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Worker Rights and Jobs

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

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’

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

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

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.

Wage Stagnation Has Made ‘Minimal Quality Of Life’ Out Of Reach For Most

The ability to afford basic needs and wants in line with living a “dignified life” in the U.S. is increasingly out of reach, new research finds, naming wage stagnation and soaring prices as factors driving unaffordability. According to an analysis released by the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity (LISEP) last week, a “minimal quality of life” is out of reach for the bottom 60 percent of American households, or those with incomes of about $100,000 a year or less. Researchers pinpoint stagnating wages and decreases in workers’ spending power as well as increases in costs as reasons for growing unaffordability. According to the researchers, the minimal quality of life has doubled since 2001, with 2023 seeing the largest single-year increase.

Labor Demands Minnesota Divest From Apartheid Israel

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.

Swedish Dockworkers’ Union Leader Sacked For Gaza Solidarity Action

Security is a funny elixir. The more of it that you have, the less there is for someone else… or that’s the conventional wisdom anyway. Erik Helgeson’s experience, however, proves otherwise. Erik, 42, is the vice-chair of the Swedish Dockworkers’ Union and he cared deeply for the security of his members – and also for the safety of Gazan civilians, some of whom have been killed by weapons which may have passed through the port of Gothenburg, where he has worked for 20 years. Erik cared so much in fact that in February of this year, he led a symbolic six-day blockade of 20 Swedish ports against military cargos destined for Israel. His employer – DFDS – responded by sacking him, claiming that he had broken Sweden’s Security Protection Act.

California Educators Sync Up Negotiations For More Leverage

Public school educators in 32 union locals across California are joining forces to maximize their power in a campaign called “We Can’t Wait.” It covers 77,000 educators—about a quarter of the California Teachers Association’s total membership—serving a million students. The campaign started with 11 locals that worked to align their contract expiration dates for the end of June: Anaheim, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Natomas, Oakland, Richmond, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, and Twin Rivers. And it quickly spread from there. Locals have organized educators to sign onto the campaign’s platform, rally before school and walk in all together, and join informational pickets. The goal is to have educators strike-ready in the fall.

Blue Bottle Baristas Walk Out In Boston

Boston, Massachusetts - Baristas at Blue Bottle coffee shops in Boston are so fed up with their boss’s blatant union-busting bulls–t that they walked off the job at multiple stores twice last week. They are preparing for more job actions. This time last year Blue Bottle workers in Greater Boston voted 38-4 in a National Labor Relations Board-conducted election to join the Blue Bottle Independent Union (BBIU). This came after years of low wages and disrespect from the San Francisco-based, high-end coffee chain, part of the Nestlé corporation’s sprawling global conglomerate.

A Fighting Union’s Path To Renewal: The UE Story

The ongoing organizational renewal and substantial growth of the United Electrical Workers (UE) is one of the most distinctly remarkable stories in the U.S. labor movement in decades. Few other unions have suffered such losses from state repression, raiding attacks by opportunist unions, and the catastrophic effects of corporate job relocation — and survived. Of the original 42 unions who comprised the founding roster of the Congress of Industrial Unions (CIO) in 1938, a grand total of eight survive intact today. UE is one of them. The remainder have passed out of existence, been destroyed by repression and employer attacks, or been merged into larger unions and lost forever.

Mass Solidarity Picket Backs Striking Bin Workers In Birmingham

In a mass demonstration of solidarity, trade union activists from across Britain blocked the entrance of a Birmingham waste depot as part of an ongoing dispute between the city’s refuse collectors and the Labour-led council. Birmingham’s bin workers, many of whom are members of the trade union Unite, have been taking intermittent action against planned pay cuts since the beginning of this year – and have spent the past two months on strike. As part of an extreme austerity agenda, the city council is planning to downgrade at least one section of the workforce. This proposal has raised concerns not only about workers’ income but also about health and safety conditions.

Want To Stop Trump’s Attacks On The NLRB?

May Day 2025 in the United States came amid the most aggressive assault on U.S. workers in a century. The federal agencies that provide some minimal protection against corporate power — the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and many more — are being systematically destroyed. On May 1, hundreds of thousands protested at roughly 1,300 actions across the United States. Under the broad theme “Workers Over Billionaires,” they condemned union-busting, austerity, climate destruction, anti-immigrant terror, the U.S.-Israeli genocide, and other facets of the assault.

RMT Launches Campaign To #Endrailoutsourcing Amid Shocking Practices

The National Union of Rail, Maritime, and Transport Workers (RMT) has launched a campaign to end outsourcing on the railways. It has branded the practice as a vehicle for systemic racism, low pay, and poor service standards across the network. A new RMT report, How Outsourcing Embeds Systemic Racism on the Railway, exposes how rail companies have trapped thousands of rail workers – predominantly from Black and racially minoritised communities – in outsourced roles with no pensions, no training, and no pathway to progression. Key findings from the RMT reveal: 58% of outsourced cleaners and caterers are from Black or racially minoritised backgrounds. This is despite making up only 25% of directly employed train operator staff.

Locomotive Builders Forge Green Rail Project

Union workers who make diesel locomotives at a plant in Pennsylvania are pushing ahead with their campaign to manufacture more green-powered locomotives. The workers aim to clean up diesel railroad pollution while also revitalizing their locomotive engine manufacturing plant in Erie. But they’re facing roadblocks, and the recent federal chaos has added to the uncertainty. In the meantime, workers are making direct changes to clean up their jobsite. The Wabtec plant, formerly General Electric, makes diesel locomotives for both freight and passenger trains. The company began researching all-electric and hybrid diesel-electric locomotives several years ago, and more recently began exploring hydrogen power.

Workers In India Are On The March

90% of Indian workers are in the unorganized sector. This does not mean that they are outside trade union structures, but only that most workers must fight very hard to form unions. There are unions in the formal sector, of course, but there are also unions in occupations that are designed in such a way as to make unionization difficult. For instance, rural health care workers do not work in a factory or in a shop, but across vast distances with very little contact with each other. And yet, rural health workers – or Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) workers, as they are called – have fought to set aside every barrier and build trade unions.
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