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Unions

‘Holding The Line’: Municipal Workers’ Strike Enters Second Week

July 8, 2025 Stephen Prager, Common Dreams. , , , ,
Philadelphia's largest municipal workers' strike in over 40 years is entering its second week after negotiations with the city broke down this weekend. Over 9,000 sanitation workers, 911 dispatchers, water services workers, crossing guards, and other city employees walked off the job last week, demanding that the city increase their salary enough to meet the rising cost of living. But even with trash piling up on the streets and other city services understaffed, Mayor Cherelle Parker (D) would not agree to the demands made by AFSCME District Council 33, Philadelphia's largest blue-collar union. Parker has offered a pay increase of 8.75% over the next three years, which she described as historic.

Workers’ Rights Are Under Attack, Here’s How We Fight Back

July 7, 2025 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. , , , , ,
July 5 marked the 90th anniversary of the Wagner Act, also known as the National Labor Relations Act, which created the National Labor Relations Board and created mechanisms for workers to expand their rights and protections. Clearing the FOG speaks with longtime labor activist Steve Early about how worker militancy led to the Wagner Act, which was successful in increasing the percentage of unionized workers. Early explains how attacks on workers have weakened the Wagner Act, leading to a sharp decline in unionization. He states that now, "corporate America is moving in for the kill." Early provides insight into ways workers can fight back in the current system.

Minneapolis Teamsters Fight For Safety In Summer Heat

July 6, 2025 Sorcha Lona, Fight Back! News. , , , , , ,
Minneapolis – Local 638 Teamsters tabled at the northeast Minneapolis UPS hub on Thursday, July 3. They distributed flyers on heat safety and union contract enforcement. Drivers coming in, and warehouse workers leaving for the day, stopped to learn about their rights, grab some lemonade, and share experiences as temperatures reached the 90-plus range in Minneapolis. Inside the warehouse and inside package cars, temperatures are regularly five to ten degrees higher for workers. As the result of a months-long contract campaign and credible strike threat in 2023, UPS workers won strong contract language. This requires UPS to install 2500 new water fountains, 18,000 new warehouse fans, and 28,000 new or replacement delivery vehicles equipped with air conditioning over the life of the five-year contract.

Over 100 Mauser Teamsters Enter Fourth Week On Strike In Chicago

July 4, 2025 Eliza Schultz, Fight Back! News. , , , , ,
Chicago, IL – On Wednesday July 2, around 100 striking workers joined the picket line outside Mauser Packaging Solutions Steel Drum Reconditioning plant in Chicago. The facility has sat closed, with the operation halted and the gates locked, for almost a month as a result of the strike called by Teamsters Local 705 due to unfair labor practices committed by Mauser during the negotiations for a new contract. “We are on an Unfair Labor Practice strike against Industrial Container Services (aka Mauser Packaging Solutions) after the company illegally surveilled union members. Members are also fighting for a contract that includes respectable wages, benefits, immigration protection and workplace stability language,” according to a public statement by the union.

Philadelphia Municipal Workers Strike Before July 4 Celebrations

July 3, 2025 Paul Prescod, Labor Notes. , , , , , ,
Nine thousand blue-collar workers who make Philadelphia run went on strike July 1. After sacrificing through the pandemic and years of bruising inflation, they say they’re on strike so they can afford to live in the city they serve. Already, uncollected garbage is piling up as the workers, members of AFSCME District Council 33, defend their strike lines. The COVID-19 pandemic brought the term “essential worker” into widespread use, but many experienced a gap between how they were talked about and how they were treated. They were called essential, but regarded as disposable. In June 2020, at the height of the pandemic, hundreds of Philadelphia sanitation workers and other DC 33 members rallied to demand hazard pay and personal protective equipment.

Philadelphia’s Largest Blue-Collar Workers’ Union Goes On Strike

July 2, 2025 Tom Ignudo, Portside. , , , , ,
Philadelphia's largest city workers' union is on strike for the first time in nearly 40 years on Tuesday after a deal couldn't be reached with the city. AFSCME District Council 33, which represents thousands of city workers, including trash collectors and police dispatchers, is walking off the job after negotiations didn't end in a deal. The union last went on a strike in 1986. Here's what you need to know about the strike and how it will affect Philadelphia. District Council 33 represents about 9,000 city workers in services handled by the Sanitation Department, Water Department, Police Dispatch, Streets Department, maintenance at the airport and more. The union left Monday morning's negotiations with the Parker administration without a new contract in place.

Fighting Mid-Contract Changes Can Build The Union

June 24, 2025 Al Davidoff, Labor Notes. , , ,
Often our best opportunity to strengthen the union—to build activism, solidarity, and leadership—comes during contract negotiations. Under most U.S. union contracts, this is the only time we are legally free to use our greatest power, the strike. But during the years between negotiations, it’s easy to revert to a sleepy “business union” model. We may reinforce passivity or dependence among the members we “serve” by handling their day-to-day problems “for” them instead of mobilizing their power and true ownership of the local. How can we mobilize members during the long periods between contracts?

New York-Based Tabletop Workers United Win A Union Contract

June 23, 2025 Chase Carter, Rascal News. , , , , ,
Workers at three New York City-based board game cafes have successfully ratified a union contract nearly two years after first organizing. Tabletop Workers United, which represents over 100 staff from Hex&Co, The Brooklyn Strategist, and The Uncommons, says the contract will last three years and is the first of its kind for tabletop businesses in New York. Ratification transforms the contract from a tentative agreement between the union’s bargaining unit and ownership into a legally binding document. The contract secures a number of critical demands for workers, including progressive pay increases that prioritize workers currently earning the least.

Italian Workers Strike Against War And Militarization

June 22, 2025 Ana Vracar, People's Dispatch. , , , , , , , ,
The Italian grassroots trade union Unione Sindacale di Base (USB) launched a general strike on Friday, June 20, to escalate national mobilization against armament and war. Echoing a slogan from broader peace campaigns – “Abbassate le armi, alzate i salari” (“Lower the weapons, raise the wages”) – striking workers aiming to expose the consequences of Europe’s, and more specifically Italy’s, growing military-industrial agenda, including more cuts in the region’s public services. “This is a strike against war and rearmament, but also against the devastating militarization of the economy and society,” USB stated ahead of the strike.

Mexican GM Workers To Vote On Union At Second Plant

June 20, 2025 Natascha Elena Uhlmann, Labor Notes. , , ,
Workers at a second General Motors assembly plant in Mexico will vote June 25 to 27 on whether to join SINTTIA (the National Auto Workers Union), the independent union that won a landmark election to represent workers at the company’s Silao plant in 2022. A win for SINTTIA at the plant, located 90 miles north of Silao in San Luis Potosí, would mark a major breakthrough for Mexico’s labor movement. It would be the first time that an independent union represents two assembly plants at one of the Big Three automakers. The 6,500 workers set to vote produce the GMC Terrain and the Chevrolet Trax and Equinox SUVs.

Chilean Starbucks Workers Gain Second Contract After Strike

June 19, 2025 Vanessa Alvarez, Labor Notes. , , , ,
We started the union because of worries workers had, especially because of the economic crisis in the United States. We noticed that stores were closing [in the U.S] and we didn’t know what could happen here. Those concerns pushed the initial group [in Santiago] to form the union, and in 2010 the first negotiation took place. When we started negotiating, we could immediately see that they were a very anti-union company. Starbucks at that time was controlled by the corporation in the United States. They stated directly that they were not going to negotiate with unions, that they did not negotiate with unions and that, therefore, no matter how much we asked, how many we were, they did not care at all, they were not going to give in.

Trump Has Put A Target On SEIU; The Labor Movement Is Fighting Back

June 12, 2025 Luis Feliz Leon, In These Times. , , , , ,
As federal agents strapped on their tactical gear and picked up rifles to sweep workplaces, parking lots and streets in Los Angeles, workers and residents mounted what is shaping up into the boldest organized defiance to the Trump administration yet. And when a state labor leader observing the raids got swept up in the brutal immigration crackdown, it sparked nationwide action by labor unions against federal raids, detentions and deportations. When agents showed up at downtown garment factories on Friday and a Home Depot parking lot in the working-class suburb of Paramount on Saturday, everyday people’s anger at the Trump administration’s agents of repression boiled over into confrontation.

The Art Of Organizing

June 9, 2025 Brian O. Shepherd, Portside. , , ,
Organizing isn’t just a science, it’s also an art. Normally the latter is passed on through phone calls, debriefs, meetings, and late-night shit talk. This is an attempt to share with the next generation of union organizers some of those lessons learned along the way, some in victory, some in defeat. None of this is new. None of this is mine. I certainly don’t have the answers, I just know it’s something that I’ve given my life to over the past quarter of a century. The art requires staying close to the ground where people are—and that’s messy. It requires us to relate to others, take chances, innovate, all while asking the hard questions of others and ourselves. All of it is simple. None of it is easy.

Kroger Workers Vote Down Contract In Indiana By 74 Percent

June 6, 2025 Caitlyn Clark, Labor Notes. , , , ,
Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 700 members in Indiana voted down a tentative agreement May 31 covering 8,000 Kroger retail workers, with 74 percent voting no. Rank-and-file members bucked the recommendation for a ‘Yes’ vote by local union leadership and the bargaining committee. The tentative agreement includes wage increases of 50 cents over four years for some job classifications, while the first pay step would receive a 75 cent bump. Both the first and second pay steps would see a 25 cent raise in the first year. “With inflation, our wages are backsliding,” said Amy Reynolds, a 24-year Kroger worker in Fishers, near Indianapolis.

EBay Aims To Bust Trading Card Union With 200 Layoffs

June 4, 2025 Dan DiMaggio, Labor Notes. , , , ,
More than two years after voting in a union, the 220 workers at TCGplayer, the eBay-owned online marketplace for trading cards, hoped they might be getting close to securing a first contract. Instead, they’re fighting to save their jobs. On May 22, the company abruptly announced that it was shuttering its Syracuse, New York, authentication center and moving operations to Louisville, Kentucky. Spurred by unfair discipline and low pay, workers at TCGplayer became the first U.S. eBay workers to organize a union, joining Communications Workers Local 1123 in a March 2023 vote.
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