Posts tagged Rhode Island
Hotel workers in four US cities to hold strike authorization votes
July 25, 2024 // Workers at 125 hotels in the four cities have sought significant pay raises in new contracts to replace ones that have expired or will expire soon. They are also seeking better healthcare and pension plans and are looking for hotel operators to reverse pandemic-era staff and service cuts like daily room cleaning.
COMMENTARY: RHODE ISLAND: CAPTIVE-AUDIENCE MEETINGS FOR ME, BUT NOT FOR THEE
May 30, 2024 // Union leaders are rightfully concerned that hearing the truth will make employees much less likely to join. And they should know because captive audience meetings have long been a staple of the union playbook for decades. In leftist-dominated states throughout the country, lawmakers have passed legislation authorizing unions to meet with newly hired public employees to make an unchallenged sales pitch about union membership. In these sessions, unions have been caught lying, misleading, bullying, and intimidating people into signing away their Constitutional rights. Our government systems have been hijacked by unions for politicization and money laundering. This affects not just bureaucrats but educators, corrections officers, Department of Transportation workers, and public employees of every kind, who increasingly find their autonomy undercut by unscrupulous union practices.
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.
Will the Teachers’ Union Crush Education Opportunity in Connecticut?
March 5, 2024 // Ultimately, their reluctance to embrace opportunity scholarships forces one to question the priorities of those who lead the teachers’ union: Is it to teach children so they’re prepared to engage in the world and lead lives of dignity and purpose? Or, cynically, are union leaders afraid that if students opted for private schools, their coffers would receive less funding from local and state boards of education?
School District Lies—Goldwater Sues
February 6, 2024 // First, the district demanded $74,000 in public records fees from concerned mom Nicole Solas just to find out what her daughter would be learning in kindergarten. Then, the nation’s largest teachers union sued Nicole for filing those records requests—even though that’s what the district had asked her to do. Next, the district barred Nicole from attending secret meetings of the taxpayer-funded Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) Advisory Board, where the board developed policies for the district. And now the latest revelation, which came to light after the Goldwater Institute sued the district for violating Rhode Island’s Open Meetings Act: district officials didn’t just conduct BIPOC Advisory Board meetings behind closed doors, but they denied the very existence of public records regarding the board meetings when officials had those records in their possession.
Biden-backed wind power company cancels New Jersey projects despite $1B in subsidies
November 1, 2023 // Under the Inflation Reduction Act, renewable developers stand to receive tax credits of up to 30% for qualifying investments that use union labor, and more credits if the project meets additional criteria. White House spokesperson Michael Kikukawa said in a statement that “momentum remains on the side of an expanding US offshore wind industry,” despite the collapse of the Ocean Wind project. “While macroeconomic headwinds are creating challenges for some projects, momentum remains on the side of an expanding U.S. offshore wind industry — creating good-paying union jobs in manufacturing, shipbuilding, and construction; strengthening the power grid; and providing new clean energy resources for American families and businesses,” Kikukawa said.
Pharmacy staff from CVS, Walgreens stores in US start three-day walkout
October 31, 2023 // Some employees at CVS Health Corp (CVS.N) and Walgreens Boots Alliance's (WBA.O) U.S. pharmacies launched a three-day walkout starting Monday to push the companies to improve working conditions and add more staff to their stores. The walkout, which has been dubbed "Pharmageddon" on social media platforms such as Meta's Facebook where it was largely planned, started on Monday and led to the closing of some stores in New York City, two organizers told Reuters. Shane Jerominski, a former Walgreens pharmacist and one of the organizers of the walkout, told Reuters that as many as 5,000 pharmacy workers would walk out across the three days, but said that the exact number of affected stores and participating staff was not clear due to the lack of a union.
From Strikes to New Union Contracts, Labor Day’s Organizing Roots Are Especially Strong Across the Country This Year
September 5, 2023 // The first U.S. Labor Day celebration took place in New York City on Sept. 5, 1882. Some 10,000 workers marched in a parade organized by the Central Labor Union and the Knights of Labor. A handful of cities and states began to adopt laws recognizing Labor Day in the years that followed, yet it took more than a decade before President Grover Cleveland signed a congressional act in 1894 establishing the first Monday of September as a legal holiday.
Connecticut Public Sector Union Membership in Two-Year Decline
June 22, 2023 // Labor also benefitted after Connecticut legalized marijuana use by adults in 2021, as the legislation included a provision requiring retailers to obtain a labor peace agreement with a union before being awarded a license. Labor peace agreements are contracts made between an employer and a labor union with the former agreeing not to undermine the latter’s ability to organize the workforce in exchange for the union not to strike, picket or disrupt the employer’s business. Lawmakers always have the option of hiding labor bills in a budget as they did this past session by requiring grocery stores established in food deserts to enter into a labor peace agreement with a union in order to receive municipal tax abatements. Labor unions possess an inherent organizational and financial framework that grants them significant power in identifying candidates, mobilizing voters and promoting individuals who align with their interests, while having the necessary financial resources to achieve these objectives.