Maddy Joseph is a student at Harvard Law School.
On Capitol Hill yesterday, Senator Al Franken resigned after allegations that he had sexually harassed several women. Meanwhile, the House Administration Committee held hearings in which it heard from employment law experts as it develops plans to reform how sexual harassment claims are handled in Congress, the Washington Post reports.
Over 1,000 food service workers at O’Hare voted yesterday to strike for higher wages and affordable health insurance, according to the Chicago Tribune. Unite Here Local 1 has not said when the strike would occur; the workers’ contracts expired in August. The contractor that operates O’Hare’s food services said that everything would remain staffed through a strike.
Next month’s Atlantic discusses the spread of automation in the food services industry, where computers or robots are now taking orders and preparing food. Some companies claim that the automation will be good for job growth on the theory that automation fuels sales and boosts efficiency.
In a review of two books for In These Times, Shaun Richman writes about the long history of employers’ attempts to break up union campaigns. Examining the “open shop” campaigns of the early twentieth century discussed in Chad Pearson’s Reform or Repression: Organizing America’s Anti-Union Movement, as well as the rise of “union avoidance” consultants amidst new worker organizing pushes in the 1970s retold in Lane Windham’s Knocking on Labor’s Door: Union Organizing in the 1970s and the Roots of a New Economic Divide, Richman’s essay highlights the evolving strategies employers have used against unionization efforts.
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
the Supreme Court allows Trump to proceed with mass firings; Secretary of Agriculture suggests Medicaid recipients replace deported migrant farmworkers; DHS ends TPS for Nicaragua and Honduras
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.