Posts tagged engineering
TVA privatization could spell trouble for unions in Appalachia, workers say
August 27, 2025 // Around 5700 union members work on a range of energy projects across the seven-state footprint of the Tennessee Valley Authority. From Western North Carolina to Tennessee, unionized workers work on TVA energy infrastructure, operate gas, coal, and nuclear plants, and check safety on waste ponds and landfills. While 24 full-time TVA employees work in Western North Carolina, union contractors are regularly called upon to maintain the region’s four major dams. Though all the states in which TVA operates are right-to-work states with resulting low union density, the TVA workforce is 57% unionized.
Opinion: The UAW vote — gambling with our future
April 15, 2024 // The UAW talks a lot about solidarity — but solidarity with whom? Unionized VW employees cannot be in "solidarity" with their fellow unionized workers at other foreign auto assembly plants in the U.S. for one simple reason: Every time the UAW has entered a foreign automotive assembly plant in the U.S., that plant has eventually closed. Mitsubishi in Illinois; Toyota in California; Mazda in Michigan; and VW in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania — the last time the UAW made an American Volkswagen plant unprofitable.
Google’s Layoffs Labeled ‘Needless’ By Union as Hundreds of Employees Lose Jobs in Fresh Cuts
January 12, 2024 // The Alphabet Workers Union responded to the layoffs on X, saying: “Tonight, Google began another round of needless layoffs. Our members and teammates work hard every day to build great products for our users, and the company cannot continue to fire our coworkers while making billions every quarter. We won’t stop fighting until our jobs are safe!” In response, a Google spokesperson told TIME via email: “We’re responsibly investing in our company's biggest priorities and the significant opportunities ahead. To best position us for these opportunities, throughout the second half of 2023, a number of our teams made changes to become more efficient and work better, and to align their resources to their biggest product priorities.”
Push to unionize tech industry makes advances
April 28, 2023 // Organizing efforts are coming for office workers just as many tech companies are shedding staff, potentially giving employees new incentives to consider unions. The union pushes also come at a moment when workers in tech, as in many other fields, are feeling insecure about their future in the face of rapidly developing and increasingly capable AI-powered bots.
Union workers on strike at Sheboygan manufacturing company
April 6, 2022 //