Vivian Dong is a student at Harvard Law School.
Teachers’ unions in other states are grappling with whether to follow the lead of West Virginia after the successful teachers’ union strike that concluded last week. Rumblings of strike activity have emerged in Kentucky, Arizona, and Oklahoma. Arizona and Oklahoma rank among the lowest in teacher pay in the country. Joe Thomas, the president of the Arizona Education Association, recently met with Dale Lee, the president of the West Virginia Education Association, to discuss tactics Arizona teachers can use to put pressure on legislators to increase pay. Meanwhile, the Oklahoma teachers’ union has given legislators a deadline of April 1 to propose an offer to address the low pay and severe teacher shortage in the state.
Servers often feel pressured to accept harassing behavior in exchange for the tips that make up their living wage, the New York Times reports. One commonly proposed way to alleviate the power imbalance between servers and customers that allows harassing behavior is getting rid of tips. But many servers, restaurant managers, and customers oppose the idea, since it often leads to significantly lower net pay for servers overall.
Unions have thrown their full weight behind Democratic candidate Conor Lamb in the special congressional election in southwest Pennsylvania. Though President Trump won the district by 20 percentage points in 2016, current polls show a dead heat between Lamb and Rick Saccone, the Republican candidate. On Saturday, Trump visited the 18th Congressional District to raise support for Saccone, touting the steel and aluminum tariffs the White House put in place last week to the community, which is heavily dependent on steel production. Though union leaders support Lamb, rank-and-file union members are more split between the candidates.
Daily News & Commentary
Start your day with our roundup of the latest labor developments. See all
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.