Don’t Drink the Tea. Think With the WE.
Sep
2016
29
What do you do when an out-of-state contractor admits to defrauding workers on a county project? If you’re West Virginia, you hire them again! A Florida contractor who confessed to the aforementioned Braxton County crime just won a million-dollar state contract in Charleston, WV. All this even though the company pled guilty to fraud…
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Sep
2016
29
UPDATE: The Chicago Teachers Union Has Set a Strike Date of October 11 There is unrest in the Chicago Public School (CPS) system. On Monday, 27,000 members of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) voted in favor of a strike. It did so by a margin of 95.6%. The teachers union, which is currently in [&hellip…;
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Sep
2016
28
An employment agency in Bridgeport, Connecticut called The WorkPlace has received a $1.1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL) for a YouthBuild program. The program offers education, counseling, and job skills to people between the ages of 16 and 24 who are unemployed. It was created by the USDOL in the early [&hellip…;
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Sep
2016
28
A Wisconsin district court judge dismissed a challenge to the state’s “Right-to-work” law this week. The suit, filed by the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) Locals 139 and 420, will now move to a federal appeals court. The two unions contend that the law amounts to an illegal taking of property: The…
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Sep
2016
28
Back in July, we posted about the $1 million in backpay owed to Senate cafeteria workers by federal contractors. The Department of Labor forced Compass Group to compensate their employees and make up for the “oversight,” but it appears the embattled cafeteria workers still aren’t getting a fair shake. In a recent piece for…
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Sep
2016
23
A Texas contractor is being fined $767,095 for misclassifying 65 construction employees as independent contractors. The construction workers were hired on a $25 million hotel renovation project in Waikiki, Hawaii. By misclassifying their employees, R&R Construction Services was able to avoid offering numerous benefits. That is, until…
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Sep
2016
23
Ten electrical workers have gone on strike in Corpus Christi, Texas. The electricians were hired to work on the Hector P. Garcia Clinic by a company called T.L. Electric. Last Friday, the workers staged a walkout to protest unfair labor practices. They returned on Monday to find they had been replaced: The men on strike said [&hellip…;
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Sep
2016
23
In Alberta, Canada, a job creation partnership between Women Building Futures (WBF), North West Redwater Partnership (NWR), and the Alberta Carpenters Training Centre is putting women to work in the trades. Seven carpenter-slash-scaffolder apprentices who graduated from the WBF program began work at the NWR Sturgeon Refinery in August:…
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Sep
2016
23
North Carolina is a key battleground state in this November’s election. That is why union organizers there are receiving an influx of money and resources from the AFL-CIO as they gear up for the largest mobilization of organized labor in the state’s history. The national AFL-CIO has elevated North Carolina to “Tier…
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Sep
2016
20
While a federal appeals court continues to meddle in New Jersey’s project labor agreement affairs, the worker-supportive deals a scoring victories elsewhere in the country. In Wisconsin, building trades unions reached agreements on two projects related to the Milwaukee Bucks’ new arena. Agreements were reached with J.P. Cullen…
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Sep
2016
20
The U.S. House Judiciary Committee is considering legislation that would tighten loopholes in the current H-1B work visa program. The Protect and Grow American Jobs Act (HR 5801) would require firms who hire H-1B guest workers to pay those workers a minimum annual salary of $100,000. It also requires those companies to advertise for…
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Sep
2016
20
Missouri came one step closer to implementing a new voter identification law on Wednesday after the Republican state legislature overrode a veto by Democratic Governor Jay Nixon. The law requires voters to show a government issued ID before casting a ballot in an election. Republicans claim the move is a common sense measure to [&hellip…;
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