Lolita De Palma is a student at Harvard Law School.
Today, Kaiser Permanente workers will begin voting on whether to authorize a strike. The strike would begin in early October and would include workers in California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Virginia, and Washington D.C. Kaiser workers have been without a contract since September 30, 2018. Kaiser mental health care workers in San Francisco already staged a one-day strike earlier this month.
The airline industry may hold the key to the resurgence of the labor movement. After TWU Local 100 won the right to represent JetBlue flight attendants last year, airlines have become a hotbed for union organizing. SEIU Local 32BJ used an aggressive campaign to win raises for airport workers, culminating in a $19-an-hour wage by 2023. Unrest is brewing among pilots in the Airline Professionals Association, Teamster Local 1224. Their contract expired in 2011 and wages have stagnated. John Samuelson, president of TWU of America, said, “The amount of organizing going on in transportation is tremendous. Transport workers are waking up. The new bosses in the transportation industry are the new robber barons. These are folks that might as well be living in the 1880s.”
The Liberty Justice Center and the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation are assisting union members in bringing claims against their unions on the basis that opt-out procedures violate the Supreme Court’s decision in Janus. The Wall Street Journal highlighted one of these cases this past weekend. Cara O’Callaghan is suing the Teamsters, the president of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the California attorney general on the basis that Local 2010’s opt-out window in unconstitutional. Local 2010 will allow O’Callaghan to rescind her membership but is requiring her to pay dues until the 30-day period leading up to the expiration date of the union’s current collective bargaining agreement. O’Callaghan joined Local 2010 in May of 2018.
Bloomberg took on the $15 minimum wage and found that minimum wage goals should higher to account for inflation. Since $15 in 2025 would be the equivalent of $11.93 in 2012, when the Fight for $15 movement started, the Raise the Wage Act should instead call for $18.87 in 2025. And The Washington Post spoke out against income inequality, criticizing the Trump administration for exacerbating the problem.
In Ridgefield Park, New Jersey, the president of the local branch of the International Longshoremen’s Association, Glenn Blicht, has been charged with taking bribes in exchange for not filing arbitration claims against employers who employ union members.
Daily News & Commentary
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May 16
Supreme Court hears a case about universal injunctions; Champion of workers' rights announces run for Colorado Attorney General; Sesame Street is officially union!
May 15
Unions in Colorado urge Governor Polis to sign Senate Bill 5; more than 1200 Starbucks workers go on strike; and IATSE calls on President Trump to reinstate Shira Perlmutter.
May 14
District court upholds NLRB's constitutionality, NY budget caps damage awards, NMB or NLRB jurisdiction for SpaceX?
May 13
In today’s News and Commentary, Trump appeals a court-ordered pause on mass layoffs, the Tenth Circuit sidesteps a ruling on the Board’s remedial powers, and an industry group targets Biden-era NLRB decisions. The Trump administration is asking the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to pause a temporary order blocking the administration from continuing […]
May 12
NJ Transit engineers threaten strike; a court halts Trump's firings; and the pope voices support for workers.
May 9
Philadelphia City Council unanimously passes the POWER Act; thousands of federal worker layoffs at the Department of Interior expected; the University of Oregon student workers union reach a tentative agreement, ending 10-day strike