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In the News
Editorial Board: $10,000 bonuses teach Mamdani a lesson about the teachers union
September 9, 2026 // editorial board for Washington Post Opinion
Compensation changes for unionized city employees are usually negotiated through collective bargaining between the city and organized labor, but the United Federation of Teachers instead pushed the measure through the City Council. UFT President Michael Mulgrew threatened “all-out war” against Mamdani if he opposed the payouts to school paraprofessionals.
Court Victory Vindicates Union Members and Exposes Years of Government Neglect
September 9, 2026 // Frank Ricci for Yankee Institute
Union leaders routinely demand transparency from employers, corporations, government agencies, and taxpayers. They should be held to the same standard themselves. Transparency is not anti-union. It is pro-worker. This outcome demonstrates an important lesson for policymakers. Too often, government responds to problems by creating new laws, regulations, and mandates. But many of Connecticut’s challenges stem not from insufficient laws, but from the failure to enforce existing ones. The courts have now confirmed what Yankee Institute, union members, and transparency advocates have argued from the beginning: Connecticut’s financial disclosure requirements are real, they are enforceable, and union officials must comply with them.
Mamdani creates new DSA-inspired office to help NYC workers unionize: ‘Concerning for small business’
September 9, 2026 // Matthew Fischetti, Vaughn Golden for New York Post
The office will hold hearings on “worker issues” and develop policy proposals based on testimony from employees. It will also give out information about workers’ rights and help connect employees interested in starting unions with organizations that can help them, City Hall said. Tony Perlstein, a former dockworker, union organizer and deputy director of communications for the national lefty organizing group Center for Popular Democracy, will run the office. It’s not clear if anyone else will be hired to staff the office, or how much its budget will be. Perlstein will report to Mamdani’s Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice Julie Su, previously a cabinet official under President Joe Biden.
A Durham-based union worker ends 40-day hunger strike protesting Amazon work conditions
September 9, 2026 // Leoneda Inge for WUNC News
Medelius ended his 40-day hunger strike, Sept. 2, 2026, during noon Mass at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Durham. Medelius is 5 feet 3 inches tall and weighed 113 pounds at the end of his hunger strike, down from 150 pounds. "Eating a wafer and drinking watered-down wine lit up all my senses," said Medelius. "It was an incredible experience." Family, friends and Amazon workers attended mass with Medelius, a show of support. Durham Mayor Leonardo Williams was also present. Members of the Durham City Council have also supported Medelius, including Matt Kopac and Javiera Caballero.
NJ remains one of nation’s most unionized states, Rutgers report finds
September 9, 2026 // Derek Callahan for News 12
The researchers estimate New Jersey has about 22,000 more union members than in a previous Rutgers study. But the share of workers belonging to unions slipped slightly because nonunion employment grew faster. New Jersey's average unionization rate was 15.47% from 2023 through 2025, ranking sixth-highest among the 50 states and well above the national rate of about 10%.
Starbucks anti-unionization case brought by NLRB narrowed by US appeals court
September 9, 2026 // author for Reuters
Circuit Judge Stephen Higginson said statements about the hiring portal and store hours were not "threats of reprisal" because a hiring pause didn't appear to imperil employees' job security, while understaffing might have justified shorter hours. He also said store manager Carmella Neri's statements that she knew about unionization discussions and that employees should keep in mind the impact of a successful vote were not coercive, saying the statements were not "out of the ordinary."
Local Teamsters and the union’s Massachusetts-based chief at odds in crucial N.H. Senate race
September 9, 2026
Brown began by talking about his own longtime membership in performing arts and media union SAG-AFTRA, which he leaned on to burnish his worker credentials when running against Warren. “There’s still people who are contributing dues, which I did for decades,” said Brown. “Chris Pappas has never done that. … What has he done for the unions? Like, what has he actually sponsored and passed that helps unions?” O’Brien noted Pappas’s co-sponsorship of the Faster Labor Contracts Act, a key legislative priority of labor unions. Brown and O’Brien both agreed it was “easy” for Pappas to do so, but when O’Brien asked him whether he would support the legislation, the Republican didn’t give a definitive answer, saying he would “learn more about that particular issue.”
Opinion: The Teamsters Return to Ugly Type
September 9, 2026 // author for Wall Street Journal
Video footage we’ve seen shows Teamsters blocking a motorcyclist who worked for an Amazon contractor from entering the facility. The worker circled around and tried to bypass their blockade, but in the process knocked down two protesters and crashed on his bike. Teamsters then beat him up as he lay on the ground. The motorcyclist and the two protesters who were knocked down were hospitalized. It may have been imprudent for the worker to try to circumvent the protesters, but he was trying to make a living by showing up for his job.
CTA-backed group vies to force election to unionize Clovis educators
September 9, 2026 // Lasherica Thornton for Ed Source
The Association of Clovis Educators (ACE), which is backed by the California Teachers Association, last week filed an intervention petition with the state labor board in hopes of forcing an election among Clovis Unified School District educators. The unaffiliated Independent Clovis Unified Educators, or ICUE, filed its petition in July to become the exclusive representative for full-time teachers in the district, which is California’s largest without a teachers union. ACE has challenged ICUE’s petition, calling into question who, among educators, might be represented and eligible to vote, according to The Fresno Bee, which first reported the development.
Defend worker freedom this Labor Day
September 9, 2026 // Brian Balfour for Carolina Journal
“States with right-to-work laws enjoy lower unemployment rates, higher job growth, and higher wage and income growth compared with forced union states.” That’s according to a 2022 John Locke Foundation report from F. Vincent Vernuccio, former US Department of Labor official and current president of the Institute for the American Worker. Specifically, the report notes that between 2000 and 2019, personal income in right-to-work states grew by 56.4%, compared with just 40.6% in states without such laws. Also during that time, private-sector jobs in right-to-work states grew by 23.1%, which was almost double the 12.1% of growth in non–right-to-work states. The report also cites lower unemployment rates in right-to-work states. In states with the highest unemployment rates, the majority of them lacked such protections. Based on these superior worker outcomes, Vernuccio declares, “Right-to-work laws are decidedly pro-worker.” He concludes by saying, “In the end, right-to-work is about one thing: freedom. It protects workers by taking away a union’s ability to get them fired for not paying union dues.”
Editorial Board: Americans approve of unions. They just don’t want to join one.
September 9, 2026 // Editorial Board for Washington Post Opinion
Gallup says 71 percent of Americans approve of labor unions, near a record high. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says 10 percent of American workers are in labor unions, near a record low. What gives? The first issue is that Gallup wasn’t asking whether respondents wanted to join a union themselves. In 2022, Gallup found that unions had the same approval rating as they do this year, but it also asked nonunion workers how interested they were in joining.
Union endorsements cross party lines in Mont. federal races
September 8, 2026 // Dan Astin for Bozeman Daily Chronicle
Democratic candidate Sam Forstag and Republican Aaron Flint — both competing for the 1st Congressional District — signaled they support collective bargaining rights for public and private workers. This position is similar to Montana U.S. Senate candidates independent Seth Bodnar, Democratic candidate Alani Bankhead and Republican Kurt Alme. Forstag, Flint, Bodnar and Alme have union endorsements.
Opinion This Labor Day, Respect the Right to Join (or Not) a Union
September 8, 2026 // Sean Higgins for Inside Sources
In that scenario, regulators should consider holding a new vote on whether current workers want a union. While it would be legal for the earlier group’s vote to bind the new hires, it may not be fair because the new workers may have a different opinion. This needs to be resolved before the union is established. Federal law has long been stacked against workers who seek to decertify unions that don’t represent their interests because that decertification has to be done through the union itself. Unsurprisingly, many unions will oppose their own members in these situations. If the workers are truly united in favor of a union, they will get one eventually. And if they aren’t united in favor of one, that wish should be respected, too. It should be the workers’ choice, after all.
‘Severe Adverse Impact’
September 8, 2026 // Kim Kavin for Freelance Busting
Scutari’s action is good news for independent contractors like me. He is showing leadership on this policy issue in response to all the independent contractors and the broader business community who continue to stand in fierce opposition to the rulemaking, which attempts to impose the Labor Department’s own interpretation of regulatory language that defines who can legitimately earn income as an independent contractor throughout the state.
Micheal Alcorn: What the new NLRB majority should do for workers like me
September 8, 2026 // Micheal Alcorn for The Hill
Federal law guarantees workers the ability to hold elections, both to unionize and to remove unions through decertification. But under the Biden administration, the NLRB handed union officials the power to delay decertification elections. All a union has to do is file a charge alleging the employer violated federal law somewhere along the way, and the vote stops in its tracks. The workers’ right to a decertification election is simply taken away. Workers who signed their names asking for the vote are made to watch as their petition sits idle. Meanwhile, the blocking charge winds through investigation and litigation — a process that can drag on for years. The union that workers wanted to remove stays in place the entire time.
Biden’s NLRB stole workers’ secret ballot. It’s time to give it back
September 8, 2026 // F. Vincent Vernuccio for Washington Examiner
It’s hard to overstate how harmful — and insulting — the Cemex decision has been to workers. Before the Biden-era NLRB handed down this decision, unionization elections typically followed a straightforward process. Unions kicked things off by convincing workers to sign cards in support of unionization. The union then presents the cards to the employer, demanding that management recognize the union via “card check” or hold a secret-ballot election.
L.A. Mayor Karen Bass sends letter to USC president urging administration to drop appeal and allow faculty to unionize
September 7, 2026 // Benjamin Gamson for Annenberg Media
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told USC President Beong-Soo Kim she was “concerned” by their move to ask the National Labor Relations Board to evaluate whether university faculty had a right to form a union in a letter Sept. 1.
NJEA Appears to Concede Some Recent Use of Teacher Dues Was Political, Says NJ Policy Center
September 7, 2026 // NJER Newsroom for New Jersey Education Report
“Our client’s IRS complaint appears to have forced the NJEA to finally report its most recent contributions to Garden State Forward as political activity. That is a major step toward the transparency that our client seeks for New Jersey teachers and taxpayers,” said Nathan McGrath, President and General Counsel at the Fairness Center. “But the shift also makes it harder for union officials to explain to their members and the IRS why they failed to report tens of millions of dollars in past contributions as political activity over the previous decade. Our client welcomes this news but insists that the NJEA must come clean about its prior reporting, too.”
Labor Day: Americans Flee Forced-Unionism States and Move to Right-to-Work States
September 6, 2026 // John Kartch for Americans for Tax Reform
Among the top ten growth states in the U-Haul index, nine have a Right-to-Work law that protects workers from being forced to pay dues to union bosses as a condition of employment. -Among the bottom ten states in the U-Haul index, NONE has a Right-to-Work law. All are forced unionism states. -Of the 25 top ranked cities in the U-Haul Growth Index, 24 are located in Right-to-Work states.
Washington State Registered Nurse Files Federal Civil Rights Charge Against Nurse’s Union for Illegal Religious Discrimination
September 6, 2026 // author for National Right To Work Foundation
A Washington nurse has filed a federal Charge of Discrimination against the Washington State Nurses Association (WSNA), an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), stating that union officials have engaged in religious discrimination by illegally denying her request for religious accommodation. The nurse, Rheanne Garrett, submitted her charges at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) with free legal representation by National Right to Work staff attorneys.