The Weekly Download

“Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris will be co-hosting this blogcast with Chris Garlock from the Labor Heritage Power Hour and Labor History Today podcasts. To celebrate Labor History Month, they will be joined by Professor Veroníca Martínez-Matsuda from the University of California, San Diego, and Professor Joe McCartin from Georgetown University to discuss the lessons from labor history. Watch now to hear the discussion on the 1981 PATCO strike, migrant farm workers, the National Labor Relations Act, and more!”

“Labor density, or the share of workers who are members of a labor union, is almost the same in 2025 as before Congress enacted the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) ninety years ago. The NLRA (or 'the Act') guarantees the right of most private-sector employees in the United States to organize unions, engage in collective bargaining, and strike. The Act constrains the behavior of both the employer and of workers seeking to organize, but employers clearly have the upper hand. There is a way out of the NLRA’s restrictions through a hostile Supreme Court. It would require union leaders to let the NLRA collapse and start all over again by letting Elon Musk win. Let me explain.”

“Florida’s rather unusual 60-day legislative session (featuring bickering among Republicans and a scandal involving the governor’s wife) ended this past Friday, cutting off the chance of passage for several bills I’ve mentioned here over the last couple of months that could have, in some way or another, made the lives of working people in Florida harder. Although state lawmakers will be heading back up to Tallahassee next week to hammer out a state budget — since they failed to do so during the regular session — they will only continue to consider a limited selection of bills that pertain to the state budget, specifically. All others, including those listed below, have been indefinitely postponed and withdrawn from consideration. It’s possible that some or all of these proposals will turn up again next year when state lawmakers reconvene for the 2026 state legislative session. Time will tell.”

“Lt. Gov Deidre Henderson issued an order Tuesday blocking a new anti-union law from taking effect as county clerks finish counting signatures supporting a referendum to repeal the law that seems certain to qualify for the 2026 ballot. Utah law requires the lieutenant governor to issue an injunction on the law taking effect when a referendum has met the criteria to qualify for the ballot — in this case 140,748 valid signatures, as well as specific signature thresholds in at least 15 of the state’s 29 senate districts. The Protect Utah Workers referendum drive had racked up 245,513 verified signatures according to the figures posted by the lieutenant governor Tuesday morning and had met its target in 23 senate districts.”

“A ‘catastrophic’ exodus of thousands of employees from the US Department of Labor threatens ‘all of the core aspects of working life’, insiders have warned, amid fears that the Trump administration will further slash the agency’s operations. The federal agency has already lost about 20% of its workforce, according to employees, as nearly 2,700 staff took retirement, early retirement, deferred resignation buyouts or ‘fork in the road’ departures earlier this year. Remaining workers fear further cuts are on the way, as the threat of a mass ‘reduction in force’ firing looms large after a February order from the White House for agencies to draw up ‘reorganization’ plans.”

“Are unions breaking up with the Democratic Party? In light of the party’s historical relationship with the labor movement, this question has been circulating widely since the 2024 election. That’s because even preceding Donald Trump’s victory in November 2024, the general trend of political realignment has seen blue-collar workers move away from the Democrats. The public debates over the explanation for this trend tend to focus on the party’s messaging and its relationship with identity-based groups, ignoring the actors that, historically, have proved so critical to mobilizing support amongst the working class: trade unions. The Center for Labor and a Just Economy, in collaboration with the Columbia Labor Lab, commissioned a survey with over 1600 respondents that delved into the nature of union members’ relationship with the Democratic Party. Our results found that unionized workers were significantly more likely to vote for Kamala Harris than their non-union counterparts.”

“American labor unions are calling on El Salvador to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the U.S., calling his deportation by the Trump administration an ‘egregious violation of our brother’s rights.’ Last month immigration officials wrongly sent Abrego Garcia, an apprentice sheet metal worker who lived in Maryland, to his native El Salvador, where he remains in prison. The Supreme Court has ordered the White House to help bring him back…The letter was signed by Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO labor federation; James Williams, Jr., president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, or IUPAT; Gwen Mills, president of the hospitality union Unite Here; and Michael Coleman, president of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers, or SMART, which is Abrego Garcia’s union.”

“Trump and his billionaire toadies like Howard Lutnik and Scott Bessent are peddling a dangerous lie to working-class Americans. They’re strutting around claiming their tariffs will bring back “good paying jobs” with “great benefits,” while actively undermining the very thing that made manufacturing jobs valuable to working people in the first place: unions. Let’s be crystal clear about what’s really happening: Without strong unions, bringing manufacturing back to America will simply create more sweatshop opportunities where desperate workers earn between $7.25 and $15 an hour with zero benefits and zero security. The only reason manufacturing jobs like my father had at a tool-and-die shop in the 1960s paid well enough to catapult a single-wage-earner family into the middle class was because they had a union — the Machinists’ Union, in my dad’s case — fighting relentlessly for their rights and dignity.”

“On Monday, April 29th, Luis von Ahn, the billionaire CEO of the popular language learning app Duolingo, made a public announcement that his company is officially ‘going to be AI-first.’ Duolingo, von Ahn wrote in an email to all employees that was also posted to LinkedIn, will ‘gradually stop using contractors to do work that AI can handle.’ The CEO took pains to note that ‘this isn’t about replacing Duos with AI.’ According to one such Duolingo contractor, this is not accurate. For one thing, it’s not a new initiative. And it absolutely is about replacing workers: Duolingo has already replaced up to 100 of its workers—primarily the writers and translators who create the quirky quizzes and learning materials that have helped stake out the company’s identity—with AI systems…This is a glimpse of the AI jobs crisis that is unfolding right now—not in the distant future—and that’s already more pervasive than we might think.”

 The UAW wants more vehicles to be built in the United States, and the union says the country’s underutilized auto plants offer tremendous potential to boost employment numbers. Reaching full existing capacity ‘could create up to 90,000 new manufacturing jobs, not to mention 630,000 more in the rest of the U.S. economy,’ according to the union. The union assertions coincide with UAW President Shawn Fain’s embrace of President Donald Trump’s auto tariffs, although tariffs aren’t cited in the union’s white paper, ‘Unlocking the Potential of U.S. Auto Manufacturing Capacity,’ issued in April. The report, which got a mixed reaction from several industry watchers, also doesn’t appear to reference auto parts manufacturing, a major piece of the auto sector.”

A coalition of labor unions, local governments and nonprofits sued the Trump administration in federal court Monday evening, seeking to block the U.S. DOGE Service’s federal workforce cuts because they lack approval from Congress. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, argued that the administration’s “reduction in force” plans and reorganization of the federal government violate the Constitution’s separation of powers.”

“Utah has its first union of public library employees. Salt Lake City library workers voted overwhelmingly, 92% of eligible employees to be exact, to form a union this week. The election caps a big week for public union organizers in the Beehive State after a referendum effort to overturn a bill that would prohibit public-sector collective bargaining gathered enough signatures to qualify for the 2026 ballot. ‘We, as workers, are looking forward to negotiating our first contract,’ associate librarian Christina Ordonez said in a news release. ‘We’ve always been here for our community, and we finally have the tools to advocate for ourselves and for each other.’”

“On a scale of ‘highly valued’ to ‘thankless,’ the roles that production assistants play on film and television sets can swing towards the latter. Delivering lunch, escorting cast members, managing background actors, maintaining radio equipment — it’s all in production assistants’ repertoires, with the general expectation being that, as entry-level workers in a cutthroat creative industry, they are eager to please as they work lengthy hours for around minimum wage. But one group believes longstanding norms around these roles can and should change. For a bit less than a year, Production Assistants United has been taking steps to unionize these workers nationwide with the backing of Burbank-based LiUNA Local 724, which represents utility workers on Hollywood productions. Organizers are aiming to increase wages, enshrine turnaround times and provide access to union health benefits — in other words, to give these workers some of the same benefits as their union colleagues on set.”

“It would have been easy to miss. Buried deep within Amazon CEO Andy Jassy’s annual letter to company shareholders — a glowing, energetic 5,000-word essay released in April — was a foreshadowing of the company’s keen interest in capitalizing on the privatization of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). Postal service workers and those who value public mail delivery ought to take this threat seriously: The company, which started out 30 years ago selling books online, has an insatiable appetite for capturing and squeezing profits out of any part of economic life that it can monetize. Today, with Donald Trump angling to dismantle and privatize USPS, Amazon executives have their privatization dance partner, and they are salivating at this potential prize. As Jassy’s letter suggests, the company is taking steps to put itself first in line when Trump puts our U.S. Postal Service on the auction block…Unions and other postal service advocates have been sounding the alarm on postal service privatization for some time. ‘It’s a terrible idea for everyone that we serve,’ National Association of Letter Carriers President Brian L. Renfroe said earlier this year. With privatization, ‘Delivery would be driven by profit margins, and private companies will only go to where they can make a profit. Sections of our population could lose mail service entirely. Prices would rise according to whatever the company demands for their own profit,’ the American Postal Workers Union has noted.”

“The Trump administration last week canceled the first bargaining session scheduled with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's largest workers union since its ability to represent government staff was temporarily restored by a federal court, according one of the union's bosses. U.S. President Donald Trump in March signed an executive order that excluded agencies from collective bargaining obligations that he said ‘have as a primary function intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work.’ The order applied to the FDA, as well as agencies under the Justice, State, Defense, Treasury and Veterans Affairs departments. Senior U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman on April 25 issued an injunction to block the executive order from being implemented, pending the outcome of a lawsuit by the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), which represents about 160,000 federal employees including as many as 9,000 FDA staff. The Trump administration has appealed that injunction.”

“For decades, the federal government has positioned itself as being committed to inclusive hiring and long-term retention across agencies. But as mass layoffs ripple through the federal workforce under President Donald Trump’s Republican administration, disabled employees are among those being let go. Amid the firings, rollbacks of accommodation guidance for businesses and skepticism of disability inclusion practices, advocates and experts wonder if the government’s status as a ‘model employer’ will hold true. Trump has said he ended diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the government because people should be hired based on work quality and merit alone. However, under Schedule A, candidates already have to be qualified for the position with or without an accommodation. They don’t get a job solely because they have a disability. Disability advocates point to a slew of statements from Trump administration officials that indicate they view disabled workers as a liability to the government.”

“A plan by JetBlue Airways to sign a domestic partnership with another airline faces opposition from its pilot union, which has warned the move could ‘fundamentally reshape’ the U.S. carrier and impact the future of its workers. The head of JetBlue's pilot union told members on Wednesday that a job protection provision in their existing contract does not allow the company to enter into a commercial agreement, according to a letter seen by Reuters. On Tuesday, Reuters exclusively reported that the New York-based airline and United Airlines are negotiating a partnership, which is expected to focus on providing greater connectivity to customers and allowing them to earn and use frequent-flier miles. In the letter, the JetBlue Air Line Pilots Association Master Executive Council Chair, Wayne Scales, said the union was working with attorneys and other professional staff to challenge threats posed by the proposed partnership.”

“The union representing workers at a Freeburg factory being shut down described the decision to move some jobs to Mexico as “pure corporate greed.” Hubbell Inc., a multinational company that had annual revenue of $5.6 billion in 2024, has announced it will close its Wiegmann manufacturing plant and layoff 110 employees as the Freeburg operations will be transferred to existing Hubbell facilities in Aurora, Illinois, and Juarez, Mexico. The layoffs include 98 members of the International Association of Sheet Metal Air Rail Transportation Workers, or SMART, Union, according to a letter Hubbell Inc. sent to state officials on April 24.”

“Approximately 3,000 members at IAM Union Locals 700 and 1746 in the greater Hartford, Conn., area have overwhelmingly rejected the company’s offer. The current agreement remains in effect through 11:59 p.m. ET on Sunday, May 4, when a strike will begin.”

“About 55,000 workers across Los Angeles County are off the job Tuesday morning after a union representing workers approved a two-day strike after failed contract negotiations. Hundreds of thousands of union members hit the picket lines during a demonstration throughout downtown Los Angeles, blocking traffic near Fremont Avenue and 5th Street. The Los Angeles Police Department has made several arrests related to the demonstration. ‘We can't afford not to get a raise. This is ridiculous. That's why we're here fighting to get this raise,’ a woman at the rally said.”

“Hundreds of machinists, mechanics, electricians and other skilled employees of defense manufacturer Lockheed Martin in Orlando and Denver walked off the job Thursday morning. They’re on strike, alleging Lockheed Martin has engaged in unfair labor practices and failed to make a deal for a new contract with their union, the United Auto Workers…There are nearly 500 Lockheed Martin employees in Orlando alone represented by the UAW, which has been in contract negotiations with their employer for months.”

“A chair of a trial committee of the Writers Guild of America West has called out the union’s handling of disciplinary proceedings against one member accused of flouting the union’s rules during the 2023 strike. In a four-page letter, Jill Goldsmith, a former public defender from Cook County, conveyed profound concerns over the process behind the board’s decision to expel one writer, saying it was not ‘fair and proper,’ according to a copy of the letter reviewed by The Times…The Writers Guild of America West also declined to comment on the specific claims of the letter, but in a statement the union said that four members have appealed their discipline to the membership, who will vote on the matter this week.”

“The major video game companies involved in negotiations with SAG-AFTRA, which represents voice and motion capture performers in video games, say they have made their final offer in negotiations to end the actors' strike as it approaches its 300-day mark. In a statement provided to Variety Monday, SAG-AFTRA ‘condemns’ the video game companies’ move to release the proposal for publication and says its negotiating committee ‘responded to that offer within 72 hours – on May 2 – with our own response to the open issues relating to artificial intelligence’ and that ‘we have to date received no response to our counter offer.’”

“Artificial intelligence was a major factor in the actors strike of 2023 and the burgeoning technology will remain a key element in next year’s negotiations. SAG-AFTRA chief Duncan Crabtree-Ireland has laid out some of the guilds plans ahead of its contract with the studios expiring in June 2026. Speaking on a Deadline-moderated panel at SeriesFest in Denver, Crabtree-Ireland, who is National Executive Director & Chief Negotiator at SAG-AFTRA, revealed that the guild would be ‘starting our preparations for negotiations this fall.’”

“The UFL has approved a new collective bargaining agreement with the United Football Players Association, the league announced Monday, finalizing a deal that players ratified last month. The deal is retroactive to the start of training camp, which opened March 2, and will extend through the end of the 2026 season. The new CBA includes an annual raise of $7,005 on minimum salaries, from $55,000 to $62,005 for players who participate in all 10 regular-season games, and makes all players eligible for year-round health care, according to a fact sheet produced by the UFPA when it approved the deal. The minimum salary for 2026 will be $64,000. Part of the pay raise is a reallocation of a previous $400 per month housing stipend.”

“Women’s National Basketball Players Association executive director Terri Carmichael Jackson said Thursday the union is committed to negotiating “for as long as it takes” on a new collective bargaining agreement and didn’t rule out a potential work stoppage. ‘There’s no better moment than right now for women’s sports, and particularly for women’s basketball and particularly for us,’ Jackson said. ‘So are we seizing on every level? Absolutely.’ Jackson spoke with reporters, including The Post, for more than 15 minutes after being featured on a panel about motherhood in sports at the ESPNW Summit in Brooklyn in what was her first detailed update on the ongoing CBA negotiations. The current agreement expires at the end of the 2025 season.”

“The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) has recently ratified a powerful contract with the aim of lifting up students. They have built a force field to stop the attacks from the federal government from hitting Chicago’s schools, educators, and students. On the Line interviewed CTU President Stacy Davis Gates about what they won, the campaign to win it, and what lies ahead to fight the billionaire agenda. We spoke with Stacy on May Day in Chicago where the union has called for and led a national day of action to mobilize all working people against the war on the working class.”

“The announced end of a nearly 200-day strike by Kaiser Permanente mental health care workers in Southern California will surely come as a relief to many of those employees. Some 2,400 of them — therapists, psychologists, social workers and others — walked off their jobs last October. What the strike’s conclusion won’t do, for Kaiser patients, is radically change a mental health care system that is so dysfunctional, it’s been the subject of multiple fines and citations by the state — yet shows almost no sign of improving. To that end, a California State Assembly bill is advancing to reimburse desperate Kaiser patients who have had to obtain their mental health care outside the health giant’s system. The Assembly’s Committee on Health, meanwhile, scheduled a Tuesday hearing to examine Kaiser’s continued failure to provide adequate behavioral health services.”

“In a southern, Republican state, against incredible odds, an Indigenous immigrant managed to organize her coworkers — most of whom were, like herself, undocumented — and obtain legal protections against life-threatening working conditions in a notoriously exploitative industry. She’s one of the recipients of our Labor Organizer of the Year awards, and her story is compelling — but with so many unknowns right now regarding how far Immigration and Customs Enforcement will go to target someone, we can’t share details without putting her at risk. Despite having obtained a legally protected status, she decided she could not accept the award publicly and has requested to remain anonymous. For now, she has quit organizing and is lying low, in fear of retribution and deportation. Hers is a case study in how the Trump administration’s detention and deportation practices are terrorizing immigrants and dampening their willingness to organize, protest and demand better working conditions.”

“In Florida, the carceral system coerces workers with records into low-wage, precarious jobs by tying their freedom to employment. Background checks bar them from stable work, leaving only the jobs others avoid, quit, or fight to change. At the same time, probation agreements make employment and the payment of court fines and fees a condition of release. Workers with records are destabilized by an economic system that withholds continuity, protections and dignity by design. No other institution — not schools, employers or prisons — invests in the leadership potential of workers with records. At Beyond the Bars, we’re changing that. We’re building peer-led political education programs that inoculate workers against the Right’s attacks and the Left’s broken promises. We’re challenging probation systems that extend punishment into the workplace through mandatory employment requirements, restrictions on work hours and locations, and burdensome fines and fees, all of which can lead to reincarceration if workers are unable to comply.”