Posts tagged Louisiana
Op-ed: When taxpayers incentivize jobs, the state should protect workers’ privacy in union votes
February 26, 2026 // Now, Rankin County Republican State Sen. Josh Harkins, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, has introduced legislation to protect the investments of state and local taxpayers in economic development projects that rely on taxpayer incentives. The bill ensures that Mississippi workers are entitled to a private ballot for any unionization vote. In a recent op-ed, Harkins explained: “Senate Bill 2202 is straightforward: for companies that choose to accept future state economic development incentives, any decision about union representation should be made through a private, secret-ballot election. The bill does not prohibit employees from organizing. It does not outlaw unions. It does not interfere with an employee’s right to choose union representation if a majority wants it. It simply sets an expectation that the decision is made in a way that protects (worker) privacy.”
Trump’s Cuts to U.S. Labor Board Leave Festering Disputes and a Power Struggle
December 17, 2025 // “There is no room for parallel or complementary state legislation,” said William B. Cowen, the labor board’s acting general counsel. Mr. Cowen said the agency remained effective despite the lack of a sitting board, because the vast majority of cases are resolved in earlier stages. In the 2024 fiscal year, according to the board’s data, regional offices settled 96 percent of cases that advanced past filing. “I’m not saying that what the board does is unimportant. It’s very important. They decide the most important, the most contentious issues,” Mr. Cowen said. “It is a very small percentage.”
Off the Rails? Union Asks Supreme Court to Rein in Fifth Circuit
November 13, 2025 // The Fifth Circuit’s approach breaks sharply from multiple other circuits (Second, Third, Fourth, Sixth, Tenth, and D.C.), which have either held or strongly implied—consistent with Supreme Court precedent, according to the OPEIU—that a petitioner must show actual harm before courts will halt agency actions. The Fifth Circuit’s stance invites immediate injunctions in response to routine NLRB cases, which destabilizes the Board’s ability to function across Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi—even as the D.C. Circuit separately evaluates the constitutionality of those same protections.
Protestors brave cold snap to support striking nurses at New Orleans’ UMC
November 12, 2025 // National Nurses United (NNU) — the union representing the UMC nurses — has been negotiating new staff contracts with hospital administrators since March 2024. This is the fifth strike in just over a year.
DOL Awards $86M for Skilled Trades Training
October 29, 2025 // Administered by the department’s Employment and Training Administration, these grants will provide outcome-based reimbursements to employers for providing training in high-demand and emerging industries that align with President Trump’s Executive Order 14278, Preparing Americans for High-Paying Skilled Trade Jobs of the Future, and Executive Order 14629, Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance. These priorities are also in line with the goals published in America’s Talent Strategy and America’s AI Action Plan. “President Trump has directed the Labor Department to Make America Skilled Again by providing states with the resources they need to expand on-the-job training opportunities,” said Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer.
Dollar store workers fight to improve jobs, even without a union
October 17, 2025 // In 2022, Williams joined an organization that seemed, to him, like his best shot: Step Up Louisiana. Like several successful campaigns before it, Step Up organizes workers to improve their jobs, but stops short of calling for a union under the National Labor Relations Board. The approach, sometimes referred to as “premajority unionism,” is a natural fit for places like the South, with histories of public hostility to unions. Today, suggest experts, it may also be workers’ best bet for building power amid the hostility of the Trump administration.
Louisiana Poultry Employee Submits Second Petition Seeking Vote to Oust UFCW Union
September 18, 2025 // Coty Hally, an employee of Wayne Sanderson Farms’ Hammond processing facility, has just filed a second petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) seeking a union “decertification” election to remove United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 455 union officials from the workplace. Hally’s earlier petition in June of this year was dismissed by an NLRB Regional Director, which ruled that under its non-statutory “contract bar” policy no employee-requested decertification votes may occur for up to three years after a union contract is imposed. This occurred despite Hally having never seen the contract extension agreement that barred his petition.
Op-ed: Ohio needs to wrest control of public schools from the teachers’ un
August 25, 2025 // Bureaucratic schools where merit doesn’t matter. Unions have used their clout, including their ability to elect pro-union school boards, to secure lengthy, incredibly detailed employment contracts that advance their interests while tying up school leaders with red tape. These contracts include job protections (even for incompetent teachers), onerous procedural hoops that schools must follow to evaluate or discipline an employee, and benefits that exceed what many private sector employees enjoy (e.g., generous healthcare, even for retirees, and paid leave). Moreover, following a union-supported state law, these contracts require Ohio teachers to be paid according to rigid salary schedules that reward seniority and degrees instead of classroom effectiveness and individual talent—a merit-based approach to compensation that has proven to benefit students in the (few) places where it has been tried. Escalating spending.
GOP senator, labor secretary visit Louisiana alligator farm touting new pro-worker legislation
August 16, 2025 // Fresh off helping pass that bill, Cassidy is championing his pro-worker legislation, the Unlocking Benefits for Independent Workers Act, introduced last month with senators Tim Scott, R-S.C., and Rand Paul, R-Ky. The bill seeks to modernize federal labor laws, granting gig workers and independent contractors access to health benefits, paid sick leave and retirement plans, among other provisions.
Louisiana Poultry Employee Challenges Federal Labor Policy Preventing Coworkers From Voting Out UFCW Union
July 24, 2025 // Worker submitted petition in which over half of his colleagues demanded vote to remove union, but so-called ‘contract bar’ kept union in power