Hiding work is central to union-busting. Employers have used multiple underhanded and easily glossed over tactics to deter workers from organizing and joining unions. Even though the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 makes union-busting illegal companies still find ways to go around federal and state laws.

Employers regularly use the services of union-busting consultants and agencies. Law firms such as Jackson Lewis, who are known for union-building, to represent corporations in labor disputes, lawsuits, and union related cases. Some of their most valuable clients include Google, Amazon, and multiple universities and colleges. Companies are also known to push “astroturf campaigns”. These campaigns are manufactured movements meant to impersonate grassroot movements. The corporate organizers of these campaigns manipulate and misinform employees who are either ignorant of unions or hold misplaced resentment toward unions to spread the rhetoric of union-busting consultants and agencies to their co-workers. Employers often attempt to intimidate employees with forced one on one meetings where they are subjected to forced consumption of anti-union propaganda spewed by management and union-busting consultants. Companies have been known to make empty promises to convince employees not to organize and often use their union-busting lawyers to delay union elections and contract negotiations in an attempt to create a loss of morale amongst workers. Employers also use social media to union-bust. Corporations monitor the posts of pro-union workers, flag employees who have pro-union posts, suppress posts by reporting them as spam and hiding them from worker eyes, employers or anti-union moles will often crash online chat groups and video calls in order to spy on and intimidate union organizers, and it has also been revealed that employers will send anti-union propaganda through text messages.

There are multiple effective ways to combat employers who attempt to hide work from the union. One way is to speak to fellow workers face to face whether it be in or outside of work. Human interaction is one of the oldest and most effective ways of organizing and spreading awareness. An important tool to use to fight union-busting is utilizing the press. Using news releases and press conferences help gain massive public support against anti-union movements and campaigns. Another tactic is using text messaging to contact co-workers in order to spread information and organize. Finally using online campaigning to expose corporate misformation and propaganda, bring attention to the shady union-busting tactics used by employers, secretly conducting investigations into the underhanded motives of companies, studying up on workers’ rights, keeping track of and documenting violations conducted by employers, and capturing the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) attention and getting them on your side.

As workers we must maintain pride and dignity and recognize that we are the foundations to all corporations around the country and deserving of workers’ rights, especially the right to unionize and organize. Like a hand, its individual fingers are weak and easily broken, but when those fingers come together into a fist its strength cannot be broken and can smash through any obstacle or adversary.

The post Employers Hiding Work from the Union: How to Spot It and What To Do About It first appeared on Labor Today.

The post Employers Hiding Work from the Union: How to Spot It and What To Do About It appeared first on Labor Today.

Retail is a notoriously difficult industry to unionize; chaotic schedules, high turnover, and a workforce that often sees the job as a temporary stop create clear challenges for organizing. The industry relies on exactly these problems to sow apathy, especially among young workers. Since many are just working here temporarily, it’s easy for them not to care. But with nearly one in five retail workers being under 24, they represent a large demographic that must be won. While conducting unionization campaigns, a main objective needs to make young workers care about the organizing drive.

These young workers often get erratic schedules, poor training, and dismissive feedback. Their youth is taken advantage of by older bosses with false promises of promotions, pressure to accept exploitation, underpaying them for doing higher paid work, and isolating verbal abuse. Unlike older coworkers, who are dependent on the company’s paycheck to pay their mortgages, insurance, and other bills, younger workers lack these economic ties. This creates a policy that seems to emphasize deliberately burning through young comrades, replacing them as they inevitably quit, which conveniently reset their replacements at the lowest pay scale. Highlighting this particular disrespect and countering it proved to be our most useful organizing tool.

Young workers are told that they don’t deserve higher pay because they are new and have less responsibility, even though they actually have one of the largest ranges of tasks to complete. Young workers need to be reminded that their shared class position is with everyone on the floor. With just a little encouragement, young workers formed their own internal group of friends who helped keep each other informed and motivated. Together, they dispelled the company’s anti-union propaganda for both themselves and helped the other workers they were in contact with see the truth.

Younger workers voted for the union not primarily because of economic pressures, as this job was a short stop on their way to adulthood, but because the company’s systematic disrespect and manipulation made them desperate for collective power. Fortunately, the organization was able to fill the desire for camaraderie with a group that recognized their contributions as meaningful. Increasing pay was an influential part of it but showing youth they deserved respect and that their labor earned them the right to demand more was the biggest factor for getting them to care about working conditions at a job they will soon leave.

Young workers are not planning to stay here long term. Many will move on to college, trades, or other cities within a year or two. Yet once shown respect, the youth were willing to fight to improve the lives of the workers who will follow behind them. They put their jobs on the line not because they needed the raise forever, but because they understood that no one should be treated the way the company treated them. That is the lesson for unions going forward. Improving conditions will always be the main driving factor, but for some workers, especially the youngest, must show them they deserve respect before they can imagine a better future. Youth will fight for others even when they won’t be there to collect the benefits. With any luck, these skills in understanding class consciousness, and the power of solidarity will follow them as they venture out into the world.

The post Youth – A Treasure for Unions first appeared on Labor Today.

The post Youth – A Treasure for Unions appeared first on Labor Today.

“Profit over people.”, the unofficial slogan of capitalism. The bourgeois class have held this belief close to their hearts since the 16th century. In modern times nothing has changed. Capitalists are still choosing profits over people and they have now expanded to choosing “machines over workers”. In 2025 personal finance and trading education platform, RationalFX, counted 245,000 tech sector layoffs with about 70,000 being tied to AI adoption and automation. In the first six weeks of 2026 there were 30,700 layoffs in the tech sector connected to AI adoption and automation. Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman says,

“White-collar work, where you’re sitting down at a computer, either being a lawyer or an accountant or a project manager or a marketing person — most of those tasks will be fully automated by an AI within the next 12 to 18 months.”

Companies do not care if workers become unemployed and financially destitute. Andrew Yang, CEO at Noble Mobile and a former United States presidential candidate gave his take on the current issue of AI displacement in the workplace by explaining,

“As one company starts to streamline, all of their competitors will follow suit. It will become a competition because the stock market will reward you if you cut headcount and punish you if you don’t. Millions of workers are about to be given their pink slips.”

As of 2025 3 in 10 companies have admitted that they have already begun replacing workers with AI. They estimate that by the end of 2026 that 37% of workers will be replaced by AI. In a survey 1,000 United States capitalists have admitted to slowing down on hiring workers, 39% have laid off workers in 2025, 35% say they would layoff workers before the end of 2025, and 58% say they will conduct layoffs in 2026. These leeches have shamelessly expressed that employees who lack AI-related skills and entry-level workers face the highest risks for layoffs. These layoffs have been described as, “serial layoffs”, due to the rapid and systematic termination rates in companies.

This is a form of “reactive workforce management” which has led to a drop in morale amongst workers and caused a major loss of critical skills. A report published by the restaurant consulting firm, Aaron Allen & Associates, estimated that 80% of restaurant jobs will become automated. The study results show that 51% of server jobs will be automated. It is estimated that 57% of fast-food and counter workers will be replaced by machines. Some companies that have already started to make these changes are, but not limited to, Chipotle, McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Wendy’s, and the Jamaican Patty franchise, Juici Patties.

These blood sucking companies and the financial vampires known as their owners have exploited the minds and bodies of workers for centuries, now they feel as if workers are a burden and outdated. Due to this they have seen it fit to replace us with wires, circuit boards, metal, and plastic. They have once again chosen profits over people by choosing machines over workers. 

            (Gross, Grant. “Push to Replace Workers with AI Faces Backlash — Even from Management.” CIO, 28 Feb. 2026, www.cio.com/article/4138743/push-to-replace-workers-with-ai-faces-backlash-even-from-management.html.)

            (Moody, Kathryn. “Nearly 4 in 10 Companies Will Replace Workers with AI by 2026, Survey Shows.” HR Dive, 22 Sept. 2025, www.hrdive.com/news/companies-will-replace-workers-with-ai-by-2026/760729/.)           

(“80% of Restaurant Jobs Could Be Taken over by Robots.” Adeccogroup.com, 2020, www.adeccogroup.com/our-thinking/articles-and-editorials/80-of-restaurant-jobs-could-be-taken-over-by-robots.)

            (Scinto, Maria. “5 Fast Food Chains That Have Already Started Using AI.” The Takeout, 22 Feb. 2026, www.thetakeout.com/2104709/fast-food-chains-started-using-ai/.)

The post AI Displacement: Replacing Workers With Machines first appeared on Labor Today.

The post AI Displacement: Replacing Workers With Machines appeared first on Labor Today.

Airport workers continue to feel pinched as the funding for airport screening with workers at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) remains frozen for now over five weeks. Over 50,000 workers are in the second stretch of work without pay in the last 6 months. In fall 2025, there was a 43-day shutdown that forced workers to work for over 50 days without pay.

TSA workers are classified as “Emergency Response Officials”, so even when there is a government shutdown or funding lapse, they still have to show up to work. TSA is also on a different pay system from the rest of the federal workers that pays much less. This is by design when the agency was formed in the wake of September 11, 2001. The TSA only recently won the right to collective bargaining in court and there is legislation to pay them at the same pay system of other federal workers. These victories have been rolled back by the Trump regime as it wages its war on workers.

Over 370 workers have quit since the current shutdown began. Others have taken side work either in gig economy jobs or selling plasma just to make ends meet and pay bills. Workers are frustrated as they are being run to exhaustion with no pay. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Agency the TSA is under, has issued letters to workers asking creditors for leniency or late fees to be waived, though workers are finding those inefficient in the second shutdown as some are sleeping out of their vehicles, bank accounts overdrawn, empty pantries and refrigerators, and evictions from homes.

Airports have opened food pantries, donation centers, and are now asking travelers for donations. Officials have warned that some smaller airports “may be shut down” as about 10% of the TSA workers have failed to show for work daily.

Politicians in Congress have offered no help as both Democrats and Republicans blame each other and have put forward proposals to pay workers but no progress has been made yet. The Trump regime engages in violations of the Hatch Act by blaming the shutdown on political opponents, but offers no concrete solutions. Federal workers are barred by law from striking courtesy of Ronald Reagan firing striking air traffic controllers in the 1980s.

LUEL calls on elected officials to pay workers a fair wage during this shutdown in an industry that is important for everyone. Airports have wide-reaching effects on their local area, and slowdowns and shutdowns hurt American workers. The way forward for workers in the airline industry is to band together in a mass anti-monopoly coalition with the other airport workers, pilots, flight attendants, and others to demand the monopoly capitalists pay workers a fair and just wage even during a government shutdown. Workers must join together in mass action to put pressure on those that hold the economy and workers hostage.

The post Workers Suffer as Airports Shutter first appeared on Labor Today.

The post Workers Suffer as Airports Shutter appeared first on Labor Today.

By James Dugan

Organizing Methods in the Steel Industry by William Z. Foster offers a potent plan for organizing labor to confront not only their bosses, but Monopoly Capital. Written after Foster suffered a heart attack and received treatment in the Soviet Union; its 28 pages are an instruction manual for the resuscitation of organized labor for the establishment of industrial unionism.

Foster advises cooperation between progressive and Left-wing elements in the labor movement noting that “only these elements [ ] have the necessary vision, flexibility and courage to go forward with such an important project as the organization of the 500,000 steel workers in the face of the powerful opposition of the Steel Trust and its capitalist allies.”

Foster says “The organization movement must be industrial and national in character. That is, (a) it must include every category of workers in the steel industry, not merely a thin stratum of skilled workers at the top; and (b) the drive must be carried on energetically and simultaneously in every steel center, not simply here and there spasmodically in individual mills or steel centers.’ For workers to build a class-oriented trade union movement of an industrial character, they need to look no further than Foster’s work.

His emphasis on creating a mass movement of the steel industry, a nationally critical industry, balances comprehensive motivation with rigorous self-criticism, optimism, and determined organizational discipline. To accomplish this, Foster says, “Hard work and sobriety are basic essentials for success. Chair-warmers and irresponsibles should be made to feel unwelcome in the organizing crew.”

Foster’s plan includes specific tactics for outreach members of racial and ethnic groups, youth and women. Foster suggests how an Amalgamated Association (A.A.) or mass organization could be constituted using demonstration, print, and broadcast. Foster posits that this should be balanced with focused interpersonal and relational work for developing and defending the members and organization.

His strategy’s hallmark is its inclusivity and remarkable efficiency.  Foster is thoroughly defensive of the membership and its work of uniting each of society’s layers of preexisting strata, forming the A.A. from the matrix his plan forms within these. This plan integrates his era’s primary social institutions including fraternity and church, to form the platform and to give physical space from which to mount the overall effort.

Industrial unionism gathers membership by forming flexible alliances, overlaid by a firm organizational structure focused on growing the union at every level, industry wide. Rank and file members need to be empowered to actively recruit members and build the union. His methodology offers the most capable means for workers to defeat the trustified industries.

The post Organized Steel Defends Workers and Democracy first appeared on Labor Today.

The post Organized Steel Defends Workers and Democracy appeared first on Labor Today.

By James Dugan

The working class is misinformed. The state’s “official” information is suspect. Workers are responsible for calling them out. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) “unemployment rate” is widely accepted as the standard measurement of unemployed Americans at any given time, but it’s not what you think it is. It is not the number of people filing for unemployment, as many assume. Instead, it is a composite figure based on a monthly poll of 60,000 households, taken by the Census Bureau.

Poll respondents are asked scripted questions, and their answers are tabulated into categories which somewhat overlap and are used by the BLS for its “calculation”. The BLS creates the statistic in this way, “because that’s how it’s always been done” according to one BLS source. The truth is, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) doesn’t measure the joblessness rate but it does conceal systemic racism and an economy in steep decline.

Instead of the false BLS figures, workers should refer to a valid source of information. One such source is the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity (LISEP) True Rate of Unemployment (TRU) report. While the BLS reports 4.4% unemployment, the TRU reports 24.9%.

The BLS unemployment rate ignores incarcerated unemployed workers who outnumber white workers 5:1. As this economy continues to devastate these workers, predominantly male blacks and Hispanics, the official reporting is that “all is well”. By excluding nearly 2 million locked up Americans from the official count, the real economic conditions of the working class never come to light. The TRU unemployment rate accounts for the vast numbers of nominally employed make up today’s working class. The TRU rate, by including the incarcerated sector of unemployed workers, highlights these as the most segregated sector of the working class. The racial disparities dividing workers are staggering, but the BLS would have the working class remain ignorant.

According to the TRU, fully one quarter of the American working class straddles financial catastrophe, despite having a job. This sort of worker, known as the “functionally unemployed” are defined as workers who “don’t have a full-time job but want one, or have no job, or do not earn a living wage, conservatively pegged at $26,000 (in 2025 dollars) annually before taxes”.

The BLS unemployment rate hides prisoner unemployment to dress-up the racist American economy as racially neutral. Black men are disproportionately imprisoned in the U.S. and the BLS conceals that they’re also disproportionately unemployed. Workers should question the so-called facts, call out the lying monopolists, their cronies in office and corporate media, and use scientific means to describe their conditions.

Workers should consider their situation carefully in the United States, where the government hides the unemployed in prisons and incarcerates the highest percentage of its population in the world.

The post Bureau of Labor Statistics Hides Racist, Lagging Economy first appeared on Labor Today.

The post Bureau of Labor Statistics Hides Racist, Lagging Economy appeared first on Labor Today.

These large facilities now occupy three percent of total county land and a full forty percent of the county budget but while the industry has been booming, local residents have suffered. Wholesale electricity costs have been driven up more than two-hundred and fifty percent in the last five years alone.

In a 2025 report from Virginia’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review it has been revealed that in the previous year, the state of Virginia lost more than a billion dollars to its sales and use tax exemptions for data centers, compared to all other state incentive programs which cost the state a combined two hundred and thirty five million dollars. Meanwhile, as of 2024, data center tax breaks make up more than eighty one percent of of all Virginia state incentive costs.

In the areas surrounding the newly constructed data centers the constant humming of the giant computer systems has become loud enough to scare away the local wildlife. In a statement to the BBC, Loudoun resident Greg Pirio laments “There are no birds around here anymore.”

The Virginia House and Senate passed a bill this year intended to regulate private sector AI use and development but it was vetoed by Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin, leaving Loudoun residents vulnerable and without redress. As one Loudoun resident said to the BBC “I never thought that a data center would be built across the street from my house. I would not have bought this house if I had known what was going in across the street.”

The post Rapid Data Center Construction Results in Electricity Price Increase first appeared on Labor Today.

The post Rapid Data Center Construction Results in Electricity Price Increase appeared first on Labor Today.

On January 23, 2026, in negative temperatures, thousands of Minnesotans turned out in Minneapolis for a strike to protest the current administration’s policies. Multiple businesses across the city and state were also shut down in solidarity with the protests. At the same time of the protests downtown, another protest broke out at the Minneapolis-St Paul (MSP) airport as airport workers and clergy shut down the airport for a time to protest in solidarity. Over 100 clergy members were arrested.

On January 15, 2026, the Minnesota Regional Labor Council endorsed the action, calling it, “A Day of Truth and Freedom”. This was significant as the Minnesota Regional Labor Federal is composed of over 175 unions with 80,000+ members. The Minnesota AFL-CIO followed suit in endorsement. Many local unions did not call this action a “strike” though citing contracts that forbid striking. Many on the street called it a general strike and brought up parallels to the 1934 General Strike in Minneapolis.

The buildup to this was long time in coming. Since last year, federal agents had been conducting raids and harassing workers. On January 17, 2026, agents shot legal observer Renee Good as she was driving away. Federal agents had begun targeting ethnic communities around the country. As of writing of this article, on January 24, 2026, federal agents have shot another legal observer on the street that was being held down by multiple agents.

Other cities followed suit to the strike on Friday, with solidarity strikes and protests in Philadelphia, New York, Oakland, and other cities. The strikes appear to have the form of a pre-democratic labor front that is necessary to combat fascism and monopoly capitalism.

Even with the overwhelming support for the strike, some business union leaders pushed against it. There were reports of a local Teamsters union distributing flyers stating anyone who joined in the strike would be in breach of contract. Large businesses that have contracts and cooperate with the federal government, like Target, 3M, Best Buy, and Delta Airlines have stated nothing on the strike. The silence of the corporations echoes more loudly with Target stores being used as staging ground for ICE raids even as one Target made national news on January 13, 2026, when ICE kidnapped two workers from a Roseville, MN Target store.

LUEL is closing following this developing situation. LUEL calls on labor to unite with progressive groups and other civic groups to build an anti-monopoly coalition. Only then can labor develop into a fighting force that can combat the rising fascism brought on monopoly capitalism.

The post Minnesota Labor Walks Out in Mass Strike! first appeared on Labor Today.

The post Minnesota Labor Walks Out in Mass Strike! appeared first on Labor Today.

We remember with horror US President James Monroe’s doctrine which declared that South America was the domain of the United States. The US government’s decision was done without the consent of any other South American government. Recently, President Trump’s America has repeatedly used this doctrine to justify foreign invasions, coups, piracy, and assassinations across the western hemisphere. The US has toppled democratic left governments in Peru, Chile, and Bolivia, and installed puppet right wing dictators. As during the period of the Monroe Doctrine these installed dictators served the interest of US multi-national corporations; crushing unions, restricting labor laws, and denying basic human rights to their people.

As international trade unionists we remember the example of the 1954 US military intervention in Guatemala where the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz was overthrown in a CIA coup to protect the interests of the United Fruit Company of America.

Today it is Venezuela who faces the guns of the US Empire, if we do not unite in international solidarity, it may be us tomorrow. An injury to one is an injury to all.

In conclusion, Labor United Educational League calls upon all trade unions, progressive organizations, and peace-loving people across the globe to stand unequivocally in solidarity with the Venezuelan people. Our solidarity must be active and material: we demand the immediate and unconditional release of President Nicolas Maduro, an end to the economic sanctions against Venezuela and the return of all confiscated oil tankers to the Bolivarian government of Venezuela. No more coups, no more invasions, no more kidnappings, no blood for oil for US corporations. Hands Off Venezuela!

The post Labor United Educational League Denounces the Kidnapping of Maduro first appeared on Labor Today.

The post Labor United Educational League Denounces the Kidnapping of Maduro appeared first on Labor Today.

We earnestly request that all organizations worldwide—political, social, labor, governmental, and the general public—publicly and categorically reject the military aggression we suffered in the early hours of today, January 3, 2026, at the hands of the United States. We remain steadfast in our struggle; we will not rest until we overcome this abhorrent threat of foreign invasion. The people of Bolívar and Chávez remain steadfast in their struggle; we will not surrender or give in.

This attack only confirms what we have been denouncing to the world: this is not a fight against drug trafficking or terrorism; it is the most pestilent greed of a decadent empire desperately seeking to maintain its dying hegemony, its fangs drooling as it tries to deliver the final blow by seizing our strategic natural and energy resources, which we will defend with our very lives if necessary. At this hour (11:30 am) on January 3, 2026, our homeland is calm; however, we are organizing and preparing to face any event of this nature that may occur in the coming hours, days, weeks, etc. We expect your solidarity, mobilization, and international support so that, with renewed determination, we can continue fighting the most genocidal empire in the history of humankind.

Remember, today it is us, tomorrow it could be any other nation on the planet. In light of the foregoing, we categorically and unequivocally reiterate our support for the Revolutionary Socialist Government, led by the Constitutional President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the Worker Commander, Nicolás Maduro Moros.

UNITED WE WILL WIN.
ONWARD TO VICTORY, ALWAYS.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE BOLIVARIAN NATIONAL UNION OF POSTAL WORKERS OF VENEZUELA (SINBTRAPOSTAL-VENEZUELA).

The post Statement from the Bolivarian National Union of Postal Workers of Venezuela on US Attacks on Venezuelan Sovereignty first appeared on Labor Today.

The post Statement from the Bolivarian National Union of Postal Workers of Venezuela on US Attacks on Venezuelan Sovereignty appeared first on Labor Today.