Nearly five million U.S. workers will become newly eligible for overtime pay on December 1st. A new federal rule backed by the Obama administration under the Fair Labor Standards Act will make these workers eligible for overtime pay.
Time and a half pay is mandatory under the new rule for any worker making less than $47,476 per year. That pay threshold re-adjusts every three years to keep up with changing wages.
UAW President Dennis Williams says since Trump disagreed with the Republican Party on trade and that could be an area where the new GOP President might actually do something that helps workers.
[Dennis Williams]: "He wasn't a friend of the Republican Party. He actually set the Republican Party upside down in the philosophy of trade. Because they believe in free trade without any barriers, right? He don't.
3500 Harvard grad student workers are voting this week on joining the UAW. Avery Davis is with Harvard Graduate Students Union - UAW.
[Avery Davis]: "We are trying to form a union here at Harvard University because as graduate students we perform teaching and research for the university. We believe that the university's crucial mission is the teaching and research work.
Since we do this crucial work for the university, we deserve a say in determining our work conditions.
Honeywell is using its corporate power and wealth to punish working families in South Bend Indiana and Green Island New York.
Honeywell locked out hundreds of UAW Local 9 and Local 1508 workers in May after the workers voted to reject the latest company concession demands on a new labor contract.
The union had agreed to keep working while negotiations continued but the company locked them at a time of record profits for Honeywell.
The Sacramento Central Labor Council is opposing a major league soccer stadium unless future stadium food service workers have the right to organize or join unions.
The labor council sent a letter to the Sacramento City Council saying it can't support the soccer stadium project without guaranteeing the right of future workers to form or join unions.
Other major league sports stadiums in California have union-represented workers.
UAW President Dennis Williams says the American people have spoken and it's "time for us to once again unite for the common good of our country."
Williams says he has high hopes that elected officials heard the American people loud and clear about trade, jobs, education and inequality in this country.
Labor unions won a round in Virginia as voters there defeated a measure that would have put the anti-union law called 'right to work' into the state constitution.
The law overrides the democratic decision of the majority of workers in union workplaces because a majority of workers vote in order to have a union represent all the workers in the workplace.
These laws allow individual workers to stop paying dues or fees to unions but still be covered by the union's collective bargaining efforts.
Voters in Arizona, Colorado and Maine voted Tuesday to raise minimum wages for over two million workers. The wage will be raised to $12 an hour.
Washington voted to raise the state minimum wage to $13.50. But therse wages won't fully phase in until 2020.
The Economic Policy Institute says legislative minimum wage increases passed earlier this year in California, New York, Oregon, the District of Columbia and roughly a dozen cities and counties helped millions more workers.
If Oregon voters approve Measure 97 on November 8th the state could raise $3 billion a year for education. It applies a 2.5 percent tax on large businesses with over $25 million in Oregon sales.
Our Oregon supports Measure 97 and says it will help make up for big loopholes allowing many corporations doing business in Oregon to pay little or no tax.
The Oregon Education Association and other public employee unions back Measure 97. Big business opposes it.
McDonald's is paying $3.75 million to settle a worker class action lawsuit. The workers will get $1.75 million of that in back wages owed to them.
The labor law violations suit was filed In U.S. District Court in San Francisco on behalf of 800 McDonald's workers in Illinois.
McDonald's agreed to pay $1.75 million to the workers in back pay and $2 million in legal fees.