De Blasio’s Plans to Reduce Worker Health Costs Have a Carrot and a Stick

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.nytimes.com

When Mayor Bill de Blasio announced his first labor agreements with New York City unions this spring, he was sharply criticized for granting long-awaited wage increases in exchange for promises of unspecified though sizable savings on health care expenses. Now, some of the specifics are coming into focus: City officials and union leaders say they hope to push municipal workers to use walk-in clinics more and emergency rooms less, order generic drugs more often than brand-name ones, and buy them through the mail rather than at retail pharmacies to achieve bulk discounts. The city hopes the unions will agree to steer workers to use centralized, cheaper centers for blood tests, X-rays or M.R.I.s, rather than having those tests performed in doctors’ offices or at costly physician-owned facilities. Patients who resist could face higher copayments, while savings would be passed on to the city in lower premiums. The cost-cutting comes with high stakes: If the city and unions are unable to save a total of $3.4 billion on health care by 2018, a mediator will be empowered to order increases in workers’ premiums to cover the shortfall, officials said. As an added inducement, if the unions help the city exceed that goal, the first $365 million in additional savings would be distributed as lump-sum bonuses to workers, officials said. Any savings beyond that would be split evenly between the city and its employees. In interviews, Harry Nespoli, chairman of the Municipal Labor...

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In a First, Northwestern Players Seek Unionization

Today's post was shared by The New York Times and comes from www.nytimes.com

The increasingly contentious and complicated relationship between the N.C.A.A. and its top amateur athletes took another step toward a legal showdown on Tuesday when a group of Northwestern football players appealed to the National Labor Relations Board with the first effort by college athletes to join a labor union.

Kain Colter, Northwestern’s starting quarterback last season, was joined by Ramogi Huma, the president of the newly formed College Athletes Players Association, and Leo W. Gerard, the president of United Steelworkers, to announce that a petition had been filed on behalf of Colter and his teammates to seek union representation.

“College athletes need a labor organization that can give them a seat at the table,” Huma said, adding, “This ends a period of 60 years when the N.C.A.A. has knowingly established a pay-for-play system while using terms like ‘student-athlete’ and ‘amateurism’ to skirt labor laws.”

Though payment of players at Football Bowl Subdivision programs and Division I basketball universities has become a thorny issue given the billions of dollars generated by the sports, Colter said medical care, particularly expenses after graduation, was his biggest concern.

“The same medical issues that professional athletes face are...

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Kansas, The Next Target: Unions expect difficult legislative session in 2014

Today's post is shared from cjonline.com

Negative legislation for workers included changes in workers’ compensation, collective bargaining and project labor agreements, which are agreements that set wages on particular construction jobs, said Andy Sanchez, executive secretary-treasurer of the Kansas AFL-CIO.

The Kansas Legislature passed a number of bills unions believe are unfavorable to workers during the
2013 session, and such actions remind the Kansas AFL-CIO to stay focused on its job in the
Sunflower State: to represent all working people, not just union members.

“I think there’s a lot of negative legislation that’s been passed in the past couple of years regarding unemployment benefits,” Sanchez said. “They reduced the number of weeks and workers comp benefits. We think that’s going to hurt a lot of people and we think it’s already hurting our economy.”

The project labor agreement changes stop government entities from requiring union-level wages on jobs. Unemployment benefits were changed to allow employers to avoid paying benefits if the employee broke even minor rules, such as failing to wear a name tag or being late.

Such anti-worker legislation, Sanchez said, made it even more important for local unions to work together in the political process. At the 24th biennial convention recently, leaders tried to stay ahead of the political process by throwing support behind candidates for the next election, even though it is a year out.

“This...
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In Detroit Ruling, Threats to Promises and Assumptions

Bankruptcy is utilized by employers as shields against liabilities. Self-Insurance in workers' coesation is one of those liabilities Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.nytimes.com

Someday, Detroit’s bankruptcy may well be seen as the start of an era of broken promises. For years, cities have promised rock-solid pensions without setting aside enough money to pay for them, aided by lax accounting practices, easy borrowing and sometimes the explicit encouragement of labor unions. Officials were counting on rich investment gains to fill the holes; unions and their retirees were counting on legal provisions — like Michigan’s Constitution — that said pensions were unassailable and that benefits would always be paid, whether through higher taxes or budget cutbacks elsewhere. But a bankruptcy judge, Steven W. Rhodes, threw a wrench into that thinking on Tuesday, ruling that pension benefits could be reduced in a bankruptcy proceeding. The decision recast the landscape and gave distressed cities leverage to backtrack on their promises. “Last night, as a public employees’ union leader, you went to bed thinking, ‘My workers’ pensions have special protection; I can continue to play hardball,’ ” Karol K. Denniston, a lawyer with the firm Schiff Hardin who has been advising residents of California cities on fiscal issues, said Tuesday after the judge issued his ruling. “This morning you woke up and found yourself in a new world.” Public employees’ unions are already fighting back, though not against the chronic underfunding of their benefits. They are fighting the notion that...

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Wisconsin Supreme Court Hears Arguments on Collective Bargaining Law

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.nytimes.com

The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Monday heard arguments on the constitutionality of a 2011 law that all but eliminated collective bargaining for most public employees. The law, which prompted large protests and thrust the Republican administration of Gov. Scott Walker into the national spotlight, has divided the state along partisan lines for more than two years. The latest battle has centered largely on a broad legal question: Can state lawmakers so significantly curtail collective bargaining that union membership is made less desirable? “I don’t believe the two ships pass in the night,” J. B. Van Hollen, the attorney general of Wisconsin, said when asked by a judge about the dueling legal theories. “I believe they collide.” Mr. Van Hollen argued that group bargaining was not a constitutional guarantee but rather a “benefit” permitted by lawmakers. He added that he believed state officials had a “bigger ship” and would win in the end. The law, which led to a failed attempt to remove Mr. Walker from office last year, has been challenged by a teachers union in Madison and by a labor group representing employees of the city of Milwaukee. Both plaintiffs contend that the measure violates freedom of association rights and equal protection of the law by subjecting unionized public employees to burdens not faced by their nonunion colleagues. “If you are an employee and you choose to associate in this activity, you will be...

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Supreme Court 2013: Court Could Cripple Unions In Major Labor Cases

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.ibtimes.com

Over the next few months, the Supreme Court will hear two major cases that could prove a major setback to unions' ability to organize and collect dues -- and the conservative majority on the court is making pro-labor advocates nervous. In UNITE HERE Local 355 v. Mulhall, the court will decide whether agreements between unions and employers that set the ground rules for union organizing violate the anti-corruption provision of the Labor Management Relations Act. That may sound pretty specific, but it could have far-reaching effects, leading labor expert and Harvard Law School professor Benjamin Sachs to write that this “could be the most significant labor law case in a generation.” In this particular case, the union, Unite Here Local 355, struck an agreement with Mardi Gras, a Florida casino company, under which the casino would not interfere in the union’s organizing drive, and in return, the union promised not to strike during that organizing period. That kind of agreement is standard practice across the country. The challenge to this routine agreement alleges that the casino’s concessions to the union, which included a promise to remain neutral during the organizing campaign, violates an anti-corruption statute that was intended to keep employers from bribing unions by specifically prohibiting companies from giving union officials “things of value.” Until very recently, no one considered that these organizing agreements would constitute...

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Deadly factory fire again underlines importance of Bangladesh Accord

Fashion Safety continues to be flamed by fires and failue in safety. Today's post is shared from .industriall-union.org The IndustriALL Bangladesh Council of trade union affiliates is working to assist the humanitarian relief effort following the fire that also injured a reported 50. The joint IBC team is working with both the families of the victims and the injured workers. This effort will coordinate with the labour ministry and the employer associations BGMEA and BKMEA. 135 workers of the factory complex's 2,000 strong workforce were inside the two-story building when the blaze took hold around 5.30pm. Investigations are ongoing and we must wait to learn the causes of the fire. The Gazipur factory fire is shocking, but not surprising. The Bangladesh government has estimated that at least 50% of the country’s garment factories are dangerous. IndustriALL Global Union General Secretary Jyrki Raina said, This is a truly shocking tragedy. It underlines the need for urgent action to make the safety improvements that are so badly needed in Bangladesh’s ready-made garment factories. Through the Bangladesh Accord, we will be doing our utmost to make progress as quickly as possible, so that we can avoid tragedies like this in the future. UNI Global Union General Secretary Philip Jennings said, The Bangladesh Accord, by bringing together industry and trade unions, will help to ensure that long-overdue safety improvements are made. We know the size of the...

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Kaiser Permanente, Unions Launch New Employee Wellness Program

Organized Labor is improving worker health by encouraging wellness program, a counterbalance to  the erosion of workers' compensation pre-existing disease limitations. Today's post was shared by votersinjuredatwork and comes from www.californiahealthline.org

Kaiser Permanente and the 29 unions that represent its employees in California and eight other regions have teamed up to offer incentive payments to groups of workers who improve their health, the Sacramento Bee reports. Details of Program Under the voluntary program, Kaiser's 133,000 workers could earn up to $500 each if participants in their region collectively: Lose weight; Lower blood pressure; Lower cholesterol; and Stop smoking. All employees -- even those who choose not to participate -- will be eligible for payouts if: 75% of workers in their region complete an online health survey, which would earn $150 incentive payments for all employees in that region; 85% of workers in their region update their baseline screenings for weight, smoking, cholesterol and blood pressure, which would earn $150 payments for all workers in that region; and There is an average 1.7% improvement and no declines across such measures by December 2014, which would earn $200 for all employees in that region. The program does not apply to doctors, dentists and executives, but it does include both union and non-union employees. Kaiser will issue all payouts in 2015. The total cost of the program could reach $66.5 million, according to the Bee. Comments From Kaiser Kathy Gerwig -- vice president of employee safety, health and wellness at Kaiser -- said the program is "very inclusive of everybody" and will "drive the culture toward healthier work environments and camaraderie around getting healthier." She...

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How Wal-Mart keeps wages low

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.washingtonpost.com

“I think they don’t want me to actually let people know what’s really going on at Wal-Mart as an associate,” Lopez told me in an interview for the Nation following her June 21 firing. “So they’d rather get rid of me.” Firings like Lopez’s may not come as a shock — Wal-Mart once shut down a store in Canada after workers there won collective bargaining rights, and it eliminated its entire U.S. meat-cutting department after a handful of meat-cutters at one store voted to unionize. But the alleged retaliation defies an eight-decade-old promise from the federal government to most U.S. workers: Banding together to improve your workplace, whether you win or lose, shouldn’t cost you your job. That 1935 law — the National Labor Relations Act – is still on the books. But its ban on retaliation today reads more like a cruel joke than an ironclad commitment. A 2009 study released by the progressive Economic Policy Institute found that pro-union workers are fired — allegedly illegally — in at least a third of unionization election campaigns supervised by the government. As expected, Wal-Mart denies illegally retaliating against anyone. The company claims that some of the discipline was unrelated to the protests — Lopez ostensibly lost her job for violating a food safety policy by bringing the employee handbook into the deli area where she works. And Wal-Mart says other workers were punished not for...

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Will Labor's Marriage With Industry Result in A Major Workers' Compensation Opt-Out Movement?

The recent emergence of an effort to create mandatory plant representation by organized Labor might be just the thing that tips traditional workers' compensation programs into oblivion. Emerging out of a recent unwinding of the economy, and failed welfare and retirement programs, is an effort to reorganize the US manufacturing sector.

"Volkswagen is working with the United Automobile Workers at its Chattanooga, Tenn., assembly plant on how to unionize the plant and create a German-style works council there, the president of the labor union said on Friday."

Read the complete article, "VW and Its Workers Explore a Union at a Tennessee Plant" (NY Times)

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Big Labor: still a political force

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.publicintegrity.org

Membership in labor unions fell last year to its lowest level in nearly a century, but Big Labor remains a major player in national politics. Labor Day this year is celebrated on the heels of a massive strike by fast-food restaurants workers and a renewed discussion about the merits of raising the minimum wage in the United States. And unions have been vocally supporting a push for comprehensive immigration reform. In the electoral arena, labor unions have long donated to candidates and urged their members to support like-minded politicians. But during the 2012 election cycle, labor unions represented seven of the top 25 super donors to super PACs, according to research by the Center for Public Integrity. The United Auto Workers ranked seventh among the biggest super PAC donors, contributing $11.8 million, while the National Education Association ranked eighth and gave $10.8 million. Other big union-givers included: It’s worth noting, however, that these seven labor unions collectively gave super PACs about half as much money as billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam Adelson, who ranked as the top super PAC donors.

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Jon L. Gelman of Wayne NJ is the author NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson) and co-author of the national treatise, Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson). For over 4 decades the Law Offices of Jon L Gelman  1.973.696.7900  jon@gelmans.com  have been representing injured workers and their families who have suffered occupational accidents and illnesses.

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Italian Plant’s Abrupt Shutdown Stirs a Debate

Today's post was shared by The New York Times and comes from www.nytimes.com

Like it or not, Italy’s labor force recognizes that the long manufacturing slump may make factory closings inevitable. But this, they say, is no way to do it. At the start of August, the 30 workers of Hydronic Lift, an elevator components company, wished one another well and left on long-planned summer vacations. But when they returned to work three weeks later, they found the gates bolted with chains and padlocks. The company has not disclosed its plans. “Not to be emotional, but if a worker goes on holiday with the fear that he might not come back to a job, well, that can cause serious damage to one’s peace of mind,” Alberto Larghi of the metalworkers’ trade union said. “Events like this can ruin vacations for all workers.” It was only the latest in a headline-grabbing series of factory closures in Italy that the metalworkers’ union, FIOM-CGIL, which represents the workers at Hydronic Lift, denounced as the “popular sport among businessmen in the summer of 2013: transforming the summer shutdown into a definitive termination, with no forewarning, taking advantage that the employees are absent.” Summer sport is a bit of an overstatement; there have been only a handful of cases, including a factory near Modena where the boss moved the production line for electronic components to Poland under the cover of the August doldrums. But they have stirred a national debate in a country struggling to...

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Workers Memorial Day - April 28th

Decades of struggle by workers and their unions have resulted in significant improvements in working conditions. But the toll of workplace injuries, illnesses and deaths remains enormous. Each year, thousands of workers are killed and millions more are injured or diseased because of their jobs. The unions of the AFL-CIO remember these workers on April 28, Workers Memorial Day.

The first Workers Memorial Day was observed in 1989. April 28 was chosen because it is the anniversary of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the day of a similar remembrance in Canada. Every year, people in hundreds of communities and at worksites recognize workers who have been killed or injured on the job. Trade unionists around the world now mark April 28 as an International Day of Mourning.

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