ORGANIZING
Marquette employees launch union organizing drive amid budget uncertainty and job cuts
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
By Kelly Meyerhofer
April 12, 2024
A group of more than 50 Marquette University employees have launched a union organizing drive in hopes of gaining federal recognition — allowing them to negotiate over wages, benefits and workplace conditions. The effort announced this week comes shortly after Marquette laid out plans to cut $31 million from its budget over the next seven years. "It just seems like we need this now more than ever," said Grant Gosizk, a union steering committee member who teaches in the university's English department. "There’s an amount of pressure to the campaign now that we haven't had for the past year or two. It’s been in the works for a long time, but now it seems essential."
JOINING TOGETHER
Variety
By Cynthia Littleton
April 14, 2024
Chris Keyser and David Goodman, the veteran showrunners who steered the five-month Writers Guild of America strike last year, warned guild members on Sunday to stay vigilant in a fast-changing business landscape despite the gains of last year’s historic labor action. “Though this strike is over, the fight goes on. If we take our eye off the ball, everything we gained can literally go away tomorrow,” Goodman told the crowd at the Writers Guild Awards at the Hollywood Palladium.
'Overworked, Underpaid': Flight Attendants Picket At Newark Airport
Patch
By Eric Kiefer
April 12, 2024
If an airline has the cash to give its executives a big pay bump, its employees also deserve a raise. This was the call from dozens of unionized flight attendants with United Airlines at a picket line outside Newark Airport on Thursday. As part of a national day of action held at airports across the U.S., the flight attendants held up signs reading “Pay Us Or Chaos” and chanted “Overworked, underpaid – pay us a living wage.”
Additional IATSE Locals Reach Tentative Deals on Craft-Specific Issues
The Hollywood Reporter
By Katie Kilkenny
April 12, 2024
Two more IATSE Locals — covering set lighting professionals and costume designers — have reached tentative agreements on craft-specific issues with Hollywood’s top studios and streamers. IATSE Local 728, whose members include lighting programmers and chief rigging technicians, reached a provisional deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on Thursday, IATSE announced on Friday. Meanwhile, on Tuesday the Costume Designers Guild (IATSE Local 892) announced on Instagram that it had also agreed to a tentative deal with the AMPTP.
Brightspeed union workers picket for better benefits
WDHN
By Aaron Dixon
April 13, 2024
A disconnect between the Brightspeed corporate office and its employees led to an information picketing event in Downtown Dothan on Saturday afternoon. Over 20 people at the intersection of West Troy Street and North Oates Street in Dothan picketed to try and get better benefits from Brightspeed. This internet company is used in Dothan, Enterprise, Ozark, and Andalusia. “We are just trying to get the company to come back to the bargaining table with us and find a fair resolution for a new 5-year contract,” Jerry Sain said.
Union representing Providence Sacred Heart healthcare workers issues strike notice
KXLY
By Nick Hawthorne
April 12, 2024
The United Food and Commercial Workers 3000 (UFCW) have issued a strike notice for April 22 - April 30. This notice comes after months of negotiations between Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center (PSHMC) and UFCW3000. Union representatives and Providence administration negotiated since November, 2023, on a contract both parties would agree on.
Capital & Main
By Robert Davis
April 12, 2024
After more than a year of trying to form the first ski patrol union at Eldora Mountain Resort outside Nederland, Colorado, Nick Lansing found himself navigating an unexpected trail. Like other patrollers, Lansing said he took the job because it fused two of his passions: skiing and helping others. In his four years on the job, he came to see it as a possible career. But Lansing and other patrollers struggled to overcome one big obstacle: wages that start as low as $19 an hour, too little to pay rent in the expensive area. In October 2023, Lansing and about 70% of his co-workers filed a formal petition to form a union with the National Labor Relations Board. On April 1, about two weeks before the expected end of the ski season, more than 90% of the patrollers voted for the union, the Eldora Professional Ski Patrol Association. The union is the 13th ski patrol union to either officially vote to form or petition for a union election over the last six years, according to the National Labor Relations Board.
Hundreds of workers at Sacred Heart to go on strike
KXLY
By Sydney Berger
April 13, 2024
Employees at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center will go on strike starting Monday, April 22, as workers claim unfair labor practices by Providence. Nearly 500 union health care workers will begin strike at 2 p.m. on April 22 and continue through April 30 with employees picketing outside the hospital from 5:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. every day. “Instead of respecting our high level of skill and the special services we offer, Providence has been enormously disrespectful throughout the bargaining process,” said Derek Roybal, bargaining team member, UFCW 3000 executive board member, and cardiovascular technologist at Sacred Heart.
Greenwich firefighters, other town employees to get pay boosts under new labor contracts
Greenwich Time
By Andy Blye
April 14, 2024
The Representative Town Meeting approved new contracts for two unions representing a combined total of more than 450 town employees. The new agreements give pay boosts to firefighters and many municipal workers. The firefighter’s union — Local 1042 of International Association of Fire Fighters, AFL-CIO — and the Greenwich Municipal Employees Association, both reached new agreements with the town earlier this year.
Metro optimistic that pay increases will fill open positions
Fox2 Now
By Joe Millitzer
April 12, 2024
Metro Transit officials are optimistic that recent pay raises will help fill open positions in its paratransit service. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that Bi-State Development is on the verge of finalizing a new three-year contract with the Amalgamated Transit Union. This agreement includes an increase in base pay of more than three dollars per hour, in addition to three percent pay raises each year for the next two years.
Oroville Hospital nurses ratify new contract
Enterprise-Record
By Kyra Gottesman
April 13, 2024
After 10 months in negotiation, registered nurses at Oroville Hospital voted in favor of ratifying a new three-year contract, winning protections to improve staffing, patient safety and staff retention. The announcement was made Friday in a press release issued by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United which, represents about 400 Oroville Hospital nurses. During negotiations the previously existing contract was extended several times and then allowed to expire, said Jennifer North, RN and bargaining team member. While it was in “everyone’s best interest to have the contract not expire, we wanted to make sure the nurses were protected if they needed to strike,” said North.
IN THE STATES
Gov. DeSantis strips worker wage, heat protection powers from cities
Florida Politics
By Gray Rohrer
April 12, 2024
Florida cities and counties will be barred from requiring businesses to give water breaks or other “cooling measures” to employees who work outside after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed HB 433. The measure also removes the power of local governments to require contractors to pay higher wages, or use higher pay as an incentive in awarding bids. The new law, which takes effect July 1, also bars cities and counties from requiring employers to give workers their work hours ahead of time.
WAGE THEFT
State sues garment company at the center of labor turmoil for unpaid wages
Wisconsin Examiner
By Erik Gunn
April 11, 2024
A Madison apparel company, which drew attention a year and a half ago when nonunion workers protested their working conditions and filed a federal complaint against the firm, has been sued for wage theft. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday against Crushin’ It Promotions LLC by the Wisconsin Department of Justice, names successor companies as well as the company’s owner, Jeremy Kruk, and asserts they are culpable for the back wages the company allegedly failed to pay as well as penalties. “All of the non-individual Principal Defendants are alter egos of Jeremy Kruk,” the lawsuit states. “Kruk exercised complete domination and control over all aspects of the relevant business transactions related to this complaint, such that corporate formalities should be disregarded.”