Elon Musk becomes the world’s first trillionaire

Elon Musk has become the world’s first trillionaire following the historic IPO of SpaceX, which debuted as the largest public offering in history. Depending on the stock price, Musk’s net worth now exceeds $1 trillion. Most of that wealth now comes from SpaceX, which has become one of the most valuable companies on Earth through its rocket business, Starlink satellite network, and growing investments in artificial intelligence. Musk now has more wealth than the bottom 46% of the world’s population – 3.8 billion people.

The scale of the IPO is difficult to comprehend. SpaceX’s public debut raised roughly $75 billion and immediately pushed the company into the ranks of the most valuable corporations in the world. The offering doubled the previous IPO record set by Saudi Aramco and benefited from special rules demanded by Musk of Wall St that allowed the rapid inclusion of SpaceX stocks into major stock indexes, opening the door for billions in retirement and pension fund investments to flow into the company. This has raised controversy as it opens these funds that are typically seen as a safer investment to far more risk.

Musk’s rise has often been presented as the story of a lone entrepreneur. However, SpaceX was built with enormous public support. The company relied on government contracts, NASA partnerships, and federal investments to grow into the aerospace giant it is today. Government agencies remain among its largest customers. There would be no SpaceX without those early guaranteed revenue streams from NASA and DoD. Just as there would be no Tesla without federal and state spending on EV tax credits and clean energy subsidies.

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And despite taking so much from public coffers, Musk has historically used tax loopholes aggressively to dodge both personal taxes as well as taxes on his corporations. Tesla paid $0 in federal taxes in 2025, and across the last three years paid just 0.47% effective tax rate to the federal government. That is 45 times smaller than the 21% statutory corporate tax rate, which itself was cut from 35% by Trump in 2017.

And what has he done with this immense wealth? Besides lavish spending on private jets and vanity projects, his political influence has expanded alongside his fortune. In 2022, Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion, reshaping the major social media platform and gutting former moderation efforts. In the 2024 election cycle, Musk spent $290 million supporting Donald Trump and allied candidates, emerging as one of the most influential figures shaping the administration’s approach to technology, regulation, and industrial policy. Just after Trump election in November 2024, Musk’s net worth stood at $350 billion. It has now more than tripled since then. He then joined the Trump administration leading the Department of Government Efficiency, where he led the effort to slash hundreds of thousands of federal union jobs and the services they provide to working people across the country.

The milestone also says something about the era we live in. Union density peaked at roughly 35% in the 1950s. Today it sits near 10%. Meanwhile, wealth concentration has reached levels not seen since the Gilded Age. The gap between a trillionaire and an ordinary worker is so vast it almost stops being meaningful as a number. Last year, Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill cut $1 trillion in Medicaid funding, funding those same tax breaks to corporations and the rich that enable Musk to become a trillionaire. This scale of money could solve broad societal problems – homelessness, hunger, clean water, equitable access to education – but instead it is withheld by the ultra-rich.

But wealth does not appear out of thin air. Tens of thousands of workers designed the rockets, built the satellites, assembled the vehicles, wrote the software, and generated the profits that created this fortune. The question raised by Musk’s trillion-dollar milestone is not simply how rich one person can become. It is what this level of wealth concentration means for democracy, politics, and the future of the economy itself. His wealth was built by – and ultimately stolen from – the working class of this country. No one person should decide what it is used for.

UAW workers win after 10-day strike at American Axle

After ten days on strike, members of UAW Local 2093 at American Axle reached a tentative agreement, bringing an end to a dispute that was nearly two decades in the making.

The strike involved roughly 1,000 workers at the Three Rivers, Michigan facility, a critical supplier for General Motors. Workers had spent years trying to recover from the massive concessions imposed during the Great Recession, when wages were slashed nearly in half under the threat of plant closure. Even after eighteen years, workers still had not fully recovered what they lost.

The new agreement finally begins to close that gap. Workers secured a path to top wages of roughly $30 an hour by 2030 – what many members called “30 by 30.” Just as importantly, they achieved those gains without sacrificing healthcare or other benefits the company had argued would have to be cut. Workers succeeded in finally reversing concessions that had defined an entire generation of employment at the facility and proving that sacrifices made during a crisis do not have to become permanent.

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The strike also demonstrated the leverage workers continue to hold in strategic parts of the supply chain. By targeting a critical supplier for GM’s most profitable truck lines, a relatively small group of workers was able to put pressure on a major corporation and force movement at the bargaining table.

BONUS ROUND

• 🎥Atlanta transit workers demand safety ahead of World Cup

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The Pickets & Power Bulletin covers the biggest stories impacting all working people today. Share these stories with your union siblings, coworkers, friends, and family. Read it together, discuss, and take lessons to strengthen your own fights. When we fight, we win – and when we fight, we learn. Tell us in the comments about campaigns you think we should include in our next bulletin!

UAW workers strike key GM supplier after 18 years of concessions

Nearly 1,000 members of UAW Local 2093 walked off the job June 1 at Dauch Corporation’s Three Rivers, Michigan facility, a critical supplier of axles and driveline components for General Motors’ most profitable pickup trucks. Workers launched an unfair labor practice strike after negotiations collapsed and the company failed to meet demands around wages and healthcare.

In 2008, during the Great Recession, workers agreed to major concessions under the threat of plant closure. Employees previously earning as much as $29 an hour saw wages slashed to roughly $14.50. Eighteen years later, top pay has only recovered to about $22 an hour after a five-year progression. Adjusted for inflation, workers are making half as much as their pre-2008 pay. Meanwhile, the company has thrived. American Axle has generated roughly $8.4 billion in profits over the past decade. During that same period, the CEO made $111 million. UAW President Shawn Fain summed up the frustration: “For 18 years, these members have built you an empire of profit while getting treated like dirt.”

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The strike targets a key chokepoint in GM’s supply chain. Analysts estimate GM only has a limited supply of axle inventory before production of its highly profitable truck lines begins feeling pressure. Like the Stand Up Strike strategy in 2023, the UAW is targeting a strategic point in the supply chain where a relatively small group of workers can have an outsized impact.

USC faculty win major union election after years of delays

Faculty at the University of Southern California voted overwhelmingly to join the UAW this week, marking one of the largest private-sector higher education organizing victories of the year. The bargaining unit includes roughly 2,700 non-tenure-track faculty, including adjunct instructors, full-time teaching faculty, research scientists, and clinical healthcare practitioners who teach and conduct research across the university.

The victory comes after years of organizing and nearly eighteen months of legal delays. USC repeatedly challenged the bargaining unit and argued before the NLRB that all of the workers were ineligible to unionize, despite established precedent of similar bargaining units at other private universities. Organizers accused the university of pursuing a familiar union-busting strategy: drag out the process, force endless legal fights, and hope workers lose momentum before ever reaching an election.

Instead, workers maintained support throughout the campaign. When the NLRB finally ordered an election last month, faculty delivered a decisive result. Roughly 78% of eligible workers participated, with approximately 70% voting in favor of unionization. After years of delays and aggressive opposition, workers demonstrated that support for the union had not faded – it had grown.

The win is particularly significant in Los Angeles. USC is the second-largest private employer in the city after Kaiser Permanente, and the campaign adds another major group of workers to the growing UAW presence in higher education. Following recent organizing victories across the University of California system as well, the union has grown by thousands of academic workers joining across the state.

The fight is not over. USC has already appealed to the national NLRB in an attempt to block recognition. But after years of delays, faculty have spoken clearly. At a time when university administrations have largely accommodated Trump’s attacks on higher education, workers are increasingly organizing to defend themselves and the institutions they help run.

• 🎥How USC is siding with Trump against workers

100,000 Illinois Rideshare Drivers Win Path to Unionize

Soon after 70,000 Massachusetts drivers formed the first recognized rideshare union in U.S. history last week, Illinois lawmakers have passed legislation creating a pathway for approximately 100,000 Uber and Lyft drivers to organize and negotiate a contract. The win for MA rideshare drivers is the biggest private sector unionization win since 1941 when Ford recognized the UAW. Now Illinois and California are continuing the trend with hundreds of thousands more drivers who could be soon to follow. If this momentum spreads nationally, rideshare workers could become one of the largest groups of new union members in generations.

The legislation allows drivers to form unions, elect representatives, and collectively negotiate over wages, deactivations, safety concerns, and more. For years, drivers have argued that while companies classify them as independent contractors, the platforms exercise enormous control over their livelihoods and are completely dependent on the driver workforce to operate.

After years of battles over worker classification, organizers have increasingly pursued state-level frameworks that create pathways to bargaining outside traditional NLRA recognition models. The strategy mirrors earlier efforts by SEIU among homecare and domestic workers who were similarly excluded from federal labor law protections.

Drivers have consistently cited low pay, lack of transparency, and arbitrary deactivations as major issues. In recent years, companies have raised the price on riders while lowering the payout to drivers – squeezing profit from both ends as they flex their growing monopoly power in the sector. That has only made it more difficult for drivers to make ends meet. For the first time, they will have a path to negotiate at the table to address them.

For years, Silicon Valley thrived on the idea that app-based workers were too isolated and fragmented to organize while ensuring through misclassification that none would have a legally guaranteed path to unionize. As their efforts fall apart to block unionization, tech giants are simultaneously pushing autonomous vehicles across the country that threaten to eliminate millions of jobs across the country. The drivers recognize this threat as well, demanding as seat at the table and a voice in the halls of power to ensure robotaxis don’t devastate their livelihood.

• 🎥70,000 MA rideshare drivers win union

• 🎥ICE raids hit rideshare drivers at Chicago airport

Colorado labor movement suffers setback as Democratic Gov Polis vetoes Worker Protection Act again

Colorado Governor Jared Polis vetoed the Worker Protection Act for the second year in a row, blocking legislation that would have removed Colorado’s unique labor law often referred to as “right-to-work lite.” Colorado’s Labor Peace Act requires unions that have already won recognition to clear a second hurdle before negotiating union security agreements. Workers must win a separate vote with support from 75% of employees, a threshold that Polis himself has acknowledged is extraordinarily difficult to achieve at large workplaces. Yet despite recognizing the problem, he vetoed repeal efforts once again.

Labor leaders argue the system effectively functions as a hybrid right-to-work framework, forcing newly organized unions to clear an additional hurdle just as they are trying to build power and negotiate a first contract. The law dates to 1943, before Congress passed Taft-Hartley and opened the floodgates for right-to-work laws nationwide. Labor advocates argue Colorado’s system remains a relic of that anti-union era.

For unions, the frustration is especially sharp because the legislation passed the legislature with broad labor support. Instead of siding with workers and unions, Polis – the Democratic Governor – once again sided with business interests arguing the status quo should remain intact. This echoes the betrayal of labor by Democratic Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger who last month vetoed a piece of legislation that would have dramatically expanded public sector bargaining rights across the state.

MLB owners revive push for a salary cap

Major League Baseball owners have officially placed a salary cap proposal on the table during collective bargaining, setting up what could become the defining conflict before the current agreement expires on December 1. The proposal would cap total team payroll and limit how much clubs can spend on player salaries.

Owners argue a cap would improve competitive balance. The MLB Players Association counters that the real issue is not teams spending too much on players but many owners choosing not to spend enough. Nearly a third of teams operate well below current payroll thresholds while still collecting substantial revenue-sharing payments. Rather than requiring owners to invest more, a salary cap would simply limit worker compensation.

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MLB generates more than $12 billion annually. The players’ position is straightforward: the issue is not excessive spending on labor but owners choosing not to invest in their teams. Instead of a cap, the MLBPA has favored stronger spending floors that would require owners to compete. The smaller market teams are still guaranteed a revenue share each season, which has encouraged owners to minimally invest in the players and teams while still collecting billions each season.

The fight over salary caps carries enormous historical significance for the league. The last major attempt to impose a salary cap helped trigger the 1994 strike, which lasted 232 days and canceled 948 games – the longest work stoppage in MLB history. That memory hangs over negotiations today.

BONUS ROUND

• 🎞️I Love Boosters: Deconstructing Retail Hell

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The Pickets & Power Bulletin covers the biggest stories impacting all working people today. Share these stories with your union siblings, coworkers, friends, and family. Read it together, discuss, and take lessons to strengthen your own fights. When we fight, we win – and when we fight, we learn. Tell us in the comments about campaigns you think we should include in our next bulletin!

Rideshare drivers celebrate victory at MA state house. Photo: AP

70,000 rideshare drivers win first union in U.S. history

In the largest private sector organizing victory since Ford recognized the UAW in 1941, nearly 70,000 Uber and Lyft drivers in Massachusetts have officially won union recognition, creating the first certified rideshare union in U.S. history. Organized through the App Drivers Union – affiliated with SEIU 32BJ and the IAM, drivers will now be able to bargain collectively with Uber and Lyft and set standards across one of the fastest-growing sectors of the economy.

In fact, with estimates of 1.5-2.5 million drivers just in the U.S., Uber would be considered the largest employer in the country – bigger than Walmart or Amazon – if all of the drivers were recognized as Uber employees officially. Classifying drivers as independent contractors allowed Uber and Lyft to deny these workers a path to unionize through the NLRB. However, in states like Massachusetts, California, and Illinois, drivers have organized to introduce a new legal framework to organize and negotiate a union contract across the sector.

For years, rideshare companies built their business model around classifying drivers as independent contractors while exercising enormous control over their work. Drivers have faced falling real wages as vehicle costs, insurance, fuel, and maintenance expenses continue rising while the apps reportedly take a larger and larger share of fares. Many workers describe arbitrary deactivations as one of the biggest issues in the industry – a driver can lose access to work overnight with little explanation and almost no recourse.

The victory is especially significant because rideshare drivers represent one of the most immigrant-heavy workforces in the country, reportedly making up 80–90% of drivers in major markets. Workers from dozens of countries who were intentionally isolated through app-based work are beginning to organize at scale even in some of the most difficult sectors to unionize.

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SEIU is already organizing toward similar efforts in Illinois, where roughly 100,000 drivers could be brought into bargaining structures, while California organizers are looking toward organizing 800,000 more app-based workers. If similar campaigns spread nationally, the rideshare industry could become one of the largest new organizing fronts in modern labor history.

Drivers are also confronting another threat looming over the industry: automation. Companies like Uber continue investing heavily in autonomous vehicle partnerships while firms like Waymo push rapid expansion. Many drivers increasingly view unionization as necessary not only to improve conditions today but to build enough power to fight for a real say in what happens as automation threatens their livelihoods.

• 🎥70,000 rideshare drivers win union

Federal workers rally in DC against government cuts in Feb 2025. Photo: Nathan Posner / Anadolu

Trump administration moves to require NDAs across federal workforce

The Office of Personnel Management announced this week that it is beginning the formal process of requiring broad nondisclosure agreements across large sections of the federal workforce, escalating the administration’s campaign to tighten control over federal employees amid growing whistleblower disclosures and public criticism.

Under the proposal, current and future federal workers could be required to sign NDAs restricting disclosure of a wide range of internal information. Violations could expose workers to civil and criminal penalties. OPM says the proposal is aimed at stopping leaks involving sensitive government operations, citing the leaks of the governments planning around the unpopular operations to kidnap Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro.

The American Federation of Government Employees – the largest union of federal workers – warned that the proposal is part of a broader effort to silence dissent, intimidate workers, and weaken independent civil service protections. They point out that existing laws already govern classified information and that the proposal is meant to create a chilling effect throughout the federal workforce.

The proposal arrives after months of turmoil across federal agencies. Since returning to office, Trump has overseen sweeping layoffs, workforce reductions, agency restructuring, and DOGE-driven cuts across federal programs. The administration has also moved to terminate collective bargaining agreements in parts of the federal workforce and expand pathways for removing career civil servants.

At the same time, some of the most significant reporting on the administration this year has come from federal workers themselves – including disclosures involving immigration enforcement operations, agency cuts, retaliation against employees, and internal resistance to administration directives. OPM argues the new rules are necessary to stop damaging leaks. Federal workers increasingly fear they are being used to suppress lawful whistleblowing and criticism.

For labor unions representing federal employees, the concern goes beyond leaks. The fear is that the administration is steadily constructing a federal workforce where workers are expected to demonstrate loyalty, remain silent, and avoid speaking out about abuses – even as agencies undergo some of the most dramatic restructuring in modern history.

Federal unions have filed lawsuits to block many of these attacks, but mostly to little avail. The mass layoffs pushed by DOGE have been challenged, but most laid off workers remain in limbo without work. Federal contracts have been voided and ignored by agencies, with unions losing their office space and needed resources. Legal strategies – adopted as the primary shield by federal unions – have shown limited success in reversing or showing these attacks, with organizations like AFGE bleeding resources and membership.

As the workforce is hit by these attacks, members of the Federal Unionists Network – a multi-union formation of federal workers – have advocated to organize urgently to protect against these attacks, calling for more collective action and the need to break out of the usual playbook for federal unions to survive. One of their main strategies has been working with whistle blowers in the federal workforce to call out the attacks on federal services and the workers who provide them. With the authority and expertise on these systems, they are raising the alarm as the Trump administration attempts to break down these public goods. The Trump administration is now trying to crack down on whistle blowers to ensure the public is kept in the dark.

• 🎧Interview with Chris Dols, Federal Unionists Network

Big Tech starts pumping the brakes on AI hype

After spending years telling investors that artificial intelligence would transform productivity and justify massive restructuring, some of the companies leading the AI rush are beginning to quietly acknowledge a problem. The tools are costing enormous amounts of money – and many companies still aren’t seeing the returns they expected.

This week, reports emerged that Microsoft has begun cutting access to certain AI coding tools internally, including Claude Code licenses, after costs ballooned across parts of the company. At the same time, Uber executives publicly questioned whether the company’s massive AI spending is actually producing meaningful improvements for workers or customers. Uber reportedly burned through its entire planned 2026 AI budget within four months.

The shift comes after years of unprecedented spending. Microsoft alone expects to spend nearly $200 billion in 2026, much of it tied to AI infrastructure, while companies across tech have collectively poured over $700 billion into data centers, chips, cloud computing, and enterprise AI contracts.

At the same time, workers have paid the price. Companies including Meta, Microsoft, Salesforce, Amazon, and Block have collectively eliminated hundreds of thousands of jobs while arguing AI would make organizations more efficient. Earlier this month, Meta cut another 8,000 workers as part of plans to eliminate up to 20,000 jobs this year, even while posting massive profits.

What makes this moment notable is not that companies are abandoning AI – they aren’t. Instead, some of the firms most aggressively pushing adoption are beginning to realize that AI is not magically reducing costs at the speed investors expected. In some cases, companies are discovering that maintaining massive AI systems, computing infrastructure, and enterprise contracts can be more expensive than anticipated without guarantees of major improvements.

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That does not mean the threat to workers disappears. Companies are still restructuring around AI, slowing hiring, raising productivity expectations, and searching for ways to reduce labor costs. But cracks are beginning to emerge in the narrative that AI would immediately revolutionize everything while effortlessly generating profits. The deeper question now is whether the AI boom is creating a sustainable transformation of the economy – or whether parts of the industry are beginning to resemble more of a speculative bubble fueled by endless spending and investor hype.

• 📰Meta lays off 8,000 workers, betting on AI

Bring it to the shop!

The Pickets & Power Bulletin covers the biggest stories impacting all working people today. Share these stories with your union siblings, coworkers, friends, and family. Read it together, discuss, and take lessons to strengthen your own fights. When we fight, we win – and when we fight, we learn. Tell us in the comments about campaigns you think we should include in our next bulletin!

NYC hotel workers secure historic contract victory

More than 30,000 hotel workers in New York City won one of the largest hospitality contracts in U.S. history this week, after months of escalating pressure and growing strike threats ahead of the World Cup and peak tourism season. Workers with the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council (HTC) secured major gains in wages, pensions, healthcare, childcare, staffing protections, and new safeguards around artificial intelligence and automation.

The deal reportedly includes raises exceeding 50% over the life of the eight year agreement, protections against automation replacing jobs, expanded family supports, and stronger protections against understaffing – a major issue since the pandemic as hotels cut staffing levels while demanding remaining workers do more.

Union leaders made clear they were willing to strike if necessary, threatening disruption across one of the country’s largest tourism hubs just as New York prepares for a massive influx of visitors for the World Cup. This opportunity gave the workers major leverage at the table.

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NYC is the largest urban hotel market in the US, rebounding coming out of the pandemic years. Hotel guests spend $38.4 billion annually across the city.

The industry wide agreement is a rare opportunity for workers at coordinated bargaining across the biggest players in the sector, giving workers the power to not just push standards at one employer but to lift standards across the industry. This framework is a reflection of the power of unionized hospitality workers in NYC, first negotiated in 1939.

Since the last contract negotiations, the union set out to regain strength in the sector after years of declining density by pushing a wave of new organizing to increase density. Ultimately, they succeeded in building greater density, in addition to securing key worker protections and strike preparation that prepared them for this fight to flex their power and win.

• 🎥Priced out of NYC: Union hotel workers won’t back down

Meta fires 8,000 workers betting big on AI

Meta laid off another 8,000 workers this week, part of plans to cut up to 20,000 jobs in 2026, as the company doubles down on artificial intelligence (AI). The layoffs come despite Meta posting over $60 billion in profits last year, while CEO Mark Zuckerberg continues pouring billions into AI infrastructure and computing capacity. Despite reporting over $60 billion in profits last year, the company is majorly restructuring. The message from Wall Street is that if companies continue to cut workers and invest in AI, then the stock market will reward them.

Meta says the layoffs are about efficiency and reorganizing around the future of technology. But workers increasingly see a broader trend unfolding across tech. Companies are not only betting on AI to eventually replace labor – they are cutting workers now to free up billions for speculative investments in that future. Collectively over $700 billion has been invested in 2026 in massive AI capital projects, especially data centers and the infrastructure of the AI boom. Similar waves have already hit companies like Block, Salesforce, Microsoft, and Amazon – with estimates already over 114,000 tech jobs cut in 2026 so far. Since 2022, over 800,000 tech workers have been laid off as firms chase profitability after years of expansion. This has become a norm to signal “financial responsibility” to investors, meaning they will cut as deep as their competition to stay “efficient.”

What makes this moment especially bitter is that many of the workers facing layoffs are the same people who helped build the technologies now being used to justify eliminating their jobs.

The response from organized tech workers has been sharp. In a statement responding to the layoffs, the Alphabet Workers Union argued, “It’s hard not to feel anxiety and fear when we can see more and more tech companies cutting huge portions of their workforce both in anticipation of replacing them with AI and to fund their multi-billion dollar bets on AI as the future of the industry…. The products generating massive profits for companies like Meta and Google don’t exist without our labor… don’t mourn, organize!”

This fight increasingly reaches far beyond Silicon Valley. Employers across healthcare, logistics, education, media, and customer service are now rapidly experimenting with AI to cut labor costs and intensify workloads. Tech workers are simply the first major group learning what happens when the technology you helped build gets turned back against you.

• 📰Meta lays off 8,000 workers, betting on AI

LIRR workers strike – and win

After shutting down the busiest commuter rail system in North America for three days, 3,500 Long Island Rail Road workers represented by a coalition of five unions won new contracts this week, ending the first strike on the railroad in 32 years. The strike disrupted travel for nearly 300,000 daily riders and forced New York political leaders to finally move after years of delays and stalled negotiations.

At the center of the fight were wages and cost of living. Workers had gone three years without raises while inflation and housing costs exploded across the region. The settlement reportedly includes retroactive raises, cost-of-living improvements, and stronger wage protections, largely bringing workers in line with gains won elsewhere in the MTA system.

The MTA operates under the governor’s office in NY, meaning Governor Kathy Hochul ultimately guides the MTA management team in negotiations. Before and during the strike, Hochul aggressively attacked workers, calling the walkout “reckless” and warning that meeting workers’ demands could mean higher taxes and fare hikes, while saying that LIRR workers were already highly paid.

Then, after workers won, the tone changed completely. Hochul suddenly praised the agreement for ensuring workers would be “paid fairly” – while quietly dropping earlier warnings about catastrophic fare hikes. Public sector workers across the board will recognize this dynamic where public servants are pitted against the public they serve, with fearmongering about higher taxes, prices, or cuts to services. Essentially saying the only way they can support essential public servants is by taking it out of the pockets of other working people. In the aftermath we can see this was just a bluff meant to undercut public support.

The strike also highlighted the unique power – and restrictions – of transportation workers. Rail and airline workers labor under the Railway Labor Act, a law designed to make strikes extremely difficult through endless mediation, cooling-off periods, and federal intervention. Workers still remember the 2022 national rail strike, when Congress and Biden blocked 115,000 rail workers from striking. Read more about this in our previous bulletin.

After three long years of negotiations and delays without a contract, LIRR workers won a major victory after just three days out on strike. Now another 40,000 MTA workers for the NYC subway system represented by TWU Local 100 continue their own negotiations following their own recent contract expiration. While these workers are much earlier on in the long and painstaking process of RLA negotiations, the powerful example set by the LIRR workers can serve as both inspiration for the workers and a serious threat to MTA management.

• 🎥Nation’s busiest commuter rail system on strike

Postal workers prepare for contract fight as agreement expires

The contract covering more than 200,000 city letter carriers expired at midnight Friday, 5/22. Members of the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) have been bargaining under growing pressure over wages, staffing shortages, forced overtime, and the long-running two-tier workforce system that has left newer postal workers earning less and struggling to survive.

Over recent months, NALC members have organized rallies in more than 100 cities, preparing for bargaining and warning against threats of privatization and further erosion of one of the country’s oldest public services. Their core demands are “30 for 30” – calling for $30 / hour starting wages and 1 manager for every 30 workers.

Mike Pinto, a longtime letter carrier, said “When I started around twenty years ago it was one supervisor for every twenty carriers. Now it’s like one per seven. I think we could run the office without them. If none of them showed up we’d still run.” Carriers have seen management bureaucracy and budget expand dramatically at the same time that the Post Master General and Congress claim that they’re in a financial crisis.

The USPS remains one of the few truly universal public services in the country, reaching every address regardless of profitability. Yet workers say years of austerity, understaffing, and political attacks have weakened service while pushing employees toward burnout. NALC leaders have also repeatedly warned against efforts to privatize postal services, arguing it would mean higher prices, worse service, and more pressure on workers.

Chris Persampieri, a letter carrier with the Next Generation Carriers, explained how many postal workers see their fight to protect the public service from privatization. “Many people want a cheap public service. And Wall St, corporations, want a more expensive service so they can make that money for themselves. We have a clear message for them and for the public as well that the Post Office is not for sale.”

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In 1970, postal workers launched a massive illegal wildcat strike, shutting down mail service nationwide and ultimately forcing major gains, including granting postal workers collective bargaining rights – despite federal law banning strikes for workers. These workers still do not have the legal right to strike, but the memory of 1970 still remains with the workforce today, especially as more postal workers feel pushed to their limit again.

• 🎥Who will defend the postal service?

BONUS ROUND

• 🎞️Sorry to Bother You: Why you NEVER cross the picket

• 🎥How Amazon’s greed kills

Bring it to the shop!

The Pickets & Power Bulletin covers the biggest stories impacting all working people today. Share these stories with your union siblings, coworkers, friends, and family. Read it together, discuss, and take lessons to strengthen your own fights. When we fight, we win – and when we fight, we learn. Tell us in the comments about campaigns you think we should include in our next bulletin!

LIRR workers shut down nation’s busiest commuter rail line

At 12:01am Saturday morning, roughly 3,500 Long Island Rail Road workers walked off the job, shutting down the busiest commuter rail line in North America and disrupting travel for nearly 300,000 daily riders across the New York metro region. Workers represented by a coalition of five unions led by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET-IBT) struck after three years of negotiations with the MTA. Workers have gone three years without raises while inflation and housing continued to rise across one of the most expensive metro regions in the country.

At the center of the fight is a simple demand: wages that actually keep up with the cost of surviving in New York. The MTA offered lump-sum bonuses for 2026 rather than permanent raises, while workers argued temporary payments do nothing to solve the long-term erosion of wages.

Railway and airline workers operate under the Railway Labor Act (RLA), a far more restrictive legal framework that puts brakes on efforts by workers to go out on strike. Passed in 1926 and expanded to airlines in 1936, the law was designed explicitly to contain disruptions in transportation by forcing workers through endless mediation, cooling-off periods, presidential emergency boards, and even federal intervention before workers can legally strike.

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This strike itself was originally expected in September 2025, but repeated interventions delayed it for months. Many workers still remember the federal government’s intervention to stop the national rail strike in 2022, when Congress and President Biden blocked 115,000 rail workers from striking after years of brutal scheduling and unsafe working conditions. Workers were told the economy was too dependent on them to allow a shutdown.

Transit and rail workers – along with airlines and other logistics workers – have enormous power because the economy depends on them. When trains stop, cities stop. Congested streets hold the city in gridlock. Finance, logistics, and daily life slow down. The entire structure of the economy reveals how dependent it is on workers who are usually treated as invisible.

The LIRR last struck in 1994, shutting the system down until Congress intervened. Before that came major strikes in 1987 and 1960. Even under one of the harshest labor laws in the country, rail workers have repeatedly found ways to exercise their leverage. This strike is a reminder that even when the law is built to contain worker power, there are moments when workers in critical infrastructure can still force the issue – and bring entire regions to a standstill.

• 🎥Nation’s busiest commuter rail system ON STRIKE

UC frontline workers force major contract victory after two-year fight

Just hours before launching their first open-ended unfair labor practice strike across the University of California system, AFSCME Local 3299 reached a tentative agreement covering more than 40,000 frontline UC workers across campuses and hospitals statewide. The victory comes after more than two years of bargaining, repeated unfair labor practice strikes, and escalating pressure against one of the largest public institutions in the country.

The workers represented by 3299 are some of the most essential – and lowest paid – in the UC system. They include patient care staff, custodians, food service workers, maintenance crews, and hospital support workers. About 30,000 of the 40,000 members work in healthcare facilities, which generate some of the largest revenue streams in the UC system. And yet, during bargaining, UC raised healthcare costs on the very workers who keep their hospitals running, even while refusing to seriously negotiate housing proposals at the table.

The tentative agreement reportedly includes 34% raises over five years, a $1,500 bonus, caps on healthcare premium increases, stronger layoff protections, expanded leave, and raises that gradually move the lowest-paid workers toward over $30/hour by 2029. Housing affordability remained the defining issue throughout bargaining, with workers describing impossible rents, multi-hour commutes, and even homelessness among workers employed by one of the wealthiest public university systems in the world.

AFSCME 3299 consistently framed their contract fight as about more than themselves. Over the past two years, workers connected their struggle to the broader housing crisis facing the entire working class, calling out billionaire real estate firms like Blackstone and speculative housing markets that have made California increasingly unaffordable. They linked their demands to attacks on immigrant communities, to public money flowing endlessly toward wars abroad – from Gaza to Iran – while workers are told there is never enough money for healthcare, housing, or wages.

This was not a quick fight. UC dragged negotiations out for years against one of the most diverse and lowest-paid workforces in the system, forcing workers to repeatedly strike and escalate. Ultimately, the credible threat of an indefinite shutdown of campuses and hospitals forced movement.

• 🎥UC workers launch statewide strike!

Trump escalates attacks on immigrant organizers in Ventura County

Federal agents tied to a Trump administration task force raided homes connected to VC Defensa, an immigrant rights organization in Ventura County near Los Angeles, this week, detaining volunteers and seizing electronics from organizers involved in rapid response networks defending immigrant communities from ICE raids. DHS claims organizers interfered with law enforcement. VC Defensa calls it what it looks like: an attack on people trying to protect their neighbors.

For months, immigrant communities across the country have lived under what increasingly feels like a campaign of terror – workplace raids, home raids, mass detentions, deportations, and constant surveillance. But increasingly, the administration is not only targeting immigrant communities themselves. It is targeting the people trying to organize resistance.

Groups like CHIRLA in Southern California and community defense formations like VC Defensa have played a key role to coordinate legal support, know-your-rights trainings, constitutional observation, rapid response networks, and neighborhood defense against raids. In response, the administration increasingly frames immigrant organizations as supporters of “criminality” or “terrorism” simply for documenting abuses and helping communities respond.

Over the past year, constitutional observers and labor leaders have increasingly come under attack for standing up to immigration enforcement. Last year, SEIU Union of Service Workers West President David Huerta was violently arrested by federal agents when acting as an observer and responder to immigrant raids in Los Angeles. After they brutalized and arrested him on camera, the city and labor movement mobilized to demand his release and all chargers dropped.

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In Minnesota earlier this year, constitutional observers Nicole Goode and Alex Pretti – a VA nurse and AFGE member – were killed while defending their community during Operation “Metro Surge,” the largest immigration enforcement operation in U.S. history.

These attacks are not random. Their goal is clear: make people afraid to organize, afraid to document abuses, afraid to stand together to clear a path to terrorize and harass immigrant communities and any progressive or working class organization standing against the billionaire agenda.

The labor movement should recognize this for what it is – not only an attack on immigrant communities, but an attack on the very civil liberties and freedoms that make organizing possible. Because if communities can be criminalized for standing together against state violence, then the basic rights underpinning all working-class organizations are at risk too.

• 🎥Trump taskforce raids homes of immigrant rights organizers

BONUS ROUND

• 📰An inside look at Amazon organizing in the warehouse capital of the world

• 🎥The Busted Rules Behidn the Biggest Tax Dodgers

• 🎥No Poverty Wages, No Cop City

Bring it to the shop!

The Pickets & Power Bulletin covers the biggest stories impacting all working people today. Share these stories with your union siblings, coworkers, friends, and family. Read it together, discuss, and take lessons to strengthen your own fights. When we fight, we win – and when we fight, we learn. Tell us in the comments about campaigns you think we should include in our next bulletin!

The Inland Empire – a region east of Los Angeles – has become the warehouse capital of the United States. Nearly everything entering through the ports of LA and Long Beach moves through the region before being distributed across the country. Over the past two decades, Amazon and other logistics giants have transformed the area into a sprawling logistics hub built on warehouses, truck traffic, and low-wage labor.

On the Line spoke with Sam Padilla, an Amazon worker at the DJT6 facility in Riverside and an organizer with Amazon Teamsters, about growing up in the Inland Empire, organizing inside Amazon, and why he believes the fight has to become something bigger than a traditional union campaign. The following has been edited for clarity and length.

Jeff Rosenberg [JR]: For people outside Southern California who may not know much about the Inland Empire, what is this region and why has it become so central to Amazon and logistics in general?

Sam Padilla [SP]: The Inland Empire is basically the logistics hub of the country now. Everything comes through the ports in LA and Long Beach and then gets moved out here before it’s shipped across the country. The Inland Empire used to have a lot more industry, especially with the defense industry and military. When those jobs started to shut down and move elsewhere, a lot of people started losing their jobs. It was the logistics industry that moved in next.

Companies realized there was a huge amount of cheap land out here where they could build massive warehouses, and there’s also a huge working class population – many people out of work – including a lot of people that got pushed further east because people couldn’t afford LA anymore.

So now entire cities out here revolve around warehouses, trucking, and logistics. Everybody either works in a warehouse, drives trucks, or knows somebody who does. That became the economy.

JR: You grew up watching that transformation happen in real time. What was that like?

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SP: Yeah. My dad was a truck driver. I remember seeing the industry start changing in the 2000s and 2010s. A lot of trucking jobs became less stable. Companies started squeezing workers harder and harder. Independent truckers got pushed out because these corporations wanted cheaper labor and tighter control over everything.

Eventually my dad ended up back in warehouses because trucking stopped being sustainable. But warehouse work was even worse – harder labor, lower pay, no real future. That’s what happened to a lot of families out here. Warehouses became one of the only options if you didn’t have a degree.

At the same time, you could see the landscape of the region changing. They were demolishing homes and flattening neighborhoods to build warehouse after warehouse. Places that used to be open land or parks are industrial zones now. There are literally houses that refused to sell to these companies now standing surrounded by giant warehouses on all sides.

And the crazy thing is they always sell it as “development” or “bringing jobs,” but the communities absorb all the costs – pollution, traffic, noise, respiratory problems – while workers still struggle to survive.

Amazon and these companies generate billions out here, but workers don’t see that wealth. People are working nonstop just to survive. And the work itself breaks people down physically. That’s one of the first things that hit me when I started at Amazon.

JR: What was that experience like when you first started working there?

SP: Honestly, the pace shocked me. Before Amazon I worked at a grocery store. Even when it was busy, there were moments where things slowed down. Amazon never slows down. It’s thousands of packages constantly coming at you for hours and hours. Even at the end of the shift there’s always more work. They push people nonstop to maintain rate and move faster.

And it’s not just physically exhausting. It takes over your whole life. A lot of the shifts are overnight or super early morning. People work overtime constantly because they need the money, but then you basically only have enough time to work, eat, sleep, and recover before doing it all over again.

I had a coworker trying to decide between shifts because one gave him more hours, but another would at least let him occasionally see his kid. He told me his son was asking, “Where’s my dad? I miss him because he’s always at work.” That’s the reality for a lot of workers there.

JR: People online sometimes act like warehouse workers are just complaining about moving boxes, but what they don’t understand is the level of pressure and control Amazon imposes. What goes through your mind when you see those kind of comments online?

SP: Yeah. It’s not just “moving boxes.” It’s the pace they force on you. It’s the surveillance. It’s constantly feeling like somebody’s breathing down your neck. Even when I first started, managers would come tell workers not to talk while working. You’re standing shoulder to shoulder with people for ten hours but they want complete control over every second.

There’s always this fear that if you slow down too much or miss rate or do something wrong, you’ll get disciplined or fired. And people burn out fast because of it. You see workers come in and disappear after a few weeks all the time. Amazon’s turnover is insane because the company treats people as disposable.

JR: You didn’t go into Amazon planning to become an organizer though. What made you decide to join the union?

SP: I was going to school studying psychology because I wanted to help people. Growing up in the Inland Empire, you start seeing the bigger picture. You see how corporations reshape communities. You see poverty, stress, displacement, people working nonstop and still struggling.

And eventually you realize you can’t solve those problems individually. You can’t “medicate poverty.” I started getting more politically involved and learning more about labor organizing. Then Teamsters and Amazon delivery drivers organized a picket outside my warehouse during the UPS contract fight.

Amazon tried diverting workers away from the picket line so nobody would interact with it. But instead of clocking in, I joined the picket. That was basically the beginning.

JR: Everyone in the labor movement and beyond knows Amazon is one of the most aggressively anti-union companies in the world. What did the union busting look like inside your facility?

SP: It’s constant. They put anti-union propaganda everywhere – TVs in the breakroom, flyers in the bathrooms, mandatory meetings where managers talk against organizing. They also bring in these “employee relations” people who pretend they’re just there to hear worker concerns.

It was ridiculous, when you think about it. Some of these people were getting paid $3,000 a day to go around to try to convince us as Amazon workers that we don’t deserve $30 an hour. Even worse, that the people saying we do deserve that are actually hurting us or trying to trick us.

Before we went public, they’d come around asking what we wanted changed at work or whether people were talking about unions. They were fishing for information. Then after organizing became public, suddenly management starts pretending they care about every complaint workers have ever had.

That’s how we knew the organizing was working. The issues workers raised before suddenly matter because now the company sees workers organizing collectively to change it, and they were afraid it could really catch on.

JR: One thing that stands out in talking to you is that you don’t view this as just a workplace campaign over wages and benefits, but see yourself as part of a bigger fight against corporate power.

SP: Exactly. The organizing drive can’t just be about the classic “union difference,” just in terms of the check or benefits. Don’t get me wrong – that kind of message is important too and can mean a lot for workers like us who are struggling to survive. People joke all the time that with inflation, living in the Inland Empire means trying to make San Bernardino wages cover LA cost of living, and they aren’t far off. But I keep finding in my conversations that it needs to be bigger than just this.

Amazon is too massive to approach like other union drives. These corporations shape entire communities and entire economies. So organizing Amazon has to become bigger than just “we deserve a raise.” This is a long fight and the truth of it is that we are going to need a massive movement across the company to have the power to win life-changing wins. That won’t come quickly, and so we need people to know they are fighting as part of a bigger movement across Amazon.

Obviously wages matter. Safety matters. But people’s lives go beyond the warehouse. My co-workers care about housing, immigration raids, healthcare cuts, endless wars, pollution, and their families. Whether they ever have free time or a future outside work.

And if organizing ignores those things, people won’t truly believe it represents them. That’s why we bring broader political issues into organizing conversations. Not to be divisive or argue with our coworkers. The opposite actually. It’s about understanding what workers are actually living through.

JR: There’s often this argument that unions should avoid politics in order to stay “united,” especially in new organizing campaigns.

SP: I think that’s a losing strategy. Trying to dodge the issues many people are thinking about most just makes us seem isolated, like we are blind to what they are seeing.

For example, there are tons of Latino workers in the Inland Empire. ICE raids and deportations affect people directly. Why would workers trust an organization that ignores that reality? What if instead they know we’re an organization that is fighting to defend them and their communities?

Or if workers are struggling because rent is insane, because they never see their families, because they’re scared about healthcare or war or police violence – why would we pretend those things don’t matter?

The point isn’t to force ideology onto people. The point is to connect organizing to real life, and not shy away from any part of their lives that really matters to them. When workers start understanding the power they have collectively, they also start imagining bigger possibilities and what they can fight for.

Like what if workers had enough power to reshape the community instead of corporations deciding everything? What if in the Inland Empire we built parks again instead of just endless warehouses? Affordable housing instead of more luxury development? What if workers had enough free time to actually live life? Or if we could finally make corporations like Amazon pay their fair share to support the communities that made them a multi-trillion dollar company?

That’s the vision. The vision is to change the world around us, not just change the inside of the warehouse. Amazon has shaped our lives and has our whole community and political system under their thumb. Organizing working people is the only way to change that.

JR: Are there any stories you can share about what this has looked like to bring your coworkers into the fight by connecting with them on broader political issues?

SP: Yeah. I’ve brought coworkers to anti-ICE protests and anti-war rallies in LA and even out here in the IE. And honestly, for many people seeing those kinds of mobilizations can give people a new sense of confidence and energy to organize and fight.

A lot of workers feel isolated. Work takes over their whole life. So when they see community and solidarity in action, it reminds them that people actually do have power when we come together. Then they start thinking differently about the workplace too. They realize: if people can organize out here, why can’t we organize at work too?

I’ve been able to reach coworkers like that who told me time and time again that they didn’t want to hear about the union. Sometimes they talked about bad experiences with unions in the past or skepticism and hopelessness about anything ever changing. Whatever it was that was holding them back, connecting with them in other ways opened the door.

It’s not just about making a couple more dollars an hour. It’s about building enough collective power to fight for a completely different quality of life. And that’s why this fight matters so much to me and my coworkers.

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40,000 UC frontline workers prepare first-ever open-ended strike

More than 40,000 frontline workers across the University of California system are preparing to launch an open-ended unfair labor practice strike beginning May 14, escalating one of the largest labor fights in the country. Represented by AFSCME 3299, the workers include patient care staff, dining hall workers, custodians, groundskeepers, and building and facilities staff who keep UC hospitals and campuses running every day.

The strike comes after more than two years of bargaining and numerous shorter unfair labor practice strikes, but this marks their first open-ended strike. The union is calling out UC for bargaining in bad faith, including unilaterally increasing healthcare costs during bargaining and refusing to meaningfully negotiate over housing proposals.

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UC operates in some of the richest regions in the country, yet many of the workers who keep campuses and hospitals functioning are increasingly unable to afford to live anywhere near their jobs. Rising rents have pushed workers farther and farther away from campuses, driving up commute times while real wages effectively fall. Meanwhile, higher-paid UC employees often receive housing assistance or benefits, while many frontline workers receive nothing comparable. AFSCME members are demanding contracts with livable wages, protected healthcare, job security, and housing assistance to offset crushing costs of living.

• 🎥UC workers launch statewide strike!

Spirit Airlines collapse leaves 17,000 workers behind

After 34 years in business, Spirit Airlines abruptly shut down operations on May 2, immediately canceling flights and leaving 17,000 workers without jobs, including over 5,500 flight attendants represented by AFA-CWA and thousands of IAM members.

Spirit had struggled financially for years, surviving multiple bankruptcies in 2024 and 2025, reflecting broader turbulence in the industry. But the sharp rise in fuel prices following the expanding U.S. war on Iran pushed the already weakened airline over the edge, forcing the sudden shut down. Spirit publicly cited soaring fuel costs as a major factor in its collapse after failed efforts to secure a federal bailout of $500 million – less than the U.S. spent each day on the war on Iran.

For workers, the devastation is immediate. Many spent years building seniority and stable schedules in one of the hardest industries to break into. Now they face layoffs overnight and uncertain prospects in a volatile airline industry already defined by instability and consolidation.

As AFA President Sara Nelson put it: “Spirit Flight Attendants are not just some asset to be written off in this process. Their lives matter, and the livelihoods of all Spirit workers must come before the profits of shareholders.” The collapse also raises broader questions about who air travel is actually for. Spirit served hundreds of thousands of working-class travelers who relied on one of the country’s few ultra-low-cost carriers. Major airlines had little incentive to see a low-cost competitor survive, especially one that helped restrain prices across the market.

In response, the ideas of public ownership to worker-led cooperative models are becoming viral trends – reflecting growing frustration with an airline industry that repeatedly privatizes profits and socializes collapse. If airlines are essential infrastructure, many are beginning to conclude that they should be run like a public good.

• 🎧Interview with Sara Nelson: Crisis and Opportunity Ahead

Workers protest Bezos Met Gala spectacle

At a time when working people are struggling to afford rent, groceries, and healthcare, this year’s Met Gala – sponsored by billionaire Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos – became one of the clearest symbols yet of America’s growing inequality. Tickets cost $100,000 – putting the price tag at more than the median annual household income in the United States – while luxury outfits worn for a single evening regularly cost hundreds of thousands or even millions.

This year, workers refused to simply watch the spectacle. Labor organizers turned the event into a target, protesting Amazon’s labor practices and Bezos’ attempts to polish his image through philanthropy and elite cultural institutions. Protesters placed fake urine bottles around the museum – a reference to long-standing reports of Amazon workers forced to urinate in bottles under brutal warehouse production demands. Massive projections across nearby buildings highlighted Amazon workers speaking out about working conditions, while labor activists organized a competing “Ball Without Billionaires” celebrating workers instead of elites.

Former Amazon Labor Union president Chris Smalls was arrested after breaching a barricade during protests outside the gala. Smalls later said he had no regrets, framing the protest as exposing the disconnect between billionaire excess and working-class reality.

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The backlash to this year’s Met Gala says something deeper about this political moment. Workers are increasingly unwilling to let billionaires wrap themselves in art, culture, and philanthropy while the people who make their wealth possible struggle to survive. The old idea that ordinary people are supposed to admire the ultra-rich is wearing thin.

• 🎥What does Amazon have to do with ICE?

• 🎥Amazon worker rejects “Snack attack” salary

• 🎥The twisted real story behind Amazon’s rise

• 🎥What Amazon really delivers to Black and Brown communities

BONUS ROUND

• 🎥Ironworker: “Billionaires are robbing us blind, not immigrants”

• 🎥Trump is trying to steal the election

• 🎥No ICE at the World Cup

Bring it to the shop!

The Pickets & Power Bulletin covers the biggest stories impacting all working people today. Share these stories with your union siblings, coworkers, friends, and family. Read it together, discuss, and take lessons to strengthen your own fights. When we fight, we win – and when we fight, we learn. Tell us in the comments about campaigns you think we should include in our next bulletin!

May Day On-the-Ground Reporting

Workers hit the streets across the country to mark International Workers Day – May Day – on May 1 with over 3,000 demonstrations and actions. The day of action was called by a broad national coalition, including major national and local unions as well as immigrant, community, student, and political organizations. Hundreds of thousands of workers participated from LA to NYC, effectively revitalizing May Day in the country where it originated.

This year, demonstrations showed the growing opposition to the Trump administration and their billionaire agenda. Looking to create greater disruption and economic pressure on the Trump administration and Corporate America, organizers raised the call for “no work, no school, no spending,” echoing the calls from the general strikes in Minneapolis earlier this year on January 23rd and January 30th. Major cities like Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles saw mass mobilizations with thousands hitting the streets in rallies and marches demanding an end to ICE terror and needless wars, taxing the rich, and full funding for public education, healthcare, and housing for all working people.

Students and their educators led major school shutdowns and walkouts across the country. In North Carolina, 22 out of 115 school districts closed or moved to remote learning for the day, meaning more than half of North Carolina educators shut down schools for the day under the banner of “Kids Over Corporations.” Over 10,000 students, educators, and workers rallied in Raleigh together in the largest demonstration in the Southeast.

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In North Carolina, Christina Cole, President-elect of North Carolina Association of Educators, said “We’re demanding that we increase per pupil spending to the national average and get educator pay up because our kids and public school staff deserve it. We have had over 20 counties shut down in the last two weeks, so a majority of public school staff in North Carolina organized to shut down their schools, and we expect thousands in the streets in Raleigh today.”

In many cities, organizers led civil disobedience actions as well. Protestors blocked the entrances to the NYC stock exchange. In San Francisco, hundreds blocked the main lanes of SFO airport, causing major delays and disruption. Corporate actions targeted Home Depot, Hilton, and the American Petroleum Institute.

With the midterms approaching, many will look to the ballot box hoping to undercut Republican majorities in Congress to slow the Trump administration. Others have highlighted the Trump administration’s attempts to rig the elections by manipulating voting maps through Gerrymandering while pushing legislation and executive orders that aim to disenfranchise millions. Republicans and Trump are being forced to recognize their declining popularity as they push a right-wing anti-worker program. Rather than change their program to garner popular support, they are attempting to effectively steal the elections.

In LA, David Huerta, President of SEIU-USWW, said of the threats posted by Trump, “Our communities are under attack and we need to mobilize to defend them. We need to not just get out to vote in November, but to defend our democracy from attack… No one is coming to save us. In Spanish, we say “Solo el pueblo salva al pueblo” – meaning only the community can save ourselves.”

As the threat against the viability of free and fair elections in the midterms becomes increasingly clear, more voices are calling to continue to build on the momentum from No Kings and May Day to continue the shutdown movement – advocating to revive the tactic of the general strike. As the Trump administration continues its onslaught against the working class, another pressure cooker – like the federal occupation of Minnesota – may once again lead to calls for mass action to fight back and defend our communities through a general strike.

In Atlanta, Katie Giddy, a leader with the Union of Southern Service Workers and a Waffle House worker, said of Trump, “He’s trying to steal the election. I think he’s trying to steal the world in any way that he can. He’s one man, and we are millions and millions of working Americans, and we’re gonna stand in his way of that… We know the truth and we know our power that we hold and we are here to take our power back.”

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On the Line brought reporting on these actions from coast to coast with the support of our volunteers, operating on a shoestring budget only a tiny fraction of mainstream media. We rely on your support to help bring you on-the-ground reporting like this. Support our work by signing up for a monthly contribution today.

• 🎥Shawn Fain on power of May Day

• 🎥May Day actions coast to coast

• 🎥Why educators closed NC schools on May Day

• 🎥Voices from May Day nationwide

10,000 Michigan Nurses Ready to Strike

Over 10,000 union nurses in Michigan are bargaining for their first contract with Corewell Health East at 9 hospitals across Southeastern Michigan. In 2024, nurses voted to unionize with Teamsters Local 2024 after facing an aggressive $1.7 million anti-union campaign funded by Corewell Health. Corewell formed from a recent merger in 2022 from other large healthcare systems in Michigan, now forming the largest healthcare system in Michigan with 21 hospitals total and hundreds of outpatient facilities.

Nurses have voted 90% to authorize a strike across the hospital system if they don’t get a fair contract soon. Showing their strength this past week, nurses have held practice pickets to prepare their strike muscles and show Corewell they are serious. Their core contract demands focus on improved staffing ratios, raises to keep up with inflation, and workplace safety concerns.

These are the same central demands seen in nursing fights across the country, reflecting chronic issues in the healthcare system accelerated by the pandemic. Staffing shortages since the pandemic have contributed to worsening conditions in hospitals for workers and patients, which has only led to more burnout and workers quitting the field. Fewer nurses on shift then put healthcare workers at greater risk for injury, working longer hours and more likely to be alone with patients under greater duress – a recipe for tragedy.

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Nurses are organizing and demanding safe staffing levels and pay to improve retention to finally address the root causes. And it’s clear the nurses are feeling ready to strike if they need to. “This overwhelming strike vote shows that nurses are done being bullied into silence while executives put profits over patients and gamble with our safety and our licenses,” said Rachel Szadyr, a cardiac ICU nurse and member of the bargaining committee. The strike date could be set any day now, demanding the employer meet their demands or face a strike across the hospital system.

BONUS ROUND

• 🎥How Waymo creeped into your neighborhood

Bring it to the shop!

The Pickets & Power Bulletin covers the biggest stories impacting all working people today. Share these stories with your union siblings, coworkers, friends, and family. Read it together, discuss, and take lessons to strengthen your own fights. When we fight, we win – and when we fight, we learn. Tell us in the comments about campaigns you think we should include in our next bulletin!

May Day organizing surges toward nationwide day of disruption

With May 1 just days away, organizers across the country are preparing for what could be one of the largest May Day mobilizations in U.S. history. The May Day Strong coalition – bringing together unions, community organizations, and social movements – is projecting over 3,000 actions nationwide, from rallies and marches to walkouts and economic disruption.

The call is simple and ambitious: “no work, no school, no shopping.” Organizers are aiming to demonstrate the collective power of working people by disrupting business as usual across sectors and regions. Mobilizing under a broad coalition, organizers are fighting back against the billionaire agenda pushed by the Trump administration – from ICE terror to cuts to healthcare to attacks on public education to endless wars.

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With national unions like the National Education Association, American Federation of Teachers, Service Employees International Union, National Nurses United, United Auto Workers, and United Electrical Workers all tied into organizing efforts, May Day is becoming a step towards building the kind of national strike power organizers are saying will be needed to stop the Trump administration in their tracks.

• 🎥The Origins of May Day: Working class pride and power

Labor Secretary Chavez-DeRemer resigns amid scandal and anti-worker record

Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned this week following a series of scandals, including allegations of mistreatment of staff and misconduct in office. While the resignation is being framed as a personal and ethical failure, it also brings renewed attention to her tenure and its impact on workers.

Chavez-DeRemer entered office with backing from some labor leaders who pointed to her previous support for pro-labor legislation while in Congress. Her time in the Trump administration quickly showed she would be no friend to workers. Under her leadership, the Department of Labor oversaw the rollback of key worker protections, including rules affecting wages and safety standards in sectors like domestic work and construction.

Her tenure reflected a broader pattern within the administration: using regulatory power to weaken labor standards while peddling lies that these same policies would benefit working people. The scandals that led to her resignation do not represent a break from that agenda, but rather the collapse of one figure within it.

The administration has consistently prioritized deregulation, corporate flexibility, and cost-cutting over worker protections. Her departure is unlikely to change that trajectory – only who carries it forward.

• 📰Trump’s Dept of Labor Attacks on Worker Rights

NYC transit workers move toward strike that could shut down the region

In New York City, a growing strike threat across the transit system is raising the stakes for one of the most critical pieces of infrastructure in the country. Contracts covering tens of thousands of workers are set to expire in mid-May, and negotiations are intensifying.

Transport Workers Union Local 100, representing more than 40,000 subway and bus workers, has begun bargaining with the MTA over wages, working conditions, and the rising cost of living in one of the most expensive cities in the world. At the same time, members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen under the Teamsters are preparing for a possible strike on the Long Island Rail Road, one of the busiest commuter systems in the country.

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Union leaders have made it clear that without a contract that keeps pace with inflation and rising costs, they are prepared to shut the system down. That threat carries enormous weight. New York’s transit network is the most heavily used in the United States, with millions of riders depending on it every day to get to work.

A strike would not just disrupt commutes – it would ripple through the entire regional economy.

BONUS ROUND

• 🎥Salt of the Earth: The Film the Gov doesn’t want you to see

Bring it to the shop!

The Pickets & Power Bulletin covers the biggest stories impacting all working people today. Share these stories with your union siblings, coworkers, friends, and family. Read it together, discuss, and take lessons to strengthen your own fights. When we fight, we win – and when we fight, we learn. Tell us in the comments about campaigns you think we should include in our next bulletin!

Chicago schools join May Day shutdown

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) has successfully pushed Chicago Public Schools after weeks of pressure to make May 1 a day of civic engagement for all Chicago public school students to allow over 300,000 students and over 40,000 educators to join the May Day national shutdown movement – calling for “no work, no school, no shopping.”

CPS will remain open, yet May 1 will be treated as a “day of civic action,” with students and educators allowed to participate in protests, and schools encouraged to facilitate attendance at rallies as part of the school day. This is motivated by the Trump administration’s attacks on public education and more broadly against the working class families who send their children to CPS. As a part of the agreement, CPS will even be providing buses to transport students and educators to the rally downtown.

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Under pressure from organized labor, one of the largest school districts in the country is now formally recognizing mass protest as part of civic education. In the birthplace of May Day and the center of the May Day Strong coalition, more workers, students, and families will now prepare to join mass protest actions in the streets.

• 🎥The Origins of May Day: Working class pride and power

70,000 LA educators win major contracts

In Los Angeles, over 70,000 educators won major contract gains and narrowly averted a massive strike across the second-largest school district in the country. Three unions – UTLA, SEIU Local 99, and AALA (IBT 2010) – were bargaining simultaneously with LAUSD, bringing negotiations down to the wire. As each union reached a tentative agreement, they maintained a united strike threat until the final deal, showing that no group would settle until every school worker secured a fair contract.

That leverage produced major gains. Teachers won raises averaging nearly 14%, with larger increases for early-career educators to help stabilize a workforce strained by the cost of living. School workers secured higher wages, additional hours, and protections against subcontracting and layoffs, while administrators won raises and more flexibility in workload. The agreements also included provisions on class size enforcement, special education support, and protections against unchecked AI implementation in schools.

This marks the high point of the California Teachers Association’s “We Can’t Wait” campaign, which has mobilized over 80,000 educators statewide. From Richmond to San Francisco to Sacramento and now Los Angeles, the strategy has been consistent – build coordinated campaigns, create credible strike threats, and raise standards across the sector.

Like other recent education fights, this was also about students’ learning conditions. Educators were organizing in response to housing instability, cuts to social programs, and the fear caused by ICE enforcement in immigrant communities. Schools are being asked to absorb these pressures while districts sit on billions in reserves.

The campaign shows how educators can link local fights into a broader movement for education justice. California is the fourth-largest economy in the world, yet public education remains underfunded. Now the focus is shifting from district-by-district fights to demanding that the state fully fund public education.

• 🎥LA Educators & School Staff: “Enough is enough!”

• 🎧Interview with Nathalie Hrizi on UESF strike victory

NYC building workers beat back real estate billionaires

In New York City, 34,000 building service workers with SEIU 32BJ forced a major contract settlement after preparing for a strike that would have hit the heart of the most valuable real estate market in the world for the first time since 1991.

Their employer counterpart, the Realty Advisory Board, represents many of the biggest real estate interests in the world. The RAB was formed in the 1930s explicitly to break the union just as building service workers were getting organized. These are the landlords and developers who control billions in property across Manhattan and beyond – an industry built on some of the highest rents and property values on the planet. Those same corporate landlords have been a major factor driving the out of control affordability crisis in New York City. Building service workers themselves have been feeling the rising costs push them out of the city along with their working class neighbors.

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And yet, even here, the employers came to the table demanding concessions from the union. They pushed to cut healthcare benefits and introduce a two-tier system that would permanently divide new workers from the rest of the workforce, ensuring everyone hired going forward would have to accept lower pay and benefits. The RAB claimed they could not afford to maintain or improve the pay and benefits of building service workers, citing the possibility of rent freezes as a coming crisis for corporate landlords.

Workers refused to sell out future generations or accept cuts themselves. After a massive strike vote and public mobilization this past week, they won a deal that not only defeated the RAB attempts to cut health benefits and introduce a two-tier contract, but actually won $4.50 per hour in raises by the end of the 4-year agreement and a 15% increase to their guaranteed pension.

Even in the most profitable industries, employers are trying to claw back standards by targeting the next generation of workers. Similar two-tier contracts were pushed on auto workers and UPS workers in decades past, undermining the unity of the workforce and the integrity of their contracts. Those two-tier systems in auto and UPS were ultimately defeated in recent years through powerful strikes and strike threats.

Nurses take the fight against ICE to Congress

This week in Washington, DC, members of National Nurses United – representing over 225,000 nurses nationwide – rallied with a clear message: ICE is not just an immigration issue, it is a healthcare issue. Nurses are on the front lines of what immigration enforcement does to communities. Patients avoid seeking care out of fear. Consequently, families delay treatment until conditions become emergencies. Entire communities are destabilized, and hospitals are forced to operate in the middle of that crisis.

After the murder of Alex Pretti – a VA nurse and AFGE union member, executed by federal agents in January as a consequence of the federal occupation of Minnesota – NNU sprung into action to condemn the murder and called to abolish ICE to curb their violent terror campaign. By taking up the call to abolish ICE, NNU is expanding what it means to defend their workplaces against new threats growing under the Trump administration. Healthcare workers are making the case that protecting patients requires confronting the broader systems that are harming them outside the hospital walls.

That includes speaking out against the massive public spending on war and deportation, while healthcare systems remain underfunded and overstretched. Massive cuts under Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” – including a trillion dollar cut to Medicaid – have been used to fund trillions in tax breaks for the billionaires, the deportation machine, and endless war.

• 🎥ABOLISH ICE: Union nurses to Congress

Layoffs spread as corporations double down on AI and cost-cutting

Another wave of layoffs hit major corporations this week, reinforcing a pattern that is becoming impossible to ignore. Disney cut around 1,000 jobs across its operations despite generating roughly $12 billion in profits last year. The cuts hit major divisions including Marvel and ESPN, with leadership framing the layoffs as part of becoming more “technologically enabled” – a familiar phrase that signals a deeper push toward automation and AI-driven restructuring.

At the same time, Snap announced layoffs of about 1,000 workers as well – roughly 16% of its global workforce – explicitly tying the cuts to its increasing reliance on AI tools. The company has told investors that 65% of new code is already being generated by AI systems, and that it intends to accelerate that shift even further. At the same time, Meta has announced they will layoff 10% of their workforce next month as part of the mass layoffs they announced last month to cut 20% total in the near future. This comes as Meta continues to aggressively integrate AI into every area possible.

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Markets have rewarded these moves. Companies cut workers, promise future gains through AI, and see their valuations rise. AI driven mass layoffs have become a regular feature of both tech and entertainment, and other sectors are likely to follow. The more major companies announce such layoffs, investors and corporate America will continue to feel the competitive pressure to do the same, accelerating the trend further.

• 🎥”AI won’t replace us!” ProPublica workers on strike

BONUS ROUND

• 🎥Sara Nelson, Bernie, and Zohran launch National Organizing and Strike Fund

• 🎥Priced out of NYC: Union hotel workers won’t back down!

Bring it to the shop!

The Pickets & Power Bulletin covers the biggest stories impacting all working people today. Share these stories with your union siblings, coworkers, friends, and family. Read it together, discuss, and take lessons to strengthen your own fights. When we fight, we win – and when we fight, we learn. Tell us in the comments about campaigns you think we should include in our next bulletin!

UTLA reaches TA; 68,000 LA education workers still prepare to strike

A potential strike of up to 68,000 workers across Los Angeles schools is rapidly approaching the April 14 deadline. United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) reached a TA with the district early morning on Sunday, April 12 through the strength of their strike threat. School support staff and administrators with SEIU Local 99 and ALAA Teamsters Local 2010, respectively are still negotiating and planning to strike on April 14 if they don’t have a deal. UTLA has committed to join in a sympathy strike to support their colleagues. This would shut down the second-largest school district in the country, and could be the largest coordinated education strike in years.

At the center of the fight are familiar issues, but they are getting worse: Underfunded schools and staffing shortages, rising cost of living pushing educators out of the profession, overcrowded classrooms and lack of student support.

Beyond these longstanding underfunding of CA public education, educators are also fighting to defend their most vulnerable students from the impacts of the Trump administration on working class and immigrant communities. Educators are dealing with the growing impact of immigration enforcement, ICE raids, and the presence of law enforcement and the National Guard in communities, which are directly affecting students’ ability to learn. Schools are increasingly being asked to absorb the fallout of broader political crises and cuts to programs for working families, without the resources to respond.

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At the beginning of the school year, LAUSD had over $5 billion in reserves, and has been called out for committing $10 billion to private multiyear contracts during 2022-2025. This reinforces the core message of the statewide We Can’t Wait campaign: the money is there, it’s just not being spent on our students. After strike victories from Richmond to San Francisco to Sacramento, Los Angeles now represents the crest of a statewide wave – one that is linking contract fights to broader demands for fully funded schools and protections for immigrant communities.

• 🎥LA Educators & School Staff: “Enough is enough!”

ProPublica workers strike over AI impacts

Roughly 150 workers at ProPublica walked out on April 8, launching a one-day strike in their fight for a first contract with the usage and impacts of artificial intelligence (AI) at the center. Workers are demanding protections against layoffs driven by AI, “just cause” standards, and a say in how AI is implemented in their work, after management introduced new policies without bargaining.

Journalists at ProPublica and other outlets have been raising concerns about how the technology has undermined job security for the entire industry as outlets turn to AI for faster output. This transformation is felt acutely by journalists who see how these tools are being pushed not only as a supplement to their work, but already as a means of replacing them in research, data analysis, writing, and editing.

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Ultimately, ProPublica workers have stated they aren’t completely opposed to using new technology as a tool for their reporting, but believe that without proper protections these tools pose a threat to their job security and journalistic ethics and standards.

Add to these threats the decades-long decline of print media. With more outlets closing or downsizing and losses to advertising revenue, the industry has seen work become less and less secure. And more recently the second Trump administration has put a target on journalists critical of his policies and actions.

The attacks on free press have resulted in arrests and trials of journalists – like Don Lemon and Georgia Fort, who were arrested in Minnesota for reporting on anti-ICE protest actions – and Mario Guevara, who faced detention and deportation. All of these challenges feed into the need for these workers to have guarantees of job security in the face of an uncertain future.

• 🎥”AI won’t replace us!” ProPublica on strike

“Union Now” launch reflects growing demand for organized labor

A new national effort – Union Now, launched by Sara Nelson, President of the Association of Flight Attendants – is aiming to scale union organizing nationwide, with backing from Senator Bernie Sanders and NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani. The project is focused on supporting new organizing drives and strikes at a moment when more workers are looking to unions as a vehicle for change.

Public approval of unions has surged in recent years, reaching levels not seen in decades, while trust in traditional institutions – from government to corporations – continues to fall. Union Now is an attempt to meet that moment and to turn growing pro-union sentiment into actual organizing and workplace power.

It also reflects a broader recognition inside the labor movement that this is not a normal period we are in. The second Trump administration has carried out some of the biggest assaults on organized labor in years – attempting to eliminate collective bargaining rights for one million federal workers amid mass layoffs, stripping workers of many critical federal protections, and leaving federal labor law enforcement in shambles.

With mass protests, strike waves, and economic pressure building at the same time, there is an opportunity and urgency to expand labor’s reach.

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BONUS ROUND

• 🎥Amazon and ICE: Southern warehouse workers fight back!

Bring it to the shop!

The Pickets & Power Bulletin covers the biggest stories impacting all working people today. Share these stories with your union siblings, coworkers, friends, and family. Read it together, discuss, and take lessons to strengthen your own fights. When we fight, we win – and when we fight, we learn. Tell us in the comments about campaigns you think we should include in our next bulletin!

Teamsters win national contracts at DHL and First Student

Two major national Teamsters contracts were secured this week, covering over 23,000 workers across logistics and transportation, after strike threats against both companies forced them to move.

At DHL, roughly 6,000 Teamsters across 26 locals in 16 states won a new national agreement just ahead of a March 31 strike deadline, backed by a 96% strike authorization vote. Key issues included raises and improved benefits, protections against subcontracting, and a ban on self-driving trucks. The strike threat at DHL reflects the 2023 UPS national contract fight, when Teamsters organized the first major national strike threat at the company since the 1997 UPS strike.

At First Student, covering roughly 17,000 school bus drivers and support staff nationwide, Teamsters also secured a tentative agreement after an 88% strike authorization vote. They won improved retirement and healthcare benefits and a national economic framework to raise standards across hundreds of local agreements.

In sectors like logistics and transportation – where workers sit at key choke points in the economy – national credible strike threats like these carry immense leverage over the boss. National master contracts are rare, but remain an important battleground in sectors of the economy with high union membership, like transportation and logistics.

However, both face major threats from non-union competitors which put downward pressure on these same national union contracts. This is part of why the expansion of companies like Amazon – the massive non-union logistics giant – poses an existential threat to the Teamsters if they remain unorganized.

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May Day organizing expands after largest protest in U.S. history

Following the massive “No Kings” day of action on March 28, organizers are continuing to focus this new energy towards May 1. More than 8 million people took to the streets across over 3,300 protests nationwide, making it the largest single-day protest in U.S. history.

Organizers are calling for a nationwide May Day national shutdown – “no work, no school, no shopping” – effectively a general strike. The May Day Strong coalition, made up of hundreds of organizations, is organizing canvassing operations, mass outreach, and over 100 “Solidarity Schools” to prepare for coordinated action across the country. The coalition includes major national unions amplifying and supporting the call – including the National Education Association, American Federation of Teachers, National Nurses United, United Electrical Workers, and United Auto Workers – as well as city and state coalitions of union locals, labor councils, immigrant rights, and community organizations building local efforts.

Similar to the “No Kings” protest movement, May Day actions are calling broadly on working people to stand up to the endless attacks by the Trump administration and the billionaire agenda he has pushed. The scale of last week’s protests, combined with the speed of organizing since, suggests the struggle against Trump could be entering a new phase. There is no telling what could happen between now and May 1, but the country is turning more and more to a tinderbox ready to burst with the next match.

• 🎥Over 8 million join nationwide! No kings, no ICE, no war

• 🎥The next General Strike will be in the SOUTH!

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Oracle cuts jobs to fund AI expansion and reshape tech industry

Oracle is the latest major tech company to accelerate layoffs while doubling down on investments and big bets on artificial intelligence (AI). The company announced it is cutting potentially as much as 18% of its workforce, or up to 30,000 workers globally. Adding insult to injury, workers reported being notified they were fired by email at 6am with no warning. This comes as Oracle pivots resources into AI and cloud expansion. This includes a $16 billion data center project in Michigan the company is moving on as it conducts mass layoffs. At the center of this is Larry Ellison – co-founder, Chairman, and CTO at Oracle and one of the richest people on the planet, as well as a close political ally of Trump.

The layoffs come as part of a broader trend across the tech sector. More than 40,000 tech workers have already been laid off in 2026 at more than 70 tech companies, as companies restructure around AI systems and promise greater efficiency with smaller teams. Investors continue to reward these moves. Oracle’s stock rose following news of the cuts, even as its overall value has declined significantly over the past year.

Oracle’s strategy reflects a deeper shift in the industry. Oracle was for decades a dominant database company built through government contracts (initially from the CIA) and aggressively buying out the competition. Now it’s positioning itself as a core infrastructure provider for the AI era – competing with giants like Amazon Web Services to control the computing backbone other companies rely on. That means owning the hardware and real estate needed for what they see as the coming AI economy.

They are doing this by freeing up more capital by firing huge sections of the workforce. As AI systems spread into logistics, healthcare, education, and beyond, employers across industries are preparing to use them to reduce labor costs, increase productivity demands, and reshape workplaces how they see fit. Oracle is betting on this expansion and pivoting their own operations accordingly.

• 🎥Tech worker tells why she is worried about AI

Shutdown limbo passes 50 days

The longest Department of Homeland Security shutdown in U.S. history – now over 50 days since February 14 – is still yet to break as sections of Congressional Republicans move to fund core agencies like TSA and FEMA without additional ICE and CBP funding, punting that fight to a separate budget reconciliation bill in the near future. Trump is demanding Congressional Republicans deliver this reconciliation bill to fund ICE and CBP to his desk by June 1. However, House Speaker Mike Johnson has shifted back and forth on ending the shutdown or caving to the hardliner right-wing on the Republican party. Now the crisis remains unresolved at least until mid-April when Congress reconvenes.

This follows weeks of mounting pressure as the shutdown pushed the airline system toward collapse, holding travelers and TSA agents hostage. More than 450 TSA agents quit, absentee rates surged above 10% nationally, and airport wait times stretched out the door for hours in some cases. TSA agents – classified as “essential” – were forced to work without pay, while politicians used their livelihoods as leverage in a broader political fight. Without pay, many have had no choice but to stop coming in to feed their families. Due to public pressure and rising absentee rates for TSA, Trump signed executive orders to cut back pay checks for TSA.

At the center of that fight was Trump’s push to expand funding for ICE and CBP without any checks on their violence. As the crisis continued, Trump is making the passage of the SAVE Act a major priority, which would require a passport or birth certificate to vote and force states to share voter data with DHS. These measures would likely disenfranchise millions. Facing defeat in Congress, Trump signed an executive order on March 31 tightening rules on mail-in ballots to push the same agenda. With declining support, Republicans are desperately looking for ways to steal the midterm elections.

This comes just months after another shutdown earlier this year tied to cuts to healthcare subsidies, which are already hitting working families. In March, a West Health-Gallup survey showed one in three Americans have had to cut expenses, like food and gas, to pay for increased premiums.

• 🎥The real reason airports are so chaotic

• 🎥Atlanta’s hourslong TSA lines didn’t fall from the sky

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BONUS ROUND

• 🎥9to5: How secretaries beat their sexist bosses

• 🎥”No Iranian ever hurt me”

• 🎥What’s behind the STRIKE at America’s biggest beef plant?

• 🎥Waffle House serves poverty

• 👕MLK All Labor Has Dignity t-shirt release

Bring it to the shop!

The Pickets & Power Bulletin covers the biggest stories impacting all working people today. Share these stories with your union siblings, coworkers, friends, and family. Read it together, discuss, and take lessons to strengthen your own fights. When we fight, we win – and when we fight, we learn. Tell us in the comments about campaigns you think we should include in our next bulletin!

“No Kings” protests sweep the country, point to May Day escalation

Over 8 million people took to the streets on March 28 in over 3,000 protests across all 50 states – the third nationwide “No Kings” day of action. This follows the last “No Kings” protest on October 18, 2025, which saw over 7 million people in the streets for the single largest national protest in U.S. history. Since then the Trump administration has only deepened their attacks as the country spirals deeper into crisis.

From Los Angeles to Minneapolis – where the flagship protest followed months of resistance to ICE raids – crowds rallied against the Trump administration’s war on Iran, mass deportations, and cuts to social programs. Working people across the political spectrum are feeling their lives grow more difficult as prices for everything from gas to healthcare rise, and the Trump administration offers no solutions, only more problems.

Organizers are now turning up the heat on May 1 – May Day – calling to escalate from mass demonstrations to mass disruption: no work, no school, no shopping. In effect, a general strike.

A broad Los Angeles labor and community coalition is stepping forward to answer that call – committing to May Day as a day of disruption. The coalition includes the LA Labor Federation – representing over 800,000 workers across 300+ unions and labor organizations – along with immigrant rights organizations and community groups. As Trump’s attacks against working people continue to grow, so do the calls to action.

• 🎥Over 8 million join nationwide! No kings, no ICE, no war

• 🎥No kings, no ICE, no war! Tens of thousands protest in Boston

• 🎥The next General Strike will be in the SOUTH!

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Shutdown crisis deepens as ICE sent to airports

The partial federal government shutdown – now entering its sixth week after beginning February 14 – has pushed the air travel system toward collapse. Already hundreds of TSA workers have quit, absentee rates have surged into double digits, and wait times for travelers have stretched to hours-long delays.

In response, Trump has deployed ICE agents into major airports, even though they lack screening training and are largely limited to observing operations. Instead of funding TSA or easing the crisis, Trump has sent ICE agents into airports – agents who can’t even perform screening. At the center of the crisis: Trump is demanding funding for ICE, while TSA workers are forced to work without pay.

Recently, Trump suggested he would only consider resolving the crisis with any cuts to ICE funding if the Democrats guarantee they will pass the SAVE Act. The SAVE Act would require states to submit voter rolls to DHS and require passports or birth certificates to vote – a move that would likely disenfranchise millions if it were to pass. With the current crisis as leverage, Trump is pushing to supercharge ICE and undermine our basic democratic rights.

The impasse appears to be breaking as the Senate voted unanimously on Friday to fund TSA and end the shutdown, while not allocating more funding for ICE and CBP. This could mark a major defeat for Trump. However, House Republicans have put forward a competing DHS funding bill that still maintains expanded funding for ICE and CBP. While Trump has indicated he would sign a bill to fund TSA after political pressure has mounted, the crisis remains unresolved at this time.

• 🎥The real reason airports are so chaotic

• 🎥Atlanta’s hourslong TSA lines didn’t fall from the sky

Hotel workers assert right to walk out over ICE threats

UNITE HERE Local 11 announced that hospitality workers have the right to walk off the job if they feel unsafe due to ICE activity. They have said federal immigration agents at worksites create “unusually dangerous conditions” for workers, demanding that companies refuse to host ICE.

“Our members should not be forced into the middle of heavily armed enforcement operations,” said UNITE HERE Co-President Kurt Petersen. “Our contracts guarantee a safe workplace, and if hotels and stadiums choose to allow ICE onto their properties, our workers have the right to walk out.”

The union represents tens of thousands of hotel, airport, restaurant, and stadium workers across Southern California and Arizona, many of them immigrants or working in heavily surveilled workplaces. With immigration enforcement ramping up in major cities – including those preparing for the 2026 World Cup – the union’s stance signals a major escalation: ICE activity could now trigger workplace walkouts, just as the hospitality sector enters a vulnerable period.

This sets up a direct collision between immigration enforcement and labor power in some of the most visible sectors of the economy. UNITE HERE played a central role in the 2006 Day Without An Immigrant protests leading up to and including massive demonstrations to shut major cities down on May Day that year. This statement could be a sign of great involvement from Local 11 and UNITE HERE more broadly in today’s struggle for the rights of immigrant workers. If ICE shows up, workers may walk out.

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BONUS ROUND

• 🎥”Nobody wanted this war!”: Southern Workers to Trump

• 🎥Virginia State dining workers: “Union now! Don’t leave HBCUs behind!”

• 🎥Haitian and immigrant workers strike for dignity at JBS

Bring it to the shop!

The Pickets & Power Bulletin covers the biggest stories impacting all working people today. Share these stories with your union siblings, coworkers, friends, and family. Read it together, discuss, and take lessons to strengthen your own fights. When we fight, we win – and when we fight, we learn. Tell us in the comments about campaigns you think we should include in our next bulletin!

Shutdown chaos: TSA agents call out sick nationwide, Trump threatens to send in ICE

Major airports have become increasingly dysfunctional, with travelers in security lines for hours on end, snacking through airports and spilling into the streets. This is only made worse by skyrocketing fuel prices due to the U.S. war on Iran causing major shortages and disruptions to the supply chain.

The federal government shutdown, which began earlier this month after gridlock in Congress over the latest DHS funding bill, has led to this crisis in air travel. At the center of the conflict are demands from the Trump administration to give ICE and CBP nearly 30 billion additional dollars – insisting that the funding come with no meaningful restraints (e.g. judicial warrants, mask ban, and more) to the lawlessness with which they operate. At the same time Trump wants an additional $200 billion for military spending to fuel the war in Iran.

Now, TSA agents have begun missing paychecks while still being required to work as “essential” employees. Across major airports – including Atlanta, JFK, Chicago O’Hare, and LAX – workers have started calling out sick in growing numbers, leading to long lines, delays, and staffing shortages. Nationally over 10% of the 50,000 TSA agents have reportedly called out, with numbers as high as 35% in New Orleans and Atlanta and 40% in Houston calling out. Further delays and disruptions are expected as the shutdown drags on. Today, Trump and “border czar” Tom Homan announced that DHS would be sending ICE agents into the airports to help with security. A move that will undoubtedly inflame the situation.

• 🎥TSA union leader speaks out on government shutdown

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Southern service workers join May 1 national shutdown call

The call for May 1st as a national day of “no work, no school, no shopping” continues to grow, with the Union of Southern Service Workers (USSW) – a union of low-wage service workers across the South – stepping forward as a key organizing force spreading the call in the region. At their Southern Worker Power Summit in Atlanta this past weekend, USSW announced their plans to go all in on May Day and launched plans for upcoming “Solidarity Schools” to train organizers and build a coordinated outreach and canvassing operation across the South and beyond.

With major cities, unions, and grassroots worker groups joining, organizers are attempting to turn May 1 into a nationwide show of working-class power – and a step toward rebuilding a general strike movement.

• 🎥Southern service workers join the General Strike call for May Day 2026

• 🎥The future belongs to southern workers

• 🎥May 1st National Shutdown: No work, no school, no shopping

JBS workers launch historic meatpacking strike

More than 3,800 workers at the JBS beef plant in Greeley, Colorado walked out on Monday, launching the first major U.S. meatpacking strike in decades, the largest since the 1986 Hormel strike. Members of UFCW Local 7 are striking over unsafe working conditions, line speeds, low wages, and management’s illegal conduct during bargaining. Workers say injury rates remain high in one of the most dangerous industries in the country, while the company continues to push production targets, worrying more about the beef than the workers who process it.

JBS is the largest meat processing company in the world, controlling a major share of beef production in the U.S. and globally. A strike at this scale has the potential to disrupt a critical node in the food supply chain. Typically processing over 5,000 head of cattle a day at the plant – about 5% of the total US production – production rates have plummeted to next to nothing due to the strike.

The workforce is largely immigrant, including many workers facing uncertainty over immigration status as the federal government intensifies enforcement. Despite these pressures, workers are striking anyway – a powerful show of solidarity in an industry long built on fear and exploitation.

• 🎥Biggest meatpacking strike in decades: Workers got beef with JBS

• 📰Workers launch historic meatpacking strike

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AI layoffs expand as Meta signals major cuts

Meta may cut 20% of its workforce – about 15,000 workers of its 79,000 workers – the latest escalation in AI-driven layoffs. This would be the largest layoff in the company’s history, surpassing the mass layoffs in 2022-2023 which CEO Mark Zuckerberg euphemistically called the “Year of Efficiency.”

The move follows high-profile cuts at companies like Block, where CEO Jack Dorsey eliminated roughly 40% of the workforce, arguing AI would allow smaller teams to do more work. Across the tech sector, companies are cutting jobs while promising future gains from automation – and investors are rewarding them for it. What makes this moment distinct is that many of the workers being laid off are the same workers who helped build these technologies. Now, AI is being turned against them as a tool for cost-cutting.

Tech workers are now all feeling the heat with their job security disappearing due to these threats, putting the pressure on to meet higher performance standards or be the next ones to get fired. This trend is a warning sign for workers across industries. As AI systems mature and spread beyond tech into healthcare, logistics, education, and beyond, employers are already preparing to use them to reduce labor costs, restructure workplaces, and weaken worker leverage – all in the name of efficiency and shareholder returns.

• 🎥Tech worker tells why she is worried about AI

• 🎥Google workers speak out against Big Tech’s collaboration with ICE

LA educators set strike date as CA wave reaches turning point

California’s educator strike wave is reaching a new stage as United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) announced a strike date of April 14 after an overwhelming 96% strike authorization vote. This week, educators across UTLA, SEIU Local 99, and Teamsters Local 2010 rallied together, signaling unity across teachers, school staff, and school site administrators. At the center of the fight is a familiar issue: resources are there, but districts refuse to spend them.

LAUSD is sitting on billions in reserves, while classrooms remain overcrowded, staffing shortages persist, and educators struggle to meet student needs. At the beginning of the school year, LAUSD had over $5 billion in reserves, and has been called out for committing $10 billion to private multiyear contracts during 2022-2025. This has become a defining message of the statewide “We Can’t Wait” campaign, calling to invest today’s dollars in today’s students.

Meanwhile, Natomas and Twin Rivers educators have both secured contract victories after the historic first strikes for both school districts.

• 🎥LA educators and school staff: “Enough is enough”

• 🎧Interview with Nathalie Hrizi on UESF strike victory

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Trump policy threatens licenses of 200,000 immigrant truckers

The Trump administration is moving forward with policies that could strip up to 200,000 immigrant truck drivers of their ability to work by tightening eligibility requirements for commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs). The policy would restrict or revoke licenses for drivers who lack permanent legal status or whose work authorization is tied to temporary protections, including TPS programs that are now under threat. Many immigrant drivers who have legally obtained CDLs under existing rules could suddenly be disqualified.

Truckers are a backbone of the U.S. supply chain, and immigrant workers make up a significant share of the workforce. Labor groups warn the policy would destroy livelihoods overnight, deepen driver shortages, and further strain supply chains. Unions and worker advocates are beginning to mobilize in response, framing the move as both an attack on immigrant workers and a broader assault on labor stability in a critical industry.

This latest attack on another essential and legal group of immigrant workers demonstrates once again that the Trump administration’s immigration policy is not about criminality or benefiting American workers. It is about demonizing and scapegoating working class immigrants, no matter the cruelty or harm to the economy.

WNBA players win major contract after strike threat

Players with the Women’s National Basketball Players Association (WNBPA) secured a new contract this week after a credible strike threat forced league owners to move. After voting 98% to authorize a strike, players won gains including significant salary increases, improved revenue sharing tied to league growth, expanded charter travel, and stronger protections around workload and scheduling.

The deal marks a major shift from previous agreements, where players saw limited financial gains despite driving the league’s rapid growth in popularity and revenue. Now, players have secured a larger share of that success. The minimum salary has now been set to $300,000 with average salary range at $600,000, with average revenue sharing up to 20%. This is nearly double the previous share players received, though it still lags behind the 50% revenue share that NBA players receive.

The victory shows the impact of organizing and strike power in professional sports, and reinforces a broader lesson across industries: when workers are willing to strike, they can force even some of the most powerful employers to concede.

• 📰WNBA players are ready to strike after contract expires

• 🎥How the NBA All-Star Strike Changed Sports

Bring it to the shop!

The Pickets & Power Bulletin covers the biggest stories of the labor movement impacting working people today. Share these stories with your union siblings, coworkers, friends, and family. Read it together, discuss, and take lessons to strengthen your own fights. When we fight, we win – and when we fight, we learn. Tell us in the comments about campaigns you think we should include in our next bulletin!

Chicago Teachers vote to join May 1 national day of action

Delegates of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) voted this week to join the growing call for May 1 to be a national day of protest under the banner of “no work, no school, no shopping”. In effect, a nationwide shut down. This is on the heels of the historic revival of the general strike movement centered in the fight against ICE terror in Minneapolis. This coming May Day, or International Workers’ Day, is part of a broader movement of labor, immigrant rights, and community organizations mobilizing against Trump and the billionaire agenda.

Reports of other unions and labor federations discussing how they too can join the call could forecast for one of the largest and most dynamic May Day mobilizations in recent history with general strike activity back at the heart of these actions.

• 🎥May 1st National Shutdown: No Work, No School, No Shopping

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Sacramento educator strike wave expands

The educator strike wave in California continued to spread this week as teachers in Natomas Unified School District joined neighboring Twin Rivers educators, who launched their first strike ever earlier this month and entered their second week on strike. More than 600 Natomas educators walked out this week, escalating pressure across the Sacramento region as educators demand greater investment in classrooms serving high-needs students and raises to retain educators in the district.

Meanwhile in the Bay Area, educators in Dublin Unified School District launched a strike beginning March 9, shutting down schools for four days before reaching a tentative agreement on March 12. The walkouts are part of the broader California Teachers Association “We Can’t Wait” campaign, which has aligned contract fights across districts to build statewide pressure for fully funded public schools.

As public education across the country – along with other public services – faces budget cuts and another austerity crisis, these educators are joining with parents and students to demand their districts and the state actually invest more in schools.

• 🎥”Our students aren’t a line item” Sacramento educators strike

• 🎧Interview with Nathalie Hrizi on UESF strike victory

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UC academic workers win tentative agreement after strike threat

Academic workers with UAW Local 4811 – the largest UAW local in the country – reached a tentative agreement with the University of California on Friday after weeks of escalating pressure, including coordinated “last chance” pickets across campuses statewide this past week with the threat to launch a ULP strike across the UC system. The wins include major raises across job classifications, eliminating pay disparities between campuses, support and protections for immigrant workers, and expanded childcare access.

The union of more than 48,000 academic workers carried out the largest academic strike in U.S. history during their last contract fight in 2022, changing the landscape for academic worker organizing. Union members say the credible threat of a strike across the UC system forced the administration to finally move at the table.

The Trump administration has made universities into a political target, leveraging lawsuits, funding cuts, and endowment taxes to force universities to implement and carry out his dictates. These attacks strip university workers of their civil liberties and academic freedom, putting a target especially on immigrant workers and progressive academics. UC workers have fought for and won protections to stand up against those same attacks.

• 🎥MIT students and workers reject Trump’s extortion

Amazon workers walk out in Inland Empire

Amazon workers walked off the job on Sunday, March 9, at the DJT6 delivery station in the Inland Empire of Southern California – one of the most critical shipping and logistics hub regions in the country. They organized the walkout to demand the reinstatement of their co-worker, Andy Aguayo, who was targeted as a union leader. Earlier this year, workers at DJT6 walked off the job and demanded union recognition from Amazon in one of the biggest organizing developments for the national campaign in 2025.

Amazon Teamsters at the warehouse wouldn’t stand for this clear act of retaliation. The walkout drew support from labor allies in the region and highlighted the ongoing fight to organize Amazon’s logistics network, one of the most powerful supply chains in the world. Workers say the message to Amazon is simple: firing organizers will only strengthen the push for a union.

• 🎥SoCal Amazon workers walkout at massive delivery station

BONUS ROUND

• 🎥”Bombs or buses?” – SF bus driver on war on Iran

• 🎥Why every worker should oppose war on Iran

Labor condemns war on Iran; California educator strike wave spreads; JBS meatpacking workers move closer to strike

Labor condemns war on Iran

Anti-war sentiment has been growing across the country as the U.S. escalates its war against Iran and President Trump threatens to send “boots on the ground.” Unions have issued statements condemning the war that’s costing over $1 billion a day. The ballooning military budget and expenses for endless war comes at the same time Trump and the billionaires push for historic cuts to healthcare and food assistance and tax breaks for billionaires and corporations. Gas prices are already spiking and hitting working class Americans the hardest.

Several unions have already spoken out. SEIU condemned the war as an “unconstitutional attack” that shows “reckless disregard for working people’s lives.” stated that war risks pulling resources away from domestic needs and placing additional burdens on working-class communities. In its statement, the union emphasized that workers need investment in healthcare, housing, and jobs rather than another military conflict abroad. National Nurses United condemned the war and warned that public resources should be spent on healthcare and social programs rather than military escalation. United Electrical Workers (UE) called the conflict a dangerous expansion of U.S. militarism, while ILWU Local 10 joined protests demanding an end to the war and respect for international law.

Across the labor movement, the message is growing louder: working people should not pay the price for another endless war. On the Line has issued an open letter for union members and organizations to sign, calling for an end to the war.

• 🎥How every bomb dropped on Iran costs Americans at home

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California educator strike wave spreads

California’s growing educator strike wave continues to spread as teachers across the state refuse to accept underfunded schools and worsening classroom conditions. In the Sacramento region, 1,500 educators in Twin Rivers Unified School District launched their first strike in district history this week after nearly a year of stalled negotiations over pay, healthcare, and resources for students. TRUSD is made up of 92% high needs students – meaning students in poverty, foster students, multilingual students, special education, and other challenges that require additional support. They are striving to invest today’s dollars in today’s students while their district sits on over $100 million in reserves.

Over 600 teachers in Natomas Unified announced they will strike March 10 if no agreement is reached, while educators in Dublin Unified in the Bay Area have also set a strike deadline beginning March 9. Other districts across the state continue to heat up as well. These fights are all part of the statewide California Teachers Association “We Can’t Wait” campaign, which has aligned contract fights across districts to build pressure for fully funded schools, smaller class sizes, and fair pay. After San Francisco educators won a historic contract earlier this year, teachers across the state are showing they are ready to strike to win the schools their students deserve.

• 🎥Underfunded, overloaded classrooms. Sacramento educators can’t wait!

JBS meatpacking workers move closer to strike

Members of UFCW Local 7 say a strike could begin as soon as March 16 if the company refuses to address unsafe conditions and illegal conduct during bargaining. The Greeley plant is one of the largest meatpacking facilities in the country, staffed largely by immigrant workers who say they have long faced dangerous conditions and intimidation on the job.

A walkout would be historic – the first major sanctioned strike in the U.S. meatpacking industry in decades – and would hit a critical link in the national food supply chain. Workers say they are ready to shut the plant down if that’s what it takes to win respect and safe working conditions.

BONUS ROUND

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• 🎨Union posters for sale

Ex-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey bets on AI, fires 40% of Block staff; California educator strike wave spreads toward Sacramento; JBS meatpacking workers in Greeley prepare to strike; Paramount wins bidding war for Warner Bros Discovery

Ex-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey bets on AI, fires 40% of Block staff

Block, the payments company led by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, announced it will cut more than 4,000 jobs – nearly 40% of its workforce – arguing that rapid advances in AI mean companies can operate with far fewer workers. In a letter to employees, Dorsey wrote: “Intelligence tools have changed what it means to build and run a company… A significantly smaller team… can do more and do it better.” He also argued that most companies will soon reach the same conclusion, which could mean a wave of similar layoffs coming to tech.

Wall Street immediately rewarded the announcement. Block’s stock jumped more than 20% in after-hours trading, adding billions in market value within hours – a clear signal that investors are betting big on AI-driven cost cutting.

The move reflects a growing pattern across tech: layoffs justified by plans for expansive AI implementation to replace human labor. The cycle highlights how speculation around AI productivity is driving layoffs and instability across the industry, with workers absorbing the risk while investors chase future gains in a speculative bubble many believe is on the verge of bursting.

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California educator strike wave spreads toward Sacramento

California’s statewide “We Can’t Wait” campaign is entering a new stage as multiple school districts move closer to walkouts. In the Sacramento area, Twin Rivers educators announced they could begin the district’s first-ever strike as early as March 5 if bargaining fails after fact-finding concludes. Educators are demanding the district spend today’s dollars on today’s students. The district has the largest percentage of high needs students across the entire state, and yet the district leadership continues to withhold available funding provided to specifically support those students.

In Oakland, educators have reached a tentative agreement with the district following a strike authorization vote, making gains on their core issues including 11-13% raises over two years and improved staffing and services for students. Oakland educators have a strong history of successful strikes in recent years, including in 2023, 2019, and 1996. These past strikes and the credible threat pushed the district over the line to settle.

These fights follow San Francisco educators’ recent strike victory where educators struck for the first time since 1979, winning a historic contract. This has given educators across the state a confidence boost as they continue to fight for the schools students deserve, and has put school district leadership across the state a clear message to settle now or face their own strikes.

• 🎥CA educators strike wave spreads to Sacramento

• 🎥After decades of cuts, SF educators say “Enough is enough!”

JBS meatpacking workers in Greeley prepare to strike

Workers at the JBS beef plant in Greeley, Colorado – a largely immigrant workforce at one of the largest meatpacking facilities in the country – voted overwhelmingly to authorize an unfair labor practice strike. As negotiations drag on, the members are preparing to strike if no deal is reached. UFCW Local 7 members have called out the company’s unsafe factory conditions, abuses by management on the factory floor, and management’s disrespectful and illegal conduct at the bargaining table.

JBS is the largest meat processing company in the world after years of aggressive expansion and acquisition of other brands. A strike would be the first sanctioned walkout at a major U.S. meatpacking plant in decades. Meat processing plants commonly hire large immigrant workforces who they exploit and abuse with the implicit threat of using their immigration status against them. Many Haitian immigrant workers at the JBS plant worried they may lose their TPS visa status due to the Trump administration threats to strip visa status from hundreds of thousands of Haitian refugees.

Despite these tactics of fear and division, workers are preparing to shut down the plant. Over 10,000 Kroger grocery workers with UFCW Local 7 struck last year demanding a fair contract. The current strike threat puts pressure on one of the most strategic sectors in the food supply chain, taking on another corporate food giant.

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Paramount wins bidding war for Warner Bros Discovery

Netflix has withdrawn its bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), leaving Paramount as the leading bidder in what has become one of the largest media acquisition fights in industry history. Paramount’s offer, which exceeds $100 billion, highlights the scale of consolidation reshaping Hollywood as studios scramble to survive the streaming wars, rising production costs, and rapid technological change.

The deal would further concentrate ownership in an industry already dominated by a handful of corporations. At the same time, studios are restructuring around streaming models, expanding the use of AI in production workflows, and shifting more work overseas to chase tax incentives and lower labor costs – all trends that put pressure on union standards and stable employment.

Paramount’s bid is backed financially by billionaire Larry Ellison, with leadership tied to his son, David Ellison. The Ellison-backed expansion comes as media ownership and political influence increasingly overlap, raising concerns among workers and industry observers about how consolidation shapes both cultural power and labor conditions.

Regardless of which company prevails, workers have historically borne the cost of media megamergers. Consolidation typically brings layoffs as companies eliminate overlapping departments, cut development pipelines, and rely more heavily on existing content libraries rather than new productions. For Hollywood workers already facing instability after strikes, streaming disruptions, and shrinking production schedules, another merger could mean fewer jobs and greater leverage for studios at the bargaining table.

Read our interview with Rhianna Shaheen with IATSE in LA for more, linked below.

• 📰Paramount beat Netflix to buy Warner Bros. What about the workers?

BONUS ROUND

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• 🎨Union posters for sale

On the Line interviewed Rhianna Shaheen, a Los Angeles-based Assistant Production Coordinator in Film and TV and a member of IATSE Local 871 Board of Directors.

Jeff Rosenberg (JR): After months of this unfolding corporate drama, yesterday Paramount appears to have come out on top in a sort of twist, with Netflix pulling out their bid to acquire Warner Bros Discovery (WBD). In the conversation around this megamerger bidding war, we are hearing all about the schemes and power moves of Netflix vs Paramount – both giant corporations, and billionaires with big egos like Trump and Ellison. What is actually happening with this corporate bidding war and consolidation?

Rhianna Shaheen (RS): What’s happening with the WBD bidding war is the latest chapter in Hollywood’s oldest story: consolidation. We’ve seen battles like this before, but the players are different and the stakes are much higher.

For anyone who works in this industry, none of this is surprising. Hollywood more or less started with consolidation. In the 1920s, the original “Big Five” studios dominated the industry by squeezing out independent producers and theater chains. That pattern never disappeared, it just accelerated. In 1982, about 90% of U.S. media was owned by 50 companies. By 2012, that same 90% was controlled by just six. Streaming didn’t break that model, it intensified it. Amazon bought MGM. Disney absorbed Fox. Everyone has been racing to scale up fast enough to survive.

That’s how we ended up with Warner Bros Discovery. Warner merged with Time Inc., was later swallowed by AT&T, then spun off and merged with Discovery. By the way, in the course of all of these mergers, splits, and rebranding one of the biggest winners was McKinsey consultants who got over $150 million from WBD to advise them. That included $37 million to rebrand “HBO” to “HBO Max” to just “Max” and then back to “HBO Max” again. Hell of a lot of good that did them.

Now WBD is once again up for grabs, with Paramount Skydance coming out on top. We’re talking bids well over $100 billion, far eclipsing the $71.3 billion Disney paid for Fox. That kind of scale is unprecedented. And they’re not just buying a studio, they’re buying massive libraries of intellectual property and franchises that once lived across multiple companies.

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JR: Much has been said about the role of Larry Ellison in all of this as well. Who is Ellison and what is he trying to accomplish here?

Larry Ellison is the billionaire co-founder of Oracle, an early tech giant. Not only is he a billionaire – he is one of the 3 richest people in the world with over $200 billion net worth. Now he is aggressively moving into media and politics at the same time.

He’s already bought Paramount just last year, which he then maneuvered to put his son, David Ellison, in charge of as CEO. And then a few months later he bought TikTok’s American operations, facilitated by Trump and Congress essentially forcing the sale on ByteDance or risk being banned in the US. Now he’s coming for Warner Bros and CNN. He’s deeply embedded in defense tech and AI and is a key Trump ally. This isn’t just about making money off of content, it’s about consolidating economic, political, and cultural power under fewer hands.

This isn’t just speculation either. We can see how it is playing out with TikTok. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights organization, has condemned TikTok’s recent “censorship spree” against content critical of Israel. They noted Ellison’s history as a major donor to the Israeli military and his close personal relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu.

We’ve seen this playbook before. Bezos with the Washington Post. Zuckerberg with Instagram. Musk with X. Weiss with CBS. Technically these companies aren’t run by one person, but they’re controlled by Wall Street and the corporate class. This merger is about power, and workers are nowhere in the conversation.

JR: We aren’t hearing about the impact on the workers who produce this media. What has been the historic impact of corporate consolidation of media on entertainment workers? What do you think this merger could mean today?

RS: It’s been brutal, especially for freelancers. Hollywood isn’t a factory. Everything is project-based. When an eight-month film or TV series ends, that’s it. There’s no fallback job, no place to transfer. And when work dries up, most of us don’t get laid off, our jobs just disappear.

Shows don’t get picked up. Seasons get shorter. Departments get smaller. Most people are hired through relationships built over years, and crews tend to move together from job to job. But when the people who normally hire you aren’t working either, there’s nowhere to go. Suddenly there are thousands of people competing for the same few gigs. Your options become taking whatever you can get, leaving the industry, or leaving Los Angeles altogether because you can’t afford to wait it out.

The financial strain has been devastating. Many workers have been forced to change careers just to avoid going into debt. And the emotional toll is just as real. People build their entire adult lives around this work, often moving across the country to be part of it. Being pushed out isn’t just losing a job, it’s losing your identity.

In the last three years alone, the industry lost roughly 41,000 film and TV jobs. Around 16,000 IATSE members reportedly lost their health insurance because they couldn’t bank enough hours. There’s often no clean paper trail because work disappears quietly, but there’s no question consolidation has played a major role.

You can see the writing on the wall by looking at studio staff. When Skydance merged with Paramount in 2024, about 10% of staff were laid off overnight. When Disney bought Fox in 2019, roughly 4,000 workers lost their jobs. Netflix was signaling it expected at least $2 billion in “cost savings” if it acquired WBD. Everyone in this industry knows what that means: thousands more layoffs. And with even more IP concentrated under one roof, production itself could slow dramatically. That’s the reality facing the people who built this industry.

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JR: Paramount’s presumed acquisition of WBD also represents some of the bigger economic trends in the entertainment industry that have been causing bigger changes in Hollywood for a while now. How are we seeing some of these changes come to a crisis moment in recent years?

RS: It’s all coming to a head. Streaming, AI, and runaway production aren’t separate problems, they’re interconnected and hitting workers all at once.

You hear it most clearly from people who’ve been around a long time. I recently heard from a veteran dolly grip who was on a high-end commercial and noticed something missing: no blue screens. Normally, that setup would require extra crew and days of work. When he asked why, the visual effects supervisor told him they’d just do it with AI. It’s a small example, but it says everything. Work that once supported entire crews is disappearing quietly, shot by shot.

At the same time, writers’ rooms are shrinking, actors are being scanned so studios can reuse their likeness indefinitely, and productions are shipped overseas to dodge union contracts. All of this is about cutting labor costs and breaking hard-won protections.

That’s why 2023 exploded. The strikes weren’t just about pay, they were about survival. Mergers like this pour gasoline on the fire. More consolidation means more power to automate, offshore, and squeeze workers even harder. No matter who wins this bidding war or the next one, Hollywood workers are the ones who will pay the price unless something fundamentally changes.

JR: What do you think ultimately needs to be done for workers to respond to megamergers like this and to generally deal with the corporate power of media giants that this represents?

RS: First, we can’t treat these mergers as abstract business deals anymore. They are labor issues, plain and simple. Consolidation is designed to create a corporate bloodbath, and workers always pay the price. We can’t wait for the government to step in and save us. The only real answer is building the power and solidarity to fight back.

Every contract cycle, studios claim there’s no money for fair wages, residuals, or humane working conditions. But then you see bids like $80 or $100 billion on the table. The money is there, it’s just not meant for workers.

That’s why the WGA’s early opposition to the merger was so important. They’ve consistently seen the horizon first, whether it was the 2007 strike over streaming or the 2023 strike over AI. With WGA and SAG-AFTRA contracts expiring in early 2026, the next round of negotiations won’t just be about bread-and-butter issues. It will be about the future of this industry and the people who make it run.

We also need to think bigger. As attacks on working people escalate across industries, there’s growing talk of mass action and even a general strike. That is the type of response to the billionaire agenda that we need. If we want to challenge that power, we have to scale up our own. It’s happened before. It can happen again.

SF Educators Win Contract After Historic Strike; MN Labor and Community Groups Organize for March 1st Rent Strike; NYSNA Nurses Win Contracts Across Hospital Systems

San Francisco educators end historic strike with major contract wins

Educators with the United Educators of San Francisco (UESF) ended their first strike since 1979 after reaching a tentative agreement with the district on a historic new contract that delivered major gains on fully funded family healthcare, wages, support for special education, and protections for sanctuary schools and housing programs for students and families. The strike, which shut down schools for four days, drew strong backing from parents and community organizations and forced the district back to the bargaining table after months of stalled negotiations.

The strike’s success is already reverberating across California, showing that coordinated escalation and strong community alignment can overcome claims of budget crisis from school districts and politicians. The win comes as contract campaigns continue heating up across the state as part of the California Teachers Association’s “We Can’t Wait” campaign, with educators in Oakland, the Sacramento region, and Los Angeles preparing to follow SF and, if needed, strike for the schools their students deserve.

The campaign links local contract fights into a statewide push for fully funded schools, smaller class sizes, and improved educator pay. Despite being the richest state in the country, CA ranks 33rd for per pupil spending on public education. Now educators, students, and families are demanding the billionaires and politicians fully fund public education, and protect public schools from the attacks of the Trump administration.

• 🎥After decades of cuts, SF educators say “Enough is enough!”

• 🎥SF students confront district: “Where is Superintendent Su?”

• 🎥SF educators: “STRIKE FOR OUR STUDENTS”

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Minnesota rent strike called for March 1st by community and labor groups

Tenant groups, community organizations, and labor unions in the Twin Cities are organizing toward a March 1, 2026 rent strike, calling on tenants to withhold rent unless the state moves to stop evictions and provide emergency relief for working-class families hit hardest by recent ICE terror under operation “Metro Surge.”

The rent strike has been endorsed by a range of unions, including SEIU Healthcare MN/IA, SEIU Local 26, Unite HERE Local 17, ATU 1005, and CWA 7250 – collectively representing nearly 26,000 workers. Organizers are demanding an eviction freeze, $50 million in emergency rent relief, and protections for immigrant and working-class tenants facing displacement.

The rent strike call follows the wave of mass actions in January, including the January 23 general strike day of action in Minnesota and the January 30 national shutdown protests, where workers, students, and community members walked out, shut down businesses, and filled the streets to oppose ICE terror after the killing of Renée Good and Alex Pretti. A rent strike of this scale could be the largest rent strike in the country in decades.

• 🎥The general strike is back! This is how we end ICE terror

NYSNA nurses strike ends with contract victory at NewYork-Presbyterian

After a month on strike, over 15,000 nurses with the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) secured tentative agreements and ratifications at Mount Sinai, Montefiore, and NewYork-Presbyterian hospital systems, winning gains on staffing, workplace violence protections, AI safeguards, and pay increases. This marks the end of one of the largest and longest nurses strikes in recent history.

Over 10,000 nurses at Mount Sinai and Montefiore hospital systems reached agreements last week, while 4,000 nurses at NewYork-Presbyterian held the line until Friday to reach their agreement after rejecting a proposed deal, keeping pressure on one of the city’s wealthiest hospital systems.

At the center of the fight are demands for safe staffing levels, to ensure adequate patient care and prevent burnout and violence against nurses. Just this week an arbitrator awarded nurses ay NewYork-Presbyterian over $400,000 in damages for over 600 violations of safe staffing rules. The fight for safe staffing levels has become the defining fight for union healthcare nurses across the country, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic retention and burnout crisis and recent federal cuts to Medicaid.

• 🎥Striking NYC Nurses Fight for Safe Staffing

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WNBA negotiations enter final stretch with strike threat growing

Negotiations between the league and the Women’s National Basketball Players Association (WNBPA) continued this week without a finalized agreement, leaving the possibility of a strike hanging over the start of the 2026 season. Players remain focused on revenue sharing, salary growth, charter travel protections, and workload standards, with a 98% strike authorization vote signaling overwhelming support for escalation if needed.

Reports indicate both sides have exchanged counterproposals, but key economic issues remain at the core. The league has been growing immensely in popularity in recent years, which has come with rapidly growing commercial success. Despite this growth, the owners have been refusing to give players their fair share of that success they’ve driven themselves on the court.

• 📰WNBA players are ready to strike after contract expires

• 🎥How the NBA All-Star Strike Changed Sports

Federal workers face new threats to collective bargaining

This week, the Office of Personnel Management reportedly directed federal agencies to move toward terminating existing union contracts covering federal workers. This shows the Trump administration continuing to undermine collective bargaining rights of federal workers to clear a path for more mass layoffs and dismantling of federal services even amid ongoing legal action.

At the same time, groups of federal workers are organizing to push back. The National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) is holding coordinated contract campaign actions this coming Sunday, ahead of the start of national bargaining for postal workers. At the core of the fight, members are calling to end the two tier system of non-career positions, demanding COLA raises, and protections from management abuses.

Additionally, workers are organizing to defend the postal service from threats of privatization. They say privatization will undermine the country’s oldest public good and turn service guarantees into critical service gaps and price hikes. Privatization would also be destabilizing to the postal workers themselves.

The fight highlights a broader reality for federal workers heading into 2026: workers are not only bargaining over wages and conditions, but increasingly defending the very structure of public services against austerity and privatization pressures.

BONUS ROUND

• 🎥Google workers speak out against Big Tech’s collaboration with ICE

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