Will Trump’s DOL Classify Worker Centers as Unions?

I first covered the budding Worker Center movement here. The takeaway from that blog post was: But worker centers are not “labor organizations” – they are 501(c)(3) charities – so they are not regulated as heavily as unions nor do they pay taxes. Worker centers cannot engage in unfair labor practices and do not have…
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Unions use Non-Union Worker Centers to Do Heaving Lifting of Union Organizing

Worker centers may be the biggest thing non-union companies never heard of. They are pro-union advocates who organize rallies and protests, try to engage workers into acting collectively, and seek to get companies to discuss wages, hours, and terms and conditions of employment. If it sounds a lot like unions to you, it should. Unions…
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Bill to Protect Home Care Workers from Forced Union Dues Afoot

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has proposed rolling back an Obama-era regulation that allowed union dues to be deducted from Medicaid checks. This would stop the automatic dues deduction of homecare workers who never neither voted for the union or receive any…
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Steelworkers Playbook on How They Plan to Reform Labor Law

The United Steelworkers of America recently wrapped its annual convention where it called for “true labor law reform in the United States” and where it vowed to enact these changes: Workers should have a right to a representation election within 30 days of filing a petition for one Workers should have access to neutral voting…
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Worker Center Erroneously Alleged Walmart Unlawfully Fired Strikers

This case illustrates how worker centers and labor unions work closely together when trying to organize a company. The UFCW, which has unsuccessfully tried to organize Walmart for years, utilized its worker center OUR Walmart to allege that Walmart committed unfair labor practices when it fired two employees after they participated in demonstrations led by…
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Worker Center ROC Admits It’s a Modern Union

Jose Oliva, a director for the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, a prominent worker center, recently explained how worker centers are nonprofit groups that are an alternate form of labor organizing. Most major unions have established and funded their own worker centers to further their own causes. According to Oliva, a union can collect dues from…
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