Delegates to the United Auto Workers constitutional convention affirmed this week the aggressive direction the union has taken under President Shawn Fain, who took office in 2023 and immediately set the 400,000-member union on a new path, illustrated in bold campaigns like the Stand Up Strike against the Big 3 automakers.
Yesterday the federal government arrested and indicted 15 people, many of them union activists, on conspiracy charges over the protests and massive strike against ICE in Minnesota last winter.
Quick! What do these exciting stories have in common? Educators bringing a new fighting spirit to their unions, from Los Angeles to Chicago to Massachusetts. Members overthrowing corrupt leaders in the Teamsters and the United Auto Workers. Grocery workers and letter carriers rebelling against subpar contracts. Building trade workers organizing to turn their locals around. The answer is union reform caucuses. A reform caucus is simply a group of union members who are organizing together to improve their union and build its power to fight the boss more effectively.
Minnesota trade unionists active in worker assemblies are among the 15 people indicted by the federal government today, as part of a sweeping crackdown on organizing in opposition to the ICE and Border Patrol since December 2025.
Update, June 16: American Axle workers voted to ratify the contract over the weekend, with 80 percent voting in favor. For years their pay topped out at $22 an hour, max. Now $22 becomes a new hire’s starting pay, under the tentative agreement workers at American Axle reached on Wednesday, after 10 days on strike. Their slogan and demand was “$30 by ‘30.” By 2030 all 1,000 workers in the plant will be making $30 an hour.
Tens of thousands of California educators joined forces statewide, wagering that they could win more by working together. The result was a wave of strikes this school year that defied narratives of austerity and won better funding.
Public transit has been in a deep crisis since the Covid pandemic. Transit systems weren’t adequately funded to begin with. Then, as remote work increased, ridership declined. Now, emergency relief and infrastructure funds passed during the Biden administration have dried up.
El líder del sindicato de trabajadores de Honda ganó su reinstalación la semana pasada, en una victoria importante para trabajadores que buscan construir sindicatos democráticos en el sector automotriz masivo. Pero tomó 15 años para que José Luis Solorio Alcalá, del Sindicato de Trabajadores Unidos de Honda de México, STUHM, pudiera llegar un paso más cercano a la justicia.
El líder del sindicato de trabajadores de Honda ganó su reinstalación la semana pasada, en una victoria importante para trabajadores que buscan construir sindicatos democráticos en el sector automotriz masivo. Pero tomó 15 años para que José Luis Solorio Alcalá, del Sindicato de Trabajadores Unidos de Honda de México, STUHM, pudiera llegar un paso más cercano a la justicia.
The leader of Mexico's Honda workers’ union won reinstatement last week, in an important win for workers seeking to build real unions in the country's massive auto sector. But it took 15 years for José Luis Solorio Alcalá, of the Union of United Honda Workers of Mexico (Sindicato de Trabajadores Unidos de Honda de México, STUHM), to get one step closer to justice.
Since electing new leadership in 2022, Teamsters Local 135 in Indiana has completely changed the way it conducts negotiations. It’s using open bargaining to revitalize the local. Under the previous leadership, a small bargaining team negotiated behind closed doors. Gag orders ensured that members would know nothing about negotiations until an agreement was presented for a vote.
Imagine sleeping each night above more than a million barrels of oil while navigating the open ocean, maneuvering through narrow channels, and passing beneath bridges in some of the country’s most congested waterways. The hours are long, the work is physically demanding, and the risks are ever present.
Solidarity among co-workers is your source of power against the employer. And one essential ingredient for solidarity is respect. In the workplace we typically don’t experience respect—we experience coercion. No matter how much the boss may call us “partners” or claim “we’re a family here,” the employment relationship is fundamentally undemocratic: The employer makes the decisions, and workers are required to comply.
On a patch of sidewalk on a busy industrial corridor in Newark, federal agents with rifles, metal batons, flak vests, and balaclavas faced off against unarmed activists with cardboard signs and a bullhorn. Detained workers could be heard on the soccer field behind the prison walls, shouting in Spanish, “¡Libertad!” (Freedom!)
What does it take to unionize factories today, especially in the South? In the last two years, bus manufacturing workers secured first union contracts and a national master agreement across New Flyer facilities in three states. Their strategy shows how, with pressure from transit agencies that buy the buses, union members from organized sites leading outreach to non-union workers, and fighting stewards on the line, workers can unionize plants across a whole company.
Two unions representing 2,300 workers at Portland Community College went on strike for three weeks in March. It was the first-ever community college strike in Oregon, and a rare wall-to-wall strike where both educators and support staff walked out together. The strike ended in resounding victory. We won wage increases and protection against cuts to course offerings, and defeated the administration’s attempt to impose budget cuts on the backs of workers and students. Six weeks after we reached a tentative agreement, PCC President Dr. Adrien Bennings resigned.
Gardeners have a saying about newly planted perennials: “They sleep, then creep, then leap.” Last summer I pulled a lot of grass out of my yard (hard work!) and planted a garden. The new plants stayed small through the winter, gathering strength. Now suddenly my garden is teeming with new leaves. Spring has brought green shoots in the labor movement too. Here are some causes for hope:
Gardeners have a saying about newly planted perennials: “They sleep, then creep, then leap.” Last summer I pulled a lot of grass out of my yard (hard work!) and planted a garden. The new plants stayed small through the winter, gathering strength. Now suddenly my garden is teeming with new leaves. Spring has brought green shoots in the labor movement too. Here are some causes for hope:
On May First—International Workers’ Day—people across the U.S. and the world joined rallies and other actions calling for “Workers over Billionaires.” In the U.S., workers organized over 4,000 May Day actions in big cities and small towns. They focused on three demands: tax the wealthy, no to ICE, and expand democracy, not corporate power.
Effective troublemakers need many skills. One of the most important, though not the most glamorous, is list-building. If you otherwise have the fundamentals of organizing in place but you’re still struggling to reach more people, make sure you’re paying attention to your list and not leaving an opportunity on the table.
Axles are to vehicles what joints are to human bodies: the mechanism that facilitates movement. For parts worker Rosie Dodge, who has worked on a paint line for American Axle & Manufacturing for 10 years, the metaphor is embodied in the work environment. “They just do not treat us like people,” Dodge said. “We are often referred to as bodies, like they don’t even want to give us credit for having a pulse. They do what they call ‘manpower moves,’ and they say, ‘We just need bodies over here.’”
We are happy to report that Secrets of a Successful Organizer has now been translated into eight languages: Spanish, Japanese, German, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Swedish, Danish, Quebecois French, and, most recently, Korean. (See below for details on how to get copies.) We’ve also heard from union activists in Brazil, Norway, and Poland who are interested in translating it.
In my 25 years as a union organizer and labor educator, my core purpose has been to help working-class people recognize and act on their own power.
Cuando Evelyn comenzó a trabajar en Marder Trawling, un centro de procesamiento de mariscos en New Bedford, Massachusetts, se enteró de una condición de trabajo inusual: tendría que pagar discretamente a su gerente $100 dólares semanales por el privilegio de trabajar, dijo. “Yo no tenía trabajo, y tengo a mis niños. Yo le dije, ‘Está bien. Con tal de tener un trabajo.’
When Evelyn began work at New Bedford, Massachusetts, seafood processing center Marder Trawling, she learned of an unusual condition of employment: She’d need to quietly pay her manager $100 per week for the privilege of working, she said. “I didn’t have work, and I have kids,” she said. “So I told him, ‘All right,’ just to have a job. “There were times I didn’t have money for rent, bills, or food for my kids,” she told Labor Notes, but her manager was happy to oblige: she could skip a week’s payment, and owe $200 the next week.
When Evelyn began work at New Bedford, Massachusetts, seafood processing center Marder Trawling, she learned of an unusual condition of employment: She’d need to quietly pay her manager $100 per week for the privilege of working, she said. “I didn’t have work, and I have kids,” she said. “So I told him, ‘All right,’ just to have a job. “There were times I didn’t have money for rent, bills, or food for my kids,” she told Labor Notes, but her manager was happy to oblige: she could skip a week’s payment, and owe $200 the next week.
In the 1960s and 70s, conservative leaders of the AFL-CIO and many national unions viewed militant activists in the civil rights, anti-war, environmental, and women’s movements with alarm. When student radicals started migrating from campus and community organizing to unionized workplaces, labor officials did not welcome them.
Union members in many states and cities are pushing for a stronger voice in pension investments. And sometimes they’re actually winning: They’re holding pension boards accountable and advocating for investments that insure worker protections, climate resiliency, and decent retirement benefits.
Silicosis is a lethal workplace illness that killed thousands each year up through the 1960s. In recent decades, thanks to union workplace safety fights, it became much rarer. Annual deaths dropped to the hundreds. The disease affected mostly older workers with longer exposures. So it was hard for stonecutter Gustavo Reyes Gonzalez, 35, to get a clear diagnosis in 2019 when he first developed a cough and shortness of breath. It wasn’t until two years later that he was told he had silicosis—and only had a year to live.
Last month, 3,800 meatpacking workers in UFCW Local 7 in Greeley, Colorado launched the industry’s first major strike in 40 years. The three-week unfair labor practice strike was the first time workers had ever struck the JBS Greeley beef packing plant, one of the company’s largest. ULP charges against JBS included the illegal termination of a member of the bargaining committee and surveillance and intimidation of workers for participation in union activity.
Last month, 3,800 meatpacking workers in UFCW Local 7 in Greeley, Colorado launched the industry’s first major strike in 40 years. The three-week unfair labor practice strike was the first time workers had ever struck the JBS Greeley beef packing plant, one of the company’s largest. ULP charges against JBS included the illegal termination of a member of the bargaining committee and surveillance and intimidation of workers for participation in union activity.
Over the last decade Rhode Island has been a hotbed of progressive, pro-worker legislation. But it wasn’t always this way. It took years of proactive organizing by the labor movement on legislative and electoral campaigns. This “blue” New England state was led by Republican Governor Donald Carcieri from 2003 to 2011. During his term he cut 1,000 public sector jobs, passed a regressive property tax law, and attacked pensions for teachers and other public workers—actions that were enabled by centrist Democrats in the state legislature who were lukewarm towards labor.
Union baristas are finally back to the negotiating table with Starbucks, but the workers charge that rather than progressing, the company is reopening already agreed-upon issues. “They're trying to move backwards on issues we've already settled instead of settling the few that we have left,” said Mina Leon, a barista in downtown Manhattan who struck for two months to get the company back to the table.
In response to Jane Slaughter's interview of Frank Bardacke, I think Bardacke is right in pointing to the lack of democracy in the United Farmworkers as one reason why Cesar Chavez went unchallenged for so many years after sexually abusing women in the farmworker movement.
El gobierno mexicano está fallando en procesar la violencia de represalia y amenaza contra trabajadores que se organizan, según un nuevo informe, lo que coloca a México en incumplimiento de su acuerdo comercial con Estados Unidos y Canadá. El informe enumera nueve campañas de organización distintas en las que se hicieron amenazas contra trabajadores: en cada caso, los autores encontraron “poca evidencia de investigación o enjuiciamiento por parte de las autoridades.”
After a years-long campaign by unions, Virginia’s General Assembly passed legislation to extend collective bargaining rights to nearly half a million state, county, and municipal government employees.
After a years-long campaign by unions, Virginia’s General Assembly passed legislation to extend collective bargaining rights to nearly half a million state, county, and municipal government employees.
In 2011 Frank Bardacke published an 800-page history of the Farm Workers union: Trampling Out the Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers. It opened many eyes to the reasons the UFW became a shadow of its former self. Bardacke starts the book with an epigraph, a quote from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “O what a fall was there, my countrymen! Then I, and you, and all of us fell down...”
Six thousand San Francisco educators won fully funded health care, sanctuary schools, and an up to 8.5 percent raise over two years by walking out for the first time in nearly 50 years. After just four days on strike, February 9 to 12, they won their top demands—some of which the district had previously refused even to bargain over. “It was hard and it was joyful and we f-ing beat them,” said Ilan Desai-Geller, a high school teacher who served on the bargaining committee and as a regional strike captain. “They found the money all of a sudden.
For months, the country and the world have been watching Minnesota, where the Trump administration’s military occupation by ICE, Border Patrol, and Homeland Security has been met by a multi-faceted grassroots resistance. As rank-and-file electricians, we sought to involve our local unions in the campaign to push ICE out of the Twin Cities and to support our immigrant neighbors and fellow workers.
In less than a quarter-mile stretch of sidewalk, chatter in 57 languages overlaps with the sound of dancehall, bachata, Thai pop, Haitian kompa, and Micronesian hip-hop. At sunset, dozens gather for iftar, breaking their Ramadan fast; the music, pulsing from boomboxes and cell phones held up to megaphones, swells into one shared hum. In this sliver of land across from the sprawling JBS beef processing plant—among the largest in the country—workers from around the world have united in the largest U.S. meatpacking strike in 40 years.
Last year a network of unions and community organizations organized the largest May Day actions in U.S. history: 1,200 actions in all 50 states. This year, the stakes are even higher, and the examples inspiring us are even bolder.
When it comes to A.I., there’s a stark gap in ambition between business and labor. If A.I. ushers in a technological boom, corporations intend to use it to wage total war on labor. They will use efficiency gains to cut human jobs, surveil workers, and degrade work. Even if A.I. falls short of its lofty (perhaps inflated) valuations, the working class may still suffer severe consequences, since our economy and retirement increasingly depend on A.I. investments.
Desde que más de 4.000 agentes del ICE llegaron a la ciudad de Minneapolis, el barista de Starbucks Alex Rivers ha intentado a equilibrar la rigurosa concentración que exige el trabajo–se espera que los baristas escriban en cada vaso y completen cada pedido en cuatro minutos o menos, según él–con el miedo persistente de que los agentes puedan irrumpir en cualquier momento.
Labor Notes is delighted to welcome two terrific new staff writer-organizers and three great interns as we get ready for our big conference in Chicago in June. We’re also bidding a fond farewell to a retiring colleague. Paul Prescod, staff writer/organizer, started in January. He has been a public school teacher and rank-and-file activist in the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, and a staff organizer with Teamsters for a Democratic Union. He covers transit workers, K-12 education, and the building trades in the clean energy economy.
The 24,000-member Oregon Nurses Association has elected a slate of reform candidates to statewide leadership positions. The Caucus for Powerful Reform (CPR) won 15 out of the 21 seats it ran for, including the presidency, vice-presidency, secretary, and a majority of board of director seats.
Click here to download the whole guide as a PDF.
Since more than 4,000 ICE agents descended on the city of Minneapolis, Starbucks barista Alex Rivers has tried to balance the exacting focus the job requires—baristas are expected to write on every cup and complete every order in four minutes or less, he said—with the gnawing fear that agents could burst in at any moment.
As federal agents laid siege to the city of Minneapolis, rank-and-file postal workers in the Twin Cities organized two anti-ICE rallies. The first, on December 15, was held in response to ICE agents using the employee parking lots at the Lake Street and Powderhorn Post Offices to stage their operations. The second demonstration was held on January 18, after the killing of Renee Good. This was a much larger affair with around 250 participants, and involved other local unions such as the teachers, communications workers, and bus drivers.
A corporate artificial intelligence frenzy is sowing fear for workers on a massive scale. Seventy-one percent of people in the U.S., according to a Reuters poll on A.I., are concerned “too many people will lose jobs.”