Posts tagged job classifications

    The Faster Labor Contracts Act disempowers workers

    June 1, 2026 // The bill’s most obvious defect is its egregious misnaming. Whatever is produced by statutorily compelled arbitration cannot be correctly characterized as a contract at all. A contract results from parties negotiating, compromising, and voluntarily agreeing to terms each can accept. That process is precisely what gives contracts legitimacy and durability. The Faster Labor Contracts Act abandons that principle. Under its framework, if the parties fail to reach agreement within the prescribed period, federal arbitrators impose terms neither side may actually want. This is not a contract; it is coercive government regulation.

    Ph.D. Workers and Their University Both Backed a Union Election. Then Trump Won.

    March 6, 2025 // Student workers at other private universities across the nation may also be wary of going before the Trump-era NLRB. Since the November election, petitions to form graduate or undergraduate student unions have been withdrawn at Berea College, Clark University, Dartmouth College, Kenyon College, the New School and New York University, said William A. Herbert. Herbert, executive director of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions at Hunter College, said reports of what’s happened at Rochester suggest the university “has decided to shift to a pre-litigation mode that might include an effort at overturning current NLRB precedent.”

    Unions accept contract offer, ending strike at Northern Maine pulp manufacturer

    November 27, 2023 // Other terms of the contract, according to the unions, are general wage increases of 4% in the first year and 3% in each of the second and third years; an end to a tiered vacation system, allowing all employees to cap out with a fifth week of vacation; an immediate "equity adjustment" of 30 cents to $1 an hour for employees in the bottom five water and steam plant classifications; and a contract ratification bonus of $750. The mill, which employs approximately 300 workers in total, is owned by St. Croix Tissue Co., based in Canada, whose parent company, The International Grand Investment Corp., is a U.S.-based company held by a Chinese investment firm.

    Sky didn’t fall with Iowa’s collective bargaining reform

    January 30, 2022 // But despite the angry claims from Democrats and their allies, the sky has not fallen. The vast majority of public bargaining units in Iowa have since recertified their unions, having engaged a true majority of members in the representation of their collective interests. Salaries continue to be negotiated. Employees continue to be represented. And Iowa’s workforce continues to rise to the occasion.