Posts tagged labor unions
Nevada: Labor unions push back on proposal to allow licensure reciprocity for nurses
April 10, 2023 // But the compact faces strong resistance from labor unions affiliated with the AFL-CIO that say joining the compact benefits hospitals over workers, undermines collective bargaining, and fails to address bigger problems like patient-to-nurse ratios. “We need to be discussing working conditions,” said Grace Vergara-Mactal, executive director of SEIU 1107, which represents more than 8,000 nurses and health care workers in Nevada. “Right now the grueling working conditions of nurses is the number one barrier to addressing the nursing shortage. Often our health care members are working 12 to 14 hours a day and seeing 10 patients an hour.” AB 108 is not the only compact bill being considered by the legislature this session. Assembly Bill 158 would have Nevada join an emergency medical services (EMS) compact, Senate Bill 97 would have Nevada join a physical therapist (PT) compact, and Senate Bill 442 would have Nevada join a teachers compact.
Opinion: Julie Su Keeps Failing Up, and Biden Doesn’t Care
April 10, 2023 // How in the world did Julie Su get nominated to run the federal Department of Labor? Su is a former civil rights attorney, former head of the California Department of Labor under Gov. Gavin Newsom, and head of California’s Department of Labor Standards Enforcement under former Gov. Jerry Brown. She was deputy director of the federal DOL and now is acting director as she awaits a tough Senate confirmation in the next few months. I had immediately thought that the Peter Principle might explain it. Coined by Canadian sociologist Laurence Peter in his 1968 book of the same name, it postulates that the tendency in all organizations is for “every employee to rise in the hierarchy through promotion until they reach a level of respective incompetence,” as Investopedia put it. But that surely can’t explain Su, who already reached that level in her previous employment. Investopedia also mentioned the Dilbert Principle, named after the comic strip: that big organizations promote people precisely because of their incompetence. In other words, they promote them to get them out of the way. Su was California’s top labor official and ultimately responsible for the Employment Development Department when a major scandal rocked that unemployment insurance–disbursing bureau. “California has given away at least $20 billion to criminals in the form of fraudulent unemployment benefits, state officials said Monday, confirming a number smaller than originally feared but one that still accounts for more than 11 percent of all benefits paid since the start of the pandemic,” according to a 2021 Los Angeles Times report.
California Court Rebukes War on Workers
March 16, 2023 // This obviously poses an existential threat to emerging app-based companies that rely on a contractor model, but it also posed an entirely predictable threat to many traditional professions where workers eschew the 9–5 cubicle or factory floor work model. When the Legislature codified Dynamex via Assembly Bill 5, which went into effect in January 2020, it exempted many industries — primarily those with the most influential lobbies. Nevertheless, economic destruction ensued. Companies eliminated jobs rather than hire people as salaried employees. Publications — including Vox, which ran a piece championing AB 5 — laid off its California stringers. Musical groups that relied on gig workers had to shutter their operations. All types of freelance workers — from photographers to sign-language interpreters to rabbis — suddenly found themselves in a pickle. The same Gov. Gavin Newsom who used his vast executive powers to suspend laws during the COVID pandemic refused to suspend AB 5, even as people who were forced to stay at home lost their stay-at-home freelance opportunities. Some Californians embraced the workaround of starting an LLC, but that imposed new costs on workers who already were struggling. Dynamex Operations West v. Superior Court of Los Angeles
Unions make gains in Colorado
February 22, 2023 // On January 31, 2023, a proposed bill entitled “Public Employees’ Workplace Protection” (SB23-111) that would give public unions more power and influence in the workplace. The sponsors are State Senator Robert Rodriguez (D) and State Representative Steven Woodrow (D). The legislation would impact public employees such as county or municipal workers, general assembly staffers, school district employees, higher education employees, public defenders’ officers, University of Colorado and Denver hospital authorities, fire authorities, and members of board of cooperative services. Multiple unions have already endorsed the bill. The Communications Workers of America 7799 (CWA), which is affiliated with AFL-CIO and represents public defenders, education employees, healthcare employees, and library workers, said the bill would protect workers from retaliation from employers.
GOVERNMENT UNIONS: AMERICA’S LARGEST, MOST TOXIC, PUBLICLY FUNDED LOBBY
February 20, 2023 // Collectively, labor unions throughout the country spent more than $778 million on political activities and gifts to political organizations in 2021 alone, and it wasn’t even an election year. Current reporting requirements make it impossible to determine precisely which of those dollars originated in the private sector rather than the public, but we know that roughly half of all the union members in America work in government, with the other half employed in private industry.
Opinion: Union partisanship puts conservatives in a bind
February 1, 2023 // A bill under consideration in the legislature, HB 216, would address these problems by requiring government employers to annually notify employees that union membership is optional, allowing public employees to cancel dues deductions from their paychecks at will, and creating a process to challenge unconstitutional provisions in union collective bargaining agreements. Like any other business, unions function best when they’re accountable to their clients, but accountability only exists if customers have the option to leave.
The never-ending strike
January 6, 2023 // The average strike lasts just over 40 days, according to Bloomberg Law. But some last much longer. In Brookwood, Alabama, coal miners have been on strike for over 600 days, and they don't have any intention of backing down anytime soon. Today, Stephan Bisaha of the Gulf States Newsroom joins us to explain how global macroeconomic forces can converge to keep a labor strike going for so long, and what it takes to sustain it.
Year in Review: Worker strikes surged in 2022 amid new unionization wave
December 27, 2022 // There were 374 worker strikes in 2022, according to researchers at Cornell University, a hefty 39% increase from the year before. There were several factors at play in the growth, a major one being that workers had far more leverage this past year due to mass labor shortages. Healthcare workers made up a big contingent of the organized labor movement in 2022. In September, 15,000 nurses in Minnesota staged a three-day walkout in what was likely the largest private-sector nurse strike in the country’s history. There were several other strikes by healthcare workers over the past year as well.
Opinion: The NLRB Requests More Funding, But Does It Really Need More Money?
December 16, 2022 // The Chair and General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) recently penned a letter to congressional appropriators, pleading for additional funding for the agency in the fiscal year 2023 appropriations bill, which Congress has not yet passed. The letter notes that its funding has remained at $274 million since 2014, but whether that should justify additional funding is worth scrutinizing. The NLRB letter declares that the agency needs “additional funding in FY2023 to simply maintain current operations without any investments in critical infrastructure and cybersecurity needs.” It further states that “we will be forced to reduce our operational capacity, including likely furloughs of the dedicated career employees at the agency, unless Congress provides funding to cover these costs.”
Michigan teachers unions continue to shed members
December 9, 2022 // The latest report from the state’s largest education union shows that the Michigan Education Association shed 1,000 members since the previous year, continuing a trend. The number comes from the LM-2, a financial report the MEA and other labor unions must file with the U.S. government. According to the report, MEA’s revenue decreased to $84.2 million, and its membership stands at its lowest in at least 22 years. Michigan has a right-to-work law, which prevents unions from getting a worker fired for not paying union dues or fees. When the law was enacted in 2012, the MEA had 117,265 members. The number has dropped consistently in the last ten years, reaching to 79,839, a 31.9% decline.