Lolita De Palma is a student at Harvard Law School.
On Thursday, the Writers Guild of America (East) filed an unfair labor practice charge against Hearst Magazines. In a November meeting, Hearst invited every employee it deemed to be a supervisor and told them that they could not legally sign a union card. Hearst followed up by creating a website designed to discourage its employees from unionizing. A Hearst employee was also told by management “that if I didn’t trust them, I didn’t have to work there.”
Starting Thursday, more than 500 food service workers in Honolulu’s Daniel K. Inouye International Airport have gone on strike to call for better pay and benefits. The workers, represented by UNITE HERE Local 5, began picketing at 3 a.m on Thursday and will likely continue through Saturday. The strike affects 25 concession stands, restaurants, bars, and other establishments at the airport.
On Wednesday, 15,000 nurses participated in strikes across Northern Ireland for higher wages and better staffing. Northern Ireland nurses earn almost $5,000 less a year than nurses in the rest of the United Kingdom. Nurses are also considering leaving the profession because of the pressures caused by staffing shortages. Patt Cullen, director of the Royal College of Nursing, said, “With around 2,800 nursing posts in the Health Service Care, record levels of money being spent on agency staff to plug gaps and nurses’ pay sliding further and further behind the rest of the U.K., our members have had enough.”
A new survey shows that half of American workers did not receive a pay raise this year. 49% of employees received some form of salary increase, which is an increase of 11% from last year. Higher-paid workers were more likely to have received a raise than lower-paid ones. Almost two-thirds of workers making less than $30,000 a year reported no salary increases this year.
NPR’s Planet Money have put together a short video on the 1981 air traffic controllers strike.
Daily News & Commentary
Start your day with our roundup of the latest labor developments. See all
April 18
Two major New York City unions endorse Cuomo for mayor; Committee on Education and the Workforce requests an investigation into a major healthcare union’s spending; Unions launch a national pro bono legal network for federal workers.
April 17
Utahns sign a petition supporting referendum to repeal law prohibiting public sector collective bargaining; the US District Court for the District of Columbia declines to dismiss claims filed by the AFL-CIO against several government agencies; and the DOGE faces reports that staffers of the agency accessed the NLRB’s sensitive case files.
April 16
7th Circuit questions the relevance of NLRB precedent after Loper Bright, unions seek to defend silica rule, and Abrego Garcia's union speaks out.
April 15
In today’s news and commentary, SAG-AFTRA reaches a tentative agreement, AFT sues the Trump Administration, and California offers its mediation services to make up for federal cuts. SAG-AFTRA, the union representing approximately 133,000 commercial actors and singers, has reached a tentative agreement with advertisers and advertising agencies. These companies were represented in contract negotiations by […]
April 14
Department of Labor publishes unemployment statistics; Kentucky unions resist deportation orders; Teamsters win three elections in Texas.
April 13
Shawn Fain equivocates on tariffs; Trump quietly ends federal union dues collection; pro-Palestinian Google employees sue over firings.