Posts tagged Indiana
Equipment maintenance crew votes against unionizing at Ascension St. Vincent
February 24, 2023 // Equipment maintenance workers at Ascension St. Vincent Indianapolis voted against forming a union Friday, the latest failed effort for unions to break into the increasingly consolidated health care industry in Indianapolis.
DeSantis stands up for teachers
February 10, 2023 // The governor’s proposal, dubbed a Teacher’s Bill of Rights, draws clear boundary lines between the interests of teachers and the interests of teachers unions. The proposal restores the rights of taxpayers and teachers, who don’t always support union politics. For example, DeSantis’s proposal would end the practice of union dues being deducted directly from teachers’ paychecks — a process undertaken at taxpayers’ expense. And the governor’s proposal would prohibit union officials from doing union work while on the clock for their taxpayer-funded job. Known as “release time,” the paid workday hours that public employees spend doing union work can add up. In Miami-Dade County alone, public employees spent 132,433 on-the-clock hours doing union work between fiscal 2017 and fiscal 2019, according to a James Madison Institute report. Those hours cost taxpayers more than $4 million. The governor has also taken aim at so-called “zombie unions,” which lack adequate documented support from the teachers they claim to represent.
Michigan could become first state in nearly 60 years to ditch ‘right-to-work’ law
January 13, 2023 // Michigan was not the first state to enact right-to-work. But it is a state steeped in labor history now poised to become the first state in nearly 60 years to ditch such a law, with Democrats controlling the executive and legislative branches of state government for the first time in four decades.
Voting opens in key UAW test to organize U.S. battery plants
December 8, 2022 // Workers begin two days of voting on Wednesday to decide whether to unionize at a General Motors (GM.N)-LG Energy (373220.KS) battery cell manufacturing joint venture in Ohio. Workers at an Ultium Cells plant near Cleveland are voting on Wednesday and Thursday after the United Auto Workers (UAW) union petitioned to represent about 900 workers. Results of the election overseen by the National Labor Relations Board are expected on Friday. Last week, GM CEO Mary Barra told Bloomberg TV the company is "very supportive of the plant being unionized ... The employees are going to be voting, but we’re very supportive." In a trip to South Korea in May, President Joe Biden expressed support for workers seeking to unionize JV battery plants. The Detroit Three automakers all have battery plants in the works with South Korean partners.
Right-to-Work battle looms in Michigan: Businesses fear repeal by Democrats
December 5, 2022 // Michigan business groups are wary of Democrats’ calls to repeal Right-to-Work laws when they take charge in Lansing early next year, saying the state instead should focus on economic policies that attract jobs. Business Leaders for Michigan, the Michigan Chamber of Commerce and chamber leaders from the state’s two largest cities — Detroit and Grand Rapids — all urge caution. But Democrats — who are backed heavily by unions including the Michigan Education Association and United Auto Workers — say the move prioritizes workers and labor rights.
Workers to vote on unionizing at new Ohio GM-LG battery plant
November 28, 2022 // Workers at Ultium Cells LLC in Warren, Ohio, will vote on 7th and 8th December after the United Auto Workers (UAW) petitioned to represent about 900 workers, said the National Labor Relations Board. The vote is a crucial test of the ability of the UAW to organize workers in the growing electric vehicle (EV) supply chain, and came after most employees signed cards authorizing the union to represent them.
Where Six Louisville Unionization Efforts Stand
November 17, 2022 // While there has been a boom in unionization efforts in Louisville, there has also been, for the most part, pushback from employers, who have largely demanded employees vote rather than voluntarily recognize unions.
Environmental Protection Agency Workers File Suit Over Remote Work Policies
November 1, 2022 // “Other EPA offices across the country have not been denying remote work requests like we’ve been seeing here in the Midwest,” Cantello said. “The union originally bargained the right to remote work with EPA to protect members and their families during this pandemic, so we need to understand why the Region 5 management is denying applications and withholding documents that the union needs to examine EPA decision-making on remote work under FOIA.” The union is being represented in the lawsuit by Hudson B. Kingston, a litigation and policy attorney at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.
More than 100 Union workers on strike at Elkhart Company
September 22, 2022 // The strike comes amid a rise in walkouts and strikes nationwide, with the White House reaching an agreement to avoid a major strike with railroad workers just last week. Experts said with workers in high demand employees are coming out of the pandemic pushing for more.
Op-ed: Jerry Shenk: Time for pro-worker, pro-taxpayer labor reform
September 16, 2022 // Unions have poured millions of dues payers’ dollars into the campaigns of politicians who pass and preserve laws favoring unions, and who approve public service employee union members’ pay and benefits — especially pensions — that have impoverished municipalities, school districts, counties and states. The late economist Sylvester Petro observed that, because they are born out of state-backed coercion rather than a mutual exchange, American public service unions eventually face demise triggered by their own corruption. Tom Corbett,