The Teamsters Union has reached an agreement with United Airlines, covering 11,000 mechanics nationwide.

When we stand together as Teamsters, anything is possible.

Ontario, Canada

I'm a Steward. In our small, 25 person, unit there is the unit chairperson and me. My spouse is also in the unit. A year after I became steward the Union President declared to me, via email, that representing my spouse is a conflict of interest. I'm confused as to where the conflict is. Here's the text of the email:

"Having a spouse or family member representing is a conflict of interest.

A spouse has a personal and emotional interest in the outcome. It’s natural to want to protect your partner, which could effect fairness or impartiality  

Even if the spouse tries to be fair, others may perceive bias, which can undermine the credibility of the meeting. 

Having a family member represent could turn the meeting into a personal dispute, increase emotional tension and even complicate legal liability if it is taken. 

If there is a valid reason why your spouse would NOT want Union chairperson to represent her in a meeting then your spouse could take another member in as a witness. I do not recommend doing this but is allowed with valid reason. Another member has not had training or sworn in and may breach confidentiality and if taken further they may not take proper notes etc. "

Can anyone translate the above for me? Sounds ki a weak to me.

Also, there IS a very valid reason why she doesn't want the chairperson representing her in a meeting....the chair is very VERY friendly to management. So everyone in the unit has two choices for representation, except my spouse.

I know if you vote to decertify a union, that there is a waiting period of a year before initiation of a new union.

What is the rule if a union elects to drop a bargaining unit though? Can they immediately attempt to certify a new unionization effort or must they wait?

NYC’s largest homeless youth nonprofit has spent 4 years fighting its own workers’ union. A federal judge issued an injunction and by all accounts, they’re violating it. A contempt motion is pending. Meanwhile the workers making $18/hour are still waiting for a first contract.

Image description: Bart Simpson stands at a classroom chalkboard, chalk in hand, having written the same line across eight rows, trailing off mid-word on the last one. "YOU are the union" — repeated down the chalkboard.

Source

Tech workers are increasingly unionizing, trading Silicon Valley's myth of exceptionalism for collective bargaining to contest the corporate deployment of artificial intelligence. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jul/21/ai-tech-workers-unionize

This would be illegal as it would be considered price fixing to agree on a price to charge clients.

Why is that? Don't contractors deserve to have organized bargaining?

And who does corporate America fear the most? The Teamsters.

Our rank-and-file power can defeat anything and anyone, including these shitty consultants and their union-busting attorneys.

Transit workers in Jackson, Mississippi are entering their second week on strike against the private company contracted to operate the city’s buses. The Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1208 has been seeking fair pay, an end to mandatory overtime and increased sick leave protections, while MV Transportation has been looking to cut routes, shorten service hours and eliminate Saturday service, and start hiring drivers without commercial license to operate smaller vehicles. The union has also accused the corporation of unfair labor practices and bargaining in bad faith, and they’ve brought in unqualified replacement drivers while the workers have been on the picket line.

The local has indicated they will remain on strike until a deal is reached, and they’re going to need our support. 💵 Let’s consider a donation to their strike fund here. 💵

I say they should have reinvested it in infrastructure, raw material, manufacturing & production. Create a construction boom and good union jobs to spur the economy. Then reinstate the tarrifs, but this time make the corporations that shipped our jobs overseas pay for them, providing immediate relief for all Americans at the cash register. https://www.facebook.com/100064671074702/posts/1512805144218507/?app=fbl

USS Contract offer already being reported. What do people think when comparing to similar contract proposals?

Headlines for me are guaranteed pay increase over a 5 year period (considering potential upheaval and political uncertainty).

I'm a Spark driver, a technically independent contractor that delivers orders for Walmart. I say technically because the only real power I have as an independent contractor is deciding when I work. I have been entirely banned from stores, I have had orders taken away from me by Walmart because I refused to follow their oftentimes illegal rules. They have far more control over how I do my job than they should, despite the fact that on paper I'm not their employee.

I have been pushing for over a year both online and with other drivers in my area for us to unionize. But the question I keep coming back to is this: what benefits would unionizing give us? All I can seem to find online is yes, we can unionize, but we wouldn't have the same protections an employee union gives.

NEW: PCC workers launched a GoFundMe to cover expenses for workers who for past few weeks have been sent home for wearing their union branded watermelon pins, which PCC has deemed too “political”
www.gofundme.com/f/solidarity-fund-for-pcc-union-workers

Earlier this summer a few workers got sent home over watermelon pins and then UFCW 3000 made a union branded version as a workaround. That story is here:
https://www.theburnerseattle.com/post/pcc-sent-two-workers-home-over-palestine-pins-now-most-of-the-store-wears-watermelon-stickers-in-s

But that only held off PCC for so long, workers are now being sent home again

From that GoFundMe:

I [Justice Wornum] am a courtesy clerk at PCC, a co-operative grocery store chain here in the greater Seattle area, where I've worked since April of 2025. I was recently sent home about 30 minutes into my shift for refusing to remove my UFCW 3000 Watermelon Pin. I wore this pin in solidarity with our union brother at the Greenlake Village PCC and all 8 other PCC workers who have been sent home, without pay, for refusing to remove their union pins. Together we're making this GoFundMe "strike fund" to help cover the basic living expenses of all PCC workers wrongfully targeted by this illegal and immoral attendance policy, some of them missing a full week's worth of wages at this point.

We believe PCC's implementation of this policy is discriminatory and when they assume they have control over which union pins we wear it's a blatant violation of multiple federal labor laws, namely the NLRA sections 7 and 8. At a time when workers everywhere are losing their rights and becoming targets of repression both from the state and from their employer, we believe the union rank and file has an obligation to stand up for one another and defend the rights we still have.

PCC store directors and assistant store directors have told us our union pin is "too political" for their appearance policy, and their threat is to withhold our pay for refusing to comply. They want the right to decide unilaterally what is and is not a "political" symbol, Black Lives Matter and Trans Pride Flags are allowed but a watermelon is too extreme. It's completely arbitrary and gives way too much power to the employer, which is why it's being deployed in this discriminatory way.

That's why we're asking all workers, but especially PCC members and shoppers, to contribute what you can and help us recover some of those lost wages. Do this and we promise to stay in this fight for our collective right to express solidarity. No matter what slogan or symbol we choose, all workers have a right to say openly and unashamed: "An Injury to One is and Injury to All!!"

Never forget, our working conditions are your co-op conditions. Management cannot run the co-op themselves, between the workers and the members together we are the co-op. Lastly, the lockdowns may be over but we are still essential workers, we work hard every shift and we deserve to live with the dignity of a free voice.

A high-ranking official of the United Auto Workers apparatus and supporter of UAW President Shawn Fain has posted a death threat against me.

On July 16, Raymond L. Jensen Jr., until recently the assistant director of UAW Region 9—my own region—posted a comment on my public Facebook page in direct response to an article on my campaign statement on the federal criminal investigation into Fain. Jensen’s comment consisted of an AI-generated image depicting me bound with rope and gagged, blood running from my mouth, with a masked man aiming an automatic rifle at my back.

According to the union’s LM-2 filing with the Department of Labor, Jensen’s total compensation in 2025 was approximately $202,000, five times the income of many of the workers whose dues pay his salary. His Facebook profile prominently displays an “I Support Shawn Fain” campaign badge, and his page is filled with statements promoting Fain’s re-election and photographs of Jensen at Black Lake, the union’s resort and conference center in northern Michigan, maintained with the dues of the membership.

In response, my attorney, Eric Lee, has sent a letter to Glen McGorty, counsel for the court-appointed monitor overseeing the UAW, demanding an immediate investigation, the suspension of Jensen without pay, a public repudiation of the threat by the UAW, and referral of the matter to the Department of Labor and federal law enforcement. I have published the full letter here.

“When a highly paid functionary of the incumbent administration, publicly identified with the president’s re-election campaign, posts an image of the opposition candidate gagged, bleeding, and under the gun,” the letter states, “the message transmitted to the UAW membership is unmistakable: extreme violence against Will Lehman is encouraged and enjoys the sanction of the union leadership.”

...

Jensen posted the image in response to my statement on the Department of Justice investigation into Fain, in which a federal grand jury has been convened and the UAW monitor subpoenaed. As the letter notes, the monitor’s office has itself determined that Fain and the entrenched UAW leadership have perpetrated what it called a toxic climate of retribution, and that Fain personally threatened to “slit throats” of his opponents.

I have previously filed complaints of harassment and interference with the monitor’s office, which are the subject of a meeting scheduled for July 23. Those complaints, the letter states, “were not seriously investigated. From this inaction, the UAW leadership drew the conclusion that it could threaten Mr. Lehman with impunity. Mr. Jensen evidently shared that confidence.”

...

I will not be intimidated, and this campaign will not be stopped. But this threat is not aimed at me alone. It is an act of intimidation directed against the entire rank-and-file opposition that is developing throughout the UAW. The image of a bound and gagged candidate is meant to teach the membership a lesson: this is what happens to those who oppose the apparatus. If a threat of this character can be made openly, by a highly paid official, against a candidate for the union’s highest office, then no worker who challenges the bureaucracy in their own local is safe.

That is why this cannot be treated as my fight alone, and why the response must come from the rank and file itself. I call on all workers to oppose this act of intimidation: to defend the right of every UAW member to campaign and speak free of threats, to demand the investigation and removal of those responsible, and to circulate this statement in every plant and workplace.

Above all, I call on workers to take up the fight this campaign advances—the building of rank-and-file committees in every plant, independent of the apparatus, and the transfer of power to the shop floor. The apparatus resorts to intimidation because it fears you. The answer is not to retreat, but to organize.

I work for a local Firestone complete auto care center. I get paid flat rate at 24/hr. I have a job offer at another shop for an even 30/hr that isn't flat rate. Here is the kicker though, including myself I have 4 of 4 people to vote yes on joining a union at Firestone. I am unsure if it's worth continuing this effort to organize. I worked at UPS for 2 years and I know the benefits of having the teamsters there. The union I am talking to is the IAM. here are my list of concerns and questions.

1. what will firestone do if the attempt is successful? Will they shut the shop down under another excuse?
2. what steps do I need to follow to continue this attemt
3. should I just forget this attempt and move to an immediately better paying shop