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In the News
Teachers union uses felons to attack school choice in Arizona
July 28, 2026 // Jason Bedrick for Washington Examiner
The Goldwater Institute’s complaint meticulously challenges the validity of more than half of the union-backed initiative’s signatures. If their challenges succeed, the union could be left with fewer than 200,000 signatures — considerably below the ballot threshold. According to Goldwater, most of the Protect Education Campaign’s signatures are invalid because they suffer from a variety of legal defects. Many signatures were not from registered voters. Others are invalid because the signature gatherer failed to fill out the initiative paperwork properly, such as listing a false address, failing to provide an ID, or failing to notarize the document. Tens of thousands are duplicates.
UC Doctors Seek to Unionize 10,000 Colleagues in Massive Campaign
July 28, 2026 // Farida Jhabvala Romero for KQED
About $24 billion, nearly 40% of the university’s total revenue last year, came from its six academic health centers, serving 2.5 million Californians. UC is the state’s second largest employer. Labor experts said it’s unlikely that university executives would welcome a new large doctors’ union. If the UC Doctors United organizing campaign is successful, it could inspire doctors elsewhere to seek a collective voice on the job, according to John Logan, director of labor and employment studies at San Francisco State University. “People who run the university undoubtedly will not want 10,000 doctors at the UC system to unionize and to have to bargain collectively over things that they can unilaterally decide at the moment,” Logan said.
Federal employees say they’ll quit if they have to move to New Jersey
July 28, 2026 // Fariha Rahman for Government Executive
The International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE) Local 98, representing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ New York District and North Atlantic Division employees, rallied outside 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan on Thursday, protesting the proposed relocation of their offices to New Jersey. New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin and Lander were among those who joined in person, while Mayor Zohran Mamdani sent a statement in support, calling on the federal government to keep the employees in New York. Members of both the Democratic and Republican New York congressional delegations have sent letters to the Trump administration urging them to reconsider the move.
CTU and SEIU back different candidates for school board president, widening rift between staff unions
July 28, 2026 // Sarah Karp for WBEZ
The SEIU and the CTU used to work together to protest budget cuts, school closings and other actions that affected workers. SEIU was one of the biggest backers of CTU organizer turned mayoral candidate Brandon Johnson, and its related PACs contributed more than $4.6 million to his campaign. But a rift formed after the CTU attempted to get some of SEIU’s members reclassified so they would be under CTU. SEIU officials accused the CTU of raiding its members.
RESEARCH: AI and Independent Work in 7 Charts
July 28, 2026 // Liya Palagashvili for Labor Market Matters
Most debates about AI and work still focus on whether jobs will disappear. But these charts point to another possibility: AI may also be making it easier for more people to work outside traditional firms. This is still early, descriptive evidence—not proof of causation. Even so, both datasets point in the same direction: solo-type business applications and solo self-employment are growing faster in sectors and occupations with greater AI exposure.
Teachers’ Union Boss Vows ‘All-Out-War’ if Mamdani Doesn’t Back Bonuses
July 27, 2026 // Matthew Haag, Dana Rubinstein for New York Times
The legislation would cost New York City $325 million. The Citizens Budget Commission, a nonpartisan watchdog group that opposes the bill, warned that it would set a “dangerous precedent” by encouraging unions to bypass the bargaining table and appeal directly to lawmakers.
Commentary: Unionized workers are bargaining with the bots
July 27, 2026 // Josephine Walker for Axios
"AI is something we can negotiate," Schleuss says. "Without a contract and without a union, you have no say." Former FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya notes that union-negotiated rules could easily map onto federal policy — if Congress ever finds the political will. Case in point: The NewsGuild currently has between 85 and 90 contracts with explicit AI provisions, Schleuss says.
Companies May Soon Be Able to Stop Reporting Employees’ Race
July 27, 2026 // Robert VerBruggen for City Journal
The change is a move in the right direction. It addresses the unseemliness, potential constitutional problems, and implied DEI pressure inherent in the government’s demand for these data. The key caveats are that employers may continue to collect the underlying information, that the numbers may occasionally be missed in legitimate lawsuits and investigations—including challenges to DEI practices—and that a future administration can undo the change. In its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the EEOC highlights several key justifications for ditching the reporting requirements. These requirements, perhaps surprisingly, are not spelled out in the law and lie within the agency’s discretion.
Dissident Philly Port Worker Successfully Defeats ILA Union Attempt to Exclude Him from Federal Case Defending Win at NLRB
July 27, 2026 // author for National Right To Work Foundation
The United States Third Circuit Court of Appeals has granted a motion to intervene by Stanford Fowler, a longshore worker at the Ports of Philadelphia and Wilmington, in a suit between the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) Local 1694. The successful motion, filed with assistance from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, comes over the objection of union lawyers, who attempted to keep Fowler out of a federal case that arose from his legal victory against that union at the NLRB.
Skilled freelancing jumps as AI redefines work
July 27, 2026 // Danica Macayan for Outsource Accelerator
The Upwork (upwork.com) Research Institute surveyed 2,400 U.S.-based skilled workers between March and April 2026 to produce the report. Freelancers performing AI-augmented work on the Upwork Marketplace earned 34% more per hour than those not incorporating AI. AI-augmented professional services grew 72% in volume with earnings rising 22%, while generative AI and creative production work saw 90% growth in contract starts — yet per-contract earnings in that category declined by 13%.
Minimum Wage Myths are Flooding the Internet
July 27, 2026 // Kristian Fors for Libertas Institute
Salaries are a function of supply and demand, not government planning. Employers hire workers up to the point where the value of their labor justifies the wage, while workers decide whether to supply their labor based on the pay offered. As the Texas example shows, the true minimum wage is whatever the market decides, and in 2026 that’s almost never as low as $7.25. Minimum wages can also hurt the workers that they’re meant to help. California’s minimum wage is among the highest in the nation, and California now has the highest unemployment rate of all 50 states.
SEIU Local 1000 is holding strike schools — what does that mean?
July 27, 2026 // Corey Schmidt for Sacramento Bee
A union that represents nearly 100,000 California state workers is holding strike schools starting this weekend to educate its members on what to know if a strike unfolds.
Beckley beverage delivery strike continues without agreement
July 26, 2026 // Riley McCoy for Register-Herald
The Washington, D.C.-based Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, an independent federal agency that assists unions and employers in resolving labor disputes, provided the mediator. However, the agency lacks the authority to force either party to accept an agreement. Farley said the mediator separated the parties and explored possible compromises during an eight-hour session that ran from about 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Union workers rally with Yousef Rabhi at Ann Arbor city hall
July 25, 2026 // Ryan Stanton for MLive
Mayor Pro Tem Travis Radina said the full-time salaried position in the city’s budget for the AFSCME union president is unique among city unions. Even the county’s larger union does not have a president position paid by taxpayers, he said. The position elimination was on the bargaining table since the beginning of the contract negotiations, before Kastner was elected president, because the city has not been able to get contractually mandated reporting about how the time is being spent, he said. Since salary increases for all AFSCME members seemed to be the union’s priority, the city considered the position elimination again because the savings it could generate could be redistributed to give all other AFSCME members an extra 1% increase, Radina said.
The D.C. Circuit Strikes Down the NLRB’s Successor Bar
July 25, 2026 // JD Supra for JD Supra
July 21, 2026, the D.C. Circuit held that the National Labor Relations Board lacked statutory authority to create the “successor bar,” the Board-made rule that prevented any challenge to an incumbent union’s majority status for up to one year following an acquisition of a business.
Wayne County public defenders launch strike over healthcare, wage fight
July 24, 2026 // author for WXYZ
The union, which represents not just lawyers but also investigators, social workers and paralegals, has been fighting to maintain cost-free health insurance in addition to a 3% annual raise, instead of the 1% raises they’ve been offered.
VIDEO: Randi Weingarten is a ‘world class hypocrite,’ says retired teacher
July 24, 2026
Retired teacher Larry Sand discusses The American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten facing criticism for allegedly prioritizing political agendas over academic achievement
State workers picket outside CalHR headquarters during SEIU 1000 negotiations
July 24, 2026 // Corey Schmidt for Sacramento Bee
Conversation about remote work comes as state workers are now required to work in-person at least four days a week in hopes of increased productivity. However, those opposed to in-person mandates point to cost savings. Assemblymember Alex Lee, D-San Jose, proposed a bill that would allow telework, citing improved air quality from fewer commutes and reduced office space needs bringing $225 million in potential savings. “We’re able to save the state billions of dollars when we have structural deficits,” Walls said. The topic was top-of-mind Wednesday as picketers held signs reading “Telework is not political,” “I’d rather be home working,” and “No RTO.”
Op-ed: Union helps employer persecute its own members, then finds out
July 24, 2026 // Becky Dummermuth for The Hill
As the court observed, a jury could view the union representatives’ actions “as additional evidence that [Association of Flight Attendants] personnel harbored general disagreement with [the] religious beliefs, which may have affected their representation in the disciplinary process.” When employees enter a unionized workplace, they do not forfeit their protections under Title VII simply because their religious beliefs are unpopular with union leadership. And they certainly should not be forced to fund a union that turns around and helps management punish them for their faith.
Op-ed: The Delphi bailout Congress shouldn’t pay
July 24, 2026 // Rachel Greszler for Washington Examiner
Some media reports claim that 20,000 former Delphi employees lost their pensions, but the PBGC confirms that 14,300 of the plan’s approximately 20,000 participants have received every dollar of the pension benefits they earned. Only about 5,700 experienced any reduction, either because their benefits exceeded the $54,000 statutory insurance limit, or because they earned early-retiree benefits the PBGC does not insure. Most of those reductions were modest. About 60% of affected participants lost less than one-fifth of their promised pension,