The AFL-CIO “It’s Better In a Union” bus made two powerful stops on Friday as its nationwide tour rolls on. In Philadelphia, the bus tour joined the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers (PFT) at its last strike preparation gathering before the new school year begins; in Long Beach California, it stopped by a Protect Veterans’ Care and Stop Retaliation Against Workers rally at the Tibor Rubin Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center.

PFT members are currently in negotiations with the School District of Philadelphia in hope of reaching a new contract and avoiding a walkout. However, they are still preparing to strike if necessary. At the event, teachers received support from other local unions and the families of their students. Attendees made signs and gathered materials that will be needed if the strike becomes a reality. PFT’s current agreement expires on Aug. 31.

“You have a calling to prepare and educate the next generations of Philadelphians and Americans. You’re patriots! You’re really making it happen here in Philadelphia and across the commonwealth,” Philadelphia Council of the AFL-CIO President Danny Bauder told the crowd gathered in front of the bus. “No matter what it takes, if it’s escalated activities, rallies or shutting the city down, we’re gonna do it and we’re going to win when we do!”

In Long Beach, AFGE National President Everett Kelley and Reps. Nanette Barragán and Derek Tran joined Los Angeles-area union members, veterans and community members to fight back against attacks on the VA. Speakers called on Congress to stop the Trump administration’s efforts to privatize the nation’s largest public health care system and demanded the restoration of federal workers’ collective bargaining rights.

AFGE Local 1061 President and Army veteran Dewanda Mitchell said: “Trump is trying to silence union VA workers because we’re the ones standing in the way of his ultimate goal: privatizing all VA care and selling veterans out to the lowest bidder. This is retaliation! Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

Tags: Better in a Union Bus Tour

Every week, we bring you a roundup of the top news and commentary about issues and events important to working families. Here’s the latest edition of the Working People Weekly List.

Julie Su: Union-Buster in Chief: “Up until now, the go-to example of a president using his power to try to destroy unions and set back the labor movement was Ronald Reagan’s firing of striking air traffic controllers in 1981. That move threw 11,000 dedicated workers who kept Americans safe and flight paths clear out of their jobs. It declared open season on workers who exercised their fundamental rights to improve their working conditions, sending a message to private employers that they, too, could fight worker organizing drives, break strikes, and undermine workers’ rights. And its impact—a decades-long decline in union density and workers’ bargaining power—reverberated throughout the 1980s, ’90s, and into this century.”

Mark Dimondstein: Mail Workers Union Leader: The U.S. Postal Service Is Not for Sale: “Growing up near the Boston Post Road, I never appreciated that I had the early postal system to thank for this old thoroughfare between New York and Boston. Nor did I know that I would one day proudly earn a living as a postal worker and spend 12 years as the elected leader of my union of postal workers. As the U.S. Postal Service celebrates its 250th anniversary, my experience lends a unique perspective on its past, present, and future. Older than the country itself and enshrined in the Constitution, the Postal Service reflected a then-radical commitment to the free exchange of ideas and information. The Founding Fathers relied on the Postal Service to organize the Second Continental Congress and to circulate the Federalist Papers. Later, the abolitionist movement agitated and organized against the evils of slavery largely through mailed newspapers and correspondence.”

Over 160 Blizzard Workers in Irvine Join Union as Gaming-Industry Labor Movement Expands: “More than 160 workers at video game company Blizzard Entertainment have voted to unionize. The workers, who produce in-house cinematics, animation, trailers, promotional videos and other narrative content, are just the latest batch in the video game industry to unionize, with more than 6,000 having organized across the U.S. and Canada. A wave of organizing in the industry has been driven in recent years by such issues as crunch-time hours before a product releases, job insecurity and workplace harassment.”

WMU Board of Trustees Approves New Contract with AFSCME Union: “The Western Michigan University Board of Trustees held their first meeting Wednesday with new President Russ Kavalhuna driving the agenda. It was a meeting only in the official sense, as the board met virtually in a special online session to ratify a contract with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) union.”

Labor Unions Mobilize to Challenge Advance of Algorithms in Workplaces: “As employers and tech companies rush to deploy artificial intelligence software into workplaces to improve efficiency, labor unions are stepping up work with state lawmakers across the nation to place guardrails on its use. The renewed drive to regulate AI could change how workers are exposed to AI in their jobs and complicate industry plans to roll out technology such as robotaxis or tools that track individuals’ productivity. It comes after the Senate killed a proposed federal moratorium that would have banned states from regulating AI for the next 10 years.”

Fred Redmond Joins Tavis Smiley: “Fred Redmond, the highest-ranking African American labor official in history as secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, says we’re in the middle of another Hot Labor Summer with a big Boeing strike, a beautiful bus tour, and bad Black unemployment numbers.”

AFL-CIO Bus Tour Stops at Chicago A. Philip Randolph Gathering: “Beginning on July 5, the AFL-CIO has been sending two buses to collect testimony from workers across the country who are concerned about the Trump administration’s policies, in a lead-up to rallies across the country on Labor Day and in preparation for the 2026 midterm elections. Prior to Friday’s address, AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer Fred Redmond and others attended rallies in support of striking workers in the Chicago area at QSL America, The Emily Hotel and The Chicago History Museum. ‘We want to make sure that people understand that organized labor is committed to stand up for working people and their concerns are our concern,’ Redmond said in an interview with People’s World. ‘We’re going to elevate their voices in Washington, D.C., and throughout the country.’”

Latino Labor Organization Pushes Unity Among All Workers: “The leadership of the nation’s largest labor federation, the AFL-CIO, was represented by top labor leaders including Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond who moved the attendees with his declaration that ‘the attack of the administration on everything we believe in has been tremendous, the attack on federal workers, immigrant workers, women, collective bargaining that built the middle class in this country. Cut funding for healthcare and education for tax breaks for the billionaires! Ten million will lose healthcare! They have further destroyed due process. They sold out the working class.’”

Fred Redmond: Trump Didn’t Just Fail to Protect Black Jobs. He’s Leading Us to Black Unemployment: “President Trump likes to say he is delivering for working people. He promised on the campaign trail that he would protect ‘Black jobs.’ But like so many of his promises, it is an empty one. In fact, we have been living with the effects of Trump’s policies since he took office in January and the only thing he has delivered for us is employment uncertainty and financial insecurity. The July jobs report that came out last week is starting to reflect that.”

MaryBe McMillan: 'Big Beautiful Bill' Will Deplete Medicaid Coverage, Close Rural Hospitals: “The so-called ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ that President Donald Trump signed into law on the Fourth of July will have devastating impacts on the health and food security of working people across North Carolina. The coming wave of drastic cuts to federal spending on essential social programs will ripple through every community.”

This is the next post in our series that will take a deeper look at each of our affiliates. The series will run weekly until we've covered all 63 of our affiliates. Next up is the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU).

Name of Union: Office and Professional Employees International Union

Mission: “To improve the lives of working families by bringing economic justice to the workplace and social justice to our communities. Acting as a strong and united voice in the workplace and in the communities in which we live, OPEIU seeks to bring the benefits of representation to all working people and their families.”

Current Leadership of Union: Tyler Turner serves as OPEIU president. Turner is the son of Becky Turner, OPEIU vice president emerita and former Local 277 president and business manager. Upon going to work in 2007 for Kaiser Permanente’s Consolidated Service Center in Fort Worth, Texas, Turner joined Local 277. Soon after becoming a member, he realized his passion for labor activism and went to work directly for the local as support staff. In 2011, Turner was promoted to business representative for Local 277 and began representing members working for American Income Life Insurance Company across the United States and New Zealand. That same year, he was elected to the Tarrant County Central Labor Council Executive Board as a member at large, where he served on various committees. Turner was later appointed to the Local 277 Executive Board as recording secretary. In 2013, he was promoted to senior business representative and elected as a District 8 vice president for the Texas AFL-CIO. He was elected president of Local 277 in 2017, and the following year was elected as a trustee for the Tarrant County Central Labor Council. He has served on the OPEIU Executive Board since 2019. He was named president of the international union in February 2025.

Mary Mahoney has served as secretary-treasurer since 2010. OPEIU has 17 vice presidents.

Number of Members: 94,000

Members Work As: Health care employees, including registered nurses and podiatrists, clerical workers, credit union employees, nonprofit employees, teachers, college and university employees, and helicopter pilots.

Industries Represented: OPEIU members work at credit unions, hospitals and medical clinics, insurance companies, higher education, nonprofits, transportation, shipping, utilities, hotels, administrative offices and more.

History: The American Federation of Labor granted the first clerical federal charter to Local 1 of the Stenographers, Typists, Bookkeepers and Assistants Union in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1906. Membership grew slowly until the passage of the Wagner Act in 1935. The legislation granted collective bargaining rights to working people and propelled thousands of clerical employees to form dozens of unions. In 1936, Mollie Levitas called for a resolution recognizing an international union of office workers. Nine years later, the AFL granted a charter to the Office Employees International Union (OEIU), which had 22,000 members. In 1965, 10 years after the AFL merged with the Congress of Industrial Organizations, the OEIU rebranded as the Office and Professional Employees International Union. In the following decades, the union grew at a fast rate.

Current Campaigns/Community Efforts: The Rising Stars initiative seeks to create and network OPEIU youth programs across the country. The OPEIU Store sells merchandise branded with the union’s name and logo. OPEIU publishes OPEIU Connect magazine. OPEIU Justice for All provides resources to promote equality for all.

Learn More: Website, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, X, BlueSky, LinkedIn

Working people across the United States regularly step up to help out our friends, neighbors and communities during these trying times. In our Service & Solidarity Spotlight series, we’ll showcase one of these stories every day. Here’s today’s story.

Members of the United Academics of Maryland-Howard Community College (UAMD-HCC)—an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), AFT-Maryland and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP)—have secured a tentative agreement for their first union contract.

The bargaining unit covers full-time faculty at HCC, who will vote on whether to ratify the deal later this month. In addition to a 4% cost-of-living adjustment and a $3,500 bonus for all full-time faculty, members also won a clear disciplinary process, greater job security, defined workload guardrails, increased shared governance with the college and more.

“This agreement is a testament to the hard work and commitment of our faculty,” said United Academics of Maryland-HCC Chair and Associate Professor Nadene Vevea. “After tough negotiations, we have secured vital advancements that not only recognize the contributions of our educators but also lay a foundation for a stronger academic environment at Howard Community College.”

“This tentative agreement is a monumental leap forward in improving faculty working conditions at Howard Community College and for the broader movement to strengthen higher education in Maryland,” said AFT-Maryland President Kenya Campbell. “Faculty at Howard Community College stood together to demand better, and this tentative agreement delivers not only for them but also builds momentum for the fight for all community college faculty statewide.”

On Thursday, the AFL-CIO’s “It’s Better In a Union” bus tour stopped by a California Nurses Association/National Nurses United (CNA/NNU) townhall in Bakersfield, California, as well as a rally with AFGE in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

In Bakersfield, local elected officials, union allies and members of community organizations from around the Central Valley gathered to speak out against attacks on Medicaid. The CNA/NNU townhall was co-sponsored by 24 organizations, including the Fresno, Madera, Tulare and Kings Counties Central Labor Council as well as the Kern, Inyo and Mono Counties Central Labor Council. As many as 3.4 million people in California could lose their health insurance as a result of the Trump administration's budget bill.

“The federal budget bill is a cruel piece of legislation that will have disastrous consequences for the most vulnerable in our communities, including the patients I care for in Bakersfield,” said Sandy Reding, a registered nurse at Bakersfield Memorial and a president of California Nurses Association, an affiliate of NNU. “This bill will make the rich even richer, put jobs at risk, endanger the lives of hard-working people, and take away two basic human rights: health care and food.”

In Wilkes-Barre, AFGE National President Everett Kelley headlined the rally to fight back against Social Security Administration (SAA) staffing cuts. He spoke about how AFGE and the labor movement at-large has been mobilizing to protect Social Security.

“Across the country, we are using our voice—as workers, as parents, as people who care about our communities—to demand that this administration and Congress do whatever it takes to protect Social Security,” Kelley said. “The American people deserve nothing less.”

Kelley was also joined by Jessica Lapointe, president of AFGE Council 220, who explained the critical role that SSA workers play in the lives of millions of Americans.

"For 90 years, we've kept America's greatest anti-poverty success story alive. We serve widows, orphans, the elderly, disabled, every vulnerable soul in your families and your communities, and they deserve respect and dignity when they come for their earned benefits,” Lapointe said.

The AFL-CIO is traveling around the country on the "It's Better in a Union" bus tour. Check back here for coverage of the stops on our trip.

Where we've been so far:

• AFL-CIO Bus Tour Stops at Rep. Calvert Accountability Rally
• AFL-CIO Bus Tour: Harrisburg Workers Demand Accountability from Rep. Scott Perry for Selling Out Working Class
• Dropkick Murphys Headline Bus Tour Rally for Union Rights in Cleveland
• AFL-CIO Tour Bus Stops in Tucson for Rally to Hold Electeds Accountable
• AFL-CIO Bus Stops for Historic Rally with Chicago History Museum Workers
• Secretary-Treasurer Redmond Rides into Chicago with Busload of Solidarity for Local Strikes
• AFSCME Members Hold Arizona Lawmakers Accountable for Budget Votes at AFL-CIO Bus Tour Stop
• AFL-CIO Tour Bus Stops in Navajo Nation for Union Fair
• AFL-CIO Tour Bus Joins AFSCME in Iowa to Hold Lawmakers Accountable
• Bus Tour Picks Up Checkered Flag Racing to Indianapolis in Support of UFCW Grocery and Retail Workers
• AFL-CIO Tour Bus Stop in St. Louis Fights to Hold Lawmakers Accountable
• AFL-CIO Tour Bus Races Through Derby City with BOSK Workers Ahead of Their Landmark Election
• Bus Tour Hits Atlanta on the Road to Labor Day
• AFL-CIO Bus Tour Rolls into Steel City with Big Union Energy
• Workers Blast Trump Cuts in Tennessee at Latest Bus Tour Stop
• The Bus Tour Stops in Michigan for Two Electric Events
• Bus Tour Joins South Carolina AFL-CIO Convention to Highlight New Initiative on Union Rights
• AFL-CIO Bus Tour Joins CWA Members in Charlotte, North Carolina, to Rally for a Contract at Wells Fargo
• AFL-CIO Bus Tour Stops at NAACP Convention in Charlotte to Highlight ‘Fierce Urgency’ of Worker Solidarity
• AFL-CIO Launches ‘It’s Better in a Union’ Bus Tour to Fight for Freedom, Fairness and Security Across the Nation

Tags: Better in a Union Bus Tour

On Wednesday, the AFL-CIO “It’s Better In a Union” bus joined union members and community allies for a rally outside Rep. Ken Calvert’s district office in Corona, California, to hold the lawmaker accountable for the repeated betrayals of working people, including his support for the Trump administration’s budget bill.

Ken Calvert’s congressional district is a swing seat, and this rally aimed to show Calvert that if he continues to put billionaires above working families, his position of power will be in jeopardy. Speakers included CFT President and California Federation of Labor Unions Secretary-Treasurer Jeff Freitas, Inland Empire Labor Council Executive Secretary-Treasurer Ricardo Cisneros, and United Domestic Workers (UDW) District 3 Chair Desmond Prescott.

Tags: Better in a Union Bus Tour

Working people across the United States regularly step up to help out our friends, neighbors and communities during these trying times. In our Service & Solidarity Spotlight series, we’ll showcase one of these stories every day. Here’s today’s story.

Blizzard’s Story and Franchise Development (SFD) team became the latest group of video game workers to organize after they voted to form a union with Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 9510 on Tuesday.

After a majority of the video game company’s in-house cinematic, animation and narrative team endorsed union authorization, parent corporation Microsoft recognized CWA as the workers’ bargaining representative. Nearly 3,000 workers at Microsoft-owned studios have organized as part of the union’s Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE-CWA) project to build better standards across the industry since 2023.

“After more than a decade working at Blizzard, I’ve seen all the highs and lows. For years, Blizzard has been a place where people could build their careers and stay for decades, but that stability’s been fading,” said Bucky Fisk, a principal editor and member of the organizing committee. “With a union, we’re able to preserve what makes this place special, secure real transparency in how decisions are made, and make sure policies are applied fairly to everyone.”

“These workers are setting the standard for animation, cinematics, and storytelling across the video game industry, creating the breathtaking cutscenes, trailers, and other narrative content that fans have come to love across all Blizzard franchises. We are excited to have them join our union family,” said Local 9510 President Jason Justice. “Their decision to organize is another powerful step toward ensuring that every worker at Blizzard and Microsoft has a seat at the table to shape the conditions under which their art is made.”

Our latest roundup of worker wins includes numerous examples of working people organizing, bargaining and mobilizing for a better life.

Child Care Providers United Secure New Tentative Agreement with California: Members of Child Care Providers United (CCPU)—which represents approximately 60,000 home-based child care providers in California—have reached a tentative agreement with the state. The union is a partnership between Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 99, SEIU Local 521 and United Domestic Workers of America, UDW/AFSCME Local 3930. Child care workers are among the lowest-paid workers in the country—and because home-based providers in California are classified as small business owners, they also don’t have access to employer-provided benefits. After CCPU won the right to collectively bargain in 2019, it secured the establishment of a retirement fund and other major wins. The new agreement covering CCPU members ensures the retention of those retirement, health care and training benefits, a cost-of-living adjustment, and stabilization payments that will help prevent child care provider closures. “In these times in which healthcare is under attack by the federal government in the form of Medicaid cuts, which of course is Medi-Cal for us, it’s significant to have a benefit like that so they can take care of themselves and their families as they continue to do this work,” said Max Arias, CCPU chairperson and chief negotiator.

NABTU, TVA and Tennessee Department of Labor Launch Apprenticeship Partnership to Empower Former Foster Youth: North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU), the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development announced the creation of the Forever Family Apprentice Partnership last week. This initiative will provide former foster youth with career pathways to the union construction and energy industries. The groundbreaking deal was signed at the 2025 Tennessee Valley Trades and Labor Council (TVTLC)/TVA Labor Management Conference. It outlines a shared commitment to provide former foster youth access to NABTU’s apprenticeship programs with gold standard training that will lead to long-term career stability, quality wages and benefits, mentorship, and professional development. “This is what it looks like to build futures and community at the same time,” said NABTU President Sean McGarvey. “Building Trades Registered Apprenticeship is a pathway to the middle class. With this initiative, we’re giving young people from the foster system not just an opportunity to work, but an opportunity to belong—to be part of a Forever Family that supports them with the best trade skills and a family-sustaining career.”

Enoch Pratt Free Library Staff Members Ratify First Contract: AFSCME Council 3-represented workers at the Enoch Pratt Free Library (EPFL) system in Baltimore have successfully ratified their first union contract after almost two years of negotiations. The agreement between Pratt Workers United—formed under Council 3—and the historic public library system marks their first union contract, which covers more than 300 staff across all 22 locations in the city. The bargaining unit is inclusive of a wide range of essential roles such as librarians, office technicians, custodial staff, security personnel and others. Highlights of the agreement include a $1,000 ratification bonus, improved health and safety protections, anti-discrimination provisions and other critical wins. “It’s about time my co-workers and I have a formal agreement that guarantees we have a voice on the job,” said office technician Dominic Serino in an AFSCME blog post. “We’re the ones doing the work every day, and this agreement recognizes the vast amount of experience and knowledge we bring to our work and the communities we serve.” 

Workers at Chicago’s City Bureau Win Union Recognition: After going public in July with their campaign to join The Chicago News Guild, The NewsGuild-CWA (TNG-CWA) Local 34071, staff at City Bureau are now celebrating securing voluntary recognition from their employer. All eligible workers at the Chicago-based nonprofit newsroom—across every department that plays a role in editorial work, programming and operations—unanimously signed union authorization cards when they sought recognition. Members of City Bureau Workers Guild now are shifting their attention toward negotiating a collective bargaining agreement with provisions that will help strengthen the newsroom and build a sustainable, fair and equitable workplace. “We look forward to beginning the bargaining process and co-creating an equitable contract that serves workers and the organization we all love,” the City Bureau Workers Guild organizing committee said in a social media statement. “Building a strong, unionized workplace is a journey, and we’ve just taken a major step to bolster our collective power.”

UFCW, RWDSU and REI Co-Op Reach Agreement Outlining a Path Forward for Contract Bargaining: The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union-UFCW (RWDSU-UFCW), and outdoor recreation retailer REI announced last week that they have reached an agreement to establish a bargaining structure for union storefronts across the country. Members of REI Union have been fighting for a first contract for three years that addresses low wages, understaffing and unpredictable shift hours. However, workers say management has been slow-walking negotiations and bargaining in bad faith. The agreement came out of joint meetings in late July in Chicago where workers also secured progress on several key issues. As a result, REI will now retroactively provide wage increases and bonuses to workers at union-represented stores—benefits they had previously been denied—while the union will drop active ULP charges filed with the National Labor Relations Board. “We want what’s best for all REI workers, our customers, and the co-op,” said the REI Union bargaining committee. “This agreement is a tremendous step forward in negotiating a first contract, and we look forward to continuing to bargain with REI.”

Tags: Organizing

Working people across the United States regularly step up to help out our friends, neighbors and communities during these trying times. In our Service & Solidarity Spotlight series, we’ll showcase one of these stories every day. Here’s today’s story.

Members of Child Care Providers United (CCPU)—which represents approximately 60,000 home-based child care providers in California—have reached a tentative agreement with the state.

The union is a partnership between Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 99, SEIU Local 521 and United Domestic Workers of America, UDW/AFSCME Local 3930. Child care workers are among the lowest-paid workers in the country—and because home-based providers in California are classified as small business owners, they also don’t have access to employer-provided benefits. After CCPU won the right to collectively bargain in 2019, it secured the establishment of a retirement fund and other major wins. The new agreement covering CCPU members ensures the retention of those retirement, health care and training benefits, a cost-of-living adjustment, and stabilization payments that will help prevent child care provider closures.
 
“In these times in which healthcare is under attack by the federal government in the form of Medicaid cuts, which of course is Medi-Cal for us, it’s significant to have a benefit like that so they can take care of themselves and their families as they continue to do this work,” said Max Arias, CCPU chairperson and chief negotiator.