Posts tagged New York
Unionized Berkeley REI Workers Get Pay Raises After Labor Board Alleged They Were Shut Out
August 7, 2025 // 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.
Amazon off-duty employees can use parking lots for union activity, NLRB judge rules
August 6, 2025 // 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.
Is “Salting” the Future of Organized Labor?
August 3, 2025 // MA: Another point to just make is that as a salt, you have to earn your keep. Yes, you’re in closer proximity to people, and you can talk to them and build relationships. But part of that is also like doing the work, being taken seriously as a fellow worker, who knows what the hell you’re talking about. JB: Exactly. You have to be a good coworker. I worked at Starbucks for eight months before ever saying the word union. And my role wasn’t to be the vanguard of the revolution. It was to find people, like Michelle Eisen, whose family were coal miners in Harlan County, Kentucky, who had a deep sense of social justice and a deep commitment to unions, and who quickly saw that her legacy at Starbucks could be helping build a union for everybody who would come after her.
Lower courts ignore Supreme Court precedent to force union payments
August 2, 2025 // The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to answer that question. In an amicus brief filed July 24, the two organizations ask the Court to reaffirm and enforce the constitutional standard it set in the 2018 Janus v. AFSCME decision: that no money may be taken from a public employee’s paycheck for a union without the employee’s clear and affirmative consent. The brief supports two public workers who are respectively suing the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees as well as the International Union of Operating Engineers. Marcus Todd and Terry Klee
Dems have been bleeding working-class support. Now possible 2028 contenders are fighting with unions.
July 24, 2025 // High-profile Democratic governors fighting the Trump administration are also mired in bruising conflicts at home — with allies they’ll likely need to advance their presidential ambitions.
As threat of mass strike looms, some NYC legal service providers reach tentative agreements with unions
July 23, 2025 // Aaron Eisenberg, the political director at United Auto Workers Region 9A, told amNewYork that he hopes the agreements at Bronx Defenders and NYLAG will encourage other legal aid providers to meet demands and avoid a mass strike. Various union chapters within the Association of Legal Advocates and Attorneys-UAW are in active bargaining with management and have threatened to strike. A mass public interest attorney strike could take about 2,000 lawyers out of court, about 1,100 of whom work at the Legal Aid Society, where unionized employees have set a Friday deadline for a contract before walking out.
Commentary: Ivy Leaguers Aren’t Auto Workers
July 21, 2025 // In general, NLRB decisions are fake law made by fake judges who have to interpret a poorly written statute from 90 years ago that is based on assumptions about industrial organization that no longer obtain in the United States. But the NLRB remains powerful nonetheless, and its decisions matter. That’s why Russell Burgett, a doctoral candidate at Cornell University, which is private, is asking the NLRB to overturn the 2016 Columbia ruling. He isn’t a member of the Cornell graduate students’ union, a UE affiliate, and he said in charges filed with the NLRB on Monday that his choice not to join makes it harder for him to complete his education.
Several NYPD unions endorse Mayor Adams despite corruption allegations
July 20, 2025 // “Everybody running for office right now for the mayor… they all have plans on how they're going to reduce crime. Those are plans. We have action that has been working. Why do you want to change that?” John Nuthall, a spokesperson for the rank-and-file union, the Police Benevolent Association, said that body is not prepared to make an endorsement at this stage in the mayor’s race. “We have a separate process and we’re going through that process,” Nuthall said. He declined to say which candidate the PBA may be leaning toward endorsing.
Workers striking by choice could lose unemployment benefits in blue states under GOP proposal
July 20, 2025 // Legislation targets policies in Oregon, Washington, New York and New Jersey that provide financial support during strikes The legislation is co-sponsored by Reps. Aaron Bean, R-Fla.; Mike Kelly, R-Pa.; Blake Moore, R-Utah; Nathaniel Moran, R-Texas; Greg Murphy, R-N.C.; David Rouzer, R-N.C.; Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y.; and Beth Van Duyne, R-Texas. The governors of both Oregon and Washington signed laws earlier this year allowing for striking workers to receive unemployment benefits.
Powerful NYC teachers union endorses Zohran Mamdani despite radical take on mayoral control of schools
July 10, 2025 // The United Federation of Teachers’ resolution recommending Mamdani’s endorsement applauded his pledge of “revamping mayoral control [of schools] to give more say to educators and parents.” Mamdani’s education platform “supports an end to mayoral control” in favor of “co-governance.”