Posts tagged Unionization
Op-ed: George F. Will: It’s graduation time for disappointed little Lenins
May 11, 2026 // Disgruntled Starbucks workers embraced the United Auto Workers union, which they soon despised as too tepid about rectifying all injustices everywhere. Scheiber says the UAW now represents “roughly 100,000 higher-education workers” — graduate students and non-tenure-track faculty. Their numbers and grievances are growing faster than those of autoworkers. Many Starbucks workers agitating for unionization were berating the company for an inadequate commitment to LGBTQ rights. Then, on Oct. 7, 2023, they fell in love with Hamas. One organizer wore a sweatshirt emblazoned with a portrait of Karl Marx. An Apple store employee, who blamed her declining mental health on “the job” and “the stress of unionizing,” became, Scheiber writes, so “desperate” she sold her two $150 tickets to a Beyoncé concert. An employee at a Baltimore-area Apple store: “I had to get rid of Hulu” (a subscription-streaming service).
Shrinking unions grasp hold of power through ESG activism
May 11, 2026 // Under the ESG pretense, unions are pushing shareholder resolutions that would ditch secret-ballot elections at companies. That’s a key labor demand because it enables unions to harass and intimidate workers into publicly signing cards in favor of unionization. Unions also push shareholder resolutions ordering companies to adopt “non-interference policies,” ensuring a business can’t talk to its employees about the downsides of unionization. Practically, unions promote these policies in two significant ways. The simplest approach is to use their own pension funds, which invest hundreds of billions of dollars, to demand that the businesses they invest in adopt pro-union policies. Union officials are also appointed to pension boards, where they directly support activist investment strategies based on ESG. Public pension plans have great clout thanks to the trillions of dollars at their disposal, enough to take significant ownership stakes in banks or investment funds. Either approach lets organized labor push shareholder proposals that tilt the scales in unions’ favor.
Commentary: Mayer’s Concurrence Says What Every American Worker Already Knows
May 8, 2026 // The numbers tell the story. Workers in the original Rieth-Riley case filed their petitions in 2020. Those petitions remain dismissed to this day. Smith's petition has been in limbo for over two and a half years, with no hearing date in sight on the underlying case. As Mayer put it, "the open-ended dismissals approved in Rieth-Riley have deprived employees in case after case of any opportunity to vote in a Board-conducted election for years."
Chipotle’s US union dissolves without securing a labor contract
May 7, 2026 // The Teamsters union has forfeited its rare union foothold at a Michigan Chipotle restaurant following more than three years without securing a contract, showing the steep challenges for US unions even at companies where workers voted to organize. In an email last month, a local Teamsters president informed the US National Labor Relations Board that the union “officially withdraws and disclaims interest” in representing Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. employees at the Lansing location — the burrito chain’s first and only unionized US restaurant.
A Federal Court Limits the NLRB’s Power to Force Union Bargaining: What Hospitality Employers Should Know
May 5, 2026 // On March 6, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued a significant decision in Brown-Forman Corp. v. National Labor Relations Board. The case addresses how the National Labor Relations Board (Board) may impose bargaining orders when employers interfere with union organizing campaigns
Is unionization of doctors a good idea amid rising patient loads? Editorial Board Roundtable
May 5, 2026 // Last Tuesday, organizers behind a proposed “Primary Care Providers Union of MetroHealth” asked the Cleveland hospital system to recognize the union immediately, without need for a unionization vote, Organizers seeking to create a chapter of AFSCME Ohio Council 8 said a majority of the MetroHealth physicians, physician assistants, advanced practice registered nurses and certified nurse practitioners eligible to join had already signed union cards.
Workers Voted on Decertifying Unions 1,600 Times in the Past Decade. Teamsters Are the Most Common Target.
May 5, 2026 // Dozens of union decertification elections are held in workplaces across America every year, according to data collected by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The Teamsters are often the target. Of the 1,620 decertification elections that the NLRB tracked between 2016 and 2025, more than 23 percent sought to end Teamsters representation. The 373 decertification petitions targeting the Teamsters during that period were more than twice the number filed against the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which had the second most.
The Fast and the Spurious: Teamster allies push Faster Labor Contracts Act
April 30, 2026 // For union leaders, the important part is just getting the contract signed. The fact that it is flawed or potentially unworkable is secondary to generating union dues. Unions typically demand that contracts contain so-called security clauses, provisions that require management to automatically deduct union dues from workers’ paychecks and route them into the labor organization’s account. That’s the real reason for the urgency to get the contract.
Majority of Bradenton Beach Police Officers oppose unionization
April 30, 2026 // After discussing the potential police department unionization during a special city commission meeting held on Thursday, April 23, the mayor, commissioners, police chief and labor attorney also discussed contracting the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office to provide the city’s law enforcement services instead, with an estimated first-year cost savings of $628,000. Regarding his communications with the sheriff’s office, Eschenfelder said, “Yesterday, I was informed by the sheriff’s office that their preliminary review of our staffing needs is that they would be able to perform that role for $1.5 million, and likely less. That is based upon eight deputies and one sergeant. When you look at your current budget of $2,128,000 for municipal policing, that’s a saving for the city of $628,000 a year.” Regarding the potential cost savings, Mayor John Chappie said, “We have a fiduciary responsibility. We are sworn to maintain the health, safety and well-being of our community and the police department is the key to that. I think we need to continue the negotiations with the proposal from the sheriff’s department.”
Commentary: Unions make slight gains in South, mirroring national trends
April 29, 2026 // Southern states continue to lag significantly behind the rest of the country in union membership. Close to 4.9 percent of workers in the South belong to a union, and 5.9 percent of workers are employed in a workplace that enjoys union representation. That compares to 12.7 percent union density in the rest of the country, and 14 percent of non-Southern workers having union representation at their workplace. Labor’s modest gains come amidst a wide-ranging assault on worker protections under the Trump administration. Since coming into office, Trump has sought to strip collective bargaining rights for more than 1 million federal workers and eviscerated worker health and safety protections.