The U.S. Department of Labor has ruled in favor of a challenge to the election of Jody Barr as executive director of AFSCME Council 4, according to emails from AFSCME Chief of Staff Troy Raccuia.
Government union officials and executives were compensated for a full day of union business leave during a three hour union convention.
Cheryl Spano Lonis, a 19-year veteran nurse working with prisoners in Connecticut’s Department of Correction filed the lawsuit after SEIU 1199 ignored her request to have her dues donated to charity because of her religious beliefs. Lonis’ story was originally reported by Yankee Institute in July 2018.
State physicians and psychiatrists for Connecticut’s Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services received two additional step increases to their pay scale as part of the bevy of union contracts approved with the 2017 SEBAC deal.
The national AFL-CIO has tapped Working America, its political affiliate based in Washington D.C., to send canvassers to Connecticut for a “union member mobilization effort” and to talk with members about “the importance of the 2018 election cycle,” according to an email from AFSCME Council 4 Executive Director Jody Barr.
A recent survey of public-sector union members in 22 states without right-to-work laws showed more than half of them approve of their new rights under the Janus v. AFSCME ruling.