Posts tagged organizing
A Union for Home Care Workers? Many Are Wary.
July 17, 2026 // New York Focus independently spoke to more than a dozen aides for this story, and eight were either against it or leaning in that direction. Saba Nakhai, 32, who cares for her mother in Westchester full time, told New York Focus that she doesn’t see a place for the union in her work. “Maybe if I was working at a corporation, I would want a union,” she said. “But here, who’s the enemy, my mom?” Saba Nakhai, a young woman, stands smiling behind and holds the arms of her older mother, who is seated and wearing sunglasses. The room seems celebratory; a cake is on the table in front of them, and pictures of Saba hang from the ceiling. Saba Nakhai cares for her mother in Westchester full time. | Courtesy of Saba Nakhai To win, 1199 must convince workers like Nakhai that they need an advocate — not against their patients, but against the sprawling bureaucracy that sets their wages and benefits. If it’s successful, 1199 — already one of New York’s political kingmakers — will become even more powerful. Its membership and dues revenue will balloon, enabling more organizing and lobbying.
Trump administration suspends enforcement of Biden-era farmworker rule
June 26, 2025 // "The decision provides much-needed clarity for American farmers navigating the H-2A program, while also aligning with President Trump's ongoing commitment to strictly enforcing U.S. immigration laws," the department said in a statement. "As multiple federal court injunctions have created significant legal uncertainty, inconsistency, and operational challenges for farmers lawfully employing H-2A workers, this field assistance bulletin clarifies that the department will not be enforcing the 2024 final rule effective immediately." The H-2A visa program allows farmers to bring in an unlimited number of foreign seasonal farmhands if they can show there are not enough U.S. workers willing, qualified and available to do the job.
Workers overwhelmingly vote to unionize at Tuscaloosa chemical plant
January 13, 2025 // The ICWUC’s victory is a fairly rare one in the historically anti-union state of Alabama. Past organizing attempts, like the recent ones at Mercedes in Vance and the Amazon facility in Bessemer, or the historic ones that constituted the CIO’s “Operation Dixie,” have mostly floundered in the face of opposition from local politicians.
Would-be union of Illinois legislative staffers accuse Welch of undermining organizing effort
May 24, 2024 // In a scathing statement, the Illinois Legislative Staff Association accused Welch of passing the bill “to deflect rising criticism” and feigning solidarity in public while privately colluding with Democratic Senate President Don Harmon to ensure the bill “went no further” once it passed the House. “Speaker Welch took advantage of our sincere desire to work with him and used it to score political points while continuing to undermine our efforts to organize,” the lengthy statement said. “This whole exercise was nothing but a hollow ruse, meant to gaslight us while we drafted his bills, staffed his committees, crafted his talking points and analyzed his budget.” ILSA, which is currently made up of staff for the House Democratic caucus, formed in secret in 2022 and went public with its unionization efforts last year. The association then spent the summer accusing Welch of stonewalling its efforts for recognition.
The number of striking U.S. workers more than doubled in 2023
February 15, 2024 // While the overall number of strikes only ticked up a bit in 2023, many more workers were involved in stoppages.
Summer of labor: Why unions win pay hikes and new clout
August 10, 2023 // This year’s bargaining sessions tell the story. The mere threat of a strike won longshoremen, UPS drivers, and other blue-collar workers big pay raises. The 11,000 members of the Writers Guild of America, by contrast, have been on strike since May. Last month, the actors union joined them on the picket line. It’s the first time the two have jointly struck the studios since 1960 and the most closely watched labor action of the year. Almost 3 in 4 Americans say they’re aware of the strike, according to a Los Angeles Times poll released Aug. 3. Among the issues are revenues from web streaming and the use of AI to generate actors’ likenesses.
One Small Union Is Stoking Much of the Militant New Graduate Worker Organizing
May 30, 2023 // With around 35,000 members, the UE is not a huge union. It was once the third-largest — and arguably the most left-wing and democratic — member of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, with around a half-million members in core industries, until it fell victim to postwar anti-communist purges, raids from other unions and plant shutdowns. But the union revived itself by the 1990s. Famously, UE workers at the Republic Windows & Doors factory in Chicago occupied their plant in 2008, and today the union boasts a range of affiliated locals across sectors and industries from California to Vermont.
Tennessee for Worker Freedom Companies that get subsidies couldn’t bar secret ballots in union organizing elections.
February 22, 2023 // It would be better if states didn’t pick winners and losers with taxpayer dollars. While Tennessee doesn’t have a personal income tax, it imposes a 6.5% corporate tax rate plus a gross receipts tax, which make the state less attractive to businesses relative to others in the Sun Belt. Mr. Sexton says he also wants to cut the corporate tax rate, which is good to hear. But if states are going to give businesses handouts, it makes sense to condition them on respecting worker rights. Competition among states is heating up. Kudos to Tennessee Republicans for seeking to make their state friendlier to workers as well as business.
SEIU Local 1 Lays off 10 Staffers Amid Allegations That Dues Remain Uncollected
February 6, 2023 // On January 31, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1 — the founding local of the 2-million-member international union — laid off 10 of its 89 unionized staffers after little over two weeks’ notice due to a budget shortfall. Nine of those impacted by layoffs are organizers or grievance representatives, which is nearly a third of the member-facing staff at the union, according to the Chicago News Guild, the union that represents Local 1 staffers.