Welcome to our regular feature, a look at what the various AFL-CIO unions and other working family organizations are doing across the country and beyond. The labor movement is big and active—here's a look at the broad range of activities we're engaged in this week.

Actors' Equity:

Read the Spring edition of The Organizing Voice, a quarterly newsletter focused on all things organizing, in the member portal today! Find updates on some ongoing campaigns as well as contract wins from around the country. https://t.co/4uDGJ2xFyM pic.twitter.com/nmjnyOWKl8

— Actors' Equity (@ActorsEquity) May 13, 2025

AFGE:

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

AFSCME Members Add Worker Protections to City of Austin’s AI Policy: Members of AFSCME Local 1624 are celebrating the Austin City Council’s passage of Item 55, which institutes strong ethical guardrails and worker protections as Texas’ capital city adopts artificial intelligence (AI) into its work. Local 1624 represents public sector workers who are employed by the city of Austin and Travis County. Members worked closely with City Council members to shape the AI policy to ensure that working people won’t have their jobs displaced by this emergent new technology. The resolution also protects against AI-based productivity scoring, allows for workers to appeal decisions made by algorithmic tools and requires AFSCME members to be consulted as new technologies are introduced. “We support innovation—but it must come with safeguards,” said Local 1624 President Brydan Summers, who spoke at the city council meeting in support of the resolution. “This resolution ensures AI is used to support—not replace—public workers. By requiring human oversight, banning continuous surveillance, and protecting workers from AI-only decisions, Item 55 puts the safety and dignity of the workforce first.”

Sunberry Beverages Union Members Ratify New Contract: United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 951 members who work at Sunberry Beverages in Paw Paw, Michigan, voted on Tuesday to overwhelmingly ratify a powerful new contract. Before ratification, the approximately 60 UFCW members at the plant had been working under an agreement that was signed before Sunberry bought the facility from previous owner Knouse Foods. The beverage manufacturer honored their existing contract, but as day-to-day production shifted, members needed new provisions to reflect changes to their work. Highlights of the new agreement include wage increases, expansion of full-time status and benefits eligibility to all workers, improvements to paid time off policy, increases to the 401(k) match, and more. “After the change in ownership, job duties and responsibilities at the plant changed significantly for the union members,” said John Cakmakci, Local 951 president and chief negotiator. “I am proud of the members who served on the bargaining committee and worked together to achieve contract gains that improve the lives of their fellow members. It’s important for the company to recognize how valuable the Sunberry workers are and reward their hard work and loyalty with a strong contract.”

University of Minnesota Resident Physicians Union Certified by State Labor Board: The Minnesota Bureau of Mediation Services officially certified on Friday that a majority of resident physicians at the University of Minnesota have signed cards to join the Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR/SEIU). A supermajority of the nearly 1,000-person bargaining unit filed for union recognition late last month. Their exciting organizing campaign was made possible by the reform of Minnesota’s Public Employment Labor Relations Act, which was passed in 2024. “We went into medicine because we want to take care of people, but at the heart of it, we just don’t think that great patient care should have to come at the expense of our well-being,” said Dr. Sofia Haile, a family medicine resident, in a press release. “In fact, we believe our health and our patients’ health are actually intertwined. Creating a system where physicians can be our best for patients and be our best for ourselves is what we’re hoping to achieve as a union.”

SEIU Member Abducted by ICE Released from Detention: After a federal judge issued an order for Rümeysa Öztürk’s release from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 509 mem ber and Tufts University graduate student returned to Massachusetts on Saturday evening. Öztürk—a Turkish citizen on a student visa—was held in federal custody at a detention facility in Louisiana for six weeks after plainclothes officers arrested her in late March. The only evidence the Trump administration has cited as grounds for her arrest is an op-ed criticizing Tuft’s response to the war in Gaza that she co-authored in the student newspaper. Judge William K. Sessions III ordered Öztürk to be released with no travel restrictions and warned that her detention had the potential to cause a chilling effect on free speech. Union members and community allies rallied behind Öztürk after she was detained, holding nationwide protests decrying her arrest. “Rümeysa is free – and she is free because workers stood up and demanded justice,” said SEIU President April Verrett in a video statement posted to social media. “We are so excited for her, she gets to return home to her friends and her family and her studies at Tufts University. But our work is far from over. Rümeysa is free, but millions of other immigrants are not. They are still in the shadows. Our work is not done until everyone who calls this country home gets to live with freedom and dignity and respect.”

Overwatch Developers Form Union with CWA: Game developers behind Activision Blizzard’s popular franchise Overwatch have become the latest video industry workers to join the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and have secured voluntary recognition from parent company Microsoft. The Overwatch Gamemakers Guild-CWA (OWGG-CWA) is a wall-to-wall union that covers a wide range of roles, including art, quality assurance, engineering, design and more. The nearly 200-person bargaining unit formed its union with the help of CWA’s tech industry organizing project, Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE-CWA), which has helped 6,000 workers in the United States and Canada form unions over the past five years. OWGG-CWA members cite concerns around job security, wages and layoff protections as core motivators for organizing. “After a long history of layoffs, crunch, and subpar working conditions in the global video game industry, my coworkers and I are thrilled to be joining the broader union effort to organize our industry for the better, which has been long overdue,” said Foster Elmendorf, senior test analyst II and organizing committee member. “Workers organizing themselves and striving for better conditions as a group allows us to present initiatives that would not only improve our workplace but video games overall.”

Arizona Agricultural Workers Make Cannabis Industry History with New Contract: United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 99 members who work at Trulieve’s production facility in central Phoenix ratified their first union contract this past Wednesday, becoming the first cannabis cultivators in state history to do so. While retail cannabis workers have been securing collective bargaining contracts around the country in recent years, this agreement is a landmark deal for agricultural workers in the industry. In January 2024 Trulieve Magnolia staff voted to join UFCW, in only the second union election ever administered by the Arizona Agricultural Employment Relations Board. “I’m telling you, if you ever read them bumper stickers on the street that say, ‘Work union, live better,’ that’s a true statement,” said Larry Terrell, a former union airline worker who is now a Trulieve cultivator. “It was an eye-opener coming to the cannabis industry from the airline industry. I just felt like the workers’ rights weren’t all there. I feel like they didn’t treat their employees very well….For what these companies make, they can afford to pay their workers a livable wage.”

Striking University of Oregon Student Workers Reach Tentative Agreement: After more than a week on strike, the University of Oregon Student Workers (UOSW) union—an affiliate of the UAW—announced Thursday that their bargaining team has reached a tentative agreement with administrators. If ratified, this agreement would be the first contract covering a wall-to-wall undergraduate student worker unit at a public university. Members perform essential roles in dining halls, dormitories, academic departments, recruitment, cultural spaces, student life and research labs. Student workers initially walked off the job on April 28, after 11 months of negotiations with the university, to fight for better wages and improved protections against harassment in the workplace. “This is a historic and amazing contract whatever way you slice it,” said Ryan Campbell, a member of UOSW’s bargaining team. “[UO administration] can’t push some of this stuff out of the way now….Going through this experience, now we can help other people, so it’s a very very cool thing.”

REI Union Blocks Corporate-Backed Co-Op Candidates in Board Election: Last week, REI confirmed that thousands of their Co-op members voted to reject corporate-backed candidates in their board of directors election after REI Union members launched a massive “Vote No” campaign in response to the retailer’s union-busting. The union is affiliated with the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) and the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU-UFCW). Since 2022, 11 storefronts have voted to organize and none have been able to reach a fair contract so far. After years of bad faith bargaining from the nominally progressive corporation, workers urged Co-op members to vote “withhold” on all three of REI’s proposed candidates, including two incumbent board members, to demand the corporation live up to its values. Now, REI members are demanding that pro-worker candidates Tefere Gebre—former executive vice president of the AFL-CIO and current chief program officer at Greenpeace USA—and Shemona Moreno—executive director of nonprofit 350 Seattle—fill the vacant seats on the board of directors. “This victory was only possible because REI members and REI workers stood together to send a resounding message that it is time for the co-op to return to its core values,” the union said in a press statement. “We are optimistic that Mary Beth Laughton will take this opportunity to listen to everyone who voted for workers and members to have a voice in the company’s future. Moving forward, REI should stop union busting, negotiate a fair contract with organized workers, and fill the vacancies on the board with the candidates that members backed initially.”

NowThis Staff Ratify New Union Contract: Writers Guild of America East (WGAE) members at short-form video news outlet NowThis have unanimously ratified a new collective bargaining agreement. The three-year deal increases the minimum salary floor for the nine current unit members to $80,000, as well as increases the overall contract minimum with an additional $1,000 increase in the second and third years of the contract. Other highlights include a longevity bonus on every four-year anniversary and strong guardrails against the use of generative artificial intelligence. “The Mighty 9 remaining members of the NowThis Union are thrilled to celebrate our successful contract negotiation,” the NowThis bargaining unit said. “We’re very thankful to those who supported us by writing letters to the CEOs of NowThis and Accelerate Change and encouraging them to help us reach a deal. We look forward to working with management and continuing to grow NowThis into the success we know it is.” 

Tags: Organizing

For Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month this year, the AFL-CIO is spotlighting various Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders who have worked and continue to work at the intersection of civil and labor rights in the United States. Today's profile is Pono Kodani of AFSCME.

Deeply connected to the ocean and his Hawaii Island community, Hawaii Government Employees Association (HGEA/AFSCME) member and lifeguard Pono Kodani says the most rewarding part of his job is saving a life, especially with drowning being the No. 1 cause of death among children in the islands. Born and raised on the east side of Hawaii Island, Kodani grew up going to the beaches that he now patrols.

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.

The Minnesota Bureau of Mediation Services officially certified on Friday that a majority of resident physicians at the University of Minnesota have signed cards to join the Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR/SEIU).

A supermajority of the nearly 1,000-person bargaining unit filed for union recognition late last month. Their exciting organizing campaign was made possible by the reform of Minnesota’s Public Employment Labor Relations Act, which was passed in 2024.

“We went into medicine because we want to take care of people, but at the heart of it, we just don’t think that great patient care should have to come at the expense of our well-being,” said Dr. Sofia Haile, a family medicine resident, in a press release. “In fact, we believe our health and our patients’ health are actually intertwined. Creating a system where physicians can be our best for patients and be our best for ourselves is what we’re hoping to achieve as a union.”

For Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month this year, the AFL-CIO is spotlighting various Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders who have worked and continue to work at the intersection of civil and labor rights in the United States. Today's profile is Sandra Engle of UAW.

Sandra Engle had a long career in the labor movement before becoming the executive director of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA). While working as a criminal appeals lawyer at the Legal Aid Society of New York, she was active in UAW Local 2325, and was elected vice president. After taking a leave of absence, she began organizing with multiple unions across the United States, including AFGE, the Machinists (IAM), the Steelworkers (USW) and UAW. She eventually came home to the UAW when she was put on staff in the Organizing Department and became assistant director. In addition, she has served as UAW assistant director in the national CAP Department as well as Education Department. Most recently she was director of UAW's Communications and Strategic Campaigns departments before retiring.

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.

Game developers behind Activision Blizzard’s popular franchise Overwatch have become the latest video industry workers to join the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and have secured voluntary recognition from parent company Microsoft.

The Overwatch Gamemakers Guild-CWA (OWGG-CWA) is a wall-to-wall union that covers a wide range of roles, including art, quality assurance, engineering, design and more. The nearly 200-person bargaining unit formed its union with the help of CWA’s tech industry organizing project, Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE-CWA), which has helped 6,000 workers in the United States and Canada form unions over the past five years. OWGG-CWA members cite concerns around job security, wages and layoff protections as core motivators for organizing.

“After a long history of layoffs, crunch, and subpar working conditions in the global video game industry, my coworkers and I are thrilled to be joining the broader union effort to organize our industry for the better, which has been long overdue,” said Foster Elmendorf, senior test analyst II and organizing committee member. “Workers organizing themselves and striving for better conditions as a group allows us to present initiatives that would not only improve our workplace but video games overall.”

For Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month this year, the AFL-CIO is spotlighting various Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders who have worked and continue to work at the intersection of civil and labor rights in the United States. Today's profile is Bethany Khan of UNITE HERE's Culinary Union.

Bethany Khan is the spokeswoman and director of communications and digital strategy for the Culinary Union, UNITE HERE Local 226. She uses strategic communications, technology, data and digital strategy to support working families in Nevada. Since 2012, Khan's communications and digital strategy work has played a major role in the Culinary Union’s organizing, legislative, policy and electoral campaigns. In 2024, the Culinary Union, under Khan's leadership, had $70 million in earned media, uplifting directly impacted and front-line essential hospitality workers’ voices.

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.

University of Oregon Student Workers Union and University of Oregon Reach Tentative Agreement: “After a strike that lasted more than a week, the University of Oregon Student Workers union and the university itself have announced that they have come to a tentative agreement on a labor contract. Student workers at the University of Oregon walked off the job in the morning of April 28, after 11 months of failed negotiations with the university.”

Union Groups Needed 140k Utahns to Support a Referendum. They Got More Than a Quarter Million Signatures: “In the end, it wasn’t even close. Labor groups had 30 days to get 140,478 signatures to put a referendum on the ballot asking Utah voters if they want to repeal a new law barring public employee unions from negotiating contracts with their government employers. They ended up with 251,590 valid signatures, making it the most successful signature-gathering effort in state history, according to the lieutenant governor’s office, racking up nearly 100,000 more names than the previous record set by the 2018 medical marijuana initiative.”

Unions Push Congress to Help Bring Back NIOSH Staff: “A coalition of 28 labor unions is calling on congressional lawmakers to ‘fulfill the promise of a safe job’ by helping in the effort to reverse staffing cuts at NIOSH. In an open letter to the lawmakers, the unions, including the AFL-CIO, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, United Mineworkers of America and United Steelworkers, write: ‘Fifty years ago, our elected leaders made that promise to every working family in America by establishing NIOSH, OSHA, and the Mine Safety and Health Administration, which were all entrusted by Congress to have distinct and imperative responsibilities that have allowed us to make critical progress over time.’”

Entertainment Unions ‘Prepared to Fight Back’ Against Trump-Ordered Elimination of NEA, NEH and CPB: “The Arts, Entertainment, and Media Industries (AEMI) coalition within AFL-CIO said it is prepared to fight back against Trump’s proposed cuts that would eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the National Endowment for Humanities (NEH), and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). Trump’s 2026 ‘Skinny’ Budget Request went out last week, continuing his attacks on nonprofit arts organizations such as National Public Radio and PBS. ‘Unions are prepared to fight back again against efforts to eliminate the NEA, NEH, and CPB,’ said Katie Barrows, Communications Director at the Department of Professional Employees at the labor union in a statement released Wednesday.”

On Teacher Appreciation Week, Union Leaders Say Teachers Are Underpaid and Under Attack: “American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said with their skill sets and the amount of time they dedicate to their jobs, public school teachers could earn about 24% more than their current pay working in non-teaching jobs in the private sector. But teachers often stay in the profession ‘because they're making a difference in the lives of kids,’ she said. Weingarten added, ‘You're seeing this over and over and over again that people in communities know the importance of teachers and the importance of public schools. That's why teachers are one of the most trusted professions in the country. But they need to be supported 365 days a year, not just one day a year.’”

AFL-CIO’s Shuler, 100 Days in, Challenges Trump Refusal to Follow Constitution: “As Republican President Donald Trump again verbally trashes the U.S. Constitution, both AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler and the public, in a new poll by the Pew Research Center, are calling him out for what he is—a serious threat to democracy. Shuler says he is an ‘autocrat’ and the people are telling pollsters he is a ‘dangerous dictator.’ ‘We do not fall in line for autocrats,’ declared Shuler.”

Not All Students Go to College. We Need to Make That OK: “For years, America’s approach to education has been guided by an overly simplistic formula: 4+4—the idea that students need four years of high school and four years of college to succeed in life. Even with this prevailing emphasis on college, around 40% of high schoolers do not enroll in college upon graduating, and only 60% of students who enroll in college earn a degree or credential within eight years of high school graduation.”

Labor Goes All in for Kilmar: “AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler highlighted Abrego Garcia’s case as well as that of Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk in a statement, while condemning President Donald Trump’s unlawful overreach. ‘The Trump administration also has illegally targeted our fellow workers—union members like Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was separated from his family in Maryland and sent to a prison in El Salvador without due process, and Rümeysa Öztürk, detained while walking to dinner in Massachusetts and thrown into a detention center thousands of miles away, despite neither of them having committed a crime,’ Shuler said, before invoking a well-known labor slogan. ‘An injury to one is an injury to all. When Trump targets immigrant families like Kilmar’s and Rümeysa’s, he targets all workers.’” 

'It Makes Me Feel Angry': Workers Forced Out by Trump and Musk Speak at MSNBC Town Hall: “Federal workers who were forced out of their jobs by President Trump and Elon Musk speak out in a live MSNBC town hall—‘100 Days of Trump: Forced Out Federal Workers.’ See the workers talk with Stephanie Ruhle and Jacob Soboroff about their experience and what these actions mean for all Americans.”

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.

Actors’ Equity Association announced that workers at The Second City have reached a tentative agreement with employers, avoiding the need for a strike in Chicago as authorized last week. Equity and The Second City employers had been negotiating since late February. The union and employers reached this tentative agreement with the assistance of mediator Brenda Pryor of Apex Dispute Resolution. Equity’s Central Regional Board will review the tentative agreement for ratification on May 14.

“Previous wages for performers and stage managers at The Second City had fallen way behind due to inflation and the rising cost of living in Chicago,” said George Elrod, Tour Company Actor. “This deal provides a much-needed wage adjustment, while giving Second City a meaningful media package.”

“I am happy that we were able to get a deal that more clearly values the workers of The Second City,” said Abby Beggs, e.t.c. Stage Manager. “Most importantly, I'm proud that we valued and prioritized our touring members and got our mainstage actors on par with the rest of the talent in the city. I believe with this deal, more and more of our actors and performers will be able to afford to do this job, and I am proud to have been a part of getting us there.”

For Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month this year, the AFL-CIO is spotlighting various Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders who have worked and continue to work at the intersection of civil and labor rights in the United States. Today's profile is Mabel Wong of OPEIU.

Mabel Wong, a member of Office and Professional Employees (OPEIU) Local 153, has worked at Seton Hall University's library for 36 years, providing services to the university and global communities via the interlibrary loan program. "Being a union member provides a collective voice to fight against discrimination and harassment, for fair wages and benefits, and safe working conditions.”