Jenny Brown

2025 in Review: Stark Battle Lines, Big Potential

Already before Donald Trump was inaugurated in January, there were dire omens. Poultry workers reported that their supervisors were using Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric to divide workers up—allowing white workers bathroom breaks but denying them to Hispanic workers. “The more people are afraid to organize, the more the bosses will take advantage to create worse working conditions,” wrote Magaly Licolli of the worker center Venceremos in January.

Red Cups Raised in Rebellion, Starbucks Strike Spreads

Several hundred more Starbucks baristas walked out Thursday, the 22nd day of their growing unfair labor practice strike. It is now the longest strike the coffee giant has faced, spreading to 145 stores in more than 100 cities.

Kingston, New York, baristas joined the strike early Thursday, and management didn’t even bother trying to open the store. So the workers, joined by supporters, picketed a nearby store in Lake Katrine, piercing the crisp winter air with chants of “What’s disgusting? Union-busting!” and “I want to eat food and pay rent at the same time!”

No Contract Means No Coffee as Starbucks Baristas Walk Out

Chanting “What’s outrageous? Starbucks wages! What’s appalling? Starbucks stalling! What’s disgusting? Union busting!”, Starbucks workers at stores across the country walked out Thursday. They are on strike against unfair labor practices and the company’s stonewalling at the bargaining table.

Shutdown Deal: Federal Workers Say No, Not This Way

Senate Democrats had some leverage, but they dropped the crowbar. Seven Democratic senators and an independent caved, spurring a Democratic deal with the Trump administration to end the 41-day government shutdown. It requires 60 Senate votes, with a preliminary vote expected today.

The Democrats had been refusing to approve the funding bill until Republicans restored health care funding. But the deal only extracted the promise of a floor vote in December on extending Affordable Care Act tax credits. There is no guarantee that any funding will be restored.

Strike Captains and Practice Pickets: Starbucks Workers Aim to Bring a Contract Home

Unionized Starbucks workers are electing strike captains and getting customers to pledge they won't cross picket lines. They’re amassing in front of stores with picket signs, borrowing a slogan that UPS Teamsters used during their 2023 contract campaign: “Just Practicing for a Just Contract.”

Labor Needs an Independent Political Program, Says UAW’s Fain

United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain recently laid out four priorities he says should form the nucleus of a workers’ political program. And he said that a broad strike in May 2028 is one way to fight for those priorities.

‘Willingly Forgoing Paychecks’: Federal Workers Support Shutdown Fight

Thirty-five union locals, nationals, or other levels of union bodies in the federal sector signed on to an extraordinary Federal Unionists Network letter September 29 urging the Democrats to fight Trump administration cuts, even at the price of a government shutdown. It was titled “No Bad Budget in Our Name,” and signers represent tens of thousands of federal workers.

Federal Workers Declare Five-Alarm Fires at Agencies

Braving retaliation, thousands of federal workers across six agencies have signed open letters charging that their workplaces are being hamstrung or dismantled by the Trump administration. They join federal unionists at dozens more workplaces who have been sounding the alarm to Congress and the public.

Defying Back to Work Order, Air Canada Flight Attendants Secure Tentative Agreement

Flight attendants with Air Canada and subsidiary Air Canada Rouge walked out early August 17. As expected, the Liberal government ordered them back to work 12 hours later, declaring their strike unlawful.

In a bold move with wide implications, the 10,000 striking flight attendants defied the order. They’d voted 99.7 percent to strike earlier this month.

Uncover How Your Employer’s Power Flows

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Jenny Brown

Review of What the Boss Doesn’t Want Us to Know: Discovering Power and Winning Campaigns by Tom Juravich, Olivia Geho, and Andrew Gorry (PM Press, 2025)

When workers at one company started researching their employer, says a union leader in What the Boss Doesn’t Want Us to Know, “it felt like the curtain was pulled back on Oz. All these things that didn’t make sense to them for so long suddenly made sense.”

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