Posts tagged Strikes
‘Blue Power’ and the Rise of Police Union Politics
April 18, 2026 // "Everybody else can indulge in politics—every black group, every political party group, every church group," groused Carl Parsell, then president of the Detroit Police Officers Association, in 1969. "Why are police officers so different?" The question goes to the heart of Stuart Schrader's Blue Power, a new book charting how police unions accreted and cemented power in the decades following Parsell's query. It's a ripe subject for review: Police officers' savvy use of public sector unions and lobbying to largely immunize themselves from oversight is one of the greatest political coups in recent American history. In under four decades, police unions evolved from beer-drinking clubs to organized bargaining units to potent political forces at the local, state, and national levels.
Kaiser Permanente Nurses Ratify Contracts After Year of Strikes
March 24, 2026 // Agreements covering 31,000 health care professionals take effect at Pasadena-headquartered health system
Wave of California teacher strikes ‘is no coincidence’
March 4, 2026 // Thousands of California K-12 teachers have walked off their jobs or voted to strike in the past few months, as part of a strategic, statewide effort by the California Teachers Association to boost salaries and benefits — and get the public’s attention. “All these districts going out on strike — it’s not a coincidence at all,” said David Goldberg, president of the California Teachers Association, the state’s largest teachers union. “Everywhere in the state there are people with unmet needs. The conditions have been ripe for a long time.”
Op-ed: Why is Government Empowering Public Sector Unions?
February 26, 2026 // Government empowers unions, and unions use that power to protect themselves. Forget any potential harm to taxpayers. The irony here is that union members are also taxpayers. So, in effect, unions are hurting their own members. But union leadership doesn’t think about that. Leadership is more interested in keeping their power and clout.
WA farmworker union bill doesn’t make it through Legislature
February 22, 2026 // Tuesday, Feb. 17, was the cutoff for bills to be voted out of the chamber — the Senate or House of Representatives — where they originated. The bill introduced by state Sen. Rebecca Saldana, D-Seattle, would have given farmworkers a legal framework to engage in collective bargaining with their employers. The bill made it through the first round of Senate committees but not to a floor vote that would have advanced it.
4 healthcare strikes in 2026
January 29, 2026 // Union activity in healthcare continues in 2026, with at least four reported strikes in the month of January alone. Some of these actions involve healthcare workers and leaders across hospitals and clinics in multiple states.
2028 Olympics could bring big wins for Los Angeles labor unions
January 25, 2026 // “We are going to have a force ... of working people to do whatever it takes, including striking if we have to during the Olympics in 2028,” Petersen said. “The Olympics can’t happen without the workers.” A coalition of labor groups, community organizations and religious institutions are pushing for the Los Angeles Olympics organizing committee — known as LA28 — and the city to pay for building 50,000 housing units, pass a moratorium on short-term rentals like Airbnb, and protect immigrant workers.
The 15 Most Unionized Places in America
October 16, 2025 // To determine the most unionized locations in the U.S., researchers at Construction Coverage analyzed data from UnionStats.com and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The researchers ranked metropolitan statistical areas according to total union members as a percentage of total employment. In addition to union membership, the researchers also included statistics on union representation, which is the share of workers whose terms of work are collectively negotiated (whether or not they are union members). Only metropolitan statistical areas with available data were included in the analysis.
Testimony: Rachel Greszler: Labor Law Reform Part 1: Diagnosing the Issues, Exploring Current Proposals
October 10, 2025 // SummaryToday’s challenges—from the rise of artificial intelligence to the expansion of independent work and the growing demand for flexibility, autonomy, and new skills—necessitate modernized labor laws that are pro-worker and pro-employer, regardless of the type of workplace. Heavy-handed government interventions and attempts to bring back the 1950s’ ways of work are not the answers. American labor laws should preserve the freedom, dignity, and opportunity that make American work exceptional.
France learns (again) what sectoral bargaining means
October 9, 2025 // The public thought Truman hadn’t gone far enough. In 1946 it elected a Republican-majority Congress (the first since the Great Depression) and enough union-skeptical Democratic allies to pass the Taft-Hartley Act, with its limits on strikes for reasons other than immediate labor disputes, over President Truman’s (possibly entirely cynical) veto. The French political shutdown tactics would not be imported with the Burgundian wine and Normandy cheese.