Posts tagged healthcare
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.”
Op-ed: A GOP Gift to the Cultural Left
June 15, 2026 // We wonder if Republicans know what they’ve voted for—and not merely on wages or pensions. Unions, allied with Democrats, have long supported a progressive agenda that includes collective bargaining for abortion coverage and transgender healthcare. The model language the AFL-CIO recommends to local chapters says “all health plans offered to bargaining unit members shall cover comprehensive . . . reproductive healthcare services, including contraceptives, abortion services . . . and gender affirming care.” In 2012 the Service Employees International Union unanimously approved a resolution “calling on local unions to bargain for trans-inclusive healthcare.” The NewsGuild of New York/Communications Workers of America said in 2022 it “unequivocally supports access to abortion as a healthcare right.”
PECO union “overwhelmingly” votes to authorize strike as contract negotiations continue
June 2, 2026 // Members of the union representing about 1,600 PECO workers voted Saturday to authorize a strike. The move would give union leaders the power to call a work stoppage if ongoing contract negotiations fail to produce an agreement. A spokesperson tells CBS News Philadelphia the strike was "overwhelmingly" approved with 94% of the votes in favor. More than 1,000 members voted. As of now, there are no plans to walk off the job Saturday.
Faster Labor Contracts Act would silence workers’ voices and empower bureaucrats
May 28, 2026 // While forced arbitration for union contracts would be new in the private sector, there is a corollary in the public sector called “interest arbitration” that some states most frequently apply to police and firefighter labor disputes. It’s not entirely analogous because a government that imposes forced arbitration is also the employer and thus part of the contract negotiations. Moreover, governments aren’t subject to the same bottom line as private sector companies because, unlike businesses, states generally can’t go bankrupt. Nevertheless, interest arbitration contracts have burdened state and local governments, arguably contributing to rising property tax rates in New Jersey, unfunded pensions in Chicago, and even municipal bankruptcy in Detroit.
Seattle Hospitalists Vote to Unionize
May 28, 2026 // A group of about 115 hospitalists at five Swedish Medical Group locations across the Seattle area voted to unionize as a wave of physician organizing continues nationwide. The hospitalists voted to join Northwest Medicine United (NWMU), AFT Local 6552, which represents hundreds of physicians and advanced practice providers throughout the Northwest, the union announced. They represent the first group of doctors in the Providence health system to organize in the state of Washington.
University of California IT Staff Unionize Amid AI Fears
May 27, 2026 // About 2,100 IT and technical employees across the University of California system voted to join the labor union over concerns about mass layoffs in the tech sector, as well as growing workloads without any added pay.
The Union You’ve Never Heard Of Is Following A Blueprint You Should Know
May 18, 2026 // In 2021, IATSE members authorized a strike by 98.7%. What followed was four years of increasingly coordinated action across entertainment unions. WGA, SAG-AFTRA, IATSE, and the Teamsters built a solidarity coalition that showed up at each other’s picket lines in 2023, during a 148-day WGA strike and a 118-day counterpart for SAG-AFTRA. During contract negotiations, this coalition has been using pattern bargaining, and “wins” by one union become the baseline for those that follow. Each contract raises the floor for the next negotiation, and whether that method is sustainable for the industry isn’t relevant here. What matters is that other unions are watching, and they love to copycat each other.
Seattle Art Museum Workers Are Unionizing
May 15, 2026 // Unbothered by grey skies, dribbling rain, and that stale-ass statement, SAMWU and its supporters held a rally and press conference outside the museum at 1st Ave and University. Before the press conference started, members chomped on pizza and cupcakes, handing out union t-shirts and buttons with the SAMWU logo—Jonathan Borofsky’s “Hammering Man” sculpture, mid-hammer, natch—and socialized. Representatives from SAM Visitor Service Officers (VSO) union, Tacoma Art Museum Workers United, and the Washington State Labor Council AFL-CIO all commingled.
How the Faster Labor Contracts Act could hurt workers
May 7, 2026 // Contracts can take a long time to negotiate because one or both sides are new to the process, have unreasonable demands, and are negotiating complex terms that will affect all future contracts. It’s not uncommon for collective bargaining agreements to address dozens of workplace provisions (well beyond just pay and benefits) and to span hundreds of pages. A Bloomberg Law analysis of first contracts reached between 2004 and 2021 found an average length of 409 days between election certification and contract ratification. The Faster Labor Contracts Act would provide a maximum bargaining period of 120 days — 90 days of bargaining followed by 30 days of mediation — before either party could invoke mandatory arbitration.
OPINION: Union Politics Is Poisoning Washington’s Business Climate
April 23, 2026 // Between 2021 and 2026, Washington fell from #16 to #45 in the Tax Foundation’s State Tax Competitiveness Index, a dramatic drop that signals a rapidly deteriorating business climate. Meanwhile, the cost of living has surged. The Washington Roundtable now ranks the state among the five most expensive in the country. This did not happen by accident. It is the direct outcome of a policy agenda backed by union money and enacted by elected officials who benefit from it: higher minimum wages, expansive paid-leave mandates, new healthcare requirements, and an increasingly complex regulatory environment.