Nevada Republicans have taken control, and attacking workers is
at the top of their agenda:
Republican legislators talked about wanting to end collective bargaining in the state, about wanting to force unions to re-sign members every year, about eliminating binding arbitration. Together, such measures would severely curtail unions' ability to act as a political and pro-worker force there.
It wasn’t just talk: This week, the state Senate passed a bill exempting school and university construction projects from prevailing wage laws, a move labor advocates say will encourage contractors to replace middle-class workers with low-paid, unskilled construction workers from out of state.
Predictable, but no less damaging.
Continue reading below the fold for more of the week's labor and education news.
A fair day's wage
- It only affects a small number of workers, but city workers and contractors will get a $15 minimum wage in Portland, Oregon.
- Josh Eidelson takes a look at Volkswagen's sort-of union in Tennessee.
- At the opening session of contract negotiations between the American Postal Workers Union and the postal service, the APWU brought actor-activist Danny Glover, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, and other guests from the union movement and politics. The statement the APWU was seeking to make:
The U.S. Postal Service belongs to the people, and the people have a stake in the union’s fight to protect and strengthen a great national treasure.
- Workers at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center say a cleaning solution is making them sick.
- At Portland International Airport:
What do you get when you ask high-paid managers to draft a proposal to improve life for low-paid workers? A whole lot of nothing.
Surprise!
- A long-running labor battle (and example of how corporations seek to screw workers and customers at the same time) in northern New England may be over with the announcement of tentative agreement on contracts.
- Jury awards guestworkers over $14 million in landmark human trafficking, forced labor case.
- The headline kind of says it all: James L. Dolan, a Consummate 1 Percenter:
Dolan breaks federal labor laws and fires union leaders with impunity; he mints money from a public cable monopoly; and he gets a property tax exemption worth $54 million this year for Madison Square Garden, a for-profit enterprise.
But you know what? Brooklyn Cablevision workers—Dolan's employees—just announced that after first battling to unionize and then battling to get a fair contract, they've voted to ratify a contract that gives them "very significant" raises, improved job security, and more. After the Brooklyn workers voted to unionize, Cablevision gave raises to workers in other locations to discourage them from trying to organize.
- Feel trapped in your job? That's because you are.
- Illinois' attorney general and comptroller will not implement Gov. Bruce Rauner's attack on public sector unions.
- Meet the workers caring for our elderly while living in poverty.
Education