Posts tagged unionizing
Warner Recognizes Unionization for WB Animation, Cartoon Network Production Workers
December 9, 2023 // While originally aiming to cover 66 WBA workers and 22 Cartoon Network personnel, the recognized unit currently only covers 50 workers. Of those initial 88, 6 were excluded due to promotion and 10 were laid off. The animation production jobs now officially unionized are: Production Manager, Digital Production Assistant, Production Assistant Production Coordinator, IT Technician, Design Production Coordinator, Assistant Production Manager, Sr. Assistant Production Manager, and Creative Production Assistant.
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%.
Wages are rising. Jobs are plentiful. Nobody’s happy.
November 21, 2023 //
Franchisors may be more liable for employees under broadened joint employer rule
October 26, 2023 // The National Labor Relations Board just issued a final labor rule that broadens the joint employer rule to make companies jointly liable with their franchisees for labor terms and conditions such as union contracts, pay, scheduling, and more, reviving an Obama-era rule that was limited in scope during the Trump Administration. Moving forward, franchisors will likely need to become more involved in creating and enforcing workplace policies, something that previously was left mainly up to franchisees. According to the National Labor Relations Board, this is a legal course correction back to the way the joint employer rule originally worked. Related: Appeal of McDonald's joint employer settlement denied by Labor board “The Board’s new joint-employer standard reflects both a legally correct return to common-law principles and a practical approach to ensuring that the entities effectively exercising control over workers’ critical terms of employment respect their bargaining obligations under the NLRA,” NLRB chairman Lauren McFerran said in a statement. “While the final rule establishes a uniform joint-employer standard, the board will still conduct a fact-specific analysis on a case-by-case basis to determine whether two or more employers meet the standard.” Trade organizations and business groups have pushed back against the ruling, with the National Restaurant Association and Restaurant Law Center, stating that it will “create chaos and legal questions” across the industry, as restaurants with franchisees try to figure out how to change their operational policies to fit the new rule. Related: NLRB to rule on joint employer status by summer “Today’s final rule on joint employer is a heavy blow to small business restaurant operators,” Sean Kennedy, executive vice president for Public Affairs at the National Restaurant Association said in a statement, adding that almost one-third of the restaurant industry would be affected by this rule. “The rule upends employment policy, adopting a far-fetched definition of ‘employer’ based on ‘indirect or potential influence’ of an employee and then fails to define how ‘indirect control’ will count toward a joint employer relationship.” The previous rule, which was finalized by the Department of Labor under the Trump administration in Jan. 2020, adopted a four-part test for assessing whether a company is a joint employer of another company’s workers, like the franchisor-franchisee relationship. Previously, companies were given joint employer status if they exercised “direct and immediate control” over the key terms of another organization's employees, like a franchisee. Now, that definition has been expanded to companies jointly classified as "sharing or co-determining” employment terms (like pay, scheduling, workplace rules, etc.).
Perdue workers vote against unionizing, union appeals alleged election interference
October 24, 2023 // After workers at Perdue AgriBusiness in Salisbury voted to not unionize, a call to overturn the vote has been made with the National Labor Relations Board claiming Perdue interfered with the election. Perdue workers in Salisbury voted 21 to 17 in favor of not unionizing during an election held Sept. 28 and 29, according to spokespeople from Perdue and the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 27 Union.
Abortion workers, crushed by restrictions and buoyed by labor movement, are unionizing
October 16, 2023 // It’s hard to know exactly how many reproductive healthcare workers are affected, but there are indicators that organizing is picking up steam as restrictions proliferate. Of the dozen Planned Parenthood affiliates that have unionized in total, a third voted to do so since Roe fell. These serve patients in Washington, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and California, all of which have seen an influx of patients traveling from states with restrictions.
Did SkyWest fire two flight attendants for unionizing, or for posting colleagues’ personal data?
September 28, 2023 // hane Price and Tresa Grange were already recognized leaders of an effort to organize with a union, outside of SkyWest’s flight attendant union, SkyWest Inflight Association (SIA), when Price said he “stumbled upon” the voting credentials of his fellow flight attendants. His colleagues’ personal information, including unique voting codes, was on an unprotected website for anybody to see if they knew where to look, he said. (On Monday, SIA’s website was down, listed as “under construction.”) “The website that SIA created had all of that information available to the public,” Price said. “It wasn’t even password-protected.”
First Faculty Unions Form at Two Maryland Community Colleges
September 7, 2023 // Before passage of the 2021 collective bargaining law, some employee groups were already organized at the Community College of Baltimore County, Montgomery College, and Prince George’s Community College. There are additional faculty organizing efforts by AFT-Maryland underway now at the Community College of Baltimore County and Prince George’s Community College.
It’s getting easier for workers to unionize. One simple chart shows the new steps.
August 28, 2023 // In a new ruling, the National Labor Relations Board laid out what will now happen if employers trying illegal union-busting activity. If workers want a union, and employers use illegal tactics in the run-up to a union election that could compromise the election — like firing union organizers, or retaliating against workers engaging in protected union activities — the new rules says workers no longer have to hold a fresh election. Workers will instead automatically get their union and employers will have to bargain with them.
NLRB restores Obama-era rule speeding up union election process
August 25, 2023 // The U.S. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on Thursday finalized procedural changes that will speed up the union election process, which have been criticized by business groups for favoring organized labor. The Democrat-led board's rule restores changes to the election process that were adopted during the Obama administration and largely eliminated in 2019 when appointees of Republican former President Donald Trump led the board. Among the key provisions of the new rule are a requirement that elections be held before related litigation is resolved. Under the Trump-era regulation, the board had to rule on issues such as workers' eligibility to vote and alleged unlawful conduct by employers before holding an election.