Divya Nimmagadda is a student at Harvard Law School.
It was announced on Wednesday that the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is joining the AFL-CIO, bringing the latter’s membership to nearly 15 million. The AFL-CIO is a federation of more than 50 unions; now that the SEIU is joining in under the umbrella organization, it has become the largest of the member unions. The SEIU is the nation’s second largest labor union, with around 2 million members, and has primarily organized workers in healthcare, property services, and public work. The SEIU was previously part of the AFL-CIO umbrella, but split from the group in 2005 over a rift in strategy – the SEIU and some other unions wanted to increase focus on organizing new members. While both groups have denied that the most recent election was the impetus for this alliance, they have acknowledged that the solidarity between the two groups will enable a stronger defense to any potential threats to labor or to workers from the Trump administration. Liz Schuler, president of AFL-CIO, stated that the unions are “amassing our forces, building our strength and our power before the inauguration…Working people will continue to demand that our voices be heard.”
Also on Wednesday, dockworkers on the East and Gulf Coasts reached a tentative labor agreement. Back in October, after a brief strike, the port workers and their employers agreed to a 62% raise over six years and aimed to come to agreement on other provisions of the labor agreement by January 15th. One of the most contentious of these topics was that of automation and the introduction of technology that could reduce human jobs. In a joint statement, the two parties stated that: “This agreement protects current I.L.A. jobs and establishes a framework for implementing technologies that will create more jobs while modernizing East and Gulf Coasts ports.” While the exact points of the agreement are not yet available, it has been reported that the workers got guarantees that introduction of technology would be accompanied by increased port jobs, and the employers had achieved language that would allow them to more easily introduce technology to the port settings.
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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.