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strikes
'No Concessions': San Francisco Teachers End 4-Day Strike After Winning Raise, Family Healthcare
“This historic strike built an unbreakable solidarity across our city, among families, students, educators, and community," said San Francisco's teachers union.
Feb 13, 2026
San Francisco public school teachers and their union celebrated Friday after negotiating a tentative agreement for a new contract with higher pay and fully funded family healthcare, ending a four-day walkout that was the city's first educator strike in nearly half a century.
United Educators of San Francisco (UESF) said its bargaining team reached a two-year tentative deal with the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) at around 5:30 am local time Friday. The 120 public schools that were closed due to the walkout by around 6,000 teachers are set to reopen for classes next Wednesday.
"This historic strike built an unbreakable solidarity across our city, among families, students, educators, and community," UESF said in a statement. "This strike has made it clear what is possible when we join together and fight for the stability in our schools that many have said was out of our reach."
The tentative agreement, which follows 11 months of bargaining, includes the union's main demand for fully funded health coverage for dependents; raises of between 5-8.5%; caseload reductions for special educators; sanctuary protections for students and staff; limits on the use of artificial intelligence; preservation and expansion of the Stay Over program for unhoused students and their families; and better working conditions for librarians, substitute teachers, counselors, and other staff.
“By forcing SFUSD to invest in fully funded family healthcare, special education workloads, improved wages, sanctuary and housing protections for San Francisco families, we’ve made important progress towards the schools our students deserve,” said UESF president Cassondra Curiel “This contract is a strong foundation for us to continue to build the safe and stable learning environments our students deserve.”
SFUSD Superintendent Maria Su said in a statement: "I recognize that this past week has been challenging. Thank you to the SFUSD staff, community-based partners, and faith and city leaders who partnered with us to continue centering our students in our work every day."
"I am so proud of the resilience and strength of our community," Su added. "This is a new beginning, and I want to celebrate our diverse community of educators, administrators, parents, and students as we come together and heal."
However, Su also warned that “we do not have enough funds to pay for this year and the next two years," citing SFUSD's over $100 million budget deficit.
The striking teachers enjoyed widespread support and solidarity across the city, including at a massive rally outside City Hall on Monday.
San Francisco’s first public school teachers strike in 47 years started today with picket lines across the city and a rally at Civic Center. Schools will remain closed on Tuesday. Read live updates: https://t.co/5iRAt8eWdu
📝: Ezra Wallach, @low___impact, @allaboutgeorge pic.twitter.com/KMylN2L3fU
— The San Francisco Standard (@sfstandard) February 10, 2026
San Francisco teachers cheered the tentative agreement—especially its coverage of 100% of premiums on family health plans, which run about $1,500 per month, beginning next January.
“That amount of money is life-changing to us,” Balboa High School English teacher Ryan Alias said during a Thursday press conference.
“If we had that in our pocket, we would be able to save for retirement,” added Alias, who has two children in SFUSD schools. "We would be able to save for college funds. We’d be able to save for student loans. We’d be able to pay for art classes for our kids. This is the thing that is going to keep educators in the city.”
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31,000 Kaiser Nurses Strike as Their Union Says Employer Puts 'Profit Over Patients'
The head of the striking nurses' union says Kaiser Permanente would "rather protect an enormous financial cushion than protect patients and the people who care for them."
Jan 26, 2026
More than 30,000 Kaiser Permanente nurses and other healthcare professionals walked off the job Monday in two western states, accusing their employer of caring more about profits than patients and highlighting what they say are KP's unfair labor practices.
United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals (UNAC/UHCP)—a member of the Alliance of Healthcare Unions (AHCU)—said that 31,000 frontline registered nurses and other medical workers at more than two dozen KP hospitals and hundreds of clinics in California and Hawaii went on an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) strike that would continue indefinitely until they get a fair contract.
"On the picket lines, healthcare workers will call attention to what’s at stake in settling a fair contract: the growing crisis caused by Kaiser’s failure to invest in safe staffing levels, timely access to quality care, and fair wages for frontline caregivers," UNAC/UHCP said in a statement Monday.
Registered nurse and UNAC/UHCP president Charmaine Morales said: “We’re not going on strike to make noise. We’re striking because Kaiser has committed serious unfair labor practices and because Kaiser refuses to bargain in good faith over staffing that protects patients, workload standards that stop moral injury, and the respect and dignity that Kaiser caregivers have been denied for far too long."
“Striking is the lawful power of working people, and we are prepared to use it on behalf of our profession and patients," Morales added.
ON STRIKE: The UNAC/UHCP Unfair Labor Practice strike starts TODAY! 31,000+ Kaiser Permanente nurses and health care workers in CA and Hawai'i are holding the line for quality patient care and a fair contract! #TogetherWeWin #SafeStaffingSavesLives #PatientsOverProfits
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— AFSCME (@afscme.bsky.social) January 26, 2026 at 9:57 AM
The new strike follows last October's walk-off by over 75,000 nurses and allied healthcare workers at KP facilities in California, Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii over stalled contract negotiations and other issues including pay, staffing levels, and working conditions.
UNAC/UHCP had been negotiating with KP since last May. After KP management left the bargaining table last month, the union filed an unfair labor practices complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, which has cited KP for numerous violations in recent years.
KP is the nation's largest integrated managed care consortium of nonprofit and for-profit entities. According to a 2025 investigation by Matthew Cunningham-Cook for the Center for Media and Democracy in conjunction with the American Prospect, KP "is sitting on $67.4 billion in reserves, up from $40 billion just four years ago."
Kaiser collected $12.9 billion in net income in 2024 and $7.9 billion through the third quarter of 2025.
A new UNAC/UHCP report, "Profits Over Patients," details how KP "has strayed from its founding mission and moved towards profit, expansion, and Wall Street-style asset accumulation that has created real consequences for patient care and caregiver well-being."
Morales said that “when Kaiser says it doesn’t have resources to fix staffing, what we hear is that a nonprofit health care organization would rather protect an enormous financial cushion than protect patients and the people who care for them."
UFW in solidarity with the 31,000 nurses and health care workers who are on strike in California and Hawaii.#UnionStrong #1U
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— United Farm Workers (@ufw.bsky.social) January 26, 2026 at 10:47 AM
Zach Pritchett, an emergency room nurse at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Los Angeles, told LA Progressive, “I see the end result of the poor staffing every single day."
“What I’m seeing in the ER are Kaiser members who can’t get appointments for months at a time with their own primary care physicians—so they wind up here," he added.
Some strikers drew attention to the killing by Trump administration immigration enforcers of intensive care registered nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday.
"He is one of us." "He was trying to help a woman stand up and he was assassinated. He did what nurses do, take care of others." "There's so many people here that will do the same."
Kaiser nurses on strike in California speak against ICE murder of nurse Alex Pretti pic.twitter.com/2k54Ojuqn9
— World Socialist Web Site (@WSWS_Updates) January 26, 2026
KP responded to the new strike in a statement declaring, "Our focus remains on reaching agreements that recognize the vital contributions of our employees while ensuring high-quality, affordable care."
"We have proposed 21.5% wage increases—our strongest national bargaining offer ever—and we are prepared to close agreements at local tables now," it addded. "Employees deserve their raises, and patients deserve our full attention, not prolonged disputes."
On a picket line outside KP's Oakland Medical Center, San Francisco nurse anesthetist Jessica Servin told KQED that “we’re fighting for our livelihoods, we’re fighting for patient care."
“I believed their values and their mission statement,” Servin said of KP, where she's worked for 20 years. “It feels like they’re deviating from the foundation of why Kaiser was built. It feels kind of sad to be here and realize that Kaiser is choosing profit over patients.”
National figures supporting the strike include Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who posted on Bluesky, "I stand in solidarity with the more than 31,000 Kaiser nurses and healthcare workers on strike in California and Hawaii."
"It’s well past time for Kaiser to return to the table with a fair offer for their workers that includes safer staffing ratios and higher wages," he added.
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'Now Is Your Time of Need': Bernie Sanders, Mayor Mamdani Join Striking Nurses in NYC
"Don't tell me you can't provide a good nurse-staff ratio when you're paying your CEO at New York Presbyterian $26 million a year, the CEO at Montefiore $16 million a year, Mount Sinai $5 million a year," said Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Jan 20, 2026
As the largest nurses strike in the history of New York City marched into its second week with no resolution in sight, US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Mayor Zohran Mamdani joined hundreds of picketers in the bitter cold on Tuesday to support their fight for better pay and workplace protections.
Last week, the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) announced that nearly 15,000 NewYork-Presbyterian, Mount Sinai, and Montefiore hospital employees had "no choice" but to go on strike after the hospitals failed to meet their demands for safe staffing, workplace violence protections, safeguards against the use of artificial intelligence in healthcare, and to maintain 100% of their healthcare benefits.
Outside Mount Sinai West on 10th Avenue, Mamdani, attending his second picket, called for a "swift and urgent resolution" to the workers' demands after negotiations with the hospitals stalled last week and the chains began hiring replacement workers.
"This is about safe working conditions. This is about a fair contract. This is about dignity. And today is day nine—day nine—of those demands, and I want you to know that wherever I go in New York City, I hear about the plight of our nurses," the democratic socialist mayor said. "Now is your time of need, where we can ensure that this is a city that you don't just work in but a city that you can also live in."
In comments to CBS News New York, the hospital chains have scoffed at the NYSNA's demands for a 25% pay increase, especially in the wake of massive healthcare funding cuts from President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year.
A spokesperson for NewYork-Presbyterian said its nurses—who it said earn $163,000 on average—are among the highest-paid in the city, calling demands for a pay increase "unrealistic." A Montefiore spokesperson told the network that progress on negotiations will be impossible until the nurses "back away from their reckless and dangerous $3.6 billion demands."
But New York is also one of the most expensive cities in the world to live in. According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Living Wage calculator, the nurses' wages are often barely enough to meet a family's basic needs, especially for single parents with children.
NYSNA, meanwhile, has said management "is threatening to discontinue or radically cut nurses’ health benefits" and has done nothing to combat severe understaffing.
"We’re talking an emergency room filled to the brink,” said one of the strikers, staff nurse Morgan Betancourt. “Ninety patients, and we have maybe nine nurses.”
On Tuesday, Sanders (I-Vt.) emphasized that the hospitals' sudden frugality has been of little concern when it comes to compensating hospital executives.
"Don't tell me you can't provide a good nurse-staff ratio when you're paying your CEO at NewYork Presbyterian $26 million a year, the CEO at Montefiore $16 million a year, Mount Sinai $5 million a year," Sanders shouted to applause from the strikers. "Don't tell me you can't treat nurses with dignity when you're spending hundreds of millions of dollars on traveling nurses."
According to the Greater New York Hospital Association, the three hospitals combined had spent approximately $100 million to pay temporary nurses as of the fourth day of the strike. Temporary staffing agencies have required hospitals to pay scabs two to three times as much as they'd pay their regular nurses, Bloomberg reported.
Negotiations remain at a total standstill after breaking down last week. While the hospitals claim the union refused to budge on unreasonable demands, Jonathan Hunter, a negotiator for Mount Sinai nurses, told Spectrum News NY1, "They basically stonewalled us, presented us with nothing, and we left with nothing."
The strike has left the hospital system in a state of upheaval, forcing some patients to be moved and nonemergency surgeries to be canceled. Mamdani said it's all the more reason for the hospitals to reach an agreement with their workers.
"Too often when we see a strike, people forget that that is not where workers want to be," Mamdani said. "A strike is an act of last resort. What workers want is to be back at work. So what this will mean is making that possible. And so we call on every side to come back to that negotiating table. Have a swift and urgent resolution."
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How Federal Workers Can Leverage Civil Disobedience as a Strategy to Win
In the face of Trump’s attack on federal unions, government employees have a unique, nonviolent, and powerful tool at their disposal: withholding their labor.
May 25, 2025
Federal unions are facing a do-or-die moment: President Donald Trump is trying to stomp out worker power by destroying federal labor rights and firing federal workers. The best tool organized labor and workers have for saving themselves—as well as everything from school funding and racial equity to cancer research and social security—is to shut things down.
At the end of March, Trump signed an executive order intended to eliminate federal unions and retroactively cancel collectively bargained contracts for nearly a million federal workers. Without their union protections, even more workers will be fired. Those who remain will be at constant risk of the same fate. Black workers and women, who make up a large proportion of the federal workforce (particularly entry-level positions), stand to lose the most. On May 16, a federal appeals court lifted the temporary block on Trump’s order, allowing Trump to deny collective bargaining rights to federal workers while the matter is litigated in the courts.
Many people ask, “Can Trump legally do that?”
A better, more urgent response is: “Will we let Trump do that?”
“If federal workers were to go on strike, could they win and save their jobs?” Recent history says yes.
Trump’s order is a massive overreach of presidential authority, and federal unions have already filed a lawsuit challenging Trump’s action. More egregiously, the order is a blatantly illegal attempt at retaliation. The White House’s own statement verifies that Trump took away labor rights because the unions “declared war on President Trump’s agenda” by publicly disagreeing with the administration’s policies and continuing to file employee grievances. To be clear, this is their legal right.
It is a positive sign that unions immediately decided to fight back, unlike some of the other institutions targeted by Trump. The universities and law firms that preemptively surrendered to Trump’s shakedowns have tarnished their reputations and credibility while forfeiting massive sums of money. This has only emboldened Trump to demand more control and sent shockwaves through our democracy. Belatedly, those institutions have begun to follow the example set by unions, though the outlook is still grim. Lawsuits, rallies, and petitions are necessary and important tools of resistance, but they have not been sufficient to stop Trump’s authoritarianism and dismantling of government.
Federal workers have a unique, nonviolent, and powerful tool at their disposal: withholding their labor.
Strikes, slowdowns, sickouts—workers have many ways to withhold their labor to protest injustice in the workplace. Federal employees have no legal right to strike, which is why they have generally avoided this tactic. The last time there was a major strike by federal workers was in 1981. President Ronald Reagan crushed the strike by firing and replacing air traffic controllers who walked off the job, a moment widely viewed as the beginning of the labor movement’s decline.
But there is much that separates the strike under Reagan from what federal workers face today under Trump. Reagan had both public sentiment and the law behind him when he fired over 11,000 federal workers. As of April 2025, Trump had the lowest approval rating compared to the same period of any other second term president since polling began. Moreover, Trump’s retaliatory order to strip the rights of federal workers is not supported by legal precedent, and he has fired over 279,000 federal workers to much public outcry.
A strike by federal workers has high stakes. It risks the union being dissolved and striking workers being barred from working for the federal government in the future. But, with Trump’s mass firings and revocation of basic rights for federal workers, federal unions (and many workers’ middle class jobs, pay, and benefits) may disappear anyway.
This raises a follow up question: “If federal workers were to go on strike, could they win and save their jobs?”
Recent history says yes.
Public school teachers in West Virginia went on a nine-day strike in 2018 over abysmally low wages and rising healthcare costs. Strikes by public teachers have been illegal in West Virginia for decades, explaining why even their union leaders did not support the strikes initially. Undeterred, rank and file teachers took matters into their own hands by launching a “wildcat strike” (a work stoppage not authorized by the union). Even though the state attorney general declared the strike “unlawful” and threatened legal action, he never took steps toward enforcement, likely because of the heavy public support for the strikes. Even though the strike shut down schools across the state, parents and students viewed striking teachers as fighting for the common good against dysfunctional government leadership. The teachers won pay raises and a freeze on increases to health insurance premiums. Despite not having a legal right to strike, teachers took action anyway—and they won resoundingly. This inspired teachers in other red states to go on strike for better funding and conditions in their schools.
Essential federal workers provide another example from 2019. In a failed effort to secure funding for a border wall, Trump shut down the federal government for more than a month. Without a federal spending bill in place, federal workers were either furloughed or forced to work for 35 days without pay. What ultimately ended Trump’s shutdown was a small group of air traffic controllers. Throughout the ordeal, the air traffic controller union leadership strongly disavowed any idea of striking, both publicly and privately, worried that it would trigger serious legal consequences for the union. But after performing high stress jobs for a month without pay, and once other labor movement leaders began to call for a general strike, air traffic controllers started to call in sick, grounding flights in major metros. Within hours of the sickout, Trump reached an agreement on a new spending bill. If coordinated with the intention of creating a work stoppage, these sickouts ran the legal risks described previously. But support for ending the shutdown was high, and the public blamed Trump for causing the crisis.
An act of civil disobedience is not a risk to be taken lightly. But when government employers took deeply unpopular actions that hurt workers and communities, teachers and federal employees braved the legal risks and found a way to win.
As federal workers and their unions consider the path ahead, these words of a striking West Virginia teacher echo even louder today: “We understand this was a do-or-die moment. If we didn’t do it, there might not be a tomorrow to fix it. If we didn’t do it, we would have failed our kids, our schools, and our community.”
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What It Will Take to Stop Trump’s Assault on Coal Miners (and the Rest of Us)
How can we beat back the Trump administration’s assaults on working people, the environment, and democratic rights? The coal miners of 1969 offer us a strategic proposal.
May 02, 2025
If there was any doubt that U.S. President Donald Trump’s love of coal is driven by concern for coal companies’ profits rather than workers’ well-being, further proof came on April 8.
The same day he announced new measures to prop up the industry, his Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) paused a rule limiting silica dust in mines. Trump also plans to close dozens of MSHA field offices and gut the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), which both play essential roles in protecting coal workers.
Since the paused rule would save thousands of mineworkers from death and illness, the unions representing them have sued the administration.
Lawsuits may reduce the damage from Trump’s mass-homicidal orgy. But they won’t reverse five decades of unchecked, unilateral class war by U.S. elites, nor stop polluters from destroying the habitability of our Earth.
Whatever the courts decide in this case, it’s clear that lawsuits won’t be enough to stop the Trump administration. Whether its targets are workers, children, refugees, patients, the millions of ill and starving people who will be killed by sadistic cuts to foreign aid, or the entire world, defeating the assaults will require additional weapons. Coal workers’ history here is instructive.
Coal workers have won their biggest victories not through lawsuits but by striking. In the 1950s a U.S. coal miner was killed on the job every 18 hours. In later decades that rate declined significantly, and not just because of downsizing. Mine safety was strongly correlated with workers’ collective action: More frequent strikes meant fewer injuries and fatalities.
Known deaths on the job don’t include the many thousands who died prematurely from pneumoconiosis, caused by inhaling coal dust. It took the historic “black lung” strikes of 1969 to impose limits on dust and methane levels and to win compensation for disabled workers.
A few months before, 78 workers had been killed in an explosion at Consolidation Coal’s mine outside Farmington, West Virginia. The accident brought national attention to miners’ plight. Yet similar accidents had resulted in toothless reforms to safety regulations.
That might have happened again in 1969. Coal companies opposed strong regulations, and other powerholders dutifully obeyed. West Virginia’s governor wrote off the explosion as just “one of the hazards of being a miner.” President Lyndon Johnson’s assistant secretary of the interior lauded Consolidation Coal’s efforts “to make this a safe mine.” The autocratic president of the United Mineworkers called Consolidation “one of the best companies to work with as far as cooperation and safety are concerned.”
It was rank-and-file coal miners, not the top union leaders, who pushed for legislative reform. They formed the West Virginia Black Lung Association in January 1969. Aided by a handful of physicians, they organized mass meetings to educate and rally coworkers. They quickly realized that lobbying wouldn’t be enough. On February 11, thousands of miners went to Charleston to demand a robust compensation law. Some carried signs threatening to strike: “No law, no work.”
When coal companies obstructed the bill’s passage, rank-and-file workers responded with a wave of strikes unsanctioned by the union leadership. Within two weeks some 30,000 were on strike, rising to 45,000 by early March. They “shut down virtually all coal mining operations in the state,” observed the Charleston Gazette. Some miners in Ohio and Pennsylvania struck in solidarity.
The legislature and governor got the message. The strike worked, and even strengthened the final legislation by requiring companies to pay compensation unless they could prove a worker’s lung illness was not caused by coal dust. The Gazette’s editors accused the workers of “lobbying with [a] club,” decrying that state legislators had “felt compelled to” vote for a strong compensation law. The worst fear of companies and politicians alike was that more workers would begin using strikes to influence government, not just their bosses.
The impact rippled outward from West Virginia. Several other coal-producing states soon passed similar laws. In December the U.S. Congress passed the Coal Mine Health and Safety Act. The federal bill extended compensation for black lung victims across the country. It also mandated the world’s toughest coal dust standard.
President Richard Nixon initially refused to sign it. After a week and half of White House stalling, around 1,200 West Virginia mineworkers launched another wildcat strike. The coal barons warned that “a widespread work stoppage now could pose a serious threat to fuel supplies,” reported The New York Times. Nixon quickly changed his mind. He signed the bill within “a matter of hours.”
The law brought compensation for around half a million disabled mineworkers over the next decade. It also made a real contribution to workplace safety. Unfortunately black lung has since come roaring back in the neoliberal era, a sign of government’s unwillingness to hold coal companies accountable.
Beyond their direct impacts, the black lung strikes hold a lesson for today’s resistance. How can we beat back the Trump administration’s assaults on working people, the environment, and democratic rights? The coal miners of 1969 offer us a strategic proposal.
Lawsuits may reduce the damage from Trump’s mass-homicidal orgy. But they won’t reverse five decades of unchecked, unilateral class war by U.S. elites, nor stop polluters from destroying the habitability of our Earth.
We need more aggressive measures. As the heroes of the black lung strikes realized, those measures only become feasible if we embrace the daily work of organizing and educating the people around us.
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US Workers Won Key Victories in 2024, But They’ll Have to Fight Even Harder in 2025
When Trump takes office, expect attacks on immigrant workers, public employee unions, safety regulations, climate protection, and the very idea of labor law.
Dec 29, 2024
Union workers broke open the cookie jar in 2024, after years of stagnant wages and rising prices. With strikes and the threat of strikes, workers did more than forestall concessions: They gained ground. Union workers in the private sector saw 6% real wage rises for the year.
Just the fear that workers would organize drove up wages at non-union employers like Delta Airlines, Amazon, and Mercedes.
Meanwhile, unemployment rates of around 4% made strikes easier to maintain. For instance, many Boeing workers were able to get side jobs during their 53-day strike this fall. Relatively plentiful jobs have also made it easier for workers to organize new unions, since the threat of getting fired is less daunting.
Workers’ demands for union democracy have fueled more fights, more wins, higher expectations, and more new organizing. It’s obvious that workers want and need unions that can match and defeat the billionaires.
Nearly 28,000 school employees in Virginia and 10,000 nurses in Michigan joined unions in the two biggest organizing victories of the year. At the first Southern auto plant to organize in decades, Volkswagen in Chattanooga, Tennessee, 5,000 workers won a union in April by a decisive 73%.
But even with a union, working conditions are often abominable. Speed-up and long hours make work risky and wear us out.
And storm clouds are on the horizon. Even our current weak labor laws and safety enforcement are on U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s chopping block. Expect attacks on immigrant workers, public employee unions, safety regulations, climate protection, and the very idea of labor law.
Wage Gains—Finally
After a strike that shut down production in the Pacific Northwest, Boeing Machinists bagged a 38% general wage increase over four years. A three-day port strike netted 20,000 Longshore (ILA) workers 61% over six years. It was the first East Coast-wide longshore strike since 1977.
Continuing the uptick in strikes since the onset of Covid-19, 2024 is on track for as many strikes as 2022, though it didn’t match the huge walkouts of 2023 in Hollywood, at Kaiser, and at the Big 3. Johnnie Kallas of the Cornell Labor Action Tracker reported 34 strikes in manufacturing through November.
Workers gained just by threatening a strike. At Daimler Truck in North Carolina, 7,400 workers chanted “Tick tock” as the contract deadline approached. They defeated tiers and won a 25% increase, with more for lower-paid workers.
After a vigorous contract campaign and 99.5% strike vote, American Airlines flight attendants (APFA) secured an immediate 20% pay increase, back pay from their 2019 contract expiration, and boarding pay for the first time. (Most flight attendants aren’t paid till the aircraft door closes.) Southwest flight attendants (TWU) won big wage gains; United flight attendants (AFA) voted 99.9% to strike, and may still do so. Airline workers have to navigate a lengthy obstacle course sanctioned by the Railway Labor Act, if they want to strike.
Teacher strikes yielded gains for teachers and students. In Massachusetts, where reformers lead the statewide union, but strikes are illegal, teachers in several districts struck anyway. They won more student services, time to plan classes, and raises for the lowest-paid aides—60% in 10 schools in Andover in January.
Gains from 2023’s strikes raised expectations for 2024. Unions that pushed sub-par contracts on their members faced revolts. Machinists leaders at Boeing backpedaled furiously when a contract they recommended was voted down by 95% in September. Letter Carriers are organizing a vigorous “vote no” campaign after union leaders submitted a contract with 1.3% annual wage increases.
Employers often coughed up pay but fought union demands on overtime, staffing, automation, and the moving of work. Longshore workers, for example, suspended their strike with a big pay promise, but job-killing automation issues remained unresolved, with negotiations ongoing.
The strike threat at Daimler Truck, and the strike at Boeing, did extract contractual promises on where work would be done. But enforcement may require additional job action. Stellantis has so far broken its promise to the Auto Workers to reopen its Belvidere, Illinois, assembly plant—a condition of ending the UAW’s 2023 Stand-Up Strike. Auto workers are debating how to enforce that demand, and many Stellantis locals have taken strike votes.
In the Daimler contract, workers won a renewed promise of a guaranteed daily truck output, to dispel fears that the work would be moved to Mexico—a threat the company deployed regularly in negotiations.
At Boeing, the new contract promises to locate production of the next passenger jet in the Puget Sound area. But the work will likely start after the contract expires, and union leaders expect it may require another strike to enforce the agreement.
Despite big strike leverage, Boeing workers didn’t get a ban on mandatory overtime, though they can no longer be forced to work two weekends in a row. “I don’t think that people should be required to work more than 40 hours a week to keep their jobs,” said Boeing Machinist Mylo Lang.
Continuing 2023’s trend of defeating solidarity-crushing tiers at UPS and the Big 3 automakers, tiers were eliminated at Allison Transmission and Daimler Truck, while solar Ironworkers in California were able to end tiers in a multi-year effort to make commercial solar installation a union job.
Reformers Spur Organizing
Reform movements and new leadership in the Auto Workers and Teamsters led to big investments in new organizing. In February, the UAW announced it would spend $40 million to organize non-union auto and battery plants through 2026.
In October, the Teamsters announced they had added 50,000 members in the two years since new leaders took office. The Teamsters have made organizing Amazon a priority, and the Staten Island Amazon Labor Union voted to affiliate in June, as ALU-IBT Local 1. The New York Times reported that the Teamsters have committed $8 million toward organizing Amazon as well as access to their $300 million strike fund.
Amazon warehouse workers in California and New York have been marching on their bosses, demanding recognition. Newly organized Teamster drivers at Amazon have been setting up roving picket lines to disrupt operations until the company recognizes the union.
In these two unions, effective strike threats and dedication to organizing are no accident. They started with reform movements: Unite All Workers for Democracy in the Auto Workers and Teamsters for a Democratic Union in the Teamsters. More victories are coming down the pike: Rail Machinists (IAM District 19) elected reform leadership in 2024, as did New York City teacher retirees (UFT), a 70,000-person chapter. Up next are reformers in the Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), Theatrical and Stage Employees (IATSE), Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), and maybe soon the Letter Carriers (NALC), thanks to an insulting contract offer pushed by the leadership.
The troublemaking wing of the movement continues to grow, as evidenced by the 4,700 workers who showed up at the April Labor Notes Conference, and the thousands more who wanted to attend. (There just wasn’t space!)
Most Elections in a Decade
Unions continue to be more popular than at any time since the 1960s, with 70% public approval. Private sector union elections this year involved 107,000 workers, the highest in a decade, up from 63,000 in 2022 and 93,000 in 2023.
More than 20,000 new graduate student workers won unions since last December.
After changing state law to allow bargaining, 27,000 Virginia school employees won wall-to-wall representation in Fairfax County, creating one of the largest K-12 unions on the East Coast.
In November, 10,000 nurses at the Corewell hospital chain in southern Michigan won the biggest unionization election in recent memory, organizing with the Teamsters.
However, the pace of organizing “is not enough to keep up with employment growth, let alone meaningfully increase [private sector] union density,” wrote union researcher Chris Bohner.
Starbucks is a case in point. In February, Starbucks Workers United forced management to negotiate after two years of organizing. Ten months later, they’re still in contract talks, and 130 more stores have voted union. That adds up to 522 union stores, with 11,000 workers. But Starbucks operates 10,000 stores in the U.S.
Plant-Building Boom
The Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act stimulated a building boom for electric vehicle and battery plants—many in the South—opening the possibility of organizing drives at dozens of facilities as they ramp up production. The UAW extracted a promise during its 2023 Stand-Up Strike to include in the master contract 6,000 new General Motors jobs at four planned battery plants.
Workers at the first of these, Ultium Cells in Lordstown, Ohio, signed a contract in June. The union announced a majority at BlueOval SK Battery Park in Kentucky in November.
New Flyer electric bus manufacturing workers in Anniston, Alabama won their first contract in May, scoring raises up to 38%, through the Electrical Workers (IUE), a division of the Communications Workers.
After the big win at Volkswagen, the UAW hit a speed bump in its drive to organize German, Korean, and Japanese-owned plants when workers at Mercedes in Alabama voted down the union 2,642 to 2,045. Companies have been pulling out all the stops on the propaganda Wurlitzer, enlisting hostile politicians (and even preachers!) to stop workers from uniting.
Cease-Fire Switch
Unions opposed a Democratic presidential administration on a military issue for the first time in memory. Advocating “cease-fire in Gaza” had been something staffers faced discipline for. But it came to be viewed as common sense by most of the labor movement.
Support for a cease-fire started with unions like the United Electrical Workers (UE), whose members had long studied and debated the situation. It spread as dissenters—from teachers to painters—began speaking up, insisting that it was the place of unions to oppose mass death supported by our government. “The main question that came up was, ‘What does this have to do with us?’” said Texas IBEW member Dave Pinkham. “We made an appeal to humanity: ‘U.S. military support to Israel is supporting violence there. Let’s stop.’”
In October 2023, Postal Workers (APWU) President Mark Dimondstein was alone in calling for a cease-fire at the AFL-CIO executive council, and was denounced by others. By February, the AFL-CIO was calling for a cease-fire. By July, seven unions representing nearly half the union members in the U.S. were calling for a stop to military aid to Israel.
At some colleges, workers struck to defend members who had faced discipline and even attacks by campus police for protesting U.S. support for Israel.
Israel is still raining U.S.-made bombs and missiles on Gaza and Lebanon, showing the limits of union resolutions. But a Cold War-era taboo has broken. Perhaps unions can go one step further and figure out how to block the manufacture and transport of weapons destined for wars of aggression and genocide.
Storm Clouds
Federal workers and immigrants are likely to be the first targets of the incoming Trump administration and Republican-dominated Congress. Trump and his lackeys plan to slash federal spending, install a corporate-friendly National Labor Relations Board, stop subsidies for the electric vehicle transition, and dismantle public education.
Tools to protect immigrant workers from labor law violations, like the Department of Homeland Security's Deferred Action for Labor Enforcement program, are likely to be shelved, along with speedy elections and other efforts at labor law enforcement that we have become used to from the NLRB. Mass deportations are unlikely, given that Trump’s corporate sponsors rely on the labor of immigrants for their profits. But some showy raids are likely, and the terror of arrests will make it even harder to stop abusive bosses—which is the main point of the policy, as Magaly Licolli writes. Solidarity will be needed from all of us.
But even an NLRB determined to enforce labor law has been unable to force big corporations like Amazon to comply, so it’s not clear that organizing these companies will be significantly harder with a hostile board. As Chris Bohner and Eric Blanc point out, it was during Trump’s first term that the “Red for Ed” illegal teacher strike wave swept the country.
Workers’ demands for union democracy have fueled more fights, more wins, higher expectations, and more new organizing. It’s obvious that workers want and need unions that can match and defeat the billionaires.
If there are enough of us, and our bonds are strong enough, bosses, politicians, and even the law will give way. As strikers proved, the power is in our hands.
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The Stress of Holiday Shopping Has Been Transferred to Amazon Warehouse Workers
During “peak” season, the time between Amazon Prime Day in October and the holidays, Amazon forces its associates across the country to work overtime.
Dec 27, 2024
At the beginning of 2024, Amazon reported $10.6 billion in profits during the fourth quarter of the previous year, an unexpected level of success which Andrew Jassy, the company’s CEO, attributed to the company’s 14% growth from last year in holiday season sales. Holiday shopping has long been crucial to Amazon’s business model, so much so that Amazon announced in October its intention to hire 250,000 more workers nationwide for the holiday season. But at JFK-8—the Staten Island fulfillment center where workers became the first employees in Amazon’s history to win union recognition in 2022, and have yet to reach a contract agreement with the company—workers have only seen their workloads increase, and are struggling amid greater productivity demands from management.
“During this time of the year, health and safety goes out the window,” says Tristan Martinez, a six-year Amazon employee and organizer for the Amazon Labor Union (ALU). “It’s all about pushing the numbers so they [management] can get their bonuses.”
During “peak” season, the time between Amazon Prime Day (a two day Prime Member exclusive event, during which Amazon promises “epic deals on top brands”) in October and the holidays, Amazon forces its associates across the country to work overtime. This increased demand for labor starts around Prime Day and ramps up as the holiday season approaches. Workers I spoke to at JFK-8 reported shifts up to 12 hours long, with one 30-minute and two 15-minute breaks, five days a week.
Amazon warehouse workers were nearly twice as likely to be injured as workers at other warehouses in the industry.
For most of their shifts, Amazon warehouse workers are on their feet, picking items from inventory and preparing them to get picked out, packing them, and loading them on Amazon’s blue trucks. Several workers I spoke to make long commutes from neighborhoods such as Canarsie, Harlem, and Crown Heights, which usually take upwards of two hours. If they’re lucky with the timing of bus and subway transfers, they would get home at around 9 p.m. that night, only to embark on their commute eight short hours later for the start of another 12-hour shift at 7 a.m.
“We’re not machines. Everyone has their own circumstances,” Jasmine Youma, who has worked as a picker and packer at Amazon for over a year, told me as she rushed into a crowded bus.
She wasn’t the only Amazon worker I spoke to who felt the need to remind me she was human. “They think we’re robots,” said Shayna, a packer of five years who asked that her last name not be used. “If you’re not hitting the numbers, they’ll come out and talk to you.”
Workers across the board feel dehumanized. “Productivity manager to associate relationships are very robotic,” says Jaquan Taylor, who has worked at Amazon for six years. “In order to work as a manager here, you have to lose all sense of humanity.” According to some Amazon associates, the increased productivity demands result in less workplace safety. “They talk about safety, but when it’s time to apply safety, they only look at the numbers,” says Terry, a processing assistant of four years who asked that her last name not be used.
This month, the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), released a report on workplace safety at Amazon Warehouses. The committee found that Amazon warehouse workers were nearly twice as likely to be injured as workers at other warehouses in the industry.
The Senate’s report corroborates the sentiments expressed by Jasmine, Shayna, Jaquan, Terry, and Tristan, finding that “workers are forced to choose between following safety procedures and risking discipline and potential termination for not moving fast enough.” The report also states that Amazon is aware of the dangers to worker safety associated with their productivity demands, but manipulates data to make the problem look less severe.
As a result, Amazon workers all over the world have been organizing for better working conditions. JFK-8 made history two years ago by becoming the first unionized Amazon Warehouse in the United States. Amazon unsuccessfully attempted to overturn the National Labor Relation Board (NLRB) election result in 2022, and has since has since refused to recognize the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) and begin contract negotiations, in defiance of the NLRB's orders. In 2024, the company joined SpaceX and Trader Joe’s in filing a federal lawsuit against the NLRB, alleging that the agency’s structure is unconstitutional.
If the courts rule in Amazon’s favor, labor activists fear that it could undo a century of progress on workers’ rights in the United States. Legal actions have not deterred Amazon workers from organizing, with new unions forming in Atlanta, City of Industry, and San Bernardino with the help of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. On December 21, 2024, Amazon Teamsters at JFK-8 began their strike, joining eight other Amazon warehouses in California, New York, and Illinois.
At JFK-8, the NLRB found that Amazon retaliates against employees who support the union. The union contends that several organizers have been terminated for their union activity, among them Christian Smalls, Sultana Hossain, and Pasquale Cioffi. Martinez, who has been involved in organizing at JFK-8 since 2020, describes his experience as “coming every day with a target on your back. That’s what it’s like working here whether you’re an organizer or not.”
Though most of the workers I spoke to were not actively involved in organizing, their general sentiments toward the union were positive. Workers expressed excitement at the prospect of longer breaks, shorter hours, better pay, and more reliable transportation.
Amazon workers’ labor is visible everywhere this city, from the trucks stopped on neighborhood streets, to the packages that appear on every other doorstep. The workers themselves are hardly ever seen, spending most of their time in a part of the city that rarely crosses the minds of tourists and locals alike. In the midst of the holiday season, customers appreciate the convenience of Amazon’s quick deliveries and endless catalogue of goods.
Rather than rushing around the city, waiting in lines, and lugging bags onto crowded trains, New Yorkers can do their holiday shopping in just a few clicks. Yet, the holiday stress does not cease to exist. It’s only transferred somewhere else, to someone else, several trains, buses, and ferries away. Far enough to be forgotten, but not so far that it affects the convenience of two-day delivery. The convenience and savings come at a high, yet largely invisible, price. As Martinez puts it, “people bleed to make sure your packages are delivered on time.”
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Teamsters Union Launches 'Largest Strike Against Amazon in US History'
"We are fighting against a vicious union-busting campaign, and we are going to win," said one Amazon warehouse worker.
Dec 19, 2024
The Teamsters launched what the union described as "the largest strike against Amazon in U.S. history" on Thursday morning to protest the e-commerce behemoth's unlawful refusal to bargain with organized drivers and warehouse workers across the country.
Workers in New York City, Atlanta, San Francisco, and other locations are expected to participate in Thursday's strike, with more facilities prepared to join if Amazon's management doesn't agree to negotiate contracts with unionized employees.
The union said Wednesday that Teamsters locals are also "putting up primary picket lines at hundreds of Amazon Fulfillment Centers nationwide."
"Amazon warehouse workers and drivers without collective bargaining agreements have the legal right to honor these picket lines by withholding their labor," the Teamsters said.
Sean O'Brien, the union's president, said in a statement late Wednesday that "if your package is delayed during the holidays, you can blame Amazon's insatiable greed." The Teamsters had given Amazon until December 15 to agree to contract talks.
"We gave Amazon a clear deadline to come to the table and do right by our members. They ignored it," said O'Brien. "These greedy executives had every chance to show decency and respect for the people who make their obscene profits possible. Instead, they've pushed workers to the limit and now they're paying the price. This strike is on them."
The Teamsters union represents roughly 10,000 workers at 10 facilities across the U.S., at least seven of which are taking part in Thursday's walkout.
Leah Pensler, a warehouse worker at Amazon's DCK6 facility in San Francisco, said that "what we're doing is historic."
"We are fighting against a vicious union-busting campaign, and we are going to win," Pensler added.
(Photo: Eloise Goldsmith/Common Dreams)
Ali Mohammed, who works for an Amazon Delivery Service Partner, told Common Dreams on the picket line at the DBK4 facility in Queens that drivers usually work 10-hour shifts, sometimes more, to handle the large number of packages they receive daily. Mohammed said he drives Uber on the side to make ends meet.
"I'm hoping they can sit down and, you know, strike up a conversation at least… and make a deal," Mohammed said, adding that Amazon should "look out for their workers a lot more instead of just thinking of their own pockets."
Amazon, which has a market cap of over $2 trillion and spends big on anti-union consultants, insists it doesn't have a legal obligation to bargain with the Teamsters and has accused the union of attempting to "coerce Amazon employees and third-party drivers to join them."
But the National Labor Relations Board has said Amazon is a joint employer of some of its delivery drivers, meaning the company must bargain with workers who have joined the Teamsters.
"Amazon is one of the biggest, richest corporations in the world," said Gabriel Irizarry, a driver at DIL7 in Skokie, Illinois. "They talk a big game about taking care of their workers, but when it comes down to it, Amazon does not respect us and our right to negotiate for better working conditions and wages. We can't even afford to pay our bills."
Yuli Lema, a driver for a different Amazon Delivery Service Partner, told Common Dreams that her pay is "not sufficient" and she simply wants Amazon to "sit down with the union and negotiate."
"Why [don't] they want to negotiate with us?" Lema asked.
The strike comes months after the Amazon Labor Union, which successfully organized warehouse workers in Staten Island in 2022, voted to formally affiliate with the Teamsters in an effort to finally secure a contract. The JFK8 fulfillment center in Staten Island is among the facilities that have voted to authorize strikes.
"I've seen the Teamsters win big battles," said Dia Ortiz, a worker at DBK4 in New York. "We're ready to do what it takes to win this one."
Rich Pawlikowski, a United Parcel Service driver who joined Amazon workers on the picket line in Queens on Thursday morning, told Common Dreams that "we're all standing together."
"They're not looking to get rich," Pawlikowski said of striking Amazon workers. "They just want a living wage. You know, New York's expensive. We just want everybody [to have] enough to pay their rents, to pay their bills, to eat, to put a roof over their heads, and for their families to have a decent life."
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'They Are Done With the Disrespect': Atlanta Amazon Drivers Join Strike Threat
"If Amazon Teamsters are forced onto the picket line, it's because the company has failed its workforce," said Teamsters general president Sean O'Brien.
Dec 18, 2024
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters announced Wednesday that workers at an eighth Amazon facility—DGT8 outside of Atlanta, Georgia—unanimously voted to authorize a strike in response to the global retailer's refusal "to recognize their union and begin negotiations for a first contract."
"If Amazon Teamsters are forced onto the picket line, it's because the company has failed its workforce," said Teamsters general president Sean O'Brien in a Wednesday statement. "Amazon workers want to earn a good living, have decent healthcare, and be safe on the job. They are done with the disrespect, and if Amazon keeps pushing them, they will push them to strike."
Workers in three other states had already joined the strike threat. On Tuesday, the Teamsters announced that workers at four California facilities—DFX4, DAX5, KSBD, and DAX8—had voted to authorize a strike, and a day before that workers at the Amazon delivery station DIL7 in Skokie, Illinois authorized a strike. On Friday, December 13, workers at Staten Island warehouse JFK8 and the DBK4 delivery station in Queens announced approval of strike authorizations.
In June, workers at JFK8—who first voted in favor of creating a union two years ago—joined the Teamsters and chartered the Amazon Labor Union (ALU)-IBT Local 1.
The Teamsters have also been organizing drivers drivers who work for Amazon Delivery Service Partners (DSP), such as those at the DGT8 facility. The union argues that "Amazon wields absolute control over the terms and conditions of employment for its delivery drivers" through its DSP program, and therefore the company has an obligation to bargain with the Teamsters. Amazon argues these workers are the employees of its contractors, not employees of Amazon, according to CNN.
Over the summer, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that Amazon is a joint employer for some subcontracted drivers who deliver Amazon packages in California—a win for the Teamsters and those workers.
In response to the potential labor action, an Amazon spokesperson told ABC News last week that the Teamsters "have continued to intentionally mislead the public—claiming that they represent 'thousands of Amazon employees and drivers.' They don't."
Following the NYC votes, the Teamsters gave Amazon until this past Sunday to start talks. The union said Wednesday that "by ignoring the December 15 deadline set by the Teamsters to come to the table and negotiate a contract, Amazon has set itself up to face large-scale labor actions during the busy holiday season."
The strike threat also comes on the heels of a report from the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, published on Monday, which alleges that Amazon repeatedly ignored or rejected worker safety measures that were recommended internally—and even misleadingly presents worker injury data so that its warehouses seem safer than they actually are.
Amazon has released a statement decrying the report.
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AFL-CIO Warns House GOP Not to Interfere With Longshoremen's Labor Battle
"Instead of calling for government intervention, a far more productive tact would be to press the companies to meet the workers' very reasonable demands," the AFL-CIO president said.
Sep 27, 2024
The president of the AFL-CIO sent a letter to House Republicans on Thursday asking them not to intervene in contract negotiations between the International Longshoremen's Association and the U.S. Maritime Alliance, which could lead to the first East Coast port strike since 1977 if a deal is not struck by October 1.
The letter came in response to another letter sent by Republican lawmakers to U.S. President Joe Biden on September 19, urging him to "find a reasonable resolution to these contract disputes" and to "utilize every authority at its disposal to ensure the continuing flow of goods" if a strike does occur.
"Averting a strike is the responsibility of the employers who refuse to offer ILA members a contract that reflects the dignity and value of their labor," AFL-CIO president Elizabeth H. Shuler wrote in response to the GOP representatives. "The fight for a fair contract for longshoremen is the entire labor movement's fight."
"The public strongly supports these front-line workers and their just demand for economic security."
A potential strike would see between 25,000 and 50,000 workers walk off the job on Tuesday at 36 locations along 14 East and Gulf Coast port authorities, including 10 of the busiest in North America.
The union wants substantial raises to cover the cost of inflation. While West Coast port workers make a base wage of $54.85, their East and Gulf Coast counterparts make only $39.
The ILA is also demanding better healthcare, and a promise not to install automated or semi-automated terminals at the ports. However, negotiations between the union and the U.S. Maritime Alliance (USMX) broke down in June when the ILA said that USMX had begun using an automated gate to allow trucks into ports, in violation of the current contract.
The union has since contacted USMX to discuss wage increases, but the company has not upped its offer.
"My ILA members are not going to accept these insulting offers that are a joke considering the work my ILA longshore workers perform, and the billion-dollar profits the companies make off the backs of their labor," ILA president and lead negotiator Harold J. Daggett said in a statement on Monday.
"The blame for a coast wide strike in a week that will shut down all ports on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts falls squarely on the shoulders of USMX," Daggett continued.
In their letter, the Republican representatives warned about how the strike "would result in delays and dire impacts to our supply chains, our economy, and the American consumer." They evoked the "supply-chain crisis" during the Covid-19 pandemic that was a major driver of inflation, saying that a one-week strike would cause a one-and-a-half month backlog.
However, Shuler said that the GOP letter made a strike—and its economic consequences—more likely, not less. That's because the leaning on Biden to use his authority to "ensure the continuing flow of goods," suggested Shuler, could reasonably be interpreted as a request for him to file a judicial injunction under the Taft-Hartely Act to stop a strike from taking place.
"History tells us that when companies can count on an injunction against a strike, they do not negotiate in good faith to reach an agreement. By even suggesting a possible injunction, your letter makes a deal less likely and a strike all the more likely," Shuler said.
This is especially the case because the Biden administration told Reuters earlier this month that it had "never invoked Taft-Hartley to break a strike and are not considering doing so now."
"Yet," Shuler told the representatives, "your letter tries to suggest otherwise, giving the companies reason to dig in their heels. Instead of calling for government intervention, a far more productive tact would be to press the companies to meet the workers' very reasonable demands."
Shuler defended the workers' rights to wages that keep pace with living costs as well as job security in a changing technological landscape.
"Like workers in many other industries—from hospitality to healthcare to film and television—they need fair contract provisions that protect their jobs from being eliminated by automation," Shuler said.
She also noted that the port workers had made significant sacrifices to keep the ports moving during the early years of Covid-19.
"Throughout the pandemic, longshore workers never took a day off, risking their health and lives to make sure shelves were stocked and the supply chain remained strong," Shuler wrote. "The public strongly supports these front-line workers and their just demand for economic security."
She continued: "It adds insult to injury to encourage USMX to provoke a strike rather than agree to a fair contract for the workers who kept food on the table and our economy running through the darkest days of the Covid-19 crisis."
The Transportation Trades Department (TTD) of the AFL-CIO also spoke out against government intervention in the negotiations.
"Relying on Taft-Hartley is not a winning strategy and should not be USMX's expected path to resolution," TTD president and scretary Greg Regan and Shari Semelsberger said in a statement. "The Biden-Harris administration has already stated, in their own words, 'We've never invoked Taft-Hartley to break a strike and are not considering doing so now.'"
Regan and Semelsberg added that USMX was to blame for the risk of a strike.
"Let us be clear: The employers, not the workers, have shirked their responsibility and punted labor negotiations to the 11th hour, when the damage to the public and the national supply chain would be most detrimental," they said. "While USMX seeks to cast blame on the frontline workers who move our supply chain, they are at fault."
"Remember this as they seek shelter from the disaster that they created," Regan and Semelsberg concluded.
This piece has been updated with a statement from the Transportation Trades Department of the AFL-CIO.
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