Posts tagged retention
PENNSYLVANIA: Nurses last week voted 402-305 to join the union.
August 28, 2025 // Nurses, elected officials and more will rally at 1pm today at Zulema Parklet, across from Magee, urging the health care giant to begin contract talks without further delays. Roughly 60 advanced practitioners at the hospital, from nurse practitioners to midwives, will hold their own union vote on Sept. 6 and 9.
Dash’s Market workers seek to unionize
July 6, 2025 // Workers United has been active in organizing employees at many Starbucks locations around the country, as well as workers at Spot Coffee. Dash’s Market, which reportedly employs about 500 workers, celebrated 100 years in the grocery industry in 2023. The company was founded by Joe Dash’s grandparents, and the family also operated as a franchisee of the Tops Friendly Markets chain for many years.
Union warns Trump’s rapid changes for wildland firefighters will be ‘disastrous,’
June 27, 2025 // The Forest Service said no full-time wildland firefighters were removed from their jobs as part of the Trump administration’s workforce reductions. But as wildfire season ramps up, the Forest Service is now asking 1,400 former employees with “red cards” — or those who are qualified wildland firefighters despite it not being their main job title — to come back to their jobs temporarily to help with response needs. In the meantime, NFFE is opening the doors to more feedback from its membership to better understand the pitfalls and the opportunities of consolidating the federal programs.

Trump accelerates push to reward loyalty in federal workforce
June 16, 2025 // Vinnie Vernuccio, president of the Institute for the American Worker and member of the transition team for the labor department in Trump’s first term, said that it is costly and time-consuming to try to fire workers, and a new rule to reclassify policy-related positions would make it easier for the administration to ensure their reforms aren’t hindered. “These career employees could throw sand in the gears for policies they don’t like,” Vernuccio said. Vernuccio added that the rule change would affect only career federal employees in policymaking roles, which OPM has estimated is about 50,000 positions, or about two percent of the Federal civilian workforce. “The sky is not going to fall,” Vernuccio said.
EMS workers in Detroit Lakes vote to unionize
May 12, 2025 // Emergency medical staff at Essentia in Detroit Lakes have voted to form a union. St. Mary’s Essentia Health Medical Service Staff is joining AFSCME Council 65. EMT Logyn Saewart says the vote was an overwhelming majority to join. As a privately-owned service, he says they don’t get the state funding other departments do. He says this will help address the labor shortage in his field.
Labor Day: Workers on Their Jobs
August 28, 2024 // *Satisfaction with pay and benefits always trail satisfaction with workplace environments. Today, negative assessments of the economy as a whole may be depressing attitudes on some job characteristics. Still, in Gallup’s latest, only 13 percent were very dissatisfied with what they earned. *Employed Americans are reasonably confident of their own job security. Those numbers dipped to a low point in the Great Recession but have been more positive since.
Two week ONA homecare and hospice nurse strike begins
February 12, 2024 // The rally featured speakers such as Eugene’s Mayor Lucy Vinis, United States Representative Val Hoyle, Oregon State Senator James Manning and Oregon House Majority Leader Julie Fahey to show their support.

Even the AFL-CIO has union troubles
October 20, 2023 // After staffers picketed in D.C. last week, and two days of talks this week, the AFL-CIO proposed a revised contract to the union on Tuesday. Their last deal expired back in February and the last proposal from the AFL-CIO, in September, was overwhelmingly rejected — 97% of members said no. A vote on the latest proposal is expected by early next week.
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.
Unions ‘sound the alarm’ over worsening staff attrition at SSA
April 12, 2023 // With what AFGE said is a lack of competitive pay and benefits, SSA lost almost 4,500 bargaining unit employees in fiscal 2022 — over 10% of AFGE’s total membership for SSA.