{"id":132621,"date":"2025-03-14T09:36:53","date_gmt":"2025-03-14T09:36:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/business\/insurance\/labor-agency-bulking-up-for-teacher-strikes-new-driver-law\/"},"modified":"2025-03-14T09:36:53","modified_gmt":"2025-03-14T09:36:53","slug":"labor-agency-bulking-up-for-teacher-strikes-new-driver-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=132621","title":{"rendered":"Labor Agency Bulking Up for Teacher Strikes, New Driver Law"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

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\"Labor<\/figure>\n
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Labor chief cites staff needs to react to \u201cincrease in illegal strike activity\u201d<\/h2>\n

STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, MARCH 11, 2025\u2026..A state labor agency is poised to get a budget bump to address a spike in teacher strikes and implement the new voter law\u00a0allowing rideshare drivers to unionize<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Secretary of Labor and Workforce Development Lauren Jones highlighted Gov. Maura Healey\u2019s recommended funding increase for the Department of Labor Relations during a budget hearing Monday. DLR, which received $3.5 million in fiscal 2025, would receive around $3.9 million in fiscal 2026 under Healey\u2019s pitch, which faces a legislative redraft in the coming months as the House and Senate dive into their own budget proposals.<\/p>\n

\u201cDLR\u2019s proposed funding increase is necessary for the department to address new requirements as a result of Ballot Question 3, in addition to maximizing operational efficiencies and to support staff capacity to address the recent increase in illegal strike activity at schools across the state,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n

Teacher strikes roiled school districts last year in Newton, Marblehead, Beverly and Gloucester, where the Joint Committee on Ways and Means held their second budget hearing Monday. The strikes are illegal but have become an increasingly common approach, leading to court fines but also new contract agreements.<\/p>\n

The DLR \u2014 which encompasses the Joint Labor Management Committee and the Commonwealth Employment Relations Board that handle labor disputes \u2014 is also now tasked with implementing the voter law that gives rideshare drivers, including those who work for Uber and Lyft, the right to unionize, Jones said.<\/p>\n

She called the ballot law a \u201cfirst-in-the nation initiative\u201d that will allow workers to \u201ccollectively bargain with transportation network companies.\u201d Around 54% of voters in November backed the referendum.<\/p>\n

Jones used her testimony to also highlight upcoming work at the Department of Unemployment Assistance, which she said is federally funded and not part of the state\u2019s operating budget.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo in May of 2025, as I mentioned, we\u2019re launching a modernized system, a new overhaul of our UI online system, that will provide a more customized system that will be user-friendly,\u201d Jones said, referencing unemployment insurance benefits. \u201cAnd we\u2019ve been investing in this. We saw great success on the employer side, and we\u2019re going to see, hopefully, success on the claimant experience come May.\u201d<\/p>\n

The overhaul is expected to expand self-service options for residents seeking benefits, including reporting wages, tracking work search activities, answering eligibility questions, and filing appeals, according to a\u00a0state webpage<\/a>. Jones called the portal a \u201cproven product that other states have also deployed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause we were planning for that in May, including an increase in staffing to support that launch, we moved up the opportunity to increase customer service on the phones from really the end of April to literally just last week. And we were able to increase, adding 140 more customer call staff to our department,\u201d Jones said. \u201cThat\u2019s been through an emergency contract \u2014 that we look to have an RFP to then have a long-term support for the EMT (Employment Modernization and Transformation) launch in May, and for hopefully six months after that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rep. Russell Holmes argued that new workforce won\u2019t solve persistent problems at DUA, which he said \u201chas been falling apart since we got here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones told Holmes that state officials accelerated the timeline to add new workers through a vendor after \u201crecognizing the backlog and the severity and long wait times that individuals were experiencing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that there is still a need to go through that backlog, which is why we\u2019re continuing to stay at the table to identify creative resources that we can use with the federal funding that we do have,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd we\u2019re having close conversations with A&F to provide for those kinds of opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Labor chief cites staff needs to react to \u201cincrease in illegal strike activity\u201d STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, MARCH 11, 2025\u2026..A state labor agency is poised to get a budget bump to address a spike in teacher strikes and implement the new voter law\u00a0allowing rideshare drivers to unionize. Secretary of Labor and Workforce Development Lauren Jones highlighted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[5353,57509,10050,15371,12685,25325,3618],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-132621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-insurance","tag-agency","tag-bulking","tag-driver","tag-labor","tag-law","tag-strikes","tag-teacher"],"yoast_head":"\nLabor Agency Bulking Up for Teacher Strikes, New Driver Law - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=132621\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Labor Agency Bulking Up for Teacher Strikes, New Driver Law - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Labor chief cites staff needs to react to \u201cincrease in illegal strike activity\u201d STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, MARCH 11, 2025\u2026..A state labor agency is poised to get a budget bump to address a spike in teacher strikes and implement the new voter law\u00a0allowing rideshare drivers to unionize. 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