Victories

Sixteen years ago the men and women of the Boston Building Trades, working under a Project Labor Agreement, finished the Boston Garden ahead of schedule and under budget. They did their job, now their 75,000 union brothers and sisters are counting on our beloved Bruins to finish the job and bring the Stanley Cup home to its rightful place.

A major temp agency, EDA, has agreed to abide by the requirements laid out in proposed bill which requires the agency to give workers more information about the jobs they will performing for employers. "We are delighted to hear that the EDA Temp Agency is responding to workers demands,” said Richard Rogers, Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Greater Boston Labor Council, AFL-CIO. “When workers win, our whole community wins."

Teachers at a Cape Cod charter school that specializes in environmental sciences have voted to unionize, making them the second independently run charter school in Massachusetts to take the step, union officials announced yesterday. The decision among the approximately 30 teachers at Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School in Orleans will be closely watched by educators and advocates across the state as the American Federation of Teachers attempts to unionize charter schools nationwide.

MNA nurses ratify landmark agreement with former Caritas Network The MNA and Caritas Christi Health Care, the state’s second largest health care network, announced in October the ratification of a landmark master agreement, involving nearly 1,700 registered nurses working at four facilities including Carney Hospital in Dorchester, Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton, Norwood Hospital in Norwood and St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton. The centerpiece of the agreement is the creation of a Taft-Hartley, multiemployer defined benefit pension fund for the nurses, the first of its kind for RNs in Massachusetts, which will provide lifetime retirement security for nurses at a time when other employers are cutting, freezing or attempting to eliminate pension benefits.

Tracy Posuky, school bus driver and union steward for many years at First student's Palmer, Massachusetts terminal, was fired by the company after an accident that took place on March 15, 2010.

On July 8, 2010, the Facility and Stadium employees at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro were certified as a union with the Area Trades Council (ATC).

Attorney General Martha Coakley’s Office has entered into a multi-million dollar agreement with Pittsburgh-based FedEx Ground to settle claims the company misclassified its drivers as independent contractors. Pursuant to the settlement, FedEx Ground agreed to pay more than $3 million back to the Commonwealth’s general fund. The Attorney General’s Office alleged that FedEx Ground’s failure to properly classify drivers had led the Company to make lesser payments to the Commonwealth for payroll taxes, worker’s compensation and unemployment assistance.

City Hall workers in Lynn were successful in stopping an arbitrary decision by the mayor to change their work hours.