Morgan Sperry is a student at Harvard Law School and also serves as OnLabor's Social Media Director.
In today’s news and commentary, Shawn Fain takes on Tesla and the New York Times tech workers walk out.
As Tesla confronts its first-ever strike, which is taking place in Sweden, United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain announced this week that the UAW is prepared to take on the electric vehicle giant and its notorious CEO, Elon Musk. “We can beat anybody,” Fain said in an interview last Thursday. While previous UAW-led efforts to unionize Tesla have failed, Fain pointed out that the union is under new, militant leadership: his own.
New York Times tech workers went on strike last week to protest the paper’s return-to-office policies. The Times Tech Guild—which consists of nearly 700 software engineers, data analysts, project managers, product managers and designers, who voted to unionize in March 2022—signed off early and protested outside of The Times’ building, seeking flexible work policies. Last year, the union filed a return-to-office-related complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, which was dropped after the Guild reached a contract deal with the newspaper in May. The Tech Guild has support from the New York Times Guild, which represents that majority of the Times’ newsroom workers.
Daily News & Commentary
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May 14
MLB begins negotiating; Westchester passes a new wage act; USDA employees sue the Agriculture Secretary.
May 13
House Republicans push for vote on the SCORE Act; Wells Fargo wins 401(k) forfeiture appeal; Georgia passes portable benefits bill.
May 12
Trump administration proposes expanding fertility care benefits; Connecticut passes employment legislation; NFL referees ratify new collective bargaining agreement.
May 11
NLRB Judge finds UPS violated federal labor law; Tennessee bans certain noncompetes; and Colorado passes a bill restricting AI price- and wage-setting
May 10
Workers at the Long Island Rail Road threaten to strike, and referees at the National Football League reach a collective bargaining agreement.
May 9
HGSU wraps up its third week on strike and economists find that firms tend to target workers with “wage premiums” for AI replacement.