Labor Relations INK - Labor Relations News, Analysis and Insight
Labor Relations INK September 2019
In this issue: Laboring Towards 2020 UAW Strike Precursor To A Mid-West Recession? Still Mobbed Up? Healthcare Strike Threatened by Kaiser Union Coalition UAW Corruption Scandal Scoreboard, Insight, and more… The bottom of each story contains a link to the individual...
Labor Relations Insight
by Phil Wilson A Wag-The-Dog Moment For The UAW? The UAW and General Motors are reportedly near a tentative agreement to settle the historic strike the UAW called over a week ago. Nearly 50,000 UAW members have lost pay, health benefits (and probably a lot of sleep)...
Union Bailout Update
The micro-unit strategy abetted by the Obama-era NLRB just took another blow when the Board ruled against it in the recent Boeing case. The 2017 PCC Structurals case began to unravel the micro-unit strategy by restoring the Board's prior standard for determining the...
Laboring Toward 2020
Obviously the best case scenario for Big Labor would be for the Democrats to take the presidency and sweep Congress. It may seem a pretty big pendulum swing from where we are right now, but with today’s political scene, you can’t rule out anything! With that in mind,...
UAW Strike Precursor To A Midwest Recession
As the UAW strike entered its ninth day on September 24th, GM was forced to lay off 1200 workers at other facilities not represented by the union. If nothing else, the strike has provided Democratic presidential hopefuls the chance for a little grand-standing...
Unions In Media
Most of the time, when we’ve seen media or tech workers unionize, it's been with an organization like the Newsguild, maybe the Communication Workers. The Steelworkers though? Times must be hard for the USW. This week, eighty Google contract workers voted to join the...
It’s All Academic
The NLRB delivered a major blow to graduate student unions this month when they proposed a new rule that says graduate students are not employees, and thus do not have the right to organize. This is the first time the NLRB has proposed a rule on this issue. In the...
Still Mobbed Up?
It seems anachronistic to talk about unions as havens for the Mafia, and most folks think of the more industrial unions like the Teamsters or the Laborers when they thinking about a union being “mobbed up.” The recent sentencing of Vincent D’Acunto, former...
Healthcare Strike Threatened By Kaiser Union Coalition
80,000 Kaiser Permanente workers in hospitals and medical facilities across the country are due to walk out on strike beginning October 14th. Management claims to have offered a deal better than one that SEIU-UHW touted as an example at another healthcare provider,...
UAW Corruption Scandal
The UAW’s corruption scandal with Fiat Chrysler over the last couple years was just the tip of the iceberg. Since then, federal investigators have been led deeper and deeper into the bed of UAW corruption. Recent updates include: The investigation into the misuse of...
Gig Economy
Back in May, a California Bill, AB 5, passed the state assembly. This bill expanded last year’s Dynamex decision that requires employers to perform the ABC test when determining whether a worker should be classified as a contractor or employee. Since then, employers...
Minimum Rising
A new Arizona law requires the state to calculate additional costs to the state government when cities and counties raise the minimum wage above the state rate. If the state has to pay more for government-funded services in these communities, then the legislature may...
Right To Work
The Massachusetts House passed a bill this month that allows public sector unions to charge non-members fees for representation when filing grievances. H. 3854, a response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 Janus decision, directly overrides an August veto by...
Labor Around The World
UK universities are on the verge of strike action after an increase in required employee pension contribution. Union members at 69 universities have until October 30th to submit their ballot in favor of a work stoppage. If approved, this will be the second university...
BREAKING! NLRB Denies Micro-Unit At Boeing S.C. Plant
At Boeing's South Carolina Dreamliner plant, the International Association of Machinists carved out a 178 member unit of mechanics - flight line readiness techs and inspectors - and hoped that the Speciality Healthcare micro-union strategy would prevail. Unfortunately...
Phil on HR Certification Institute
HR Certification Institute blog contributor Clair Chiappetta reached out to Phil to discuss some retention tips in the Sept. 4, 2019 post titled, "Did You Set Someone Up For Failure?" Agreeing with the author about the significance of retention, Phil noted, “When you...
Labor Relations Ink August 2019
In this issue: Laboring Toward 2020 AI, Technology and Labor Gig Economy Union Bailout Update, Insight, Scoreboard and more… The bottom of each story contains a link to the individual post on our site. Labor Relations Insight by Phil Wilson The NLRB Gets Its...
Labor Relations Insight
by Phil Wilson The NLRB Gets Its SexyBack. Do you remember where you were on September 14, 2006? Yeah, me neither. If you were listening to the radio (or possibly iTunes… Spotify was just created a few months earlier) you were probably jamming to Justin Timberlake’s...
Union Bailout Update
The Division of Advice at the NLRB will now be helmed by Richard Bock, who joined the agency in 1996 as a field attorney. Although memos from the Division of Advice are not binding, they do provide guidance to board regional offices and can be cited as persuasive...
Laboring Toward 2020
As election season heats up, unions are making hay by grabbing short-term employees from several Democratic Party hopefuls. One presumes they don’t anticipate much of a fight from Dems, so even though most of these folks will be out of a job come the new year, the...
Get INK Free!
Total Victory
Left of Boom
