American trade unionists give solidarity to Mexican educators on strike — those who are on strike for better working conditions and not those infiltrating the movement at an opportunistic time to attack President Sheinbaum Pardo in light of calls for violence from the Mexican ultraright, like Carlos Salinas Pliego, and allies of the regime of President Donald Trump.

The post WFTU-FISE Supports the national strike of teachers in Mexico first appeared on Labor Today.

The post WFTU-FISE Supports the national strike of teachers in Mexico appeared first on Labor Today.

The union, named Nuemos Workers United (NWU) began their organizing drive with a rigorous internal petition signed by over 50 staff members (over 75% of workplace representation) listing demands to improve working conditions. The list of demands includes holding the employer accountable to comply with federal, state, and municipal labor laws, better pay compensation with a base rate of $30 an hour (including proportional raises) and safer staffing practices.

As service industry workers continue to form new unions and agitate against abject poverty and abuse from the bosses, the workers of NWU are a welcome addition to the fight for a stronger labor movement in the heart of Seattle, a bastion of the organized labor in the Pacific Northwest.

NWU is seeking community support. For more information, visit @nuemosworkers on Instagram.

The post Concert Venue Workers in Seattle Announce Organizing Drive first appeared on Labor Today.

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“We are united in our determination to win a fair contract, and we won’t back down until President Tarhule’s team comes to the table and treats us with the respect we deserve.”

After striking for nearly a month, Local 1110 won pay increases and retroactive pay for workers and guaranteed minimum pay increases to follow through 2030. Overall, the victory constitutes a nearly 17% wage increase over the terms of the newly settled contract.

ISU administration had a long history of poor treatment of Local 1110 workers had long who had been earning substandard wages and denied dignity due to the perceived low status of their work in food service and sanitation. Once the strike was on, students and parents were sure to take notice when the trash piled up and the meal service was cut short after the workers walked off the job to join the growing picket lines forming around ISU front offices. Many appealed to the university as the strike interrupted the basic functions of university living and learning. The workers were joined by faculty members as they held the line for fair pay and long overdue respect. Elected officials took notice as a coalition of students, parents, faculty and community members marched with Local 1110, a group totaling 6,000, to the rally held outside administrations offices.

ISU administrators has been aware of the Union’s reasonable contract conditions since back in February, but chose to ignore the worker’s petitions, resulting in undelivered services to students and a disruption of student life and learning on the ISU campus. Only after months of stalling tactics failed to scatter union solidarity, the administration resorted to breaking the law before finally honoring their employees and agreeing to their collective demands. As negotiations ran afoul, the union had filed lawsuits against the university for unfair labor practices, which will be dropped by as part of the settlement.

The strike paid off. It drew in the support of local lawmakers and stakeholders who joined local 1110 against the illegal and immoral treatment by the ISU administration. Ratifying the new contract, more than 95% of workers voted Yes.

The post AFSCME 31 Local 1110 Strikes and Wins first appeared on Labor Today.

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Hiding work is central to union-busting. Employers have used multiple underhanded and easily glossed over tactics to deter workers from organizing and joining unions. Even though the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 makes union-busting illegal companies still find ways to go around federal and state laws.

Employers regularly use the services of union-busting consultants and agencies. Law firms such as Jackson Lewis, who are known for union-building, to represent corporations in labor disputes, lawsuits, and union related cases. Some of their most valuable clients include Google, Amazon, and multiple universities and colleges. Companies are also known to push “astroturf campaigns”. These campaigns are manufactured movements meant to impersonate grassroot movements. The corporate organizers of these campaigns manipulate and misinform employees who are either ignorant of unions or hold misplaced resentment toward unions to spread the rhetoric of union-busting consultants and agencies to their co-workers. Employers often attempt to intimidate employees with forced one on one meetings where they are subjected to forced consumption of anti-union propaganda spewed by management and union-busting consultants. Companies have been known to make empty promises to convince employees not to organize and often use their union-busting lawyers to delay union elections and contract negotiations in an attempt to create a loss of morale amongst workers. Employers also use social media to union-bust. Corporations monitor the posts of pro-union workers, flag employees who have pro-union posts, suppress posts by reporting them as spam and hiding them from worker eyes, employers or anti-union moles will often crash online chat groups and video calls in order to spy on and intimidate union organizers, and it has also been revealed that employers will send anti-union propaganda through text messages.

There are multiple effective ways to combat employers who attempt to hide work from the union. One way is to speak to fellow workers face to face whether it be in or outside of work. Human interaction is one of the oldest and most effective ways of organizing and spreading awareness. An important tool to use to fight union-busting is utilizing the press. Using news releases and press conferences help gain massive public support against anti-union movements and campaigns. Another tactic is using text messaging to contact co-workers in order to spread information and organize. Finally using online campaigning to expose corporate misformation and propaganda, bring attention to the shady union-busting tactics used by employers, secretly conducting investigations into the underhanded motives of companies, studying up on workers’ rights, keeping track of and documenting violations conducted by employers, and capturing the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) attention and getting them on your side.

As workers we must maintain pride and dignity and recognize that we are the foundations to all corporations around the country and deserving of workers’ rights, especially the right to unionize and organize. Like a hand, its individual fingers are weak and easily broken, but when those fingers come together into a fist its strength cannot be broken and can smash through any obstacle or adversary.

The post Employers Hiding Work from the Union: How to Spot It and What To Do About It first appeared on Labor Today.

The post Employers Hiding Work from the Union: How to Spot It and What To Do About It appeared first on Labor Today.

Retail is a notoriously difficult industry to unionize; chaotic schedules, high turnover, and a workforce that often sees the job as a temporary stop create clear challenges for organizing. The industry relies on exactly these problems to sow apathy, especially among young workers. Since many are just working here temporarily, it’s easy for them not to care. But with nearly one in five retail workers being under 24, they represent a large demographic that must be won. While conducting unionization campaigns, a main objective needs to make young workers care about the organizing drive.

These young workers often get erratic schedules, poor training, and dismissive feedback. Their youth is taken advantage of by older bosses with false promises of promotions, pressure to accept exploitation, underpaying them for doing higher paid work, and isolating verbal abuse. Unlike older coworkers, who are dependent on the company’s paycheck to pay their mortgages, insurance, and other bills, younger workers lack these economic ties. This creates a policy that seems to emphasize deliberately burning through young comrades, replacing them as they inevitably quit, which conveniently reset their replacements at the lowest pay scale. Highlighting this particular disrespect and countering it proved to be our most useful organizing tool.

Young workers are told that they don’t deserve higher pay because they are new and have less responsibility, even though they actually have one of the largest ranges of tasks to complete. Young workers need to be reminded that their shared class position is with everyone on the floor. With just a little encouragement, young workers formed their own internal group of friends who helped keep each other informed and motivated. Together, they dispelled the company’s anti-union propaganda for both themselves and helped the other workers they were in contact with see the truth.

Younger workers voted for the union not primarily because of economic pressures, as this job was a short stop on their way to adulthood, but because the company’s systematic disrespect and manipulation made them desperate for collective power. Fortunately, the organization was able to fill the desire for camaraderie with a group that recognized their contributions as meaningful. Increasing pay was an influential part of it but showing youth they deserved respect and that their labor earned them the right to demand more was the biggest factor for getting them to care about working conditions at a job they will soon leave.

Young workers are not planning to stay here long term. Many will move on to college, trades, or other cities within a year or two. Yet once shown respect, the youth were willing to fight to improve the lives of the workers who will follow behind them. They put their jobs on the line not because they needed the raise forever, but because they understood that no one should be treated the way the company treated them. That is the lesson for unions going forward. Improving conditions will always be the main driving factor, but for some workers, especially the youngest, must show them they deserve respect before they can imagine a better future. Youth will fight for others even when they won’t be there to collect the benefits. With any luck, these skills in understanding class consciousness, and the power of solidarity will follow them as they venture out into the world.

The post Youth – A Treasure for Unions first appeared on Labor Today.

The post Youth – A Treasure for Unions appeared first on Labor Today.

“Profit over people.”, the unofficial slogan of capitalism. The bourgeois class have held this belief close to their hearts since the 16th century. In modern times nothing has changed. Capitalists are still choosing profits over people and they have now expanded to choosing “machines over workers”. In 2025 personal finance and trading education platform, RationalFX, counted 245,000 tech sector layoffs with about 70,000 being tied to AI adoption and automation. In the first six weeks of 2026 there were 30,700 layoffs in the tech sector connected to AI adoption and automation. Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman says,

“White-collar work, where you’re sitting down at a computer, either being a lawyer or an accountant or a project manager or a marketing person — most of those tasks will be fully automated by an AI within the next 12 to 18 months.”

Companies do not care if workers become unemployed and financially destitute. Andrew Yang, CEO at Noble Mobile and a former United States presidential candidate gave his take on the current issue of AI displacement in the workplace by explaining,

“As one company starts to streamline, all of their competitors will follow suit. It will become a competition because the stock market will reward you if you cut headcount and punish you if you don’t. Millions of workers are about to be given their pink slips.”

As of 2025 3 in 10 companies have admitted that they have already begun replacing workers with AI. They estimate that by the end of 2026 that 37% of workers will be replaced by AI. In a survey 1,000 United States capitalists have admitted to slowing down on hiring workers, 39% have laid off workers in 2025, 35% say they would layoff workers before the end of 2025, and 58% say they will conduct layoffs in 2026. These leeches have shamelessly expressed that employees who lack AI-related skills and entry-level workers face the highest risks for layoffs. These layoffs have been described as, “serial layoffs”, due to the rapid and systematic termination rates in companies.

This is a form of “reactive workforce management” which has led to a drop in morale amongst workers and caused a major loss of critical skills. A report published by the restaurant consulting firm, Aaron Allen & Associates, estimated that 80% of restaurant jobs will become automated. The study results show that 51% of server jobs will be automated. It is estimated that 57% of fast-food and counter workers will be replaced by machines. Some companies that have already started to make these changes are, but not limited to, Chipotle, McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Wendy’s, and the Jamaican Patty franchise, Juici Patties.

These blood sucking companies and the financial vampires known as their owners have exploited the minds and bodies of workers for centuries, now they feel as if workers are a burden and outdated. Due to this they have seen it fit to replace us with wires, circuit boards, metal, and plastic. They have once again chosen profits over people by choosing machines over workers. 

            (Gross, Grant. “Push to Replace Workers with AI Faces Backlash — Even from Management.” CIO, 28 Feb. 2026, www.cio.com/article/4138743/push-to-replace-workers-with-ai-faces-backlash-even-from-management.html.)

            (Moody, Kathryn. “Nearly 4 in 10 Companies Will Replace Workers with AI by 2026, Survey Shows.” HR Dive, 22 Sept. 2025, www.hrdive.com/news/companies-will-replace-workers-with-ai-by-2026/760729/.)           

(“80% of Restaurant Jobs Could Be Taken over by Robots.” Adeccogroup.com, 2020, www.adeccogroup.com/our-thinking/articles-and-editorials/80-of-restaurant-jobs-could-be-taken-over-by-robots.)

            (Scinto, Maria. “5 Fast Food Chains That Have Already Started Using AI.” The Takeout, 22 Feb. 2026, www.thetakeout.com/2104709/fast-food-chains-started-using-ai/.)

The post AI Displacement: Replacing Workers With Machines first appeared on Labor Today.

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Airport workers continue to feel pinched as the funding for airport screening with workers at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) remains frozen for now over five weeks. Over 50,000 workers are in the second stretch of work without pay in the last 6 months. In fall 2025, there was a 43-day shutdown that forced workers to work for over 50 days without pay.

TSA workers are classified as “Emergency Response Officials”, so even when there is a government shutdown or funding lapse, they still have to show up to work. TSA is also on a different pay system from the rest of the federal workers that pays much less. This is by design when the agency was formed in the wake of September 11, 2001. The TSA only recently won the right to collective bargaining in court and there is legislation to pay them at the same pay system of other federal workers. These victories have been rolled back by the Trump regime as it wages its war on workers.

Over 370 workers have quit since the current shutdown began. Others have taken side work either in gig economy jobs or selling plasma just to make ends meet and pay bills. Workers are frustrated as they are being run to exhaustion with no pay. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Agency the TSA is under, has issued letters to workers asking creditors for leniency or late fees to be waived, though workers are finding those inefficient in the second shutdown as some are sleeping out of their vehicles, bank accounts overdrawn, empty pantries and refrigerators, and evictions from homes.

Airports have opened food pantries, donation centers, and are now asking travelers for donations. Officials have warned that some smaller airports “may be shut down” as about 10% of the TSA workers have failed to show for work daily.

Politicians in Congress have offered no help as both Democrats and Republicans blame each other and have put forward proposals to pay workers but no progress has been made yet. The Trump regime engages in violations of the Hatch Act by blaming the shutdown on political opponents, but offers no concrete solutions. Federal workers are barred by law from striking courtesy of Ronald Reagan firing striking air traffic controllers in the 1980s.

LUEL calls on elected officials to pay workers a fair wage during this shutdown in an industry that is important for everyone. Airports have wide-reaching effects on their local area, and slowdowns and shutdowns hurt American workers. The way forward for workers in the airline industry is to band together in a mass anti-monopoly coalition with the other airport workers, pilots, flight attendants, and others to demand the monopoly capitalists pay workers a fair and just wage even during a government shutdown. Workers must join together in mass action to put pressure on those that hold the economy and workers hostage.

The post Workers Suffer as Airports Shutter first appeared on Labor Today.

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The post Harry Bridges School of Labor March 2025: Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Recording Now Available first appeared on Labor Today.

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This coincides with President Trump’s appointment of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to a new agency, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). DOGE is tasked with “tackling government bureaucracy and streamlining processes” of the US Government. This would put the NLRB in its crosshairs as it is supposed to be a check on the autocracy of corporations in the US. Musk’s role in this proposed initiative is a direct conflict of interest considering Musk’s legal fight against the NLRB.

We must ask the question, who elected Musk? How has an oligarch been put into a position to oversee a government apparatus supposedly aimed at being a check on tyrannical rule? Of course, these appointments have been a consistent feature of the US state apparatus, but the appointment of Musk, who spent over $200 million of his own money to get Trump elected, is in effect doing the quiet part out loud. This is an indication of how the NLRB and workers’ rights in general will fare during Trump’s second administration.

To add insult to injury, the Democratic majority during the “lame duck” session of the last Congress failed to re-confirm NLRB Chair, Lauren McFerran, which would have maintained a pro-worker NLRB for the first two years of Trump’s administration. With so-called “friends of labor” like this, who needs enemies? By design, this failure has handed a hobbled NLRB over to a Trump regime hell-bent on stripping away workers’ rights. Now, Trump has fired other members of the NLRB, including General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo and Former Chair Gwynne Wilcox, leaving the Board without a quorum.

The current situation among the misleaders of labor is an over-reliance on the administrative state to protect the rights which militant rank-and-file workers fought and died for. LUEL exists because we see the imperative for the US labor movement to regain its militancy in a class-oriented fight against capital. Only this can ensure a strong future for both the labor movement and the working-class as a whole in the United States.

In solidarity,
Labor United Educational League

The post LUEL Statement on the State of the NLRB first appeared on Labor Today.

The post LUEL Statement on the State of the NLRB appeared first on Labor Today.