River Valley Co-op is a consumer-owned cooperative grocery store with two locations in Western Massachusetts. We have been unionized with Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1459 for the last decade with 175 workers in our bargaining unit. This year, beginning in January and ending in June, we held thirteen bargaining sessions with RVC management and their attorneys in a process that was transformative for our union.— Oct 2
A coalition of unions 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.— Oct 1
The North Carolina AFL-CIO passed a resolution at its September convention backing the call from the United Auto Workers for mass action on May 1, 2028.— Oct 1
In 1965, President Johnson signed Medicare into law, establishing the right to quality healthcare for millions of retired Americans. The labor movement was essential in passing this landmark legislation. It took decades of organizing—with labor working side by side with the Civil Rights and other social movements—to win one of the most robust public health programs in U.S. history. — Sep 29
We wake daily to new spectacles of violence and humiliation: kidnappings in broad daylight, attacks on unions, LGBTQ people, women, and immigrants, the erosion of long-cherished rights. It’s no longer a tricky question whether we have tipped into authoritarianism. The answer is yes.
To fight back, we have to confront what the Trump administration is exploiting: fear.
We are living in fear, cowed by it. Each workplace and free speech crackdown, each violation of democratic norms, feeds on the paralysis that fear produces. Fear is the fuel of authoritarianism.
— Sep 24
