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In the News
DC Police Union backs Trump’s takeover, citing ‘out of control’ crime
August 13, 2025 // Kalé Carey for Straight Arrow News
n a statement to multiple news outlets, union chair Gregg Pemberton said the group supports Trump’s decision, citing concerns that crime is “out of control” and that officers are operating beyond their limits. Mayor Muriel Bowser called Trump’s takeover order “unsettling and unprecedented,” saying she was caught off guard by the move’s scale. On Monday, she highlighted that violent crime in the city has dropped to its lowest point in 30 years, continuing a downward trend that began in 2019 before the pandemic.
DOGE can maintain access to federal personnel data, court rules
August 13, 2025 // Eric Katz for Federal News Network
Tuesday’s decision will maintain the status quo, as the appeals court had already paused the lower court’s injunction in April. At Education, DOGE staff can read into platforms that contain federal student loan and other data, while at Treasury they can access IRS systems containing all taxpayer information. DOGE maintains a presence at the Office of Management and Budget, but mostly its staff have dispersed as political appointees of individual agencies.
How Federal Workers ‘Without A Union Can Still Act Like A Union’
August 13, 2025 // Colin Smalley for Labor Notes
In fact, this was the state of organizing in the Federal Sector before 1962. Whether its well-established local Unions or newly formed Organizing Committees, many Workers are asking: “What’s the point in a Union?” or “What can our Union do at this point?”
THE BLUE DIVIDE
August 13, 2025 // author for Philidelphia Inquirer
The documents are an incomplete and opaque window into the finances for the Survivors’ Fund and Lodge 5, which are both 501(c) nonprofits. Another FOP nonprofit, the Home Association, operates the 7C Lounge, an expansive bar decorated in gleaming dark wood in the union’s 50,000-square-foot headquarters. A comprehensive financial picture of the nonprofits would be possible only by examining all credit card statements, receipts, and records. Those records are not publicly available, and even union members say FOP leaders have only allowed them to view a limited selection of documents.
Hundreds of Lufthansa Technicians at Rafael Hernandez International Airport Secure Vote to Remove IAM Union
August 13, 2025 // author for National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation
Majority of technicians signed petition demanding union ouster vote; IAM officials used allegations against employer in unsuccessful attempt to block vote
We finally know who paid for Josh Shapiro’s inauguration celebrations (kinda)
August 12, 2025 // Stephen Caruso for Spotlight PA
A fundraising pitch prepared by Shapiro’s inauguration committee and reviewed by Spotlight PA promised high-dollar contributors face time with the governor. “VIP tickets to the Inaugural Celebration include access to the VIP lounge through the evening,” fine print on the document states. “A clutch with Governor-Elect Shapiro and Lt. Governor-Elect [Austin] Davis will be held in the VIP lounge at the start of the event.” Unlike some states, cities, and the federal government, Pennsylvania does not require top elected officials to disclose who contributes to celebrations held to mark their entrance into office. Shapiro has declined to do so voluntarily.
Op-ed: How Teachers Can Dismantle the Teachers’ Unions
August 12, 2025 // Corey DeAngelis for National Review
Conservative and independent teachers, who make up the other 59 percent of the profession, are forced to fund their political opponents while union bosses like Weingarten, who pocketed over $600,000 in 2024, and Pringle, an at-large Democratic National Committee member raking in over half a million dollars annually, live lavishly. These union elites are an embarrassment to teachers who just want to teach reading, writing, and math.
FEMA joins other federal agencies in canceling union contracts
August 12, 2025 // Brianna Sacks, Jake Spring, Hannah Natanson, Meryl Kornfield for Washington Post
On Friday, FEMA’s acting administrator, David Richardson, sent a memo to American Federation of Government Employees Local 4060, the union representing the agency, saying that FEMA’s collective bargaining agreement had been terminated, ending a nearly 10-year contract.
Op-ed: I had to leave California to save my business. Now there’s hope
August 12, 2025 // Dee Sova for WCCS
Running my truck as a small business allowed me to take long hauls across the country — sometimes bringing my children along — while keeping the flexibility and control that mattered most for my family’s well‑being. And I took pride in serving as a role model: showing that women can thrive behind the wheel, own their business and contribute to America’s supply chain. Thanks to leaders like Rep. Kiley, Washington is finally recognizing that independent contractors deserve the same respect and freedom as traditional employees. I hope the Senate moves quickly to pass this bill and send it to the president’s desk.
Major state employee union approves new contract after bitter negotiations
August 12, 2025 // Max Nesterak for Minnesota Reformer
After one of the most bitter contract campaigns in recent memory, members of the union representing some 18,000 state employees approved a two-year contract that largely maintains the status quo with modest pay increases. Although voting, dues-paying members supported ratifying the contract by a wide margin — 6,857 to 1,813 — the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees said the 79% approval was the lowest since the union went on strike in 2001.
Op-ed: Is anyone in charge of Los Angeles?
August 12, 2025 // Emily Schultheis for Politico
LWithin days, the LA Alliance for Tourism, Jobs and Progress — whose $3 million budget comes primarily from Delta Airlines, United Airlines and the American Hotel & Lodging Association — filed paperwork to put a citizen’s-veto referendum before voters in 2026. (Plummer is among the small businesspeople listed as the measure’s official proponents.) It would take 92,000 signatures to reach the ballot, but just filing the referendum had an immediate impact: delaying implementation of the law’s first planned pay increase on July 1, to $22.50 per hour. Frustrated by the possibility that years of lobbying could be wiped away with a corporate-backed campaign, organized labor launched a counteroffensive. In June, Unite Here Local 11 — which represents 32,000 workers across Southern California hotels, airports and sports arenas — filed a package of four ballot initiatives.
Union accused of forcing Jewish students at MIT, Stanford, and Cornell to fund pro-Hamas agenda
August 12, 2025 // Patrick McDonald for Campus Reform
At MIT, following the October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, the UE affiliate supported campus protests favoring Hamas, the letter states. Five Jewish graduate students requested religious accommodations to avoid paying dues to the union, citing conflicts with their faith. UE General Secretary-Treasurer Andrew Dinkelaker reportedly denied the requests, saying, “no principles, teachings, or tenets of Judaism prohibit membership in or the payment of dues or fees to a labor union.” At Stanford, three graduate students faced similar challenges. Their requests for accommodations were met with what the letter calls an “abusive” questionnaire, which the union dropped after legal pressure.
North Alabama Area Labor Council encourages Huntsville auto workers to unionize
August 12, 2025 // Alex Jobin for Alabama Reporter
On Thursday, 220 full-time and part-time manufacturing workers at the International Motors/Navistar powertrain manufacturing plant in Huntsville will be holding an election to determine whether the facility will become unionized under UAW.
With GLO push, RI becomes first state to explicitly codify student unionization rights in state law
August 11, 2025 // Ethan Schenker for Brown Daily Herald
McKee signed House Bill 5187 on July 2, capping off a monthslong effort by Brown’s Graduate Labor Organization to codify federal labor organizing protections in state law. GLO leaders had worked with the Rhode Island AFL-CIO and state legislators to advocate for the bill’s passage since its introduction in January.
‘Remarkable and unprecedented’: Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh thanks NYT tech workers for ‘substantial’ donation
August 11, 2025 // Andrew Goldstein for Union Progress
At the 2025 NewsGuild Sector Conference at the Wyndham Grand in Downtown, Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh President Zack Tanner awarded the New York Times Tech Guild with a plaque for its $114,000 donation in December to workers striking against the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The donation was the remainder of what the Times tech workers raised for their own strike in November and came at a time when the Pittsburgh strikers were in need of financial support for their strike, which was then and remains the longest ongoing work stoppage in the country. “Once they won their strike and took care of their own members, they had a very substantial amount of money left, about $114,000,” Tanner said. “Those Times Tech Guild workers voted together to forward that to our Pittsburgh strike fund, and I’m not exaggerating when I say we would not be standing here on strike if it wasn’t for that donation.”
Labor Unions 101 event hosted by Summit County Young Democrats is set for Sept. 6
August 11, 2025 // author for Akron Beacon Journal
Summit County Young Democrats is hosting a free educational event for the public, Labor Unions 101, on Sept. 6. According to the U.S. Treasury, union membership has been in a steady decline for over 50 years, with only 10% of U.S. workers belonging to a union in 2022. This event aims to show how unions benefit the working class. The event begins at 11 a.m. at the United Steelworkers Local 2 Union Hall at 501 Kelly Ave. in Akron.
Union Leaders Get Tough With Democrats as Members Drift Toward Trump
August 11, 2025 // Kellen Browning for New York Times
“Every time we talk politics, the first thing that comes up is, ‘The Democrats let us down,’” Jimmy Williams, the president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, told The New York Times.
EPA axes contracts with unions
August 11, 2025 // Hannah Northey for Politico
In that decision, the 9th Circuit stayed a lower court order that prevented the administration from enforcing Trump’s executive order. AFGE brought the legal challenge in that case along with six unions representing more than 1 million federal employees.
Commentar: Why the UAW Endorsed Zohran When Other New York City Unions Held Back
August 11, 2025 // Sam Feldman for Labor Notes
The UAW’s risky endorsement of Mamdani would never have happened without the transformation of the union that occurred over the past half-decade. After a serious of corruption and embezzlement scandals led to the removal and conviction of top UAW officials, the union reached a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice that required a national referendum on adopting direct election of union leadership.
Corrections officers union rips into NYS report on wildcat strike at prisons
August 11, 2025 // Ron Plants for WGRZ
The union says that includes serious issues like forced overtime and limited PTO options for corrections officers, a significant increase in internal prison violence, and other conditions which the union says caused the illegal job action. They say it stems a frustration boiling over point for their members including claims that no one in Albany was really listening to their concerns even when they came from DOCCS Commissioner who was himself grilled by some lawmakers in hearings.
Blog Research ● Labor Unions
author
A ‘Copy And Paste’ Campaign? – Opponents ‘Flood The U.S. Department Of Labor With Identical Comments Against Proposed Union Rule