Tag Archives: labor

Austerity, budget crisis, Congressional Progressive Caucus, Democrats, Economy, Education, elections, fair trade, Fascism, Immigrant Rights, labor, Low Wage workers, safety net, social security, Solidarity, trade unions, trump

The Trump Regime’s War on Working People: The First 100 Days

Weekend Reading

How Unions are Resisting Authoritarian Attacks on Workers’ Rights—and Why It Matters for Everyone

By Michael Podhorzer

Apr 28, 2025

Over the course of the first 100 days, appropriate attention has been paid to Trump’s attacks on the judiciary, law firms, universities, philanthropy, non-profit groups and the media as dangerous in their own right, but more importantly as essential elements of authoritarian consolidation. Yet almost no one has mentioned the attacks on an equally proven constraint on oligarchy and autocracy: unions. Trump and Elon Musk’s destructive ransacking of our government should remind us of what previous generations of Americans understood intuitively: that “we may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both,” as Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis put it. Like other attacks on civil society, the Trump regime’s attacks on unions and working people do not just injure those directly targeted, but all of us, as the labor movement is one of the most essential bulwarks against authoritarianism.

I’ve covered the indispensable role of unions in creating and protecting democracy and freedom in earlier Weekend Readings (Oligarchs Understand Power. Do We?, As Go Unions, So Goes America, More Than the Weekend: Unions, the Past and the Future of Democracy, and Then they came for the trade unionists).

If we all have a stake in unions as bulwarks against authoritarianism whether we belong to one or not, the same is true because of how unions foster shared prosperity and a healthy society, which I elaborate on here and here. In that regard, it is crucial to recognize the Trump actions as coming from the same playbook as Reagan’s decisive firing of over 11,000 striking air traffic controllers. It was more than punitive—it communicated a clear, aggressive stance against unions nationwide. The immediate aftermath saw corporate America follow Reagan’s lead, significantly increasing anti-union activities and adopting overt union-busting strategies.1 Reagan further entrenched anti-unionism by reshaping the NLRB into a body less protective of labor rights, reversing precedents that had previously safeguarded union activities.2

As it did then, today’s federal war on working people comes at a key inflection point. Then it was the rush to globalization, coupled with financialization and deindustrialization. Now it is the imminent transition to artificial intelligence in the workplace. Musk’s firings are providing a new playbook for that transition—fire everyone so as to be able to start from scratch with AI with as little friction from a legacy workforce as possible. And, although not the topic today, it’s important to note here that with respect to DOGE cleaning house to make way for AI, it’s also cleaning house to make way for even more of the government to be privatized—providing a vast market for the tech companies’ AI products and services. Although this future is not certain, it seems to be Musk’s plan: first trash the government, then when the government fails, privatize.

Today, I’ll lay out some of the most egregious actions taken by the Trump regime in the first 100 days to attack unions and working people in both the public and private sectors. Much of this is based on indispensable research by the Economic Policy Institute and its just released 100 Days, 100 Ways Trump Hurt Workers. (For more great reports like this, you can subscribe to EPI here.)

Then I’ll document the robust pushback unions are mounting against the Trump regime’s war on working people in the courts. Unions have also been in the forefront of mobilizing public action, most notably the AFL-CIO’s Department of People Who Work for a Living, which in addition to leading and participating in protests3, has organized town halls across the country.4 AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler declared:

The labor movement is not about to let Trump and an unelected billionaire destroy what we’ve fought for generations to build. We will fight this outrageous attack on our members with every fiber of our collective being.

And, significantly, even sectors mistakenly thought to be pro-Trump like the Building Trades powerfully responded to Trump’s executive order eviscerating collective bargaining for federal workers:

This executive order is an unprecedented assault on worker freedom and a direct attack on those fundamental rights. Americans know that patriotic blue-collar workers built this country, not billionaires. They also know that one of the last best chances to make it to the middle class is collective bargaining. NABTU and our affiliated unions will stand shoulder to shoulder with the entire labor movement to fight this head-on — and we will not back down.
Continue reading Are Working People Meeting the Moment? Prepare for Battle →

Low Wage workers, Pittsburgh, Solidarity, Steelworkers, trade unions, Youth and students

Five Years After Failed Vote, Pitt Grad Students Unionize

November 27, 2024 carldavidson Leave a comment

The University of Pittsburgh’s graduate student workers narrowly declined unionization in 2019, but this week’s overwhelming vote has the Oakland campus riding a wave of higher ed organizing.

By Maddy Franklin

Public Source

Nov 22, 2024 – Throughout the week, more than 1,000 graduate student workers at the University of Pittsburgh made their way to a nondescript ballroom in the O’Hara Student Center to vote on whether to unionize.

Supporters sought everything from more transparency on the part of university administration to pay equity, better vacation time and health insurance.

The line outside the ballroom stretched, at times, down the stairs of the center. “People are so excited … I’ve never seen engineers this excited,” said Lauren Wewer, a materials science and engineering Ph.D. student and organizer at Pitt.

On Friday, organizers announced the results: a 1033-28 vote to unionize with the United Steelworkers [USW]. The Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board had not yet confirmed the vote count as of mid-afternoon.

With this win, Pitt grad student workers become the latest employees to undergo a successful union bid at a U.S. higher education institution, continuing an upward trend in the sector’s organizing activity over the last few years. They also join faculty and staff at the university which unionized with the USW in 2021 and September, respectively.

Pat Healy, an information science Ph.D. student at Pitt, said the wide margin of support reflected in the vote, “aligns with how most of the grad union votes [in the country] have gone the last couple of years.”
Healy has been organizing at the university since 2019, which was the last time grad student workers attempted to unionize. Then, the pro-union students lost by fewer than 40 votes. For them, the impact of this year’s vote stretches beyond Pitt’s campus.

“I’m happy for the movement [and] looking forward to some other grad unions popping up, I’m sure inspired by us, because that always happens,” Healy said.

After Thanksgiving, they said organizers will begin setting up for bargaining with Pitt’s administration.

In a statement after the vote count, the university said, “While first contract negotiations can be complex, please know that we will come to the table in good faith and be there to support all graduate students throughout and beyond the process.”

Immediately following the loss in 2019, any efforts to restart conversations about unionizing would meet with “a kind of extreme hesitancy,” Healy said, blaming “a lack of understanding of what a union was.”

This year felt different, Healy said. There are likely a few reasons why.

Five years after failed vote, Pitt grad students unionize
EQT’s ‘bulldog’ has D.C. in his grip, with profits — and maybe higher gas bills — on the horizon

A wave of change

From 2021 to 2023, nearly 64,000 U.S. grad student workers joined unions. By comparison, only 20,394 students unionized from 2013 through 2020. Today, four in 10 grad student employees belong to labor groups.

This trend was, experts say, driven in part by the pandemic and by the administration change from Donald Trump to Joe Biden in 2021, which ushered in a National Labor Relations Board more amenable to organizers.

Adrienne Eaton, professor of labor studies and employment relations at Rutgers University, noticed COVID-19-driven layoffs and research funding losses on campus in New Jersey that eventually led to a faculty and grad student strike last year. She describes this time as an “active moment” in American higher ed, with students advocating for change across the board at universities and colleges. And with grad students, there’s another factor at play: “The faltering job market in academia.”

“A high percentage of students no longer [are] confident that they have a future as tenure-track professors, in particular, or potentially as academic faculty at all,” Eaton said. “So, I think it really changes the way that graduate students look at their assistantships that they get.”

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elections

New Poll of Older Voters in Six Battleground States Shows Tight Race Between Harris and Trump

August 20, 2024 carldavidson Leave a comment

Photo: Walz and Harris talking with Aliquppa’s football team, as part of several stops in Western PA three days ago.

However Democrats Must Communicate Their Positions on Medicare and Social Security with this Critical Voting Bloc

From Retired Americans PAC

Aug 20, 2024

Chicago – A new survey of likely voters ages 65 and up in six key swing states shows Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are in an extremely close race to win the pivotal senior vote in the most contested battleground states. Harris holds 47% of the total senior vote in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, while Donald Trump is supported by 49%. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has just 3 percent of the senior vote in those states.

Four years ago, national exit polls found that voters over 65 voted for Trump over Biden by 5%. In each of these states, voters over the age of 65 comprise at least 23% of the electorate.

When asked which party would be best at handling key issues, the poll found that Democrats held a slim 2% advantage on Social Security and Medicare, issues Democrats have led on. On prescription drug costs, Democrats held an 8% advantage over Republicans. However, Republicans held an advantage over Democrats on the issues of inflation, at 9%, and immigration, 18%.

“Harris’ strong showing in the survey with a group that went for Trump four years ago is encouraging,” said Richard Fiesta, an expert on retirement security issues and Treasurer of Retired Americans PAC. “However candidates who want to win must engage older voters directly on the issues that matter most to them now.

“There are stark differences between the two parties on the future of Social Security, Medicare, and prescription drugs – it’s incumbent on Democrats to communicate that they will strengthen and protect these programs, not privatize or cut them,” Fiesta continued.

The poll of 1,200 likely voters ages 65 and up in the November general election was conducted by GBAO between July 23-30, 2024, in AZ, GA, MI, NV, PA and WI on behalf of Retired Americans PAC.*

Harris led Trump among seniors by 3 percentage points in Arizona (49%-46%) and Michigan (50%-47%) and by 4 in Wisconsin (49%-45%). Trump led by 3 in Nevada (48%-45%), by 6 in Pennsylvania (51%-45%) and by 12 in Georgia (55%-43%).

Complete results and charts are available here.

*Two hundred respondents were reached in each state and the results were weighted proportionally. Respondents were reached by live dialers and through text-to-web interviews and the results carry a margin of error of +/- 2.8 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence interval.

Penn State, trade unions, Youth and students

July 1, 2024 carldavidson Leave a comment

Penn State Reaches Tentative Deal With Union Days After Teamsters OK Strike

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Photo: LOUIS B. RUEDIGER | TRIBUNE-REVIEW Unions representing workers at Penn State University’s main and branch campuses, including New Kensington, seen here, said they have reached a tentative four-year labor pact.

By BILL SCHACKNER

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Monday, July 1, 2024 – Union members will vote in the coming weeks on a tentative contract agreement with management covering 2,500 employees on Penn State University branches statewide and the main University Park campus.

The deal, if ratified, could offer a measure of labor peace at a time of heightened workplace anxiety across Penn State generally, and its branches in particular, over university-wide budget cuts and a 10% faculty and staff reduction through buyouts this spring on those branches, where enrollment has fallen sharply since 2010.

Teamsters Local 8 represents employees in custodial service, emergency medical response, food service, housing service, trades, science, athletics, agriculture, research, printing, engineering, transportation, airport services, information technology and media.

Its members on Wednesday had authorized leaders to call a strike if necessary.

The previous contract with Teamsters Local 8 was due to expire Sunday. The union announced the tentative four-year contract on social media Saturday night.

“The new deal includes 20% wage increases (21.79% compounded) over the life of the contract. More details will be shared during the forthcoming ratification meetings,” it read. “This effort was only made possible by the nearly 1,900 members who authorized strike action and showed the University that WE WERE READY!”

The contract would run through June 30, 2028, and will be retroactive to Monday.

Jonathan Light, president of Teamsters Local 8, could not immediately be reached Monday for additional comment on the agreement.

Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi welcomed the tentative pact, and in a statement, said pay raises included are comparable to deals recently reached by Penn State with Service Employees International Union Local 668 and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 13.

“These are the employees who keep Penn State operational,” said Jennifer Wilkes, vice president for human resources and chief human resources officer. “They maintain our facilities and grounds, provide food and services for our students, and clear the snow and ice during weather emergencies. During the COVID-19 pandemic, they were essential workers, serving on the front lines while the rest of the university was working remotely ….”

The branches statewide covered by the tentative agreement include Penn State New Kensington, Greater Allegheny, Beaver, Fayette and Shenango in Southwestern Pennsylvania.

Collectively, most of the branches have faced enrollment losses between 16% and 50% the last 10 years, officials said. They were expected to bear the brunt of $94 million in cuts announced in January to further reduce a university-wide deficit that at one point was $140 million.

Leadership on a number of those branches, which Penn State calls its Commonwealth system, is also being restructured. Multiple campuses will report to one chancellor under those changes.

On Wednesday, 91% of the 2,053 Teamsters who cast ballots on the strike authorization measure voted to approve it, said Light.

Union members will vote in the coming weeks on a tentative contract agreement with management covering 2,500 employees on Penn State University branches statewide and the main University Park campus.

Its members on Wednesday had authorized leaders to call a strike if necessary.

The previous contract with Teamsters Local 8 was due to expire Sunday. The union announced the tentative four-year contract on social media Saturday night.

The contract would run through June 30, 2028, and will be retroactive to Monday.

Jonathan Light, president of Teamsters Local 8, could not immediately be reached Monday for additional comment on the agreement.

The branches statewide covered by the tentative agreement include Penn State New Kensington, Greater Allegheny, Beaver, Fayette and Shenango in Southwestern Pennsylvania.

Leadership on a number of those branches, which Penn State calls its Commonwealth system, is also being restructured. Multiple campuses will report to one chancellor under those changes.

On Wednesday, 91% of the 2,053 Teamsters who cast ballots on the strike authorization measure voted to approve it, said Light.

Bill Schackner is a TribLive reporter covering higher education. Raised in New England, he joined the Trib in 2022 after 29 years at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where he was part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team. He can be reached at bschackner@triblive.com.

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