Labor Relations INK - Labor Relations News, Analysis and Insight
Labor Relations INK January 2020
In this issue: Great news for our healthcare readers! The Most Powerful Labor Organizing Tool of 2019 UAW President Rory Gamble Denies Involvement in Corruption Scandal AI Impacting White Collar Jobs Scoreboard, Insight, Sticky Fingers and more… The bottom of each...
Labor Relations Insight
by Phil Wilson Resolution or Revolution? Did you make any New Year’s resolutions as you kicked off the new decade? For the first time in a long time I didn’t. I’m not really sure why. Partially it could be that so many resolutions don’t make it to February. But I’ve...
Union Bailout Update
Several NLRB decisions at the end of the year reversed several Obama-era Board actions, returning issues to previous long-standing interpretations of the National Labor Relations Act. Among them were: Apogee Retail addressed employer confidentiality during...
Laboring Toward 2020
All of the Democrat contenders present at a recent labor convention in Iowa, of course, pandered to Big Labor. Bernie Sanders touted his plan to double union membership by the end of his first term. However, in contrast to the 2016 primaries, unions in Sanders...
AI, Technology and Labor
AI and automation (robotics) are typically lumped into a single category of “technology,” especially in terms of impact on jobs. Though unions rail against both as a cause of blue-collar job reductions, it is becoming increasingly clear that the two types of...
Tech/Media
The Communication Workers of America have announced a new campaign that will focus on organizing the tech and video game industry. It's called the Campaign to Organize Digital Employees and it launched at the beginning of the year. Check out the campaign’s website...
Healthcare
Great news for our healthcare readers! Because healthcare is now the largest employment sector in the U.S. and is expected to add over two million jobs in the next decade, unions have stepped up their attack on healthcare employers, but that’s NOT the good news. LRI...
The Most Powerful Labor Organizing Tool of 2019
A google spreadsheet. (Wait - what?) Young workers seem to be currently disillusioned with capitalism - a recent Gallop poll showed a tie with socialism - but they also don’t seem to want to rely on organized labor alone and are taking matters into their own hands. It...
Union Corruption
George Laufenberg, former benefit funds administrator for the United Brotherhood of Carpenters, has been indicted for fraud and stealing more than $1.5 million in dues-funded plan assets. Meanwhile, new UAW President, Rory Gamble, released a letter this month denying...
It’s All Academic
After a 27-day strike, the Harvard Graduate Student Union went back to work at the beginning of this month. The union, university, and a federal mediator have continued to meet for bargaining sessions since the end of the strike, but have yet to come to an agreement...
Gig Economy
California’s controversial AB 5 bill, which imposes the country’s strictest standards for determining whether or not an employee can be classified as a contractor, went into effect this month. Still, some gig companies and industries aren’t ready to throw in the...
Union Pension Turmoil
Union pension funds continue to struggle. News of late includes: The American Federation of Musicians and Employers’ Pension fund, which covers approximately 50,000 people, is expected to run out of money within 20 years and is seeking to cut benefits. Congress and...
Logistics/Manufacturing
The Center for Automotive Research punched some numbers and found that the new four-year contracts (negotiated last year) between the UAW and Big Three automakers will increase labor costs for US companies an average of $8 to $11 per hour. Meanwhile, foreign-owned...
Minimum Rising
New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo, issued an order last month announcing that by December 31, 2020, tipped workers will receive the minimum wage regardless of how much they make in tips. This will affect more than 70,000 tipped workers in the state, including...
Labor Around The World
By the time the USMCA was approved by the House, most labor unions, and the AFL-CIO, were on board with the deal. The United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW), however, still has a bone to pick — but not with who you'd think. After the passage of the USMCA,...
Labor Relations INK December 2019
In this issue: Laboring Toward 2020 AI, Technology & Labor Union Corruption UAW Deal Not All It’s Cracked Up To Be Insight, Union Bailout Update and more… The bottom of each story contains a link to the individual post on our site. ********** Labor Relations...
Labor Relations Insight
by Phil Wilson NLRB Ends 2019 with a Bang What a difference a year makes. In the last seven days the NLRB has issued several hugely important rules and decisions, and it looks like the Ring Board is just getting started. It took a while for this Board to hit its...
Union Bailout Update
A few more details on the final Elections Rule posted by the NLRB, due to take effect April 16, 2020. The board did not completely rescind the Obama-era rule but makes fundamental changes. Changes have been made in the following areas (read article for details):...
Laboring Toward 2020
Canvassers for the Joe Biden campaign joined the Teamsters, adding to the list of unionized campaigns, which include Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, and Julián Castro to date. At the time of this writing, it remained to be seen whether tonight’s...
AI, Technology and Labor
As of today, Amazon has 200,000 mobile robots working alongside its 1.1 million employees. Though the robots have saved human stowers and pickers from having to walk 12-20 miles per day across the concrete landscape of an Amazon warehouse, the facilities with the...
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