Recently I did some training with a group of newly elected officers and business agents. We used their International’s steward training manual, but I felt it missed the mark on several issues. When I reviewed manuals from other unions, these mistakes kept coming up:

1. Representing two members who get in a fight

One new business agent asked, “Two members get into a fight. Both get suspended, under a zero tolerance policy. Can I refuse to file a grievance for the one who was clearly at fault?”

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.

The coming year could keep the strikes rolling through steel mills, state offices, telephone lines, axle plants, baseball diamonds, and hospitals from coast to coast. Union contracts expiring in 2026 could open up major fights by manufacturing, education, entertainment, and government workers.

Taxing the rich should bring a smile to your face. It certainly brings one to mine.

[This article is part of a Labor Notes roundtable series: How Can Unions Defend Worker Power Against Trump 2.0? We will be publishing more contributions here and in our magazine in the months ahead. Click here to read the rest of the series.—Editors]

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!”

[This article is part of a Labor Notes roundtable series: How Can Unions Defend Worker Power Against Trump 2.0? We will be publishing more contributions here and in our magazine in the months ahead. Click here to read the rest of the series.—Editors]

Educator Carolyn Brown was meeting with school counselors when she got the call: ICE agents were out front. By the time she got out of the building, ICE had abducted a woman and her 17-year-old daughter, an American citizen.

Brown, a coordinator of the International Baccalaureate program at Thomas Kelly College Prep, is also part of the rapid-response team for the school, in a Mexican enclave in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood.