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.”