Latest news with #collective bargaining
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
WGAE Members at CBS News Digital Ratify First Union Contract, Including AI Protections
The unanimous ratification happened after more than a year of negotiations Writers Guild of America East members at CBS News Digital have reached a deal with management on their first collective bargaining agreement. The contract was unanimously ratified by the 46-member bargaining unit after a year of negotiations. The union covers writers, reporters, editors, and producers at CBS News' digital platforms including its mobile website, social media channels and the CBS News app. More from TheWrap WGAE Members at CBS News Digital Ratify First Union Contract, Including AI Protections 'Daily Show' Slams Trump Administration's Push to Discuss Religion at Work: 'Absolutely Not' | Video 'I Know What You Did Last Summer' Star Chase Sui Wonders Recalls 'Embarrassing Moment' Quoting 'Scooby-Doo' to Freddie Prinze Jr. | Video Seth Meyers Gets Karoline Leavitt to Roast Trump in Fake Press Conference | Video The three-year contract establishes minimum salaries and guaranteed pay raises for all job titles. The contract also addresses the critical issue of worker safety on late-night/early-morning commutes by guaranteeing extra pay for working overnight shifts, long days and weeks and standby shifts. Additional highlights from the contract include either a 3% increase or a ratification bonus in year 1 of the contract; a guaranteed minimum 3.5% pay increase in year two and a 3% pay increase in year three of the contract; guaranteed minimum severance for layoffs (two weeks pay for every year of service with a minimum of eight weeks); a path for promotion to senior reporter; the codification of existing remote work policies for current employees through December 31, 2027 – employees working on a hybrid basis will not be required to work more than two days in-office; employees working fully remote will continue to do so; extra pay for working for short turnaround times, standby assignments, and upgraded work; the option to be paid out for earned comp time; employment protections regarding Generative AI, including 1.5 times severance if laid off because of its implementation. 'After organizing in 2024 with the goal of securing critical workplace protections, we're proud to have won a strong first contract for our members at CBS News Digital,' says Beth Godvik, WGAE VP of Broadcast/Cable/Streaming News, in an official statement. 'Establishing protections like guaranteed raises and pay that actually matches the job duties being performed will allow our members to build sustainable careers in News.' In its Broadcast/Cable/Streaming News sector, the WGAE also represents workers at 1010 WINS, ABC News, Audacy (WCBS-AM, WBBM-AM, and KNX-AM), CBS News, CBS 24.7 (formerly CBSN), Fox 5 WNYW-TV, MSNBC, NBC Promo Writers, Thirteen Productions (Thirteen/WNET), and WBBM / CBS 2 News. The post WGAE Members at CBS News Digital Ratify First Union Contract, Including AI Protections appeared first on TheWrap.


Daily Mail
7 hours ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Air Canada faces potential strike as flight attendants vote
The union's bargaining committee is seeking a strike mandate to secure an industry-leading contract for its members. In a message, they emphasized that their 'strength lies' in collective power, stating, 'This is how we will show the company that we are united, serious, and will accept nothing less than the contract we deserve.' The airline noted that any strike would be subject to a 21-day cooling-off period, which only begins after a 60-day conciliation period expires. In the interim, Air Canada remains committed to reaching a deal. The airline aims for a 'fair and equitable collective agreement' that acknowledges flight attendants' contributions while supporting the company's 'competitiveness and long-term growth.' Despite ongoing efforts, including federal conciliation, key issues like pay, unpaid work, and pensions remain unresolved for the flight attendants' union. This contrasts with Air Canada's 5,400 pilots, who secured a nearly 42% cumulative wage increase over four years in a contract last October.


CTV News
2 days ago
- Business
- CTV News
Tentative deal with province's AMAPCEO union workers approved
A new 3-year tentative deal has been reached with Association of Management, Administrative and Professional Crown Employees of Ontario (AMAPCEO). 'I am very pleased that we have reached a tentative agreement with AMAPCEO. Particularly in times of economic uncertainty, good-faith collective bargaining is a necessary and important process that benefits all parties,' said MPP York-Simcoe Minister Caroline Mulroney, president of the Treasury Board. Mulroney said the tentative agreement is part of Ontario's plan to build a competitive economy with stability across the public sector. 'We look forward to sharing details of the agreement once it has been fully ratified by both parties,' she said.


Reuters
6 days ago
- Politics
- Reuters
US judge tosses Trump administration bid to cancel union contracts
July 24 (Reuters) - A federal judge has dismissed a bid by President Donald Trump's administration to obtain judicial permission to cancel dozens of collective bargaining agreements between eight federal agencies and unions representing their employees. Waco, Texas-based U.S. District Judge Alan Albright decided late on Wednesday that the agencies do not have legal standing to bring a lawsuit to implement a Trump executive order exempting them from having to bargain with unions, as the American Federation of Government Employees, or AFGE, union had argued. Albright's ruling deals at least a temporary setback to the Republican president's broader efforts to lift restrictions on firing federal employees and shrink the federal bureaucracy. The White House, the U.S. Department of Justice and AFGE did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday. The departments of Defense, Justice, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture and Housing and Urban Development, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Social Security Administration, filed the lawsuit in March. The American Federation of Government Employees represents 800,000 federal workers. The agencies had claimed in the lawsuit that the administration of Trump's Democratic predecessor Joe Biden entered into collective bargaining agreements with AFGE in the months before Trump took office to block him from firing federal workers en masse and pursuing other priorities. Eliminating collective bargaining would make it easier for agencies to alter working conditions and fire or discipline workers. It also could prevent federal worker unions from challenging Trump administration initiatives in court. Albright, who Trump appointed during his first term as president, did not decide whether the president's order allows the agencies to nullify existing union contracts. Trump in the executive order excluded agencies from collective bargaining obligations that he said "have as a primary function intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative or national security work." The order applies to the Justice, State, Defense, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, and Health and Human Services departments, among other agencies. Trump's order affects about 75% of the roughly 1 million federal workers represented by unions, according to court filings. It significantly expanded an existing exception from collective bargaining for workers with duties affecting national security, such as certain employees of the CIA and FBI. The administration's lawsuit was filed on the same day that Trump issued the executive order, meanwhile unions filed separate lawsuits seeking to block the order saying it violates the U.S. Constitution and federal workers' rights to unionize and collectively bargain. Federal judges in California and Washington, D.C., have blocked agencies from implementing Trump's order in lawsuits by the AFGE and another union. A U.S. appeals court in May paused the Washington judge's ruling, and a different court is considering doing the same in the California case. The unions have said the vast majority of workers affected by the order are not in roles related to national security or intelligence. And also in May, a federal judge in Kentucky ruled that the U.S. Department of Treasury lacked standing to seek to void a union contract covering tens of thousands of Internal Revenue Service employees. AFGE has said that the Texas lawsuit was an act of retaliation against the union for filing a series of legal challenges to other Trump administration policies, including mass firings and layoffs and restrictions on civil service protections for federal employees. It also said that none of the agencies covered by Trump's order are primarily involved in intelligence or national security work. Some of the contracts allow employees to continue working remotely, delegate decision-making "to unaccountable private arbitrators," and limit the power of the president and agency heads to identify and address poor performance, the agencies said in the lawsuit.
Yahoo
23-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
New collective-bargaining bill looms as historic day arrives
Within college athletics over the last several months, few topics have garnered more interest than collective bargaining — from football and basketball coaches as well as top athletic administrators. On Capitol Hill, at least two lawmakers are interested too. Two Democrats, Rep. Summer Lee and Sen. Chris Murphy, are reintroducing on Wednesday a bill to affirm and expand college athletes' rights to organize, form unions and collectively bargain with their universities and/or conferences, according to the legislation obtained by Yahoo Sports. The bill's introduction comes on what could be a historic day for the college sports industry: Two House committees are expected to consider a separate bill, the SCORE Act, and potentially advance that legislation to the House floor. In the NCAA's more than five-year lobbying effort for congressional legislation, no all-encompassing college sports bill, such as the SCORE Act, has advanced out of a committee in either chamber. A full House of Representatives vote could come as soon as this fall — a potentially groundbreaking moment but one that should come with a caveat. The NCAA-friendly SCORE Act, while bipartisan, faces stiff pushback in a divided U.S. Senate, where at least seven Democrats are needed to overcome the filibuster and reach the 60-vote margin for any bill passage. Murphy and Lee's bill, perhaps a longshot to pass in this Congress, serves as a reminder of what could transpire in the future as the college sports industry barrels toward a more professionalized model with the approval of the House settlement's athlete revenue-share concept. The bill would amend the National Labor Relationship Board Act to cover both private and public universities and require the board to recognize conferences and schools as 'multi-employer bargaining units.' The bill establishes 'equitable terms and conditions' for college athletes to choose representation in order to negotiate collective-bargaining agreements. 'College athletes exhibit the markers of employment as established under the common law definition of the term 'employee,'' the bill says. 'The NCAA and its member institutions have denied college athletes a fair wage for their labor by colluding to cap compensation; they maintain strict and exacting control over the terms and conditions of college athletes' labor; and they exercise the ability to terminate an athlete's eligibility to compete if the athlete violates these terms and conditions.' The bill is contradictory to the mostly Republican-backed SCORE Act, which provides the NCAA, power conferences and new enforcement arm, the College Sports Commission, with many of its requests from Congress: (1) limited antitrust protection to enforce rules; (2) the preemption of various state NIL laws; (3) codification of the House settlement terms; and, perhaps most notably, (4) a clause deeming athletes as students and not employees. The bill is facing pushback not only from Democrats but from a variety of avenues, including players associations of the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and MLS; the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committees; and one of the leading Democrats in the Senate, Maria Cantwell. 'If you thought the dissolution of the Pac-12 was a heist, the SCORE Act is the National Championship of all heists,' said Cantwell, representing the state of Washington. 'This legislation is a power grab by the two biggest conferences that will leave athletes, coaches, and small and mid-sized institutions behind.' All three entities — the players associations, Olympic committee and Cantwell — each provide a criticism to the SCORE Act: It prevents a path for collective bargaining and employment of athletes; and codifies a House settlement that, many believe, will negatively impact women and Olympic sports and grows the already looming financial gaps between major conference programs and those other lower-resourced schools in Division I. In a recent letter to House lawmakers, four state attorney generals — from Florida, Tennessee, Ohio and New York — urged Congress to reject the SCORE Act, describing it as 'a misguided effort that will enshrine in federal law the arbitrary and biased authority of the NCAA at its worst.' But the bill has plenty of supporters who point to the many benefits, such as the legislation's oversight of agents and its requirement to provide athlete degree completion and post-graduate healthcare. Meanwhile, Murphy and Lee's bill gestures toward a completely different system, one that turns athletes into employees who can collectively bargain — a concept that many in college athletics believe should be explored deeply as a way to bring stability and regulation. 'Collective bargaining and employment status shouldn't be seen as negative terms,' Tennessee athletic director Danny White told Yahoo Sports last month. 'I think there's a lot of people who think the same way I do. We can go through another three or five or 10 years of a difficult environment. Or we can accept the reality and fix it right now.'