Posts tagged public-sector employees
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.
Va. firefighters, medics press city for union rights
August 2, 2023 // Virginia Beach is considering collective bargaining for its employees and officers. In 2020, Portsmouth was the first Hampton Roads city to authorize collective bargaining for city employees thanks to a unanimous City Council vote. The resolution at the time called for a working group of city leaders and subject matter experts to explore procedures on how to make it happen when the law became effective the following year. But City Council reversed course when that time came after then-Chief Financial Officer Mimi Terry, now interim city manager, informed members that such efforts would likely cost the city $2 million to begin the process while limiting expansion of other services. The council then adopted a resolution to no longer grant employees the ability to collectively bargain.
Conservative Supreme Court hands down a rare pro-union decision
June 5, 2023 // Unlike appearing before lower courts, lawyers at the Supreme Court not only argue the application of the law, but also “what the law should be” because the justices can overturn precedent. The Ohio decision, he said, is important because it reinforces “the rights of federal-sector unions to exist and to collectively bargain and to work in a civilian capacity.”
Four states advance bills prohibiting union dues deductions
April 21, 2023 //
National Right to Work Foundation Issues Special Legal Notice to Rutgers Professors Impacted by Union Officials’ Strike Order
April 13, 2023 // In regards to union members, the Foundation’s notice informs workers that they maintain the right to resign from union membership at any time. The notice also suggests, if employees wish to continue working during the strike and avoid union discipline such as fines, that current union members resign their union membership at least one full day before returning to work. “It is Foundation attorneys’ best legal opinion that public sector employees have the right to resign their membership in a union at any time. At least two federal district courts have reached that conclusion,” mentions the notice. “If you are now a union member and want to work during the strike, you should seriously consider resigning your union membership at least one day, if not more, BEFORE you return to work during the strike.” “By initiating a strike that affects thousands of Rutgers employees, these union bosses are not only threatening the education of students, but are also potentially upending the livelihoods of countless families,” commented National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation President Mark Mix. “Rutgers professors should know that they have the right to reject union boss strike orders and can continue working.”
Union to Defense Chief: You Aren’t Using Your Own Employees Enough to Help Meet Global Threats
April 4, 2023 // AFGE called on the Biden administration and Congress to align the Federal Wage System’s locality pay map with that of the General Schedule and advance legislation to improve Defense Department civilian police pay. elley called for the Biden administration to waive laws that AFGE claims favor non-competitive contracts, as well as reform the compensation of tens of thousands of underpaid Defense Department employees. Specifically, AFGE renewed its call for the Biden administration to align the locality pay map of employees on the Federal Wage System, commonly called wage grade workers, to that of the General Schedule. At issue is the fact that, unlike the General Schedule’s locality pay areas, which are tweaked on a nearly annual basis to account for changing regional costs of living and commuting patterns, the Federal Wage System’s map is still based mostly on a decades-old map of domestic military bases and other facilities.