The decision to back Cuomo has received harsh criticism from rank-and-file trade unionists even without his many scandals, Andrew Cuomo’s tenure as Governor saw an attack against labor that would make any Southern Republican look like a labor ally. During his time in office Cuomo, accelerated the push to privatize public education, stole money out of public transit funds and created a two-tier wage system for new hires with his “Tier 6” pension scheme. Not only did Tier 6 cut pensions for new hires starting in 2012, but it more than doubled pension contributions for many workers and increased the retirement age from 55 to 63 for the majority of the State’s workforce. Rank-and-file members have been clamoring for Tier 6 reform since, and it’s been slow-moving, the endorsement of Cuomo makes it clear that the misleaders of labor in reality support Cuomo’s signature piece of anti-union legislation.

While the misleaders of labor continue to fall in line with the monopolists in power, rank-and-file activists have stepped up to fight back against a monopoly-controlled New York City. Before Cuomo even entered the race, unions with active rank-and-file movements backed the Working Families Party slate of candidates (NYC has Ranked Choice Voting for Primaries) which includes notable candidates New York State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani and New York City Comptroller Brad Lander.

Later, as many of NYC’s misleaders of labor were preparing to endorse Cuomo rank-and-file leaders stepped up to fight back against this betrayal. The misleaders of AFSME DC36 and UFT, two unions who led a massive betrayal by spearheading Mayor Eric Adam’s plan to force all retirees into a privatized Medicare Advantage plan, were set to back Cuomo until rank-and-file leaders got word and organized members against Cuomo. In a surprise move, DC37 ended up endorsing Mamdani, while the UFT, in attempt to face no political backlash, would refrain from endorsing anyone in the primary. The since voted-out leadership of SEIU Local 1199 endorsed Cuomo in April, now a rank-and-file movement is fighting to rescind that endorsement as well.

Many of the labor endorsements for Cuomo’s campaign should be of no surprise, starting with the historically reactionary building trades unions. His campaign was launched at the union hall of the Carpenters’ Union, a union which is actively using dual unionism throughout the country to undercut other building trades unions. The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) and their subsidiary union the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) have endorsed Cuomo, a move that should galvanize the growing rank-and-file discontent in that union.

And, we cannot forget the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) who under current International President John Costa—who was appointed to replace the progressive, left-leaning and Staten Island’s own labor and community leader Larry Hanley in 2019—has made a sharp rightward shift back into the control of the Democratic Party establishment and business unionism has endorsed Cuomo. This endorsement has come while ATU members are working under increasingly dangerous working conditions due to lack of maintenance, conditions that can be traced back to Cuomo’s raiding of over $400k in funds from the MTA during his tenure as Governor.

Workers are tired of the constant givebacks, cost-of-living decline and benefit cuts that has been the hallmark of both Andrew Cuomo’s time as Governor and the current crop of labor misleaders tenure in office. The rank and file have increasingly gotten on board with the Zohran Mamdani campaign for Mayor not just because of Cuomo’s anti-labor history, but Mamdani’s plans for fast and free buses, a rent freeze on all rent-stabilized apartment, universal child-care, city-run grocery stores and many others which will help restore dignity in lives of working New Yorkers. In the State Assembly, Zohran Mamdani has also been a co-sponsor of the New York Health Act which would create a single payer health plan for all New Yorkers and has fought to fix the Tier 6 pension mess created by Cuomo.

It is clear the misleaders of labor do no stand on the same side as the rank and file in this race. The so-called leadership has coalesced behind the candidate of monopoly capital in Andrew Cuomo, while the rank and file has increasingly worked for and supported the anti-monopoly candidacy of Zohran Mamdani. The NYC mayoral primary takes place on June 24^th, but due to Ranked Choice Voting the results may not be final for another week. No matter the results, this election has shown the only path forward for labor movement is an anti-monopoly movement led by the class-oriented aspects of the labor movement.

The post Misleaders of Labor Coalesce Behind Cuomo as Rank-and-File Shifts Leftward first appeared on Labor Today.

On this day, it is important not to forget the children around the world who are being robbed of their childhoods as a result of imperialist interventions and wars. Since the beginning of the Israeli aggression in Gaza, more than 16,000 children have lost their lives, while hundreds of thousands will carry the fear, trauma, and physical and emotional wounds of war for the rest of their lives.

Today, over 160 million children are still trapped in labor, many subjected to hazardous, degrading, and exhausting conditions. These children are denied their right to education, to leisure, to a healthy life, and to a dignified childhood. This is not an unfortunate accident or the result of isolated failures—it is the direct outcome of the exploitative nature of capitalism, which thrives on inequality, poverty, and imperialist domination.

Child labor worldwide has risen to alarming levels in recent years. Between 2016 and 2024—for the first time in over two decades—the number of working children globally has increased. The unprecedented economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with the deepening capitalist crisis and wars, continues to push children into ever more exploitative and dangerous labor conditions.

Meanwhile, the same forces that liberalize markets, dismantle public services, and suppress workers’ rights are the ones that drive families into despair and force children into labor. Multinational corporations, complicit governments, and international institutions may present themselves as champions of children’s rights, but in reality, they advance policies that entrench exploitation and strip working people of their dignity and protections.

For the WFTU, it is clear: the eradication of child labor can never be achieved under a system that sees human beings as tools for profit. What is needed is a radical transformation—one that guarantees free, quality public education for all children, ensures decent wages and secure employment for all adults, and strengthens public services and social protection systems. No parent should ever be forced to choose between hunger and sending their child to work.

We reaffirm our militant commitment to this struggle, and we stand in solidarity with workers across the globe who resist exploitation and fight for their rights. The battle against child labor is inseparable from the broader struggle against capitalist injustice and imperialist aggression. It is part of our vision for a society where the needs of the people—not the profits of the few—come first.

The post Statement of the World Federation of Trade Unions on the World Day Against Child Labor first appeared on Labor Today.

In typical libertarian fashion, Sen. Paul feigns sympathy for the “freedom of choice” for the workers to carry out his work for the monopolies and cartels in the U.S. If Sen. Paul cared about the freedom of the American working class, he instead would back the repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 aimed at restricting the power of organized labor.

Taft-Hartley was monopoly capital’s response to the wave of successful industrial organizing led by the Congress of Industrial Organizations (C.I.O.) and it decimated the U.S. labor movement. Taft-Hartley set forth the banning of most strikes, ending the closed shop and allowing states to introduce “right-to-work” laws. Most notably, aimed at “rooting out Communism” within the labor movement Taft-Hartley included a provision forcing labor leaders to sign anti-Communist affidavits which was used to root out all militant and class-oriented trade unionists from American unions. Although the anti-Communist provisions were ruled “unenforceable” in 1965, the damage had already been done as Taft-Hartley had allowed the reactionary business unionists to consolidate power.

Since Taft-Harley was passed, 26 states have passed “right-to-work” laws with at least one more pending. Union membership in the U.S. peaked in 1945 at 33.4% holding union cards; under the guidance of business unionist leadership union membership in the U.S. has decreased to an all-time low of 9.9%. This “right-to-work” has been a major factor in this decrease as the unionization rate in private industry has dropped to an even lower 5.6%. This should make it clear that the American labor movement needs a change of direction.

The time is now for all militant, class-oriented trade unionists to take the lead in organizing a rank-and-file movement to take back the American labor movement. Without a vastly organized rank-and-file, we will be at the mercy of monopoly capital. It is time to get out on the shop floor and work to build the class consciousness of your fellow workers. It is time for the heart of the labor movement to stand up and fight back. It is time to organize the anti-monopoly coalition led by a class-oriented trade union movement. This is the time to bring workers together to build a real rank-and-file and collectively led Labor Party in the U.S. Only then can we effectively push back the monopolists, as our class-oriented forebears in the C.I.O. did, and build an America of the people, by the people and for the people.

The post EDITORIAL: Class-Oriented Trade Unionism is Necessary to Permanently Defeat Monopolists as National “Right-to-Work” Bill is Reintroduced first appeared on Labor Today.

Carey was an NLRB official from 2009-2018, after which she joined notorious union-busting law firm, Morgan Lewis where she made partner in 2024. Morgan Lewis has been a thorn in the side of labor for decades including during the 1981 PATCO strike, currently Morgan Lewis represents Amazon in their fight against the nationwide campaign to organize their sweatshop-like facilities.

We must ask who benefits from an appointment like this. It certainly is neither the labor movement nor the working class as a whole. Trump knows full well that the misleaders of labor have relied heavily on the administrative state to organize and maintain any semblance of power against the assaults for monopoly capital; this is an attempt to pull the rug out from under them.

The only path forward is a mass rank-and-file movement aimed at fighting back against monopoly capital’s new assault. We can only defeat the bosses with a class-oriented trade union movement built from below and ready to fight. We need a militant labor movement to take the lead in building an anti-monopoly coalition to fight the bosses and organize the unorganized.

The post Trump Continues Assault on Labor, Names Union-Busting Lawyer as new NLRB General Counsel first appeared on Labor Today.

Railroad workers would go on to reject a tentative agreement that outright ignored the demands of the rank-and-file over these conditions. Using the anti-labor Railway Labor Act, a bipartisan Congress and then President Biden would go on to force that rejected agreement onto the rail workers in December 2022. With the warnings of the railroad workers ignored, disaster would soon strike on February 3, 2023, just two months after Congress ignored the safety concerns as a Norfolk Southern train derailed right outside East Palestine, OH leading to a massive environmental disaster.

This grim situation on the railroads was a catalyst for the cross-craft caucus of rank-and-file railroad workers, Railroad Workers United (RWU), passing a resolution in support of the nationalization of the railroads. This resolution would lead to the creation of the Public Rail Now campaign which is a grassroots coalition fighting for the nationalization of the railroads using the 1920s Plumb Plan as a model.

The Plumb Plan had a call for a tripartite leadership of the railroads consisting of labor, the public, and management. Though it was a step in the right direction, it kept the same abusive bosses in at least partial leadership of the railroads. Public Rail Now has improved on this concept now pushing a tripartite leadership consisting of labor, the public, and the planet. This concept is the embodiment of the labor-led anti-monopoly coalition LUEL has been organizing for, it unites the labor movement with community and climate mass organizations to fight the monopolist railroad cartels.

The Public Rail Now campaign has already brought a large variety of groups together like RWU, LUEL, Labor Network for Sustainability, national unions like the United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers Union (UE), the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), and others to organize a push to nationalize the railroads. LUEL calls on rank-and-file leaders to fight for their unions to endorse the campaign and to go to their local labor councils to push for endorsements. Look out for events throughout the country as the campaign heats up, get involved, and join the fight against the monopolists.

The post To Fight the Monopolist Railroad Cartels We Must Unite to Fight for Public Rail first appeared on Labor Today.

Like Social Security, the Railroad Retirement is funded by employees and employers through a payroll tax. Railroad Retirement costs non-railroad employees nothing. Yet, fears from railroad workers that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by the richest man on earth, Elon Musk, is looking to cut such benefits to pay for the tax cuts to billionaires. The quasi-government body has announced already to discontinue the lease of 7 buildings around the country for the RRBs to execute its mission to improve “efficiency.”

Railroaders are familiar with claims of improved “efficiency” through making cuts while increasing “throughput to customers.”  Precision Schedule Railroading, the corporate railroad method that has led to countless railroad disasters, exploitive work conditions, and less service to customers is vehemently unsupported by railroad workers unions. DOGE and Elon Musk are trying to disseminate government bodies like the Railroad Retirement Board much like what Precision Schedule Railroading (PSR) has done to the railroads in order to give the railroad workers less.

The Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, in a statement posted on its website on March 7, 2025, listed three reasons how the underfunding would affect the department:

1. The RRB’s chronic underfunding has led to severe service delays, which directly impact the railroad workers and retirees who rely on the agency. If funding remains inadequate: The average wait time for occupational disability claim adjudication will remain at 450 days — meaning retirees and beneficiaries will wait well over a year for their claims to be processed.
2. The average phone hold times are already at 4 hours, leaving members struggling to get assistance.
3. With the current executive orders and government overreach, the RRB can only hire one employee for every four who leave, making it impossible to keep up with demand and worsening service backlogs.

The bottom line is that Railroad companies do not want to pay their employees the benefits they earned. Defunding railroaders’ benefits will lead to more exploitation of an already overly exerted industry of workers. Fighting for more public power for our railroads, freight, and passengers and not less is crucial to achieving a more secure Railroad Retirement. The goal of the railroad bosses is to underfund the services to make them unreliable and faulty to make it easier to dismantle them altogether.

Support the Public Rail Now campaign if you want to protect Railroad Retirement as stated on their website “There is reason to believe that public ownership of the railroads would bode well for the Railroad Retirement System because, as outlined, increased freight traffic, electrification, infrastructure expansion, a return of passenger service, shorter and safer trains, and an emphasis on service rather than profit and job cutbacks would necessarily translate into more railroad jobs and more payers into the Railroad Retirement System.”

Support for Public Rail Now will give railroaders more security for their retirement plans but it also helps protect Social Security due to the closely tied services of both programs for benefactors. An attack on either service, Social Security or Railroad Retirement hurts all Americans. LUEL calls on the American people to support and defend Railroad Retirement through support of the Public Rail Now Campaign.

The post DOGE Attacks Already Overburdened Railroad Retirement Board first appeared on Labor Today.

When pressed by resident sycophant Senator Rand Paul over her endorsement of the PRO Act in Congress, Ms. Chavez-DeRemer backed off her support for the provision repealing state “Right-to-Work” laws. In response, Sean O’Brien not only doubled down on the Teamsters’ endorsement of Chavez-DeRemer but stated he’s working with Senator Josh Hawley in creating a version of the PRO Act that “may not include” repealing of “Right-to-Work.”

In the same interview, ironically on anti-worker Fox News, O’Brien stated, “That’s the beauty of having conversations with people from the other side, where you can collaborate and actually find out what works for that state, what doesn’t work for it—but more importantly, what’s going to work for the American worker.” This statement insinuates that “Right-to-Work”, a notorious union-busting tool promoted by oligarchs to maintain the open shop may work in some states.

Sean O’Brien is the poster child of the modern misleaders of labor, his hollow capitulation on “Right-to-Work” is his latest abandonment of the working class. The closed shop, something our class-oriented forebears fought—and in many cases were murdered for—should be the standard we fight for. Instead of fighting the ravages the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 has leveled against the American labor movement Sean O’Brien is now falling in line with the capitalist bosses.

LUEL saw potential in the Teamster’s non-endorsement in last year’s presidential election as a potential shift towards independent labor political action. Unfortunately, without a strong rank-and-file movement leading the way for an independent labor party, the misleaders of labor, led by Sean O’Brien, are using any potential momentum towards further entrenching “labor-management cooperation” at a time when the capitalist class is intensifying its attacks on the working class.

The post EDITORIAL: Sean O’Brien Continues Selling Out Workers as He Embraces So-Called “Right-to-Work” first appeared on Labor Today.

Despite these sexual misconduct allegations coming out in 2023, Davis was allowed to run in the December 2024 election. There is much speculation among rank-and-file members that he was allowed to run and was subsequently ousted to keep the current leadership group in power. Davis and his predecessor Utano came out of John Samuelson’s “Stand United” Slate, which has maintained power in TWU since 2009 despite its shortcomings.

Davis’ two predecessors oversaw contracts with increases in progression to top-pay and cuts to medical coverage, while real wages and working conditions have plummeted for New York City Transit (NYCTA) workers; Davis continued this lack of momentum one of the worst contracts in the union’s history. The lone contract Davis negotiated a contract that not only had a wage increase that fell way below post-COVID inflation, but he agreed to force TWU retirees off of traditional Medicare in favor of the for-profit Medicare Advantage scheme in exchange for a $7 million annual payout to the union.

Rank-and-file leaders of Local 100 have stepped up and started a petition calling for a new election. The petition states:

“Whereas the President of TWU Local 100 has been forced out of office, effectively nullifying the recent vote of the membership in the 2024 TWU Local 100 Union Elections; Whereas the current bylaws do not provide adequate relief or guidance in this unprecedented situation; Whereas the TWU Local 100 Bylaws state in Article III, Duties of the President, that: “In the event, a vacancy occurs in the office of the President, the Executive Board shall designate one of the Officers to act as President for the unexpired term,” We, the undersigned, demand the following: (1) A full membership vote to elect a new President for Local 100, ensuring that the leadership reflects the will of the union members and not an appointment by the Executive Board. (2) The suspension of the 18-month rule, which permits the appointment of a President and prevents other candidates from running for the position. (3) An election overseen by the Department of Labor, utilizing both electronic voting and secret ballot methods to ensure fairness, transparency, and accessibility for all members. The voice of the membership must be respected and upheld through a fair and democratic process. Immediate action is necessary to restore confidence in the leadership of TWU Local 100, protect the integrity of our union, and ensure full membership participation.”

The outcome of the debacle within TWU Local 100 not only affects its over 41,000 members but all workers at NYCTA, most notably the Amalgamated Transit Union which has members across three different locals in the system. LUEL stands with the rank and file for a democratic election against the current corrupt misleadership of TWU Local 100.

The post Sell-Out TWU Local 100 President Ousted in Sex Scandal first appeared on Labor Today.

After a December meeting with ILA President Harold Daggett, Trump announced his support in a statement on his social media platform, Truth Social. Trump dressed his support in a reactionary tone, making the workers’ struggle over automation out to be little more than a fight between a foreign company and American workers. It is important not to lose sight of the fact that it doesn’t matter where a company is based, capitalists will always attempt to use automation to increase production and eliminate jobs—especially unionized jobs.

After announcing the tentative agreement on January 8, Daggett claimed that Trump has proven himself to be “one of the best friends of working men and women in the United States.” Given both Trump’s business career and first term in office, it’s clear that Trump is far from a friend of the working class. During the campaign Trump tried to cause a divide within the labor movement, trying to take advantage of the historical differences between craft and industrial unions. He has followed his anti-worker campaign with a barrage of Executive Orders attacking working-class Americans.

ILA leadership hitching itself to Trump, may have successfully helped it gain this current tentative agreement, but it adds to the labor movement’s precarious position after Trump has filled his cabinet with union-busting robber barons and other anti-union blowhards. LUEL cautiously supports the ILA rank-and-file members’ win in protecting their jobs and maintaining livable wages but the labor movement cannot continue to rely on capitalist politicians. The only path forward to protect and maintain these gains going forward is for a class-oriented rank-and-file movement to lead the union in an anti-monopoly direction.

The post ILA Leadership Hitches Itself to Trump, Agrees to Tentative Agreement with USMX first appeared on Labor Today.

The disastrous results for the Democratic Party saw many other unions, including the AFL-CIO, start to publicly acknowledge the problems with the two-party duopoly that plagues American politics. In her post-election statement, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler finally admitted that “it is clear that the economic struggle working-class people are facing is causing real pain and neither party has sufficiently addressed it.” (My emphasis) UAW President Shawn Fain also has made it clear that “both parties share blame for the one-sided class war that corporate America has waged on our union, and on working-class Americans for decades.”

These statements have given mainstream credibility to what we at LUEL have been pushing this entire election cycle; the working class needs a labor-led anti-monopoly coalition that will bring all the progressive elements of the country together to create an independent working-class political party. We, however, understand that such a movement cannot be built overnight, by simply declaring its existence. It will be a long hard struggle, which will take a massive push in rank-and-file organizing not seen in decades. UE said it well in their September statement on the elections:

“The formation of an effective, independent, working-class labor party will be no easy task; it cannot simply be wished into existence. The extreme polarization among working people, our country’s ‘first-past-the-post’ elections, laws that severely hamper third-party candidates, and the influence of big money in politics all buttress the two-party system. Building an effective labor party will require challenging these structural obstacles to democracy.”

Many LUEL members have already started reaching out to fellow workers in their workplaces about an independent political option for the working class. We have seen that while many workers agree with the state of our political system, there is a lot of work to do to convince the working masses that it is possible to mount a real fight against the capitalist duopoly. The time is now to join the fight for the labor-led anti-monopoly coalition and independent working-class political party.

The post EDITORIAL: Labor’s Shift toward Political Independence Must Be Pushed in Anti-Monopoly Direction first appeared on Labor Today.