SSMRC and UBC Southern District staff are helping to relaunch the Arkansas Labor Caucus. At a July 13 meeting, members of several labor unions met to elect officers, approve bylaws, and make a plan for recruiting members.
SSMRC and Central South Carpenters staff met with new U.S. Labor Department investigators in Oklahoma July 13 to explain millwright and carpenter jurisdictions (the types of work each craft performs) so the investigators can better ensure prevailing wages and benefits are paid to workers on federal projects.
SSMRC and Central South Carpenters staff met with Oklahoma gubernatorial candidate Joy Hofmeister July 18 to discuss issues, including worker misclassification, that affect union members and the law-abiding contractors who employ them.
In the next year, $1 billion in airport-terminal-improvement projects will begin at 85 airports across the country. Funding for the projects comes from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and represents the first year of a five-year program to invest $5 billion in terminals.
For the first time in 40 years, the U.S. Labor Department is proposing comprehensive updates to the Davis-Bacon Act. The changes would speed up prevailing wage updates, improve efficiency, and ensure prevailing-wage rates keep up with actual wages.
Pensions are now secure for millions of union workers workers and retirees who were at risk of losing their benefits, the U.S. Labor Department announced July 6.
The U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee has released a study showing that, compared to their non-union peers, union members earn 10.2% higher wages and are 18.3% more likely to have employer-sponsored health insurance.
Employers and employees are invited to U.S. Labor Department online forums about worker misclassification. Employees who are misclassified as independent contractors are deprived of employer-provided health, retirement, and other benefits as well as Social-Security and Family-and-Medical-Leave-Act benefits.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a bill into law May 20 that reduces the time Oklahomans can receive unemployment benefits from 26 weeks to 16 weeks beginning in January of next year.
Primaries are happening across the South; make a plan to get out to vote. Voting laws across some of the Southern states have changed. Here’s what you need to know.