Legislation and Policy

Ohio Gov. John Kasich, one of a wave of freshman Republicans occupying state capitols across the country, required little provocation to drop his Massachusetts counterpart’s name during a Tuesday appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. In fact, he seemed to relish it. “Deval Patrick has done, in some ways, more radical things than I’ve done in Ohio,” Kasich said, as he described his efforts to stabilize his state’s budget, in part by curbing collective bargaining rights for public employees.

<p>Paid sick days are a basic right and should be granted to workers by all employers, proponents of a proposed law said yesterday, as business groups argued that the mandate will hurt job growth during an anemic economic recovery.</p>

Under pressure from national union leaders, Governor Deval Patrick reached an agreement with the House and Senate yesterday to soften a bill to limit collective bargaining rights for teachers, firefighters, and other local government workers.

Calling the plan “a direct attack on the middle class,” Pacheco urged Patrick to revise or veto that section of the budget before signing the fiscal 2012 budget blueprint. “We are here in Massachusetts cutting away at collective bargaining rights. That is not Massachusetts. That's not our values. That's not what we're about. Let's not do it,” Pacheco urged his colleagues.

The average pension for a Massachusetts state worker is near the poverty level at $26,000, and most public sector retirees here don’t receive traditional Social Security payments.

"Our members have suffered broken backs, broken noses, concussions, spinal injuries, post-traumatic stress disorders and much more," said Jim Durkin, legislative agent for a union representing employees of the Department of Youth Services. "I don't want to wake up one day, turn on the morning news and find out one of them was murdered," Durkin told a legislative committee.

Temporary workers are paid through their staffing agency not the company for which they perform work, so the paperwork connecting them to the staffing agency can be lacking, said Marcy Goldstein-Gelb, director of the Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health, a workers’ rights advocacy group that conducted focus groups used in the study.

LAKEVILLE — The police and firefighters, who wanted the safety net of a Civil Service recall list if <b>laid off</b>, were denied by special Town Meeting voters, 75-51, Monday night. The article, submitted by petition, asked the town to file <b>...</b>

Secretary of Labor and Workforce Development Joanne Goldstein testified on behalf of the legislation for the Patrick administration, telling lawmakers that the current “bifurcated regulatory scheme” not only impacted exploited workers, but gives unscrupulous agencies a competitive advantage. “The very design on the temporary staffing business model is what often creates employer ambiguity and confusion on the part of the worker,” Goldstein said. “This, in turn, allows some, but certainly not all, business to play a shell game in accepting and assigning employer liabilities and responsibilities such as federal and state tax deductions, unemployment and health care contributions, and workers’ compensation coverage, all of which impact the Commonwealth’s underground economy.”