Doing some last-minute Easter shopping? Check out the AFL-CIO's list of union-made hams, candies, and more.
● A union at the Onion.
● Custodial services at Chicago Public Schools were privatized in 2014. This week they failed a blitz inspection in truly disgusting fashion.
● A stronger pay equity law is close to becoming law in New Jersey, and paid sick leave is on its way.
● Betsy DeVos a union-buster? Who could possibly have predicted.
Rank-and-file Education Department employees have gone to battle with Secretary Betsy DeVos, accusing department management of gutting a long-standing labor agreement and enforcing a new pact that has been roundly rejected by their union.
Officials with the American Federation of Government Employees Council 252 said the department is flouting labor law and protocols, walking away from negotiations on a new contract last year before ground rules could even be set.
● Frontier, union agreement has 100 percent job security for WV workers.
● U.S. women dockworkers have filed suit over pregnancy discrimination, pointing to both the shippers’ association and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.
● When professionals rise up, more than money is at stake.
When 20,000 West Virginia teachers staged a rare statewide walkout, questions of pay and benefits dominated the headlines. But those concerns could not fully account for the teachers’ ferocious resolve. After all, stagnant wages and receding benefits have been an issue for workers for decades.
The missing variable appears to have been anxiety about their status as professionals.
Fred Albert, a math teacher and local union official in the Charleston area, said many felt that the Legislature had devalued their training and certification by proposing to let people teach a subject they hadn’t studied and had no experience in.
● This is what happens when hotel housekeepers say "Hands off! Pants on!"
● Why Republicans are now bragging about their investments in education. (However false those brags may be.)
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