Posts tagged Arizona
Op-ed: Trump restores America’s control over Washington
February 12, 2026 // President Trump is all too familiar with this injustice. In his first term, senior bureaucrats repeatedly used their power to prevent his priorities from becoming policy. They slow-walked reforms at the Department of Education, refused to prosecute civil rights cases, and circumvented a federal hiring freeze—to name just a few examples. At the start of the second Trump administration, a poll found that 75 percent of federal managers who voted for Kamala Harris planned to disobey instructions they don’t like. But public servants are supposed to serve the public, even if they disagree with the party the public elected. In the private sector, workers could be fired for not doing their job. But until now, presidential administrations couldn’t hold senior bureaucrats accountable because federal rules made them effectively untouchable. While Democrats outnumber Republicans two to one at federal agencies, conservative career officials could also refuse to implement a liberal president’s agenda.
Union Activists Launch Full Scale Attack on Students, Families in AZ
February 8, 2026 // But now, the same sorts of union activists who called for shuttering schools during the pandemic and who unleashed unprecedented learning loss upon our public school students are now trying to smother the state’s flourishing ESA program. Despite the effort to paint this campaign as “protecting education,” it is nothing more than direct attack on students and families.
As Arizona faces education retention crisis, Tucson charter school teachers fight to unionize
January 25, 2026 // Teachers at the CITY schools, which include three campuses in downtown Tucson, filed a petition to unionize in December. Their school board rejected it and hired a high-profile law firm to challenge the effort. Fourteen percent of Arizona teachers left their jobs last year, with higher numbers for charter schools, according to state data. Research shows unions generally raise salaries and make teachers more likely to stay in the classroom.
Commentary: Right-to-Work States Dominate U-Haul Growth Index
January 12, 2026 // 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. The 10 best ranked states in the U-Haul Growth Index are Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, Washington, Arizona, Idaho, Alabama and Georgia. All are Right-to-Work except Washington.
CalPortland Fresno Ready Mix Drivers File Petition to End Teamsters Local 431 Union Boss “Representation”
November 1, 2025 // Majority of workers back petition seeking to free themselves of Teamsters union officials
DOL Awards $86M for Skilled Trades Training
October 29, 2025 // Administered by the department’s Employment and Training Administration, these grants will provide outcome-based reimbursements to employers for providing training in high-demand and emerging industries that align with President Trump’s Executive Order 14278, Preparing Americans for High-Paying Skilled Trade Jobs of the Future, and Executive Order 14629, Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance. These priorities are also in line with the goals published in America’s Talent Strategy and America’s AI Action Plan. “President Trump has directed the Labor Department to Make America Skilled Again by providing states with the resources they need to expand on-the-job training opportunities,” said Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer.
Starbucks workers union planning pickets, rallies through Nov. 2. See in which states
October 27, 2025 // Starbucks, for its part, says it is willing to bargain with the union, which the company says represents about 9,500 of its "partners," or employees. "Workers United only represents around 4% of our partners but chose to walk away from the bargaining table. If they’re ready to come back, we’re ready to talk," corporate spokesperson Jaci Anderson said in a statement to USA TODAY. "Any agreement needs to reflect the reality that Starbucks already offers the best job in retail including more than $30 an hour on average in pay and benefits for hourly partners," Anderson said. "We’re investing over $500 million to put more partners in stores during busy times. The facts show people like working at Starbucks. Partner engagement is up, turnover is nearly half the industry average, and we get more than 1 million job applications a year.”
Interior Department reveals plans to lay off more than 2,000 employees
October 21, 2025 // According to the documents, the RIF would involve: 474 employees in the Bureau of Land Management 12 employees in the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management 30 employees in the Bureau of Reclamation 7 employees in the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement 143 employees in the Fish and Wildlife Service 272 employees in the National Park Service 7 employees in the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement 770 Interior headquarters and Interior Business Center employees 335 employees in the U.S. Geological Survey In an earlier filing last week, the department said it had been planning the staff cuts for months, and until they were blocked by a restraining order, officials had planned to abolish the positions “imminently” and issue RIF notices to the staff in those roles.
Does federal marijuana prohibition mean cannabis workers can’t unionize?
September 19, 2025 // That’s what so-called “trigger laws” in California, New York and Massachusetts call for: allowing workers to petition state labor-relations entities if the NLRB cannot function. That could work against cannabis companies in such blue states. In contrast, it would be a boon for anti-unionization efforts in states with weak labor laws such as Missouri, where the cannabis industry is doing comparatively well compared to other states. It’s not clear what might happen next in Michigan, where Democratic lawmakers repealed anti-union “right-to-work” laws in 2024.
US senators demand Wells Fargo welcome employee unions
September 18, 2025 // A group of Democratic senators called on Wells Fargo (WFC.N), opens new tab to end its alleged campaign against employee unions, saying a more constructive approach could address a toxic workplace culture and help the bank recover from scandals that prevented it from growing.