Posts tagged violence
Union concerned as prisons report increased violence
August 19, 2025 // The St. Louis Correctional Facility is in the central part of Michigan and can house more than 1,100 inmates. Operated by the Michigan Department of Corrections, the facility is currently designated a level IV facility. In the MDOC system, prisons are categorized by security levels I through V, with level V being maximum security. A level IV facility typically houses prisoners considered high risk for violence, escape, or disruptive behavior, with many serving long sentences. MCO is calling for action to protect the facility’s correction officers.
Corrections officers union rips into NYS report on wildcat strike at prisons
August 11, 2025 // The union says that includes serious issues like forced overtime and limited PTO options for corrections officers, a significant increase in internal prison violence, and other conditions which the union says caused the illegal job action. They say it stems a frustration boiling over point for their members including claims that no one in Albany was really listening to their concerns even when they came from DOCCS Commissioner who was himself grilled by some lawmakers in hearings.
Jennifer Abruzzo Wants Workers to Fight Back
May 14, 2025 // On May 5, Workday Magazine interviewed Abruzzo, who has since returned to the Communications Workers of America, as a senior advisor to the president. We talked about how protected concerted activity can include Gaza protests, why it’s a shame that domestic workers and farm workers are excluded from the National Labor Relations Act, and what workers can do to fight back in the Trump era. “It’s up to the people to actually use their power and flex their muscles in order to get the changes that they deem are appropriate,” she says, “so that they can live the lives that they deserve with dignity and respect.
Marshall mum on Senator Hawley’s Pro-Worker framework
March 11, 2025 // According to Vincent Vernuccio, president of the Institute of the American Worker, the Pro-Worker Framework has been largely lifted straight from the PRO Act. “I mean, now I guess the question is, do you refer to most of these provisions as the PRO Act, or do you refer to them as the Pro Act and the Hawley framework?” Vernuccio said in a phone interview. “Because it looks like Senator (Josh) Hawley from Missouri is copying and pasting a bunch of sections into his new framework.” Vernuccio said only one bill related to this has been introduced so far — the “Faster Labor Contracts Act S.844,” which, among other things, deals with government-imposed contracts by binding arbitration — but the Framework has several other provisions indicating that the concepts are copied and pasted directly from the PRO Act.
California Transportation Worker Files Lawsuit Challenging Constitutionality of National Labor Relations Board
June 17, 2024 // Lawsuit joins challenges by three other employees against NLRB on grounds that structure of agency violates Article II of the Constitution
10 biggest labor strikes in U.S. history
September 4, 2023 //
Are salaried workers required to cross a picket line during a labor strike? What happens.
August 23, 2023 // "If (nonunion workers) refuse to follow the direction they’ve been given by management, they could potentially lose their job if the company wanted to take such drastic measures," Kaminski said. "They could be fired for refusing to accept an assignment." ◾ Sympathy strikers can be permanently replaced, Kaminski said. Depending on their rank in an organization, some will retain the right to be put on a preferred recall list for a limited period of time. Many people consider being fired and being permanently replaced as the same, though technically different, Kaminski said.
Who’s on strike and who’s close? Labor unions are flexing
August 8, 2023 // Recent decades suggest there won’t be a strike at more than one at once. UAW (United Auto Workers) typically picks one “target” at which to focus negotiations and possibly strike and then demand that the other two unionized automakers agree to the same “pattern” deal. That one really has the chance to hurt the Democrats since the union is very upset about the auto industry plans to shift to EVs (electric vehicles). They see EVs as a jobs killer because of so many fewer parts – it takes about one-third fewer jobs to build an EV than an internal combustion engine (ICE) car. And many of the EV jobs are at battery plants being built nationwide right now, but which are joint ventures between the automakers and foreign battery companies, and thus not guaranteed to be unionized. Even if those battery plants end up with a union, it’s not clear the joint venture will agree to UAW-level wages. The one UAW-represented plant in Ohio pays roughly half of what workers are paid at an engine or transmission plant owned by one of the Big Three (US automakers) and represented by the UAW.
Wabtec sues union, seeks injunction aimed at conduct of striking workers on picket line
August 3, 2023 // Since the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America went on strike on June 22, according to Wabtec's motion, the striking workers have, among other things, used racist and homophobic slurs against non-striking employees entering and leaving the plant, damaged employees' personal vehicles, blocked the plant's gates and subjected the plant to two phoned-in bomb threats. Wabtec sued the UE in asking for the injunction. "Wabtec has made consistent efforts to address the Union's unlawful and dangerous picket activity with the Union and its counsel, but the activity has persisted and most recently escalated, amounting to an unlawful seizure of the Wabtec facility," according to Wabtec's motion.