Posts tagged labor peace agreements
Op-ed: With fewer workers choosing unions, administration turns to taxpayer dollars to boost union ranks
September 19, 2023 // First, some solicitations for grants, such as under the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Clean School Bus” program, ask whether applicants will recognize card check certifications. Card check is a process where workers are denied the chance to vote for or against a union by private ballot. Instead, union organizers are allowed to repeatedly pressure them to sign cards, in public. Both the text of the National Labor Relations Act and numerous court rulings (including by the Supreme Court) have recognized that private ballots are far superior to signature cards in determining workers’ true feelings about unionizing. Apparently, the administration thinks “free and fair” means a free and fair chance for organizers to pressure workers into saying “yes.” Second, many grant solicitations, such as those under the Department of Energy’s “Home Energy Efficiency Contractor Training,” “encourage” applicants to remain neutral in organizing campaigns. What this means is that employers are being asked to waive their statutory right to discuss the potential negatives of unionizing with workers. Instead, workers will get just one side of the story — that of the union. With no other source of information, workers might just decide to say yes, especially when being pressured to sign a card. Third, some applications, such as those published by the National Telecommunications and Information Agency to build broadband, ask applicants to sign labor peace agreements. Labor peace certainly sounds desirable, but here’s what it means in practice. Let’s say a union decides it wants to represent the workers of a particular grantee. Upon notice of that intent, the grantee would have to get the union to sign a labor peace agreement, which typically includes a “no-strike” pledge among other provisions. The catch is that if the union doesn’t sign, you don’t get your grant. This gives the union tremendous leverage to demand organizing concessions, most notably things like card check and neutrality.
First cannabis dispensary workers unionize in CT
September 7, 2023 // Connecticut’s adult-use cannabis law requires companies to sign labor peace agreements ensuring they won’t prevent employees from organizing. The agreements, sometimes referred to as neutrality agreements, lay out how companies and labor organizations can behave during union organizing. They require employers to remain neutral during a unionization process, while preventing unions from picketing or holding work stoppages.
Connecticut Public Sector Union Membership in Two-Year Decline
June 22, 2023 // Labor also benefitted after Connecticut legalized marijuana use by adults in 2021, as the legislation included a provision requiring retailers to obtain a labor peace agreement with a union before being awarded a license. Labor peace agreements are contracts made between an employer and a labor union with the former agreeing not to undermine the latter’s ability to organize the workforce in exchange for the union not to strike, picket or disrupt the employer’s business. Lawmakers always have the option of hiding labor bills in a budget as they did this past session by requiring grocery stores established in food deserts to enter into a labor peace agreement with a union in order to receive municipal tax abatements. Labor unions possess an inherent organizational and financial framework that grants them significant power in identifying candidates, mobilizing voters and promoting individuals who align with their interests, while having the necessary financial resources to achieve these objectives.
Booming US cannabis industry seen as fertile ground for union expansion
August 3, 2022 // Union organizing in the cannabis industry has driven a surge of union elections in retail, one of the few industries to experience unionization gains in recent years, winning 18 out of 26 union elections in 2021. The United Food and Commercial Workers and the Teamsters both represent thousands of workers in the cannabis industry and are leading union organizing campaigns to keep up with the pace of the industry’s growth.