Morgan Sperry is a student at Harvard Law School and also serves as OnLabor's Social Media Director.
In today’s news and commentary, a Southern coalition launches a campaign to promote good jobs in electric vehicle plants, Duke University graduate students have overwhelmingly won their vote to unionize, and the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team voices support for striking actors and writers.
Today, a coalition of unions and civic groups in Georgia and Alabama is launching a pressure campaign targeting Hyundai’s electric vehicle plants and clean energy suppliers. Labor leaders in the South have emphasized that despite pro-union provisions in President Biden’s three signature bills—a $1 trillion infrastructure package, a $280 billion measure to rekindle a domestic semiconductor industry, and the Inflation Reduction Act, which included $370 billion for clean energy to combat climate change—electric vehicle manufacturers (like Hyundai) expected to reap huge benefits from the new legislation have chosen to produce cars in union-hostile locations. Union leaders and allies are pressing automakers shifting to electric vehicles to “honor the right to organize,” take necessary steps to avoid plant closings, and provide training programs to help workers transition into new jobs at comparable wages.
Last week, Duke University graduate students overwhelmingly won their vote to unionize, affiliating with SEIU. Once certified, it will be one of the largest unions in North Carolina—a right-to-work state with only 2.8 percent union density—and join only a handful of other graduate student unions in the South. The win comes after months of union-busting by the university, including attempts to deny graduate students employee status.
The U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team has spoken out against its own PR firm for taking on the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) as a client as the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes persist into the fall. The DC-based Levinson Group assisted the USWNT in its campaign for pay equity and is now working on behalf of the AMPTP, which continues to refuse to negotiate with striking writers and actors. Last week, the AMPTP publicly released its latest counteroffer in violation of labor laws.
Daily News & Commentary
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September 14
Workers at Boeing reject the company’s third contract proposal; NLRB Acting General Counsel William Cohen plans to sue New York over the state’s trigger bill; Air Canada flight attendants reject a tentative contract.
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.