Labor Relations INK - Labor Relations News, Analysis and Insight
Labor Relations Ink March 2018
In this issue: Construction Union Sued for $100 Million Teamster Beat Alt-Labor Insight, Sticky Fingers, Union Bailout Update and more... The bottom of each story contains a link to the individual post on our site. ********** Labor Relations Insight by Phil Wilson...
read moreLabor Relations Insight
by Phil Wilson "What, me worry?" For some reason following the high drama over the NLRB's recent Hy-Brand decision keeps reminding me of one of my guilty pleasures as a kid: MAD Magazine. Remember MAD? Its cover always features (yeah, it's still in print... I was...
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Union Bailout Update
Interesting times at the NLRB, and the dust may not settle for quite some time. After the Bill Emanuel “conflict of interest” intrigue, and the boards’ vacating of a December ruling rescinding Obama-era joint employer parameters (see Insight), Democrats in the Senate...
read moreIt’s All Academic
Duquesne University has filed a petition asking the U.S. Court of Appeals to overturn an NLRB ruling ordering the university to bargain with an adjunct faculty group. The university argues that the NLRB holds no jurisdiction over it as it is a religious institution....
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Construction Union Sued For $100 Million
A New York construction company has filed a lawsuit against the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York. The suit claims that the union has bilked the company out of more than $100 million over the course of the last six years during which the...
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Teamster Beat
Underfunded pensions have been a big problem for the Teamsters in recent years. Teamster president James P. Hoffa stepped into the spotlight to demand a solution. Or rather, to demand that the government fix it. Rather than take responsibility for the Teamsters own...
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Alt-Labor
Worker Centers have been in play for a while. Unions use them as a way to circumvent federal rules placed on labor unions. These centers, often funded by unions themselves, primarily work to rally troops for organizing purposes. In more recent years, they’ve been used...
read moreRight To Work
In the midst of Janus v. AFSCME and Mark Janus’ argument that he shouldn’t have to contribute money to a union of which he is not a member, for them to then in turn spend that money to further their own political agenda (again, an agenda that he or other members may...
read moreWhistlin’ Dixie
The Machinists announced earlier this month that they will try for the third time to organize workers at Boeing’s North Charleston plant in South Carolina. Utilizing the “micro-unit” strategy, the union is going after a small group of workers, characterized as “flight...
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Auto Workers
Earlier this month, the UAW Retiree Medical Benefits Trust decided to sell 40 million of its shares in General Motors Co. worth $1.6 billion. Despite this move, the UAW group will still likely remain GM’s largest investor. However, we do not know the effect this will...
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Labor Around The World
According to the International Labor Organization, “nearly 25 million people work in forced-labor conditions worldwide, with 47 percent of them in the Pacific region.” Coca-Cola Co and the U.S. State Department, along with two other companies, are hoping to utilize...
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Phil on “4 Corners Defense” in NLRB Board Replacement Stonewall
In a recent article, HR Dive laid out congressional Democrats strategy to stall the vote that would officially nominate John Ring as Phillip Miscimarra’s replacement on the NLRB Board.
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Phil Quoted in HR Dive
Yesterday, Phil addressed attendees at the Society for Human Resource Management's employment law and legislative conference. One of the hot topics, of course, is the pending Janus decision. Will labor unions remain able to force public sector workers to pay union...
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Labor Relations Ink February 2018
In this issue: Backlash To Conservative Swing A Strike on Strikes? Will Blockchain Save Unions? SEIU Watch, Teamster Beat, Sticky Fingers and more… The bottom of each story contains a link to the individual post on our site. ********** Labor Relations Insight by Phil...
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Union Bailout Update
The NLRB has signaled its intent to undo or revise the Obama board’s Ambush Election rule, and is currently accepting comments until March 29th. To contribute your comments, Instructions on how to submit them are contained on the NLRB’s website. In other good news,...
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Labor Relations Insight
by Phil Wilson Will Blockchain Save Unions? If you’re reading this then you, like me, must have missed your big Bitcoin payday. Or else you’re reading this on your own private island. In that case the only explanation is that you’re overcome with heat sickness....
read moreBacklash To Conservative Swing
Although most of the news coming out of the DOL and the NLRB would be considered positive by employers, when such agencies have become Republican-controlled in the past, unions have resorted to other tactics, and specifically corporate campaigns, to attempt to get...
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A Strike On Strikes?
Last year, there were only seven strikes involving 1000 or more employees. This was less than half the amount of similar strikes for the prior year and made it the second lowest year on record since 1947, according to data from the Department of Labor. The total...
read moreSEIU Watch
SEIU-UHW filed ten ballot initiatives this year. Three were statewide (California), seven local. It’s not abnormal for the SEIU’s Dave Regan (or other unions) to spend money on proposed ballot initiatives as a “tactful” way to get what they want from the employers...
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It’s All Academic
Local 33 UNITE HERE has officially withdrawn its petition to represent graduate students at Yale University after years of organizing efforts. Columbia University hopes to be as lucky. Currently, the university is refusing to bargain with a UAW local affiliate while...
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