Posts tagged Labor shortage
NY union wants more remote work for state employees
March 17, 2023 // Spence called for New York to do more on remote work flexibility and go beyond what was proposed in Gov. Kathy Hochul’s budget for the Empire State. Hochul’s budget would not only consider more flexibility for public employees to work remotely, but it allocated over $18 million to address worker shortage issues. Yet it was not enough for Spence, who has been pushing for public employees to remain as remote workers on a long-term basis and has clashed with state lawmakers over the remote work issue during the past year. The union president asserted that New York public employees are leaving New York for other states that offer more remote work flexibility and have a lower cost-of-living. Neither PEF nor Spence outlined specifics about flexible remote work and which incentives could lead to higher retention rates of employees.
Millions of men are leaving the workforce. Here’s the lasting impact that has on the economy.
February 24, 2023 // But a less publicized factor is that men ages 25 to 54, have been dropping out of the workforce for decades. Their participation rate rebounded somewhat from 2017 to 2019 as unemployment fell and wages increased in a vibrant labor market. But it slid during the health crisis and has yet to fully recover despite record job growth over the past two years. A 2021 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond also cites a rise in male substance abuse and even heavy video game use. Another study several months ago by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston cites a less obvious reason: Non-college-educated men have left the labor force in greater numbers as the shortfall in their wages compared to college-educated men has increased, the study says.
More than 7,000 nurses from 2 New York City hospitals on strike over staffing concerns
January 12, 2023 // Tentative contract agreements were reached with a majority of the hospitals under strike warnings. However, Mount Sinai Hospital, representing approximately 3,625 nurses, and Montefiore Bronx, representing approximately 3,500, have been unable to come to a deal.
Unions shifting to low-risk short strikes for workers to flex leverage during labor shortage
October 20, 2022 // Of the 302 strikes within the U.S. to this point this yr, 141 of the walkouts, or 47%, have lasted a day or much less, in keeping with the labor-action tracker at Cornell College’s Industrial Labor Relations Faculty. Solely 41 strikes, or 13%, have lasted 30 days or extra. By means of the identical interval in 2021, there have been 53 strikes of a day or much less out of a complete of 172 walkouts, or 31%. Brief-term walkouts restrict the danger that employers will rent everlasting replacements for aggrieved employees, stated Catherine Creighton, director of Cornell’s ILR Buffalo Co-Lab. “It’s positively a danger that workers face after they go on a long-term strike,” stated Ms. Creighton, who additionally has labored as a labor-relations lawyer. “It’s been discovered that in a short-term strike, you’re getting your message out to the employer otherwise you’re letting them know you imply enterprise. However you’re not essentially placing your job in danger.”
Railroad Strike Threat Shows How Unions’ Rigid Rules Often Hurt Workers
October 6, 2022 // Railroad companies would almost certainly have raised compensation to maintain the workforce they needed, but they’ve been locked in by union contracts that prevent them from increasing workers’ pay—or any other benefits—until a new contract is reached. The lack of flexibility to respond quickly to changing circumstances and conditions has almost certainly hampered railroad companies’ ability to find workers throughout the pandemic.
Shippers want rail service reform even if unions ratify contracts
October 6, 2022 // Both BLET and SMART-TD said last Thursday that they finally reached a tentative agreement with the railroads, and that agreement will be sent to union members in the coming weeks for approval. The Association of American Railroads estimated that a strike would have cost the U.S. economy as much as $2 billion a day. Shippers lobbied Congress to ensure that the tentative labor deals were reached to prevent a strike.
Op-ed: Competition key to determining effects of increased unionization
September 27, 2022 // We often take it for granted that businesses would prefer to bargain individually with workers, rather than collectively through a union. A cynical explanation might be that profit-hungry corporations prioritize greed over worker welfare, but academic research offers some deeper insight. It shows that companies that are unionized experience reductions in product quality and face a higher likelihood of going out of business. Professors Omesh Kini (Georgia State University), Mo Shen (Auburn University), Jaideep Shenoy (University of Connecticut) and Venkat Subramaniam (Tulane University) find that unionized manufacturers experience a higher rate of product recalls than non-unionized companies.
UW Health nurses vote to authorize 3-day strike in September as they seek to regain union
August 29, 2022 // Nurses voted Wednesday to strike from 7 a.m. Sept. 13 to 7 a.m. Sept. 16, but said the UW Hospital Board could avoid the strike by recognizing the union. Otherwise, nurses will provide a 10-day notice of the strike so administrators can prepare, as required by labor law. In 2014, when a contract for about 2,000 nurses and therapists represented by SEIU expired, they lost the union. In January, SEIU Healthcare Wisconsin said it gave UW Health CEO Dr. Alan Kaplan more than 1,500 cards signed by nurses supporting a union. SEIU says 2,600 nurses at UW Hospital would be in the bargaining unit. UnityPoint Health-Meriter in Madison, Steve Striffler, director of the Labor Resource Center at the University of Massachusetts-Boston,
Californifying the U.S. Labor Market
August 23, 2022 // The Biden administration came into office with a sweeping union agenda embodied in the PRO Act, which would have rewritten key elements of decades-old American labor law. Stymied in Congress, however, the administration now seems likely to impose at least one component of that legislation on the workplace through a Department of Labor rule that would narrow the definition of an independent contractor in ways similar to California’s controversial AB5 law. Doing so would likely upset employment policies and practices at a vast array of businesses nationwide, just as has happened in the Golden State, where freelancers lost work because companies couldn’t afford to employ them full-time and truckers recently shut down a port to protest efforts to end their independent status. In the post-Covid world, workers are seeking more flexibility in income-earning. The Biden administration’s effort, which views the independent contractor almost exclusively as an exploited worker denied the benefits of full employment, is a step backward for individual workers—but a gift to unions.
The U.S. is Now 30 Days Away From a Possible Railroad Labor Strike
August 19, 2022 // Delays on U.S. railroads have been a growing problem for shipping agricultural goods all year. Labor discussions are ongoing and with the grain industry concerned about a possible labor stoppage in mid-September, which would be the height of Midwest harvest. Just this week, the White House-appointed Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) released a recommendation as part of the ongoing collective bargaining process. Both sides have 30 days to accept those recommendations. If the two parties don't agree, then rail workers are allowed to go on strike as of Sept. 16. Max Fisher, Chief Economist,