The Weekly Download

“I’m a fourth-generation union glazier. I remember being a kid sitting around the dinner table when my dad was on strike, thanking God for the Painters union (IUPAT) even when times were hard. The history of our union’s struggle is in my blood, and I’ll never take the sacrifice members before me made for granted. But a lot of our members today are disconnected from our union, and I get why.”

“In this blogcast, Burnes Center for Social Change Senior Fellow Seth Harris is joined by Miren Algorri and Johanna Hester to discuss the recent important contract victory for more than 60,000 child care workers in California. Watch now to learn more about the lives of child care workers and how the right to organize and bargain collectively has shaped child care provision in California. Seth, Miren, and Johanna will discuss how these workers won this latest contract victory, how organizing and bargaining in California’s child care industry uses a different model than the private-sector model overseen by the federal National Labor Relations Board, and how that model might inform union organizing in the future.”

“Hotel workers who went on a four-day strike in Philadelphia last month have secured a new contract at the Hampton Inn Philadelphia Center City-Convention Center. On Monday, their union, Unite Here Local 274, announced that workers had ratified a contract Friday with increases in wages, benefits, and work conditions. ‘Strikes work,’ said Rosslyn Wuchinich, president of Unite Here Local 274 in a statement on Monday.”

“There are many reasons why climate change should be among the top priorities for all unions. The climate crisis will affect working people in a myriad of ways, from higher grocery prices and greater exposure to extreme weather to the risks of relying on industries that are likely to undergo major upheaval in the near future. Unions have every interest in being able to shape how these changes unfold and to ensure that they remain relevant through a period of enormous stress and transformation. Yet, organized labor around the world faces many barriers to addressing this crucial challenge. Across North America, we are still confronting a well-financed denialism that shades from outright refusal to recognize the science to a downplaying of the gravity of our situation. There are other problems beyond denialism that we should be thinking about. Effective climate action requires a working-class base and this base will have to be built through the labor movement. What problems internal to labor do we have to work through to make this so?”

“Zohran Kwame Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist and the Democratic nominee, will be New York City’s next mayor, after trouncing former Governor Andrew Cuomo in a primary and general election double whammy. ‘The working people of New York have been told by the wealthy and the well-connected that power does not belong in their hands,’ Mamdani told a roaring crowd at his victory party in Brooklyn. ‘Fingers bruised from lifting boxes on the warehouse floor; palms calloused from delivery bike handlebars; knuckles scarred with kitchen burns—these are not hands that have been allowed to hold power. And yet, over the last 12 months, you have dared to reach for something greater. Tonight, against all odds, we have grasped it… We have toppled a political dynasty.’”

“Today, Labor Caucus Vice-Chairs Reps. Chris Deluzio (PA-17), John Garamendi (CA-08), Val Hoyle (OR-04) and Co-Chairs Reps. Mark Pocan (WI-02), Donald Norcross (NJ-01), Steven Horsford (NV-04) and Debbie Dingell (MI-06) led 81 House Democrats in a letter to the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee leadership outlining the Caucus’ priorities for the upcoming Surface Transportation Reauthorization bill. ‘As you work on drafting legislation to reauthorize our nation’s surface transportation programs, we urge you to include our policy priorities outlined below to ensure a pro-worker Surface Transportation Reauthorization bill,’ wrote the lawmakers.”

“On October 28, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the structure and authority of the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) against three constitutional challenges in NLRB v. North Mountain Foothills Apartments LLC (9th Cir. Oct. 28, 2025)...This decision joins a growing body of appellate decisions confronting constitutional challenges to the NLRB’s structure and adjudicatory authority. Notably, the Fifth Circuit recently invalidated the removal protections for NLRB members and ALJs.” 

“A new bipartisan bill seeks to provide a 'clear picture' of how artificial intelligence is affecting the American workforce. Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., on Wednesday announced the AI-Related Job Impacts Clarity Act. It would require publicly traded companies, certain private companies and federal agencies to submit quarterly reports to the Department of Labor detailing any job losses, new hires, reduced hiring or other significant changes to their workforce as a result of AI.”

“Until recently, policy discourse in the United States has been contradictory when it comes to regulating digital technologies in the workplace. Concerns about job automation and invasive surveillance dominate the public discussion about AI, and yet policymakers have rarely made worker impacts a central concern, more typically focusing on consumer privacy and the existential risks posed by frontier models. But this has started to change over the past several years — and especially this year — with the introduction of a slew of bills that address a range of harms to workers from data-driven workplace technologies.”

“The AFL-CIO and the Office and Professional Employees (OPEIU) filed a motion to intervene with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking review of a 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal’s decision in the SpaceX case. The motion asks the court to allow OPEIU to defend the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB’s) authority and protect workers’ ability to seek justice for labor law violations with the agency….The 5th Circuit’s decision in Space Exploration Technologies Corporation v. NLRB, or the ‘SpaceX’ case, allows employers to easily obtain injunctions blocking the NLRB from hearing any case, even when workers are fired or punished for trying to organize a union.”

“The cuts in Hollywood just keep coming, following a sadly familiar script. Last week it was Paramount, which laid off about 1,000 workers in the first wave of a deep staff reduction planned since tech scion David Ellison’s Skydance Media took over the storied media and entertainment company. The cuts affected a wide swath of the company, from CBS and CBS News to Comedy Central, MTV and the historic Melrose Avenue film studio, my colleague Meg James and I reported. Another 1,000 layoffs are expected in the coming weeks.”

“In the current political climate, the last bulwark against the abusive deployment of corporate-owned generative artificial intelligence might just come from union shareholders. AI tools are constantly evolving, and ​’with no one stepping in to create some guardrails, they will become harder and harder to regulate,’ says Emma Pullman, head of shareholder engagement at the British Columbia General Employees’ Union (BCGEU) in Canada. The union, representing more than 95,000 members in the public and private sectors, is a long-term investor in Thomson Reuters and is pressuring the Toronto-based data broker to align its AI products with human rights principles.”

“For several years, public support for labor unions has reached heights not seen since the 1960s, and even though Americans are polarized toward other American institutions, unions maintain strong public support across all age groups and across educational and partisan lines. New Center for American Progress analysis of American National Election Studies (ANES) data on eligible voters in 2024 shows: Every generation expresses positive overall feelings toward unions, with younger generations supporting unions the most. On average, self-identified Republicans and Democrats of all but one generation express approval of unions, with only Republican Baby Boomers expressing slightly less than neutral approval. Across generations, the working class has similarly strong support for unions, and unions have especially high support among the college-educated members of younger generations.”

“In this report, based on interviews with Amazon delivery drivers and lived experience of the lead author, a former Amazon driver, we focus on how Amazon steals wages, hides labor, intensifies work, and evades responsibility through workplace technology. These technologies include artificial intelligence (AI) systems, phone apps, onboard sensors, routing software, and in-van and customer cameras.”

“On November 5, 650 medical doctors, physicians assistants, and nurse practitioners with the Doctors Council-SEIU may go on a one-day Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) strike. The strike would impact over 60 Allina clinics across Minnesota. The workers are demanding safe staffing levels in order to retain healthcare providers and improve the quality of care for patients. If the workers do strike, the union believes it will mark the largest doctors’ strike in the private healthcare industry in the country.”

“More than 400 educators and state workers rallied at the Illinois Capitol on Oct. 29 calling for the legislature and Gov. JB Pritzker to release funds in spite of federal cuts and the current government shutdown. Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT) officers and members urged Pritzker and lawmakers to counter President Trump’s funding cuts with ‘strong state investment,’ to close costly tax breaks for tech companies, and reinvest in schools, transit and health care.”

“Members of the Science News Media Guild, workers who publish Science News and Science News Explores will conduct a 24-hour strike on Wednesday, November 5th. This comes after SNMG members voted to reject the Society’s latest contract proposal. ‘We’ve been at the negotiations table for more than a year and a half and have been clear about the support our workers need to be able to continue doing our jobs well. Over and over, Society management has demonstrated that they are not hearing us and do not value our concerns,’ says Jill Sakai, managing editor for Science News Explores.”

“Starbucks’ union members have voted to strike at the company’s U.S. stores next week unless it finalizes a contract agreement, the union said Wednesday. The strike would begin on Nov. 13, which is the day Starbucks plans to distribute free, reusable red cups. Red Cup Day, a Starbucks tradition since 2018, is typically one of the company’s busiest days of the year. Starbucks Workers United, the union organizing baristas, didn’t say how many stores would be impacted. But it said workers in at least 25 cities planned to strike and more locations could be added if the union doesn’t see “substantial progress” toward finalizing a contract.”

“My friend and mentor, Bill Pastreich, died recently (I say “died” because Bill hated euphemisms).  Bill had a long career as a community and union organizer, but he made his biggest impact leading a small local union based in southeastern Massachusetts for twenty-five years.  I was fortunate to work there for a year before going to law school, and I saw how, in addition to raising wages and benefits across-the-board, a union can negotiate contract language to maximize opportunities for career advancement.”

“The Teamsters International president, Sean O’Brien, is putting the ‘working class in jeopardy’ by allying with Donald Trump, according to a prominent labor activist challenging his leadership of the powerful union. O’Brien has ‘no business being a labor leader’ and ‘shouldn’t be trusted’, Richard Hooker Jr – who is running against O’Brien’s re-election next year – told the Guardian. Hooker has emerged as a leading critic of O’Brien, who described Trump as ‘our enemy’ during his first term in the White House, while criticizing the Teamsters leadership at the time for lack of opposition to Trump, and said it was ‘unfortunate’ so many Teamsters members voted for Trump during his victorious campaign to lead the union in 2021.”