Fred Wang is a student at Harvard Law School.
In today’s news & commentary, unions, unions, unions! Union voting at a second Staten Island Amazon warehouse begins, Amazon Labor Union organizers talk about how they made history, and Activision game testers will vote next month on unionizing.
Voting began this morning at LDJ5, the second Staten Island Amazon warehouse to hold a union vote — a few weeks after the unprecedented union victory at the JFK8 facility. Spearheading the effort, again, is the Amazon Labor Union, the same union that bested Amazon’s aggressive anti-union campaign earlier this month — all without help from a major union. The unionization effort tracks broader trends of rising labor activity across the country. Underscoring the importance of the LDJ5 vote, Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke yesterday before a crowd of hundreds of union supporters outside of the warehouse. For a recap of recent union activity at Amazon, see Kevin’s ongoing coverage.
The workers behind the successful unionization of Amazon’s JFK8 facility talk about how they made history, in a conversation with Bernie Sanders and Jacobin‘s Eric Blanc. In the interview, the organizers behind Amazon Labor Union explain what it takes to win a union: from educating coworkers about what a union provides, using food to bring workers together, debunking myths, putting workers at ease, and overcoming fear. Unsurprisingly, a core theme that the organizers stress is solidarity: “We’re not going to fall victim to failing our coworkers. We’re going to stay resilient. We’re going to stay grounded. We’re going to stay together.”
Game testers at Activision — the game maker responsible for the Call of Duty franchise — have been trying to form a union. They’ll now get their chance to hold a union election, after a favorable federal labor board ruling last Friday. The holding is just the latest development in a longstanding rift between company workers and management, which included a weeks-long strike sparked when some testers were informed that they would be terminated in a few months, while others would be receiving raises. Workers are seeking better pay, better hours, and a better workplace culture; the company was sued last year by a California state agency over claims of sexual harassment and discrimination.
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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.