Posts tagged janitorial services
Why Indianapolis Airport police, fire can unionize but not baggage handlers, others
March 5, 2024 // Barbara Glass, the president of the Indianapolis Airport Authority, said firefighters and police employees told the board they want to unionize in 2019. But they have not heard from the other employees. The 11-member board includes six Hogsett appointees, an appointee from the president of the City-County Council, and officials from Hamilton, Hancock, Hendricks, and Morgan Counties. The dynamic is not unique to Indianapolis. Police and fire unions have been carved out of anti-union laws for decades. In 2013, a then Republican-controlled Michigan government exempted police and fire employees from a law that prohibited mandatory union membership. Wisconsin police and fire were also excluded from similar legislation in 2011.
Union workers reach a tentative deal with Kaiser Permanente after the largest-ever US health care strike
October 13, 2023 // “The frontline healthcare workers of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions are excited to have reached a tentative agreement with Kaiser Permanente,” the union coalition said on X. “We are thankful for the instrumental support of Acting US Labor Secretary Julie Su.” The company also thanked Su its tweet about the deal. “We are excited to have reached a tentative agreement with the frontline health care workers of the union coalition. We are thankful for the instrumental involvement of Acting U.S. Labor Secretary Su,” it said in its tweet. The strike last week lasted only three days, the length of time it had been scheduled to run. But the coalition of unions was threatening an eight-day strike next month with even more workers walking out if a new deal was not reached by October 31.
Op-ed: Bringing Workers’ Sensibility to Local Government
September 26, 2022 // Electing more union members would ensure that local officials instead invest their energies in productive ways, such as building robust, worker-centered economies. Some forward-thinking local officials have used their authority to pass worker protection laws, to establish agencies for enforcing those safeguards and to create workers councils to take testimony on job-related issues, noted the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a Washington, D.C.-based thinktank, in a recent report. At Seattle’s Office of Labor Standards, for example, a full-time equivalent staff of 34 enforces 18 worker-centered ordinances, including those requiring paid sick time, employment opportunity and protections for gig workers.