
Morgan Sperry is a student at Harvard Law School and also serves as OnLabor's Social Media Director.
In today’s News and Commentary, hot labor summer is in full force as Starbucks workers, actors, screenwriters, and UPS drivers remain locked in labor disputes.
Starbucks Workers United is on a national bus tour to bring attention to Starbucks’ 2,000+ federal labor law violations and refusal to negotiate with unionized stores. The workers seek just cause employment protections, improved health and safety standards (including zero tolerance of sexual harassment), increased wages, predictable and regular scheduling, high quality healthcare, and expanded access to medical, parental, and personal leave (plus the right to take leave for union work).
Starbucks workers have also been sounding the alarm regarding some stores’ restriction of Pride month decorations amidst renewed attacks on the LGBTQ+ community. Currently, more than 300 Starbucks stores are unionized across 38 states and DC. Just this week, workers at the Chicago Roastery—the largest Starbucks store in the world—filed for an NLRB union election.
The entertainment industry continues to reel after movie and TV actors joined striking screenwriters on the picket lines Friday. The historic simultaneous SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes have helped launch today’s labor movement into the zeitgeist as Hollywood’s biggest stars use their platforms to discuss exploitation, CEO overpay, the gig economy, the future of AI, and what work post-COVID should look like.
As Swap reported, 340,000 UPS workers are prepared to strike—and, on Sunday, Teamsters President Sean M. O’Brien asked the White House not to intervene. The union continues to push for air conditioning in trucks, ending the existing two-tier wage system, and wage increases for part-time workers. The strike would be one of the largest single-employer strikes in US history.
Daily News & Commentary
Start your day with our roundup of the latest labor developments. See all
July 11
Regional director orders election without Board quorum; 9th Circuit pauses injunction on Executive Order; Driverless car legislation in Massachusetts
July 10
Wisconsin Supreme Court holds UW Health nurses are not covered by Wisconsin’s Labor Peace Act; a district judge denies the request to stay an injunction pending appeal; the NFLPA appeals an arbitration decision.
July 9
In Today’s News and Commentary, the Supreme Court green-lights mass firings of federal workers, the Agricultural Secretary suggests Medicaid recipients can replace deported farm workers, and DHS ends Temporary Protected Status for Hondurans and Nicaraguans. In an 8-1 emergency docket decision released yesterday afternoon, the Supreme Court lifted an injunction by U.S. District Judge Susan […]
July 8
In today’s news and commentary, Apple wins at the Fifth Circuit against the NLRB, Florida enacts a noncompete-friendly law, and complications with the No Tax on Tips in the Big Beautiful Bill. Apple won an appeal overturning a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decision that the company violated labor law by coercively questioning an employee […]
July 7
LA economy deals with fallout from ICE raids; a new appeal challenges the NCAA antitrust settlement; and the EPA places dissenting employees on leave.
July 6
Municipal workers in Philadelphia continue to strike; Zohran Mamdani collects union endorsements; UFCW grocery workers in California and Colorado reach tentative agreements.