Posts tagged discipline
10,000 Corewell nurses to vote on strike authorization amid first contract negotiations
March 3, 2026 // "Last week, the Teamsters added an additional $62 million in proposals on top of their previous $2 billion earlier proposals. This is not good faith bargaining. We cannot reach an agreement if the Teamsters’ proposals keep going up without discussion about actual priorities. Any talk of a strike authorization is premature as negotiations are still ongoing." What's next: Voting begins at 9 a.m. Monday and will remain open until results are announced on March 17.
OPM to tighten reins on federal employees’ performance reviews
February 26, 2026 // In proposed regulations issued Tuesday, the Office of Personnel Management outlined plans for removing a current ban on a “forced distribution” of federal employee performance evaluations. Once finalized, the regulations would lead to limits on how many employees can be ranked as high performers in their annual reviews.
Uniting Behind the American Franchise Act: A Bipartisan Effort to Clarify the Joint Employer Standard
October 10, 2025 // Seven Republican and seven Democratic Congressional members introduced the bipartisan act and limited its application to future proceedings only, preventing retroactive implications. If approved, the American Franchise Act only applies to joint employer matters regarding franchising; it is not a universal modification to all employer relationships.
Court allows Trump to end union bargaining for federal workers
August 5, 2025 // Trump's order exempted more than a dozen federal agencies from obligations to bargain with unions. They include the Departments of Justice, State, Defense, Treasury, and Health and Human Services.
OPM calls for quicker firings, more stringent performance standards
June 25, 2025 // Don Kettl, professor emeritus and former dean of the University of Maryland School of Public Policy. “In the case of any downsizing in government, training is always the first to go. So is there going to be investment to try to make happen what they’re proposing?” The former HR official said the plan to reduce performance improvement plans to 30 days belies the overall memo as a “red herring.” “If you can’t articulate why someone’s failing and you only give them 30 days to show that they’re no longer failing, it becomes a procedural widget to sustain a termination,” they said. “[And] the Trump administration has done such a thorough job in the last five months cutting the balls off of unions—which is a mistake, because they help provide due process—and the Merit Systems Protection Board, the [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission] and [Office of Special Counsel], it’s going to be hard for current employees under these constraints to win anything.”
Writers Guild West Names Members Who’ve Been Expelled or Disciplined for Breaking Strike Rules
April 14, 2025 // The Writers Guild of America West has gone public with its discipline of six union members for allegedly writing during the labor group’s 2023 strike and one for a purported constitutional violation, a move that four writers have appealed, with one saying he was “punished for being transparent.” Writers Julie Bush, Tim Doyle, Edward Drake and Roma Roth have all sought to overturn disciplinary rulings from the union’s board of directors, which followed hearings before five-member trial juries and investigations from a committee aimed at uncovering authorized work during the strike. The union announced the discipline and appeals to members on Friday.
How New York Can Prevent Another Prison Worker Strike
March 7, 2025 // The governor should hold both sides to account. She needs a handshake deal with lawmakers to restore some of the discretion that prison superintendents previously wielded to impose solitary confinement in the most extreme cases. Such an agreement can be codified in the forthcoming state budget. In return, state law should require every DOCCS employee to wear a body camera whenever in the presence of an inmate and give the department more latitude in curbing the arrival of drugs and contraband. Finally, Hochul needs to identify and terminate the strike’s instigators. Any capitulation, real or perceived, will tempt other public employees to instigate their own illegal strikes—though some of damage in this regard has already been done.
Union contracts should not protect drunken teachers
March 6, 2025 // The Bay City union contract spelled out the process: A teacher’s first offense resulted in a written reprimand and the teacher was required to go through counseling. The second offense resulted in a three-day suspension without pay and mandatory counseling. Third offense: a five-day suspension without pay and mandatory counseling. Fourth offense: a 10-day suspension without pay and mandatory counseling. Only upon the fifth offense could the district fire the teacher. It gets worse. A teacher using illegal drugs at school got three strikes before she could be fired. Even teachers caught selling drugs could not be fired until their second offense.
NY reaches tentative deal to end prison strike by suspending anti-solitary confinement law
March 2, 2025 // A law restricting the use of solitary confinement in New York’s prisons would remain partly suspended for 90 days if corrections officers accept a tentative agreement the state reached with their union to end an ongoing wildcat strike. There will be no departmental discipline for any of the thousands of corrections officers if they return to work by Saturday, according to a memo the governor released. The agreement also includes provisions to reduce mandated overtime, increase the overtime pay rate and temporarily hire retired corrections officers to assist in transporting incarcerated people.
AT&T BellSouth Worker Slams CWA Local 3122 With Federal Charges for Imposing Illegal Discipline, Dues Demands
February 28, 2025 // https://www.nrtw.org/news/cwa-att-miami-02272025/