Posts tagged law enforcement
PHILADELPHIA: SEPTA must negotiate contracts with nearly all its labor unions amid looming financial crisis
September 18, 2023 // The authority projects an annual operating deficit of $240 million beginning next July 1 as the last of its federal pandemic aid is spent, a situation dubbed the “fiscal cliff” that afflicts most transit systems in the United States. Riders have not returned in pre-COVID 19 numbers, and changing travel patterns have accelerated in the last three years. SEPTA and the state’s other public transit agencies are pushing for the legislature to adopt a measure that would give them a greater share of the sales tax to support operations. Uncertainty about finances makes it difficult to say “yes” to increased pay and benefits for TWU Local 234, which represents operators of buses, trolleys, and transit trains, SEPTA CEO Leslie S. Richards said Tuesday during a hearing of the state House Transportation Committee at the agency’s headquarters.
How Unions Take Workers’ Voice and Never Give It Back
September 5, 2023 // Unfortunately, many states’ labor laws are tilted in union officials’ favor. Some unions, when faced with a decertification petition, scramble to agree to a contract — even one that favors management — to take advantage of something called a “contract bar,” which prevents a decertification election while a contract is in place. It has happened to my clients. In most states, unions never have to stand for reelection. Joan’s union, which won its certification in 1975, hasn’t had to prove that it enjoys majority support in nearly 50 years. The only way to remove it is to decertify it, and as Elizabeth and Joan would tell you, that means counter-organizing on your own time against full-time union organizers who have lots of money and lawyers on call. Few states have enacted “recertification” requirements that would impose democracy on supposedly representative unions, requiring them to periodically run for reelection.
Former Los Angeles Teacher’s Stand Against Union Push to ‘Defund the Police’ Reaches 9th Circuit
January 11, 2023 // With billions of someone else’s dues dollars at stake, it’s little wonder UTLA is hell-bent on making an example of Laird for others contemplating the same course of action. What couldn’t be glossed over quite as easily, though, is another ruling deferential to the influence of powerful labor unions rather than the U.S. Constitution.
Unionizing Mission Driven Work
August 22, 2022 // During 2020, White Bird’s CAHOOTS program hit the mainstream as an alternative model to law enforcement. It saw countless stories in publications from People Magazine to the New York Times. It was featured on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show. And Sen. Ron Wyden pushed for legislation that would fund CAHOOTS-like programs throughout the country. But workers at CAHOOTS are unionizing, saying they can’t do their job effectively if they aren’t paid well and are forced to work long shifts. Alese Colehour, Chelsea Swift, Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland, MACRO, Portland Street Response Team, Cory Finnegan,
Op-Ed: Big Labor fights dirty over control of Southeast port jobs
May 20, 2022 // Daggett and Co. are counting on pro-forced unionism bureaucrat Lauren McFerran, whom President Joe Biden elevated to the NLRB chairmanship last year, and two other NLRB members selected by Biden last year to sit on this case while they continue to break the law. If top ILA union bosses turn out to be right about the NLRB, then the hybrid work model that has greatly enhanced the competitiveness of the major North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia ports will be in grave jeopardy.
Union membership hits new low
January 24, 2022 // Those numbers have fallen steadily, if not uniformly, over the last two generations, even as the number of American workers has increased substantially. Today, there are about 50 million more workers in the American economy than there were in 1983, and 3 million fewer union members.