"The Democratic-led Michigan Legislature voted along party lines Tuesday on landmark legislation to restore prevailing wages for state construction projects and repeal the right-to-work law that barred union contracts from requiring membership fees as a condition of employment. The Michigan Senate took a final vote on the bill to repeal the right-to-work law for private employers and sent the measure to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's desk on Tuesday afternoon. The Senate passed the bill 20-16 along party lines after the legislation cleared the House in a 56-52 party-line vote.”

“Climate protection will create jobs for workers and economic development for communities. But as fossil fuel facilities are closed down there will also be some jobs lost and some communities will lose taxes and other economic benefits. This Commentary recounts what communities around the country are doing “on the ground” to protect workers and local economies from collateral damage from the transition to climate-safe energy. The next Commentary describes what states are doing to include such protections in their climate and energy programs.”

“The Transport Workers Union Local 100, which represents thousands of NYC Transit workers who keep the city’s subways and buses running, announced on Thursday legislation that would make it legal for them to strike in pursuit of a new contract with the MTA. The announcement comes at a critical time for public transit in New York, with the MTA struggling to close a massive budget deficit, and the current collective bargaining agreement with the TWU Local 100 for some 37,000 laborers set to expire in May.”

“Brandon Johnson, a county commissioner who once taught in struggling neighborhoods, soared in the polls after an endorsement and donations from the Chicago Teachers Union.”

“The Federal Reserve, famously, has a dual mandate: price stability and maximum employment. Typically, economists view those two goals as somewhat opposed: If the Fed raises interest rates to quell rising prices, then employment declines, and vice versa. Right now, though, despite the Fed carrying out rate hike after rate hike, unemployment is staying stubbornly low. So far, the labor market is refusing to loosen up. While that is not what the Fed wants — or expects — to happen, a new book looks at the bigger picture of what low unemployment really means for workers and challenges the need for that classic trade-off. Katherine Newman and Elisabeth Jacobs are the authors of “Moving the Needle: What Tight Labor Markets Do for the Poor.” They joined Marketplace’s Amy Scott to talk about the impact that low unemployment can have on the cohort of workers who are often excluded from the workforce.”

“Companies may not be able to buy the silence of laid-off workers anymore. What's happening: Overly broad non-disparagement clauses — which some companies require workers to sign in order to receive severance benefits — were recently ruled unlawful by the National Labor Relations Board. In a memo last week, the agency's general counsel made clear the ruling was retroactive, applicable to agreements signed before the board's decision in February.

Why it matters: The ruling and guidance could free workers to speak up about what happened inside their companies before they lost their jobs, and help each other navigate the layoff process, among other things.”

“Of all the professions, perhaps none is more commonly bound by contracts that define where else an employee can go work than local television news. The restrictions, known as noncompete clauses, have been a condition of the job for reporters, anchors, sportscasters and meteorologists for decades. More recently, they’ve spread to off-air roles like producers and editors — positions that often pay just barely above the poverty line — and they keep employees from moving to other stations in the same market for up to a year after their contract ends. For that reason, there’s probably no industry that could change as much as a result of the Federal Trade Commission’s effort to severely limit noncompete clauses — if the proposed rule is not derailed before being finalized. Business trade associations are lobbying fiercely against it.”

“‘We’re thrilled to see the Department of Justice bring another Section 1 case to protect workers and ensure dominant firms like Activision can’t exploit them,’ said Katherine Van Dyck, Senior Legal Counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project. ‘As the agency’s case alleges, Activision abused its massive market power over the e-sports industry to impose unfair rules that limited players’ wages and benefits. This case demonstrates the Antitrust Division’s clear understanding of the relationship between corporate power and labor abuses, and its willingness to use our antitrust laws to protect employees from attempts to artificially suppress earnings and other employee benefits.’”

“[Right-to-work] laws have nothing whatsoever to do with a right to work. No U.S. state guarantees its residents jobs, as these laws suggest they will. The name is a fraud. Rather, they are best described as right-to-freeload laws.”

“Two economic releases today tell us that U.S. economic conditions remain strong for workers ... Solid economic growth is a clear indication that the American economy is strong and there are no signs that an unemployment-producing recession is looming.”

“Watch Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris in a conversation with Alicia Modestino, Associate Professor at Northeastern University, William Spriggs, AFL-CIO’s chief economist, and Aaron Sojourner, senior researcher at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment research, as they discuss the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ jobs, wages, and unemployment report for March 2023. This conversation was aired live on the Power At Work Blog on April 7 at 8:45 AM ET, just 15 minutes after the release of the report.”

“Listen to Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris in a conversation with Alicia Modestino, Associate Professor at Northeastern University, William Spriggs, AFL-CIO’s chief economist, and Aaron Sojourner, senior researcher at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment research, as they discuss the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ jobs, wages, and unemployment report for March 2023. This conversation was aired live on the Power At Work Blog on April 7 at 8:45 AM ET, just 15 minutes after the release of the report.”

"The latest inflation and real earnings data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics contains some good news for workers.  Real average hourly earnings --- essentially, workers' hourly pay reduced by the amount of inflation, on average --- increased for the first time in 2023 and for the third time in the last six months. More simply, workers' pay increased faster than consumer prices in March 2023."

“Five days of paid leave a year is now the law in Illinois, after Gov. JB Pritzker signed the bill long championed by Illinois Democrats.”

“While the labor market implications of mergers have been historically ignored as “out of market” effects, recent actions by the Department of Justice (DOJ) place buyer market power (i.e., monopsony) at the forefront of antitrust policy. We develop a theory of multi-plant ownership and monopsony to help guide this new policy focus.”

“In an effort spearheaded by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW), California, Colorado, New York, New Jersey and other states have tied labor peace agreements (LPAs) to the legalization and regulation of the cannabis industry. These states have enacted legislation that requires a signed LPA contract between an employer and a union before a business may receive a license from the state’s cannabis regulatory agency. Now, with similar requirements included in bills working their way through both its state House and Senate, Massachusetts could be next.”

“The latest inflation and real earnings data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics contains some good news for workers.  Real average hourly earnings --- essentially, workers' hourly pay reduced by the amount of inflation, on average --- increased for the first time in 2023 and for the third time in the last six months. More simply, workers' pay increased faster than consumer prices in March 2023.”

"The latest release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the median weekly earnings of America's full-time wage and salary workers rose by 6.1% over the course of the last year. That's faster growth than we have seen in the Consumer Price Index, one important inflation measure. The CPI rose by 5.8% over the last year. This headline real earnings result is consistent with other recent BLS data releases showing that workers' bargaining power in the labor market is producing real wage gains as elevated inflation returns to more sustainable and traditional levels.”

“A company accused of lying about retirement benefits to stop workers from organizing can be sued in a class-action lawsuit, a federal judge ruled. The decision came on April 7 after the defendant, the California-based grocery retailer Save Mart Supermarkets, asked the judge to dismiss the case, which experts are calling a creative use of labor law against union-busting.”

“Republicans in the Florida House passed a bill Wednesday aimed at reducing membership in public-sector unions and weakening organized labor’s political clout, delivering the controversial legislation to Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) for his signature. Progressive lawmakers and labor groups have blasted the legislation as a political power grab meant to kneecap teachers unions and other labor groups that tend to support the Democratic Party. The bill would make it harder for unions representing government employees to collect dues and make it easier for the state to “decertify” them and nullify their contracts.”

“In a new decision issued today by the National Labor Relations Board in Noah’s Ark Processors, LLC D/B/A WR Reserve, the Board detailed potential remedies it will consider in cases involving Respondents who have shown repeated or egregious disregard for employees’ rights under the National Labor Relations Act (the Act). The Board determined that when the unfair labor practice violations found in a case justify a “broad” cease-and-desist order (traditionally ordered in cases where the Respondent has shown a proclivity to violate the Act or has engaged in egregious or widespread misconduct), in addition to the cease-and-desist order, the Board should consider a non-exhaustive list of potential remedies, discussed in depth in the Noah’s Ark decision and, depending on the circumstances of the case, apply some or all of those remedies.”

“Kimberly Baker did everything right. She was at the top of her high school class and began working at the age of seventeen in a grocery store in Lincoln, Nebraska. She completed a degree in foreign languages while working full time in the insurance industry. But despite her skills and perseverance, the thirty-eight-year-old single mother earns only $13.26 an hour, too little to rent a modest apartment.”

“Last week, the Center for American Progress (CAP) issued a report that confirmed a fact we all knew: unions build workers’ wealth. Even though its principal finding approaches the level of truism, it needs to be repeated and supported frequently with fresh evidence or it can get lost in the discourse.”

“The Norfolk Southern freight train that derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, on February 3 sent a toxic barrage of hazardous chemicals into the air, soil, and water and caused untold damage to waterways, wildlife, air quality, and people’s health. It was a grim confirmation of what rail workers have been saying would happen for years. And it could have been worse.”

“California’s farmworkers are likely days away from being able to use a law that will make it easier for them to vote in union elections. The measure, backed by the United Farm Workers, is pending the expected approval from Gov. Gavin Newsom. This new law would clarify the language of AB 2183, signed by Newsom in September with contingencies. And it culminates a years-long battle by UFW to expand unionization rights for farm workers.”

“AI, algorithms and other automated tools are being used in everything from screening job applicants and evaluating employee performance to tracking workers’ movements — even their keystrokes. Recent innovations in the technology, most notably ChatGPT, may have marked a tipping point in its spread to the workplace, with implications for a much broader set of workers. ‘With this latest iteration of AI, obviously, a whole lot of additional folks are starting to think it could impact them,’ said Beth Allen, a spokesperson for the Communications Workers of America. ‘It’s hard to think of an area of our membership that it might not end up touching down the road.’”

“Watch Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris in conversation with Alicia Modestino, Associate Professor at Northeastern University, and Elise Gould, Senior Economist at the Economic Policy Institute, as they discuss the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ jobs, wages, and unemployment report for April 2023. This conversation aired live on the blog at 8:45 AM ET on Friday, May 5—just 15 minutes after the release of the report.”

“Listen to Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris in conversation with Alicia Modestino, Associate Professor at Northeastern University, and Elise Gould, Senior Economist at the Economic Policy Institute, as they discuss the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ jobs, wages, and unemployment report for April 2023. This conversation aired on the blog at 8:45 AM ET on Friday, May 5—just 15 minutes after the release of the report.”

"The platform was produced by two groups, the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, which does research and progressive advocacy work around the private equity industry, and United for Respect, a national nonprofit group focused on raising working standards in the retail industry. Both groups have long-standing partnerships with a range of labor unions and worker organizations."

“The PUMP Act passed with bipartisan support in December 2022 and was signed by President Joe Biden in December. It builds on the thirteen-year-old Break Time For Nursing Mothers Act by extending pumping rights to approximately nine million salaried workers who do not earn overtime pay and guarantees them a clean, private space—apart from a toilet stall—to express milk when they need to.”

“Thousands of fire fighters and emergency medical workers in the United States would benefit from the reintroduced bipartisan Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act, which would allow public safety workers to form a union, collectively bargain for fair hours and wages, and provide mechanisms for resolution during negotiation impasses.”

“The Illinois AFL-CIO and Chicago Workers Collaborative stood with legislators, advocates and workers on Latino Unity Day to urge the passage of the Temp Worker Fairness and Safety Act (SB281)… The Temp Worker Fairness and Safety Act would support workers by improving safety standards, and mandating equal pay for equal work after a 60-day grace period. It creates a whistleblower right of action to allow worker advocates to bring enforcement actions against abusive employers.”

“In a groundbreaking move, the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development (NJDOL) has secured a unique enhanced compliance agreement with Donald Drywall, L.L.C., a Lakewood subcontractor, as part of its strategic enforcement initiative focusing on the drywall industry. This follows investigators uncovering significant wage, hour, earned sick leave, and employee misclassification violations within the company…Donald Drywall has been ordered to pay back wages, damages, penalties, and fees totaling $167,060.60.”

"One of the important differences between working in a unionized workplace and working in a non-union workplace is that union-represented employees typically have “just cause” protections in their collective bargaining agreements. Just-cause provisions essentially hold that the employer may discipline and/or discharge an employee only for a legitimate, provable reason. Some public-sector workers have similar protections under their states’ civil service laws, but not all."

“President Biden gave his annual State of the Union address Tuesday night. Here is how advocates for working families across the country responded.”

“He didn’t say it in quite this way, but the dominant theme of President Biden’s State of the Union Address might have been cribbed from an old labor anthem: which side are you on? President Biden’s speech was designed, in part, to let working people know he’s on their side. Others in the House chamber (and beyond)? Not so much.”

“Watch Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris, Northeastern University Professor Alicia Modestino, AFL-CIO Economist Bill Spriggs and W.E. Upjohn Institute Senior Researcher Aaron Sojourner have an in-depth worker-focused conversation on the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Employment Situation Report.”

“Service Employees International Union (SEIU) International President Mary Kay Henry talked about the state of labor unions in the U.S. and President Biden’s economic policies.”

“Over 2,000 Washingtonians tuned in to the public hearing on a bill that would increase the amount of hours an agricultural worker would need for overtime pay to 50 hours per week.”

“Union-aligned Democrats were set to introduce legislation Wednesday mandating a statewide $25 minimum wage for health workers and support staffers, likely setting up a pitched battle with hospitals, nursing homes, and dialysis clinics.”

“More than 700,000 federal employees across agencies are represented by AFGE, and while the challenges facing agencies differed depending on their mission, the meeting showcased a series of priorities that were shared across the workforce.”

“Addressing a growing crisis in the state of Nevada and beyond, UNITE HERE Culinary Union is calling for increased funding for youth mental health. The campaign will focus on direct voter contact to make sure Nevadans understand that sustainable investment in youth mental health is good public policy.”

“The last fifty-two years have borne witness to the swift degradation and virtual irrelevance of the bargaining order. By the end of the twentieth century even pro enforcement officials in the NLRB were acknowledging the difficulty of obtaining an enforceable bargaining order, and the remedy rarely appears these days in the agency’s published decisions. This is not the product of the usual economic or political factors cited as reasons for the labor movement’s and its attendant regulating schema’s diminishment. Rather, the decline of the bargaining order can be explained almost entirely by the disappearance of the so-called Joy Silk doctrine from the labor law landscape in 1969.” 

“In 1944, the Supreme Court interpreted the National Labor Relations Act --- our nation’s private-sector worker organizing and collective bargaining law --- to be broadly inclusive. Workers who might have been classified as “employees” or “independent contractors” using common-law tests could be covered by the statute.”

"Senate Democrats plan to introduce a pair of bills Thursday that could encourage more union membership and make it more costly for employers to crack down on organizing efforts. The legislation rolled out by Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) would use tax law to accomplish those goals. One bill, which has 40 cosponsors, would restore a tax break that union members enjoyed until Republicans overhauled the tax code under former President Donald Trump. The other bill, which has 27 cosponsors, would bar employers from deducting the cost of anti-union campaigns as a business expense.”

“Michigan House Democrats passed legislation Wednesday night over GOP objections to deliver on a key promise to union activists: repealing the state's right-to-work law. The law, established by Republicans in 2012, allows workers in unionized jobs to opt out of paying union dues and fees. Michigan — a state steeped in labor history — could become the first state in nearly 60 years to ditch its right-to-work law.”

“Seen through the lens of a canonical job ladder model, the pandemic increased the elasticity of labor supply to firms in the low-wage labor market, reducing employer market power and spurring rapid relative wage growth among young non-college workers who disproportionately moved from lower-paying to higher-paying and potentially more-productive jobs.”

“Austin Locke was sacked days after he helped unionize workers. A monumental new labor law means he’s back on the job.”

“Young workers, less-educated workers, workers of color, multiple-job holders, and those with low hours are more likely to be miscoded. Taking these workers into account substantively changes the demographic profile of the independent contractor workforce. Our research indicates that probing in household surveys to clarify a worker’s employment arrangement and identify all low-hours work is critical for accurately measuring independent contractor work.”

“Organized labor was on the verge of scoring landmark political victories Tuesday as the Michigan Senate voted to repeal the 2012 right-to-work law that made union membership optional at unionized workplaces and re-establish a prevailing wage standard for state projects.”

“The Michigan state legislature is poised to make history this week by repealing an anti-union “right-to-work” (RTW) statute enacted in 2012. This repeal is an important step toward empowering workers to address historic levels of income inequality and unequal power in our economy, and would mark the first time a state has repealed a RTW law in nearly 60 years.”

“A great deal has already been accomplished this legislative session. Democrats, who have majorities in both the Michigan House and Michigan Senate for the first time in 40 years, have joined with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to drive large policy changes. This sea change in leadership was accomplished last November, in large part thanks to the work of organized labor. But much more needs to be done.”

“This week, state legislators in Minnesota passed a package of pro-labor measures that instantly makes the state the envy of workers everywhere. The new laws include paid sick days for everyone, banning noncompete agreements, a crackdown on wage theft, and a wage board to set pay in the nursing home industry. All a big deal. But let’s talk briefly about one in particular: a ban on captive audience meetings.”

“Today, NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo sent a memo to all Regional Directors, Officers-in-Charge, and Resident Officers, setting forth her view that the proffer, maintenance, and enforcement non-compete provisions in employment contracts and severance agreements violate the National Labor Relations Act except in limited circumstances.”

"'Smile and have fun'? Are those the words that will lead to student-athletes at private-universities and colleges being classified as “employees” who are protected by the National Labor Relations Act (Act) and able to organize unions and bargain with their employer schools? Or will those words spark an even broader and more important change in labor law?"

“Watch Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris in conversation with labor law experts Charlotte Garden, Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota, and Anne Marie Lofaso, Professor of Law at West Virginia University, as they discuss the Supreme Court's June 1 decision in Glacier Northwest Inc. v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local 174. Listen to the podcast, here."

“It is difficult to overstate the hostility of the Roberts court to organized labor and the rights of American workers. Under John Roberts, who became chief justice in 2005, the court has made it harder for workers to bring suit against employers collectively, limited the power of workers to hold employers responsible for discrimination on the job, ended the ability of public sector unions to require dues from nonmembers who benefit from collective bargaining and struck down a California law that allowed unions to recruit workers on the property of agricultural employers.”

“The Alaska Supreme Court has ruled in no uncertain terms that Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration broke the law by taking actions to interfere with public employee unions. The court further affirmed a lower court’s permanent injunction to prohibit the state from unilaterally implementing its unlawful actions in the future. The Dunleavy administration also has to pay ASEA $450,000 in damages, legal fees and interest.”

“Norfolk Southern became the first major North American freight railroad with deals to provide paid sick time to all of its workers Monday, but the other railroads are making progress, with nearly 65% of all rail workers securing this basic benefit since the start of the year. All of the major freight railroads have said they are committed to resolving this key issue that nearly led to a strike in last year’s bitter contract talks. But most of those railroads — which include CSX, Union Pacific, BNSF, Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Kansas City — are still negotiating with a number of their unions…Norfolk Southern and the other major railroads tout the progress they have made so far, but officials with the Transportation Trades Department — the AFL-CIO labor coalition that includes all the rail unions — said much work remains to address workers’ concerns.”

“Watch Burnes Center for Social Change senior fellow Seth Harris in conversation with Portia Wu, Secretary of Labor for the state of Maryland, Laura Fortman, Commissioner of the Maine Department of Labor, and Robert Asaro-Angelo, Commissioner at New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development, as they discuss the the role and responsibilities of a labor secretary, the big successes and challenges in each state, and much more.”

“Jessica Van Briggle was excited to begin her career as a nurse when she applied to work at Centinela Hospital in southern California. Centinela sent her to a staffing agency to complete the hiring process, and the agency’s representative told Van Briggle she had to work for the staffing agency (not the hospital) for two years or pay $15,000 if she left early. This amount was agreed to by the staffing agency — Van Briggle’s official employer — and Centinela as the cost of the hospital’s eight-week training and orientation. Worker advocates befittingly call these contracts Training Repayment Agreement Provisions (TRAPs).”

“In 2022, AFSCME members in Minnesota worked hard to elect politicians who respect public service workers. That hard work paid off, as AFSCME members were able to secure major victories for Minnesotans this year — banning private prisons, securing unemployment benefits for school workers, getting paid leave for working Minnesotans, obtaining robust state funding for public services, and so much more…’Every AFSCME member, Minnesotan, and their families will benefit from things like Paid Family and Medical Leave. Our school workers will finally be eligible for unemployment insurance like every other worker. All of this is a direct result of the thousands of doors knocked and calls made by AFSCME members to elect a pro-worker trifecta in Minnesota,’ she added.”

“For the past two years, farmworkers in California’s Sonoma County have been advocating for stronger labor laws to protect them from the impacts of climate change-fueled disasters, including wildfires, floods and heat waves. In February, their efforts bore fruit. When residents, including many farmworkers, lost work due to weeks of rainstorms, the county agreed to spend one third of a $3-million disaster relief fund to provide impacted individuals with one-time, $600 payments. While the fund wasn’t large enough to cover all of the workers’ losses, its creation was a big win, according to Aura Aguilar, an organizer with North Bay Jobs with Justice, a local coalition of labor and community groups leading the campaign.”

During our recent blogcast with labor law scholars Charlotte Garden and Anne Marie Lofaso, we briefly discussed “textualism” in our analysis of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Glacier Northwest v. Teamsters. This post expands on that brief discussion and seeks to explain some of the exasperation you may have heard.

“Union workers benefit from collective bargaining in all sorts of way—higher wages, better benefits, increased job stability, safer workplaces, and more—and these effects are especially prominent for the working class. While researchers often neglect to draw conclusions on the benefits of union membership for the working class—defined as those without a four-year college degree—a body of existing research points the way forward for researchers and policymakers alike.”

“Joe Biden opened his 2020 presidential run at a Pittsburgh union hall, declaring, ‘I’m a union man. Period.’ As he gears up for reelection, the president’s first political rally is being held at a union gathering on the other side of Pennsylvania, punctuating just how much Biden is counting on labor support to carry him to a second term — especially in a critical battleground state…Biden has used executive actions to promote worker organizing, personally cheered unionization efforts at corporate giants like Amazon and authorized federal funding to aid union members’ pensions. He’s also traveled the country, trumpeting how union labor is building bridges and improving train tunnels as part of the bipartisan, $1.1 trillion public works package Congress passed in 2021…Still, the White House’s relationship with labor has occasionally been tested, such as in December when some union activists criticized Biden for signing legislation preventing a nationwide rail strike.”

“Union negotiators looking to secure wage-related concessions from employers have reached a new benchmark for success. For the first time in decades—and probably ever—labor contracts ratified in the first quarter of 2023 provided union-represented workers with an average first-year pay raise of 7%, according to Bloomberg Law’s latest Quarterly Union Wage Data report. A 7% wage hike is the highest average payout in a single quarter since at least 2007. And based on the yearly averages that Bloomberg Law has calculated since it began tracking negotiated wage settlements in 1988, it appears unlikely that a quarterly average has ever hit that mark before. The latest quarterly report analyzed wage changes reported in 177 collective bargaining agreements signed in Q1, covering a total of approximately 236,000 workers.”

“The worker-driven social responsibility (WSR) approach, first championed by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) in the tomato fields of Florida, has garnered acclaim for its successes in mitigating abuses within the agricultural and other low-wage production sectors. In the latest report from the Clean Slate for Worker Power project, Susan L. Marquis highlights the origins of WSR, how it’s been effective, and the promising implications of its application in sectors and industries beyond agriculture.”

“‘Workers, honest businesses, and entrepreneurs won today as New York lawmakers voted to ban noncompete agreements,’ said Pat Garofalo, Director of State and Local Policy at the American Economic Liberties Project. ‘Banning noncompete agreements will ensure corporations can’t use their power to trap employees in their jobs, push down wages across the board, block small business formation, and ultimately raise prices. The bill also sets an important standard by voiding existing noncompete agreements.’”

“Last week, New York City finalized a rule setting a minimum pay standard of $17.96 per hour for delivery workers for gig companies like DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Postmates. The new rule resulted from an extended campaign by Los Deliveristas Unidos, a fierce organization of delivery workers who brave traffic, snow, floods, heat, smoke, and COVID to bring New Yorkers our dinner. According to the city’s analysis, the current estimated pay rate from companies is a mere $7.09 per hour. This inadequate pay happens in large part because delivery-app companies treat workers as independent contractors, depriving them of the basic employee protections like paid sick days, workers’ compensation, and unemployment insurance…Instead of feeling lucky that for so long they’ve gotten to avoid the laws that every other business has to follow, these companies have expressed great consternation about New York City’s new rule on pay. DoorDash, for example, lambasted the city’s action as ‘deeply misguided’ and likely to harm workers; it also threatened a possible lawsuit.”

“The New Orleans City Council unanimously voted 7-0 to codify collective bargaining into city law. While New Orleans Local 632 already had the right to collective bargaining, this law extends that right to all city employees and adds binding arbitration. Until now, New Orleans Local 632 has been the only union allowed to collectively bargain; however, without binding arbitration, ongoing disputes with the city have prevented the Local from successfully negotiating a new contract since 2011.”

“The argument that voluntary workplace affirmative action survives SFFA is straightforward: SFFA was not an interpretation of Title VII. The Court's majority purported to interpret the Constitution's 14th Amendment and the Civil Rights Act's Title VI, which share a legal standard, according to Chief Justice Roberts's opinion for the majority.”

The FLSA has done much good, but its reach has been limited by unjust exclusions of farmworkers, tipped workers, domestic workers, and others. It’s long past time for Congress to remedy these discriminatory exclusions … In the guest essays that follow, you will read about the origins and impacts of these exclusions from the FLSA from the perspective of workers and advocates, whose direct experience with the law’s shortcomings serve as a starting point for discussion and action to change it.”

“The U.S. Office of Special Counsel has found a ‘substantial likelihood of wrongdoing’ by officials at the U.S. Department of Agriculture who failed to provide a safe workplace for employees at the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center in Maryland after members of the American Federation of Government Employees filed a whistleblower complaint against the agency. In May, three USDA employees who hold leadership roles at AFGE Local 3147 filed a whistleblower complaint with OSC, disclosing that leadership at the research center had put workers at risk and undermined their scientific experiments by failing to properly maintain the worksite.”

“Watch Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris in conversation with Alicia Modestino, Associate Professor at Northeastern University, and Elise Gould, Senior Economist at the Economic Policy Institute, as they discuss the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ jobs, wages, and unemployment report for June 2023. This conversation was aired live on the homepage of the blog at 8:45 AM ET on Friday, July 7—just 15 minutes after the release of the report.”

“In this blogcast, Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris spoke with Josh Eidelson and Dave Jamieson -- two of the biggest hitters in the world of labor reporting. The conversation covered the UPS-Teamsters negotiations, the role of the Supreme Court in advancing corporate attacks on worker power, and several other stories impacting labor and worker power today.”

“In our latest Workers by the Numbers blogcast with Elise Gould of the Economic Policy Institute and Alicia Modestino of Northeastern University and the Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy, the panel was unanimous that the Bureau of Labor Statistics' June jobs, unemployment, and wages report was 'good for workers.' Today, workers received more good news about their families' economic situations: their inflation-adjusted wages are continuing to rise.”

“Child care labor is physically, mentally, and emotionally taxing work. In light of these demographics, the early educator workforce needs jobs that provide them with the option to retire when they reach the appropriate age so they may live out their later years with dignity. At the same time, the sector needs career pathways to motivate entry into and retention of a younger generation of early childhood educators. Retirement benefits could help support those goals, as well.”

“The United States is undergoing a rapid shift away from fossil fuels as new battery factories, wind and solar projects, and other clean energy investments crop up across the country. An expansive climate law that Democrats passed last year could be even more effective than Biden administration officials had estimated at reducing fossil fuel emissions. While the transition is projected to create hundreds of thousands of clean energy jobs, it could be devastating for many workers and counties that have relied on coal, oil and gas for their economic stability.”

"The Professional Fire Fighters Union of Indiana (PFFUI) has worked tirelessly to enact a new law in Indiana to monitor and help protect fire fighters from exposure to PFAS. 'Knowing what level of PFAS we have absorbed into our bodies is just the first step, but it is an important one. We hope this will lead to earlier and more frequent cancer screenings. If we can catch cancer early, we can save lives,' said PFFUI President Tony Murray. 'We especially want to thank Rep. Maureen Bauer for her dedication and hard work on this.'”

“I appeared on CBS News Live (CBS's digital service) on Monday night, July 17 with the great political reporter and commentator John Dickerson to talk about the rising number of workers on strike and the causes of rising worker activism. My answers: the pandemic, rising corporate profits, and America's current political economy. In particular, I mentioned UPS, Amazon, the corporate studios in Hollywood, and some others. Friends-of-the-blog the Cornell ILR Labor Action Tracker provided critical data for the set-up discussion.”

“Luz Martínez was working on remodeling a school without air conditioning in the summer when one of her coworkers fell over, vomited and passed out from the heat. On Friday, she joined other workers, labor advocates and politicians on the steps of Houston’s City Hall to protest a new Texas law that will take away cities’ power to help workers who must endure the Texas heat.”

"In this special blogcast, released to honor National Whistleblower Day 2023, Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris spoke with Siri Nelson and Stephen Kohn, the executive director, and the founding director of the National Whistleblower Center (NWC), respectively. This blogcast also features Dr. Toni Savage, a former contracting officer with the Army Corps of Engineers in Huntsville, Alabama, and Jane Turner, a former FBI Special Agent."

“Understaffing requires employees to pick up many hours of mandatory overtime, Mr. Kuhne said. The additional income can be welcome, but also makes home life difficult for new recruits, and many quit within a few weeks. So his union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, is playing an unusual role — helping their bosses recruit workers. It’s a nationwide quandary. While private-sector employment fully regained its prepandemic level a year ago — and now sits 3 percent above it — state and local governments remain about 1 percent below the 20 million people they had on staff in February 2020. The job-opening rate for public-sector positions is below that of private businesses, but hasn’t come down as much from the highs of 2022.”

“During this summer of heat, smoke, and flash flooding, food delivery workers have been braving the streets to bring New Yorkers our food. Biblical weather isn’t delivery workers’ only challenge, though: their pay in New York City averages around $7 per hour without tips, and there’s a high rate of workplace fatalities, after which survivors generally get little or no help from the apps. It was welcome news, then, that New York City in June set a rule establishing a pay floor for delivery workers of $17.96 per hour, a rate that would land workers around minimum wage, accounting for expenses, unpaid wait time, and other factors…Several corporations, including Uber, DoorDash, and GrubHub, swiftly filed lawsuits to stop the July 12 effective date. These apps, it should be noted, don’t follow workplace laws like every other employer; they treat their workers as independent businesses and not as employees (they’ve been sued for this by the attorneys general of California and Massachusetts). The apps should have counted themselves lucky that they were expected only to pay a better wage.”

“By now it is well known that unions are a key institution enforcing more equal outcomes by income class in the U.S. economy and that the policy-driven shrinkage of unionization has played a key role in the rise of income inequality in recent decades. However, unions also significantly reduce economic disparities between Black and white workers. Specifically, unions reduce racial wage gaps and racial wealth gaps are smaller among union members. This is largely the result of the union pay premium and the enhanced job protections enjoyed by workers covered by a union contract. The union advantage benefits all workers and has an equalizing effect on Black-white wages.”

“A dispute between the Teamsters and a company that provides multiple logistics services — which have faced off previously before the National Labor Relations Board — is being looked at by labor attorneys as a key battleground in the fight over independent contractor status and unionization. On July 20, William Cowen, a regional director at [NLRB], ruled that STG Logistics workers at two California facilities are employees, not independent contractors, as the company has held.”

“Alicia Modestino, Associate Professor at Northeastern University, hosts this month's Workers by the Numbers Blogcast. Listen to her in conversation with Harry Holzer, Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University, and Aaron Sojourner, Senior Researcher at the W.E. Upjohn Institute, as they discuss the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ jobs, wages, and unemployment report for July 2023. This conversation was aired live on the homepage of the blog at 8:45 AM ET on Friday, August 4—just 15 minutes after the release of the report.”

“This paper summarizes and comments on all Supreme Court opinions issued during the 2022-2023 term that deal with labor and employment law and the employment relationship. The paper also provides information on all cases accepted for argument during the 2023-2024 term as of July 29, 2023.”

“‘Labor laws are fairly frequently broken, and the penalty for breaking them is not very great,’ said Michelle Kaminski, an associate professor at Michigan State University and an authority on labor law. ‘And it can take a long time to get a decision about whether the NLRB will agree that the law was violated.’ In part, that’s because the language around labor law, particularly in the area of contract negotiation, can be vague to the point of uselessness. Kaminski said the main provision of the law, originally set forth through the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, is that both sides have to bargain in ‘good faith.’”

“The last decade of rapid technological innovation, dubbed the “Fourth Industrial Revolution,” has dramatically transformed the workplace, creating new job types, integrating new technologies into daily job tasks, increasing the use of online platforms, and more. The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated these changes by forcing the adoption of technology on businesses that had been slow to do so previously, as well as vastly increasing the proportion of workers who work at least partly online or from home. These changes are not going to slow down. Rather, as articles about ChatGPT stealing jobs are quick to note, the workplace is only going to be further transformed as my generation — Generation Z — enters the labor market.”

“The Trump administration’s National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) offered employers significant leeway to fire shop floor organizers accordingly. It overturned longstanding labor doctrine that had viewed workplace civility rules skeptically. On August 2, the Biden administration seemed to take a significant step to revive those protections. In Stericycle, Inc., the Biden NLRB reversed the Trump Board and held that civility rules have a “chilling effect” on workers by scaring them out of attempting to disrupt the workplace through solidarity and union organizing…Unfortunately for workers, the Biden NLRB did not stop there.”

“The discussion began with a focus on the negotiations between the UAW and the Big Three automakers. I made a prediction regarding the likelihood of a strike. Watch the clip below to see my prediction. The conversation quickly moved to the relationship between the UAW negotiations and President Biden's climate policies, particularly regarding the transition to electric vehicles and whether the jobs in that industry would be good union jobs.”

“On August 8, Vice-President Kamala Harris announced the first comprehensive reform of the methods for calculating prevailing wages on federally assisted construction projects in more than 40 years. As technical as that sounds, these new Labor Department regulations are an important public policy contribution to building worker power, especially in light of the hundreds of billions of federal dollars that will be spent on construction under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act.”

“The National Labor Relations Board is poised to release a number of decisions in the next two weeks with the potential to significantly alter the nation’s labor doctrine in favor of unions, as Democratic board member Gywnne Wilcox’s term draws to a close later this month. The cases, which have been fully briefed, are part of an effort NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo outlined two years ago to overturn roughly 50 board precedents. The board has already adopted several of her desired changes to labor law, including protections for workers using profanity and limiting handbook provisions that could interfere with employees’ rights to organize.”

“Research suggests it is difficult to definitively determine how AI will affect everyone’s jobs down the line, and each sector may experience the impact of this technology differently. According to a Pew Research Center report, working in a job with higher exposure to AI technology—where essential components of the job could be either performed entirely or partially assisted by AI technology, such as analysts, technical writers, and website developers—does not necessarily indicate whether AI will replace human workers. The research center also found many workers in jobs with higher exposure to AI technology still felt optimistic that the technology will help them in their work instead of hurting their jobs.”

“Since the minimum wage for tipped workers is so low, those workers rely on tips to make a living. So, when you tip, you’re not simply providing workers with a treat for doing a good job- you’re paying for their sustenance. ‘While some tipped workers do make good money, particularly in high-volume bars and fine dining restaurants, most do not,’ said Restaurant Workers United, a union for restaurant, bar, and cafe workers, in a written statement. ‘Tips are a very unreliable source of income; no one should have to worry about paying for essentials because they got stiffed on a few tables.’ Tipped airport service workers at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, for example, struggle to make ends meet, said Jaime Contreras, executive vice president of 32BJ Service Employees International Union (SEIU). The minimum wage for tipped employees in Washington, D.C. recently rose from $6.00 per hour to $8.00.”

“Concurrent with the precipitous decline in private sector unionization over the past half century, there has been a shift in the type of work covered by unions. We take a skill-based approach to studying this shift, using data from the Current Population Survey combined with occupation-specific task requirements from the Dictionary of Occupational Titles and the Occupational Information Network. We partition skills into four groups based on two dimensions of task requirements: non-routine cognitive, non-routine manual, routine cognitive, and routine manual.”

“Bo Ellis has been a devoted member of the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) for nearly four decades, but the 64-year-old is waging a campaign against the union to extend his flying career. ALPA and other pilot unions oppose a bill in the U.S. Congress that seeks to raise the retirement age for commercial airline pilots to 67 from 65, arguing it will 'introduce new risk' into the aviation system as no safety agency has studied its implications. The measure, however, is estimated to provide 5,000 pilots like Ellis the option to continue working over the next two years, according to the Regional Airline Association (RAA). Increasing the age limit by two years would also align pilot retirement with the minimum federal retirement age, allowing them to receive full social security benefits.”

“At 9:00 A.M. sharp on August 10, a small phalanx of smiling, well-coiffed elderly women began herding a crowd of several dozen people into the auditorium of the National Mine Health and Safety Academy in Beckley, West Virginia. Among the crowd were former coal miners and their spouses, lawyers, pulmonologists, black lung clinic staff, environmental activists, local media, union representatives, and concerned citizens — all there to attend a public hearing for a new proposed rule from the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) that seeks to limit silica exposure in the nation’s coal mines to 50 micrograms per cubic meter, down from 100.”

“The Power At Work Blog proudly presents an exclusive and important interview with Jennifer Abruzzo, General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, as our first Labor Day blogcast.  General Counsel Abruzzo is the nation’s labor law prosecutor and a driving force for pro-worker strengthening of America’s private-sector labor law. Abruzzo talks candidly about her long history with the NLRB, the organization’s mission and workers’ rights, and some of the most important labor issues in our country today. If you care about worker power, collective action, and unions, this is one interview you should not miss.”

“The Treasury Department today is releasing its most comprehensive ever look at the role that labor unions play in the American economy with a new report by the Department’s Office of Economic Policy. The report represents one of the over 70 actions implemented by the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment, chaired by Vice President Harris. The report finds that unions play an important role in addressing longstanding challenges faced by the middle class – including stagnant wages, high housing costs, and reduced intergenerational mobility.  In doing so, unions contribute to a more robust and resilient economy.”

“Today, the NLRB issued two full-Board decisions, Wendt Corporation and Tecnocap, LLC, (both decided on August 26, 2023), addressing the statutory duty of employers to bargain with unions before making changes in terms and conditions of work.”

"The U.S. Department of Labor today announced a notice of proposed rulemaking to revise regulations regarding who can be authorized by employees to act as their representative to accompany the department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration compliance officers during physical workplace inspections. Specifically, the proposed rule clarifies that employees may authorize an employee, or they may authorize a non-employee third party if the compliance officer determines the third party is reasonably necessary to conduct an effective and thorough inspection."

“A coalition of labor unions and civic groups in Georgia and Alabama will launch a pressure campaign on Monday targeting Hyundai’s electric vehicle plants and its clean energy suppliers, an effort that could also push the Biden administration to make good on its oft-repeated pledge to create not just jobs but ‘good union jobs.’ By focusing on the shift to electric vehicles at Hyundai, a nonunion carmaker expected to reap huge benefits from Mr. Biden’s prized initiatives, the coalition hopes to make inroads at other automakers, such as B.M.W. in South Carolina and Mercedes-Benz in Alabama, which similarly chose union-hostile territory for their American manufacturing bases.”

Two economic releases today tell us that U.S. economic conditions remain strong for workers. The Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis reported an advance estimate that the U.S. economy grew 2.9% in the last quarter of 2022. That's a slight decline from the preceding quarter, but still strong economic growth. Solid economic growth is a clear indication that the American economy is strong and there are no signs that an unemployment-producing recession is looming.

Two economic releases today tell us that U.S. economic conditions remain strong for workers. The Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis reported an advance estimate that the U.S. economy grew 2.9% in the last quarter of 2022. That's a slight decline from the preceding quarter, but still strong economic growth. Solid economic growth is a clear indication that the American economy is strong and there are no signs that an unemployment-producing recession is looming.

"The Democratic-led Michigan Legislature voted along party lines Tuesday on landmark legislation to restore prevailing wages for state construction projects and repeal the right-to-work law that barred union contracts from requiring membership fees as a condition of employment. The Michigan Senate took a final vote on the bill to repeal the right-to-work law for private employers and sent the measure to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's desk on Tuesday afternoon. The Senate passed the bill 20-16 along party lines after the legislation cleared the House in a 56-52 party-line vote.”

“Climate protection will create jobs for workers and economic development for communities. But as fossil fuel facilities are closed down there will also be some jobs lost and some communities will lose taxes and other economic benefits. This Commentary recounts what communities around the country are doing “on the ground” to protect workers and local economies from collateral damage from the transition to climate-safe energy. The next Commentary describes what states are doing to include such protections in their climate and energy programs.”

“The Transport Workers Union Local 100, which represents thousands of NYC Transit workers who keep the city’s subways and buses running, announced on Thursday legislation that would make it legal for them to strike in pursuit of a new contract with the MTA. The announcement comes at a critical time for public transit in New York, with the MTA struggling to close a massive budget deficit, and the current collective bargaining agreement with the TWU Local 100 for some 37,000 laborers set to expire in May.”

“Brandon Johnson, a county commissioner who once taught in struggling neighborhoods, soared in the polls after an endorsement and donations from the Chicago Teachers Union.”

“The Federal Reserve, famously, has a dual mandate: price stability and maximum employment. Typically, economists view those two goals as somewhat opposed: If the Fed raises interest rates to quell rising prices, then employment declines, and vice versa. Right now, though, despite the Fed carrying out rate hike after rate hike, unemployment is staying stubbornly low. So far, the labor market is refusing to loosen up. While that is not what the Fed wants — or expects — to happen, a new book looks at the bigger picture of what low unemployment really means for workers and challenges the need for that classic trade-off. Katherine Newman and Elisabeth Jacobs are the authors of “Moving the Needle: What Tight Labor Markets Do for the Poor.” They joined Marketplace’s Amy Scott to talk about the impact that low unemployment can have on the cohort of workers who are often excluded from the workforce.”

“Companies may not be able to buy the silence of laid-off workers anymore. What's happening: Overly broad non-disparagement clauses — which some companies require workers to sign in order to receive severance benefits — were recently ruled unlawful by the National Labor Relations Board. In a memo last week, the agency's general counsel made clear the ruling was retroactive, applicable to agreements signed before the board's decision in February.

Why it matters: The ruling and guidance could free workers to speak up about what happened inside their companies before they lost their jobs, and help each other navigate the layoff process, among other things.”

“Hundreds of thousands of federal workers in the DMV are bracing for yet another government shutdown given the impasse in Congress that many expect to be financially traumatic, especially coming after the coronavirus pandemic…’For our membership, many people in the federal sector, they live paycheck to paycheck,’ said Carter, the local president of the American Federation of Government Employees union. ‘How am I going to eat and feed my family? Couple that with the most recent pandemic and people are just starting to find their way out of that and now we get hit with this.’”

“When Donald Trump’s private jet touches down in Michigan tonight, working people know what to expect from the former president. Underneath his multimillionaire-class status and luxurious private estates, his $100,000 plated Bedminster dinners and Mar-a-Lago golden galas, he’ll claim to lend a hand to working people. It’s the same lie he told us in 2016, when he first ran for president. But there’s a critical difference now: Trump has a record. And that record was nothing short of catastrophic for workers, highlighting an open hostility especially to union families. He never cared about our jobs. Or our wages. Or our pensions and health care. Or even our safety. Trump just cared about making his rich buddies even richer at our expense.”

“The mid-20th century spread of unionization is what built the middle class in America. Two factors drove it: a huge amount of grassroots organizing, and a concerted policy push under Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal that supported unionization…The grassroots organizing that flourished in the mid-20th century is once again in place today. The energy and support for unionization are at levels not seen in decades…But unlike in the mid-20th century, today’s labor law is a massive impediment to increased unionization…The National Labor Relations Board has done a great deal to carve out better protections for workers’ right to organize—but their efforts need a serious legislative boost if they are to fundamentally rebalance the playing field.”

“We know that artificial intelligence might take our jobs – but what if it replaces our bosses? AI took up a prominent place in our national consciousness this past year as commentators observed with dismay and wonder that ChatGPT and other machine learning systems were passing the bar exam, writing college essays, and creating award-winning art. And AI has proven no exception to longstanding concerns that automation will take our jobs. But unlike automation of decades past, AI threatens to replace not just workers, but decisionmakers. Perhaps that is what elevates some stories of AI at work – the sense that it is worse, even intolerable, to have certain managerial tasks performed by something that is not human.”

“Supporters who celebrated as Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a fast food bill Thursday  bemoaned his decisions Saturday night when he announced he had vetoed two other high-profile labor bills. Newsom rejected Senate Bill 799, which would have paid striking workers California unemployment benefits after two weeks, and SB 686, which would have extended workplace safety protections to domestic workers, such as housekeepers and nannies.”

“Many states across the Southern United States employ an economic model that prioritizes business interests and the wealthy over ordinary citizens. This model—which we refer to in this report as the ‘Southern economic development model’—is characterized by low wages, low taxes, few regulations on businesses, few labor protections, a weak safety net, and vicious opposition to unions. The model is marketed as the way to attract businesses into Southern states, with the implicit promise that this will lead to an abundance of jobs and shared economic prosperity for all Southerners. The reality is this economic development model is fundamentally flawed as a strategy for improving living conditions for most Southerners.”

“In this month's Power Hour blogcast, Seth is joined by Victor Narro, Project Director for the UCLA Labor Center, and David Madland, senior fellow and the senior adviser to the American Worker Project at the Center for American Progress. Listen as they discuss the lasting changes that may come from the current surge in strikes, California's sectoral bargaining model and the ability to expand it across many states and sectors, organized labor’s role in the immigration debate, and Bidenomics.”

“Much has been written about the severe resource limitations for labor standards enforcement in the United States.  As labor and employment researcher Annette Bernhardt and colleagues outlined in 2008, the current era of workplace rights is one where an increasing number of employers are “breaking, bending, or evading” protections in an array of statutory arenas.  In part this happens because the U.S. workplace has become fissured, as fewer corporations are direct employers, and an array of outsourcing schemes have made enforcing workplace rights difficult.”

“California laws offer some of the most robust employment rights in the nation…Yet the breadth and promise of these laws is complicated by a challenging question – who will enforce them? This exact issue animated extensive debate in the California state legislature during the early 2000s…Hoping to harness the untapped potential of private citizens to close this gap in manpower, California enacted the Private Attorney General’s Act (PAGA) in 2004. PAGA delegates the state’s authority to individual workers and enables them to pursue civil penalties for California Labor Code violations through private suits…The California Supreme Court recently accepted Justice Sotomayor’s invitation in Adolph v. Uber Technologies and held that plaintiffs retain representative PAGA standing even when they are compelled to arbitrate the individual claim.”

“What earlier this year seemed like a long shot is now a done deal: Gov. Gavin Newsom today signed a law that will raise the pay for hundreds of thousands of California health care workers and set them on a path to a $25 minimum wage…The victory for health workers was long in the making. It unfolded in the final days of the legislative year when the hospital lobby and health care providers announced a rare deal with labor unions.”

“After decades of operating in distinct silos, the antitrust and labor movements have lately intersected in powerful ways. Progressive policymakers have taken up the cause as well. President Biden declared a clear interest in proworker antitrust with his 2021 Executive Order on promoting competition in the American economy, which singled out anti-worker trade restraints like non-compete agreements that bar employees from seeking new employment during a given period of time in the same line of work or same industry.”

“The Midwest has faced a weakened economy in recent decades—brought on, in part, by anti-worker policies. Federal relief efforts during the pandemic gave the Midwest a boost, but the sunsetting of those relief programs has put workers and families back in a precarious position. In this report, 31 charts detail the state of employment, wages, poverty, and union density in the region.”

“About half of Americans define themselves as ‘middle class’ or ‘upper-middle class.’ But what does ‘middle class’ mean in America?  And equally important, what does the ‘middle class’ mean for America? For most, self-identification as ‘middle class’ is an assessment of family income. If you think your income is roughly in the middle of most Americans’ incomes, you likely would describe yourself as ‘middle class.’  Yet, middle-class status means something much more fundamental and only partly economic. At its core, to be ‘middle class’ in America means to have stability.”

“There are roughly 10,000 call center workers employed by Maximus and its subcontractors, spread out across 12 centers in eight states, who handle over 35 million calls from Americans insured by Medicare and Affordable Care Act (ACA) customers each year. Last fall, Maximus secured a nine-year, $6.6B contract to continue handling Medicare and ACA calls for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) — work it has done since acquiring call center operations from General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT) in 2018…It’s lucrative business for Maximus, a Fortune 1000 company that reported $1.19 billion in revenue in the third quarter of 2023 alone…Meanwhile, workers say they have few protections from abusive callers, no breaks between calls, and bathroom breaks that are limited to six minutes daily.”

“In May, Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law SB 256, a measure that endangers the future of public sector unions in Florida. The law prohibits Florida’s public sector unions from collecting dues through automatic paycheck deductions. It also requires a recertification election if less than 60 percent of workers eligible for a union’s representation pay dues to the union. Translation: the law makes it harder for public sector unions to collect dues, while simultaneously conditioning those unions’ security on their ability to collect dues from a supermajority of employees.”

“The US labor movement is having a moment amid some recent big union contract wins, surges in strikes, historic union election wins at aggressively anti-union corporations, and a presidential administration that touts itself as the “most pro-union in history…But labor in the US is still facing significant obstacles and challenges in transforming the popular culture shift into gains against a backdrop of decades of union decline, worsening wealth inequality, and broken labor laws where employers violate labor laws with impunity and try to delay and bust union organizing campaigns.”

[Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris] appeared on Bloomberg's Balance of Power with Annmarie Hordern and Joe Mathieu on Friday, November 3 to discuss the October jobs, unemployment, and wages report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“Listen to Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris in conversation with three national union political directors exactly one year before the 2024 presidential and congressional elections. Seth is joined by Susan Valentine from Unite Here!, Russ Breckenridge from the United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters, and Katrina Mendiola from the National Education Association.”

“These IAMAW Legal Spotlight videos are designed for the IAMAW's members and the general public, so you don't have to be a lawyer or have a background in these particular areas of law to understand them.”

“In his first few months as chief executive, Biden’s approach to labor issues signaled, as HuffPost remarked at the time, that he would eschew his reputation as a ‘consensus-making moderate’ and govern instead as a ‘hard-nosed progressive who wants to deliver for labor unions.’...Beyond his legislative and administrative agenda, Biden has consistently used his office to express solidarity with unions and enlarge their role in the public imagination.”

“In 2020, many public service workers in Virginia won the right to bargain collectively, after more than 40 years of having been denied that right. While there have been attempts to curb those gains, AFSCME members have fought back, and with Tuesday’s electoral victories, (President) Saunders said he remains optimistic about the future. ‘With a pro-worker majority in both chambers, the economic future for so many Virginians is much brighter,’ Saunders said. ‘AFSCME looks forward to working with the legislature to continue progress for working people and their families.’ While Virginia was a marquee victory showcasing the strength of the Green Machine, Election Day in other states brought further victories for working families.”

“Unions and collective bargaining increase workers’ democratic voice; raise wages and build wealth; and improve conditions for all workers. It should be no surprise that nearly 70 percent of Americans support unions, and support is especially high among younger generations. Despite the fact that workers want and need unions, decades of weakened labor law has eroded workers’ ability to form unions and engage in collective bargaining. Yet, states have significant authority to build power for working people. This column provides an overview of successful state action during the 2023 legislative session to strengthen workers’ ability to join unions and collectively bargain, such as repealing right-to-work laws, improving collective bargaining protections, strengthening protections for striking workers and allowing tax deduction for union dues.”

“The tendency in recent discussions about union density has been to focus on organizing and solidifying organizing gains. Where will the labor movement find new members? Which sectors are amenable to union organizing? Will newly organized workers win contracts that lock in their organizing successes? These are some of the right questions.”

“Signs of a reinvigorated labor movement have emerged in recent years as union election petitions in 2022 rebounded from the pandemic to their highest level since 2015. This increased organizing activity has been accompanied by the highest public opinion of labor unions in more than 50 years. Though widely credited with improving pay, fringe benefits and working conditions for union members, these positive outcomes also extend to non-members, help support racial, and gender pay equity, and build a thriving middle class, all of which translate into gains for the broader U.S. economy.”

“In this podcast episode, Leonhardt discusses how the critical factors of political power, enlightened corporate culture, and government investment operated in a virtuous cycle during the four decades after the end of World War II to bring about widespread prosperity. But after 1980, a reversion to what Leonhardt calls ‘rough-and-tumble capitalism’ meant that these critical factors moved the country into a vicious cycle instead. Leonhardt emphasizes that ‘the Great Stagnation’ of the past four decades — as the working class and lower middle class have experienced it, at any rate — can be overcome. But failure to do so will mean that ‘every problem we have in our society becomes much harder to solve if we don’t solve that.’”

“The role of unions in labor markets has been widely studied with a renewed interest in the last few years. Most work focuses on the role unions have in determining wages, employment outcomes, and income inequality. However, union bargaining power may also play an important role in shaping non-pecuniary working conditions such as work schedules, which have been shown to importantly affect workers’ wellbeing.”

“In this month's Power Hour blogcast, Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Ruben Garcia and Mark Gaston Pearce to talk about he politics of labor and labor in politics, the unfinished business of pro-worker legislation, unfinished business at the NLRB, bargaining over new technologies, and much more.”

“For organized labor in the U.S., 2023 was a year of strikes that made national news and resulted in high-profile negotiating victories. From the sidewalks of Hollywood and New York to assembly plant floors in Detroit and beyond, the phrase “hot labor summer” arrived in full fury. And despite a year that felt full of breakthroughs, the future of unions in this country is indeed an open question.”

“Uber and Lyft drivers are among the workers for whom traditional collective bargaining law doesn’t work, and the results are low pay, long hours, and terrible working conditions. To date, Uber and Lyft drivers have been excluded from even the opportunity to try to organize a union under federal labor law…That’s why, as Massachusetts becomes the latest battleground in the national fight over rideshare drivers’ rights, we’re celebrating efforts in the state to build a new path for unionizing Uber and Lyft.”

“Workers with disabilities—numbering 7.5 million in 2022 and growing since 2020—face a range of challenges in the workplace, from finding stable jobs to receiving equal pay to getting the accommodations they need to keep working. Research shows that unions not only increase wages for disabled workers by 30 percent but also narrow the pay gap between workers with disabilities and those without, while increasing their retention and helping them speak up on the job to secure accommodations. All workers benefit from being able to join a union, but unions help disabled workers in particular overcome inequities in the workplace and support themselves and their families.”

“This report advocates for the broad implementation of state and local WBE policies in labor law that expand the reach of public enforcement agencies and allow affected workers, whistleblowers, and community-based organizations to take legal action on behalf of the state against employers who violate the law.”

“Three cases that directly address employment law issues are currently on the Supreme Court’s docket for this term: a gender discrimination case involving a police officer (Muldrow v.  St. Louis, MO), a whistleblower retaliation case involving a financial strategist (Murray v. UBS Securities, LLC), and a forced arbitration case involving truck drivers (Bissonnette v. LePage Bakeries Park St.).  This post will describe and analyze these three cases.”

“One of the reasons it’s hard for the Department of Veterans Affairs to keep certain healthcare workers is the fact that the VA has refused to correct payment errors in employees’ paychecks. This accuracy problem routinely happens, and the employees can’t do anything about it…To resolve the issue, AFGE is working with members of Congress to pass H.R. 6538, the ‘VA Correct Compensation Act of 2023’ that would allow Title 38 employees to challenge these payment errors.”

“A labor union has petitioned federal OSHA to withdraw the state’s authority to run its own OSHA program. The union believes that federal OSHA can more effectively protect workers than the state’s OSHA program. The union’s petition was based on data that OSHA compiles, much of it readily available to the public.”

“A second Trump presidency may be “more dangerous” than the first when it comes to workers’ rights, McNicholas said. She noted that workers and unions have wielded more leverage recently, whether it’s getting pay raises, forming new unions or going out on strike to improve working conditions. The biggest display of that momentum might be the recent historic strike by the United Auto Workers union, which candidate Trump took as an opportunity for a photo-op at a non-union auto parts plant.”

“The rule mandates the use of Project Labor Agreements (PLAs) for large federal construction projects that cost $35 million or more. In expanding the use of PLAs, contractors and subcontractors will have to negotiate with unions to set terms for project construction – ensuring that the safety and dignity of workers are prioritized on the job sites.”

“Alicia Modestino, Associate Professor at Northeastern University, hosts this month's Workers by the Numbers Blogcast. Listen to her in conversation with Kate Bahn and Harry Holzer as they discuss the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ jobs, wages, and unemployment report for December 2023. This conversation was aired live on the homepage of the blog at 12:00 PM ET on Friday, January 5. You don't want to miss this Numbers Day blogcast!”

“Fast food workers in California will soon attain a higher baseline: $20 an hour. The fresh standard could hold significant implications for workers nationwide, experts told ABC News….The new minimum wage for fast food workers could deliver a boost for low-wage workers nationwide, meanwhile, if it adds momentum to similar campaigns in other states or helps unionizing workers demand $20 an hour in collective bargaining, economists and advocates said.”

“Nannies, housecleaners and caregivers in New Jersey, an estimated 50,000 workers, will soon gain new protections in their workplaces. The New Jersey Domestic Worker Bill of Rights passed in the state’s General Assembly on Monday, and is now awaiting Gov. Phil Murphy’s signature. Under the new law, domestic workers would no longer be excluded from New Jersey’s Law Against Discrimination and the state’s wage and hour law.”

“President Joe Biden will veto an attempt to repeal a U.S. labor board rule requiring companies to bargain with unions representing some franchise and contract workers if it passes Congress, the White House said on Monday. The resolution, which is slated for a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives later this week, would interfere with workers' rights to bargain for better working conditions, the White House Office of Management and Budget said in a statement.”

“‘In 2023, workers made history by joining together and winning higher pay, improved benefits, safer working conditions and better jobs all around,’ said Rebecca Dixon, president and CEO of the National Employment Law Project. ‘The victorious strikes by auto workers, health care workers, Hollywood writers and actors revealed what’s possible when workers join together and use their power. Substantial new contracts for hospitality workers in Las Vegas and UPS workers nationwide show that even the threat of a strike can be powerful. At the same time, workers made their voices heard in states, cities, and counties, securing minimum wage increases that will take effect in 85 different jurisdictions from coast to coast in the new year. Workers have built tremendous momentum for 2024.’”

“A weakening of labor protection policies is often invoked as one cause of observed monopsony power and the decline in labor's share of income, but little evidence exists on the causal impact of labor policies on wage markdowns. Using confidential Mexican economic census data from 1994 to 2019, we document a rising trend over this period in on-site outsourcing.”

“We study how labor market conditions affect unionization decisions. Tight labor markets might spur unionization, e.g., by reducing the threat of unemployment after management opposition or employer retaliation in response to a unionization attempt. Tightness might also weaken unionization by providing attractive outside alternatives to engaging in costly unionization. Drawing on a large-scale, representative survey experiment among U.S. workers, we show that an increase in worker beliefs about labor market tightness moderately raises support for union activity.”

“Is it possible to buy American in an age of offshoring? And is that the right goal — for workers, consumers or the planet? The journalist Rachel Slade explores these questions in “Making It in America,” which takes as a case study one small clothing manufacturer in Maine. Slade follows Ben and Whitney Waxman, who in 2015 founded American Roots with the goal of not only manufacturing in the United States, but also operating with an entirely domestic supply chain.”

“This chapter reviews research on the linkages between corporate globalization and worker representation. Studies have identified various transmission channels through which the activities of foreign multinational companies (MNCs) affect host-country institutions of union and non-union representation. First, countries compete for inbound foreign direct investment (FDI) and the ability to attract FDI depends among others on a country’s industrial relations system. Second, once foreign MNCs have invested in a host country, they exert an influence on the country’s institutions of worker representation through how their affiliates adapt to those institutions or tend to avoid them. Third, the affiliates of foreign MNCs affect the bargaining power of host-country worker organizations. Fourth, foreign affiliates have an impact on labor conflicts and the quality of industrial relations. Altogether, the available evidence provides indications that the activities of foreign MNCs can be a challenge for worker representation within host countries."

“So why didn’t Black Americans make relative progress? Probably because the benefits of reduced discrimination were offset by an increase in overall income inequality, in particular a widening gap between wages in relatively low-paid jobs and wages for the highly paid. Since Black workers remained underrepresented in well-paying jobs, the growing polarization of economic opportunity snatched away many of the gains one might have expected from a society that, again, was still racist but not as racist as before. Which brings us to the surprising progress of the past few years.”

“This week, the Biden administration’s Department of Labor announced a significant change in a federal labor rule that classifies United States workers as either independent contractors or full employees. The new policy, published Wednesday, January 10, would make an increased number of freelance workers across many industries eligible for full-employee status, potentially obligating their employers to furnish them with higher wages, certain benefits and other worker protections.”

“When the Supreme Court issued its decision in Glacier Northwest v. Intl. Bhd of Teamsters, Local No. 174 last June, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the lone dissenter.  The question in Glacier Northwest was whether the employer’s state court lawsuit was preempted by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).  Justice Jackson pointed out that by the time the Court issued its decision, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) had already conducted a nine-day hearing addressing the same issues raised in the state court proceeding.  She forcefully argued that the Court had “no business delving into this particular labor dispute at this time.”  The Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) who presided over the nine-day hearing has now issued his decision, and the decision is further evidence that the Court should have listened to Justice Jackson.”

“We employ a revealed preference test to distinguish between wage posting and wage bargaining. Using a sample of dual jobholders in Washington State, we estimate the sensitivity of wages and separation rates to wage shocks in a secondary job. In lower parts of the wage distribution, improvements in the outside option lead to higher separations rates but not to higher wages, consistent with wage posting. In the highest wage quartile, improved outside options translate to higher wages but not higher separation rates, consistent with bargaining. In the aggregate, bargaining appears to be a limited determinant of wage setting.”

“Across the country, employers are increasingly using digital technologies in ways that stand to have profound consequences for wages, working conditions, race and gender equity, and worker power. But regulation of these new technologies–like worker surveillance, algorithmic management, and artificial intelligence–is still in its infancy. In this guide, we give an overview of current U.S. public policy that regulates employers’ use of digital workplace technologies.”

“During this blogcast moderated by Seth Harris, Former top Biden White House labor advisor, former Acting U.S. Secretary of Labor, and a Senior Fellow at the Burnes Center for Social Change at Northeastern University, our guest labor experts will react to and analyze the Bureau of Labor Statistics 2023 Union Member Survey, which reports on how many American workers are union members as well as America’s union density rate --- in other words, the percentage of workers in unions. This blogcast was aired and recorded live on January 23. This blogcast features ⁠⁠Vonda McDaniel⁠⁠, President of the Central Labor Council of Nashville and Middle Tennessee and AFL-CIO Executive Council member, and ⁠⁠Heidi Shierholz⁠⁠, President of the Economic Policy Institute as they analyze BLS's 2023 Union Members Survey results.”

“The recent surge in labor actions has not translated into higher unionization rates in the latest government data. Despite workers’ desire for unions, their efforts to organize are being undermined by a broken system that has failed them.”

“In spite of growing numbers of workers trying to form unions and rising public support for labor, union membership is likely to remain stagnant at about 10 percent of the workforce when the U.S. Department of Labor releases new data later this month. As membership remains stuck near 100-year lows, it is clear that even more grassroots activism and legal reforms to make it easier for workers to form unions and bargain collectively are needed.”

“The U.S. Supreme Court last week put an end to Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s political attacks against public service unions in that state, including the Alaska State Employees Association (ASEA/AFSCME Local 52). The attacks go back to the beginning of the Dunleavy administration, which has wasted millions of dollars in public funds to interfere with the internal affairs of unions. The politically motivated attacks had sought to undermine the strength and membership of public service unions.”

“Instead, rather than scapegoating Canadians, our lawmakers can actually help farmers by inserting policies that would help them into the Farm Bill.  This massive piece of legislation that governs most facets of our food system, including dairy, is set to expire in September of this year. One such policy is the National Family Farm Coalition’s Milk from Family Dairies Act, which has been endorsed by ninety-four food, farm, environmental and labor organizations and includes provisions that would adjust the prices that farmers are paid based off of their cost of production, establish import and export controls and strengthen regional dairy infrastructure to balance supply with demand to create fair, competitive markets.“

“I think simple questions about fundamental life activities are often the most profound. Asking “what work is” to anyone who works is one of those queries. My book What Works Is provides answers from thousands of workers. In many years of teaching, I have had the opportunity to talk with workers from different occupations. These workers largely earn middle class wages or salaries. The large majority are union members. Some have college degrees; most don’t. They are a collection of races, nationalities, genders, ages, and political ideologies. They are a diverse representation of America’s working class. None own any of the productive capital that controls the economy. My worker-students have only their labor to sell. With it they make a life and a world possible.”

“Labor law enforcement in the United States faces a crisis. Workplace rights violations are rampant. Wage theft dwarfs most other types of theft. Minimum wage violations alone, estimated to be $15 billion annually, account for more theft than all offenses such as robbery, burglary, and motor vehicle theft combined. A recent ProPublica and Documented investigation found that from 2017 to 2021, “more than $203 million in wages had been stolen from about 127,000 workers” in 13,000 cases of wage theft in the state of New York alone with most of the money still owed and yet to be collected. The total amount stolen from working people is ‘almost certainly a significant undercount.’”

“In this country, the rights you get as a worker—like overtime pay, a safe workplace, and the right to organize into a union—depend on a seemingly simple question: Are you an employee? If the answer is yes, you get a plateful of rights and protections under federal and state law. If the answer is no—meaning you’re an independent contractor in business for yourself—the plate is empty.”

“Following the Congressional Labor Caucus’ relaunch for the 118th Congress and hiring of its first Executive Director, the Caucus today announced a slate of key legislative endorsements. These bills, which will raise standards for and protect the rights of workers, represent core legislative priorities for the Caucus in the 118th Congress.”

“AFSCME members strongly support a bill reintroduced in Congress today that would provide employees of the federal government a much-needed 7.4% pay raise in 2025. The Federal Adjustment of Income Rates (FAIR) Act was introduced by Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly and Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz. The lawmakers, both Democrats, have introduced versions of the bill in previous sessions.”

“The Family Budget Calculator estimates the resources families need to make ends meet across the United States. This report explains how policymakers, employers, and advocates can set meaningful living wage standards using the calculator.”

“Alicia Modestino, Associate Professor at Northeastern University, hosts this month's Workers by the Numbers Blogcast. Listen to her in conversation with Aaron Sojourner and Seth Harris as they discuss the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ jobs, wages, and unemployment report for January 2024. This conversation was recorded on February 2, 2024. You don't want to miss this Numbers Day blogcast!”

“Seven in 10 U.S. workers say they’re “very” or “somewhat” concerned about employers using AI in human resources decision-making; 3 in 10 are worried about their job being eliminated by AI. Those findings are from a new report by Rutgers University’s Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, which has been surveying Americans for decades about the impact of new technology. Workers are most worried about AI’s role in hiring, firing, performance evaluation and promotion, said Carl Van Horn, the center’s director. ‘A concern about the hidden hand out there. That I’m not going to get a chance to really discuss my virtues with the hiring officer or with my boss, instead there’ll be some algorithm that tells me whether I stay or go.’”

“Starting this year, employers can match employees’ student loan repayments as 401(k) contributions, a policy that experts say can be a ‘game changer’ for Black women, who have the highest student loan debt on average.”

“Anti-worker lawmakers are quietly advancing House Joint Resolution 98 through Congress, a bill that would harm working people across the economy by undercutting workers’ ability to come together in unions. The Biden administration has announced that the president will veto the bill, which would invalidate new rules adopted by appointees to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB): “Reversing this rulemaking will prevent workers from exercising their right to bargain for higher wages, better benefits, and safer working conditions.” Moreover, the legislation demonstrates a growing divide between the economic values of everyday Americans and policymakers in Congress who say they support the working class but advance policies designed to weaken workers’ power in the economy and allow corporations to break the law without accountability.”

“Child labor remains a top issue in 2024 state legislative sessions amid soaring violations and widespread abuse of child labor laws in multiple sectors of the economy. On one hand, the coordinated, industry-backed effort to roll back child labor protections state by state has continued to expand. At the same time, some state legislators are proposing legislation to strengthen the rights of young workers and the laws designed to safeguard their health and education.”

"’We’re thrilled to see the Antitrust Division launch an investigation into Pennsylvania’s most notorious healthcare monopolist,” said Pat Garofalo, Director of State and Local Policy at the American Economic Liberties Project. “Story after story that we heard during our research revealed how UPMC has used its power to go on a merger spree, lower wages, degrade working conditions, stop workers from unionizing, and ultimately lower the quality of care for residents across the region. We look forward to seeing the conclusions of the DOJ’s investigation, and hope it leads to robust action to secure overdue justice for working families in Pennsylvania.’”

“In this blogcast, Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Johnnie Kallas, Assistant Professor at the School of Labor and Employment Relations at the University of Illinois and Program Director of the Labor Action Tracker, to discuss the Labor Action Tracker 2023 Annual Report. Listen to their conversation as they dissect the report's numbers, discuss 2023 strike activity, and make predictions for the next year.”

“In this blogcast, Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Tia Koonse, Legal and Policy Research Manager at the UCLA Labor Center, and Todd Vachon, Assistant Professor in the Department of Labor Studies and Employment Relations and the Director of the Labor Education Action Research Network at Rutgers University. Listen to their conversation on the results of the 2023 BLS Union Members Survey, just transition in climate change and automation, and the business community's growing attacks on the NLRB.”

“RTW laws—and the phrase ‘right to work itself—are intended to deceive and confuse. The misleadingly named policy is designed to make it more difficult for workers to form and sustain unions and negotiate collectively for better wages, benefits, and working conditions. As Martin Luther King, Jr. pointed out in 1961, ‘right to work’ is a ‘false slogan’ since RTW laws provide neither rights nor work and are in fact designed ‘to rob us of our civil rights and job rights [and] to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining by which unions have improved wages and working conditions of everyone.’ Decades later, research bears out King’s contention that ‘wherever these laws have been passed, wages are lower.’”

“UFT President Michael Mulgrew told delegates at the Delegate Assembly on Jan. 17 that the union faces both a city and a state budget fight this spring. Gov. Hochul’s proposed 2.6% increase in state aid for New York City public schools was ‘a good starting point, but not enough,’ he said. The governor previously won accolades for committing to fully fund Foundation Aid, but this year she has proposed two changes to that aid that together would result in school districts receiving significantly less than they expected.”

“Tuesday, Feb. 13 will be the first day of the right-to-work repeal. Originally enacted in 2012 by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, the law allowed union workers to opt out of paying dues and fees but still receive union representation. Now all members of a union can be required to pay for the cost of representation at the bargaining table. Something that Ron Bieber the President of Michigan AFL-CIO said this repeal will make for stronger unions and in turn a stronger economy. ‘If we want to make Michigan a place where people want to come and raise a family and build their careers for the long haul, it is critical that we have got these strong workplace protections,’ he said.”

“Grocery and retail workers helped win the strongest tenant protections in Washington state last November for the 100,000 renters in the city of Tacoma. First we had to beat the mayor’s and city council’s attempt to bring a competing watered-down ballot measure. And then we had to overcome a vicious and deceptive landlord opposition that smashed all previous political spending records in Tacoma.”

“The St. Louis Board of Aldermen unanimously passed a Service Employees (SEIU) Local 1 sponsored worker retention bill that will enhance protections for workers and ensure that on city contracts, workers have an opportunity to keep their jobs when there is a change of contractor. The bill is a major victory for working families across St. Louis.”

“Just over one month ago, Taraji P. Henson joined Gayle King on Gayle’s podcast to discuss The Color Purple and her acting career. Nearly one million of us watched or heard Gayle ask Taraji about rumors of her quitting her acting career when Taraji began to cry as she explained why. Her tears are the tears that many Black women, specifically in the workplace, know all too well. They are the tears of trying time and time again to prove one’s worth to their employer. Despite efforts to go above and beyond, and produce quality work, Black women are often met with baseless and insulting reasons as to why they can not be paid adequately; and in the same sentence being told that white counterparts can.”

“The sweet, earthy scent of tomatoes hangs in the air as a crew of 44 workers speeds through rows of vines. They fill 32-pound buckets with fruit, then deliver them to co-workers waiting on the backs of flatbed trucks who dump the contents into crates to be sorted and packaged. During an eight-hour shift, each worker hauls an average of about three tons of tomatoes. They work at this pace all winter in this small farming community in southwest Florida — and all summer on a farm in Tennessee, where temperatures can reach the 90s.”

“A coalition of U.S. labor leaders spoke out forcefully on Thursday against the Republican-led push for a "fiscal commission," denouncing the proposal as an attack on Social Security, Medicare, and other programs that tens of millions of current and retired workers depend on to meet basic needs.”

“In this new Power At Work Blog weekly segment, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow and former top White House economic advisor Seth Harris provides his analysis of the latest news stories in the labor movement. In this episode, Seth discusses the recent wave of Starbucks union filings, union opposition to the Wizards and Capitals' plans to move to Virginia, and the American Federation of Musicians' tentative collective bargaining agreement covering basic theatrical motion picture and basic television motion picture operations.”

“In this blogcast, labor journalists Lauren Gurley and Nick Niedzwiadek join Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris for a conversation about some of the biggest stories impacting workers, worker power, collective action, and unions. Their conversation covers news about protests and strikes involving employers like Alaska Airlines and Anheuser Busch, the latest corporate assault against the National Labor Relations Board, the California Fast Food Council and the SEIU's sectoral bargaining strategy, and much more.”

“Today, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its annual data about disabled people in the U.S. workforce. The data reveal a continued upward trend in disabled employment. However, inequities remain for disabled people, particularly disabled women and disabled people of color. These inequities are the direct result of deliberate policy choices shaped by racism, sexism, ableism and other systems of oppression.”

“To overcome these hurdles, Biden is looking to unions for support. During his first campaign rally of the 2024 election cycle, in June 2023, he told a crowd of about 2,000 union members in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that he is ‘the most pro-union president in American history.’ That same month, the AFL-CIO, which includes sixty unions with 12.5 million workers, responded by giving Biden the earliest endorsement in its history.”

“A year after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law a sweeping anti-union bill requiring most public sector unions to boost the rate of members paying dues or be disbanded, the full effects of the new union rules are coming into clear view — double standards and all. Law enforcement, firefighter and correctional officer unions are exempt from the new law, no matter how few members pay union dues. For other public sector unions, what is emerging is an outright crisis.”

“In this new Power At Work Blog weekly segment, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow and former top White House economic advisor Seth Harris provides his analysis of the latest news stories in the labor movement. In this episode, Seth discusses Starbucks and Workers United's framework for collective bargaining, UAW's organizing plans, and NYU contract faculty's recent election victory.”

“The idea that the labor and climate movements must unite for a Green New Deal is more popular than ever. To get it done, we'll need to take the threat of job loss seriously, finding and uplifting commonalities between climate goals and worker self-interest.”

“Communities across Florida soon may not be able to create employment regulations. The Senate approved a bill Tuesday that would ban cities and counties from having heat protections in place for workers. Last summer many parts of the state saw temperatures reaching more than 100 degrees.”

“Alicia Modestino, Associate Professor at Northeastern University, hosts this month's Workers by the Numbers Blogcast. Listen to her in conversation with Elise Gould and Teresa Ghilarducci as they discuss the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ jobs, wages, and unemployment report for February 2024. This conversation was recorded live on March 8, 2024.”

“At the urging of the Service Employees International Union, the New York City Council enacted legislation in 2020 that Mayor Bill DeBlasio signed in 2021 requiring that large fast-food employers have “just cause” or a bona fide economic justification before discharging or significantly reducing the hours of their employees. In early January, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit granted summary judgment to the city in a lawsuit by the Restaurant Law Center and the Chamber of Commerce claiming that the just-cause law is preempted by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). After this well-reasoned and thorough court of appeals decision upholding the just-cause law, local and state governments have the authority to adopt just-cause legislation for any and all workers. It should be on every legislative body’s docket.” 

“A federal judge in Texas has blocked a new rule by the National Labor Relations Board that would have made it easier for millions of workers to form unions at big companies. The rule, which was due to go into effect Monday, would have set new standards for determining when two companies should be considered “joint employers” in labor negotiations. Under the current NLRB rule, which was passed by a Republican-dominated board in 2020, a company like McDonald’s isn’t considered a joint employer of most of its workers since they are directly employed by franchisees. The new rule would have expanded that definition to say companies may be considered joint employers if they have the ability to control — directly or indirectly — at least one condition of employment. Conditions include wages and benefits, hours and scheduling, the assignment of duties, work rules and hiring.”

“In 2019, a poll revealed that nearly half of men believe that the wage gap is ‘made up.’ Contrary to their beliefs, the wage gap continues to hold an iron grip on the American workforce – and it affects men too. This is nothing new. Conflicting views around the wage gap are not uncommon, and the public’s perception of the wage gap is often clouded with misconceptions. The most prevailing, misguided narratives range from the idea that the wage gap exists because of a woman’s choice, or that the gap is caused by women not negotiating their salaries. Due to the tremendous research conducted by the 2023 Nobel Prize Winner, Claudia Goldin, we have been able to identify the main causes of the remaining wage gap.”

“Oregon lawmakers have overwhelmingly passed a bill that would make an historic investment in the state’s public safety workers. The Oregon Legislature passed HB 4045, the Public Safety Workforce Stabilization Act, with bipartisan support in the House and the Senate earlier this week. That marks a significant step forward in prioritizing the dedicated workers who serve on the front lines of public safety by allowing them to retire with enhanced benefits.”

“New data from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) highlight how important unions continue to be for increasing Americans’ wealth—the total value of what people own minus the value of all their debts. The data show that the median union household has significantly more wealth than the median nonunion household, and these large wealth differences hold across various demographic groups, including race and ethnicity as well as education levels….These findings are consistent with Center for American Progress analysis of surveys from prior years, which found union membership is associated with significantly higher wealth for all households and tends to provide the biggest boost to groups who have historically had less wealth, such as Black and Hispanic households as well as those without a college degree.”

“The California Privacy Protection Agency board on Friday voted 3-2 to advance rules about how businesses use artificial intelligence and collect the personal information of consumers, workers, and students. The vote, which took place in Oakland, continues a process that started in November 2021. The proposed rules seek to create guidelines for the many areas in which AI and personal data can influence the lives of Californians: job compensation, demotion, and opportunity; housing, insurance, health care, and student expulsion. For example, under the rules, if an employer wanted to use AI to make predictions about a person’s emotional state or personality during a job interview, a job candidate could opt out without fear of discrimination for choosing to do so.”

“There’s a huge and ubiquitous problem we’re not talking enough about: mass layoffs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics defines mass layoffs as 50 or more workers filing for unemployment insurance at a single company during a five-week span. Millions of workers have experienced them over the past several decades. Mass layoffs are driven by Wall Street’s incessant demand for cost-cutting measures to service debt payments and fund stock buybacks. The consequences of ignoring mass layoffs are enormous. Not only do they cause suffering and trauma for working families who experience them, but they are fueling the growth of far right authoritarianism. However, mass layoffs are not inevitable. They are the products of policy choices, and they can be stopped.”

“A group of the nation’s health experts will regularly meet this spring and summer in an effort to better protect farmworkers from extreme heat and wildfire smoke. The new initiative is the brainchild of Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, whose father picked crops in California farm fields.”

“For now, I’d like to raise a different question: what if the ALEC statute isn’t preempted? What would it mean if states could condition access to all economic development money on a corporation’s compliance with the state’s vision of good labor policy? What would it mean if California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, and New York could enact their version of an ALEC-like law?”

“The last few years have seen a rise in worker momentum, with unionized workers raising their voices to demand higher pay, safer working conditions and more. It may come as little surprise, then, that wages have grown dramatically. According to Bloomberg Law, union contracts in 2023 included the highest average pay raise of any year since at least 1988, a pay hike of 6.6% from the previous year. Including signing bonuses and ‘other lump-sum payments,’ that average figure is 7.3%, also a record high.”

“Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) signed into law a “Strippers’ Bill of Rights” on Monday, which was celebrated by advocates for its comprehensive worker protections, restrictions on fees imposed by club owners on dancers, and strong incentives for club owners to adhere to regulations…The bill, SB 6105, requires staff training at establishments to prevent sexual harassment, detect and report human trafficking, defuse conflicts, and administer first aid. It also requires the presence of security personnel on premises, keypad locks on dressing rooms, and emergency buttons in areas where entertainers may be isolated with customers…SB 6105 also strengthens labor protections for dancers in the state who are commonly employed as independent contractors paid by patrons and obligated to cover club fees per shift. This bill will cap the amount of fees club owners can charge per shift to either $150 or 30 percent of dancers’ earnings during their shift.”

“Florida legislators dealt a blow to outdoor workers this month by passing a law that bans local governments from implementing heat standards. Starting July 1, it will be illegal for local governments to pass health and safety measures for outdoor workers in extreme heat. The decision comes after Florida experienced its hottest summer on record.”

“Labor has been stirring recently. That’s unacceptable for bosses, who never rest in their attacks on unions. Case in point: a new bill in Georgia that seeks to ensure the unionization process is as difficult for workers and favorable to bosses as possible.”

“In stark contrast to prior decades, low-wage workers experienced dramatically fast real wage growth between 2019 and 2023, but many workers continue to suffer from grossly inadequate wages and middle-wage workers face significant gaps across demographic groups.”

“I appeared on CNBC's Power Lunch with Tyler Mathisen and Deirdre Bosa on Friday, April 5 to discuss the great news for workers contained in the Bureau of Labor Statistics's March jobs and unemployment report.  BLS reported that the U.S. economy created 303,000 more jobs and wages rose 0.3% from the previous month and 4.1% over the course of the year.”

“I spoke with Scripps News anchor Lauren Magarino on Thursday, April 5th about Senate HELP Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders's proposal to institute a 32-hour work week.  You can watch the video here:”

“Recently, you may have noticed that the hot weather is getting ever hotter. Every year the United States swelters under warmer temperatures and longer periods of sustained heat. In fact, each of the last nine months — May 2023 through February 2024 — set a world record for heat. As I’m writing this, March still has a couple of days to go, but likely as not, it, too, will set a record.”

“The Biden administration has received ongoing attention for its actions to improve the lives of blue collar workers—from walking the picket line with striking autoworkers to ensuring that its signature investments in American industry create good jobs. Pundits and the press often point to actions to expand and raise standards in the construction and manufacturing sectors as central to the Biden administration’s economic agenda. Yet the administration has also taken numerous steps to boost the earnings and wealth of service sector workers, empower them to come together in unions, and hold accountable corporations that violate their rights.”

“This small Tennessee town is charting a future for the working class. It’s home to one of the biggest new manufacturing projects in America — building Ford’s EV truck. Workers say it changed their lives. It could be a preview of an economic boom for communities everywhere.”

“A California state lawmaker aims to alleviate worker burnout through a proposed bill that would limit when employers can contact their employees after work hours. Assembly bill 2751, authored by state Rep. Matt Haney, a Democrat from San Francisco, would establish a “right to disconnect” throughout the state by requiring employers and workers to agree to rules ahead of time about how or when they can be contacted outside of work.”

“In this blogcast, Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Terri Gerstein, Director of the NYU Wagner Labor Initiative at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service; and Alí Bustamante, deputy director of the Worker Power and Economic Security program at Roosevelt University. Listen to their conversation on sectoral bargaining, the importance of protecting workers and children from exploitation, and the implications of organizing in the South.”

“I was a bit surprised to see a piece on Marketplace radio telling listeners: ‘In 1947, U.S. workers got about two-thirds of the income from their labors. ‘Now, they’re getting something that is just a little bit over half. And so they’re getting less of the pie,’ said Erica Groshen, who used to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics and is now at Cornell.’ I was surprised because it’s not true. There have been ups and downs in the labor share of income over this period, but there is no downward trend. In 1947, it was 67.7 percent of net value-added in the corporate sector. In 2023, it was 67.8 percent of net value in the corporate sector.” 

“The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday made it easier to bring certain workplace discrimination lawsuits in a ruling that gave a boost to a St. Louis police officer who claimed she was transferred to an undesirable new role because of her sex. In a case testing the scope of federal workplace protections, the justices ruled 9-0 to throw out a lower court's decision to dismiss the lawsuit brought by the officer, Jatonya Muldrow, and directed it to reconsider the matter. Muldrow has claimed she was transferred out of a police intelligence unit by a new supervisor who wanted a male officer in the position. The city of St. Louis has said officers are routinely transferred and that Muldrow's supervisor transferred more than 20 officers when he took over the intelligence unit.”

“Florida will become the second state to stop local governments from requiring heat protection for outdoor workers after Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed House Bill 433. The law, which DeSantis signed last week, goes into effect on July 1 and establishes multiple restrictions for city and county governments, including the ability to set heat exposure requirements not already required under state or federal law.”

“In this BREAKING NEWS BLOGCAST, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Hannah Garden-Monheit, Director of the Federal Trade Commission's Office of Policy Planning, to discuss the FTC's new rule prohibiting employers from imposing non-compete agreements on their employees. Harris and Garden-Monheit explain the legal reasoning behind the rule and explore how the ban will improve competition in labor markets across the economy. Tune in for expert analysis on the FTC's authority to issue labor regulations, the expected legal challenges the rule must overcome, and how the ban on non-compete agreements will increase worker power across the nation.”

“In this International Labour Organization webinar, economists Janine Berg and Pawel Gmyrek present the findings of their report "Generative AI and jobs: A global analysis of potential effects on job quantity and quality." Listen to these experts discuss the impact of artificial intelligence on worker power, explore how tools like GPT-4 can be responsibly integrated into the workplace, and respond to questions from a live audience.”

“A new federal rule to expand overtime protections to millions of workers now excluded under current law has been finalized, the Biden administration said Tuesday. The Labor Department’s regulation would ensure that salaried workers who earn less than $58,656 per year would automatically be entitled to overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours in a week, starting in 2025. What’s known as the ‘overtime salary threshold’ would then be updated every three years, starting in 2027, to account for inflation. The agency estimated that the change would extend the overtime law’s coverage to an additional four million workers, meaning they couldn’t be forced to work extra hours without their employers paying a premium.”

“Federal labor officials announced Friday increased protections for the growing number of seasonal foreign workers whom agricultural employers rely upon as they navigate domestic labor shortages. The final rule aims to reduce abuses faced by temporary agricultural laborers with H-2A visas, including human trafficking and wage theft, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The regulations will help ensure the program treats workers fairly while promoting employer accountability, Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su said during a press conference in Santa Rosa.”

“At the end of 2023, McDonald’s sent out a survey to its nearly 2,000 franchisees across the country. Under pressure from activists, the nation’s largest fast-food chain said the results of the survey would inform an effort to curb the skyrocketing number of child labor law violations committed in its restaurants. But while the new training modules teased by the company may help franchisees understand the regulations, the economic incentives to violate them are still in place. Even the most egregious cases are met by minuscule penalties; after a 15-year-old McDonald’s worker in Tennessee suffered severe burns while using a deep fryer last year, the Department of Labor fined the McDonald’s franchise a paltry $3,258. McDonald’s is hardly alone. For employers across the country, fines levied by the Department of Labor have become a minor cost of doing business, according to a new congressional report — even when labor law violations cost workers their lives.” 

“The Environmental Protection Agency recently announced $7 billion in grants for solar energy programs in residential communities. It is the latest round of public funding for the clean energy sector, which has seen $464 billion in investments since 2022. The money is intended to help local governments and non-profit organizations develop initiatives that lower energy costs in low-income and historically disadvantaged areas across the country. But questions linger about how well the industry reflects the nation’s diversity.”

“The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) during the Biden administration has supported workers’ rights to form unions and engage in collective bargaining, standing in stark contrast to the Trump administration’s anti-worker record.”

“Growing up, I looked up to my father and aunt, who began restaurant industry careers after immigrating from Eritrea in the 1970s. When I started working, a restaurant job was a natural choice. While I took great pride in my work, I struggled with the conditions. I was often on my feet for 10-12 hour shifts six days a week, had no access to affordable health care, was wholly unaware of my worker rights, and constantly worried about money.”

“Global temperatures are rising—and workers in one of America’s hottest cities are finally getting some relief. During the summer of 2023, millions of  people in Phoenix suffered a record-breaking thirty-one straight days of temperatures exceeding 110 degrees. In response, the city broke new ground with an ordinance requiring employers with  contracts to provide rest, water, and shade for workers exposed to extreme heat. The municipal ordinance, passed in March, will extend protections to approximately 10,000 workers, including many (but not all) who work at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.‘This will change my life,’ says Filiberto Lares, an airport worker at Sky Chefs and a member of UNITE HERE Local 11. ‘When the temperatures reach extremes, the asphalt on the tarmac is even hotter.’”

“I appeared on Bloomberg TV's Balance of Power with Joe Mathieu and Kailey Leinz on Thursday, May 2 to preview the Bureau of Labor Statistics' April jobs and unemployment report and to discuss the state of the economy and the condition of the U.S. labor movement.  Watch the video here:”

“On Monday, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) released updated guidance detailing that employers who refuse to use transgender workers’ preferred pronouns or who prevent them from using bathrooms corresponding to their gender identity are engaging in unlawful workplace harassment. The guidance will go into effect immediately.”

“For three and a half decades, lean management drove the production and movement of goods. But now logistics and manufacturing employers are shifting to a new model. To maximize our leverage, workers should understand it. Lean production, introduced in the 1980s from Japanese automakers, caught on in many U.S. industries. It was a whole bundle of techniques to maximize profit, including ratcheting up workloads and pace to the point of breakdown, and inviting workers to brainstorm ways to increase their own exploitation.”

“Since the COVID-19 pandemic began just over four years ago, one of the most notable transformations has been in how and where people work. The pandemic emergency forced the traditional office environment to undergo a seismic shift, as organizations across the US swiftly converted to remote work out of necessity. Where remote work was somewhat of a novelty before the pandemic, it quickly became normalized as a viable option for many jobs."

“Long before Trump came on the scene, working-class voters, especially the white members of the working class, were abandoning the Democratic Party. In 1976, Jimmy Carter received 52.3 percent of the white working-class vote. Bill Clinton won 50.0 percent in 1996, Obama 40.6 percent in 2012, and Biden only 36.2 percent in 2020. There are two schools of thought about the causes of this decline.  One emphasizes economic hardship. The other focuses on rising illiberalism.”

“Adorned with Mexican flags, a cluster of crosses in the dirt on the side of a two-lane highway is the only sign of lives lost. On any given day, passenger vans whiz by rows of almond trees, carrying farmworkers to the orchards and vineyards that stretch across Fresno and Madera counties. On Feb. 23, a van carrying eight workers collided head-on with a pickup truck, killing all but one of them. Their bodies have been returned home to Mexico, but the tragedy has left a mark. ‘I’ve cried a lot for him, as his friend, because, well, it’s a tough blow that we still can’t recover from,’ said Oscar Ruiz, whose friend, 57-year-old Roberto Flores, was killed.”

“This November, Alaska voters will decide whether to increase the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2027. This new wage floor will produce significant increases for Alaska’s low-wage workers, helping them make ends meet amid high costs of living throughout the state. The minimum wage increase will help lock in the wage gains low-wage workers have experienced during the economic recovery from the pandemic and will create greater equity by disproportionately lifting wages for women, workers of color, and parents.”

 “Missouri Jobs with Justice leaders last week celebrated in front of the Missouri Secretary of State’s office as the Missourians for Healthy Families and Fair Wages campaign officially submitted signatures for a ballot measure that will deliver paid sick days and higher wages to Missouri’s working families. The ballot initiative would raise the state minimum wage from $12.30 an hour to $13.75 on Jan. 1, 2025 and $15 on Jan. 1, 2026 – followed by annual cost-of-living adjustments so the minimum wage does not lose purchasing power in the future. It would also enable employees to earn one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked. Employers with fewer than 15 employees can limit usage to 40 hours per year; those with 15 or more employees can set a limit of 56 hours per year.”

“Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) announced Monday that she has signed a bill into law punishing employers that make it easier for their employees to bargain collectively. The law, known as Senate Bill 231, bars companies from receiving state economic incentives if they voluntarily recognize their workers’ unions, rather than forcing them to vote on whether to unionize in secret-ballot elections. Affected companies could lose grants, loans and tax credits starting next year.”

“Today marks the official kickoff of the WNBA basketball season. From pre-season sellouts to record views, the spotlight is on the WNBA. As news outlets buzz with predictions, records, and highlights of the players of the WNBA, the topic of equal pay has also taken center stage. Just weeks after ending her run as a college basketball star, Caitlin Clark is at the center of attention again – and so is her rookie contract. Clark’s contract currently leaves her with a small fraction of the millions her male counterparts have earned despite making history as an NCAA Division I overall top scorer, and being the No.1 overall pick in the WNBA draft.”

“As university encampments have become the center of American popular resistance to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the most powerful voices in the country calling for a cease-fire continue to be labor unions. For many, the logical next step after endorsing a cease-fire would be for unions to take more concrete actions to press this demand. The problem for unions is figuring out how to maximize pressure on the corporate and political classes who enthusiastically (and profitably) support Israel’s apartheid regime and genocide in Gaza, given that US labor law intentionally restricts the ability of unions to use workplace actions for political ends — like striking to stop a war.”

“Before the ink was even dry on President Joe Biden’s executive order on the use of project labor agreements for large federally funded infrastructure projects, some interest groups started crying foul and filing lawsuits. While courts will ultimately adjudicate the legal merits of these claims, the bigger and more important question is what real-world data tells us about project labor agreements. How do PLAs impact projects out in the country, their workers and the construction industry as a whole? New research suggests that they have a positive effect, bringing more cost-saving efficiencies to projects for businesses and the taxpayers who foot the bills while strengthening and diversifying our infrastructure workforce.”

“April 1, 2024, marked the 33rd anniversary of the federal law that permits employers to pay tipped workers a cash wage of just $2.13 per hour, which is $5.12 per hour less than the federal minimum wage for the rest of the workforce. But federal law also mandates that all workers are due the full federal $7.25 minimum wage. So, what gives? The customers do! The two-tiered wage system that exists in the US today was legalized in 1966 when the landmark Roosevelt-era Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) was amended. The 1966 amendment extended labor protections to service workers, but it also allowed for much of the newly covered workforce to be paid a subminimum wage that was originally half of the regular minimum.”

“Hollywood labor groups are seeking answers amid an apparent crackdown by the state of California on the use of so-called loan-out corporations — a long-standing industry practice that helps actors, screenwriters and other entertainment workers organize their employment records and qualify for tax benefits. Over the weekend, Hollywood payroll company Cast & Crew sent a memo to workers alerting them that the California Employment Development Department had said it was reviewing loan-out company activity, spurring swift responses from various organizations advocating for entertainment workers.”

“Today, Center for Labor and a Just Economy (CLJE), Governing for Impact (GFI), and LaborLab issued a report encouraging the Department of Labor (DOL) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to strengthen protections for union organizing from employers’ use of union-avoidance consultants. Anti-union persuasion tactics pose a significant challenge to worker organizing. Employers often hire outside firms – or what the DOL terms “persuader” firms – to design aggressive campaigns to dissuade workers from voting in favor of a union. These firms often encourage employers to adopt highly coercive behavior…CLJE, GFI and Labor Lab’s new report, “Spotlight on Union-Busters: Recommendations to the Department of Labor and Federal Trade Commission,” outlines strategic actions the agencies can take to protect workers’ right to organize and make informed decisions about unionization, free from unduly coercive anti-union behavior.”  

“Companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year hiring professional union-busters to campaign against and defeat union organizing drives. However, only a fraction of this spending is publicly reported because of loopholes and other weaknesses in the law and its enforcement. A new report by the Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) found that the Office of Labor Management Standards (OLMS)—which oversees and enforces the union-buster (persuader) reporting requirements—“did not effectively enforce persuader activity requirements to protect workers’ rights to unionize.” While the report rightfully explains that more work must be done, there are many reasons the current OLMS should be commended for taking meaningful steps toward meeting its responsibility, and the report should be viewed as a roadmap for the agency moving forward.”

“In 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress passed a temporary law that allowed employees, who are disproportionately Black and Latino, to claim up to two weeks of paid sick leave for pandemic-related illness. For the first time, low-wage workers had access to sick leave for themselves or to care for loved ones. Eight years earlier, several states and the District of Columbia had enacted laws requiring employers to allow workers to earn paid sick time. However, the pandemic revealed how much the lack of paid sick days still affected thousands of hourly workers and many states and localities began offering some type of paid time off for illness. But an economic analysis — coupled with the demographics of states that haven’t expanded sick leave to hourly workers — found that swaths of Black workers have to come to work even if they are sick.”

"Public worker and teachers unions argued Tuesday that their lawsuit seeking to strike down a Wisconsin law that drew massive protests and made the state the center of a national fight over union rights should be allowed to proceed, even as the Republican-controlled Legislature sought to have it dismissed. It is the first challenge to the law known as Act 10 since Wisconsin’s Supreme Court flipped to liberal control last year.”

“Care work is the work that makes all other work possible. Whether caring for children, disabled people or the elderly, care workers provide vital services that allow people to enter the labor force while knowing their loved ones are being taken care of. This benefits not only individual families, but our country overall by growing our economy. But we’re based in a paradigm where care is largely treated as an individual responsibility, expecting families or individuals to figure out how to acquire and pay for care on their own.”

“We examine union-non-union differentials in wages and hours in the United States over the last 50 years using data from the Current Population Survey (CPS). The regression-adjusted difference between union members’ and non-members’ hourly earnings has been falling since the Great Recession. The union differential in weekly wages has been more stable. Although it fell by around 5 log points during COVID it remains 15 log points. This weekly earnings differential arises from both a higher hourly wage of around 10 log points and longer working hours (5 log points). The working hours differential partly reflects unions’ ability to tackle under-employment, such that union workers work closer to the hours they desire than their non-union counterparts. The traditional focus on hourly wage differentials underplays the important role trade unions play in maintaining members’ weekly earnings by ensuring workers receive the paid hours they desire.”

“Early one February morning, Chris Pagel, a retired U.S. Army combat engineer and physical education teacher, begins his three-and-a-half drive from Nassau County to the Florida Capitol in Tallahassee. He’s opposing a bill designed to build on S.B. 256 — an anti-union law passed last year that has, so far, already caused more than 50,000 public employees to lose their union representation…More than a decade in the making, S.B. 256 essentially requires unions to have a lot of dues-paying members while simultaneously making it harder for them to do so. While the law bans public sector unions from deducting dues directly from members’ paychecks, it also requires at least 60% of a bargaining unit to pay dues or risk losing their union status.” 

“President Biden has vetoed a Congressional Review Act measure that sought to overturn the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rule preventing corporations from hiding behind a subcontractor or staffing agency when workers want to collectively bargain. The NLRB’s joint employer rule expands bargaining obligations and liability for labor violations for employers that have power over working conditions, even if workers are hired through a third party or by franchisees of a larger franchise.”

“With another scorching summer on the horizon — and states either trying and failing to pass heat protections for workers or outright banning them — the Biden Administration is reportedly looking to establish federal rules to protect people from extreme temperatures at both outdoor and indoor jobs. According to The New York Times, a proposed change to Occupational Safety and Health Act rules could help keep up to 50 million workers  — many of whom are Black and Latinx —.safer on the job. Those two demographic groups comprise 45 percent of the outdoor workforce in particular, while the boom in warehouse jobs and other indoor logistics positions for online retailers like Amazon have hired heavily from Black communities. According to its own data, more than  a quarter of Amazon’s overall workforce in 2022 was Black, for example, yet just shy of 9 percent of its white-collar workforce  the same year was Black.”

“Employers are hiring at exactly the same rate as they were in March, 3.6%. That’s down a touch from this time last year, according to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for April that was released Tuesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The layoffs and quits rates remained the same month over month too, and were also down a tick from last April. This steadiness comes after a couple years where employers ingested a large number of workers, and it could be a sign they’re returning to a more regular diet.”  

“When it comes to labor relations in the private sector, Congress long ago enacted the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which declares “the policy of the United States to … encourage[e] the practice and procedure of collective bargaining.” So, why was it okay for six Southern Governors to issue a statement threatening auto workers that unionizing would put their jobs in jeopardy – the kind of statement that would clearly be illegal if made directly by an employer? For years, states across the South have been trying to lure businesses to locate there by referring to themselves by the misleading term “right-to-work” states. These so-called “right-to-work” laws, which now exist in twenty-six states, prohibit unions and employers from entering into agreements that require workers represented by unions from paying fair share fees to cover the cost of representation. The laws by themselves do not make it harder to organize, and the workers in these states enjoy the same federally protected right to organize and bargain collectively as workers in other states. Nevertheless, Southern politicians have long pointed to these laws as a signal that unions are not welcome in their State.”

“Morale and staffing at a Commerce Department agency focused on local economic development are in dire straits over telework policies and recent layoffs, which have strained a workforce that is already challenged by calls from Congress to return to offices, according to a federal union.The union, representing workers at the Economic Development Administration, sent a letter to Assistant Secretary Alejandra Castillo on May 28 calling attention to the “rapidly deteriorating” relationship between officials and agency employees who have alleged that any further return-to-work plans will exacerbate turnover and understaffing. In general, workers report onsite twice per biweekly pay period.”

“A union representing thousands of Environmental Protection Agency workers raised alarm Tuesday over former President Donald Trump's pledge to slash key federal climate departments if he's reelected in November and condemned his attempt to downplay concerns about the planetary emergency, which is fueling destructive extreme weather and pushing global temperatures to record highs. ‘Donald Trump has made it clear that a second Trump term would look worse than his first—with broader attacks on science and the environment driving the day,’ Marie Owens Powell, president of American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Council 238, said in a statement.”

“Outdoor and farmworker advocates continue the call for federal labor protections against extreme weather as parts of the U.S. brace for a ‘dangerous’ and early heatwave.Global warming trends are expected to continue as the impacts of climate change become more pronounced, with scorching temperatures expected as summer approaches. Only a few states like California, Oregon, Minnesota and Washington have mandated heat safety measures, according to the United Farm Workers (UFW).”

“Illinois union leaders are celebrating the passage of legislation that will stop employers from requiring employees to attend sponsored captive audience meetings on religious or political matters. The Worker Freedom of Speech Act bars employers from penalizing employees who do not attend meetings that express the employer’s opinions on religious or political matters. Illinois Senate Bill 3649 was backed by the Illinois AFL-CIO, Illinois Federation of Teachers and at least 30 other Illinois Labor groups. Illinois AFL-CIO President Tim Drea said the potentially uncomfortable meetings force workers to be a ‘captive audience’ for their employers’ beliefs.”

“A group of current and former employees from leading AI companies like OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Anthropic has signed an open letter asking for greater transparency and protection from retaliation for those who speak out about the potential concerns of AI. ‘So long as there is no effective government oversight of these corporations, current and former employees are among the few people who can hold them accountable to the public,’ the letter, which was published on Tuesday, says. ‘Yet broad confidentiality agreements block us from voicing our concerns, except to the very companies that may be failing to address these issues.’”

“In this blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by two labor journalists to discuss some of the most important stories that affect workers, worker power, collective action, and unions in our country.”

“A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday tossed out a judge's order that required Amazon.com (AMZN.O) to refrain from firing union supporters amid a nationwide organizing campaign at its warehouses. A three-judge panel of the Manhattan-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the judge who issued the order last year at the request of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) failed to explain why such a sweeping mandate was necessary. The labor board sought the order after Amazon in 2020 fired Gerald Bryson, a union organizer at a warehouse in Staten Island, for making profane comments to a coworker during a protest over an alleged lack of safety measures during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

“The U.S. economy is kind of a strange beast. It’s a mix of free market, government regulation, individual entrepreneurship, and corporate governance that has evolved and grown over the last 240 years. And while there are plenty of benefits to that system, it hasn’t worked for everyone. In his latest book, ‘What Went Wrong with Capitalism,’ author Ruchir Sharma, who is also the chairman of Rockefeller International, attempts to look at who’s getting left out of American capitalism and why. The following is an excerpt from Sharma’s book, looking at how the government’s relationship to corporate bailouts has evolved over the last century.”

“Anti-worker bills were moving fast in the Louisiana State Legislature, but AFSCME Council 17 members moved faster. Throughout Louisiana’s legislative session that ended on Monday, public service workers stood strong against bills that would have gutted their freedoms at work. Workers defeated the following anti-worker bills that Louisiana lawmakers introduced in the state House and Senate during the 2024 session:”

“In this breaking news blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Aviva Aron-Dine, Acting Assistant Secretary on Tax Policy in the Treasury Department, and Alex Jacquez, Special Assistant to the President for Economic Development and Industrial Strategy, to discuss how the Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service's new regulation implementing two labor provisions requiring prevailing wages and apprenticeship programs in President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act will impact worker power. Watch now for an expert breakdown of the new regulations, including the importance of requiring a prevailing wage, why expanding apprenticeship programs will help to build unions, and how these regulations will expand the use of project labor agreements.”

“Strictly from a numbers perspective, the UAW’s defeat at Alabama’s Mercedes plants in mid-May should have been unexpected. When the UAW petitioned the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or Board) in early April requesting an election, a supermajority of Mercedes workers said they wanted a union. Yet, by the time the NLRB conducted the election just six weeks later, things had changed drastically. Fifty-six percent of those same workers voted against unionizing. For the time being, the Alabama Mercedes plants will remain the only nonunion Mercedes plants in the entire world. Unfortunately, the result in Alabama is not an anomaly. It seems like what happened at Mercedes—that so many workers could change their minds so quickly – should be extraordinary, but it is not. Far too many union representation elections are lost in exactly the way Mercedes was lost.”

“On Thursday, the Supreme Court handed down a decision in a case involving Starbucks and its union, seeing all justices side with the company against workers. The decision will make it easier for employers to get away with firing workers for unionizing.”

“Donald Trump has been making a big promise to the nation’s service workers at his recent campaign rallies: If they send him back to the White House for another term, he’ll see to it that restaurant servers and other tipped workers no longer pay taxes on their gratuities. ‘No more taxes on tips,’ the former president declared in Detroit on Saturday, reiterating a pledge he first made in Nevada earlier this month.”

“California’s largest business and labor groups agreed to change a landmark law that has helped workers sue companies such as Walmart Inc., Uber Technologies Inc. and Google for workplace violations. The deal caps years of efforts by the state’s employers to rein in the Private Attorneys General Act, which they blame for mounting lawsuits that according to one study have cost businesses $10 billion during the past decade. Advocates say the law, known as PAGA, is a model of worker protection that has given employees a measure of recourse against powerful companies.”

“As autoworkers, baristas, package carriers, Hollywood writers and actors, and thousands of other workers fight for and win new unions and new union contracts, Biden administration appointees to the nation’s front-line labor law enforcement agency—the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)—are helping prevent anti-union employers from undermining worker organizing. Workers in the United States face an uphill battle in their fight to unionize and bargain, as broken federal labor laws and rampant lawbreaking undermine their efforts, but workers today are organizing and winning union elections at a growing rate.New analysis from the Center for American Progress shows that the NLRB is helping ensure that workers can exercise their legal right to come together in unions, with more workers winning their elections and more workers getting help to get back on the job when fired illegally for protected organizing activity. However, these gains are under threat from The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025—a playbook with strategies for eroding checks and balances across the government that offers instructions for gutting the NLRB’s enforcement capacity. This would threaten workers’ ability to come together in unions to bargain for better wages and working conditions.”

“This week, the NLRB handed down its first Cemex order against Station Casinos in Las Vegas, which engaged in heavy-handed union busting before workers lost a vote to unionize. The ruling may force the casino chain to bargain with the union anyway.”

“If you’re dreading summer on the job this year, you’re not alone. Every month last summer was the most scorching on world record. Trapped under heat domes, dozens of metro areas busted their longest streaks ever of highs over 100 degrees. Phoenix afternoons were over 110 for a month straight. On asphalt yards nearly hot enough to melt, bonus-hungry managers forced workers to keep up the usual pace. The results were lethal.”

“A new federal rule finalized Monday will give firefighters and other first responders critical information about the hazardous materials being transported through their communities. The Department of Transportation Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) rule requires railroads to transmit information to first responders regarding any hazardous materials on board as soon as they become aware of an accident.”

“On June 18, 2024, California Governor Gavin Newsom, Senate President pro Tempore Mike McGuire and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas announced a tentative deal to reform a number of aspects of California’s Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA). While legislation is yet to be introduced, the publicly announced key components of PAGA reform include an increase in employees’ share of PAGA penalties, caps on penalties for employers who take steps to comply with the Labor Code or fix potential issues after receiving notice of a PAGA claim, and requiring the representative plaintiff to experience every alleged PAGA violation to have standing. This reform, if enacted, is likely to curb, but not eliminate PAGA litigation for California employers going forward.”

“Democrats in California have agreed to delay a minimum wage increase for about 426,000 health care workers to help balance the state’s budget. The agreement between Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislative leaders is part of a larger plan to close an estimated $46.8 billion shortfall — the second year in a row the nation’s most populous state has had a multibillion-dollar deficit. Health care workers were supposed to get a raise July 1, part of a plan to gradually increase their pay to $25 per hour over the next decade. Now, if approved by the Legislature next week, they could get that raise Oct. 15 — but only if California’s revenues between July and September are at least 3% higher than what officials have estimated.”

“To understand how work is valued in American culture, take a look at workers’ houses. The house, after all, is where recent generations have experienced work’s rewards most vividly—a sense of security, upward mobility, and hard-earned comfort. But amidst today’s affordability crisis, housing is increasingly difficult to find and a source of anxiety for many. I wrote Building a Social Contract to get a longer view of the relationship between work and housing in America.”

“Nearly 50 labor organizations representing a wide range of U.S. workers—from teachers to letter carriers to mine workers—are urging members of Congress this week to oppose Republican efforts to roll back a slew of Biden administration rules aimed at protecting the nation's workforce from abusive employers and unscrupulous Wall Street investors. Led by the AFL-CIO, the country's largest federation of labor unions, the groups sent a letter to lawmakers on Tuesday warning about the GOP's attempted use of the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to overturn pro-worker rules enacted by the Department of Labor and other U.S. agencies.”

“The U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ended its 2023-2024 term with a flurry of massive decisions, and several stand to damage the agencies designed to protect workers. The right-wing rulings are understandably causing anxiety among progressives, including labor activists.”

“Unions are a critical force in American society, ensuring that everyday Americans can earn decent pay and benefits and have a voice in our democracy. Study after study has shown that unions make our economy and democracy stronger by boosting wages for workers, reducing wage inequality, increasing voter turnout for union and nonunion voters alike, and providing a counterbalance to wealthy interest groups. This is part of a historical tradition of unions playing a powerful role for American workers: Unions helped create the 40-hour workweek, child labor laws, and improvements in health insurance. At their height in 1945, unions represented one-third of all U.S. workers. Unfortunately, decades of attacks on unions, weak U.S. labor laws, and a changing economy have caused union membership to steadily decline; in 2023, unions represented just 10 percent of workers. However, in recent years, the popularity and activity of unions has grown to levels not seen in decades, bolstering their ability to deliver on these benefits.”

“Thanks to the activism of UFT members, parents and community groups, the $112.4 billion New York City budget for the 2025 fiscal year restored some, but not all, of the cuts that Mayor Eric Adams made to 3-K and pre-K. The restorations, which were spearheaded by Speaker Adrienne Adams and the rest of the City Council in budget negotiations, include $20 million so that the more than 1,700 children who had been waitlisted for 3-K and pre-K spots this fall will now get seats, according to the mayor. The budget also includes funding for additional seats and services for preschool children with disabilities who were waitlisted, as well as 4,000 seats for free or low-cost child care for up to 10 hours a day year-round for families who qualify.”

“the proposed cuts to the RRB released last week by the U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies for Fiscal Year 2025 steals from railroaders. These reductions do not save “John Q. Taxpayer” any money. This is RRB Trust Fund money tethered to the federal government’s oversight.”

“On July 3, District Judge Ada Brown of the Northern District of Texas issued an order enjoining the Federal Trade Commission (‘FTC’) from enforcing its ‘Final Rule’ against plaintiffs Ryan, LLC (‘Ryan’) and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (the ‘Chamber’). If implemented, the Final Rule would effectively render nearly all non-compete agreements unlawful. Accordingly, this opinion was one of the most highly anticipated judicial decisions in antitrust and labor and employment law in recent memory.”

“Louisiana’s government made headlines in recent weeks for passing a slate of right-wing policies that range from requiring the Ten Commandments be displayed in every classroom to eliminating lunch breaks for young workers. Other priorities, like banning collective bargaining for most public sector workers, didn’t pass this time around but may come back to haunt working people soon enough….Despite some of the least favorable conditions for labor in the country, workers here have been organizing — and making gains. The most recent victory came from Tulane’s non-tenured faculty, and workers have been pushing for union rights and safer, better conditions in workplaces from hospitals to dollar stores. And now workers in New Orleans, organizing with Step Up Louisiana, are campaigning for a Workers’ Bill of Rights in the city, an initiative which will be on the ballot in November.”

“The Texas Supreme Court upheld Austin, TX Local 975’s union business leave provision, protecting members’ rights and setting a strong precedent for IAFF affiliates nationwide. The case, brought forward by taxpayers funded by the Goldwater Institute, challenged the union business leave provisions in Local 975’s CBA, arguing it violates the Texas Constitution’s ‘gift clause.’ However, in a 6-3 ruling, the Texas Supreme Court upheld the provision, recognizing its critical role in promoting fair labor practices and ensuring fire fighter safety.”

“In this edition of The Power Hour, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Risa Lieberwitz, a Professor of Labor and Employment Law in the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR); and Diana Reddy, an Assistant Professor in UC Berkeley's School of Law; to discuss changes and infringement's on democracy taking place in labor unions, universities in the U.S., recent Supreme Court decisions, and more.”

“In the early months of 2020, queer Starbucks baristas brewed a plan to challenge their low wages and workplace discrimination. I first learned about the campaign while attending a national LGBTQ+ advocacy meeting where a group of these workers previewed their organizing agenda. Sitting in a dim hotel conference room, I listened to the baristas share their experiences, which mixed episodes of humiliation and financial hardship—a trans worker’s “dead name” (pre-transition name) that reappeared on each week’s work calendar; a work calendar that never listed one worker’s name (dead or chosen) enough times to keep their name on an apartment lease. Many of the workers shared their disillusionment with a company that had portrayed itself as corporate America’s trans rights vanguardist. In fact, Starbucks had just released its #whatsyourname advertising campaign, which featured trans and gender-diverse customers asking to have their chosen names scribbled onto coffee cups."

“Things have been looking up for the labor movement these days. More workers are trying to unionize their workplaces. Employees have been going on strike in numbers not seen in years. And unions have been notching some major organizing breakthroughs, including in the anti-union South. So what could undermine this hopeful moment for organized labor as it tries to rebuild after decades of decline? Another Donald Trump presidency. As a protectionist, Trump could end up pursuing trade policies that benefit certain unions and their members. His running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, has at least visited a picket line in his short Senate career. And Teamsters President Sean O’Brien, who addressed the Republican National Convention on Monday night, seems to think Trump is open to hearing ideas from labor leaders like himself. But anyone who thinks Trump wouldn’t be hostile to unions should review the actions of his first stint in the White House.”

“It’s not every day that you see a teamster walk a tightrope, but on Monday night, Sean O’Brien, president of the mighty Teamsters union, was doing just that at the Republican National Convention. On one hand, O’Brien was seeking to cozy up to Donald Trump, eager to stay on his good side in case he wins the presidency in November. But on the other hand, O’Brien gave a speech that was no doubt anathema to many Republican bigwigs and business donors: He said that far too many greedy corporations exploit their workers and that America’s laws make it far too difficult for workers to unionize and get contracts that lift their pay and benefits.”

“In an executive action announced July 1, President Joe Biden extended overtime protections to one million workers and has pledged to continue to further expand the safeguards if reelected. The new overtime protections stem from a rule finalized in April in a section of the Fair Labor Standards Act based on an updated Department of Labor (DOL) calculation. Now, workers making less than $43,888 a year are eligible for extra pay when they work long hours, putting more money in their pockets.”

“Earlier this month, the Biden administration announced a new rule that, if finalized, would become the first federal regulation specifically designed to protect workers from extreme heat both indoors and outdoors. It would trigger requirements for access to drinking water and rest breaks when the heat index reaches 80 degrees Fahrenheit. At 90 degrees, it would mandate 15-minute breaks every two hours and require employers to monitor for signs of heat illness.”

“In this blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Jody Calemine, director of advocacy at the AFL-CIO, and Karla Walter, director of the American Worker Project at the Center for American Progress, to discuss Project 2025's labor proposals. Watch now to hear about how the proposal would affect American workers, unions, and the labor movement if President Trump is re-elected in 2024.”

“I will admit to feeling a profound sense of sadness when President Biden announced he would end his re-election campaign. I had the privilege of working with Biden in two administrations. Everything I saw confirmed that he is a good man. He could be tough, but always with the purpose of accomplishing an important goal. After administering a tongue-lashing to me in an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act implementation meeting with my deputy-secretary peers, Biden walked over to me and offered an encouraging word and a “we need to get this done” command. I have a picture of that encounter hanging in my home office.”

“Today marks the 15-year anniversary of the last increase to the federal minimum wage in 2009, when it rose from $6.55 to $7.25 per hour. Since then, the minimum wage’s purchasing power has only declined as price levels have risen over time. As of 2024, the minimum wage is worth nearly 30 percent less than it was 15 years ago and nearly 40 percent less than its peak value in 1968. This has gone on for so long that the value of a full-time job paying $7.25 per hour is no longer enough to comfortably surpass the extremely low bar of keeping someone out of poverty, as defined by the already outdated and insufficient federal poverty guideline….November 2024’s election will provide even more opportunities for progress, as Arizona, Alaska, and Oklahoma will all likely have questions on the ballot on whether or not their state minimum wages should increase. Voters in these states should take advantage of this chance to give workers a much-needed raise.”

“The IAFF has secured over $1 million in damages to members wrongly denied overtime payments by their municipalities. ‘These outcomes highlight the IAFF’s commitment and care to defending fair labor practices and protecting its members’ rights,’ said IAFF General Counsel Peter Leff.”

“Three years ago, the Supreme Court decided Cedar Point Nursery and held that a California regulation granting union organizers limited access to farm owner property constitutes a taking. As a result, in order for California to continue enforcing this Agricultural Labor Relations Act (ALRA) regulation and guaranteeing union organizers access to farm property, the state must now compensate farm owners for that access. In other writing, one of us has argued that Cedar Point was wrongly decided on its own terms. Other commentators have discussed what compensation is due to the farm owners for the grant of access rights required by the regulation: Lee Anne Fennell suggests it could be less than five dollars per grower annually, while Niko Bowie contends it could be much higher, reflecting the potential decrease in profits that might follow a successful union campaign.”

“A federal judge has rejected a tree-trimming company’s bid to block the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) ban on noncompete agreements from taking effect. The FTC issued a rule in April that would ban all new noncompete agreements and require companies to let current and past employees know they won’t enforce existing agreements, carving out an exception for senior executives covered by existing noncompetes. Around 18 percent of the U.S. workforce, or 30 million people, are covered by noncompete agreements, according to FTC estimates. The agreements span experience and industries, from fast food workers to physical therapists to CEOs.”

“On July 9, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit told the National Labor Relations Board’s to reconsider the standard for whether abusive or inappropriate speech is protected under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act. In so doing, the Fifth Circuit vacated the National Labor Relations Board’s decision in Lion Elastomers, LLC (Lion II), 372 NLRB No. 83 (2023), and reinstated the standard in General Motors, LLC (GM), 369 NLRB No. 127 (2020).”

“Unions are a critical force in American society, ensuring that everyday Americans can earn decent pay and benefits and have a voice in our democracy. Study after study has shown that unions make our economy and democracy stronger by boosting wages for workers, reducing wage inequality, increasing voter turnout for union and nonunion voters alike, and providing a counterbalance to wealthy interest groups. This is part of a historical tradition of unions playing a powerful role for American workers: Unions helped create the 40-hour workweek, child labor laws, and improvements in health insurance. At their height in 1945, unions represented one-third of all U.S. workers.”

“A growing number of states are moving to bar employers from holding mandatory anti-union meetings at work, a move labor advocates hope will give employees more confidence to vote ‘union yes.’ Illinois is poised to become the eighth state to enact such a ban after the legislature passed a bill outlawing employers from holding mandatory meetings of a political or religious nature. Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker plans to sign the legislation by the end of this month, a spokesperson told HuffPost. That would add Illinois to a list that already includes Connecticut, Maine, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, New Jersey and Washington. Meanwhile, at least another 10 states are considering passing similar legislation, potentially covering more than 60 million workers around the country, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.”

“Noncompete agreements are clauses in employment contracts that prevent workers from going to work for, or starting, a competing business within a certain period of time after leaving a job. Under the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC’s) noncompete ban, employers will be barred from asking any new workers to sign noncompetes, and existing noncompetes would be made unenforceable for the vast majority of workers. Today I will highlight the importance of the rule by discussing the ubiquity of noncompete agreements and describing the effects these agreements have on wages, business formation, economic dynamism, labor mobility, productivity, innovation, and prices. I will also discuss options firms have to protect trade secrets without noncompetes, and the FTC’s authority to ban noncompetes.”

“In a ruling published Tuesday, Judge Alan Albright of the Western District of Texas endorsed SpaceX’s theory that removal protections for NLRB members and the agency’s administrative law judges violate the Constitution. Albright granted a preliminary injunction earlier this month to halt unfair labor practice proceedings against the company, and Tuesday’s order provides the reasoning for the injunction, arguing that SpaceX is likely to succeed on both of its removal claims.”

“A federal judge has rejected much of a lawsuit challenging restrictions that Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature placed on public-employee unions — but a fight will continue about a ban on deducting union dues from workers’ paychecks. Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker last week issued an 80-page decision that largely sided with the state Public Employees Relations Commission, which is in charge of carrying out the controversial restrictions. The Republican-controlled Legislature and DeSantis approved the restrictions in 2023 and made revisions this year.”

“Illinois has become the latest state to adopt legislation aimed at protecting workers from their employers' anti-union messaging. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, signed the bill into law on Wednesday, joining a wave of other states that have enacted similar laws over the past couple years as union organizing has surged.”

“The U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ended its 2023-2024 term with a flurry of massive decisions, and several stand to damage the agencies designed to protect workers. The right-wing rulings are understandably causing anxiety among progressives, including labor activists.”

“On July 27th, 2022, Vail Kohnert-Young stood up at the 38th United Auto Workers (UAW) Convention and nominated Shawn Fain for President of the UAW. Vail hadn’t planned to be the nominator, but the assigned delegate got cold feet in the tension-filled room. Vail came into the union as a Harvard Law student who helped unionize graduate student workers at the storied Ivy League institution with UAW, an industrial-based union that in recent years has seen militant graduate students join in droves. Unhappy with decades of decline, could this once powerful union regain the fighting spirit and channel their legacy, which includes the Flint Sit Down strike in 1938 and having unionized some of the largest firms in the world?”

“Less than one year after Florida’s sweeping anti-union law fully took effect, all eight adjunct faculty unions at public colleges and universities in Florida have officially been decertified, according to state records, affecting roughly 8,400 adjunct professors altogether. The new law, described by critics as “union busting,” was over a decade in the making, and has already caused tens of thousands of public employees to lose their union representation and union contracts. The adjunct faculty unions, all represented by the faculty arm of the Service Employees International Union, were formally decertified in late July.”

“The effort to bring back manufacturing jobs has been a major theme in the 2024 election. Both parties say they consider this a high priority for the next administration. However, there is a notable difference in that the Biden-Harris administration has actively supported an increase in unionization, while the Republicans have indicated, at best, neutrality if not outright hostility towards unions. This distinction is important in the context of manufacturing jobs. Many people seem to assume that manufacturing jobs are automatically good jobs, paying more than non manufacturing jobs.”

“In this blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Susan Valentine, the National Political Director of UNITE HERE!, Russ Breckenridge, the Director of Legislative and Political Affairs at the United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters (UA), and Katrina Mendiola, the National Political Director of the National Education Association (NEA). Watch now to hear their perspectives on the upcoming Presidential election. Also hear their expectations for Senate, House of Representatives, and gubernatorial elections in relation to the predictions of the respondents of Power At Work's Q3 Labor Issues Survey.”

“Power At Work asked labor insiders and knowledgeable outsiders to predict how union members would vote in the 2024 elections and the outcomes of those elections. They told us, and some of their answers delivered real surprises. Our respondents showed a shocking level of enthusiasm for Vice President Kamala Harris’s young campaign for president, and for the idea that union members would support Harris when casting their votes. These labor insiders and knowledgeable outsiders showed a little more equanimity when assessing this year’s congressional and gubernatorial elections.”

“Joe Biden’s presidency has seen a flurry of labor actions from Detroit to Hollywood. What comes next could hinge on who gets to oversee labor relations after the election. The National Labor Relations Board — which polices unfair labor practices and mediates worker-management disputes — has become an aggressive union booster under Biden. While the agency’s policies typically shift depending on who’s in the White House, the change has been pronounced, labor experts and former NLRB staffers say….But the NLRB’s recent efforts haven’t always succeeded, and emerging court battles will affect whether its more muscular approach — whether on behalf of workers or employers — can continue, as former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris vie for union votes.”

“Unions are lining up behind Vice President Kamala Harris following her endorsement from the AFL-CIO as she seeks the Democratic nomination for president. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT), representing 1.8 million members, was the first to endorse Harris on July 22, the same day the AFL-CIO announced its endorsement.”

“The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) has changed the game for clean energy in Wisconsin. The IRA’s labor standards include important prevailing wage, workforce development, and apprenticeship provisions to ensure that a larger, more diverse pool of skilled laborers has access to good jobs and that the workforce has the skills necessary to meet clean energy goals. Renewable energy projects in Wisconsin—which are either under construction, under regulatory review, or announced—could help create at least 18,000 well-paying jobs in the next five to six years.”

“In recent weeks, two different Trump-appointed federal judges have issued injunctions to stop the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from conducting routine hearings against employers based on the absurd claim that the 90 year-old National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) is unconstitutional.  This is a five-alarm fire and yet these outrageous power grabs have largely been met with a collective shrug.”

“It’s been two years since members of Congress passed the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act. This industrial investment is one of the Biden-Harris Administration’s landmark achievements. But with the due diligence phase underway, it’s clear that this administration should do more to ensure that its goals to “create good-paying jobs, make more in the United States, and revitalize communities left behind” are met through CHIPS Act investment. The Commerce Department has announced over $30 billion in public subsidies and $25.3 billion in loans to fourteen multinational companies across twenty-four sites in fourteen states. U.S.-based Intel and Micron, South Korea’s Samsung, and Taiwan’s TSMC are among the corporate welfare beneficiaries.”

“Part 1 of our analysis of the results of Power At Work’s Quarterly Labor Issues Survey (Q3 2024) analyzed labor insiders’ and knowledgeable outsiders’ predictions of how union members would vote in the 2024 elections and the outcomes of those elections. In Part 2, this post will discuss our respondents’ assessments of events that strengthened and weakened worker power during the first half of 2024.”

“Towering cranes pierce the sky, contrasting with the rural surroundings. It’s an early morning in June, the air already gauzy and thick, and construction is humming at the Toyota Battery mega-site in Liberty, North Carolina. Trucks and other heavy machines dart in and out of the complex. A line of food trucks is tucked around the corner, alongside a dozen tour buses used to move workers.”

“Labor unions are among Kamala Harris’ most fervent backers in her run for president, and federal employee unions especially so. Not only do they love her unabashed support for labor, they also fear what her opponent Donald Trump might do if he’s elected president again. It’s not hyperbole to say that since becoming vice president, Harris has played a key role in bringing federal employee unions back from the brink.”

“State lawmakers, responding to a report that the agency charged with ensuring worker safety in California has sharply cut back on enforcement of outdoor heat-protection laws, said new legislation is needed to protect employees amid escalating periods of extreme heat. Their comments addressed an investigation by Capital & Main that found that field inspections by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, known as Cal/OSHA, dropped by nearly 30% between 2017 and 2023. The number of violations issued to employers during that period fell by more than 40%.”

“The Occupational Safety and Health Administration was created over 50 years ago to ensure safe workplaces for American workers. But American workers continue to get injured, sick, and killed in the workplace: sweltering under record-breaking heat, crushed in trenches, falling off of buildings, ground up in machinery, assaulted by patients, and sickened by chemicals. The OSHA law permits states to have their own OSHA programs covering all workers. These programs must be ‘at least as effective’ as federal OSHA, but they can also be more effective than the federal program. So it’s a breath of fresh air that some of the 21 full OSHA state programs are seeking to break out of the straitjackets imposed by paltry budgets, aging laws, and unrelenting political and legal assaults, by implementing innovative policies to protect workers.”

“A federal judge in Texas has blocked the Federal Trade Commission from moving forward with its ban on noncompete agreements, jeopardizing a major reform pursued by President Joe Biden. U.S. District Judge Ada E. Brown of the Northern District of Texas issued the nationwide order on Tuesday, just two weeks before the rule was slated to go into effect. Brown, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, ruled that the FTC does not have the power to pursue such a broad ban and called it ‘arbitrary and capricious.’ Employers use noncompete agreements to prevent workers from taking jobs with competing firms. Once the domain of higher-paid, executive-level positions, the agreements are now found throughout the economy, including in low-wage sectors.”

“Michael Rubke, a desk attendant at La Rive condo complex in Minneapolis, is fighting for a union against a behemoth building management company, FirstService Residential of Minnesota, that has a near-monopoly on high-rise condos in the Twin Cities. It’s been a difficult battle so far. The unionization campaign is “at square one,” the 41-year-old explained over the phone after working an overnight shift. “They’re pretending we’re not there.””

“In this blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Claudia Navarro, the Co-Executive Director of WeCount!, and Rebecca Reindel, the Safety and Health Director at the AFL-CIO. Watch now to learn about the current state of working in the heat in both Florida and the country as a whole. Also learn about OSHA's proposed heat standard, and how it would help the millions of workers working in extreme heat every day in the United States.”

“Dina Velasquez Escalante is a poultry worker in southwest Minnesota. She spends her workdays inspecting the chicken millions of Americans eat every day. She looks for tumors, stray bones and organs, and removes bile. After six years of hard work and cultivating expertise on almost every position on the line, she’s now in the laboratory testing samples of poultry to ensure the highest quality.”

“The stereotype is that Americans live to work. One description written for foreign visitors explains that Americans are “known as ‘workaholics,’ or people who are addicted to their work, who think constantly about their jobs and who are frustrated if they are kept away from them, even during their evening hours and weekends.” This myth, based on a minority of Americans, may help to explain why the US is the only wealthy country in the world without federally mandated vacation pay or holiday pay, along with weak overtime protections. Nevertheless, the entrenched image of the workaholic American is wrong. Most workers want more free time.”

“Joe Biden likes to think of himself as the “most pro-union president” in U.S. history. As his time in the White House winds down and his legacy begins to take shape, there’s no doubt that he has a strong case to make for himself. Biden, sometimes called Union Joe, has spoken unabashedly about the value of collective bargaining throughout his one term as president. He’s stacked labor agencies with pro-union appointees who are making it easier for workers to organize. He’s openly scolded employers for trying to prevent their workers from forming unions. And he’s even stood alongside striking autoworkers on a picket line — a first for a sitting president.”

“The most surprising moment of this year’s Republican National Convention may have come on its first night, when the president of the Teamsters railed in prime time against corporate elites and denounced a “war against labor” by business groups. The gasps from some in the hall were almost audible on television.”

“With public support for labor on the rise, unions are taking more prominent roles in politics, including key speaking slots at last month's Democratic National Convention.”

“The rise of Uber and Lyft to ubiquity over the last decade has been astonishing — over 3 billion trips were taken using the platforms in 2023. Throughout that meteoric expansion to nearly every inch of the globe, the companies have waved away concerns that the drivers keeping the platforms going are being underpaid for their labor.  Anecdotal cases of drivers working grueling hours for a pittance abound, but Uber and Lyft have been able to shrug them off through a combination of industry-funded studies and wage secrecy. However, a few independent analyses have managed to puncture the narrative that the gig economy pays well. A new study from the U.C. Berkeley Labor Center is one of the strongest examples of that so far. Researchers analyzed 52,370 trips by 1,088 drivers on six rideshare and delivery apps across five major metro areas and found that they earned well below the minimum wage in all five.”

“State and local governments are facing acute and growing staffing shortages as public-sector pay lags farther behind the pay of private-sector workers. Moreover, the public-sector pay gap disproportionately affects women and Black workers, who are more likely to be employed in public-sector jobs and who are disadvantaged in the broader labor market. Strengthening collective bargaining rights for government workers would narrow the pay gap and reduce racial and gender inequality.”

“In the labor movement, we honor and learn from our past and fight for our future. Today, 17,000 CWA members who work at AT&T Southeast are in a fight. They are on strike because AT&T is not bargaining in good faith. When CWA’s Executive Board authorized this strike, we knew that our members would remain strong, and they have. They are standing strong on the picket line because they know that prior generations of CWA members fought for what we have today. They have our union’s full support, including financial support from our Members’ Relief Fund.”

“Policymakers in most states across the South uphold the Southern economic development model, which is characterized by low wages for workers; few regulations on businesses; low or no corporate taxes; and strong opposition to unions (Childers 2023; 2024a). Political leaders across the region advertise these exploitative, low-road policies as “business friendly,” and offer corporations massive subsidies to lure them into the South (AFL-CIO 2019; Erickson and Herbert 2023; Wakely, Anderson, and Freyer 2023; Whiton and LeRoy 2023).”

“...Today, CLJE:Lab is thrilled to share the culmination of our exploration with the launch of Building Worker Power in Cities and States: A Toolkit for State and Local Labor Policy Innovation. This toolkit is intended to serve as an accessible resource for policymakers, advocates, and others interested in exploring the possibilities for protecting workers’ rights at the state and local levels. In compiling and analyzing pro-worker policies that states and cities have enacted – or attempted to enact – we sought to map the contours of labor law preemption and identify promising areas for further innovation.”

“Donald Trump’s running mate didn’t receive the warmest of welcomes at a firefighters union conference in Boston on Thursday. Ohio Sen. JD Vance could clearly hear the boos when he took the stage in front of the International Association of Fire Fighters, a union both Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are courting for an endorsement…Vance has been described as a new breed of ostensibly pro-labor Republican, but it was clear many of the firefighters in attendance weren’t buying it. Trump was vehemently anti-union throughout his first term, stacking agencies with appointees hostile to labor and trying to break federal employee unions. That record has left Vance with a difficult rebranding assignment.”

“As the last Chevrolet Cruze rolled off the line at the General Motors (GM) plant in Lordstown, Ohio, in March 2019, the workers there had no idea what would be next for them. Their plant was “unallocated,” a new term to just about everyone I spoke with at the time.”

“The material changes ushered in under the aegis of artificial intelligence (AI) are not leading to the abolition of human labor but rather its degradation. This is typical of the history of mechanization since the dawn of the industrial revolution. Instead of relieving people of work, employers have deployed technology—even the mere idea of technology—to turn relatively good jobs into bad jobs by breaking up craft work into semi-skilled labor and by obscuring the labor of human beings behind a technological apparatus so that it can be had more cheaply. Employers invoke the term AI to tell a story in which technological progress, union busting, and labor degradation are synonymous. However, this degradation is not a quality of the technology itself but rather of the relationship between capital and labor. The current discussion around AI and the future of work is the latest development in a longer history of employers seeking to undermine worker power by  claiming that human labor is losing its value and that technological progress, rather than human agents, are responsible.”

“On July 22, the day after President Biden announced he wouldn’t seek reelection, members of Carpenters Local 971 filed into their union hall in Reno, Nevada, for their monthly meeting. During a break, Adrian Davis, a self-described “political nerd” and union member of five years, asked a fellow carpenter for his thoughts on Kamala Harris. The carpenter shook his head, saying he planned on voting for Donald Trump, as he had in the past. Incredulous, Davis rattled off a list of legislation Joe Biden had signed: the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS and Science Act. Just north of town, Carpenters union members were expanding U.S. Highway 395. Out east, in the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center, they were building a massive battery recycling plant. And just weeks before, the Biden-Harris administration had selected the area as one of 12 regional tech hubs to receive a second round of funding from the federal government, along with hubs in Wisconsin, New York, Georgia and Florida. The new funding, of $21 million, will support workforce development in Northern Nevada’s burgeoning lithium industry, in what promises to be a boon for local construction unions.”

“On a sunny August morning in this agricultural town, before temperatures soared to 103 degrees, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra stood outside the small public library. He came to talk about the Biden administration’s efforts to protect farmworkers from extreme heat and wildfire smoke, two emerging public health issues at the forefront of the climate crisis. “There are still not enough protections for workers that are picking the food that we eat,” Becerra told a group of local reporters and government officials, who outnumbered the farmworkers in the audience.”

“Today, the UAW released a new political video highlighting the corporate greed and price gouging behind the surging cost of basic needs. As part of the Stand Up movement, the union is activating tens of thousands of its members in Michigan and other key battleground states to turn out the vote for endorsed candidates in 2024 including the Harris-Walz presidential ticket.”

“As it happens, the decision to side with labor in this case is not just good coalitional politics; it’s also good policy. As finance has become ever more detached from the real economy and the fate of any given town or nation, labor unions have started to fill the void. USW’s current contract with US Steel requires ongoing capital investments in domestic facilities, 60 days’ notice for major acquisitions, and “the earliest practicable notification” of buyout offers so that the union can organize a counterbid. In this case, Nippon announced the deal before consulting with the union. This pattern has been ongoing, with the company leaking union communications instead of waiting for their response, and US Steel making pledges via press release rather than enforceable contracts. This month, the union alleged that US Steel’s CEO is attempting to inflate share prices and save his $70 million change-in-control bonus rather than put production on a sustainable footing.”

“The Republicans treated labor strictly as theater. I have confidence that American workers are not going to fall for the Republican pro-labor cosplay that Donald Trump, his running mate Sen. JD Vance and others in their party put on the stage at the RNC. Trump and Vance are confused about how cosplay works. When adults dress up to pretend to be something they’re not, everyone else is in on the joke.  Trump and Vance seem to think, however, that American workers aren’t going to notice their costumes and will go along with being the butt of the Republicans’ joke.”

“In this edition of The Power Hour, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Roberto Corrada from the Denver University Sturm College of Law and Harry Katz from the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations to discuss arbitration, organizing in college athletics, general views on the state of labor and much more.”

“Unionization and an interest in worker power may seem to be far from the minds of younger generations. However, Generation Z — born between 1997 and 2012, with those a part of it ranging from 12 to 27 years old today — has shown record breaking support for unions, signaling what could be a new era for the future of worker power and unions. Members of Gen Z have faced their fair share of struggle. The climate crisis is an ever-present fear. The Covid-19 pandemic affected almost all aspects of their lives. They suffer high rates of poor mental health. However, in the face of all this adversity and more, Gen Zers have used their voices to advocate for issues important to them. It is one of the most progressive generations, and worker power is one of their causes.”

“The Teamsters International, a powerful US transportation workers union that represents over 1.3 million workers, declined to endorse a candidate ahead of November’s presidential election – but released data suggesting most of its members backed Donald Trump over Kamala Harris.”

“The farmworkers scattered. There was a union representative in the workers’ employer-provided housing, on an orchard in upstate New York. Their employer, apple grower Porpiglia Farms, had hired them on H-2A, or temporary labor, visas. That day in August 2023, according to the workers’ union, United Farm Workers, the orchard’s owners burst in. The farmworkers ran or hid in their rooms.”

“In more than three decades as a studio executive and producer, Kevin Misher has worked on some of the most beloved movies in Hollywood, including ‘Rudy,’ ‘Meet the Parents’ and ‘Public Enemies’...But today, even as Mr. Misher continues to produce high-profile movies like ‘Coming 2 America’ and ‘You People,’ as well as television shows, documentaries and podcasts, his company has slimmed down amid the industry’s changing economics. Years often pass between the time producers start a project and the time they are paid. Deals for producers have dried up as studios have sought greater efficiencies. Mr. Misher’s six employees have dwindled to one, along with a partner who earns a portion of his fees.”

“A growing number of liberal states have passed paid sick leave laws in recent years, assuring workers get paid time off to care for themselves or their loved ones when they’re ill. Now some conservative states might be getting in on the act, too. Campaigns in Nebraska, Missouri and Alaska have secured enough signatures to put sick leave measures on their ballots this November. If voters approve them, the laws would let workers start accruing one hour of paid sick time for every 30 they work, capped at 56 hours per year at large employers and 40 at small ones.”

“Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday signed a handful of artificial intelligence-related bills that would give actors more protection over their digital likenesses and fight against the spread of deep fakes in political ads, among other regulations aimed at the fast-rising technology….Two of the laws that Newsom signed would give performers more protections over their digital likeness. One prohibits and penalizes the making and distribution of a deceased person’s digital replica without permission from their estate. The other makes a contract unenforceable if a digital replica of an actor was used when the individual could have performed the work in person or if the contract did not include a reasonably specific description of how the digital replica would be used.”

“For nearly a century, the federal registered apprenticeship system has been transformative for millions of apprentices as a pathway to the middle class. Despite strong evidence that registered apprenticeships provide workers with higher-than-average wages and pathways to good jobs, the far-right authoritarian playbook known as Project 2025 proposes creating a lower-quality parallel program. This would be a fundamental attack on existing, successful registered apprenticeship programs, eliminating the incentives for employers to partner with workers on high-quality training. Specifically, Project 2025 seeks to revive a failed Trump administration proposal called the Industry-Recognized Apprenticeship Program (IRAP), which was quickly reversed by the U.S. Department of Labor in 2021 after President Joe Biden took office. The IRAP model sought to eliminate and weaken quality standards and worker protections for apprenticeship programs, including by assigning oversight authority to third-party industry groups. The end result would have been a system that prioritized corporate interests over workers.”

“Erika Patricia Deluque Barros said she was working in a tomato field in Yolo County when she first started feeling shaky and nauseous. An immigrant from Colombia with little experience working in the fields, she said she didn’t know at the time that the summer heat could make her sick.”

“The new CEO of Starbucks, Brian Niccol, who only came on board weeks ago, says he is open to negotiating with Workers United. The union, which represents more than 10,500 employees, has been pushing for change for nearly three years. “I deeply respect the right of partners to choose, through a fair and democratic process, to be represented by a union,” Niccol wrote on Tuesday in a letter addressed to union members and posted on its website. “If our partners choose to be represented, I am committed to making sure we engage constructively and in good faith with the union and the partners it represents.””

“A wave of local and regional Teamsters union branches in battleground states rushed to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris after the national Teamsters union declared that it would not endorse a presidential candidate for the first time in nearly three decades. Teamsters regional councils — representing hundreds of thousands of members and retirees — in Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and western Pennsylvania — endorsed Harris hours after Teamsters President Sean O’Brien revealed Wednesday that the union would withhold its endorsement, saying, ‘neither major candidate was able to make serious commitments to our union.’ Separately, powerful local Teamsters unions in Philadelphia; New York City; Long Beach, Calif.; and Miami — as well as the union’s National Black Caucus and a group of retirees — have endorsed Harris and urged members to vote for her.”

“AFSCME working and retiree members’ decades of hard work to repeal the Government Pension Offset (GPO) and Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) – laws that have unfairly cut public service workers’ and their spouses’ Social Security benefits – reached a crucial milestone on Thursday. The Social Security Fairness Act (H.R. 82) has received the necessary 218 signatures on a discharge petition, a rare move that jumps the bill forward to a vote on the House floor, bypassing opposition by anti-worker lawmakers, moving one step closer to the bill’s passage. But we must keep the pressure on to ensure no procedural obstacles are thrown in the way of a vote.”

“In this very special blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Bernie Sanders, the senior United States senator from Vermont. Watch now to hear Senator Sanders' opinion on the current status of the labor movement and worker power, along with his views on the Biden administration and a possible Harris administration. Also learn about Sanders’ strategies to improve worker rights and diminish the pay gap in the United States.”

“If you’ve spent time in the Minneapolis labor movement, it’s likely that you’ve run into Steve Share. Equipped with an old-school writing pad and pen, Share covered hundreds of strikes, pickets, and marches in Minneapolis. Now, after a 20-year career, he will be retiring in the new year. Share is the award-winning editor, writer, photographer, and designer of the Minneapolis Labor Review, a publication devoted to covering Minneapolis’ labor unions and workers’ issues in print since 1907, mailed to thousands of union homes across Minnesota. Share will publish his 249th and last edition of the paper at the end of this year.”

“LOS ANGELES:  Two months after the tragic and preventable death of Baltimore sanitation worker Ronald Silver II from exposure to extreme heat, the state of Maryland became the sixth state in the U.S. to enact heat safety protections for workers. Maryland’s statewide heat stress standard, which took effect Monday, September 30, was made significantly stronger during the rulemaking process thanks to timely, effective advocacy from National COSH advisors.”

“In this very special blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Julie Su, the United States Secretary of Labor. Watch now to hear about Su's role as the acting secretary along with her accomplishments in the position. Also learn about Su’s opinions on the current state of labor and her views on the future of worker activism.”

“On September 28, domestic workers in California secured a long-fought victory with the signing of SB 1350, a bill that grants the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) the authority to enforce health and safety regulations in private homes that employ domestic workers.”

“When Vice President Kamala Harris met with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 16, she was hoping to walk away with a major union endorsement. The Democratic nominee offered plenty of reasons why she was better for labor than Donald Trump, but she returned to one issue more than once….In 2021, Democrats attached an expensive pension bailout to the American Rescue Plan, the $1.9 trillion stimulus package they muscled through the Senate on a party-line vote at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. The inclusion of an estimated $74 to $91 billion to shore up troubled multiemployer pension funds was a small legislative miracle for the Teamsters and other unions – and it never would have happened without Harris.”

“We are in a record-breaking moment for clean energy: Companies are investing in clean energy at levels never seen, as well as building more wind and solar projects in the United States than ever before….These are unprecedented opportunities that can lift up workers, families and entire communities, and we need to make sure they reach everyone — especially Black communities and communities of color that have faced a legacy of disinvestment and have been most harmed by polluting industries. While everyone has a role to play in this moment, mayors and community leaders are in a critical position to bring these communities to the forefront of new clean economic opportunities.”

“The Biden-Harris administration’s industrial investments mark a turning point for economic policy that can help the United States regain competitiveness in several emerging sectors and create jobs across the economy. These investments include creating hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs that, at their best, provide routes to the middle class and offer a new generation of American workers decent wages and benefits and the freedom to unionize. Unlike in federally supported construction work, however, the government had little experience in supporting job quality incentives in the manufacturing sector prior to the enactment of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), the CHIPS and Science Act (CHIPS), and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Awarding agencies have had to learn how to incentivize job quality in the three years since the enactment of the first of these laws. While the government has made significant progress in encouraging a job quality race to the top in the sector, federal agencies and pro-worker lawmakers can do more to ensure manufacturing jobs created with government support offer good wages and the chance to join a union and are accessible to workers from all walks of life.”

“When Boston University graduate students went on strike in April, Stan Sclaroff, the university’s dean of arts and sciences, sent faculty an email with suggestions for keeping their classes on track. As Inside Higher Ed reported, the dean’s “creative” solutions included combining discussion sections, alternative assignments, and using ‘generative AI tools like ChatGPT.’ Professors, the dean wrote, could use the technology to ‘give feedback or facilitate ‘discussion’ on readings or assignments.’”

“In this blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Sharon Block, the Executive Director of the Center for Labor and a Just Economy at Harvard Law School, and Bill Samuel, the former director of government affairs at the AFL-CIO. Watch now to see the first ever "buy or sell" episode on Power At Work. Learn if Block, Samuel, and host Harris are "buying" or "selling" certain predictions about the labor movement.”

“This new series, “Students & Solidarity,” is aimed at one of those groups: college students. It will be written by college students, for college students, and presented periodically over the course of the next several months. And it includes links to a long list of Power At Work posts, blogcasts, and podcasts that can provide additional information for those who want to learn more. This is the inaugural article in the “Students & Solidarity” series, which we hope will make unions and the labor movement more understandable and more accessible to a younger audience, although readers of all ages are cordially invited to enjoy these posts, as well. Our experience on our college campus is that unions, although a powerful force in the United States, are often misunderstood by our classmates, or not understood at all. If we do it right, this series of posts will put a small dent in that problem.”

“Perhaps the biggest obstacle to organizing, for workers everywhere, is fear of retaliation. This is an even greater factor when the workers are undocumented immigrants. Not only do you fear being suspended or fired, but the idea of being deported if the employer calls immigration, and being separated from your family, multiplies the fear.”

“Gig and nonstandard workers–those working outside full-time, direct-hire, long-term employment–are among the most excluded group of workers. Black, Brown, queer, disabled, and young workers are more likely to lack access to the benefits and protections of traditional employees. Yet, their experiences are crucial for shaping a more inclusive economy.”

“New waves of workers are standing up and demanding fair treatment on the job — from the fast food workers of the Fight for $15 to the workers at companies like Starbucks, Trader Joe’s, and Volkswagen that are fighting for a union and a fair contract. But as these workers have made significant gains, they’ve simultaneously run into huge barriers: our broken democratic systems. That’s why one of the most important priorities for advancing worker power is democracy reform. In particular, that means reforming the anti-democratic filibuster in the U.S. Senate and ending partisan and racial gerrymandering, which have made state legislatures unresponsive to worker needs.”

“The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) plays a vital role in the United States’ workforce development system, funding programs that provide training, employment, and support services to millions of workers, particularly those facing significant barriers to employment. Yet, since it was first enacted in 1998, WIOA has lacked a critical layer of accountability: The funding process governing public workforce development programs does not adequately ensure that federal workforce development dollars are not awarded to companies that have recently violated labor laws. The ‘Representation of Compliance’ provision of the current WIOA reauthorization Senate discussion bill (US Senate 2024, sec. 191(1)(B)) aims to close this gap by preventing employers who violate labor laws from receiving federal funding—a critical measure to protect workers and deter unlawful employer practices that undercut both worker power and safety and high-road business practices.”

“The Supreme Court’s opinion in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo was not exactly something most workers were likely to discuss in the break room.  Every time I’ve tried to explain it to non-lawyers, I find myself struggling to explain the concept of “deference,” and what it means in the real world for courts to apply less deference to an agency’s interpretation of a statute.  But now, in Hudson Institute of Process Research Inc. v. NLRB, the Fifth Circuit has provided a good illustration of how Loper Bright has given right-wing judges a green light to take rights away from workers.”

“A number of mostly Republican-controlled states have weakened child labor protections in recent years and a second Trump administration would likely escalate the deregulatory push, as per plans laid out in Project 2025, according to a report released Wednesday. The 55-page report, Protecting Children From Dangerous Work, was prepared by Governing for Impact, the Economic Policy Institute, and Child Labor Coalition. It includes harrowing stories of teenagers killed on the job, documents right-wing plans for increased minor involvement in dangerous work, and calls for action by the U.S. Labor Department to strengthen and codify legal protections for workers under age 18. Child labor violations in the U.S. nearly quadrupled between 2015 and 2022, according to Labor Department data.”

“In this blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Shannon Lederer, the director of immigration policy for the AFL-CIO and Lety Salcedo, an immigration campaign director for the SEIU. Watch now to hear about the current state of immigration in the U.S. and how it relates to labor. Also learn about the economic side of immigration as well as how immigration and labor are viewed in the political landscape.”

“No one goes into public service to get rich. But as public-sector pay falls farther behind private-sector pay, all of us—not just workers and their families—suffer as positions go unfilled, experienced staff leave, and essential services deteriorate. This problem has long-term consequences. For instance, fewer young people choose to become teachers, which impacts the quality of education for future generations of citizens and workers.”

“Brian Petruska can’t help but sound alarmed by the possibility of another Donald Trump presidency. He’s still witnessing the legal fallout from Trump’s first term. ‘We’re looking at going back to pre-1930s labor law in this country,’ Petruska, a lawyer for the Laborers’ International Union of North America, told HuffPost. ‘I’m not exaggerating. That’s literally what’s happening.’ Petruska was referring to efforts by employers — including Elon Musk, the richest man in the world and a surrogate for Trump amid his 2024 White House bid — to wreck the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency established in 1935 that enforces collective bargaining rights. Corporations like Musk’s SpaceX are challenging the constitutionality of the NLRB’s structure to defend themselves against charges of unfair labor practices. Some Trump-appointed judges have already shown they’re receptive to the companies’ argument, and the question could end up before the Supreme Court, where a conservative supermajority shaped by Trump would decide the board’s fate.”

“During the six years Estela Tirado has worked in a salad restaurant in Minneapolis, she has had every job you can imagine: washing dishes, prepping food, working the cash register, and a combination of the above. Despite her hard work, she does not get sufficient paid time off to spend with her six-year-old son, Freddy, who likes to draw and go to the park, and spends the evenings doing homework. ‘If my son gets sick, I have to use PTO, but when he’s on vacation during summer time, and out of school, I don’t have hours for vacation,’ she explains. This is just one issue Tirado is hoping can be rectified through the creation of a Labor Standards Board, which workers have been fighting to pass in Minneapolis for more than two years. With roots in the Progressive Era, such boards bring together representatives of workers, community members, and business, with the goal of boosting labor standards in specific industries. They are designed not only to improve conditions, but to give workers a voice, including those like Tirado, who do not have unions, but certainly have the will to fight for a better life.” 

“In this blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Jacob Morrison, the host of the Valley Labor Report, and Maximillian Alvarez, the host of the Working People Podcast. Watch now to see the first ever Power At Work "Most intriguing people in labor" blogcast, in which Morrison, Alvarez, and host Harris explain their picks for the people or organizations that they think you should be looking out for and following.”

“Colleges and universities employ nearly 4 million people across the United States. Unionization in the higher education sector is gaining speed, fueled by a growing awareness of labor rights and a desire for fairer working conditions, including among undergraduate workers. Since 2012, the number of union-represented faculty has risen 7.2%, and graduate worker representation has risen a whopping 133%. The call for unionization is resonating across colleges and universities nationwide, empowering employees as it goes.”

“The United Steelworkers union is counting on clean energy projects to spur membership growth, offsetting losses at oil refining and petrochemical plants, a union official said, even if Donald Trump wins the presidential election on Nov. 5. The USW, which represents about 30,000 crude oil refinery and petrochemical chemical plant workers in North America, said major growth may be coming as projects backed by the Biden administration's Inflation Reduction Act are built and provisions supporting union-jobs deployed.”

“As November 5 draws closer, labor unions are blanketing swing states with tens of thousands of canvassers, deploying far more resources than in past elections in a bid to get the labor-friendly ticket of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz elected. Some of the outreach is directly targeting union workers, active and retired, who along with their household members make up an estimated one in five voters in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, according to the AFL-CIO.”

“When environmental groups asked the Illinois Pollution Control Board to impose a California-style mandate for electric cars and trucks, the primary legal pushback didn’t come from traditional foes such as ExxonMobil. It came from within the inner sanctum of the Illinois Democratic Party. In a counterstrike, Local 150 of the International Union of Operating Engineers filed a motion in August to dismiss the electric vehicle petition. Environmentalists should make their case in the legislature instead, the union said. The pollution board, meanwhile, scheduled public hearings for December. Mandating electric vehicles too soon, according to Local 150 political guru Marc Poulos, would cripple revenue from the state’s motor fuel tax. That, in turn, would kill lots of road-building projects and jobs. These include a $6.4 billion plan, of which Local 150 is a principal proponent and beneficiary, to rebuild the Eisenhower Expressway west of downtown. With 24,000 active and retired members, the Operating Engineers have become a power broker as the Democratic Party — despite its historic dominance in Springfield — struggles to reconcile conflicting priorities on climate change.”

“The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) plays a vital role in the United States’ workforce development system, funding programs that provide training, employment, and support services to millions of workers, particularly those facing significant barriers to employment. Yet, since it was first enacted in 1998, WIOA has lacked a critical layer of accountability: The funding process governing public workforce development programs does not adequately ensure that federal workforce development dollars are not awarded to companies that have recently violated labor laws. The “Representation of Compliance” provision of the current WIOA reauthorization Senate discussion bill (US Senate 2024, sec. 191(1)(B)) aims to close this gap by preventing employers who violate labor laws from receiving federal funding—a critical measure to protect workers and deter unlawful employer practices that undercut both worker power and safety and high-road business practices.”

“Democrats spent months hand-wringing about losing their grasp on rank-and-file union members. On Tuesday that was the least of their worries. Despite persistent fears that labor might break for former President Donald Trump, exit polling showed Vice President Kamala Harris winning voters in union households 55 to 43 percent, roughly on par with President Joe Biden’s performance in 2020. (A separate survey from NBC News had Harris up 10 points among union voters.) In fact, union voters were one of the few groups that did not appreciably shift toward Trump and Republicans in what is shaping up to be one of the party’s strongest presidential election cycles in recent memory. Union leaders were quick to take credit for holding the line, though they acknowledged they faced headwinds from Democrats’ overall economic messaging.”

“One uncertainty around Trump-administration labor policies is a divide among Trump’s inner circle between traditional pro-business conservatives and ascendant right-wing populists, labor experts tell The Post. The latter includes Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, who supports some policies aimed at helping working-class Americans. But labor leaders and Democrats, including Seth Harris, who formerly served as President Joe Biden’s top labor adviser, have been sounding the alarm that a Trump victory would be ‘catastrophic for the labor movement.’ A Trump administration would be ‘eager to test the outer limits of executive power for the purpose of weakening and destroying unions,’ Harris said. Here are the top labor priorities Trump allies have discussed, according to interviews with eight former Trump administration officials and seven labor policy experts with ties to Republican administrations, including Trump’s.” 

“Voters in red states have approved ballot initiatives mandating paid sick days for workers, showing that the progressive policy enjoys broad support across party lines. Sick leave measures in Missouri and Nebraska passed by comfortable margins on Tuesday, while one in Alaska appeared likely to pass with about 70% of votes counted early Wednesday morning. Under the new laws, workers can accrue one hour of paid sick time for every 30 they work, capped at 56 hours per year at large employers and 40 at small ones. Assuming the Alaska measure prevails, then 18 states would now have paid sick leave requirements on their books, with Missouri, Nebraska and Alaska being the most conservative. Former President Donald Trump handily won Missouri and Nebraska on Tuesday and appeared likely to take Alaska; he won all three states in 2016 and 2020 as well.”

“In this blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Martha Gimbel, the Executive Director of the Budget Lab at Yale University, and Ernie Tedeschi, the Director of Economics at the Budget Lab. Watch now to learn how they view the current economy and how they expect Trump's presidency will impact it. Also hear their perspective on how worker power will change in the next economy.”

“Remote work is allowing workplaces to span across entire states, artificial intelligence is turning what used to take a week’s worth of effort into a 10-minute affair, and workers across the country are demanding a shorter work week. With so many changes in such a short time, it should come as no surprise that labor rights are popping into the forefront of Americans’ minds.”

“Adriana still remembers the day last spring when she got paid less than minimum wage. She was at a big suburban house outside Philadelphia that was at least three stories tall, and it had taken her and a crew more than six hours, without breaks, to clean it. At the next house, the supervisor told Adriana, who’d asked for a break, to wait in the van. She’d been fired. Adriana said she got $40 cash for the eight hours she spent in the van and cleaning that day. She’d been promised $90 for the day. If she’d been paid minimum wage, she would have earned $58…That’s why Adriana is working to urge passage of a new bill intended to enforce worker protection ordinances, fight wage theft and protect the victims of workplace retaliation. Slated to be introduced in 2025, it is backed by Philadelphia’s National Domestic Workers Alliance and a coalition of other nonunionized worker organizations and is aimed at one of workers’ thorniest problems, in Philadelphia and nationwide: making sure employers follow the rules.”

“On November 5, Massachusetts voters passed a groundbreaking ballot initiative making it possible for rideshare drivers in the state to unionize.  The new law is a big deal. It will allow drivers for companies like Uber and Lyft to create strong, independent unions that can bargain collectively for the entire sector based on models that have proven successful elsewhere for hard-to-organize workers. The initiative creates the potential for drivers to improve their working conditions and build the power necessary to create real and lasting changes in industry. It isn’t perfect – the law reflects some nasty political realities. But the new law gives drivers a powerful tool for improving their work lives and it offers a model that other states might follow. The new Massachusetts law calls for a different type of unionization and bargaining process than is common in the U.S.  The typical American processes for forming a union and bargaining collectively are unnecessarily difficult for most workers  but nearly impossible for workers in industries like rideshare with high turnover, irregular hours, and more isolated workplaces.”

“Federal labor officials issued a ruling Wednesday prohibiting employers from holding mandatory anti-union meetings at work, a long-sought policy objective of unions that want to level the playing field with corporations in organizing campaigns. In its 3-1 decision, the Democratic majority of the National Labor Relations Board said such workplace gatherings — often called “captive audience” meetings due to their obligatory nature — tend to ‘coerce’ employees and therefore violate the law. The board’s lone Republican dissented. The case revolved around the Amazon warehouse in New York City that became the retailer’s first to unionize 2 1/2 years ago. Amazon enlisted managers and outside consultants to hold meetings where they fed employees anti-union talking points in the run-up to the vote. The company spent millions on its campaign against the union.”

“In a final push to bolster union rights ahead of a Trump presidency, the National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday banned employers nationwide from forcing workers to attend anti-union meetings. Separately, Democrats are also deploying a last-ditch effort to try to get the Senate to reconfirm NLRB Chair Lauren McFerran in the last December session, allowing the agency to maintain a Democratic majority and continue its labor-friendly rulings into the next Trump administration. These efforts could help President Joe Biden cement his legacy as the most pro-union president since Franklin D. Roosevelt and protect efforts to safeguard unionized workers in a Trump administration. But labor experts widely expect the Trump administration to swiftly undo Biden-era gains for unions.”

“CLIMATEWIRE | The return of former President Donald Trump to the White House puts at risk new heat protections for workers that were proposed over the summer by the Biden administration, say workplace advocates. Trump on the campaign trail never directly addressed the proposal from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which would force employers to provide their workers with water and cool places to rest when temperatures are high.”

“In this blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Jimmy Williams Jr., the General President of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades. Listen now to learn about how President Williams views the Presidential election results, as well as his opinion on why the Democratic party failed to successfully nominate Vice-President Kamala Harris as the next president. Also hear his views on the current state of labor and how he envisions the future of the labor movement.”

“Does Trump’s re-election mean that the US labor resurgence is over? Not necessarily. It’s true that the new administration is preparing major attacks against workers and the labor movement. And many union leaders will assume that the most we can hope for over the next four years is to survive through purely defensive struggles.”

“The debate over the Democratic Party’s losses in the 2024 election has arrived. There will be recriminations and finger-pointing. There will be blame-laying and ideologically-driven “analyses.” There will be an endless parade of pundits, consultants, elected officials, and various family and neighborhood blowhards who will insist that, if Vice-President Harris, Senate Democrats, and House Democrats would have followed their advice, everything would have been different.”

“The election is over and a second Trump administration will begin in January 2025 (“Trump Administration”). Numerous changes to the employment law landscape will come with it. And if past is prologue, many of these changes will roll back various Biden-era initiatives and priorities at the various federal agencies tasked with implementing and administering federal law governing the employer/employee relationship. Below is a summary of just some of the changes employers could expect at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC” or “Commission”), Department of Labor (“DOL”), and National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) during the Trump Administration, as well as what employers could expect to see with respect to the federal government’s efforts to prohibit certain restrictive covenants.”

“The Biden Board on Wednesday issued one of its most consequential holdings when it decided, in Amazon.com Services LLC, that captive audience meetings are an unfair labor practice. Otto will soon post an explainer that reviews the decision in detail. Here I want to say a few words about how the Board’s decision interacts with the recent spate of state laws that also ban captive audience meetings. The most immediate effect is also the most obvious: because there is now a definitive holding from the Board that captive audience meetings are prohibited by section 8 of the NLRA, states are preempted from imposing legislative bans on the meetings (at least with respect to meetings dedicated to questions of union organizing; the NLRA does not prohibit states from banning other kinds of captive audience meetings).”

“On Friday a federal judge in Texas struck down a new rule from the Biden administration aimed at extending overtime protections to millions of workers. Judge Sean D. Jordan of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas ruled that the Labor Department went beyond its authority in issuing the regulation earlier this year. He granted summary judgment to the state of Texas, which had sued to stop the rule from taking effect. The overtime rule is one of the furthest-reaching economic reforms that President Joe Biden has pursued unilaterally through the federal rulemaking process. It would dramatically expand the share of workers who are entitled to time-and-a-half pay when they work more than 40 hours in a week.”

“Missouri workers will see their minimum wage increase and begin earning paid sick days following voters’ overwhelming passage of Proposition A on Nov. 5.  The Labor-endorsed measure passed with nearly 60 percent of the vote. Missouri’s minimum wage will increase from $12.30 an hour to $13.75 on Jan. 1, 2025 and $15 on Jan. 1, 2026 – followed by annual cost of living adjustments so the minimum wage does not lose purchasing power in the future. Beginning May 1, 2025, employees will be able to earn one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked.”

“In this blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Noam Scheiber, a reporter for The New York Times, Lauren Kaori Gurley, a reporter for The Washington Post, and Dave Jamieson, a reporter for the HuffPost. Watch now to hear their predictions for the future of worker power under a second Trump administration, as well as their views on the NLRB, state level victories for workers, and much more.”

“Earlier this year, we published a fun and educational series of posts and blogcasts that we dubbed #LaborOscars2024 (see here, here, here, here, and here) to celebrate worker power, unions, and worker collective action in film. You reacted so positively to Labor Oscars 2024 that we are planning to do it again in a couple of months. But then we thought . . . wait a minute! We love movies AND music AND worker power. Let’s share another of our cultural passions with the Power At Work community.”

“The National Employment Law Project (NELP) recognizes Representative Lori Chavez-DeRemer is a somewhat unexpected nominee to serve as Labor Secretary.  Her steady support for workers’ right to collectively bargain, and her recognition that the deck is stacked against workers who want to join a union, puts her at odds with virtually all other Republican Members of Congress.  Her support for the Richard Trumka PRO Act and the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act demonstrates an understanding of the importance of unions, collective bargaining, and protections for working families.”

“Many of you will get on a plane to visit family for Thanksgiving. When you do, you’ll likely encounter agents to help you board the plane, flight attendants to keep you safe and serve you drinks, and pilots to fly you from here to there while ensuring your safety. Those workers all work for airlines.”

“Much of the Trump-Vance campaign’s platform was designed to provoke outrage rather than to supply policy details. So, if you’re trying to figure out what to actually expect from the coming second Trump administration, it’s helpful to look at the record of Trump’s first term in office, as well as the individuals and organizations that influenced the 2024 GOP campaign. When it comes to workers’ rights, that record is crystal clear: from attacks on unions and workers’ freedom of speech to rolling back laws that would have boosted paychecks or expanded worker safety protections, Trump has been a disaster.”

“In this blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Celeste Drake, the Deputy Director-General at the International Labour Organization. Watch now to learn about the International Labour Organization and their global impact. Also hear Drake's opinions on current labor issues and the global picture for worker power.”

“More and more college graduates are looking to begin their careers outside of the United States upon graduation, mainly due to study abroad opportunities or international internships they held during their undergraduate years.”

“MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin's state Supreme Court election next spring already had high stakes, with majority control on the line. But a judge's ruling this week restoring collective bargaining rights to the state's tens of thousands of teachers and other public workers further intensifies the contest.”

“A circuit court judge last week dismissed a request from a Florida faculty union to temporarily block a 2023 Florida law that has already caused tens of thousands of public employees in the state — including Orange County government employees — to lose their union representation and the rights afforded to them under their union contracts.”

“The IAFF has been a driving force behind significant victories for fire fighters and emergency medical workers across the U.S. With guidance from IAFF’s Strategic Campaigns and Political Action teams, fire fighters have secured essential improvements to working conditions, funding, and public safety resources. From contract negotiations to staffing and improvements to facilities, IAFF’s behind-the-scenes support has made all the difference in ensuring that communities and IAFF members benefit from fair treatment and enhanced safety.” 

“Unions for higher education have been active this month, with a number of actions from St. Louis to northern Illinois. St. Louis University’s graduate students voted overwhelmingly to form their own union, one of many colleges to form such unions in recent years. The 560 grad students, who teach classes and do other work at the university in exchange for tuition and a stipend, voted 352-39 to join United Auto Workers as their bargaining agent.”

“In this first blogcast of the new Power At Work series "What Could Happen Under Trump?", Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris laid out a worker power overview of the next Trump administration in Power At Work's first-ever live blogcast. Harris also answered questions from the live audience. He discussed the implications of a Trump presidency for unions, the NLRB, the Labor Department, federal employee unions, and much more.”

“A Democrat-led push to secure a majority on the National Labor Relations Board until 2026 fell short on Wednesday, as Senate Republicans and two independents blocked the nomination of Lauren McFerran to continue serving on the labor board. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer filed cloture Monday on the nominations of McFerran, a Democrat, to remain for another five-year term on the National Labor Relations Board. McFerran is the current chair of the NLRB whose term is set to expire later this month. Her confirmation to another term would have maintained a Democratic majority on the board, in a move that would have marked a key victory for Democrats heading into a second Trump administration and a Republican trifecta in Washington.” 

“Every Jan. 1, California employers must comply with a raft of new workplace laws, most of which expand protections and benefits for employees. Though perhaps not as sweeping as in recent years, some of those taking effect in 2025 are uniquely Californian. Some will help workers who need time off for their own disability or pregnancy, to care for a sick family member or to recover from a crime or help a family member recover. There’s also new help for freelancers, a ban on certain types of mandatory meetings, a few updates to anti-discrimination laws and two that could help protect employees from workplace violence and stalkers. In addition, employers won’t be able to use a “digital replica” of a performer’s voice or likeness without the performer’s consent. Nor can they require job applicants to have a driver’s license if they don’t really need to drive for work. And even though voters in November rejected a ballot measure that would have increased the statewide minimum wage, it’s still going up next year thanks to an annual inflation adjustment.”

“The National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint against the hit reality show “Love Is Blind” on Wednesday in which it classified the show’s contestants as employees, opening a case that could have ripple effects across the reality television industry. The complaint by the labor board’s regional office in Minnesota says that the show committed several labor violations, including unlawful contractual terms related to confidentiality and noncompete provisions. By classifying the cast members — who date and sometimes marry other singles on the show — as employees with certain federal legal protections, the complaint opens the door to possible unionization. It is one of the labor board’s first forays into reality television and a major development in the effort by some onscreen personalities to change the industry through the legal system.”

“California high school students are now required to learn about their rights as workers with materials created by labor organizations, however, students in Los Angeles have reportedly participated in simulated collective bargaining situations for decades. The passage of AB 800 last year requires juniors and seniors to be taught about their workplace rights, the achievements of organized labor and students’ right to join a union. However, the Los Angeles Unified School District has reportedly been teaching students how to participate in labor discussions for decades.” 

“Sin Fronteras Organizing Project (SFOP), an El Paso nonprofit that has served indigent farmworkers for decades, settled a lawsuit with the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) over DOL’s continued failure to abide by regulations requiring it to seek input from farmworkers and to coordinate among DOL agencies its enforcement of laws protecting farmworkers. Texas RioGrande Legal Aid (TRLA) and Public Citizen Litigation Group represent SFOP. The settlement now entered as an order of the court, requires DOL to (1) establish and maintain a National Committee that will meet twice annually and guide DOL components on enforcement related to farmworkers; (2) convene a National Committee staff-level working group that will meet at least quarterly; (3) create Regional Committees that will meet at least quarterly and maintain contacts with farm labor groups, state agencies, and other interested parties, and hold annual public meetings in each region; and (4) develop annual national coordination plans and regional enforcement strategies for farmworker protective statutes.”

“A Wisconsin judge issued a ruling Dec. 2 that strikes down most of a 2011 state law that stripped public workers of their union rights. Dane County Circuit Court judge Jacob Frost ruled that the law violates the state constitution because it unfairly exempts police officers and firefighters.”

“How will voters’ approval of Missouri’s Proposition A, increasing the minimum wage and allowing all workers to accrue paid sick time, impact union workplaces? Is there a difference for workers, such as in the construction industry, who work for multiple contractors in a single year? Under Prop. A, Missouri’s minimum wage will increase from $12.30 an hour to $13.75 on Jan. 1, 2025; and $15 on Jan. 1, 2026 – followed by annual cost-of-living adjustments so the minimum wage does not lose purchasing power in the future. Beginning May 1, 2025, employees will be able to earn one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked.”

“As the first city in the Midwest to pass a minimum wage standard of $15 an hour, Minneapolis is often described as a place with strong labor standards. But the Twin Cities Fight for $15 was a grassroots movement coalition led by workers and activists that organized to pressure city leaders for change, and those workers and organizations are continuing to fight for better standards and enforcement today. One of those struggles has been to establish a Labor Standards Board, a tool for improving working conditions in specific industries, through a city council resolution. On Thursday, December 5, the Minneapolis City Council fell one vote short of overriding Mayor Jacob Frey’s veto of the resolution that the council had passed 9-3 in November.”

“In this blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Saba Waheed, the director of the UCLA Labor Center, and Rebecca Givan, an associate professor of Labor Studies and Employment Relations at Rutgers University. Watch now to learn about the most significant worker power stories over the past year. Also hear Givan and Waheed's perspectives on employer backlash as well as their takes on the overall current state of labor heading into 2025.”

“The time for you to exercise your voice and your vote has almost come. But first, you will need to listen to some great labor songs and, maybe, sing along. Power At Work is proud and excited to announce the nominees for #2025Labor Grammy awards. Beginning January 6, 2025, you will have a chance to vote for your favorite nominated song in the five categories listed below and one special category. It’s all for fun and to lift up great songs about worker power, unions, and worker collective action. Your collective choices will win the vaunted “Guthrie Award,” which honors labor music pioneer Woody Guthrie.”

“The Power At Work team wishes everyone in our community and working people everywhere a Happy Holiday Season! You can celebrate this holiday season by supporting union workers. Here’s a list from our friends at the AFL-CIO of places and ways that you can find amazing holiday gifts that also carry a union label.”

“The incoming Trump administration is likely to impose significant tariffs on U.S. imports to an extent not seen since before World War II. The president-elect has already announced that he will use emergency executive authority on his first day in office to impose 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico, the United States’ closest trading partners, and a 10 percent tariff on Chinese goods. And given that he campaigned on an across-the-board tariff and a massive China-specific tariff, this is likely just the beginning. Donald Trump may couch his tariff proposals in the language of ‘America first’ or as fighting back against the ills of global trade, but the tariff ideas he has proposed will not make the economy fairer, bring prosperity to working people, protect the environment, or improve climate sustainability—and what’s worse, they are not even designed to do so. Yet the most common critique of Trump’s tariff agenda fails to make this point, focusing instead on the price increases likely to face American consumers instead of the negative impact Trump’s economic agenda will have on working people, the environment, and global efforts to address challenges such as climate change.”

“An AFGE member has won a precedent setting case in which the Connecticut Appellate Court ruled that union members have absolute immunity from malicious attempts aimed at silencing free speech in the grievance process. Vincent DeGray, a civilian employee of the Coast Guard Academy in New London, filed a grievance alleging he was unfairly passed over for promotion based on violations of the merit promotion system. He also alleged that two employees, a married couple, had a quid pro quo arrangement with management to promote the candidate who was selected.”

“More than 50,000 graduate students and other student workers on 51 university campuses nationwide have formed unions since 2022, according to the National Labor Relations Board. The organizing campaigns have led to some of the biggest union elections in years, with graduate student teachers and researchers and undergraduate housing and dining employees joining the ranks of the Service Employees International Union, the United Auto Workers and other traditionally blue-collar unions. These efforts have not garnered as much attention as organizing drives at Amazon and Starbucks, but they have boosted the ranks of organized labor after decades of losses.”

“Union workers broke open the cookie jar in 2024, after years of stagnant wages and rising prices. With strikes and the threat of strikes, workers did more than forestall concessions: They gained ground. Union workers in the private sector saw 6 percent real wage rises for the year. Just the fear that workers would organize drove up wages at non-union employers like Delta Airlines, Amazon, and Mercedes.”