Posts tagged Labor Leaders
‘With you or without you’ – The growing rift between unions and Democrats
June 21, 2025 // O’Brien said that, during a meeting he had in the summer of 2024 with unnamed Democratic senators and three other major union leaders, he opposed bringing up the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act for a Senate vote ahead of the election. This was despite the PRO Act being a wish list of union priorities. O’Brien assumed that a vote at that time would have been an act of political theater, not a serious bid to get the legislation through the Senate. That would have suited Democrats, who could claim that they voted in support of unions, without actually benefiting them. “They wanted to introduce the PRO Act, and I’m like, ‘It’s never gonna pass,’” O’Brien told Walsh. “I had a sidebar with these three other general (union) presidents and I said, ‘They’re using this as an issue to weaponize it.’” O’Brien said that the “weaponization” of the legislation made it politically toxic and therefore impossible to get enough bipartisan support.
Commentary: How organized labor shames its traitors − the story of the ‘scab’
September 16, 2024 // In the 19th century, American workers started using the word to attack peers who refused to join a union or worked when others were striking. By the 1880s, periodicals, union pamphlets and books all regularly used the epithet to chastise any workers or labor leaders who cooperated with bosses. Names of scabs were often printed in local papers. Scab likely caught on because it directed visceral disgust at anyone who put self-interest above class solidarity.
Working Families Party kicks off first-ever national convention in Philadelphia
October 11, 2023 // The convention began in Philadelphia Friday night with hundreds of members, who came from Pennsylvania, New York and the party’s 19 state chapters nationwide, in attendance. Local and federal lawmakers joined national party leaders, labor leaders and community organizers at the Downtown Sonesta hotel to celebrate the party’s growth over the past 25 years – and to discuss its future. The progressive Working Families Party, established in New York in 1998, aligns itself with major labor unions and grassroots community organizations. The party’s priorities include fairer treatment of workers, a higher minimum wage, universal paid sick leave and more equitable education, environmental and tax reforms. Despite its progressive leanings, the party has consistently punched above its weight in recent elections. WFP has endorsed and campaigned for President Joe Biden, U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, and Gov. Josh Shapiro – and recently announced an endorsement of Judge Daniel McCaffery, the Democratic candidate for state Supreme Court, one of this year’s most contested races.
Offshore wind boosted as Biden, East Coast governors team up
June 24, 2022 // A national agreement signed with North America’s Building Trades Unions covers contractors working on those projects and future ones, with no termination date on the project labor agreement. It sets the terms and conditions for union workers to build offshore wind farms, with targets to ensure a diverse workforce. It contains provisions for training to ensure they can construct the complex infrastructure, which costs billions of dollars. Vineyard Wind, South Fork Wind, David Hayes, Diane Hoskins, Heather Zichal, American Clean Power Association,
Sanders’ pro-union budget committee hearing shows Democrats’ true agenda
May 6, 2022 // Ranking Member Lindsey Graham’s (R-S.C.) observation during the hearing was exactly correct — under Sanders’s direction, the Senate Budget Committee has taken a dangerous and partisan turn. Instead of focusing on issues under jurisdiction, Sanders would prefer to use his chairmanship as a bully pulpit to push a pro-union agenda and target companies he dislikes for purely political reasons.
Biden in Portland: ‘Union workers are the best’
May 6, 2022 // After the hangar event, Biden attended a Democratic National Committee fundraiser at the Portland Yacht Club, where he spoke for about 30 minutes before returning to the airport to depart for Seattle.
Bernie Sanders Announces Wasteful, Politicized Senate Budget Hearing
May 5, 2022 // In reality, this hearing is designed to paint a single company in a bad light and gin up momentum for the nascent Amazon Labor Union (ALU). By any fair measure, this hearing is outside the Budget Committee’s jurisdiction and is part of a government-wide effort to expand organized labor’s power at the expense of American workers.
DDOT Warns Of Circulator Driver Strike Amid Stalled Labor Negotiations
May 2, 2022 // In a statement Thursday evening, DDOT said it is working with RATP Dev, the private company contracted by the city to run the Circulator, on an “adjusted plan for limited service” in the case of strike. DDOT added that it remains “optimistic” that RATP Dev can reach an agreement with ATU Local 689, the union representing Circulator operators.
Sacramento City Unified teachers, staff announce plans to strike next week
March 19, 2022 // "The crisis in Sacramento is a daily crisis for our students," Fisher told CapRadio before Thursday’s rally. "Imagine coming to school, day after day. And not only not having a teacher, but not even having a substitute teacher, and having to spend the day often corralled in the cafeteria with potentially dozens of other classes, or having to be shuffled around to a classroom that actually has a teacher.”