Posts tagged North Carolina
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.
Opinion: An educator is leading NC’s battered ranks of teachers to unionize
July 31, 2023 // After two years of pushing unionization as a volunteer, Mangrum has taken a part-time, paid consulting role with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the nation’s second largest teachers union with 1.7 million members. Her job is to explore the union’s potential to organize a significant share of the state’s 94,000 public school teachers. “We have members across the state,” Magnum said. “Two years ago we didn’t have any.” Just how many, she wouldn’t say, but she allowed that it’s more than 100
Say No to Julie Su as Labor Secretary
July 25, 2023 // She also established a Criminal Investigation Unit, consisting of a specialized labor police force that would be deputized against businesses.
Kansas City, KS-based union in turmoil as execs head to court over president’s ouster
June 15, 2023 // The Kansas City, Kansas-based union filed a civil suit against three of its executives, requesting a temporary restraining order to prohibit the removal of International President Newton Jones after they issued a finding that Jones misused union funds for personal gain. Jones is refusing to step down, denying any wrongdoing and contending the officers had no authority to remove him. A hearing on the restraining order is scheduled for 10 a.m. June 20 in the federal courthouse in Kansas City, Kansas. Chief Judge Eric F. Melgren, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas, will hear the case. Jones, 69, also filed internal disciplinary charges against the three international vice presidents who removed him and another who brought forth the allegations, saying the four violated the union’s constitution. The remaining international vice president has sided with Jones against the others.
Boilermakers union president ousted after claims of ‘shocking’ corruption
June 7, 2023 // The action to remove Jones comes as a federal criminal investigation into the Kansas City-based union’s activities is underway, The Kansas City Star has learned. Several sources confirmed that they have been interviewed by the FBI in recent weeks. The union’s executive committee found that Jones ordered the union to pay his wife, Kateryna, more than $100,000 plus benefits “for apparently no union purpose while she was living in the Ukraine” and spent more than $20,000 in union funds for flights to Ukraine “to visit his wife and to go to the home which he owns in the Ukraine.” Jones and his wife also turned in about $40,000 in receipts for meals in North Carolina — some “quite lavish and expensive” — with no justification for the expenses.
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders hosts rally in Durham to raise minimum wage
June 2, 2023 // Sanders addressed the crowd of supporters virtually because of the debt ceiling vote. Right now, the minimum wage in North Carolina is $7.25. Sanders hopes to raise the minimum wage to $17 an hour. The rally to raise the wage tour will continue over the next couple of days and will make stops in Nashville, TN and Charleston, S.C.
REI Workers in North Carolina Go on Strike, Protest Unfair Labor Practices
May 5, 2023 // REI workers at a store in Durham, N.C. are going on strike to protest management’s response to their unionization efforts. Employees at the store filed a petition for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on April 13 to be represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) Local 1208. They said they are striking because of an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) charge they filed against management, citing “illegal discipline of workers who are involved in the union organization efforts,” a release said. According to a release, REI put an active union organizer on “‘administrative leave’ without clear information about his status.” The employees are also calling on management to “cease manipulating the election process.”
In NC, no worker has to join a union. My constitutional amendment will keep it that way.
April 21, 2023 // The ability to work freely without coercion is an integral part of our workforce ethos in North Carolina. We have been a right-to-work state since 1947, and the facts show that this status has benefited our workers and helped grow our economy. Right-to-work refers to the ability of workers to choose whether or not they want to join and pay dues to a labor union. In other words, workers are not coerced into joining a union by being required to pay dues as a condition of employment. Instead, people have the ability to choose whether or not they wish to join a union when seeking a job in which the employer is affiliated with a union. In the words of national labor expert F. Vincent Vernuccio, senior policy advisor with Workers for Opportunity, “Right-to-work simply means a union cannot get a worker fired for not paying them.”
50-state report: GOP-led states are in best economic condition
April 13, 2023 // “The states that followed the free market formula of keeping taxes low and keeping regulations limited, empowering workers, empowering taxpayers across the board are the fastest growing states in America,” Williams said.