Have you heard? The new Union Plus Scholarship application is now open! Since 1991, the Union Plus Scholarship Program has awarded more than $4.3 million to students of working families who want to begin or continue their post-secondary education. Apply online today – and start your application ahead of the January 31, 2019 deadline: http://unionplus.deals/union68528

Only public employees in states with full collective bargaining make as much as their private-sector peers, according to a new report from EPI. Their counterparts in “right-to-work” states and states that prohibit collective bargaining earn lower wages and compensation than their private-sector peers.

In Eliminating Fair Share Fees and Making Public Employment “Right-to-Work” Would Increase the Pay Penalty for Working in State and Local Government, Jeffrey H. Keefe, a professor emeritus  in the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University, examines the effects of collective bargaining and union security on public employees’ wages and compensation.

The First National Guild of Healthcare Providers of the Lower Extremity/OPEIU Guild 45 is celebrating a major legislative victory with today’s signing into law of the VA MISSION Act*, which includes language that reclassifies podiatrists as podiatric surgeons within the VA Health Administration and puts them in the same pay category as their allopathic and osteopathic peers.

This represents the largest advancement for federally employed podiatrists since 1976 and is the first bill specific to podiatry passed by the United States Congress.

The Supreme Court issued a 5–4 decision Monday in Epic Systems v. Lewis allowing employers to deprive their workers of their right to sue collectively. Its ruling, written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, blasts a massive hole through post–New Deal labor law, hobbling employees’ ability to recover in court when their employers underpay them. It is difficult to overstate how devastating Epic Systems is to labor rights in America—and how far Gorsuch strays from federal law in order to implement his preferred economic policy.

Watch this video from the Solidarity Center, AFL-CIO and ITUC about efforts to pass an ILO standard on gender-based violence at work. Employers, government and labor representatives will debate a draft gender-based violence at work standard beginning May 28 at the UN in Geneva. Six-hundred workers from around the world will be there, working to ensure the final standard is strong. Watch this video and see what you can do to help.

https://youtu.be/dOkcez2nwvg