Luke Hinrichs is a student at Harvard Law School.
In today’s news and commentaries, Boeing locks out firefighter union members; Blue Bottle Coffee workers vote to unionize; and 80 drivers in Florida vote to join the Teamsters.
Boeing locked out about 130 International Association of Firefighters Local I-66 union members in the company’s in-house firefighting service at its facilities in Washington state following ongoing contract disputes. Boeing is the first company in the US to lock out a fire department in over four decades. Boeing has hired private, non-union replacements for the locked out union workers while also filing an unfair labor practice charge against the union with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Boeing’s actions occur in the broader context of other ongoing labor negotiations with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 751 in Puget Sound and W24 in Portland, Oregon.
Blue Bottle Coffee workers across the Boston area voted 38 to 4 in favor of unionizing, becoming the first of the company’s workers to join a union. The workers have formed and voted to join an independently run union for representation, the Blue Bottle Independent Union. The Blue Bottle workers are now among a growing number of independent local coffee shop unions.
Eighty drivers at United Natural Foods, Inc. (UNFI) have unanimously voted to join Teamsters Local 79 in Tampa, Florida. Prior to the vote, the company engaged in a union-busting campaign, threatening to outsource the workers’ jobs to nonunion employer J.B. Hunt. In March, the NLRB intervened, ruling in favor of the drivers and refusing to accept the company’s outsource plans as the workers sought union representation. The drivers are the third UNFI labor unit to join the teamsters this year.
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September 15
Unemployment claims rise; a federal court hands victory to government employees union; and employers fire workers over social media posts.
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.