Posts tagged healthcare benefits
MICHIGAN: Labor unions praise ‘responsible bidder’ ordinances while contractors warn of workforce shortages
July 30, 2025 // But contractors say some elements of the plan would unfairly impact local bidders. Jeremiah Leyba is the director of engineering for the Michigan Infrastructure and Transportation Association, which represents more than 500 companies in Michigan. He says not all contractors can easily access federal apprenticeship programs and also rely on trade school diplomas, community college degrees and industry certifications for workforce development. “The city of Lansing would be excluding bidders that are highly qualified, and with dwindling workforces across the state, it is an exclusion no municipality can responsibly afford,” Leyba said. Several localities in Michigan already have responsible bidder ordinances in place, including Jackson, Royal Oak and Detroit.
Independent Contracting in 2025
January 8, 2025 // Independent contractors forgo workplace benefits that employees receive. Portable benefits are a way to give them access to benefits untethered from employment with one employer.
Brooklyn Museum Union Pickets VIP Artists Ball as Contract Negotiations Stall
April 28, 2023 // On Wednesday night, as guests of the Brooklyn Museum arrived for the annual, star-studded Artists Ball, members of the museum’s union gathered—once again—along the entryway, to raise their voices in songs and speeches of protest. Many brandished signs (“Solidarity with the Union”) and chanted (“overworked and underpaid” and “Brooklyn is a union town”). In August 2021, some 130 employees of the Brooklyn Museum, including curators, conservators, editors, fundraisers, educators, and members of the visitor services department, voted overwhelmingly to unionize. They affiliated with the Technical, Office, and Professional Union, Local 2110, part of the United Automobile Workers (UAW) union which also represents workers at the Museum of Modern Art, the Bronx Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, among other cultural institutions across the US.
Sens. Braun, Burr, Thune, and Rep. Foxx Lead Republican Colleagues in Urging Department of Labor to Protect Independent Contractor Classification
December 19, 2022 // Senators Braun, Burr and Thune are leading a bicameral letter with Rep. Foxx (R-N.C.) urging the Department of Labor (DOL) not to move forward with its proposed rule for determining independent contractor classification due to the negative impact on workers and business, the test’s lack of clarity and the devastating consequences for the U.S. economy. They are joined by Sens. Hagerty, Romney, T. Scott, Cramer, Johnson, Barrasso, Cassidy, Lankford, Marshall, Hoeven, Blackburn, Boozman, Tuberville, Young, Lummis, Lee, R. Scott, Inhofe, Graham, Fischer, Ernst, Shelby, and Rounds as well as Reps. Wilson, Thompson, Walberg, Grothman, Stefanik, Allen, Banks, Comer, Fulcher, Keller, Miller-Meeks, Owens, Good, McClain, Harshbarger, Miller, Spartz, Fitzgerald, Steel, and Pete Sessions.
Nickelodeon Studios Production Workers Go Public With Wage Concerns During Union Drive
December 7, 2022 // TAG, an IATSE Local, said Monday that it is attempting to unionize 177 production managers, production coordinators, post production assistants, art production coordinators and asset coordinators, among others, at the studio. Though TAG has been busy organizing production workers at studios including Bento Box Entertainment and ShadowMachine since the start of the year, “To date, this is the largest bargaining unit of production workers to organize under The Animation Guild,” TAG said in a statement. According to TAG, a “supermajority” of this group voted to join the Guild in a card count.
Fears rise that UC strike could have long-lasting consequences on vaunted research, teaching
November 30, 2022 // “As long as this strike lasts, faculty across the system will be exercising their right to honor the picket line by refusing to conduct university labor up to and including submission of grades — labor that would not be possible without the labor of all other academic workers as well as university staff,” the faculty said in a statement. “We do this toward bettering the working and learning conditions of all students present and future.” The union is demanding significant pay increases to ease the burden of high rents in the pricey areas where UC campuses are located, along with more support for child care, parental leave, transportation, healthcare and international students. UC’s offers of wage increases don’t come close to meeting union demands but would make academic workers some of the highest paid among comparable public and private institutions, university officials say.
Union Staffers End Strike Against Union They Work For
November 16, 2022 // The striking SEIU staff members belong to another union, Pacific Northwest Staff Union Chapter 2015, and they went on strike through this union. PNWSU's 130 members work for SEIU as call center operators, research analysts, IT workers and labor organizers. Shortly before the strike began, PNWSU leaders released an open letter to "elected officials and political allies," which explained the reason its members intended to stay off the job.
Union workers from Amherst’s Nordson Corporation go on strike
November 16, 2022 // Titone added that Nordson ICS expects to continue operating through the work stoppage by "utilizing available resources as necessary."
GE workers rally for better pay, job security
October 26, 2022 // Hundreds of General Electric workers from plants around the country held a rally in Schenectady on Tuesday to call for better protection and compensation ahead of contract negotiations in 2023. Workers said the company needs to stop outsourcing jobs to other countries, raise wages in response to rising inflation, and protect retirement benefits. Employees are also concerned about the company’s plan to split into three next year. One will focus on aviation, another on healthcare, and another on energy.
On strike: Clark University graduate workers walk out
October 7, 2022 // Less than a month after voting to authorize a strike, the union has had one bargaining meeting, during which, the union said, the university made it clear it would not be open to substantive negotiations. “We are campaigning for a contract that guarantees financial security and access to health care,” said William Westgard-Cruice, a Ph.D. candidate and member of the union organizing committee. "We believe that the administration will have to come to the table." The university and the union have reached tentative agreements in three of four broad categories, the university said, including management and union rights, appointments and work assignments, and discipline and grievance processes.