Category: CWA

Experiments with a shorter workweek have shown that working fewer hours improves worker well-being and productivity. But we can’t expect employers to implement this transformative change of their own volition.

Acting secretary Keith Sonderling threatens to withhold administrative funds from states for first time in history

Keith Sonderling sent letters to 53 states and US territories demanding action to “combat waste, fraud, and abuse” within the unemployment insurance program, threatening to withhold administrative funds from states for the first time in history.

“We are officially putting governors on notice,” said the acting US secretary of labor. “The American people will no longer tolerate the blatant waste, fraud, and abuse of their hard-earned tax dollars – no state should allow it either. If states allow it, they will suffer the consequences. This department is no longer afraid to use every lever available to ensure taxpayer money is protected.”

The agency did not provide data on fraud or alleged fraud in unemployment systems, but highlighted three Democrat-led states – California, New York and Illinois – and made claims about each.

They say California owes $20bn to the federal government for a loan during the Covid-19 pandemic. California has struggled paying off the loan, as they did with a similar federal loan received during the 2008 economic recession, due to the current set-up of how employers are taxed to fund unemployment. The unemployment payroll tax system in California has been unchanged since 1984 at a taxable wage ceiling of $7,000 on a worker’s wages and maximum tax rate of 5.4%, leaving the state with insufficient funds to cover its unemployment reserve while legislators on both sides of the political aisle have been working to try to resolve the issue.

The Department of Labor also claimed that New York loses an estimated $2m a day in unemployment insurance fraud and improper payments, but did not differentiate between the two. They also cited that Illinois had improper payments of $320m, at a rate of 14%.

Improper payments are not fraud, rather are most often cited as due to antiquated technology, with an estimated improper payment rate of 14.9% across the US.

While New York, California and Illinois have high improper payment rates compared with the rest of the US, several Republican states also have leading improper payment rates. Florida is reporting a 36.43% improper payment rate, more than double the rate in California at 16.85%, based on data from 2021 to 2024.

“Fraud is still a problem and it hasn’t gone away since the start of the pandemic but this press release is part of the problem, why the fraud isn’t going away,” Michele Evermore, senior fellow at the National Academy of Social Insurance, told the Guardian.

She noted that states should be able to seek help from the US Department of Labor instead of being blamed solely for the issue – with threats.

“No state wants to pay fraudulent benefits to criminal actors,” she added. “It should be an all of government, all of society response, instead of calling out governors they have a political beef with. It’s not the right way to soberly and stoically deal with a problem that everybody faces.”

Sonderling appeared on Fox News on Wednesday morning to discuss the letters.

“I will essentially cut off the states’ administrative funds and then they won’t be able to administer this unemployment insurance due to the fraud,” said Sonderling, who then claimed Democratic governors are the states with the highest fraud, without citing any evidence or data to substantiate the claim.

In May 2025, the Department of Labor sent letters to state unemployment agencies requiring them to return any unspent funds allocated in the American Rescue Plan Act (Arpa), a move criticized by unemployment experts for the disruption it would cause to states in the midst of modernizing their unemployment systems and efforts to fight fraud.

Estimated fraud during the Covid-19 pandemic in unemployment insurance across the US between April 2020 to May 2023 was between $100bn to $135bn, according to the Government Accountability Office, though the Department of Labor argued the estimate was overstated.

In May, columnists, photographers, and reporters with the Idaho Statesman, represented by the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild (TNG-CWA Local 37085) and affectionately known as the “Idaho NewsGuild,” engaged in a one-day unfair labor practice strike over unfair wages and management’s use of generative artificial intelligence. Idaho members joined other news workers also represented by the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild, from the Tacoma News Tribune, the Tri-City Herald, the Bellingham Herald, and The Olympian, calling out owner McClatchy Media. Statesman members accuse McClatchy of engaging in bad faith bargaining and refusing to bring decision-makers to the table or even identify them.

Workers expressed major concerns over the use of AI in generating news content. The content, like an AI-generated story posted last year that mistakenly reported a local brewery had closed, undermines credibility in the newsroom. Wages are also a concern for members, as McClatchy is offering a paltry 2% wage increase, despite cost-of-living increases in rent and other essentials.

Idaho NewsGuild members have been bargaining since May 2025.

Despite all being represented by the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild, the Idaho NewsGuild workers are currently bargaining a separate contract from the other four news outlets who took part in the strike. Both bargaining teams have decided to put the current proposed contract language before the members to gauge where members stand on it. That vote will likely be held next week.

Every June, we celebrate the many contributions that our LGBTQ+ union siblings have made to the labor movement and to our country. This year, the AFL-CIO is spotlighting various LGBTQ+ workers who have worked and continue to work at the intersection of civil and labor rights in the United States.

From CWA, the AFL-CIO has chosen Miranda Schubert, a member of the United Campus Workers of Arizona (UCW-CWA Local 7065). Schubert also serves her community as a representative for Ward 6 on the Tucson City Council. She never fails to be a voice for the working class and will continue to advocate for labor and the LGBTQ+ community.

Click here to see other labor leaders being honored by the AFL-CIO.

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NEW JERSEY – The Communications Workers of America (CWA), District 1, stands in full solidarity with the people detained at Delaney Hall in Newark who have laid down their labor and refused their meals to demand dignity, safety, and freedom.

Make no mistake: this is a labor struggle. The people held inside Delaney Hall are forced to cook meals, clean the floors, and keep the facility running — for as little as one dollar a day. These workers are on strike to protest the unconscionable conditions they are forced to endure and the basic due process they are entitled to, but have been denied.

While the private contractors who operate these detention centers bank millions, the workers who sustain them are denied the most basic protection and respect. When workers in those conditions organize, withhold their labor, and act together to demand better, they are doing what working people have always done to win justice. We recognize a strike when we see one.

The labor movement was built on the principle that no person should be exploited, silenced, or treated as less than human because of who they are or where they come from. The demands coming from inside Delaney Hall — an end to medical neglect, an end to exploitative labor, the release of the elderly, the young, and the sick, and the restoration of basic due process — are the same demands for dignity, equity, and justice that animate our own fight every day. An injury to one is an injury to all.

We honor the courage of the strikers and of the families and community members standing watch outside the facility, and we defend their right to peaceful protest. And we condemn in the strongest terms the escalation and violence by ICE and state police against people peacefully exercising their constitutional rights.