Posts tagged safety
A year after vote, Portsmouth city workers demand progress on collective bargaining
December 14, 2024 // Council members Mark Hugel and Vernon Tillage said City Council has been reviewing the draft ordinance, with Hugel adding that the next move is a closed session to finetune details before a vote. Tillage said a vote isn’t expected until after the newly elected council is sworn in. Virginia was one of a few states with a blanket ban on collective bargaining for public sector employees until 2020, when the Democrat-controlled General Assembly enacted a new law, effective 2021, punting the final say to localities.
SEPTA and unions reach contract agreement, avoiding a strike in the Philadelphia region
November 21, 2024 // SEPTA and the unions representing suburban and city transit workers have come to a tentative 1-year agreement, avoiding a transit strike in the Philadelphia region. Action News has learned Wednesday that the agreement includes a 5% wage increase, as well as a pension increase. However, there were no concessions to healthcare. They also made "significant improvements" in safety, including a pilot program on eight buses for bulletproof enclosures around drivers.
U.S. port, union talks break down again over automation, with two months to go before potential strike
November 13, 2024 // USMX says the use of semi-automated cranes, already at many ports, is critical to future supply chain demands. The International Longshoremen's Association, which is not publicly commenting, has said in the recent past that the union wants new contract language to clearly state that "no automation means no automation."
Classes canceled on Tuesday as teachers in 3 Mass. communities remain on strike
November 12, 2024 // Classes will be canceled Tuesday throughout public schools in Gloucester, Beverly and Marblehead, as negotiations between the teachers unions and school committees continue with no deal reached as of Monday evening. Teachers in the three North Shore communities returned to the bargaining table on Monday as they enter the first full week of a teachers strike.
PHILADELPHIA: SEPTA workers unanimously authorize strike
October 29, 2024 // SEPTA workers in the Transport Workers Union Local 234 -- which represents more than 5,300 employees -- announced on Sunday morning that it has authorized a strike, unless they can reach a deal with management by midnight on Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. In a statement released around lunchtime on Sunday, union officials said that a "large gathering" of workers met for a special meeting and all in attendance voted to authorize the strike.
“Warehouse Worker Protection Act” Reintroduced with Bipartisan Support
October 2, 2024 // The bill imposes restrictions on employers’ use of productivity quotas to measure workers’ performance or output and includes substantial notice requirements to workers on the use of such quotas, discipline for failing to meet the quotas, and workers’ rights under the act, among other things. It mandates breaks for covered workers and recordkeeping obligations for employers. The WWPA also requires the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to issue two new rulemakings and creates a new category of unfair labor practices under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). It also expands the federal bureaucracy by creating a Quota Task Force as well as the Fairness and Transparency Office within the Department of Labor. This legislation is a thinly-veiled attack on large companies like Amazon that the Democratic Party and labor organizations do not support. The original sponsors of the WWPA were Senators Markey, Bob Casey (D-PA), and Tina Smith (D-MN). The cosponsors now include Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Laphonza Butler (D-CA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Hawley, Alex Padilla (D-CA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Peter Welch (D-VT).
US labor watchdog pressures Trader Joe’s to bargain with New York union
September 26, 2024 // The general counsel of the US’s top labor watchdog is seeking an order demanding that Trader Joe’s recognize and bargain with the union, Trader Joe’s United, amid allegations that employees were threatened and disparaged from unionizing. Under a framework introduced by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) last year, employers can be ordered to bargain with a union if they commit unfair labor practices that would set aside the results of a union ballot.
Nearly 1,200 Boston hotel workers walk off the job in strike’s biggest wave
September 23, 2024 // The first wave of strikes began in Boston and eight other cities during the Labor Day weekend. To date, about 2,500 hotel workers from 12 Boston properties have walked off the job in three waves of three-day strikes. Workers from the first and second strike waves are employees of the Hilton Park Plaza, Hilton Boston Logan Airport, Hampton Inn & Homewood Suites at the Hilton Seaport, Fairmont Copley Plaza, The Dagny Boston, Moxy Boston Downtown, The Newbury Boston and the W Boston.
States are pushing back with anti-labor laws as union popularity grows, policy experts say
September 18, 2024 // Growing union organizing across the country has triggered an anti-labor legislative response in some states, but cities and counties are increasingly pushing back, a new report found. The report, released this month by the New York University Wagner Labor Initiative and Local Progress Impact Lab, a group for local elected officials focused on economic and racial justice issues, cites examples of localities all over the U.S. using commissions to document working conditions, creating roles for protecting workers in the heat and educating workers on their labor rights.
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.