Posts tagged International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
Chicago-Area CVS Employee Rehired After Filing Legal Action Challenging Union-Instigated Firing
December 23, 2022 // Union and CVS face federal charges after UFCW officials initiated firing of worker who exercised legal right to refrain from union membership Evanston CVS employee Lynn Gray has won reinstatement after United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 881 union officials had her illegally fired for refusing to join the union. Gray received free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.
Danville leaders thinking over allowing electrical workers to unionize
December 22, 2022 // Danville city leaders are considering whether or not to participate in collective bargaining with workers. This all started because Danville utility employees wanted to unionize for better pay. In Virginia, state lawmakers gave the green light for public workers to participate in collective bargaining, but only if local leaders agree.
One of Johnny Doc’s closest allies pleaded guilty weeks before the labor leader’s next trial — and she’s not alone
December 19, 2022 // The political director of the city’s powerful electrician’s union and a close confidante of former labor leader John Dougherty pleaded guilty Monday to federal fraud charges just weeks before she was scheduled to stand trial alongside him and four others accused of embezzling more than $600,000 from union coffers. Marita Crawford, who has served as the face of Local 98 the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers’ influential political lobbying operation for more than a decade, resigned her postition and admitted in court to using union finds to pay for a 2015 hotel stay on a personal trip to watch the Belmont Stakes and for pricey birthday dinners for herself and Dougherty. The plea deal she struck with prosecutors will not require her to cooperate with investigators or testify against Dougherty or her codefendants. She will face up to 20 years in prison on each of the counts to which she pleaded guilty at a sentencing hearing scheduled for April. Prosecutors in recent weeks have approached all the defendants in the case — including Local 98′s president Brian Burrows and Michael Neill, the head of its apprentice training program — with plea offers
AFL-CIO raising dues to fund membership organizing
November 22, 2022 // The country’s largest labor union voted to hike union membership dues for the first time in 17 years – all in an effort to fund a 1-million-new-member recruitment drive. Bloomberg Law reported the union anticipates the hike in dues will raise $10 million per year for the recruitment drive from AFL-CIO’s membership of 12 million workers in 58 affiliated unions. AFL-CIO President Elizabeth Shuler called the recruitment drive an “unparalleled investment dedicated exclusively to organizing to build power for America’s workers seizing this unprecedented moment.” Yet the 1 million workers pledge, as Bloomberg Law noted, would try to grow the union population by 7% during a time of shrinking union membership.
Factbox-Latest on Ratification Status of U.S. Railroad Unions to Avert Strike
November 10, 2022 // - Major U.S. railroads and unions representing 115,000 workers reached a tentative deal last week and averted a potential strike that could have stalled almost 30% of U.S. cargo shipments by weight, stoked inflation and cost the U.S. economy as much as $2 billion per day. Although a strike was avoided with intervention from the Biden administration, uncertainty still looms over the industry as most unions are yet to ratify the deal.
Biden touts union-backed apprenticeships as he dissolves Trump-era apprentice program
November 8, 2022 // "President Biden and Vice President Harris recognized that IRAPs were a threat to union workers," the Laborers' International Union of North America posted on its website. President Biden on Wednesday touted an expansion of apprenticeship programs that are often run by his union allies, even as he prepares to dissolve a Trump-era apprentice program that unions have openly declared as a threat. Biden delivered a speech at the White House on how his legislative victories expanded apprenticeship programs through his administration’s "Talent Pipeline Challenge." That initiative aims to "support equitable workforce development" in three employment sectors: broadband, construction and electrification, which are predominately unionized fields.
Will offshore wind bring “good-paying, union jobs”? Texas workers aren’t so sure
October 25, 2022 // The Biden administration is gearing up to turn the Gulf of Mexico, long a hub for offshore oil and gas drilling, into a new city of skyscraping offshore wind turbines. Opening up the Gulf to wind development is part of President Joe Biden's goal to employ "tens of thousands of workers" to establish 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030. But in Texas, workers are worried that the new industry will continue the low-wage, unsafe, exploitative conditions that pervade the construction and offshore oil industries there. For the past year, a coalition of Texas labor unions, along with their allies in Congress and in the environmental movement, have been lobbying the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, to make sure that doesn't happen.
Fighting For Workers Or Fleecing Them? An Ousted Honolulu Union Boss Faces His Reckoning
October 13, 2022 // In court filings, prosecutors describe a brazen abuse of power by a union leader and a stunning display of greed by a man accused of using union funds as a piggy bank for himself and his family. The feds say the family charged numerous personal expenses to the union and, when funds started to dwindle, rigged a union vote to raise dues against the wishes of the members. Ahakuelo and his family members have pleaded not guilty, and he said they all plan to take the stand. “It’s not true,” Ahakuelo said of the criminal charges in an interview with Civil Beat last week. “Some of the stuff will be, maybe, morally incorrect … However, it’s not criminal.”
After years of working without contracts, unions strike deals with Port Authority
September 28, 2022 // Most of the agreements are covering the past 11 years, a time period where employees worked without a new contract and did not receive basic pay increases to keep pace with the cost of living. The new approved contracts cover 13 to 14 years, based on the union, with the longest one an almost 15-year contract with the Railway Independent Transit Union, covering a period from February 17, 2011 to December 10, 2025.
Why are staffers with the Tennessee Democratic Party unionizing?
August 15, 2022 // Jackson and her coworkers haven’t started the collective bargaining process, but she has talked to some who’ve pinpointed things they are looking for. Transparency in salary, a living wage and job security are at the top of the list. While most of their positions are permanent, she wants to make sure temporary staff is protected also. “Those workers deserve job protection just as much as anybody else,” Jackson said. “So we want to make sure that the bargaining unit that we’re trying to create covers all of those workers that qualify.”