat staffers staged an unprecedented sickout. Facing a PR nightmare, panicked Democrat leadership quickly reintroduced and passed legislation allowing staff to unionize and bargain, but not until 2024, after a new “Office of State Legislative Labor Relations” spends millions of taxpayer dollars trying to figure out how to make it work in practice.
IU graduate student workers strike through finals; all-faculty meeting scheduled
May 6, 2022 // So far, finals week disruptions have been minimal. Carney said there are plans in place for faculty, even department chairs, to help with grading if needed.
The Future of Unions (Gallup Polling)
May 2, 2022 // In short, views of unions do not significantly divide the rich versus the poor, the highly educated versus the less well educated or women versus men. Views of unions are largely a factor of the individual's underlying political and ideological orientation.
What the Amazon union do-over in Alabama means for the future of retail
February 16, 2022 // U.S. consumers, especially younger ones, harbor new expectations about the workplace that businesses may not be able to ignore.
Four Michigan Starbucks locations file petitions to organize unions
January 28, 2022 //
Polis throws cold water on public unions bill
January 21, 2022 // Colorado: A bill to allow public employees to engage in collective bargaining has run into its biggest hurdle: lack of support from Gov. Jared Polis