Posts tagged North Carolina
Connecticut Union Membership at Three-Year High
February 2, 2024 // Nonetheless, there remains a possibility that they adhere to the initial strategy of adopting California’s emission regulations, which dictate that no new gas-powered vehicles can be purchased by the year 2035, with targeted annual mandates of electric vehicles (EV) sales beginning with 2027 model-year cars. Yankee Institute will be closely monitoring the progress of this potential bill and will keep you updated as the saga unfolds.
Maintenance workers at Duke Raleigh Hospital vote to unionize
January 30, 2024 // Workers within the Duke University Health System have attempted unionization before, most notably during the unsuccessful Duke University Hospital unionization drives of the 1970s. After dining hall and custodial workers unionized at Duke in 1972, hospital workers at Duke University Hospital tried to form an American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union in 1974. The University delayed the unionization election until November 1976, and then expanded the types of workers who were eligible to vote to include many highly skilled employees. AFSCME went on to barely lose the election, as support for the union died down and internal disputes dampened organization efforts. Workers at the hospital tried to unionize again in the summer of 1978, with many workers complaining of harassment from their supervisors and discrimination from administration. The hospital workers ultimately voted to reject AFSCME representation in early 1979.
Employee Advocate Blasts Proposed Labor Department Rule Rigging Visa Program in Favor of Union Organizers
November 26, 2023 // Foundation attorneys have a track record of providing free legal aid to farmworkers who want to free themselves from the control of union bosses. In 2016, Foundation staff attorneys won a decision upholding Pennsylvania-based Kaolin Mushroom Farms employees’ decisive vote to remove union bosses who had argued in favor of maintaining a seven-year restriction on the workers’ right to vote. Foundation attorneys have also filed amicus briefs in recent years defending California and North Carolina agricultural employees’ Right to Work in various cases. The Department of Labor’s notice of rulemaking on temporary farmworkers comes as the Biden Administration is making a full court press to expand union boss legal privileges across the country. The Biden National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is currently in rulemaking devising regulations that will make it more difficult for American private sector workers to exercise their right to remove unwanted unions, while giving union officials more tools to gain power in a workplace without even a vote.
Charlotte unions propose ‘bill of rights’ for city workers
October 26, 2023 // Brewer and Mike Feneis are leaders of the Local 660. Along with the Charlotte chapter of the Public Service Workers Union, they’ve drafted a workers bill of rights, a list of 28 proposed policies that would give city workers certain rights if they’re under investigation. It includes requirements to notify employees if they’re under investigation and what for, to make audio recordings of disciplinary interviews, and to have a representative during questioning.
Electric vehicle jobs are booming in the anti-union South. UAW is worried
September 22, 2023 // “The auto industry’s move south hangs over these talks because now only a minority of workers are in unionized assembly plants,” said Stephen Silvia, a professor at American University and author of “The UAW’s Southern Gamble: Organizing Workers at Foreign-Owned Vehicle Plants.” While all of the Big Three’s plants are unionized, not a single plant in the South is unionized. Automakers’ transition to electric vehicles is accelerating these regional trends. Ford and GM are building battery plants below the Mason-Dixon Line, where states have laws that make unionization much harder than in the traditional working-class bastions of the Midwest. UAW leaders and union supporters worry the shift will lower compensation and cut out unions from the auto industry’s future, and they are seeking to address these concerns in talks with the Big Three.
Opinion: FACT CHECK: Does Unionization Have Positive Spillover Economic Effects?
September 21, 2023 // Most notably, a 2021 Harvard University report found that right-to-work states boasted more positive spillover effects. Compared to unionized areas, right-to-work (RTW) states boast 1.6% higher employment, 1.4% higher labor participation, and 0.34% lower disability receipts. The study also found RTW laws are “associated with lower childhood poverty rates and greater upward mobility”—with “children at the 25th percentile of the parental income distribution during childhood have a 1.7 percentage point higher probability of reaching the top income quintile during adulthood if they grew up in a RTW location.” Greater upward mobility is also observed in states that give workers latitude over joining a union or not. Moreover, right-to-work laws are shown to improve the well-being of both non-unionized and unionized workers.
Unions seek gains in hostile territory: ‘If you change the South, you change America’
September 15, 2023 // The Union of Southern Service Workers, an SEIU-backed group, is organizing low-wage workers from across the service industry. The National Domestic Workers Alliance, a non-union membership organization, is mapping blue-leaning Southern jurisdictions, such as Miami-Dade County, that could be open to enacting a floor of labor standards for homecare. That effort has already led to the passage of “Bill of Rights” legislation in 10 states and four cities. And the Southern Workers Assembly, an advocacy group for both union and non-union workers, is trying to educate and organize workplaces across the region.
NORTH CAROLINA: Sanitation workers say Tuesday will be end of 6-day strike in Durham
September 11, 2023 // The group said Monday that the city’s Solid Waste Management Department threatened to stop paying them while the strike continued on. The strike had come with a demand for a $5,000 bonus, among other requirements. On Friday, CBS 17 was in downtown Durham when many solid waste workers held a rally. Several sanitation employees have told CBS 17 they make between $19 to $25 an hour. According to the union, wages have gone up by 15% since 2019, but inflation and cost of living have increased by nearly 23%.
A FIRST-OF-ITS-KIND UNION RAMPS UP EFFORTS TO SWEEP THE SOUTH
August 30, 2023 // The Union of Southern Service Workers began making headlines last fall after formally christening themselves during a rally in Columbia, South Carolina. This union holds some familiar attributes, given that it began as an offshoot of Raise Up, the Southern leg of the SEIU’s Fight for $15 initiative. Yet this is no ordinary effort by the SEIU, for the USSW purports to not only be “built by and for low-wage workers” but also stretches across many industries. A key distinction: The union frames itself as a cross-sector organization, designed to retain members even if they job-hop between industries, i.e., fast food, retail, hotel, nursing home, warehouses, etc.
Federal judge upholds ouster of Boilermakers union president by his own top executives
August 23, 2023 // In what he called a preliminary ruling from the bench, Chief Judge Eric F. Melgren, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas, upheld a June 2 decision by the union’s top executives to remove Jones as president. “As of that day, Mr. Jones was removed from office,” Melgren said. The judge said he would issue a final, written ruling on the issue within the week. After the hearing, members of the union’s executive council said they’d unanimously elected former International Vice President Warren Fairley, who retired in February, to be the union’s new leader.