Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | November 8, 2021 | Worcester Business Journal 15 Our team is here for you Local, Independent, Certified Financial Planners www.CarrFinancial.net Call for a no-obligation discussion about what we can do for you Call 508.795.0264 20 Park Avenue Worcester, MA 01605 T A X S T R A T E G Y | I N V E S T M E N T | R E T I R E M E N T Securities offered through LPL Financial, member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advice offered through Private Advisor Group, a registered investment advisor. Private Advisor Group & Carr Financial Group are separate entities from LPL Financial. 800-262-1001 | iccreditunion.org Insured by NCUA We've got your business covered. Small to large and anything in between – Business Solutions Note: Data refer to both union members and workers who report no union affiliation but whose jobs are covered by a union or an employee association contract. Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 0 100K 200K 300K 400K 500K 0 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% Mass. workers represented by a union % Mass. workforce represented by union 461K 383K 12.8% 15.9% '00 '01 '02 '03 '04 '05 '06 '07 '08 '09 '10 '11 '12 '13 '14 '15 '16 '17 '18 '19 '20 Massachusetts union workers The number of employees in Massachusetts who are represented by a union, and the percent of the workforce represented by unions, fell in 2020 to the lowest levels since the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics starting tracking the data. ratios, resource nurse staffing, and lim- its on how oen the hospital may flex down by sending nurses home when there are more nurses working during a shi than patient levels require. Schildmeier, too, said he expects to see more workers organizing in the future. e continued battle over returning the nurses to work is only increasing attention to the topic. "In some ways Saint Vincent was emblematic of what was happening in a lot of workplaces, and it's on a bigger scale and against a very large corporate entity," Weinbaum, from UMass said. e impetus, she said, was not solely economic uncertainty brought about by the pandemic. She pointed toward increased corporate powers and a grow- ing desire on behalf of workers to access the kind of benefits that unions might be able to provide. "A lot of things happened at once," Weinbaum said. W Central Mass. will see more labor strikes Do you think there will be more labor strikes in Central Massachusetts? Striking nurses and hospital leadership at Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester have agreed to terms that would ostensibly end an eight-month strike that largely hinged on staffing ratios. The strike continues, however, while administrators and union members tussle over whether or not all striking nurses will be guaranteed a return to positions they held prior to the strike's start. When polled online, more than two-thirds of WBJ readers said more labor disputes are coming to the region. F L AS H P O L L Yes 70% No 30% "And if they succeed the inflation rate will be more like a solid 20%, not the 5-6% mentioned in the media." "The main difference now is that incumbent workers appear increasingly willing to strike. The number of workers who participated in significant strikes in 2020 increased to nearly 500,000, its highest point since the mid-1980s; and the total duration of such strikes reached a 15-year high." COMMENTS:

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