Posts tagged Public Sector
CELEBRATING THE HISTORIC JANUS DECISION FIVE YEARS LATER
June 27, 2023 //
32 Knowledge Tracker How New York’s Democratic Socialists Brought Unions Around to Public Renewables
June 20, 2023 // ince they did not initially have access to state-level union leaders, the DSA organizers started by building relationships with local utilities unions across the state. Public Power New York recruited hundreds of volunteers to help steer the victories of numerous DSA-endorsed state legislators in 2020 and 2022. One successful candidate was climate organizer Sarahana Shrestha, now a state assemblymember from the Hudson Valley. She unseated her long-tenured Democratic primary opponent, in part, by highlighting his opposition to the BPRA. The bill began to move in Albany in a real way when unions outside of the utilities sector, like the New York State United Teachers, the New York State Nurses Association, and the Service Employees International Union, endorsed the bill. Once the bill passed the state Senate in the summer of 2022, the utilities unions took a more serious interest in the plan. The BPRA’s labor provisions include prevailing-wage assurances and require that all the NYPA’s renewable projects include collective-bargaining agreements for every employee, including contractors and subcontractors. These agreements must be in place before work can start on a project. The law creates a $25 million just-transition fund to retrain fossil fuel–sector workers who could lose their jobs, and specifies that union leaders must be consulted in this process. It also prioritizes hiring these retrained workers for the NYPA’s renewable projects.
Opinion: Connecticut Business Sickened by Bad LABOR BILLS
June 6, 2023 // Two pernicious bills, S.B. 6668 and S.B. 1178, mandate expanded paid sick time for employees of small businesses. If passed, the General Assembly would effectively be functioning as a labor union, completely ignoring their obligation to taxpayers. The language in both bills is almost identical, with S.B. 1178 expanding the way employees can utilize paid sick leave beyond their immediate family. The bill requires employers to allow for paid time off for employees to care for someone the employees themselves determine “whose close association with the employee is the equivalent of any such family relationship.”
‘Right to Organize’ Amendment Violates Constitution
May 19, 2023 //
Grand Rapids TerryBerry Workers Vote to Remove Unwanted Machinists Union from Workplace
May 16, 2023 // Mary Soltysiak and her coworkers at TerryBerry Company filed for a decertification vote on April 14, 2023, with free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys. Her decertification petition contained signatures of a majority of the employees in the unit. Soltysiak has been under the protections of the Michigan Right to Work law since 2018. Under federal labor law, workers can trigger such a decertification vote with the support of 30% of workers in a unionized workplace. The NLRB should then promptly schedule a secret ballot election to determine whether a majority of workers want to end union officials’ power to impose a contract, including forced dues, on workers. The NLRB scheduled a vote for May 15, 2023. On May 15, TerryBerry employees made their position on the union clear, voting to remove the union from their workplace. Barring any objections by union officials that seek to overturn the vote, the workers will be officially free of the union in one week.
New York: Union Pressure Aims to Hit Home
May 10, 2023 // The bill (S6477) was filed last month by Senate Civil Service and Pensions committee chair Robert Jackson. It would let the unions representing government workers request each person’s home address and subject employers to penalties if they don’t turn it over. In his bill memo, Jackson falsely claims this information is “necessary to represent their members under the duty of fair representation,” under the state’s public-sector collective bargaining law, the Taylor Law. The unions, however, have no legal or other obligation to contact someone who has chosen not to pay them. Those workers, among other things, don’t get to vote on union contracts or the union officers who negotiate on their behalf. The interest here is strictly financial: New York’s largest public employee unions have shrunk since 2018 due to both a reduction in public employment and people choosing not to join after the U.S. Supreme Court held they couldn’t be forced to pay a union. The rate of union membership in state government slid from 89 percent in 2018 to 85 percent last year.
Hunter Tower: Is Pittsburgh a blueprint for other union-dominated blue cities?
May 1, 2023 // SEIU leaders now hold key posts in Gainey’s administration. Silas Russell, SEIU Healthcare executive vice president and political director, co-chaired Gainey’s transition team. Maria Montano, former SEIU Healthcare communications director, is now Gainey’s press secretary. And Lisa Frank, former SEIU vice president and director of strategic communications, is now the city of Pittsburgh’s chief operating officer. Emails uncovered through right-to-know requests by CBS Pittsburgh reveal that Russell provided the mayor with union-generated talking points ahead of a meeting last year with UPMC officials.
PA labor unions push to expand power at hearing
April 28, 2023 // The hearing included a panel of four supporters, a mix of union leaders and members; there was just one citizen invited for the opposition panel. Rep. Jason Dawkins (D-Philadelphia), who opened the hearing, set the tone: “We were dead set serious when we talked about this committee becoming serious about these issues. We are no longer going to ignore the elephant in the room.” He added, “We deserve better, our workers deserve better, and our workers deserve the opportunity for fair wages and fair safety standards in our communities and our workplaces.” Later, Dawkins informed AFL-CIO Pennsylvania President, Angela Ferritto, that he is on her side, “One thing I can assure you …we will not have any anti-union bills in this committee as long as I am chairman.” Rep. Nick Pisciottano (D-Allegheny) also praised unions during the hearing, claiming that unions are an example of democracy because “every single union was certified by majority vote” of union members and “every single labor official is elected by the voters that they represent.”
With Right to Work Repeal Coming, Michigan Workers Seek a Vote to End Union ‘Representation’ They Oppose
April 26, 2023 // TerryBerry Company employee Mary Soltysiak filed a petition for dozens of her coworkers with the National Labor Relations Board Region 7 (NLRB) seeking a vote to remove the International Association of Machinist of Aerospace Engineers (IAM) District Lodge 60/Local Lodge 475 union officials’ forced representation powers. This workers’ decertification petition comes in the wake of Michigan legislators ramming through a bill to repeal their state’s decade-old and highly popular Right to Work law. When the repeal law takes effect, union officials will once again have the power to force workers to pay up or be fired in workplaces where the union has forced “representation” powers. Mary Soltysiak and her coworkers at TerryBerry Company filed for a decertification vote on April 14, 2023, with free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys. Previously, she had been under the protections of the Michigan Right to Work law since 2018. Her decertification petition contained signatures of a majority of the employees in the unit. Under federal labor law, workers can trigger such a decertification vote with the support of 30% of workers in a unionized workplace.
Union membership declines in New York, other states
April 25, 2023 // A recent report by The74Million noted that overall union membership declined or barely increased in several states, despite growth in public-sector jobs in 2022. Because of the rapid public-sector job growth, public unions had a net increase of about 83,000 new members nationwide, maintaining membership rates at 33%. Most of the public-sector union membership rate growth was in California, which added 250,000 new government jobs and resulted in over 111,000 new union members. But other states did not follow California’s lead. The report said, “21 states and the District of Columbia lost 284,517 members, for a net decline of 28,021 outside of California. New York and Minnesota were the biggest losers.”