Posts tagged Texas
Houston airport workers receive 33% raise under Whitmire order, continuing union wins at city facilities
August 13, 2026 // The Texas chapter of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) represents many of the covered employees at the city's two airports. They work across passenger service, cleaning and baggage operations. The order requires vendors and contractors at the city-owned airports to meet the new wage standards.
Commentary: When driverless vehicles are attacked, look for the union label
August 10, 2026 // The news website TechCrunch has reported that CARS is registered to an employee of Pitta Bishop & Del Giorno LLC, a labor-side lobbying and government affairs outfit with offices in New York and DC. The firm’s clients include the Amalgamated Transit Union, the Transport Workers Union, the Transportation Communication Union, and the Garage Employees Union, among other labor groups. The unions likely oppose driverless vehicles because you cannot unionize machines. (Not yet, anyway. Perhaps we shouldn’t be giving them ideas.) They may also be trying to protect traditional cab drivers and city bus drivers, who are often unionized, from competition from the new technology. Never mind that driverless vehicles will provide new options for DC residents, who can’t always get cabs or buses when they need them.
Second public defender union calls off strike
August 6, 2026 // The Association of Legal Advocates and Attorneys – UAW Local 2325 union, which represents NDS staff, shared details of the temporary agreement with members on Tuesday. NDS also employs staff in Detroit and Texas, who were also on strike the past week.
Second public defender union goes on strike
July 29, 2026 // The union said that during its most recent bargaining session, NDS management offered a one percent COLA and did not include no-cost healthcare over the term of the proposed three-year contract. NDS also has offices based in Texas and Michigan, where union members staged picket lines on Friday. The union was joined on their first day of striking by Democratic congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier, who previously worked at NDS Harlem as an investigator before winning the Democratic primary for New York's 13th congressional district in June.
Minimum Wage Myths are Flooding the Internet
July 27, 2026 // Salaries are a function of supply and demand, not government planning. Employers hire workers up to the point where the value of their labor justifies the wage, while workers decide whether to supply their labor based on the pay offered. As the Texas example shows, the true minimum wage is whatever the market decides, and in 2026 that’s almost never as low as $7.25. Minimum wages can also hurt the workers that they’re meant to help. California’s minimum wage is among the highest in the nation, and California now has the highest unemployment rate of all 50 states.
Fort Worth council members weigh in on firefighter union impasse
July 23, 2026 // The city claims that it has offered the union a contract with $40 million in new investments that included a 20% salary increase over four years and changes to the department’s staffing and benefits.
Lockheed Martin settles on terms with union workers as military buildup boosts production
July 14, 2026 // Highly skilled workers at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. feel valued after about 5,000 members of International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 776 ratified the contract, union representatives said. The contract — which started on June 15 and continues until June 18, 2030 — calls for wage increases between 4% and 6%, increased vacation time and no mandatory overtime schedules. It also includes a $6,000 bonus and retirement benefit improvements.
The Texas Case That Could Bring Down the NLRB
June 13, 2026 // That’s the reality of a May decision by a U.S. district court in Fort Worth in the case Aunt Bertha v. National Labor Relations Board. The court ruled that the NLRB – the main government agency overseeing union organizing and collective bargaining in the private sector – is unconstitutional on multiple counts. This case seems destined to head to the Supreme Court, and if it does, Congress may have to rewrite federal labor law to meet workers’ needs in the 21st century.
DOL gets flexible on overtime
May 18, 2026 // The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires that workers be paid time-and-a-half once a work week exceeds 40 hours. However, employers may exempt workers classified as managerial who meet a salary threshold. In 2023, The Biden administration raised the income threshold from $35,500 to $44,000, and planned to increase it again to $59,000 annually by 2025. This was intended to expand the number of people receiving overtime. The administration’s union allies and labor-sympathetic lawmakers have long argued that companies abuse the exception by designating regular employees as managerial to get out of having to pay them overtime. Raising the threshold was meant to prevent this. This one-size-fits-all approach did not necessarily benefit all workers.
Federal union leaders rally Fort Hood workers amid fears over contract terminations, employee rights and future of federal unions
May 11, 2026 // Throughout the evening, union leaders urged employees to stay engaged, document workplace issues and continue paying union dues through AFGE’s e-dues system. Kelley repeatedly stressed that the union’s strength depends on worker participation. “The union is you,” Kelley said. “You make it a union.” He encouraged workers to recruit coworkers and continue organizing despite uncertainty surrounding bargaining agreements.