Posts tagged public-sector employees
TEXAS: Government Collection of Union Dues | Fast Facts
November 17, 2024 // "The proper role of government is to preserve life, liberty, and property—not to act as a dues collector."
Right-to-Work law repeal more than doubles federal complaints
July 24, 2024 // Since February, the number of cases filed with the National Labor Relations Board has doubled the total for last year, according to one advocate for workers. The National Right to Work Foundation says it fielded over 27 inquiries concerning workers’ rights in the last six months, and it has filed 10 cases with the federal agency. In 2022, the foundation filed six complaints on behalf of workers in Michigan. It filed four in 2023 but has filed at least 10 as of July 18. A foundation employee said that another 10 are likely.
Ranking Member Cassidy Blasts DOL Retaliating Against Florida, Illegally Withholding Federal Dollars on Behalf of Labor Unions
June 7, 2024 // U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, blasted the Department of Labor (DOL) for illegally withholding $800 million in federal funding from the State of Florida as retaliation against the state’s recent efforts to protect workers from union coercion and abuse. This illegal action has serious implications for other states that are considering similar legislation.
VERMONT: Phil Scott allows ‘ghost guns,’ union organizing bills to become law without his signature
June 5, 2024 // To allow a bill to go into law without a signature is a middle-ground approach available to the governor — in between striking it down with a veto and endorsing it with a signature. Scott holds the record for issuing the most gubernatorial vetoes in state history: 46. “One concern with the bill is the potential to adversely impact the employer-employee relationship by limiting an employer’s ability to communicate their point of view on a range of issues, including the advantages and disadvantages of unionization,” he wrote. Scott in his letter also said he is “concerned that S.102 is a slippery slope to future disruptions in the employee-employer relationship in agriculture, domestic services and independent contracting as well as any local businesses and non-profits working solely within state lines.”
Union representing Maryland state employees opens ranks to supervisors
May 7, 2024 // he legislation applies only to front-level supervisors who do daily supervision of staff and perform similar duties to the people they oversee including, for example, nurse supervisors at state hospitals or lieutenants at a state prisons. It does not apply to state employees in managerial positions who have the ability to hire, fire and make departmental decisions.
Half of Massachusetts residents support legalizing teachers’ strikes
April 22, 2024 // Massachusetts state leaders have said they have no appetite for changing Massachusetts law to make it legal for public teachers to go on strike, but public opinion is more on the union side. In a new CommonWealth Beacon/GBH News poll, 50% of state residents favored legalizing teachers’ strikes, while 34% said strikes should remain illegal, and 16% said they were unsure or did not answer (toplines, crosstabs). The survey, conducted by the MassINC Polling Group, comes on the heels of strikes in five Massachusetts school districts over the last two years. It is illegal for public sector employees to strike in the state, but that hasn’t stopped a wave of walkouts signaling a more militant posture on the part of teachers’ unions. The longest – and most recent – strike closed schools in Newton for two weeks in late January and early February.
Alphabet Soup: NLRB, NMB, FMCS
April 4, 2024 // This is the third in a series of introductory guides to help you navigate the alphabet soup of federal labor and employment agencies. Throughout the federal government, there is agency overlap and the pendulum often swings with each new President in the White House. Ultimately, the general framework for each agency’s mission and the statutes they enforce remains little changed. Below is an introductory guide to the National Labor Relations Board, National Mediation Board, and Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service to help you better understand their missions and mandates.
UTAH: Is it ‘union busting’? Bill moves to House floor, over worker objections
January 29, 2024 // The bill, which Teuscher called a “compromise,” would require labor unions that represent public-sector employees to recertify every five years, and would prohibit public employers from deducting union dues from paychecks unless union members “affirmatively” opt in every year. The bill, if enacted, would also prohibit unions or their members from using “public money or property from union organizing or union activity.”
Maine’s labor movement sees big shift from small unions
December 7, 2023 // While overall union membership rates have fallen with closures of big unionized companies, the heart of Maine’s union movement is still beating, in part thanks to employees at small workplaces organizing at higher rates. These new unionized workers still face risks without the support of large collective action, but there are some advantages, too. And workers like Blackstock are coming to believe that the pros offset any cons. Unions formed at textile factories, paper mills, aircraft manufacturer Pratt & Whitney, Bath Iron Works and Portsmouth Naval Shipyard – “the biggest blue-collar sectors” at the time, Hillard said. Many still exist today. That trend lasted through the 1950s, when union membership rates peaked nationwide at 35%.
Elisabeth Messenger: Where Do Your Union Dues Go?
September 1, 2023 // I think when a union can stay very independent and hyper-local, it can be what it was meant to be, and that is a force to speak for all, to help all, to protect all, to raise all at the same time. But again, it’s only when it’s independent it’s not tied to a national, bloated corporate union. And it’s only when it’s at the local level.