Posts tagged labor agreements
Raises for one union not funded in WA budget, leading to finger-pointing
May 19, 2025 // Leaders for the WPEA say a failure to fund a new contract could impact thousands of state government employees such as food safety officers, commercial vehicle enforcement officers, and wildfire fighters. Some contracts for WPEA locals were funded, including for employees at the Yakima Valley College and for Senate and House Democratic legislative staff. But WPEA contracts for general government and higher education employees, which represent the bulk of the union, were not. Many state agencies employ a mix of those represented by WPEA or WFSE.
Op-Ed: Greszler: Harris, Walz policy records undermine pro-worker rhetoric
August 23, 2024 // the Biden-Harris Administration is also picking winners and losers among blue-collar workers. Its regulations governing wages and labor agreements on government contracts are disastrous. They almost exclude non-union workers from federal contract jobs, including 89% of construction workers who aren’t unionized; force many workers who perform federal contract jobs into unions, including requiring them to pay into union pensions they’ll never receive. Not only that, but despite the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to empower and unionize more workers, the unionization rate hit a new record low of 10% in 2023 (6% among the private sector), and the gap between union and non-union wages also hit a record low. That’s because union wages increased 6.4 percentage points less than non-union wages between 2019 and 2023. For Walz’s part, he’s signed a slew of labor laws ostensibly aimed at helping workers, but by driving up the costs and legal liabilities of employing people in Minnesota, they have instead hamstrung job growth in the state.
Starbucks proposes restarting union talks, reaching labor deals in major reversal
December 11, 2023 // The company may also be trying to head off an effort by the Strategic Organizing Center, a labor group, to elect three pro-union candidates to Starbucks’ board of directors next year.
Ex-New York Building Trades Chief Sentenced in Bribe Scheme
May 25, 2023 // Prosecutors say Cahill took more than $140,000 in cash plus other benefits such as appliances and free labor on a vacation home from an unidentified contractor while he was president of the New York State Building and Construction Trades Council. Additionally, Cahill introduced the contractor to leaders at plumbers’ and pipefitters’ union Local 638 in New York City, where he had been a business agent, and at Local 200 on Long Island, who also accepted bribes from the contractor, prosecutors say. In exchange, the union leaders would support the contractor’s bids on projects, consider labor agreements that were favorable to the firm and allow it to falsely claim it employed union workers.
United Auto Workers Appear to Rebuke Leaders in First Vote by Members
December 5, 2022 // Insurgent candidates showed strength, citing corruption scandals and calling for a tougher bargaining approach. The union president seems headed for a runoff. The first United Auto Workers election open to all members appears to have produced a wave of opposition to the established leadership, signaling the prospect of sweeping changes for a union tarnished by a series of corruption scandals. As the count neared completion on Friday, the current president, Ray Curry, was in a close contest with an insurgent challenger, Shawn Fain, with each getting slightly under 40 percent. The remaining votes were scattered among three dark-horse candidates. If those results are confirmed by a court-appointed monitor overseeing the count, Mr. Fain and Mr. Curry will head for a runoff election in January.
Amazon Hub in Newark Is Canceled After Unions and Local Groups Object
July 11, 2022 // “Unfortunately, the Port Authority and Amazon have been unable to reach an agreement on final lease terms and mutually concluded that further negotiations will not resolve the outstanding issues,” Huntley Lawrence, the Port Authority’s chief operating officer, said in a statement on Thursday. Advocacy groups and unions involved had said they could not support the lease unless Amazon made a set of concessions that included labor agreements and a zero-emissions benchmark at the facility. Make the Road New Jersey, Kim Gaddy, South Ward Environmental Alliance, Ms. Cullinane, Ms. Gaddy, airport cargo center,