Posts tagged police
Corrections officers union rips into NYS report on wildcat strike at prisons
August 11, 2025 // The union says that includes serious issues like forced overtime and limited PTO options for corrections officers, a significant increase in internal prison violence, and other conditions which the union says caused the illegal job action. They say it stems a frustration boiling over point for their members including claims that no one in Albany was really listening to their concerns even when they came from DOCCS Commissioner who was himself grilled by some lawmakers in hearings.
SeeThroughNY Updated With 1,000+ Latest Union Contracts
May 18, 2025 // New York’s most comprehensive online database of state and local government union contracts has been updated with the latest collective bargaining agreements for local teachers, police, firefighters, libraries, and public authorities. Among the 1,006 new local government and school district public employee union and employment contracts on SeeThroughNY.net, the Empire Center’s transparency website, are 126 public school teacher association contracts, 124 Superintendent contracts, 95 police contracts, and 18 firefighter contracts.
The AFL-CIO Doesn’t Need To Lobby — It Has Its Own Caucus Now
May 6, 2025 // It was billed as a press conference announcing a new legislative caucus — but the real headliners weren’t the lawmakers. When more than 30 Democratic legislators gathered on April 30 to unveil their “Blue Collar Caucus,” they quickly stepped aside and handed the microphone — and the spotlight — to Connecticut AFL-CIO President Ed Hawthorne and Building Trades President Joe Toner. The union bosses weren’t just there to show support — they were the main event, delivering lengthy remarks packed with labor talking points, many of which now appear in the caucus’s legislative agenda and are posted proudly on its website.
Salt Lake City reaches budget agreement with police union before new bill kicks in
April 22, 2025 // Groups opposed to the new law say they've gathered over 320,000 signatures to put it up for a referendum on next year's ballot. As of Friday, at least 33,000 of the signatures have been verified toward the qualifying requirement of about 141,000 signatures, which also includes a certain number of signatures in 15 of the state's 29 Senate districts.
Trump signs executive order to end collective bargaining at agencies involved with national security
March 27, 2025 // President Donald Trump moved Thursday to end collective bargaining with federal labor unions in agencies with national security missions across the federal government, citing authority granted him under a 1978 law. The order, signed without public fanfare and announced late Thursday, appears to touch most of the federal government. Affected agencies include the Departments of State, Defense, Veterans Affairs, Energy, Health and Human Services, Treasury, Justice and Commerce and the part of Homeland Security responsible for border security.
Unions prepare to fight Ohio bill that bans university faculty from striking
March 24, 2025 // The bill that would ban most mandatory diversity training in higher education is headed back to that chamber to approve changes the House made before passing it mostly along party lines. Republicans have said Senate Bill 1 would combat what they see as liberal indoctrination at public universities. But labor unions are ready to fight it. "This is really the the most significant undercutting of collective bargaining since that was attempted with Senate Bill 5 back in 2011," said Scott DiMauro, president of the Ohio Education Association, the state's largest teachers' union which represents K-12 teachers as well as some higher education faculty. Senate Bill 5 sought to restrict collective bargaining rights for 400,000 Ohioans in public sector unions, including teachers and law enforcement. Unions came out in force against it and then mounted a campaign to repeal the law, submitting a record 1.3 million signatures to put it on the fall 2011 ballot. Nearly two-thirds of voters approved overturning it.
Hundreds of Washington state Attorney General employees walk off job over proposed budget cuts
March 23, 2025 // “Any dollars cut from our funding impedes our ability to do our work, and it costs a lot more down the road,” Savage said. “That money now more than ever is necessary for us to protect not only Washingtonians but the most vulnerable within our populations.” The Attorney General’s Office has a budget of $671.5 million for 2023 to 2025, supporting a staff of 1,816 employees. Savage said the walkout was meant to send a clear message to lawmakers, who are ultimately responsible for finalizing the state’s budget. “We can’t strike like a typical government agency; we’re prevented from doing that,” she said. “The best we can do is a walkout to send a message to legislators that these cuts will cause more problems than they solve.”
UTAH, Opinion: Republicans Need to Learn Government Unions Can’t Be Trusted
March 3, 2025 // On Feb. 14, Gov. Spencer Cox signed a law I sponsored banning public-sector collective bargaining. This makes Utah the best state in the nation for protecting taxpayers and ensuring that government employees can negotiate their own employment terms. But this victory came only after fruitless attempts to work with government unions—efforts that exposed their pattern of saying one thing while doing another. In early 2024, I introduced a bill that would have required public-sector unions to hold regular recertification elections. As I argued at the time, unions representing teachers, firefighters and police should have to prove continuously that they represent a majority of workers. Taxpayers, too, have a stake: If a union doesn’t speak for most employees, why should the rest of the state be on the hook for its demands?
Utah Legislature bans collective bargaining for teachers unions and other public sector jobs
February 11, 2025 // “If there’s not going to be consensus, then let’s just run it on its face,” said Sen. Kirk Cullimore, the bill’s Senate sponsor. Labor experts say the proposal, which is headed to the governor’s desk, would establish one of the most restrictive labor laws in the country as Republicans seek to curb the political influence of teachers unions.
The Facts About U.S. Union Membership
January 29, 2025 // The total number of workers who are union members is 14.3 million. Of those, 7 million are public sector workers, so roughly half of U.S. union members work for the government. The National Education Association reported to the Department of Labor that it had 2.8 million members in 2024. The American Federation of Teachers reported 1.8 million members. That means 32 percent of all U.S. union members are in the two major teachers’ unions.