Posts tagged Pandemic
Publishing’s ‘Hot Labor Summer’
August 26, 2026 // HWC organizers told PW they had been organizing on and off since 2022 and decided to go public this April. Something was in the air. Weeks earlier, employees at Catapult Book Group had launched their own union, and after HWC, staffers at University of Chicago Press and Dark Horse Comics announced union drives in quick succession. HWC, the Catapult Workers Collective, and the University of Chicago Press Workers Guild all won their union elections, while Dark Horse Workers United received voluntary recognition from management. In each union’s public statements, employees expressed strikingly similar reasons for organizing: inadequate pay, large workloads, and limited potential for advancement. They all cited, in their own words, what HBG organizer Julia DeVarti, an associate editor at Little, Brown, called publishing’s “passion tax”—workers’ tendency to “be exploited for working in an industry we love.”
Chicago Teachers Union sues Illinois Policy Institute, citing ‘toxic’ branding, ‘defamatory’ audit claims
August 19, 2026 // Debates about the transparency of the CTU’s finances date back to 2024 and stem from one member’s complaint that the union is withholding financial information from members. CTU officials in January provided WBEZ/Sun-Times with a sign-in sheet that showed one of that suit’s plaintiffs had viewed the union’s audit reports, which don’t include information about the CTU’s foundation. The CTU has insisted that its constitution does not require the release of the full audits that also include the foundation’s finances. The new lawsuit claims the finalization of the audit reports were delayed for “innocuous reasons,” including that the finalization for fiscal year 2020 through 2023 were delayed due to complications from the pandemic and staffing turnover, as well as the impact of a lawsuit to protect pension benefits. The suit says the reports have been available to CTU members for review.
Workers at Berkeley’s Graduate by Hilton hotel push to unionize
July 22, 2026 // “UC Berkeley makes up a huge amount of its business, whether directly or indirectly,” she said. “The trends here really are very different than the rest of the industry.” Trevor Jackson, co-chair of the UC Berkeley Faculty Association, said he was invited to join the protest. He said he knows the university does a lot of business with the hotel and he wanted to support its workers. “I’m a professor of history and I will tell you history is on your side,” Jackson told picketers. “We got your back.” Maricela Castro told the group through a Spanish translator she has worked at the hotel for 30 years. She said she’s a room attendant who makes $23 an hour and feels like she does the work of two people.
Editorial: Randi Weingarten’s book sleaze might mean the end of corrupt teacher-union power
July 13, 2026 // Under Reps. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) and Rick Allen (R-Ga.), the committee is following up on Post reporting on dubious transactions uncovered by the Freedom Foundation that amount to hundreds of thousands of AFT dollars spent to help produce the book Of course, that’s just a fraction of how union higherups profit from members’ dues: Weingarten’s pay is now $470,000 a year, not to mention ample perks. Maybe she’s worth it — to the union itself, at least: She’s been a Democratic Party powerbroker for decades, using that influence to protect the power of the AFT and its larger ally, the National Education Association.
Broadway Cleaners Vote to Authorize Strike: “What This Fight Boils Down to Is Respect”
July 7, 2026 // The strike vote marks the first time the more than 250 cleaners, who are a part of the 32BJ of Service Employees International Union, have voted to authorize a strike in 18 years. Talks with the Broadway League, which represents their employers, the theater owners ATG, Nederlander, Shubert and Circle in the Square, are ongoing, but the Broadway cleaners say the two parties are still far apart on several issues, and the current contract has expired.
‘Make them respect us’: Striking Seattle hotel workers apply for unemployment benefits
July 5, 2026 // Hotel workers on strike at Seattle’s Embassy Suites Downtown Pioneer Square are signing up for unemployment benefits on Thursday. Workers represented by UNITE HERE! Local 8 are entering their third week of the strike, calling for higher wages, year-round healthcare, restored pre-pandemic staffing levels, and protections against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) actions.
Editorial Board: Unions held Massachusetts schools hostage. Now the bill has come due.
June 3, 2026 // Sometimes even an override isn’t enough. In Brookline, which had a one-day teacher strike in 2022 that ended with a pay raise, voters overwhelmingly approved a tax increase last month that will bring in an extra $23 million, including $18 million for the schools. The vote helped stave off hundreds of teacher layoffs and cuts to the fire department. Even still, the district will still be forced to cut some school jobs. “Not only did these unlawful strikes add to the already historic student learning loss after the pandemic,” said Jim Stergios, the executive director of the Pioneer Institute, “but over the long term jeopardized the jobs of rank-and-file teachers and local municipal budgets.”
John Coyne: The teachers challenging their unions’ political agenda in court
April 8, 2026 // Wolf won that gubernatorial election and later appointed PSEA President Jerry Oleksiak as his labor secretary. Oleksiak himself embodied another way teachers’ unions advanced their agenda in schools — through “ghost teachers.” Typically in urban school districts, teachers’ unions arranged for certain teachers to leave the classroom and work full-time for the union. The problem? These ghost teachers stayed on district payroll, receiving a taxpayer-backed teachers’ salary, pension, and health benefits. Oleksiak, a former special education teacher, was a ghost teacher for ten years leading up to his appointment by Wolf.
S.F. begins to lay off 127 workers as Mayor Lurie takes ‘painful but necessary’ steps to close deficit
April 8, 2026 // Among the 18 departments affected by the layoffs are the departments of public health and economic and workforce development. The City Administrator’s Office and the Human Services Agency are also affected, as are civilian roles in the Police Department. It wasn’t immediately clear exactly how many jobs were being eliminated from every affected department. The layoffs are likely to further inflame tensions between Lurie and some of the city’s most dominant public-sector labor unions. He already had a major disagreement with those groups over Proposition D, a June ballot measure they are pushing to raise taxes on companies with highly-paid executives.
Union proposes 100% remote work as California state workers resume negotiations
March 14, 2026 // As California’s labor negotiators and state worker unions resume discussions over the governor’s return-to-office order, SEIU Local 1000 is making significant demands: full-time telework for eligible workers and free parking for employees who are required to be in person.