Jason Vazquez is a staff attorney at the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 2023. His writing on this blog reflects his personal views and should not be attributed to the Teamsters.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) sent a letter to President Biden yesterday urging him to fulfill a campaign pledge and bar companies that violate federal labor law from receiving any of the hundreds of billions of dollars flowing under federal contracts.
Sanders’ letter highlights that in recent years Amazon in particular has secured thousands of federal contracts, collectively worth billions of dollars, while aggressively engaging in unlawful unionbusting conduct and spending millions on antiunion consultants. As chair of the budget committee, he has scheduled a hearing for next week to shed light on the scale of federal contracts being awarded to unionbusting companies, with particular focus on Amazon.
Reuters reported yesterday that the newly installed independent union representing thousands of workers at GM’s sprawling compound in Mexico is demanding a nearly 20 percent wage increase in negotiations for a first contract. For background, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the trilateral free trade compact that superseded NAFTA in 2020, included provisions requiring that Mexico — where as many as 85 percent of collective bargaining agreements are bogus “protection contracts” — reform its law to meaningfully protect labor rights. Mexico complied in Jan. 2019, overhauling its labor law regime to guarantee workers the right to freely organize and select unions by secret ballot; require the election of union officers; establish independent institutions to administer union elections and adjudicate labor disputes; and mandate member ratification of collective bargaining agreements.
Relying on these protections, employees at the GM plant, located in Silao, Guanajuato, expelled their company-dominated protection union in a dramatic episode last year and installed a newly formed independent one in its place, a milestone applauded by U.S. labor leaders. These high profile negotiations will shed light on the durability of the drive to uproot Mexico’s entrenched network of corrupt unions and democratize its labor movement.
Daily News & Commentary
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March 17
West Virginia passes a bill for gig drivers, the Tenth Circuit rejects an engineer's claims of race and age bias, and a discussion on the spread of judicial curtailment of NLRB authority.
March 16
Starbucks' union negotiations are resurrected; jobs data is released.
March 15
A U.S. District Court issues a preliminary injunction against the Department of Veterans Affairs for terminating its collective bargaining agreement, and SEIU files a lawsuit against DHS for effectively terminating immigrant workers at Boston Logan International Airport.
March 13
Republican Senators urge changes on OSHA heat standard; OpenAI and building trades announce partnership on data center construction; forced labor investigations could lead to new tariffs
March 12
EPA terminates contract with second-largest union; Florida advances bill restricting public sector unions; Trump administration seeks Supreme Court assistance in TPS termination.
March 11
The partial government shutdown results in TSA agents losing their first full paycheck; the Fifth Circuit upholds the certification of a class of former United Airline workers who were placed on unpaid leave for declining to receive the COVID-19 vaccine for religious reasons during the pandemic; and an academic group files a lawsuit against the State Department over a policy that revokes and denies visas to noncitizens for their work in fact-checking and content moderation.