Posts tagged concessions
Editorial: Unions share blame for layoff fallout
November 1, 2025 // "To date, the Stamford law firm of Silver Golub & Teitell has been paid $50.8 million for representing the unions and the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition, according to the state comptroller's office," Mr. Hughes wrote. "The settlement set attorney fees at 17.5% of the total damages each class member receives," extrapolating "to roughly $290 million in compensatory and economic damages." Union attorney Jonathan M. Levine figured the actual payouts amounted to between $190 million and $215 million.
Op-ed: The Bad Teamsters Bargain With UPS
October 30, 2025 // Businesses that lose money and are uncompetitive won’t survive. See trucking company Yellow Corp., which filed for bankruptcy in 2023 in part owing to Mr. O’Brien’s labor militancy. Mr. O’Brien refused concessions and tweeted an image of a tombstone “Yellow: 1924-2023.” UPS doesn’t want to be Mr. O’Brien’s next victim. The Teamsters boss has insisted that its contract requires UPS to create 30,000 jobs. He hasn’t read the fine print—or is misleading his members. UPS merely committed to giving part-time employees a chance to apply for some full-time job openings. If UPS reduces job openings, workers don’t have an opportunity to fill them.
Columbia GRADS (Graduate Students Against Discrimination and Suppression) Hit UAW Union With Federal Labor Board Charges
September 23, 2025 // GRADS’ charges list a number of outrageous bargaining items from UAW union officials, including: “proposals to force Columbia to limit campus police, security, and NYPD from doing their jobs;” “bargain[ing] over…so-called ‘Boycott, Divest & Sanction’ policies…of the entire university;” “termination of a dual-degree program between Columbia and Tel Aviv University;” and undoing discipline for students who have been suspended for “destroy[ing] campus property and disrupt[ing] the unit’s working conditions for extended periods.” “These and similar actions constitute bad faith bargaining…and violate the duty of fair representation that respondent union owes to all represented graduate students,” the charges state.
Safeway, Albertsons union workers to vote next weekend on possible strike
May 27, 2025 // According to UFCW Local 7, which represents the union workers of Safeway and Albertsons, the company and union have been negotiating for eight months, most recently meeting on Friday, May 23. The union stated in an update posted to Facebook that Safeway agreed to “important language items” sought by the bargaining committee, “including a new drug and alcohol rehabilitation policy and protection of Drive Up and Go shopper work.”
Port strike longshoremen union boss linked to murdered mobster in ‘farce’ racketeering case he beat at trial
October 8, 2024 // George Daggett, the attorney, said the case began after his cousin asked a Catholic priest for financial advice and had $18 million in union funds placed under the supervision of the same money manager who worked with Our Lady of the Lake Church in Sparta, New Jersey. "So at the trial, every time a mobster’s name was mentioned, the government had a big board, and they made a circle, [and] every time a mobster was mentioned, they put his picture up on this big board," he said. "The government’s case ended, and I took Father Cassidy’s picture and I put it in the middle of all those mobsters. So that's the kind of trial it was."
Boeing union members are angry they lost their pension plan. They’re not likely to get it back
September 24, 2024 // But the fact is that the traditional pension plans, once a staple of the retirement of many workers, have become exceedingly rare in the modern American workplace. And once a company drops traditional pensions plans to shift employees to a 401(k) type of retirement account, they are almost always gone for good. While other unions have also sought to have lost pension plans restored, as the United Auto Workers union did during its successful strike at General Motors, Ford and Stellantis last fall, no American union has ever succeeded in bringing them back. Even though the auto strike produced a deal with record pay raises and other gains for the UAW, it did not restore pension plans to workers hired since 2007.
Union autoworkers won big after striking. A year later, some face an uncertain future
September 15, 2024 // Now, workers are wondering how committed the trans-Atlantic automaker is to remain in the U.S. at all. For years, Cooper says, old-timers at his plant in Toledo have warned that if wages rose too much, the company would move jobs to Mexico. It's a threat he's always shrugged off, given how profitable the Jeep plant has been for Stellantis.
Some movement in negotiations as Salem nurses, Salem Regional Medical Center officials face strike deadline
April 16, 2024 // The nurses' union has posted an online petition asking for residents to sign. As of Tuesday afternoon, 638 people have signed the petition, which claims, "In the last 3 years, the hospital lost over 100 registered nurses, largely because nurse wages and benefits have not kept up with other area hospitals." Harklewood said that 116 Registered Nurses at the hospital are prepared to strike if nurses and the hospital don’t come to an agreement on a new contract.
UAW president Shawn Fain on labor’s comeback: “This is what happens when workers get power”
February 26, 2024 // Volkswagen worker Shaun Lawler says skepticism of the UAW runs deep in the community. When asked how his family views unions, he replied, "They don't see it as a good opportunity; they see layoffs." What do they call unions? "They call them communist," Lawler said.
As Predicted, UAW Strike Remains Limited, Spares Automakers From Full Walkout
October 11, 2023 // As CEI noted when the strike began, “The claim that this ‘stand up’ approach creates the maximum pressure is bogus. History clearly shows that if a union wants a serious confrontation with the manufacturers, it has all of its members on the picket lines. … The fact that [UAW President Shawn] Fain hasn’t ordered that suggests he doesn’t actually want that or doesn’t think the union could sustain it.” After two weeks, Fain tacitly conceded there had been no progress in the talks, so he upped the pressure to 25,000 workers on the picket lines, or about one-sixth of the UAW’s members. To be clear, this is causing problems for manufacturers. Fain has targeted the plants where work stoppages can cause the most economic damage. Losing $200 million is still real money even for a corporation like GM. But the UAW’s call for wage increases of up to 36 percent, well beyond the 20 percent the auto makers have offered, is something the manufacturer hasn’t budged on yet. And it isn’t likely to so long as only one-sixth of the UAW members are striking.