On the picket line

RNs to picket in Queens, N.Y.

During lunchtime on Jan. 5, the 350 registered nurses at Flushing Hospital in Queens, N.Y., plan an informational picket to demand the hospital continue its payments to health and pension plans. Represented by the New York State Nurses Association, the RNs say comprehensive benefit plans are needed since they are likely to suffer health problems developed on the job and cannot continue working until 65. Flushing Hospital CEO Robert Levin has offered no wage increases for three years, but has made proposals that would deprive each nurse of $150,000 in lifetime pension benefits. (www.nysna.org, Dec. 28)

Meanwhile, RNs at three other New York City hospitals averted strikes by negotiating four-year contracts before theirs expired on Dec. 31. The week of Dec. 5, the 3,000 RNs at New York-Presbyterian Hospital approved a contract with no health or pension contributions, improved staffing guidelines and 9 percent raises. On Dec. 27, the 1,300 RNs at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital reached a tentative agreement addressing their principal concerns: affordable health care with relief for members with high prescription costs; safe staffing levels for patients and nurses; and fair wages. On Dec. 30, the NYSNA negotiated a contract for 2,300 RNs at Montefiore Hospital with safer patient staffing levels, 125 new RN positions, salary increases of 7.5 percent, affordable prescription benefits and a $750 payment on ratification.

Still in negotiations, RNs at Mount Sinai Hospital have threatened to strike.

Minimum wage increases in 8 states

Eight states — Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, Vermont and Washington — raised their minimum wage rates in 2012 by 28 to 37 cents, to $7.64 to $9.04 an hour. Washington is the first state with a minimum wage that is more than $9.

Affected are about 1 million minimum-wage workers, predominantly white women over the age of 20, according to the Economic Policy Institute’s analysis of Labor Department data. However, the New York Times observed that “for those workers who do receive raises in the new year, the added income [$582 to $770 a year] still will not be enough to push their families above the poverty line.” (Dec. 24)

Eighteen states, the District of Columbia and a handful of cities have set minimum wages higher than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, often indexed to consumer price increases. On Jan. 1, San Francisco became the first big U.S. city to require that companies pay workers more than $10 an hour.

According to the National Employment Law Project, labor organizations are planning campaigns to raise the minimum wage in several states this year. However, given new statistics that show half the U.S. population is living either below, at or near poverty level, a national campaign is needed to substantially raise the federal minimum wage so that no workers are living in poverty.

New federal rules to speed unionization votes

The National Labor Relations Board announced Dec. 21 that it has drawn up new rules, effective April 30, to speed union elections and reduce delays by companies challenging the voting process.

First announced last June, the rules have been vociferously denounced by big-business organizations and their Republican mouthpieces in Congress. Indeed, the U.S. Chamber of Congress immediately filed a federal lawsuit to block the rules from taking effect. It charged that revised rules “illegally denied employers their free speech rights by denying them adequate opportunity to make the case against unions.” (NY Times, Dec. 22)

The latest chapter in this ongoing struggle has just begun. Stay tuned.