Posts tagged health insurance
Backgrounder: Executive Order: Exclusions from Federal Labor-Management Relations Programs
March 31, 2025 // The practice of “official time” is when unionized federal employees perform union-related activities, rather than their actual public service duties, while being paid by taxpayers. The Federal Unions EO requires that agencies, upon termination of an applicable collective bargaining agreement, reassign any workers who performed “official time” to positions where they perform solely agency business. It also contains language regarding existing grievance proceedings and allows for the head of each agency to submit a report to the President within 30 days highlighting any agency subdivisions that were not covered but should have been covered under the Federal Unions EO.
National Labor Relations Board overrules Optum’s objection to Crystal Run workers’ union
March 27, 2025 // As a result, 1,120 Crystal Run workers joined 650 other Optum staff in Westchester and the lower Hudson Valley in 1199SEIU, the largest health care union in the Hudson Valley, which also represents staff at Vassar Brothers Medical Center, Putnam Hospital and Northern Dutchess Hospital. In his conclusion, Doyle also certified 1199SEIU Health Care as the bargaining representative for all full-time, regular part-time, per diem non-professional employees, and physicians at Crystal Run. That includes employees at Crystal Run locations in Middletown, Monroe, Newburgh, Rock Hill, Goshen, Warwick and West Nyack.
Life After Strike: How resigned correction officers are feeling now
March 21, 2025 //
Construction groups decry PRO Act’s reintroduction
March 13, 2025 // “The reintroduction of the PRO Act displays continued disregard for the livelihoods of small business owners, employees and independent contractors,” said Swearingen. “While Congress has long rejected the PRO Act and its provisions, these legislators continue to pursue failed policies and attack business models and fundamental freedoms that have fueled entrepreneurship, job creation and opportunity for the American worker.”
Backgrounder: Modern Worker Security Act
March 7, 2025 // Rep. Kiley’s legislation would ensure that the offer of portable benefits by companies would not be a factor in any calculation regarding the classification of a worker under “any federal law”—including the FLSA. The legislation defines portable benefits as a work-related benefit that stays with the worker regardless of whether they continue to perform work for that individual. Such work-related benefits can include “workers’ compensation, skills training, professional development, paid leave, disability coverage, health insurance coverage, retirement savings, income security, and short-term saving” or financial contributions toward such coverage—or a combination thereof.
NEW YORK: Health insurance ending for corrections officers still on strike; National Guard still deployed
March 4, 2025 // The New York State Conservative Party Chairman, Gerard Kassar, released a statement saying in part, “New York State Corrections Officers are striking because the Hochul Administration has failed to adequately protect officers, male and female, from years of inmate assaults spurred on by lax progressive ‘reforms.’ Now, because she failed to do her job protecting state employees, Governor Hochul is erroneously citing the Taylor Law to fire longstanding Corrections Officers, stripping their families of both income and healthcare benefits. It’s outrageous.”
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.
UR home care workers are planning a one-day strike. Here’s why
February 24, 2025 // Last week, 1199SEIU issued a 10-day notice for an unfair labor practice strike on behalf of University of Rochester Medicine Home Care workers. A one-day strike is now planned. Since May 2024, professional and clinical home care workers have been negotiating their first union contract.
Wisconsin Supreme Court won’t hear case seeking to overturn 2011 anti-union law for now
February 18, 2025 // Dane County Circuit Judge Jacob Frost in December ruled that the law violates equal protection guarantees in the Wisconsin Constitution by dividing public employees into “general” and “public safety” employees. Under the ruling, all public sector workers who lost their collective bargaining power would have it restored to what was in place before 2011. The judge put the ruling on hold pending the appeal.
Amazon’s Fight With Unions Heads to Its Grocery Aisles
January 27, 2025 // Rob Jennings, an employee in the prepared foods section of the Philadelphia store, has worked there for nearly two decades. He said he noticed a series of changes after Amazon bought the chain in 2017: a program that offered employees a portion of the store’s budget surplus was scrapped, part-time workers lost health insurance, staffing levels started to decline. Even though Whole Foods had never been a worker paradise, Mr. Jennings said, “I have a fantasy about bringing back all the things they took away.”