Posts tagged workplace protections

    UnityPoint Des Moines nurses push unionization, Democratic Senate hopefuls show support

    August 22, 2025 // Teamsters Local 90 in Des Moines announced they're endorsing State Senator Zach Wahls to represent Iowa in the U.S. Senate.

    Op-ed: Who Are Unions Really Fighting For?

    June 20, 2025 // Let’s not forget: Weingarten’s AFT represents 1.7 million workers, including educators, healthcare professionals, and public servants across the country. Many of them are not Democrats. Many are centrists, independents, or conservatives. And yet their dues continue to support a relentless stream of partisan causes, political campaigns, and social crusades that often run completely counter to their own values. In fact, more than 90% of union political contributions go to Democrats – despite the fact that union households are politically diverse. Roughly 41% of union members voted for Donald Trump in the 2024 election, while 57% supported Kamala Harris. The disconnect is undeniable: nearly half of union members are effectively subsidizing political causes and candidates they do not support.

    Writers At iHeartPodcast Network Look To Strike As Talks On First Contract Drag On More Than 2 Years After Unionizing

    May 31, 2024 // Deadline hears there is “overwhelming support” for a ULP work stoppage if a tentative deal with iHeartPodcast Network is not reached by the end of the month. The threat of a strike comes a month after the writers filed unfair labor practice charges against their employer for “engaging in intimidating conduct and by interrogating employees about their support for the union.”

    Opinion: The Biden Administration Should Look to Virginia Democrats For a Better Way to Help Gig Workers

    February 25, 2024 // The concept of coupling the protection of contracting status with a flexible benefits system is an idea that also should appeal to right-leaning policymakers. That’s because such an approach not only helps businesses, but stands to benefit workers by preserving the entrepreneurial flexibility they desire as independent contractors. In addition to this flexibility, it likewise provides workplace protections and benefits that can help these workers weather the exigencies of life—all without the harmful negative impacts of widespread worker reclassification. According to our sources, local Virginia labor unions initially expressed interest in this Democrat-introduced portable benefits model, only to catch flak from their national parent organizations who pressured them to reverse course. Unfortunately, the influence of the national labor brass appears to have doomed the bill for now, although its mere existence suggests that Democratic lawmakers are starting to buck the party’s consensus on worker reclassification.

    The Newest Union Members Are Undergrads

    December 20, 2023 // With help from groups like the Service Employees International Union and the Office and Professional Employees International Union, students consolidated support for elections, contract talks and headline-making protests. Their muscle has surprised longtime observers of the labor movement, some of whom have wondered where, exactly, young adults learned some of the finer points of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. (Part of the answer: Instagram direct messages with organizers on other campuses.)

    Yale grad students vote to unionize after decadeslong push

    January 11, 2023 // Graduate students across the U.S., both at public and private institutions, have pushed in recent years to organize and bargain collectively. Columbia University, another Ivy League school, in 2018 agreed to begin contract negotiations with a union representing its graduate student teaching and research assistants, ending a long battle in which the university denied them the right to unionize.