Posts tagged COVID-19
California’s $20 Fast-Food Minimum Wage: Job Losses, Higher Food Prices, Increased Automation
February 19, 2025 // The BRG study found, “California’s fast-food restaurants lost 10,700 jobs between June 2023 and June 2024, making it the worst performing year outside of a recession, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, food prices at local restaurants have increased by 14.5% since the legislation was signed, nearly double the national average. AB 1228 was signed into law in October 2023 by Governor Gavin Newsom, creating the new $20 minimum wage for fast food employees – a massive 25% increase from the $16 minimum wage.
Streetcar Workers Unionize
February 11, 2025 // The City of Milwaukee’s street car system, called The Hop, is operated by TransDev, a French multinational transportation company. In November, a majority of 26 TransDev employees working out of the city’s streetcar facility at 450 N. 5th St. voted in favor of representation by ATU Local 998, according to National Labor Relations Board records. The union includes operators, maintenance workers, road supervisors, operator supervisors and dispatchers.
20 Wonderful Nurseries Farmworkers Seek to Join Federal Challenge to Biased Pro-Union Boss California Agricultural Labor Law
February 6, 2025 // “UFW union officials deceived us just so they could gain power in our workplace,” Chavez and Gutierrez commented after filing charges. “Instead of just letting us vote in secret on whether we want a union, they went around lying and threatening to get cards and now are cracking down on anyone who speaks out against the union.”
Trump moves to cancel recent union agreements with federal workers
February 3, 2025 // The memo cites a U.S. Department of Education collective bargaining agreement reached three days before Trump took office that "generally prohibits the agency from returning remote employees to their offices." Trump has signed an executive order that would require federal employees to work in-office five days a week, reversing a remote working trend that took off in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Maple Grove Hospital nurses vote to unionize with MNA
January 30, 2025 // Twin Cities hospital systems have negotiated their nurse contracts concurrently, in part to avoid one-upping each other with escalating wages and benefits, but the end result is a mega-event every three years in which the union seizes on the collective voices of so many nurses bargaining at once.
Agencies to soon detail how they will overcome unions, office space issues to bring all staff in-person
January 29, 2025 // Federal agencies have two weeks to submit their plans to ensure as many employees as possible are reporting to their offices or duty stations, the Trump administration said on Monday, calling on executive branch leadership to “expeditiously implement” the president’s directive to limit telework.
Lawsuit: UC Berkeley Union Targeted Israeli Jews for discrimination, harassment
January 28, 2025 // Passing anti-Israel boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) resolutions Creating an apparent “hitlist” of Jews and those with Jewish and Israeli ties on UC Berkeley’s Board of Regents Ignoring union rules and procedures to advance an anti-Israel agenda Segregating Jewish union members by withholding information and opportunities given to other union members
Comer highlights bill challenging work from home deal for federal employees
December 4, 2024 // The protections target tens of thousands of Social Security staff and are part of several efforts in anticipation of Trump’s plan to reshape America’s workforce, Bloomberg first reported. The outlet noted that the American Federation of Government Employees, a union representing more than 40,000 employees, reached an agreement with the Social Security Administration (SSA) last week.
Chicago teachers union slams newspaper that called them out for their members’ chronic absence
December 3, 2024 // "Alarmingly, this poor record of CPS teachers showing up for work has been a new and recent phenomenon. In the 2022-23 school year, for example, CPS teachers’ performance was even worse — 43% were absent at least 10 days. Before that year, though, the rate was considerably better: in the 2016-17 school year, chronic absenteeism among CPS teachers was 31%. The number worsened slightly from there leading into the pandemic but still was better than what we’re seeing now," the editorial board wrote. Chicago teachers are paid a median salary of $95,000, significantly more than what teachers are paid in the suburbs and more than "any other large school district in the nation," according to the Tribune.
Five years after failed vote, Pitt grad students unionize
November 30, 2024 // From 2021 to 2023, nearly 64,000 U.S. grad student workers joined unions. By comparison, only 20,394 students unionized from 2013 through 2020. Today, four in 10 grad student employees belong to labor groups. This trend was, experts say, driven in part by the pandemic and by the administration change from Donald Trump to Joe Biden in 2021, which ushered in a National Labor Relations Board more amenable to organizers.