Subject: Healthcare Checkup: Machinists Ramp Up Their Poaching Efforts, Nursing Home Workers Coordinate Strikes: LRI INK

March 14, 2024

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Healthcare Checkup: Machinists Ramp Up Their Poaching Efforts, Nursing Home Workers Coordinate Strikes

by Kimberly Ricci

Last fall, the burgeoning CVS and Walgreens employee walkouts highlighted how the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) is edging into healthcare by organizing retail pharmacy professionals. This poaching might sound as out-of-left-field as the United Auto Workers (UAW) aggressive posturing in higher education over the past few years, and you’d have a point if you thought so. However, unions are not above taking advantage of worker dissatisfaction in particularly stressed industries, and healthcare qualifies in that department.


Please make no mistake: Unions are fretting over their longevity amid a period of the lowest union density in U.S. history. The poaching practices are about surviving, not about adequately representing workers.


Let’s say that this union has a long way to go in that regard. The IAM Healthcare union’s self-reported membership stands at 12,000+, which is only a sliver of the union’s claimed total of 700,000 workers from other industries.


IAM Healthcare cannot be written off as a concern. The union recently added almost 1,000 workers from an Ohio State University medical center, and they still have their eyes on a sizable bounty of frustrated pharmacy workers working at the intersection of healthcare and retail. Additionally, the union recently hired a pair of seasoned organizers in an attempt to go all-in on this field.


The current union poaching trend illustrates how IAM and the UAW are pulling out all the stops to diversify their portfolio by capitalizing upon worker unease in industries beyond their usual fare. It’s also a reminder never to stop fostering an environment where workers feel comfortable expressing concerns to leadership. Like unions, employers must maintain an open mind and diversify their skill sets in open communication.


A few more odds and ends from the healthcare industry:

  • 1,000 nursing home workers in Minnesota’s Twin Cities went on a “historic” one-day strike that pulled at least 25% of area staffers off the job at a dozen facilities. The workers are asking for $25 minimum pay, improved benefits, and safer working conditions. This SEIU-led strike is also happening in conjunction with several same-union strikes in the Twin Cities area. That included 4,000 janitors in the same metropolitan area, and 4,000 Minneapolis teachers are gearing up for a strike later this month.

  • Two Ascension hospitals (in Texas and Michigan) saw nurses reach deals that included raises ranging from 11% to 30%, depending upon the role.

  • The University of Chicago nurses called off strike plans after management reached a tentative agreement for a new contract with National Nurses United.

Seeing non-traditional unions like the IAM targeting healthcare raises the heat in an already challenging healthcare industry.

Full-Court Press: What Will The Ripple Effect On College Sports Be After Dartmouth Basketball Players Voted To Unionize?

by Kimberly Ricci

In January, we discussed the numerous legal vectors through which college athletes were growing closer to being considered employees. The interested parties’ goal in this status was for these athletes to collectively bargain for their working conditions and compensation under the NLRA. Legally, balls are still in the air, but last week, Dartmouth College’s men’s basketball team went ahead and voted (13-2) to unionize with the SEIU, the first such instance of this happening within the NCAA.


The Dartmouth athletes seek benefits, including paid time off and a cut of university revenues from spectatorship. If their vote to unionize is allowed to stand, this could transform college sports as we know them.


Let’s retrace a few of the more recent developments on how we got here:

  • In 2021, National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo suggested that student-athletes are misclassified. She invited college athletes to file petitions for union elections while goading interested parties to file unfair labor charges against the NCAA.

  • On February 5, board regional director Laura Sack declared Dartmouth’s basketball players to be employees, and the college’s appeal on this status is pending. Despite a lack of traditional compensation for these players, the NLRB claims that free gear, travel expenses, and “educational” goodies from the university create an employee-worker relationship, and the board refused to halt the union election during Dartmouth’s appeal.

Ultimately, it’s not too much of a stretch to see why this happened. Undergrad and graduate students have been increasingly organizing in recent years, and an AFL-CIO official calls student athletes’ entrance into the field a “very much grassroots-driven” effort that has “been happening for a while.”


Additionally, the SEIU is known to be aggressive during organizing. Yet, do these athletes understand the detrimental effects of unionizing? Sadly, probably not, and negative consequences from around a dozen athletes’ votes could remain long after these basketball players graduate:

  • As employees, athletes would not only be able to unionize but also be subject to taxable income, layoffs, firings, reorganizations, and other unpleasantries of employment.

  • Athletic programs will likely suffer as a whole since increased labor costs could force universities to cut programs that do not bring in revenue. That opens up the vast majority of college sports to the chopping block, given that only the “big” sports (football and basketball) at select universities can draw enough spectator interest to be profitable.

  • Women’s athletic teams, particularly, could be vulnerable to extinction. How this status could jibe with universities’ requirements to adhere to Title IX, which prohibits discrimination based on sex for any entity that receives federal funding, remains a mystery.

  • Universities could tip into financial disarray if this shift causes them to lose their access to charitable gifts and student fees via their Section 501(3)c designation.

Another point of uncertainty: The NLRB previously chose to consider unfair labor allegations against the NCAA, the University of Southern California, and the Pac-12 as filed by the National College Players Association. This would only directly affect private universities (including Dartmouth, which is Ivy League), but Abruzzo wants to expand the scope to public colleges.


As we previously wrote, the Dartmouth matter could go all the way up to the Supreme Court, which previously leaned (in NCAA v. Alston) toward granting employee status to college athletes.

NLRB Joint Employer Rule Blocked

by Michael VanDervort

According to a Bloomberg report, a federal judge in Texas invalidated the NLRB rule that broadened the criteria for determining when companies are considered joint employers of workers, sharing liability and obligations under federal labor law.


The rule, which was supposed to start on March 11, would have expanded the types of control over employment conditions that could lead to a joint employer finding. Judge J. Campbell Barker, appointed by Trump, made the decision after a lawsuit by the US Chamber of Commerce and other business groups.

Barker declared the rule invalid because it would treat some companies as employers of contract or franchise workers even though they lacked any meaningful control over their working conditions.


This ruling, which could significantly impact the franchising sector and business-to-business agreements for contract labor, is expected to be appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, known for its conservative judgments.

Another independent contractor rule promulgated by the U.S. Department of Labor went into effect on March 11, although it still faces court challenges.

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About Labor Relations INK

Labor Relations INK is published weekly and is edited by Labor Relations Institute, Inc. Feel free to pass this newsletter on to anyone you think might enjoy it. New subscribers can sign up by visiting here.


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Contributing editors for this issue: Greg Kittinger, Michael VanDervort, and Kimberly Ricci.


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