Parsons Electric was part of a multiemployer collective bargaining agreement that was silent on the subject of employee breaks. Independent of the union contract, Parsons, for years, maintained a written policy that provided hourly employees with a 15-minute break in the morning and a 15-minute break in the afternoon each workday. Parsons then replaced the…

The Teamsters pension plan (Central States Pension Plan), widely criticized as being extremely underfunded and unable to pay a fraction of its obligations to retirees, is set to be cut in the coming weeks. The Central States Pension Plan last year became the first financially troubled pension fund to seek relief with the federal government…

A swimming pool cleaning supply manufacturer was negotiating a successor collective bargaining agreement with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. After the Union rejected several healthcare plan proposals made by the Company, the Company said it wanted to freeze the current contract for one year, but also said it expected to have information on…

Dues deduction became a common practice in the mid-1900’s when few workers had checking accounts. Unions tired of going to each member individually to collect dues, so they negotiated into collective bargaining agreements clauses forcing the employer to payroll deduct the dues and remit a single check to the union for all members’ dues. Companies…

The media has reported sporadically that some labor union members have broken from decades of allegiance with the Democratic Party in favor of Donald Trump for President of the United States. These blue collar Democrats, many in Ohio, are drawn to Trump’s ability to say what he wants, what he means, and to tell it…

According to a pro-union labor organization’s year in review, workers made more gains in legislation, administrative rulings, and some courts – including the court of public opinion – than they had made since before the Reagan years. I guess that’s one way to spin the fact that unionization rates remain dismally low. According to the…