Every week, we bring you a roundup of the top news and commentary about issues and events important to working families. Here’s the latest edition of the Working People Weekly List.
News Guild President Schleuss Pitches for Public Broadcasting: “News Guild President Jon Schleuss, whose members have come under fire and threats from anti-worker and anti-media President Donald Trump, is making a strong pitch for the public to support, with voluntarily donated dollars, the Public Broadcasting System and National Public Radio. Trump’s ‘recessions’ law, which the GOP congressional majority gleefully passed, yanks $1.1 billion combined that lawmakers previously appropriated for them. Stations have scrambled to post online pleas to readers and listeners to fill the funding gap. Schleuss isn’t shy about why he’s asking: The U.S., and especially in major media ‘deserts,’ such as those left when big chains and ‘vulture capitalists’ deprive readers and listeners of local papers and programming, need independent voices speaking truth to power now more than ever.”
UAW Reaches Tentative Agreement with Major Parts Supplier Following Weeks of Stalled Talks: “The United Auto Workers union on Wednesday announced they’d reached a tentative deal with Challenge Manufacturing, which supplies critical parts for popular GM and Stellantis vehicles. According to the union, the agreement follows weeks of stalled talks and mounting frustrations and delivers significant wage increases, stronger job security and greater union protections. ‘Four weeks ago, the company called their offer “last, best, and final.” It wasn’t good enough—and we fought back,’ James Gonzales, president of UAW Local 653 in Pontiac said in a statement. ‘We stayed united, rejected their proposal, and organized non-stop to hold them accountable. That pressure stopped them in their tracks. Now, we have a tentative agreement with 80% higher wage increases than what was on the table a month ago. Because we stood together in solidarity, we have a much stronger contract to bring to our members.’”
New Bill Aims to Protect American Call Center Jobs and Consumers from AI: “The Communications Workers of America (CWA) endorsed the proposed bill. ‘This much-needed legislation protects U.S. call center jobs and addresses the growing threats posed by artificial intelligence and offshoring,’ (CWA) Director of Government Affairs Dan Mauer said in a statement. ‘Historically, companies have offshored customer service jobs to avoid paying good union wages and benefits. Now companies are using AI to de-skill and speed up work and displace jobs, which undermines worker rights and degrades service quality for consumers.’”
Houston Workers at Popular Immersive Art Exhibit Unionize: “More than 70 employees at Houston’s immersive art and entertainment installation Meow Wolf have announced their intention to form a union. Employees at the Houston branch of the immersive art venue have announced they are forming a union with the Communications Workers of America Local 7055, the Meow Wolf Workers Collective, alongside hundreds of other Meow Wolf employees. Bartenders, guest services, tech, art and scenic, facilities, events, servers, cooks, and security employees will all represent the Houston branch.”
AFL-CIO Enters Legal Battle Over Federal Worker Union Pacts: “The nation’s largest coalition of labor unions is suing the Trump administration over the president’s efforts to strip more than one million federal workers of their collective bargaining rights. The AFL-CIO filed its complaint in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Tuesday, accusing President Donald Trump of violating the constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act.”
Union Leaders Sound the Alarm on NASA Staffing, Proposed Budget Cuts: “The gathering was organized by the International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers and the American Federation of Government Employees. IFPTE’s president says roughly 4,000 NASA employees, about a quarter of the agency’s workforce, have left since President Donald Trump took office in January, amid downsizing efforts and a voluntary resignation program encouraging workers to exit. ‘They want even more of these brilliant minds to leave. The most disturbing thing of this is at some point this becomes irreversible. It becomes irreversible. Why would anyone want to go work at NASA anymore, given the way that these workers are being treated by this administration?’ said Matthew Biggs, International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers president.”
Union Pacific and Norfolk Seek 1st Transcontinental Railroad Through a Massive Merger: “The nation’s largest rail union, SMART-TD, quickly opposed the merger over concerns of jeopardizing progress that Norfolk Southern has made in safety and labor relations since its disastrous 2023 derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. The union said that Union Pacific’s record is troubling on safety and treatment of workers. The smaller Transport Workers Union echoed those concerns, saying the deal would deliver ‘billions for Wall Street while workers get shafted.’ Several other major rail unions said they are also concerned but want to meet with management first before weighing in on the deal.”
Workers Over Billionaires: High Energy AFL-CIO Bus Tour Rallies Unions on Atlanta Stop: “‘We all are living on the edge as working people, and more acutely than ever right now,’ the headliner, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, told the crowd. ‘Working people are working longer and harder—and getting less in return.’ Shuler and the other union leaders took aim at billionaires like Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who, she said, ‘have rigged the game.’”
At AFL-CIO Bus Tour, Kentucky BlueOval SK Workers Say They’ll Vote on Unionizing: “Blue Oval SK battery park workers say they’ve received federal approval to hold a vote on whether to form a union after a super-majority of workers asked the National Labor Relations Board for a vote earlier this year on joining the United Auto Workers, which represents Ford employees across the U.S. ‘We’ve been fighting this whole time, and we’re not going to stop,’ said production operator and union organizer Amber Levay. ‘The NLRB has finally gotten back to us. They did their best to push and push and push for as long of a way as they could get. But we finally got our election. We have finally heard back; next time you see me, we will be in negotiations.’”
SAG-AFTRA National Board Overwhelmingly Approves Network Television Code Deal with Producers: “During its one-day video conference plenary on Saturday, the SAG-AFTRA National Board announced that it has overwhelmingly voted to approve the tentative agreement the union, which represents professional actors, reached earlier this month with the major broadcast networks and other producers for the 2025 Network Television Code of Fair Practice for Network Television Broadcasting (Network Television Code).”
National Teacher Union President on Trump’s Efforts to Defund Public Education: “Members of the American Federation of Teachers are meeting in Washington, D.C., Friday. The union’s annual conference comes as the Trump administration has frozen more than $5 billion of funding for K-to-12 schools and vowed to close the Department of Education. We speak to AFT President Randi Weingarten about the challenges facing school teachers.”
Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol Made 6,666 Times More Than the Median Employee at His Coffee Chain Last Year: “It’s a good time to be a CEO. A new study by the AFL-CIO found the average corporate leader saw their compensation increase by $1.24 million last year. On average, the federation of unions says, CEOs at the nation’s largest companies made 285 times what the average worker did. A year ago, that ratio was 268:1. ‘The median employee would have had to start working in 1740 to earn what the average CEO received in 2024,’ the organization wrote in its 2025 Executive Paywatch study.”