Posts tagged Delaware
Government Unions are Down — But Not Out
September 10, 2024 // For nearly a decade, the Commonwealth Foundation has tracked state-by-state changes in labor laws. Every two years, the Commonwealth Foundation releases its research on the ever-changing legal landscape for public sector unions, assessing each state’s efforts to promote public employees’ rights or cave to unions’ entrenched influence. This fourth edition examines government unions’ attempts, following Janus, to hold onto and expand special legal privileges under state laws. The research also highlights the states reining in government unions’ power and influence by empowering workers.
Unions pursue law changes to boost membership
September 8, 2024 // “The overarching theme is that the unions have really responded to the membership losses since JANUS to drive up union membership,” Osborne said. In the JANUS decision, courts held that unions could no longer collect “fair share” dues from non-members who benefit from collective bargaining agreements. Follow-up litigation has challenged the cumbersome process many former members had to overcome to leave the union and recoup dues improperly withheld. In the report, states known as union “strongholds” scored lower than others that have enacted collective bargaining reforms.
Drayage carrier notifies NJ independent contractors of changing business model
August 9, 2024 // In December 2023, the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development Commissioner Robert Asaro-Angelo and New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin filed the first lawsuit under a 2021 law that permits the state to file suit in New Jersey Superior Court against employers who have allegedly misclassified workers as independent contractors. According to the state’s complaint against STG Logistics and STG Drayage, the suit “seeks to halt the companies’ alleged practice of misclassifying drivers as independent contractors and to recover up to millions in back wages, penalties and fines for more than 300 truck drivers.”
In a 1st at ChristianaCare, physicians vote to unionize
July 3, 2024 // Physicians at ChristianaCare locations in Delaware and Maryland voted to join the Doctors Council, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union. Of the 431 votes cast, 288 were in favor of union representation and 130 were against it, according to a June 28 union news release. Thirteen votes were challenged.
Security Guards at Federal Buildings Across Delaware Voting Soon on Whether to End SPFPA Union’s Forced-Dues Power
June 27, 2024 // SPFPA union officials drew the ire of Bowden and his colleagues by signing a contract with GXC Inc. management without the workers’ knowledge or consent. While voting the union out of the workplace would be their next logical step, the NLRB’s so-called “contract bar” allows union officials to immunize themselves from worker-backed decertification attempts for up to three years after a union contract has been finalized. The “contract bar” appears nowhere in the text of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the federal law the NLRB is charged with enforcing, but is the product of union boss-friendly decisions made by partisan NLRB members over the years.
Citing ‘burnout,’ doctors with ChristianaCare file papers to form system’s first labor union
May 15, 2024 // The petition, which only required a 30% vote, was delivered to the NLRB office in Philadelphia late Tuesday. The union would be the first in the 136-year history of ChristianaCare, Delaware’s largest private employer with about 11,600 staff members. Should the doctors elect to form a union, the next step would be collective bargaining on a contract to address duties, wages and other issues.
Wells Fargo shareholders reject union-busting audit
May 3, 2024 // Wells Fargo shareholders rejected a proposal Tuesday to appoint a third-party monitor that would have examined whether the bank was impeding employees’ unionization rights, according to American Banker.
GIVING CREDIT WHERE IT’S DUE: PRIVATE SECTOR UNION TAKES STAND AGAINST THEFT
December 5, 2023 // Take, for example, the Delaware Education Association (DSEA) and the Connecticut Education Association (CEA). In Delaware – you remember, the home state of the current president of the United States, who vowed to make his the most “union-friendly administration you ever saw” – the DSEA spent a staggering $202,098 on travel in 2022. These figures are not just numbers; they are reflections of the union leaders’ priorities, which seem misaligned with the pressing needs of educators and students. Meanwhile, in Connecticut, the CEA’s spending on conferences and meetings amounted to $272,579 in the same year. It’s not only the travel that should draw criticism but also the high-paid officers many of these unions employ. The Connecticut Education Association, for example, compensated no fewer than eight of its officers over $300,000 a year.
Taxpayer-funded union dues: California’s toxic idea is spreading
May 30, 2023 // The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the share of wage and salary workers who belong to unions was 10.1% in 2022, down from 10.3% in 2021. In fact, the 2022 membership rate was the lowest on record; in 1983, the first year for which comparable union data are available, it was 20.1%. Former union members are voting with their feet to leave, forcing union leaders to scramble to entice workers to stay — on the taxpayer’s dime. SEE ALSO Union bosses are still making boatloads of money, even if their ranks are dwindling. Union bosses rake it in, even as their ranks shrink It’s much easier to lure someone into your club when innocent bystanders are footing the bill.
Delaware Legislature Wants To Subsidize Unions With Taxpayer Money
April 17, 2023 // Delaware’s state legislature has renewed a push to subsidize the state’s labor unions via tax credits. State Senator Nicole Poore (D-12) and House Majority Leader Valerie Longhurst (D-15) have introduced Senate Bill 72 (SB 72) which seeks to provide union members with a $500 tax credit for their union dues. This $500 tax credit is believed to offset the annual dues incurred by union members and seeks to increase labor participation in unions. Furthermore, It should be noted that Both Senator Poore and Majority Leader Longhurst receive major campaign contributions from the same unions that gain with the passage of SB 72. Given that unions will oftentimes use the funds they receive from dues to fund the political campaigns of those legislators that seek to enact pro union legislation, the proposition of SB 72 represents a clear conflict of interest.