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
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.
This union cut a check to a business watchdog. Weeks later, they were doing its bidding
August 10, 2025 // Robert Schmad for Washington Examiner
Between March 2024 and February 2025, the Office and Professional Employees International Union paid out $144,000 to the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, also known as Financial Services Stakeholder Action, public records show. After the initial payment landed, PESP began writing blog posts, publishing reports, and hosting events targeting Sorenson Communications and ZP Better Together, both of which are owned by private equity firms, arguing that their workers should unionize through OPEIU. Expand article logo Continue reading Nowhere in the materials published by PESP, however, does the organization disclose that it was paid well over six figures for an “organizing program” by the OPEIU, opening the door to ethics concerns.
MINNESOTA: Union representing U of M service workers files strike notice
August 10, 2025 // Krystal Frasier for CBS News
"The University is not immune to those challenges. The University has plans in place should a strike occur and is fully committed to minimizing any disruption this action might cause for our students, faculty, staff, and community." If workers walk off the job, enhanced strike benefits were approved by the union, including $1,000 a week, which reportedly exceeds the weekly pay of some workers across the university system.
Legal action threatened over NYC plan to hike delivery worker pay
August 9, 2025 // Chris Wade for The Center Square
"This pain would be felt most acutely by the city’s independent grocers — those without the scale or cushion of national chains," the group wrote in an op-ed published earlier this week. "New York’s Independent grocers are already facing historic challenges, including inflation, soaring rents, rising retail theft, shrinking margins, and the rapid expansion of chain supermarkets and big-box retailers.
Philadelphia teachers prepare for possible strike if a deal is not reached by Aug. 31
August 8, 2025 // Aziza Shuler, Laura Fay, Bill Seiders for CBS News
The union is asking for an end to the school district's controversial sick leave policy, which it says punishes teachers for using sick days and requires them to meet with their principal after taking three days. The union also wants paid parental leave, extra pay for oversized classes and the restoration of school libraries. The union's president, Arthur Steinberg, said teachers don't want to go on strike, but the union, which represents nearly 14,000 teachers, is "not even close to working out a deal with the school district.
Congress Probes Powerful Teachers’ Union Brass Spending Funds On Limo Rides
August 7, 2025 // Hudson Crozier for Daily Caller
The House Education and Workforce Committee inquired about public records showing that the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) spent more than $100,000 on private limousine services since September 2023 in a Thursday letter to the AFT. Lawmakers have also received reports from unnamed sources that Weingarten, the union’s president, has paid for other conveniences such as a private driver, the letter says.
Fenway Park concessions workers warn of another possible strike
August 7, 2025 // Phil Tenser for WCVB
As negotiations continue for a new collective bargaining agreement, the union said its key demands are citywide-standard wages, guardrails on automation, increased gratuity for premium workers who serve season ticket holders and special guests, and fair scheduling that respects workers' seniority. According to Local 26, Fenway concessions employees earn under $20 an hour, a wage that the union says is $10 less than Boston's standard for similar jobs.
Unionized Berkeley REI Workers Get Pay Raises After Labor Board Alleged They Were Shut Out
August 7, 2025 // Samantha Kennedy for KQED
Following a years-long organizing effort, some workers at a Berkeley REI store are set to get retroactive pay raises and bonuses as part of a labor deal with two unions representing workers at 11 stores across the country. The agreement reached last week between REI Co-op, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union — which represents the Berkeley workers — and the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union establishes a national bargaining structure for unionized workers that provides compensation some workers previously did not receive between 2022 and 2024.
Commentary: Blatant Lawlessness
August 7, 2025 // Frank Ricci for Yankee Institute for Public Policy
A new Yankee Institute report, Blatant Lawlessness: How the CT Department of Labor & Union Leaders Disrespect Union Workers and Ignore the Law, highlights the Connecticut Department of Labor’s (CT DOL’s) failure to enforce vital state laws. These laws require unions to provide financial transparency to their members, and the state’s non-enforcement leaves dues-paying workers vulnerable to potential mismanagement and corruption. Enacted in 1959, Connecticut General Statutes Sec. 31-77 mandates that unions representing public and private sector employees submit verified annual financial reports to the CT DOL and make them available to members.
Educator urges Illinois teachers to reject union pressure, politics and coercion
August 7, 2025 // Catrina Barker for The Center Square
Sarah Fletcher, a former charter school educator and now the Head of School at White Horse Academy, a private school, said her own teaching career trajectory was shaped by a desire to avoid union involvement altogether. “When we moved here to Illinois from Arizona, I had very little interest in teaching at the public school,” Fletcher said. “Part of that was because I didn’t want to be pressured into or have to be mandated to pay dues. The IEA and IFT, which are part of larger organizations like the NEA, use the majority of their funds not to represent teachers, but for political advocacy.”
VA severs ties with most federal unions, terminating worker contracts
August 7, 2025 // Leo Shane III for Navy Times
Veterans Affairs leaders on Wednesday announced plans to terminate nearly all of its collective bargaining contracts with federal unions, upending employment agreements for hundreds of thousands of department workers. The move affects members of the American Federation of Government Employees, the AFL-CIO (AFGE), the National Association of Government Employees (NAGE), the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), the National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United (NNOC/NNU) and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
Opinion: We can’t abolish America’s largest teachers union. But Congress can do something else
August 7, 2025 // Scott Fitzgerald , Aaron Withe for Fox News
If this is what happens when NEA completely controls an event and its programming, the union’s tremendous influence over classrooms is a five-alarm fire not just for public education, but the future of our country. Congressional action addressing the pernicious influence of the teachers unions is long overdue. That’s why I (Mr. Fitzgerald) and Sen. Cynthia Lummis from Wyoming have introduced the Stopping Teachers Unions from Damaging Education Needs Today (STUDENT) Act, which would overhaul the NEA’s federal charter to make the union more accountable and less partisan.
Under Trump, Student Labor Organizers Face New Challenges
August 7, 2025 // Lucy Tobier for The Nation
Anticipating a rollback of recent NLRB precedent, some unions have withdrawn petitions for recognition, looking for other paths to continue their work.
Novato city workers plan to strike for 2nd day Wednesday over sales tax funds
August 7, 2025 // Ruth Dusseault for KTVU
According to the city's website, the measure's rise in sales tax from 8.5% to 9.25% should generate $10 million annually and help the city mend its $4 million budget deficit through the 2025/2026 fiscal year. Novato has cut city staffing by over 30 positions to manage a growing budget deficit, the city's site said, and one-time COVID-19 federal recovery funding that helped protect essential services has been depleted.
UAW Faction Seeks to Oust President Fain in Sign of Union Unrest
August 6, 2025 // David Welch, Gabrielle Coppola for Bloomberg
Turnout at some locals has been small. At the Sterling Heights plant that voted over the weekend, 63 workers showed up with all but one voting to oust Fain, Pillsbury said. The plant has 6,200 employees. If the union challenges any of the victories because of low voter turnout or for any other reason, he said he wants enough wins to maintain the six victories needed to push ahead.
Amazon off-duty employees can use parking lots for union activity, NLRB judge rules
August 6, 2025 // Laurel Kalser for Dive Brief
In ruling against Amazon, the ALJ explained that NLRB has long held employers may not bar off-duty employees from outside nonworking areas, including parking lots. Amazon violated Section 8(a)1 of the NLRA when it tried to do this to keep off-duty employees from engaging in protected activity, the judge held. Amazon also violated Section 8(a)1 when it called the police to further bar protected activity, the ALJ said.
More Than 150,000 Federal Workers Accepted Trump’s Resignation Incentives
August 6, 2025 // Eileen Sullivan for New York Times
A new government estimate, along with a study by the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, provides a long-awaited window into the scale of the departures.
The New Frontline with Siena Rose Podcast: Teacher Freedom Summit
August 6, 2025 // Siena Rose for Freedom Foundation
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