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Unions

Thousands Of Film Workers Pledge To End Complicity With Genocide

In recent months, a wave of artists throughout the entertainment industry has begun speaking out against Israel’s genocide in Gaza. On September 8, more than 1,200 film workers — including A-list stars like Olivia Colman, Tilda Swinton, and Riz Ahmed — publicly pledged to refuse any work with Israeli film companies that are “implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people.” Since September, thousands more filmworkers have signed onto the pledge, with the number of signatories now exceeding 5,000. “Both the language of this pledge, which echoes the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement’s emphasis on institutional complicity, and its material commitment to reject offers to work with nearly all Israeli film companies, represent a significant shift for a film world dominated by executives who have either remained silent about or vocally supported Israel’s genocide in Gaza for the past two years.

A Strategy To Stop The Flow Of Our Money To Billionaires

In the United States, we are living through a time of crisis. We’re witnessing a U.S.-backed genocide as Palestinian children are being starved. Our government is disappearing immigrants and U.S. citizens alike because of the color of their skin and their willingness to speak truth to power. Millions lack basic healthcare, companies are kicking families out of their homes and most of us are paid barely enough to survive. We’re living on the edge, terrified and traumatized. Meanwhile, the perpetrators of this unbearable status quo — billionaires, their companies and the government structures they now control — are using our money to fund these injustices while building their fortunes.

Our Siemens Union Drive Lost

Workers at the Siemens Mobility manufacturing plant in Sacramento, where I worked, lost a unionization election in March, 838 to 538. While the result was disappointing, the joint campaign by Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 1245 and the Boilermakers represents the kind of organizing that the labor movement should double down on to reverse the tide of declining density in the private sector. Since 2019, elections covering units of more than 1,000 workers have accounted for less than 1 percent of those carried out through the National Labor Relations Board, and most of these have been in health care and higher education.

‘Hands Off NYC’ Coalition Forms To Resist Potential Trump Crackdown

Over 100 New York City unions, civil rights groups and community organizations launched a citywide campaign Thursday to “protect and prepare” the city from potential federal or military intervention, calling on New Yorkers to link arms in the years ahead to keep President Donald Trump’s “hands off” the city. The Hands Off NYC campaign — backed by the city’s largest labor unions and civic groups, including 1199SEIU, 32BJ SEIU, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the New York Immigration Coalition — held a rally at City Hall Park alongside elected officials to unveil what organizers described as a coordinated effort to train residents, build neighborhood communication networks and mount a nonviolent defense if President Donald Trump deploys National Guard troops to the city.

New England Unions Lead The Way On Offshore Wind

At a panel during the recent Climate Week in New York City, Rhode Island AFL-CIO President Patrick Crowley delivered some much-needed good news. He announced that building trades unions in Rhode Island and Massachusetts signed a Labor Peace Agreement with SouthCoast Wind to ensure union work on its massive planned offshore wind project. The scale of the project and the potential for job creation are significant. For comparison, Rhode Island’s 704-megawatt Revolution Wind project, which the Trump administration unsuccessfully tried to block, employed close to a thousand union members in its construction. At 2.4 gigawatts (GW) of energy, SouthCoast Wind will need even more workers.

23 Unions Plan To Strike Together If Kaiser Fails To Address Crises

“Our patients deserve the best, not mediocrity.” This phrase has been emblazoned across graphics on the social media feeds of the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals (OFNHP), an American Federation of Teachers affiliate, Local 5017. The roughly 6,000 health care professionals of the OFNHP are locked in a contract fight with their employer, Kaiser Permanente, the sprawling health care consortium. The mediocrity in question is not that of the staffers themselves; instead, it warns of the impending consequences for staff and patients alike of the workplace stressors to which Kaiser’s tens of thousands of doctors, nurses, technicians, and others are systematically subjected.

LA Tenants’ Strikes Forced A Major Landlord To Refund Opaque Utility Fees

When Joe Porter, a 29-year-old video editor, moved into his 400-square-foot studio apartment in Los Angeles four years ago, his bills for water, trash removal and pest control were bundled together into one monthly payment that came out to about $60. After the first few years, Porter said, his bill increased to about $200. When he asked his landlord – the giant real estate investment trust Equity Residential — for an explanation, he was told billing was done by a third party and that Equity could not provide a more detailed breakdown. Like many landlords of multifamily buildings, Equity uses a billing method called ratio utility billing systems (RUBS). Landlords who use this system divvy up the costs of the building’s total utilities usage according to each unit’s square footage and number of tenants.

Labor Needs An Independent Political Program

United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain recently laid out four priorities he says should form the nucleus of a workers’ political program. And he said that a broad strike in May 2028 is one way to fight for those priorities. Fain spoke on September 30 at the release of a new report by the Center for Working Class Politics and allied groups. The report, titled “Democrats’ Rust Belt Struggles and the Promise of Independent Politics,” is based on a new survey showing that workers in four states battered by decades of mass layoffs—Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin—are eager to see their basic issues addressed in the political arena.

Starbucks Workers Hold ‘Practice Picket’ After Store Closures

Six days after two Indiana Starbucks locations closed as part of the multinational coffee chain's Back to Starbucks restructuring plan, unionized employees of the Starbucks on Mass Ave briefly walked off the job in a "practice picket" Oct. 2. Roughly 20 Starbucks employees and supporters chanted and marched with signs that read "No contract, no coffee" and "Just practicing for a fair contract" in the shade of the café at 430 Massachusetts Ave. The hour-long demonstration was part of a recent national picketing effort by Starbucks Workers United across 35 U.S. cities, according to a news release from the union. Workers United members have staged rallies over the last week calling for improved staffing in stores and higher take-home pay as negotiations for a new contract with Starbucks have stalled.

The Biggest Bargaining Mistake Unions Are Making In 2025

When unions get ready for bargaining, we tend to look at the wage scale in our existing contract and think something like, “Let’s open with a proposal for a 5 percent raise every year, and maybe eventually we’ll settle at 3.75 percent.” This type of proposal was made out of habit when inflation was around 2 percent. While that may seem like a logical way to approach negotiations, you’re making a big mistake if you don’t take a closer look at the numbers. The error that many bargaining teams make is not reviewing the cost of living each of the previous five years. Because of extreme inflation during the last five years, minimum increases of as much as 10 percent may be needed to restore purchasing power.

River Valley Co-Op Workers Opened Up Bargaining And Won Big

River Valley Co-op is a consumer-owned cooperative grocery store with two locations in Western Massachusetts. We have been unionized with Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1459 for the last decade with 175 workers in our bargaining unit. This year, beginning in January and ending in June, we held thirteen bargaining sessions with RVC management and their attorneys in a process that was transformative for our union. Negotiations were tense and at times, adversarial. Workers took a stand in ways they never had before, strengthening our relationships and faith in our ability to fight and win. We made significant strides in the contract, including $2 an hour raises across the board, union orientation for new hires, and protections for our immigrant co-workers. Our contract was ratified with 77 percent of workers turning out for a nearly unanimous ‘yes’ vote.

These Tenants Are Going On Strike Against ‘Rent Debt’

Nine former tenants of Equity Residential, the nation’s fifth-largest apartment owner, announced this week that they’re going on a new kind of strike. According to the company, the former tenants still owe amounts ranging from $195 to more than $50,000 — but in order to spotlight what they say are predatory practices by corporate landlords, the tenants will collectively refuse to pay up. For sisters Tay’Laur and Tai’Leah Paige, one missed rent payment triggered a chain of events that left them homeless and tens of thousands of dollars in debt. Two years ago, when the Paige sisters came up short on rent for their North Hollywood apartment, they say Equity Residential moved rapidly to lock them out of their online payment portal and file for eviction.

We Said ‘We Will Block Everything’ And We Did

As boats from the Global Sumud Flotilla prepared to set sail toward Gaza from the coasts of Italy, Spain, and Tunisia, a representative of Genoa’s Dockworkers’ Union (CALP), now part of Unione Sindacale di Base, declared that if anything happened to the flotilla, workers would “block everything.” “Our young women and men must come back without a scratch,” the worker said at the port, before the flotilla ships departed. “And all this cargo, which belongs to the people and is going to the people, must reach its destination, down to the very last box.” So when the flotilla was attacked on the night of September 8 while in Tunisian waters, the reaction was swift: Italian labor unions, led by Unione Sindacale di Base, called for a 24-hour general strike on September 22.

What’s At Stake: USC And LMU Push Back Against Untenured Faculty Unions

Last summer, after nearly two years of organizing, hundreds of untenured faculty at Loyola Marymount University celebrated the certification of their newly formed union. In a message to the campus community, Thomas Poon, who served as LMU’s executive vice president and provost, wrote: “We honor the will of our [non-tenure track] faculty and the perspectives they expressed throughout the election campaign.” The university, he added, “will continue to engage the union in good faith and with transparency.” Poon is now president of LMU and, earlier this month, he changed his tune. Poon announced Sept. 12 that the university’s board of directors decided to invoke a religious exemption to the National Labor Relations Act.

Research And Public Service Professionals Vote To Form Union

Research and public service professionals across the UC voted Tuesday to form a new union that will represent 7,200 workers. The union, Research and Public Service Professionals-United Auto Workers, will represent workers who run “core facilities,” administer grants and analyze data, among other services. About half of those who the union will represent voted in the election, with 83% voting “yes” for the union’s formation. RPSPs have cited multiple reasons for the formation of RPSP-UAW, including stagnant salaries amid increasing workloads and a lack of administrative transparency. “In the face of federal funding cuts to higher education, many RPSPs also want a union to gain a stronger political voice,” a RPSP-UAW press release said.
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