Posts tagged Kansas
New Trump civil-service reform rule nearer to going into effect
May 7, 2025 // According to former Department of Labor official Vincent Vernuccio, who is now president of the labor nonprofit Institute for the American Worker, OPM may amend the rule or issue it as it’s proposed, which could happen within the next few weeks or months. “So, you’re talking about 50,000 federal employees—about 2% of the workforce who will become ‘at will’,” Mr. Vernuccio said. “These are still career employees,” he said. “They still have protections. They’re not changing that. It’s just that if they are in a policy-influencing position, they’re ‘at will’, and they can be removed if they’re throwing sand in gears of policy.” He added, “And if they simply don’t want to do their jobs and they don’t want to implement the policies that the people’s duly elected representatives have implemented, they can be removed.”
Backgrounder: Trump Civil Service Reform Proposed Rule
April 27, 2025 // On April 23, 2025, OPM proposed a new rule to improve accountability for federal career employees, especially those in policy roles. The rule implements President Trump’s Executive Order 14171, which he signed on his first day in office. Executive Order 14171 explicitly directed OPM to render civil service regulations implemented during the Biden administration inoperative, citing the President’s authority to manage the executive branch. Among other things, the rule would create a new job category called Schedule Policy/Career in the excepted service for policy-influencing positions, making them at-will employees and, therefore, meaningfully accountable for their performance and conduct.
LETTER: Congress must reject proposed job-killing labor legislation
April 20, 2025 // However, a new threat to Kansas business owners has emerged in the form of a legislative framework that the Institute for the American Worker has dubbed the “PRO Act Lite,” modeled after the failed policies of Senator Bernie Sanders and other progressive lawmakers. While it may come with a new label, the substance remains the same. This proposal would drive up labor costs, stifle economic opportunity, and make it significantly harder for employers to create jobs.
Marshall mum on Senator Hawley’s Pro-Worker framework
March 11, 2025 // According to Vincent Vernuccio, president of the Institute of the American Worker, the Pro-Worker Framework has been largely lifted straight from the PRO Act. “I mean, now I guess the question is, do you refer to most of these provisions as the PRO Act, or do you refer to them as the Pro Act and the Hawley framework?” Vernuccio said in a phone interview. “Because it looks like Senator (Josh) Hawley from Missouri is copying and pasting a bunch of sections into his new framework.” Vernuccio said only one bill related to this has been introduced so far — the “Faster Labor Contracts Act S.844,” which, among other things, deals with government-imposed contracts by binding arbitration — but the Framework has several other provisions indicating that the concepts are copied and pasted directly from the PRO Act.
Making the Plains Great Again: Dealing the NEA Defeats in Two States
February 5, 2025 // The Center for Independent Employees’ (CIE) ongoing “Brushfires of Freedom” campaign in Kansas has spilled over into Nebraska, as CIE assisted teachers with removing the National Educators Association from three school districts in the two states at the end of 2024 and beginning of 2025.
Kansas unions rallied at Statehouse. They’re seeking these 3 policy changes
January 17, 2025 // Labor unions rallied at the Kansas Statehouse on Tuesday lobbying state lawmakers to increase the minimum wage, increase authority of local governments and reject public school vouchers. The event was attended by about 200 union members under the banner of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, the largest federation of unions in the United States.
Wichita abortion clinic workers join same union as city and school district employees | Opinion
December 17, 2024 // “Some of our units over in Missouri take care of health care workers,” Freeman said. “There’s also an SEIU nurses’ union. A lot of them are up in Kansas City area. This was just something local that was within our reach. And we’ve got several small units like Rolling Hills Zoo and the Eisenhower (Presidential) Library and Museum in Abilene.” Trust Women is at the same location and is the successor to the east Wichita clinic formerly run by the late Dr. George Tiller, who was gunned down in his church by an antiabortion fanatic in 2009. Read more at: https://www.kansas.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/dion-lefler/article297013309.html#storylink=cpy
Union Boss Under Fire as Atlantic City Casino Smoking Battle Heats Up
December 6, 2024 // Ray Jensen, assistant director of United Auto Workers (UAW) Region 9, called for the resignation of Donna DeCaprio, president of Local 54 Unite Here, accusing her of failing to protect casino workers from the dangers of secondhand smoke. Jensen's union represents dealers at three Atlantic City casinos and is currently involved in litigation to end smoking in gambling establishments.
Strike ends as union at Textron Aviation in Wichita approves new contract
October 22, 2024 // A simple majority of the roughly 5,000 workers represented by the union was needed to approve the contract. The union did not immediately release results of the vote, which was held Saturday and Sunday at its headquarters in south Wichita. "We know aircraft in Wichita," Clint Shockley, the business representative for the union, said in a statement. "We also know family, survival, and our members' rooted values here. Local 774 members have shown that through collective action and won."
Op-Ed: Biden’s Longshoreman Strike
October 3, 2024 // American ports are less efficient than most in the world owing to union work rules and restrictions on automation.