Peter Morgan is a student at Harvard Law School.
For the first time, the United States has requested a Rapid Response Labor Mechanism (RRM) under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. A committee chaired by the United States Trade Representative (Katherine Tai) and the Secretary of Labor (Julie Su, acting) had sent a petition to Mexico to review allegations that the Grupo Mexico had violated the labor rights of its workers at the San Martin mine. Since Mexico’s finding that Grupo Mexico had not committed such a violation, the US has now requested an RRM panel to review these abuses.
Following a slew of other successful graduate student union campaigns, graduate students at Duke University voted 1,000 to 131 to unionize. After a failed unionization campaign among the grad students in 2017, the Duke University Student Union won this election on a platform of stipend increases, improved benefits, and greater support for international students.
After a highly publicized negotiation process, the UPS Teamsters finally ratified their new collective bargaining agreement. Of the record 58% of union members who cast a ballot, 86% of members voted in favor of ratifying the five-year contract. The deal boasts a pay raise of up to $7.50 an hour, in-truck air conditioning, higher floors for part-time pay, and new restrictions on forced overtime.
Regional NLRB officials have filed a complaint against Amazon alleging the company had, at their warehouse in Albany, NY, fired a union organizer for protected activity, chilled worker speech, and harassing union advocates by calling the police against employees on them. The Albany warehouse had been the site of the Amazon Labor Union’s second major organizing campaign, and the alleged violations had occurred during that campaign.
Efforts to provide protections to Uber and Lyft drivers in Minnesota have hit another obstacle as Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey vetoed the city council’s plan to raise pay and increase transparency for gig drivers. Frey’s veto follows Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s veto of similar measures on a state-wide bill, citing concerns of unintended consequences for riders.
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September 12
Zohran Mamdani calls on FIFA to end dynamic pricing for the World Cup; the San Francisco Office of Labor Standards Enforcement opens a probe into Scale AI’s labor practices; and union members organize immigration defense trainings.
September 11
California rideshare deal advances; Boeing reaches tentative agreement with union; FTC scrutinizes healthcare noncompetes.
September 10
A federal judge denies a motion by the Trump Administration to dismiss a lawsuit led by the American Federation of Government Employees against President Trump for his mass layoffs of federal workers; the Supreme Court grants a stay on a federal district court order that originally barred ICE agents from questioning and detaining individuals based on their presence at a particular location, the type of work they do, their race or ethnicity, and their accent while speaking English or Spanish; and a hospital seeks to limit OSHA's ability to cite employers for failing to halt workplace violence without a specific regulation in place.
September 9
Ninth Circuit revives Trader Joe’s lawsuit against employee union; new bill aims to make striking workers eligible for benefits; university lecturer who praised Hitler gets another chance at First Amendment claims.
September 8
DC Circuit to rule on deference to NLRB, more vaccine exemption cases, Senate considers ban on forced arbitration for age discrimination claims.
September 7
Another weak jobs report, the Trump Administration's refusal to arbitrate with federal workers, and a district court judge's order on the constitutionality of the Laken-Riley Act.