Posts tagged Montana
Four states advance bills prohibiting union dues deductions
April 21, 2023 //
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."
Right-to-work resurfaces at the Montana Legislature, as do dozens of pro-union opponents
February 22, 2023 // The bill, Buffalo Republican Rep. James Bergstrom’s House Bill 448, would prohibit private sector union contracts that require employees to join a union or otherwise pay fees for their representation. It’s the latest legislative swing at unions in Montana, a state with a deep history of labor activism that has repeatedly resisted right-to-work legislation even as national union density has declined and neighboring states have passed similar laws. “Blood has been spilled on the streets of my district for the rights we have today,” Rep. Derek Harvey, D-Butte, a union firefighter, told more than 70 union workers and officials representing a wide variety of trades on the Capitol steps Friday.
DeSantis stands up for teachers
February 10, 2023 // The governor’s proposal, dubbed a Teacher’s Bill of Rights, draws clear boundary lines between the interests of teachers and the interests of teachers unions. The proposal restores the rights of taxpayers and teachers, who don’t always support union politics. For example, DeSantis’s proposal would end the practice of union dues being deducted directly from teachers’ paychecks — a process undertaken at taxpayers’ expense. And the governor’s proposal would prohibit union officials from doing union work while on the clock for their taxpayer-funded job. Known as “release time,” the paid workday hours that public employees spend doing union work can add up. In Miami-Dade County alone, public employees spent 132,433 on-the-clock hours doing union work between fiscal 2017 and fiscal 2019, according to a James Madison Institute report. Those hours cost taxpayers more than $4 million. The governor has also taken aim at so-called “zombie unions,” which lack adequate documented support from the teachers they claim to represent.
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.
Utah Democratic Party, Salt Lake County Democratic Party workers unionize
August 4, 2022 // As efforts to unionize among Democratic political staffers and congressional staffers have increased nationwide, employees of the Utah Democratic Party and Salt Lake County Democratic Party have officially unionized. Ben Peck, Salt Lake County Democratic Party executive director, said he worked on unionizing political staffers for more than a year before he started his job with the county party. He immediately started the process after he was hired. Union benefits will only apply to paid staff, not volunteers or unpaid interns, Peck said. Utah Democratic Party Chairwoman Diane Lewis, Democratic Party platform,
AFT Convention Seemed More Transparent Than NEA’s. But Looks Can Be Deceiving
July 22, 2022 // The American Federation of Teachers held its biennial convention in Boston last week. Unlike the NEA Representative Assembly, delegates met entirely in person and the union was more than happy to post its proposed resolutions and other documents online. More transparency doesn’t necessarily mean more honesty, though. A lot of what the AFT Convention produces requires elaboration, footnotes, context and filling in the gaps. battleground state poll AFT commissioned from Hart Research Associates. The main takeaway was that likely voters trusted Republicans slightly more on education issues than they did Democrats. Republicans
UNIONS MAKE NEW INROADS INTO CHAINS
June 2, 2022 // Workers at more than 100 Starbucks units have now voted to organize, and employees of other coffee chains have taken steps to do likewise.
Black Coffee Roasting employees vote to form union
May 31, 2022 // “I think we will actually have more, because when we started people didn't know about it, and then once we started getting traction, then other unions in the state -- other people who had union law experience started reaching out and being like, ‘This is a serious thing that is happening, and we want to be a part of it,’” Third Wave Workers member Marley Pine said.
Op-Ed: HOW TO FIX AMERICA’S WORKER SHORTAGE: PUSH FOOD STAMP RECIPIENTS TO GET A JOB
May 16, 2022 // States should encourage more people to find the independence that comes with employment, which will not only help end America’s worker shortage, but also grow the economy by nearly $160 billion. That matters especially after the economy shrank in the first three months of the year.