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Unions

Global Rights Index 2025 Reveals Worsening Crisis For Workers

June 4, 2025 International Trade Union Confederation. , , ,
This is the 12th edition of the ITUC Global Rights Index, the only comprehensive, worldwide annual study of the violation of workers’ rights – freedoms that form the basis of the democratic rule of law and fair working conditions for all. This year’s Index reveals a stark and worsening global crisis for workers and unions. In 2025, average country ratings deteriorated in three out of five global regions, with Europe and the Americas recording their worst scores since the Index’s inception in 2014. Alarmingly, only seven out of 151 countries surveyed received the top-tier rating. The data shows a sharp escalation in violations of fundamental rights, including access to justice, the right to free speech and assembly, and the right to collective bargaining. 

Brazilian Oil Unions Demand Energy Embargo On Israel

May 31, 2025 News Desk, The Cradle. , , , , , ,
Two of Brazil’s largest federations of oil trade unions have called on the country’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to impose an energy embargo on Israel over its brutal war against the Gaza Strip.  The National Federation of Oil Workers and the Single Federation of Oil Workers signed a letter to the Brazilian president and a number of his ministers urging the government to take a firmer stance against the genocidal war against Palestinians.  The federations said Brazil must do more than make public statements and impose a full ban on oil sales to Israel in an effort to actively prevent the “ongoing Nakba” – using the Arabic word for catastrophe, which refers to the ethnic cleansing and mass exodus of Palestinians in 1948. 

Labor Defends Jailed Immigrants: Forklift Driver, Hospital Worker

May 31, 2025 Alexandra Bradbury, Labor Notes. , , , , ,
The Seattle-area labor movement is rallying in defense of immigrant members seized by the Trump regime. Forklift driver Maximo Londonio and his family were on their way home from vacation in the Philippines—where he and his wife had celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary—when he was pulled aside at the airport, held there for days, then taken to a for-profit jail. Londonio has a green card; he moved here from the Philippines when he was just a kid. His wife is a U.S. citizen; they have three daughters. And he’s a Machinist. “Quite a lot of people in the shop are upset,” said Local Lodge 695 President Richard Howard.

Los Angeles Passes United State’s Highest Minimum Wage

May 30, 2025 Sasha Abramsky, Truthout. , , , , , ,
The Los Angeles City Council this month passed a law requiring hotel staff and airport catering industry workers be paid at least $30 per hour and given comprehensive health benefits by July 1, 2028. The minimum wage will be raised to $22.50 this year and increase by $2.50 each July for the next three years. This is a huge victory for UNITE HERE Local 11, the union that campaigned for the legislation, and represents the highest minimum wage in the country. (California’s statewide minimum is currently set at $16.50, and the highest minimum wage in the country currently is in D.C., with a $17.50 floor.)

Long Strike Yields Big Gains For Kaiser Mental Health Workers

May 30, 2025 Cal Winslow, Labor Notes. , , , , , , , ,
The 196-day strike of Kaiser Southern California mental healthcare workers is over. The 2,400 therapists, psychiatric nurses, social workers and psychologists won significant gains not just for themselves but for their patients in a time of an acute national mental healthcare crisis. They are members of the National Union of Healthcare Workers. They outlasted Kaiser, the huge California-based health maintenance organization, with six and a half months of picket lines from Modesto to San Diego. They held rallies at Kaiser’s Southern California medical centers. They blockaded the Sunset Strip. They held a hunger strike, putting their own health on the line to improve care for patients and reverse Kaiser’s record of misconduct.

Engaging Critics Can Create A Stronger Local

May 29, 2025 Paul Ruth, Labor Notes. , , ,
Factions often emerge in local unions—and they aren’t necessarily a bad thing. But a local union’s “divided government” can be problematic, especially when a contract campaign is on the horizon. Often “factions” happen when certain members frequently criticize the local leadership, and leaders push back. The division may appear to be hostile, but often the underlying tension comes from frustration and lack of communication on both sides. For union leaders, pushing back against critics is often the natural human reaction. But as the leader of a teachers’ union local, I have found that it’s usually better to be inclusive.

Unions Rise For Immigrant Rights At Tacoma ICE Detention Center

May 29, 2025 Aife Pasquale, Fight Back! News. , , , , ,
Tacoma, WA – On May 23, labor unions and Filipino community groups rallied with a unified message: “Free them all and shut it down!” As the Trump administration continues escalating attacks against immigrant communities, the working class is drawing closer together to defend itself and fight back. The coalition is demanding the immediate release of a Filipino union member known lovingly as “Kuya Max.” Maximo Londonio immigrated to the U.S. as a 12-year-old boy and is now 42. He was detained at the Sea-Tac airport on his way back home to Olympia from a family trip to the Philippines.

Will Mexican GM Workers Get A Fair Union Election?

May 23, 2025 Natascha Elena Uhlmann, Labor Notes. , , ,
Workers at a second General Motors assembly plant in Mexico are campaigning to join SINTTIA (the National Auto Workers Union), the independent union that won a landmark election to represent workers at another Mexican GM plant in 2022. The 6,500 workers at the San Luis Potosí plant produce the GMC Terrain and the Chevrolet Trax and Equinox SUVs. Days after SINTTIA filed to represent workers on April 21, a second union, Carlos Leone, began collecting signatures, in what appears to be an effort to ward off a legitimate union at the facility. SINTTIA supporters allege the rival union is being assisted by GM management.

Workers In Samsung India’s Chennai Plant Win A Significant Pay Raise

May 22, 2025 Abdul Rahman, People's Dispatch. , , , , , ,
The workers of the Samsung India’s Chennai plant secured a landmark wage revision agreement after a long battle with the company management on Monday, May 19. Samsung management was forced to agree to revise the wages of all workers at the plant, increase leave, and improve the overall working conditions at the factory. The agreement was negotiated by the newly formed Samsung India Workers Union (SIWU) with the company management, under the mediation of the Tamil Nadu state government, where the plant is situated. Announcing the agreement, A. Soundararajan, president of the Tamil Nadu Center for Indian Trade Union (CITU), with which the SIWU is affiliated, congratulated the workers and the SIWU leadership for the victory.

Dartmouth Student Workers Demand ‘ICE Off Campus’

May 21, 2025 James Dennis Hoff, Left Voice. , , ,
In January of 2022, in the midst of a cold New Hampshire winter and an ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, student dining services workers unanimously formed their first ever undergraduate student worker union at Dartmouth College. The Student Worker Collective of Dartmouth (SWCD) won sick pay for all workers and 50 percent hazard pay for those working during the pandemic. Just a year later the independent union, which now represents an additional 100 undergraduate advisors (UGAs), were able to force significant concessions from the college in their first contract, including a $21 an hour base wage ($3 more than what the college was offering and $8 more than the minimum that workers were earning before), with increases linked to the cost of tuition.

Kennedy Center Staff To Vote To Unionize

May 21, 2025 Nick Kurtz, CBS News. , , , ,
Staff employees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. announced this week an intent to unionize across departments and argue for collective bargaining rights. The effort comes amid months of layoffs and job uncertainty following major changes brought on by the Trump administration. According to multiple staff members who spoke to CBS News on the condition of anonymity, more than 150 employees that handle crucial responsibilities for the Kennedy Center — including education, donor relations, and arts programming — are sounding the alarm that the mission and legacy of the storied arts institution are at risk unless a sense of normalcy is returned to everyday operations.

Construction Unions Grab Hold Of Clean Energy Jobs

May 21, 2025 Paul Prescod, Labor Notes. , , ,
State and local governments have begun taking concrete steps towards a clean energy economy, and for now, even under Trump, green union jobs are increasing. Meanwhile, unions have partnered with climate activists to win legislation for more such jobs. Six states have passed “climate jobs” bills to expand renewable energy and raise labor standards for that construction. Four more have union coalitions advocating for such legislation. Will the green surge continue? And if it does, will workers reap the economic benefits—or get left behind? The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act opened the door for clean energy projects across the country. Many IRA tax credits were designed to encourage the use of high-wage union labor.

Powerful Three-Day Strike Wins New Contract For Transit Engineers

May 20, 2025 Mary Owen, Workers' World. , , , , ,
On May 18, Locomotive Engineers at New Jersey Transit (NJT) won a new tentative contract with an improved wage offer after a solid three-day strike that halted the vital passenger rail service statewide. A message on the union’s strike website said it all: “Thank you members. We did it.” The NJT engineers were forced out on strike after midnight May 16 when transit bosses walked out of contract negotiations. This was the second round of bargaining with the Locomotive Engineers union, representing 450 engineers and trainees, after 87 percent of voting members overwhelmingly rejected a previous proposal.

Labor Demands Minnesota Divest From Apartheid Israel

May 19, 2025 Maddy Schwartz, Fight Back! News. , , , , , , , ,
Minneapolis, MN – On May 10, Minnesota public sector workers, union members and activists attended the Labor Demands Divestment teach-in and panel at the Minneapolis Federation of Educators Local 59 office. The event was organized by Minnesota Labor for Palestine and the Minnesota Anti-War Committee and was the first event organized by Minnesota Labor for Palestine, a grassroots coalition of union and non-union members based in working class solidarity with Palestine. Over 45 members of public sector unions and local advocacy groups joined to learn about Divest MN, the state campaign to get the State Board of Investment to divest public employee pensions from genocide and apartheid.

Strike Halts New Jersey Transit

May 17, 2025 Joe DeManuelle-Hall, Labor Notes. , , , ,
Four hundred and fifty train engineers at New Jersey Transit walked off the job overnight, after years of fruitless negotiations with their employer. These workers drive the state-run commuter trains that serve 350,000 daily riders in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. As of late Thursday night, NJT train service was completely shut down. The transit system is running additional buses as an alternative, but it’s extremely unlikely that they can make up the difference. “I take pride in what I do,” said one longtime engineer on the picket line, who didn’t want to give his name for fear of retaliation. “It gives me great joy taking my commuters to and from work every day.
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