AFL-CIO Blog

  • Service & Solidarity Spotlight: Faculty at New York’s School of Visual Arts Form Union
    Service & Solidarity Spotlight: Faculty at New York’s School of Visual Arts Form Union Working people across the United States regularly step up to help out our friends, neighbors and communities during these trying times. In our Service & Solidarity Spotlight series, we’ll showcase one of these stories every day. Here’s today’s story. Faculty at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York voted overwhelmingly in favor of forming a union with the UAW, joining a growing movement of academic workers organizing for better working conditions. The newly certified SVA Faculty United-UAW bargaining unit will represent approximately 1,200 instructors at the private art institute. As members prepare for negotiating their first contract, their core concerns include pay equity, workloads that are disproportionate to compensation and the recent loss of benefits such as retirement account contributions and sabbaticals. “This victory affirms that hundreds of educators and creatives across different disciplines are ready to unite around a just social cause and give solidarity a chance in these thunderous times,” said adjunct faculty member Merlin Ural Rivera. “We are here to build a wonderful, intimate community of professionals who are allowed the time and resources to follow their creative practices while also helping shape the next generation of artists and inspiring them to fight for self-determination.” Kenneth Quinnell Thu, 05/29/2025 - 10:02 — May 29
  • Public Transit Is A Public Good: What Working People Are Doing This Week
    Public Transit Is A Public Good: What Working People Are Doing This Week Welcome to our regular feature, a look at what the various AFL-CIO unions and other working family organizations are doing across the country and beyond. The labor movement is big and active—here's a look at the broad range of activities we're engaged in this week. Actors' Equity: AFGE: AFSCME: Alliance for Retired Americans: Amalgamated Transit Union: American Federation of Musicians: American Federation of Teachers: American Postal Workers Union: Association of Flight Attendants-CWA: Boilermakers: Bricklayers: Communications Workers of America: Department for Professional Employees: Electrical Workers: Fire Fighters: Heat and Frost Insulators: International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers: International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers: Laborers: Major League Baseball Players Association: Major League Soccer Players Association: Maritime Trades Department: Metal Trades Department: Musical Artists: National Air Traffic Controllers Association: National Association of Letter Carriers: National Domestic Workers Alliance: National Nurses United: NFL Players Association: North America's Building Trades Unions: NWSL Players Association: Painters and Allied Trades: Professional Aviation Safety Specialists: Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union: Roofers and Waterproofers: SAG-AFTRA: Service Employees International Union: Solidarity Center: The NewsGuild-CWA: Theatrical Stage Employees: Transport Workers Union: Transportation Trades Department: UAW: Union Veterans Council: UNITE HERE: United Food and Commercial Workers: United Steelworkers: Writers Guild of America East: Kenneth Quinnell Wed, 05/28/2025 - 10:30 — May 28
  • Service & Solidarity Spotlight: UFCW Announces Historic Contract Ratification for JBS Meatpacking Workers
    Service & Solidarity Spotlight: UFCW Announces Historic Contract Ratification for JBS Meatpacking Workers Working people across the United States regularly step up to help out our friends, neighbors and communities during these trying times. In our Service & Solidarity Spotlight series, we’ll showcase one of these stories every day. Here’s today’s story. JBS workers at 14 processing facilities across the country have ratified a historic national contract that includes massive wins like the establishment of a new pension plan for the first time in decades. The new deal covers 26,000 members who work for one of the world’s largest meat companies. Highlights of the agreement also include significant wage increases—with retroactive pay and a ratification bonus—a paid sick time program, increased leave, establishment of a National Joint Labor-Management Committee and more. “We applaud UFCW members for ratifying this historic contract,” said Mark Lauritsen, director of the Food Processing, Packing and Manufacturing Division and international vice president at UFCW, in a press release. “Through the collaboration of our Local bargaining committees and the commitment of JBS to providing industry-leading benefits and protections, after nearly 40 years, JBS workers will have a pension retirement plan, giving them a path to a secure financial future. Every employer in the meatpacking industry should follow JBS’s leadership and reintroduce pension plans for the hard-working men and women who keep America fed.” Kenneth Quinnell Wed, 05/28/2025 - 08:34 — May 28
  • Get to Know AFL-CIO's Affiliates: National Air Traffic Controllers Association
    Get to Know AFL-CIO's Affiliates: National Air Traffic Controllers Association This is the next post in our series that will take a deeper look at each of our affiliates. The series will run weekly until we've covered all 63 of our affiliates. Next up is the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA). Name of Union: National Air Traffic Controllers Association Mission: To advance the status, professionalism, pay, benefits and working conditions of all air traffic controllers and other aviation safety-related employees through collective bargaining, political action and other lawful concerted activity. Current Leadership of Union: Nick Daniels was elected the eighth president of NATCA in October 2024. Prior to being elected president, Daniels served on NATCA’s National Executive Board as regional vice president for the Southwest Region. Daniels has worked as an air traffic controller for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for 21 years, including the last 19 years at Fort Worth Air Route Traffic Control Center, where he served three terms as NATCA local president and facility representative, and two years at Dallas-Addison Air Traffic Control Tower. Prior to joining the FAA, Daniels served his country from 1998 through 2003 in the United States Marine Corps, achieving the rank of E-5 Sergeant as a 7252 Tower Air Traffic Controller and a 7253 Radar Air Traffic Controller. Daniels was honorably discharged.  Mick Devine serves as NATCA’s executive vice president. Daniels, Devine and 10 regional vice presidents make up NATCA’s National Executive Board. Number of Members: Nearly 20,000 Members Work as: Air traffic controllers, aircraft certification specialists, automation support specialists, aviation technical system specialists, Department of Defense air traffic controllers, Drug Abatement Division/Compliance and Enforcement Branch inspectors, engineers and architects, federal contract tower air traffic controllers, financial management, flight procedures team, flight service specialists, Regional Counsel’s Office/Legal Division, staff support specialists, traffic management coordinators, traffic management specialists, and U.S. Notice To Airmen (NOTAM) office specialists. Industries Represented: Air traffic controllers throughout the federal and private sectors and other aviation safety professionals working for the FAA. History: In 1968, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) formed. The union represented air traffic controllers until 1981, when members went on strike, and President Ronald Reagan fired everyone on strike. In the mid-1980s, with the help of AFGE, the Marine Engineers’ Beneficial Association (MEBA) and John Thornton, who had been active in PATCO, FAA controllers began organizing a new union to bring solidarity back to the profession. The NATCA founding convention was held in late 1986. In 1987, NATCA was certified by the Federal Labor Relations Authority as the exclusive representative of air traffic controllers. Because of the organization’s history, NATCA’s organizers understood how politics can affect federal employees’ rights, pay and working conditions. Since its founding, NATCA has worked to become a legislative and political powerhouse. Throughout the 1990s, NATCA worked tirelessly to transform pay for controllers, working with Congress to exclude the FAA from the statutory pay system in 1996 and ultimately negotiating a new pay system based on air traffic volume and complexity in 1998. The same year, NATCA became a direct affiliate of the AFL-CIO and organized the FAA’s Engineers and Architects bargaining unit, its first unit of non-operational FAA employees. In 2006, after several months of bargaining, the FAA walked away from the table in order to exploit a provision of the 1996 collective bargaining law and, on Labor Day weekend, unilaterally imposed terms and conditions of employment, including a pay cut for new hires by more than 30%. This attempt at union-busting only made NATCA stronger, as members rallied and became more politically active. Shortly after President Barack Obama was sworn in, he ordered the parties back to the table, and a fair collective bargaining agreement was reached in short order. NATCA then moved forward with a half million grievances that had reached the arbitration stage during the imposed work rules.  NATCA worked hard to change the law to ensure that no work rules would ever be imposed again, and Congress passed binding mediation and arbitration for all future negotiations.  The 2009 agreement allowed NATCA to forge a new collaborative relationship with the FAA as they worked together to develop and implement new technologies and procedures to make the National Airspace System (NAS) safer and more efficient. The parties developed the Partnership for Safety, which includes programs to address safety concerns in operations, fatigue education and awareness, management of distractions in the NAS, and professional standards, among other topics. Always pushing the envelope for federal sector bargaining, NATCA signed off on an agreement with the FAA in 2016 that formalized the collaborative process to ensure that it would not be subject to political winds. Current Campaigns/Community Efforts: Every day, NATCA members control more than 70,000 flights carrying 2 million passengers and millions of tons of cargo through the NAS. Most of NATCA’s members are federal employees, and NATCA fights to protect federal workers and their rights. NATCA has long advocated for accurate staffing targets for certified professional controllers—the journeyman level of the profession—to meet the FAA’s operational, statutory and contractual needs. The vast majority of the FAA’s 313 air traffic facilities are currently understaffed. NATCA has also raised concerns about the need to modernize both the facilities where controllers work and the equipment that they use to maintain the safest, most complex, most efficient airspace system in the world. Although NATCA is busy with its advocacy efforts 365 days a year, its advocacy culminates each year at its annual lobbying event, NATCA in Washington.  NATCA’s commitment to safety and training is on display each year with its  Communicating For Safety (CFS) event, which has become the industry’s leading aviation safety conference. At CFS, NATCA presents the Archie League Medal of Safety Awards and the Region X Commitment to Safety Award to recognize the best saves by controllers and other aviation safety professionals each year. Learn More: Website, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, X Kenneth Quinnell Tue, 05/27/2025 - 14:04 — May 27
  • No Budget Cuts: In the States Roundup
    No Budget Cuts: In the States Roundup It's time once again to take a look at the ways working people are making progress in the states. Click on any of the links to follow the state federations on X. Alaska AFL-CIO: California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO: Colorado AFL-CIO: Connecticut AFL-CIO: Florida AFL-CIO: Illinois AFL-CIO: Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO: Maine AFL-CIO: Massachusetts AFL-CIO: Michigan State AFL-CIO: Minnesota AFL-CIO: Missouri AFL-CIO: Nebraska State AFL-CIO: Nevada State AFL-CIO: New York State AFL-CIO: North Carolina State AFL-CIO: Oregon AFL-CIO: Pennsylvania AFL-CIO: Texas AFL-CIO: Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO: Wisconsin State AFL-CIO: Kenneth Quinnell Tue, 05/27/2025 - 10:04 — May 27

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