Today's AFL-CIO press clips
EDITOR'S NOTE: The Forward Kentucky story about Sunday's NALC-sponsored rally in Paducah is posted in the IN THE STATES section of today'sclips. Odds are you'll see a familiar face in the photo.
POLITICS
CNN
By Devan Cole
March 24, 2025
The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Monday to put on hold a federal judge’s ruling reinstating thousands of probationary federal employees who were fired as part of the government’s efforts to quickly downsize its workforce. The emergency appeal is the administration’s latest attempt to get the nation’s highest court to intervene on its behalf as lower courts frustrate – even on a temporary basis – key parts of President Donald Trump’s second term agenda. In the case at hand, a federal judge in San Francisco issued a preliminary injunction earlier this month that required half a dozen federal agencies to “immediately” offer over 16,000 probationary employees their jobs back.
Trump Asks Supreme Court to Block Ruling on Rehiring Fired Workers
The New York Times
By Adam Liptak
March 24, 2025
The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Monday to block a ruling from a federal judge in California ordering it to rehire thousands of fired federal workers who had been on probationary status.The emergency application is one of several that appear to be headed to the Supreme Court, a reflection of the scores of lower court rulings that halted administration initiatives. President Trump has denounced the lower court resistance and has called for the Supreme Court to intervene.
Celebrating federal workers at L'Enfant Plaza
WUSA 9
By Samantha Gilstrap
March 24, 2025
“We often take federal employees for granted, yet they dedicate their lives to serving the American people, often under challenging circumstances,” said IAM Union International President Brian Bryant. “It's crucial that we take time to recognize their hard work and commitment, not just on special occasions, but every day. They are going through a difficult time, and we are proud to support them with a simple thank you.”
Education Dept. should be made efficient, not dismantled: Union president
The Hill
By Damita Menezes
March 24, 2025
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, warned that dismantling the Department of Education could have severe consequences for students across the nation, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Trump Administration Is Sued Over Push to Shut Education Department
The New York Times
By Alan Blinder and Michael C. Bender
March 24, 2025
The Trump administration’s campaign to dismantle the Education Department drew a court challenge on Monday, as opponents called the plan an attempt to evade congressional authority. The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Massachusetts by the American Federation of Teachers, the American Association of University Professors and a pair of public school districts in Massachusetts. It comes four days after President Trump signed an executive order that directed the education secretary, Linda McMahon, to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the department.”
Judge blocks DOGE from accessing sensitive information at US agencies
AP
By Lea Skene
March 24, 2025
A federal judge on Monday blocked billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing people’s private data at the Education Department, the Treasury Department and the Office of Personnel Management. U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman issued a preliminary injunction in a case filed last month by a coalition of labor unions in federal court in Maryland. Led by the American Federation of Teachers, the plaintiffs allege Trump’s administration violated federal privacy laws when it gave DOGE access to systems with personal information on tens of millions of Americans without their consent.
Social Security rushing service cuts at White House request, sources say
Axios
By Emily Peck
March 24, 2025
The Social Security Administration is rushing cuts to phone services at the White House's request, the agency's acting commissioner told Social Security advocates in a meeting on Monday, two sources who attended tell Axios. Why it matters: These changes will strain the already struggling Social Security system and deprive some people of benefits entirely, according to current and former employees and advocates for retirees.
Social Security, Buffeted by Turmoil, Awaits a New Leader
The New York Times
By Andrew Duehren, Alexandra Berzon and Tara Siegel Bernard
March 24, 2025
When the Wall Street veteran Frank Bisignano goes before Congress on Tuesday as President Trump’s pick to lead the Social Security Administration, he will confront questions about how he would run an agency suddenly in the grips of upheaval. In recent weeks, the billionaire Elon Musk has zeroed in on the agency, which is charged with the staid but critical work of providing retirement, survivor and disability payments to 73 million Americans each month.
Why Faster Meat Processing Lines Won’t Make America Healthy Again
Forbes
By Errol Schweizer
March 24, 2025
“Increased line speeds will hurt workers – it’s not a maybe, it’s a definite – and increased production speeds will jeopardize the health and safety of every American that eats chicken,” stated Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which represents more than 15,000 poultry workers at facilities across the southern U.S.
What Medicaid Cuts Would Mean for Disabled People and Homecare Workers
Workday Magazine
By Isabela Escalona
March 24, 2025
Minnesota home-healthcare workers like Larson, are represented by SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa, and many believe the system is already lacking for workers and clients alike. Further cuts would put many people like Larson out of work and leave disabled recipients scrambling to fill in the gaps in care. In a statement from SEIU National Media from February, the union warns, “Make no mistake—radical changes to Medicaid will hurt us all. Cutting Medicaid will shrink funding for other vital services and infrastructure families depend on—from child care to Meals on Wheels—while putting increased pressure on service providers by decreasing resources that are already insufficient.”
USPS chief Louis DeJoy resigns as Trump eyes overhauling mail agency
The Washington Post
By Jacob Bogage
March 24, 2025
U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy will resign at the end of the day Monday, concluding a five-year tenure that began at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, stretched through elections conducted predominantly by mail for the first time in the nation’s history, and ended amid pressure from President Donald Trump’s administration to assert political control over the postal system. Recent tension between DeJoy and the Trump administration over the work of the U.S. DOGE Service contributed to the White House’s antipathy toward the mail chief, who was hired during Trump’s first term by a postal board dominated by Trump appointees.
Inside Elon Musk and Russ Vought’s quiet alliance
Politico
By Megan Messerly
March 24, 2025
Washington expected Elon Musk and Trump budget director Russ Vought to butt heads as they remade the federal government. Instead, they’ve become force multipliers. Musk, the impulsive Silicon Valley billionaire, provides the public face to the bureaucracy-slashing efforts and takes the heat for the budget-cratering, employee-firing and overall havoc-wreaking that has been unleashed on the federal government. Vought, the conservative budget wonk, brings the expertise, insider knowledge and ideology to a dramatic downsizing that both men see as necessary and transformational, four former Trump administration officials told POLITICO.
INFRASTRUCTURE
U.S. Infrastructure Improves, but Cuts May Imperil Progress, Report Says
The New York Times
By Niraj Chokshi
March 25, 2025
Increased federal spending in recent years has helped to improve U.S. ports, roads, parks, public transit and levees, according to a report released on Tuesday by the American Society of Civil Engineers. But that progress could stagnate if those investments, some of which were put on hold after President Trump took office in January, aren’t sustained.
ORGANIZING
Majority of nearly 1,000 University of Minnesota resident physicians and fellows file for union
Minnesota Reformer
By Max Nesterak
March 24, 2025
A supermajority of the nearly 1,000 resident physicians and fellows at the University of Minnesota filed to unionize in one of the largest union drives in the state in recent years, SEIU’s Committee of Interns and Residents union announced on Monday. The move comes on the heels of more than 200 resident physicians at Hennepin Healthcare becoming the first to file to unionize in Minnesota earlier this month as part of a surge in organizing among young doctors in their final years of training. They say they are organizing in the face of brutally long days and relatively low pay.
U of M doctors-in-training move to unionize
The Minnesota Star Tribune
By Jeremy Olson
March 24, 2025
About 1,000 doctors in training at the University of Minnesota are seeking to unionize in an effort to secure better wages and manageable workloads. Physicians completing residencies or fellowships at the U filed for representation by the Committee of Interns and Residents, part of SEIU Healthcare. The union on Monday announced the action, which awaits a review by U leaders and then by the state to determine if it can be certified without a vote.
Brattleboro Memorial Hospital outpatient support staff to unionize
Brattleboro Reformer
By Chris Mays
March 24, 2025
Outpatient support staff at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital primary care and speciality practices are unionizing. After eight months of organizing, outpatient support staff in the primary care and specialty practices at BMH voted 29 to 18 on Thursday to set up a union, according to an announcement from AFT Vermont. The move follows a vote in February by inpatient staff to do so. "We just want to make sure that we are heard and that we have a voice and are working with the BMH administration to make things better," Krystal Palmisano, certified medical assistant at Brattleboro Family Medicine and union organizing committee member, said in an interview Monday.
At Game Development Conference, video game workers look to level up through unionization
48 Hills
By Leah Isobel
March 24, 2025
On Wednesday evening at GDC, I attended a conversation between Jason Schreier, a Bloomberg journalist who has covered labor issues in gaming for nearly a decade, and Tom Smith, a senior director of organizing for the Communications Workers of America union. Their discussion was focused on the growth of the labor movement in video games that has taken place since 2018, when a GDC panel discussion titled “Unions Now: The Pros and Cons of Organizing” catalyzed the founding of pro-union group Game Workers Unite. The group’s membership quickly swelled from a handful of members to over 300, and their advocacy efforts shifted the conversation around unionization in the industry from “if” to “how.”
Workers hope to steer giant Southern EV battery plant toward unionization
Marketplace
By Lisa Autry
March 24, 2025
The electric vehicle industry in the Southeast is growing rapidly, with increased sales, charging stations and manufacturing. Buoyed by notable victories in the last couple of years, the United Auto Workers union is revving up efforts to organize the EV and battery sector in the South. One target is a sprawling campus in rural Kentucky that, once completed, will be one of the largest EV battery plants in the world.
Voting results show Ohio University faculty members have officially unionized
WOUB
By WOUB News Team
March 24, 2025
Faculty members at Ohio University have voted to unionize. Representatives from the United Academics of Ohio University (UAOU) announced Monday that unionization was approved with a 453 to 189 vote, according to a press release. The votes were counted at the State Employment Relations Board office in Columbus on Monday morning.
2,400 grocery workers to decide whether Tony’s Fresh Market will go union
Chicago Tribune
By Talia Soglin
March 25, 2025
Over the next three days, 2,400 cashiers, deli clerks, meat cutters, bakery workers, pastry decorators, florists and other grocery store staffers will decide whether Tony’s Fresh Market, the grocery chain founded by Italian immigrants in Logan Square and sold to private equity three years ago, will become a union shop. Tony’s workers from Joliet to Waukegan will cast their votes Tuesday through Thursday in an election held by the National Labor Relations Board. The union that hopes to represent the workers is the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 881, which already represents thousands of grocery workers at Mariano’s and Jewel-Osco grocery stores throughout the Chicago area.
UNION NEGOTIATIONS
Knappen Milling workers striking over wages, safety concerns
Arc West Michigan
By Ivy S. Fowler
March 24, 2025
Workers of Knappen Milling are on strike. Fighting against low wages, safety concerns, and for a "Right-to-Work" security clause to be written back into their contracts, the Knappen Milling workers, who are members of BCTGM Local 3G Union and make Knappen Milling Baking Flour, have been striking since March 6 and were protesting outside of the mill Monday, according to BCTGM officials.
Gannett, The Record Guild agree to contract, avert walkout
New Jersey Globe
By David Wildstein
March 24, 2025
Gannett has avoided a walkout by journalists from three North Jersey newspapers by agreeing to a two-year contract that increases salaries by over 25%. Members of The Record Guild, representing reporters from the Bergen Record, Daily Record, and New Jersey Herald, ratified the contract with 95% of the vote, ending three years of combative negotiations and walkouts. “Our members showed Gannett they would not be pushed around by their games and stood up for each other, showing we wouldn’t be cowered by bad contract language, questionable protections, and low wages,” said Kaitlyn Kanzler, the Record Guild unit chair. “We know our worth as journalists, and we’re finally being paid for it.”
CA: VTA union to vote on new contract proposal Saturday after nearly two weeks of striking
Mass Transit
By Caelyn Pender
March 24, 2025
As the strike of Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority workers reaches the end of its second week, union members are set to vote on a new proposal Saturday following several days of contract talks. But the union’s negotiation team is urging members to vote “no.” The Amalgamated Transit Union Local 265 walked off the job March 10 after negotiations with the transit agency fell apart the week before, over a pay raise amount and language in the contract’s arbitration clause.
Judge orders Post-Gazette to restore health care, resume bargaining with striking workers
TribLive
By Tom Davidson
March 24, 2025
A federal appeals court Monday ordered the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to restore health care benefits to its striking journalists and to resume bargaining. It marked the latest development in the longest newspaper strike in the digital age. The strike started Oct. 6, 2022. The last contract between the company and its unions expired in March 2017. “Our win today is a major victory not just for us striking workers, but for all workers in Pittsburgh who want to stand up and fight,” said Zack Tanner, striking interactive designer and Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh president.
Gizmodo Editorial Staff Ratifies First Union Contract Under New Management
Deadline
By Katie Campione
March 24, 2025
Gizmodo’s editorial staff has reached a deal on a new collective bargaining agreement via the Writers Guild of America East. Per the WGAE, the 14-member bargaining unit unanimously ratified the contract, marking the first since the tech and science outlet was acquired by Keleops Media in 2024. Gizmodo was previously part of the G/O Media Union alongside Jalopnik, Kotaku, QZ, The Root and The Onion.
VTA strike update: Striking union workers reject offer from transit agency
Yahoo! News
By Alex Baker
March 24, 2025
Striking Valley Transportation Authority workers are set to take a vote Monday that could potentially bring the now three-week-old strike to an end. Members of the VTA workers’ union, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 265, are due to hold a vote in Fiesta Hall at the Santa Clara County Fairground on Monday afternoon. Later Monday evening, the VTA workers’ union (ATA Local 265) voted to reject VTA’s offer of an 11 percent raise. Eighty-three percent of the union voted no.
JOINING TOGETHER
Flight Attendants Rally In Newark To Demand More Pay, Benefits
Patch
By Eric Kiefer
March 24, 2025
A long-running labor dispute between United Airlines and its flight attendants has apparently taken a turn for the better, but a potential strike still looms if a deal can’t be reached. Last week, flight attendants represented by the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA once again took up their protest signs for a nationwide series of rallies at 19 airports, including Newark Airport in New Jersey.
IN THE STATES
Sherrod Brown, Weighing a 2026 Senate Bid, Starts a Workers’ Group
The New York Times
By Reid J. Epstein
March 24, 2025
Sherrod Brown is out of the Senate, but he is not done with politics. Mr. Brown, the Ohio Democrat who lost his bid for a fourth Senate term last year, announced on Monday that he was forming a nonprofit group called the Dignity of Work Institute. The group, he said in an interview, will aim to illustrate the plight of workers in a country where both major parties have forgotten their concerns.
WCPO
By Sam Harasimowicz
March 24, 2025
Postal workers made their rallying cries heard throughout the streets of downtown Cincinnati Sunday afternoon. Union workers from the Cincinnati National Association of Letter Carriers and other United States Postal Service workers came out with signs, t-shirts, and banners with a short but direct message, "Fight Like Hell."
Protesters gather in Terre Haute, in support of USPS
WIBQ
By Local News
March 24, 2025
The National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) held an emergency rally Sunday to defend the U.S. Postal Service amid threats to dismantle and privatize the service. The protest was held at the Vigo County Courthouse and during the event dozens of protesters, including postal service workers, concerned citizens and Terre Haute Mayor Brandon Sakbun, wore shirts that said, “FIGHT LIKE HELL!” Protesters also held up signage that said, “U.S. mail not for sale”, “oppose postal privatization” and “protect our constitution”
Unions for current, former federal workers rally at Virginia Capitol
VPM
By Chris Suarez
March 24, 2025
“Think about who this is really impacting. DC wants us to think there’s not a human component to everything that’s going on,” said Doris Crouse-Mays, president of the Virginia AFL-CIO. “All of these workers are with us in our daily lives, protecting us all. It is time that we stand up, fight back and protect them.”
Paducah residents rally to prevent post office privatization
Forward Kentucky
By Berry Craig
March 24, 2025
Despite threatening skies and intermittent rain, about 50 people turned up at Paducah’s main post office Sunday afternoon to stand in solidarity with members of National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 383 who oppose privatizing the U.S. postal service.