Posts tagged Kansas
U.S. Supreme Court will consider taking up Alaska union dues case no sooner than December
November 8, 2023 // Politically conservative organizations, including the Buckeye Institute, National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, and the Goldwater Institute, have submitted documents in support of the state’s case. Those organizations, plus the state of Kansas (which also submitted documents in support of Alaska) are hoping that the Supreme Court will reinterpret its 2018 case and effectively put new restrictions on public employee unions. In 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that unions could not automatically collect so-called “fair share” fees from workers who benefited from union contracts but declined to formally join a union.
American Federation of Teachers Affiliate Endorses Violence Against Israel
October 25, 2023 // As a labor union concerned with the dignity of life for workers everywhere, GTAC’s leadership unequivocally supports a free Palestine and demands an end to the illegal occupation of Palestinian territory. We condemn the ongoing settler colonial project, known as the nation-state of Israel, which does not represent all Jewish people and is not synonymous with biblical Israel.
Lawrence Community Shelter staff members are unionizing, they announce
October 11, 2023 // Hannah Allison-Natale, president of CWA Local 6400, said they are building a powerful union of public sector and nonprofit workers who support and care for the poor and vulnerable in our society. The union also represents hourly staff at Lawrence Public Schools, workers at Kansas Action for Children and more.
GM secures new $6 billion credit line as UAW strike costs reach $200 million
October 5, 2023 // General Motors secured a new $6 billion line of credit as the automaker braces for additional strikes by the United Auto Workers union. The targeted strikes have already cost the automaker $200 million during the third quarter, GM said Wednesday. The new line of credit is “prudent” to bolstering GM’s balance sheet amid expectations that the union may expand and prolong strikes against the company, GM CFO Paul Jacobson said.
Ford makes new offer in US labor dispute, GM furloughs more workers
October 4, 2023 // The UAW declined comment Tuesday on Ford's new offer. The UAW said on Monday it presented a new contract offer to General Motors (GM.N). GM said despite the offer "significant gaps remain." The UAW also held a new round of bargaining with Chrysler-parent Stellantis (STLAM.MI) Monday. Earlier Tuesday, GM said it furloughed 163 UAW workers at GM’s Toledo Propulsion Systems plant that makes transmissions for both the automaker's Missouri and Lansing Delta Township assembly plants that are on strike.
How state unemployment benefits impact the UAW strike
September 27, 2023 // "We were very confused if we were going to get (strike pay) or not," Halle Heinz, one of the Ford employees laid off, told WXYZ-TV in Detroit. "They were trying to hold as much strike pay as they could in order to make everything survive." Under Michigan law, UAW workers generally won't qualify for unemployment if they get laid off because of a labor dispute involving other workers at the same worksite, Brett Miller, an attorney specializing in labor law for Butzel in Detroit, tells Axios. UAW's Ohio and Indiana director is also navigating murky waters when it comes to unemployment. "It's clear as mud," UAW Region 2B director David Green told Crain's Cleveland Business. "I don't want to say all our members are going to get unemployment, because that's not going to happen." Disputes over unemployment benefits could end up in court, he said.
Electric vehicle jobs are booming in the anti-union South. UAW is worried
September 22, 2023 // “The auto industry’s move south hangs over these talks because now only a minority of workers are in unionized assembly plants,” said Stephen Silvia, a professor at American University and author of “The UAW’s Southern Gamble: Organizing Workers at Foreign-Owned Vehicle Plants.” While all of the Big Three’s plants are unionized, not a single plant in the South is unionized. Automakers’ transition to electric vehicles is accelerating these regional trends. Ford and GM are building battery plants below the Mason-Dixon Line, where states have laws that make unionization much harder than in the traditional working-class bastions of the Midwest. UAW leaders and union supporters worry the shift will lower compensation and cut out unions from the auto industry’s future, and they are seeking to address these concerns in talks with the Big Three.
Jeep maker Stellantis makes a new contract offer as auto workers prepare to expand their strike
September 21, 2023 // GM said that the UAW strike at its assembly plant near St. Louis caused it to idle a plant in Kansas with about 2,000 workers because “there is no work available” — the plant depends on parts stamped in the St. Louis-area facility. GM said it does not expect to restart the Kansas plant until the strike ends, and it won’t provide supplemental pay to the workers. The company said the layoffs demonstrated “that nobody wins in a strike.” Stellantis, which makes Jeep, Chrysler and Dodge vehicles, said it expects to lay off more than 300 workers in Ohio and Indiana because “storage constraints” caused by the UAW strike at its assembly plant in Toledo, Ohio.
Federal judge upholds ouster of Boilermakers union president by his own top executives
August 23, 2023 // In what he called a preliminary ruling from the bench, Chief Judge Eric F. Melgren, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas, upheld a June 2 decision by the union’s top executives to remove Jones as president. “As of that day, Mr. Jones was removed from office,” Melgren said. The judge said he would issue a final, written ruling on the issue within the week. After the hearing, members of the union’s executive council said they’d unanimously elected former International Vice President Warren Fairley, who retired in February, to be the union’s new leader.
ILLINOIS: SEIU HEALTHCARE MEMBERS EMPOWERED TO DROP UNION
August 16, 2023 // With locals in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Kansas, the union purports to represent more than 91,000 members. A closer look into reports published by the U.S. Department of Labor, however, reveals that SEIU HCII represents only about 59,000 workers. At least one third of those represented by SEIU HCII don’t seem to think the union’s services are worth their money. And they’re right. While the union collects tens of millions of dollars in membership dues each year, only a fraction is spent on “representational activities,” including collective bargaining and contract enforcement. In 2022, less than 22 percent of SEIU HCII’s $47 million in spending went towards member representation. The rest was spent on politics, administration, and other misguided union leadership priorities.