News

We Are Proud to Endorse Joe Biden for President

The path to the presidency runs through the labor movement.

Video: Workers First Caravan for Racial + Economic Justice

Thousands of working people across the country joined together on June 17 in a national day of action. We called for the Senate to pass the HEROES Act and for Congress to take actions to address structural racism. The HEROES Act is grounded in America’s Five Economic Essentials that are desperately needed to keep working people safe and financially secure. This day of action was just the beginning. Today and every day that follows, working people will mobilize like never before to make the HEROES Act the law of the land and rid our institutions of systemic racism.

The House Must Stand Up for Labor

Support for the labor movement is the highest in nearly half a century, yet only one in 10 workers are members of unions today. How can both be true?

Teacher Pay Is So Low in Some U.S. School Districts That They’re Recruiting Overseas

As walkouts by teachers protesting low pay and education funding shortfalls spread across the country, the small but growing movement to recruit teachers from overseas is another sign of the difficulty some districts are having providing the basics to public school students.

We Can Expect More from Teachers When We Pay Them Like Pros

Never before has there been so much labor unrest in America’s public schools. Teachers, understandably angry about low pay and harmful cuts in education resources, have organized statewide walkouts in West Virginia, Kentucky and Oklahoma.

The Living Standards of Public Servants

When we fail to invest in public services, living standards decline and communities suffer — overcrowded classrooms, understaffed prisons and more.

But let’s remember what originally made public-sector jobs middle class: labor unions. The right to bargain collectively has allowed millions of public service workers like my father, a Cleveland bus driver and a member of the Amalgamated Transit Union, to live the American dream.

Uber, Lyft Drivers Deserve a Voice

In any business, the people who do the work deserve to have a voice in their working conditions.

Labor Voices: We Need Workplace Protections

When we kiss our loved ones’ goodbye to head to work, we don’t expect tragedy. Saturday is Workers Memorial Day, a time for all of us to remember those who went to work but unfortunately never returned home because they lost their lives while on the job. It’s also a day to remember that we must keep fighting for safe workplaces and continue to fight short cuts that lawmakers are pursuing as they turn back the clock on health and safety regulations in Congress.

Union Win Marks Step Forward for Student Labor Movement

Harvard research and teaching assistants' vote to unionize last week was unique in its scale and drew on a decades-long push to form graduate student unions, according to several labor experts and union organizers.

Senate Bill to Curtail Labor Rights on Tribal Land Falls Short

Organized labor managed an increasingly rare feat on Monday — a political victory — when its allies turned back a Senate measure aimed at rolling back labor rights on tribal lands.

The legislation, called the Tribal Labor Sovereignty Act, would have exempted enterprises owned and operated by Native American tribes from federal labor standards, even for employees who were not tribal citizens.

How Does Your State Stack Up on Pay Equity for Women?

The notion of bringing home 80 cents for every dollar pocketed by a man on a national basis is unsettling enough. But it's even more startling when those lost wages are added up.

Overall, it amounts to $10,000 in lost wages a year, says Debra Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women and Families. That chunk of cash could pay for 14 more months of child care, 74 more weeks of groceries and an additional 10 months of rent for the average woman.