Posts tagged union jobs
Commentary: The 2025 Battle of Trenton; Video
June 25, 2025 // The opposition to independent contractors was frustratingly predictable. Most of it, as usual, came from unions—including the AFL-CIO, Teamsters and IBEW. Others who testified against us were a representative of the union-affiliated National Employment Law Project (you may recall us crushing them in Congress last month), a couple of union-side lawyers, and a guy from the Workplace Justice Lab at Rutgers University, whose stated mission includes building unions.
Vegas-to-LA rail project lands $3B in federal funds
December 6, 2023 // “This historic high-speed rail project will be a game changer for Nevada’s tourism economy and transportation,” Rosen said in a statement. “It’ll bring more visitors to our state, reduce traffic on the I-15, create thousands of good paying jobs, and decrease carbon emissions, all while relying on local union labor.”
Op-Ed: Biden Pushes Electric Vehicles, Which Kill Union Jobs
August 26, 2023 // A gasoline-powered car has about 2,000 moving parts in its powertrains, whereas a Tesla has 17. That means electric vehicles require one-third fewer workers to assemble than conventional vehicles—and none of the workers who make engines or engine parts. As UAW research director Jennifer Kelly has explained, the “workers who are making engines and transmissions today” will see their jobs “eliminated when we make a transition to electric vehicles.”
How YIMBYs won over unions in California
August 22, 2023 // The Trades acknowledges there’s a shortage of workers for California’s needed residential construction, and they know their existing unionized workforce is getting older. A union-backed study from 2019 stipulated that to meet the state’s affordable housing goals, California would need to recruit at least 200,000 new workers. But the Trades insist things are not so dire yet that leaders need to abandon “skilled and trained” requirements, and they say more people will be incentivized to become “skilled and trained” only if lawmakers guarantee good union jobs waiting on the other end of an apprenticeship. About 70,500 people have graduated from these apprenticeships between 2010 and 2022, according to the California Department of Industrial Relations. In the end, California lawmakers didn’t really have to make a choice, and ended up passing Wicks’ bill, along with another similar bill that included the Trades’ preferred “skilled and trained” language. For now, developers basically can choose which law they want to follow if they want to convert strip malls to housing. (Yes, really.) “AB2011 was a huge victory, but they allowed the building trades to save face by passing both bills,” said David, the YIMBY activist.
OP-ED: BIDEN IS INVESTING IN GREEN ENERGY ACROSS THE SOUTH — THROWING SWING STATE UNION WORKERS UNDER THE BUS
July 12, 2023 // The success of the climate program will require continued federal commitment. Biden is placing a bet that clean energy investments could ultimately work the same way as the military-industrial complex. The military and its allied contractors have made sure to set up bases and/or manufacturing facilities in nearly every congressional district in the country, with extra attention paid to areas represented by key lawmakers. That has produced durable support for ever-expanding military budgets. Whether the same could be accomplished for the clean energy industry is an open question, but so far, Republicans from districts that have won federal awards have nevertheless voted to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, which funds the tax breaks. By subsidizing the decline of union jobs, the Biden administration risks empowering lawmakers who will then move to end the subsidies altogether. “The total lack of consideration for workers could certainly make the difference in 2024.” “What Biden is doing is politically insane, environmentally bankrupt, and it’s poor economics,” Larry Cohen, former president of the Communications Workers of America and board member of Our Revolution, told The Intercept.
Bill To Require Driverless Trucks To Have A Driver in the Vehicle is Backed by Labor Unions
April 18, 2023 // A bill to require driverless trucks to have a driver in the vehicle moved closer to a crucial Assembly Communications and Conveyance Committee this week, but it wasn’t just a safety bill – labor unions are backing the bill in anticipation of a close vote. Assembly Bill 316, authored by Assemblywoman Cecilia Aguiar-Curry (D-Winters) would prohibit the operation of an autonomous vehicle with a gross vehicle weight of 10,000 pounds or more on public roads for testing purposes, transporting goods, or transporting passengers without a human safety operator physically present in the autonomous vehicle at the time of operation. While AB 316 was authored by Assemblywoman Aguiar-Curry, it was introduced with a bipartisan group of legislators, including Assemblymen Tom Lackey (R-Palmdale) and Ash Kalra (D-San Jose). While a few Republicans have been in favor of the bill as a way to keep jobs in rural areas, many Democrats have been in favor of the bill due to it protecting thousands of union trucking jobs and alleged safety benefits. “You don’t create a safer environment if you have a 10,000-pound vehicle out there without a human safety net,” noted California Labor Federation leader and former Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, who previously authored the independent contractor reclassification law AB 5, which truckers themselves had adamantly opposed.
Can Women Help Fill the Shortage of Trade Workers? Unions Are Betting On It.
February 27, 2023 // Cassidy is one of a small but growing number of women who’ve entered the trades in the last few decades who are urging others to join a fast-growing industry where union-protected jobs provide good pay and benefits. Historically, trades have overwhelmingly employed men. Now, the lack of women in these jobs could hurt the country’s ambitions to fix the country’s aging roads and bridges and transition more quickly to renewable energy like wind and solar. This point was driven home at a forum on workforce development held by the North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU) in January, where union leaders and industry executives met in Washington, D.C., to address the shortage of skilled trades workers.
Outgoing New York Teachers Union Boss Leaves Behind an Organization Deep in the Red
February 20, 2023 // NYSUT and its allies pushed hard last year for a mandate that requires New York City’s public schools to phase in class-size limits over the course of five years. At least 20 percent of the city’s schools will need to reduce class sizes, requiring more classes and more classroom teachers. The union has also been fighting to stymie the growth of charters: Earlier this month, Governor Hochul in her most recent budget proposal moved toward increasing the number of charter schools in New York City. “If I was paying dues under the assumption that the union was using those dues to represent me with my employers, it would be a little concerning to me that so much of that is being used for other things,” the senior organizing director of Americans for Fair Treatment, Brigette Herbst, says. “Perhaps they should focus more on those representational activities.”
O’BRIEN, WARNOCK, AND OSSOFF TO MEET WITH TEAMSTER UPS WORKERS AT ATLANTA FACILITY
December 6, 2022 // Warnock and Ossoff have supported Teamster initiatives during their first two years in office — by voting to bolster multiemployer pensions and supporting more than $1 trillion in infrastructure investment that will employ hundreds of thousands of workers in good-paying union jobs. The senators are also co-sponsors of the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which the Teamsters strongly back. The legislation would modernize federal labor law by removing current roadblocks that make it difficult for workers to unionize and negotiate better wages and benefits.
Railroad talks stall, so Biden likely to pick review board
June 20, 2022 // Railroad contract talks remain deadlocked after more than two years of negotiations, so President Joe Biden will likely soon have to appoint a board to help settle the dispute. Josh Funk, rail crews, Dennis Pierce, UP, BNSF, CSX, Norfolk Southern, Kansas City Southern,