Posts tagged legislative staffers
Government Unions are Down — But Not Out
September 10, 2024 // For nearly a decade, the Commonwealth Foundation has tracked state-by-state changes in labor laws. Every two years, the Commonwealth Foundation releases its research on the ever-changing legal landscape for public sector unions, assessing each state’s efforts to promote public employees’ rights or cave to unions’ entrenched influence. This fourth edition examines government unions’ attempts, following Janus, to hold onto and expand special legal privileges under state laws. The research also highlights the states reining in government unions’ power and influence by empowering workers.
Would-be union of Illinois legislative staffers accuse Welch of undermining organizing effort
May 24, 2024 // In a scathing statement, the Illinois Legislative Staff Association accused Welch of passing the bill “to deflect rising criticism” and feigning solidarity in public while privately colluding with Democratic Senate President Don Harmon to ensure the bill “went no further” once it passed the House. “Speaker Welch took advantage of our sincere desire to work with him and used it to score political points while continuing to undermine our efforts to organize,” the lengthy statement said. “This whole exercise was nothing but a hollow ruse, meant to gaslight us while we drafted his bills, staffed his committees, crafted his talking points and analyzed his budget.” ILSA, which is currently made up of staff for the House Democratic caucus, formed in secret in 2022 and went public with its unionization efforts last year. The association then spent the summer accusing Welch of stonewalling its efforts for recognition.
Pritzker weighs in on statehouse staffers attempting to unionize
September 8, 2023 // The staffers have been hoping to meet with Welch, D-Hillside, to discuss terms for unionization but have been unsuccessful up to this point. "For the last 9 months, we have asked in good faith for Speaker Welch to meet with us. Despite his outspoken pro-labor rhetoric and vocal support for the right of all employees in Illinois to unionize, he is apparently intent on denying this right to his own staff," the Illinois Legislative Staff Association said in a statement posted to social media. “It should not be controversial in 2023 for a group of workers in a blue state with a strong union tradition to form a union, especially when the right to organize is enshrined in the state constitution."
‘Employees come second’: Why California’s legislative staffers hope to unionize
July 21, 2023 // Unlike other state workers, legislative staff are banned from unionizing to advocate for better working conditions. That could soon change under a bill making its way through the State Capitol. Assembly Bill 1, authored by Assembly member Tina McKinnor (D—Inglewood), would provide a framework for legislative staff to form a union. California’s over 200,000 other public employees are able to unionize. But legislative staff are notably excluded from the law, the Dills Act, that established those rights in the 1970s. AB 1 is the fifth attempt in recent years to change that.
Bill that would allow legislative staffers in California to unionize takes major step forward
May 30, 2023 // Currently, the California Legislature is the only branch of state government that does not allow their employees the choice to unionize. The passage of AB 1 marked the first time the California State Assembly approved legislation regarding unionization and collective bargaining for legislative staff after lawmakers rejected similar bills in recent years. "We came together to make bold change in the legislature," McKinnor said. "We see them, and we're with them and we respect them." The organization Govern for California opposed a similar bill in 2022 and argued that there could be conflicts of interest if unions representing staffers were against certain bills, according to a bill analysis from last year. But this time around, the bill analysis for AB 1 showed that there were no groups publicly speaking out against it. And with 42 co-authors from across the aisle, AB 1 has strong bipartisan support.
Oregon senators want taxpayers to stop paying long-distance commuting costs of remote workers. Union leader says think again
February 13, 2023 // Oregon lawmakers are wrestling with whether to continue paying state workers who’ve chosen to live in far-flung states including Hawaii to travel back to the state for periodic in-person check-ins. Before the pandemic, it was not unusual for a small segment of state workers to live just outside Oregon’s borders, in Washington, Idaho, California and Nevada. But they were expected to show up at state workplaces on their own dime.
Unionize the Senate, staffers urge
February 9, 2023 // Labor advocates are pushing the Senate to recognize staff unions, in the hopes of kickstarting progress in the chamber now that their House organizing efforts have stalled under Republican control. The Congressional Workers Union sent a letter Thursday to Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Rules and Administration Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Chairman Bernie Sanders, demanding a vote by the end of the month on a resolution authorizing Senate offices to unionize.
‘What Are We Afraid Of?’: California Legislators May Finally Allow Their Staffers to Unionize Under New Bill
February 8, 2023 // A wave of unionization in Democratic state legislatures across the country, as well as among some U.S. congressional staff, could also help the cause. Oregon became the first state to allow legislative staff to unionize in 2021. Similar efforts were started in Massachusetts, New York and Washington state. San Diego Democrat Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher — one of the most prominent union champions in the Legislature from 2013 until last year, when she resigned from the Assembly to become head of the California Labor Federation — says there’s no legitimate reason for legislative staff to be blocked from collective bargaining.
A new try for unionization of legislative staff
December 14, 2022 // It’s fair to say that Democrats would not have attained their immense majorities in the California Legislature – more than 75% of its 120 members – were it not for money and other resources from the state’s labor unions. In return, Democratic legislators have bent over backwards to help unions increase their memberships and expand members’ wages and benefits. Notable examples are the famous – or infamous – Assembly Bill 5, which tightly restricted employers’ use of contract workers, this year’s bill to make it easier for the United Farm Workers Union to win representation elections, legislation making child care and home health care workers employees so that they could become union members, and innumerable measures essentially mandating union labor in public and private construction projects. Assembly Bill 1
California lawmakers kill bill that would have let legislative staff unionize
September 5, 2022 // California legislative staff will not have the option to unionize after a bill allowing them to organize was killed by lawmakers Wednesday evening. Lawmakers in the Assembly Committee on Public Employment and Retirement ultimately rejected Assembly Bill 1577 on Wednesday, a measure that would have provided collective bargaining rights to legislative staff starting in July 2024. The measure was a step away from a hearing on the Assembly floor, where lawmakers would have decided whether or not to send the bill to Gov. Gavin Newsom. Jim Cooper, Lorena Gonzalez, Mark Stone, Tina McKinnor