Posts tagged Maine
‘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.
Oregon Education Association Just the Latest Teachers’ Union to Impose Racially Discriminatory Policies
June 15, 2023 // On April 30, OEA’s board of directors discussed a so-called “progressive dues structure for BIPOC (black, indigenous and people of color) members,” according to meeting minutes. This scheme would include a “significant discount for educators until the racial breakdown of our membership aligns with the racial breakdown of our student population.”
Biden’s ‘nightmare’ Labor nominee under fire from small businesses, contract workers
April 5, 2023 // "As the chief enforcer of AB 5, Julie Su was a nightmare for freelancers and small businesses in California. She has no business being Labor Secretary after her track of failure," said Freelancers Against AB 5 founder Karen Anderson. Wes Snyder, the owner of a FASTSIGNS franchise in Arizona, criticized Su’s stance on franchise liability. "This business model gives anyone the opportunity to experience the transformative power of entrepreneurship while strengthening their local communities," he said. "Julie Su wants to rob us of this opportunity – she will turn the American dream into the American nightmare."
After Yearlong Wait, Bates Unionization Vote Fails
March 29, 2023 // They had lost, 186 to 254, all the way back in January 2022. William A. Herbert, executive director of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions, said in an email Friday that “A vote against representation by faculty, other professionals and/or staff in higher education has been rare over the past decade.”
Chipotle will pay a $240,000 penalty — roughly 1% of its daily revenue— for shutting down a store that tried to unionize
March 28, 2023 // The employees filed a petition to form a union last June — the first time Chipotle employees had taken that step. The following month, Chipotle said it would close the location, citing problems recruiting enough employees to run the location, CNBC reported. According to the Kennebec Journal, the National Labor Relations Board later found that the closure violated labor laws. The payment will be split among the former location's employees, who will receive between $5,800 and $21,000 each based on their seniority, pay rate, and other factors, per the Journal.
NY legislative staffers aren’t the only ones fighting to unionize
March 22, 2023 // New York legislative staff have a similar problem. The Taylor Law, or the Public Employees’ Fair Employment Act, compels state and local public employers to recognize unions, wrote Ken Girardin of the watchdog think tank the Empire Center. But under the Taylor Law, public employee unions within New York state cannot legally strike. Girardin also argued in a report for the Empire Center that NYSLWU would not be covered under the Taylor Law either way, writing that it “would raise numerous practical and constitutional issues.”
Who Says Unions And ESOPs Don’t Mingle?
December 21, 2022 // Plus, with vigorous ESOP-related activity in Congress and state legislatures, I stand by my prediction that this will be the Decade of the ESOPs. In 2022, three major bills delivered significant incentives for existing and future ESOPs. They include the National Defense Appropriations Act, the Inflation Reduction Act that exempts ESOPS from a new 1% excise tax on corporate stock repurchases, and a measure signed in August strengthening the U.S. semiconductor industry that singles out employee-owned companies and associations for targeted support.
EMMC facilities workers vote against unionizing
October 31, 2022 // The failed effort to unionize EMMC facilities mechanics follows a handful of successful efforts to organize workers at other Maine hospitals in recent years. Nurses at Acadia Hospital, another Northern Light health center in Bangor, announced this week they had filed to unionize as Acadia Nurses United with the American Federation of Teachers. That bargaining unit, if approved, would represent more than 100 nurses. An election hearing is set for Nov. 10.
Opinion: If Democrats want votes, they should rain fury on union-busting corporations
August 9, 2022 // The power of workers relative to the power of the investment class must be rebalanced. Rebuilding the power of unions is the only way out of this trap, unless you are credulous enough to believe that we will all be rescued by the sudden radicalization of the tax policymakers on the House ways and means committee. If you ever want to live in a country where the American dream is more than a cruel, tantalizing joke, you have a stake in the revival of organized labor. History shows that organized labor thrives when it has the government’s support, and suffers without it. We are supposedly living under the most pro-union president of our lifetimes. So? Let’s hear some damn fire, man. The only reason companies feel so free to abuse their workers is that they don’t believe anyone will make them pay for it.
Maine nurses to vote on union decertification
July 29, 2022 // The group argues that mail balloting elections "benefit union organizers" because of lower turnout among voters. It also argues that mail balloting has resulted in "post office errors that disenfranchise workers" and alleges that union organizers engage in "ballot harvesting" which "undermines the privacy of workers’ votes." While the nurses have had union representation for more than a year, they have still yet to finalize a contract with the Maine Medical Center. That has led to recent job actions with nurses calling for improved working conditions and other workplace issues. Todd Ricker