Posts tagged healthcare

    ‘Neglected for far too long’: RISD essential workers union votes to authorize strike

    January 5, 2023 // But discussions over wage increases remain at the center of negotiations. According to Suazo, a vast majority of the RISD workers in the bargaining unit currently make $15 to $18 dollars an hour. “The bargaining unit members believe that they have been neglected for far too long by the school,” Suazo said, adding that no “significant move” has occurred regarding wages since the strike authorization.

    UC strike energizes unprecedented national surge of union organizing by academic workers

    January 3, 2023 // In 2022 alone, graduate students representing 30,000 peers at nearly a dozen institutions filed documents with the National Labor Relations Board for a union election. They include USC, Northwestern, Yale, Johns Hopkins, the University of Chicago, Boston University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Caltech plans to officially kick off its organizing campaign this month, and other academic researchers are working to form unions at the University of Alaska, Western Washington University, the National Institutes of Health and such influential think tanks as the Brookings Institution and Urban Institute. Princeton University, Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, Pasadena, Caltech, Pardee Rand Graduate School, University of Wisconsin–Madison

    Geisinger CMC employees vote to unionize

    December 27, 2022 // Nurse practitioners and physician assistants at Geisinger Community Medical Center in Scranton voted overwhelmingly Thursday to unionize with the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals, the union announced Friday. With the 44 to 4 vote, the employees join 350 Geisinger CMC professionals and specialists who voted to join PASNAP on Dec. 15, and 525 Geisinger CMS nurses already represented by the union. In a statement, PASNAP President Maureen May, RN, said union representation has never been more important in the face of COVID-19.

    Year in Review: Worker strikes surged in 2022 amid new unionization wave

    December 27, 2022 // There were 374 worker strikes in 2022, according to researchers at Cornell University, a hefty 39% increase from the year before. There were several factors at play in the growth, a major one being that workers had far more leverage this past year due to mass labor shortages. Healthcare workers made up a big contingent of the organized labor movement in 2022. In September, 15,000 nurses in Minnesota staged a three-day walkout in what was likely the largest private-sector nurse strike in the country’s history. There were several other strikes by healthcare workers over the past year as well.

    Healthcare workers strike at Windham Hospital

    October 26, 2022 // For the second time in four weeks, local healthcare workers in Willimantic went on strike. The nurses union put up picket lines in front of Windham Hospital four weeks ago. On Monday, the union represented skilled service workers and technical professionals working at Windham Hospital. Healthcare workers at Hartford HealthCare’s Windham Memorial Community Hospital said they have been negotiating wage increases, improvements to employee healthcare plans, and improved working conditions surrounding forced overtime.

    St. James Mayo Clinic Nurses Overwhelmingly Vote to Remove AFSCME Union; Certified by Labor Board

    August 2, 2022 // National Right to Work Foundation legal aid has recently assisted workers in several decertification efforts in Minnesota. In addition to the St. James Mayo Clinic, hundreds of nurses at Mayo Clinic in Mankato, Minnesota recently voted to remove the Minnesota Nurses Association. Meanwhile, two groups of employees at four Cuyuna Regional Medical Center locations recently filed petitions seeking decertification votes seeking to remove SEIU union officials. Because the NLRB has made the decertification process unnecessarily complicated, workers often need to turn to Foundation attorneys for free legal aid in navigating the process. The Foundation recently aided metalworkers at Minneapolis Washer and Stamping, who endured a year and a half of litigation, but have finally voted out Communications Workers of America (CWA) union officials.

    AFT Convention Seemed More Transparent Than NEA’s. But Looks Can Be Deceiving

    July 22, 2022 // The American Federation of Teachers held its biennial convention in Boston last week. Unlike the NEA Representative Assembly, delegates met entirely in person and the union was more than happy to post its proposed resolutions and other documents online. More transparency doesn’t necessarily mean more honesty, though. A lot of what the AFT Convention produces requires elaboration, footnotes, context and filling in the gaps. battleground state poll AFT commissioned from Hart Research Associates. The main takeaway was that likely voters trusted Republicans slightly more on education issues than they did Democrats. Republicans

    NJ Unions Hit the Bricks for Hazard Pay

    June 21, 2022 // On June 16, union members, a couple with their toddlers in tow, snaked through the Capitol complex looking to present a letter making the case for hazard pay. It was signed by several union presidents, including Charles Wowkanech, president of the New Jersey AFL-CIO and was addressed to Senate President Nicholas Scutari and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin. The letter was also addressed to Gov. Phil Murphy. New Jersey Transit ATU, Janet Booker, 32 BJ SEIU, Make the Road New Jersey, Essex County Assemblywoman Mila Jasey,