Posts tagged health-insurance coverage
Social conservatives split over abortion and transgender medicine in union contracts bill
June 16, 2026 // Beck said he believes abortion and transgender medical coverage would be “an easy thing” for arbitrators to use as a bargaining chip to reach an agreement on the three-person panel. “It’s going to be easy for the arbitrator to say, ‘OK, employer, I’m not going to make you pay the high wages that the union is demanding,’” Beck said as a hypothetical. ‘“But what I am going to make you do is I’m going to make you give generous health benefits and give very generous access to abortion on demand and give very, very generous access to so-called gender-affirming care.”
Judge tosses challenge by Boston-area plumbing concerns to state law requiring health-insurance coverage for workers on certain leaves
September 30, 2025 // In his ruling, US District Court Judge George O'Toole said the Greater Boston Plumbing Contractors Association was unable to show that any of its 60 members had actually been penalized under the law, or that any state action was immediate, which means they had no "standing," or legal reason to continue their suit, since federal law requires proof of actual or impending harm. The association charged the requirement violated their federal right to negotiate a contract with unions, because their collective bargaining agreement includes a section under which workers "bank funds to pay for health insurance if they take leave from work, based on the number of hours they work. Workers who exhaust their banked amount have to pick up the remaining costs of their health insurance, such as through COBRA, on their leaves.