Top Stories
Click the star next to a story to save your favorite articles.
Sign Up For Our Daily Digest
Account Sign In
To customize your experience, you can save your favorite research by clicking the stars next to each article in during your visit.
Save your favorites permanently to your profile by signing in here.
Don't have a profile yet? Register now.
Registration
In the News
Gold Strike Casino Workers Unionize With Teamsters Local 667 in Mississippi
January 7, 2026 // Lou Monaco for Gambling Insider
Workers at Tunica, Mississippi-based Gold Strike Casino Resort announced Monday they have voted to join Memphis, Tennessee-based Teamsters Local 667 labor union through a card-check majority.
IBEW Ally James Scotti Pleads Guilty to Wire Fraud
January 7, 2026 // Author for National Institute for Labor Relations Research
James Scotti, who did work with IBEW Local 26, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, totalling over $160k that would have been stolen.
REPORT: The Value of Franchising
January 7, 2026 // author for International Franchise Association
The benefits of being a franchise owner are substantial, particularly for those new to entrepreneurship. Franchising lowers traditional barriers to business ownership by providing access to a brand name, training, ongoing support, and peer networks – especially critical for underrepresented groups, such as veterans, women and people of color, who are represented as franchisees at a disproportionately higher rate.
Walberg Announces First Hearing in AI Series
January 7, 2026 // Author for House Education and Workforce Committee
Committee on Education and Workforce, chaired by Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI), will hold the first hearing in a series examining artificial intelligence, titled “Building an AI-Ready America.”
GOP gov hopeful Blakeman woos NY labor, blasts Hochul vetoes of union friendly bills
January 7, 2026 // Carl Campanile for New York Post
Republican gubernatorial hopeful Bruce Blakeman blasted Gov. Kathy Hochul for vetoing a bill that would have required two operators on every MTA train — as he makes an aggressive push to snag some union support from his Democratic rival. Blakeman, who is now serving as Nassau County executive, criticized Hochul for knocking down a union-backed bill that would have required two operators on every Metropolitan Transportation Authority train as well as a series of bills that would’ve sweetened pensions and benefits for law enforcement.
OHIO: Springfield Local Schools suspends transportation services, breakfast program
January 7, 2026 // WTVG Staff for WTVG
With support staff expected to go on strike starting Jan. 7, the district announced that all transportation services will be suspended for Jan. 7. The breakfast program will also be suspended starting Jan. 7.
MINNESOTA: Anoka-Hennepin district and union come to a tentative agreement just 1 day before strike date
January 7, 2026 // Lydia Morrell for KARE11
The school district includes 50 schools and learning centers and is staffed by 3,200 teachers, counselors, social workers and nurses. In the press release Wednesday, Anoka-Hennepin Schools stated that 82% of the district's operating budget goes to personnel costs.
DreamWorks Remote Team, Netflix and ‘Ted’ Show Production Workers Vote to Unionize With the Animation Guild
January 7, 2026 // Jazz Tangcay for Variety
The newly-recognized unit represents remote workers living throughout the U.S. who contribute to LA–based DWA animation projects across both feature and television. These workers perform work already covered under TAG’s Master Agreement when done onsite on campus in LA County, and include roles such as story artists, animators, character effects artists, technical directors, lighters, visual development artists, modelers and production coordinators, among others.
Courts reject states’ efforts to take over union law enforcement
January 6, 2026 // Sean Higgins for Competitive Enterprise Institute
Over the past two decades, unions have spent much of their political capital fighting for changes to the NLRA and other federal workplace laws. They did this in the hopes that tilting the playing field in their favor would boost the labor movement. They have little to show for those efforts. The New York and California laws show a modified version of that strategy: lobbying friendly states to enact policies the unions cannot get passed at the federal level. The courts are now blocking this overreach.
Labor troubles in Mamdani’s backyard
January 6, 2026 // JASON BEEFERMAN for Politico
A senior official on Abdelhamid’s campaign who requested anonymity to discuss internal matters said Teschner’s contract “was prepared for an independent contractor role,” but “she requested to be onboarded as a W-2 employee due to the temporary nature of campaign work and eligibility for unemployment benefits, which delayed finalizing the contract.” “The campaign explored that request but did not have the legal or payroll infrastructure to accommodate it,” the campaign official continued. “When informed that the role would need to remain a 1099 position, she indicated her fee would increase by $500.” “Given the misalignment between the structure she requested and the campaign’s capacity,” the official continued, “the arrangement was not a fit.”
BALTIMORE: Moore administration settles contracts with state unions — except AFSCME
January 6, 2026 // Hannah Gaskill for Daily Record
According to a Monday news release from AFSCME, the contract proposal the Moore administration offered did not include wage increases aligned with inflation, nor did it fully correct wage scales for unionized workers that lag behind other state employees. Last month, a Moore administration official told The Daily Record that in his nearly three-year tenure, the average salary for AFSCME-represented workers has increased by 12.47%, while inflation increased by 8%.
Op-ed: I Beat My Union in Court. Did Oregon Forget?
January 6, 2026 // Mark Janus
Unions are bleeding members. Workers are exercising their rights by resigning, keeping their dues money in their own pockets instead of funding political causes with which they don’t agree. Instead of making themselves more appealing to workers, unions lobbied the state government to criminalize speech and the rank-and-file’s desire to exercise their freedom of association. Oregon says the Freedom Foundation’s mailings “confuse” workers. What’s most confusing is why a state would make it illegal to tell workers about their constitutional rights while allowing unions to send unlimited recruitment mail.
Opinion: Labor relations group: Big labor Virginia state senator spins anti-right-to-work fables
January 6, 2026 // Stan Greer for Cardinal News
Right-to-Work is overwhelmingly popular with the commonwealth’s citizens, and states with such laws typically enjoy far faster employment growth and substantially higher cost-of-living-adjusted disposable incomes than forced-dues states.
Workers in North Carolina and California Ask Federal Labor Board to Nix Policy Letting Union Bosses Block Elections
January 6, 2026 // Author for National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation
The workers, which include miners employed by The Quartz Corp. in Spruce Pine, NC, and Fresno, CA-based construction materials workers for CalPortland, both backed petitions in late 2025 asking the NLRB to administer votes to remove (or “decertify”) unions from their workplaces. Despite both petitions containing enough signatures to trigger union decertification elections, regional NLRB officials blocked both votes pursuant to the NLRB’s current blocking charge policy. This Biden-era policy permits union officials to stymie the union decertification process simply by filing unproven or unrelated “unfair labor practice” charges at the NLRB alleging employer misconduct. Quartz Corp. employee Blake Davis and CalPortland worker Darrell Dunlap have both submitted Requests for Review to the NLRB in Washington, DC.
Telluride to partially reopen amid ongoing labor dispute at Colorado ski resort
January 6, 2026 // Christa Swanson for CBS Colorado
But even before the strike, unseasonably warm weather kept the majority of the resort's trails closed. Only 20 of 149 trails have been open this season. In a statement Friday, the Telluride Tourism Board said total occupancy rates over the next two weeks are pacing 19% behind this time last year. They added that January has seen a significant impact, with an 11% drop so far. "With the strike enacted and resort closed, this week showed the first wave of cancellations and trip changes, with December and the Holidays now down about 12% as of Monday," the board said. "However, there is still solid carryover of holiday traffic Jan 4-10, with departures staging down through the week."
Denver Public Library workers move to unionize in 2026
January 5, 2026 // Kiara DeMare for Denverite
The action came just a day after a new law took effect, allowing thousands of city employees to join unions and engage in collective bargaining.
Newsmakers 2025: Barista who helped unionize Verve says the experience changed how she saw herself
January 5, 2026 // Lily Belli for Look Out Santa Cruz
In the weeks that followed, Pavy’s coworkers elected her to represent employees of the downtown Santa Cruz coffeehouse in negotiations with Barr and O’Donovan, alongside representatives from the Fair Avenue and San Francisco cafés, and UFCW. So far, the bargaining committee has met once to discuss non-economic parts of the contract, like workplace rules and job security. The process is expected to last through 2026.
Freight rail engineers vote in favor of new contract
January 5, 2026 // Brian Taylor for Waste Today
According to the BLET, 70 percent of its more than 12,000 members voted approved the five-year agreement. The union says the contract addresses rates of pay and other issues and that there were no concessions or work rule changes in the new agreement. The contract covers BLET employees with major freight railroads, including Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, Norfolk Southern Railway Co. (NS) and Canadian National.
Op-ed: Public employee unions facing final showdown
January 5, 2026 // Aaron Withe for The Hill
Some have even been caught locking employees in rooms until they sign membership cards, as plaintiffs in one California lawsuit allege. When you’re spending 86 percent of your dues revenue on political causes that only a fraction of your members support, transparency becomes a threat. The $47.5 million workers are keeping this year represents more than a financial loss for unions. It means a loss of power to expand the size government, raise taxes, resist accountability and fund progressive causes and politicians
Yakima hospital workers vote to authorize strike amid negotiations with MultiCare
January 5, 2026 // Steven Hogencamp for NonStop Local
Federal law requires Teamsters Local Union 760 to provide a 10-day notice to MultiCare if a strike is to occur. MultiCare stated that the hospital will remain open and fully staffed in the event of a strike.