Posts tagged Democrat
More Democratic legislative staff seek to unionize in Washington
March 30, 2026 // A 2022 law cleared the way for partisan legislative staff to unionize starting in 2024 and to negotiate workplace terms and conditions. Legislative assistants, policy analysts and communications staff in the House Democratic Caucus, legislative assistants in the Senate Democratic Caucus and legislative assistants for Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate did so. Each has since negotiated their first collective bargaining agreements. Washington Public Employees Association represents the Democratic employee bargaining units and the Legislative Professionals Association represents the Republican staff unions. Democratic policy and communications staff are looking to be part of the same bargaining unit as legislative assistants in the Senate Democratic Caucus.
Faculty, Grad Workers Left Out of Virginia’s Collective Bargaining Expansion
March 24, 2026 // There’s a big caveat to SB 378, though. The bill exempts several categories of public workers from collective bargaining rights, including judicial branch employees, General Assembly staff and public college and university workers, “except for service employees.” That means faculty and graduate student workers at state institutions will continue to lack the right to form officially recognized unions that colleges and universities must negotiate with.
Opinion Aaron Withe: Why unions love the ‘Billionaire Tax’
March 12, 2026 // It has attracted a coalition of supporters — chief among them government employee unions. That might seem like an odd pairing, but the logic becomes clear once you trace where the money is supposed to go. Sanders’ legislation would redirect the projected revenue — $4.4 trillion over a decade — into an array of new federal spending programs, including direct cash payments, a federal salary floor for public school teachers and expanded Medicare benefits. Not coincidentally, pouring money into such programs means more federal employees, more union-eligible positions and more dues flowing into union bank accounts.
Unions oppose a Trump labor nominee over lack of experience, hostility toward bargaining
February 18, 2026 // Last September, Trump nominated Charlton Allen to serve as general counsel for the Federal Labor Relations Authority. Per Allen’s website, he is a conservative lawyer, political consultant and occasional pundit, who served for seven years as a North Carolina industrial commissioner. The FLRA general counsel is responsible for investigating and prosecuting alleged unfair labor practices and other disputes between federal agencies and their labor unions. In the year since President Trump returned to office, a backlog of 300 cases has developed, which cannot proceed to the FLRA for consideration without a Senate-confirmed general counsel.
GOP gov hopeful Blakeman woos NY labor, blasts Hochul vetoes of union friendly bills
January 7, 2026 // 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.
BALTIMORE: Moore administration settles contracts with state unions — except AFSCME
January 6, 2026 // 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%.
Union Bosses Admit They Spent $1.8 Billion on Politics in the 2024 Election Cycle — The Real Number is Likely Over $28 Billion
December 19, 2025 // It is nearly impossible to produce perfectly accurate figures from the LM-2 because subsidiary unions file separate forms from the larger national unions they fall under, and transactions between these unions could be listed multiple times in the data. This only worsens the problems of inconsistent and potentially inaccurate reporting mentioned above. The LM-2 does not lend itself to a precise analysis of union boss spending, but it does give a sense of its scale. When sympathetic media outlets report unions’ political influence in the tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars that is a dramatic underrepresentation.
Pro-Worker or Pro-Union? Why Choice—not Coercion—Is the Future of Labor Policy, Disunion: The Government Union Report; Commonwealth Foundation
December 18, 2025 // This week on Disunion, host David Osborne is joined by Austen Bannan of Americans for Prosperity and Vincent Vernuccio, president of the Institute for the American Worker, to break down a sweeping new report: How to Empower Workers: Embracing a Pro-Worker Agenda Built on Choice. With Congress rolling out a flurry of labor bills—from right-to-work reforms and secret ballot protections to proposals backed by unions and even some Republicans—this episode cuts through the noise. The panel explains why many so-called “pro-worker” policies actually empower union bosses and government regulators, not workers themselves.
Op-ed: About Right to Work, Will the Real Abigail Spanberger Please Stand Up
December 4, 2025 // Reforms that weaken Right to Work laws will make Virginia less attractive to employers—reducing job growth and increasing Virginians' cost of living. Governor-elect Spanberger should reassure Virginians that she opposes any legislation weakening her citizens' Right to Work because she understands that protecting worker freedom is central to her abundance agenda.
Top labor groups break with federal union’s support of Republican measure to end shutdown
November 4, 2025 // But many of the top labor unions told ABC News that they continue to back the strategy taken up by Democrats, breaking with the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents hundreds of thousands of federal workers losing out on pay and staring down the threat of layoffs. Many labor unions, a key bloc within the Democratic Party, support the push for an extension of Obamacare subsidies and remain eager to fight a president they view as an adversary of workers, some labor analysts and union officials said.