Posts tagged Utah
Guest column: Union democracy? Not so much
May 21, 2024 // The AFL-CIO Philadelphia Council announced GET-UP may be Philadelphia’s largest private sector union. Nonetheless, GET-UP did not secure — as some overzealous headlines suggest — an “overwhelming majority.” Yes, the 1,807-to-97 vote to unionize was undoubtedly one-sided. However, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) reported 4,003 eligible voters, meaning only 45 percent of the total workforce supported unionization. Other reports suggest a lower denominator of 3,700 voters. Even then, that’s only 48 percent — clearly less than “the majority of the employees in a unit” seemingly described in the National Labor Relations Act. Yet, due to federal court decisions that strayed from the statutory text long ago, UAW only needed a simple majority
My Congressional Testimony: Flexible Benefits for a Flexible Workforce
April 17, 2024 // My testimony today focuses on legalizing independent contractors’ access to fringe benefits. My three key points are: 1. Independent contractors lives would be enhanced if they had access to benefits. 2. States are experimenting with various portable benefits models so that workers care not forced to choose between structured employment with benefits or flexible work without benefits. 3. Federal policy can provide a safe harbor for state and local experimentation with these portable benefits systems.
‘You better be ready for a fight’: Labor union warns Legislature not to target worker’s rights in Utah
March 6, 2024 // Pushback by Utah’s labor unions was enough to derail a pair of bills that aggressively targeted workers during this year’s legislative session. A show of force from Utah’s labor unions likely played a big hand in the outcome. HB429 sought to eliminate career path protections for new state employees, reclassifying them as “at will.” Right now, after a 6-month probationary period, state workers can only be fired “for cause.” The bill squeaked through the House of Representatives on a close vote, but died in a Senate committee after hundreds of Union members showed up in person to oppose the bill.
Albany Starbucks Employees Seek Vote to Kick Out SBWU Union
March 1, 2024 // Dowey and her colleagues join Starbucks partners and other coffee company employees across the country in banding together to vote out SBWU union officials. In the past year, Starbucks employees in Manhattan, NY; two Buffalo, NY locations; Pittsburgh, PA; Bloomington, MN; Salt Lake City, UT; Greenville, SC; Oklahoma City, OK; San Antonio, TX; and Philadelphia, PA, have all sought free Foundation legal aid in filing or defending decertification petitions at the NLRB. Foundation attorneys have helped employees at independent Philadelphia coffee shops Good Karma Café and Ultimo Coffee successfully oust Workers United union officials, who are affiliated with SBWU. Many employees of Starbucks or other coffee establishments are requesting decertification votes from the NLRB roughly one year after union bosses attained power in their workplaces, which is the earliest opportunity afforded by federal law to do so.
Workers at an employee-owned Utah grocery vote to unionize, citing ‘unsustainable’ conditions
February 14, 2024 // A bill moving through the Utah Legislature would add requirements for public unions and prohibit them from using public money or public property for union activities, including organizing and paying for union leave hours. HB285, authored by State Rep. Jordan Teuscher, R-South Jordan, passed to the House floor on an 8-4 vote in late January after a two-hour hearing where most public comment was against the bill. The federal statistics on union membership do not differentiate between public-sector workers and private-sector employees.
Trulieve cannabis agricultural workers in Phoenix vote to unionize
February 2, 2024 //
UTAH: Is it ‘union busting’? Bill moves to House floor, over worker objections
January 29, 2024 // The bill, which Teuscher called a “compromise,” would require labor unions that represent public-sector employees to recertify every five years, and would prohibit public employers from deducting union dues from paychecks unless union members “affirmatively” opt in every year. The bill, if enacted, would also prohibit unions or their members from using “public money or property from union organizing or union activity.”
Breeze Flight Attendants Take Next Step in Unionizing
January 24, 2024 // The move comes nearly two weeks after Breeze flight attendants announced their organizing campaign. Some of the reasons why Breeze flight attendants said they wanted to unionize included issues with pay, a lack of hotel accommodations when away from bases, a changing set of workplace rules, and “disrespectful treatment from management.” “Breeze Flight Attendants are proud of their work as aviation’s first responders and they are ready to lock in a real voice at their growing airline,” AFA International President Sara Nelson said in a statement. “Flight Attendants are not wasting any time organizing for legal rights on the job and a secure future at Breeze with a union contract. We’re with them all the way.”
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.”
Unions fear ceding members in Defense Health Agency reorganization
August 22, 2023 // “Who am I to come in and say ‘you’re now in my union?’” he said. Some members have also questioned the structure of the units, saying markets force together facilities that group different military services, chains of command and cultures, even if the employees share job duties, management and working environments. “Whenever there’s a big reorganization like this, the FLRA needs to certify appropriate bargaining units,” Friday said. “But it doesn’t have to be the most appropriate bargaining units. There can be other workable configurations. And so here’s a question of trying to find something that comports, to some extent, with the agency structure, but also [with] NFFE’s goal that would also allow us to represent as many of our folks as we can.” The Colorado market, for example, is comprised of four treatment facilities and several medical clinics located in Colorado and Utah.