@LRToday Morning Round-Up: April 10, 2012
"Ore. teamsters guilty of unfair labor practice" -- LegalNewsline.com
An Oregon school bus driver has won his case against a labor union that allegedly violated his rights.
The case involved the collection of dues by a labor union from a nonunion employee in a state that does not have a right-to-work law. First Student bus driver Richard Harmon of Sandy, Ore., filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board's regional office in Seattle against Teamsters Local 206 of Portland, Ore., after union officials allegedly violated the terms of a settlement reached with the local bus driver.
"UNITE HERE Three-Pronged Attack Battles Tropicana in Atlantic City" -- Bloomberg BNA (paid)
UNITE HERE Local 54 is conducting a three-pronged attack on the Tropicana Casino and Resort in Atlantic City, N.J., after the hotel casino in February declared contract negotiations were at an impasse and began to impose its last contract offer, the union told BNA April 6.
Some 2,500 people marched and picketed April 5 outside the casino hotel protesting what they said was Tropicana's illegal end to collective bargaining with the union that represents its workers and cutoff of its contributions to the joint labor-management fund for casino employees' pensions under a defined benefit plan. The union said it plans to continue the pickets as a regular feature at Tropicana.
"Workers at Port Angeles aerospace firm join Machinists" -- Seattle Times
Employees at Angeles Composite Technologies (ACT), an aerospace supplier in Port Angeles, voted last week to join the International Association of Machinists (IAM) union.
Chip Elliott, directing business representative at IAM District W24, said 67 percent of the eligible workforce of just over 80 people voted to unionize.
"Leader of construction trade union dies" -- The Hill
One of the more prominent voices in the labor movement for infrastructure spending passed away on Sunday.
In a statement Monday, the Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD), AFL-CIO, said it was saddened by the sudden passing of Mark Ayers, who had been president of the union since October 2007.
"Union says right-to-work law violates free speech" -- Bloomberg Businessweek
Indiana's new right-to-work law should be struck down because it infringes upon unions' free speech rights by depriving them of the dues that fund their political speech, attorneys for a union challenging the law contend, citing the U.S. Supreme Court's so-called Citizens United ruling that eased restrictions on corporate campaign spending.
Attorneys for the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150 argue in a court brief that Indiana's new law, which allows workers to not pay union dues even if a union bargains on their behalf, interferes with the union's free speech rights and "impinges on this fundamental right of union membership."
